The notion of "data" is familiar throughout science, and is usually
treated by men of science as though it were perfectly clear.
Psychologists, on the other hand, find great difficulty in the
conception. "Data" are naturally defined in terms of theory of
knowledge: they are those propositions of which the truth is known
without demonstration, so that they may be used as premisses in proving
other propositions. Further, when a proposition which is a datum asserts
the existence of something, we say that the something is a datum, as
well as the proposition asserting its existence. Thus those objects
of whose existence we become certain through perception are said to be
data.
There is some difficulty in connecting this epistemological definition
of "data" with our psychological analysis of knowledge; but until such
a connection has been effected, we have no right to use the conception
"data."
It is clear, in the first place, that there can be no datum apart from a
belief. A sensation which merely comes and goes is not a datum; it only
becomes a datum when it is remembered. Similarly, in perception, we do
not have a datum unless we have a JUDGMENT of perception. In the sense
in which objects (as opposed to propositions) are data, it would seem
natural to say that those objects of which we are conscious are data.
But consciousness, as we have seen, is a complex notion, involving
beliefs, as well as mnemic phenomena such as are required for perception
and memory. It follows that no datum is theoretically indubitable, since
no belief is infallible; it follows also that every datum has a greater
or less degree of vagueness, since there is always some vagueness in
memory and the meaning of images.
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