A first book in psychology / by Mary Whiton Calkins.

  • Mary Whiton Calkins
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A first book in psychology / by Mary Whiton Calkins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    view of the psychologist, the external pen or mowing-machine, whereas the object of imagination is no external object, but rather the mere image of landscape or of harmony. Three differences have thus been emphasized as distin¬ guishing perception from imagination: (1) my immediately realized receptivity, or passivity, in perceiving; (2) the re¬ flectively realized community of my perception with the experience of other selves; (3) my relation in perception to an object which I regard as independent and external. But these distinctions must not obscure the likenesses. Percep¬ tion resembles imagination in at least three ways. (1) Both are known (to reflection, if not immediately) as impersonal consciousness, in the sense that in perceiving and imagin¬ ing I am not predominantly conscious of selves. I perceive or imagine pen, paper, tune, but I do not perceive or imagine you or myself. In the second place, (2) both per¬ ception and imagination are forms of particularizing con¬ sciousness. I do not, for example, perceive or imagine pens in general, or even the class of celluloid pens, but rather this particular, individual pen. A final, highly important like¬ ness of perception and imagination is the following: (3) Both are chiefly sensational experiences concerned with vision, touch, and hearing rather than with feeling or with the con¬ sciousness of relation. This consideration will lead us to a psychological analysis different from that already attempted. It is expedient, therefore, to summarize our results. Percep¬ tion has been described as sensational, passive, impersonal, externalizing, and particularizing consciousness reflectively realized as common to other selves. Imagination has been described as sensational, impersonal, and particularizing, but as lacking the consciousness of passivity, of externality,
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