Page:Schlick - Gesammelte Aufsätze (1926 - 1936), 1938.djvu/227

 them. But in a case of this kind it is obvious that what we are seeking is not knowledge at all (although we describe the result of our experience with the words "Now at last I know the pyramids!") but it is enjoyment. We want a certain thrill which is quite different from genuine explanatory knowledge. Real knowledge about the pyramids consists of propositions about their nature and history, and in order to get these (which would also give us a thrill but of a different kind) we do not have to see the pyramids at all, we can read about them, or, if we want to find out facts about them which are not described in any books we can send another person to Egypt and have him make the necessary observations and communicate them to us. But the enjoyment we have when looking at the pyramids cannot be communicated and there is no substitute for it. And it remains true that it is neither the highest degree of knowledge nor even its lowest degree, but simply the indescribable datum that precedes everything else.

(If intuition were the most perfect sort of knowledge we should not need — and indeed there could not be — any science of Psychology, at least if the object of psychology is supposed to be the knowledge of "data or processes of consciousness". For whatever this phrase may signify, it is surely meant to stand for everything with which we are most intimately acquainted: the données immédiates de la conscience, which according to Bergson, are the only things given to us by intuition. If these things are what is best and most completely "known" — what would be the use of psychology? Psychological intuitive cognition would be the ideal of all knowledge, its scientific development and systematisation would be impossible and entirely superfluous, Socrates' "know Thyself" would be a ridiculous advice as it would be impossible not to know one's self completely. In reality there is a science of psychology and a very necessary one if we really want to know about the working of "consciousness", but it is also one of the most imperfect sciences, for it appears to be very difficult to know one's self and the laws of consciousness. It seems to require the scientific methods of experiment, observation and comparison, while mere intuition, if it does anything, just furnishes the data which are to be known, but not their knowledge.

The chief reason why it was so generally believed that all real knowledge must in some way culminate in immediate acquaintance or intuition lies in the fact that they seem to indicate the point where we must look for the