Quotes by Samuel Alexander

About Samuel Alexander:

Samuel Alexander was an Australian-born British philosopher. He was the first Jewish fellow of an Oxbridge college.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Time is the Mind of Space.

Samuel Alexander

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.

Samuel Alexander

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

Samuel Alexander

Curiosity begins as an act of tearing to pieces or analysis.

Samuel Alexander

For psychological purposes the most important differences in conation are those in virtue of which the object is revealed as sensed or perceived or imaged or remembered or thought.

Samuel Alexander

In the perception of a tree we can distinguish the act of experiencing, or perceiving, from the thing experienced, or perceived.

Samuel Alexander

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

Samuel Alexander

It may be added, to prevent misunderstanding, that when I speak of contemplated objects in this last phrase as objects of contemplation, the act of contemplation itself is of course an enjoyment.

Samuel Alexander

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.

Samuel Alexander

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

Samuel Alexander

The perceptive act is a reaction of the mind upon the object of which it is the perception.

Samuel Alexander

The sensory acts are accordingly distinguished by their objects.

Samuel Alexander

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

Samuel Alexander

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.

Samuel Alexander

We cannot therefore say that mental acts contain a cognitive as well as a conative element.

Samuel Alexander

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.

Samuel Alexander

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.

Samuel Alexander

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.

Samuel Alexander

Both expectations and memories are more than mere images founded on previous experience.

Samuel Alexander

It is convenient to distinguish the two kinds of experience which have thus been described, the experienc-ing and the experienc-ed, by technical words.

Samuel Alexander

Author Bio

  • NameSamuel Alexander
  • DescriptionAustralian-born British philosopher
  • BornJanuary 6, 1859
  • DiedSeptember 13, 1938
  • CountryUnited Kingdom; Australia
  • ProfessionPhilosopher