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-- Scheler, Max, 1874-1928. [Selections. English. 2008] On the constitution of the human being : from the posthumous works, volumes 11 and 12 / Max Scheler ; translated by John Cutting. p. cm. — (Marquette studies in philosophy ; no. 62) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-87462-760-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-87462-760-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Human beings. I. Cutting, John ( John C.) II. itle. B3329.S482E5 2008 193—dc22 2008012753
© 2008 Marquette University Press Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201-3141 All rights reserved. www.marquette.edu/mupress/
Cover photo compliments of Max-Scheler-Gesellschaft e.V. www.max-scheler.de The paper used inNational this publication the minimum requirements of the American Standardmeets for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
About the ranslator ............................................................................... 6 ranslator’s Introduction ....................................................................... 7 1. Te Essential Teory and ypology of Metaphysical Systems and Weltanschauungen ...................................................................11 2. My Teory of the Cognitive and Methodological Aspects of Metaphysics .................................................................77 3. Te Constitution of the Human Being ........................................129 4. Te Metaphysics of the Human Being .........................................203 5. Te Metaphysics of Cognition ......................................................255 6. Te Metasciences ............................................................................261 7. Teory of the Causes of Everything .............................................323 8. Supplementary Remarks ................................................................369 Bibliography ........................................................................................421 Index of Key erms .............................................................................423 Index of Names ....................................................................................427
Cutting was in Scotland, wasobrought inJohn Yorkshire, and hasborn livedininAberdeen or near London or most his lie. up He qualified as a doctor o medicine in London, then studied psychiatry and worked as a consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley and Bethlem Hospitals and the Institute o Psychiatry in London or twenty years. For the last fiteen years he has been studying philosophy with the aim o contributing to the growing discipline o philosophical psychopathology – explaining conditions such as schizophrenia and depression in philosophical terms. He is married with five children.
’ Max Scheler was born in 1874 in Munich. His father was a Protestant, who administered the estates of the King of Bavaria, and his mother was Jewish. He was brought up as an orthodox Jew, but later converted to Catholicism, and at the end of his life renounced all official theisms and developed his own theological notions, which he referred to as ‘panentheism’ – the perpetual becoming of God. He was an unpromising student at school, being engrossed in Nietzsche’s books rather than the main lessons. He began his university studies in Munich, electing for medicine and philosophy, but soon opted for philosophy, and his first mentor was Rudolph Eucken in Jena, who won the Nobel Prize for his writings, and who was a neoKantian philosopher interested in the relationship between culture, religion and work. He then returned to Munich and in the first decade of the 20th Century he began his own independent philosophical caacknowledging parallel work of Husserl, but never being ‘reer, student’ of Husserl, asthe some commentators falsely maintain. After thea First World War he was appointed Professor of Philosophy in Cologne and just before he died he was planning to move to a chair in Frankfurt. His personal life was quite turbulent, much more so than that of most philosophers, but probably fed into his particular philosophical preoccupations, which were early on to do with the emotional life of a human being. He was married three times, had a high sexual drive, and his career was blighted by scandal concerning his affairs. Nevertheless, he was a charismatic lecturer, who shortly before his death held the German High Command spellbound for four hours on the subject, of all things, of pacifism. He was a wonderful companion who could transform the most mundane situation into a magical affair. And he was regarded as an incomparable genius by all those who had the intellectual quality to see it, most notably the other great philosophers of that era – Martin Heidegger, Nicolai Hartmann. Husserl regarded
him as one of his two ‘antipodes’, the other being Heidegger. Not only this; he took the greatest interest in contemporary life. He was a patriot at the outset of the First World War and wrote semi-propaganda on the issue. then became a pacifist offered his services in the search for anHe Armistice. He was a closeand friend of Walter Rathenau who was Foreign Minister in the Weimar Republic, and who was murdered by the Brown-shirts. He was immensely knowledgeable about sociology, psychology, psychiatry, physics and biology, in which respect he is virtually the last of the philosopher-polymaths – akin to Bertrand Russell. He had quite uncanny premonitions of his own death, as he told his wife, and sure enough, after surviving one heart attack, he developed chest pain one day,eulogy, askedreferred for a beer, and as wasthedead in a few moments. Heidegger, in his to him greatest of contemporary philosophers.
Scheler’s total writings amount to fourteen volumes, and are available from the publishers thanks to his third wife who preserved and collated them, and to Manfred Frings, a German philosopher who took up residence in the United States and who is the current editor. Over the years therehashave translations of someFrings of these, the greatest part of which beenbeen carried out by Manfred himself. o those philosophers who are acquainted with Scheler, he has the reputation of being the phenomenologist who studied the emotional life of the human being, and in their eyes a minor figure relative to Husserl or Heidegger, who supposedly took on the task of explicating the entire human being. Tis reputation is utterly false, and is attributable to the neglect of his late works concerning metaphysics and the anthropology of the human being. Te impetus for translating these late works, dense though they be, and incomplete – they are almost short notes for a work that he never lived to write – is the overwhelming sense, conveyed by these, that Scheler saw himself as a metaphysician, indeed almost the only metaphysician around, and the notes he made are to be seen in that light. Scheler’s position in the pantheon of philosophers is in no way secure, but his reputation is undoubtedly growing – among psychiatrists engaged in finding a non-psychoanalytical and non-biological way of
ranslator's Introduction
formulating psychopathology for one thing – and it is hoped that this translation will alert – or in my case completely bowl over – the philosopher, would-be philosopher, or intelligent lay-person on issues which no-one else even dreamt about.
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ince every sort of knowledge and all sorts of cognition are a participation by the knowing subject in a being which is independent from him himself, and actually exists, then metaphysics is equally the eternal attempt by human beings, by virtue of their spontaneous reason, to participate in the absolute reality of things themselves. In the first place, by virtue of this spontaneous knowledge of reason, it sets metaphysics apart from all religions always concern some privilegedsharply revelation. Metaphysics seeks ,towhich provide knowledge – whether hard evidence, or of a probable sort; it is not belief, or faith. Secondly, metaphysics seeks out the absolute reality – in which endeavour it differs from conventional science. Tis absolute reality is one whose existence and nature is no longer influenced in any way by the special organization of the psycho-physical make-up of the human being. Nor is it beholden to any other sort of reality or actuality for its existence, and it is therefore absolute in an objective sense, and conforms to the principles and reasons which Aristotle laid down as befitting a ‘First Philosophy’. Furthermore, any human participation in this absolute realm – which metaphysics seeks – also means coming to know all other realms which are deeply rooted in this absolute realm – the dead as well as the living world, plants, animals, human beings themselves and their reason, along with consciousness and each level of the soul, and even the irreal, ideal world of objects. Tirdly, for all these reasons, metaphysics is knowledge of the real,
and that separates it from all formal and ideal sciences, such as logic, mathematics, and any study of the structure of essences of the world. Tey are undoubtedly necessary for constructing metaphysics, but they are notideas metaphysics Whoever existence-free and idealitself. connections in restricts this way,metaphysics like Husserltodoes, or to values, as Rickert and Windelband do, or to the bare content of consciousness, for example, that person is denying what metaphysics actually comprises. Even the person who coined the very word ‘metaphysics’ restricted what it connoted by putting Aristotle’s writings on the matter after those where he had written about physics, and it was only later that this ‘editorial’ decision was graced with the title –Knowledge o the highest principleswas andabout. basis o beings – which Aristotle had indicated his First Philosophy Admittedly, the word ‘metaphysics’ points to a fairly clear-cut subject matter for discussion, to do with the absolute reality underlying physics and nature. But one can, and should, with no lesser right, talk about a metapsychology or a metamathematics or a metahistory or a metabiology or a metasociology, or even a metanoetics, or a metaphysics of art, or a metaphysics of nationhood and law. For, each of these major subdivisions of human knowledge and its subject matter has its own peculiar ‘meta’-problems or ‘metascience’, which were deliberately ignored by the actual practitioners of such disciplines, for the purposes of getting on with their work, but ought now to be looked at. Tis applies to subjects other than physics, even physics in the broad sense which Aristotle took it to mean. Tese metasciences are the bridging connections between the individual sciences themselves and the highest reaches of metaphysics. Tey each – each metascience – help build up a picture of a background to the world by framing the results of their own science in such a way that it can be looked at in conjunction with [and with the same vocabulary of] the other metasciences [to
flesh out the absolute Metaphysics is thenreality]. – in contrast to the individual sciences – a total and universal sort of knowledge, in fact, wisdom of the world [W eltweisheit]. It reintegrates the centuries-old scattered and fragmented scientific observations, by dint of a method which is unique to it, and is unlike any scientific method. For, in spite of what I have said, metaphysics is not simply the gathering up of the results of the various sciences to produce a coherent view of Being as a whole, as Wundt
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thought. It rather treats what we know of the world from a different vantage point than do the individual sciences, looking at it under the guidance of the ‘whole’ itself, and allocating a particular place within this totality of things to what of each science contributes. Te subjective consequence thisindividual objective exercise is that in genuine metaphysics it is always the whole human being, as a mental and spiritual creature, who is active and knowledgeable, and we are not talking about any specific human function or part of his spiritual and mental make-up. How it is that the human being can gain access to the absolute reality of things, and with what part of him – whether through thinking, sensory perception, intuition, feeling, drives or will; whether immediately in a mystical fashion, as Schopenhauer thought, or mediately; andmust through what practice technique lifemetaphysior spiritual means : all this be left open at the or beginning of of our cal quest. Only one thing is certain, and that is that only by bringing to bear the total human being to the task, can the totality of existing things be grasped. Only the human being in its entirety is equal to the entirety of what there is : in short, the human being is a microcosm. How the absolute reality of the human participation allows the very human to do what he must do in this situation – which spiritual activity and in which order he must bring to the situation to achieve his aim – lies exclusively in the nature of this very reality. So much for the first hazy definition of the matter in question. I shall now set out my preparatory considerations as to what I think each of us knows and finds, or does not find, in the realm of metaphysics, loosely defined above. It is definitely not my intention to present a metaphysical system, in the way the traditional philosophical schools approach things. I eschew this, first, because philosophy itself is not primarily a set of opinions held by previous human beings, but is something on-going, and of the nature of an immersion into the living book of the world. Secondly, the in very of metaphysics, we have defined it, to a rightful place theclaim scheme of things, hasasbeen vigorously contested for centuries, and this from a variety of powerful philosophical directions, right up to our current times. Tirdly, I myself have never understood, and it will never be understood, why one can read ten thousand books, all held in more or less high esteem, and containing the opinions of the supposed greatest academic minds, and yet each and every one announces the demise of metaphysics. We must
be clear from the start that the way I define metaphysics – as a pure claim on our knowledge – is denied by Kant, by all Neo-Kantians, by all Positivist philosophers – from Bacon to Mach and Avenarius – by any adherent of Husserl’s phenomenology, all historicistwhose philosophers like Dilthey and Spengler, and by all by philosophers notions are dominated by values or consciousness. In fact, it is true to say that what I have in mind is denied by virtually all modern philosophers. From the time when I was a university student, and during the first ten years of my tenure as a university lecturer, a lecture on metaphysics, outside anything the Scholastics had to say about it, was virtually unheard of. It is only in the course of the last ten years that this attitude is slowly receding, and that has to do with the waning of the Neo-Kantian influence. Admittedly, figure has recently talked about a rebirth of metaphysics, anda itliterary is scarcely believable how much is now written, even outside strictly philosophical circles, about this supposed event. But even though this metaphysical philosophy of the Wilhelminian era, as well as the more recent sort, are refreshing to behold, in terms of their cultural-psychological significance, they have little or no bearing on the question as to the rightful position of metaphysics. Te claim of metaphysics on us can only be addressed by looking at the actual facts of our situation, facts which must hold sway or not long before anyone starts speculating in a metaphysical way. Tis foundation can be investigated in two major ways, an exercise we shall follow ourselves. Part 1A will consist of ‘Essential Teory and ypology of Metaphysical Systems and World-views’, and Part 1B of ‘Cognition and Methodological Teory in respect of Metaphysics as Positive Knowledge’. Part IIA – ‘Te Metasciences’ – and Part IIB – ‘A Teory concerning the Cause of Everything’, subtitled a ‘Teory of God’ – are the two chief divisions of metaphysics which will come under scrutiny following our discussion – in Part 1 – of classificatory and methodological issues. Te – consideration what sorts,traditional forms or classification categories of into: beingsontology there are; cosmology – of notions about the inorganic and organic world; and psychology and theology; we consider as of secondary importance. In the second part, just alluded to, I shall report my own investigations into the matter, especially the results I have come to in the last two years or so, and will for the first time present an overview of the systematic structure to my thoughts about philosophy and the notion
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of God, an overview in which all my far-reaching excursions into philosophy will be accorded their latest meaning. First, though, we must try and secure a firm and secure basis for metaphysics, and this –is Essential the purpose of the part ofand the Cognitive book, under the two headings Teory andfirst ypology Teory and Metaphysics. Te first of these has almost become a discipline in its own right in the past decade, and any philosopher, whether he accepts the right of metaphysics to exist or not, must be conversant with it. For, we are concerned here with the essential characteristics of all spiritual and mental structures and productions, among which we include metaphysics. But there are others, with which we need to compare metaphysics e.g. myth, art, mysticism, spiritualworld-view healing and science; itself, and, further, we religion, need to place the metaphysical in some perspective, alongside the natural world-view and the scientific world-view. It is only through a comparison of these different structures, with a special eye on their mutual boundaries, that this question can be solved. For example, do Plato’s myths belong to his metaphysics? and is Spinoza’sEthics rather a rationalist doctrine belonging to metaphysics than a work of refined mysticism? Any discussion of all this should include the motive behind any metaphysical enquiry, in comparison with what motivates the theologian or scientist, and should further consider the emotional background to what is being presented as a formal treatise, and even take note of what technology and art are, at root; all of this has a bearing on metaphysics. Of relevance, too, are important questions concerning the type of person who becomes a metaphysician, as opposed to a great individualist or a prophet or a mystic; there are questions too about the social grouping to which a metaphysical scheme appeals – i.e. school or sect – and how it is preserved, reproduced and subject to changes in the course of history. Next there is the issue of whether a metaphysical sort of knowledge is actually outdated as or anot. Tere are face a great of problems facing the humanities whole, which anynumber individual investigator in these subjects, but none of these is metaphysics itself, and is not even part of the subdivision of ‘cognitive theory and metaphysics’, which I mentioned. Because a vast number of metaphysical systems have cropped up in the course of history, we should give some order to them, according to
their principal theme. Tere are four separate points of view to heed in any such exercise. 1. First, there is a psychological point of view – i.e. What different types of human beingrather are persistently overe.g.history linked positivism, with one metaphysical system than another, materialism, pantheism? 2. Secondly, which objective unities of meaning are incorporated in the chief varieties of metaphysical systems – e.g. in accordance with Dilthey’s well-known classification into naturalism, objective idealism, and personal idealism of freedom? Linked with this are the questions as to how the parts of a metaphysical system go together, and which parts necessarily belong together and which parts not? howhistorical do the various relate3. toTirdly, the major culturalmetaphysical groupings ofWeltanschauungen humans – e.g. Indian, East Asian and Western – and over history itself – e.g. Ancient and Modern? 4. Finally, there is the historical point of view itself, concerning what in a metaphysical system corresponds to the particular preoccupations [or maturity] of an era, and what not? For example, the Ancient ones share the influence of a mental set towards substance and geometrical thinking, whereas the more recent ones acknowledge functional and temporal influences. How do we start to analyse a metaphysical system? Each major metaphysical system can and should be attributed to a group of urphenomena and ur-experiences on the one hand, and a conceptual elaboration of these on the other. Te appropriate approach would be a phenomenological reconstruction of the system. Overall one would have to separate the srcinal basic intuition of the person who initiated the system from the arcane way in which it was expressed, but also take into account the historical climate in which it was formulated. Tis part of what I call the essence and typology of metaphysics has been recent precisely attoallundermine the very possibility of used thereinbeing anyyears metaphysics [i.e. by historicizing all such attempts]. Comte, Mill, Dilthey, Simmel, Jaspers, Weber and others have argued just this. Indeed, they tried to subordinate metaphysics to science for this very reason. We, on our part, resolutely reject this attempt, because we think we can show that metaphysics is, and how it is, possible. But, setting aside the value for the humanities as a whole, which any such an attempt on our part possesses, we think it is doubly
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necessary and essential for the construction of a metaphysics itself. In the first place, we can easily avoid innumerable one-sidednesses and basic errors if we penetrate the rules by which the major extant metaphysical constructed. In fact, and we shall ourselves to besystems guided have by thebeen principle which Leibniz Hegelallow first made good use of, which is that any metaphysics must contain within itself the part-truths of all previous systems, and must even conserve and touch on the compressed truth and wisdom of the entire history of metaphysics – and raise it to a condensed and higher plane [ auheben]. It is through such a broader truth and a broader whole that relative falsehoods and inadequacies, and a partial one-sidedness, are brought to light. Anyway, there is no metaphysical system which did not contain great essential thewhich questions which shoulda be put deal are : ofruth aboutpart-truths, what? and, and About sort of objectivity? and, About what level of existential relativity this objectivity is to be set at? Tis means that a fully adequate metaphysical knowledge is one which permits even the inadequate and merely partial truth of all other systems to be completely explained. It further entails that a correct metaphysical theory is always an integrated partresult of metaphysics itself. Metaphysics must not only determine the nature of absolute reality, which is pre-given to any knowledge of it; it must also show how knowledge is possibly derived from the very reality it seeks to know, and in what order all this happens. A metaphysics of knowledge and a knowledge of metaphysics go hand in hand, as Hartmann realized. We intend to show the complete untenability of the following relativistic world-views: Jaspers’ and Simmel’s notion of different metaphysical systems as an expression of certain essential types and spiritual physiognomies; metaphysics as merely a historical series of interesting sketches as to what certain high-profile characters thought and wrote – Nietzsche’s view; Germain’s description of metaphysics as a novel about thinkers; the claim that metaphysics is only the expressions of certain psychopathic and even the claim Hegel that metaphysics is only a series oftypes; encapsulations of the pre-by vailing Zeitgeist. Tese are already the consequences of the conviction of these authors that metaphysics is impossible. Tis conviction – endemic among positivists and Neo-Kantians – is completely false, and is even false for the average man in the street, who has at least a modicum of metaphysical talent, whether it turns out to be true or false.
It is even the case that relativistic thinkers, such as the above, are steeped in metaphysics too. Metaphysics belongs to the basic comportment of what it is to be a human being, and indeed is essential to it. Te choice for each and everywe oneareofconscious us is onlyorwhether it is good or bad metaphysics, whether unconscious of it, and whether it is a traditional variety or self-formulated. It is true that none of this makes up a logical and cognitive justification for metaphysics, and certainly does not add up to a comprehensive theory of cognition. But it would be a unique state of affairs in the human condition if a human being possessed a mysterious tendency to persuade himself of something, whose truth or falsehood he himself had no power to study. One metaphysical and essentialdernotions at the core of of ourthe exercise is what Iworld-views call the Erkenntnislehre Metaphysik [Cognitive theory of metaphysics]. With this, we come much closer to what metaphysics si really about, and begin to get a feel for the actual cognitive activity and power, the application of which makes metaphysical knowledge at all possible. Even if our exercise does not succeed in showing that metaphysics is possible, then it would surely be of inestimable benefit if we could show – unlike the more recent claims which simply wrote it off – why this is so, and give the various reasons. In fact, Kant, in hisCritique o Pure Reason, started out with the avowed aim of showing that metaphysics was possible, though ended up giving reasons for its impossibility. In the same way, modern mathematics demands that when something has been incapable of being proven for a long time, then the precise proof of this very unprovability should be demonstrated. Te demand that some measure and analysis of human knowledge, and a theory of it, should precede any statement that we might make about Being itself, was not Kant’s srcinal contribution, but had been mooted by the modern wave of philosophers from Descartes and Locke and Medieval philosophers little or no time foronwards. a theoryAncient of knowledge, or else considered suchhad a consequence of what was really out there: Aristotle, St. Tomas, and even Spinoza thought along these lines. Te new wave of philosophers deemed this ‘dogmatic’, and combated it with their ‘critical philosophy’. o the extent that I believe that a theory of knowledge should be given proper consideration before any metaphysical notion itself can be approved, I am at one with these ‘critical metaphysicians’. Nevertheless, I am com-
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pletely opposed to their associated [and central] notion that theoretical philosophy is nothing more than a theory of cognition or knowledge. Tis last point of view is the result of a completely erroneous notion of what knowledgeview and truth are,which and isistied with the [most pernicious] philosophical [of all], thatupeverything is a subjective content of consciousness. Te heuristic value of the theory of knowledge, as I expound it, became completely enmired, in a variety of ways, from Locke onwards. Although any theory of knowledge has to be ‘in place’, to some extent, before any metaphysical insight themselves can be gleaned, we cannot assume that there is a logical dependence of metaphysics on how we know what we know. Te human understanding cannot examine its own capacity and breadthbeore its works are on the display, onlybeings ‘in’ them andactual with achievements them on view.and If one mistrusts way but human go about matters, why should we have any more confidence in the actual things that they investigate? Any critique of knowledge is only possible through knowledge itself. Te naïve creative spirit, which not only Ancient and Medieval thinkers paid lip service to, but so did relatively modern ones such as Spinoza and Goethe, is simply a notion where the primacy of Being vis-à-vis our knowledge of it is extolled. One might well comment: My child, I spent my life without thinking about thinking itself. Recently, Lotze has taken up a completely contrary position against the critical theory of knowledge. He maintained that in order to examine the entire range of what my human knowledge covers, I must already possess a vague impression of reality itself to know what I want to know. In this way, he deliberately puts the metaphysical situation before the theoretical cognitive one, and demands that metaphysics should even make knowledge about it understandable. Let us leave aside for the moment a detailed examination of this argument. But, instead, I shall present this well-considered thesis. Logically, I assume there be neither a–dependence of metaphysics on cognition, nor an inversetodependence as Lotze would have it. Instead, the basic principle applies that the various sorts, and nature, of objects are intimately connected with an essential act of cognition. Tere is, therefore, an objective independence of both disciplines – metaphysics and cognitive theory – one from the other, but at the same time a strict reciprocal logical dependence of the truths they bring out. Tat means that a cognitive theory of metaphysics is equally a metaphysics of cognition.
