Objective Experience

Abstract

One of the most important elements of meaning is the relation of symbols to experience — taking experience to mean not just the sensory perception of material objects but also consciousness of all other indirect and concrete mental events (emotions and sentiments, impulses, mental images, etc.). Experience differs quite basically from thought — both discursive, indirect, and nondiscursive, direct, intuitive, — in its concreteness, qualitative givenness, and its basically receptive character. It always represents consciousness of actually existing, concrete, whole, and qualitatively determined objects, whether material or mental. It is always limited in extent to impressions that are received and registered and to immediate sensory—affective reactions to these impressions. As opposed to experience, thought is always consciousness of something general, constant, and abstract — of a structure. Moreover it is essentially active and creative; it explores the vast world of possibilities, and its constructions constantly transcend the given and experiential.