CHAPTER V

The Closeness

of the World

 G lobal loving, like global marveling, despair, awe, tedium and peace, is directly based upon global joy. Global loving is especially similar to awe, tedium, and peace, for it is an impure appreciation of happening in the second mode of impurity: it is an appreciation of happening as an aspect of a broader importance, the other aspect of this importance being a feature of the world-whole that hap pens. This feature is the immediate apparentness, the apparential closeness, of the world-whole.

The present chapter begins with a description of the affect of global love and of the general nature of the importance, apparential closeness, that is disclosed in love (V. 28). There follows a more exact determination of what it means to say that the world-whole immediately or intuitively appears in global loving (V. 29). Immediate appearance must be distinguished from the other ways in which the world-whole appears, its mediate appearances in imagining and thinking, which are apparential distances of the world-whole (V. 30). A second sense in which the world-whole “immediately appears” is then discussed (V. 31), and this leads to a determination of the world-whole’s immediate appearance as the ultimate truth (V. 32). Finally, five impure appreciations of apparential closeness are de scribed: global pride, sadness, wonder, desolation, and equanimity (V. 33).

V. 28. The Loving Response to the World-Whole’s Revelation

In circumstances of a certain sort, a longing for a revelation of the world-whole may arise. This longing can occur when I am tied down to mundane tasks and cares and am unable to free my spirit for an intuitive appreciation of the world in its wholeness. Although the world-whole is always “there” in an immediate way on the horizon of my awareness, I do not feel spiritually free enough to allow it to emerge in its immediacy into the foreground of my awareness, and to let it there captivate me with the importance of its revealedness. The foreground of my awareness is occupied by mundane strivings, affects, and moody mullings; even when I am free from my obligations, I remain beset by worries and cares about the world-parts with which I am involved and cannot “let myself go” from them and open up to the whole.

But I am at least lifted above mundanity to a degree where I am able to long for a revelation of the world-whole. I long to be able to intuit the world-whole in an affective captivation, to stand face to face with the world-whole as it reveals itself to me in an immediate way. I think of and imagine with longing the world-whole in its immediate apparentness. In this longing, I am not apprehending the world-whole in an immediate or direct way, but mediately; I am confined to thinking a thought of the world-whole and to imagining an image of it (e.g., I may imagine the world-whole as being revealed to me as the whole composed of some fantasized landscape and of the indeterminately manifest “everything else” that extends beyond this landscape). I long to get beyond or do away with these intermediaries, the thoughts and images, and to behold the world- whole itself, in its naked immediacy.

Suppose now that I have been granted a leave or vacation from the mundane obligations that have kept my head bowed to the earth. I journey to the country and climb to the summit of a mountain. Soon I am on the summit: the silver peaks that shine in the distance, the deep blue of the sky, and the sense of vast spaces all cleanse me of my mundane preoccupations and lift and free my spirit. My longing is satisfied as my feelings deepen and broaden in a revelation of the world in its wholeness. The whole that encompasses these distant peaks, this deep sky, and every thing else beyond them no longer lies suppressed and obscured on the horizon of my awareness; it flashes forth into the foreground and captivates my attention, engendering in me a feeling of loving illumination.

This flashing forth in an immediate apparentness is the global revelation, the revelation of the whole that includes as parts of itself not only myself but also these silver peaks and green valleys and blue sky and the indefinitely manifest “everything else” that extends beyond these perceived parts. In this revelation, the world-whole becomes apparentially close to me; I am no longer apparentially distanced from the world-whole—separated from it, so to speak, by a thought or image—as I was in my global longing. Now there is nothing at all between myself and the world- whole—I am face to face with it, feeling it directly in its intuitive omnipresence. The distant and longed for world-whole is now close to me, flashing forth all around me, from everywhere and everything, and I respond to it with a pure loving feeling-of-closeness.

The appearance of the world-whole in the loving intuition does not imply that all of the parts and features of the world-whole are determinately and individually appearing in this intuition. All of the individual parts and features of the world-whole cannot be determinately intuited and individually singled out in any one intuitive feeling, and it is certain that these parts and features are not apparent in this way in the loving intuition, The world-whole itself, which is that which has these parts and features, is what is immediately apparent in the loving. What engenders a loving response is that the whole which is composed of these parts and possesses these features is apparentially close to me, and is neither apparen tially distant from me nor nonapparent to me and incapable of becoming apparent to me.

            This becoming-close of the world-whole is felt not only in the loving intuition, but also in the sensuous feelings that accompany this in tuition. A loving feeling-sensation is engendered in me by the coming close of the whole; a loving feeling-flow is drawn outwards from me and towards the close whole. I lovingly flow towards the whole in a soft and effulgent manner, warmly and intimately binding myself together with it. This feeling-sensation is the pure sensational correlate of the apparentially-binding-myself-together-with-the-whole, a binding established in my loving intuition of the whole.

            The feeling-tonality that is conjoined with this feeling-sensation flows in the reverse direction, from the revealed whole towards myself. From the immediate omniappearance of the whole of these mountains-and- valleys-and-stretching-skies-and-everything-else, there emanates towards me a soft and vast feeling-tonality of love. Gentle waves of love flow towards me from everywhere, breaking upon me again and again, bathing me with an exquisite pleasure and tenderness.

            I flow lovingly towards the Omniapparent, and It flows lovingly towards me. But that the omniapparent whole flows towards me lovingly does not mean that the world-whole is a person who directs a conscious act of loving towards me; rather, in my sensuous response to the whole’s flashing forth, I feel the whole to have the feeling-tonality of flowing towards me lovingly. This feeling-tonality is felt by me, not by the world-whole. It is the way in which I sensuously appreciate the whole’s apparential closeness to me.

            Moreover, the apparential closeness I sensuously appreciate is no less dependent upon me than is the loving feeling-tonality. This can be explicated precisely if the following distinctions are made. A relation of “immediate appearing of’ obtains between the world-whole and myself. I am experiencing an intuiting or “immediate appearing of” the world-whole, and this intuiting is a relation whose two terms are the world-whole and myself. The world-whole as one of the terms of this relation is the immediately apparent, and I as the other term am the immediately appeared to. Through being a term of this relation, the world-whole acquires the relational feature of being immediately apparent (to me), and I correlatively acquire the relational feature of being immediately appeared to (by the world-whole).

            The global importance of apparential closeness that I lovingly appreciate is the relational feature of immediate apparentness (to me). Since the world-whole has this feature only through being a term of a relation to me, this feature is necessarily dependent upon me.

            Analogous remarks hold true for the apparential features the world- whole acquires through being the relational terms of intuitive feelings experienced by other people. The world-whole is immediately apparent to multiplicity of persons (and perhaps to some nonhuman world-parts as well) in a multiplicity of intuitive feelings (most of them being horizonal intuitions) at the same time and at different times.

            But of all these intuitive feelings, it is only in global love that the world-whole’s apparential closeness is purely appreciated. One reason for this is that most of these other intuitive feelings are appreciations of some feature of the world-whole that is immediately apparent, rather than the feature of immediate apparentness itself. Take for example global awe, an intuition of the world-whole’s feature of being absolutely immense. Now the world-whole’s absolute immensity is immediately apparent in this awe, it is being intuited in this awe; but the being intuited of this global immensity is not itself what is being intuited in this awe. I am not in awe of the immediate apparentness of the immensity of the world-whole, but of the immensity of the world-whole that is immediately apparent.

            Global loving, on the other hand, is captivated by the world-whole’s very feature of being immediately apparent in the loving intuition. As such, global loving is a semireflexive intuition; it is neither an unreflexive intuition of some feature of the world-whole, such as immensity, that is immediately apparent, nor a reflexive intuition of my relational feature of being immediately appeared to by the world-whole, but a semireflexive awareness of the world-whole’s relational feature of being immediately apparent to me. Global loving is not wholly turned back towards myself and my features, as are reflexive intuitions, but is partly turned back towards myself, inasmuch as it is an awareness of the world-whole qua related to myself.

            There are some other global affects that are semireflexive appreciations of the world-whole’s apparentiab closeness, but only global love is the pure appreciation of this closeness. The impurity of these other affects will be demonstrated in V. 33; here it suffices to elucidate the purity of love.

            Global loving is the global feeling-of-closeness, just as rejoicing is a feeling-of-fullness, awe a feeling-of-immenseness, and peace a feeling-of-harmoniousness. The closeness felt is the immediacy of the world-whole’s apparentness. This means that closeness is not a “value” that intrinsically attaches to or is projected upon the world-whole’s immediate apparent ness, such that this immediate apparentness considered in itself would be a “neutral” feature of the world. Closeness is not something different from or qualifying the immediacy of the apparentness, but is (identically) this immediacy. “Apparential closeness” and “immediate apparentness” are phrases that refer to the same feature of the world-whole, except that the former phrase refers to it more evocatively and less exactly.

            Global love is the global affect parallel in type to the mood of togetherness. This mood is an unfocused and diffuse feeling of intimacy and togetherness with everything; the whole world is intuitively sensed or contemplated as having a felt closeness to me, although no determinate respect in which the world is close to me is given in this mood. Global loving is a focused intuition of this importance; it discerns a structural con tent to this closeness.

