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Dear Bill Thanks for the response. I'll write on-list as I've not much to say. I think this explanation is much clearer - so thank you for that. I just felt confused whilst reading your previous message about where you/others thought the self started and ended, but this gets some of the way there. That said, I am still not entirely sure that I agree with all that is proposed here. For example, whilst I can happily accept that education (training us to respond think twice - as it were - about flying off the handle if something happens to us that arouses a strong emotion) does indeed shape us and our behaviour (we *do* think twice/control our temper), the implication you suggest still seems to be that it has taken us away from the self... Perhaps this is a mis-reading on my part, but I query that, whilst any human is subject to change, they are still 'themselves' (and mythically 'lost' in the past). While cinema does deal in images and philosophy in concepts, I wonder that the boundaries between these are not so clear cut. It is the work of recent neuroscientists that suggests that learning (which, by your account of Aristotle, takes place following the work of philosophy) happens by making mental connections (literally) between certain experiences. The language used (potentially deficient of course) is a very cinematic language involving images, representations and the like. In addition, mental processes are described in a way that I find strikingly similar to montage theory a la Eisenstein, etc. In other words, whilst philosophy is only a certain aspect of brain-functioning, the brain functions in a seemingly cinematic way (but perhaps this is because the neuroscientists have grown up in a society that thinks in a cinematic way). If, as you say, images are part and parcel of sensation, then this would be in accordance with the trend in contemporary thinking to argue that the mind is embodied and that sensation and thought are somehow inseparable. On the level of what does happen in the brain - including when we philosophise - concepts could therefore equally constitute images - although this must all remain very hypothetical for the time being. How philosophy, for me, might be able to escape the body might indeed be via an appeal to Truth - something that Spinoza might call as being an index sui - self-evident. I mentioned Badiou in my last message; he'd put it something like this (an over-simplification no doubt): truth is an irruption of the void in that which makes sense. Truth punches a hole in human reality, since truth must be of an order that does not belong to human experience (taking it beyond knowledge and into the realm of the infinite/eternal). Truth is by definition obscene, since it removes all vestiges and stands naked. In this sense, perhaps the pursuit of truth (philosophy) is, in addition to e-forums, both obscene and violent (and thus polemical). But there is perhaps much room to disagree with Badiou and his ilk. I am all over asking people to think about their feelings. And your definition of e-aggression is in fact very similar to the one I was proposing in my first email. Thanks again for the response; have a good one. w * * Film-Philosophy salon After hitting 'reply' please always delete the text of the message you are replying to. To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to: [log in to unmask] Or visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html For help email: [log in to unmask], not the salon. * Film-Philosophy journal: http://www.film-philosophy.com Contact: [log in to unmask] **