Tis further means, that, as Schelling aptly put it, there is a path from the ideal to the real as well as a path from real to the ideal, and that both – metaphysics and cognitive theory – co-determine both paths, and, both.animals, How the at issue –here, slowly,reciprocally, and stage bycontribute stage – viatoplants, andreality then humans arrives at a state whereby knowledge of what is happening accrues to the actual happenings, and ultimately at a state which allows metaphysical knowledge, and how ‘I’, as a conscious and knowing subject, get to know real nature, my fellow humans, God, and finally the absolute reality which metaphysics illuminates, are questions which are perfectly co-srcinal and co-justified. Tere are, equally, several ways to knowledge, but they must be ways which have some point of contact, and reciprocally justified. Both theories that–we are however, considering –must that be of metaphysics and that of cognitive theory have, over and above each of them, a superordinate philosophical discipline, which is neither one or other of them, but is that of pure logic and the ontology of essences [Wesensontologie]. Tis last is neither a science of consciousness nor a science of the whys and wherefores of anything’s existence, but rather an attempt to grasp the very organization of ideas about the content of the world independently from the separate issues of what constitutes – and what comes-to-be as – an accidental beingso, and what constitutes – and what comes-to-be in – consciousness. What we will be concerned with in the second subdivision of Part 1 of our presentation is not the whole theory of knowledge, but only an examination in the most general terms of the nature of knowledge and cognition, with a particular emphasis on the special sort of knowledge involved in metaphysics. Te sorts of knowledge pertaining to the individual sciences, or to myth, art, mysticism and religion, we shall exclude unless we need to mention the way in which they differ from that concerning metaphysics. It is pleasing to know that even the followers of Kant recognize more and more that to restrict all knowledge to knowledgeobtaining that is appropriate to mathematical – andthe tosort thatofaccidentally in Newton’s era to boot – science is grossly one-sided. Kant had to ascribe to a knowledge supposedly befitting mathematics not only the means to tackle metaphysical problems but also the way into chemistry, psychology and history. In fact, even the question, as to how mathematics and the pure sciences are possible, is completely untouched by assuming that the full power and range of the human mind has to be brought to bear on it, even further as-
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suming a certain functional leeway in the Kantian system – a further assumption that I steadfastly refuse to accept, because his so-called Copernican turn can only mean that our understanding of anything actually prescribes the rules that something’ being.means At theand most, all Kant proved was that if onefor assumes that the ssame power of a knowledge that enables one to do mathematics willdo for metaphysics, then one is mistaken. In this he is undoubtedly correct. But it does not mean that metaphysics is impossible. One of the foremost mathematical physicists of our time wrote the much quoted words: ‘o have a physical existence is only that something allows itself to be measured’. Tis is more correct and more illuminating a way of demarcating the physical than any more dignified way of putting it. However, anyone who saidwould or wrote that anything is only allows itself to be measured, be laughed out ofreal court by awhat philosopher, and then be shown ten thousand undoubted ways in which something can be real without being measurable. Te limits of the scientific methods for investigating the world are not the limits of what is real. All versions of what we can call ‘methodologism’ – i.e. the thesis that the methods belonging to our way of knowing an object determine the actual object, either pulling it out of some chaos, or even producing it de novo, as Cohen and Natorp taught – are not only utterly false, but a crude form of a most dangerous tendency in science towards German subjectivism. And although the broadening of this functionalism and methodologism into the realms of myth, language, religion and history, in the sense which Cassirer and Simmel gave to it, can be taken as a noteworthy step beyond Kant’s one-sidedness, looked at another way, it can be taken as a more wrong-headed and a still more impossible way forward than even Kant’s path. What is impossible in all this is, first, the lumping together, without gradation or rank order, of all these disciplines and realms of affairs; and, secondly, the law [presumably unknown to or ignored by the above-mentioned school of thought] the degree existential – and ‘what-something-is’ relativity of that an object to theofhuman organization is proportionately– smaller the more that object approaches the absolute realm, and therefore the less influence the understanding and methods of the human being prescribe the laws of such objects. o all intents and purposes, we can only dictate the process of knowing something when it comes down to the signs and names with which we unequivocally, but sparingly, designate what is given to us. Whenever we step outside this,
we come up against intrinsic [i.e. extrinsic to us] connections between phenomena and things. Even the axioms of arithmetic display something which is outside our mind, and the formal, logical laws [which our does contribute on this particular matter] contingentmind on the former. Te planetary orbits may seemare to merely an astronomer as if the astronomer were dictating the laws governing these, and not the stars themselves by influencing what we pick up of these through our senses. Even the smallest movement of a primitive plant frees itself in a similar way from complete dependence on anything outside it, and conforms in a rudimentary way to Kant’s Copernican turn, whereby the understanding prescribes to nature its rules. But it belongs to the very essence of personhood – humans’ as well as God’s – that it cannot know in a spontaneous It that is precisely ity andanything uncontrollability of what isway. given is a signthe of incalculabilthe degree of absoluteness and of an absolute level of the existence of anything. Methods directed at the nature of objects which are in or close to the absolute realm must therefore be in tune with the objects themselves [as compared to methods appropriate for relatively non-absolute objects e.g. relatively more humanly-relative objects]. Tis last rule applies precisely to metaphysics [which is uniquely concerned with absolute objects]. All this we can briefly summarize here by saying that the theory of knowledge as it pertains to metaphysics is a specially independent part of this whole area. Te sorts of questions which belong here are: What categories or concepts of being still retain metaphysical significance, and which not? Which method is particular to metaphysics as opposed to the methods of the individual sciences? e.g. dialectical methods? intuition? We can further say now that neither the method appropriate to the individual sciences – for example, the mathematical model promoted by Kant and Descartes – nor that applied to history – for example, by Hegel and Croce – is the method befitting metaphysics. Whatonisour critical hereweishold the very of the itself. Tis demand subject mostnature strongly, and object we consider there to be the sharpest distinction, in respect to independence and autonomy, between philosophy and any other discipline; in particular, philosophy is neither the handmaiden of theology nor of science. In the first part of our deliberations we shall aim at a precise appreciation of all the reasons why metaphysics has been denied any in-
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dependent status. Tere are six major schools of thought which have taken just such a view. Tese comprise: 1) sensory positivismsignificance – which treats vistic and of historical only;metaphysical questions as ata2) Kant and his school; 3) relativistic historicism and psychologism; 4) traditionalism and fideism – which relegate metaphysics to a branch of religion or faith; 5) scepticism; and 6) subjective idealism of consciousness. In the second part of our survey we shall be concerned with our own positive forwhich investigating Kant’s definition ofmethods the matter, was thatmetaphysics. metaphysicsWe is anreject ‘intuitive science based on pure apriori concepts’. Tis definition only makes sense anyway in the context of the Wolffian school of philosophy [which was the mainstream in Germany before Kant], a school which gave undue emphasis to unbridled conceptual thought, and in whose atmosphere Kant was spiritually steeped. In actual fact, this definition is quite extreme, even by the standards of previous metaphysics. Schopenhauer rightly treated it as ludicrous.
By mysticism we understand an attempt by the human mind to be at one with absolute reality, and to have an immediate, living participation in what that reality is and its ultimate nature. By mysticism, therefore, we understand a unification with this reality on the part of the human mind, not just some association with a particular content of it. If the prevailing relationship with this reality is deemed, on the human side, to be our intuition, or our emotion, or our will, then one can talk about, respectively, intellectual, emotional, or practical-ascetic sorts of mysticism. Te majority of Western mystics, beginning with Plotinus and Dionysius the Areopagite, have been of the intellectual sort. Indian mysticism is a mixture of aristocratic and intellectual elements, with more down-to-earth feelings and intoxication-induced tendencies. A work such as Tomas à Kempis’Te Imitation o Christ is the best example of the practical-ascetic variety.
In terms of the relationship between metaphysics and mysticism, although mysticism may often be linked with either religion or a variety of metaphysical systems, fundamentally it need not be. Certainly, metaphysics not sure mysticism. In fact, the claim by the mystic to have a preferentialisand entry into reality, by some soul-technique, is just that, a claim, as his technique cannot do what he claims, and his claim that it does so is a mere presupposition. Whether the claim involves bringing to light some religious matter of faith, or some srcinal insight properly belonging to metaphysics, the claim is bogus. Tis explains why there are Ancient Greek mystics, Indian mystics, Christian mystics, and pantheistic mystics – including Spinoza – because all mysticism is ‘interdenominational’ [interkonessionell und interweltanschaulich ] –also i.e. an independent category religion and metaphysics. Tis shows that mysticism is vis-à-vis a secondary, derivative phenomenon, as opposed to the mental powers and methods which bring forth the contents of religion, metaphysics and Weltanschauung. Te mystic supposes that he has reached reality itself, by whatever method he proclaims – intuition, life, feeling – yet all he is doing is presupposing a belief or an idea that he already had, and then vaulting over [and ignoring] what he believes or knows, to claim a togetherness with reality. Tere is, however, no possible way in which the existence or nature of this reality can srcinally emerge from anything the mystic claims to do. From this, there already follows a strict and distinct boundary between metaphysics and mysticism, and also between religion and mysticism. For metaphysics, reaching this reality is precisely what it wants to [and can] do. Mysticism simply cannot deliver the goods. Mysticism is always beholden to an extant religious or metaphysical system, and never contributes anything new on its own to either. Moreover, one might point out that mysticism has no greater kinship with religion than with metaphysics. Tere are completely non-mystical religious eltanschauungen and ways of life, and there is a whole series of nonW religious metaphysicians whose claim to knowledge is mystical. Schopenhauer was an atheist and a mystic. Tere is, however, at least one similarity between the metaphysician and the mystic, in that each wants to know something ultimate, and in those metaphysical systems where this ‘ultimate’ is proclaimed to be known in an immediate way, to be ’had’ and relished, as it were, a separation from mysticism is [superficially] hard to detect. But even
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here, it is not the mystical form of this immediate ‘having’ of something which one expects a metaphysical system to justify. It is rather the meaning of the system as a whole which one cares about [and how that if worthy of our attention, comes is secondary]. Teremeaning, are a variety of metaphysical proposals whichabout we could well call mystical-like. On the other hand, there are philosophers, to whom the real sources of their system are quite hidden – Hegel, for example, and his dialectical method [which does not account for what he came up with]. What mysticism and some metaphysics share is what one might call ‘intuitionism’. As a formal definition, the intuition involved here is: an immediate, non-sensory, ‘having’ of something actual, in the form of something that independently exists outside us, and whose nature very existence we ‘have’ in this So case taught anyway,and whom we can regard as the mosthaving. extreme of Plotinus, someone claiming that we could ecstatically catch sight of something without the aid of concepts or language. Schopenhauer also maintained that one could grasp internally [von innen her] that the absolute existence of the world was ‘Will’, and that the same experience was true for the rest of the world – ‘Is not the nature of human beings in the heart?’ Schelling, too, considered that there was an intellectual intuition, and that it was the authentic organ of philosophical knowledge. Hegel believed in this as well, and thought that in the dialectical movement of thought, as thesis – antithesis – synthesis, one could actually grasp God’s ideas themselves, through which the world was necessarily allowed to spring forth. In this, he was a mystical, dynamic rationalist. Bergson also teaches that intuition unites the merits of understanding and instinct, but at the same time exceeds them both, allowing someone to grasp the élan vital and its very existence, as well as the version of time he calls durée. What concerned the earlier philosophers, what we now regard as ontologism [i.e. an overreliance on pure ontology], is also an intuitionistic philosophy and is exemplified by St.was Augustine, Malebranche, and others. Te –‘negative theology’, which current in the Middle Ages, which proposed an exaggerated contradictoriness in srcinal Being [Űbergegensätzlichkeit des Urseins], and which rejected rational categories as a means for grasping this, was a mystical philosophy too – Nicholas de Cusa being an example. Whatever this system of intuition claims as to truth or profundity, however, and which may very well be hidden in it, is, with respect to the claim that this sort of intu-
ition brought it forth, a mere illusion, a contradiction of the facts, and all this is common to every intuitionistic metaphysics. What is true and correct about intuitionism is, first, that a nonsensory intuition and itsthat corresponding contentderives does occur, and that it is wrong to suppose all our knowledge from sensory perception and mediated deductive [and inductive] thinking; and, secondly, that this intuition is completely independent from all measures of conventional thinking. What is principally wrong about it is the notion that only definitive and illusion-free access to anything real can be achieved through an immediate, asensory intuition, and, that this applies, above all, to what is absolutely real. Te strictly asensory intuition, that wedo possess, and indeed gives us definitive knowledge, an apriori manner, which has, for its object, exclusively, something and thatindoes not actually exist, and something that is independent of anything that does exist [daseinreie und daseinsunabhängige]. In fact it gives only the nature of what something is, and the relations between such natures or essences [Washeiten und Relationen solcher Was – oder Wesenheiten]. It gives urphenomena and ideas. It can never have for its object something actually real: either 1) a concrete entity; or 2) some chance occurrence which does not necessarily owe its existence to its suchness [solchheit] which is then displayed in space and time; or 3) something whose being is independent of our mind. Metaphysics, remember, is the cognition of the real; indeed it is this par excellence. Te real, however, can only be accessed through either sensory stimulus-determined perception or through a mixture of sensory and asensory perceptual intuition, but then this only gives an inadequate version of what is given. Te asensory intuition that we possess is therefore restricted to what is ideal, though not at all to what is consciously immanent of this ideal world. Furthermore, what is available to grasp of something real is only its suchness [Solchheit], which cannotthinking be achieved solely through intuition and perception, but requires in meanings. Tis last contribution is not a back-up for intuition, but is essential for picking up anything about the real, which is not amenable to intuition at all. Tinking in meanings can pick up signs and characteristics of the real, for example the number of a given set of bodies in the world. So, not only is the existence of an existent entity transcendent to a knowing mind – to intuition and thinking alike – but, as we shall see, is only
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traceable [spűrbar] by the volitional [volitiven] component of mind, and then only by its ability to sense resistance to the world. Moreover, even the complete nature of what something is [in addition to the of thatthe something] is transcendent to intuition. Anyone whoexistence merely holds view, against this, that there is such a thing as asensory intuition and that it gives a secure knowledge of essences and their connections – for example, an intuition of the essence of the divine – is no intuitionist. Otherwise, Aristotle himself and even Hume would fit the bill. On this point it was completely wrong for these people to have labelled phenomenological philosophy in general, and my version even more so, as intuitionistic. Te particular error of intuitionism is none of the above, but simply that what they claim discovered [through cannot also be something thattoishave amenable to being thoughtintuition] or expressed in language. Despite this, mysticism and metaphysics do share something in common, which has long been underrated, even though Plato, Spinoza, and several others, understood it, and that is a particular technique for arriving at essential knowledge. Tey both realized that it was something to do with cancelling out the element of reality that could bring the essential component of the world into view, i.e. achieving some sort of pure contemplation of the essence of things. Husserl’s error on this score was to think that looking away a[bsehen] from reality was sufficient to remove it from play. But that does nothing of the sort. [A more radical cancellation is needed]. If metaphysics and mysticism were indistinguishable, there would be a complete collapse of all metaphysical viewpoints into a morass of mystical obfuscation, coupled with the following trends. First, there would be an increasing alienation between philosophy and science, with Plato, rather than Aristotle, the role model. Philosophy would furthermore become a ‘theology’, as it did in the case of Proclus, pupil of Plotinus. It would proclaim the spectacle of a simple aunification of everything philosophers hadecstatic ever said. Spinoza and Schopenhauer have something of this in their outlook. Secondly, lacking any strict method and technique, metaphysics would risk degenerating into an arbitrary subjectivism, as did the anthroposophical movement of our times. Philosophy would lose any claim to be generally valid. On this point, the claim by mystics to have their own ‘emotional feel for the truth’ is completely unacceptable.
Tirdly, mysticism can at times, through its exaggerationof the mystery of everything, actually lead to the anti-metaphysical notion of agnosticism. If one violates and distorts the actual things that there are, this is exactlyofwhat happens. for is thoughtto reveal the mystery the world, but What not justmetaphysics in the way aims of a silent, less reverence for it, leaving it alone as an uninvestigated jewel. On the one hand, it takes the view that what is absolutely real is not completely unknowable, but, on the other hand, it is not so foolhardy as to assume that we can gain more than an inadequate knowledge of all possible essences, all possible ways of being, or all attributes of what is absolutely real. Nevertheless, our opponents, who maintain that what we are up against a completely be askedistwo questions.unknowable sphere of things and events,should First, how they themselves would set about uncovering what exactly they know and don’t know about the world – i.e. their placing of a boundary in this respect? Secondly, how would they show that if the ‘real’ itself does not guide us as to what we come to know about it, what does? If nothing real has any direct or indirect influence on our senses, what is then our own situation in the middle of all this? If their view is correct, we are anyway free to either propose a metaphysical point of view or repudiate it [as it will have no effect on their opinion]. What do they say? In answer to all this, we propose two guiding principles. 1) We must not deny the accidental existence of anything, if its ideal nature has been demonstrated. 2) We should not positively promote it either. Anyone who proposes that we must know an accidental reality simply because our cognitive apparatus tells us it is there is simply wrong. Anyone who proposes that we cannot know an accidental reality when it is actually there enters problematical ground, although it is probably that at some time in the future our capacity in this correct respect to willassume increase. What is of ultimate significance in all this, and circumscribes metaphysical knowledge as opposed to the boundless mystique and mystery we have been combating in this section, is the following proposition. o each genuine essence there corresponds an accidentally real entity, because every existent entity has an essential nature of some
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sort, and to every essence or essential nature there belongs at least one extant exemplar.
Tere has been no shortage of attempts to invoke art as a way of getting closer to the meaning of metaphysics, though the sort of art envisaged in such a model is not the same as we normally mean by ‘art’. Tis way of looking at metaphysics is admittedly never a starting point for metaphysicians themselves, but rather stems from metaphysicallyagnostic thinkers. Even those metaphysicians whose thoughts themselves are presented in a particularly artistic way, and whose overall philosophy approaches the unity, harmony, compactness, insight, and aesthetic impetus of a work of art in itself, have never adopted the view that metaphysics be subsumed under art. One thinks, in this respect, of Plato, Schopenhauer, Schelling and Novalis, and, in recent times, Nietzsche and Bergson. In fact Bergson’s chief workCreative Evolution was considered more a work of art than a piece of science by one critic. From time to time, at the very most, such philosophers have suggested that metaphysics is more similar to art than it is to science – as Schopenhauer, for example, did say. Aristotle considered metaphysics to be ‘theoretical’, as opposed to practical activities, and to be more similarfortothinking art – particularly dramatic art – than it was His reason so was that philosophy and art hadtotohistory. do not with chance events but with typical and general states of affairs. And whereas art divined the idea, the eidos in things, in especially outstanding cases – mimesis, it was up to philosophy to grasp this conceptually. On the other hand, quite paradoxically, as he was probably the greatest artist of all among metaphysicians, Plato accorded art a very low status in the system of values and goods, and it did not occur to him to look on metaphysics as art. the only philosopher to which have contended that metaphysics canAlmost only rightly be seen as art – by he meant poetry D [ ichtung] – was Albert Lange. It was his interpretation of Schiller’s intellectual verse, and its connection with Kant’s philosophy, which Lange took as his model. His proposal – that metaphysics was poetry in concepts – was meant in a negative and a positive way. Albert Lange, from this definition, believed in the Kantian thesis that rational metaphysical knowledge of absolute reality, by way of concepts, was not possible,
but at the same time went beyond Kant, in saying, contrary to Kant’s forthright dismissal of the matter, that metaphysics provided a function in the human mind and life which could not be gainsaid. Tis is the starting point forand the religion, so-calledbut fictionalism of Vaihinger, where not only metaphysics science, even mathematics and mechanics, were only ‘structures’ – ‘as-if suppositions’ – which ultimately rested on fictions. Because Vaihinger held that our knowledge and thoughts of the world, including anything that the most exact sciences could come up with, were all based on deliberate fiction, then in one sense what he was saying is that the entire range of sciences was nothing more than art. Anglo-Saxon pragmatism is essentially different from this thesis. Pragmatism, for instance, holds that not only thinking is conditioned by ourimpulses actions, and but so are perception and‘truth’ sensation conditioned by motor processes, and that is merely the course of an action which has certain consequences. For Vaihinger, the question – What is given? – has a strict sensualistic meaning, as, for him, truth is merely becoming aware of the content of sensation; everything else is fiction, meaning the work of deliberate fiction. Moreover, the fiction in question is something that stems from our activity, partly an eternal, unstoppable and spontaneous set of fictitious reasonings, but partly a set of purposeful fictions with some aesthetic and practical motives. What this fiction was, at root, was therefore an apparently continuous, law-governed thinking, which somehow succeeded in pinning us down to a traditional and earthly way of living. Vaihinger meant that such fictions were unreal and deliberately false, somewhat akin to Fiedler’s notion of a deliberate activity of fantasy, which was responsible for artistic inventions and scientific models. According to Vaihinger, the only truth that was available to us, which was responsible for something blue or something sour, etc., was already a fictional object or thing or relationship, and this itself founded what would be a scientific explanation [hence science itself was based fiction]. Among thoseonmetaphysicians who imagined that they had uncovered a particularly deep connection between a metaphysical and an aesthetic way of looking at things, and who were inclined to see metaphysics and art as interrelated, Plotinus has pride of place. But Schopenhauer, the young Nietzsche, and Burckhardt – as a philosopher of history – also belong here. Tey had, in common, a sense of despair about the world as something willed, and taught that an aes-
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thetic, contemplative attitude arising in human spirit was the highest of all human attitudes. Nietzsche’s Dionysian pessimism lies in this way of thinking. In general, there is a close link between metaphysical pessimism and the promotion an aesthetic group of metaphysicians, who of considered theattitude srcinatortooflife. theAnother world itself to be some sort of artist in the first place, and who attributed fantasy to it as a primary and fundamental attribute, also belong here. Te Logos and ethos of the world are then traceable to this very fantasy, in such metaphysician’s formulations. Goethe and Schelling are examples of this view, in which the world is a living work of art. Tere are even attempts to see aesthetic principles of pleasing relationships and configurations in subjects such as logic. Certainly, as far as mathematics is concerned, Poincaré expressly that the measure of mathematical achievement was not stated logic itself, buthighest an aesthetic value, whereby a unity and harmony of thought and proposition were reached. Poincaré sought to prove, against the opinion of pure logicians, that there were an infinite number of mathematical representations of some logical problem, all of which could be equally correct, and that it was infinitely boring, and scientifically pointless, to go through all, or even most, of the proofs. Te achievement of a creative mathematician lay exclusively in being able to select that sort of proof, from among equally correct candidates, which was the most ‘elegant’, in terms of a harmony between axioms, consequences, theoretical principles and proofs. Tis selection of aesthetic, valuable and elegant proofs constitutes, according to Poincaré, the only and ultimate way of measuring the value of mathematical achievement. Even illogical and contradictory propositions can, and should, conform to the same value of maximum unity and harmony as proposed for logical ones, according to him. Above all, the principle of the non-contradiction of a proposition – if A = B then A = non-B cannot be true – would be deniable [if its denial were couched in more aesthetic terms than the actual itself ].grounds Certainly and Hegel denied this, but notproposition on the aesthetic as Heraclitus are being mooted here. If, then, the most obvious and certain science that we know of – mathematics – is deemed to be subordinate to aesthetics, and if logic is only a technical means for the realization of aesthetic rules, how can it stand otherwise with less certain sorts of knowledge? And the same situation must obtain in the case of metaphysics. Anything in its domain can only be ‘true’, if it manages to convert a maximum amount of
accidental and essential experience into a system which is maximally harmonious with principles and concepts. Any strictly metaphysical theory ofWeltanschauung, which sets up the thesis, hasphilosophy, to take account of the following problems. Canit one above really subsume and especially metaphysics, because is certainly not a science, under the umbrella of art, in particular poetry? Which historically occurring objective relationships, in the form of spiritual affinities, exist between metaphysics and art, in particular poetry? Which subjective dependencies exist between them, i.e. between poet and metaphysician? What relationships are there between the work of art and a metaphysical system? Above all, whatessential relationship is there between art and metaphysics? In what way [if any] are the of the correct metaphysicians mentioned above, who advocated thisproposals link, definitely and definitely incorrect? Is there anything worthwhile in the suggestions that logic be subsumed as a variety of aesthetics? What is there in the notion of ‘fictions’ referred to above, of any significance? Finally, what role does fantasy play in metaphysics and in art? urning to the first question: metaphysics is cognition, and, like all cognition, is not art. Knowledge, the ur-concept for cognition, is participation in being. Art is poiein, making something [Bilden], bringing forth a meaning-structure in, or on, some material stuff, a formed thing [Gebildes], which, at the very least, cannot be measured by the degree it accords with the haphazard reality of the world. Whoever makes out that cognition is indebted to a ready-made pictorial form, or is poiein, or must adhere to some form or shape, like Neo-Kantians do, particularly Vaihinger, and that it is not merely a way of knowing, i.e. a participating in the being of an object, or, whoever sees in artists’ pictures only a way of knowing something, or only a sort of knowledge, simply fails to realize [both the nature of cognition and the nature of art and] the most critical and essential distinction between pictures or images knowledge. Even if alland possible rules and fictions, withand which both philosophy scienceconcepts, work, and all ways of signifying things – which are admittedly the product of human activity – were exhaustively brought to light, it would still be the case that in order to use all this, they would have to be known, i.e. they would still be the subject of an enlightenment as to what the state of affairs was in the human mind. Alternatively, if all knowledge about the world were complete, as we imagine it to be if there were an all-knowing God,
