The Philosophical Review Volume 6

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1897 Excerpt: ... Number 5. Number 35. THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS REGARDING THE NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. THE request of the editors of the Review that I should give a short account of my fundamental conceptions regarding the nature of consciousness, affords me an opportunity of addressing myself to the readers of this magazine, who have read the acute criticisms of Dr. Warner Fite,1 and of making them more accurately acquainted with the philosophical basis of my psychology. Psychology, as the fundamental 'science of mind, ' cannot, any more than the science of the given or of being as such, avoid the question regarding the nature of consciousness; and on this account it is more closely related than the natural sciences to philosophy as the universal science. It is true that this problem, which has in our time become more and more the centre of philosophical interest, is to all appearance a new one in form alone, and in content is identical with the inquiry into 'mind, ' which was previously the principal philosophical problem. But the fact that old problems appear in new guise, in every case signifies more than a mere change in the external aspect of the problem. It invariably shows in addition that an advance has been made in the comprehension of the question, and, as a result of this, that the problem is approached in a better way and treated with an increasing prospect of success. 1 Philosophical Review, July, 1896, and March, 1897. S Both questions--What is mind? and, What is consciousness?, --spring from the same source. It is the same datum which has given rise to the use of the terms 'mind ' and 'consciousness.' But it is no accidental circumstance that the latter word is, relatively speaking, of recent origin, and has not been in literary use more