I
recently had a discussion with a philosopher in which he brought up the Wollheimian concept
of "seeing-in." He claimed that an expert talent-scout working for a
modelling agency would be able to see - literally perceive - potential in the face of a prospective
model. Sadly the discussion was interrupted and I didn't get a chance to
explore his view further.
It
may be the case that he was using the term "perception" figuratively as an equivalent of "appreciation", "evaluation" or "inference". Potential in this sense is a projective notion, specifically a notion about a possible or even likely future. It's an
anticipatory account, image or expectation. If
I say that someone has potential, I don't mean that I literally see
anything. If the person in question leaves the room, the potential I see
doesn't walk out of the door with them. So to see something in this sense is not to perceive it in anything like the sense in which we might readily see the shape or size of objects around us.
Expertise may sometimes involve a degree heightened perceptual awareness developed through practice and experience. But to see indications, signs, suggestions, evidence etc. involves skills beyond those of mere perception. Even when
we see dark clouds looming and say "It looks like it's going to rain" we can only say this because we know from past experience that dark clouds often precede
rain and we can use this knowledge to inform our judgements about the
future.
Expertise
is thus at least partly a condition of being acquainted with certain causal regularities. Experience
and education about these regularities furnishes experts with exemplars that
allow them to make more accurate predictions. But these predictions are not
properties of the world. This is why even experts
are often wrong, especially about long-term events.
So,
to say that we see potential in a student is to hedge a bet based upon their
previous achievements. It is certainly not a kind of mysterious emanation that
only experts can sense. It is not a perceptible thing or energy of any kind. It
is a supposition, based upon evidence and supported by experience without which
the determination of potential would be impossible.
If beauty were a perceptible
property of a prospective model then every perceiver - other life forms included - would
have to be capable of perceiving it. I don't think anyone would be confident of
that view. Beauty and meaning etc. are socially negotiated attributions. They are ideas we closely associate with certain kinds and
configurations of perceptible attributes and objects.
When
we give gifts we often try to conceal their identity by wrapping them. It is
never the point of gift giving that the recipient should be able to predict the
contents. Such a skill would render the ritual of wrapping meaningless. One of
the great pleasures of wrapped gifts is the expectation they elicit, an
expectation that is often most pronounced in childhood. This has two important
consequences. Firstly, it encourages self control; a vital life-skill.
Secondly, it encourages powers of imagination that are of inestimable value to
us as a species.
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