            To say that global loving is a focused intuition of the world-whole’s closeness means not only that it is a focused awareness, but also that it is a veridical one as well. For intuitions by their very nature are veridical awarenesses; delusory awarenesses are not intuitions but at best can deceptively seem to be intuitions. That global loving is a seeming intuition that really is what it seems to be is evinced by the fact that there are no knowable extrinsic grounds that override its intrinsic ground of veridicality (this intrinsic ground being that it seems to be an intuition). Specifically, there are no global intuitions incompatible with this loving, for no feature of the world-whole incompatible with the feature of the world-whole’s apparential closeness is ever intuited. Since a global intuition is possible only if the world-whole immediately appears in that intuition, any putatively overriding global intuition already presupposes the truth of the loving in tuition it putatively overrides, namely the truth that the world-whole is intuitively or immediately apparent.

            Nor can any extrinsic mundane ground be found for casting doubt upon the veridicality of this global loving. I will demonstrate this more thoroughly in the next sections, but by way of anticipation it can be noted here that it is an indisputable fact that some world-parts immediately appear. A part of the world-whole can immediately appear as a part of the world-whole only if the whole of which it immediately appears to be a part also immediately appears. Consequently, mundane intuitions likewise presuppose the truth of global loving, that the world-whole immediately appears.

            Global loving as a pure focused intuition of the world-whole’s close ness is an impure focused intuition of the world-whole’s fulfillment. Global loving is based upon and presupposes the truth of global rejoicing. It is an essential ingredient in the feeling-of-closeness that I-feel the closeness to me of the happening world-whole, not some nonexistent world-whole that is merely the product of my fantasy or thought. It is a characteristic of the intuitable world-whole that it be existing; I can only be intuitively encountered by a world that exists, and worlds that are merely possible and do not actually exist can never be met with in an intuition. Non- existing but possible worlds can be apprehended in imagining-feelings or thinking-feelings, but precisely because these worlds are merely imaginary or merely conceptual they cannot appear outside of the imagination or thought and in an intuition. To recognize a world as intuitively apparent is by that very fact to recognize it as the existing world.

            In this way a focused intuition of the world-whole as apparentially close to me involves an intuition of it as happening, and apparential closeness considered as a single, complete, and concretely intuited importance includes as one of its aspects the feature of happening. This leads us to distinguish a narrow and wide sense of “apparential closeness” (and “immediate appearance”). In the narrow sense (which is how I have been using this phrase so far), it refers to the previously described feature of apparential closeness that inheres in the world-whole. In the wide sense, “apparential closeness” refers to the complete importance of which happening and “apparential closeness” in the narrow sense are the two aspects. Global loving is the pure appreciation of “apparential closeness” in the wide sense.

            For the sake of clarity, I will continue in the following to use “ap parential closeness” and “immediate appearance” in only one sense, the narrow sense, with the caveat that “apparential closeness” in this sense is always to be understood as a feature of the happening world-whole (and accordingly as an aspect, along with happening, of the importance of “ap parential closeness” in the wide sense).

            Global loving is a semireflexive intuition of the happening world- whole’s immediate apparentness to me, but global rejoicing is an unreflexive intuition and as such implicitly apprehends but is not attentionally captivated by the being intuited of the whole. This means it does not include within itself as one of its aspects an impure appreciation of the apparential closeness of the world-whole. While its truth is included within the truth of global loving, the truth of global loving is not included within that of joy. Rejoicing in this way is the more fundamental of the two affects.

            In the above remarks, I have been assuming that we have a clear idea of the world-whole that comes to immediate appearance in global loving. But this assumption may have been too hasty, for certainly in some sense of the phrase “the world-whole” it is absurd to say that it can be intuited. In fact, philosophers and nonphilosophers alike often say that we can intuit this or that part of the world, but to intuit the whole world is simply out of the question. It is encumbent upon me, then, to make more explicit and exact what it means to say that “the world-whole can be intuited.”

V. 29. The Immediate Appearance of the Centered World-Whole.

            In this section I will show that it can be truly said that the world- whole immediately appears in global loving, if by “the world- whole” one means “the centered world-whole.” The mediate appearance of the centered world-whole is discussed in the following section.

            The first step in making explicit the nature of the world-whole’s immediate appearance is to indicate in a general way that a whole can appear only if all its parts appear (where “appear” means “appear in some way”). If only some parts of a whole appear, then by that very fact it is unknown whether there are any other parts of the whole (for if these other parts do not appear to me in any way, I cannot know if they exist). And if it is unknown whether there are any other parts of this whole, then it is unknown whether there is a whole whose composition extends beyond what is appearing. The only whole that is known and appearing is the one composed of the parts that are appearing.

            An analogous thesis holds true for the immediate appearance of the world-whole; a whole can immediately appear only if all its parts immediately appear. If only some parts immediately appear, and the other parts mediately appear, the only whole that immediately appears is the one composed of the immediately appearing parts. Thus, in order to show that the world-whole immediately appears, it must be shown that all of its parts appear in this way.

            It can be briefly demonstrated that the first thesis, concerning the appearance of a whole in some way, applies to the world-whole. Consider a metaphysical sceptic who acknowledges that there is a world-whole but denies that this whole appears to us in any way whatsoever. “There is a world-whole,” he asserts, “but this whole does not appear to us at all.” It is evident from this denial, however, that the world-whole is apparent in some way to the sceptic who is making this denial; it is apparent to him mediately and conceptually as that whose apparentness he is denying. The sceptic must in some way be aware of the world-whole in order to deny that it has the feature of “appearing in some way to us,” and in this awareness the world-whole is appearing to him. The world-whole mediately appears to him in the subject-concept of the proposition “The world-whole does not appear to us at all (not even in the subject-concepts of propositions).”

            It is evident, then, that if there is a world-whole, this whole appears to us at least in some way, at least mediately and conceptually. But does it also appear immediately and intuitively?

It could be argued that the world-whole cannot be intuited for two reasons. First, we can never single out in our intuition every thing that exists—and apprehend each of these things in its individual and deter minate nature—but can only apprehend in this way the hued things in our immediate surroundings, and the thoughts, images, and sensuous feelings, etc., that we can intuit in our inner sense. Second, we always apprehend the world from a perspective, a point of view, and can never “float above” it and achieve an absolutely objective and nonperspectival intuition of the world.

            The response to these two assertions is not to deny them, but to. acknowledge their truth and point out that by “the world-whole” and “the intuition of the world-whole” I mean something quite different from what is meant in these assertions. These assertions are presupposing a concept of the world-whole as a centerless world, a world that is the totality of existents as seen from no point of view. Such a world-whole cannot be intuited by us, for our intuitions in their very essence are points of view, perspectives, and as such necessarily are apprehensions of a centered world. “Centered” here means that the world appears as extending out from a “center,” this center being one part of the world that is intuitively aware of all the other parts as encircling itself. This can be described more completely in terms of the encompassing character of the centered world-whole. “To encompass” means to encircle and to include. To intuit the world as encompassing me is to intuit it as a whole that includes me within itself and as a whole all of whose other parts besides myself encircle me by ex tending outwards perspectivally from my awareness.

            This encompassing character of the intuited world-whole has already been implied by my previous descriptions of the world-whole as the whole of myself-and-these-things-and-everything-else. The world-whole is not intuitively given as a whole such that each thing in this whole is singled out in its specific nature and made to appear equally with each other thing on a uniform and perspectiveless plane. Rather, the whole is intuitively given first of all in terms of myself-and-these-things-in-my-surroundings, e.g., myself-and-these-mountains-and-valleys that belong to my hued environment, or, if we wish to talk of surroundings,” this arithmetical-sum-I-am-now-computing, or this-scientific-theory-I-am-now reading-about.

            The world-whole at the same time is given in terms of everything-else beyond-myself-and-these-things-in-my-surrounding. Whereas the things in my surroundings are apprehended in a relatively definite and individualized way, everything-else appears in a mostly indeterminate way. All the specific things beyond my surroundings are not singled out in imagination or thought, but appear vaguely and en masse as belonging to a mostly unarticulated totality. Some aspects of this vaguely appearing everything-else appear with a degree of determinateness; for example, the world is apprehended to continue in a spatial way beyond my perceived spatial surroundings into other more distant spatial regions, and to continue through interconnections of sense and essence beyond the theoretical principles to which I am now directing my attention into a complex net work of other theoretical principles. However, these aspects of everything- else that appear with a degree of definiteness are themselves articulated segments of a larger totality whose other parts appear as the indefinite ensemble of “all the remaining world-parts, whatever they may be and however many they may be.”

            To be aware of myself, my surroundings, and of what lies beyond them are necessary aspects of the apprehension of the whole of myself-and-these-things-and-everything-else, but they are not the sole aspects. I am also aware of myself, my surroundings, and their “beyond” as parts of the same whole, viz., the whole that is the world, the world-whole. The world-whole is that to which my self, my surroundings, and their “beyond” are related by the relation of being “parts of” it. Myself-and- these-things-and-everything-else appear as composing the world-whole, and the world-whole thus appears to be related to myself-and-these-things-and-everything-else by the relation of being composed of us. The world- whole accordingly appears as a single whole, as a “one” that is irreducible to the many parts to which it is related.

