ABSTRACT
The starting point of philosophy should be the inception of thought in a ground of supposition and shared feeling guided by unconscious belief and valuation. A philosopher of originality knows that creative work is a descent to an imagination gravid with ideas that are for the most part discarded in the discovery of bare fact. The loved object begins as fact, like the givens of philosophy, or the techniques of an art form, or the scriptures of a religion. A love that follows rational affirmation supposes a piecemeal disassembly and perusal of attributes: the physical features of shape, size, contour, motion of body parts, and the psychic attributes of sincerity, generosity, humor, wit, loyalty. The direction of thought is from unconscious drive to conscious reason, but when reason is suspended, in faith or in love, the shift from inner to outer, from totality to diversity, though uni-directional, can appear to go in the reverse direction.
