sense datum

noun

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.
Epistemology. datum(def 3).

Origin of sense datum

First recorded in 1920–25

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for sense datum

Historical Examples of sense datum

Logically a sense-datum is an object, a particular of which the subject is aware.
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
Bertrand Russell
Further, we know the truth 'I am acquainted with this sense-datum'.
The Problems of Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
When I speak of a "sense-datum," I do not mean the whole of what is given in sense at one time.
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
Bertrand Russell
The sense-datum with which I am acquainted in these cases is generally, if not always, complex.
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
Bertrand Russell
In looking at a given thing and approaching it, one sense-datum will become several, and each of these will again divide.
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
Bertrand Russell

British Dictionary definitions for sense datum

sense datum

noun

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 inferredSee also representationalism (def. 1), apriorism

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

sense datum in Medicine

sense datum

A basic, unanalyzable sensation, such as color, sound, or smell, experienced upon stimulation of a sense organ or receptor.