ABSTRACT
The concepts of external perception and perception of self, of sensuous and internal perception, have for the naïve man the following content. External perception is the perception of external things, their qualities and relationships, their changes and interactions. Perception of self is the perception that each can have of his own ego and its properties, its states and activities. Asked who this perceived ego may be, the naïve man would reply by pointing to his bodily appearance, or would recount his past and present experiences. To the further question whether all this is included in his percept of self, he would naturally reply that, just as the perceived external thing has many properties, and has had many in the course of its changes, which are not for the moment ‘open to perception’, so a corresponding fact holds for his perceived ego. In the changing acts of self-perception appear, on occasion, such and such presentations, feelings, wishes and bodily activities of the ego, just as the exterior or the interior of a house, or such and such sides and parts of it, enter from time to time into outer perception. Naturally, however, the ego remains the perceived object in the one case, as the house is in the other.
