On the concept of unity of consciousness
pp. 411-420
in: Brian McGuinness (ed), Moritz Schlick, Berlin, Springer, 1985Abstract
In Moritz Schlick's General Theory of Knowledge, §17 consists of remarks on the unity of consciousness. The expressions Schlick uses about this unity are, from one point of view, far from clear. It is called "a plain, ordinary fact"1 and we are told that what one must understand by it can neither be defined nor described.2 The I, though characterized by Hume as a bundle of perceptions, must really be something more. "The mere being together of the perceptions is not enough to make them components. Something more must be added, and this is precisely the unity of consciousness. As… said, it is impossible to describe more closely this something that needs to be added."3 This unity which we cannot further describe is in fact "a connectedness that can only be experienced",4 a unifying cognition that cannot be cognized, in which we cannot find again some other interconnection already familiar to us.5 And yet "Where there is consciousness at all, there is also unity of consciousness".6
