The shape of things seems to be something like this: that there is a vast, furnished and peopled external world about which there is no direct knowledge surrounding a thick sensitive layer, the body, which partially appears in that world but for the most part is known internally. This body is hollow and surrounds a shadowy realm of thought and feeling which is known almost perfectly, in that its being is nothing more than its being-known, and its being-known is both bodily feeling and abstract reference. What ever it is that you are is somehow entirely installed in this inner world of thoughts and feelings but remains hidden within it, and is only known through its interactions with the other parts. This inner self is entirely a creature of meanings as these are expressed through the vastly complex interactions of body and world, and in particular through a kind of imperative urgency that takes form as wishes and desires, as vivid emotional responses that ripple through the body. There is no clear boundary between the body and the world, or between thought and the body. The senses which mediate their interactions are neither wholly in the world nor wholly in the body, the two being only imagined to be separable. In this working picture some elements take the form of objects with more or less constancy and other complementary elements take the form of meanings, desires, ideas, marked as subjective and lacking in constancy. The closer matters are to the ultimate driving force the more abstract and diaphanous they seem, but there is no reason to accept this valuation, no reason why it shouldn't be reversed.