Psychology Dictionary of Arguments

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Experience: a) reflected perception, which can be compared with prior perceptions and can be processed linguistically. See also events, perception, sensations, empiricism.
b) an event that is processed in the consciousness of a subject. No mere imagination. See also events, imagination, consciousness.

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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Aristotle on Experience - Dictionary of Arguments

Gadamer I 356
Experience/Aristotle/Gadamer: Aristotle describes (...) in the appendix of his second analytics(1) (and quite similarly in the first chapter of metaphysics) how many individual perceptions, by keeping the manifoldness of the individuals, finally result in experience, the one unity of experience. What is this unity? >Induction/Aristotle
, >Unity/Aristotle.
GadamerVsAristoteles: The relationship between experiencing, keeping and the resulting
unity of experience remains conspicuously unclear. Obviously Aristotle builts here upon a train of thought that in his time already
Gadamer I 357
had a certain classical imprint. We can prove it in its oldest testimony for Anaxagoras, of whom Plutarch has handed down to us that the distinction of the human over animals was determined by Empeiria, Mneme, Sophia and Techne.(2)
We find a similar connection with the emphasis on "mnemes" in the Prometheus of Aeschylus(3) and although we miss the corresponding emphasis on "mnemes" in the Platonic Protagoras myth, Plato(4) as well as Aristotle show that this is already a firm theory. The remaining of important perceptions (moné) is apparently the connecting motive through which the knowledge of the general is able to rise from the experience of the individual.
Science/Method: Aristotle has a very nice picture for the logic of [the] process [of induction]. He compares the many observations one makes with a fleeing army. (...) if, in this general flight, an observation is confirmed throug re-
Gadamer I 358
peated experience, then it stops. Thus at this point, as it were, a first standstill in the general flight sets in. If others now join it, the whole army of the fugitives comes to a halt at the end and again obeys the unit of the command.
GadamerVsAristotle: If one now, like Aristotle, thinks the essence of experience only in terms of "science" (which is not science, but "knowledge"), then one simplifies the process in which it comes into being. The picture describes just this process, but it describes it under simplifying conditions that do not apply in this way.
As if the typical of experience were self-evident without contradiction! Aristotle here always already presupposes the common, which in the flight of observations comes to a halt and develops as a general; the generality of the concept is for him an ontological prius.
What Aristotle is interested in experience is merely its contribution to the formation of concepts. If experience is thus considered in terms of its result, then the
Gadamer I 359
actual process of experience is skipped. >Experience/Gadamer.


1. An. Post. B 19 (99ff.)
2. Plut. de fort. 3 p. 98 F = Diels, Vors. Anaxag. B 21 b.
3. Aisch. Prom. 461.
4. Phaid. 96.

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.

Gadamer I
Hans-Georg Gadamer
Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik 7. durchgesehene Auflage Tübingen 1960/2010

Gadamer II
H. G. Gadamer
The Relevance of the Beautiful, London 1986
German Edition:
Die Aktualität des Schönen: Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest Stuttgart 1977


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