Date: 1946
"At their best, they erect a grammatical artifice in which mental balconies and watch towers, as well as bridges and recesses, decorate the main structure."
preview | full record— Gerth, Hans H. (1908-1978) and C. Wright Mills (1916-1962)
Date: 1947, 1958
"Modern concepts are like a kind of electrical supercharge to his brain (a natural consequence of the extreme complexity of these concepts and of the situations in which we struggle), and, to pursue the metaphor, his nerves and senses are frequently short-circuited"
preview | full record— Lefebvre, Henri (1901-1991)
Date: 1947, 1958
"Turned back upon himself, secure within some imaginary inner fortress, he is the plaything of every hallucination, every spontaneous or deliberate ideological illusion."
preview | full record— Lefebvre, Henri (1901-1991)
Date: 1947, 1958
"Religion, ethics, metaphysics – these are merely the 'spiritual' and 'inner' festivals of human anguish, ways of channelling the black waters of anxiety – and towards what abyss?"
preview | full record— Lefebvre, Henri (1901-1991)
Date: 1949
"Self-consciousness, if the word is to be used at all, must not be described on the hallowed para-optical model, as a torch that illuminates itself by beams of its own light reflected from a mirror in its own insides."
preview | full record— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)
Date: 1949
"Similarly, self-control is not to be likened to the management of a partially disciplined subordinate by a superior of perfect wisdom and authority; it is simply a special case of the management of an ordinary person by an ordinary person, namely where John Doe, say, is taking both parts."
preview | full record— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)
Date: 1949
"The mind is its own place and in his inner life each of us lives the life of a ghostly Robinson Crusoe."
preview | full record— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)
Date: 1949
"Mental states and processes are (or are normally) conscious states and processes, and the consciousness which irradiates them can engender no illusions and leaves the door open for no doubts."
preview | full record— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)
Date: 1949
"A person's present thinkings, feelings and willings, his perceivings, rememberings and imaginings are intrinsically 'phospherescent'; their existence and their nature are inevitably betrayed to their owner."
preview | full record— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)
Date: 1949
"The inner life is a stream of consciousness of such a sort that it would be absurd to suggest that the mind whose life is that stream might be unaware of what is passing down it."
preview | full record— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)