Monday, August 3, 2009

Motility and Reflection

The basic manifestations of Exposition and Propriation are Motility and Reflection, respectively. 'Motility' means 'self-moving', in contrast with mobility, which pertains to any kind of movement. Or, to put it another way, Motility is Idionomic mobility. Animals, in general, and particular humans, of course, are mobile, but such mobility is heteronomic. The two main types of heteronomic mobility are what are Aristotle would call the Final Cause and the Efficient Cause. More familiarly, any goal that is being pursued is a Final Cause, while any environmental stimulus is an Efficient Cause. A more subtle type of Efficient Cause is any Systemic law to which an entity is subject qua sub-System, e. g. a procreative urge. 'Reflection' means 'self-consciousness', and is, analogous to the relation between Motility and mobility, Idionomic awareness, (a distinction that Sartre draws between 'thetic' and 'non-thetic' consciousness). The most fundamental type of awareness, present in any animal, is kinaesthesia--the feeling of bodily movement. So, the Motility-Reflection combination is a development of the mobility-kinaesthesia combination.

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