Top 26 Quotes by Samuel Alexander

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

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.

Mental life is indeed practical through and through. It begins in practice and it ends in practice.

An expectation is a future object, recognised as belonging to me.

The sensory acts are accordingly distinguished by their objects.

Psychology is the science of the act of experiencing, and deals with the whole system of such acts as they make up mental life.

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.

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

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

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