new college library (don't say anything).

it's a *beautiful* day outside and people are sitting around on the lawns talking and laughing and reading and playing croquet. and i'm reading about locke's theory of substance. that is to say, i've been reading about it for the past four hours or so now, and i'm no closer to knowing what locke thought about substance. philosophers have a tendency to say, very gravely, that philosophy must take our ordinary everyday experience into account (must be from the 'inside of lived experience') -- so if we think, ordinarily, that when we touch (say) the table we are touching a table that exists outside and independent of our minds, then philosophy must be able to account for this belief, strange as it may be. i think something has gone very wrong with philosophy. when i touch you -- do i not touch *you*? you as person; substantial; material; unified in time and space; real beneath my hands --

gah.