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then it would be the case that not a single work ofart could be created, and the aesthetic value of the world, its beauty and its ugliness, would remain unsuspected. It is simply a folly of Neo-Kantians, especially Cohen, wantAnd to derive how wenonsense know artto[i.e. oneknowledge, sort of knowing] from arttoitself. it is further make as the pragmatists do, into a sort of action, which [apart from anything else] makes action itself superfluous. Knowing is the registering o something which is there, and this covers metaphysical knowing as well. Art is making up [Bilden] what is not there, but which is worthy of being there, or deserves to be there, by virtue of certain aesthetic notions of value. Tat’s the way things are. In metaphysics there is the intention to know what is absolutely real. o maintain is conceptual poetry isTe quite ridiculous. At most, one that couldmetaphysics say that there is no metaphysics. thesis of Albert Lange, referred to above, was only supposedly justified anyway under the agnostic assumption of Kant’s and his notion of a productive understanding. If his categories are actually forms of being [and not categories of judgement] then his entire theory collapses. Te very notion of conceptual poetry, in which there are only unintuitable concepts, and not, as in all other poetry, intuitable images, which symbolize the highest ideas and concepts, and have values adhering to their intended objects, and linguistic values of all sorts, in the ‘material’ they use, is simply nonsense. In any case any so-called ‘poetry of ideas’ – Dante’s Divine comedy, Goethe’sFaust, Schiller’s thoughtpoetry – is not ‘poetry with ideas’, but ‘poetry about ideas’, written with images, with an eye to the appropriate mood, along with characterization and concrete events and deeds, which, altogether, may refer to some symbolic idea. Te very concept of ‘conceptual poetry’ is therefore a falsification of what poetry is about, which, like any art, is invariably an ideal structure realized through its concrete intuitable content, and which owes its meaning, not simply to the bare tract in front of one, but toLange’s its being able to convey some immediate Albert proposal, that metaphysics is art, givenness. and is poetry in concepts, may have seemed, to an age saturated with science, as an unrequited urge to reverse the progress of the German spirit, and retrieve the extravagant romantic and idealistic philosophy of Fichte, Hegel and Schelling, who in fact mistook the essence and limits of metaphysics, as indeed did scientists, from a completely different angle. But a one-sided historical occurrence, such as that, does not give us
any right to re-formulate metaphysics in this vein. Metaphysics is not science, but neither is it art. Even Schopenhauer went too far in the direction of bringing art and metaphysics together. On the other hand, it is an undoubted factbeen that,closer historically, the berelationship between metaphysics and art has than that tween art and science, and that, in any era, what is meant by, and what is carried out in the name of, art, and what is meant by, and carried out in the name of, metaphysics, attain some sort of unity. Doubtless, the actual and profound links between metaphysics and art, particularly poetry as spoken art, have a shared basis. We can point to similarities between Plato’s philosophy and Sophocles’ tragedies; or between the Sophists and Euripedes; or between St. Tomas’ mysticism and Gothic art; orFrench between Danteorand St. Tomas; or and between Descartes and classical, tragedy; between Schelling theWeltbild of the romantic poets; or between Kant and Schiller. Tese metaphysical and artistic interconnections, even at their most interesting, fruitful and profound, are not an indication of deliberate subjective influences on one group by the other, whether poet on philosopher, or the other way round, but are rather the influence onboth sets of practitioners of the same objective Zeitgeist, independently of any particular individual, and affecting all experience of the world through the same categories inherent in their sharedWeltanschauung – metaphysicians and artists alike. I regard this connection, between the two groups, as all the more deeper and fertile, because it is, in itself, quite desirable that artist and philosopher do not work with ideas which they have so-tospeak borrowed from one another, but each, with his own materials, and the rules of his ‘trade’, do their separate ‘thing’ [in the same era]. No artist of the first order has worked to a philosophical programme, and no great philosopher ever wanted only works of art to feature in the way he spoke about philosophical concepts. Despite all this, there exists a deliberate dependency, one on the other, which, in its most obvious can be illustrated cases of St. Tomas and Dante, Kant andform, Schiller, and Spinoza by andtheGoethe. Even the relationship between metaphysical systems and works of art, which has often been pointed to, in support of their identity, has an insufficient basis in fact. Any similarity, anyway, only applies to those metaphysical systems which I call ‘closed’ – e.g. Spinoza’s Philosophia or Schopenhauer’s World as Will and Representation– but these are the very sorts of philosophy which I do not consider to be on the
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right track to get to grips with metaphysics. Te work of art is at rest with itself, self-sufficient, and a closed structure [and that is right]. But a closed philosophical system, which is the one most similar to the work of art, a system is not ‘open’ toennew develop, andiscan only bewhich accepted or rejected bloc.experience, cannot Te deep connection that we find historically between metaphysics and art has its ultimate basis in the fact that metaphysics, like art, must be primarily directed at that in the happenstance of the world – whether inner or outer world – which is only an embodied exemplar of the realm of essences and ideas. Tis distinguishes what both have in common from science, which ignores essences, and also distinguishes them from all practical considerations and technology. Te known and set-up and order of thishas world of essences in unified formrecognized by virtue of the stage that spirit reached in anyisera, and this is why art and metaphysics cannot but have some similarities, if they are accessing the same stage of spiritual development. Admittedly, only the first component of metaphysical knowledge – the essential ontology of the world – contributes to this connection between metaphysics and art, not the second connection – to do with the contingent or accidental state of reality. In fact, this second component is what concerns science, and, we have, therefore, a unity here between metaphysics and science, from which art is completely shut out. For art has no connection whatsoever with the accidental world of reality, or indeed with any reality. It creates a new world of what something is [eine neue Welt des Soseins], which is not in harmony with a real world such as would produce a world of objects e[ine Objektenwelt], but is only a world in images [im Bilde] – an ideal, though not a consciousness-immanent world – and one guided by a certain sort of values – aesthetic values. Although it creates this world with real means, what it creates – the art-work in the real work of art – holds sway in the sphere of purely ideal being. Nevertheless, even in this ideal art must – and this is itsstrucfirst objective rule – perfectly meet theworld, conditions demanded by the ture and connections of essences. Indeed, it must do this in a clearer, more immediate, and purer way, than any exemplar of these essences achieves in our actual, everyday world. Artistic truth is simultaneously truer and falser than that of either philosophy or science. Te work of art seems to want to have something to say from the far-off reaches of the eternal basis of everything, without being capable of precisely
saying what this is, or of penetrating the will of God on the matter. In other words, it is as if God is allowing it to say something that He would have wanted to say, without letting on that He Himself is the sovereign of the essences. Terefore, although art is an tive exercise, it isworld not anofarbitrary, boundless flow of fantasy, norobjeceven something constrained by contemporary taste. It is connected, in the same way as metaphysics, to the core essences that govern our world, and is not merely a set of subjective, functional laws to do with taste. But whereas metaphysics is, in addition, connected to the real world, and, in contrast to science, is focused on the absolute level of this, art is not connected to this at all. Art rather creates a new world, and adds its own brand of reality to it, which, unlike God’s ability to produce a newly is merely idealistic, albeit, just like the real world, a versionreal thatworld, is concretely intuitable. Te relationship of the artist to the basis of everything is unique. He transposes himself, as it were, without taking this to have any temporal implications, into a position where the coming-to-be of the world opens up for him, and he suspends the actual way in which the rational, impenetrable will determines by ‘fiat’ whether the existence of things are this way or that, laying out only essences and ideas as contributors to the world. Te artist manages all this by means of a procedure which, in a philosophical context, we call the ‘existential reduction’ [Daseinsreduktion], meaning the deliberate holding back of all desire, in respect of which world is actually the one given to us. Te result is a disinterested, apractical intuition of the bare ’what’ of the essence of the world, a relationship srcinating from a pure contemplation of matters, and something which sets in train both philosopher’s and artist’s shared activities. Once this profound alienation and distancing from the actual accidental world has taken place, and the ensuing nature of whatever is experienced becomes nothing less than a love for what it has become, then the paths of artist and metaphysician diverge. Te artist – a littleanGod – then creates a world in miniature, and in images – through active manipulation of real– material, into the sign language of qualities, the precise version of which depends on whatever art he is practising. Te metaphysician, on the other hand, turns back towards the real world, in order to know the levels of existence he has journeyed through, from the stage he reached, with the artist, all the way back to the absolutely real. Tat [the consequences
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they both experience when they carry out the existential reduction] is their meeting point, but it is also the point where they part company. What I have just said is already a gross simplification. For, before their above-mentioned ng of the ways, there is already a profound difference in the way inparti which metaphysician and artist penetrate the realm of the ur-essence and its interconnections, a difference which is evident in the intentional object – ‘ur-essence’ – which each comes across, as well as in the way they penetrate it. Each ur-essence is a combination of urphenomenon and idea, the first of the pair being intuitable – though not in the form of a sensory experience – whereas the second of the pair is non-intuitable. Te coincidence and complementing of the two reveals the ur-essence of an object as self-given. In itself is simple, when considered from the to point view ofit its own ideal itbeing; its bipartite nature only comes lightof when is an ens intentionale [the entity the mind intends or focuses on]. Te metaphysician approaches the essence from a perspective focusing on theurphenomenon and the idea, treating it as a limiting case [Grenzall] in the overall objective of his referential thinking. With the help of mediated thinking, what the metaphysician wants is something that lies beyond this mediated thinking – something that is graspable inimmediate thinking through ideas. It is thus connected with language or writing. Te artist and the pleasure-seeking aesthete approach the ur-essence solely from the side of the urphenomenon, whose idea-correlate, in itself, they are indifferent to. Tey carry out this exercise in an analytic and synthetic way, by virtue of a re-constructive intuition synthetisch[ nach-konstruktive Anschauung], or, in other words, having an immediate image of what is at stake. For the artist, even the urphenomenon becomes, in the process whereby he arrives at his goal, a limiting case – the limiting case of his sensory intuition and active observation of what has been intuited. As for language, the artist is not beholden to this except in his role as poet. He can carry out his re-constructive intuition, his intuitable remaking an urphenomenon, both for the sake ofand others and for himself, withofmaterials completely different from language. What is essential about art – whether poetry, sculpture, painting, music, drawing, dance or song – is the process of representation that must accompany it. Tings stand with a representation – which is only the mental objectivization of the expression of the idea and emotion of the artist – in the same way as the intuiting of an urphenom-
enon or the thinking of an idea stand with respect to a living being who perceives in a sensory way or who thinks with intelligence. For this reason metaphysics and conceptual poetry are completely different when it comes to their as symbolic communicationi.e.functions. poetry, language functions a meansand of representation, as a meansIn whereby the urphenomenon first comes to givenness. In contrast, for metaphysics, and indeed for cognition in general, language functions in a normal way the more it is merely the grasping of some state of affairs by intuition and thinking, i.e. a functional sign for what has been shown and thought. It is not a creative process in which, at the end of this, the urphenomenon comes to fruition. In poetry, for instance, language is even the material from which the end-product is forged. It is equivalent to of marble, and light and‘inpainting, and to the world soundscolour for music. Te for poetsculpture represents words’. For philosophy, however, language is either an object – as in the philosophy of language – or only a rather unsatisfactory means for getting to grips with the thoughts themselves, and the relationships between thoughts that the practitioner seeks. In fact, because it is so unsatisfactory, the philosopher even finds it better, to a certain extent, to supplement everyday language with artistic terminology, a way of expressing things that the poet knows nothing about and must not know. A more profound distinction between art and metaphysics is the very difference in what each means by ‘representation’. Whereas metaphysics has its movement in the following direction – concrete, individual structure to ur-essence, then to immediate showing of the urphenomenon, coupled with the critical thought of the idea – and whereas it achieves in this process the systematic interconnections of the realms of the urphenomenon and idea, and thereby the entire world as an interweaving of eternal Logos, the artist has a completely different approach. Te artist starts with the germ of a given urphenomenon, exemplifies the urphenomenon in a concrete form, and creates as anintuited. ideal image. all this byinterconnections a representation or of whatthis he had But He it isillustrates not the systematic step-wise arrangements of the urphenomenon and idea that he wants to give, but, in each work of art, he is concerned with onlyone urphenomenon. In fact, the artist even deliberately cuts through all referential threads which urphenomena possess in the contextual mass of essences – hence the closedness of a work of art – and makes immanent only the references which pertain to the particular urphenomenon he
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has chosen. He does not see the particular in the order of the world, but rather the order of the world in the particular entity that he creates. He represents subjectively – by virtue of his freedom from the constraining influence of theitself, happenstance of the real – whatwhich is, objectively, the urphenomenon a representation, moreover, he strives to depict in the most perfect and pure sense. And now to the chief matter of all. In the representational process and by virtue o the representational process itself – of the urphenomenon – the artist penetrates concretely the full content of the urphenomenon with his object, an object which at the beginning of this process was only vague and inchoate, a phase which has been referred to as the artist’s ‘conception’. He then develops and opens out the process urphenomenon, moving on from this conceptual phase, through of representative exemplification – painting, constructing, word-finding, etc. o the artist, the urphenomenon is therefore not ‘given’ at the beginning of the representational process in its full and adequate exemplification, but it is rather the case that the representation is only an outer conveyance of the same entity in a sensory form, or it is conveyed by means of some body of material: what he is aiming at, however, is something he already had in mind. Te painter thus ‘sees’ with the end of the brush, and the drawer with the point where his pencil touches the surface on which he is drawing. For this reason, says Fiedler, even the art itself contains knowledge and cognition. Moreover, this knowledge and cognition is not already therebeore the representation, but becomes so in the course of the realization process, and, as such, it is only attainable through this process, and in all its uniqueness. Again, we see that art cannot be replaced by philosophy. In fact, what the artist does is not just to tag on the urphenomenon and the idea as an afterthought to the work of art – graft them on to it as it were – but make them completely intuitable and represented. Furthermore, the artist manages to make the intuitable content of the work of any art commentary – without any programme as to what he is doing, nor , norexplicit any additional instructions – completely comprehensible to anyone looking at his work, just as if the complete work of art were as ‘normal’ as anything in the world is to any empirical grasp of it. Only then is the urphenomenon – or the idea – completely objectively complemented [by the idea or urphenomenon, respectively], and not half-baked [as it would be if one without the other was presented]. With all this in place, the work of art then says something
to us, it addresses us; it does not merely give us something to think about in the sense of setting up ‘associative factors’. So far, in our delineation of the work of art, we have hardly spoken ative word aboutvalues, aesthetic values, or, indeed, the particularly aesthetic which we call ‘the beautiful’ , and againstunique which,posion one hand, we set ‘the ugly’ as their negative correlate, and, on the other, we recognize an assortment of other associated positive values, such as ‘the sublime’. ‘the charming’, ‘the dainty’, ‘the attractive’, ‘the delightful’, etc. Are these values completely without significance for the work of art? Is art – which is certainly something to do with showing the urphenomenon and the idea – only ‘cognition through representation’? If Fiedler were right, then there would indeed be a much deeper connection between art than I have deemed fit to in givenature, here. For one couldmetaphysics say that theand aesthetic values already realized along with the mutual lawfulness which determines how they crop up in this or that shape or form, are quite sufficient for an artist to replicate, without any need for invoking a philosophical theory of what an artist is doing to be an artist, that I have set out here. But if this [Fiedler’s opinion] were correct, then non-aesthetic values, aesthetically- compromised values, and even aesthetically-negative values, would all be legitimate objects of an artist’s representational repertoire, in addition to the specifically positive values I maintain are at stake, and, [more astoundingly] the same [sort of positive, deficient and negative values] would obtain for philosophy and metaphysics as well. What is correct about this thesis is only this: art is not only a representation of the beautiful – a view which earlier philosophies of art maintained; this is because the beautiful is only a subset of aesthetic values, and not the overriding characteristic of all positive, aesthetic values. Tere are other positive aesthetic values, as well as negative aesthetic values, which can just as well be perfectly represented. What I cannot associate myself with in the above thesis is that the aesthetic values onlyare,objects which mediate representation. are Tey if anything, signpostsknowledge directing through the selection and composition of the representational forms of the objects, which are eventually the representations. Moreover, I cannot accept, either, that anything aesthetically value-free can be a possible object for art. o be sure, aesthetic values are not restricted to art. Tere is, of course, natural beauty or natural grace or natural decorativeness, along with their opposites, and each of these can be found in the organic, inor-
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ganic, psychic and spiritual realms. Even if metaphysics were accepted as valid, and its aim understood as letting the objectively pre-given essences and ideas in the actual world be the thoughts of an infinite, spiritual this natural, objective beauty, thoughasindependent from our being, consciousness – though it could be construed a work of art of this infinite, spiritual being – nevertheless has a completely different meaning from that of the works of art produced by humans, which we normally refer to as art. In the former [supposed works of art] we must disregard reality to see them like this; in the latter [Art] it comes about as an addition to [not a subtraction from] something real, and that is the representation. On the other hand, for philosophy and metaphysics, the aesthetic values, in either art, are only object cognition true judgement uponnature what isor cognised, andanare not of guiding and and directing, selection principles with respect to the urphenomenon and idea. Metaphysics must be true. If the ‘true’ world is additionally beautiful and harmonious, or worthy of esteem, then this is a bonus. o assume this from the outset, as the Pythagorans did, is to overstep the mark by far. If, in addition, the ideas in a metaphysical corpus are felicitously expressed, or the language well-chosen, then this is a second bonus. Schopenhauer’s philosophy is well-written, but this does not guarantee the truth of anything he wrote. Te artistic truth, however, is completely different from the metaphysical version. Te work of art must be aesthetically worthy and essentially true, but does not have to be true in respect of the real; moreover, it must not be aesthetically neutral. Metaphysics must not only be essentially true, but also true in the sense of whether it measures up to the accidental reality; there is no place for aesthetics in metaphysics. Te same applies for all sciences, for example mathematics or theoretical physics. In contrast to Poincaré’s all too Gallic comments about elegance in mathematics, I recommend the down-to-earth German remark of Einstein’s: the elegant I leave to my tailor. certainly , perhaps an number of, equally correctTere logicalareproofs for amany proposition, butinfinite only in the sense that you can get from Cologne to Berlin via America or the North Pole. Tere is no purely aesthetic value of beauty or harmony which will tip the balance in favour of the best proof, of which, in my opinion, there is only one, and this is anyway some minimal principle of reason, similar to that which obtains in physics under the name of the ‘smallest effective route’, discovered by Planck. Each mathematical
region has, in addition to the laws of logic, its own essentially-linked laws of an intuitive minimum of the manifold it covers, which then give mathematical objects their ultimate truthfulness. It isallcrucial that the work of art, not but bringonly to light the realizable essences thatfrom theretheareoutset, in thedoes world, the aesthetically valuable ones. Perhaps, for a more substantial spirit than we humans are, all essences are aesthetically valuable. We humans, however, know aesthetically neutral ones, and they are certainly not objects of art. Fiedler, however, fails to see this. He also fails to understand that, on the subjective side of the process of representation, the sort of feelings and form induced by the aesthetic values are not something that are being grasped by a spiritual gaze of our heart, as it were, but are directing andrise leading through the very on-going artistic conception which gives to theusrepresentation of the urphenomenon in the concrete artistic structure. For this reason, the soul is the artistic history of the change in creative feelings of style, not of taste, which, at most, develops from the created and enjoyed work of art. And this changing pattern of feeling for style is primary, as opposed to technique, and material and sociological influences. Admittedly, the sense of style – in its simplest form – is not first of all a spiritual or reasoning function. It is in its elementary form already effective in the natural perception of the world, and is responsible for the realization of our ‘sensory options’ – if we can so name everything which crops up before any stimulus or normal nerve pathway takes such up. And these too are also aesthetically valuable. Our inner, lawfully organized, drive-based attention also acts in an aesthetic way, in that, out of our ‘sensory options’, it only realizes those whose partial elements are ‘good’ – i.e. with a concise [pregnant] form. For the spiritually – not drive-based – aesthetic feelings this selection of concise forms is only one element in their make-up. And all this is first made at least implicit in a work of art. Finally, westraight come toaway the role fantasy in metaphysics Anyone can tell thatofmetaphysics and art are and in a art. different league from science when it comes to fantasy, and that in art it is much more significant than in metaphysics. But whatis fantasy? and what is its relationship to our knowledge of the essences and to our knowledge of what is accidentally real? We humans have the peculiar ability to create objects, which, if we do create these, must be deemed ‘fictions’, and, although they can have
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no being other than an existentially-free ‘whatness’, which is, though not exclusively so, immanent to consciousness, they are not unique to any individual consciousness, because they can be identified through ariety variety of acts other thanNumber consciousness, and are common to a god vaof other individuals. 3, Sleeping Beauty, and the Apollo as a collective fiction of the ancient Greeks, are such fictions. Fictions are therefore essentially consciousness-immanent, but are not necessarily relative to any one individual or even to a psycho-physical organism. Tey can be either of these: for example, the hallucinated object of a madman, which he only has once; or the content of a dream by a dreamer while he is dreaming it. But, for example, the number 3 – a mental fiction – although a fiction, is neither relative to an individual nor to aSleeping collection of such, but other supra-individual suprapsychophysical. Beauty, on the hand, is notand relative to an individual, but is relative to a collection of individuals. Tis peculiar ability of humans is certainly a productive activity, and not a mere transformation or re-arrangement of perceptual or representational contents, let alone an arbitrary matter. Association psychology knows nothing of such ‘productive imaginative powers’ – a concept which is specific to German philosophy. It knows only a ‘reproductive’ sort of fantasy, and would attribute any fantasy to this. Hume, whose profound acumen makes him the leading light of sensory associationism, posed a question which is quite pertinent to the notion of productive imagination. Can a human being, he asked, who has never experienced a certain colour – for example, a particular nuance of green – bring this forth through his fantasy? or can he only ever have ideas of something which he has already experienced as an impression, which he then somehow copies? Tat we can imagine things that do not exist – golden mountains, diamond castles, the Kingdom of Heaven as by Mohammed – is without question. But can we imagine completely new elementary constituents of our consciousness, as green or red? Hume denies that this possible. But he never such proved his case. What we can definitely sayison the matter is only this: the human being, in general, cannot represent or fantasize a colour which he has never experienced in the form of a sensation. But this does not mean that he can only representwhatever he has actually had a sensation of. It is, for example, quite possible to notice something in a representational object of a representation that one did not even notice in the perception belonging to it. Our natural per-
ception is anyway always three-fold – sensation + memory + fantasy. Te primary representations and intuitively-derived images contain all three, if not more components. Te pure observation of something must be learned – i.e.isfantasy be curbed. Tefirst activity of fantasy in itselfmust anyway neutral with respect to ideas, essences, and even values. In fact, it isblind to ideas, value, truth, falsehood, knowledge and deception, and is an ability of the vital soul. It does not belong to spirit, and is the highest representative function which the vital soul can bring to bear on things – achieving a mix of freedom, liveliness and versatility, which other functions of the vital soul – e.g. sensory perception and reproduction – lack. Its goals can be guided by the ideas and values of the spirit, and it can be aroused by the drives, and,and sometimes, in thisGenerally, latter case,it be whipped up to produce senseless chaotic images. is led to meaningful images – partly serving the spirit, and partly at the service of the drives. Just because fantasy is neutral as to value, truth and knowledge, this does not mean, as it is often taken to imply, that fantasy is hostile to value, truth and knowledge. Te highest and lowest, the morally best and the most depraved, and the truth and the falsehood of an image of the world, can just as equally be a result of fantasy. Fantasy has just as much a role to play in the lives of successful businessmen, statesmen, generals, artists, scholars and scientists, as it has in those of utopians and demagogues, and this applies to their successes and to their embarrassing failures. Anyone who possesses only a meagre capacity for fantasy is simple and insignificant – in whatever goodor bad they do, and in their mistakes as well as what they do know of anything. From a thousand projects of fantasy, only one is ever realized. Even history is a work of partly realized utopias. Fantasy even creates the objects of ideal sciences, such as mathematics, with the aid of pure intuitively-derived matter, such as number or geometric form. In astronomy, just as in physics, fantasy is at work; for example, it is behind model inforthe theatom. relationships positions of positive and negativethe electrons Whateverand thought one has, be it a fundamental one, such as the coming together of intuition with ideation to produce cognition of their respective co-incidental correlates, then this too needs fantasy. Fantasy, therefore, does not necessarily lead to deception and error, but can just as well serve our knowledge of what is real, and even truth itself.