            This can be made more exactly explicit by pointing out that the world-whole intuitively appears to be wholly identical with all its parts, but not to be absolutely identical with them. That is, the world-whole is wholly identical with all its parts in that it is nothing more than that which is composed of these parts. But it is not absolutely identical with its parts; it is something more than these parts. It is not these parts, but that which is composed of them. In short, the world-whole is not parts simpliciter, but a whole-of-parts, not a many, but a one-of-many. Thus, although it is true to say that the world is divided into different parts, and thus is manifold in respect of these divisions, it is also true to say that the world, as that which is divided into these different parts, is something unitary.

            The idea that the world-whole is not absolutely identical with all its parts is not to be confused with the notion that “a whole is more than the sum of its parts.” This notion makes sense only if the term “parts” is used in such a way that the parts of a whole can be distinguished from the relation the parts have to each other; such a whole is more than the sum of its parts in that it is identical not just with its parts but also with their interrelations: it is wholly identical with the-parts-as-interrelated. Now in regard to the world-whole, whose parts are all existents other than itself, it does not make sense to distinguish the parts from their interrelations, for these relations—no less than the things they relate—exist and consequently have an equal right to be called “parts” of the world-whole. (But not all relations are parts of the world; some relations obtain, not between parts and other parts, but between parts and the whole. For example, the world is related to its parts through the relation of being composed of them, and the world’s being composed of parts is not itself a part of which it is composed.) Since relations among world-parts are themselves world-parts, it is false that the world is more than the sum of its parts; rather, it is absolutely identical with this sum. But this sum is not absolutely identical with all the parts, for whereas there is only one sum, the parts of which there is a sum are many. The sum of the parts of the world-whole nevertheless is wholly identical with these parts, for it is nothing other than that which is made up of these parts.

            It is worthwhile to dwell for a moment on this distinction between the world and all its parts, for it is crucial to the project of a metaphysics of the world’s felt meanings to establish that there is such a distinction. Suppose for a moment that the world were absolutely identical with its parts; in that case, there would be no whole of which world-parts are parts; there would be no world, no whole, of which they would partake and to which they would have the relation of participation. This would mean that world-parts would not really be parts at all; there would be nothing more than many existing things. I could never refer to the world, the one world, but only to this and this and this; I would find multiplicity but no unity.

            If the world-whole were absolutely identical with all existing things, this would also entail that there would be nothing in which the various global features could inhere, and thus there would be no global features. There would be nothing to have the features of being the greatest and most inclusive whole, of being one whole, of being a whole that exists, and exists nonnecessarily and purposelessly, etc.

            It might be argued in opposition to this that all existing things can serve the function of being the world and that in which the global features inhere, and that consequently the world can be absolutely identified with all existing things. But this is impossible for the following reason. There are not many worlds, but one world; the world necessarily has the feature of being one. But all existing things are many, and what is many cannot be one.

            If it is said that in truth there is no overarching global unity but only a multiplicity of existing things, I would respond by pointing out that such a state of affairs cannot obtain, for strictly speaking a multiplicity not only implies but is a unity; a multiplicity is nothing other than one multiplicity, a multiplicity of multiples. The multiplicity, which is one, must be distinguished from the multiples, the items constituting the multiplicity, which are many. If there are eight wolves roaming together, there is a multiplicity of wolves roaming together, a multiplicity that is wholly but not absolutely identical with the eight wolves. There is one wolf-pack but there are eight wolves. Likewise, if there are many existents, then there is a multiplicity of existents, a world. But the world differs from multiplicities like wolf-packs, for whereas the wolf-pack is not itself a wolf, the world is an existent. The world is one of those multiplicities that have features that are also definitive of its constituents; the multiplicity of existents is itself an existent—but it is not a constituent of itself. Rather, it is a multiplicity constituted by all existents other than itself (cf. IV. 27 .vi).

            It is also necessary to mention that confusions about the nature of the world’s wholeness will arise if one unrestrictedly applies the axioms, theorems, and definitions of contemporary set theory to this whole. Whereas these axioms, etc., are useful in set theory, given its special purposes and assumptions, they are not by that fact reflective of the nature of the wholes found in reality. Take for example Cantor’s theorem about power sets. According to this theorem, for each set S there is a larger set PS, the power set of S, whose members are all the subsets of S. For the set S₁, (1, 2, 3), there is the power set PS₁, whose members are the eight subsets of S₁, these subsets being (1, 2, 3), (1, 2), (2, 3), (3, 1), (1), (2), (3), and (0). The (0) is included because one of the axioms of set theory is that the set with no members is a subset of every set. Since each finite set with n members has 2ⁿ subsets, PS₁ has 2⁸ subsets, and there is a power set PS₂ containing these subsets as its members, and so on for power sets PS₃, PS₄, etc. One implication of this ascending hierarchy of power sets is that there is no largest set, the set of all sets, because for every power set there is a larger power set whose members are the subsets of the first power set.

            Now this theorem is not among those with a verifiable application to real wholes, for power sets are not among the intuitively given phenomena that constitute known reality. It is true that in relation to any whole I can conceive of a power set all of whose members are subsets of a set containing all the parts of that whole, but this concept will not be of anything disclosed in intuition. I can, for example, take the parts of some intuitively given whole, such as the pages and covers of a book, and sort these parts out in thought into various subsets of a set, but this does not show that these parts in reality form these subsets, that these subsets exist in the world; indeed, there is no evidence that they do, for all that is met with in intuition are the parts of the whole, the pages and covers of the book.

            In reality, each whole but the world-whole is a part of a larger whole, but this ascending hierarchy of wholes is not like an ascent from power set to power set. The whole of a room is a part of the whole of the house, not because the house contains all the (conceived) subsets of the room, but because the house is partially identical with that room and with connected rooms, hallways, staircases, etc., as well. The house in turn is a part of the city block, which is apart of the city, nation, continent, planet, and so on; this hierarchy of wholes continues to ascend until a whole is reached apart from which there is nothing, and this whole will be the whole of all things other than itself.

            A further specification of this hierarchical ascent and of the nature of the world’s wholeness will be undertaken in the appropriate contexts in Chapter 6. In the context of the present discussion of the world-whole, the explication of this whole as immediately apparent, the most problematic issue concerns if and how it can be both the most inclusive whole and centered, It seems that the centered world-whole cannot be the one world-whole, for there seems to be a different centered world-whole for each center. There seems to be a centered world-whole relative to and private to each person (“each person lives in his own world”) and to every other globally aware world-part. If this is true, then it cannot be in a centered world-whole that the global features inhere, the features of being the greatest whole, being the one whole of all existents other than itself, etc. Is it not the case that the world-whole, that in which these global features inhere, is instead the centerless world-whole? And as such, is not the centerless world-whole the real subject of metaphysics, rather than the centered world-whole given in affective intuitions?

            The answer to these questions is that there is only one centered world-whole, and that it is not relative or private to this or that particular center. This centered world-whole is the one world-whole, the world-whole in which inhere the global features of being the greatest and most inclusive whole, the single whole of existents, etc. The one world-whole is not a centerless world-whole, for a centerless world-whole does not exist. This is true because centers exist, and if centers exist, the whole of all that exists is ipso facto a world-whole that has centers among its parts. Having centers among its parts, it is centered around these parts and as such is a centered world-whole. In the remainder of this section, I will explicate this at some length and then show that the one centered world-whole is immediately apparent in our affective intuitions.

            That the intuitively felt whole of myself-and-these-things-and everything-else is not my private world is indicated in the first instance by the fact that I implicitly apprehend as belonging to this whole all the other world-centers there are besides myself. If some other people (or animals, which in varying degrees are more dimly aware of a centered world than are humans) belong to my hued environment, then I will single them out intuitively as belonging to these-things-around-me; at the same time, all the other people and other world-centers are implicitly apprehended as belonging to everything-else beyond what I am singling out in my hued environment.

            Furthermore, I implicitly apprehend as world-parts the perspectival arrangements these other centers introduce into the world. Each world- center arranges all the things that exist around himself, into these-things- surrounding-him and everything-else. These relations that existing things have to his awareness of being centered around it, and the relations they have to each other by virtue of being centered around his awareness (e.g., one building is in front of another building and to the left of a third building in relation to his perceiving awareness), are themselves things that exist. Qua existents, these relations are themselves parts of the whole of all that exists. Accordingly, in apprehending everything-else-that-exists-beyond-my-immediate-surroundings, I am apprehending implicitly not only the other world-centers but also the perspectival relations these centers introduce into the world.

            This also holds true of the perspectival relations that things have to myself. Inasmuch as I apprehend myself to be a part of the world-whole, I apprehend myself qua world-center and the perspectival relations my centering awareness introduces into the world to be parts of the world. I explicitly apprehend myself and these relations in reflexive and semireflexive global intuitions and implicitly in unreflexive global intuitions.

