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Grouping and Organization of Sense-Data

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The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch (1901-1973)

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

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Abstract

In our analysis of the theme, we begin with complex themes which contain a plurality of data such as a sequence of musical notes which form a melody. Later, 1 we will consider the organizational structure exhibited by “simple” cases, for example, a musical note sounding for some time, in which the theme consists of a single datum emerging from a background. In order to present our analyses in their historical context, we will first examine, some theories which account for the phenomena under discussion on the basis of the conception of sense-data as primary contents of consciousness.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cf. infra, pp. 109 f.

  2. 2.

    Christian von Ehrenfels, “Über ‘Gestalt-qualitäten,’” Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie, vol. 14, 1890, pp. 259 ff.

  3. 3.

    Ibid., p. 262.

  4. 4.

    Ibid., p. 264.

  5. 5.

    Ibid., pp. 262 ff.

  6. 6.

    von Ehrenfels, “Über ‘Gestaltqualitäten,’” p. 256, “... ein gleichsam über jenem Complexe schwebendes neues Element...”

  7. 7.

    Ibid., pp. 285 and 287. See also Ernst Mach, Die Analyse der Empfindungen, pp. 87 ff. and 232 ff. to whom von Ehrenfels, as he recognizes (loc. cit., pp. 249 ff.), is indebted for suggestions for his discovery.

  8. 8.

    von Ehrenfels, loc. cit., pp. 285 ff.

  9. 9.

    Cf. ibid., e.g., pp. 252, 254, 255.

  10. 10.

    Cf. Meinong’s editorial preface to Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie (Leipzig, 1904), pp. vii ff.

  11. 11.

    Meinong’s “Gegenstandstheorie” has been expounded and critically discussed by J. N. Findlay, Meinong’s Theory of Objects (London, 1933); see also A. L. Michaelis, “The Conception of Possibility in Meinong’s ‘Gegenstandstheorie,’” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 2, 1942.

  12. 12.

    Alexius Meinong, “Zur Psychologie der Komplexionen und Relationen,” Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, vol. 2, 1891.

  13. 13.

    Ibid., pp. 251 ff. and “Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren Verhältnis zur inneren Wahrnehmung,” Sections 3 and 4, Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, vol. 21, 1899.

  14. 14.

    According to Meinong (ibid., p. 189), the dependence of both complexes and relations upon underlying data is of a more intrinsic and, so to speak, more significant kind than the mutual dependence upon each other of color and extension. True, no color can be perceived unless in connection with a factor of extension, and conversely. Though the latter dependence may well be grounded in the nature of color and extension, it nonetheless appears as rather extrinsic, since the thought of “blue” or “yellow” in no way implies the thought of spatiality, whereas it is quite impossible to conceive of a relation except with reference to objects between which this relation obtains.

  15. 15.

    Ibid., pp. 202 ff.; cf. Findlay, loc. cit., pp. 129 ff.

  16. 16.

    Meinong. “Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren Verhältnis zur inneren Wahrnehmung,” p. 192, loc. cit.

  17. 17.

    Ibid., pp. 202 ff.

  18. 18.

    Cf. infra, pp. 64 ff.

  19. 19.

    Meinong, “Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren Verhältnis zur inneren Wahrnehmung.” I, Section 5. loc. cit.

  20. 20.

    Cf. ibid., pp. 235 ff.; St. Witasek, Grundlinien der Psychologie, pp. 230 ff. (Leipzig, 1908). James has developed arguments along similar lines to the effect that “idea of a + idea of b is not identical with idea of (a + b)” (The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, p. 161); that “swarms of copies of the same ‘idea’” are not “the same thing as a thought of all the possible members of a class” (ibid., vol. 1, p. 447). See also ibid., vol. 1, pp. 498 ff. as to the experience of difference; pp. 628 ff., A succession of feelings, in and of itself, is not a feeling of succession; p. 196 on the difference between “the thought of the object’s recurrent identity” and the “identity of its recurrent thought” and that between “the perception of multiplicity, of coexistence, of succession.” on the one hand and that of “a multiplicity, a coexistence, a succession of perceptions,” on the other. See furthermore J. Ward, Psychological Principles, pp. 86 ff., “... a difference between presentations is not at all the same thing as the presentation of that difference as such.”

  21. 21.

    Cf. Findlay, loc. cit., pp. 95 and 138 ff.

  22. 22.

