We get this situation in miniature each time we hear of a crime, however
barren the news may be,--no more than a telegraphic word. The event must
naturally have some degree of importance, because, if I hear merely that
a silver watch has been stolen, I do not try to imagine that situation.
If, however, I hear that near a hostelry in X, a peasant was robbed by
two traveling apprentices I immediately get an image which contains not
only the unknown region, but also the event of the robbery, and even
perhaps the faces of those concerned. It does not much matter that this
image is completely false in practically every detail, because in the
greater number of cases it is corrected. The real danger lies in the
fact that this correction is frequently so bad and often fails
altogether and that, in consequence, the first image again breaks
through and remains the most vigorous.[199] The vigor is the greater
because we always attach such imagination to something actual or
approximately real, and inasmuch as the latter thing is either really
seen, or at least energetically imagined, the first image acquires
renewed power of coming up. According to Lipps, “Reproductive images
presuppose dispositions. Dispositions ensue upon perceptions that they
imply; still there are reproductive images and imagined wholes which
imply no preceding perceptions. This contradiction is solved when
dispositions are contained in other things at the same time. A finite
number of dispositions may in this way be also infinite.... Dispositions
are transformed power itself, power transformed in such a way as to be
able to respond actively to inner stimulations.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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