Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/468

 the genus knowledge, it is also a theory of knowledge. And while in all special theories of knowledge philosophers endeavour to develop what in particular they mean by knowledge, Avenarius, on the contrary, aims only at presenting the common normal element in all such theories, the universal norms according to which individuals determine Being and Knowing. Ultimately, therefore, the Kritik der reinen Erfahrung is not only a general theory of knowledge, it is also a general theory of human norms.

What, then, is the standpoint from which the Kritik starts? It is not that of a preassumed and dogmatically determined experience, upon which is based the critique of all philosophical or other scientific or prescientific concepts. On the contrary, it is so general that Avenarius cannot describe it better than by saying: my standpoint is purely local. He includes no other standpoint than that where he stands, purely locally in the midst of his surroundings. As Greek tradition says of the philosopher, he stands in the throng of the market-place, not as buyer or seller, but as beholder of all the traffic; he passes through distant lands and mingles with strange peoples, not for the sake of any business, mean or lofty, but in order that he may observe.

We must, however, have some presupposition from which to proceed. That to this presupposition and to its being rightly presented great importance attaches, will be clear to every philosophical reader; everything depends upon the presupposition; if this the foundation of the building does not stand firm, the whole erection will totter.

In stating his presupposition Avenarius begins by banishing from it everything which belongs to particular and specific philosophical tendencies, and which may be regarded as variations of a proposition originally accepted by all men. Thus he proceeded to abstract what had been first introduced into his own view of the universe by the fortuitous and changing influences of life and school, and obtained the following result:—

“I, with all my thoughts and feelings, found myself in the midst of an environment. This environment was compounded from manifold parts which stood to each other in manifold relations of dependence. To this environment belonged also fellow-creatures with their manifold statements; and what they said for the most part stood again in a relation of dependence to the environment. For the rest, my fellow-creatures spoke and acted as I did; they answered my questions as I answered theirs; they sought after the various parts of the surrounding or avoided them,