I do not myself believe that the analysis of knowledge can be effected
entirely by means of purely external observation, such as behaviourists
employ. I shall discuss this question in later lectures. In the present
lecture I shall attempt the analysis of memory-knowledge, both as an
introduction to the problem of knowledge in general, and because memory,
in some form, is presupposed in almost all other knowledge. Sensation,
we decided, is not a form of knowledge. It might, however, have
been expected that we should begin our discussion of knowledge with
PERCEPTION, i.e. with that integral experience of things in the
environment, out of which sensation is extracted by psychological
analysis. What is called perception differs from sensation by the fact
that the sensational ingredients bring up habitual associates--images
and expectations of their usual correlates--all of which are
subjectively indistinguishable from the sensation. The FACT of past
experience is essential in producing this filling-out of sensation, but
not the RECOLLECTION of past experience. The non-sensational elements in
perception can be wholly explained as the result of habit, produced
by frequent correlations. Perception, according to our definition in
Lecture VII, is no more a form of knowledge than sensation is, except
in so far as it involves expectations. The purely psychological problems
which it raises are not very difficult, though they have sometimes been
rendered artificially obscure by unwillingness to admit the fallibility
of the non-sensational elements of perception. On the other hand, memory
raises many difficult and very important problems, which it is necessary
to consider at the first possible moment.
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