Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/139

 126 CEITICAL NOTICES : identifies the " formal " and " objective " being of mental pro- cesses ; rather he appears to say that the difference is without any consequences as regards the principle of subjective certainty. To me the difference appears full of significance. So far as " knowing" is concerned, that and not the difference designated by Prof. Volkelt as "trans-subjective" and "intra-subjective " seems the most important. In observation of the inner life, the contents of the thoughts whereby we determine the nature of the observed are neither in fact nor in meaning necessarily iden- tical vith the observed. Nothing is gained, as regards accuracy of knowledge, by the intra-subjective character of both observed and observation. I should regret to misrepresent Prof. Volkelt's meaning, but unless I have altogether misunderstood what is so patiently worked out on pp. 56-58, I can only conclude that he is identifying consciousness in its vaguest sense with scientific knowledge of the facts of consciousness. If to know the processes of consciousness mean to be able to determine accurately their characteristics and differences, I should be inclined to say that we can hardly claim any such knowledge. What we do possess is painfully and laboriously attained, and wants every mark of imme- diacy. I am in the same position of doubt as to understanding the certainty, the self -evidence, which is the special attribute of this kind of knowledge. Prof. Volkelt's words are : "I possess an absolutely self-evidencing knowledge of my own conscious pro- cesses". "This proposition is not certain for me as a conclusion drawn from a number of experiences, but it is a fact, certain for me in exactly the same self-evidencing fashion as the assertion I now feel hungry or warm. With any content of consciousness I am likewise aware of this (werde Ich dessen inne) that there is given an absolutely self-evidencing knowledge of what is taking place in my consciousness ". Apparently then this proposition of which we are immediately certain accompanies consciousness, and is therefore distinguishable from it. If so, then, if the con- tent of the proposition be the fact that there is absolutely self- evidencing knowledge of inner states, as I altogether doubt the fact, I must doubt the proposition also. I should willingly go further and maintain that nothing is gained so far as knowledge and its certainty are concerned by the distinction between trans- and intra-subjective. I can be, in and through the process of knowing, no more certain of what is in my consciousness, if we allow for the moment that any accurate meaning can be put on so metaphorical an expression, than of what is beyond my con- sciousness. That knowing is a process of mind, and that the known is in the one case likewise a fact of mind, seems to me to give no additional certainty to the resulting cognition. I should have thought that some reference to the difficulty here arising would have been noted when past facts of consciousness were included among the self-evidencing and certain.