IDENTICAL WITH THEIR APPREHENSION (" PERCIPI ") ?

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We may

therefore ask what precisely is meant by the common assertion

made in regard to all conscious, cognitive states, or data, or acts,

that their " esse estpercipi" that their being or reality is identi

cal with and consists in their being perceived. 2 A conscious,

cognitive act is itself a reality. Now the assertion obviously

does not mean that this reality is identical with any second,

distinct, reflex cognitive act by which the reality of the first or

direct cognitive act may be apprehended in its concrete happen

ing. What it does mean is that the directly conscious, cognitive

act itself is indeed a reality, but is also, as conscious or cognitive,

a reality that is sui generis, a reality which differs from every other

reality in this that while every other reality is merely an object of

(possible or actual) cognition, this particular reality which is the

conscious, cognitive act, is what it is because it reveals an object

to a subject and thus eo ipso and simultaneously makes the subject

aware of object, act, and subject in the concrete ; and that it would

cease to be what it is if it failed thus to reveal itself "(as well as

its object) to the subject (or to be itself " perceived " or " known,"

" percipi" by the subject). In other words, it means that the

differentia specifica of the reality which is a conscious, cognitive

act as such, that which marks it off from all other reality, is

its being actually apprehended (not by another act but in and

through itself), so that it ceases not only to apprehend or reveal an

object, but ceases to be, when it ceases to be directly and con-

1 " If we apprehended our states of consciousness in a representation, and not

intuitively and by identity, the question would be raised whether that representation

faithfully presented them, or falsified by disfiguring them. Hence we should have

to seek for a criterion whereby to determine which states of consciousness are as

they are represented (or appear), and which states are otherwise than they are re

presented: in other words, we should need a Criteriology of conscious representa

tions. But that is just what no one has ever yet felt any need of [Query What of

Kant s doctrine of the phenomenal Ego 1 ? Cf. infra, in, 129]. Our conscious

states are given by identity, without the intervention of any representation. They

are what they appear, because for them to be and to appear are one and the same

thing. In the domain of consciousness error is absolutely impossible [96]. And

this is the basis of all criteriological research, which takes as undisputed starting-

point the reality, incontestable and uncontested, of representative states of con

sciousness." JEANNIERE, op. cit., p. 394 n. Cf., however, infra, chaps, xix., xx.

2 " perdpi " and " perceived " are understood in the wide sense of " cognosci,"

" being known," awareness of any sort.

22 THEOR Y OF KNO WLEDGE

comitantly apprehended. If other realities can be consciously ap

prehended, they are supposed to have and retain their reality

independently of their being apprehended : they are supposed to

have an esse reale independently of the " pcrcipi" esse cognitinn,

esse idealc, cssc intentionale, involved in their becoming objects

of conscious cognition. But the reality or esse reale of the con

scious, cognitive act, as such, essentially is or includes this/mr///

or esse cognitum of the object (whatever this be, whether it be

matter, spirit, self, non-self, mental acts, forms of thought, etc.)

which this act reveals (together with itself) to consciousness. 1

The whole direct conscious cognitive process may, no doubt,

be deliberately made the object of a reflex act of psychological

introspection, and may be analysed by acts of the intellect into

subject, act, and object ; and in each of these reflex cognitions it

gets a new esse intentionale ; but the direct act itself, in order to

be apprehended in this same act, does not need to get an esse

intentionale distinct from its own reality : in its own reality, in

its esse reale, it is present to the conscious subject.

But it is to be noted that all this is true of the actual existence

or happening of the conscious, cognitive act as cognitive or per

ceptive of an object. Every such act, however, besides being es

sentially conscious or cognitive of an object (under which aspect

its esse is perdpi\ is in its real nature a vital act of a vital subject,

and its real nature as such must be discovered by intellectual

analysis of the whole cognitive process. Now if it be an act of

sense perception its happening as an organic event or fact may be

revealed as such to consciousness through the internal, organic

and muscular sense (100); and as such it is seen to have an

"esse" or reality which does not appear identical with its

" percipi" any more than the "esse" of any other non-cognitive

reality, such as a mountain, appears identical with its " percipi" .

Attention to this fact would obviate much confusion and explain

much apparent contradiction between statements made by dif

ferent writers in regard to acts of sense perception.

I consciously judge, for instance, that " two and two are four " . To say

that the esse of that act is its pcrcipi means simply that I could not judge

1 Hence a cognitive act, as conscious, and as concomitant object of the mind s

awareness, does not need, for such awareness, any essc intentionale distinct Irom its

esse reale, to make it present to the mind, whereas every other supposed renlity.

other than a conscious act (which thus concomitantly reveals itself and its subject

or agent in the concrete), does need, in order to become an object of awareness, an

esse intentionale distinct from its esse reale.