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Now, to the role of fantasy in metaphysics and art. Because metaphysics, which is knowledge of the real, and not simply an insight into ideas, begins at the very point where possible direct and indirect senall its concrete sory experience comesome, to anasend, tings-out – not just in science, which isintuitively-derived only half roundedsetoff in the sensory perceptual givenness – are works of fantasy. Te yawning gap between knowledge of essences and accidental experience – i.e. sensory experience – is filled up only by fantasy. If we renounce the presupposition that there can be an intuition of something which does not correspond to the nature of something real, than we see that it is fantasy that mediates this [translation into the nature of ] something. Te important role which fantasy plays in metaphysics makes meta-
physics againfor closer art than is to science. Tis mightpoetry, seem further support the to theory that art metaphysics is conceptual but this is not a justified step. For the role which fantasy plays, with its intrinsic neutrality towards true-false or evidence-deception distinctions, in metaphysics and art, is completely different in the two disciplines. In the former – metaphysics – fantasy ought to lead to intuitive knowledge of something which is transcendent to sensory perception; in the latter – art – it should lead to the representation of an image of an object in a sensory, material form, which [normally, i.e. outside art] only the essences – the Logos – represent. If fantasy, as we are saying, is blind and neutral with respect to true and false, beautiful and ugly, and other spiritual value-contrasts, and is not something that actually belongs to that stratum of spiritual existence which we call ethical-spiritual in nature, then nor does it belong to the sensory-mechanistic stratum of the soul. Strange to say, the most boundless, bursting, uncritical and confused – in short, unbridled – fantasy, which occurs, for example, in the mad and delirious, has nevertheless some goal. It may be that some simple drive impulse is behind it – hunger, thirst, sex – or some more complicated one, as power, or aggression. changing impulses each such determine theirambition own image, and provideTese the aim of the impulses. But the same fantasy can be directed and steered by spirit and reason, whereupon it is transformed into aesthetic or logico-constructive or technico-constructive fantasy. Tese situations show that fantasy is not merely image-producing fantasy, but can be fantasy for feeling or striving – making up the realm of wishing as opposed to willing, this latter, in contrast to wishing, thereby belonging to the experience of ‘I
can’. We can feel what we have never exactly experienced, and wish for something that we have never personally known. Te activity of fantasy has its place, therefore, in the vital sphere of the living soul,sets and is amechanistic, though automatic, goal-directed. What it going are determining tendencies, butand never mere associative, reproductive motives. Te erroneous way in which association psychology treats fantasy is shown up particularly by the fact that in the early psychic development of a human, as an individual and as a group, fantasy activity is at its height, although even here it is directed to some extent by our spirit. From childhood and youth onwards, however, experience and thoughtful assimilation of this, and, furthermore, because of the coming up against ineffectiveness of pure wishing, school there isofapositivgradual shrinking of thethe realm of wishing. Te philosophical ism, which is poor in fantasy, and which is so prevalent these days, is, in historical terms, an attendant phenomenon of an over-ripe civilization. Te imagination of children, primitive peoples, and certain psychopathological types, are, in the highest degree, ‘fantastic’, and there is a continuous confusion between mere drive-fantasy and reality. But, as every scientific observer knows, it is even difficult for an adult to distinguish the content of an observation from the accretion of fantasy, and this applies to their theoretical reflection on observations, as well. In the same way, as [in the course of civilization] there is a transformation in the realm of striving from what was srcinally a ‘will’ – rainmaking, domination of Nature, indeed domination of Gods – to a ‘wish’, when the impracticability is experienced, so, in each individual’s old age what was once a ‘will’ becomes a ‘wish’. Faced with thousands of such established facts, sensualist psychology and ‘theory of mind’ would still have us believe that the purest and most primary way that the soul functions is by linking up a stimulus with a corresponding sensation, whereas, in actual fact, this is the most derived and [developmentally dilapidated] ever isoccurs. What actually happenslast is way that itthere an srcinal, productive power of imagination, in every living creature in possession of a higher, more complicated, psychic structure, powerfully impelled by the drives of the vital soul, but eventually considerably reduced in mature creatures [humans] to a pure sensory perception, and this is subjected by the noetic acts of spirit to an increasing correction, critique and selection. In the mature and optimal states of a human being it is not extinguished
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or neutralized, but rather enters more and more into the service of the spirit, whose reasoning will curbs the drive impulse, and steers it towards serving its [Geist’s] aims. Te aesthetic felt values of fantasy are then in the serviceand of artistic and its images are taken up by theplaced asensual intuition thoughtends, of metaphysical knowledge, to provide an order with which one can grasp absolute reality itself. Once the essential place of fantasy in the stratification of our spirit, mind and soul is worked out, we have in our hand nothing less than a criterion with which to pose the question, as to whether the very basis of the world, and divine Being itself, might not be credited to fantasy itself, or not.
, , - With regard to the relationship that holds between metaphysics and science, there are two extreme theoretical positions. Te first is the view, known as ‘inductive metaphysics’, as stated by Fechner, according to which metaphysics is only an additional connecting up of the results of the various individual sciences – a quantitative elaboration of their formulations, carried out with the same ways of thinking, intuition and methods, and without a unique sort of knowledge of its own. Tis position knows essentially nothing about the notion of existential relativity and its various levels. A second theoretical position – which itself has several strands – is engaged in a search for the royal road to metaphysics, independently of any individual science. o this approach belong Kant’s definition of a sort ofa priori knowledge based on pure concepts, intuitivism, all sorts of mystical metaphysics, and adherents of dialectical and intellectually intuitive methods. A third approach – which I believe is required – involves a fertile integration of three different sorts of knowledge: the philosophicallyachieved existence-free nature [Wassein] of something, as an a priori venture, equivalent, in our terms, to the ontology of essences of the world [Wesensontologie]; the results of the individual sciences themselves; and knowledge concerning the natural view of the world. In my opinion, the philosophical and scientific components of this triad must both start out from the natural view of the world, but their paths must then radically diverge – indeed oppose one another – in order to achieve what they are trying to achieve. Further, metaphysics is not just
a quantitative elaboration of scientific formulations, but is, in Kant’s words, to do with ‘matters in themselves’ [Sachen an sich], matters with which science has absolutely nothing to do. Its objects and realities lie on another level hand, from those of science – the are absolute existential level.existential On the other the objects of science existentially relative only to: a) possible direct or indirect perceptibility, through sensory intuition, and, simultaneously, on practical alterability of things; b) a spiritual entity tied to a vital, living organism – which gives understanding [Verstand] – but not to a pure spiritual entity; and c) their own actual interrelationships. Tis again is in contrast to metaphysics, whose aim is to know the actual nature of reality – which does not show itself through any direct or indirect perception, nor has anything to do with practical of things, rest on a spiritual entity attachedalterability to a vital organism i.e.and doesnor notdoes showit itself through understanding. In fact, metaphysics must uncover the very forms of intuition and thought in which science interprets things, in order to show what the srcin of these is. Metaphysics itself is only relative to a pure spiritual entity. Metaphysics, in short, aims to reach a position where it can actually ask: How is science possible? For a start [despite what scientists might believe on this point] the sort of reality applicable to, and the existential nature of, the natural world-view cannot be explained through science itself. On the contrary, science takes as its starting point the very environment of the human being that is meant by world-view. What it can explain is only the particular sensory contents of this environment, in terms of sensory physiology and psychology. It is true that science goes beyond the actual givenness of a human’s environment, but this is in a direction which alters what is real – both in a microscropic and macroscopic way – such that science’s Weltbild is generally valid for all possible creatures possessed of sensory organs, not just humans. ItsWeltbild creature in general– i.e. relative remains existentially to to aliving to both spirit and life relative – but not any particular organized version of life. Again, this contrasts with the aim of philosophy, which is to make the various existential forms of anything the subject of a formless knowledge, a knowledge: 1) which concerns existentially absolute objects; and 2) whose relativity to a living creature is cancelled out. As an illustration of the three approaches – natural, scientific, metaphysical
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– consider how the sun can be an object of a naturalWeltanschauung, can be the sun of astronomical investigation, and can be the sun as a being-in-itself [Ding an sich]. Teoretical philosophy point,ofinessences, respect of ponent of it which I referhas to its as starting an ontology notthat in comthe world of science, but in the naturalWeltanschauung. It starts out by studying the latter’s various existential forms, and the laws determining the givenness of these. It achieves this by the technique of cancelling [Auhebung] the existential status and element of reality in these objects, in order to reveal how they look when shorn of this accidental, existential status. In this new state they become what they essentially are – a coincidence of idea and urphenomenon. What I am emphasizing only thatexercise, the direction whichthe thenatural [metaphysical] technique musthere leadisus in this surpassing world-view, is contrary to that adopted by science. Each of the three world-views considered above – natural, scientific, metaphysical ontology of essences – is uniquely linked to one sort of knowledge, and this latter to its own set of values and demerits Un[ werte]. If we now consider the merits [Vorzüge] and demerits [Nachteile] of the three world-views – natural, scientific, phenomenologically reduced world [i.e. ontology of essences] – we shall see that metaphysics itself integrates the merits of all three and evens out their demerits.
In the first place this is characterized by its insurmountability U [ nüberwindlichkeit]. Its merits are five-fold. 1) It gives a sense of reality which neither science nor philosophy can match nor detract from. Phenomenologically, we can still ask what this reality is, and how it is given. It is certainly a specific sort of reality, but the naïve knower of this remains completely oblivious of its ‘one-among-many’ nature. Science, on the other hand, ‘knows’ what is general about it, but cannot account for its very specificity. 2) Te existential forms of the objects of the natural Weltanschauung – i.e. everything which is pre-given to human sensory perception and independent of the human’s sensory organs – have their ultimate basis in the absolute existence of things. In this sense the naturalWelt-
anschauung partakes of absolute knowledge, and even metaphysics must take its cue from what this gives. But, metaphysics must look into whether, and, if so, to what extent, there are regional differences
in entities, and on what of level existential relativity these regions lie. A scientific explanation theofforms of existence is impossible; it can only provide their ‘eidology’ [their general make-up] and their mutual interdependencies, all the time ignoring their particular way of appearing in the natural world-view. 3. Te same goes for the ‘spheres’. 4. Te natural world-view gives adequate knowledge within the boundaries of what is biological and practically valuable. 5. It gives qualities and their respective contrary qualities. Its1.demerits are four-fold. It gives inductive knowledge only. 2. Te entire content of this is objectively, existentially relative to the psychophysical entity we know as a human being. Te entire content will then disappear if we strike out this human being in the order of things. It is therefore ‘anthropocentric’. 3. Te voids of absolute space and time, conceived of as independently varying extents, are phantoms – even artistic fictions. 4. Te natural world-view gives imperfect knowledge of reality, because it only gives that part of an intrinsically much wider realm of qualities which directly affect our particular human sense. Science, moreover, is essentially different, not just in degree, from the natural world-view.
Its merits are that it provides a general thesis as to what reality is vis-àvis the natural world-view – in more exact and more complete terms, and independently of the human sensory organization. It broadens our acquaintance of the world, through technological advances and experiment, and does so in an indirect way by means of mediated thinking. It thereby provides an index [Index] for all the possible experiences that a human being might have of a sensory nature. Its world-picture is conveyed by language [including mathematical symbols], and all other ways of conveying sense or meaning are translated into language of some sort. It only gives quantitative references to anything, and, in fact, merely temporo-spatial co-incidences of appearances.
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It takes over the existential forms and spheres as they are in the natural world-view, and then investigates the forms, not according to any ontological ordering, but simply along the lines in which they are given as naturally perceived So,becomes for example, a substantive entity [Substanz ] becomes an ‘x’ things. and force ‘y’, and this whole formulation of things becomes the model for how any matter of fact is dealt with. In respect of the spheres, the scientific ordering of these [with the huge implication that the first-mentioned cause the later] is: dead – living – psychic – spiritual/mental. As for causation itself, the supposed sequences are: from simple to complex, from parts to whole, and from what is empirically earlier to what is later. Science’s demerits are as follows. 1) for granted phantoms of co-incidences space and time. 2) It takes only explores the the spatio-temporal of the appearances, and deliberately ignores their essence and the effective workings of substances and forces. It is overall a rule-bound, functional relativism. 3) It derives all qualities from quantities, and all sorts of comingto-be from movement – which it anyway regards as merely a change in place. 4) It has no concern for anything that is not controllable by the possible movement of a living creature. 5) Te nature of life remains transcendent to it, and especially so does the nature of mind or spirit. 6) Te nature of freedom – whether an autonomous spontaneity or a spiritual freedom makes no difference – it also by-passes, because it only looks into what would happen if nothing free or spontaneous were the case. Its methodology specifically excludes any sense of wonder and any free action by a person. 7) Its adequation to what there is is nil. It is pure symbolism.
Its merits are the fact that its knowledge is evident, adequate,apriori and absolute. Tis goes for the knowledge that it seeks of inexperiencable reality. Its demerits are that the knowledge which it gives is only of an existentially-free essence, even though it acknowledges that to each genuine essence there belongs some extant entity. Its knowledge is achieved
by veering off in a completely different direction from that intrinsic to the natural world-view.
It is above all metaphysics’ role to integrate the merits of these three Weltbilder, while at the same time setting aside their defects. Tat is why we assign the discipline of the ‘metasciences’ a critical and bridging role between science itself on the one hand and the loftiest problems of metaphysics itself – the theory of the causes of everything. Te claim that we are putting forward here has been far too little appreciated throughout the entire history of metaphysics. On the other hand, there is hardly a major region of science, particularly when it is still in its infancy, which has not claimed, or has been claimed by others, to be itself a one-sided metaphysics. Te basic concept of such a science is then taken for the very nature of absolute reality itself. In fact, one can say that it is almost a law that each major scientific advance has a tendency to accord its particular objective reality the status of absolute reality, and to claim that its basic concepts are what determines this reality. o give a few examples. Mathematics, especially the branch dealing with numbers, ‘becomes’, in the hands of the Pythagorans, metaphysics itself.inrue they for say, whom are numbers. Logic ‘becomes’ metaphysics, the things, case of so Plato, indeed dialectics and metaphysics co-incide – hence the reification of ideas as things. Aristotle’s metaphysics of matter and form – which had the most pervasive and long-lasting influence on Western spiritual history and on Arabic thought as well – is a compromise between dynamic, metaphysical logic and an elaborated biological thesis, with the endresult a metaphysical conceptualisation of existence, whereby the entire world – including inorganic nature, as well as spirit, and God too – are made to conform to this bipartite formula of ‘form’ or ‘matter’. In fact the specific claims of the inorganic and the spiritual in this respect were a closed book to Aristotle, and everything else was what one can call a ‘logicized biologism’. When, in the 16th and 17th Centuries, through Leonardo, Galileo, Descartes, Huygens and Newton, mechanics, especially the dynamic sort, began its triumphant progress through science, this was then hailed as an incursion into metaphysics itself, and the absolutely real was deemed nothing other than the
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movement of very small particles. Materialism is only mechanics made universally valid. In Britain, through empirical psychology, in the form of association psychology, Berkeley, Hume and others, attempted to ground absolutely real in impressions, andwere lawsonly of association. Tethesoul, bodily substance, everythingideas in fact, constant complexes of impressions. Causality was only a subjective constraint brought about by habit to link anidea A with an idea B. Hume wanted to explain the category of things through impressions and ideas and to regard these things as absolute, which meant that he treated the rules of association themselves as absolute. Tis further means that he must have held psychic causality too to be absolute. What the genial Scot did not realize was that in doing so he was also making the th
laws of formal absolute too. On Continent, in the 18as Century, there mechanics was a tendency to regard thethe objects of mathematics absolute objects behind the brightness of our outer and inner experiences, and to accord them the status of absolutely real, and to consider what was absolutely real as comprising nothing more than something mathematically simple, clear and all-pervasive. Tis was instead of seeing mathematical objects for what they actually are – i.e. special sorts of fictions, which we humans use to order and determine the perceivable outer world by virtue of their forms and clear-cut laws. It was only Kant at that time who realized that there was a distinction between the mathematical method and metaphysics. In the 19th Century – after the Romantics had re-claimed the history of the spirit in their terms – metaphysics became a completely one-sided story of human inwardness, and, finally, in the case of Fichte and Hegel, it became the metaphysics of history. Soon after, when the Century was becoming highly capitalistic and ‘realistic’ in character, even though Germany itself was initially left behind in this trend, along came someone – Marx – who proclaimed that economic history and the mundane affairs of humans were the critical factor in the progress of the world, and that all art, religion and science were epiphenomena of this economic history. Ten in the second half of the 19th Century when biology took on a new lease of life, there then arose a biological Weltanschauung of a metaphysical sort, whereby the dead world and spirit alike were deemed outgrowths of life itself, and several thinkers – Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bergson, Simmel, and others, including Driesch to some extent – set about trying to explain life in terms of absolute reality itself. Ostwald, whose background was
in physical chemistry, took the concept of energy, which in the hands of Meyer, Joule, Helmholtz, Carnot and Clausius, had been given a new significance, and explained energy in terms of the absolutely real, and attempted to derive everything matter, soul, spirit and then thoughts – in terms of itsvirtually form and changing–forms. It is at this point that this p‘ hilosophy’, which emphasizes its scientific credentials, feels confident to simply deny philosophy and metaphysics any autonomous status, despite the fact that scientific philosophy itself is one-sided, even childish, in this pretence. In any case, everyone has his or her own metaphysical outlook, whether they know this or not, and it is a grotesque overstatement to make out that the particular science one is studying is the metaphysical, absolute, existential region. But this sort of opinion is hardly if onephilosophy denies anyto independent metaphysical method, and ifsurprising one degrades the status of a mere science. Even to take the view that philosophy is indeed not an auxiliary branch of science, but the queen of sciences or it is nothing, is wrong-headed. Tis would be the case if philosophy’s task were merely to elaborate on the results of science, or to take a loftier view of science as a whole. But this is precisely how pseudophilosophy arises – an anarchic set of claims for why one man’s science should be the absolutely real. One might just as well give credence to a cobbler’s opinion as to why a particularly marvellous set of boots are what is absolutely real. All this talk of scientific philosophy is nothing but journalistic nonsense, and does not deserve serious consideration. But setting aside these grotesque caricatures of pseudo-scientific metaphysics thrown up in recent times – by Marx, for example, as well as by Ostwald – we have to admit that even serious-minded, wouldbe metaphysicians in the ancient past, as well as now, have had grave misgivings and doubts about the possibility of metaphysics. Te very fact that whenever a new breakthrough is made in the field of science that particular individual science is then elevated to be the metaphysical claim ofhas all time, the factofthat throughout its history been along definedwith in terms the metaphysics scientific domain [ever encroaching], which it is not, simply encourage such profound scepticism. Te radically sceptical question then arises as to whether metaphysics will not always be condemned to frame its deliberations in terms of some finitely circumscribed factual experience in the place of absolute reality, or to at least need a basic concept of some such, in the form of a reification [hypostasieren] as Kant called it, in order to have
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any sense of Being-itself. Tis is certainly the position of relativistic positivism, which wants to restrict itself to the laws governing what actually appears, and therewith deny all metaphysics. I myself not abelieve that this radical scepticism only one could do secure clear metaphysical method, and isif justified, only oneifcould come up with a sort of cognition which were strictly independent from the sort germane to the sciences. My own approach – via an ontology of essences – should give the metaphysical investigator precisely the exact theory of metaphysical cognition he has so far lacked. For then, in my opinion, it should be obvious, despite the collective scientific clamour to the contrary, that metaphysics reveals the entire set of human self-experiences and world-experiences to lie at different proximities distances from absolute reality, and,them thatinwithin their very nature, or there is an essential gradation among the extent to which they are affected by the absolute realm – for example, spirit, life, inorganic [are differentially affected in this respect]. In fact, I can go further. If there were one thing in the entire world, that was not party to all possible essences, but was nevertheless party to everything that was knowable in the form of essences and relationships between them which were effective in this thing and which this thing had in itself – in other words, a thing in which all essences of this world came together at the same time – then this thing would be truly exceptional. It would be something with an irreplaceable significance for metaphysics, and of the very first rank among all objects that metaphysics has to deal with. I have already indicated earlier that there is such a thing. Tis thing is the human being. Te determination of its essence and its srcin is then the critical question for metaphysics, as everything else meets up in this very thing. It is actuallyin everything, in an essential sense – a microcosm, just as the old and profound concept put it. Te human is in this way everything. It is numerate and numerable; it is equally an example of mechanics, physics, biology, ology, history and ethnology, and,chemistry, in a certain sense,psychology, an examplenoof theology, insofar as something divine is inside it. Inside a human being and on the surface of a human being one can not only study this human being, but everything else in the world as well, in all the spheres and levels of being that exist metaphysically, and, moreover, from the point of view of all essences and ideas that have ever been realized – and that includes all forms of nature and all forms of the soul. And
this is not all: in a human being alone – in him and on him – we have access to the most supreme finiteact that we know – the form of the being of a person and spirit. Metaphysical anthropology is the focal point of the metasciences. Moreover, we can show that the issue of the nature and the structural make-up of this thing – the human being – possesses at the very least an heuristic priority above all other metaphysical questions, and, if once its nature were clearly known, then not only the human being itself, but the nature of all other things too, would be known. ‘It is not outside of yourself that the gate [to knowledge] lies, but inside you; it is you yourself who bring forth what you seek. Don’t think, moreover, that I am not being serious. Te very core of human nature is in the heart.’ For this reason, the essential nature of what humans are W [ esensanthropologie] is the most central point of the ontology of essences itself, above all other eidetic disciplines, serving metaphysical knowledge. Having given a boost to metaphysics in this way, and set in train a programme for beginning to understand its relationship to religion, mysticism, art, the natural Weltanschauung, science and the ontology of essences, as well as sketching out something of the method we propose to adopt, there still remains one introductory question to lay out: What is the relationship between metaphysical knowledge regarding the nature of what is absolutely real and those sorts of knowledge which we can call knowledge of values [ Wertwissen], axiology – the highest integrated synopsis of values – ethics, aesthetics and the remaining value-sciences?
