The Grammar of Sensation: On Anscombe's Philosophy of Perception

Abstract

G. E. M. Anscombe’s work in philosophy of perception remains largely unread. Given the lack of scholarly uptake, few have outlined themes central to her philosophy of perception. This thesis explores the two central works in Anscombe’s philosophy of perception: ‘The Intentionality of Sensation: A Grammatical Feature’ and ‘The Subjectivity of Sensation’. Together, these papers make up a directed attack on traditional accounts of perception. We can understand such accounts as belonging to a particular methodological framework, what David Bakhurst terms “two-worlds epistemology”. This philosophical model considers questions of perception in terms of some relation between a subject and object. I argue that a central theme that unites Anscombe’s work on perception is her opposition to this philosophical methodology. My aim in this thesis is thus two-pronged: I intend to provide expositions of Anscombe’s central papers in perception and, in doing so, I aim to show that a central link between them is Anscombe’s refutation of two-worlds thought. In chapter 1, I provide a brief sketch of two-worlds epistemology and discuss Anscombe’s turn toward rejecting it. In chapter 2, I provide an exegetical analysis of ‘The Intentionality of Sensation’. In chapter 3, I provide an exegetical analysis of ‘The Subjectivity of Sensation’. Then, in chapter 4, I conclude by demonstrating certain points of convergence between Anscombe’s two essays to buttress my interpretive claim that a central theme which unifies her writing on perception is an opposition to a subject-object framing.