Samuel Alexander Quotes

You can mark in desire the rising of the tide, as the appetite more and more invades the personality, appealing, as it does, not merely to the sensory side of the self, but to its ideal components as well.

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.

When we come to images or memories or thoughts, speculation, while always closely related to practice, is more explicit, and it is in fact not immediately obvious that such processes can be described in any sense as practical.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

The sensory acts are accordingly distinguished by their objects.

Time is the Mind of Space.

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

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

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.