Truth and Knowledge
GA 3
Preface
[ 1 ] Present day philosophy suffers from an unhealthy faith in Kant. This essay is intended to be a contribution toward overcoming this. It would be wrong to belittle this man's lasting contributions toward the development of German philosophy and science. But the time has come to recognize that the foundation for a truly satisfying view of the world and of life can be laid only by adopting a position which contrasts strongly with Kant's. What did he achieve? He showed that the foundation of things lying beyond the world of our senses and our reason, and which his predecessors sought to find by means of stereotyped concepts, is inaccessible to our faculty of knowledge. From this he concluded that our scientific efforts must be limited to what is within reach of experience, and that we cannot attain knowledge of the supersensible foundation, of the “thing-in-itself.” But suppose the “thing-in-itself” and a transcendental ultimate foundation of things are nothing but illusions! It is easy to see that this is the case. It is an instinctive urge, inseparable from human nature, to search for the fundamental nature of things and their ultimate principles. This is the basis of all scientific activity.
[ 2 ] There is, however, not the slightest reason for seeking the foundation of things outside the given physical and spiritual world, as long as a comprehensive investigation of this world does not lead to the discovery of elements within it that clearly point to an influence coming from beyond it.
[ 3 ] The aim of this essay is to show that everything necessary to explain and account for the world is within the reach of our thinking. The assumption that there are principles which belong to our world, but lying outside it, is revealed as the prejudice of an out-dated philosophy living in vain and illusory dogmas. Kant himself would have come to this conclusion had he really investigated the powers inherent in our thinking. Instead of this, he shows in the most complicated way that we cannot reach the ultimate principles existing beyond our direct experience, because of the way our faculty of knowledge functions. There is, however, no reason for transferring these principles into another world. Kant did indeed refute “dogmatic” philosophy, but he put nothing in its place. This is why Kant was opposed by the German philosophy which followed. Fichte, Schelling and Hegel did not worry in the least about the limits to cognition erected by Kant, but sought the ultimate principles within the world accessible to human reason. Even Schopenhauer, though he maintained that the conclusions of Kant's criticism of reason were eternal and irrefutable truths, found himself compelled to search for the ultimate cause along paths very different from those of Kant. The mistake of these thinkers was that they sought knowledge of the highest truths without having first laid a foundation by investigating the nature of knowledge itself. This is why the imposing edifice of thought erected by Fichte, Schelling and Hegel stands there, so to speak, without foundations. This had a bad effect on the direction taken by the thought of these philosophers. Because they did not understand the significance of the sphere of pure ideas and its relationship to the realm of sense-perceptions, they added mistake to mistake, one-sidedness to one-sidedness. It is no wonder that their all too daring systems could not withstand the fierce opposition of an epoch so ill-disposed toward philosophy; consequently, along with the errors much of real value in their thought was mercilessly swept away.
[ 4 ] The aim of the following inquiry is to remedy the lack described above. Unlike Kant, the purpose here is not to show what our faculty of knowledge cannot do, but rather to show what it is really able to achieve.
[ 5 ] The outcome of what follows is that truth is not, as is usually assumed, an ideal reflection of something real, but is a product of the human spirit, created by an activity which is free; this product would exist nowhere if we did not create it ourselves. The object of knowledge is not to repeat in conceptual form something which already exists, but rather to create a completely new sphere, which when combined with the world given to our senses constitutes complete reality. Thus man's highest activity, his spiritual creativeness, is an organic part of the universal world-process. The world-process should not be considered a complete, enclosed totality without this activity. Man is not a passive onlooker in relation to evolution, merely repeating in mental pictures cosmic events taking place without his participation; he is the active co-creator of the world-process, and cognition is the most perfect link in the organism of the universe.
[ 6 ] This insight has the most significant consequences for the laws that underlie our deeds, that is, our moral ideals; these, too, are to be considered not as copies of something existing outside us, but as being present solely within us. This also means rejecting the “categorical imperative,” an external power whose commandments we have to accept as moral laws, comparable to a voice from the Beyond that tells us what to do or leave undone. Our moral ideals are our own free creations. We have to fulfill only what we ourselves lay down as our standard of conduct. Thus the insight that truth is the outcome of a free deed also establishes a philosophy of morality, the foundation of which is the completely free personality.
