The Science of Knowing
GA 2
XIII. The Activity of Knowing
[ 1 ] Reality has separated itself for us into two realms: into experience and thinking. Experience comes into consideration in a twofold way. Firstly, insofar as all reality except thinking has a form of manifestation that must appear in the form of experience; and secondly, insofar as it lies in the nature of our spirit—whose being after all consists in contemplation, i.e., in an activity directed outward—that the objects to be observed must enter its field of vision, which is to say that they be given to it as experience. Now it could be the case that this form of the “given” does not contain the essential being (Wesen) of the thing, in which case the thing itself demands that it first manifest to perception (experience) in order later to reveal its essential being to an activity of our spirit that goes beyond perception. Another possibility is that the essential being is already present within the directly “given,” and that it is only due to the second fact—that for our spirit everything must come before its gaze as experience—that we do not immediately become aware of this essential being. The latter is the case with thinking; the former is the case with the rest of reality. With thinking it is only necessary for us to overcome our own subjective limitations in order to grasp its core. What, with the rest of reality, is factually based in the objective perception—namely, that its immediate form of appearance must be overcome in order to explain it—this, with thinking, lies only in a peculiarity of our spirit. With the rest of reality, it is the thing itself that gives itself the form of experience; with thinking, it is the organization of our spirit. With the rest of reality, we do not have the whole thing when we grasp experience; with thinking we do.
[ 2 ] Therein lies the basis of the dualism that science—the thinking activity of knowing—has to overcome. The human being finds himself confronted by two worlds whose connection he must establish. One of them is experience, about which he knows that it contains only half of reality; the other is thinking, which is complete in itself, and into which that outer perceptual reality must flow if a satisfying world view is to result. If the world were inhabited merely by sense beings, its essential being (its ideal content) would remain forever hidden; laws would indeed govern the processes of the world, but these laws would not come to manifestation. For these laws to come to manifestation, a being would have to insert itself between the phenomenal form and the law, a being to whom is given—in addition to the organs through which it perceives the sense-perceptible form of reality that is dependent upon the laws—also the ability to perceive the lawfulness itself. The sense world must approach such a being from one side, and the ideal essential being of the sense world from the other, and such a being must, in its own activity, unite these two factors of reality.
[ 3 ] Here one sees perfectly well and clearly that our spirit is not to be regarded as a receptacle for the world of ideas, containing the thoughts within itself, but rather as an organ that perceives these thoughts.
[ 4 ] It is an organ of apprehension in exactly the same way as eyes and ears are. A thought relates itself to our spirit in no other way than light does to the eye and sound to the ear. It certainly would not occur to anyone to regard color as something that imprints itself in a lasting way upon the eye, and, as it were, remains sticking to the eye. But with respect to the spirit this view is in fact the predominant one. A thought about each thing supposedly takes shape in consciousness, and this thought then remains in one's consciousness, in order to be taken out again when needed. One has based a whole theory on this, claiming that thoughts of which we are not for the moment conscious are in fact stored up within our spirit, but lying below the threshold of consciousness.
[ 5 ] These fantastic views dissolve at once into nothing when one reflects that the world of ideas is after all determined out of itself. What does this self-determined content have to do with the multiplicity of consciousnesses? One will surely not assume that this content determines itself in indeterminate multiplicity in such a way that each partial content is always independent of the other! The matter is indeed utterly clear. The thought-content is such that absolutely all that is needed for it to manifest is a spiritual organ, but the number of beings endowed with this organ is of no significance. Any number of spirit-endowed individuals can therefore confront the one content of thoughts. The human spirit, therefore, perceives the thought-content of the world as an organ of apprehension. There is only one thought-content of the world. Our consciousness is not the ability to produce and store up thoughts, as so many people believe, but rather the ability to perceive thoughts (ideas). Goethe expressed this aptly with the words: “The idea is eternal and single; that we also use the plural is not appropriate. All things of which we become aware and about which we are able to speak are only manifestations of the idea; concepts are what we express, and to this extent the idea itself is a concept.”
