Sense Data
Gary Hatfield,
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Sept 01, 2021
I see something in front of me; I recognize it immediately as a yellow sponge. But I do not know it immediately as a yellow sponge; I have to know about things like 'yellowness' and 'sponges'. So there's something that is what I perceive, but is not itself a perception of a yellow sponge. What this is, according to the theory, is 'sense data'. But what is sense data? Is it direct awareness of a patch of colour? Of a three-dimensional object? This article explores the concept through history and gives us a sense of how people have struggled with the concept.
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