Perception

Can we see things that aren't there?

The representational theory of perception

Summary: In perception we are directly aware not of an object in the world but of representations in our minds

The representational theory taking shape in the thought of John Locke

Refer to extract reprinted in the Reader, p.209 paragraphs 7 and 8.

"To discover the nature of our ideas the better, and to discourse of them intelligibly, it will be convenient to distinguish them as they are ideas or perceptions in our minds; and as they are modifications of matter in the bodies that cause perception in us…" Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk II, Chapter VIII para 7; Reader, page 209.

Perception misleads us about the world

Summary: Our ideas are not always copies of what is there in the external world.

Locke says it is usually believed that in perception, the ideas that are formed 'are exactly the images and resemblances of something inherent' in whatever it is you are perceiving. (Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk II, Chapter VIII para 7; Reader, page 209)

The silent fall of an unheard tree

Qualities in the world and qualities constructed by the mind

The thesis we have been exploring is this: in perception you do not form copies of the thing perceived. Some aspects of the thing perceived are copied in the idea that you form of it, but some aren't.

Argument for representational theory of perception from the time-gap in all perception

Argument for representational theory of perception from variations in perception

"Sense-datum"

"Let us give the name of 'sense-data' to the things that are immediately known in sensation: such things as colours, sounds, smells, hardnesses, roughnesses, and so on." Problems of Philosophy, 1st Published 1912, London, Internet edition thanks to the late Professor Makino's Library, Chapter 1.

"...[W]henever we see a colour, we have a sensation of the colour ... The colour is that of which we are immediately aware..." Problems of Philosophy, Chapter 1.

Significance of the representational theory of perception

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