[ 6 ] As a citizen of two worlds—of the sense world and of the thought-world, the one pressing toward him from below, the other one shining from above—the human being takes possession of science, by which he joins the two into an undivided unity. From one side the outer form beckons to us, from the other side the inner essential being; we must unite the two. With this, our epistemology has lifted itself above the standpoint that similar investigations usually take and that does not get beyond formalism. One says that “the activity of knowing is to work upon experience,” without specifying what it is that is worked into experience; the definition is set up that “in the activity of knowing, the perception flows into thinking, or that thinking, by virtue of an inner compulsion from experience, penetrates to the essential being behind experience.” But this is mere formalism. A science of knowledge that wishes to grasp the activity of knowing in its universally significant role must first of all indicate its ideal purpose. This purpose consists of bringing incomplete experience to completion by revealing its core. Second, it must determine what this core is, with respect to content. This core is thought, idea. Third and last, it must show how this revealing takes place. Our chapter on “Thinking and Perception” demonstrates this. Our epistemology leads to the positive conclusion that thinking is the essential being of the world and that individual (individuelle) human thinking is the individual (einzelne) form of manifestation of this essential being. A merely formalistic science of knowledge cannot do this; it remains forever unfruitful. It has no view about the nature of the relationship existing between what science gains and the essential being and processes of the world. [ 7 ] And yet it is precisely within epistemology that this relationship must be found. This science must show us, after all, where we arrive through our knowing activity and where every other science leads us.
[ 8 ] By no other path than epistemology does one come to the view that thinking is the core of the world. For, it shows us thinking's connection with the rest of reality. But out of what should we become aware of thinking's relationship to experience if not out of the science whose immediate aim is to investigate this relationship? And furthermore, how would we know that any spiritual or sense-perceptible being is the primal force of the world if we have not investigated its relationship to reality? If, therefore, we are ever concerned with discovering the essential being of something, this discovering always consists of going back to the ideal content of the world. One may not step outside the realm of this content if one wishes to remain within clear determinants and not grope about indeterminately. Thinking is a totality in itself, sufficient unto itself, that cannot overstep itself without entering a void. In other words, in order to explain something, thinking may not take refuge in things it does not find within itself. A thing not encompassed by thinking would be a non-thing. Everything ultimately merges with thinking; everything finds its place within thinking.
[ 9 ] Expressed in terms of our individual consciousness, this means that, for the purpose of establishing anything scientifically, we must remain strictly within what is given us in consciousness; we cannot step outside of this. Now, if one recognizes fully that we cannot skip over our consciousness without landing in non-being, but does not recognize at the same time that the essential being of things is to be encountered in our consciousness in the perception of ideas, erroneous views then arise that speak of a limit to our knowledge. But if we cannot get outside our consciousness, and if the essential being of reality is not within it, then we cannot press forward to essential being at all.
Our thinking is bound to what is here and knows nothing of any beyond.
[ 10 ] In our view, the opinion that there is a limit to knowledge is nothing but a thinking that misunderstands itself. A limit to knowledge would be possible only if outer experience in itself forced us to investigate its essential being, if it determined the questions that are to be raised in its presence. But this is not the case. For thinking the need arises to hold out, toward the experience of which it becomes aware, the essential being of this experience. After all, thinking can have only the quite definite tendency to see its own inherent lawfulness in the rest of the world, but not something or other about which it itself has not the least information.
[ 11 ] Another error must still be rectified here. It is to the effect that thinking is not adequate to constitute the world, that some other factor (force, will, etc.) must still join with this thought-content in order to make the world possible.
[ 12 ] Upon closer examination, however, one sees at once that all such factors turn out to be nothing more than abstractions from the perceptual world that are themselves awaiting explanation by thinking. Every other component part of the being of the world except thinking would also require at once a kind of apprehension, a way of being known, different from that of thinking. We would have to reach that other component part in another way than through thinking. For, thinking yields only thoughts after all. But one is already contradicting oneself in wanting to explain the part played by that second component in world processes, and by making use of concepts in order to do so. Furthermore, however, there is no third element given us in addition to sense perception and thinking. And we cannot accept any part of sense perception as the core of the world, because, to closer scrutiny, all its components show that as such they do not contain their essential being. The essential being can therefore be sought simply and solely in thinking.
