sense datum

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sense datum

A basic unanalyzable sensation, such as a color or smell, experienced upon stimulation of a sense organ or receptor.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

sense datum

(Psychology) philosophy a sensation detached both from any information it may convey and from its putative source in the external world, such as the bare awareness of a red visual field. Sense data are held by some philosophers to be the immediate objects of experience providing certain knowledge from which knowledge of material objects is inferred. See also representationalism¹, apriorism

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

sense′ da`tum

the basic unit of an experience resulting from the stimulation of a sense organ; a stimulus or an object of perception or sensation.

[1920–25]

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Noun

sense datum - an unelaborated elementary awareness of stimulation; "a sensation of touch"

aesthesis, esthesis, sensation, sense experience, sense impression

perception - the process of perceiving

limen, threshold - the smallest detectable sensation

masking - the blocking of one sensation resulting from the presence of another sensation; "he studied auditory masking by pure tones"

visual sensation, vision - the perceptual experience of seeing; "the runners emerged from the trees into his clear vision"; "he had a visual sensation of intense light"

odour, olfactory perception, olfactory sensation, smell, odor - the sensation that results when olfactory receptors in the nose are stimulated by particular chemicals in gaseous form; "she loved the smell of roses"

gustatory perception, gustatory sensation, taste, taste perception, taste sensation - the sensation that results when taste buds in the tongue and throat convey information about the chemical composition of a soluble stimulus; "the candy left him with a bad taste"; "the melon had a delicious taste"

auditory sensation, sound - the subjective sensation of hearing something; "he strained to hear the faint sounds"

synaesthesia, synesthesia - a sensation that normally occurs in one sense modality occurs when another modality is stimulated

References in periodicals archive ?

Chapters 2-4 survey the theories occupying the attention of the early- and mid-twentieth century analytic period: the sense datum theory, the adverbial theory, and the belief acquisition theory.

William Fish: Philosophy of Perception: A Contemporary Introduction

After setting out his methodological agenda, Fish begins his survey with traditional sense datum theories (chapter 2), which endorse both the common factor principle and the phenomenal principle.