Notebook

Notebook, 1993-

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Classical Psychology
[of Perception]
It would seem that the psychologists, in undertaking the problems of perception, in accordance with tradition, have first tried to avail themselves of an especially fruitful heuristic method used in other sciences. They have tried to explain complicated psychological facts by simpler facts. But to explain perception by elementary sensations--that is, an atomistic psychology, as Locke imagined--soon clashes with the observed facts. Indeed, pure sensation has never been demonstrated. Sensation cannot be separated from perception. Pure sensation does not exist. We always perceive something. The red spot I see on a rug is inseparable from its wooly material, which I see at the same instant as the red spot. According to Cézanne, we see not only the color of the apple but also its savor, its fragrance, What we perceive in thunder is not merely thunder but "thunder-light--silence before--silence after," as William James said. [p. 208]

Molnar, FranÙois. "The Unit and The Whole: Fundamental Problem of the Plastic Arts." In Module, Proportion, Symmetry, Rhythm. Vision and Value series. Gyorgy Kepes, ed. New York: George Braziller, 1966.











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