English / Latin · percipere
perception
To take hold of. Not a window. An act.
Etymology
Latin percipere: to seize, to take in. English perception often sounds passive, as if the world arrived intact. Vision science disagrees.1
Semantic range
Foreground and background, gestalt grouping, expectation, illusory contours, inference. Seeing is an active process.
What the gloss loses
The word hides the work. What is present is not identical with what is seen.
Misuse
Treating a first glance as a complete inventory.
What is present, and what did seeing add?
Notes
- Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879), s.v. percipio.
