Abstract

“Here then may be lived a life of the senses so pure, so untouched by any mode of apprehension but their own, that the body may be said to think.”Crossing a steep scree-field path demands concentration. The surface slips a little with each step and often, just a short way below, are large rocks or perhaps a cliff. Such experience is at some distance from the concentration intellectuals bring to the specifics of thought, the rigors of reason. Scree concentration works through feet and legs, hands and trekking poles. If it is thought, it is thinking with the body and the world traversed, thinking with surface, weather, time, and risk. I have walked thousands of miles as a long-distance backpacker and puzzled about...