Samuel Alexander Quotes

In the perception of a tree we can distinguish the act of experiencing, or perceiving, from the thing experienced, or perceived.

But though cognition is not an element of mental action, nor even in any real sense of the word an aspect of it, the distinction of cognition and conation has if properly defined a definite value.

Psychology is the science of the act of experiencing, and deals with the whole system of such acts as they make up mental life.

The interval between a cold expectation and a warm desire may be filled by expectations of varying degrees of warmth or by desires of varying degrees of coldness.

Curiosity begins as an act of tearing to pieces or analysis.

But unfortunately Locke treated ideas of reflection as if they were another class of objects of contemplation beside ideas of sensation.

It may be added, to prevent misunderstanding, that when I speak of contemplated objects in this last phrase as objects of contemplation, the act of contemplation itself is of course an enjoyment.

Both expectations and memories are more than mere images founded on previous experience.

An expectation is a future object, recognised as belonging to me.

The sensory acts are accordingly distinguished by their objects.

We cannot therefore say that mental acts contain a cognitive as well as a conative element.

The mental act of sensation which issues in reflex movement is so simple as to defy analysis.

Such being the nature of mental life, the business of psychology is primarily to describe in detail the various forms which attention or conation assumes upon the different levels of that life.

... when demand is being destroyed by expensive oil just as expensive oil is incentivising increased production - it should come as no surprise that at some point the markets would react.

Thus the same object may supply a practical perception to one person and a speculative one to another, or the same person may perceive it partly practically and partly speculatively.

The thing of which the act of perception is the perception is experienced as something not mental.

It is more difficult to designate this form of conation on its practical side by a satisfactory name.

For psychological purposes the most important differences in conation are those in virtue of which the object is revealed as sensed or perceived or imaged or remembered or thought.

An object is not first imagined or thought about and then expected or willed, but in being actively expected it is imagined as future and in being willed it is thought.

Mental life is indeed practical through and through. It begins in practice and it ends in practice.

It is convenient to distinguish the two kinds of experience which have thus been described, the experienc-ing and the experienc-ed, by technical words.

The perceptive act is a reaction of the mind upon the object of which it is the perception.

Time is the Mind of Space.