ABSTRACT
There are philosophers who deny that we ever think of anything universal. Others, perhaps the majority, believe that we sometimes think in universal and sometimes in individual terms. And again, there are those who say that even if we think in an intuitive (anschaulich) way, we can still only think in universal terms. This is in direct opposition to the second opinion, because those who advance that view usually maintain that it is precisely our intuitions which are all individual and that only through abstraction from them do we succeed in thinking in a universal way. Berkeley was a famous proponent of the first view, Kant a famous proponent of the second, but the third point of view is undoubtedly the correct one. Neither so-called outer perception, nor what Locke called reflection and we might call inner perception, provide us with examples of individual intuitions. In the case of inner perception, no one can cite any attribute which individuates the intuition. If someone perceives himself making a judgement, there is nothing to prevent someone else doing so as well,1 and he may indeed perceive himself as someone making a judgement about the same thing in entirely the same way. And two people could likewise have emotions which correspond with one another completely. In fact, it may be that there always are differences when we look at the sum total of inner experiences, but there would be no absurdity if the differences were all to disappear. And the number of individuals who would share them is sufficient proof that intuition is not individuated on that basis. Those who say that substantial determinations in inner perception are never entirely absent may be right. Nevertheless they cannot be cited as something which individuates intuition. They are restricted to generalities to such an extent that it is a matter of dispute whether that within us which thinks is corporeal or spiritual. It is easier to believe that outer perception reveals something individuated to us, e.g. a red point individuated by specification of color and place. But an advanced psychology teaches us that the sensory intuitions of vision (Gesichtsanschauung) present us with the colored thing with respect to its localizations, not in modo recto but in modo obliqua. What we think of, in the context of location, in modo recto, is only an unqualified place,2 from which the colored thing is intuitively perceived as in a certain direction and at a certain distance. The same relationships of direction and distance, however, could be repeated with any spatial point, and along with the general character of the spatial point which is perceived in modo recto3 the general character of
outer intuition as a whole is demonstrated. If the psychologists who study sensation have not become clearly and distinctly aware of the character of visual sensation just explained, Johannes Müller nevertheless touched on it when he speaks of an outward “projection”, of the objects seen, as did Petroniewicz just recently when he maintained that the person seeing something perceives a certain point as the location of his Self and appears to be at a distance from that which he sees as colored.