            Besides the other world-centers and the perspectival relations that things have to these centers, there also implicitly appears to me the perspectival appearances that things in the world exhibit to these centers. If another person is perceiving these mountains at the same time I am feeling lovingly close to the whole they help to compose, the sensuous appearances these mountains are displaying to the other person are different (both numerically and in their exact nature) from the sensuous appearances they are displaying to me, The sensuous appearances of the mountains to him are appearances that are happening, and as such, these appearances—as well as all other appearances that world-parts are currently exhibiting to other world-centers—are implicitly included in the everything-else-that-is-happening besides these mountains and valleys and this sky that I am now singling out intuitively.

            The perspectival appearances to me exhibited by these mountains and valleys and everything-else are apprehended as existent parts of the world-whole in the very same apprehension wherein I grasp myself and the perspectival arrangements around myself to be world-parts. Thus, strictly speaking, myself and-these-things does not merely include myself, these mountains and valleys, etc., but also the mountains’ and valleys’ perspectival arrangements around me and their appearances to me. And everything-else does not include simply all other physical and psychical, etc., things that I am not intuitively singling out, such as other mountains, stars and spatial regions, and other world-centers and the perspectival arrangements around and appearances to these centers. Everything-else also includes the mostly indeterminate appearances to me exhibited by the above-mentioned things, and the perspectival arrangements around me these things have of extending in different perspectival relationships be yond what I am intuitively singling out.

            Thus the centered world-whole I am affectively intuiting is not my private world-whole, but the one world-whole that includes within itself all world-centers and perspectival arrangements and appearances, as well as all the things that are arranged around and appear to these centers.

            It is true that this centered world-whole is centered in different ways around different world-centers, but it is still the same world-whole that is centered in these different ways. “Centered in different ways” means that the perspectival arrangements around and appearances to one center are different than those the world-whole has in relation to another center, even though it is the same world-whole that has these different arrangements and appearances. And it implies that all the arrangements and appearances are manifest at least implicitly to each center, although in each case a distinction is to be made between the arrangements around and appearances to me, and the arrangements around and appearances to other centers, which are some of the things that are arranged around and (implicitly) appear to me.

            “The centered world-whole” as I use this phrase thus can mean one of two things: the world-whole centered in different ways around different centers, or, for purposes of exemplification, the world-whole qua centered around me in this way at this moment, in which case its current centered- ness around me is explicitly referred to and its centerednesses around other centers implicitly referred to (they are implicitly referred to inasmuch as the world-whole that is centered around me includes and implicitly appears to include among its parts the perspectival relations and appearances of things to other centers). In neither case does “the centered world-whole” refer to my private world-whole, my private world-whole being the world- whole thought of in abstraction from its perspectival arrangements around and appearances to other centers and thought of as having only one centered arrangement and appearance—the one it has in relation to myself. This private world-whole is but one part of the one world-whole, the other parts of the one world-whole being the other perspectival arrangements around and appearances to other centers, and these other centers them selves. In a global affective intuiting, I am not intuiting my private world whole (intuiting this world-whole would be a mundane affective intuiting), but the one world-whole of which my private world-whole and all other private world-wholes are parts.

            To render the above descriptions of the centeredness of the world- whole more complete, it should be added that this centeredness includes not only the perspectival arrangements and appearances of things in the world to a world-center, but also the immediate appearance of the world- whole itself, of the world-whole qua absolutely nonidentical with all its parts. The immediate appearance of the world-whole itself is a relational feature of the world-whole, the important feature of apparential closeness. Hence, in apprehending the world-whole’s centerednesses around other centers, I implicitly apprehend not only the perspectival arrangements and appearances things in the world have to these centers, the arrangements and appearances that are themselves parts of the world-whole, but also the immediate appearances of the world-whole itself to these centers, these appearances not being parts but features of the world-whole.

            So far in this section, I have said that the world-whole that im mediately appears in global loving: (1) is centered rather than centerless, (2) is wholly but not absolutely identical with its parts, and (3) is not a private world-whole but the one world-whole that intuitively appears in different ways to its different centers. These distinctions enable the nature of the world-whole’s immediate appearance in global loving to be summarily described in a more exact manner than was possible in the last section.

            This summary description can be made in reference to my statement at the beginning of this section to the effect that a whole can immediately appear only if all of its parts immediately appear. In light of the fact that the world-whole is wholly but not absolutely identical with all of its parts, this means that the world-whole as absolutely nonidentical with all its parts, and as possessing global features, can immediately appear only if what the world-whole is wholly identical with also immediately appears, what it is wholly identical with being all of its parts. And since the world-whole that immediately appears is centered rather than centerless, “all its parts” are myself-and-these-things-and-everything-else, these parts including not only my private world but also all other world-centers and perspectival arrangements and appearances to these centers. Accordingly, if the cen tered world-whole is to appear immediately, then all its parts, myself-and- these-things-and-everything-else, must appear immediately.

            It may be questioned, concerning this summary account of “the im mediate appearance of the centered world-whole,” whether it really has been shown that the world-whole does appear immediately. Specifically, one may wonder if the appearance of the world-whole is really immediate rather than mediate. It may be granted that some parts of the centered world-whole immediately appear, namely, myself-and-these-things-around-me, but does not everything-else at least appear in a mediate way? And as such, is it not true that only one part, rather than the whole, of the centered world appears immediately?

            I can begin to answer this question here, but the complete answer must wait upon the descriptions in the next sections. Let me say that everything-else immediately appears in the sense that everything-else qua everything-else immediately appears, although each single thing belonging to everything-else does not immediately appear in the way myself and these-things-around-me immediately appear. (For example, I perceptually intuit these mountains around me, but I do not perceive all the other mountains in the world; the other mountains appear indeterminately as members of everything-else beyond these mountains.) In fact, everything- else cannot immediately appear in the way these-things do, for such a way of immediately appearing is not proper to everything-else. Everything-else is a part of the centered world-whole and as such must appear in a way proper for this part of the centered world-whole to appear, this way being a perspectival way, that is, as arranged in relation to these-things as their “beyond,” as “that which there is besides these-things,” and as appearing in a mostly indeterminate way. If the things constitutive of everything- else immediately appeared in some other way than this, then these things would not immediately appear as parts of the centered world-whole, and the centered world-whole would by that fact not come to an immediate appearance. For in order for this world-whole to appear immediately, some of its parts must immediately appear in this mostly indeterminate and perspectival way as everything-else-beyond-these-things.

            It might be said that everything-else beyond what is being perceived is not immediately apparent because it is not sensuously present; only what is perceived is sensuously present and hence is “immediately given.” But such a remark construes “immediacy” to mean something else than what I mean by it; I do not use this word as a synonym of “sensuously given,” but to mean given without the intermediary of a concept or image. In the experience of global loving, I am not running through a series of images of the mountains and other importances beyond the ones perceptually apparent to me; nor am I entertaining concepts of them. Rather, I have a nonimaginative and nonconceptual awareness of the unperceived things. Exactly how such an awareness is possible will be shown in the following sections, beginning in the next section with a more precise distinc tion between immediate and mediate appearances.

            It would be a mistake to assume that these discussions of immediate and mediate appearances have no crucial spiritual significance. For what is really at stake here is whether or not there is an ultimate truth and what the nature of this ultimate truth is. What will eventually be shown is that the world-whole’s immediate appearance is the ultimate truth, the truth that every other truth presupposes but which itself presupposes no other truth. And this will enable us to conclude that even though there may be no “ultimate truth” in the sense of the metaphysics of rational meaning, namely Ideas in God’s mind, there is an “ultimate truth” in the sense of the metaphysics of feeling, a sense of “ultimate truth” more fundamental than the sense operative in the metaphysics of rational meaning.

V. 30. The Mediate Appearance of the Centered World-Whole

The world-whole mediately appears in afterglowing and concentrative reappreciations; in these feelings, there is a mediate “appearing of” the world-whole as it had immediately appeared in a prior intuitive feeling. But not all mediate feelings are reappreciative; in global longing, for example, there is a mediate awareness of the world-whole as it could immediately appear.

            What is common and unique to all mediate feelings of the world-whole is an awareness of a thought or image of the world-whole.

            Global thoughts are nominal, like “the world-whole,” or proposi tional, like “the world-whole is one.” Nominal thoughts are expressed by a noun or nounal phrase accompanied by a definite article; they function either as the subject-thoughts of the propositional thoughts or appear by themselves—as when I think silently in an afterglowing feeling, “The world- whole!”

            Global propositional thoughts have a nominal thought as their su ject and a globally predicative thought as their predicate. The nominal thought if true refers to the world-whole, and the predicative thought to some feature of the world-whole, such as its oneness. They are linked by a copulative thought, “the world-whole is one,” which refers to the inherence of the feature in the world-whole. The correspondence of the entire proposition to the world-whole as possessing some feature is comprised of the references of these component parts of the proposition.