[ 7 ] This, of course, is valid only when our power of thinking penetrates—with complete insight—into the motivating impulses of our deeds. As long as we are not clear about the reasons—either natural or conceptual—for our conduct, we shall experience our motives as something compelling us from outside, even though someone on a higher level of spiritual development could recognize the extent to which our motives originated within our own individuality. Every time we succeed in penetrating a motive with clear understanding, we win a victory in the realm of freedom.
[ 8 ] The reader will come to see how this view—especially in its epistemological aspects—is related to that of the most significant philosophical work of our time, the world-view of Eduard von Hartmann.
[ 9 ] This essay constitutes a prologue to The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, a work which will appear shortly.
[ 10 ] Clearly, the ultimate goal of all knowledge is to enhance the value of human existence. He who does not consider this to be his ultimate goal, only works as he learned from those who taught him; he “investigates” because that happens to be what he has learned to do. He can never be called “an independent thinker.”
[ 11 ] The true value of learning lies in the philosophical demonstration of the significance of its results for humanity. It is my aim to contribute to this. But perhaps modern science does not ask for justification! If so, two things are certain. first, that I shall have written a superfluous work; second, that modern scholars are striving in vain, and do not know their own aims.
[ 12 ] In concluding this preface, I cannot omit a personal remark. Until now, I have always presented my philosophical views in connection with Goethe's world-view. I was first introduced to this by my revered teacher, Karl Julius Schröer who, in my view, reached such heights as a scholar of Goethe's work because he always looked beyond the particular to the Idea.
[ 13 ] In this work, however, I hope to have shown that the edifice of my thought is a whole that rests upon its own foundation, and need not be derived from Goethe's world-view. My thoughts, as here set forth, and as they will be further amplified in The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, have been developed over many years. And it is with a feeling of deep gratitude that I here acknowledge how the friendliness of the Specht family in Vienna, while I was engaged in the education of their children, provided me with an ideal environment for developing these ideas; to this should be added that I owe the final shape of many thoughts now to be found in my “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity” to the stimulating talks with my deeply appreciated friend, Rosa Mayreder in Vienna; her own literary works, which spring from a sensitive, noble, artistic nature, presumably will soon be published.
Written in Vienna in the beginning of December 1891.
Dr. Rudolf Steiner
Vorrede zur 1. Auflage 1892
[ 1 ] Die Philosophie der Gegenwart leidet an einem ungesunden Kant-Glauben. Die vorliegende Schrift soll ein Beitrag zu seiner Überwindung sein. Frevelhaft wäre es, die unsterblichen Verdienste dieses Mannes um die Entwickelung der deutschen Wissenschaft herabwürdigen zu wollen. Aber wir müssen endlich einsehen, daß wir nur dann den Grund zu einer wahrhaft befriedigenden Welt- und Lebensanschauung legen können, wenn wir uns in entschiedenen Gegensatz zu diesem Geiste stellen. Was hat Kant geleistet? Er hat gezeigt, daß der jenseits unserer Sinnen- und Vernunftwelt liegende Urgrund der Dinge, den seine Vorgänger mit Hilfe falsch verstandener Begriffsschablonen suchten, für unser Erkenntnisvermögen unzugänglich ist. Daraus hat er gefolgert, daß unser wissenschaftliches Bestreben sich innerhalb des erfahrungsmäßig Erreichbaren halten müsse und an die Erkenntnis des übersinnlichen Urgrundes, des Dinges an sich», nicht herankommen könne. Wie aber, wenn dieses «Ding an sich» samt dem jenseitigen Urgrund der Dinge nur ein Phantom wäre! Leicht ist einzusehen, daß sich die Sache so verhält. Nach dem tiefsten Wesen der Dinge, nach den Urprinzipien derselben zu forschen, ist ein von der Menschennatur untrennbarer Trieb. Er liegt allem wissenschaftlichen Treiben zugrunde.
