John L. Austin's "Sense and Sensibilia" argues against the verificationist theory of perception, which posits that our knowledge of the external world is derived from direct sensory "sensibilia" or sense-data, and that these sensibilia are the only intermediaries between our minds and reality. Austin contends that this theory is based on a faulty inference from the fact that we can be deceived or mistaken about what we perceive. He demonstrates that our ordinary, everyday language about perception, which uses verbs like "see," "hear," and "look," already accounts for perceptual error and illusion without needing to posit a separate realm of sense-data. The book aims to dissolve philosophical puzzles about perception by showing they arise from misunderstandings of how we talk about our experiences.
The central thesis is that the theory of sense-data, a dominant philosophical explanation for perception, is a mistaken philosophical construct. Key ideas include the critique of the inference from perceptual deception to the necessity of intermediaries, the analysis of ordinary language in perceptual contexts, and the demonstration that "seeing" is not a passive reception of sense-data but an active, often fallible, engagement with the world. Readers understand that philosophical problems can often be solved by carefully examining the language we use to describe phenomena, rather…
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Key concepts
- Sense-data — Hypothetical, uninterpreted items of immediate sensory experience that are claimed to be intermediaries between the mind and the external world.
- Verificationism — A philosophical principle stating that a statement is meaningful only if it can be empirically verified.
- Ordinary language philosophy — A philosophical approach that emphasizes the analysis of everyday language to solve philosophical problems.
- Perceptual error/illusion — Situations where our perception of an object or event does not accurately reflect reality, which Austin uses to critique sense-data theories.