    Meinong, “Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren Verhältnis zur inneren Wahrnehmung,” I, Section 6, loc. cit.

  23. 23.

    As to the distinction between “existence” (Dasein) and “subsistence” (Bestand ), cf. Meinong, “Über Gegenstandstheorie,” pp. 5 ff. and 24 f., Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie (ed. by Meinong, Leipzig, 1904) and Über Annahmen, Section 11 ff. (2nd. ed., Leipzig, 1910); see also R. Ameseder, “Beiträge zur Grundlegung der Gegenstandstheorie,” Section 14 (both in Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie) and Findlay, loc. cit., Chapter 5, Section 1 ; E. Mally, “Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie des Messens,” Sections 5 and 10.

  24. 24.

    Cf. Witasek, loc. cit.. pp. 232 ff. and 295 f.

  25. 25.

    Meinong, “Zur Psychologie der Komplexionen und Relationen,” loc. cit., pp. 260 ff.

  26. 26.

    Meinong, “Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren Verhältnis zur inneren Wahrnehmung,” loc. cit. pp. 191 ff.

  27. 27.

    This concept of Husserl will be mentioned later (pp. 68 ff.).

  28. 28.

    Cf. Witasek, “Beiträge zur Psychologie der Komplexionen,” pp. 407 ff., Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, vol. 14, 1897; and Grundlinien der Psychologie, pp. 226 ff.

  29. 29.

    V. Benussi, “Experimentelles über Vorstellungsinadäquatheit,” II, Section 3a, Zeitschrift für Psychologie, vol. 45, 1907.

  30. 30.

    Benussi, “Zur Psychologie des Gestalterfassens,” pp. 308 ff., Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie, ed. by A. Meinong (Leipzig, 1904).

  31. 31.

    Benussi, “Experimentelles über Vorstellungsinadäquatheit,” II, p. 192, loc. cit.

  32. 32.

    V. Benussi, “Zur Psychologie des Gestalterfassens,” loc. cit., pp. 382 ff.; “Über die Grundlagen des Gewichtseindrucks,” pp. 91 ff., Archiv für die Gesamte Psychologie, vol. 17, 1910; “Über die Motive der Scheinkörperlichkeit bei umkehrbaren Zeichnungen,” pp. 390 ff., Archiv für die Gesamte Psychologie, vol. 20, 1911.

  33. 33.

    Benussi, Psychologie der Zeitauffassung, pp. 253 ff. (Heidelberg, 1913). The psychological nature of these factors does not preclude the eventual existence of a cerebral physiological substratum of presentations of extrasensuous provenience (Cf. Benussi, “Experimentelles über Vorstellungsinadäquatheit,” II, p. 217, loc. cit.). The difference in kind between such eventual physiological processes and those which underlie simple sensations consists in that the former depend exclusively upon central conditions, whereas the latter originate peripherally, idem, “Über den Einfluss der Farbe auf die Grosse der Zöllnerschen Täuschung,” p. 386, Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, vol. 29, 1902.

  34. 34.

    The term “production” was suggested by R. Ameseder, “Über Vorstellungsproduktion,” p. 488. Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie. Meinong (Über Annahmen, pp. 8 ff., 1st ed., Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, supplementary vol. 2, 1902) adapted the term and so did Benussi. For the sake of convenience of exposition, Benussi later emphasizes the psychological rather than philosophical aspect of the problem, i.e., the absence of stimuli for, rather than the ideal status of, “Gestalten” and, therefore, preferred the term “presentation of extrasensuous provenience” to “production”; cf. Benussi, “Gesetze der inadäquaten Gestaltauffassung,” pp. 400 ff.; Archiv für die Gesamte Psychologie, vol. 32, 1914.

  35. 35.

    Cf. infra, pp. 86 ff.

  36. 36.

    Cf. Benussi, “Über den Einfluss der Farbe auf die Grösse der Zöllnerschen Täuschung,” pp. 288 and 387, loc. cit.; “Die Gestaltwahrnehmungen,” p. 270, Zeitschrift für Psychologie, vol. 69, 1914; “Gesetze der inadäquaten Gestaltauffassung,” p. 407, loc. cit.; see also Witasek, “Beiträge zur Psychologie der Komplexionen,” pp. 419 ff., loc. cit.

  37. 37.

    Supra, pp. 58 ff.

  38. 38.

    Cf. Witasek, Psychologie der Raumwahrnehmung des Auges (Heidelberg, 1910), p. 305.

