Apperception

Apperception [from the Latin, ad-: to, toward, or to go near + percipere: to perceive, gain, secure, learn, or feel] is a term that can describe various aspects of perception and consciousness in such fields as psychology, philosophy and epistemology.

Meaning in psychology

In psychology, apperception is "the process by which new experience is assimilated to and transformed by the residuum of past experience of an individual to form a new whole." In short, it is to perceive new experience in relation to past experience.

Examples

We see a fire (visual perception). By apperception we correlate the appearance of fire with past experiences of being burned. Having combined present and past experience we realize this is a situation in which we should avoid placing our hand in the fire and being burned.

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A rich child and a poor child walking together come across the same ten dollar bill on the sidewalk. The rich child says it is not very much money and the poor child says it is a lot of money. The difference lies in how they apperceive the same event -- the lens of past experience through which they see and value (or devalue) the money.

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Meaning in philosophy (Kant)

In philosophy, Immanuel Kant distinguished transcendental apperception from empirical apperception. The first is "the pure, original, unchangeable consciousness that is the necessary condition of experience and the ultimate foundation of the unity of experience." The second is "the consciousness of the concrete actual self with its changing states", the so-called "inner sense." (Otto F. Kraushaar in Runes). See Kantianism.

Meaning in epistemology

In epistemology, apperception is "the introspective or reflective apprehension by the mind of its own inner states."

See also

• Metacognition
• Projective test
• Rorschach inkblot test
• Thematic Apperception Test

Further reading

• Yao, Zhihua (2005). The Buddhist Theory of Self-Cognition. (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism) (Hardcover). Routledge. ISBN 978-0415344319
• Runes, Dagobert D. (ed.), Dictionary of Philosophy, Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ, 1972.

External links

• William James (1892), "Talks to Teachers", Chapter 14.