time, and to compare his feelings of certainty in the different cases.
The introspection was developed partly through the help of questions
put by the experimenter, but in asking these questions great care was
taken to prevent their influencing the judgment of the subject. Some
observations made by the subjects during the second division of the
experiment (also conducted in connection with visual fields) are, also,
introduced here. Apart from this, the experiments on the feeling of
certainty connected with this sense of sight were greater in number
than the other experiments; and it is those that have given us most of
the data for answering the second and third problems.
The subjects did not agree in their answers to the first problem. Some
found not only that the certainty connected with their belief in the
results of their addition seemed to be of a distinct type from that
connected immediately with the sense of sight, but also that there
were different sorts of certainty connected immediately with the sense
of sight itself. Others found but one kind of a feeling of certainty.
All agreed, however, that so far as the kind or kinds of certainty
associated with them was concerned there was no difference between
the sense of sight and the dermal senses, so that it would seem to be
true that any distinctions which are to be found within the feeling
of certainty will not be distinctions springing from the difference
in the sense-organs. Within the sense of sight, however, subjects B,
E, and F divided their feelings of certainty into two classes,--an
absolute feeling of certainty which they felt could not be shaken,
and a feeling of confidence which they would act upon but which they
felt might be shaken by questioning, and which seemed different by
more than degree from the feeling of certainty proper. Subjects A,
C, K and H found no such marked distinction between their feeling of
greatest certainty and all lesser feelings of conviction. Subject D
at one time felt that the distinction into two such distinct classes,
the definitely certain and the more wavering, fitted his experience,
and at another time said that it seemed to him that each degree of
conviction stood for an unique feeling of certainty and that any two
of them were as different from each other as any other two. A second
division of the feelings of certainty into two classes is to be found
with subjects A, F and H. This developed in connection with the
visual experiments again. The distinction here may be called one into
psychological and logical certainty. The latter rests on reasoning
either from the probable character of the field, or from a feeling
as to its general character, to the nature of some detail. We shall
notice the characteristics of these two classes later. One subject, A,
further distinguished as different the feelings of certainty connected
with the two methods of logical certainty just given. The others made
no such distinctions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account