Immediacy and knowledge

Several 20th century philosophers, have repeatedly and overtly made a fundamental distinction between direct sources of knowledge (instantaneous representation) and delayed sources of knowledge (description). I wish to especially emphasize that the presence or absence of time in the process of representation is a key to establishing this distinction Russell and Wittgenstein have made this distinction explicitly while many other philosophers, including Descartes and Hume, have made the distinction between the two sources of knowledge implicitly. However, the most important philosopher to address the temporality of the process of representation is Charles Saunders Peirce.