A manual of psychology.

  • Stout, George Frederick, 1860-1944.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A manual of psychology. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    In all appearance something real appears. Fiction consists in thinking of what really is as in some way modified or transformed. To make a mistake is to believe something real to be in some way different from what it really is. But unless we are cognisant of the real being concerning which the mistake is made we cannot believe it to be what it is not: we cannot think of it wrongly if we do not think of it at all.i 6. Immediate Experience and Immediate Knowledge.— Objects ir^ediately experienced stand in contrast with objects which are merely objects of thought. I immediately experience a toothache in a way in which I can never im- mediately experience the tooth. The tooth is a physical object, and is thus not the sort of thing which can be actually experienced at all.^ I cannot actually experience another man s sensations, though these too may be present to mind. My own sensations are present to rmnd without being actually experienced when I think of them in memory or in anticipation. Immediacy of experience is therefore to be distinguished from immediacy of knowledge. Knowledge is iTnmp.rlia.tp when it is not inferred or otherwise derivative from prior knowledge. Knowledge of what is strictly remembered is immediate. The knowledge that 1 -|- 1 = 2 is immediate, whilst the knowledge of the total of a column of figures is only mediate. What is actually or immediately experienced is also the object of immediate knowledge when we attend to its nature. But immediate knowledge, though conditioned directly or indirectly by immediate experience, is not restricted ^ In order to emphasise its objective character the term ‘ sensum ’ or sense datum is sometimes employed for what has been referred to in the text by the term ‘sensation.’ This usage is convenient in certain contexts, but it is almost exclusively restricted to epistemological discussion. In Psychology the term ‘sensation’ is much too firmly established to be changed. The alternative term, moreover, is closely associated wth the special doctrine that the sensum is the object of a distinctive act of sensing,’ which in contrast with the sensum is to be described as ‘ mental.’ “ This is true whatever view be taken of physical objects. If physical objects were composed entirely of actual and possible sensations, I should not be able actually to experience all the possible sensations to which in thought I should refer in thinkmg of any given object.