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"A difference of intimacy, of warmth, of continuity, similar to the difference between a sense-perception and something merely imagined -- which seems to point to a special content in each several stream of consciousness, for which Ego is perhaps the best specific name"

— James, William (1842-1910)

Author

James, William (1842-1910)

Work Title

On Some Omissions of Introspective Psychology

Date

January, 1884

Metaphor

"A difference of intimacy, of warmth, of continuity, similar to the difference between a sense-perception and something merely imagined -- which seems to point to a special content in each several stream of consciousness, for which Ego is perhaps the best specific name"

Metaphor in Context

One word on my attitude towards the Ego may avert misconception. All I have urged against it in this article, is against it in its alleged exclusive capacity of "relating" agent. I have said there is no need of an agent to relate together what never was separate, and that it is an unnecessary hypothesis for explaining cognition. That feelings can be "for" each other when they do not belong to the same Ego, is proved whenever one person knows what another person thinks. That their being "for" each other when they do belong to the same Ego, is not a consequence of such belonging, -- but may be more simply formulated by saying that each segment of the stream has its objects, and that the earlier segments become objects for the later, -- is what I have sought to show. If this "solidarity" of the stream of feelings is all that is meant by the Ego, -- if the Ego is merely a name for that fact, -- well and good, -- we seem agreed! For myself, however, there are certain material peculiarities about the way in which segments of the stream are for each other when they belong to the same Ego, that call for a deeper study of the question, and rather lead us to reserve the word Ego until they are quite cleared up. What is the difference between your feeling cognised by me, and a feeling expressly cognised by me as mine? A difference of intimacy, of warmth, of continuity, similar to the difference between a sense-perception and something merely imagined -- which seems to point to a special content in each several stream of consciousness, for which Ego is perhaps the best specific name.
(p. 26)