            The truth of these thoughts is their reference or correspondence; the specification of the nature of this truth-character of thoughts provides us with an understanding of mediate appearances. For a thought to refer or correspond to the important world-whole is for the thought to be a mediate appearance of the important world-whole. The thought itself immediately appears to me; there is no further phenomenon “standing in between” the thought and my awareness of it. However, that of which the thought is a thought, the important world-whole, is not itself immediately apparent; rather, its appearance to me is mediated by the thought; through immediately apprehending the thought I become mediately aware of the world-whole.

            If a global thought is not true, it does not refer or correspond; it is merely an immediately appearing thought. But if true, it is also a mediate appearance of the important world-whole. All thoughts possess the feature of being immediately apparent, but only true thoughts also possess the feature of being mediate appearances of something other than themselves.

            Global images differ from global thoughts in that they are or include sensuous likenesses of that of which they are mediate appearances. Although there are no “global images” in the sense of direct sensuous like nesses of the world-whole (for the world-whole is not sensuous and thus cannot be directly sensuously pictured), there are “global images” in two other senses.

            First, there are indirect or metaphorical likenesses of the world-whole. If I take a round globe as a metaphor of the world-whole, then through picturing this round globe and taking it as a metaphorical likeness of the world-whole, I am imagining the world-whole itself. In this case, the immediately appearing image of the globe is a mediate appearance of the world-whole.

            The second sense of “global image” pertains to memories of past intuitions of the world-whole and fantasies of possible intuitions. My recollection or fantasy involves a sensory picture of hue-displaying con figured importances, such that the picturing of these importances is one aspect of my recollective or fantasizing awareness of the whole-of-myself and-these-configured-importances-and-everything-else-beyond-them. If we use the phrase “imagined state of affairs” in a broad sense to refer to remembered or fantasized states of affairs only one aspect of which is sensuously pictured, then the recollected or fantasized global state of affairs can be said to be imagined. Correlatively, the concrete mediate appearance of this state of affairs, which includes a sensuous picture of these hue- displaying configurations, can be called a global image. The sensuous picture included in this image is a direct sensuous likeness of that which it is a mediate appearance, the hue-displaying configurations.

            This account of global thoughts and images enables the differences between immediate and mediate global appearances to be exactly specified. The world-whole’s immediate appearance involves one relation between the world-whole and myself, the “immediate appearing of” relation. This relation has two terms, the world-whole and myself, the immediately apparent and the immediately appeared to. The world-whole’s mediate appearance, on the other hand, involves three relational terms and two relations. In between one term, the world-whole, and the other term, my self, there is a third term, the thought or image that mediates the world- whole’s appearance to me. There is a relation of myself to the thought or image of thinking or imagining it, and a relation of the thought or image to the world-whole of referring/corresponding to it or symbolizing it.

The extra relation and relational term signify that in the experience of a “mediate appearing of” there is a greater apparential distance between myself and the world-whole. Between the world-whole and myself there is a third relational term, and only through the world-whole and myself being directly related to this relational term do we become (indirectly) related to each other. In this sense, mediate appearances are evocatively felt to be apparential distances of the world-whole to myself, and immediate appearances are felt to be apparential closenesses.

Just as global thoughts and images are true in that they are mediate appearances of the world-whole, so global intuitive appearances are true in that they are immediate appearances of the world-whole. Being an appearance of the world-whole is the common character of global truths.

The distinction made between immediate and mediate appearances in this section cannot be clearly understood unless we distinguish the above- explained sense of “immediate and mediate appearance” from another and completely different sense of this phrase. This different sense often has been confused with or has not been distinguished from the sense I have assigned to this phrase in the past three sections, and hence it is necessary to distinguish these two senses in order to avoid a hopeless unclarity regarding the immediate and mediate appearances of the world-whole.

V. 31. The Relation of Immediate and Mediate Global Appearances to Universals

It is a widely held belief that all experience involves conceptual mediation, and consequently, that an immediate experience is in truth no experience at all, but a blankness/unconsciousness or a confused chaos of uninterpreted and unrecognized elements. Kant’s dictum, “intuitions without concepts are blind,” is the most famous of these assertions, but we can find numerous other statements of this thesis expressed by people from all ranges of the philosophical spectrum. For example, Heidegger avows that all disclosedness involves interpretation, even if it be implicit, wherein something is interpreted as something and is so interpreted on the basis of a pre-having (Vorhabe), a pre-seeing (Vorsicht), and a pre conceiving (Vorgriff). Keith Lehrer states that “experience by itself tells us nothing. The application of concepts to experience is required by any belief or knowledge about the world. Without concepts, cognition is impossible.“ With regard to affective experiences, mystical affective experiences in particular, Steven Katz asserts this thesis in a bold and dogmatic fashion:

There are NO pure (unmediated) experiences. Neither mystical experience nor more ordinary forms of experience give any indication, or any grounds for believing, that they are unmediated. That is to say, all experience is processed through, organized by, and makes itself available to us in extremely complex ways. The notion of unmediated experience seems, if not self- contradictory, at best empty. . . . [The mystical] experience itself as well as the form in which it is reported is shaped by concepts which the mystic brings to, and which shape, his experience. . . . There is no evidence that there is any “given” which can be disclosed without the imposition of the mediating conditions of the knower. All “givens” are also the product of the processes of “choosing,” “shaping,” and “receiving.” That is, the “given” is appropriated through acts which shape it into forms which we can make intelligible to ourselves given our conceptual constitution.

            What these and other philosophers have in mind is that all experience is “conceptually mediated” in that it involves classifying or interpreting the experienced thing in terms of this or that universal concept. Individual beings are classified or interpreted as falling under this or that universal category, be this category a posteriori, like Redness, or a priori, like Causality or Readiness-to-hand (Zuhandenheit). As H. A. Prichard puts it:

All knowledge requires the realization of two conditions; an individual must be presented to us in perception, and we as thinking beings must bring this individual under or recognize it as an instance of some universal. . . . If we suppose a failure to conceive, i.e. to apprehend the individual as a member of some kind, we see that our perception—if it could be allowed to be anything at all—would be blind, i.e. indeterminate, or a mere “blur.”

This doctrine entails that there are no “pure intuitions,” no “immediate appearings of,” be they global or mundane, for all “appearings of” in their very essence are acts of conceptual mediation, acts of bringing an individual under a universal.

            At first glance, this thesis seems to contradict directly my main contention in the past three sections, namely that there are “immediate appearings of” the world-whole. However, the truth of the matter is that this thesis has nothing whatsoever to do with my claim that the world- whole exhibits immediate appearances. For the words “immediate” and “mediate” are here being employed in two distinct senses. By an “immediate” appearance, I mean an appearance that is a relational feature of an appearing thing, a feature based on one relation and two relational terms. By an “immediate” appearance, the proponents of the above- explained thesis mean an appearance of an individual, wherein this in dividual is not interpreted as an instance of some universal. And by a “mediate” appearance, I mean a relational feature of a thought or image of an appearing thing, a feature based on three relations and two relational terms; they mean an appearance of an individual wherein the individual is interpreted as an instance of some universal. I will elucidate these differences in the following two subsections by showing that a “mediate appearance” in their sense can be either an immediate or a mediate appearance in my sense (V.31.i) and that an “immediate appearance” in their sense also can be either an immediate or mediate appearance in my sense (V.31. ii). Since the demonstration of the latter point, that what they call “immediate appearances” can be either immediate or mediate appearances in my sense, involves not only differentiating their thesis from my thesis but also refuting their thesis (for they would deny that there are any “immediate appearances” that could appear immediately or mediately in my sense), the subsection devoted to demonstrating this point will be substantially larger.

            But the demonstrations in these two subsections have a greater significance than merely distinguishing between the two senses of “immediate and mediate appearances.” They also aim to show that in global loving and other global intuitions the world-whole is “immediately apparent” in both senses of this phrase. The world-whole is apparentially close to me, not only in that its appearance to me is a feature that inheres in the world, but also in that the world appears to me in its naked individuality, with all universal-conceptual mediation stripped away. In global loving, I behold conceptlessly the absolutely individuated world itself. This ex presses a second aspect of global loving, its aspect as a feeling of individual intimacy and closeness, and it expresses a second sense in which the world is apparentially close to me.

            However, in the following two subsections many descriptions and arguments shall have to be presented before we will be in a position to discuss directly this aspect of the loving intuition of the world. For a demonstration that the world is “immediately apparent” in the second sense involves dealing at great length with issues of universals and individuals. It will be necessary to deal with three of these issues: (1) in V.31.i, I will show that and how universals as well as individuals can be intuited (can be “immediately apparent” in the first sense); (2) in V.31.ii, I first discuss the issue of whether the features of individuals are universals or individuals and argue that they are the latter; and (3) in the second half of this subsec tion, I examine the issue of whether individuals and their individual features can be apprehended otherwise than as instances of universals. I show that a single individual, specifically, the world, and a multiplicity of individuals, specifically the parts of the world, can and do appear without the mediation of universal concepts.

            In the following I shall, to avoid confusion, use the words “immediate” and “mediate” in the sense I have given them in the last three sections, unless I state otherwise.

