The nature of mental activity / a symposium by ... S. Alexander ... J. Ward, C. Read, and G.F. Stout.
- Alexander, Samuel
- Date:
- 1908
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The nature of mental activity / a symposium by ... S. Alexander ... J. Ward, C. Read, and G.F. Stout. Source: Wellcome Collection.
3/48
![9H [Reprinted from the “* Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,” 1908. ] -IX.—_THE NATURE OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. A SYMPOSIUM BY S. ALEXANDER, JAMES WARD, CARVETH READ, and G. F. Strout. 1.—Sy S. ALEXANDER. ‘THERE are two questions which may be intended when we are asked what is the consciousness of activity. We may mean what is it to be conscious of activity as distinguished from passivity. Or we may mean simply and generally what is the consciousness of performing any mental process whatever, supposing we have such a consciousness of activity. The second interpretation of the question is not, perhaps, the more natural or usual one. We speak rather of mental process in this sense than of mental activity. On the other hand, we commonly do speak of acts of hearing, perceiving, inference, and it is not strained to speak of a sensory action or an act of sensation. Activity in this sense is mental function in general. Both the narrower and the wider question are psychological. But the distinction of activity and passivity is in a great degree one of detail. The question of the consciousness of mental activity in general is more fundamental, though it is difficult or even impossible to keep this question altogether separate from metaphysics or theory of knowledge. But it is the more interesting to me, and I shall devote the larger part of my remarks to it. In part of what I say I do not know how far I'am or am not merely painfully trying to realise for myself what my teachers have said already. Two of them follow. me in this discussion. But I prefer not to divert the discussion from the subject itself by any direct examination of their published statements. (13158) . co](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33470200_0003.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
