Главная страница | Контакты | Случайная страница Автомобили Астрономия Биология География Дом и сад Другие языки Другое Информатика История Культура Литература Логика Математика Медицина Металлургия Механика Образование Охрана труда Педагогика Политика Право Психология Религия Риторика Социология Спорт Строительство Технология Туризм Физика Философия Финансы Химия Черчение Экология Экономика Электроника

Intellectual-Sensuous Contemplation

Sensations, perceptions, representations.

The sense organs are a kind of channels or windows open to the world, through which streams of external influences continually come in.

Sensations have a broad range of modalities, in­cluding tactile, visual, auditory, vibrational, temperature, olfactory, and gustatory. A type apart are sensations of processes occurring in the organism's inner environment —organic sensations, as well as sensations of the movements and positions of the body's organs, the sense of balance, and static sensations.

Representation is the highest form of sensuous reflection, it is imaginal knowledge about objects that are not directly perceived. The physiological condition of the existence of representations is reten­tion of the traces of past influences and their actualization at the given moment. This function, which ensures the continuity and suc­cession in cognitive activity, is termed memory; without it, recogni­tion would be impossible. Representation is a generalizing synthesis of many sensuous perceptions.

Thought: Essence, Levels and Forms

Transition from sensation to thought. Only a small part of what man cognizes can be covered by sensuous contemplation. Mostly, cognition is realized in thought in terms of concepts, judgements, etc. Man cannot live without thinking. So how is the transition from the sensuous to the conceptual level of cognition to be explained? How is a sensuous image of an object transformed into an act of thought.

The specifics of thought. Thought is the highest form of rational cognitive activity. Thought is goal-directed, mediated, abstracted and generalized reflection of the essential properties and relations of things and phenomena realized in terms of concepts, judgements, and the­ories, and also it is a process of creative production of new ideas.

The unity of the sensuous and the rational. Starting with sensa­tions and perceptions, proceeding to representations, and rising to the higher levels of theoretical thinking, cognition emerges as a uni­fied process closely connected with will and emotions.

The principal forms of thought. A form of thought is a definite type of its organization, a type of connection between the elements of its content. The principal forms in which thought emerged, de­veloped, and is now implemented, are the concept, the judgement and the inference.

- The concept is a form of thought which reflects the essential properties, connections and relations between objects and phenome­na in (heir contradictions and development; a thought-concept gener­alizes and singles out the objects of a certain class in terms of defi­nite generic and specific features inherent in them.

Concepts acquire logical meaning only in judgements. The judgement is a form of thought in which something is asserted or refuted through establishing links between concepts.