The Specious Present in English Philosophy 1749-1785: Theories and Experiments in Hartley, Priestley, Tucker, and Watson

IF 1.4 1区 哲学 0 PHILOSOPHY Philosophers' Imprint Pub Date : 2022-05-04 DOI:10.3998/phimp.1281
E. Thomas
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引用次数: 1

Abstract

Drawing on the 1870s-1880s work of Shadworth Hodgson and Robert Kelly, William James famously characterised the specious present as ‘the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible’. Literature on the pre-history of late nineteenth century specious present theories clusters around the work of John Locke and Thomas Reid, and I argue it is incomplete. The pre-history is missing an inter-connected group of English philosophers writing on the present between 1749 and 1785: David Hartley, Joseph Priestley, Abraham Tucker, and William Watson. With William Herschel, Watson even conducted experiments to determine the limits of human temporal perception. These thinkers do not appear in the specious present literature, or broader historical surveys of temporal consciousness. Yet this paper shows they each held specious present theories, exploring those theories and placing them within each figure’s system. It argues all their work deserves further study; contextualises the nineteenth century theories of James and others; pushes back the start date of the history of experimental psychology on time perception by decades; and explores a possible line of influence from Hartley to Hodgson.
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1749-1785年英国哲学中的幽灵:哈特利、普里斯特利、塔克和华生的理论与实验
威廉·詹姆斯(William James)借鉴了沙德沃斯·霍奇森(Shadworth Hodgson)和罗伯特·凯利(Robert Kelly。关于十九世纪晚期前史的文献,似是而非的现有理论围绕着约翰·洛克和托马斯·里德的作品,我认为这是不完整的。《史前史》缺少了一批在1749年至1785年间撰写关于当下的相互关联的英国哲学家:大卫·哈特利、约瑟夫·普里斯特利、亚伯拉罕·塔克和威廉·沃森。与威廉·赫歇尔一起,沃森甚至进行了实验来确定人类时间感知的极限。这些思想家没有出现在似是而非的当代文学中,也没有出现在对时间意识的更广泛的历史调查中。然而,本文表明,他们每个人都持有似是而非的现有理论,探索这些理论,并将其置于每个人物的系统中。它认为他们所有的工作都值得进一步研究;将詹姆斯等人的十九世纪理论置于语境之中;将时间感知实验心理学的历史起点向后推了几十年;并探讨了从哈特利到霍奇森的一条可能的影响线。
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来源期刊
Philosophers' Imprint
Philosophers' Imprint PHILOSOPHY-
CiteScore
3.20
自引率
7.10%
发文量
27
审稿时长
20 weeks
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