Excerpt from The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 11: Psychology and Scientific Methods

But if philosophy is to be productive and progressive, it must con cern itself with more than the hereditary transmission of acquired problems. It is just the unsatisfactory character of the conclusions of modern philosophy, just the nature of the problems with which it deals, that suggests the requirement of a new point of departure. Reid once intimated, touching the skepticism of Hume, that it is just the absurdity of the conclusions which shows the falsity of the premises. There are many indications at present that a new point of departure is in a process of formation, a point of departure not directed back on old assumptions with a view to a more thorough application or further revision and refinement, but a point of depar ture freed from the old assumptions of the past and unencumbered with the dead weight of tradition. It is being borne in upon us from many sides that there is going on around us a philosophical renais sance. One who is at all sensitive to the trend of the times feels that a transformation is being effected, a transformation issuing in an eu tirely new method of approach. This current methodology is applied, not to a refutation of old theses in their old context, but to the formu lation of new problems in a new context. It does not fight the past. It is content to let it alone. Questions of a certain nature, it does not strive to answer, it never asks them; problems of a definite kind, it does not attempt to solve, it suppresses them.

But it is the topic of perception which is the subject of this paper. In considering this topic I should like to indicate very clearly my main interest and purpose. The treatment is to be largely historical in character. An historical sketch is not undertaken, however, with any belief that a knowledge of the various senses in which the term perception has been employed will help us to tell what perception is. My interest is neither in the rigor of psychological analysis nor in the preciseness of logical definition. The main purpose of the paper is not an attempt to state what perception is, but to use the topic of per ception to illustrate the necessity for a new point of departure in philosophical analysis. An analysis of certain representative histor ical accounts of perception is undertaken with the following ques tions in mind: Just what, in specific instances, was the problem of perception taken to be? Why was it a problem? What was the situation in which the problem arose? What were the motives and interests which forced the problem into prominence?

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