Literary notes about datum (AI summary)
The term "datum" has been employed in literature with remarkable versatility, serving both as a philosophical concept and as a marker of concrete fact. Philosophers like Bertrand Russell have used it to denote the basic building blocks of sensory experience—sense-data that are immediately apprehended before being analyzed into components like color and shape [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. In the works of George Santayana, it takes on an existential dimension, representing fundamental points of experience and meaning upon which further thought and intent are based [10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16]. Meanwhile, in historical and geographical contexts, such as in Strabo’s writings and Rabelais’s texts, "datum" is used to refer to specific pieces of information or even places, underscoring its role as a definitive marker of fact or location [17, 18, 19]. Additionally, the term appears in legal and sociological works, where it denotes an item of information or an established fact, as seen in both the Declaration of Independence and sociological treatises [20, 21, 22, 23]. Thus, across various genres, "datum" spans the abstract to the concrete, evidencing its broad utility in conveying foundational elements of knowledge.
- The easiest relations to apprehend are those which hold between the different parts of a single complex sense-datum.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell - But the sense-datum which we call hearing the thunder does not take place until the disturbance of the air has travelled as far as to where we are.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell - On the one hand there is the sense-datum which represents the sun to me, on the other hand there is that which sees this sense-datum.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell - Our judgement analyses the datum into colour and shape, and then recombines them by stating that the red colour is round in shape.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell - But this knowledge would be a fresh datum, by no means proving that the probability relatively to our previous data had been wrongly estimated.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell - For example, I can see at a glance the whole of the page on which I am writing; thus the whole page is included in one sense-datum.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell - First, there is the kind which simply asserts the existence of the sense-datum, without in any way analysing it.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell - In our present kind we have a single sense-datum which has both colour and shape: the colour is red and the shape is round.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell - Thus, whenever we see a colour, we have a sensation of the colour, but the colour itself is a sense-datum, not a sensation.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell - If practical instinct did not stretch what is given into what is meant, reason could never recognise the datum for a copy of an ideal object.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - Normally every datum of sense is at once devoured by a hungry intellect and digested for the sake of its vital juices.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - All life would have collapsed into a purposeless datum.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - That it accompanies changes in his body and in the world is not an inference for him but a datum.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - Intent starts from a datum.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - Reason is a principle of order appearing in a subject-matter which in its subsistence and quantity must be an irrational datum.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - As the subject-matter recedes the mental datum ceases to have much similarity or inward relevance to what is its cause or its meaning.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - Datum, city of Thrace, i. 512 -514.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) by Strabo - Take notice this is datum Camberiaci, given at Chambery.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais - Placet motu proprio M. Datum Romæ apud Sanctum Petrum, quintodecimo Cal.
— from Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 01 (of 10) by Giorgio Vasari - dato m datum, item of information.
— from Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdós - It. dado , Prov. dat ; Lat. datum .
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - The velocity of cooling is not a datum directly observable.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - What is the difference between an opinion or a doctrine taken ( a ) as a datum, and ( b ) as a value?
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park
