Chapter 6 Human Individuality
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[1] In explaining mental
pictures,
philosophers
have found the chief difficulty
in the fact
that we ourselves
are not the outer things,
and yet our mental pictures
must have a form
corresponding
to the things.
But
on closer inspection
it turns out
that this difficulty
does not really exist.
We certainly are not
the external things,
but
we belong together
with them
to one
and the same world.
That section
of the world
which
I perceive
to be myself
as subject is permeated
by the stream
of the universal cosmic process.
To my perception
I am,
in the first instance,
confined
within the limits bounded
by my skin.
But all that is contained
within this skin
belongs
to the cosmos
as a whole.
Hence,
for a relation
to subsist
between my organism
and an object external
to me,
it is
by no
means necessary
that
something of the object
should slip into me,
or make an impression
on my mind,
like
a signet ring
on wax.
The question:
"How do
I get information
about that tree ten feet
away from me?"
is utterly misleading.
It springs
from the view
that
the boundaries of my body
are absolute barriers,
through which information
about things filters
into me.
The forces
which are at work
inside my body
are the same
as those
which
exist outside.
Therefore
I really am the things;
not,
however,
"I" in so far
as I am a percept
of myself
as subject,
but
"I" in so far
as I am a part
of the universal world process.
The percept of the tree
belongs
to the same whole
as my I. This
universal world
process
produces equally the percept
of the tree
out there
and the percept
of my I
in here.
Were
I not
a world knower,
but world creator,
object
and
subject (percept and I) would originate
in one act.
For each implies the other.
In so far
as these
are entities that
belong together,
I can as world knower
discover
the common element
in both
only through thinking,
which relates one
to the other
by means
of concepts.
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[2] The most difficult
to drive
from the field
are the so-called physiological proofs
of the subjectivity
of our percepts.
When
I exert
pressure
on my skin
I perceive it
as a pressure sensation.
This same pressure
can be sensed
as light
by the eye,
as sound
by the ear.
An electric shock
is perceived
by the eye
as light,
by the ear
as noise,
by the nerves
of the skin
as impact,
and
by the nose
as a phosphoric smell.
What follows
from these facts?
Only this:
I perceive an electric shock
(or a pressure,
as the case
may be)
followed
by an impression
of light,
or sound,
or perhaps
a certain smell,
and so on.
If there were
no eye present,
then
no perception
of light
would accompany
the perception
of the mechanical disturbance
in my environment;
without the presence
of the ear,
no perception
of sound,
and so on.
But
what right
have
we to say
that
in the absence
of sense organs
the whole process
would not exist
at all?
Those who,
from the fact
that an electrical process calls
forth light
in the eye,
conclude that
what
we sense
as light is only
a mechanical process
of motion
when
outside our organism,
forget
that they
are only passing
from one percept
to another,
and not at
all to something
lying
beyond percepts.
Just
as we can say
that the eye perceives
a mechanical process
of motion
in its surroundings
as light,
so
we could equally well say
that
a regular
and systematic change in an object
is perceived
by us
as a process
of motion.
If
I draw twelve pictures
of a horse
on the circumference
of a rotating disc,
reproducing exactly the attitudes
which
the horse's body
successively assumes
when galloping,
I can produce the illusion
of movement
by rotating the disc.
I need
only
look through
an opening
in such a way
that,
in the proper intervals,
I see the successive positions
of the horse.
I do not see
twelve separate pictures
of a horse
but the picture
of a single galloping horse.
[3] The physiological fact mentioned
above cannot therefore throw any light
on the relation
of percept
to mental picture.
We must go about it
rather differently.
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[4]
The moment a percept appears
in my field
of observation,
thinking also becomes active
through me.
An element
of my thought system,
a definite intuition,
a concept,
connects itself
with the percept.
Then,
when
the percept disappears
from my field
of vision,
what remains?
My intuition,
with the reference
to the particular percept
which
it acquired
in the moment
of perceiving.
The degree
of vividness
with which
I can subsequently recall
this reference depends
on the manner
in which my mental
and bodily
organism is working.
A mental picture
is nothing
but
an intuition related
to a particular percept;
it is a concept
that was once connected
with a certain percept,
and
which retains
the reference
to this percept.
My concept of a lion
is not formed
out of my percepts
of lions;
but
my mental picture
of a lion
is very definitely formed according to
a percept.
I can convey the concept
of a lion
to someone
who has never seen
a lion.
I cannot convey to him
a vivid mental picture
without the help
of his own perception.
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[5] Thus the mental picture
is an individualized concept.
And
now
we can see how
real objects can be represented
to us
by mental pictures.
The full reality
of a thing
is given
to us
in the moment
of observation
through the fitting together
of concept and percept.
By means
of a percept,
the concept
acquires
an individualized form,
a relation
to this
particular percept.
