percept
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English
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin perceptum, neuter of perceptus (“perceived”), past participle of percipiō (“to perceive”); see perceive.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈpɜːsɛpt/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈpɝsɛpt/
Audio (US) (file)
Noun
percept (plural percepts)
- (philosophy, psychology, now rare) Something perceived; the object of perception.
- 1860, William Hamilton, Lectures in Metaphysics, III.3:
- Whether it might not, in like manner, be proper to introduce the term percept for the object of perception, I shall not at present inquire.
- (philosophy, psychology, linguistics) A perceived object as it exists in the mind of someone perceiving it; the mental impression that is the result of perceiving something.
- 1901, Charles Sanders Peirce, Grammar of Science:
- I see an inkstand on the table: that is a percept. Moving my head, I get a different percept of the inkstand.
- 1905, William James, “How Two Minds Can Know One Thing”, in Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods:
- So far as in that world it is a stable feature, holds ink, marks paper and obeys the guidance of a hand, it is a physical pen. [...] So far as it is instable, on the contrary, coming and going with the movements of my eyes, altering with what I call my fancy, continuous with subsequent experiences of its ‘having been’ (in the past tense), it is the percept of a pen in my mind.
- 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy:
- Socrates remarks that when he is well he finds wine sweet, but when ill, sour. Here it is a change in the percipient that causes the change in the percept.
Related terms
Further reading
- “percept”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “percept”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.