, First of all, there is no doubt that just as there is a meta-logic and a meta-mathematics, there is also a meta-axiology and a meta-ethics, and that these metasciences must have some significance for the metaphysical knowledge of the basis of the world. Te basis of the world, or, from a dualistic or pluralistic perspective, the ‘bases of the world’ – as its unity is itself a metaphysical problem, and by no means a foregone conclusion – has been intimately linked with the sphere of values by all the greatest metaphysicians in history. Plato’s highest ‘idea’ was for him the idea of ‘goodness’, though admit-
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tedly he did subordinate it to something [even higher] which he called ontos on [unchanging being or the really real], which was itself the Being of beings [Sein des Seienden]. Te entire era of Western metaphysics, hastobeen powerfully influenced by Plato and has which clung on thismost central Greek notion that something thatAristotle, is [anything at all] is also good [auch gut] – i.e. it is good simply because it is – and [looked at from the viewpoint of what is good] the highest sort of goodness is that something simply is, or [alternatively] that a being in itself and through its being a being is by this very fact good. Tis thesis exemplifies [in metaphysical terms] the most intimate link between axiology [the study of value] and metaphysics [the study of what is real] that there could possibly be. Every being is good o[mne ens bonum ], as the Scholastics the meaning of ‘gest ood’ as iridescent [schillerndenalso ] is maintained. dubious, butaking it certainly had the meaning of ‘most perfect’ or ‘most complete’, with respect to its content or nature for what it was. Consequently, the bad and the evil must be of a non-positive sort of being – me on [non-being] – or of a status lacking in being – steresis [a state of privation]. By the standards of our contemporary, Western way of thinking, these categories have become completely alien. Tey simply do not correspond to the way the Logos has come down to us, and how we understand it in our epoch. In fact, very few philosophers would understand it either, and those would be specialist historians of philosophy. Many now would say that it meant that the most perfect beings were the ones with the most perfect nature [i.e. beings are rank ordered, e.g. God higher than a speck of dust]. But this is not what it means at all. It means something completely different. It means that in a perfect being, the being is the participle of the verb d[ as Partizip des Verbums]. Te more perfect, the closer the being of some entity is to the verb, not to some representation of its nature. Tis way of thinking confused the ultimate grounding of all axiology with the theoretical
basis metaphysics. It neither our of own concept value-free being of – for example, science – norknew any sort being whichofwas neutral in value, as opposed to positively and negatively valued, or higher and lower valued beings. Tere are metaphysical systems, for example Buddha’s, whose point of departure is that being – [of a doing nature, i.e.] the verb – is value-unfriendly [werteindlich] – i.e. everything is bad, if it is a realized entity. Schopenhauer, who went along with this, then deemed ‘good’ any activity which subverted this. Nevertheless, the vast
thrust of Western metaphysics, until the end of the Middle Ages, took place under the axiomatic pre-supposition that: It is better that there is something than that there is nothing. A metaphysical optimism lies at Tis the root metaphysics of Ancient Medieval epochs. bewayofofthis interpreting things supposesand a simple connection tween the axiology of the world and its existing entities. o be good, in an ethical sense, means to be and to act in accordance with what is. Making distinctions between values – identifying so-called norms – also follows the same pattern: the most perfect and most realized entities are those which are re-mirrored in the world as the image of the Supreme Being – as Aristotle thought. Spinoza, Leibniz and Wolff took the same view, even elevating its significance. Spinoza, for example, considered thethrough distinction between and false only become apparentthat to us gradations of true adequacy and could inadequacy of our ideas, and, in the same way, good and bad, or good and evil, only became accessible to us in the course of our activities, or our sense of power, or our sense of being able to do things. His thesis was that it were better that everything possible were brought to light than that nothing at all were brought forth. In Leibniz’ case, this tendency is taken to peculiar lengths. In his famous ‘Principle of the better’, according to which God has created the best and most perfect of all possible worlds, the concept of ‘good’ changes to ‘better’, and is no longer linked to existential possibilities at all. For, to the question as to which world is the best or most perfect, he answers – not like Spinoza, who says that it should be the one which maintains the maximum of possibilities – but that it should contain the maximum of c‘ ompossibilities’ [i.e. it should be maximally, internally coherent.] In Christian metaphysics, this categorical conflation of ‘goodness’ and ‘being’ is introduced by St. Augustine, who is concerned to counter the arguments of the Manichaeans – who believed in the co-srcinality of creation. good and evil – and is keen to prove the srcinal perfection of God’s Despite the similarity of the basic views on this matter of Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, the Scholastics and the High Scholastics, on the one hand, and Spinoza, Leibniz and Wolff, on the other hand, there are a series of important differences between the two groups. Tese can be dealt with under two headings. In the first group of metaphysicians, all existing entities – and not just those to do with life and
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reason – are subject to an ongoing, goal-orientated activity z[ielhate ätigkeit], the ultimate aim of which is Being-itself or God. In this way, the value of anything lies in the extent to which it achieves its idea and essential form. Moral goodness a special of this,with because the self-development is [subject to theisvagaries of]case a creature free reasoning. ‘Become who you are ‘ – is the motto. But, in the case of Spinoza, Leibniz and Wolff, this element is omitted from their formulation – to the greatest extent by Leibniz. Te activity, movement and alterations [deemed integral to the process by the first group] are no longer accorded any immanent role, and that is because all three metaphysicians are immersed in the new mathematico-mechanistic version of nature. Te only conditions which anything is subject to now arepurpose. mathematical andwith thesethese makemetaphysicians no allowances isfora value, goal or What laws, emerges situation where the concept of value with respect to good and bad is completely quantified. Te second difference between the two groups of metaphysicians is that whereas the first group recognizes a second dimension of differences between values – in addition to their being positive or negative – the second grouping of metaphysicians do not: this dimension – which disappears in the second group’s formulations – is arank ordering of values according to high and low. But even this rank ordering is, according to comments by the Ancient and Medieval philosophers, one which is based on differences between the existential status of things, namely on the differences between something’s independence. From pure matter, which has not yet got its own existential status, but is only in a state of ‘objective possibility’; on to the realms of inorganic forms and bodies – central point of a mass at one end to crystalline structure at the other; then organic living creatures, with all the numerous sorts of plants and animals; right up to humans and their reason; culminating in angels and the Supreme Being Himself; all these illustrate the tremendous growth independence andconceived intrinsic of generation of extant entities. Te sameinolder philosophers there being a rank ordering of values and degrees of ‘goodness’ to match these, an order, however, which at times was out of kilter with the rank order of independencies. For example the Devil is certainly evil, but in the rank order of forms of being it was superior to the best of men. Nevertheless, the Supreme Being is the ultimate in goodness, because it isBeing in-and-or-Itsel. And human beings, despite being free creatures, al-
ready have within them a constant attachment to higher values which they are responsible to. Te second group of philosophers, referred to earlier, simply did not subscribe to this, because their adherence to a mathematico-mechanistic model of everything doesallnot allow levels it, as this model levels out all rank ordering of values, and discrete of existential status, allowing [at most] a quantification of value differences. In this way, everything – from a stone to a human – becomes increasingly similar and increasingly a non-independent member of the universal mechanism. If this trend were extrapolated to its logical conclusion, then exactly what happened to qualities, purposes and forms, would apply to values. Tey are subjectivized, and attempts are then made to derive them from pleasant unpleasant experiences, or from desiring or detesting states of anororganism, or from some experience of ‘I ought to do such-and-such’ conditioned by an immanent law of practical reason – as Kant supposed. In such proposals, ‘what is good’ is srcinally either what occasions pleasure, or what is desired, or what ought to be. But this boils down to the following: values have no more significance whatsoever for either science or metaphysics. All theoretical knowledge must be value-free. In fact, this conclusion is as unjustified with respect to values as it is with respect to qualities. Te naturalWeltanschauung, for one thing, makes all values appear as properties of things or psychic processes, exactly as it does with qualities. Its anthropocentrism does not consist in the fact that it does this, but in the particular selection of values that it prefers. It simply gives preference to those values which appear on goods which are important for the living processes of an organism, or to those which lead into a particular practical activity. Even ethical and aesthetic values only appear by virtue of the fact that the things which carry them are useful or harmful. Science, then, achieves its value-free object by abstracting from the objective existence of values and from value inherent in beings. treats and Why investigates thethe world ‘as differences if ’ no free and spontaneous actsItever occur. does it do this? It does so because it does not possess the sense or aim to give adequate knowledge about the absolute state and nature of the world, but is only concerned with a symbolic, one-sided ordering of all possible coincidental relationships of objects that might crop up in space and time – an order, moreover, which it makes possible in order to control events through actions and technique. Further, in order to
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control the objective values of the world, it has to adopt the mental set that all appearances are dependent variables of a universal and formal mechanism. Tis follows, becauseonly if the world is considered to be similar to a mechanism it amenable beingthen technically and mastered. Insofar asisthis does nottoapply, all thatcontrolled is left for the world is to be an object of contemplation. Te apparent value-free nature of the world that emerges under these conditions is actually its [artificial] manipulation under the isolated influence of one value alone [i.e. its supposed value-free status is nothing of the sort], precisely to master it, and the value in question normally belongs in an objective arrangement of other values, with a specific place in this arrangement as part of the subdivision of values belonging to life [Lebenswerten]. sees its rolea as an elevation abovewhich boththe thewhole natural and theMetaphysics scientific world-views, vantage point from range of values can be seen in their proper objective character – a vantage point that restores the values to what they are before they are restricted by either the anthropomorphic or scientific constraints. It aims to impart the very lay-out of a philosophical axiology – incorporating both an axiology and ontology of essences by means of an ‘eidetic reduction’. But even this ‘axiology’ gives nothing ultimate. Tis is because each value belongs to an existing entity – even if we do not know to which one it does belong. Metaphysics, indeed, seeks the absolute order of anything good and bad – i.e. seeks to know realized values, not free-floating value-qualities. In fact, its final task – a thesis on the basis of the world – seeks both to know the absolute itself, and to know the highest level of values that obtain there. Te various levels that anything can exist on, and the various levels that something of ‘good’ value – or ‘bad’ – can exist on, must correspond one to another, in fact must correspond exactly, because ontically [actually] it is not a value that founds anything’s existence, but an existing entity that founds a value. At this point in our deliberations we can reassert the truth of what Ancient Medieval philosophers held about the value of a thing’sthe residing in and its existence. What is still true in their collective views on the matter is: 1) it is not a value which founds an existing entity, but an existing entity which underlies a value; and 2) there are discrete levels of value-modalities, e.g. – pleasant and useful as distinct from ‘good’ [agathon] – Aristotle.
But despite this, the whole set of metaphysical positions from Plato’s up to St. Tomas’ contain a profound error. Tis consists in the logical consequence that one has to draw if everything in existence is true tothat on extant entities, butthat if the of good. valuesItis ismade restvalues on therest degree of independence anorder entity has from anything else, and if the contrasting values of good and bad are also derived from the mere status of something’s being extant, then to conclude that everything is good is nothing more than an analytic proposition, which takes no account of the actual experience of whether things are good or bad, or whether any examination of the matter might show up some extant entities to be bad. One can even say that metaphysical optimism becomes merely a bare definition, and even God’sisall-goodness nothingthe butextant a logical fact.isTe actual state that of affairs rather that is although entity necessarily the carrier of value, and is essentially imbued with value, whether we humans find positive or negative value there or not, the most one can say is that everything is value-laden [ omne ens est aestimativum], but not that it is good just because it is there. It has a nature, whether good or bad. Moreover, one cannot make out that the goal of the world or the srcin of this goal must be good, because it can always be asked whether it is not simply bad. Still less can one assume, based on anidea of purpose or totality, that this purpose or totality must be good. For example, it can always be asked about pain whether it is good – e.g. as a way of helping preserve the total organism – or bad. Te situation is therefore that an extant entity must beintrinsically neutral as to whether it is valuable or valueless, and that there is required a special experience as to its nature before we can establish what any extant entity’s nature, over and above [its extantness and nature], is in the hierarchy of good things, and which positive – or negative – value belongs to it. Tis must also apply toBeing-itsel – the basis of the world, which certainly carries the highest form of value there is. value But whether this–value is good, or bad,can or both, ethically blind in – demonic is a question which only beordecided by inquiring into the essential nature and value structure of the world itself. Otherwise, the world could turn out to be utterly bad, while Being-itsel remained utterly good. Te value of an entity is ultimately just as basic a sort of being as is the existence or the nature of an entity. If this is not recognized, then values either become falsely subjectivized – a form of scientificism –
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or become the focus of a dogmatic ‘optimism’. Tis latter stance, which supposes a maximum amount of good co-srcinal with the creative process, of which Leibniz’ version is the crassest, has two quite nefarious consequences. theand overestimation of good in thebetter, worldinsokills the sense and powerFirst, of will action to make the world far as anything can be altered. Secondly, with respect to matters which cannot be altered, it kills – by inducing an illusionary satisfaction with the world – the value and power of an attitude of resignation to the inevitability of certain things, along with a sense of pity at all the suffering in the world [Mitleiden des Weltleiden] – which latter stance is the only appropriate attitude to take towards unalterable evil. Obviously, an overestimation of the actual evil in the world deadens the power of action andnot willbetoo, because it induces a falseeternally resignation to something that may there, or may not be there if certain actions or guided development over the course of history were set in train to overcome it. Whoever views the world with rose-coloured spectacles simply ignores the task of making it better. On the other hand, Marx and the pragmatists do not see that some things – both good and bad – are from a practical point of view unalterable. But this is not the only error of the one-sided Ancient and Medieval metaphysics emphasizing existence. As well as ignoring the thesis that Being-itsel is subdivided into the existence, natureand value of something – and that all three are equal in metaphysical status – and as well as conceiving of value as a derivative of existence, with the further error of equating ‘goodness’ with existence – incidentally Buddha made the same error in the opposite direction when he equated existence with ‘being bad’ – another no less serious error was as follows. Te issue involved is: In which intended act are values grasped, if they are grasped? Te answer given by every single major school has always been, and could not have been otherwise, given their overall philosophical position, that they are grasped in an obscure, muddled and implicit through perception, and thinki ng, i.e. by meansfashion, of the very classes of act, inrepresentation which the nature of what something is is grasped – although each of the schools actually [and erroneously] supposes that the existence of that something is grasped in this way too. Te fact that our spirit and mind, according to the very way it works, has the capacity for intentionally feeling something – at the highest level through preference of something and the setting aside of something else, and through love and hate – and that it pos-
sesses its own irreplaceable organ to do just this – grasp and arrange the objective realm of value qualities – was completely overlooked. Furthermore, what was also ignored was the fact that our reason possesses justasasitmuch growing capacity reveal feelings for the value of things does of ana indispensable tooltofor understanding propositions and the like. It, therefore, has an‘order of the heart’, or a ‘logic of the heart’ [in addition to, and independently o, the propositional variety]. It is therefore a complete mistake when someone like Przywara supposes that feeling for values, preference, love, and hate, are nothing more than ‘implicit thinking’ or ‘natural thinking’. Tis is a reversion to the previous outmoded theory that our feelings are merely obscure and muddled inchoate versions [Vorormen] of thought – i.e. things, which once must fade away.by But, fact, justalone, as ‘red’ and ‘blue’ are notdeveloped, amenable to being grasped ourinthinking neither are ‘pleasant’, ‘unpleasant’, etc. Tough, on this point, Descartes, Leibniz, Hobbes and others, did actually believe that red and blue were only obscure and indistinct thoughts, or tendencies in this direction which were physically linked with them. Tis theory is as false for colours as the former is for values. Te philosophers coming after the above-mentioned, right up till now, completely overlooked the role of intentionality and the real meaning of our emotional life, and, at most, referred to blind feelingstates which were projected as value-free states of affairs. Overall, the independence of emotions, and the fact that they cannot be resolved into will or intellect, was not realized. Te faculty of evaluation was considered a mixture of desire and judgement, or will and judgement, and even love and hate were subordinated to our striving for something or against something. Te entire source of our experience of values, which is actually independent of the specific organization of the bearer of this experience – and that applies even for animals and God – was therefore overlooked. Te fact that values canalso be thought about as inare conceptualisation of values judgements valuesbe – ater–they felt, misled thinkers into or assuming that about they could thought about without first having felt them. A state of ‘value-blindness’ then became ‘lack of judgement’ concerning values, and ‘valuedeception’ became simply e‘ rror’. We claim, however, that the experience of value is one of the most fundamental experiences there is, that it stems from what one can call the‘cognitive heart’, that it grasps not only essential matters in the world
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but in God too, and that it provides certain [sicheres] metaphysical data. Metaphysics has one material presupposition, one which results from the axiology of essences and the accidental empirical knowledge of values, ofandvalues that over is history, is thenot chief showcase for the realization time. which Tis does mean that metaphysics ought to give the mind and the heart a satisfactory world-view [befitting them], in the sense that it should somehow interfere with them or manipulate them in some way. Tis is nonsense. What it means is that the objective world of being portrayed by the heart – the world of values and the heart as the means of grasping these values – builds up a sort of ultimate state of affairs for metaphysics, which it – metaphysics – has to make understandable from the very basis of the world itself. In fact, ifwithout values were able to beforexplained psychologically, theyitself would become significance metaphysics. Metaphysics is nothing to do with the heart, but a matter for understanding and reason. But the ‘heart’s data’, and everything which in the broadest sense belongs to spirit – including conscience, taste, style, and aesthetic and religious feelings – are irreplaceable, and cannot be recast in terms of a metaphysical investigation. Axiology, especially the eidetic variety, i.e. ethics, must therefore be independent of metaphysics, and cannot – as Fichte and Hegel supposed – be merely deduced from some metaphysical hypothesis. Tere is yet another point which the one-sided, intellectual phase of metaphysics completely missed. Tis concerns the ontological order of an extant entity, its nature, and its value, and the totally different way in which these three sorts of being are each ‘given’ to us. Because no-one recognized that the existence of something – its real being – is transintelligible, whereas only the nature of something is intelligible, it was supposed that not only the nature of some extant entity which was accessible to us, or the existence of some particular sort of thing, was able to be known, but even the very existence of something hitherto by our knowledge couldof be known. And although it wasunsuspected correctly appreciated that the value something in an ontical [real] sense is always only the value of some already existing entity whose nature is also already determined, it wasnot appreciated that, in terms of the order in which these aregiven, it is the other way round – i.e. value is givenbeore the nature or existence of anything is given – and that we can only knowwhat something is, and
that it is, if that ‘something’ is loved, hated, preferred or rejected – i.e. if it is felt. Tis principle, that value is prior in its givenness to the other two
fundamental waysandof given being,evidence a principle, moreover, thatevery I have promoted for years, to this effect from possible angle, has been strangely misunderstood. It has been either taken as an ontic priority [which I mentioned above], or as a priority in time itself, rather than in the time ordering of certain given acts. St. Augustine’s views on this, as interpreted by Przywara, are that: one cannot love something that one has no knowledge of whatsoever, but love makes what one knows only slightly into something better and completely known. If that is what St. Augustine did mean, then it would be avis-à-vis completethat contradiction myactual viewsfact, on the the act of love of cognition.ofIn I toopriority admit of that empirically one cannot love something without knowing something about the loved object, nor without there being some appreciation of its existential status – whether real, fictional or ideal. Tere are only two ways in which we can sort out the relationship between two acts of this nature [i.e. love and cognition]. One is by establishing which precedes and which succeeds the other – as St. Augustine did. Te other way is the method I refer to as the ‘limiting case method’ [Grenzälle], whereby one sees what if anything remains when each of the two ‘givennesses’ is [artificially] taken out of the situation. If indeed St. Augustine had said what Przywara alleges he said, then he [St. Augustine] and I would be at loggerheads about whether cognition or love precedes one another [St. Augustine favouring cognition, I love]. But he did not say this, and therefore we are at one on the issue. What I dispute [and this is where both St. Augustine and myself have been misinterpreted] is the time-ordering of both acts [as formulated by Przywara]. I do not say: first love, then cognition; nor do I say: love causes cognition. What I do say is that both are simultaneous, as far as one place measurement of timeit on them.that Looking at the same issuecan using theany limiting case method, is clear one can perceive or remember that something is or was pleasant or unpleasant without knowing what it is that is or was pleasant or unpleasant [i.e. a value remains even if its cognized object has disappeared]. Furthermore, the primacy of the givenness of a value can be demonstrated separately for all such situations – i.e. perception, memory, expectation, fantasy, intuition-free thinking, immediate idea-thinking,
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‘showing’ the urphenomenon of something, etc. It would therefore seem that it is a strictly generalizable principle. Te same holds good for the relationship between the appreciation of theprecedes value of something and of willing. Hereand againtherefore the projection a value the projection an image, love orofhate precede both knowledge and willing, a principle that can be confirmed by the results of developmental psychology: our understanding and will in all matters to do with soul and spirit are first differentiated from a primitive feeling-laden urge [Geűhlsdrang], which itself is not yet either sensation or striving. From these considerations there follow several important principles. First, axiology must not only be independently grounded from metaphysics i.e.situation ethics cannot be based on prevailing the existence or system nature of God itself – but–the is rather that the value determines the structure of a metaphysical system. Secondly, it means that there could be values in the sphere ofabsolute being whose nature remains unknown to any particular individual capable of picking up values. And thirdly, metaphysical knowledge must require a particular emotional disposition on the part of any would-be metaphysician [because if values precede knowledge then the would-be metaphysician must grasp the appropriate values before such knowledge can occur]. Furthermore, such a disposition is not just advantageous, but actually necessary, for such an exercise. Tis special requirement of a particular moral sort of being and attitude before metaphysical knowledge can be attained was well known to Plato, failed to impress St. Augustine, but influenced Spinoza to a great extent. I myself have given a comprehensive account of such disposition in my essay On the Nature o Philosophy. It is precisely what is involved in the technique [of the phenomenological reduction], whereby the element of reality – the individuating principle – is cancelled and the [philosophical] objects [- the aessences are revealed. It is, in such the first place, a disposition towards spiritual-] love for uncovering essences in all things, and the [thirst for such] knowledge is a defining feature of a philosopher from Plato onwards. In the second place, it requires a humiliation of the self in the face of the pure beings themselves, and a propensity to seek out what is absolute in anything by dint of sweeping aside all anthropocentric drives, and, furthermore, all relative values and existential relativities, in particular those which
lead a scientist to seek control of whatever there is. Metaphysics is even that sort of knowledge which surpasses the living part of us. Tirdly, the appropriate emotion which best befits the would-be metaphysician is the thatvalues of reverence, state which facilitates the dim appreciation of of thingsawhose cognitively-determined nature still eludes us. Te central role played by emotion in all this gives the lie to all those who propose that metaphysics can provide adequate and evident knowledge of the absolute. Fourthly, self-control over our driveimpulses and over volitional behaviour in general disposes to: a) objectifization, and b) the cognition of essences. Fifthly, pure sympathetic understanding [Nachűhlen] is a condition for knowing all aspects of the historical soul of the world. Curiously, there are philosophers – Windelband Rickert, for example – who subscribe to the theory, which, since and Kant’s time, has been called ‘the primacy of practical reason over theoretical reason’. I myself was deceived by this ‘residue of Kantianism’ at one time. I am now of the opinion that it is as false as anything can be. It, and its associated axioms, can be formulated as follows. 1) Tere is a primacy of practical attitudes in the scheme of things vis-à-vis theory. 2) Practical matters are what count; not love. 3) Teoretical knowledge, so far as it occurs, is quite possible without any moral disposition for this to emerge. 4) Te appreciation of what we might call a ‘supra-empirical’ object first takes place in the act of fulfilling a duty – in the realization of a pure ‘ought’ [Sollen]. 5) Te existence of anything is nothing but the correlate of a true judgement, namely an ‘existential judgement’, as to what a mental act that I perform demands as its object. Tis means that anything’s existence is merely the X of whatshould be there. Both its existence and its nature are derived from a sort of construed thought of what ‘ought to be’, based on intuited material. 6) All cognition and all knowledge of any kind is related to what is good for us, and their value is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. all this isis clear. the complete oppositeour of the sort of disposition that I setTat out earlier Kant restricted knowledge to whatever concerned our moral duty, and placed the latter itself in the metaphysical absolute sphere. Plato and Spinoza adopted the opposite stance, and ascribed significance to ethics only to the extent that it served pure theory. Tis view on their part, concerning the relationship between ethics and metaphysics, is also false because it is too one-sided. For although an ethical attitude is both a form of asceticism and a dispo-
