An enquiry concerning the principles of natural knowledgeWhitehead, Alfred North
Philosophy
An enquiry concerning the principles of natural knowledge
Whitehead, Alfred North
Knowledge, Theory of; Science -- Philosophy; Space and time
62.4 But there is an analogy of sense-objects and this begets an
analogy of figures. For example, there is an analogy between blues of
all shades, and a corresponding analogy between their sets of figures.
Each such analogy amid sense-objects issues in an object of a type not
hitherto named. Call it the type of 'generalised sense-objects.' For
example, we can recognise blue and ignore its particular shade.
Correspondingly we can recognise a blue sense-figure, and ignore the
differences between a light-blue sense-figure and a dark-blue
sense-figure. We can go further, and recognise colour and ignore the
particular colour; and correspondingly there are recognisable
sight-figures underlying figures of particular shades of particular
colours.
62.5 But it would be a mistake to insist on the derivation of the
generalised sense-figures from the recognition of generalised
sense-objects. In general the converse process would seem to be nearer
the truth. Namely, the analogy amid sense-figures is more insistently
perceptible than the analogy amid sense-objects; and the derivation is
as much from the generalised sense-figure to the generalised
sense-object as in the converse order.
We must go further than this. Perceptive insistency is not ranged in the
order of simplicity as determined by a reflective analysis of the
elements of our awareness of nature. Sense-figures possess a higher
perceptive insistency than the corresponding sense-objects. We first
notice a dark-blue figure and pass to the dark-blueness.
62.6 Indeed the high perceptive power of figures is at once the
foundation of our natural knowledge and the origin of our philosophical
errors. It has led the theory of space to be annexed to objects and not
to events, and thus created the fatal divorce between space and time. A
figure, being an object, is not in space or time, except in a derivative
sense.
This perceptive power of figures carries us to the direct recognition of
sorts of objects which otherwise would remain in the region of abstract
logical concepts. For example, our perception of sight-figures leads to
the recognition of colour as being what is common to all particular
colours.
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