In modern times, we can recall the growth of metropolises analyzed by Simmel, Durkheim and by planners such as Howard and Geddes, not to speak about celebrated writers who grasped the feeling of the new urban world decades in advance such as Samuel Johnson with his famous description of eighteenth century London.
Instead of adhering to the completely autonomous subjectivity of Fichtean philosophy, Novalis argues that the subject is inwardly split, not just between thought and feeling, but ultimately also between the hubris of believing that thought can in fact grasp the basic self-feeling, and the realization that this feeling cannot be conceptually processed as such.
Both parties are just beginning to grasp the depth of feeling on this issue.
Some African American leaders were saying privately that the president was failing to grasp the intensity of feeling over the case and at Thursday's White House press briefing, Obama's spokesman, Jay Carney, was repeatedly pressed on why the president had failed to take a more public stance.
"In my early years as a professional, I perhaps didn't fully grasp the strength of feeling amongst a Ryder Cup team or how golfers could really throw themselves into an event where they were jumping around, hugging and yelling when a team-mate's putts fell.
It is impressive to watch them achieve this with so little apparent effort, just as it is meaningful to grasp the finer nuances of feeling that emerge with repeated viewing.
She grasps the visceral feelings of admiration and contempt she aroused.
But in its tiniest tremors you can sense explosive forces roiling below the mask and grasp the duality with a visceral feeling of dread.
TE: My guess is that Snowden has given us the feeling that we now grasp the nature of the global surveillance state that is watching us, but I always think to myself, well, he was just one guy coming out of one of 17 interlocked intelligence outfits.
