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(3) CAN WE OBSERVE ANYTHING INTRINSICALLY DIFFERENT FROM
SENSATIONS? We come now to our third question concerning
introspection. It is commonly thought that by looking within we
can observe all sorts of things that are radically different from
the constituents of the physical world, e.g. thoughts, beliefs,
desires, pleasures, pains and emotions. The difference between
mind and matter is increased partly by emphasizing these supposed
introspective data, partly by the supposition that matter is
composed of atoms or electrons or whatever units physics may at
the moment prefer. As against this latter supposition, I contend
that the ultimate constituents of matter are not atoms or
electrons, but sensations, and other things similar to sensations
as regards extent and duration. As against the view that
introspection reveals a mental world radically different from
sensations, I propose to argue that thoughts, beliefs, desires,
pleasures, pains and emotions are all built up out of sensations
and images alone, and that there is reason to think that images
do not differ from sensations in their intrinsic character. We
thus effect a mutual rapprochement of mind and matter, and reduce
the ultimate data of introspection (in our second sense) to
images alone. On this third view of the meaning of introspection,
therefore, our decision is wholly against it.
There remain two points to be considered concerning
introspection. The first is as to how far it is trustworthy; the
second is as to whether, even granting that it reveals no
radically different STUFF from that revealed by what might be
called external perception, it may not reveal different
RELATIONS, and thus acquire almost as much importance as is
traditionally assigned to it.
To begin with the trustworthiness of introspection. It is common
among certain schools to regard the knowledge of our own mental
processes as incomparably more certain than our knowledge of the
“external” world; this view is to be found in the British
philosophy which descends from Hume, and is present, somewhat
veiled, in Kant and his followers. There seems no reason whatever
to accept this view. Our spontaneous, unsophisticated beliefs,
whether as to ourselves or as to the outer world, are always
extremely rash and very liable to error. The acquisition of
caution is equally necessary and equally difficult in both
directions. Not only are we often un aware of entertaining a
belief or desire which exists in us; we are often actually
mistaken. The fallibility of introspection as regards what we
desire is made evident by psychoanalysis; its fallibility as to
what we know is easily demonstrated. An autobiography, when
confronted by a careful editor with documentary evidence, is
usually found to be full of obviously inadvertent errors. Any of
us confronted by a forgotten letter written some years ago will
be astonished to find how much more foolish our opinions were
than we had remembered them as being. And as to the analysis of
our mental operations—believing, desiring, willing, or what
not—introspection unaided gives very little help: it is
necessary to construct hypotheses and test them by their
consequences, just as we do in physical science. Introspection,
therefore, though it is one among our sources of knowledge, is
not, in isolation, in any degree more trustworthy than “external”
perception.
I come now to our second question: Does introspection give us
materials for the knowledge of relations other than those arrived
at by reflecting upon external perception? It might be contended
that the essence of what is “mental” consists of relations, such
as knowing for example, and that our knowledge concerning these
essentially mental relations is entirely derived from
introspection. If “knowing” were an unanalysable relation, this
view would be incontrovertible, since clearly no such relation
forms part of the subject matter of physics. But it would seem
that “knowing” is really various relations, all of them complex.
Therefore, until they have been analysed, our present question
must remain unanswered I shall return to it at the end of the
present course of lectures.
LECTURE VII. THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION
In Lecture V we found reason to think that the ultimate
constituents* of the world do not have the characteristics of
either mind or matter as ordinarily understood: they are not
solid persistent objects moving through space, nor are they
fragments of “consciousness.” But we found two ways of grouping
particulars, one into “things” or “pieces of matter,” the other
into series of “perspectives,” each series being what may be
called a “biography.” Before we can define either sensations or
images, it is necessary to consider this twofold classification
in somewhat greater detail, and to derive from it a definition of
perception. It should be said that, in so far as the
classification assumes the whole world of physics (including its
unperceived portions), it contains hypothetical elements. But we
will not linger on the grounds for admitting these, which belong
to the philosophy of physics rather than of psychology.
* When I speak of “ultimate constituents,” I do not mean
necessarily such as are theoretically incapable of analysis, but
only such as, at present, we can see no means of analysing. I
speak of such constituents as “particulars,” or as “RELATIVE
particulars” when I wish to emphasize the fact that they may be
themselves complex.
