"Рэймонд Смаллиан. Две философские сценки (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

each other, they may begin to wonder if their cases arc really all that
different. "Could it be," Chase might wonder, "that Mr. Sanborn is really in
my predicament and just hasn't noticed the gradual rise in his standards and
sophistication as a coffee taster?" "Could it be," Sanborn might wonder,
"that Mr. Chase is kidding himself when he says the coffee tastes just the
same to him as it used to?"
Do you remember your first sip of beer? Terrible! How could anyone like
that stuff? But beer, you reflect, is an acquired taste; one gradually
trains oneself--or just comes--to enjoy that flavor. What flavor? The flavor
of that first sip? No one could like that flavor! Beer tastes different to
the experienced beer drinker. Then beer isn't an acquired taste; one doesn't
learn to like that first taste; one gradually comes to experience a
different, and likable, taste. Had the first sip tasted that way, you would
have liked beer wholeheartedly from the beginning!
Perhaps, then, there is no separating the taste from the response to
the taste, the judgment of good or bad. Then Chase and Sanborn might be just
alike, and simply be choosing slightly different ways of expressing
themselves. But if they were just alike, then they'd actually both be wrong
about something, for they each have sincerely denied that they are like the
other. Is it conceivable that each could have inadvertently misdescribed his
own case and described the other's instead? Perhaps Chase is the one whose
taste buds have changed, while Sanborn is the sophisticate. Could they be
that wrong?
Some philosophers--and other people--have thought that a person simply
cannot be wrong about such a matter. Everyone is the final and unimpeachable
arbiter of how it is with him; if Chase and Sanborn have spoken sincerely,
and have made no unnoticed slips of language, and if both know the meanings
of their words, they must have expressed the truth in each case. Can't we
imagine tests that would tend to confirm their different tales? If Sanborn
does poorly on discrimination tests he used to pass with flying colors, and
if, moreover, we find abnormalities in his taste buds (it's all that
Szechuan food he's been eating lately, we discover), this will tend to
confirm his view of his situation. And if Chase passes all those tests
better than he used to, and exhibits increased knowledge of coffee types and
a great interest in their relative merits and peculiar characteristics, this
will support his view of himself. But if such tests could support Chase s
and Sanborn's authority, failing them would have to undermine their
authority. If Chase passed Sanborn's tests and Sanborn passed Chase's, each
would have doubt cast on his account--if such tests have any bearing at all
on the issue.
Another way of putting the point is that the price you pay for the
possibility of confirming your authority is the outside chance of being
discredited. "I know what I like," we are all prepared to insist, "and I
know what it's like to be me!" Probably you do, at least about some matters,
but that is something to be checked in performance. Maybe, just maybe,
you'll discover that you really don't know as much as you thought you did
about what it is like to be you.