[ 2 ] Nicht die geringste Veranlassung aber ist, diesen Urgrund außerhalb der uns gegebenen sinnlichen und geistigen Welt zu suchen, solange nicht ein allseitiges Durchforschen dieser Welt ergibt, daß sich innerhalb derselben Elemente finden, die deutlich auf einen Einfluß von außen hinweisen.
[ 3 ] Unsere Schrift sucht nun den Beweis zu führen, daß für unser Denken alles erreichbar ist, was zur Erklärung und Ergründung der Welt herbeigezogen werden muß. Die Annahme von außerhalb unserer Welt liegenden Prinzipien derselben zeigt sich als das Vorurteil einer abgestorbenen, in eitlem Dogmenwahn lebenden Philosophie. Zu diesem Ergebnisse hätte Kant kommen müssen, wenn er wirklich untersucht hätte, wozu unser Denken veranlagt ist. Statt dessen bewies er in der umständlichsten Art, daß wir zu den letzten Prinzipien, die jenseits unserer Erfahrung liegen, wegen der Einrichtung unseres Erkenntnisvermögens nicht gelangen können. Vernünftigerweise dürfen wir sie aber gar nicht in ein solches Jenseits verlegen. Kant hat wohl die «dogmatische» Philosophie widerlegt, aber er hat nichts an deren Stelle gesetzt. Die zeitlich an ihn anknüpfende deutsche Philosophie entwickelte sich daher überall im Gegensatz zu Kant. Fichte, Schelling, Hegel kümmerten sich nicht weiter um die von ihrem Vorgänger abgesteckten Grenzen unseres Erkennens und suchten die Urprinzipien der Dinge innerhalb des Diesseits der menschlichen Vernunft. Selbst Schopenhauer, der doch behauptet, die Resultate der Kantschen Vernunftkritik seien ewig unumstößliche Wahrheiten, kann nicht umhin, von denen seines Meisters abweichende Wege zur Erkenntnis der letzten Weltursachen einzuschlagen. Das Verhängnis dieser Denker war, daß sie Erkenntnisse der höchsten Wahrheiten suchten, ohne für solches Beginnen durch eine Untersuchung der Natur des Erkennens selbst den Grund gelegt zu haben. Die stolzen Gedankengebäude Fichtes, Schellings und Hegels stehen daher ohne Fundament da. Der Mangel eines solchen wirkte aber auch schädigend auf die Gedankengänge der Philosophen. Ohne Kenntnis der Bedeutung der reinen Ideenwelt und ihrer Beziehung zum Gebiet der Sinneswahmehmung bauten dieselben Irrtum auf Irrtum, Einseitigkeit auf Einseitigkeit. Kein Wunder, daß die allzukühnen Systeme den Stürmen einer philosophiefeindlichen Zeit nicht zu trotzen vermochten, und viel Gutes, das sie enthielten, mit dem Schlechten erbarmungslos hinweggeweht worden ist.
[ 4 ] Einem hiemit angedeuteten Mangel sollen die folgenden Untersuchungen abhelfen. Nicht wie Kant es tat, wollen sie darlegen, was das Erkenntnisvermögen nicht vermag; sondern ihr Zweck ist, zu zeigen, was es wirklich imstande ist.
[ 5 ] Das Resultat dieser Untersuchungen ist, daß die Wahrheit nicht, wie man gewöhnlich annimmt, die ideelle Abspiegelung von irgendeinem Realen ist, sondern ein freies Erzeugnis des Menschengeistes, das überhaupt nirgends existierte, wenn wir es nicht selbst hervorbrächten. Die Aufgabe der Erkenntnis ist nicht: etwas schon anderwärts Vorhandenes in begrifflicher Form zu wiederholen, sondern die: ein ganz neues Gebiet zu schaffen, das mit der sinnenfällig gegebenen Welt zusammen erst die volle Wirklichkeit ergibt. Damit ist die höchste Tätigkeit des Menschen, sein geistiges Schaffen, organisch dem allgemeinen Weltgeschehen eingegliedert. Ohne diese Tätigkeit wäre das Weltgeschehen gar nicht als in sich abgeschlossene Ganzheit zu denken. Der Mensch ist dem Weltlauf gegenüber nicht ein müßiger Zuschauer, der innerhalb seines Geistes das bildlich wiederholt, was sich ohne sein Zutun im Kosmos vollzieht, sondern der tätige Mitschöpfer des Weltprozesses; und das Erkennen ist das vollendetste Glied im Organismus des Universums.
