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distinction between brute sensation (
nirvikalpika
) and determinate perception (
savi-
kalpika
). According to this distinction, the raw data supplied by sensory contact with
the world must be ordered with respect to a verbal/conceptual scheme, before various
objects can be perceived
as
members of their respective categories. This imposition of
a conceptual framework on the chaotic field of raw sensation is required to provide
the propositional content of ordinary perceptual experience, while the basal level of
indeterminate sensation is strictly ineffable. Thus the ordinary objects which we expe-
rience in propositionally structured perception do not exist independently of our con-
ceptual activities. Only the instantaneous and ultimately unique particulars are real,
and, for reasons quite analogous to Russell's arguments concerning logically proper
names, are not referred to with ordinary singular terms, while the enduring and com-
posite objects which we perceive and talk about in everyday speech are diagnosed as
conceptual constructs.
2.2
Negative Existentials and Non-denoting Terms
When the foregoing analysis of the objects of perception and reference is combined with
apoha
nominalism, the result is an elegant treatment of negative existentials, which the
Yogācāra-Sautrāntikas defended against rivals, especially those of the Nyāya school. The
Naiyāyikas held that some absences,
viz
. those which can be associated with existing
counter-positive instances, are real and can be directly perceived. Thus when I say I can
see that, for example, there is no gorilla in the doorway, this absence itself is said to be
directly perceived, because there is a clearly defined counter-positive phenomenon,
namely, the way the doorway would look if there were any particular gorilla standing in
it. In contrast, the Yogācāra-Sautrāntikas maintain that absences are never perceived but
only inferred. And the inferential mechanisms involved stem directly from the two-step
negation of
apoha
semantics.
On the Yogācāra-Sautrāntika view, my non-perception of the gorilla is nothing
other than my perception of the actual doorway in question. When I judge that I see a
doorway, this is an instance of determinate perception, and as such it necessarily in-
volves the mental paradigm governing my use of the term 'doorway'. This paradigm is
a conceptual construction which enables me to apply the term under the correct asser-
tability conditions. Thus the perceptual data with which I am now presented must be
such that it is not excluded by the doorway paradigm,
i.e.
it must be such that it is not
a non-doorway. But since a gorilla is included in the non-doorway class, I can rightly
judge that there is no gorilla present in my immediate visual field, simply on the basis
of my determinate perception of this doorway. Because of the exclusionary machinery
of
apoha
semantics, the perception of the doorway
simplicitor
is a sufficient condition
for inferring the non-presence of a gorilla (or any other non-doorway construction).
The
apoha
semantic analysis applies to singular as well as general terms (see, e.g.,
Tillemans [16]), and can be uniformly extended to cases where the subject of the as-
sertion has no counter-positive instance, either because the subject is purely fictional
(but possible), or because it is impossible. The feature which distinguishes conceptual
constructions which are 'actual' is that the assertability conditions for terms denoting
actual objects are constrained by direct causal interactions with ultimately existing
particulars, while in the case of fictional objects the assertability conditions are go-
verned purely by linguistic conventions. Thus to make the statement 'Kripke exists' is
