The Indeterminacy of Sense Datum

Document Type : Original Article

Author

PHD Candidate/Iranian Institute for Research in Philosophy

Abstract

 According to the sense datum theory, the object of perception is a sense datum, not an external object. Now in many cases, if not all, perceptual experience has a degree of indeterminacy; despite the fact that state of affairs in the external world is determinate. If a sense datum is the object of perception, then is it determinate or indeterminate? I examine three cases of the indeterminacy: the speckled hen, the intransitivity of the exact similar, the long-haired woman. I argue that in all three cases, the sense datum theory cannot successfully explain the indeterminacy, whether the sense datum is indeterminate or determinate. If the sense datum is indeterminate, then the relation between it and the external object is not well-established, as if the object of perception is not the sense datum. If the sense datum is determinate, then it has characteristics which the subject of perceptual experience is not aware of. The conclusion is at odds with the main motivation of the sense datum theory. Thus the sense datum theory, considering a cognitive indeterminacy as an ontological indeterminacy, becomes vulnerable against the indeterminacy problem.

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