The Monist, Vol. 3, 1892-1893 : $b A quarterly magazineVarious
Philosophy
The Monist, Vol. 3, 1892-1893 : $b A quarterly magazine
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
This conception of the correlation of subjectivity and objectivity
does not only convincingly explain the unity of feeling and motion, it
does not only establish a satisfactory monism, it throws light also on
some other of the questions that puzzle us. How is it that we do not
feel our brain-motions to be brain-motions? We feel our feelings only;
and when feeling our feelings we do not so much feel _that_ we feel as
_what_ we feel. In other words, we feel the contents of our feelings; we
feel their import, their meaning; we are aware of their significance;
our consciousness is conscious of the object, the presence of which is
indicated by this special feeling. Our attention is concentrated upon the
messages conveyed by and contained in the different feelings.
These messages of certain feelings are the interpretations given either
to certain sense-impressions or they are the thought-symbols representing
some abstracts, representing certain features of sense-impressions.
How little we feel our brain-motions when we think, can be learned
from the fact that some nations place the seat of thinking in the
heart, others in the stomach or even the bowels, while even so great a
naturalist as Aristotle regarded the brain as cold and insensible; he
made the observation that man is in possession of the relatively largest
brain, but he understood its function so little that he thought it served
to cool the warmth rising from the heart.
It is strange that every subjective feeling so long as it remains within
itself can neither be localised nor determined. We know nothing whatever
of the brain-motion that thinks a certain idea. We can fairly assume
that every idea is in its objective existence a peculiar kind of brain
motion taking place in a particular part of the brain, but we are not
conscious of the brain-motion as a special and localised motion. We are
quite unable to tell the difference that we must suppose to exist between
the forms of the brain-structures or combinations of brain-structures and
their motions when we think say for instances of virtue and of vice. We
are conscious only of the idea and not of their objective correlates.
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