It may be objected here: How can that be undogmatic? it is the view of a naïve Realism, and how can it also form a fundamental aspect of Idealism? Here we might answer: Even the most advanced idealist originally accepted his environment as an actually-existent, or as he is wont to call it “real”; for how would it be possible to designate anything as “appearance,” etc., or as “non-existent” if he had not originally found it confronting him? Nevertheless Avenarius intentionally omits from his presupposition every specific characterisation of the environment, such, for instance, as is undertaken even by a naïve Realism. The environment is not taken either as “phenomenon” or as mere “appearance,” nor as a “middle” between “being and not-being” or as “not-being”; but then neither is it taken as “real,” “actual,” or “true”. For the plain man the characterisation as “actual,” “real,” does not supervene until he has busied himself with the opposite concept of a “not-actual” or “unreal”; until then, the universe for him is simply there, and he does not reflect upon the specific characterisation of this “being-there”.
Thus the empiriocritical presupposition is itself a ground for determining the relation of the “I” to the environment in such a way that both are present as common and inseparable elements. Avenarius says: “We find not only our environment but also ourselves. Our ‘I’ is found to be present just as much as the environment.” This interconnexion and inseparability of the “I” and its surrounding, this essential and inseparable association and homogeneity of the two coordinated values, is described by Avenarius as the “empiriokritische Prinzipialkoordination”.
This co-presentation of the two members, the corporeal presence of the human being and the spatial presence of the object, other modern philosophers include in the philosophical concept of the “I”; but then they either end in subjective Idealism, which is a flat contradiction to practical life and common-sense intuition, or they give a meaning to the word “I” which it does not possess in our ordinary speech, and in so doing merely add to the confusion of tongues in the sphere of Philosophy. Is it not better to strike out an entirely new conception, such as that of essential coordination? It may be inconvenient—as we have to form this conception for ourselves—but it is exact, easy to handle, and fruitful.
Just as other philosophers have regarded the assumption of a soul as the emanation of some special theory, so Avenarius regarded such assumptions as are implied in the