The physical classification of particulars collects together all
those that are aspects of one “thing.” Given any one particular,
it is found often (we do not say always) that there are a number
of other particulars differing from this one in gradually
increasing degrees. Those (or some of those) that differ from it
only very slightly will be found to differ approximately
according to certain laws which may be called, in a generalized
sense, the laws of “perspective”; they include the ordinary laws
of perspective as a special case. This approximation grows more
and more nearly exact as the difference grows less; in technical
language, the laws of perspective account for the differences to
the first order of small quantities, and other laws are only
required to account for second-order differences. That is to say,
as the difference diminishes, the part of the difference which is
not according to the laws of perspective diminishes much more
rapidly, and bears to the total difference a ratio which tends
towards zero as both are made smaller and smaller. By this means
we can theoretically collect together a number of particulars
which may be defined as the “aspects” or “appearances” of one
thing at one time. If the laws of perspective were sufficiently
known, the connection between different aspects would be
expressed in differential equations.
This gives us, so far, only those particulars which constitute
one thing at one time. This set of particulars may be called a
“momentary thing.” To define that series of “momentary things”
that constitute the successive states of one thing is a problem
involving the laws of dynamics. These give the laws governing the
changes of aspects from one time to a slightly later time, with
the same sort of differential approximation to exactness as we
obtained for spatially neighbouring aspects through the laws of
perspective. Thus a momentary thing is a set of particulars,
while a thing (which may be identified with the whole history of
the thing) is a series of such sets of particulars. The
particulars in one set are collected together by the laws of
perspective; the successive sets are collected together by the
laws of dynamics. This is the view of the world which is
appropriate to traditional physics.
The definition of a “momentary thing” involves problems
concerning time, since the particulars constituting a momentary
thing will not be all simultaneous, but will travel outward from
the thing with the velocity of light (in case the thing is in
vacuo). There are complications connected with relativity, but
for our present purpose they are not vital, and I shall ignore
them.
Instead of first collecting together all the particulars
constituting a momentary thing, and then forming the series of
successive sets, we might have first collected together a series
of successive aspects related by the laws of dynamics, and then
have formed the set of such series related by the laws of
perspective. To illustrate by the case of an actor on the stage:
our first plan was to collect together all the aspects which he
presents to different spectators at one time, and then to form
the series of such sets. Our second plan is first to collect
together all the aspects which he presents successively to a
given spectator, and then to do the same thing for the other
spectators, thus forming a set of series instead of a series of
sets. The first plan tells us what he does; the second the
impressions he produces. This second way of classifying
particulars is one which obviously has more relevance to
psychology than the other. It is partly by this second method of
classification that we obtain definitions of one “experience” or
“biography” or “person.” This method of classification is also
essential to the definition of sensations and images, as I shall
endeavour to prove later on. But we must first amplify the
definition of perspectives and biographies.
In our illustration of the actor, we spoke, for the moment, as
though each spectator’s mind were wholly occupied by the one
actor. If this were the case, it might be possible to define the
biography of one spectator as a series of successive aspects of
the actor related according to the laws of dynamics. But in fact
this is not the case. We are at all times during our waking life
receiving a variety of impressions, which are aspects of a
variety of things. We have to consider what binds together two
simultaneous sensations in one person, or, more generally, any
two occurrences which forte part of one experience. We might say,
adhering to the standpoint of physics, that two aspects of
different things belong to the same perspective when they are in
the same place. But this would not really help us, since a
“place” has not yet been defined. Can we define what is meant by
saying that two aspects are “in the same place,” without
introducing anything beyond the laws of perspective and dynamics?
I do not feel sure whether it is possible to frame such a
definition or not; accordingly I shall not assume that it is
possible, but shall seek other characteristics by which a
perspective or biography may be defined.
When (for example) we see one man and hear another speaking at
the same time, what we see and what we hear have a relation which
we can perceive, which makes the two together form, in some
sense, one experience. It is when this relation exists that two
occurrences become associated. Semon’s “engram” is formed by all
that we experience at one time. He speaks of two parts of this
total as having the relation of “Nebeneinander” (M. 118; M.E. 33
ff.), which is reminiscent of Herbart’s “Zusammen.” I think the
relation may be called simply “simultaneity.” It might be said
that at any moment all sorts of things that are not part of my
experience are happening in the world, and that therefore the
relation we are seeking to define cannot be merely simultaneity.
This, however, would be an error—the sort of error that the
theory of relativity avoids. There is not one universal time,
except by an elaborate construction; there are only local times,
each of which may be taken to be the time within one biography.
Accordingly, if I am (say) hearing a sound, the only occurrences
that are, in any simple sense, simultaneous with my sensation are
events in my private world, i.e. in my biography. We may
therefore define the “perspective” to which the sensation in
question belongs as the set of particulars that are simultaneous
with this sensation. And similarly we may define
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