Chisholm on Sensing and Perceiving

Abstract

Much of Chisholm’s well deserved reputation results from his work in epistemology concerning the definition of ‘S knows that P’, his formulations of epistemic rules, and his defense of a foundational theory of empirical knowledge. Yet I believe that a less noticed area of his work may well have more important consequences for future developments in philosophy. I am referring to his nonepistemic theses about perception, especially his development and defense of the sensing terminology as preferable to the sense-datum terminology, and his analysis of ‘S perceives x’ in terms of sensing. And although these views concern terminology and analysis of certain linguistic phrases, I believe we can see both of them as contributions to what might be called the metaphysics of perception rather than to a theory of perceptual knowledge. My main aim in this paper is to transform his linguistic claims into ‘factual’ or metaphysical claims about perception and to evaluate some of his reasons for his theses. I shall also, however, consider briefly his view of secondary qualities to bring out what seems to be a theory of the nature of the external world as well as our perception of it.