Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wg55d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T12:36:41.209Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some Problems of Perception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Douglas Lewis
Douglas Lewis*
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Many philosophers have maintained that secondary qualities are private mental entities. In this paper I use the discussions of H. A. Prichard, Berkeley and G. E. Moore on the status of secondary qualities to bring out the assumptions that underlie this view. One of these is that secondary qualities are particular. I show that Prichard holds these assumptions and then I attempt to diagnose why he holds them. In the course of this diagnosis I explore several senses of ‘dependent’ which play a role in this view. Finally, I show that a causal dependence of secondary qualities upon the perceiver will not lead to the conclusion that secondary qualities are private unless the philosophical thesis that they are particular is already assumed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , March 1970 , pp. 100 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 The Philosophy of Science 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

[1] Addis, L. and Lewis, D., Moore and Ryle: Two Ontologists, The Hague, 1965.Google Scholar
[2] Allaire, E. B., “Berkeley's Idealism,” Theoria, vol. XXIX, 1963, pp. 229–244; reprinted in Essays in Ontology, The Hague, 1963, pp. 92-105.Google Scholar
[3] Berkeley, G., “The Principles of Human Knowledge,” in The Works of George Berkeley (eds. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop), 9 vols., London, 1948, vol. II.Google Scholar
[4] Cummins, P., “Perceptual Relativity and Ideas in the Mind,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. XXIV, 1963, pp. 202–214.10.2307/2104461CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[5] Malebranche, N., De la Recherche de la Verite (ed. Genevieve Lewis), 3 vols., Paris, 1946, vol. I.Google Scholar
[6] Moore, G. E., “The Refutation of Idealism,” Mind, N.S., vol. XII, 1903, pp. 433–453; reprinted in Philosophical Studies, London, 1922, pp. 1-30.Google Scholar
[7] Prichard, H. A., “The Sense-datum Fallacy,” The Inaugural Address at the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association, 1938; reprinted in Knowledge and Perception, Oxford, 1950, pp. 200–214.Google Scholar
[8] Van Iten, R. J., “Berkeley's Analysis of Mind,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. XXIV, 1964, pp. 375–382.Google Scholar