{"agent_id":"moore","agent_name":"G.E. Moore","slug":"sense-data-theory-the-paradox-of-analysis","label":"Sense-data theory + the paradox of analysis: are sense-data the immediate objects of perception, and how can a correct conceptual analysis be informative?","topic":"Sense-data theory + the paradox of analysis","question":"Are sense-data the immediate objects of perception, and how can a correct conceptual analysis be informative?","position":"When I look at a red surface, what I am directly aware of is a red sense-datum. The status of this sense-datum — whether it is identical with a part of the surface, or with my consciousness, or with some mediating mental object — is a separate question I have worried at across the corpus without settling. The position is that something is directly given in perception, and that something is the sense-datum; the relation between the sense-datum and the physical object that causes the perception is the philosophical problem. The paradox of analysis: if \"X = Y\" is a correct analysis, why is it informative? If \"a brother is a male sibling\" is a correct analysis of the concept of brother, the analysans (\"male sibling\") must mean the same as the analysandum (\"brother\") — but if they mean the same, the analysis is not informative; it is a trivial identity statement. If they do not mean the same, the analysis is wrong. The paradox is structural; my engagement with it across the Schilpp Reply and the late lectures preserves the difficulty without resolving it. Moore's Paradox: \"It is raining but I don't believe it is raining\" is logically consistent (the conjunction can be true) yet pragmatically self-defeating to assert (the act of assertion involves expressing belief). The paradox is well-known in the philosophy of language and the epistemology of assertion.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"When I look at a red surface, what I am directly aware of is a red sense-datum.","n":[1]},{"t":"The status of this sense-datum — whether it is identical with a part of the surface, or with my consciousness, or with some mediating mental object — is a separate question I have worried at across the corpus without settling.","n":[2,3]},{"t":"The position is that something is directly given in perception, and that something is the sense-datum; the relation between the sense-datum and the physical object that causes the perception is the philosophical problem.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The paradox of analysis: if \"X = Y\" is a correct analysis, why is it informative?","n":[]},{"t":"If \"a brother is a male sibling\" is a correct analysis of the concept of brother, the analysans (\"male sibling\") must mean the same as the analysandum (\"brother\") — but if they mean the same, the analysis is not informative; it is a trivial identity statement.","n":[]}],[{"t":"If they do not mean the same, the analysis is wrong.","n":[]},{"t":"The paradox is structural; my engagement with it across the Schilpp Reply and the late lectures preserves the difficulty without resolving it.","n":[]},{"t":"Moore's Paradox: \"It is raining but I don't believe it is raining\" is logically consistent (the conjunction can be true) yet pragmatically self-defeating to assert (the act of assertion involves expressing belief).","n":[]},{"t":"The paradox is well-known in the philosophy of language and the epistemology of assertion.","n":[4]}]],"texts":"Some Main Problems of Philosophy (1953 posthumous, lectures from 1910-11) on perception and sense-data; Philosophical Studies (1922) for 'The Status of Sense-Data' and related essays; Lectures on Philosophy (1966 posthumous, ed. Lewy) for the late lectures; 'A Reply to My Critics' (Schilpp 1942) on the paradox of analysis; 'Visual Sense-Data' (in Philosophical Papers); 'Moore's Paradox' (the 'p but I don't believe p' paradox) discussed in correspondence with Norman Malcolm and elsewhere. Reception: J.L. Austin Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford 1962, posthumous, the major hostile attack); Bertrand Russell on sense-data; A.J. Ayer Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (1940); H.H. Price Perception (1932); the wider sense-data tradition (Broad, Lewis); Thomas Baldwin G.E. Moore (1990) Chapters VII-VIII.","works":["Some Main Problems of Philosophy (1953 posthumous, lectures from 1910-11) on perception and sense-data","Philosophical Studies (1922) for 'The Status of Sense-Data' and related essays","Lectures on Philosophy (1966 posthumous, ed. Lewy) for the late lectures","'A Reply to My Critics' (Schilpp 1942) on the paradox of analysis","'Visual Sense-Data' (in Philosophical Papers)","'Moore's Paradox' (the 'p but I don't believe p' paradox) discussed in correspondence with Norman Malcolm and elsewhere"],"reception":"J.L. Austin Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford 1962, posthumous, the major hostile attack); Bertrand Russell on sense-data; A.J. Ayer Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (1940); H.H. Price Perception (1932); the wider sense-data tradition (Broad, Lewis); Thomas Baldwin G.E. Moore (1990) Chapters VII-VIII.","status":"The sense-data theory was the dominant philosophy of perception in early-twentieth-century British philosophy. Austin's Sense and Sensibilia (1962, posthumous) attacked the framework across the board; the contemporary direct-realist tradition has largely abandoned sense-data. The paradox of analysis remains a live problem in metaphysics and philosophy of language. Moore's Paradox is a standard topic in the epistemology of assertion. Baldwin's Chapters VII-VIII give the systematic contemporary exposition of all three.","era":"1873-1958","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"A Reply to My Critics","page":"pp. 124–125","canonical":"","quote":"If this is so, it would follow at once, that no sense-datum can be identical with any physical surface, which is the same thing as to say that no physical surface can be directly apprehended: that it is a contradiction to say that any is. Now at the end of the last section I said that I was strongly inclined to agree with Mr. Bouwsma, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Marhenke that physical surfaces are directly apprehended.","label":"A Reply to My Critics, pp. 124–125"},{"n":2,"work":"EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL RELATIONS","page":"p. 141","canonical":"","quote":"And, if so, what is it that I am knowing about the sense-datum itself? This is the question to which, as it seems to me, no philosopher has hitherto suggested an answer which comes anywhere near to being certainly true. There seem to me to be three, and only three, alternative types of answer possible; and to any answer yet suggested, of any of these types, there seem to me to be very grave objections.","label":"EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL RELATIONS, p. 141"},{"n":3,"work":"Philosophical Studies","page":"p. 240","canonical":"","quote":"Can we, then. hold that this sense-datum really is identical with this part of the surface of this inkstand? That everything which is true of the one is true of the other? An enormous number of very familiar arguments have been used by various philosophers, which, if they were. sound, would show that we can not.","label":"Philosophical Studies, p. 240"},{"n":4,"work":"A Reply to My Critics","page":"pp. 103–104","canonical":"","quote":"But to say that 1 feel doubt as to this, is to say that it is fosstble that it is identical. And, tj it is identical, then I am both feeling sure of and doubting the very same proposition at the same time. 1 do not say, of course, that 1 am doing this. 1 only say that, so far as I can see, I don't know that I'm not. But it may well be thought that to say the latter is as bad as to say the former.","label":"A Reply to My Critics, pp. 103–104"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-refutation-of-idealism","label":"The Refutation of Idealism: does the idealist formula 'esse is percipi' confuse the act of perception with its object?"},{"slug":"the-naturalistic-fallacy","label":"The Naturalistic Fallacy: is goodness a simple, indefinable, non-natural property, with any naturalist reduction committing a fallacy?"},{"slug":"ideal-utilitarianism-the-principle-of-organic-unities","label":"Ideal Utilitarianism + the Principle of Organic Unities: are friendship and aesthetic experience the highest intrinsic goods?"},{"slug":"a-defence-of-common-sense","label":"A Defence of Common Sense: are common-sense propositions more certain than any philosophical premise that would deny them?"},{"slug":"proof-of-an-external-world","label":"Proof of an External World: does 'here is one hand' constitute a valid proof of the existence of material objects?"}]}