Sense-Data Vindicated

Of all the multiple arguments for introducing sense-data as objects of sensory awareness, the Time-Gap Argument remains persistently puzzling. Since the Middle Ages, scholars have wondered about phenomena such as the light we see from stars far away, and the time-gap problem has resisted a definitive solution. This book argues that the problem can be solved neither by denying that the things we see must exist at the time we see see them nor by claiming we can see deeply into the past but by unexpectedly realizing that what keeps the universe in existence is an eternal spirit as postulated by the Idealist philosophers Leibniz and Berkeley. This conclusion requires taking a first indispensable step--acknowledging the existence of sense-data at the root of perceiving physical objects. That this step should be taken is what this book argues for in the course of examining most of the arguments advanced since the beginning of the twentieth century both for and against the admission of sense-data. Ultimately, to be just is to perceive or to be perceived.