Origin of Organization

Gurwitsch*, Aron

doi:10.1007/978-90-481-3346-8_3

Aron Gurwitsch*³

Part of the book series: Phaenomenologica ((PHAE,volume 194))

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Abstract

Above we mentioned James’s distinction between “focus” and “margin.” If there is a certain organization in the “field of consciousness,” it must not, according to James, be considered as a primary, original, and authentic feature of experience. Whatever organization exists in conscious life is bestowed and superimposed on it from without. James abided by this tenet throughout all stages of his development.

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Notes

1.
Cf. James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, pp. 161 ff.
2.
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 196 ff.
3.
Cf. ibid., vol. 1, p. 162 note and p. 521 note.
4.
Ibid., vol. 1, p. 278 f.
5.
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 277 ff.; see also p. 405; also “On Some Omissions of Introspective Psychology,” pp. 7 and 10 ff. Later James withdrew from this radical thesis; cf. “The Knowing of Things Together,” Psychological Review, vol. 2, 1895, p. 123 f.
6.
James, Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, pp. 487 ff.; see also J. Ward, Psychological Principles, Chapter 4, Section 2 (Cambridge, 1918).
7.
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 495 ff.
8.
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 402 ff.
9.
Cf. Ralph Perry, Present Philosophical Tendencies, Appendix 2.
10.
James, The Principles of Psychology, Chapter 9, Section 5.
11.
Ibid., vol. 1, p. 288.
12.
James, A Pluralistic Universe, pp. 282 ff. and p. 288. “My present field of consciousness is a center surrounded by a fringe that shades insensibly into a subconscious more.” Hereby James does not mean to delimit from each other distinct and definite domains. “I used three separate terms here to describe this fact; but I might as well use three hundred, for the fact is all shades and no boundaries.” See also Some Problem of Philosophy, pp. 49 ff.
13.
Ibid., p. 235; also Some Problems of Philosophy, pp. 48 and 50.
14.
Cf. Ibid., pp. 253 ff. and 285.
15.
Ibid., pp. 244 ff.; also Some Problems of Philosophy, pp. 48, 63 ff., and 79 f.
16.
James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, pp. 403 ff.
17.
Supra, p. 20.
18.
Cf. James, Essays in Radical Empiricism, pp. 93 ff.
19.
In his last, posthumous work, Some Problems of Philosophy, James shows himself fully aware of what conception may, and does, achieve. Conception creates different “universes of thought,” autonomous in the sense that systems of eternal truth are valid for them, regardless of all changes in the experiential stream (cf. pp. 51 ff. and 63 ff.). These creations of conception must be recognized as “realms of reality.” James goes as far as trying to reconcile “logical realism” with his empiricistic trend of thought (pp. 101 ff.). In our life, as it has actually grown and developed, the contributions of conception are entangled in the experiential stream (pp. 107 ff.).
20.
Part II, Chapter II, Section IIId.
21.
James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, pp. 502 ff.; see also pp. 438 ff.
22.
Cf. ibid., Part 2, Chapter II, Section IIIc.
23.
Kurt Koffka, The Growth of the Mind (New York, 1924), Chapter 4, Section 2 ff.
24.
Wolfgang Köhler, Gestalt Psychology (New York, 1929), pp. 150 ff., 208 ff., also pp. 274 and 299 f.
25.
M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la Perception (Paris, 1945), pp. 23 ff. rightly remarks that for the appropriate memories to be evoked, the sense-data as given in immediate experience must exhibit certain organizational features and aspects. Thus, and only thus, is the evocation of memories rendered possible and, at once, superfluous, as far as segregation and organization is concerned.
26.
James severely and sometimes ironically criticizes the view that mere Accumulation of passive experiences is efficacious (Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, pp. 403 and 507).
27.
