"It might be different if he were flagging down a passing car or trying to phone for help, but typing, in and of itself, is not an inherently dramatic activity."
In this sentence, I do not understand the phrase "in and of itself" There should be some difference between the prepositions "in" and "of" in this context.
Please explain in as much detail as possible!
It means that you are just considering the object narrowly, without including consideration of its connections with other things or regarding it in context.
If you starting taking context and relations to other things into account, then the statement that was qualified by in and of itself might no longer be true (without that qualification).
IOW, it means abstracting from relations to other things, or looking at the thing narrowly, considering only its intrinsic nature, not also its external relations.
The phrase of concern is
Typing in and of itself is not an inherently dramatic activity.
This phrase can be defactorized into two separate phrases
To demonstrate the meaning of in itself
Typing a romantic story on the editor is very tantalizing and emotionally arousing, but typing in itself is not an inherently dramatic activity. I don't like typing. I wish there is a computer which could read my mind.
To demonstrate the meaning of of itself
Typing a political suspense is very involved. I need to do a huge amount of research and ensure my invented histories are coherent with actual history. However, of the typing itself, there is nothing to research on nor any improvement needed, unless I were a novice one-finger typist, which I am not.
