Intention

An 'intention' is an image, usually visual or linguistic, that precedes some movement. A long tradition has often interpreted an intention as a prevision of the completion of the movement that follows it, as if that completion already existed in the future, and it were drawing one towards it. Dewey offers an important challenge to such an interpretation, distinguishing between an 'end-in-view', and an 'end'. While the latter is the actual termination of the movement, the former is at best a piece of imagination, the function of which is it to initiate and guide immediate action. But Dewey's analysis applies to only unreflective contexts, and, hence, is incomplete. In a Reflective context, an end-in-view is not merely an isolated given, but an imaginative modifciation of the activities presented by Reflection. Unreflectively, for example, an end-in-view for taking a walk might be 'to visit a friend'. Reflectively, the end-in-view 'visiting a friend' is a modification of what one has just been doing, e. g. sitting home reading, a variation of what one has been doing that conjures up, e. g. images of past visits to the friend, images of the friend, etc., that is an accommodation of some impulse.

Outer and Inner

Kant draws a distinction between 'Outer Sense' and 'Inner Sense'. By 'Outer Sense', he seems to mean the processes of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. By 'Inner Sense' he seems to mean any reproduction of outer sensings, pleasure and pain, memories, thoughts, etc. Because one's own foot is an object that one can see and touch, it is an object of Outer Sense, whereas the pain of a sore ankle is in Inner Sense. In an example that he does not entertain, he seems committed to classifying one's stomach as an object of Outer Sense, perhaps because it is as visually accessible to a surgeon as it is to oneself, while a stomach ache is in Inner Sense, because no one else can feel it. Now, Kant treats Outer and Inner as realms that are ready-made, but unclarities in his analyses suggest that they are more than merely given as is. For example, is the sense-datum 'red' Outer or Inner? It would seem that it could be either, depending on whether it is referred to an outer object, or to the perceiver. And, the same ambiguity seems to hold of any datum of the 'five senses'. That the answer depends on the nature of the 'reference' involved, suggests that the entire distinction between Outer and Inner depends on it as well. In other words, 'Outer' and 'Inner' are the products of processes that can be called 'Externalization' and 'Internalization', respectively, and, hence, are thereby distinguished from one another.

Impulse

Impulse is often described as 'blind'. Such a judgment is not surprising where the criterion for 'vision' is the certainty of the contemplation, sedentary or incorporeal, of eternal truths. From such a perspective, if impulse is not ignored completely, belittlement or vilification of it are not surprising. On the other hand, such a perspective might itself be incapable of noticing boredom, inertia, indecision, or loneliness, all breeding gounds of Impulse. Impulse is always variation with respect to a preceding condition, a manifestation of the Material Principle, so it 'sees' Diversification, even if ideologies that accord priority to Unity cannot.

Prescription and Reflective Behavior

While description is subsequent to, and brings closure to, what it describes, prescription, conversely, precedes and gives rise to what it prescribes. Since the most common usage of 'prescription' pertains to pharmaceuticals, and the most typical Philosophical one entails features that are irrelevant to current purposes, a familiar example of prescription, recipe, will be more helpful here. A recipe entails two primary elements--it is a directive to both proceed, and to how to proceed. One's understanding of a recipe is not, as some theories have it, of its 'sense' or of its 'reference', but of to proceed, and of how to proceed. Usually, a recipe presents several stages--fill kettle with water, place kettle on heating element, place tea bag in cup, pour boiling water into cup, in that order. Knowing how to proceed means, at minimum, being familiar with the constituent stages. The recipe guides the proceeding--e. g. one awaits the whistling of the kettle, one checks the instructions, and then one pours the water into the cup. In other words, there is a cycle of interaction between the awareness of what has been transpiring and the next movement. With enough practice, this interaction becomes so fluent that the movement and the awareness can seem to be running parallel to one another, as Spinoza perhaps observed. The enactment of a recipe is an example of reflective behavior, in which the activity is a product of the Formal and Material Principles. Previous discussions focused on examples which would help clarify how each in itself functions, but those analyses were not meant to be taken as exclusive instances--the two Principles can combine in an infinite variety of ways. One is autobiographical retrospection, another is the guidance of movement by some conscious image or expression. Autobiographical writing is one type of reflective behavior, and skilled action is another.