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sition towards attaining metaphysical knowledge, it is not just these. It has its own value for facilitating our participation in Being-itself, something which can only be achieved by co-executing our will and God’s at our the part sameare time, without which any practical or ethical attitudes on incomplete. If we turn to the actual state of affairs, we must refuse to accept the absolute dualism between the value of something and its existence or its nature, which was put forward during Ancient and Medieval times, whereby an ideal value and validity were taken to be the highest sort of being, and the existence and nature of a being were, in respect of this, considered derived, subordinate sorts of being. Similarly, we deny any claim – whether Kant’s moderate oneor Fichte’s and Rickert’s extreme one – toItthe reason is primary theoretical reason. is effect simplythat notpractical an option to make out thevis-à-vis existence of an object to be a mere exercise in construing sensory material as something, nor to make truth into a value and say that the existence of an object is merely an affirmative proposition to this effect. Tis latter claim is simply to confuse the existence of an object with its possible status as an objective object. ruth is always the agreement between a meaningful judgement and some particular state of affairs. Anyway, truth itself is not a value; only the knowledge of truth can be a bearer of a value for us. ruth is not something that determines an object’s existence or nature, however beautiful, good or pleasant that may seem. For this reason, the expression ‘value-metaphysics’ is nonsense, and so is the idea of a transcendent region of values or truth, while, at the same time, making out all existing things to be immanent to consciousness. Setting aside other errors in the doctrine of so-called ‘value-metaphysics’, its proponents fail to see that theontic [actual] sequence of foundations of the existence, nature and value of anything, one upon the other, is completely reversed when it comes to the issue of how they are given to us [i.e. actually existence and nature precede value, we but values first of before we can know anything’s or nature].grasp Te proponents the above doctrine cannot see existence this because they are wedded to the notion of cognitive idealism, whereby what is absolute is simply a transcendent supra-individual consciousness, a notion I was at pains to refute in my bookOn the Eternal in Man. Tese adherents of‘value-metaphysics’cannot see that the connections between the existence, the nature and the value of something, obey synthetic axioms which are completely independent of our inductive
experience of any of them, and that this excludes the possibility of there being free-floating values lacking any attachment to an existing thing but somehow linked with a transcendent object of knowledge. Tey quite which uncritically a mechanistic and indynamic view offurther natureassume – something is anyway outdated even the field of physics – and compound this error by accepting the outdated tenets of association psychology, with the net result that, in their eyes, the entire field of empirical reality is dominated by a ‘value-blind’ causality, and there is no room for any essential connection between what is real and what is of value, nor for any agent who is driven by values. When Max Weber, for example, wants to free science from any value-judgements he is quite right. Science, strictly speaking, has only a technical and It can make pronouncements aboute.g. its ownpractical values orsignificance. activities, but onlynever set the scene for other conditions, if you act like this or like that, or if you venerate this or that idol, then this or that is likely to happen. o expect science to come up with a theory of the order of values is nonsense. But Max Weber’s refusal to acknowledge the possibility of objective value-judgements in philosophy and metaphysics is completely wrong. In fact, metaphysics assignsscience its place in the scheme of things, and any claim by science that the only things worth knowing are those with a technical purpose precisely shows up its limited role as an adjunct to life. Max Weber is also wrong with regard to his views on history – as the Italian philosopher Croce pointed out. What is realized in the material of history are values which we can come to know, not [as Weber supposes] the imposed norms and values of the present generation – [an example of] relativism. He is right about the causal factors in all historical events being blind to purposes, except if human subjects are involved. But even here he is only partially correct, because, although drives are without purpose, they are not without aims or goals, and are not blind as to but only and blindpurposes as to purposes. In factand theygroups, exert an influence onvalues the intentions of individuals and it is one of the objects of the philosophy of history to study just such matters. Furthermore, as well as ignoring such subconscious and collective factors with which history is steeped, he fails to see that there is also a supraconscious spiritual direction through the agency of the spirit of Being-itself. Even though the spiritual Godhead is not the positive regent, director or steersman of history – as it is in strict the-
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ism – nevertheless it does exert an influence, by virtue of an act of ‘not allowing’ everything to be excluded from happening which could happen according to the blind historical factors, but which now, because of act, can only of happen if it – theand event not clashquality, with thethis absolute system rank ordering laws–ofdoes preferential dictated by the law that positive values are to be given precedence over negative values, laws which we must represent to ourselves as emanating, as they do, from the hold that God’s love or hate has over us. If we consider the Ancient and Medieval interdependencies of the value, existence and nature of anything as unduly optimistic – to be interpreted psychologically as an expression of a youthful and affirmative life-force, a life instinct almost divorced from all logic and axiology – then Because we mustiffurther dub this way of thinking nature. Why? the overriding principle of this‘pantragical’ philosophy in were true, genuinely true, not just words on paper – i.e. that everything, irreal and real, is only brought about by a completely value-blind causality, with no contribution from an eternal and reasonable ‘hand’ – then it doesn’t matter a hoot whether good or bad, or moral goodness or evil, comes into being or not. If one further subscribes to the view that anything that exists is valueless, and that any value is adrift of anything that exists, then this reinforces my view that this way of thinking is ‘pantragical’. Anything thatis valuable becomes so, completely by accident. Tat is what is false about this philosophy. For it denies the axiom that everything is at least ‘of value’. Te only saving grace of this philosophy – in which some relative truth can be salvaged – is its notion that a positive value attaches to something purely because it exists. In this respect it rightly counters the irrational antithesis of this, which is to say that everything which exists is bad. It is further wrong in holding that metaphysics is a purely practical affair, and that science is in any way theoretical. If the thrust of this way of thinking – i.e. that there is no connection between the nature and theWindelband value of anything – is then joined tothe theexistence, thesis espoused by Rickert, and Weber – i.e. that value should be stamped on things – then we have a situation where the only place that this could happen is in theuture. Tis then transforms the ‘pantragical’ outlook into its complete opposite, and we have the situation of a ‘metaphysical value-utopia’ or a Messianic view. According to this way of thinking, positive and higher valuesought to occur in the future. Te major incorporation of this into a historical
context is the Judaic notion of Messianism, whereby there is an eternal ‘coming’ of the Messiah and the Kingdom of God. Here, the Kingdom of God is exclusively promised at each historical moment,but always in the uture a situation which setswould up a spiritual of eternal awaiting. You ,might well ask what happen ifrealm this actually came about? Ah! It would be something indeed! Tis way of thinking – the eternal expectation of something good – is accompanied by a complete failure to heed anything whichis good here and now. It is a romantic notion, at root, a way of thinking which only recognizes positive and higher values as occurring in some impossible fulfilment of a longing for something that was in the past or in the distance – e.g. Ancient Greece, the Middle Ages. It is also a way of thinking one
can callit‘futuristic’ utopian, principal attitude values, which holds as anand apriori law, isbecause that a its sphere is better solelytobecause it comes later, a notion not dissimilar to the Romantics’ attitude to love, which is to the effect that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Te delusion of unlimited progress of mankind, which came to a halt with the Great War, had a similar srcin, as do all epochs where eschatological hopes are prominent – e.g. early Christianity, especially Judaic Christianity prior to St. Paul, the theological beliefs underlying the Peasants’ Wars, the expectation of a Tousand Year Kingdom prevalent prior to the 11th Century, and even the Social Democratic faith in a ‘State of the Future’. It is self-evident to any ‘thinker’ that the opposition of values contained in good – bad or good and evil cannot have the slightest bit to do with whether they are realized in the past or the future. Tere may well be certain sorts of values – or modalities of values – which are of concern in such contexts. It is probably not incorrect to consider that there is a change of vital values over time, and a growth of human spiritual values over history, although we should restrict such considerations to a differentiation and integration of values, because the vital higher organization or ‘encephalization’ of such values is determined by a [pre-existing] spirit itself. Tis re-organization opens up new avenues for spirit. It is utter nonsense to expect that the qualitative contrasts between good and bad or good and evil somehow become experienced as more marked, or that their equilibrium is altered, through any such process alone. A human being does not become more evil or better in the course of history, because whether he is good or evil remains a free act of the
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person that he is, whose source is ‘suprahistorical’, and he adopts good or evil intentions from a whole host of factors involving the make-up of the circumstances and ‘matter’ of his life. Good and evil have always been around, whatever the particular ‘ethos’, vital circumstances or environment, which have obtained, and even if sometimes the same action which is deemed evil in some epoch is now deemed ‘good’. It is not in the action itself, let alone the consequences of an action, that the seat of what we call good and evil lies: it is in the actual mental disposition [tatbereiter Gesinnung]. A law whereby there is a moral progressivity in human affairs simply does not exist. Nor could there be any, as long as there is ‘freedom’, the existence of which only science, for its own practical purposes, ignores. What there is, is an ever increasing development of human affairs ], in which what good or evil is becomes ever clearer and[Angelegenheit ever more significant for the final sense of the world. From God’s point of view epochs are all immediate. Tey do not undergo ‘self-mediatization’. Each epoch and each individual has characteristic determinations and goals. Indeed so does each day. Tis ‘call of the day’ is not something that anyone else can heed [ist nicht ersetzlich]. It does not obey general norms which derive from generally applicable values. It is a matter for each person’s individual conscience and the rules they live by. It can be obeyed, or it can pass by unheeded. What happens in this respect depends on a person’s intuition and their freedom. Te developmental tendency of history, which is always there, takes its course only when I or you act not as another with respect to this or that directional sense or value, but when we take on the full weight of our free personhood. Te value and sense of history do not lie in some srcinal state of affairs – as Romanticism would have it – nor in some end-state, but in the meaningful cooperation across generations, epochs, peoples, races and cultural groupings: in fact, bringing to fruition that which from all periods is to the good and which promotes higher values. History could have taken an entirely different theworld. one it Even did atthe each historical moment. History is notcourse the lawfrom of the future of history is not a foregone conclusion, given what has gone on beforehand. Humanity can end up as a state of holiness or as complete villainy. Which outcome ensues depends on how it is ‘personally’ led, and this lead is dependent on the extent to which the leading is in tune with the basis of things [Grund der Dinge] or against them.
Te Godhead makes itself felt, not just in either allowing or preventing actions – the means through which it steers the course of history, and through which it can avoid bad and evil or neutral events happening – but it which also has part to called play inkairos an epoch’s moment’ – something thea Greeks – and in‘creative moulding those abiding leading figures and iconic symbols of history, who then influence the leaders and trend-setters within each age itself. History is not something which sweeps everyone along. A man or woman is not someone who is simply enveloped by history, but rather someone who includes himself or herself in it. Te human being is rather the mode in which all values are taken up, and history is only an attribute of humans, albeit a necessary one. n[ ebenhistorische Inhistorically-inert each era there are ‘supra-historical’, incidental ], and [unterhistorische ] events going on. Metaphysical knowledge, a prayer, or an act of love – even if no-one notices them – are ‘supra-historical’ matters, and no less a matter because they are ‘supra-historical’. Anything which does not impinge on the overall course of human things is nebenhistorische. My pure sensory pleasures or pains, for example when a tooth is extracted, are unterhistorische ‘ ’ matters, no less matters because they are historically-inert, but below the threshold which is historically noteworthy. It is historically important that Caesar or Napoleon, or indeed in our day Mayor Soundsa, died. But whether they died of a fever or a heart attack is not a historical matter. Te sun at Austerlitz is a historical fact, because it influenced the outcome of the battle, and therefore is still significant today. But although every dawn which breaks or dusk which falls on a simple human dwelling is a fact, as is the mountain peak glistening at sunset a fact too, they are historically irrelevant. Even though knowledge, beauty, hate, goodness or evil, are all connected with every single fact, this does not turn them into a historical value either. What is the essence of a historical fact, then? It is a fact which is and which also exerts some influboth relevant in respect a valuegrouping, ence on the fate of someofhuman in short, an effect on the ‘social person’. Merely having a great effect does not turn a fact into a historical fact. Te Japanese earthquake is nothing like the Great War in terms of being a historical fact. Consider the relative significance of the two slogans: No more earthquakes! No more war! But a historical fact is not something which is merely relevant and flows from the act of an individually free person, as Rickert thought. At the very least,
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history is something that always contains something good about it, but it is party-politicking to think that history can be twisted to suit whatever value – good or bad – one happens to hold. Te historian must be open to values which he actually did not appreciate before his studies. Tere are ‘forms’ in which ethics, taste and thinking, occur over time, which are historically relative; and judgements as to what is good or evil, true or false, beautiful or ugly, must take these into consideration. But these ‘forms’ themselves must be measured against what is ‘given’ to the person as eternally true, good or bad, i.e. what is ‘given’ to the free, ‘supra-historical’ and ‘God-counselled’ person. All specifically philosophical disciplines concerning values must be strictly independently grounded vis-à-vis metaphysics. Tey can never be from any will, metaphysical theory,Hobbes, for example something thatdeduced is posited by the as Duns Scotus, Kantasand Wundt thought. Nevertheless they are just as significant for metaphysics as any other new sort of givennesses.
: [ ] 1. Because srcinally the vital act which gives us the fundamental sense of reality gives this as a pre-givenness with respect to all other sorts of givennesses – for example, spatial and temporal manifolds, existing entities and their form, the existence of anything itself, the value of anything, and, particularly, what anything at all is and its interconnection with anything else – and is definitely not given after these – then [if this vital act is considered cancelled] what is left is of a restricted nature – lessened in scope – with respect to the fullness of what is given. 2. Belonging to the sense of reality – a sense that things simply are given as they are – there is a whole host of other fundamental sorts of givennesses concerning the natural and scientific worlds, givennesses which must also drop out if the sense of reality fails – or, better put, if the vital act which determines this sense of reality fails. Te loss of such co-givennesses and post-givennesses, which are essentially linked with the givenness of reality, have in common the effect of restricting
the fullness of what the human mind can achieve and conceive, namely the appreciation of the range of chance happenings and accidental beings-so of anything. In place of this, however, a human subject will divert the released energy into theaccidentally mental act so of and love,so, with result that, instead of anything’s being thethe very essence of anything will stream in to that subject, who, by virtue of having a latent mental apparatus capable of appreciating the essence of something, will begin to grasp the essential structure of the world. A detailed exposition would show the strictly determined order in which such matters disappear along with the sense of reality. Here is a provisional list of what and in which order such matters disappear. i) Te first casualty is the absence of any reflective knowledge of,and therefore of, the our matters whichofhave as we shallconsciousness see – it is srcinally suffering the disappeared. resistance of For the – world to our vital drive impulses, whose srcinal undifferentiated root I call Lebensdrang [the urgency of life], which sets everything going for us, including the very fact that one can be conscious of anything, although this last is a mental act whose functional basis involves will and attention. Nevertheless, everything stems from this srcinal resistance, and the srcinal subjective experience of suffering. ii) Next, there is a disappearance of all qualifying reference points to matters, leaving everything in the form of two basic sorts of being-so: a generally pure manifold devoid of quantification or actual number; and a pure interconnection of essences. iii) In particular, there disappears all causal interconnections, because reality itself is the basis of all such causes. Te result of this is that the reduced world is a perfectly adynamic world – nothing has an effect on anything else any more. With the prevention thereby of any effectiveness of things impinging on either life’s urges or subjective will, which between them account for all ways in which activity can be experienced, this in turn precludes all known interaction between things themselves. iv) Tere then disappears that which people have long falsely held to be the ‘principle of individuation’ – it were better and more correct to call it a ‘principle of singularization’ – which is anyway not a ‘principle’ of singularization, but merely an index; this index is space and time, as an apparent void underlying things and events, thereby creating a sense of the ‘here and now’ or background and figure. Furthermore, the function [vital act] which gives the primary experience of
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the world as resistance, and the functions which provide an overview of the fluctuating changes in the attention guided by each drive, which are the source of givenness of this void, are tightly bound together. [So ifvessel the sense of reality cancelled, is theremains fictitious[in sense of an empty waiting to be isfilled.] Whatsothen thereduction ] is a heterogeneous extension lacking magnitude and measurability – which changes with the qualities to which it belongs – and in effect is determined by these qualities. emporal and spatial extension, as the appearance of dynamically conditioned acts of what is itself extended, are not yet differentiated in this residuum. Of the two special forms of separateness, namely ‘next-to-one-another’ and ‘after-one-another’, whose givennesses set in train the givenness of a ready-made void, there is no trace whatsoever. v) Reality is therefore prior in its givenness to any spatial or temporal manifold – a principle, which, apart from his notion of the thingin-itself, even Kant correctly recognised, as did Spencer. And reality itself – not space and time, nor, as Husserl seems to assume, time on its own – is the true principle of singularization : whereby an accidental being-such of something is determined by an accidental being-so, and this means that the singularization which is the spatial-temporal here-and-now is first a consequence of the being-such of reality. Tis makes it first understandable that there is in space and time something already conditioned, and that these two modes of things are not merely arbitrary ways of altering the order ofthings, but rather they allow a translation into the ‘language’ of space and time of something already in absolute reality, a such-and-such which already belongs to the real. Kant, who denied that our mind could know anything emanating from the realm of absolute reality, and who considered time and space to be positive forms of intuitive knowledge, and who falsely thought that things and events preceded time and space ni the order of givenness – whereas, on this last point, they result from a negative sort of looking away from what is given to us of the real in the form of resistance – because of his views on all these points can no longer derive the actual order of conditioning which I regard as correct. His scheme may serve the investigator of natural philosophy, but extension, and certainly time and space, are not part of absolute reality. If, however, it is real being itself, or, more correctly stated, the existence of anything itself, which is the srcinal source of what can be given through its effective resistance to us, then this itself must be the
principle of singularization. It therefore follows that with the fading away of the reality factor [in the reduction] as a correlate of the two centres – Lebensdrang [life’s urgency] and will – all that is left in the form of awhich residuum are pure essencesknowledge and their and structural matters are open to intuitive which connections, we call ideas and forms. vi) With this in mind we need to stress that what remains behind [at the stage of the reduction we are considering here] is not, as in Husserl’s philosophy, the accidental such-and-such of objects, as in his example of the apple tree in bloom. For all empirical-accidental such-and-such’s are correlates not of intuitive knowledge of essences but of bare observation, which is itself dependent on a pre-existing intuitive knowledge of essences to direct it, and is empirical and accidental by virtue of the further factand thatguide it is also dependent on a co-given spatial and temporal lay-out for its very status as accidental. So, if the givenness of reality is abolished, with it is also abolished the whole realm of accidental such-and-such, leaving nothing but the pure and typical essences of things behind, all of which are available for intuitive knowledge and thought. Husserl’s specific mistake on this point, a Platonic one, is that he alternates between two meanings of e‘ ssence’: sometimes treating it as an ‘ideal species’ – an abstract object obtained through ideation; at other times as an essence, but meaning by this an ideal existing entity above and outside concretely given things, and even requiring a special sort of mental technique for it to be grasped. Te essence is however only the typical identical such-and-such content of the things themselves; it is certainly not derived each time from its distribution in what exists, but is there before this distribution, as an example already achieved and seen, in which form it is seen again in conjunction with an appropriate event. Te same form, for example a triangle, is really immanent [experienced as it is] in many triangles; the self-same is to bewea meet. human accompanies the factualexperience experienceofofwhat everyithuman Anbeing idea is above all a certain amount of particularity, in which form it realizes itself. Husserl does not want to allow this identical, immanent whatness to inhabit many individuals, the reason being that he assumes that such whatness simply cannot really be inherent in many individuals. Setting aside the issue of the existence of anything necessarily stemming from reality, he believes that everything is a chance consequence
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of being here and now. Tis is erroneous because the givenness of existing entities and the givenness of reality – as well as existent entities themselves and reality itself – precede the givenness of time and space, and thescheme. latter givenness confers the placeright of anything in the overall Aristotle, simply not Plato, was generally in this respect, in that he saw that a universal was presentin anything, even though he made the nature of the essence of anything too closely linked to a concept, jumped too readily to the conclusion that these were bound to the dynamism of a living organism, and did not distinguish between the genuine essence and an empirical concept. If, however, as Husserl assumes, or seems to assume, time were the principle of singularization, then with the cancellation of the reality element the individual nature of a the chance the same particular redness something, sameoccurrence nuance of it–one.g.several red spheres – could not beof replicated. But a mental action and technique which renders the world ‘irreal’, and cuts out temporal and spatial givennesses, would simply make the notion of an ‘ideal species’ over what was given, or the notion of a special direction of gaze, redundant, as theoretical explanations for how we achieve a universal. A perfectly carried out irrealization of the extant world would both ‘de-singularize’ itand enhance an ‘essentialization’ of it at the same time. Certainly, there is a proviso to what we say. We are explicitly saying only that if the reality of the world is envisaged as cancelled, then its essential connections would be available to intuitive knowledge; or we are saying that the world would then be a residuum of essential structures. We are not saying that such essential structures emerge automatically. Knowledge as to the intuitive essence of something; an idea of something which reaches us in immediate – not discursive – thinking; and the simultaneous conjunction of the two – intuitively derived essence or what I call the U ‘ rphänomen’ and idea – which together give us what I call the ‘Urwesen’ [core-essence]; all these come about through theingivenness, in which case knowledge the essential nature ofthe theirrealization world standsofout all its purity. But such is not yet complete. For this to happen, it requires a positive contribution from the mental act o love, which then ensures that essences and ideas appear in their complete form, a process which only occurs if the energies of Lebensdrang [urgency of life] and of the will are disempowered.
vii) Tere then disappear sensory states. If the reduction, in my sense, is perfectly thought through, there remains in the intuitively derived sphere of knowledge – or in its correlate, which I call theBild‘ sphäre [realmwith of images] that remnant of of thethegivenness of the world ’which, respect–toonly the sensory features natural world, is: a) completely independent of this; and b) pre-given to it, in the form of non-sensory features such as essence, idea orUrphänomen. And in the sphere of pure thinking – or inits correlate which I call the non-intuitive Bedeutungswelt [the world of non-intuitive meaning] – what is wiped out is everything to do with the subjective access of our discursive thought to the unities and subdivisions in which matters are conveyed to this sort of thinking e.g. propositions, concepts,
conclusions; nothing remains of this, nor of thewhereas versionswhat of truth falsehood appropriate to this sort of thinking, doesand remain is an opposition-free sphere where the facts of any matter are also free of the constraints of time and space and are available tobe realized in existing things. Tis remnant forms a purely logical sphere of meaning dimensions. We also call this sphere ‘the sphere of ideas’, in sharp distinction to the objects of all merely empirical and accidental, historically changing concepts, which, for their part, are actually under the direction of idea-thinking, but are directed to the sensory given material of existing matters and reality, which our subjective activity, whether automatic or artistically based, works on. o describe this state of affairs as applicable to the realm of ideas is a gross mistake, already of Plato’s, and of Aristotle’s, and unfortunately of still many philosophers today, Husserl, for example. On the other hand, to deny that the essence is part of each concrete whatness is no less serious a mistake, and indeed is the greatest mistake of all nominalism. viii) Qualities, values, forms of existence (categories), and quantity, finally achieve in the reduced and irreal givenness of the world an equally fundamentally altered status. Depending on the extent to which the factor disappears, then For grows meaningfulness everreality intuitively given fullness ofthere qualities. thatinaspect of reality onan which the vital drive-based attention is directed is only those qualities of existing things in reality which can act as signs for that subdivision of the multitude of things, properties, samenesses, similarities or collective effectivenesses in this reality [which have a vital relevance to that living organism]. Tis means, however, that they block off all those potentially intuitively-knowable qualities which this system of
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signification [i.e. signification for us and me] finds dispensable [which do not have a relevance for that living organism]. Tenceforth come, so to speak, free-floating qualities [in a reduction which cancels out the above a thing’s colour, a surface’s colour, andvital an relevancies]. area’s colour,Te are quality all suchoffree-floating qualities. Even here, there will be oscillations of the vital attention between real unities and those given as existing objects, both of which are given prior to the bare quality. [Te reduction] leads via a movement process to a situation where the appearance of qualities, as experienced by a living individual in a time-based system, would become fuller in richness than in the natural world-view. For, as Hering has shown [in the natural world-view], only those possible qualities which are of use to an organism for distinguishing things,Te happenings, and causal quences of events, enter its awareness. same principle, whichconseKatz first showed in the case of colours, applies to all modalities – touch, smell, hearing. Te order of matters is not yet definitely known, but, in the case of colour, the precondition is an area, followed by a coloured patch, and then the purequalia. Tis order, which is certainly the same for all qualities which have been studied, has a direction which conforms to the rule that there is an increasing detachment of qualities from the real world to which they were srcinally joined, a detachment which is intensified in thereduction. But there are still two other directions in which thereduction frees up the qualities, so to speak. In the order of givennesses, reality and existing entities – things, activities – not only precede the qualities, but so do the unities of form precede them, in so far as qualities can only become objects of knowledge in the natural world – whether in consciousness or subconsciousness – if they are foundations for the pre-intended form. Te reduction, to the extent that it succeeds, distorts this by imposing a new limitation in the givenness of qualities, to no lesser extent than the reduction’s effect on existing reality, by, in the present case, enforcing a ‘uniform’ so toway, speak, on matters. Forms, whose whatness has been limited in ,this become, in thereduced world, independent objects – and known through intuitive knowledge and not sensory knowledge – and each then exists as a ‘one-off ’ version of a pure essence. riangularity or a trochaic rhythm are always the same whatness or form. Te nature of triangularity is not affected one jot if things that were triangular become square – as Lotze realised – nor is the nature of red or green if red things become green.