  39. 39.

    Meinong, “Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren Verhältnis zur inneren Wahrnehmung,” loc. cit., p. 204.

  40. 40.

    Witasek, “Beiträge zur Psychologie der Komplexionen,” loc. cit., pp. 412 ff.

  41. 41.

    Witasek, Psychologie der Raumwahrnehmung des Auges, pp. 296 ff. For further examples, cf. Benussi, “Über die Motive der Scheinkörperlichkeit bei umkehrbaren Zeichnungen,” loc. cit. pp. 391 ff.

  42. 42.

    The constancy of the sensations on account of the constancy of the stimuli (the “constancy-hypothesis”) is emphasized by both Witasek (Psychologie der Raumwahrnehmung des Auges, p. 304) and Benussi, “Experimentelles über Vorstellungsinadäquatheit,” I, p. 34, Zeitschrift für Psychologie, vol. 42, 1906, and “Experimentelles über Vorstellungsinadäquatheit,” II, pp. 188 and 216, loc. cit.

  43. 43.

    Benussi, “Experimentelles über Vorstellungsinadäquatheit,” I, pp. 22 ff., loc. cit.

  44. 44.

    Benussi, “Gesetze der inadäquaten Gestaltauffassung,” Section 1, loc. cit.; similarly, Helmholtz, Handbuch der physiologischen Optik (2nd. ed. Hamburg and Leipzig, 1896), pp. 610 ff. had maintained that no perceptual feature which can be changed or overcome by an act of interpretation, may pass for a genuine sense-datum.

  45. 45.

    Cf. Witasek, “Beiträge zur Psychologie der Komplexionen,” loc. cit., p. 426.

  46. 46.

    Cf. Benussi, “Zur Psychologie des Gestalterfassens,” Section 2, loc. cit.

  47. 47.

    Cf. infra, pp. 91 f.

  48. 48.

    Supra, pp. 59 f.

  49. 49.

    Cf. Findlay, loc. cit., p. 137.

  50. 50.

    Witasek, “Beiträge zur Psychologie der Komplexionen,” loc. cit., pp. 416 ff.

  51. 51.

    Ameseder, “Über Vorstellungsproduktion,” I, 3, loc. cit.; ct: also Benussi, “Über den Einfluss der Farbe auf die Grösse der Zöllnerschen Täuschung,” loc. cit., p. 387.

  52. 52.

    Cf. supra, p. 57.

  53. 53.

    Cf. infra pp. 78 ff. and 82.

  54. 54.

    Cf. supra p. 58 and, as to Husserl and Stumpf, infra p. 78 ff.

  55. 55.

    Cf. infra p. 77 ff.

  56. 56.

    Cf. Benussi, “Zur Psychologie des Gestalterfassens,” Section 19, loc. cit.; Ameseder, “Über Vorstellungsproduktion,” II, 8, loc. cit.; Witasek, Psychologie der Raumwahrnehmung des Auges, pp. 313 ff.

  57. 57.

    In “Gesetze der inadäquaten Gestalterfassung,” loc. cit., Benussi has given a summary account of his experimental work on geometrico-optical illusions; cf. also Witasek, “Über die Natur der geometrisch-optischen Täuschungen,” Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, vol. 19, 1899.

  58. 58.

    For what follows see Husserl, Philosophie der Arithmetik, pp. 219 ff. M. Farber, The Foundation of Phenomenology (Cambridge, MA, 1943), Chapter 2, has given a clear and reliable condensed summary of Husserl’s Philosophie der Arithmetik.

  59. 59.

    Cf. Husserl, loc. cit., pp. 76 ff.

  60. 60.

    Husserl, loc. cit., p. 229. “Vielfachheit ist nicht Vielheit schlechthin, sondern eine Vielheit zu einem Ganzen im engsten Sinne des Wortes geeinigter Teile.”

  61. 61.

    Cf. supra, pp. 68 ff.

  62. 62.

    Cf. supra, pp. 25 ff.

  63. 63.

    Husserl, loc. cit., p. 225.

  64. 64.

    Ibid., pp. 229 ff.

  65. 65.

    Carl Stumpf, Tonpsychologie (Leipzig, 1885 and 1890), Section 16.

  66. 66.

    Cf. ibid., vol. 2, pp. 65 ff.

  67. 67.

    Husserl, loc. cit., p. 231.

  68. 68.

    Ibid., pp. 226 and 237.