V. 31. i Immediate and Mediate Appearances of Instantiated Universals

            The word “concept” can mean either a universal or a thought, be this thought a thought of a universal or an individual. A true thought is a mediate appearance of a universal or individual. Now if an awareness is a “conceptual awareness” in the first sense as an awareness-of-a-universal, it does not mean that it is a “conceptual awareness” in the second sense as an awareness-of-a-thought that refers or corresponds to the universal. For the awareness-of-a-universal could be an immediate or intuitive aware ness. This is the case in the normal experiences of classifying or interpreting an individual as an instance of some universal. In cases where the individual is immediately apprehended, e.g., perceived, the entire state-of-affairs, individual-qua-instantiating-the-universal, is immediately apprehended. Thus, when I apprehend this hued environment as instantiating the universal, Wholeness, this universal is immediately apparent to me. There is nothing “standing in between” the universal and myself, no thought that mediates the universal’s appearance to me.

I will call this intuitive awareness of the universal an ideative awareness and the immediate appearance of this universal an ideational-appearance of it. The word “idea” can be used to mean the universal-qua-exhibiting-an-ideational-appearance.

This ideative awareness of a universal is essentially different from a thinking awareness of a universal. In the latter awareness, not the universal but a thought of the universal is the immediate relational term of my awareness, and the universal itself is a mediate term of my awareness. Thinking about universals occurs (for example) when the hued environment is no longer intuitively apparent to me as instantiating Wholeness, and I aim to bring back before my mind in a thoughtful way the hued environment’s instantiating Wholeness as it has appeared to me. I form the proposition, “The hued environment immediately appeared to me as instantiating Wholeness,” and I affirm this proposition as corresponding to the hued environment’s instantiating Wholeness as it had appeared to me. Just as the hued environment as it had immediately appeared to me is now mediately appearing to me in the subject-thought of this proposition, so the hued environment’s instantiating of Wholeness as it had immediately appeared to me is now mediately appearing to me in the predicate-thought of the proposition.

            This distinction between intuiting and thinking of universals does not correspond to Husserl’s distinction between the fulfilled intuition of a universal and the empty signification of a universal. For Husserl, a universal is intuited if it is apprehended on the basis of and as instantiated by several actual or possible individuals and is emptily referred to if I grasp it by itself, apart from its instantiational relation to individuals. But to my mind, whether we apprehend a universal by itself or qua instantiated by several individuals is irrelevant to the distinction between intuiting and thinking of a universal. I can intuit a universal by itself no less than I can intuit it as instantiated in several individuals. The universal, Wholeness, is now immediately before my mind, although I am not apprehending it as instantiated in this or that individual. And when I propositionally think about this Wholeness as it immediately appeared on the occasion when I apprehended it as being instantiated by the hued environment I was perceiving, I am comprehending this Wholeness as instantiated but am nevertheless mediately aware of it. To apprehend the universal as instantiated is not by that fact to intuit the universal but to apprehend the universal as related to something other than the universal, namely some individuals to which the universal is related through the relation of instantiation.The difference between intuiting and thinking of a universal only shows up in such cases as when I form a nominal or propositional thought of a universal as it had immediately appeared to me on a former Occasion.

The significance of this conclusion in regard to my descriptions of immediate global appearances can be briefly stated. The world, as I previously indicated, is an individual. Thus, if the thesis that all awarenesses of individuals are classifications of these individuals as instances of universals is true, this means that global loving and other such feeling-awarenesses of the world are classificatory awarenesses of the world as instantiating universals. However, since universals can and usually do immediately appear in classificatory awarenesses, as I have argued in this subsection, the fact that global loving and other such feeling-awarenesses are classificatory would not entail that they are not “immediate appearings of” in my sense. Rather, it would entail that they are “immediate appearings of” the world as instantiating universals. In sum, then, the truth of the thesis that all awarenesses of individuals are classificatory would not entail the falsity of the thesis I endeavored to demonstrate in the previous sections of this chapter, namely, that there are intuitive feelings of the world.

However, I shall now show that the thesis that all awarenesses of individuals are classificatory is false. In particular, I shall show that intuitive feelings of the world and the reappreciative thinking-feelings that belong to their afterglow are nonclassificatory awarenesses. In these awarenesses, no universals whatsoever appear.

V. 31. ii Immediate and Mediate Appearances of Individuals

There is a widespread doctrine according to which features of individuals are not themselves individual features, but universals. Thus, the wholeness of the world is not a numerically different feature than the wholeness of a hued environment or the wholeness of a person, but is one and the same wholeness. In fact, it is the universal, Wholeness, itself; it is this universal inhering in different individuals.

If this doctrine were true, then every intuition of an individual would involve ideating the universals that are the features of the individual. But if this doctrine were false, and features of individuals were themselves individuals and as such were instances of universals rather than universals, then the intuition of an individual would be only of individuals and would not involve an awareness of universals.

Whether features of individuals are universals or individuals is a matter that can be decided by inspecting the individuals that appear to us. Such an inspection reveals that individual parts of the world, and the world itself, have individual features.

Although I believe an appeal to the intuitive given suffices to decide the issue, many philosophers will find it unconvincing, inasmuch as their theoretical position constrains them to assert that any “appeal to intuition” would decide the issue in their favor and would show that features of individuals are universals. Accordingly, to support and substantiate the truth of my appeal to the intuitive given, I shall offer seven arguments that aim to elicit in the reader a concentrative insight that features are individuals not universals. I intend to make manifest to his concentrative thinking-feelings what I believe is already manifest to him on the pre theoretical level of intuitive feeling. The seven arguments are descriptive explications of the implicitly intuitively felt nature of features as individuals; these descriptive explications are not, however, presented as simple descriptions but are moulded into an argumentative form.

In these arguments, the word “thing” or “something” is used as I customarily use it, in the widest possible sense, wherein it refers to whatever happens, be it an individual or universal.

1. It is clear that if A and B possess different features at the same time, then A and B cannot be numerically one and the same thing. For example, if A has the feature of being all-inclusive, and B the feature of being inclusive-of-some (but not all), then A and B are different individuals. Consider now that the wholeness of the world has the feature of being all-inclusive, whereas the wholeness of this panoramically hued environment has the feature of being inclusive-of-some. It follows, then, that the wholeness of the world is a numerically different feature than the wholeness of the panoramically hued environment, and thus that these wholenesses are individual features of the world and the hued environment. This argument can be stated, with suitable modifications, for all features of all individuals.

One may respond to this argument by saying that all it establishes is that wholeness-as-all-inclusive is a different complex feature than whole ness-as-inclusive-of-some. It is true that the argument implies this, but that does not negate the fact that the feature of wholeness that is an aspect of these two different complex features would (on the basis of the theory that features are universals) be itself one and the same universal wholeness. But it cannot be one and the same wholeness, for one and the same thing (wholeness) cannot at the same time possess different and opposite features (all-inclusive and inclusive-of-some).

2. Features of hued things can be sensuously perceived, but it is impossible to have a sense perception of a universal. I can smell this fragrance of a rose, but I cannot smell a universal. I can run my hand along a table and feel its smoothness, but I cannot feel a universal with my hand. Universals are not sensible phenomena that my five senses can open onto, but are nonsensible phenomena that can be apprehended only in the mind’s eye, in acts of ideation or thinking. Accordingly, sensuous features of hued things cannot be universals, but must be individuals.

This particular argument only applies to some features, sensuous features, and not to nonsensuous features like intelligence and happening. As such, it refutes the theory that all features are universals but does not establish (as I do establish in other arguments) that all features are individuals.

The proponent of the theory that all features are universals may endeavor to counter this argument as follows. He concedes both that features of hued things are sensuous and that universals as universals (which are apprehended in nonsensuous ideation) are nonsensuous. But he would claim that the features of the hued things are the universals as inhering in the hued things. According to him, there is a difference between Smoothness as Smoothness that I apprehend in my mind’s eye (and which is a nonsensuous Smoothness) and this same Smoothness as inhering in a table (which is a sensuous Smoothness).

This line of thinking, however, is open to the objection that identically one and the same thing (e.g., the universal Smoothness) cannot be both sensuous and nonsensuous. Two phenomena identical with one another cannot have opposite features (sensuousness and nonsensuousness), and so the universal Smoothness I ideate cannot be the feature that inheres in the table. Nor can the difference between the two be merely that in one case the universal inheres in the table and in the other case it does not inhere in the table (or in any other individual). For it cannot be identically and numerically the same thing that inheres and does not inhere in the table, since that which inheres in the table is a sensuous Smoothness, and that which does not inhere in the table is a nonsensuous Smoothness.

Can there be two universal Smoothnesses, one nonsensuous and one sensuous, with the latter being the one that inheres in individuals? I think not, for a universal is that which is or could be “common” in some sense to many individuals. What would be common to many individuals on this theory is the sensuous Smoothness, for it is this Smoothness that inheres in individuals. What, then, of the nonsensuous Smoothness? It could not be a universal, for there are no individuals to which it could be common, since the appropriate individuals (tables, etc.) have inhering in them a different universal, the sensuous Smoothness. We would be left with only one universal, the sensuous Smoothness. The only universal is that which is apprehended through the senses.

