Abstract
Is there, despite everything, a way out of doubt? Is there perhaps some assurance that the presupposition we have acknowledged as necessary is actually fulfilled? It would be vain to hope for any “proof” of this; proofs would only offer new points for radical skepticism to attack. No. The only thing that can help us is to present something that is exempt in advance from any doubt, that is, a fact. If there is such a fact, then the skepticism that put us on its track was not fruitless; it will have served to bring to light certain basic data of consciousness whose immeasurable significance might otherwise not have been correctly recognized and turned to account.
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References
E. Becher, Naturphilosophie, p. 108 (Kultur der Gegenwart, Part III, Division 7, Volume I, 1914).
A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part IV, Section VI.
Here we disregard the question as to whether it is at all possible to define a “same” point of time for different consciousnesses.
I am happy to say that these statements, as well as some of the developments that follow respecting the same problem, although independent in conception, agree with ideas expressed by H. Cornelius in his Einleitung in die Philosophie, 2nd edition, 1911, § 23.
Wundt also remarks that a momentary consciousness would have to be called an “unconscious” one. See his System der Philosophie, 8th edition, Vol. II, 1907, p. 147.
Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part IV, Section VI.
For example, see T. Ribot, Les Maladies de la personalité, 1901.
H. Taine, Théorie de l’intelligence, 4th edition, Volume II, Appendix.
See too H. Cornelius, Einleitung in die Philosophie, 2nd edition, p. 231;
F. Schumann, Zeitschrift für Psychologie, Vol. 17, pp. 127 ff.;
William James, Psychologie (translated into German by M. Dürr), pp. 280 ff.
Hans Cornelius’ book Transzendentale Systematik (Munich 1916) seeks to take the thought seriously, but misses its goal. It overshoots the mark in attempting to derive all possible knowledge, even the necessity of Euclidean geometry, from the unity of personal consciousness.
For example, H. Driesch (Philosophie des Organischen, II, pp. 380 ff.) regards “the unity of subjective experience in general and memory in particular” as one of the “three windows” through which we gaze into the absolute.
Essay Concerning the Human Understanding, Book 4, Chapter 1, § 4.
Loc. cit.
John Stuart Mill, Logic, Book I, Chapter V, § 5, note.
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Schlick, M. (1974). The Unity of Consciousness. In: General Theory of Knowledge. LEP Library of Exact Philosophy, vol 11. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-3099-5_17
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