Persons and Metaphysic

Abstract

‘The thinking, presenting subject—there is no such thing. ... In an important sense there is no subject. . . . There is (therefore) really a sense in which in philosophy we can talk non-psychologically of the I. The I occurs in philosophy through the fact that the “world is my world”. The philosophical I is not the man, not the human body, or the human soul of which psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit—not a part of the world.’ Wittgenstein, Tractus 5.631-5.641.One may disagree with this. But it gives the mind that jolt which is absolutely needed before we can think truthfully about ourselves and our world. Only genius, with its preternatural command of words, can give this jolt, can really make us see.The study of man has made unprecedented advances in the recent centuries. And all would agree that the major advance has consisted in a new emphasis on the concrete. We are no longer content to define man—as rational animal, say: we seek to know how he ticks, what goes on in him. The emphasis is on experience.But the very placing of this emphasis makes us forget a very simple fact: that all experience is somebody's experience. In order to keep open to the puzzling nature of this fact, ask: what can be meant by attributing ‘experience’ to ‘somebody’? What sort of ownership is referred to?