Rhythm of Experience

Dewey proposes that the basic rhythm of experience is Doing-Undergoing, i. e. an interaction between an entity and its environment. A familiar example of such give-and-take is exhalation and inhalation, and a less obvious one is stepping, which is constituted by both a foot exerting a force against the ground, as well as the converse. However, cardiac systole-diastole is vital but intra-organistic. Likewise internal is what can be called Extending-Retaining, which refers to a motion, and the preserving of it, potentially to be further extended-upon. For example, a step becomes a walk only by virtue of its being preserved and then extended-upon by subsequent steps, each, in its turn, a new Retained Extending. In other words, Doing-Undergoing constitutes only the Extending phase of an Extending-Retaining rhythm, and, hence, is only a component of that more fundamental rhythm of experience.