Abstract | Keywords | Export | Availability | Bookmark

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

"The general system of doctrine in the service of which both "The Human Mind" and "Mental Science" have been composed, might be styled Perceptionalism. For some such term may properly designate a form of philosophy which maintains, from an analytical and theoretical point of view, that mankind are not deluded in claiming that they perceive fact and truth, and that what they call their perceptions are true perceptions of those very things which they say that they perceive. The word "perception" is sometimes limited in its application: we now use it in its most unrestricted meaning. For we have perceptions of simple fact and perceptions of necessary relations; presentational perceptions and inferential perceptions; the perceptions of sense and of consciousness, and perceptions concomitant of these; the perceptions of the intuitive, and those of the discursive, reason: we perceive what is true actualistically and what is true hypothetically; we perceive the possible and the necessary, and the contingent and the probable. Our doctrine is that all these perceptions, when made by a sound mind and under proper conditions, are trustworthy; and our philosophy finds justification for this doctrine in the critical investigation of every mode of human cognition or conviction. Perceptionalism does not assert that the mind of man is infallible. On the contrary, recognizing the frequent recurrence of error, it seeks to understand the sources and laws of mistaken belief as well as those of correct belief. But it emphasizes the truth that man is capable of knowledge, or well-grounded certainty, about many things; and that where this is not attainable, he may often wisely form a judgment of probability"--

Perception.