activity is inseparable from their being. My book raised only the
question of _which_ activity deserved the name of 'ours.' So far as we
are 'persons,' and contrasted and opposed to an 'environment,' movements
in our body figure as our activities; and I am unable to find any other
activities that are ours in this strictly personal sense. There is a
wider sense in which the whole 'choir of heaven and furniture of the
earth,' and their activities, are ours, for they are our 'objects.' But
'we' are here only another name for the total process of experience,
another name for all that is, in fact; and I was dealing with the
personal and individualized self exclusively in the passages with which
Professor Stout finds fault.
The individualized self, which I believe to be the only thing properly
called self, is a part of the content of the world experienced. The
world experienced (otherwise called the 'field of consciousness')
comes at all times with our body as its centre, centre of vision,
centre of action, centre of interest. Where the body is is 'here';
when the body acts is 'now'; what the body touches is 'this'; all
other things are 'there' and 'then' and 'that.' These words of
emphasized position imply a systematization of things with reference
to a focus of action and interest which lies in the body; and the
systematization is now so instinctive (was it ever not so?) that no
developed or active experience exists for us at all except in that
ordered form. So far as 'thoughts' and 'feelings' can be active, their
activity terminates in the activity of the body, and only through
first arousing its activities can they begin to change those of the
rest of the world. [Cf. also _A Pluralistic Universe_, p. 344, note 8.
ED.] The body is the storm centre, the origin of co-ordinates, the
constant place of stress in all that experience-train. Everything
circles round it, and is felt from its point of view. The word 'I,'
then, is primarily a noun of position, just like 'this' and 'here.'
Activities attached to 'this' position have prerogative emphasis, and,
if activities have feelings, must be felt in a peculiar way. The word
'my' designates the kind of emphasis. I see no inconsistency whatever
in defending, on the one hand, 'my' activities as unique and opposed
to those of outer nature, and, on the other hand, in affirming, after
introspection, that they consist in movements in the head. The 'my' of
them is the emphasis, the feeling of perspective-interest in which
they are dyed.
[99] [_Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding_, sect. VII, part I,
Selby-Bigge's edition, pp. 65 ff.]
[100] Page 172.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account