Certain American psychologists employ the term _imageless thought_
to designate abstract concepts. The expression is liable to be
misunderstood. It should not be construed as excluding all concomitance
and concurrence of sensible imagery, in relation to the process of
thought. What is really meant is that sensible appearances do not make
up the sum-total of our internal experiences, but that we are also
aware of mental acts and states which are not reducible to imagery.
In other words, we experience thought; and thought and imagery,
though concomitant, are not commensurable. The clarity and coherence
of thought does not depend on the clarity or germaneness of the
accompanying imagery, nor is it ever adequately translatable into terms
of that imagery. Thus the universal triangle of geometry, which is not
right, nor oblique, nor isosceles, neither scalene nor equilateral,
neither large nor small, neither here nor there, neither now nor then,
is not visualizable in terms of concrete imagery, although we are
clearly conscious of its significance in geometrical demonstrations.
Imagery differs according to the person, one man being a visualist,
another an audist, another a tactualist, another a motor-verbalist,
etc. But thought is the same in all, and consequently it is thought,
and not imagery, which we convey by means of speech. Helen Keller,
whose imagery is mainly motor and tactile, can exchange views with an
audist or visualist on the subject of geometry, even though the amount
of imagery which she has in common with such persons is negligible.
“_Eine Bedeutung_,” says Bühler, “_kann man überhaupt nicht vorstellen,
sondern nur wissen_,” and Binet, in the last sentence of his “L’Étude
expérimentale de l’intelligence,” formulates the following conclusion:
“Finally—and this is the main fact, fruitful in consequences for the
philosophers—the entire logic of thought escapes our imagery.”
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