In this individualized form,
which carries
the reference
to the percept
as a characteristic feature,
the concept
lives on
in us
and constitutes
the mental picture
of the thing
in question.
If
we come across
a second thing
with which
the same concept
connects itself,
we recognize
the second
as belonging
to the same kind
as the first;
if
we come across
the same thing
a second time,
we find
in our conceptual system,
not merely
a corresponding concept,
but the individualized concept
with its characteristic relation
to the same object,
and thus we
recognize the object again.
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[6]
Thus the mental picture stands
between percept
and concept.
It is
the particularized concept
which points to the percept.
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[7] The sum
of those things
about which
I can form mental pictures
may be called
my total experience.
The man
who has
the greater number
of individualized
concepts will be the man
of richer experience.
A man
who lacks all
power
of intuition
is not capable
of acquiring experience.
He loses the objects again
when
they disappear
from his field
of vision,
because
he lacks
the concepts
which
he should bring
into relation
with them.
A man whose faculty
of thinking
is well developed,
but
whose perception functions
badly owing
to his clumsy sense organs,
will just
as little
be able
to gather experience.
He can,
it is true,
acquire concepts
by one means
or another;
but his intuitions
lack the vivid reference
to definite things.
The unthinking traveler
and the scholar
living
in abstract conceptual systems
are alike incapable
of acquiring
a rich sum
of experience.
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[8] Reality
shows itself
to us
as percept
and concept;
the subjective representative
of this reality
shows itself
to us
as mental picture.
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[9] If our personality
expressed itself only in cognition,
the totality
of all that is objective
would be given
in percept,
concept
and mental
picture.
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[10] However,
we are not satisfied merely
to refer
the percept,
by means
of thinking,
to the concept,
but we
relate them also
to our particular subjectivity,
our individual Ego.
The expression
of this
individual relationship
is feeling,
which
manifests itself
as pleasure
or displeasure.
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[11] Thinking
and feeling
correspond
to the two-fold nature
of our being
to which
reference
has already been made.
Thinking is the element
through which
we
take part in
the universal cosmic process;
feeling is that
through which
we
can withdraw ourselves
into the narrow confines
of our own being.
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[12] Our thinking
links us
to the world;
our feeling
leads us
back
into ourselves
and thus
makes us
individuals.
Were
we merely thinking
and perceiving beings,
our whole life
would flow along
in monotonous indifference.
Were
we able merely
to know ourselves as selves,
we should be totally indifferent
to ourselves.
It is only
because
we experience self-feeling
with self-knowledge,
and pleasure
and pain
with the perception
of objects,
that
we live
as individual beings
whose existence
is not limited
to the conceptual relations
between us
and the rest
of the world,
but
who have besides this
a special value
for ourselves.
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[13] One might be tempted
to see
in the life
of feeling
an element
that is more richly saturated
with reality than
is
the contemplation
of the world
through thinking.
But the reply to this
is that the life
of feeling,
after all,
has
this richer meaning only
for my individual self.
For the universe
as a whole my life
of feeling
can have
value
only if,
as a percept
of my self,
the feeling
enters
into connection
with a concept
and in this roundabout way
links itself
to the cosmos.
[14] Our life
is a continual oscillation
between living
with the universal world process
and being
our own
individual selves.
The farther
we ascend
into the universal nature
of thinking
where in the end
what is individual
interests us only
as an example
or specimen
of the concept,
the more
the character
of the separate being,
of the quite
definite single personality,
becomes
lost
in us.
The farther
we descend
into the depths
of our own life
and allow
our feelings
to resound
with our experiences
of the outer world,
the more
we cut ourselves
off
from universal being.
A true individuality
will be
the one
who reaches up
with his feelings
to the farthest possible extent
into the region
of the ideal.
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[15] Making mental
pictures
gives our conceptual life
at once
an individual stamp.
Each one
of us
has
his own particular
place from which
he surveys the world.
His concepts
link themselves to his percepts.
He thinks
the general concepts
in his own special way.
This special determination results
for each
of us
from the place
where
we stand
in the world,
from the range
of percepts peculiar
to our place
in life.
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[16] Distinct
from this determination
is
another
which
depends
on our particular organization.
Our organization
is indeed
a special,
fully determined
entity.
Each of us
combines special feelings,
and these
in the most varying degrees
of intensity,
with his percepts.
This is just
the individual element
in the personality
of each one
of us.
It is
what remains over
when we
have allowed fully for all
the determining factors
in our surroundings.
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[17] A life
of feeling,
wholly devoid
of thinking,
would gradually lose all connection
with the world.
But man
is meant
to be a whole,
and for him
knowledge of things
will go
hand in hand
with the development
and education
of the life of feeling.
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[18] Feeling
is the means whereby,
in the first instance,
concepts
gain concrete life. |
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