Sensory data
With sensory data are for George Edward Moore , the atomic elements of consciousness called, from which the objects of experience are put together. These are the simplest building blocks of perception , materials of knowledge that cannot be further reduced or analyzed and are therefore available immediately and unquestionably.
content
On the one hand, the term “ sensory data” is intended to avoid the ambiguity of the concept of sensation , which has both an act and an object meaning, while “ sensory data” clearly relates only to the immediate objects of perception. In addition, the term has a neutral double character, with which the dualism of the subject-object distinction applied in earlier terms is avoided. In this way one prevents unilaterally subjective or idealistic consequences.
As in the older empirical tradition, the different theories of sensory data primarily share the criticism of naive realism , for which the material objects of the external world are immediately given and accessible to people in perception. Such a realism overlooks the fact that data on things are only conveyed and recorded through the sense organs.
According to the theory, sensory data, on the other hand, are “immediate” in that one knows that they exist as long as they are given. The question of truth does not arise with them. According to Bertrand Russell , all empirical knowledge should be traceable back to sensory data and logical construction with them.
Sensory data must be accepted in order to be able to verify empirical propositions of everyday life and physics ; only they should be referred to.
Since ordinary things are to be regarded as complex compositions in this case, Immanuel Kant's epoch-making distinction between thing-in-itself and appearance becomes obsolete.
development
So far it has not been possible to prove who first used the term in which work. It was already familiar in the 19th century, for example, with William James and in AC Fräser's commentary on John Locke's essay Experiment on the Human Mind .
A terminological introduction was made around 1910 by George Edward Moore and Bertrand Russell as part of their own theories.
The model continues the tradition of English empiricism and sensualism , for which, instead of sensory data , expressions such as “ idea ”, “ sensation ” and “impression” are used.