Thought Thinking Itself

The theory of Reflection being presented here is an example of 'thought thinking itself', as Aristotle put it. But for Aristotle, such pure intellectual activity is the essence of Philosophy, and the highest achievement of any rational being. In contrast, the presentation of a theory of Reflection is quite definitely not the ultimate purpose of the project here. Instead, that theory helps to illustrate the Formal Prinicple in human Individuals, which, taken in combination with a Material Principle, constitutes a theory of Conduct, that is itself crucial to the Ethical theory that will eventually be discussed. It is because Aristotle had no analogous Material Principle that his Formal Principle also qualifies as his highest Ethical principle. Perhaps the epochal achievement of the Critique of Pure Reason is to counter Aristotle's valorization of Pure Reason, by demonstrating its limits, in the course of explaining how the proper sphere of Reason is Practice. Marxism and Pragmatism are continuations of this anti-Aristotelianism, whereas Analytic Philosophy, insofar as its aim is to clear up intellectual confusion, is reactionary Aristotelianism. A currently popular hybrid of Analytic Philosophy, e. g. Russell, and Pragmatism, e. g. Dewey, with the later Wittgenstein as its paradigm, defines Philosophy as a 'therapeutic' discipline. Now, 'therapy' presupposes a concept of 'health', so lacking an explicit discussion of that concept, as seems to be the case with this hybrid, it is more Russell than Dewey. Anyway, a pure Aristotelian might argue that the Formaterial theory of Reflection here has fallen short of the highest level of pure Intellectual Reflection. To be sure, there has been no discussion of intellectual operations such as Logic, Mathematics, etc. But the position here is that they are all fundamentally combinations of Unity and Multiplicity, and, hence, are derivative Form-Matter combinations. Also, some thinkers seem to have insisted that there is a further level of Consciousness to be achieved--a Reflection on Reflection, that, for example, produces 'an idea of an idea', a sphere of incorporeality. Now, there is no denying that Reflection is a representation of its object, nor that further representation occurs. But the latter is not a more rarefied level of Reflection, but, rather, is Retention, as part of Memory processes. Confusing Reflection and Memory has not only bred much Philosophical mischief over the centuries, but is likely at the root of the 'Narcissistic' tendencies that are the focus of contemporary Psychology.

Autobiography and Propriation

An autobiography introduces structure into its topic. Narrative connects incidents that may not have been originally experienced as such. "I was reading, and then I went for a walk" links what might have originally been two discrete events, by characterizing the I that commenced reading, and what it became in the process of reading, as constitutive of the I that commenced going for a walk. Some theories maintain that the the two I's are identical, others that they are different. But both theories are inaccurate--the first is I becomes part of the second. Now, narration, like any description, must be subsequent to it. Hence, it must treat what it describes as completed, and, so, introduces closure into it. Furthermore, as can be seen when someone writes an autobiography, or even keeps a diary, in order to 'make sense of their life, and who they are', the narration organically emerges from the experiences that are themselves to be described. As such, closure is an immanent product, not imposed from without. Finally, the most recent autobiographical event is the one that can never explicitly appear in the autobiographical narrative, but is always implicitly present--the narrative itself. In autobiographical narrative, Subject and Object thus converge. Now, Reflection is internal autobiography. In it, one gathers and retains oneself, one makes oneself one's own. It is an example of Propriation, in which which various movements Become-the-Same. Reflection is an example of Propriation, the Formal Principle of the Individual.

Variation and Exposition

The effect of a visual object on our eyes varies them. Contact with the ground on our feet when we walk varies them. To be discussed at greater length later, social interaction varies our behavior. In general, any activity entails our being varied. So, in deliberate activity, one voluntarily allows oneself to be varied, that is, one willingly exposes oneself to the forces that vary one. What distinguishes Exposition as a type of Becoming-Diverse of an Individual is that it is a putting-forth that entails exposure to what varies one. In other words, Exposition is the Material Principle of the Individual.