Sensation, perception, conception

pp. 24-46

in: Richard Cobb-Stevens, James and Husserl, Berlin, Springer, 1974

Abstract

According to William James, all of our knowledge of the world, whether it be governed by the categories of common sense or influenced by scientific models, is creative. In the natural attitude of daily life, the "permanent and stable thing" would seem to be a solid and already present fact which awaits a passive recording by our consciousness. But James insists that the thing is rather a highly complicated construct, an interpretation which the selective activity of our consciousness imposes upon the data of the stream of experience. Physical objects, posited as a means of organizing the flow of data in a coherent manner, are situated within a horizon or backdrop of a gradually expanding world of interest which we call reality. The formation of this sphere of a coordinated and structured universe is the final product of an elaborate process of selective interpretation of the passively pre-given elements of the stream of consciousness. All the data of consciousness are interpreted and structured according to the criteria of our pragmatic interest. Hence, it is important to trace in detail each step in James's process of the constitution of a meaningful world. In this chapter, we shall analyse the functions of sensation, perception and conception as different moments in this process of the constitution of meaning.