EXTRAMENTAL REALITY. EXTERNAL UNIVERSE 23

" two and two " to be " four, " I could not apprehend the objective relation

between subject and predicate, unless in and by the act of apprehending I were

made conscious of the presence of that objective relation to my mind and of

myself apprehending it present. It does not mean that the act of judgment

is the mere present and apprehended relation, or even the mere presence of

the relation, though without the relation, and its presence, the act of appre

hension could not take place, but that it is an act which essentially and by

its nature gives the objective relation its mental presence, and would not be

such if it did not give the object this presence and make me aware of myself

apprehending the object. 1

Again, " I see the paper on which I am writing " . To say that the esse

of the seeing is \\& percipi means that unless by the act of seeing the paper

I were aware of seeing it, the seeing would not take place at all : I could not

see the paper without being aware of seeing it : by the act of seeing I am

concomitantly aware of myself seeing ; though by the mere act of seeing I

am, of course, not aware of the .?//" and the seeing as distinct from the paper,

but of all together as one whole. Here, however, I may be simultaneously

aware of an additional datum, vis. the muscular strain or tension involved in

the organic activity of the sense organs, the eyes (too). And if I am, then in

addition to my consciousness of seeing as an act perceptive of an object,

I am simultaneously aware (through the internal, muscular sense) of seeing

as an organic act or event (and concomitantly aware of this latter aware

ness).

Finally let us take this example, " I feel a toothache ". Now a tooth

ache is a conscious state. Did we not feel it, were we not aware of it,

it would not be really there at all. There may be unconscious mental states,

we may leave that to psychologists ; and there certainly are unconscious

organic states, that is, assuming matter to be a mind-independent reality ;

but a toothache, if and while it is an ache, is something of which ne

cessarily we are aware or conscious. As a sentient conscious state or

process by which we are aware of something its esse is percipi. That is,

we could not feel or perceive the something without being aware of feeling

or perceiving it. Feeling the ache is being aware of feeling it. 2 We

could not feel without being aware of feeling. But if the esse of a toothache

is thus its percipi, can it nevertheless be true to say, as Prichard says, 3

" It must in the end be conceded of a toothache as much as of a stone that

J The act of intellectually apprehending the objective relation, if considered in

the abstract, apart from the latter, and from the presence of the latter to the intellect,

is nothing that we can become aware of: it is of the concrete act whereby the rela

tion is rendered present to, and apprehended by, the subject, that we assert that its

esse is percipi, in the sense that concomitant consciousness of itself (and its subject)

in the concrete is an essential feature of its reality, though not in the sense of deny

ing this " esse percipi " to be a real vital process whose nature can be explored by

reflection.

2 If the " aching " or " painful condition " is itself described as a " feeling " we

are using this latter term in its objective sense as the object of the conscious act by

which we feel or become aware. Cf. " I feel (or am aware of) a feeling (or

apprehended state or condition) ".

*O/>. cit., p. 118.

24 THEOR V OF KNO W LEDGE

it exists independently of the knowledge of it " ? That it exists independ

ently of our reflecting on it, thinking (judging, reasoning, etc.) about it

(and " knowing " it in that sense), yes : the reality of my toothache does not

depend on what I think or judge it to be, any more than in the case of

the stone. That the toothache exists independently of my feeling or being

aware of it (and " knowing " it in that wide sense of the term), no : the stone

is a reality which I can conceive to exist without my being aware of it ; but

the aching is a conscious process of an organic sense, a process which is

indeed a reality but a reality to which my awareness of it is essential. In

that it differs from the stone. Yet even in regard to mere awareness, is there

not a sense in which a toothache is as independent of this latter as a stone ?

Yes, if I use the term " toothache " not in its meaning as a conscious state or

feeling, but in its meaning as a diseased physical or organic condition.

The toothache in this latter sense is just as independent of my feeling

or awareness as is the tooth itself, or as a stone : the stone, the tooth, and

the physical condition of the tooth, we can and do conceive as having each

alike a reality which is independent of our awareness of them : whether we

are right in thinking them to have such a mind-independent reality being the

main question of the significance and validity of sense perception.

All conscious states, processes and activities, realities of the kind

called "mental," are at all events realities of whose actual existence or

happening the Ego is directly and immediately aware. But they belong

essentially to the reality of the Ego : whether all or any of them bring the

Ego into cognitive relation with any reality beyond and distinct from the

Ego is the main point now at issue.