more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
The defining claim of adverbialism is that the contents of sense-experience are modes, not objects, of sensory activity.
Clarification
Adverbs show how you do something (e.g. 'quickly'); a 'mode' is a way of doing something
Gist of Idea
Adverbialism sees the contents of sense-experience as modes, not objects
Source
Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VII.5)
Book Ref
Robinson,Howard: 'Perception' [Routledge 2001], p.175
A Reaction
This seems quite a good account of simple 'modes' like colour, but not so good when you instantly perceive a house. It never seems wholly satisfactory to sidestep the question of 'what are you perceiving when you perceive red or square?'
| 15816 | 'I feel depressed' is more like 'he runs slowly' than like 'he has a red book' [Chisholm] |
| 15817 | If we can say a man senses 'redly', why not also 'rectangularly'? [Chisholm] |
| 15818 | So called 'sense-data' are best seen as 'modifications' of the person experiencing them [Chisholm] |
| 5691 | The adverbial account of sensation says not 'see a red image' but be 'appeared to redly' [Shoemaker] |
| 8897 | The adverbial account will still be needed when a mind apprehends its sense-data [Bonjour] |
| 6506 | 'Sense redly' sounds peculiar, but 'senses redly-squarely tablely' sounds far worse [Robinson,H] |
| 6507 | Adverbialism sees the contents of sense-experience as modes, not objects [Robinson,H] |
| 6511 | If there are only 'modes' of sensing, then an object can no more be red or square than it can be proud or lazy. [Robinson,H] |
| 4103 | The adverbial theory of perceptions says it is the experiences which have properties, not the objects [Crane] |
| 6637 | How could one paraphrase very complex sense-data reports adverbially? [Lowe] |
| 7640 | Mountains are adverbial modifications of the earth, but still have object-characteristics [Maund] |
| 7641 | Adverbialism tries to avoid sense-data and preserve direct realism [Maund] |