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"In his excellent book on contemporary philosophies, Father Bochenski writes that, rather than propose a definition, we must try to enumerate a certain number of concepts that we consider to be the basic concepts of the philosophy of existence and set them against the background of experience ... which give them their initial impetus."*
"Father Bochenski also remarks ... that the philosophies of existence repudiate the separation between subject and object."** etc.
(Fragments, Jean Wahl, Philosophies of Existence, 1959, translated from the French by F. M. Lory. New York : Schocken, 1969, p. 6).
* One would not suppose not to propose a definition in the end ; however, compare also Jevons : there may be something to it, to avoiding being mislead by some preconceived notion ('definition') to the detriment of the first-order facts of existence. After some kind of organisation of some body of data has been achieved the definition can be attempted with far more rigour and certainty
** Compare Korzybski's non-elementalism. One does not propose abandoning the verbal distinction between the subject and the object (this, it seems, would make mess of the entirety of philosophy such as can be found to contain any truth in it) — but the verbal distinction must not imply or be mistaken for an actual division on the non-verbal levels. The joint phenomena of the observer and the observed has been another statement of this principle. (WPT).
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