The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, and other essays in contemporary thoughtDewey, John
Philosophy
The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, and other essays in contemporary thought
Dewey, John
Evolution; Philosophy; Pragmatism
In the above discussion, I have unavoidably anticipated the second
problem: the relation of conceptual thought to perceptual data.
A distinct aspect still remains, however. Perception, as well as
apriority, is a term harboring a fundamental ambiguity. It may mean
(1) a distinct type of activity, predominantly practical in character,
though carrying at its heart important cognitive and esthetic
qualities; or (2) a distinctively cognitional experience, the function
of observation as explicitly logical--a factor in science _qua_ science.
In the first sense, as recent functional empiricism (working in
harmony with psychology, but not itself peculiarly psychological) has
abundantly shown, perception is primarily an act of adjustment of
organism and environment, differing from a mere reflex or instinctive
adaptation in that, in order to compensate for the failure of the
instinctive adjustment, it requires an objective or discriminative
presentation of conditions of action: the negative conditions or
obstacles, and the positive conditions or means and resources.[38]
This, of course, is its cognitive phase. In so far as the material
thus presented not only serves as a direct cue to further successful
activity (successful in the overcoming of obstacles to the maintenance
of the function entered upon) but presents auxiliary collateral
objects and qualities that give additional range and depth of meaning
to the activity of adjustment, perceiving is esthetic as well as
intellectual.[39]
Now such perception cannot be made antithetical to thought, for it may
itself be surcharged with any amount of imaginatively supplied and
reflectively sustained ideal factors--such as are needed to determine
and select relevant stimuli and to suggest and develop an appropriate
plan and course of behavior. The amount of such saturating intellectual
material depends upon the complexity and maturity of the behaving
agent. Such perception, moreover, is strictly teleological, since it
arises from an experienced need and functions to fulfil the purpose
indicated by this need. The cognitional content is, indeed, carried by
affectional and intentional contexts.
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