Externalists Should Be Sense-Datum Theorists

Bibliographic Data

ID21876337
AuthorsMatt Duncan (0000-0003-4264-0236, Rhode Island College, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume8
Issue2
Pages338-355
Publication date2022-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the American Philosophical Association (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2053-4477 • E-ISSN: 2053-4485
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/apa.2021.3
OpenAlexW3209881318
LanguageEN
References cited40

One increasingly popular view in the philosophy of perception is externalism about sensible qualities, according to which sensible qualities such as colors, smells, tastes, and textures are features, not of our minds, but of mind-independent, external objects in the world. The primary motivation for this view is that perceptual experience seems to be transparent —that is, when we attend to sensible qualities, it seems like what we are attending to are features of external objects, not our own minds. Most (if not all) externalists are either naïve realists or externalist representationalists. However, in this article, I argue that those who are moved by the primary motivation for externalism should instead be sense-datum theorists, for externalists’ primary motivation supports the sense-datum theory, not their actually favored views. I argue that externalists should focus on different motivations, get new ones, or become sense-datum theorists

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Externalism · Geodetic datum · Internalism and externalism · Perception · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology

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