sense datum
- 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).
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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
Logically a sense-datum is an object, a particular of which the subject is aware.
Mysticism and Logic and Other EssaysBertrand Russell
Further, we know the truth 'I am acquainted with this sense-datum'.
The Problems of PhilosophyBertrand 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 EssaysBertrand Russell
The sense-datum with which I am acquainted in these cases is generally, if not always, complex.
Mysticism and Logic and Other EssaysBertrand 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 EssaysBertrand Russell
sense datum
- 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
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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
- A basic, unanalyzable sensation, such as color, sound, or smell, experienced upon stimulation of a sense organ or receptor.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.