Combining Texts

Ideas for 'After Finitude', 'Moral Realism and Moral Dilemma' and 'Sense Data and the Percept Theory'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / c. Primary qualities
The aspects of objects that can be mathematical allow it to have objective properties [Meillassoux]
     Full Idea: All aspects of the object that can give rise to a mathematical thought rather than to a perception or a sensation can be meaningfully turned into the properties of the thing not only as it is with me, but also as it is without me.
     From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1)
     A reaction: This is Meillassoux's spin on the primary/secondary distinction, which he places at the heart of the scientific revolution. Cartesian dualism offers a separate space for the secondary qualities. He is appalled when philosophers reject the distinction.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / d. Sense-data problems
We are not conscious of pure liquidity, but of the liquidity of water [Firth]
     Full Idea: We are not conscious of liquidity, coldness, and solidity, but of the liquidity of water, the coldness of ice, and the solidity of rocks.
     From: Roderick Firth (Sense Data and the Percept Theory [1949]), quoted by Howard Robinson - Perception 1.7
     A reaction: A nice point, but it might not be entirely true in a blindfold test, where one might only report properties like 'sticky' or 'warm', without having any clear concept of the substance being experienced. Firth is proposing the 'percept theory'.