I.—AVENARIUS’ PHILOSOPHY OF PURE EXPERIENCE (II.).
By Norman Smith.
In the preceding article I have sketched the general philosophical position from which Avenarius propounds his theory of the introjectionist argument, and may now proceed to the consideration of that argument in itself. Avenarius has given two very different statements of it, one in Der Menschliche Weltbegriff, and the other in four articles entitled “Bemerkungen zum Begriff des Gegenstandes der Psychologie” in the Vierteljahrsschrift.[1] I shall start from the latter as being the more definite. Avenarius’ teaching is that though the attitude of pure experience is perfectly consistent with itself, there inevitably arises at a very early stage of mental development that falsification of experience to which may be given the name introjection. It consists in a false interpretation of the experience of others which by a backstroke necessitates a similar, and equally false, interpretation of our own experience. When we look at another person we observe that the objects which he perceives lie outside him, and, arguing that the perceptions of them are in him and not outside him, we feel compelled to conclude that he does not apprehend the real external objects but only subjective images or counterparts. As this interpretation is applied by me to the experience of all other persons and is applied by all other persons to me, I feel compelled to apply it to my own world, and accordingly conclude that I do not perceive the
- ↑ Vol. xviii., p. 150, § 35 ff.
