EXPERIENCE AND IDEALISM 215 



course, is its cognitive phase. In so far as the 

 material thus presented not only serves as a direct 

 cue to further successful activity (successful in 

 the overcoming of obstacles to the maintenance of 

 the function entered upon) but presents auxiliary 

 collateral objects and qualities that give addi 

 tional range and depth of meaning to the activity 

 of adjustment, perceiving is esthetic as well as 

 intellectual. 1 



Now such perception cannot be made antithetical 

 to thought, for it may itself be surcharged with 

 any amount of imaginatively supplied and reflect 

 ively sustained ideal factors such as are needed 

 to determine and select relevant stimuli and to 

 suggest and develop an appropriate plan and 

 course of behavior. The amount of such saturat 

 ing intellectual material depends upon the com 

 plexity and maturity of the behaving agent. Such 

 perception, moreover, is strictly teleological, since 

 it arises from an experienced need and functions to 

 fulfil the purpose indicated by this need. The 

 cognitipnal content is, indeed, carried by affec-! 

 tional and intentional contexts. 



objectivity, or how it connotes cognitive subjectivity, or is 

 in any way incompatible with a common-sense realistic 

 theory of perception. 



1 For this suggested interpretation of the esthetic as sur 

 prising, or unintended, gratuitous collateral reinforcement, 

 gee Gordon, &quot;Psychology of Meaning.&quot; 



