The Science of Knowing
GA 2
XIV. The Ground of Things and the Activity of Knowing
[ 1 ] Kant, insofar as he directed the human being back upon himself, achieved a great step in philosophy. The human being should seek the grounds of certainty for his beliefs in what is given to him in his spiritual abilities and not in truths forced upon him from outside. Scientific conviction through oneself alone, that is the slogan of Kantian philosophy. He therefore called it above all a critical philosophy in contrast to a dogmatic one that receives fixed beliefs from tradition and afterward seeks proofs for them. With this, an antithesis of two scientific directions is given; but this antithesis was not thought through by Kant as keenly as it could have been.
[ 2 ] Let us look more exactly at the way a scientific postulate can arise. A postulate joins two things: either a concept with a perception, or two concepts. A postulate of the latter kind is, for example: there is no effect without a cause. Now, the factual reasons for two concepts flowing together can lie beyond what they themselves contain and therefore beyond what alone is given me. I may then also have some formal reasons (logical consistency, particular axioms) for arriving at a particular combination of thoughts. But these have no influence upon the thing itself. The postulate rests upon something that I can never reach factually. A real insight into the thing is therefore not possible for me; I know about it only as an outsider. Here, what the postulate speaks of is in a world not known to me; the postulate alone is in my world. This is the nature of dogma. There are two kinds of dogma: [ 3 ] the dogma of revelation and that of experience. The first kind passes down to man in one way or another truths about things that are withheld from his view. He has no insight into the world from which the postulates spring. He must believe in their truth; he has no access to their basis. The situation with the dogma of experience is quite similar. Someone who believes he should stick to bare, pure experience and can observe only its changes, without penetrating to its causal forces, is also setting up postulates about a world whose basis is inaccessible to him. Here too the truth is not attained through insight into the inner workings of the things, but rather is imposed by something external to the thing itself. Whereas the dogma of revelation ruled earlier science, present-day science suffers from the dogma of experience.
[ 4 ] Our view has shown that any assumption about some ground of being that lies outside of the idea is nonsense. The entire ground of being has poured itself into the world and has merged with it. In thinking, the ground of being shows itself in its most perfect form, as it is in and for itself. If thinking therefore makes a connection, forms a judgment, it is the very content of the ground of the world itself, having flowed into thinking, that is connected. In thinking, postulates are not given to us about some ground of the world in the beyond; rather the ground of the world, in its very substance, has flowed into thinking. We have direct insight into the factual grounds, not merely the formal grounds, for why a judgment takes place. The judgment does not determine anything about something foreign to it but only about its own content. Our view, therefore, establishes a true knowing. Our epistemology is really critical. According to our view, not only must nothing be allowed in, with respect to revelation, for which there are no factual grounds within thinking; but also experience must be recognized not only from the aspect of its manifestation, but also within thinking, as something causative. Through our thinking we lift ourselves from the view of reality as a product to a view of reality as something that produces.
[ 5 ] Thus the essential being of a thing comes to light only when the thing is brought into relationship with the human being. For only within the human being does there manifest for each thing its essential being. This establishes relativism as a world view, that is, the direction in thought that assumes we see all things in the light bestowed upon them by human beings themselves. This view also bears the name anthropomorphism. It has many adherents. The majority of them, however, believe that this characteristic of our activity of knowing takes us away from objectivity as it is in and for itself. We perceive everything, so they believe, through the glasses of subjectivity. Our view shows us the exact opposite of this. We must look at things through these glasses if we want to come to their essential being. The world is not known to us only in the way it manifests to us, but rather it manifests as it is, although only to thinking contemplation. The form of reality that the human being produces in science is the ultimate, true form of reality.
[ 6 ] Now it is still our task to extend into the individual realms of reality the way of knowing we have recognized as the correct one, i.e., the one that leads to the essential being of reality. We will now show how, in individual forms of experience, their essential being is to be sought.
14. Der Grund der Dinge und das Erkennen
[ 1 ] Kant hat insofern einen großen Schritt in der Philosophie vollbracht, als er den Menschen auf sich selbst gewiesen hat. Er soll die Gründe der Gewißheit seiner Behauptungen aus dem suchen, was ihm in seinem geistigen Vermögen gegeben ist und nicht in von außen aufgedrängten Wahrheiten. Wissenschaftliche Überzeugung nur durch sich selbst, das ist die Losung der Kantischen Philosophie. Deshalb vorzüglich nannte er sie eine kritische im Gegensatze zur dogmatischen, welche fertige Behauptungen überliefert erhält und zu solchen nachträglich die Beweise sucht. Damit ist ein Gegensatz zweier Wissenschaftsrichtungen gegeben; er ist aber von Kant nicht in jener Schärfe gedacht worden, deren er fähig ist.
