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First published in 1962,
Bodily Sensations argues that bodily sensations are nothing but impressions that physical happenings are taking place in the body, impressions that may correspond or fail to correspond to physical reality. In the case of such sensations as pains, these impressions are accompanied by certain
attitudes to the impressions. He argues, that is to say that bodily sensations are a sub-species of
sense-impression, standing to perception of our own bodily state (or in some cases to touch) as visual impressions stand to the sense of sight. He examines, and tries to refute, all plausible alternative accounts of the nature of bodily sensations. He prefaces his argument by an account of tactual and bodily perception. Here he argues that, with the exception of heat and cold, the qualities discerned by these senses are all reducible to spatial and temporal properties of material objects. Combined with his own conclusions on bodily sensations, this allows him to draw up a short and exhaustive list of the so-called "secondary" qualities of physical objects. This book will be of interest to students of philosophy.
List of contents
Acknowledgements 1. Two sorts of bodily sensation
2. Immediate and mediate perception
3. Immediate perception by touch
4. The relational nature of perception by touch
5. The nature of the tangible qualities
6. Perception of our own bodily state
7. Transitive bodily sensations
8. Bodily sensations and bodily feelings
9. Intransitive sensations as qualities
10. Intransitive sensations as sense-impressions (I)
11. Intransitive sensations as located items
12. Intransitive sensations as unlocated items
13. Attitudes involved in the having of intransitive sensations
14. Intransitive sensations as attitudes
15. Intransitive sensations as sense-impression (II)
16. Objections answered
Conclusion Index