Furthermore, all the drive-based, conditioned preferences among the various qualities, some before others, a matter which cannot be elucidated here, collapse in thereduction. Te fact, that, for example, the [eventual] andqualities gaseousof– the qualities touch areso given beforequalia visualsolid, and liquid auditory same of stuff, and–are by virtue of their obtrusiveness for the vital drive attention system, is completely abolished in the reduction. Such matters are rules of the natural world-view, determined by the vital values which decide what can possibly come into existence for a living being and be clothed in a certain way. All this falls by the wayside in thereduction. Te natural tendency in the natural world-view to prefer something good for life as opposed to something bad – a rule which applies equally in rememreduction bering, perceiving expecting – is cancelled outrespect, too in the , and is replaced byand complete indifference in this a fact which alters the preference for or against each stem of, for example, the pairs – fast/slow, warm/cold, bright/dark, small/big, little/much, active/ passive, etc. Also in the reduction there is a falling away of the temporal and spatial perspectives determined by interest [i.e. what I am interested in normally looms large and near], perspectives which are completely different from those presupposed by mathematical notions of space and time. Furthermore, the realm of meanings itself, whose subjective correlate is human thinking, is no less perspectival in character than the contents of intuition, whose subjective correlate is intuition itself;even science cannot completely overcome a perspectival view on matters, and its perspective on the givenness of the ‘noetic cosmos’ it investigates is equally as srcinal as the perspective of intuitive thinking, and is certainly not a derivation of the latter, as most philosophers and scientists alike assume. From amongst the myriad meanings of things, our understanding extracts only that tiny fraction which is appropriate to the cultural and historical norms of our natural world-view. For
example, as aover European 1922, theI have natural black, longish thing there isin‘umbrella’! thismeaning meaning of in athat different way from the thousands of statements that I can make about this umbrella. Te meaning is given to me automatically in my intuitive thinking, certainly in complete contrast to a primitive Negro, who does not know this meaning at all. In object agnosia this meaning can also be lost to an adult European who once had it, without any accompanying loss of the status of the object at the image level, or the various visual
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and tactile aspects of this image, a fact which all forms of rationalism can never explain. Te interest perspective at the meaning level ensures that out of the myriad meanings in the natural world-view only those elicitUseful the interest of a thinking subject are which addressed. plantsand andvalue usefulpreferences animals become sharply separated from other plants and animals by the rich vocabulary concerning the former. Science manages to overcome racial, national, professional and class differences in ideology to achieve its noetic cosmos, but cannot overcome the general human vital interest perspective. It even surmounts all differences ascribable to particular sensory organizations in the animal kingdom, but never the constraints which intuition imposes on the range of sensory awareness overall [– the bounds of sense]. Teself-same vital driveroot structure andtheitsperspective accompanying interest perspective is the of both attached to intuition and that attached to the realm of non-intuitive meanings, and this remains so even in the course of the reduction, even though other functions and avenues of meaning are opened up. Finally, the reduction leads, in the measure to which it is successful, to a four-fold blocking of the givenness of qualities achieved through intuition. Tis affects and distorts the ‘natural’ tendency in the following four respects. a) First, it affects the spatial and temporal statistical summation of the inconsistencies of events, which normally favours the emergence of constant images and therefore simple objective ‘urqualities’ [e.g. red and blue, sour and sweet]. b) Secondly, it affects the preference for regularity above all in any sort of happening; this normal trend stems from seeing what benefits there are in regularities in the actual events which have a bearing on life’s needs – as in the expression voir pour prėvoir. c) Tirdly, it affects the overall trend in the natural view to interpret the world in quantitative terms. d) Tere is a tendency, finally, – other things being equal – for the phenomenon of movement to be preferentially experienced at the expense of an alteration inastate in the the sun normal state a fluctuating shadows under tree in can be seen[e.g. as the same shapespattern movingof or as shapes altering] – this too is affected; there is a further normal tendency for the alteration of one form to be preferred over complete transformation of that form – this too is affected; and, further for such transformation to be preferred over a pure change in qualities – this is affected too.
In addition to all this, there are distortions to do with the effect of the ‘reduction’ on space and time. A constant image in space – which is inexplicable from a physical point of view and aisbare onlynoema explicable or rather biologically, and is never at anpsychologically, unconscious level, as Helmholtz thought – is actually, in the normal state, for example, the inherent colour of a visual object as distinct from the colour of the light illuminating it. However, if the structure of solid things is undermined in the ‘reduction’, at its very root, by removing the givenness of objects, then this difference between inherent colour and the colour of illuminating rays is completely levelled out. Te constancy of an image in time is given in the duration constants of colours,Jaensch shapes, has andrecently the apparent of derived visual things. Tese appearances shownsize to be not through associations, or empirically through some value-indifferent unconscious inference, but to actually form the basis of these very associations and any value-indifferent conclusions. Te very notion of a so-called stimulus X or Y as a real physical object is nonsense [see my Arbeit und Erkenntnis, in particular]. Tese time constants are in fact biologically preferred rhythms which determine the facts that we choose: straight lines as opposed to crooked, a circle rather than a polygon, and a regular polygon over an irregular one. Furthermore, these preferences have in common the rule that qualities can only emerge into experience in the natural world-view in so far as they themselves are appropriate to the forms and founding relationships of things. Tis then has the consequence that possible qualities with no such appropriate link with forms and foundational relationships are simply suppressed. In the ‘reduction’ all such preferences are null and void, and so qualities which were suppressed can emerge into the daylight, so to speak.
, - , , Whatever some entity is – however simple and indivisible in itself – it breaks down into an image content and a meaning content, whose reciprocal coincidence then provides the full concrete version of what it is. If we now consider the intuitively derived image content to be the genuine nature of something – which we designate the ur-phenomenon or ur-image [Ur-bild] – and consider the meaning content to be
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the genuine idea of something, then the unified coincidence of the two makes up the very ur-essence [Urwesenheit] of something. Tis uressence precedes, in the order of things, all existing entities, all reality, and even thealong accidental being-so of something it through our senses, with the empirical concept ofasit we thatintuit results; the uressence is an aspect of God’s essence itself, making up part of the Supreme Being. In that I maintain that we first achieve the ultimate evidence of something – in the sense of being mentally illuminated as to what something is – through the reciprocal unity of the coincidence of the intuitive correlate – image, ur-phenomenon – and the thought correlate – the empirical meaning of the matter in question incorporated by its idea – and evidence, I consequently graspwhereby this coincidence consciousness as ‘subjective’ a process an objectincomes to present its intrinsic nature, my formulation of all this sets me apart from all those thinkers, such as Plato and Husserl, whom we can designate as predominately rationalist or intuitive in orientation. A rationalist philosopher – and this applies whether they are objective rationalists, like Plato, Aristotle, and the Scholastics; or whether they are subjective rationalists, like Kant, or, particularly so, the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism – is characterized as follows. He or she takes for granted that it is first of all thethought of something which gives to theunconditioned, formless and disordered stuff [Hyle] or primary material, which is the intuited material, its ‘objectivity’, its ‘order’, its ‘bounds’, and its ‘form’. A definite fact, for these philosophers, first becomes so through the possibility of agreement of the stuff of the intuited given with the purely fictional concept, which is, so to speak, ‘cut out’ of this stuff. Whoever, for example, would go along with Plato, Helmholtz and Natorp,and maintain that the individual tree standing before me is actually a conceptual object which directs the synthesis of sensory appearances in a particular direction to make this object, an object maintains itself astoitthe is across differentconcept intuitedofaspects which which can crop up, adhering same general tree regardless of what any individual tree might be, and whose concept first sets the boundaries of the non-being of the stuff of sensory givenness, that person is in this sense a rationalist. Te ramifications of this way of looking at things are extensive. For example, it pervades the modern theory of knowledge, which, in conformity with modern science, has shifted the notion of objectivity from types of things to rule-governed
relationships as a central tenet, and indeed sees reality, and the very existence of an object, as part of the lawful interconnections of nature, and then relegates everything of an intuitively-derived nature to ainquestionable or unjustifiable claim against our reason. Whatofweanyfind this line of thought is precisely a one-sided correspondence thing intuitive with a rational version of the object. Closely and essentially linked with this rationalist theory, we find a particular theory of what intuition is taken to be. Te intuitive givenness is first of all deemed to be relative to the human make-up, and therefore to have no validity for the nature of the thing in itself. Furthermore, intuition is regarded as providing nothing which does not derive from sensory data, or from some developmental product of this. In other iswords, anybeholden pure intuitive of grasping of the nature of something basically to an sort unproven sensualist theory. If this last assumption were true then we would be correct to infer that everything is only intuitive and humanly relative. It is, however, false if any one of the following is true. 1. It is false, if intuition allows direct contact to be made outside of ourselves with the nature of existing things. 2. It is false, if the essential givennesses provided by intuition are not in the least bit derived from specific sensory material. 3. It is false, if the sensory phenomena, which all intuition in any natural outlook on the world and which all scientific observation assumes to be primary, are in fact secondary, and only occur as a special or selective case, and that what is primarily given to intuition are forms and structural unities as part of the milieu. 4 It is false, if the materialization of all intuitions of what is intuitable is not a purely receptive affair – as Aristotle and Kant both assume – but is tied up with emotional and volitional factors, in other words is drive-based; or, put another way, if not only is the principle wrong that ‘nothing can reach the intellect that was not once in the senses’ is the claim that ‘nothing can reach intuition that was not once in, but theso senses’. 5. It is false, if, finally, it is not even in the intuitive grasping of what something is that one arrives at what is primary or secondary – i.e. it is not purely intuitive or rational knowledge that counts – but it is the combination of the two – apriori intuitive knowledge and aposteriori sensory acquisition – that make up evidence for something.
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If we could show that a ‘free-functioning’ mind, released from its dependency on the exigencies of life, takes its bearings, not only from thought but equally srcinally from intuition, then the whole edifice of rationalism would come tumbling Rationalism, however, not only down. owes its continuing influence to a false understanding of the meaning of things to be gleaned from intuition, but also to a false over-estimation of the role of pure thinking in the human enterprise. It is not intrinsically false that rationalism should ascribe an overall role to thought in achieving a valid measure of what things are, or that it should maintain that only through thought can there be a definite element of ‘what’ something is, which can never be gained through intuition alone. All this – which nominalism, andtrue. the intuitivism of Bergson and Husserl line –pragmatism, is undoubtedly But rationalism – and these offshootsunder– fail to see that thought and its correlate, the sphere of meaning, is, above all, essentially divisible into, on the one hand, a human and sociological component – which is relatively reflective and discursive as an act – and, on the other hand, a valid act in its own right, which grasps the nature of something in an immediate fashion. In this way, intuition and thought both break down into humanly relativeand non-relative factors, as do their respective correlates which provide a version of what something is. Rationalists, in all eras, despite differences in the precise way in which they formulate matters, have no satisfactory answer to the trail-blazing analyses of Emil Lask of a sphere of thinking which he called the unnatural sphere [gekűnstelte Sphäre]. Te rationalist simply assumes that there is only one sort of thinking – subjective, mediated, reflective, and discursive, and to which labels such as conceptualization, judgement and inference are given, along with the correlate of what they do. So, for example, in ancient and Scholastic rationalism, a concept was taken to be a true ‘form’ of something, or, in recent times, a quantitative or rule-governed part of nature, whereas, in noneFinally, of theseeven versions anything other than humanly-relativefact, fiction. Kant’sispresuppositions, that aintuition is only a receptive faculty whereas thinking is spontaneous and creative, are actually a false portrayal of their contributions to matters. Te first presupposition, involving intuition, brings Kant and Aristotle together; the second does not. According to Aristotle’s generally correct teaching here, pure thinking is receptive and immediately so – as is Plato’s ideation – and is not form-giving or shape-giving. But Aristotle
assigns this purely receptive faculty a place which is not appropriate, as his reification of a concept as an actual existing form clearly shows. Te empirical concept, which, moreover, he fails to distinguish from aand general is without doubt merely an artefact thought, what idea, is receptive in this is only the grasping of of thehuman ideal formative rules which apply. It is of no consequence whatsoever to the potential meaning which lies within the world what we actually extract from the objective and timeless meanings therein, nor how we do it – for example, whether we concentrate on cause rather than effect, or effect rather than cause, or whether we home in on a concept, a judgement or an inference, or even whether we approach matters by seeing positive similarities or make negative comparisons. In fact, we can go further, and sayofthat objective sphere meaning its course dently ourthe notions of true andoffalse. Such runs a sphere standsindepenoutside the opposition that true and false entail. Te first condition before anything can be deemed true is that there is an objective affiliation of each meaningful unity with a corresponding existing and pictorial object. o this truth condition there corresponds no possible falsity. We must already presuppose that this antithesis-free truth is relative to a potentially knowing subject, and then that only through the cooperation of intuition and thought can knowledge occur. For in the actual matter focused on there is no separation between meaning and picture. o move from a material truth to a judgement as to something’s being true is then the agreement between a judgement – which means here the relative part of a previously grasped extract of objective meaning and a particular pictorially-given and intuitively-derived existent – and that srcinal truth. It is only at this point that falsehood enters the situation in the form of a conflict between a judgement and this srcinal truth. Tere can be neither a truth itself in the sphere of world meaning nor controversy about truth as to whether judgement conforms or not to the antithesis-free realm of meaning, both of which rationalism maintains. Still lesssolely can there be a correct or an incorrect version of a controversial issue in mediated thought which bears the truth for the meaningful realm itself. But just as we reject the rationalist formulation of these matters, so we also reject any purely intuitivistic way of putting the issues, both in the radical form that Bergson proposed, and in the less radical way that Husserl wrote about. Tese thinkers denied that any reciprocal coming together of meaning and image, or idea and urphenomenon,
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was at the root of the self-givenness of the nature of extra-mental existing entities. Tey denied this by demanding that for every meaning there was intuitive evidence – in the same way as Hume saw the need for to underlie idea, except that the former two had got aridsensation of Hume’s sensualisteach doctrine. Tis alleviated the problem of having to account for a shape with a thousand angles, which is obviously definable and the subject of a possible investigation, but which cannot be intuited, and also the problems of getting to grips with our distance from the moon or sun, or with the speed of light, etc. For a pure intuitivistic theory has to admit that anything we humans grasp about what anything is has to come from intuition. Such a theorist then has to make do with only the simplest examples of srcinal meanings prove their pointmediated that intuition is the corebefaculty to betoknown, to which thinking might appliedforasanything an elaborative faculty. We dispute this proposal. Te actual situation with respect to the srcinal meanings and ideas, and for genuinely intuitively-derived essences – i.e. urphenomena – and furthermore for connections of ideas and connection of essences, is that there are a variety of soundcriteria as to how these come about. Tese not only distinguish sharply between concept and idea, rule and principle, or between a phenomenon that can be shown and the sensorily observed fortuitous nature of something, or from inductively summating temporo-spatial connections and essential bonds, but also distinguish sharply between a ‘thinkable’ idea and a ‘showable’ urphenomenon, and, moreover, between‘thinkable’ connections of ideas and ‘showable’ inter-connections of essences.
- I shall state the facts briefly. 1. An ‘idea’ is an ‘unintuitable meaning’, and is to be distinguished fromworld a concept ‘shadow-correlate’ in the itself,because whereasthe theformer latter has doesa genuine not. Further, an ‘idea’ is that whose meaning cannot be demonstrated by recourse to any hierarchical definition, and any attempt to do so necessarily leads to a circular definition. An idea is necessarily involved when concepts themselves are defined. Tis criterion holds good for sensation-free, pure concepts, such as mathematically ideal and scientific ones. Within these regions, however, there are conceptsand ideas. For example, there is an
idea of a number or an idea of a group, and also a concept of a number or a group. In the case of non-formal and real meanings the following criterion applies : they are ideas, regardless of how they abstracting come into psychic being, any attempt to fixif,what they are through from a concrete existing object turns out to be a futile exercise, because the very range or population of objects which they apply to is already presupposed. We have regional ideas before us, but they are never actually caught sight of themselves, for the reason that they are unintuitable even though they may be immediately thought. Tey are objects of reason [Vernunts-Gegenstände]. 2. A genuine ideational connection or a principle of being Sein[ sprinzip of the form formal sciences is an objective meaning relation]–ininthe thecontext judgemental that if something is X then it is Y – if the attempt to deduce its propositional correlate from established propositions inevitably gets entangled in a circular argument, for the precise reason that each possible deduction on which the appropriate theoretical subject matter for the ideational connection rests is already assumed – this holds for the axiom of mathematics, and the so-called geometry of colours and sounds. In contrast, in the inductive real sciences, an ideational connection is a principle, if, during an attempt, either in the case of actual or fictitiously observed objects, to make an induction, it becomes evident that the boundary of the surrounding area of induction of the connection of ideas is already assumed. Quantitative determinations, which always only represent approximations, can never comprise principles, in distinction to laws of nature. Principles are also never derived one from another; they form for each regional matter a reciprocally supporting and basic system. At root this criterion is not essentially different from the one whose discovery we owe to Kant, i.e. the one which he – not entirely felicitously – named a deduction from the basic principle of the possible
experience objects. ,Itand, would haveofbeen better totocall it to a ‘reduction’ instead of aof ‘deduction’ instead experience, refer it as pertaining to regional experience. In this sense, there is, for each major region of knowledge, a theoretical principle and this holds, not only for all the varieties of natural sciences, but also for all the humanities and for biology too. 3. An intuitable content of what anything is is a ur-phenomenon, if, during an attempt to establish a real or fictional object through ob-
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servation, whether it corresponds to this content or not, the intuitable content – i.e. the urphenomenon – must have already been grasped in order that the observation leads in the direction of the pertinent objects. Observation, contrast is abut goal–directed procedure, which neverincomes intototheperception, open as such, is rather a procedure of questioning, in the form : Is the object like this – c = x – or like that – c = y – or is this something already assumed within the object or not? But, if the givenness of the intuitable content has already to be assumed in order to find the pertinent object out of the untold abundance of the world, then this content cannot be the content of observation. It must come to light ‘at’ a[ n] the object itself, or, alternatively, the something, whose nature ought to comply with the already object, must of thethis, observation asdetermined the phenomenon whichprecede directs the andinstalment leads it. From the ur-phenomenon can be precisely defined – as the intuitable which is never observed, but can only be shown in something else [ erschaut]. Te urphenemenon unites fictitious entities, phantoms and real relations between what is [Soseinsverhalte], and is just as much in evidence and demonstrable in fictional entities and phantoms as in real things. In formal sciences the urphenomenon corresponds exactly to an ‘intuitive minimum’, which is the material basis of the relevant system of propositions and theorems, and out of which the sort of entities we know as fictitious objects of mathematics are produced. Te propositions and theorems are valid in ana priori manner for possible nature, only because these intuitive minima precede, in the order of givenness, all meaningful possible perceptual contents. 4. An intuitable ensemble of essences, finally, is a relation between intuitable data A and B, if there can be no datum A without the other datum B, however one actually or potentially – through imagination – observes one without the other. All apriori knowledges of ideas, urphenomena, interconnections of ideas and ensembles urphenomena – althoughthrough they are receptive in themselves – are, inofrelation to all experience observation and induction, and in relation to all possible mediated thinking, and considering the infinite nature of its thought processes, completely independent of the amount of experience. On the other hand, new relationships between what things are, and new ideas and new essences, can always be uncovered in the course of the history of knowledge.
As things stand, however, the ultimate guarantee of what anything is, in terms of apriori knowledge, obtains in the reciprocal but unified co-incidence of both apriori regions – the intuitively-determined and thought-based. is above in this coming together that therethe is revealed the factItthat there isallsomething or someone apriori to our world, which latter ‘world’ then appears as contingent. What is revealed is that our intellectual intuition is intimately linked with the intellectual intuition of an Ens a se. Furthermore,the contrast between idea and essence is only a relative contrast, valid for a finite mentallyendowed creature in possession of a life. We, as such, know ideas neither primarily in God – as Malebranche thought – nor primarily in the world. In knowing them we simultaneously grasp the immanence of God in the world and the world in God.
[] 1. What we call urphenomena are intuitively known, formed objective appearances, and connections between such, which must precede in the order of givenness all possible observation and induction of any functional and causal laws. For the various sciences, they are an ultimate presupposition. For metaphysics, they are a very window on the absolute – as Goethe and Hegel both realized. Tey are ‘the’ phenomena of metaphysics, and its way of understanding and explaining anything. For example, there are urphenomena of colours and sounds, along with their pure qualitative harmonic order; there are the basic ‘ideas’ of a plant, an animal and a human – all of which rely on an urphenomenon; there are the possible elements of chemistry. Tese urphenomena, in unity with their ‘idea’ correlate,make up the essence of something. Te ordering of all these amongst themselves comprises the specific matter which metaphysics addresses, and must be made understandable and explicable by this discipline. Urphenomena are neutral with respect to the ideal-real and psychicphysical modes of being. 2. Goethe imagined himself transported into the very source of the coming-to-be of animals and plants, in the course of which he captured in his works the very type of this form. He projected himself into the drive structure, whose objective manifestations of life are the morphological organization of animals and plants and the way they
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behave. Te productive phantasy of the life forces of nature and his own productive phantasy must have come together for him to have seen what he did. He had to re-create and re-discover the very structure life. Teofurphenomenon is a wholly positive affair; it is not curtailed or limited in any way, unlike the idea. 3. An intellectual intuition is available to the genius, who thereby comes close to the living process which emerges as an eternal structure from God himself. It is a unification of one and the other. 4. Te essence of something and its incidental nature are related only by their mutual negation of the other – i.e. the coming into being of an essence of something wipes out its incidental happenstance. Tis holds for actual entities themselves andfollowing for our knowledge of them. However, this only makes sense if the are assumed to be true: a) reality itself is cognitively and metaphysically a willed affair; b) there is an ordered abolition of the temporo-spatial and accidental being-so of anything as a precondition for the emergence of its essence; and c) without the co-operation of mind and life force, which is a metaphysical fact, cognition itself cannot proceed. From the perspective of the sphere of essences, everything in the way of an accidental being-so of something appears in a negative light – as a modification of something whole – in line with Spinoza’s principle that all determinations of anything are negative. But from the perspective of the sphere of the accidental nature of anything, the essence too has a negative look about it, as if one had dissected out some residue, and in this case the principle is still that everything negative is a determination. Te objects of both spheres, on the one hand, from that within ourselves, as a knowing entity, which is responsible for bringing out objectivity through an being-so act and its correlative object,a–ndlack , on athe other hand, the accidentally state – the whatness common identical subject – i.e. there is no king – but are first allocated to each other through this very situation that I have just described. Te entity, as an essence, through its demarcation from other essences, already presupposes the existence of anything and a life force, but also presupposes the very existence of essences, in order to bestow its particular range of possibilities on anything.
