Page:Avenarius and the Standpoint of Pure Experience.djvu/8

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  THE DESCRIPTION OF EXPERIENCE  
I. 
We can seek to give a psychophysical account of pure cognitive experience and this will not be a metaphysical undertaking, for the concepts will not be used with a metaphysical purpose
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II. 
The concept of psychophysical parallelism is employed in the interest not of ultimate explanation but of description
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III. 
The theories of Avenarius are not concerned with metaphysical problems
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IV. 
Science seeks to discover the ‘How’ of experience. Metaphysics seeks to discover the ‘Why’ of experience. The experience which science describes and metaphysics explains is experience characterized by the natural view of the world
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  THE EXPLANATION OF EXPERIENCE  
I. 
Explanation in metaphysics differs from scientific description in that the former attaches the predicate of existence to its concept of reality. The demand for the existential predicate is an emotional demand
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II. 
The new epistemology of science will bring it to pass that reputable philosophy will not seek reality behind and different from the world of concrete experience
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  SUGGESTIONS TOWARD A CONCEPT OF EXPERIENCE  
 
The concept suggested is that of the historical process which, starting from animism, has led to the modern concept of nature elaborated by the special sciences. The concept is suggested in the interest of history
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  AN EMPIRICAL DEFINITION OF CONSCIOUSNESS  
 
Consciousness means experience that can belong to only one observer. Consciousness thus defined ceases to be a basis for idealism. There remains the natural view of the world
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