[ 2 ] Fassen wir einmal streng ins Auge, wie eine Behauptung der Wissenschaft zustande kommen kann. Sie verbindet zwei Dinge: entweder einen Begriff mit einer Wahrnehmung oder zwei Begriffe. Von letzterer Art ist zum Beispiel die Behauptung: Keine Wirkung ohne Ursache. Es können nun die sachlichen Gründe, warum die beiden Begriffe zusammenfließen, jenseits dessen liegen, was sie selbst enthalten, was mir daher auch allein gegeben ist. Ich mag dann noch immerhin irgendwelche formelle Gründe haben (Widerspruchslosigkeit, bestimmte Axiome), welche mich auf eine bestimmte Gedankenverbindung leiten. Auf die Sache selbst aber haben diese keinen Einfluß. Die Behauptung stützt sich auf etwas, das ich sachlich nie erreichen kann. Es ist für mich daher eine wirkliche Einsicht in die Sache nicht möglich; ich weiß nur als Außenstehender von derselben, Hier ist das, was die Behauptung ausdrückt, in einer mir unbekannten Welt; die Behauptung allein in der meinigen. Dies ist der Charakter des Dogmas. Es gibt ein zweifaches
[ 3 ] Dogma. Das Dogma der Offenbarung und jenes der Erfahrung. Das erstere überliefert dem Menschen auf irgendwelche Weise Wahrheiten über Dinge, die seinem Gesichtskreise entzogen sind. Er hat keine Einsicht in die Welt, der die Behauptungen entspringen. Er muß an die Wahrheit derselben glauben, er kann an die Gründe nicht herankommen. Ganz ähnlich verhält es sich mit dem Dogma der Erfahrung. Ist jemand der Ansicht, daß man bei der bloßen, reinen Erfahrung stehen bleiben soll und nur deren Veränderungen beobachten kann, ohne zu den bewirkenden Kräften vorzudringen, so stellt er ebenfalls über die Welt Behauptungen auf, zu deren Gründen er keinen Zugang hat. Auch hier ist die Wahrheit nicht durch Einsicht in die innere Wirksamkeit der Sache gewonnen, sondern sie ist von einem der Sache selbst Äußerlichen aufgedrängt. Beherrschte das Dogma der Offenbarung die frühere Wissenschaft, so leidet durch das Dogma der Erfahrung die heutige.
[ 4 ] Unsere Ansicht hat gezeigt, daß jede Annahme von einem Seinsgrunde, der außerhalb der Idee liegt, ein Unding ist. Der gesamte Seinsgrund hat sich in die Welt ausgegossen, er ist in sie aufgegangen. Im Denken zeigt er sich in seiner vollendetsten Form, so wie er an und für sich selbst ist. Vollzieht daher das Denken eine Verbindung, fällt es ein Urteil, so ist es der in dasselbe eingeflossene Inhalt des Weltgrundes selbst, der verbunden wird. Im Denken sind uns nicht Behauptungen gegeben über irgendeinen jenseitigen Weltengrund, sondern derselbe ist substantiell in dasselbe eingeflossen. Wir haben eine unmittelbare Einsicht in die sachlichen, nicht bloß in die formellen Gründe, warum sich ein Urteil vollzieht. Nicht über irgend etwas Fremdes, sondern über seinen eigenen Inhalt bestimmt das Urteil. Unsere Ansicht begründet daher ein wahrhaftes Wissen. Unsere Erkenntnistheorie ist wirklich kritisch. Unserer Ansicht gemäß darf nicht nur der Offenbarung gegenüber nichts zugelassen werden, wofür nicht innerhalb des Denkens sachliche Gründe da sind; sondern auch die Erfahrung muß innerhalb des Denkens nicht nur nach der Seite ihrer Erscheinung, sondern als Wirkendes erkannt werden. Durch unser Denken erheben wir uns von der Anschauung der Wirklichkeit als einem Produkte zu der als einem Prodzierenden.