[ 6 ] Für die Gesetze unseres Handelns, für unsere sittlichen Ideale hat diese Anschauung die wichtige Konsequenz, daß auch diese nicht als das Abbild von etwas außer uns Befindlichem angesehen werden können, sondern als ein nur in uns Vorhandenes. Eine Macht, als deren Gebote wir unsere Sittengesetze ansehen müßten, ist damit ebenfalls abgewiesen. Einen «kategorischen Imperativ», gleichsam eine Stimme aus dem Jenseits, die uns vorschriebe, was wir zu tun oder zu lassen haben, kennen wir nicht. Unsere sittlichen Ideale sind unser eigenes freies Erzeugnis. Wir haben nur auszuführen, was wir uns selbst als Norm unseres Handelns vorschreiben. Die Anschauung von der Wahrheit als Freiheitstat begründet somit auch eine Sittenlehre, deren Grundlage die vollkommen freie Persönlichkeit ist.
[ 7 ] Diese Sätze gelten natürlich nur von jenem Teil unseres Handelns, dessen Gesetze wir in vollkommener Erkenntnis ideell durchdringen. Solange die letzteren bloß natürliche oder begrifflich noch unklare Motive sind, kann wohl ein geistig Höherstehender erkennen, inwiefern diese Gesetze unseres Tuns innerhalb unserer Individualität begründet sind, wir selbst aber empfinden sie als von außen auf uns wirkend, uns zwingend. Jedesmal, wenn es uns gelingt, ein solches Motiv klar erkennend zu durchdringen, machen wir eine Eroberung im Gebiet der Freiheit.
[ 8 ] Wie sich unsere Anschauungen zu der bedeutendsten philosophischen Erscheinung der Gegenwart, zur Weltauffassung Eduard von Hartmanns, verhalten, wird der Leser aus unserer Schrift in ausführlicher Weise, soweit das Erkenntnisproblem in Frage kommt, ersehen.
[ 9 ] Eine «Philosophie der Freiheit» ist es, wozu wir mit dem Gegenwärtigen ein Vorspiel geschaffen haben. Diese selbst in ausführlicher Gestalt soll bald nachfolgen.
[ 10 ] Die Erhöhung des Daseinswertes der menschlichen Persönlichkeit ist doch das Endziel aller Wissenschaft. Wer letztere nicht in dieser Absicht betreibt, der arbeitet nur, weil er von seinem Meister solches gesehen hat, er «forscht», weil er das gerade zufällig gelernt hat. Ein «freier Denker» kann er nicht genannt werden.
[ 11 ] Was den Wissenschaften erst den wahren Wert verleiht, ist die philosophische Darlegung der menschlichen Bedeutung ihrer Resultate. Einen Beitrag zu dieser Darlegung wollte ich liefern. Aber vielleicht verlangt die Wissenschaft der Gegenwart gar nicht nach ihrer philosophischen Rechtfertigung! Dann ist zweierlei gewiß: erstens, daß ich eine unnötige Schrift geliefert habe, zweitens, daß die moderne Gelehrsamkeit im Trüben fischt und nicht weiß, was sie will.
[ 12 ] Am Schlusse dieser Vorrede kann ich eine persönliche Bemerkung nicht unterdrücken. Ich habe meine philosophischen Anschauungen bisher immer anknüpfend an die Goethesche Weltanschauung dargelegt, in die ich durch meinen über alles verehrten Lehrer Karl Julius Schröer zuerst eingeführt worden bin, der mir in der Goetheforschung so hoch steht, weil sein Blick immer über das Einzelne hinaus auf die Ideen geht.
