Samuel Alexander Quotes

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Samuel Alexander

Profession : Philosopher

Birth : January 6, 1859

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.

Samuel Alexander

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

Samuel Alexander

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

Samuel Alexander

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

Samuel Alexander

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

Samuel Alexander

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

Samuel Alexander

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.

Samuel Alexander

What is the meaning of the togetherness of the perceiving mind, in that peculiar modification of perceiving which makes it perceive not a star but a tree, and the tree itself, is a problem for philosophy.

Samuel Alexander

The sensory acts are accordingly distinguished by their objects.

Samuel Alexander

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.

Samuel Alexander

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

Samuel Alexander

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.

Samuel Alexander

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.

Samuel Alexander

Desire then is the invasion of the whole self by the wish, which, as it invades, sets going more and more of the psychical processes; but at the same time, so long as it remains desire, does not succeed in getting possession of the self.

Samuel Alexander

Hence, in desiring, the more the enjoyment is delayed, the more fancy begins to weave about the object images of future fruition, and to clothe the desired object with properties calculated to inflame the impulse.

Samuel Alexander

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

Samuel Alexander

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

Samuel Alexander

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

Samuel Alexander

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.

Samuel Alexander

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.

Samuel Alexander