The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

scanned pdf

Hartshorne argues that "the primitive substratum of all experience" is a "built-in relation to feeling and action." "Before we 'know' anything about an extremely bitter or foul-smelling substance we have begun to reject it." This means, he concludes, that "the primitive facts are value-facts already." But, then, he asks, "Are we . . . experiencing only our own feelings about the world, not the world?" He answers, "No, we are experiencing a world composed at the very least of feelings. These are not in the first instance ours, but belong especially to creatures making up our bodies" (CSPM: 300).

So far as I can see, however, one could accept everything that Hartshorne has to say about the primitive facts being value-facts already (and thus against the notion that the mind is a mere camera, recording facts prior to any valuation of them), and even join him in denying that we are experiencing only our own feelings, without in the least having to accept his claim that we are experiencing a world composed of feelings that, in the first instance, are not our own. Why could one do this?

Because from my experiencing x with feeling there is no valid inference to the conclusion that x itself either is or has feelings other than my own. In some cases, to be sure, this may be a valid inference, because I can experience my own (past) feelings with feeling. But that it is a valid inference in all cases begs the question—the question, namely, whether feelings can feel anything other than (other) feelings. That they can feel nothing without (themselves having) the subjective form of feeling need not mean that they can feel nothing (which is itself) without the objective form of feeling (cf. CSPM: 241). It needs to mean only that they can feel nothing that is without whatever objective form(s) is (are) necessary to their feeling it with the subjective form of feeling with which they in fact feel everything they feel. What objective form(s) is (are) thus necessary, however, is precisely the question—the question that Hartshorne begs rather than answers.

  • No labels