Sense-datum Theory

• Lean toward: sense-datum theory: 259 / 3226 (6.6%)
• Accept: sense-datum theory: 50 / 3226 (1.5%)
• Total: 190 / 3226 (5.8%)

We are only aware of our representations of what our senses detect and there is a 'veil of perception' between our first hand knowledge and it's referent.

Tim Crane has some great ideas, and a brief survey of sense data in his "Origin's of Qualia" paper: (http://web.mac.com/cranetim/Tims_website/Online_papers_files/The%20origins%20of%20qualia.pdf). G.E. More was the originator of the idea of sense-datum and it was popularized by Russell. Moor oscillated between the idea that "sense-data are mind-independent objects presented in experience" and that "sense-data are not mind-independent objects".

H.H. Price clarified by talking about things we cannot deny when we perceive a tomato such as its "there exists a red patch of a round and somewhat bulgy shape, standing out from a background of other colour-patches". He said that " This peculiar and ultimate manner of being present to consciousness is called being given, and that which is thus present is called a datum. Goguen points out that "Price thought it a 'gross absurdity' to suppose that the existence of sensedata depend on our awareness of them."

Howard Robinson endorsed this view with what he called the 'Phenomenal Principle': that 'when one has an sensory experience as of something being F, there is something F which one is experiencing.'