The Monist, Vol. 1, 1890-1891 : $b A quarterly magazineVarious
Philosophy
The Monist, Vol. 1, 1890-1891 : $b A quarterly magazine
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
Prof. Robertson draws attention to the concessions involved in
Münsterberg's idea of 'Muscular Sense.' To the term 'muscle-sensation'
no exception can be taken, "provided it is meant for no more than
mere external designation, as when we speak of 'eye-sensation,'
'skin-sensation,' or the like," and is not called 'sensation of
movement.' Münsterberg finds that a whole class of factors have
been overlooked, or hardly regarded, by previous inquirers into
'Time-Sense.' These are sensations (or representations) of muscular
tension, by synthesis of which with sense-elements (sounds by
preference) time-apprehension is explicable. He is struck particularly
with the part played in his experiments by the breath-rhythm, and
"it seems impossible to doubt that breathing has a prerogative
position among the sense-factors concerned in the estimation of short
time-intervals." The name 'Time-Sense' has through Münsterberg's
investigations "more justification than it ever got from its
inventors, for whom it has marked only the apparent immediacy of
time-apprehension."
In his criticism of Mr. Spencer's theory of the derivation of
space Prof. John Watson lays down as the fundamental position of
Transcendentalism, or Idealism, as he prefers to call it, "that the
universe is intelligible, and that man in virtue of his intelligence is
capable of grasping it in its essential nature. It therefore rejects
as unmeaning the doctrine of Mr. Spencer, that we know reality to be
unknowable." While recognising that Mr. Spencer and others have done
good service in drawing attention to certain outward aspects of the
evolution of mind, Professor Watson "concludes that no psychology
can be adequate which does not recognise that perception is not the
mere occurrence of transient feelings, but the first step in that
recognition of the true nature of reality which culminates in the
comprehension of the world as a single organic unity of which the
source and explanation is intelligence."
Mr. Stout points out, in reply to Dr. Pikler (_Mind_, No. 59), that the
sole aim of his article on "The Genesis of the Cognition of Physical
Reality" (_Mind_, No. 57) was to trace "the genesis of the presentation
of physical reality as it appears to the ordinary consciousness: not as
it may be modified, and perhaps rectified, by the reflective criticism
of this or that philosopher," and that what he urged against Mill was
simply that "he has confounded his own philosophical view of physical
reality with the view which men ordinarily take when they are not in a
philosophical mood."
It is shown by Mr. Sutherland that in the utilitarian ultimate
conception there is, in addition to "the greatest happiness, _plus_ an
arithmetical truth," the element of absolute justice, the existence of
which requires that "all subsidiary rights as means to greatest general
happiness should at utmost be classed under relative justice." (London:
Williams & Norgate.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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