[ 13 ] Mit dieser Schrift hoffe ich aber nun gezeigt zu haben, daß mein Gedankengebäude eine in sich selbst begründete Ganzheit ist, die nicht aus der Goetheschen Weltanschauung abgeleitet zu werden braucht. Meine Gedanken, wie sie hier vorliegen und weiter als «Philosophie der Freiheit» nachfolgen werden, sind im Laufe vieler Jahre entstanden. Und es geht nur aus einem tiefen Dankesgefühl hervor, wenn ich noch sage, daß die liebevolle Art, mit der mir das Haus Specht in Wien entgegenkam während der Zeit, in der ich die Erziehung der Kinder desselben zu besorgen hatte, ein einzig wünschenswertes «Milieu» zum Ausbau meiner Ideen darbot; ferner daß ich die Stimmung zum letzten Abrunden manches Gedankens meiner vorläufig auf S.86 bis 88 keimartig skizzierten «Freiheitsphilosophie» den anregenden Gesprächen mit meiner hochgeschätzten Freundin Rosa Mayreder in Wien verdanke, deren literarische Arbeiten, die aus einer feinsinnigen, vornehmen Künstlernatur entspringen, voraussichtlich bald der Öffentlichkeit übergeben sein werden.
Geschrieben zu Wien, Anfang Dezember 1891.
Dr. Rudolf Steiner
Preface to the 1st edition 1892
[ 1 ] Present-day philosophy suffers from an unhealthy belief in Kant. This paper is intended as a contribution to overcoming it. It would be sacrilegious to want to belittle the immortal merits of this man in the development of German science. But we must finally realize that we can only lay the foundation for a truly satisfying view of the world and of life if we place ourselves in decisive opposition to this spirit. What has Kant achieved? He showed that the primordial ground of things lying beyond our world of sense and reason, which his predecessors sought with the help of misunderstood conceptual templates, is inaccessible to our cognitive faculty. From this he concluded that our scientific endeavors must remain within the realm of what can be attained through experience and cannot approach the knowledge of the supersensible primordial ground, the "thing in itself". But how if this "thing in itself" together with the otherworldly primordial ground of things were only a phantom! It is easy to see that this is the case. To search for the deepest essence of things, for their original principles, is a drive inseparable from human nature. It underlies all scientific activity.
[ 2 ] But there is not the slightest reason to seek this primordial reason outside the sensory and spiritual world given to us, as long as an all-round investigation of this world does not reveal that within it there are elements that clearly point to an influence from outside.
[ 3 ] Our writing now seeks to prove that everything that must be drawn upon to explain and explain the world is accessible to our thinking. The assumption of principles lying outside our world is shown to be the prejudice of a dead philosophy living in a vain delusion of dogma. Kant should have come to this conclusion if he had really investigated what our thinking is predisposed to. Instead, he proved, in the most laborious manner, that we cannot arrive at the ultimate principles, which lie beyond our experience, because of the disposition of our cognitive faculty. Reasonably, however, we must not transfer them to such a beyond. Kant may have refuted "dogmatic" philosophy, but he did not replace it. German philosophy, which followed on from him, therefore developed everywhere in opposition to Kant. Fichte, Schelling and Hegel were no longer concerned with the limits of our cognition as defined by their predecessor and sought the original principles of things within this world of human reason. Even Schopenhauer, who claimed that the results of Kant's critique of reason were eternally incontrovertible truths, could not avoid taking paths to knowledge of the ultimate causes of the world that differed from those of his master. The fate of these thinkers was that they sought knowledge of the highest truths without having laid the foundation for such a beginning through an investigation of the nature of knowledge itself. The proud intellectual edifices of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel therefore stand without a foundation. The lack of such a foundation also had a damaging effect on the philosophers' thought processes. Without knowledge of the significance of the pure world of ideas and its relationship to the realm of sense perception, they built error upon error, one-sidedness upon one-sidedness. No wonder that the overly bold systems were unable to withstand the storms of an age hostile to philosophy, and that much of the good they contained was mercilessly blown away with the bad.
