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Is a Sense-Datum Language Necessary?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

William P. Alston
William P. Alston*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

The sense-datum theory of perception has been under heavy attack in the last two decades. Recently, by way of counterattack, some of its defenders have accused what they take to be its chief rival, the “theory of appearing”, of various deficiencies. In particular, they have claimed that there are some perceptual, or pseudo-perceptual, situations, such as hallucinations and dreams, of which the theory of appearing can give no adequate account. For in these cases, they argue, the question, “What is it that is appearing?”, can be given no satisfactory answer. The conclusion is then drawn that only a language containing sense-datum terms is generally adequate to our perceptual experience. Moreover this line of argument has been taken seriously by at least one partisan of the theory of appearing, Professor Virgil C. Aldrich, who has been driven to the expedient of suggesting that in these cases it is an image which appears.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , January 1957, pp. 41 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © 1957, The Williams & Wilkins Company

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References

1 Roderick Firth, “Phenomenalism”, in Science, Language, and Human Rights, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952. Roderick M. Chisholm, “The Theory of Appearing”, Philosophical Analysis, (ed. Max Black), Ithaca, N. Y., Cornell University Press, 1950.

2 I shall use the phrase ‘perceptual situation’ to refer to any situation in which someone is perceiving something, or in which something is happening which does, or might, lead someone to erroneously suppose that he is perceiving something. Where I want to distinguish between these two sub-classes, I shall speak of ‘genuine perceptual’ and ‘pseudo-perceptual’ situations.

3 “What Appears”, Philosophical Review, LXIII; 2, April, 1954, esp. 238–240.

4 H. H. Price, Perception, London, Methuen and Company, Ltd., 1932, p. 62.

5 Firth, op. cit., p. 5.

6 If the term “sense-datum language” were stretched to include expressions like these, in addition to expressions of the form, “This datum is pink-ratish”, “I am immediately aware of something which is pink-ratish”, “The corner of the room presents me with a pink-ratish sense datum”, etc., then one would have ground for suspecting that it is simply being used as synonymous with “language adequate for describing perceptual experiences”. In which case the question of its necessity for this purpose would lose its interest.

7 Op. cit., p. 116.

8 Op. cit., 117.

9 Op. cit., 17–18.

10 Op. cit., 17–18.

11 Op. cit., 14.

12 Op. cit., 15.