sense data

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:
1920–25

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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World English Dictionary

sense datum

—n
	philosophy representationalism See also apriorism 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

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
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00:10

Sense data is always a great word to know.

So is ninnyhammer. Does it mean:

a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.

a fool or simpleton; ninny.

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American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

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

Matching Quote

"Two archetypes pervade Western thinking on the subject of how reality is best apprehended, archetypes that have their ultimate origin in Plato and Aristotle. For Plato sense data were at best a distraction from knowledge, which was the province of unaided reason. For Aristotle, knowledge consisted in generalizations, but these were derived in the first instance from information gathered from the outside world. These two models of human thinking, termed rationalism and empiricism, respectively, formed the major intellectual legacy of the West down to Descartes and Bacon, who represented, in the seventeenth century, the twin poles of epistemology."

-Morris Berman

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