Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: the influence of place
- 1 The obscurity of place
- 2 The structure of spatiality
- 3 Holism, content and self
- 4 Unity, locality and agency
- 5 Agency and objectivity
- 6 Self and the space of others
- 7 The unity and complexity of place
- 8 Place, past and person
- Conclusion: the place of philosophy
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Unity, locality and agency
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: the influence of place
- 1 The obscurity of place
- 2 The structure of spatiality
- 3 Holism, content and self
- 4 Unity, locality and agency
- 5 Agency and objectivity
- 6 Self and the space of others
- 7 The unity and complexity of place
- 8 Place, past and person
- Conclusion: the place of philosophy
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
It is only when we turn to consider our practical experience as agents, and not our theoretical experience as thinkers, that we discover the true nature of reason.
John MacMurray, The Self as AgentThe idea that mental states – and subjectivity in general – are holistically structured is an important element in the development of the concept of place that is the focus for the inquiry undertaken in these pages. One reason for this, a reason already suggested in the preceding chapter, is that it enables us to arrive at an understanding of subjectivity as dependent on the articulation of a system of mental states, rather than being some simple and underlying structure around which mental states, along with the subjective space of experience, are organised and in relation to which they are grounded. And, just as subjectivity cannot independently ground the unity of mental content or of subjective space, neither can it be treated as grounding the structure of place. As we look more closely at the holistic character of subjectivity, and particularly its relation to agency, so the impossibility of taking the subject as somehow more fundamental than place will become even more evident.
Mental states such as belief and desire exhibit an interconnection not merely with other such states, but also with actions.
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- Information
- Place and ExperienceA Philosophical Topography, pp. 92 - 108Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999