Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 291

Underlying these conceptions of mimesis are certain presuppositions concerning the nature of primary human experience which require some exposition before the main argument can proceed.

Experience is not seen, as it is in classical rationalism, as presenting us initially with clear and distinct objects simply located in space and registering their character, movements, and changes on the tabula rasa of an uninvolved intellect.

Neither is primary experience understood according to the attitude of modern empiricism in which nothing is thought to be received other than signals of sensory qualities producing their responses in the appropriate sense organs.

Primary feelings of the world come neither as a collection of clearly known objects ( houses, trees, implements, etc. ) nor a collection of isolated and neutral sensory qualities.

In contrast to all this, primary data are data of a self involved in environing processes and powers.