judgment is that _it_ is a thing of the kind in question. As much as
this seems to me to be a thing which any child can see. Nobody will
suppose, for a moment, that when he judges such things as "This is a
sofa," or "This is a tree," he is judging, with regard to the presented
object about which his judgment plainly is, that it is a whole sofa or
a whole tree: he can, at most, suppose that he is judging it to be a
part of the surface of a sofa or a part of the surface of a tree. And
certainly in the case of most judgments of this kind which we make,
whether in the case of all or not, this is plainly the case: we are not
judging, with regard to the presented object about which our judgment
plainly is, that it is a thing of the kind, for which the term which
appears to express the predicate of our judgment, is a name. And that
this should be true of _most_ judgments of this kind, whether of all or
not, is quite sufficient for my purpose.
This much, then, seems to me to be very certain indeed. But I will try
to make clearer exactly what I mean by it, by mentioning a ground on
which I imagine it might perhaps be disputed.
The object of which I have spoken as _the_ object, about which, in
each particular case, such a judgment as this always is a judgment,
is, of course, always an object of the kind which some philosophers
would call a sensation, and others would call a sense-datum. Whether
all philosophers, when they talk of sensations, mean to include among
them such objects as these, I do not know. Some, who have given a great
deal of attention to the subject, and for whom I have a great respect,
talk of sensations in such a way, that I cannot be sure what they are
talking about at all or whether there are such things. But many, I
think, undoubtedly do mean to include such subjects as these. No doubt,
in general, when they call them sensations, they mean to attribute to
them properties, which it seems to me extremely doubtful whether they
possess. And perhaps even those who call them sense-data, may, in part,
be attributing to them properties which it may be doubtful whether
they possess. If we want to define a sensation or a sense-datum, in a
manner which will leave it not open to doubt what sort of things we are
talking of, and that there are such things, I do not know that we can
do it better than by saying that sense-data are the sort of things,
_about_ which such judgments as these always seem to be made--the sort
of things which seem to be the real or ultimate subjects of all such
judgments. Such a way of defining how the term "sense-datum" is used,
may not seem very satisfactory; but I am inclined to think it may be as
satisfactory as any which can be found. And it is certainly calculated
to obviate some misunderstandings which may arise; since everybody can
see, I think, what the thing is which I am describing as _the_ thing
about which he is making his judgment, when he judges "That is an
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