Berger also refers organization, delimitation of form, etc., to the experiencing subject: “je ne puis penser à droite sans la tracer idéalement, au cercle sans le décrire, à la sphère sans la delimiter dans l’espace à trois dimensions par un geste de mes mains.” Recherches sur les Conditions de la Connaissance, pp. 51 ff.). Berger’s view, however, is not open to the criticism advanced in the text, because according to this author, the subject does not by his activity create the forms, but rather renders explicit an organization which, in an implicit and inarticulate manner, somehow preexists the activity in question. Correspondingly, the same holds for Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of the perception of perspective drawings (loc. cit., pp. 303 ff.).
28.
Jean Piaget, La Naissance de l’Intelligence chez l’Enfant (Neuchâtel and Paris, 1936), conclusion 5 and La Construction de Réel chez l’Enfant (Neuchâtel and Paris, 1937), conclusion 1.
29.
Piaget, La Naissance de l’Intelligence chez l’Enfant, pp. 131 ff.
30.
Ibid., p. 84, “... every assimilatory schema tends to conquer the whole universe, including the realms assimilable by means of other schemata.”
31.
Ibid., p. 149. With reference to a rather early stage of the development of the child, Piaget writes “... les objets nouveaux qui se présentant à la conscience, n’ont pas des qualities propres et isolables. Ou bien ils sont d’emblée assimilés à tel scheme dèjà existent: chose à sucer, à regarder, à saisir, etc. Ou bien ils sont vagues, nébuleux, parce qu’inassimilables, et alors ils créent un malaise d’où sortira tôt ou tard une differentiation nouvelle des schemes d’assimilation.”
32.
Cf. ibid., pp. 188, 241 ff., and 262.
33.
Piaget, La Naissance de l’Intelligence chez l’Enfant, p. 282.
34.
Ibid., p. 143.
35.
Ibid., pp. 195 ff.
36.
Wolfgang Köhler, Intelligenzprüfungen an Menschenhaffen (Berlin, 1921), p. 26 f.
37.
Cf. Piaget, La Naissance de l’Intelligence chez l’Enfant, Chapter 2, for his analysis of the formation of intersensory coordination, as to assimilation and accommodation of the “schemes” to each other.
38.
Kurt Koffka, Principles of Gestalt Psychology, pp. 392 ff.
39.
Cf. Piaget, La Naissance, pp. 190 ff. on “assimilation récognitive,” as to the virtual reenactment of a “schème.”
40.
Part II, Section 3b.
41.
Piaget, La Naissance, p. 393.
42.
Ibid., pp. 194 ff.
43.
In Introduction à l’Epistémologie Génétique (Paris, 1950) vol. 1 pp. 181 ff., Piaget speaks with regard to perception, especially spatial perception, of an “indice” rather than “significant.” The difference between a “significant” (for example, a sign or image symbolizing a concept) and an “indice” is explained as follows: “... le signifiant est differencié en tant que tel, et constitue ainsi un symbole, tandis que, dans le cas de la perception, l’élément perceptif est moins differencié de l’élément moteur et appartient au même schème de l’objet perceptible et utilisable... l’indice étant à définir comme un signifiant relativement indifferencié, parce que correspondant à un simple aspect de l’objet signifié et constituant sans plus une partie du schème de cet objet.” Cf. also infra p. 255, note 103.
44.
Piaget, Introduction à l’Epistémologie Génétique, vol. 1 pp. 181 ff. explicitly denies any essential difference between the perception of functional characters and of spatial forms.
45.
Cf. Part II, Chapter I, Section 1 as to the “constancy-hypothesis” and its abandonment by Gestalt theory.
46.
Cf. Köhler, Gestalt Psychology, Chapter 3 as to the “meaning theory” of perception. For reasons which seem plausible to us, Koffka (Principles of Gestalt Psychology, p. 86) has suggested the term of “interpretation” rather than “meaning” theory.
47.
The passage to which our critical discussion refers occupies, in fact, a rather isolated position in the whole of the two cited books.
48.
Piaget, La Naissance, pp. 380 ff.
49.
Ibid., p. 381.
50.
Ibid., pp. 383 ff.
51.
Cf. ibid., pp. 290 ff.
52.
Cf. ibid., pp. 334 ff.
53.
Ibid., pp. 383 ff.
54.
Cf. pp. 31 ff.
55.
Cf. Part II, Chapter I, Sections IIIa and IIIb.
56.
Koffka, Principles of Gestalt Psychology, pp. 628 ff.
57.
Cf. Piaget, La Naissance, pp. 299 ff. and 334 f. for his observations concerning this acquisition.
58.
Cf. Piaget, La Construction du Réel Chez l’Enfant, pp. 177 ff. Piaget gives a highly instructive analysis of the relation between two objects, of which the one is put on top of the other. This relation is unintelligible to, and does not exist for, the child, as long as the perceived objects are experienced as essentially integrated into a context of action which essentially refers to the proper activity of the subject. Along with the emancipation of the perceived objects from the reference to the activity of the subject, the mentioned relation becomes intelligible, since henceforth, objects may stand in spatial relations to each other, independently of the proper action of the subject, The emancipation in question which concerns spatial relationships (ibid., Chapter 2, Sections 3 and 4), the concept of object (ibid., Chapter 1, Sections 3 and 4), and also that of causality (ibid., Chapter 3, Sections 3 and 4), purports a thoroughgoing restructuration and complete transformation of the very “world” in which the child lives.