13. Das Erkennen
[ 1 ] Die Wirklichkeit hat sich uns in zwei Gebiete auseinandergelegt: in die Erfahrung und in das Denken. Die Erfahrung kommt in zweifacher Hinsicht in Betracht. Erstens insofern, als die gesamte Wirklichkeit außer dem Denken eine Erscheinungsform hat, die in der Erfahrungsform auftreten muß. Zweitens insofern, als es in der Natur unseres Geistes liegt, dessen Wesen ja in der Betrachtung besteht (also in einer nach außen gerichteten Tätigkeit), daß die zu beobachtenden Gegenstände in sein Gesichtsfeld einrücken, das heißt wieder ihm erfahrungsgem? gegeben werden. Es kann nun sein, daß diese Form des Gegebenen das Wesen der Sache nicht in sich schließt, dann fordert die Sache selbst, daß sie zuerst in der Wahrnehmung (Erfahrung) erscheine, um später einer über die Wahrnehmung hinausgehenden Tätigkeit unseres Geistes das Wesen zu zeigen. Eine andere Möglichkeit ist die, daß in dem unmittelbar Gegebenen schon das Wesen liege und daß es nur dem zweiten Umstande, daß unserm Geiste alles als Erfahrung vor Augen treten muß, zuzuschreiben ist, wenn wir dieses Wesen nicht sogleich gewahr werden. Das letztere ist beim Denken, das erstere bei der übrigen Wirklichkeit der Fall. Beim Denken ist nur erforderlich, daß wir unsere subjektive Befangenheit überwinden, um es in seinem Kerne zu begreifen. Was bei der übrigen Wirklichkeit in der objektiven Wahrnehmung sachlich begründet liegt, daß die unmittelbare Form des Auftretens überwunden werden muß, um sie zu erklären, das liegt beim Denken nur in einer Eigentümlichkeit unseres Geistes. Dort ist es die Sache selbst, welche sich die Erfahrungsform gibt, hier ist es die Organisation unseres Geistes. Dort haben wir noch nicht die ganze Sache, wenn wir die Erfahrung auffassen, hier haben wir sie.
[ 2 ] Darinnen liegt der Dualismus begründet, den die Wissenschaft, das denkende Erkennen, zu überwinden hat. Der Mensch findet sich zwei Welten gegenüber, deren Zusammenhang er herzustellen hat. Die eine ist die Erfahrung, von der er weiß, daß sie nur die Hälfte der Wirklichkeit enthält; die andere ist das Denken, das in sich vollendet ist, in das jene äußere Erfahrungswirklichkeit einfließen muß, wenn eine befriedigende Weltansicht resultieren soll. Wenn die Welt bloß von Sinnenwesen bewohnt wäre, so bliebe ihr Wesen (ihr ideeller Inhalt) stets im Verborgenen; die Gesetze würden zwar die Weltprozesse beherrschen, aber sie kämen nicht zur Erscheinung. Soll das letztere sein, so muß zwischen Erscheinungsform und Gesetz ein Wesen treten, dem sowohl Organe gegeben sind, durch die es jene sinnenfällige, von den Gesetzen abhängige Wirklichkeitsform wahrnimmt, als auch das Vermögen, die Gesetzlichkeit selbst wahrzunehmen. Von der einen Seite muß an ein solches Wesen die Sinnenwelt, von der anderen das ideelle Wesen derselben herantreten, und es muß in eigener Tätigkeit diese beiden Wirklichkeitsfaktoren verbinden.
[ 3 ] Hier sieht man wohl ganz klar, daß unser Geist nicht wie ein Behälter der Ideenwelt anzusehen ist, der die Gedanken in sich enthält, sondern wie ein Organ, das dieselben wahrnimmt.
