Salta il testo dell’articolo
[ 383 ] It must be admitted that some little time will often elapse before this effort succeeds . As a child , I slept in a nursery with a very loud - ticking clock , and remember my astonishment more than once , on listening for its tick , to find myself unable to catch it for what seemed a long space of time ; then suddenly it would break into my consciousness with an almost startling loudness . — M . Delbœuf somewhere narrates how , sleeping in the country near a mill - dam , he woke in the night and thought the water had ceased to flow , but on looking out of the open window saw it flowing in the moonlight , and then heard it too . [ 384 ] Zur Theorie d . sinnl . Aufmerksamkeit , p . 128 foll . [ 385 ] I have begun to inquire experimentally whether any of the measurable functions of the workmen change after the din of machinery stops at a workshop . So far I have found no constant results as regards either pulse , breathing , or strength of squeeze by the hand . I hope to prosecute the inquiry farther ( May , 1890 ) . [ Pg 459 ] CHAPTER XII . CONCEPTION . THE SENSE OF SAMENESS . In Chapter VIII , p . 221 , the distinction was drawn between two kinds of knowledge of things , bare acquaintance with them and knowledge about them . The possibility of two such knowledges depends on a fundamental psychical peculiarity which may be entitled " the principle of constancy in the mind's meanings " and which may be thus expressed : " The same matters can be thought of in successive portions of the mental stream , and some of these portions can know that they mean the same matters which the other portions meant . " One might put it otherwise by saying that " the mind can always intend , and know when it intends , to think of the Same . " This sense of sameness is the very keel and backbone of our thinking . We saw in Chapter X how the consciousness of personal identity reposed on it , the present thought finding in its memories a warmth and intimacy which it recognizes as the same warmth and intimacy it now feels . This sense of identity of the knowing subject is held by some philosophers to be the only vehicle by which the world hangs together . It seems hardly necessary to say that a sense of identity of the known object would perform exactly the same unifying function , even if the sense of subjective identity were lost . And without the intention to think of the same outer things over and over again , and the sense that we were doing so , our sense of our own personal sameness would carry us but a little way towards making a universe of our experience . Note , however , that we are in the first instance speaking of the sense of sameness from the point of view of the mind's structure alone , and not from the point of view of the universe . We are psychologizing , not philosophizing , [ Pg 460 ] That is , we do not care whether there be any real sameness in things or not , or whether the mind be true or false in its assumptions of it .
Indietro Pagina 361 di 554 Pagina 361 di 554 Avanti Continua a leggere con le traduzioni Crea un account gratuito: 7 giorni di Pro, poi 20 traduzioni di parole al giorno oppure un piano a pagamento.
