| Abstract: | This essay is a discussion of whether or not there are units out of which human perception, cognition, and action are constructed. It proposes that while these human activities are indeed generated from component aspects, we cannot talk of these aspects as “units” or as being directly inserted into these activities. Instead, we must describe them as “ideals” which enter into composition with one another in particular situations to generate a situationally specific structure which serves both to describe and control the situation in its particular aspects. In the process of composition, the standard form of the ideal is transformed so that the ideal may appear in a different form in each different composition. Furthermore, superficially similar compositions can arise from different combinations of ideals. These notions are shown to have the potential of unifying our accounts of a wide variety of psychological phenomena. An argument is also made that operational definition of ideals is impossible and that interpretive methods of investigation are justified. |
