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2 ideas
| 7374 | Light wavelengths entering the eye are only indirectly related to object colours [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The wavelengths of the light entering the eye are only indirectly related to the colours we see objects to be. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 12.2) | |
| A reaction: This is obviously bad news for naïve realism, but I also take it as good support for the primary/secondary distinction. I just can't make sense of anyone claiming that colour exists anywhere else except in the brain. |
| 4831 | If the body is affected by an external object, the mind can't help believing that the object exists [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: If the human body is affected in a manner which involves the nature of any external body, the human mind will regard the said external body as actually existing. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], II Pr 17) | |
| A reaction: This is like one of Hume's 'natural beliefs', and seems to me a powerful idea. One of the basic questions of epistemology is, apart from the question 'which beliefs can I justify?', also 'which beliefs can I never abandon?' Skip the scepticism? |