[ 4 ] Er ist gerade so Organ des Auffassens wie Auge und Ohr. Der Gedanke verhält sich zu unserem Geiste nicht anders wie das Licht zum Auge, der Ton zum Ohr. Es fällt gewiß niemandem ein, die Farbe wie etwas anzusehen, das sich dem Auge als Bleibendes einprägt, das gleichsam haften bleibt an demselben. Beim Geiste ist diese Ansicht sogar die vorherrschende. Im Bewußtsein soll sich von jedem Dinge ein Gedanke bilden, der dann in demselben verbleibt, um aus demselben je nach Bedarf hervorgeholt zu werden. Man hat darauf eine eigene Theorie gegründet, als wenn die Gedanken, deren wir uns im Momente nicht bewußt sind, zwar in unserem Geiste aufbewahrt seien; nur liegen sie unter der Schwelle des Bewußtseins.
[ 5 ] Diese abenteuerlichen Ansichten zerfließen sofort in nichts, wenn man bedenkt, daß die Ideenwelt doch eine aus sich heraus bestimmte ist. Was hat dieser durch sich selbst bestimmte Inhalt mit der Vielheit der Bewußtseine zu tun? Man wird doch nicht annehmen, daß er sich in unbestimmter Vielheit so bestimmt, daß immer der eine Teilinhalt von dem andern unabhängig ist! Die Sache liegt ja ganz klar. Der Gedankeninhalt ist ein solcher, daß nur überhaupt ein geistiges Organ notwendig ist zu seiner Erscheinung, daß aber die Zahl der mit diesem Organe begabten Wesen gleichgültig ist. Es können also unbestimmt viele geistbegabte Individuen dem einen Gedankeninhalte gegenüberstehen. Der Geist nimmt also den Gedankengehalt der Welt wahr, wie ein Auffassungsorgan. Es gibt nur einen Gedankeninhalt der Welt. Unser Bewußtsein ist nicht die Fähigkeit, Gedanken zu erzeugen und aufzubewahren, wie man so vielfach glaubt, sondern die Gedanken (Ideen) wahrzunehmen. Goethe hat dies so vortrefflich mit den Worten ausgedrückt: «Die Idee ist ewig und einzig; daß wir auch den Plural brauchen, ist nicht wohlgetan. Alles, was wir gewahr werden und wovon wir reden können, sind nur Manifestationen der Idee; Begriffe sprechen wir aus, und insofern ist die Idee selbst ein Begriff.»
[ 6 ] Bürger zweier Welten, der Sinnen- und der Gedanken-welt, die eine von unten an ihn herandringend, die andere von oben leuchtend, bemächtigt sich der Mensch der Wissenschaft, durch die er beide in eine ungetrennte Einheit verbindet. Von der einen Seite winkt uns die äußere Form, von der andern das innere Wesen; wir müssen beide vereinigen. Damit hat sich unsere Erkenntnistheorie über jenen Standpunkt erhoben, den ähnliche Untersuchungen zumeist einnehmen und der nicht über Formalitäten hinauskommt. Da sagt man: «Das Erkennen sei Bearbeitung der Erfahrung», ohne zu bestimmen, was in die letztere hineingearbeitet wird; man bestimmt: «Im Erkennen fließe die Wahrnehmung in das Denken ein, oder das Denken dringe vermöge eines inneren Zwanges von der Erfahrung zu dem hinter derselben stehenden Wesen vor.» Das sind aber lauter bloße Formalitäten. Eine Erkenntniswissenschaft, welche das Erkennen in seiner weltbedeutsamen Rolle erfassen will, muß: erstens den idealen Zweck desselben angeben. Er besteht darinnen, der unabgeschlossenen Erfahrung durch das Enthüllen ihres Kernes ihren Abschluß zu geben. Sie muß, zweitens, bestimmen, was dieser Kern, inhaltlich genommen, ist. Er ist Gedanke, Idee. Endlich, drittens, muß sie zeigen, wie dieses Enthüllen geschieht. Unser Kapitel: «Denken und Wahrnehmung» gibt darüber Aufschluß. Unsere Erkenntnistheorie führt zu dem positiven Ergebnis, daß das Denken das Wesen der Welt ist und daß das individuelle menschliche Denken die einzelne Erscheinungsform dieses Wesens ist. Eine bloße formale Erkenntniswissenschaft kann das nicht, sie bleibt ewig unfruchtbar. Sie hat keine Ansicht darüber, welche Beziehung das, was die Wissenschaft gewinnt, zum Weltwesen und Weltgetriebe hat.
