If someone treads on my hand accidentally, while trying to help me, the pain may be no less acute than if he treads on it in contemptuous disregard of my existence or with a malevolent wish to injure me. But I shall generally feel in the second case a kind and degree of resentment that I shall not feel in the first.
Resentment springs from action or consequence, this quote is suggesting, but intention. The very same actions that that produce the same consequences a dependent variable on the degree to which an emotional reaction is stimulated. This is not merely limited to resentment, of course, but a deep well of emotional response. To take things to a ridiculous extreme—because the former never, ever happens—if a millionaire were to give us a thousand dollars or a fellow employee were to give us a thousand dollars, positive emotions would be infinitely greater toward the latter for a variety of reasons, not least being that we would know they could less well afford it. Not that this example could ever actually be proven, of course, but even existing only within the boundaries of the theoretical, it goes also toward proving the author’s contention.
“Psychologists have hitherto failed to realize that imagination is a necessary ingredient of perception itself.”
Chapter 3 of this collection is an essay titled “Imagination and Perception” and it is devoted to exploring the very gap that legendary philosopher Kant suggests has existed. At that time, Kant was very much in the minority on this issue. By the time Strawson wrote analyze the issue in in this essay, it was become much more recognized as fact. Today, of course, it is a given that perception is significantly located within the realm of the imagination. Some theories even posit the notion that nothing is truly perceived outside imagination; reality is a construct that exists only as an agreed-upon state but not in actuality because even the most tangible and visceral objects we can see and touch are perceived individually. Thing about that whole break-the-internet deal about the color of a dress which divided the globe. Although seemingly trivial, this was perception-as-imagination as it exists for literally everything. Or so goes the theory.
Men make for themselves pictures of ideal forms of life. Such pictures are various and may be in sharp opposition to each other; and one and the same individual may be captivated by different and sharply conflicting pictures at different times.
“Social Morality and Individual Ideal” is the essay constituting the second chapter of the collection and it is focused upon the way that every person undergoes profound differences in how they view existence. The premise is expanded upon for clarification: one may feel certain that a specific way of life is the “right” path at one point in life only to find themselves utterly rejecting this path and embracing the complete opposite as the ideal function of existence later on. The chapter essentially is a lengthy explication of how and why this paradoxical nature man might exists and be seamlessly integrated into a coherent personality.
