Perceived wisdom
Sir: While I applaud Sebastian Faulks's campaign against current usage of the words 'perceive' and 'perceptions' (Tor what we are about to perceive', 21/28 December) on the grounds that it is pom- pous, he is mistaken in believing that the usage he so abhors is a novel one.
The empiricist, Bishop Berkeley, in The Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous (1713) had Philonous setting out to prove that 'the reality of sensible things consists in being perceived' as against the opinion of Hylas, that `to exist is one thing, to be perceived is another'. The two opposing views have dictated the character of philosophical debate about perception ever since. His predecessor, John Locke, had already driven a wedge between 'appearance' (what we perceive) and 'reality' (what actually is) by applying what Bennett has termed the 'veil-of-perception' doctrine.
The precise 'misuses' which Sebastian Faulks describes have been in currency at least since the early 1970s and appear not surprisingly to have originated in America A glance at The White House Transcripts (Bantam Books, 1974) reveals several inst- ances, of which one (p.185) will suffice:
Haldeman: The hue and cry is that this is a Super-Presidential Board. And now they realise that they have got the guilty people, and they immunise them so that they can't be prosecuted.
Dean: I am not so sure how many people would come out guilty.
Haldeman: The perception, as you put it.
Haldeman is evidently referring to the way the public would see it, not the way it actually would be.
The spoken and written word is at its best when clear and unambiguous. Mr Faulks seems to have no difficulty in identifying the meaning of 'perceive/ perception' in any of his examples. Where ambiguity threatens, one can use a synonym. Stephen D. Barber
6 Delaford Street, London SW6
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