59.
Cf. Part II, Chapter I, IIIa and IIIb for the Gestalt theoretical account of past experience as a condition of present experience.
60.
Piaget, La Naissance, pp. 385.
61.
Ibid., p. 391, “... les schèmes nous sont constamment apparus, non commes des entités autonomes, mais comme les produits d’une activité continue qui leur est immanente et dont ils constituent les moments successifs de cristallisation. Cette activité ... ne fait qu’un avec les schèmes eux-mêmes ... mais ... les schèmes se détachent peu à peu de l’activité organisatrice qui les a engendrés et avec laquelle ils se sont confondus au moment de leur formation.”
62.
Ibid., p. 392. “Le fait premier est ... l’activité assimilatrice elle-même sans laquelle aucune accommodation n’est possible, et c’est l’action contiltuée de l’assimilation et de l’accomodation qui rend compte de l’existence des schèmes et par conséquent de leur organisation.”
63.
Cf. ibid., pp. 314 ff., 380, 389 ff., and 393 ff.
64.
Piaget, La Naissance, pp. 380 ff.
65.
Ibid., p. 395, “... les perceptions de structure achevée constituent le point d’aboutissement d’élaborations complexes, dans lesquetles interviennent l’experiénce, et l’activité intellectuelle ....” Cf. also p. 305, “... l’essentiel apparait comme étant, non pas la structure à laquelle aboutit cette accomodation, mais l’activité structurante qui permet son aboutissement.”
66.
Ibid., p. 390.
67.
Ibid., p. 393.
68.
In Introduction à l’Epistémologie Génétique, vol. 1, p. 183, Piaget contrasts the “schema” which is transformed in the course of mental development with “simple perception.” Since simple perceptions do not undergo such transformations, we may conclude that, according to Piaget, they depend upon the stimuli only.
69.
Supra, pp. 39 ff.
70.
Part II, Chapter I, Section I, below.
71.
Cf. Ralph B. Perry, The Thought and Character of William James, vol. 2 (Boston, 1935), pp. 586 and 590.
72.
We have shown in our article “William James’s Theory of the ‘Transitive Parts’ of the Stream of Consciousness,” Section 2, loc. cit., that on the grounds of Hume’s conception of consciousness the experience of temporality cannot be accounted for; in SPP, Chapter XII.
73.
Compare the passages of James to this effect which we have quoted above, (pp. 25 ff.).
74.
This is the principle of the psycho-physiological isomorphism; cf. Köhler, Gestalt Psychology, pp. 58 ff. and Koffka, Principles of Gestalt Psychology, pp. 56 ff. Stout’s formulation of the principle of isomorphism deserves particular interest. Concerning the physiological correlate of the process of attention, Stout writes, referring to ideas of Hughlings Jackson: “The nervous correlate of the attention is not to be found in the excitation of this or that portion of nervous matter, but in a certain complex form of nervous process” (Analytic Psychology, vol. 1, p. 201). To account for the physiological aspect of attention, we have to find “... a nervous arrangement which shall make possible a complex systematization of nervous excitation corresponding to the complex systematization of mental activity which is the essence of the attention-process.” (ibid., vol. I, p. 198).
75.
Cf. George F. Stout, A Manual of Psychology (4th ed., London, 1929), p. 431.
76.
Cf. Köhler, loc. cit., Chapter 4 and Koffka, loc. cit., Chapter 4 as to the mentioned problems.
77.
Cf. Part I, Chapter 1, Section 1.
78.
It goes without saying that the formal isomorphism which is meant here has nothing to do with the psycho-physiological isomorphism previously mentioned (p. 52, note 74).

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Aron Gurwitsch*

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Gurwitsch*, A. (2010). Origin of Organization. In: Zaner, R. (eds) The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch (1901-1973). Phaenomenologica, vol 194. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3346-8_3

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3346-8_3
Published: 31 January 2010
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