But now, besides these kinds of "things," "objects," or "contents,"
which we perceive, as we say, "by the senses," there is also another
kind which we can be said to observe. Not only can I observe a red and
blue book side by side; I can also observe myself observing them. I can
perceive a red patch moving towards a white, and I can also perceive my
perception of this movement. And what I wish to make as plain as I can
is that my perception of the movement of a coloured patch can at least
be distinguished from that movement itself. I wish to make it plain
that to observe a coloured patch moving is to observe one thing; and
to observe myself observing a coloured patch moving is another. When
I observe my own perception of a movement, I observe something _more_
than when I merely observe the movement, and something very different
from the movement. I may perceive a red and a blue book side by side on
a shelf; and at another time I may perceive a red ball moving towards a
white. The red and blue patch, of one shape, at rest side by side, are
different from the red, of another shape, moving towards the white; and
yet, when I say that both are "perceived," I mean by "perceived" one
and the same thing. And since, thus, two different things may both be
perceived, there must also be some difference between each of them and
what is meant by saying that it is perceived. Indeed, in precisely the
same way In which I may observe a spatial relation between a red patch
and a blue (when I observe them "side by side") I do, when I observe my
own perception of them, observe a spatial relation between it and them.
I observe a distance between my perception and the red and blue books
which I perceive, comparable in magnitude with the breadth or height
of the blue book, just as these are comparable in magnitude with one
another. And when I say I observe a distance between my perception
of a red book and that red book itself, I do not mean that I observe
a distance between my eyes, or any other part of what I call my body,
and the red patch in question. I am talking not of my eyes, but of my
actual perception. I observe my perception of a book to be near the
book and further from the table, in exactly the same sense in which I
observe the book to be near the shelf on which it stands, and further
from the table. And just as, if the distance between a red patch and
a white is to be perceived, the red patch must be different from the
white, so, if I perceive a certain distance between my perception and
the red patch, my perception must be different from the red patch which
I perceive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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