But this situation is inadmissible, for it is absurd to say that a certain universal cannot be apprehended in the mind’s eye but only through the senses. If anything is evident it is that any universal we care to specify can be comprehended in ideation. I can ideate at this moment the nonsensuous universal, Smoothness, and grasp it as common to many individuals. But here “common” cannot mean that it itself inheres in many individuals (which it cannot do since it is nonsensuous); rather, it must mean that it is instantiated by a number of different sensuous features (individual sensuous smoothnesses) that inhere in individuals.

3. If something is located in space, then it cannot be identical with something not located in space. The wholeness of the sun is located in space, but the wholeness of the world is not. Thus, there are two different wholenesses—one inhering in the sun and one in the world—rather than one universal Wholeness inhering in both.

4. If I destroy something, e.g., an apple, I destroy the thing with all of its features. It is senseless to say I destroy merely a “bare particular,” the bare individual in which the features inhere, but not the features themselves. When I hit the apple with a hammer, I am not crushing a bare individual, but an individual qua round, red, juicy, soft, two inches in diameter, etc. And when my house burns down, it is not as if a bare individual goes up in flames, and all the features that inhere in the house remain unscathed (which would be the case if these features were universals). Certainly the firemen would not answer the alarm if they knew that all that was really burning was a bare and featureless individual. And certainly, when I sift mournfully through the ashes the next day, I am not mourning the loss of a bare individual, but of my house with all of its features.

But if this is the case, then features of individuals cannot be universals. For the house’s feature of wholeness, for example, was destroyed when the house was destroyed, whereas there still exist a wholeness of the world and a universal Wholeness that I am able to contemplate ideationally.

One may argue against this that when my house burns down what occurs is neither that a bare individual is destroyed nor that (universal) features are destroyed, but that the universal features cease to inhere in the bare individual. But in this case there is nothing at all destroyed when my house is destroyed, and that is absurd.

It might be said in response that the inhering in of features in the bare individual is what is destroyed by the flames. But this cannot be the case, for inhering in is not a physical phenomenon, and only physical phenomena can be destroyed by flames. Moreover, this situation would be contrary to what is perceived: I perceive the flames burning and destroying the physical features of the house and do not perceive these flames to be burning and destroying any inherings in.

5. Universals can be parts of propositions and syllogisms, but such features as the ones possessed by hued things cannot be. The universal, Roundness, is a part of a premise of this syllogism:

Roundness is a Shape.

A Shape is a Primary Quality.

Therefore, Roundness is a Primary Quality.

This syllogism and all of its parts are not in space (although of course the written words that express it are in space). However, the roundness of the sun is in space, and this roundness has a size. Consequently, the universal, Roundness, which is a part of the syllogism, cannot be identified with the roundness of the sun, or with the roundness of any other individual. The universal, then, is not a feature of individuals. If it is said that the nonspatial Roundness is a different universal than the spatial Roundness that inheres in individuals, the same problems arise as did in the counter-argument to the second argument I presented (which accordingly need not be repeated here).

6. I can alter the features of individuals, but I cannot alter a universal. I can bend the round shape of a clay dish into a triangular shape, but I cannot grab hold of the universal, Roundness, and bend it until it be comes the universal, Triangularity.

            The response that in alteration we alter individuals and not their features is unacceptable, for individuals apart from their features are bare individuals and possess no determinations whereby they could be altered from one determinate state to another.

A second possible response, that in alteration we alter the inhering of features in individuals and neither the features nor the bare individuals, is equally unacceptable, for inherings in possess no alterable determinations (rather, they are the inherings of alterable determinations—features—in bare individuals).

7. The roundness of the sun is in a different place than the round ness of the moon. But a spatial occupant cannot be entirely in one place and at the same time entirely in another place. Consequently, the round ness of the sun must be a different individual roundness than the round ness of the moon.

Some proponents of the theory that features are universals profess to find noncontradictory the proposition that some kinds of spatial occupants (viz., universal features) can be entirely in one place and entirely in another place at the same time. There is little I can say by way of argument in response to such professions; I can only affirm that this proposition seems to me to be contradictory and that those who profess otherwise seem to me to be deluded in their beliefs.

In order to buttress his belief that this proposition is noncontradictory, a person may argue a related thesis, that the same place can at the same time be entirely occupied by more than one thing. For example, the color, shape, and taste of a hued thing occupy the same place at the same time. This thesis is based on a confusion of configured-importance features with the hues these importances display themselves to be. Color and taste are not located in the space of the configured importance, since color and taste are not physically extended features but apparential features. The configured importance displays itself to a percepient as being colored and tasty; displays are appearances, and appearances are not extended (even if they be appearances-of-being-extended). So the color and taste of some thing are not in the same place as the thing’s size.

By means of the above seven arguments I have endeavored to bring the reader’s concentrative thinking-feelings into alignment with what I believe to be his intuitive feelings, his intuitive feelings of features as individuals rather than universals. These arguments, however, do not suffice to show that individuals can and do appear without universals being simultaneously ideated, for it could be claimed that although features of individuals are themselves individual, they nevertheless are instances of universals and must appear as such. Norman Kemp Smith, for example, espouses such a position: “a particular cannot be apprehended save as an instance of a universal.”

It is indeed the case that each individual we apprehend is an instance of a universal. However, I believe it can be shown that each individual we apprehend is not apprehended to be an instance of a universal. Showing this is essential to the demonstration that global loving and other affects and moods are immediate feelings of the world, where “immediate” means “without the mediation of a universal concept.” If it can be made manifest that global loving and other such feelings are not ideative awarenesses of the world, then it can be known that in these feelings the world is “immediately apparent” in both senses of this phrase, in the sense that the world’s appearance is a relational feature of the world itself, and not of a thought or image of the world, and in the sense that the individual world with its individual features appear without being classified as in stances of these or those universals.

The belief that individuals (individuals of all sorts, be they individual features, individual relations, or the individuals that have these features and relations) necessarily appear as instantiating universals is based on a confusion between the concept of an individual and the concept of an instance of a universal. It has been tacitly assumed that these concepts are identical and that an individual is identically an instance of a universal. But this is not the case. This individual is this individual by virtue of being itself, by virtue of being identical with itself. But it is not through being identical with itself that an individual is an instance of a universal; rather, it is an instance of a universal through being related to the univer sal and related through a relation of instantiation. By virtue of being so related, the individual acquires the relational feature of instantiating the universal, and the universal acquires the relational feature of being in stantiated by the individual. It is because the individual has the relational feature of instantiating the universal, and not because the individual is an individual, that the individual is called “an instance of a universal.”

Consequently, to apprehend an individual as an instance of a universal, it is not sufficient to apprehend the individual as an individual. One must also interpret the individual as having the relational feature of instantiating the universal.

            Correlatively, to apprehend the individual as an individual, it is not necessary to interpret it as having a relational feature of instantiating a universal.

            In global loving, to take one case, I implicitly apprehend the world’s individual feature of wholeness; I apprehend the wholeness of the world. But I do not interpret this wholeness as having the relational feature of instantiating Wholeness, for such an interpretation is unnecessary to my apprehension of the wholeness possessed by the world. This is the case, to apply the above considerations to the present example, because the wholeness of the world qua the wholeness of the world is not (identically) the relational feature of instantiating Wholeness, but is that which has this feature; consequently, its possession of its self-identity as the wholeness of the world is different from its possession of this relational feature. Accordingly, the wholeness of the world can appear as identical with itself, as being the wholeness of the world, without appearing as instantiating Wholeness.

The wholeness of the world intuitively appears without the universal it instantiates appearing, but this wholeness cannot appear unless all the parts of the world appear. This fact, which I have earlier discussed, seems to pose a new problem concerning the presence of universal concepts in global feeling-awarenesses. The first problem concerned the appearance of an individual singled out in my awareness. This problem was solved by making it manifest that an individual, in order to be singled out as an individual, does not require a universal to be ideated. But our new problem, concerning the appearance of the parts of the world-whole, is a problem about the appearance of many individuals, each of which is not singled out. Myself and these-things-around-me are singled out, but each individual constituent of everything-else is not singled out. Everything- else is a mostly unarticulated mass, appearing as all the things beyond the things I am singling out. But how can I apprehend all, all other things, if I do not single out each constituent of this all? According to Russell’s Principles of Mathematics, if I do not single out each member of a class, I must apprehend these members through the mediation of a universal (a “class-concept” as Russell called a universal functioning in this manner). I must apprehend these members as all the instances of such-and-such a universal.

Husserl developed this argument at greater length in his Logical In vestigations, Investigation 2. In order to apprehend many things not individually singled out, there must be a unity (Einheit) that unifies the various things one wishes to apprehend and thereby renders them able to appear. This unity is the universal, the species, which I connect to the manifold by means of “the thought-form of allness [die Denkform der Allheit].” If A is the species, then I think “All A’s” and thereby apprehend the manifold as all the instances of A. Applied to the awareness of everything-else beyond myself-and-these-things, this means I would be aware of “All A’s,” where “A” is the universal, Something-Else (more fully, Something-Else-Beyond-Myself-And-These-Things). I would be ideationally aware of all the instances of Something-Else.

