Sense Data - Abstract Sense Data

Abstract Sense Data

Abstract sense data is sense data without human judgment, sense data without human conception and yet evident to the senses, found in aesthetic experience. As opposed to; imaginary sense data which is more like a quasi substance and does not really exist; Imaginary sense data is abstract sense data as presented from the aestheticized senses to consciousness; i.e. imagination, power of reason and inner subjective states of self-awareness including: emotion, self-reflection, ego, and theory. The theory of abstract and imaginary sense data operates on the tacit definition of imagination as “a power mediating between the senses and the reason by virtue of representing perceptual objects without their presence”. Imaginary sense data are ‘imaginary’ per Immanuel Kant's analysis that imagination is the primary faculty of mind capable of synthesizing input from the senses into a world of objects. Abstract and imaginary sense data are key to understanding abstract art's relationship with the conscious and unconscious mind.