ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE OBJECT AND CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS

This article treats of the distinction between objects and contents of pulses of consciousness - those minimal temporal sections of James's stream that give veridical or nonveridical consciousness of, or as tho ugh of, something, which can be anything perceivable, feelable, imagin able, thinkable, or internally apprhensible. The objects of pulses of consciousness are whatever the pulses mentally apprehend (or take), wh atever it is that they, by their occurrence, give awareness of respect ively. Their contents are the particular ways (cognitive and qualitati ve) in which they mentally apprehend (or take) their objects, or would mentally apprehend (or take) them in those cases in which their objec ts do not exist. I argue, inter alia, (a) that not all pulses of consc iousness have objects, though James holds that they all possess cognit ive content; (b) that centaurs can be neither objects nor contents of consciousness, since they do not, have not, and will not exist; and (c ) that some hallucinations whose objects are not physically present ha ve objects anyway, such as a long lost relative or a historical figure . I consider four psychologists' views with which I disagree, views pr oposing a consciousness without content (Gibson), a conciousness witho ut objects (White), a consciousness of phenomenal items in a phenomena l environment (Henle), or a consciousness that systematically mistakes its constructed ''objects'' for their external counterparts (Yates).