抄録
In his mature theory of perception, Whitehead acknowledges three modes of perception: perception in the mode of causal efficacy, perception in the mode of presentational immediacy, and perception in the mixed mode of symbolic reference. While presentational immediacy is the mode which is developed from the traditional lines of arguments, especially Hume’s, the mode of causal efficacy is defined to complement presentational immediacy which he regards as inevitably abstractive. On the one hand, he attributes to causal efficacy what presentational immediacy lacks, that is, the sense of reality, that of passage of time, and so on. On the other hand, he identifies it with bodily senses. These two modes of perception are interrelated in symbolic reference, which assigns the “meaning” to the one, the “symbol” to the other, and the mediation of which makes us get our ordinary experiences of perception.
The relationship of the two modes is, however, not so apparent against his intention. His own discussion discloses that the two modes are not distinct from each other as elements of symbolism, but that the mode of presentational immediacy has an essential relationship of derivation from the mode of causal efficacy. Further, the two sided definition of causal efficacy is necessarily accompanied with the metaphysical and ontological viewpoint as well as the proper epistemological one. These facts suggest us that the modes of perception are not real components, but idealized factors for the analysis of the experience of perception. Compared with the theory of significance in his former works, the mature theory has more incoherencies. Nevertheless, we can appreciate it in that he aims at the experience beyond perceptual representations, which is inexhaustible by any conceptual analysis. Perception itself is the idealized abstraction from concrete experiences. His theory does not give a complete explanation of the experience of perception, but a far-reaching prospect of interpretation of the experience that many theories have ignored.
