more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
If only modes of sensing are ostensively available, ..then it is a category mistake to see any resemblance between what is available and properties of bodies; one could as sensibly say that a physical body is proud or lazy as that it is red or square.
Clarification
'Ostensive' means directly pointed out
Gist of Idea
If there are only 'modes' of sensing, then an object can no more be red or square than it can be proud or lazy.
Source
Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VII.5)
Book Ref
Robinson,Howard: 'Perception' [Routledge 2001], p.176
A Reaction
This is an objection to the 'adverbial' theory of perception. It looks to me like a devastating objection, if the theory is meant to cover primary qualities as well as secondary. Red could be a mode of perception, but not square, surely?
| 15816 | 'I feel depressed' is more like 'he runs slowly' than like 'he has a red book' [Chisholm] |
| 15818 | So called 'sense-data' are best seen as 'modifications' of the person experiencing them [Chisholm] |
| 15817 | If we can say a man senses 'redly', why not also 'rectangularly'? [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] |