300 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



categorical properties implies necessity, which itself is a 

 constituent of the system created by these " properties," and 

 to conceive the Ego as the learer of properties to say 

 nothing of the term " innate " properties, very much out of 

 place here would be to apply to the Ego the category of 

 substance-inherence, which also forms part of the categorical 

 system. Thus, in order to explain what categories are, 

 psychologism uses certain of the categories themselves ! 

 The Ego as a " substance " is the result of my categorical 

 reasoning, and " being forced " has an intelligible meaning 

 only on the basis of the categorical system itself ! Therefore 

 my establishing the categories, at any rate, cannot be founded 

 upon psychology. 1 



But what are we to do in the face of this enormous 

 difficulty ? 



An Irreducible Kind of " Experience " the Foundation of 



Categories 



All that the categorical system allows me to say about 

 the Given is logically prior to ordinary experience and 

 therefore not ordinary experience itself. But what about 

 my discovery, or rather my becoming conscious of the 

 categorical system itself? The discovery of this system is 

 quite certainly not " experience ' in the ordinary meaning 

 of the word, not " experience J: in the sense of inference, 

 but is it not experience in a certain most general sense ? Is 

 it not the becoming consciously convinced of a certain 

 something ? 



1 What about "other" subjects? Compare the next section (/3) with 

 regard to this strange problem, which cannot be discussed hero at greater 

 length. 



