Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T22:03:57.888Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Externalists Should Be Sense-Datum Theorists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2021

MATT DUNCAN
MATT DUNCAN*
Affiliation:
RHODE ISLAND COLLEGE [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

One increasingly popular view in the philosophy of perception is externalism about sensible qualities, according to which sensible qualities such as colors, smells, tastes, and textures are features, not of our minds, but of mind-independent, external objects in the world. The primary motivation for this view is that perceptual experience seems to be transparent—that is, when we attend to sensible qualities, it seems like what we are attending to are features of external objects, not our own minds. Most (if not all) externalists are either naïve realists or externalist representationalists. However, in this article, I argue that those who are moved by the primary motivation for externalism should instead be sense-datum theorists, for externalists’ primary motivation supports the sense-datum theory, not their actually favored views. I argue that externalists should focus on different motivations, get new ones, or become sense-datum theorists.

Keywords

perceptionexperiencesense-datum theoryrepresentationalismnaïve realism
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , Summer 2022 , pp. 338 - 355
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Austin, J. L. (1962) Sense and Sensibilia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Boghossian, Paul A., and Velleman, J. David. (1989) ‘Colour as a Secondary Quality’. Mind, 98, 81–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewer, Bill. (2004) ‘Realism and the Nature of Perceptual Experience’. Philosophical Issues, 14, 61–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewer, Bill. (2011) Perception and Its Objects. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broad, C. D. (1923) Scientific Thought. London: Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Burge, Tyler. (2010) Origins of Objectivity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrne, Alex. (2001) ‘Intentionalism Defended’. Philosophical Review, 110, 199–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrne, Alex, and Logue, Heather. (2008) ‘Either/Or’. In Haddock, Adrian and Macpherson, Fiona (eds.), Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 57–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, John. (2002) Reference and Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, John. (2011) ‘Relational vs. Kantian Responses to Berkeley's Puzzle’. In Roessler, Johannes, Lerman, Hemdat, and Eilan, Naomi (eds.), Perception, Causation, and Objectivity (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 35–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, David. (2006) ‘Perception and the Fall from Eden’. In Gendler, Tamar Szabó and Hawthorne, John (eds.), Perceptual Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 49–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crane, Tim. (1992) ‘Introduction’. In Tim Crane (ed.), The Contents of Experience: Essays on Perception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cutter, Brian. (2018) ‘Paradise Regained: A Non-reductive Realist Account of the Sensible Qualities’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 96, 38–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dretske, Fred. (1995) Naturalizing the Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Emery, Nina. (2017) ‘Against Radical Quantum Ontologies’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 95, 564–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foster, John. (2000) The Nature of Perception. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gertler, Brie. (2020) ‘Dualism: How Epistemic Issues Drive Debates About the Ontology of Consciousness’. In Kriegel, Uriah (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 277–300.Google Scholar
Harman, Gilbert. (1990) ‘The Intrinsic Quality of Experience’. Philosophical Perspectives, 4, 31–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huemer, Michael. (2001) Skepticism and the Veil of Perception. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Huemer, Michael. (2011) ‘Sense-Data’. In Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/sense-data/.Google Scholar
Jackson, Frank. (1977) Perception: A Representative Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, Mark. (1992) ‘How to Speak of the Colors’. Philosophical Studies, 68, 221–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, Mark. (2004) ‘The Obscure Object of Hallucination’. Philosophical Studies, 120, 113–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langsam, Harold. (2011) The Wonder of Consciousness: Understanding the Mind through Philosophical Reflection. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loar, Brian. (2003) ‘Transparent Experience and the Availability of Qualia’. In Smith, Quentin and Jokic, Aleksander (eds.), Consciousness: New Philosophical Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 77–96.Google Scholar
Martin, M. G. F. (1997) ‘The Reality of Appearances’. In Sainsbury, Mark (ed.), Thought and Ontology (Milan: Franco Angeli), 77–96.Google Scholar
Martin, M. G. F. (2002) ‘The Transparency of Experience’. Mind and Language, 17, 376–425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, M. G. F. (2006) ‘On Being Alienated’. In Gendler, Tamar Szabó and Hawthorne, John (eds.), Perceptual Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 354–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDowell, John. (1994) Mind and World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McGinn, Colin. (1996) ‘Another Look at Color’. Journal of Philosophy, 93, 537–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, G. E. (1953) Some Main Problems of Philosophy. London: George, Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
O'Shaughnessy, Brian. (2003) ‘Sense Data’. In Smith, Barry (ed.), John Searle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 169–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pautz, Adam. (2010) ‘Why Explain Visual Experience in Terms of Content?’. In Nanay, Bence (ed.), Perceiving the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 254–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pautz, Adam. (2011) ‘Can Disjunctivists Explain Our Access to the Sensible World?’. Philosophical Issues, 21, 384–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pautz, Adam. (2021) Perception. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, H. H. (1932) Perception. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Reid, Thomas. [1785] (2011) Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Howard. (1994) Perception. London: Routledge.Google ScholarPubMed
Russell, Bertrand. (1912) The Problems of Philosophy. London: Thornton Butterworth.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. (1913) ‘The Nature of Sense-Data—A Reply to Dr. Dawes Hicks’. Mind, 22, 76–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. (1914) ‘The Relation of Sense-Data to Physics’. Scientia, 16, 1–27.Google Scholar
Siegel, Susanna. (2004) ‘Indiscriminability and the Phenomenal’. Philosophical Studies, 120, 91–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegel, Susanna. (2008) ‘The Epistemic Conception of Hallucination’. In Haddock, Adrian and Macpherson, Fiona (eds.), Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, and Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 205–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegel, Susanna. (2010) The Contents of Visual Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Speaks, Jeff. (2014) ‘Is Phenomenal Character Out There in the World?’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 91, 465–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sturgeon, Scott. (1998) ‘Visual Experience’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 98, 179–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tye, Michael. (1992) ‘Visual Qualia and Visual Content’. In Crane, Tim (ed.), The Contents of Experience: Essays on Perception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 158–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tye, Michael. (2000) Consciousness, Color, and Content. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tye, Michael. (2009) Consciousness Revisited: Materialism without Phenomenal Concepts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Valberg, J. J. (1992) ‘The Puzzle of Experience’. In Crane, Tim (ed.), The Contents of Experience: Essays on Perception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 18–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yablo, Stephen. (1995) ‘Singling Out Properties’. Philosophical Perspectives, 9, 477–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar