Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/427

A. MEINONG, Ueber d. Erfahrungsgrundlagen unseres Wissens. 413 in section iv., seems to me insufficiently explained; at any rate I have failed to grasp what is meant by it.) A judgment of the sort considered is not to be called a perception unless it is true, i.e., unless the object exists. Now, if we are to have any reason for believing in our judgments rather than disbelieving, two things are necessary: (1) that there should be a kind of judgments in whose nature it lies to be true; (2) that by means of judgments of this kind we should be able to recognise when judgments are of this kind. These two conditions are more or less fulfilled by self-evident judgments. It is self-evident that a self-evident judgment cannot be false, which is the first requirement; but it is not always self-evident whether a judgment is self-evident or not, so that the second requirement is only partially fulfilled. (May it not be doubted whether the first is fulfilled, if self-evident is taken in a purely psychological sense? And if it is not, there is danger of tautology.) If perception is to be knowledge, it must be self-evident knowledge. Hence we reach the conclusion (pp. 35-36): A perception is "an immediately evident affirmative judgment of existence concerning a present thing, based on a perceptive presentation (Wahrnehmungsvorstellung) (or a suitable substitute one)". Here a "perceptive presentation" is a presentation whose object is judged to exist in a perception, or in any judgment which is psychologically like a perception, i.e., like, except at most as regards its truth or its self-evidence.

The second section introduces the word aspection (Aspekt) for what is just like a perception except at most as regards truth and self-evidence. Thus the question of the "trustworthiness of perception" becomes the question as to when and how far aspections are perceptions, since perceptions have been defined as true. The answer to this generally depends upon whether the object exists. Thus relations cannot be perceived, because they cannot exist; colours might exist, but there are reasons for doubting whether they do exist, and therefore whether aspections having colours as objects are perceptions. The usual reasons for doubting the existence of both primary and secondary qualities are reviewed, and the provisional conclusion is reached that it is doubtful whether there is such a thing as external perception.

The third section, on internal perception, decides that in this case there can be no doubt that some aspections are perceptions, though here also observation is not infallible. When we hear sounds or see sights we can be quite certain that we are hearing or seeing them. A man who has a toothache is quite sure that he has it. (Prof. Meinong denies self-evidence to hallucinations, and would, I suppose, exclude hysterical pains on this ground. But if self-evidence is defined without explicitly including truth, it is hard to see any psychological justification for denying it in these cases.) An element of uncertainty is introduced, even with internal aspections, by the fact that they are never quite simultaneous with their objects. That they are not always simultaneous