The proximate goal of all perception is what we can get our hands upon. If we traverse the distance that separate us from that which we see or hear and find nothing for the hand to manipulate, the experience is an illusion or a hallucination. The world of perceptual reality, the world of physical things, is the world of our contacts and our manipulations, and the distance experience of the eye and the ear means first of all these physical things. Physical things are not only the meaning of what we see and hear; they are also the means we employ to accomplish our ends.


George Herbert Mead (1926). "The Nature of Aesthetic Experience." International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Jul., 1926), pp. 382-393; p. 382

George Herbert Mead Quotes

The proximate goal of all perception is what we can get our hands upon. If we traverse the distance that separate us from that which we see or hear...

The proximate goal of all perception is what we can get our hands upon. If we traverse the distance that separate us from that which we see or hear...

The proximate goal of all perception is what we can get our hands upon. If we traverse the distance that separate us from that which we see or hear...

The proximate goal of all perception is what we can get our hands upon. If we traverse the distance that separate us from that which we see or hear...