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Single Idea 22168
[filed under theme 12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 3. Representation
]
Full Idea
What the mind takes in is not some material element of the agent, but a likeness of the agent actualising some potential the patient already has. This, for example, is the way our seeing takes in the colour of a coloured body.
Clarification
Agents are viewed, patients do the viewing
Gist of Idea
Minds take in a likeness of things, which activates an awaiting potential
Source
Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], 8.2.1)
Book Ref
McDermott,Timothy: 'Aquinas: how to read' [Granta 2007], p.8
A Reaction
This is exactly right. Descartes agreed. It works for colour, but not (obviously) for cheese graters.
Related Idea
Idea 3631
A blind man may still contain the idea of colour [Descartes]
The
23 ideas
with the same theme
[theory that mind represents in order to perceive]:
20894
|
Man is separated from reality
[Democritus]
|
1734
|
In moral thought images are essential, to be pursued or avoided
[Aristotle]
|
22168
|
Minds take in a likeness of things, which activates an awaiting potential
[Aquinas]
|
7400
|
Descartes said images can refer to objects without resembling them (as words do)
[Descartes, by Tuck]
|
18258
|
We can only know the exterior world via our ideas
[Arnauld,A/Nicole,P]
|
12948
|
A pain doesn't resemble the movement of a pin, but it resembles the bodily movement pins cause
[Leibniz]
|
3957
|
Immediate objects of perception, which some treat as appearances, I treat as the real things themselves
[Berkeley]
|
6495
|
Berkeley's idealism resulted from fear of scepticism in representative realism
[Robinson,H on Berkeley]
|
2237
|
It never occurs to people that they only experience representations, not the real objects
[Hume]
|
16913
|
I can't intuit a present thing in itself, because the properties can't enter my representations
[Kant]
|
6514
|
Russell's representationalism says primary qualities only show the structure of reality
[Russell, by Robinson,H]
|
13983
|
Representation assumes you know the ideas, and the reality, and the relation between the two
[Ryle]
|
4043
|
Elephants can be correctly identified from as few as three primitive shapes
[Goldman]
|
8128
|
Representation must be propositional if it can give reasons and be epistemological
[McDowell, by Burge]
|
2716
|
To see something as a field, I obviously need the concept of a field
[Audi,R]
|
2717
|
How could I see a field and believe nothing regarding it?
[Audi,R]
|
7629
|
We see objects 'directly' by representing them
[McGinn]
|
3899
|
The representational theory says perceptual states are intentional states
[Scruton]
|
6484
|
Most moderate empiricists adopt Locke's representative theory of perception
[Robinson,H]
|
6638
|
One must be able to visually recognise a table, as well as knowing its form
[Lowe]
|
6644
|
Computationalists object that the 'ecological' approach can't tell us how we get the information
[Lowe]
|
6647
|
Comparing shapes is proportional in time to the angle of rotation
[Lowe]
|
21215
|
The representation may not be a likeness
[Velarde-Mayol]
|