Are the intensity differences of sensation quantitative III / by Henry J. Watt.

  • Watt, Henry J. (Henry Jackson), 1879-1925.
Date:
1913
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Are the intensity differences of sensation quantitative III / by Henry 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.

    6/12 (page 178)
    by Dr Myers in i. § 2. The modes which stand next to elementary sensation seem to be, first distance and time-interval, and then, as a combination of these two, motion. Spatiality, if it is merely simple distance, seems to me to be in the matter of psychological origin independent of motion; if it is complex, such as is the spatiality of binocular vision, it does not seem to me to involve motion as a necessary psychological antecedent at all. Nor do I see any evidence for the existence of a psychological antecedent to intensity, simpler than intensity, from which intensity might arise by the integration of two or more of its varieties, as distance may be said to be integrated out of differences in the attribute of order. Any other speculations regarding the origin of intensity seem to me to be either inventions or to rest upon mistaken correlations. 3. What is to be meant by the term ‘ quantitative ’ ? It seems to be agreed that there are two possible meanings. A quantitative object is either, (a) A collective object, whether real or ideal—a number of material particles, persons, states of mind, events, or a number of ideal numbers, lengths, forces, universals. Let us call this kind of object a multitude. Or (6) A self-disposing object, or an object say which in virtue of its own phenomenality disposes itself amongst other objects of the same group «&, ac, aa, etc., in a definite manner, so that it falls between ar and and not between and Of, and which in these relations appears to be greater than and less than This kind of object is known as a magnitude. 4. Is intensity a multitude or a magnitude ? [With regard to the expression ‘intensity differences’ in the title of this discussion, I take it to mean, in the first place, intensities, and only in the second place, if at all, differences of intensities, such as those between la and Ih, lb and 7c.] On two points there seems to be agreement: (a) intensity is at least a magnitude; and (6) we cannot yet validly treat it as a multitude. We can, therefore, proceed to discuss the possibilities that are logically unaffected by these decisions. But before doing so it is well to turn aside for a moment and ask another question. 5. What other objects besides intensity are at least magnitudes ? It is agreed, I think, that felt distance and motion and other such modes of experience or Oestalten are also at least magnitudes. We may, therefore, infer that the world of experience is rich in objects of this kind. Probably all forms of experience are, in some sense or to some degree, self-disposing objects. But a number of them cannot be considered to