The Inferential Element In Perception
Brand Blanshard · 2014
If the end of thought is truth, what is truth? It lies, we shall hold, in system, and above all in that perfect type of system in which each component implies and is implied by every other. We shall speak sometimes as if the aim of thought were understanding, and this also is true ; the two aims are equivalent to each other. To know the truth about anything is, so far, to apprehend it in a system of relations that makes it intelligible, and this is what we mean by understanding it. These positions will be defended in detail later on; here they are mentioned in anticipatory justification of our studying some elements in perception rather than others. If it is true that the special end of thought is to attain the sort of system we have mentioned, then all those types and levels of organization within perception which illustrate the path to this end will be of interest to us.