Single Idea 4164

[catalogued under 12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / a. Sense-data theory]

Full Idea

What the eye, the ear, or the hand feels, is not perception, it is merely data. Only when the understanding passes from the effect to the cause does the world lie before us as perception extended in space.

Gist of Idea

Direct feeling of the senses are merely data; perception of the world comes with understanding causes

Source

Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 004)

Book Reference

Schopenhauer,Arthur: 'The World as Will and Idea', ed/tr. Berman,Jill and David [Everyman 1995], p.9


A Reaction

These certainly seems to be a sense-data theory. Philosophers are much more ready to separate the data from the understanding than neuroscientists are.