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To perceive something means to become aware of it.

Sense data enthusiasts think that sense data have three characteristics:

i. Sense data are the kind of thing we are directly aware of in perception,(When I
perceive a blue monkey what I directly perceive is (usually) one side of a blue
monkey. I perceive one surface of the monkey directly and the blue monkey in its
entirety indirectly. Sense data is what I perceive directly.)
ii. Sense data are dependent on the mind(Sense data theorists believe that sense data
cannot be unperceived. They need a mind to exist.)
iii. Sense data have the properties that perceptually appear to us.(͞The properties that
perceptually appear to us͟ means the qualities we
seem to perceive that things have. So if I perceive a
blue monkey, and it looks blue and furry to me, then
blueness and furriness are properties that
perceptually appear to me. Sense data theorists think when they see a lone black sheep in a
that there is something blue and furry and mind
dependent of which I am completely aware. This is
true even if I am subject to a sensory illusion or
hallucination. So if I am looking at the blue monkey
under a red light that makes it appear red then my
sense datum is red.)
 of them are." The
Sense data theorists think that sense data exist whenever a
person perceives anything, by any of the senses, and also
whenever a person has an experience{
 perceiving (like in
 of them is." Then the philosopher
the case of an hallucination.)

Ôn engineer, a scientist, a
mathematician, and a philosopher are
hiking through the hills of Scotland,
field.
The engineer says, "What do you
know, it looks like the sheep around
here are black." The scientist looks at
him sceptically and replies, "Well, at
least 
mathematician considers this for a
moment and replies, "Well, at least

turns to them and says, "Well, at least
 ."
The sense data theory was very popularin the early twentieth
century. Since the mid-twentieth century, the view's
popularity greatly declined, though several philosophers
have continued to defend it

Ô
 

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Perceptual variation is the kind of variation in someone͛s

sense experiences that is normally associated with changes in
their physical relationship to the physical objects being
observed. Imagine you are looking at a cow. If you move closer to or farther from the cow
your sense experience changes. Look at what Hume says:

? {    



 
 
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appears to change Ͷ for  
 !)
instance, its apparent size or
shape changes. Note: Hume does not use the term ͞sense data͟ butthe
2. The real, external object does mental images that he argues for are what 20th-century
not change at this time. thinkers labeled ͞sense data.͟
3. Therefore, the thing we are
directly aware of is not the
real, external object.
minds.
So the argument goes ͙ if the thing that we are
immediately aware of is not the external object it must
be some sort of image of the physical object in our

BUT the argument from (1) and (2) to (3) is invalid, since the first premise speaks of
apparent change, whereas the second premise concernsactual change. There is no
contradiction in maintaining that the external object to change but does not 
change- it is at least as natural to say that the thing we are directly aware of (namely, the
physical object) merely appears to change without actually changing.

Sense data theorists seem to think it is obvious that when we are directly, perceptually
aware of something, that thing must have the properties that it appears to have. Does this
have to be the case? J. L. Ôustin doesn͛t think so:


       {

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Ôustin's point is that just as a church can merely {


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 a barn without there being anything that a
barn, the table that we see in Hume's example may
merely 
to get smaller, without there being
anything that actually gets smaller.

 Ô
 

 


The Ôrgument from Illusion is the best-known and

most historically influential argument for the existence of sense data.The argument refers
to those cases when someone perceives an object, but the object is not the way it appears.
So a straight stick half-submerged in watermay appear bent.It is not in fact bent -this is an
illusion. Some philosophers have argued that the possibility of such sensory illusions shows
that what we are directly aware of in perception is never the real, physical object.


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