‘Do we perceive the world or do we think it?’ Sundar Sarukkai on thinking in philosophy

Attempting to answer the question “What is Philosophy?” is a way of entering into the mode of philosophical thinking. Philosophy in its full richness can be unfolded through examining the many layers of this question.

Whatever our differences, there seems to be one basic simple fact – that we are all born into this world. Some philosophers like to describe this as being “thrown” into the world, thrown not as a physical act but as finding oneself in a world which exists prior to us. Imagine a just-born child opening her eyes for the first time. What does she see? Will she see colours, her mother, or the roof of the room in which she is lying? Can we imagine that moment of original sensation? The child perceives the world through her senses to varying degrees, but what happens inside the child is much more than just passively receiving all the information from these perceptions.

The child is active in the act of perceiving the world. Her eyes roam, little hands reach out. She smells just as she breathes. While she takes in the world, she also acts. She kicks her legs, cries. The body reaches out to the world not merely in terms...

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