hey Mr. i have a question in page 24 the paragraph that says: "As to the first-mentioned belief. Does not the plain man distinguish between his ideas of things and the things themselves? Does he not believe that his ideas come to him through the avenues of the senses? Is he not aware of the fact that, when a sense is disordered, the thing as he perceives it is not like the thing "as it is"? A blind man does not see things when they are there; a color-blind man sees them as others do not see them; a man suffering under certain abnormal conditions of the nervous system sees things when they are not there at all,_i.e._ he has hallucinations. The thing itself, as it seems, is not in the man's mind; it is the idea that is in the man's mind, and that represents the thing. Sometimes it appears to give a true account of it; sometimes it seems to give a garbled account; sometimes it is a false representative throughout--there is no reality behind it. It is, then, the idea that is immediately known, and not the _thing_; the thing is merely inferred to exist." First of all when he is referring to "the thing" he is talking about a physical thing or a situation or a person or what?, and he is talking about the existence of things in the men's mind or the non existence of it?
I think that we are talking about physical "things" here. The author is referring to ordinary people using their senses. We do not use our senses to detect the "existence of things in (people's) minds." The author is just trying to establish the idea that we cannot trust our senses 100% Our senses are simply tools which decode signals. Reflected light waves of differing frequencies, in the case of our eyes. These tools (senses) do no function consistently across our species. For example, when I use my eyes, I do not see the same thing as you do. On one level, this statement is as obvious as the large glasses I wear. My eyes are not very efficient, so what I see is not sharp. The differences in how we see most likely goes beyond this physical difference, but it is important to establish the idea of this difference before going further.
My point in this response is that the "reality" detected by human senses is not universal.
I hope this response helps. If you have more questions about this, please add another comment. We can also talk about this in class Friday.
hey Mr. i have a question in page 24 the paragraph that says:
ReplyDelete"As to the first-mentioned belief. Does not the plain man distinguish between his ideas of things and the things themselves? Does he not believe that his ideas come to him through the avenues of the senses? Is he not aware of the fact that, when a sense is disordered, the thing as he perceives it is not like the thing "as it is"? A blind man does not see things when they are there; a color-blind man sees them as others do not see them; a man
suffering under certain abnormal conditions of the nervous system sees things when they are not there at all,_i.e._ he has hallucinations. The thing itself, as it seems, is not in the man's mind; it is the idea that is in the
man's mind, and that represents the thing. Sometimes it appears to give a true account of it; sometimes it seems to give a garbled account; sometimes it is a false representative throughout--there is no reality behind it.
It is, then, the idea that is immediately known, and not the _thing_; the thing is merely inferred to exist."
First of all when he is referring to "the thing" he is talking about a physical thing or a situation or a person or what?, and he is talking about the existence of things in the men's mind or the non existence of it?
I think that we are talking about physical "things" here. The author is referring to ordinary people using their senses. We do not use our senses to detect the "existence of things in (people's) minds."
ReplyDeleteThe author is just trying to establish the idea that we cannot trust our senses 100% Our senses are simply tools which decode signals. Reflected light waves of differing frequencies, in the case of our eyes. These tools (senses) do no function consistently across our species. For example, when I use my eyes, I do not see the same thing as you do. On one level, this statement is as obvious as the large glasses I wear. My eyes are not very efficient, so what I see is not sharp. The differences in how we see most likely goes beyond this physical difference, but it is important to establish the idea of this difference before going further.
My point in this response is that the "reality" detected by human senses is not universal.
I hope this response helps. If you have more questions about this, please add another comment. We can also talk about this in class Friday.