  69. 69.

    Stumpf, loc. cit., vol. 2, pp. 101 f.; see also “Erscheinungen und psychische Funktionen,” Abhandlungen der Kgl. Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin, 1906), p. 19.

  70. 70.

    The assertion, to which he refers here, that sensations, differences and relations between sensations may be experienced, without being noticed, has been advanced by Stumpf independently of his theory of “Verschmelzung”; cf. infra. pp. 120 ff.

  71. 71.

    Noticing a plurality of notes does not necessarily purport recognition or identification of the notes discriminated; cf. Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, vol. 2, pp. 7 ff.

  72. 72.

    Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, vol. 2, p. 127 f.

  73. 73.

    Ibid., vol. 2, p. 129. In view of the special meaning which “Verschmelzung” has with Stumpf, we use the German term and do not render it by the term “fusion,” which, as already mentioned, has usually been meant to denote a process.

  74. 74.

    Ibid., vol. 2, p. 353.

  75. 75.

    If, by analysis, phenomenal features, given prior to analysis, are made to vanish, these features are not due to “Verschmelzung.” A case in point is timbre which, according to Stumpf (ibid., vol. 2, pp. 528 ff.), exists only if there is no analysis or, at least, if analysis is not carried out completely; the reason being that timbre does not depend upon the sensations themselves, but rather upon the interpretation or apprehension (Auffassung) of sensations.

  76. 76.

    Ibid., vol. 2, p. 65.

  77. 77.

    Stumpf, “Erscheinungen und psychische Funktionen,” loc. cit., p. 23.

  78. 78.

    Husserl, loc. cit., pp. 72 ff.

  79. 79.

    Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, vol. 2, pp. 64 ff.

  80. 80.

    The mentioned similarity may be the reason for which a plurality of sense-data between which there is “Verschmelzung” may be misjudged for a single sense-datum, in much the same way in which likeness between two objects may lead to mistaking them for each other. As Stumpf remarks in a later comment on his theory (“Erscheinungen und psychische Funktionen,” loc. cit., p. 23), “Verschmelzung” ought not to be defined by the mistake which it might cause, any more than likeness may be defined by confusion.

  81. 81.

    Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, vol. 2, p. 64.

  82. 82.

    Cf. ibid., vo1. 1, pp. 106 ff. and “Erscheinungen und psychische Funktionen,” loc. cit., pp. 17 ff.

  83. 83.

    Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, vol. 2, p. 65.

  84. 84.

    Ibid., vol. 2, p. 66.

  85. 85.

    Husserl, loc. cit., p. 231; cf. also p. 225, “Jedes Glied könnte auch für sich bestehen und genau als das, was es in der Menge ist; es erhält durch sein Zusammensein mit den anderen kein neues positives Merkmal.”

  86. 86.

    Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen (referred to hereafter as Log. Unt.) vo1. 2. III. Section, 21 f. For the following. Cf. Farber, loc. cit., Chapter 10.

  87. 87.

    Husserl, Log. Unt., vol. 2, III, Section 14. Formulations of such impossibilities do not express matters of fact but, as we shall presently see, ideal essential necessities; cf. ibid., vol. 2, III, Section 7.

  88. 88.

    Cf. Husserl’s analysis of the concept of “dependent contents” (Log. Unt., vol. 2 III, Section 4) in which he follows and elaborates Stumpf ’s presentation of this concept in Über den psychologischen Ursprung der Raumvorstellung (Leipzig, 1873), pp. 108 ff.

  89. 89.

    Husserl, Log. Unt., vol. 2 III, Section 22. Cf. supra, p. 59, note 14 the contrary view of Meinong who resorts to contingencies of thought, whereas Husserl refers the dependency under discussion to the essential nature of the object thought and to ideal laws a priori grounded upon this essential nature. Such ideal laws a priori express necessary conditions of the object in question, i.e., conditions without whose realization the object could not possibly be that which it is. As to the method by means of which ideal laws a priori are established, cf. Part III, Section 6.

  90. 90.

    As to Husserl’s definition of the independence of a content by its Invariance with regard to any variations (i.e., variations subject to no limiting condition) which might affect those contents as happen to be copresent with the former (Log. Unt., vol. 2 III, Section 5), cf. infra, pp. 188 ff.

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    Aron Gurwitsch*

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    Richard M. Zaner

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Gurwitsch*, A. (2010). Grouping and Organization of Sense-Data. 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_4

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