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Ideas for 'The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics', 'Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking)' and 'The Right and the Good'

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2 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 3. Representation
We can only know the exterior world via our ideas [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P]
     Full Idea: We can have knowledge of what is outside us only through the mediation of ideas in us.
     From: Arnauld / Nicole (Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking) [1662], p.63), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 1 'Conc'
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 7. Causal Perception
I prefer the causal theory to sense data, because sensations are events, not apprehensions [Ross]
     Full Idea: The sensum-theory seems to me less probable than a causal theory of perception, which regards sensuous experience as not being apprehension at all, but a set of mental events produced by external bodies on our bodies and minds.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §IV)
     A reaction: The point is that there is no third item between the object and the mind, which has to be 'apprehended'. Sense-data give a good account of delusions (where we apprehend the 'data', but not the real object). I think I agree with Ross.