Metaphysics 13. History of word perception

The word perception comes from the Latin word percipere, which means to take, gather, or collect. By extension it came to mean to cognize or become aware of something. At the end of the 18th Century the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid narrowed the meaning to refer only to perception of outer objects, and differentiated perception from internal sensations such as pain. Oddly, Dictionaries followed Reid (rather than the greater philosophers of the Enlightenment before him) and it is now standard. We will be discussing the problems this change caused in philosophy. But understand that in all future videos on the topic of perception, we will use the original classical (broader) definition.