sense datum

American  

noun

1. Also called sensum.  Psychology. the basic unit of an experience resulting from the stimulation of a sense organ; a stimulus or an object of perception or sensation.

2. Epistemology. datum.

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sense datum British  

noun

1. philosophy a sensation detached both from any information it may convey and from its putative source in the external world, such as the bare awareness of a red visual field. Sense data are held by some philosophers to be the immediate objects of experience providing certain knowledge from which knowledge of material objects is inferred See also representationalism apriorism

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Etymology

Origin of sense datum

First recorded in 1920–25