"No matter how much we may talk of the preservation of psychical dispositions, nor how many metaphors we may summon to characterize the storage of ideas in some hypothetical deposit chamber of memory, the obstinate fact remains that when we are not experiencing a sensation or an idea it is, strictly speaking, non-existent"
— Angell, James Rowland (1869-1949)
Work Title
Date
1907
Metaphor
"No matter how much we may talk of the preservation of psychical dispositions, nor how many metaphors we may summon to characterize the storage of ideas in some hypothetical deposit chamber of memory, the obstinate fact remains that when we are not experiencing a sensation or an idea it is, strictly speaking, non-existent"
Metaphor in Context
The fact that mental contents are evanescent and fleeting marks them off in an important way from the relatively permanent elements of anatomy. No matter how much we may talk of the preservation of psychical dispositions, nor how many metaphors we may summon to characterize the storage of ideas in some hypothetical deposit chamber of memory, the obstinate fact remains that when we are not experiencing a sensation or an idea it is, strictly speaking, non-existent. Moreover, when we manage by one or another device to secure that which we designate that same sensation or the same idea, we not only have no guarantee that our second edition is really a replica of [p. 66] the first, we have a good bit of presumptive evidence that from the content point of view the original never is and never can be literally duplicated. (pp. 65-6)
Categories
Provenance
Searching "metaphor" at Christopher D. Green's Classics in the History of Pyschology (http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/)
Citation
First published in Psychological Review, 14, 61-91. Electronic edition at http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Angell/functional.htm
Date of Entry
08/11/2005
