Chapter III - Willing as a Reaction to External Conditions
4. External Factors and Their Relationship to the Will
4.7. Other Dimensions and Sub-dimensions
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able to act in spontaneous and unpredicted ways. We should account for all of the internal mental life, which is lived by these individuals.
Another important characteristic, which is inherent to the “other person”
dimension, is the variety of attitudes, feelings and interpersonal activity, which is possible between humans. This activity is very complex and difficult to deal with systematically, it is not very important for the purposes of current research and is an object of concern in humanities, social sciences and psychology. We will consider only some of such relationships, attitudes and feelings, whenever it will be needed for our research or if it may provide a demonstration of some related principle.
4.7. Other Dimensions and Sub-dimensions
There are also some sub-dimensions, which should also be mentioned and briefly considered. It should be noted, that we are now not concerned in a detailed classification of various dimension and sub-dimensions, what concerns us here is the phenomenal reality, which may be referenced by these “dimensions,” for this reason it is not important to try to determine to which dimensions do these “sub-dimensions” belong.
Considering these dimensions is needed only to show the range of external factors, which may be considered while dealing with phenomena of willing. Some of such sub-dimensions include the following:
a) “State” dimension. We may be willing to change our state of existence. For example, we may be willing to be in a warmer room, or we may want to be standing instead of seating, or we may be willing to fall asleep, etc. In all of these and similar cases, we are willing some change with respect to the state dimension.
b) “Process” dimension. This dimension may refer to some dynamism with respect to individuals or groups of people. Thus, it overlaps with the “time” dimension.
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c) “Culture” dimension. This dimension refers to such aspects of human qualities (including mental qualities), and qualities, which belong to groups of people, which usually referred to as “cultural.” This definition is somewhat vague, since the term
“culture” itself is vague. However, this does not concern us here, since this is not directly related to our research goals.
d) “Power-influence” dimension. This dimension is related to the “other person”
dimension, since “power” and “influence” often relates to relationships between persons.
However, this may be extended to “ideologies,” political formations, even physical objects, and other tangible and intangible things, which may have influence upon us, or we may use them to exercise influence on others.
e) “Community-group” dimension. This sub-dimension also belongs to the “other person” dimension and refers to collective formations of people and to the multitude of phenomena, which may be related to such formations. This dimension is relevant in considering the “higher-order personality” conception, which relates to political action.
This notion of “higher-order personality” will be utilized for our discussion on action and the public realm in Chapter V.
f) Knowledge dimension. This dimension refers to some external “knowledge,” which we may somehow “acquire” or “share” with other people. This description utilizes metaphoric language, which treats “knowledge” as a “thing,” which may be acquired, shared or given. This metaphor is deficient, but it may be still used here, since our task is not to develop a theory of knowledge.
g) Direction dimension. The direction dimension refers to both direction and directedness in the tangible and intangible sense. It implies not only perspective but also movement, and is thus related both to the space and to the time dimensions.
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h) Religion dimension. This dimension is related to the objects, traditions and practices of adoration and religious veneration. This dimension will not be considered in the present research inquiry, since it exceeds its thematic scope.
i) Nature dimension. This dimension relates to any aspects, processes and principles, which are directly related to life. This may include physical biological and psychological processes, which may be described as self-actualizing by necessity and strictly obeying natural laws.
There may also be some other dimensions. However, there is no need now to consider all possible dimensions at this point, since there is no need to describe all of the external reality.
It is important to understand that all of the “external” reality, which was described above is relevant to us only if it becomes “phenomena,” that is, when it has been internalized by us by becoming our noemata. Only in such case these “external”
factors may become or may influence our “objects of willing” and our volitions, and thus become part of our phenomenology of willing and action.
5. Conclusion
From the above discussion we may conclude that the most important research goal of this Chapter has been reached: the most important research was goal was to understand the relationship between various external factors and the will. These external factors were considered systematically according to the various dimensions, to which these factors belong.
From the above discussion it is possible to understand that any of the dimensions may shape external reality in such a way, that it makes us produce some objects of willing, which are processed by the practical mind and we are moved by our will to undertake a corresponding course of action in order to change some external reality
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(including our own body’s participation in this process) in a way, which would reach the goal of our willing.
Chapter IV – The Immanent Aspects of Willing: Interest, Preference, Striving, and the Internal Dimension of the Willing.
1. Overview
This chapter is dedicated to the phenomenological analysis of those experiences of the transcendental Ego, which are directly related to willing. Therefore, this chapter should be considered one of the core parts of our research. It is necessary to determine what kinds of experiences are internal to the Ego, and in what sense are they related to willing. Various kinds of such experiences should be considered no matter whether or not they may be conditioned by external factors.
The role of the mind’s reasoning and the role of human feelings of various types should be considered subsequently in this chapter. The relationships of these “faculties”
with the framework of the phenomenology of willing must be identified and researched.
This would not only show the significance of willing, but also will contribute greatly to our understanding of its nature.
Philosophical analysis of willing begins from analyzing internal experiences of the transcendental Ego, the experiences, which may be directly related to willing. At the same time, when exploring various experiences related to willing it is also worthwhile to look into Hannah Arendt’s analysis of some basic internal willing experiences and use some of her insights for our research.
This chapter deals with two important issues. First, it needs to distinguish between the internal factors, which have a direct relationship to the will and the ones, which are not directly related to the will, but have influence upon the will in a way
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somewhat similar to the “external” factors, which were discussed in the previous chapter.
Such factors include interest, choice, preference, deliberating, striving, and judging consequences. All of these factors are immediate manifestations of the will and the practical reason, which is the organ of the will. Second, it is necessary to research each of these sets of factors and develop a systematic understanding of the willing and its relationship to factors, which have some influence on it. Both of these tasks will be handled at the same time, since distinguishing something from something else also implies analysis and research of both of these elements.