[ 7 ] Und doch muß sich ja gerade in der Erkenntnistheorie diese Beziehung ergeben. Diese Wissenschaft muß uns doch zeigen, wohin wir durch unser Erkennen kommen, wohin uns jede andre Wissenschaft führt.
[ 8 ] Auf keinem anderen als auf dem Wege der Erkenntnistheorie kommt man zu der Ansicht, daß das Denken der Kern der Welt ist. Denn sie zeigt uns den Zusammenhang des Denkens mit der übrigen Wirklichkeit. Woraus sollten wir aber vom Denken gewahr werden, in welcher Beziehung es zur Erfahrung steht, als aus der Wissenschaft, die sich diese Beziehung zu untersuchen direkt zum Ziele setzt? Und weiter, woher sollten wir von einem geistigen oder sinnlichen Wesen wissen, daß es die Urkraft der Welt ist, wenn wir seine Beziehung zur Wirklichkeit nicht untersuchten? Handelt es sich also irgendwo darum, das Wesen einer Sache zu finden, so besteht dieses Auffinden immer in dem Zurückgehen auf den Ideengehalt der Welt. Das Gebiet dieses Gehaltes darf nicht überschritten werden, wenn man innerhalb der klaren Bestimmungen bleiben will, wenn man nicht im Unbestimmten herumtappen will. Das Denken ist eine Totalität in sich, das sich selbst genug ist, das sich nicht überschreiten darf, ohne ins Leere zu kommen. Mit anderen Worten: es darf nicht, um irgend etwas zu erklären, zu Dingen seine Zuflucht nehmen, die es nicht in sich selbst findet. Ein Ding, das nicht mit dem Denken zu umspannen wäre, wäre ein Unding. Alles geht zuletzt im Denken auf, alles findet innerhalb desselben seine Stelle.
[ 9 ] In bezug auf unser individuelles Bewußtsein ausgedrückt, heißt das: Wir müssen behufs wissenschaftlicher Feststellungen streng innerhalb des uns im Bewußtsein Gegebenen stehen bleiben, wir können dies nicht überschreiten. Wenn man nun wohl einsieht, daß wir unser Bewußtsein nicht überspringen können, ohne ins Wesenlose zu kommen, nicht aber zugleich, daß das Wesen der Dinge innerhalb unseres Bewußtseins in der Ideenwahrnehmung anzutreffen ist, so entstehen jene Irrtümer, die von einer Grenze unserer Erkenntnis sprechen. Können wir über das Bewußtsein nicht hinaus und ist das Wesen der Wirklichkeit nicht innerhalb desselben, dann können wir zum Wesen überhaupt nicht vordringen. Unser Denken ist an das Diesseits gebunden und weiß nichts vom Jenseits.
[ 10 ] Unserer Ansicht gegenüber ist diese Meinung nichts als ein sich selbst mißverstehendes Denken. Eine Erkenntnisgrenze wäre nur möglich, wenn uns die äußere Erfahrung an sich selbst die Erforschung ihres Wesens aufdrängte, wenn sie die Fragen bestimmte, die in Ansehung ihrer zu stellen sind. Das ist aber nicht der Fall. Dem Denken entsteht das Bedürfnis, der Erfahrung, die es gewahr wird, ihr Wesen entgegenzuhalten. Das Denken kann doch nur die ganz bestimmte Tendenz haben, die ihm selbst eigene Gesetzlichkeit auch in der übrigen Welt zu sehen, nicht aber irgend etwas, wovon es selbst nicht die geringste Kunde hat.
[ 11 ] Ein anderer Irrtum muß hier noch seine Berichtigung erfahren. Es ist der, als ob das Denken nicht hinreichend wäre, die Welt zu konstituieren, als ob zum Gedankeninhalt noch etwas (Kraft, Wille usw.) hinzukommen müsse, um die Welt zu ermöglichen.
