Hypertext Webster Gateway: "Perception"

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)

Perception \Per*cep"tion\, n. [L. perceptio: cf. F. perception.
See {Perceive}.]
1. The act of perceiving; cognizance by the senses or
intellect; apperhension by the bodily organs, or by the
mind, of what is presented to them; discernment;
apperhension; cognition.

2. (Metaph.) The faculty of perceiving; the faculty, or
peculiar part, of man's constitution by which he has
knowledge through the medium or instrumentality of the
bodily organs; the act of apperhending material objects or
qualities through the senses; -- distinguished from
conception. --Sir W. Hamilton.

Matter hath no life nor perception, and is not
conscious of its own existence. --Bentley.

3. The quality, state, or capability, of being affected by
something external; sensation; sensibility. [Obs.]

This experiment discovereth perception in plants.
--Bacon.

4. An idea; a notion. [Obs.] --Sir M. Hale.

Note: ``The word perception is, in the language of
philosophers previous to Reid, used in a very extensive
signification. By Descartes, Malebranche, Locke,
Leibnitz, and others, it is employed in a sense almost
as unexclusive as consciousness, in its widest
signification. By Reid this word was limited to our
faculty acquisitive of knowledge, and to that branch of
this faculty whereby, through the senses, we obtain a
knowledge of the external world. But his limitation did
not stop here. In the act of external perception he
distinguished two elements, to which he gave the names
of perception and sensation. He ought perhaps to have
called these perception proper and sensation proper,
when employed in his special meaning.'' --Sir W.
Hamilton.

From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)

perception
n 1: the representation of what is perceived; basic component in
the formation of a concept [syn: {percept}, {perceptual
experience}]
2: a way of conceiving something; "Luther had a new perception
of the Bible"
3: the process of perceiving
4: knowledge gained by perceiving; "a man admired for the depth
of his perception"
5: becoming aware of something via the senses [syn: {sensing}]


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