[ 5 ] So tritt das Wesen eines Dinges nur dann zutage, wenn dasselbe in Beziehung zum Menschen gebracht wird. Denn nur im letzteren erscheint für jedes Ding das Wesen. Das begründet einen Relativismus als Weltansicht, das heißt die Denkrichtung, welche annimmt, daß wir alle Dinge in dem Lichte sehen, das ihnen von Menschen selbst verliehen wird. Diese Ansicht führt auch den Namen Anthropomorphismus. Sie hat viele Vertreter. Die Mehrzahl derselben aber glaubt, daß wir uns durch diese Eigentümlichkeit unseres Erkennens von der Objektivität, wie sie an und für sich ist, entfernen. Wir nehmen, so glauben sie, alles durch die Brille der Subjektivität wahr. Unsere Auffassung zeigt uns das gerade Gegenteil davon. Wir müssen die Dinge durch diese Brille betrachten, wenn wir zu ihrem Wesen kommen wollen. Die Welt ist uns nicht allein so bekannt, wie sie uns erscheint, sondern sie erscheint so, allerdings nur der denkenden Betrachtung, wie sie ist. Die Gestalt von der Wirklichkeit, welche der Mensch in der Wissenschaft entwirft, ist die letzte wahre Gestalt derselben.
[ 6] Nunmehr obliegt es uns noch, die Art des Erkennens, die wir als die richtige, das heißt zum Wesen der Wirklichkeit führende, erkannt haben, auf die einzelnen Wirklichkeitsgebiete auszudehnen. Wir werden nun zeigen, wie in den einzelnen Formen der Erfahrung deren Wesen zu suchen ist.
14 The Ground of Things and Cognition
[ 1 ] Kant took a great step in philosophy in that he pointed man to himself. He should seek the reasons for the certainty of his assertions from what is given to him in his intellectual capacity and not in truths imposed from outside. Scientific conviction only through itself, that is the slogan of Kant's philosophy. That is why he called it a critical philosophy, in contrast to the dogmatic philosophy, which receives ready-made assertions and subsequently seeks evidence for them. Thus there is a contrast between two schools of science; however, Kant did not conceive it with the sharpness of which he is capable.
[ 2 ] Let us look strictly at how an assertion of science can come about. It combines two things: either a concept with a perception or two concepts. Of the latter kind is, for example, the assertion: No effect without cause. Now the factual reasons why the two concepts flow together can lie beyond what they themselves contain, which is therefore given to me alone. I may then still have some formal reasons (lack of contradiction, certain axioms) which lead me to a certain thought connection. But these have no influence on the matter itself. The assertion is based on something that I can never reach objectively. It is therefore not possible for me to gain a real insight into the matter; I only know about it as an outsider, here what the assertion expresses is in a world unknown to me; the assertion alone is in my own. This is the character of the dogma. There is a twofold
[ 3 ] Dogma. The dogma of revelation and that of experience. The former transmits truths to man in some way about things that are beyond the scope of his vision. He has no insight into the world from which the assertions originate. He must believe in the truth of them, he cannot get at the reasons. It is very similar with the dogma of experience. If someone is of the opinion that one should stop at mere, pure experience and can only observe its changes without penetrating to the causative forces, then he also makes assertions about the world to whose reasons he has no access. Here, too, truth is not gained through insight into the inner effectiveness of the matter, but is imposed by something external to the matter itself. If the dogma of revelation dominated earlier science, today's science suffers from the dogma of experience.
[ 4 ] Our view has shown that any assumption of a ground of being that lies outside the idea is an absurdity. The entire ground of being has poured itself into the world, it has merged into it. In thinking it shows itself in its most perfect form, as it is in and for itself. Therefore, when thinking makes a connection, makes a judgment, it is the content of the ground of the world itself that is connected. In thinking we are not given assertions about some otherworldly world-ground, but the same has substantially flowed into it. We have a direct insight into the factual, not merely the formal reasons why a judgment takes place. It is not about something foreign, but about its own content that determines the judgment. Our view therefore establishes a true knowledge. Our epistemology is truly critical. According to our view, not only must nothing be admitted to revelation for which there are no objective reasons within thinking; but also experience must be recognized within thinking not only according to the side of its appearance, but as something effective. Through our thinking we elevate ourselves from the view of reality as a product to that as a producer.
[ 5 ] So the essence of a thing only emerges when it is brought into relation to man. For only in the latter does the essence of each thing appear. This establishes relativism as a world view, that is, the school of thought which assumes that we see all things in the light that is bestowed upon them by human beings themselves. This view also goes by the name of anthropomorphism. It has many proponents. The majority of them, however, believe that this peculiarity of our cognition distances us from objectivity as it is in and of itself. They believe that we perceive everything through the lens of subjectivity. Our perception shows us the exact opposite. We have to look at things through this lens if we want to get to their essence. The world is not only known to us as it appears to us, but it appears as it is, albeit only to the thinking observer. The image of reality that man creates in science is the last true image of it.
[ 6 ] It now remains for us to extend to the individual realms of reality the way of knowing that we have recognized as the correct one, that is, the one that leads to the essence of reality. We will now show how the essence of experience is to be sought in the individual forms of experience.