MS 611-15

1908 Nov 2 Logic 9

native good sense would implant, that he will not succeed in achieving has purposes,--nay, that he will not be able so much as to form purposes that would be permanently satisfactory to him in case he should achieve them, unless, having instituted, the sooner the better, and then energetically carried out a systematic reëxamin nation of his opinions, he thereafter industriously keeps them weeded out by the best methods he can. Thinking so, and carrying out the idea may not be far removed in an ardent lad. But when by his own activity or by the adroit suggestions of a wise and tactful governor he has been led to undertake such a reform, he can hardly begin better than by asking himself, 'what are the different sorts of objects of which I am directly aware;

1908 Nov 2 Logic 10

that is to say of which I am aware not as being involved in or indicated by something else, even though, as a matter of fact, they be so involved or indicated, but as being themselves present?' His reason for drawing up such a list, whether it is clear to him or not, will be that it must be out of the ?s from among objects of such sorts that he must, whether with or without design, draw the raw materials of which any new opinions are to be constructed; and the form of any constructed thing as well as the method of constructing it ought to be and indeed must be, dependent in some measure upon the properties of the available materials. His catalogue of the kinds of objects of which he is directly aware and will run somewhat as follows on the following list in which I shall number the items, so that

1908 Nov 5 Logic 11

I may be able to insert remarks on the different items with out confusing you. Although I shall not write out the list in an utterly inconsiderate haste, yet I am conscious that it could not be nearly freed from errors and other faults without vastly more labour than I care to bestow upon it; since I do not propose to put it to any use for which it would be better adapted if it were faultless, so long as it fairly shows the general kinds of variety that there are in mode of immediate awareness. I think it will conduce to perspicuity to invent the noun 'Phaneron' (φανερον ?? need accent) being the commonest Greek adjective that means apparent, containing the same root as phenomenon, phantom, fancy face, bare, bald, etc. I it was the same as that of Latin fari, (φηνμ??), to say, the idea of clearness was conveyed by it from the very first,) to denote

1908 Nov 5 Logic 12

an object of any kind of which a person is aware not merely in being first aware in something else, but directly. This word 'directly' is not expressive, and needs to be illustrated. Yet there will be a serious difficulty in attempting to elucidate my meaning in that way. It is that you may think that objects which I adduce as examples of objects of which our awareness is not direct, in truth so manifestly have the character which I have in mind when I say of objects that one is directly aware of them that it will seem to you inconceivable that I should use the term in that sense when I deny of my instances their being directly apprehended. The reverse misunderstanding may equally occur I must therefore explain why I consider each object instanced to be one of which we are directly aware or else indirectly; an in thus giving

1908 Nov 6 Logic 13

a reason for my putting the object into one pigeon-hole or the other, I must appeal to a definition, or logical analysis of the idea of direct apprehension. But such an abstract explanation is particularly open to misunderstanding. The two methods should be mixed. By Direct awareness I mean awareness not altogether through awareness of a sign of the object, but in part at least independent of any such sign. By a Sign, I mean anything that is, on the hand, in some way determined by an object and, on the other hand, which determine some awareness, and this in such a manner that the awareness is thus determined by that object. Take, for example, one's awareness of single object that has a proper name. The first time I hear or read that name there will probably be some circumstances in the context that