The importance of the sensory attribute of order / by H.J. Watt.

  • Watt, Henry J. (Henry Jackson), 1879-1925.
Date:
[between 1910 and 1919?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The importance of the sensory attribute of order / by H.J. Watt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    1/20
    THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SENSORY ATTRIBUTE OF ORDER. [Off-'printed from Mind : a Quarterly Review of Psydhology and Philosophy. Vol. XXIX., N.S., No. 115.] By H. J. Watt. 1. The Atteibute as Such. The attribute of order seems to be a most important feature of sensory experience. I have endeavoured for some time to show what can be done with its help towards the elucidation of the elements and complexities of the senses.^ It seems worth while to display the significance of this attribute in a broader manner. In fact the interests of psychology and of epistemology (which falls largely, if not wholly, within the range of psychology) call for as broad a treatment as possible. Let me first briefly state the nature and function of sensory order. It is a useful procedure in psychology to compare data of our various senses with one another so that we may, if possible, bring them under general terms of description, and thereby co-ordinate their variations exhaustively. We find of course that ground for this work has been well prepared by our predecessors. But the results they obtained are not such as could have been expected to be entirely convincing either to them or to us. At the best they seem inconclusive and fragmentary. The attributes we find in commonest acceptance are quality and intensity. There are not many psychologists now who would refuse to add to these an ^ Cf. The Psychology of Sound, Cambridge, 1917, and papers in The British Journal of Psycj^logy. ^ASGOW UlilVtRSlTY library