apperception

Borrowed from French aperception (New Latin apperceptiō, used by Gottfried Leibnitz (1646–1716)).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌæpəˈsɛpʃən/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌæpɚˈsɛpʃən/

apperception (countable and uncountable, plural apperceptions)

1. (uncountable, psychology and philosophy, especially Kantianism) The mind's perception of itself as the subject or actor in its own states, unifying past and present experiences; self-consciousness, perception that reflects upon itself.
2. (uncountable) Psychological or mental perception; recognition.
   • 1887, John Dewey, Psychology:

     Conception is... the simplest act of thinking; it is the apprehension of the universal, as perception is the apperception of the particular.

   • 2009, Adam Roberts, Yellow Blue Tibia:

     For as she smiled I was gifted a glimpse past the apperception of an anonymous spherical quantity of human flesh; and into the individual.

3. (countable, psychology) The general process or a particular act of mental assimilation of new experience into the totality of one's past experience.

• apperceive
• apperceptive

• apperception in An American Dictionary of the English Language, by Noah Webster, 1828.
• apperception in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• “apperception” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “apperception” in Microsoft's Encarta World English Dictionary, North American Edition (2007)
• "apperception" in Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911 ed.
• Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989)
• Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary (1987-1996)
• Dictionary of Philosophy, Dagobert D. Runes (ed.), Philosophical Library, 1962. See: "Apperception" by Otto F. Kkraushaar, p. 15.