[ 12 ] Bei genauer Erwägung sieht man aber sofort, daß sich alle solche Faktoren als nichts weiter ergeben, denn als Abstraktionen aus der Wahrnehmungswelt, die selbst erst der Erklärung durch das Denken harren. Jeder andere Bestandteil des Weltwesens als das Denken machte sofort auch eine andere Art von Auffassung, von Erkennen, nötig als die gedankliche. Wir müßten jenen anderen Bestandteil anders als durch das Denken erreichen. Denn das Denken liefert denn doch nur Gedanken. Schon dadurch aber, daß man den Anteil, den jener zweite Bestandteil am Weltgetriebe hat, erklären will und sich dabei der Begriffe bedient, widerspricht man sich. Außerdem aber ist uns außer der Sinneswahrnehmung und dem Denken kein Drittes gegeben. Und wir können keinen Teil von jener als Kern der Welt gelten lassen, weil alle ihre Glieder bei näherer Betrachtung zeigen, daß sie als solche ihr Wesen nicht enthalten. Das letztere kann daher einzig und allein im Denken gesucht werden.
13. cognition
[ 1 ] Reality has divided itself into two areas: experience and thought. Experience comes into consideration in two respects. Firstly, in so far as the whole of reality, apart from thought, has a form of appearance which must appear in the form of experience. Secondly, insofar as it is in the nature of our mind, whose essence consists in observation (i.e. in an outwardly directed activity), that the objects to be observed enter its field of vision, i.e. are again given to it in the form of experience. It is now possible that this form of the given does not include the essence of the thing in itself, in which case the thing itself demands that it first appears in perception (experience) in order to later reveal its essence to an activity of our mind that goes beyond perception. Another possibility is that the essence already lies in the immediately given and that it is only due to the second circumstance, that everything must appear to our mind as experience, if we do not immediately become aware of this essence. The latter is the case with thinking, the former with the rest of reality. With thinking it is only necessary that we overcome our subjective bias in order to grasp it at its core. What in the case of the rest of reality lies objectively in objective perception, that the immediate form of occurrence must be overcome in order to explain it, lies in thinking only in a peculiarity of our mind. There it is the thing itself that gives itself the form of experience, here it is the organization of our mind. There we do not yet have the whole thing when we grasp experience, here we have it.
[ 2 ] This is the basis of the dualism that science, the thinking cognition, has to overcome. Man finds himself confronted with two worlds whose connection he has to establish. One is experience, of which he knows that it contains only half of reality; the other is thinking, which is complete in itself, into which the external reality of experience must flow if a satisfactory world view is to result. If the world were inhabited only by sensory beings, its essence (its ideal content) would always remain hidden; the laws would indeed govern the world processes, but they would not appear. If the latter is to be the case, then between the form of appearance and the law there must be a being which is given both organs through which it perceives that sensory form of reality which is dependent on the laws, and the ability to perceive the law itself. From one side, such a being must be approached by the sensory world, from the other by its ideal essence, and it must combine these two factors of reality in its own activity.
[ 3 ] Here we can see quite clearly that our mind is not to be regarded as a container of the world of ideas that contains thoughts within itself, but as an organ that perceives them.
[ 4 ] It is just as much an organ of perception as the eye and ear. Thought relates to our mind no differently than light to the eye, sound to the ear. It certainly occurs to no one to regard color as something that impresses itself on the eye as something permanent, that sticks to it, as it were. In the mind this view is even the predominant one. A thought is supposed to form in the consciousness of every thing, which then remains in it in order to be brought out of it as required. A theory of its own has been founded on this, as if the thoughts of which we are not conscious in the moment were indeed stored in our mind; only they lie below the threshold of consciousness.
[ 5 ] These adventurous views immediately dissolve into nothing when one considers that the world of ideas is a world determined by itself. What has this self-determined content to do with the multiplicity of consciousnesses? Surely one will not assume that it is determined in indeterminate multiplicity in such a way that one partial content is always independent of the other! The matter is quite clear. The content of thought is such that only one spiritual organ is necessary for its appearance, but that the number of beings endowed with this organ is indifferent. There can therefore be an indeterminate number of spiritually endowed individuals standing opposite the one thought content. The spirit thus perceives the thought content of the world like an organ of perception. There is only one thought content of the world. Our consciousness is not the ability to generate and store thoughts, as is so often believed, but to perceive thoughts (ideas). Goethe expressed this so excellently with the words: "The idea is eternal and unique; that we also need the plural is not well done. Everything that we become aware of and can speak of are only manifestations of the idea; we express concepts, and in this respect the idea itself is a concept."
