many, I think, have not even made it clear what answer they would give
to any. Perhaps there is some simple and satisfactory answer, which has
escaped me, that such philosophers could give to all my questions; but
I cannot help thinking that assumptions as to the nature of material
things have too often been made, without its even occurring to those
who made them to ask, what, if they were true, we could be judging when
we make such judgments as these; and that, if this question had been
asked, it would have become evident that those assumptions were far
less certain than they appeared to be.
I do not know that there is any excuse whatever for calling _all_
judgments of the kind I mean "judgments of perception." All of them
are, of course, judgments _about_ things which we are at the moment
perceiving, since, by definition, they are judgments about things
which we are seeing or feeling with our hands; and all of them are, no
doubt, also _based upon_ something which we perceive about the thing
in question. But the mere fact that a judgment is both about a thing
which I am perceiving, and also based upon something which I perceive
about that thing, does not seem to be a sufficient reason for calling
it a judgment of perception; and I do not know that there is any
other reason than this for calling _all_ judgments of the kind I mean
judgments of perception. I do not want therefore, to assert that _all_
of them are so. But it seems to me quite plain that enormous numbers
of them are so, in a perfectly legitimate sense. This judgment, which
I now make, to the effect that _that_ is a door, seems to me quite
plainly to be a judgment of perception, in the simple sense that I
make it because I do, in fact, see that that _is_ a door, and assert
in it no more than what I see; and what I see I, of course, perceive.
In every case in which I judge, with regard to something which I am
seeing or feeling with my hands, that it is a so-and-so, simply because
I do perceive, by sight or touch, that it is in fact a thing of that
kind, we can, I think, fairly say that the judgment in question is a
judgment of perception. And enormous numbers of judgments of the kind
I mean are, quite plainly, judgments of perception in this sense. They
are not _all,_ for the simple reason that some of them are mistaken.
I may, for instance, judge, with regard to an animal which I see at
a distance, that it is a sheep, when in fact it is a pig. And here
my judgment is certainly not due to the fact that I see it to be a
sheep; since I cannot possibly see a thing to be a sheep, unless it is
one. It, therefore, is _not_ a judgment of perception in this sense.
And moreover, even where such a judgment is true, it may not always
be a judgment of perception, for the reason that, whereas I only see
the thing in question, the kind of thing which I judge it to be is of
such a nature, that it is impossible for any one, by sight alone, to
perceive anything to be of that kind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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