There is a species of primate in South America more gregarious than most other mammals, with a curious behavior.The members of this species often gather in groups, large and small, and in the course of their mutual chattering , under a wide variety of circumstances, they are induced to engage in bouts of involuntary, convulsive respiration, a sort of loud, helpless, mutually reinforcing group panting that sometimes is so severe as to incapacitate them. Far from being aversive,however, these attacks seem to be sought out by most members of the species, some of whom even appear to be addicted to them....the species in Homo sapiens (which does indeed inhabit South America, among other places), and the behavior is laughter.
Certainly, what Kant calls the transcendental reference, experience and object of experience are in a sense present in both opposed views of the nature of the subjective *a-priori*. In both cases the object must 'order itself' according to the rules of the knowing mind or its functions, irrespective of whether the specific function of cognition is based on a systematic construction, synthetization, formation of the object from 'given' sensational material or on a methodical selection-process (suppression, abstraction, disregard) imposed on a self-constituting object. For if the order of selection in which the fulness of the world, as it is in ipseity, reaches man (or a particular kind of man, e.g., a type of racial or cultural unity) is so governed that an object of essence *B* is only given when an object of essence *A* has already been given (if, that is to say, *A* has datum-priority over *B* in order of time__ot necessarily in direct succession), then if an object *X* is simultaneously of essence *A* and *B*, everything which is true of *A* must necessarily be true of *X*__ot vice versa. For example, if spatiality and extensity have strict perceptual priority over all essential properties of matter and corporeality, geometry must be strictly valid for all possible bodies. But the same principle, the applicability of geometry to all bodies without exception, would still hold good if Kant's doctrine were true__hough it denies the very reality of extension and space, and explains the spatial form as merely a subjective aspect of the datum. Thus in both cases the transcendental validity of the so-called *a-priori*, even for the objects of experience, would persist, so that in itself it offers us *no* criterion of choice between one or other *hypothesis*__hat which supposes a synthetic addition of the form on the part of the spontaneous mind, or the other, which postulates an ordered selection in conformity with foreknown essences." __rom_On the Eternal in Man_. The Nature of Philosophy, with a new introduction by Graham McAleer
Quote Detail
Certainly, what Kant calls the transcendental reference, experience and object of experience are in a sense present in both opposed views of the nature of the subjective *a-priori*. In both cases the object must 'order itself' according to the rules of the knowing mind or its functions, irrespective of whether the specific function of cognition is based on a systematic construction, synthetization, formation of the object from 'given' sensational material or on a methodical selection-process (suppression, abstraction, disregard) imposed on a self-constituting object. For if the order of selection in which the fulness of the world, as it is in ipseity, reaches man (or a particular kind of man, e.g., a type of racial or cultural unity) is so governed that an object of essence *B* is only given when an object of essence *A* has already been given (if, that is to say, *A* has datum-priority over *B* in order of time__ot necessarily in direct succession), then if an object *X* is simultaneously of essence *A* and *B*, everything which is true of *A* must necessarily be true of *X*__ot vice versa. For example, if spatiality and extensity have strict perceptual priority over all essential properties of matter and corporeality, geometry must be strictly valid for all possible bodies. But the same principle, the applicability of geometry to all bodies without exception, would still hold good if Kant's doctrine were true__hough it denies the very reality of extension and space, and explains the spatial form as merely a subjective aspect of the datum. Thus in both cases the transcendental validity of the so-called *a-priori*, even for the objects of experience, would persist, so that in itself it offers us *no* criterion of choice between one or other *hypothesis*__hat which supposes a synthetic addition of the form on the part of the spontaneous mind, or the other, which postulates an ordered selection in conformity with foreknown essences." __rom_On the Eternal in Man_. The Nature of Philosophy, with a new introduction by Graham McAleer
Quick Answer
What this quote page tells you
This canonical quote page keeps the full saying, the attributed author, any linked work, and the topic tags together so the quote can be cited from one stable URL.
Related Quotes
More quote cards from the same area
The shortest interval between two points is the awareness that they are not two.
This 'web of discourses' as Robyn called it...is as much a biological product as any of the other constructions to be found in the animal world. (Clothes too, are part of the extended phenotype of Homo Sapiens almost every niche inhabited by that species.An illustrated encyclopedia of zoology should no more picture Homo Sapiens naked than it should picture Ursus arctus-the black bear- wearing a clown suit and riding a bicycle.
Doing philosophy is only a threefold or double kind of waking--being awake--consciousness.
True, the initial ideas are in general those of an individual, but the establishment of the reality and truth is in general the work of more than one person.
The New Age is not one of bells and whistles and mystical special effects. It is not a fantasy state driven by the alignments of planets or the power of crystals, nor a metaphysical rising to higher plains of consciousness by virtue of chanting esoteric mantras. It will not feature the arrival of a thunderbolt-wielding god, ready to set up a final judgment by reviving hordes of old, decayed corpses. The real New Age is a simple, but stunningly profound, awareness that one__ Self and all that one encounters are two aspects of the same, singular Essence.