[ 6 ] As a citizen of two worlds, the world of the senses and the world of thought, the one approaching him from below, the other shining from above, man takes possession of science, through which he unites the two into an undivided unity. From one side the outer form beckons us, from the other the inner being; we must unite the two. Our theory of knowledge has thus risen above the standpoint that similar investigations usually adopt and which does not go beyond formalities. We say: "Cognition is the working out of experience", without specifying what is worked into the latter; we say: "In cognition perception flows into thought, or thought, by virtue of an inner compulsion, penetrates from experience to the being behind it." But these are mere formalities. A cognitive science that wants to grasp cognition in its world-significant role must: firstly, state the ideal purpose of cognition. It consists in giving the unfinished experience its conclusion by revealing its core. It must, secondly, determine what this core is in terms of content. It is thought, idea. Finally, thirdly, it must show how this unveiling occurs. Our chapter "Thinking and Perception" provides information on this. Our theory of cognition leads to the positive result that thinking is the essence of the world and that individual human thinking is the individual manifestation of this essence. A merely formal epistemology cannot do this; it remains eternally unfruitful. It has no view of the relationship that what science gains has to the world being and the world mechanism.
[ 7 ] And yet this relationship must arise precisely in epistemology. This science must show us where our cognition leads us, where every other science leads us.
[ 8 ] In no other way than through epistemology does one arrive at the view that thinking is the core of the world. For it shows us the connection between thought and the rest of reality. But from what should we become aware of the relation of thought to experience but from science, which sets itself the direct aim of investigating this relation? And further, how should we know of a spiritual or sensuous being that it is the primal power of the world if we did not investigate its relation to reality? If it is a question of finding the essence of a thing, then this finding always consists in going back to the idea content of the world. The area of this content must not be exceeded if one wants to remain within the clear definitions, if one does not want to grope around in the indeterminate. Thinking is a totality in itself, which is sufficient unto itself, which may not transcend itself without coming to nothing. In other words: in order to explain something, it must not resort to things that it does not find in itself. A thing that could not be encompassed by thinking would be an absurdity. Everything ultimately merges into thinking, everything finds its place within it.
[ 9 ] In relation to our individual consciousness, this means that we must remain strictly within what is given to us in our consciousness in order to make scientific observations; we cannot go beyond this. If we now realize that we cannot go beyond our consciousness without reaching the essenceless, but not at the same time that the essence of things is to be found within our consciousness in the perception of ideas, then those errors arise which speak of a limit to our knowledge. If we cannot go beyond consciousness and the essence of reality is not within it, then we cannot penetrate to the essence at all. Our thinking is bound to this world and knows nothing of the hereafter.
[ 10 ] In our view, this opinion is nothing but thinking that misunderstands itself. A limit to knowledge would only be possible if external experience itself forced us to investigate its nature, if it determined the questions to be asked with regard to it. But this is not the case. Thinking needs to counter the experience it becomes aware of with its essence. Thinking can only have the very definite tendency to see its own lawfulness in the rest of the world, but not anything of which it itself has not the slightest knowledge.
[ 11 ] Another error must be corrected here. It is as if thought were not sufficient to constitute the world, as if something (power, will, etc.) had to be added to the content of thought in order to make the world possible.
[ 12 ] On closer consideration, however, one immediately sees that all such factors arise as nothing more than abstractions from the world of perception, which themselves await explanation by thought. Every component of the world being other than thinking immediately necessitated a different kind of conception, of cognition, than the mental one. We would have to reach that other component other than through thinking. For after all, thinking only provides thoughts. But the very fact that we want to explain the part that this second component has in the workings of the world, and in doing so make use of concepts, contradicts ourselves. Moreover, apart from sense perception and thinking, we have no third element. And we cannot accept any part of the latter as the core of the world, because all its members show on closer inspection that they do not contain its essence as such. The latter can therefore only be sought in thinking.