Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- FOREWORD
- PUBLISHER'S NOTE
- SEEK FOR THE ROAD
- WHAT IS REAL?
- I Reasons for abandoning the dualism of thought and existence, or mind and matter
- II Linguistic information and our common possession of the world
- III The imperfection of understanding
- IV The doctrine of identity: light and shadow
V - Two grounds for astonishment: pseudo-ethics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- FOREWORD
- PUBLISHER'S NOTE
- SEEK FOR THE ROAD
- WHAT IS REAL?
- I Reasons for abandoning the dualism of thought and existence, or mind and matter
- II Linguistic information and our common possession of the world
- III The imperfection of understanding
- IV The doctrine of identity: light and shadow
Summary
First let us summarise. We have found two remarkable states of affairs, each of which is in its way astonishing. It is important to make a very sharp distinction between these two findings, for, since very similar words are used to describe them, it is easy to confuse one with another. If the present study can be said to contain anything new, it will have been, chiefly, to have pointed out the necessity of separating these two findings.
First, it is astonishing that, despite the absolute hermetic separation of my sphere of consciousness from all others (which no clear-thinking person denies) the origin and development of a common language, set in motion by the imitative instinct, as briefly sketched above, leads inevitably to the recognition of a far-reaching structural similarity between certain parts of our experiences, the parts which we call external; it can be expressed in the brief statement that we all live in the same world. This is a process whose course we can follow again and again in any growing child; it is not possible to have doubts about it, our danger is rather that custom will blunt our astonishment.
But there is something else, distinct from the marvellous way in which, despite the absolute separation of our spheres of consciousness, we become aware of our shared world—‘we’ being not profound and learned thinkers but children far below school age.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- My View of the World , pp. 104 - 110Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1951