1895. Normal adult perception . . .

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Normal adult perception is as truly thought as it is direct experience or intuition (cf. "Mysticism and Rationalistic Metaphysics": 464). 

What we "see" is, indeed, the extra-bodily world, but "to see" is one function, "to directly intuit or experience," another (464).

What we call "remembering that p" is always a mixture of genuine mnemonic prehension, or intuitive grasp, and verbal interpretation, the latter always being a human and therefore highly fallible function. Always there is a mixture of given data and theorizing in our reports of what we remember. And the same is true of our reports of what we perceive (cf. "Categories and Creative Experiencing": 333). 

There is no "cognitive given," if that means an absolutely secure grasp of truth about what is given. Although there is a direct intuitive grasp of reality, there are no infallible bits of cognition about reality. Reality is given pre-cognitively, not cognitively (cf. Creativity in American Philosophy: 105). 

Given objects and intentional objects are different, because givenness is one thing, intentionality, or "symbolic reference" (Whitehead), another. Intentionality adds more or less correct or incorrect beliefs about the external environment and the future, these additions being more or less at our own risk" (The Zero Fallacy: 114 f.; Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method: 106 f.).

Seeing or hearing something that we intuit or prehend as x is a characteristic of our interpretation of, or thought about, our intuition or prehension, not of something intuited or prehended. 

22 August 1999