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Single Idea 13005

[filed under theme 12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 6. Inference in Perception ]

Full Idea

The truth of sensible things is established by the links amongst them; these depend upon intellectual truths, grounded in reason, and upon observations of regularities among sensible things themselves, even when the reasons are not apparent.

Gist of Idea

Truth arises among sensations from grounding reasons and from regularities

Source

Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 4.11)

Book Ref

Leibniz,Gottfried: 'New Essays on Human Understanding', ed/tr. Remnant/Bennett [CUP 1996], p.444

A Reaction

It's not clear why regularities would establish truths, given that most hallucinations have regularities in them. I'm thinking that Leibniz is not sufficiently rationalist here, and that it is the rational coherence of experience which validates it.

The 21 ideas with the same theme [inference is an essential part of perception]:

1544 Perception must be an internal matter, because we can fail to perceive when we are preoccupied [Diogenes of Apollonia, by Theophrastus]
5220 Particular facts (such as 'is it cooked?') are matters of sense-perception, not deliberation [Aristotle]
12482 Molyneux's Question: could a blind man distinguish cube from sphere, if he regained his sight? [Locke]
13005 Truth arises among sensations from grounding reasons and from regularities [Leibniz]
23454 Appearances have a 'form', which indicates a relational order [Kant]
23231 I immediately know myself, and anything beyond that is an inference [Fichte]
6935 In man the lowest senses of smell and taste elevate themselves to intellectual acts [Feuerbach]
16859 Most perception is one-tenth observation and nine-tenths inference [Mill]
24130 An affirmative belief is present in every basic sense impression [Nietzsche]
18309 The evidence of the senses is falsified by reason [Nietzsche]
7628 Broad rejects the inferential component of the representative theory [Broad, by Maund]
15248 Inference in perception is unconvincingly defended as non-conscious and almost instantaneous [Harré/Madden]
12580 Experiences have no conceptual content [Evans, by Greco]
7643 We have far fewer colour concepts than we have discriminations of colour [Evans]
2465 Maybe explaining the mechanics of perception will explain the concepts involved [Fodor]
12579 Perception has proto-propositions, between immediate experience and concepts [Peacocke]
4109 If perception is much richer than our powers of description, this suggests that it is non-conceptual [Crane]
6362 Sense evidence is not beliefs, because they are about objective properties, not about appearances [Pollock/Cruz]
7710 Perception is a mode of belief-acquisition, and does not involve sensation [Lowe]
7638 One thesis says we are not aware of qualia, but only of objects and their qualities [Maund]
7642 The Myth of the Given claims that thought is rationally supported by non-conceptual experiences [Maund]