Sense-Experience and Sense-Organ Experience

It is not an explicit theme for Spinoza, but implicit in his doctrine is a repudiation of most standard concepts of Sense-Experience.  To begin with, Mind is the Idea of the Body, and of its parts, so Sense-Experience is, more properly, Sense-Organ Experience.  Thus, for example, the awareness of a color is, more properly, the awareness of an optical process. Second, Experience, in general, is the endeavor to persist in being, so the fundamental context of Sense-Organ Experience is this endeavor, in which the Sense-Organs are coordinated with other parts of the Body.  Thus, for example, the standard Empiricist account of visual experience has no way of explaining hand-eye coordination. Finally, the data of the Sense-Organ Experience are modifications of the Sense-Organs.  Thus, contrary to most concepts of Sense-Experience, Sense-Data are not discrete atoms, but are constituted in part by the previous condition that has been modified.  In other words, most of these concepts of Sense-Experience repeat Locke's profound error--generalizing what might be an initial Tabula Rasa to all subsequent experience.  The general unfamiliarity of this repudiation of most concepts of Sense-Experience is an indication of the marginalization of Spinoza in subsequent Philosophy.