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Full Idea
Whatsoever accidents or qualities our senses make us think there be in the world, they are not there, but are seemings and apparitions only. The things that really are in the world without us are those motions by which these seemings are caused.
Gist of Idea
The qualities of the world are mere appearances; reality is the motions which cause them
Source
Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640], I.2.10), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 10.2
Book Ref
Pasnau,Robert: 'Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671' [OUP 2011], p.181
A Reaction
This seems to count as a sense-datum theory, rather than a representative theory of perception, since it makes no commitment to the qualities containing any accurate information at all. We just start from the qualities and try to work it out.
| 7396 | Hobbes created English-language philosophy [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| 7408 | It is an error that reason should control the passions, which give right guidance on their own [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| 7410 | Self-preservation is basic, and people judge differently about that, implying ethical relativism [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| 7409 | Hobbes shifted from talk of 'the good' to talk of 'rights' [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| 7411 | The attributes of God just show our inability to conceive his nature [Hobbes] |
| 16688 | Evidence is conception, which is imagination, which proceeds from the senses [Hobbes] |
| 16638 | The qualities of the world are mere appearances; reality is the motions which cause them [Hobbes] |
| 7405 | Experience can't prove universal truths [Hobbes] |
| 7407 | Good and evil are what please us; goodness and badness the powers causing them [Hobbes] |