Josepha Kodis

“ This was the ‘Kritik der reinen Erfahrung.’ Avenarius was impressed by the helplessness of the modern idealism, which ends with the affirmation that all we know about the world is only our sensations, i.e., subjective states of mind. On the other hand, he saw that in spite of those negative results of philosophical investigations the sciences increased their discoveries and human life went farther in its development, based on the belief in the reality of the objective world. ”

“ While formerly every theory of knowledge sought to explain how our thoughts grasp the ‘existing world,’ and therefore could be considered as a special theory, deriving from the individual disposition of the author, the theory of Avenarius gives a description of all those special cases of the ‘explanation of the world,’ and tries to induce the general laws from these facts of knowledge. The whole work is started from this point of view, that the first things given to the human mind are not abstractions, such as sensations, self-consciousness, etc., but simply things and ideas. ”

“ He was still a middle-aged man, but he destroyed his health through the enormous mental effort which he made to raise modern philosophy from its present passive state to the high rank of the science of sciences, capable of directing, as of old, the thoughts and actions of humanity. In Richard Avenarius philosophy loses one of its most sincere, most devoted students, whose whole life was a sacrifice on the altar of science. ”

“ From this belief sprang the notion that the soul was something enclosed from the ‘outer world,’ into which enclosure every impression from without could come only through a putting-in, or ‘introjection.’ The whole modern psychology, psycho-physics and most of the philosophical theories, contain such opinions and therefore serve to strengthen the artificial wall between the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ experiences which makes the sciences of the ‘inner world’ always more inaccessible to exact methods of investigation, and consequently more sterile. ”

“ His critique of experience is a supreme effort to found such a science. As it is difficult to characterize his methods in a few words, it is proper to give here, as one example, his theory of the fundamental problem of philosophy, namely, the theory of reality. In place of throwing himself immediately into a discussion as to what is reality, Avenarius seeks for other states of the human mind, having much in common with this peculiar state, which induces us to ascribe to certain phenomena the character of reality. ”

“ For, having a high ambition, he was one of those few men who are capable of sacrificing small vanities and easy successes to a far purpose, which they do not expect to see realized during their own life. ”

“ The elementary physiological processes, consisting of a state of disturbance of the equilibrium of a partial central nervous system, and in restoration of the difference, is called by Avenarius a ‘Vital-reihe,’ a ‘vital train.’ Psychical states correlative to these physiological states are called the ‘Abhängige Vital-reihe,’ ‘dependent vital trains.’ When the equilibrium of a nervous system is disturbed it is always on account of a difference arising between the nutritive functions of the system and its work. ”

“ The notion of movement and the notion of sensation are alone sufficient to explain all phenomena. This is a kind of objective idealism, which Avenarius afterwards abandoned for realism, conserving always his critical attitude toward the general notions and trying to find the laws of the ‘natural history’ of their development. ”

“ The whole first volume of the theory of experience is devoted to a kind of general biology, describing the laws of the evolution connections, changes, etc., of such ‘vital trains’ in individual and social organisms. ”

“ The whole psychical life is considered by Avenarius from this point of view, namely, as a function of the self-preservation of the organism, or, in case of its becoming disorganized, as the function of the self-preservation of a partial system of the organism. ”

“ In so far as they fulfill this purpose, they are good; when they do not serve this end, they have to be transformed to correspond to our experiences. He undertakes the analyses of some of the notions considered as most fundamental in modern philosophy, such for example, as notions of substance, matter, ‘Ding an sich,’ etc., and finds them constructed on a false basis and rather obstructive than helpful to the development of knowledge. ”

“ It is a rather popular exposition of the chief ideas of the Critique, namely, of the critical realism, which consists in the critical and conscious acceptation of the facts first given to a naïve mind, namely, that the world consists of ‘things’ and ‘ideas,’ in opposition to those idealistic theories, which consider the world as ‘representation’ or ‘will,’ or ‘will and representation,’ etc. ”

“ It is impossible in this place to deal with the whole treatise on the characters of reality. We will add, only as an especially interesting point, that Avenarius considers the idea as possessing a character of reality which is in its modifications very near to the zero point, but on the positive side. ”

“ He considers that every psychical state in living beings is a result of the self-preservative processes of the organism. Psychical processes accompany the physiological processes of the restoration of equilibrium in living organisms. ”

“ Self-forgetfulness, simple honesty, purely objective devotion, appear to them as ‘less true,’ ‘less real,’ ‘more apparent,’ and further are characterized as ‘untrue,’ ‘unreal,’ ‘non-existent.’” “So also the type of ‘present,’ which is the most exercised in life, possesses the strongest ‘existential’ characteristics ”