Theme 1: Theory of science

“Sense-data” is the information one can say an object has that is not connected to the personal experience a different people might have of the object. Therefore, “Sense-data” could be colour, shape, measurements but it cannot describe an object so that it is clear for every one how the object perceived by each and every one of the individuals experiencing it. That is called the “sensation” – the properties that the object seem to have in contact with it, and this can differ from person to person. Russell introduces this notion to explain and discuss his point of view when it comes to “physical objects” and the question about their existents. Russell then discuss if there is such think as “sense-data” since the physical object always has to be perceived by a humans mind to exist according to many philosophers.

”Statement of fact” is the “sense-data” connected to the knowledge by acquaintance is of an object and helps the mind to interpret the object. The objects that are clear to the mind from the start. It is not true knowledge; it is just the knowledge that has come up due to earlier acquaintances with a physical object belonging to the same object-type.

 “Definite description” is as Russell calls it a phrase constructed as “the so-and-so” in singular. It means that we are certain that an object has specific properties and we do not know it by knowledge of acquaintance. The opposite is the “a so-and-so” description, which is called a “proposition”. The difference between them is that a “definite description” is defining a known object, for example “the red banana”, the banana is therefore defined as the red one, the only one. A proposition is “a red banana”, a description that would fit into all of the red bananas in the world, not bound to one specific banana.

“Propositions” and “statements of facts” differ from other kind of verbal expressions because they are not describing a specific object and depending on who gets the description, it will be interpret differently and one person might not even be referring to the same physical object as another person would since the descriptions is from a personal perspective.