However, such an awareness does not in fact belong to the awareness of the whole of myself-and-these-things-and-everything-else. The “unity” manifest in this awareness is not a species but the world-whole qua absolutely nonidentical with all its parts. Everything-else does not appear as all the instances of Something-Else, but as all that resembles what I am intuitively singling out. Everything-else is manifest as all the relational terms of resemblance relations to myself-and-these-mountains-and-valleys (to use our familiar example). Everything-else resembles myself-and-these-mountains-and-valleys, not inasmuch as myself-and-these-mountains-and- valleys are persons, mountains, or valleys, but inasmuch as they are things which are happening. Everything-else appears as all that resembles myself-and-these-mountains-and-valleys in their character as existents, as things that are happening.

But Husserl says “we cannot predicate. . . resemblance of two things without stating the respect in which they resemble each other.” This respect, Husserl continues, is the universal or species of which the two things are instances. Thus, to apprehend all that resembles myself-and-these-things, we must apprehend all that resembles myself-and-these-things in respect of the universal, Existent, or Something That Happens.

However, I do not believe that this is the case. The “respect” argument Husserl introduces is traditionally used to refute nominalism and is inapplicable to the theory espoused here. A nominalist holds that the features of things are the resemblances of things to other things, and that the specification of a given feature is tantamount to a specification of one of these resemblance relations. However, since any given thing has several different resemblances to any given group of other things, the specification of any one of these resemblances requires that we specify a respect in which the things in question resemble one another, e.g., in respect of existing or wholeness. By specifying this respect, one is ipso facto introducing a reference to the very features of things that resemblance relations were supposed to explain. And this is why nominalism fails as a theory of the features of things.

But this argument does not apply to the theory being presented here. For this theory recognizes that things have individual features and allows that things resemble one another in respect of these features. If two concrete things are said to resemble one another, one says that they resemble one another in respect of two individual features they possess; e.g., the world and this hued environment resemble one another in respect of their individual wholenesses. With regard to these two individual features them selves, it is senseless to ask about the respect in which they resemble one another, for they can only resemble one another in respect of themselves, i.e., in respect of what each of them is absolutely identical with. This wholeness and that wholeness resemble each other in respect of themselves, in respect of being this wholeness and that wholeness.

            But Husserl maintains that the respect must be something in relation to which the two things are identical, this identical element being the universal of which the two things are instances. But the issue here is merely terminological. If “respect” is defined with Husserl to mean the universal of which the resembling things are instances and cannot by definition mean anything else, then the conclusion must be that things do not need to appear to resemble each other in any “respect.” Some other term or phrase can be introduced to express the specificity of the resemblance, one that is not defined a priori to mean a universal, e.g., the phrase “in that.” It can be said then that the world resembles this hued environment “in that” the world has an individual feature of wholeness and the hued environment has an individual feature of wholeness, and these two whole nesses resemble each other “in that” they are (identically) two wholenesses.

In regard to the whole of myself-and-these-things-and-everything- else, this means that everything-else comes to appearance as all that resembles myself-and-these-things in that they are existents, things that are happening. But this resemblance is a unique one because it is not among individual features or relations, but among things and the “inherings in” things of one happening. In Chapter 4 it was made conceptually explicit that at any given moment there is only one happening or existing that inheres in the world-whole and in each of its parts. This means that there is not a different individual happening inhering in each thing, such that each thing resembles each other thing in regard to its individual feature of happening. There is only one happening inhering in all things, and the resemblance among things is in regard to the individual “inherings” of the one happening in each thing. Likewise, there is a resemblance among things inasmuch as each thing is a “that in which” the happening inheres; insofar as each is a “that in which” the happening inheres, it resembles each other “that in which” the happening inheres. As a “that in which” the happening or existing inheres, the thing is called an existent.

But everything-else does not appear to resemble myself-and-these- things merely in that they are existents in which inheres the same happening that inheres in myself-and-these-things. Resemblance relations also obtain among things qua parts of the world. Each existent is a part of the world, and this means it has an individual relational feature of partaking of the world and an individual relation of participation that obtains between itself and the world. As a term of this relation, and as “that in which” the relational feature inheres, the thing is a world-part. Thus all world-parts, in regard to these individual relational features and relations, manifest resemblance relations to one another.

Each thing is an existent and a world-part. Everything-else, then, is every-other-existent-and-world-part beyond the ones I am intuitively singling out. They are manifest in the global intuition as all that resembles what I am intuitively singling out, myself-and-these-mountains-and-valleys, in regard to the latter’s identities as existents and world-parts (these identities involving the various phenomena I described, the relations, features, inherings, and the “that in which”).

This enables us to appreciate the fact that global loving and other global intuitions are nonideative both in their awareness of the world and in their awareness of what the world is wholly identical with, myself-and- these-things-and-everything-else.

Nevertheless, there is a sense in which universals implicitly appear in global intuitions. For universals do happen, at least while they are being ideated or thought about, and as such they are existents and parts of the world. They implicitly appear as some of the parts of the whole of all that exists. But as so appearing, they are not being ideated or thought about, i.e., explicitly comprehended and singled out in their determinate nature as this universal and that universal. Rather, they implicitly and indeterminately appear as some of the existent world-parts comprising everything-else beyond what I am currently singling out.

In this connection, it should be noted that there is a broad sense of “individuals” in which these universals themselves are individuals. Anything that is one, that is singular, is an individual. Each universal is one universal and as such is an individual. But such universals are not first-order individuals, such as this mountain or this individual feature of whole ness. A first-order individual is a single thing that cannot have instances. A universal is instead a higher-order individual, a single thing that can have instances.

In the broad sense of “individual,” it can be said that all the parts of the world are individuals (as I said in IV.27.vi, “Peace in the World- Whole’s Harmoniousness”).

The descriptions in this and the previous sections have indicated that global loving and other such feeling-awarenesses are not mediate or conceptual awarenesses in any sense. The world-whole appears in these awarenesses without the mediation of any thought, image, or universal. But if global intuitions are completely nonconceptual, does this mean the reappreciative feelings that are realized in the intuitive afterglows are also nonconceptual? Certainly they are “conceptual” in one sense; they are thoughtful. But they are not “conceptual” in the sense of being apprehensions of universals. In these reappreciations realized in the intuitive afterglows, I am inspired to make explicit the intuitively revealed important world-whole in nominal and propositional thoughts. In the propositional thoughts that are evoked, the world-whole’s important features acquire a mediate appearance in the copulated predicate-thought, e.g., “is revealed,” “is the greatest whole,” “is happening,” “is one.” Since these features of the world-whole are individual features, the predicate-thoughts in which they mediately appear are thoughts of individual features. It is manifest, then, that even the propositional thinking inspired in the intuitive afterglows is nonconceptual (nonuniversal) in character. And this is exactly how I (implicitly) described this reappreciative thinking in Section 30 of this chapter, for I described the predicate-thoughts that belong to the propositions as mediate appearances of the features of the world-whole.

It is only on the third level of the methodological feelings, the reappreciative concentrating feelings, that universals are ideated. The concentrating feelings, in explicating the propositions evoked in the second-level methodological feelings, form new propositions. In the first instance, these propositions are new propositions of the same type as the explicated prop ositions, e.g., propositions about the individual feature of the world-whole that I had affectively intuited and that first came to a mediate appearance in the propositions evoked in the afterglow. In these new propositions, the structural articulation of the individual feature that had been intuited is made more propositionally explicit than it had been made in the proposition evoked in the afterglow

Once these explicative individual propositions have been formed, the concentrative feelings become involved in generalizing these propositions. Instead of propositionally thinking about this revealedness of the world-whole, I concentrate thoughtfully on all, each, or any revealedness of the world-whole. I ideate the universal, Global Revealedness, or Global Immediate Apparentness, which this revealedness instantiated, and make propositional assertions about all instances of this universal, or each or any instance of it. These general assertions are then integrated with the individual assertions in the theoretical exposition of the metaphysics of feeling, the latter assertions often being used to describe concrete examples of the global features generally described in the former assertions.

It is possible that many of these general propositions could be formulated in terms of resemblances rather than instances of universals. I could make an assertion about all that resembles this revealedness of the world, “this revealedness” being the one I have intuited and am now mediately singling out in my propositional awareness. All that resembles this revealedness are all the other individual features of revealedness the world-whole possesses. However, such resemblance propositions are not suitable for conveying metaphysical knowledge, as they are not readily comprehensible to other people. Other people have not singled out this revealedness to me, and being ignorant of this revealedness to me, they are unable to determine what it is that resembles this revealedness to me. However, they can comprehend and single out the universal, Global Revealedness, and are able to determine what I am talking about when I discuss all the instances of this universal.

Generalizing assertions are not used in regard to each of the global importances. I can talk about all the world’s immediate appearances and all of its successively inhering happenings, but I cannot talk about more than one wholeness of the world or more than one unity of the world. The wholeness of the world is a single and constant individual feature of