[ 4 ] The following investigations are intended to remedy the deficiency indicated here. They are not intended to show, as Kant did, what the faculty of knowledge is not capable of; rather, their purpose is to show what it really is capable of.
[ 5 ] The result of these investigations is that truth is not, as is usually assumed, the ideal reflection of some real thing, but a free product of the human mind, which would not exist anywhere at all if we did not produce it ourselves. The task of cognition is not to repeat something that already exists elsewhere in conceptual form, but to create a completely new realm which, together with the sensually given world, results in full reality. Thus the highest activity of man, his spiritual creation, is organically integrated into the general world event. Without this activity, world events could not be conceived as a self-contained whole. Man is not an idle spectator of the course of the world, who visually repeats within his mind what takes place in the cosmos without his intervention, but the active co-creator of the world process; and cognition is the most perfect link in the organism of the universe.
[ 6 ] For the laws of our actions, for our moral ideals, this view has the important consequence that these too cannot be regarded as the image of something outside us, but as something existing only within us. A power, as whose commandments we would have to regard our moral laws, is thus also rejected. We do not know of a "categorical imperative", a voice from beyond, as it were, that tells us what we should or should not do. Our moral ideals are our own free product. We only have to carry out what we prescribe to ourselves as the norm for our actions. The view of truth as an act of freedom thus also establishes a moral doctrine whose foundation is the completely free personality.
[ 7 ] These propositions apply, of course, only to that part of our actions whose laws we penetrate ideally in perfect knowledge. As long as the latter are merely natural or conceptually still unclear motives, someone higher up spiritually can recognize the extent to which these laws of our actions are founded within our individuality, but we ourselves perceive them as acting on us from outside, as compelling us. Every time we succeed in clearly recognizing and penetrating such a motive, we make a conquest in the area of freedom.
[ 8 ] The reader will see from our paper in detail how our views relate to the most important philosophical phenomenon of the present day, Eduard von Hartmann's world view, insofar as the problem of knowledge comes into question.
[ 9 ] A "philosophy of freedom" is what we have created a prelude to with the present. This itself will soon follow in more detail.
[ 10 ] The elevation of the existential value of the human personality is the ultimate goal of all science. Anyone who does not pursue the latter with this intention is only working because he has seen his master do so, he is "researching" because he has just learned to do so by chance. He cannot be called a "free thinker".
[ 11 ] What gives the sciences their true value is the philosophical explanation of the human significance of their results. I wanted to make a contribution to this explanation. But perhaps contemporary science does not require philosophical justification! Then two things are certain: firstly, that I have delivered an unnecessary paper; secondly, that modern scholarship is fishing in the doldrums and does not know what it wants.
[ 12 ] At the end of this preface, I cannot suppress a personal remark. Up to now, I have always presented my philosophical views with reference to Goethe's world view, to which I was first introduced by my revered teacher Karl Julius Schröer, who is so highly regarded by me in Goethe research because his view always goes beyond the individual to the ideas.
[ 13 ] With this essay, however, I hope to have shown that my structure of thought is a whole founded in itself, which does not need to be derived from Goethe's world view. My thoughts, as they are presented here and will continue to follow as the "Philosophy of Freedom", have developed over the course of many years. And it is only out of a deep sense of gratitude that I say that the affectionate way in which the Specht house in Vienna accommodated me during the time in which I had to take care of the education of the children there provided a uniquely desirable "milieu" for the development of my ideas; furthermore, that I found the atmosphere for the final rounding off of some of the thoughts of my preliminary sketches on pp.86 to 88 of my "Philosophy of Freedom" to the stimulating conversations with my highly esteemed friend Rosa Mayreder in Vienna, whose literary works, which spring from a subtle, noble artistic nature, will probably soon be handed over to the public.
Written in Vienna, early December 1891.
Dr. Rudolf Steiner