ABSTRACT
I cannot leave the preceding chapter without further comment on my proposition a few paragraphs back that in all behavior there is commerce with real objects. I was obviously not saying that the objects of behavior are necessarily realistic in all respects; for instance, I agreed that the misplacement of the hallucinated object violates the reality of the latter. Nor was it my intention to deny that one can imaginatively concoct an object the like of which never existed, never will exist, and never could exist; but the ingredients of such a concoction are drawn from transactions with real objects, and the behavior of preparing such a concoction is constrained by reality considerations and serves directed activities involving relationships to objects not in the concoction. The issue of reality is, however, sufficiently complex and sufficiently basic to many aspects of psychology to require explication. Let me then pull together a number of ideas expressed in various contexts in this book and add some further comments.
