On Sameness and Identity: A Psychological Study: Being a Contribution to the Foundations of a Theory of Knowledge — John Shaqi
On Sameness and Identity: A Psychological Study: Being a Contribution to the Foundations of a Theory of KnowledgeFullerton, George Stuart
Philosophy
On Sameness and Identity: A Psychological Study: Being a Contribution to the Foundations of a Theory of Knowledge
Fullerton, George Stuart
Knowledge, Theory of
For the first point. What is in a man's mind when he is thinking of his
percept as having a "real" object corresponding to it, I have shown
to be as follows: He has in mind an immediate object and a duplicate
of this, not necessarily altogether like it, imagined as standing
in a causal relation to it and represented by it. When it occurs to
him that this imagined duplicate is itself an immediate object and
not the "real" one, he does as much for it, and provides it with a
similar duplicate. In every case, when he tries to think of an object
immediately perceived as having a "real" correlate, he simply furnishes
it with an imaginary double in this way. What else is he to do? He
is trying to think of two objects; the "real" object cannot, it is
said, be in the mind; he must then imagine it. If he is a Lockian he
will have in mind the immediate object and two imaginary ones, one
signifying the "real" object as a bundle of qualities, and the other, a
highly vague one, picturing the "substance."
Now, since this is all that can be before the man's mind, any kind of
sameness which concerns the percept and the "real" thing _must mean
to him some relation between the immediate object and the image or
images of which I have spoken_. When this is realized it is seen that
we have here not a new kind of sameness, a distinct experience, but a
kind already discussed. The relation between the immediate object and
the images described is simply that between representative and thing
represented. This I have already examined within the field of what
is recognized as immediately known. Here, too, it would seem that we
are in the field of the immediately known, since we have to do with
percepts and ideas, but though these images are in this field, they are
here, so to speak, under protest, and their framing is supposed to be
justified[18] only by something assumed to be not in this field. When
this something is thought of at all it is thought of in just the way
I have described. This is what thinking it means. Nevertheless, this
duplicate world is assumed to be a world apart, and for this reason I
have considered the sameness of percepts and their corresponding "real"
objects by itself. It gives us sameness in sense seventh.
[18] I have already pointed out the vagueness in this word.
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