Buch, Englisch, 256 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 540 g
Buch, Englisch, 256 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 540 g
Reihe: Continuum Studies in British P
ISBN: 978-0-8264-8080-4
Verlag: CONTINNUUM 3PL
In Russell's Theory of Perception, Sajahan Miah re-examines and evaluates the development of Russell's concept of perception and the relation of perception to our knowledge of the external world. This original study focuses largely on Russell's work from 1905 to 1919, during which period Russell attempted a reductionist analysis of empirical knowledge, the foundations of which are sense-data with which we have direct acquaintance. In the course of its development, Russell's theory of perception underwent considerable changes and modifications. Until 1912, Russell sponsored a representative realism, according to which the relation between sense-data and physical objects is a causal one in which the effects (sense-data) represent their causes (physical objects). But he soon realized the vulnerability of this position to sceptical attack and adopted an alternative approach, logical construction, in which physical objects are constructed from actual and possible sense-data.
With the introduction of logical construction, Russell's theory of perception seems to become a causal theory with phenomenalist overtones. Whether or not these overtones can be fitted into the main outline of his realist epistemology is a question that Miah undertakes to settle. The book argues that there is a consistency of purpose and direction which motivated Russell to introduce logical construction. The purpose was to strike a compromise between his empricism and his realism and to establish a bridge between the objects of perception and the objects of physics and common sense.
