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Ideas for 'Mathematics and Indispensibility', 'fragments/reports' and 'A Dictionary of Philosophy'

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5 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / d. Secondary qualities
Non-graspable presentations are from what doesn't exist, or are not clear and distinct [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: The non-graspable presentation is either not from an existing object or from an existing object but not in accordance with it; it is neither clear nor well stamped (i.e. distinct).
     From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.46
     A reaction: This sounds exactly like Locke's account of secondary qualities, at least as interpreted by Peter Alexander. That is, they are genuine qualities of things, but misleading, in a way that primary qualities are not.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / a. Sense-data theory
Maybe 'sense-data' just help us to talk about unusual perceptual situations [Lacey]
     Full Idea: One possibility is that talk of sense-data is a mere linguistic convenience, providing a noun for talking about appearances, as when seeing a red object in sodium light (when it looks grey).
     From: A.R. Lacey (A Dictionary of Philosophy [1976], p.196)
     A reaction: The term seems to have been coined to deal with situations where there is a gap between appearance and presumed reality, as in illusions. Maybe illusions prove the existence of sense-data, rather than it being a 'convenient' term.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / b. Nature of sense-data
Some claim sense-data are public, and are parts of objects [Lacey]
     Full Idea: Sometimes it is said that sense-data are public, and parts either of objects or of the surfaces of objects.
     From: A.R. Lacey (A Dictionary of Philosophy [1976], p.196)
     A reaction: This suggests two drastically different theories, one making sense-data into mental events, the other placing them in the 'external' world. The latter theory can dovetail them with the physics, but then why would we need them?
Where do sense-data begin or end? Can they change? What sort of thing are they? [Lacey]
     Full Idea: It is hard to individuate sense-data, saying where one ends and the next begins, and hard to say whether they can change; are they substances, qualities, events, or what?
     From: A.R. Lacey (A Dictionary of Philosophy [1976], p.196)
     A reaction: The problem is not that these questions are unanswerable. The answer seems to be either that they are physical and external, or that they are mental and internal, and that there is no ontological space for them between the two.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 5. Interpretation
Stoic perception is a presentation to which one voluntarily assents [Stoic school, by Stobaeus]
     Full Idea: The Stoics did not make sense-perception consist in presentation alone but made its substance depend on assent; for perception is an assent to a perceptual presentation, the assent being voluntary.
     From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.49.25
     A reaction: [Stobaeus cites Porphyry's De Anima] Thus you only perceive a hallucination if you do not realise that it is false. This is more subjective than I would want to be. If you only think you perceive, but you are wrong, then I say you don't perceive.