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3 ideas
| 6514 | Russell's representationalism says primary qualities only show the structure of reality [Russell, by Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: The weakest version of representationalism, found in Russell, asserts that there is no resemblance to reality on the level of secondary qualities, and also that primary qualities exhibit only a structural isomorphism. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912]) by Howard Robinson - Perception IX.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems a plausible thing to say about, say, shape, but it is not clear how the idea works for hardness or mass. The sense of touch seems to be much more directly in contact with actual primary qualities than visions does (let alone smell or hearing). |
| 6415 | After 1912, Russell said sense-data are last in analysis, not first in experience [Russell, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: During the decade after 'Problems of Philosophy' Russell points our repeatedly that specifications of sense-data come last in analysis, not first in experience. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This was a symptom of Russell losing faith in sense-data, and he eventually abandoned them. There is a possible position where we deny any such item as sense-data in a scientific account, but allow them in our metaphysics. |
| 5358 | 'Sense-data' are what are immediately known in sensation, such as colours or roughnesses [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Let us give the name 'sense-data' to the things that are immediately known in sensation: such things as colours, sounds, smells, hardnesses, roughnesses, and so on. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 1) | |
| A reaction: This idea gradually became notorious, because it seems to create a new ontological category unnecessarily, and it creates problems, such as how the intermediary interacts with us and with things. Are sense-data totally non-conceptual? |