All epistemologists admit that we have sense-perceptions, viewed as subjective states of our mental life. The knowledge obtained thereby is derived through various bodily senses; and man has the spontaneous conviction that this knowledge acquaints him with the reality of a material world.
There is the sense of sight. Nothing is clearer to the ordinary man than that what he sees is actually what and where he sees it to be. His own body, buildings, trees, fields and hills, the sun and the moon and the stars--he is convinced that he sees these things simply because they are parts of the outside world around him. They are present, whether he sees them or not; they have an existence of their own, independent of his perception of them, and the will retain their reality even when he is blind or dead. So, too, color and light are objective realities for him: the sun and the stars really shin, the rose is really red, and the grass is really green. The whole matter is simply too evident to be doubted. He feels so safe in accepting this knowledge conveyed to him by the sense of sight, that he would rather question the sanity of anyone doubting these things than entertain any misgivings concerning this knowledge itself.
Taste and smell confirm him in his conviction of the reality of things. Sugar is sweet, acid is sour, quinine is bitter, brine is salty. The ordinary man is certain that these objects possess these flavors as objective qualities. He is also convinced that objects emit real odors. Odor may be fruity, as in the peach, or spicy, as in cloves, or flowery as in the rose, or foul as in carrion or scorchy as in burned wood, or resinous as in pine pitch. But whether agreeable or disagreeable, he always refers these flavors and odors to things which are real and independent of his own person.
Hearing, according to his conviction, perceives sounds which emanate from actual objects. The human voice in its speech, the rapturous melody of the nightingale, the roar of the lion, the crash of the thunder--they actually exist in nature as he hears them. Sound to him is real; and he simply cannot understand that, in the absence of hearing in men and animals, nature would be totally devoid of sound.
The sense of touch also reveals various qualities which he considers to be objectively real. What is commonly called 'the sense of touch' consists of a number of distinct senses. The skin senses convey the sensations of temperature, pain and touch proper. The kinesthetic or muscle sense is located in the muscles and position of our bodily limbs and also of resistance and pressure. The organic sense has its seat in the internal organs of the body and enables us to perceive hunger, thirst, nausea, and general bodily well-being. How far these senses are fundamentally distinct is a matter for the psychologist to decide. Whatever their nature, the ordinary man is certain that they reveal to him his own body and other bodies, together with definite qualities, which are real in the world of physical objects.
Besides the senses just enumerated, the human organism possess what may be roughly designated the internal sense, because they enable man to apprehend facts of a subjective character in a sensuous manner. We are not concerned here with their ultimate nature and difference, but with certain undeniable facts of internal experience in so far as they have a bearing on the problem of knowledge.
Coming up next on Epistemology Today blog:
Epistemology: Convictions Based on Intellection
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