Abstract
WHEN Dr. Dawes Hicks wrote in his first letter1 of ” that which is sensed”, I could not be sure whether he meant an external object, a light wave, or a Russellian sense-datum; but it appears from his further letter2 that he meant none of them, but something much more like what I call a sensation. The patch of colour and my awareness of it seem to me to form an inseparable whole ; I cannot imagine either without the other, and in any event it is only sensations which we are aware of that can form any basis of knowledge, and therefore that are relevant for my purpose. I do not deny the mental component in a sensation, but I do say that the recognition of physical and mental components in its structure is the result of inference and not a direct observation. Of course I agree fully that discrimination and comparison follow immediately on sensation; their nature is what I am trying to elucidate.
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NATURE, 135, 1035, June 22, 1935.
NATURE, 136, 183 August 3, 1935.
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JEFFREYS, H. Philosophy and Modern Science. Nature 136, 261 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136261b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136261b0
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