Blogs by David Arthur Walters
What's Happening? 8/8/2006 5:17:34 AM
The conceptual difference between what happens to you within and without
We speak figuratively and draw a subtle conceptual line between what is happening to us inside and from outside. What is happening to us within and without have in common our passiveness as subjects; that is, whether or not something happens within or without, we are, as selves, not active subjects but are passively subjected, “thrown under” a force, as it were, that is not the willful or self-causing dynamic subject. In both cases, of internal happenings within and external happenings with a person, the person is a passive object instead of a dynamic subject, yet the passiveness has two forms. Ordinarily we do not draw a distinction between what happens inside a man or woman and what happens to him or her from the outside, except perhaps to attribute an internal feeling to an external cause, or to say that certain sensations have no external cause because they result from the solely internal stimulation of proprioceptors, sensory receptors found chiefly in muscles, tendons, and joints. When we do conceive of a difference between happenings within us and happenings with us, we should be careful to recognize that both eventful forms are passive, not active, lest we confuse what is happening to a person within with his or her inner dynamism, which is something else again.
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More Blogs by David Arthur Walters Grasping Aire - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 This Lying World - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 Metaphysical Nothing - Saturday, February 6, 2010 The Subject - Friday, October 30, 2009 The Natural Man - Friday, October 30, 2009 Life is Becoming - Friday, October 30, 2009 The Helium.com Scheme - Saturday, May 9, 2009 Time is a waste of time - Thursday, October 16, 2008 Bank Run - Thursday, September 18, 2008 cHaNGe - Friday, September 12, 2008 To Hell with CHANGE! - Monday, September 8, 2008 Ms. Bloghog Strikes Again! - Friday, September 5, 2008 Change - Tuesday, January 29, 2008 Note on the Nature of Mysticism - Sunday, October 21, 2007 Native Americans - Saturday, April 28, 2007 Fascism is not a rational ideology - Saturday, April 21, 2007 Self-Certainty and Self-Doubt - Friday, April 13, 2007 Arguments - Thursday, February 8, 2007 Absolute Faith - Thursday, January 4, 2007 Faith In Nothing So To Speak - Tuesday, January 2, 2007 the little hitler in everybody - Wednesday, December 27, 2006 Saint Paul & Thomas Hobbes - Friday, December 8, 2006 A Unique Coincidence - Saturday, December 2, 2006 Paul's Success Was a Miracle - Monday, November 27, 2006 Prophecy Old And New - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 Thought For Food - Monday, October 30, 2006 Paul Ricoeur’s Personal Anthropology - Friday, September 15, 2006 What's Happening? - Tuesday, August 8, 2006 Actor and Patient - Sunday, July 23, 2006 Something Happens to Her - Thursday, July 20, 2006 The Fact of Consciousness - Saturday, June 17, 2006 Fact as Event - Saturday, June 17, 2006 Sensation, Perception, Conception - Saturday, June 17, 2006
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