Page:Schlick - Gesammelte Aufsätze (1926 - 1936), 1938.djvu/225

 acquaintance or by intuition we treat content as the object of an activity, as something which is "grasped" by the "mind", is drawn into it, is made to form part of it, or, worst of all, "perceived" by it. Here the impression is given as if mind gained "knowledge" of content by appropriating it in some way. This is extremely misleading. Content is content; nothing can be done to it, it is simply there (and even this cannot be "expressed") that is all. I can perceive a green leaf; I say that I perceive it if (among other things) the content "green" is there, but it would be nonsense to say that I perceive this content. And I must not say, of course, that the content is "in the mind", for, apart from other serious difficulties involved in the use of the term "mind", this would make sense only if content could also not be in the mind (perhaps before being "grasped" by it), for a proposition has no meaning unless it is possible for it to be false as well true (although only one of the two possibilities is actuality, of course). But if there is no sense in the question "can the same content be in two minds?" — as we saw in the first lecture — there is certainly no meaning in the question: can a content be as well in the mind as outside of it?"

By "knowledge" we always mean an act or rather the result of an act (of comparing, recognising, naming) but content is simply present, no act of intuition, of getting acquainted is required to bring it before the mind or into the mind, all these phrases are nothing but futile attempts to express its simply being there; we should not say that content is ever "known" or could be known. If we insist in using a verb which takes "content" as its object and the "ego", or "mind" as its subject, the word "enjoying" presents itself. It is the nearest equivalent to the German "erleben", but has certain disadvantages; we shall have to say, for instance, that the mind "enjoys pain". But as we know, there is no way of speaking correctly here, we must be satisfied to banish the word "knowledge" from these phrases.

The word "intuition" is a very good term to denote certain mental acts, namely those of guessing true propositions before they can be proved to be true, and these are really acts of acquiring knowledge — but there is no justification for using it the way Mr. Bergson does, for he speaks of it, as if it were an act by which content is grasped.

Bergsonian intuition has nothing whatever to do with knowledge in the sense which this word has in science as well as in daily life. Nevertheless