ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I analyse the concept of sensation. This analysis is important, for philosophers, especially the Cartesian theorists, have a tendency to use ‘sensations’, ‘sense-data’, and ‘sensible qualities’ interchangeably. After this analysis, I seek to answer the question ‘What are the immediate objects of observation?’ The scrutiny of the various answers given to it by philosophers, especially the theorists, is necessary, because those philosophers who hold that the mind is a theatre, or an agent, and mental occur rences/events are private are led to think that the immediate objects of observation must be either sensible qualities, or sensations, or sense-data. I try to show that the immediate objects of observation are neither sensible qualities, nor sensations, nor sense-data, but the objects as they are in the public physical world.
A sensation is that which a normal human being naturally has when his body stands in a certain kind of relationship to different kinds of physical objects or different kinds of surroundings. For example, if a human being is made to stand before a furnace for a long time, he starts having an uncomfortable feeling, namely, a sensation of burning. The Oxford English Dictionary describes ‘sensation’ as an operation of any of the senses; a psychical affec tion or state of consciousness consequent on and related to a particular impression received by one of the bodily organs, or a particular impression required by one of the organs of sense. Based on this description we can draw a distinction between two types of sensation:
