Kitap 10
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By preconception they mean a sort of apprehension or a right opinion or notion, or universal idea stored in the mind; that is, a recollection of an external object often presented, e.g. Such and such a thing is a man: for no sooner is the word man uttered than we think of his shape by an act of preconception, in which the senses take the lead.i.e. in conformity with the sense-data which precede the recognition. Thus the object primarily denoted by every term is then plain and clear. And we should never have started an investigation, unless we had known what it was that we were in search of. For example: The object standing yonder is a horse or a cow. Before making this judgement, we must at some time or other have known by preconception the shape of a horse or a cow. We should not have given anything a name, if we had not first learnt its form by way of preconception. It follows, then, that preconceptions are clear. The object of a judgement is derived from something previously clear, by reference to which we frame the proposition, e.g. How do we know that this is a man?
1.34
Opinion they also call conception or assumption, and declare it to be true and falseSee § 124, where a true πρόληψις is opposed to a false ὑπόληψις. In Aristotle ὑπόληψις is often a synonym of δόξα· cf. Bonitz, Index Ar., s.v.; for it is true if it is subsequently confirmed or if it is not contradicted by evidence, and false if it is not subsequently confirmed or is contradicted by evidence. Hence the introduction of the phrase, that which awaits confirmation, e.g. to wait and
1.34
get close to the tower and then learn what it looks like at close quarters.See §§ 50, 147. The tower which seems round at a distance and square when we get up to it was the typical example in the school of that process of testing beliefs by observation which is here prescribed. Cf. Lucr. iv. 353 sqq., 501 sqq.; Sext. Emp. Adv. math. vii. 208.
