Showing papers in "Psychological Review in 1903"

Review of Einleitung in die allegemeine theorie der mannigfaltigkeiten von Bewusstseinsinhalten.

Abstract: considerations. Its recognition of ' sub-conscious' as well as of ' conscious' sensations is mainly founded (p. 536, p. 540 seq.~) on Leibniz's law of continuity. Its conception of the complexity of sensations involves the doctrine — abundantly refuted by James, by Kiilpe and by many others — that psychical and physical complexity are completely parallel. Its treatment of ' affinity' —a conception covering what are generally known as association and apperception — is a mere restatement of the dogma of associationism. In more detail, the writers distinguish the ' internal' and the ' external' sensations as sub-classes of ' the conscious sensation or elementary psychical phenomenon'; and they enumerate (p. 537) a» the ' fundamental and irreducible characteristics' of all states of consciousness (1) intensity, (2) affectivity, (3) objectivation, and (4) affinity. It is obvious that these characteristics are utterly heterogeneous. ' Intensity,' moreover, is treated not only in its ordinary meaning of sense-intensity, but also as ' personal intensity,' to include both attention and memory. It is certainly confusing to use the word in both these senses; and, furthermore, the conception of ' personal intensity' is far from clear. There is, of course, a significance to one school of psychologists, in the description of attention and memory as peculiarly personal sorts of consciousness, but Toulouse and his colleagues define personality as ' complete synthesis' or aggregation of ideas, and from this point of view memory seems no more • personal' than perception. Opinions may differ on the value of the classification proposed, but it can not seriously be maintained that it offers any new or any consistent principle of division; and it is inconceivable that experimental psychology should be in any special manner the gainer from it.