IV. The Starting Point of Epistemology

This is why the directly given is not defined as long as the relation of such a definition to what is defined is not known. Even the concept: “directly given” includes no statement about what precedes cognition. Its only purpose is to point to this given, to turn our attention to it. At the starting point of a theory of knowledge, the concept is only the first initial relation between cognition and world-content. This description even allows for the possibility that the total world-content would turn out to be only a figment of our own “I,” which would mean that extreme subjectivism would be true; subjectivism is not something that exists as given. It can only be a conclusion drawn from considerations based on cognition, i.e. it would have to be confirmed by the theory of knowledge; it could not be assumed as its basis.