The distinction in logical theory between "image" and "idea" which we
have been considering is only a half-truth from the point of view of
psychology. It virtually limits the "idea" to a fixed, unalterable
reference of a fragment of a desiccated image to a reality beyond. It
indifferently loses the play and richness of imagery to the floating
remnants of sense-content, or to an external reality. It limits itself
to an examination of a final stage in thinking, a stage in which the
image acts as a direct stimulus, a stage in which the sense-content of
the image has little or no function _per se_, because this content now
initiates directly a habitual adjustment, a worked-out and established
adaptation of means to end. It overlooks the process of conscious
reflection which logically precedes every such adjustment not purely
instinctive or accidental, a process in which imagery as
representational functions indirectly in bringing the resources of past
experience, the fund of acquired habits, to bear upon the fragmentary
and problematic elements of sense-experience actually present, thus
maintaining the flow and continuity of experience. It fails to recognize
that in the inseparable association of meaning with quality, of "idea"
with "image," there goes the possibility of working out and applying
new meanings from old, of developing deeper meanings, of testing and
affirming more inclusive and universal meaning.
We are confronted with this alternative. Either the image has a logical
function in virtue of its sense-content, or else the image functions
logically merely as a symbol, the sense-content of which is a matter of
complete logical indifference. According to the empiricist, the former
is the case, according to the conceptualist, the latter. The empiricist
would say that he needs the image to piece out the data upon which
logical processes operate. Having met this need, the image is retired
from active service. For the empiricist the processes of thought,
observing, comparing, generalizing, etc., are as independent of the data
they use as, for the conceptualist, logical meaning, reference, and
"idea" are independent of the sense-content of the "image." In reality
he agrees with the conceptualist in excluding the sense-content of the
image from the processes of thought, and hence from the domain of logic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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