Tis itself only makes sense because we ourselves are only ever given the concrete structures themselvesas a product of idea and life force, and therefore the pure essences can never apply to experiential structures, besides, applies is; to on thethe essences never each applies alone to the and, accidental waywhat something other hand, natural, living thing is thereby capable of intention and movement towards something which it could never have otherwise reached. Te essence rules the appearances but does not control them. It is the essence itself which itself appears in the appearances, the way in which the appearances are grounded in the essence. If we take our starting point on matters from the perspective of the essences, then time merely seems to be a diminution of eternity. If we‘atake as [the accidental].efficacy of things, then eternity is only veryour longbase time’ sempiternitas Metaphysically, this means putting oneself in the very eternal and temporal production of nature and history, and treating everything that has become as re-produced or co-produced. ‘Speculation’ wants to treat everything according to its ideational side; the Dionysian ‘technique’ wants to consider everything as real. 5. Te negativity of the metaphysical method, as a specific negation, corresponds exactly to the actual delimiting role that the mental principle plays in the coming-to-be of the world. 6. ‘First philosophy’ – formal and material ontology – is not metaphysics; it is only its – metaphysics’ – first presupposition. Its second presupposition is the ‘speculative’ perception, the co- and post-experiencing of the life force and its consequent imagination, which sets before us the finite images of what things are. Science is only a springboard in this endeavour. 7. What metaphysics makes possible, in the final analysis, as a metaphysics of metaphysical knowledge, is the dual participation by human beings in the being and efficacy of the World-ground itself: on the one hand, buthand, partial,the identity human divine mind, the and,substantial, on the other humanoflife drivemind withwith the divine life force. Mind knows itself, and the essence knows itself, only in the course of human knowledge. Before human beings and their knowledge came on the scene, mind would have worked away in a knowing way, but without it itself being aware of its knowing, i.e. its knowing and knowledge were of an ecstatic sort. In analogous fashion, the life force would have only had a capacity for feeling in the way an animal
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does. In this respect, it would have only been a feelingful drive, as in plants, that was in play. In humans, both mind and life-force interpenetrate in the unity of a consciousness. 8. Whereas a scientific analysissionly one can think of something as made – in a logically mpleshows fashionhow – metaphysics wants to get inside the actual world of God. 9. What is the relationship between metaphysics and art? 10. Te exhibition of the essence as a condition of the knowing creature itself, itself as participation in the productive intuitive meaningful lay-out of things, first allows the very possibility of metaphysics, in conjunction with the productive imaginative powers of the life-force. Any inductive findings, in terms of laws, rules and functional connections, are only anits occasion of this. Metaphysics re-production of the world out of divine ground – the world asis athe totality. 11. Metaphysics is knowledge of the world as a totality and determination of what meaning each preceding step, each appearance, each force, and each expression of force, has in this entirety. It seeks to understand the world. 12. Intellectual intuition and intuitive understanding are only limiting concepts of a mind, to which, according to its theoretical side, thoughts and intuitions alike are intrinsic facts. An undifferentiated primitivity – as Klages promotes – is not its subject matter, the latter being rather a reintegration of the highest differentiations of all mental and emotional forces. 13. Te pictorial images are not just examples ofan idea. Otherwise, how could they be good and bad examples? Without images of what something is even ideas could not be such examples either. Te divine mind is only a potency to bring forth ideas, not a realm where plans are being hatched – not a place where ideas exist before any actual thing. An empirical concept cannot contain a sign of something, which the objects, whichconcretised. are its field Itof may application, notother in themselves somehow already well be,have on the hand, that the ideas provide an insight into how to build such concepts. Even less does perception contain the urphenomenon. Even the perceptual objects do not contain the urphenomenon. Tere are neither: ideas prior to some matter; nor ideas in some matter, if ‘in’ is taken to mean that the things contain the idea, in the sense of a content of a concept of a superordinate nature; nor are there ideas
supervening on some matter, as a portrayal of how a matter might be seen. Te only condition which applies in this respect is that of ideas ‘with’ matters – equally srcinally and simultaneously.
the divine mind is only potential produce ourBecause knowledge of ideas must be ana affair ‘aftertothe event’,ideas, not aeven having of the object; and not even a portrait. Te ideas are spontaneously brought forth and grasped simultaneously, but not as objects are grasped, but grasped in humans in the course of their production. 14. An individual is a ‘type’, the more it allows the fullness of the idea and the more it represents the wealth or the pregnancy of the idea. Te type is therefore definitely an individual version and not a generality of individuals. Plato, Aristotle, of the–Middle took an15. empirical concept toand bethe thephilosophers idea; nominalism which Ages was right about empirical concepts on their own – took ideas to be empirical concepts. 16. Te immanent essence is definitely only an inadequate part of the transcendent essence, the latter being a rounded totality. 17. An empirical concept is a concept whose content is bound together by a finite compass, which must be able to be defined by its position in a hierarchy of superordinates and subordinates. Te concrete and individual objects have an exact position in this hierarchy which coincides with what they are. On the other hand, an idea of something is quintessentially a predicate which can only function as a predicate if, in the series of definitions – A is B, B is C – no definition of the second member can then supplement its meaning above what is intrinsic in the predicated statement. 18. Urphenomena and their connections, their structures, their appropriate ideas and their connections, the ways they are, and the forms in which they exist, all transfer their validity to the realm in which we actually perceive them. It was an error to by metaphysics, Kant to abandon notion that non-formal intuition is relevant and the to restrict himself only to categories and ideas, and, furthermore, even to undermine these by deeming the categories to be merely subjective. But even the postulates of existence, and real relationships between all possible real entities, are translated into our own experience of resistance, which gives us the experience of the real. Tere exists a formal ontology of the real, which is independent of anything which is
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valid for the accidental being-so and being-there of something which is time- and place-bound. Te actual existence of anything is not reducible to anything else. Structurepart-forms is a complex of individual forms, which are19.themselves of aframework complete form which regulates their being-so. 20. Meaning is then something which is to be gleaned from whatever something is in relationship to something else and to the entirety of things. 21. Metaphysics is the process ofollowing in the footsteps of God, and travelling with Him in the world as a whole. 22. We separate: a) the meaningful lay-out of all things as part of the divine mind, which is theand potential to bring this forthinfrom pure essences; b) the essences their inter-connections any the moment of absolute time; c) the essences themselves, which become accessible in the process of thinking an idea and grasping a urphenomenon; d) the urphenomena and their interconnections; e) the types of anything; f) the forms of anything; g) the constancies of the contents of our observation and individual rules, all of which contribute to the accidental being-so of anything; h) empirical concepts and empirical rules; i) pictorial images and their contribution to the accidental being-so of anything; and j) perceptions, conclusions, judgements, rememberings and expectations.
. 1. Te epochė [or reduction] is not a question of the cancellation of an existential judgment, but rather the switching off of the function in us through which the factual reality element is given and happens to us. Te judgment of reality is itself built on this givenness. Te relevant function in the cases of the givenness of scientific and artistic reality is the will and its accompanying active attention, whereas in the case of the natural view of the world the function is drive-based Lebensdrang [urgency of life] along with passive attention. Te sensory theory of perception is not a true version of events in either case. Husserl’s ‘general thesis’ is based on resistance to this urgency of life.
It is decisive for the correctness of our formulation that the following are shown to have one and the same basis : a) reality and interconnected causality; b) a spatial and temporal interpretation of the world as a presupposition of the here and now; a foundation order ofofreferences in contrast to absolute being; andc)d) the individuation an identical whatness in many discoverable and accidental instances. But underlying them all is not the here and now or time, but real being itself. Real being is the being that offers resistance; it is being that actually has an effect on something, and is a unity of effective causes. 2. Te switching off [of the function which renders the reality of the world as given] will fail [to achieve the chain of events in the reduction], despite the elevation of mental consciousness over will and drive, over any of interlocking a particular causes perspective matters, and there even over considerations the whole set of in theonworld, if what is is only a definite order of accidental facts conditioned by time and space, such as Schopenhauer thought. [In addition, for thereduction to succeed, what is necessary is that] each genuine essence is constituted in reality. Moreover the fact that each genuine essence is real means that it demands that there are primary and eternal causes – under the aegis of God’s will – which determine all secondary causes in a timeless way, the latter being merely the distribution of many realizations of the same whatness in time and space. What is explicable in all this is that something is ‘so’ here and now, and further that this something here and now is such and such, i.e. it happens to be such and such; what is not explicable is why there are such things in the first place. 3. Whereas the imposition of technical purposes on vital values has the effect of leading to the categories of understanding and scientific principles, by splitting up the function of intuitive thought into its meaningful parts, the phenomenologicalreduction is an attempt : a) to reverse this, and to restore the unity of meaning in a ruined world; and b) to reinstate the unity of the intuitive mode of thinking. Te setting technical goals in life only has any sense within the volitionally givenofsphere of reality.
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. 1. All references to anything the internal coherence of the system of whatnesses are madeexcept immanent [i.e. gathered up into the mind]. 2. Qualities become richer, and the richer they become the more detached they are from their function as signs indicating what real being is, what things are, and what events are. 3. An identical whatness appears in many instances and in the temporal conditioning of things. Tis is the [true] principle of the identity of indiscernibles. Empirical concepts and observed facts are to be distinguished from ideas and essences. Only ideas and essences can be identical; everything else is merely similar. 4. Te spatial-temporal void is to be distinguished from the process whereby spatial and temporal references are gathered up into the mind. In the latter situation, the same event occurring at a different time becomes a different event, and the same objects in different places become – in the course of thereduction – different from one another. 5. Te notion of ‘generality’ in respect of reality in the two worldviews – natural and scientific – as opposed to any individual existing entity disappears [in the reduction], so that ‘universal’ and s‘ ingular’ are interchangeable, as are ‘general’ and ‘individual’. Tis is because ‘general’ is an idea and essence first of all in respect of the real; it is not ‘in itself ’ anything. 6. Te direction towards absolute being is promoted at the expense of everything which is existentially relative bar what is co-given with absolute being. 7. Te ideal whatness and ideal essence of anything are not immanent in absolute consciousness because a such-and-such which was thrown up by real being is simply cancelled. Tere is rather an intensification the real process whereby thewhich, mind develops a moreI adequate version [ofofthis such-and-such, when perfect, call] ‘evidence’. [I describe these matters elsewhere in my works.] 8. It must be that it is only individual things determined by real being which are cancelled; the generality of thingness is not cancelled. Tis follows because each genuine essence corresponds to a real object with this essence, regardless of whether we, with our particular
psychophysical organisation, can know anything about it or not. Real being is still, however, the determination of objects. Which? 9. Tere is an abolition of the differences between noemata [the objective correlates of as these are only achieved through the performance of consciousness], a human act which somehow enters into the actual qualities. [With the abandonment in thereduction of all existentiallyrelative handles on things, and that includes human consciousness, all the usual trappings of conscious experience go by the board]. 10. Te reduction has nothing to do with a spontaneous judgment, but concerns the very raw ‘material’ which possible judgments rely on. A situation is set up [in the reduction] in which neither the real world is considered abolished nor is any judgment on this matter suspended; what is struck reality virtue of a suspension of that act which out giveisusthe reality as element, givenness.byTe reduction is – probably – something which goes on in consciousness, where it concerns a mirrored transformation of the actual being of the ‘mind’ and the ‘person’ who is the functionary of the act of consciousness. Something is happening both outside us and inside us in these acts of consciousness, and the ‘consciousness’ of these objects is merely a sign of the objects. Tis process entails a complete change in the person affected, as it is a penetration by that person’s environment into the world [of the mind]. 11. Te reduction enacts an ‘essentialization’ of the world in the way it is experienced, and transforms the world into an idea for the sake of thought – immediate thought. 12. Does the reduction result in a loss of anything? Indeed it does. Tere is a loss of volitional practical references to the world, because the world is now a cohesive structure of essences [without any rules as to how an individual might use them]. Anything to do with the philosophical position of ‘realism’ is out of the question. For everything has now to beconsciousness’ seen in the light of an an absolute world. notion ‘absolute is actually admission thatHusserl’s God exists. But itof is a God without a partner, i.e. a God with no will to create anything. For Husserl, the reality of the world is nothing more than the content of an absolute consciousness. 13. Only ‘love’ holds together the conscious act [which can produce anything at will] and the vagaries of caprice [i.e. the chance that it
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will produce complete nonsense] in some sort of unity [i.e. ‘love’ keeps consciousness on the track of what really is]. 14. Te categorical forms become themselves material for my intuition. 15. Tere is a shift in the status of my act of thinking [in the reduction] whereby it becomes not an act of consciousness of whatever is around, but an act within the realm of absolute being. Te sovereignty of this act, previously mine, now becomes completely under the aegis of God. It is not simply a matter of logic, nor of any abstraction from the psychophysical unit of life which a human being also is, but rather a breaking free by the mind of the subservience to the needs and exercises and aims of life, in a direction which subserves mental exigencies – thinking, loving, and wishing, and allthat in the ance of God’s aims.contemplating A simple disregard of everything lifefurtherand its aims stand for is insufficient to achieve the results of the reduction. Such a procedure would have no bearing on the nature, direction, aim, or enactment of the act [of reduction]. Te whole issue has to do with an ascetic and practised overcoming of the usual givennesses which are the way in which the world is granted to us when the human being is considered a drive-centred organism. However, when it is a question of trying to isolate what the human being as a conscious entity is up to, this is completely different from the human being as a vital entity. Again, the reduction has nothing to do with ignoring reality, but is a specific [thought experiment on the possible consequences of] what would happen if the reality element is deemed to be cancelled. What we are considering is not what would happen if a person were completely detached from life, but what would happen if the functional bond linking them to life [in a specific way, i.e. the cancellation of the givenness of reality] were severed. 16. Te natural, vital determinedness which is the correlate of our natural world-view holds an analogous correspondence to technical goal the same wayphysics. in which the artistic positive affirmation of lifesetting does toinmathematical 17. Husserl’s false teachings about thereduction completely distort what the ‘psychic’ is. 18. Husserl’s ‘I’ is pure, and hardly different from Kant’s notion of transcendental apperception. 19. Te withdrawal of everything into essences is a return to the srcinal idea of God’s, ‘before’ He freely created the world.
. 1. Leibniz had already made such a claim by virtue of his basic principle that a predicate is part of the subject. It is still a long way from this to suggest that references are neither the product of referential thinking nor absolutely indissociable givennesses, but are rather the consequence and residuum of an ever partly suppressed content of our intuitive thinking. For example, successive comparisons in size of the lines a) ▬ and b) � show that with b’s thinning a sense of ‘greater than’ is bound to the experience if the smaller line a) comes first. Te a) and the b) are intrinsically bound together by an ‘and’, a binding which falls under the essence ‘size’. Overall, however, what is changing in this situation is an absolute content of a qualitative nature – in the sense that there is a decline in the fullness of the quality : size merely functions as a foundation for a reference.[But in this very decline from an absolute fullness, which, in its absolute fullness, would not be available as an experience to us humans] the possibility of the fullness does become ‘transintelligible’, as in another example – the co-registration of ‘same’ and ‘similar’. Actually, the situation is that we are embedded in the natural view of the world – theoretically, ethically and aesthetically – and can only experience objects: a) in their referential determinations as resistance to our drive-based in their referential determinations as requirements exit points for: and whatb)we regardreciprocal as biologically important in their interactions in the here and now. Because drive-based attention determines the actual sensory content we experience, our sensory functions are already part of the structures which determine the importance of matters to ourselves. What is true is this : what is given at a higher stage of development – life, humanity – as an intrinsic fullness A is only given at a lower stage as a foundation of a reference. Te r’ eferences’ are therefore prior to what is being referredbeing to inhas thenothing order offoundation. TisLindworsky means that the essence of a human to do with what called the ability to make reference to things, but [rather the opposite, in that] it is the mental ability to allow something which srcinally appears as a foundation for something else to be seen as a fullness in its own right, in other words to make immanent [make mentally substantial or ‘alive’] what is first of all given as a reference. A child takes ‘similar’ to mean the ‘same’ and ‘same’ to mean ‘identical’. What for us
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adults is a referential foundation – e.g. flying is similar in the case of a butterfly and of a bird – is for the child the self-same activity. Only the loosening of the changing foundation of the rules of reference among themselves, which they already as theythinking. are essences of determination, leads to thinking, evenpossess to inferential Science makes absolute the rule of the natural world-view that references precede foundations, and foundations precede the appearance of some matter in its own intrinsic fullness. Tat is why it leads to relativism, which, taken to its extremes, makes the actual things X, Y and Z, transcendent and unintelligible. But it loses, on the other hand, any link between these references and : a) an individual and its needs; and b) the changing directions of the drives responsible for goal setting. of these, all that is awill formin ofgeneral reference is guidedInbyplace a living organism andremains conscious . Evenwhich the various sorts of importance of the givenness of the drives are levelled out in favour of a common denominator which is merely an [empty] ‘general importance overall’. Tis means that the scientific world is a rule-governed causal nexus where the only value in sight is what happens to be here and now [which is no value at all, or worse a travesty of the meaning of value]. Te phenomenological approach to matters starts out from the same base [as does the scientific], namely the natural world-view, but then takes off in a direction which is the complete opposite of the scientific. In that it switches off the ‘urgency of life’ – the root of all drives, needs and vital attention – it attempts, in the first place, to reinstate the intrinsic fullness of matters which have hitherto been attenuated through their subservience to life’s drives. Secondly, it tries to trace the very references back to their srcin in the intrinsic meaningful coherence of matters, that is to see how they look in their immanent form [as gathered up in the mind] or in the form the Greeks referred to as Logos. In this form they are held together in their coherence of essences the single binding – ‘and’. Forinexample, ‘similarity’ , ‘sameness’ etc. areby in fact qualitative phenomena, which form they are essences., Te essence of the experience of ‘sameness’ contains nothing quantitative, as it would if it were of the nature – ‘of ……. more’. Sameness is a qualitative phenomenon, and that means that a perfectlyreduced world would contain only pure differences: everything therein would be nonidentical. Te relationship between such essences in thisreduced world would be themselves essences as a logical order connecting them.
Metaphysics is then thatsuperordinate discipline which encompasses both the phenomenologicallyreduced world and that of science. In absolute being, then, all references to anything except that of nonidentity disappear, because any isother a condition of our oscillating attention which thenreference placed inisa only separateness which we call time and spare. But what does it mean to say that things have a reference to one another independently of our mental grasp of this? It means that they have a constitution which actually determines what reference can be in a human mind. Te relationships between what is actually real – causality, real goal-directed relationships – are ‘more real’ than anything in the mind, as they are constellations of forces which are merely represented in theconstellations, human mind.even Te ‘laws of nature’ are only human versions of such though such srcinal constellations may well be part of God’s design for life. As reality precedes all contents of perception in space and time in the scheme of things, so is causality a more primordial effectiveness than either : i) the spatial continuum; or ii) the immediate succession of cause and effect. Kant was right: only through srcinal causality can there be an unequivocal order of objective consequences. Te true situation is not that cause and effect is the regularity of succession as a rule of our knowledge of matters, but is a true ontical principle of the way reality is. 2. How qualities and the category of quantity look like in the phenomenological approach is as follows. Quantity is essentially linked with a being for which the following axiom holds good : identical whatness can exist as multiple instances, whose multiplicity allows it to exist in a variety of sizes. Tis sort of being calls for there to be a fundamental ‘separateness’ which itself is an identical essence, but which then allows number, space, time and intensity to come into being. Because the reference to separateness disappears in thereduction, so mustentail any notion quantity disappear as well.inothethink otherwise would the factof that quantities are extant sphere of the real [which is not true]. Tereduced world contains only simple qualities, which give rise to the appearance of quantity only through a summarising and statistical treatment of them. Reality and quantity are therefore ‘volitionally’ related – through the joint intermediaries of drive and will. All magnitude must be explained within any theory of knowledge by deriving it srcinally from spatial dimensions, and
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from an ontic point of view from intensity. Te legitimacy of the rational treatment of long-short, fast-slow, large-small or strong-weak, and, analogously black-white, quiet-noise, rest-movement, sufferingeffecting away, etc.little, is always same : one ofetc.the contrariesoris arising-passing struck out – slow, short, black,the rest, suffering, We are the potential recipients of the givenness of the world in four sorts of general ways: i) as a natural world view, which can be absolute or historically relative, with various degrees of adequation and with versions which are existentially-relative to different species, including the human one; ii) as a result of the phenomenological reduction, where ‘adequation’ is perfect and hence ‘evidence complete’; iii) in a scientific mode, which is generally valid and existentially-relative to a living organism in general, andcomplete, generally but ‘inadequate’, even completely so; and iv) metaphysics, which is ‘adequate’, existentially absolute, and a sort of knowledge which is person-based, hypothetical and probable. Metaphysics is a synthesis of the first three sorts of world-view according to a quite definitive method. Te phenomenologicallyreduced world, which is a combination of Logos and the essential structure of intuition, yields the most basic facts of the world which are true absolutely and for us humans. Each genuine essence corresponds to an infinite series of realities, of which only a certain part are directly intelligible to us. Tere is, in fact, an infinite number of dead worlds, an infinite number of organic realms over even one life, and the same applies to the personal world. Tere are people, organisms, dead things, etc. which remain completely unknown to us by whatever mode of knowledge. Science broadens our world picture along a quantitative and mechanical front, compared to what is coveredby the natural world-view, and then treats these forms as absolute building blocks of the world. to portray therealities, followingwhether matters.directly How doInwemetaphysics get a handletheonaim the istransintelligible here or indirectly so? Te natural world-view is reinstated along with its relative form of things, but enriched on two counts: first, through the addition of an appreciation of the cohesive realm of essences: and, secondly, through a development of the previously unacknowledged component of scientific thought. [Te metaphysical contribution is]
the fact that all quantitative elements correspond to unknown qualities. 3. Identical whatness is the potential raw material for the appearance of genuine essences different of here-and-now cause we deny that in ideal objectsinstances have a specific ‘being’, butobjects. rather Becontend that anything ideal is only a whatness, which is further only what is ours to discover from the genuine essence, we now need to show to what extent the phenomenological reduction, with its removal of the reality element, can make even singular ‘matters of fact’ [in English in srcinal] disappear as singular. Te purpose of such a demonstration would be to clarify how the contents of identical whatnesses can be given to us, and, how, as these contents are definitely not ‘general’ in themselves, they become so ifand theyhuman are referred – as in the examples triangle being.back to singular reality Te answer lies in the nature of the interconnection of essences. As only the real is concrete, then, if two or however many things have the same form or the same colour, the very possibility of a multitude of forms or colours can only occur through the intervention [or penetration] by some freely available complex of content deriving from the essence [into the actual givenness of the reality element], and all this independently of the role of time and space as [further] individuating influences. 4. Te phenomenological reduction is directed towards absolute being. Husserl is right in that the phenomenologicalreduction leads to absolute being, if what he meant by this was absolute whatness, but he was wrong to claim that it led to absolute consciousness, and wrong to say that it led to a sort of absolute existence – ideal existence. What, however, is ‘absolute being’? It is ‘being’ whose essenceand existence are one and the same thing. What is absolute whatness? It is the genuine essence of something which all existentially relative entities must partake of. reduction lead to absolute being doeswhatness? the phenomenological orHow absolute It does so because it disregards what whatness specifically means for the following sorts of entities: a) an ‘Ego’; b) a human being and its social group; c) any kind of living being; and d) any finite sort of being with a mind. Depending on the extent to which this happens, the stage of being to which it leads becomes ever more empty. But the stages themselves remain behind in all the spheres of being as separate unities within these. For humans conserve the ves-
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tiges of all the stages that they are [or were] : i) Ego; ii) human being – with its social group, national identity, culture adherences and generation characteristics; iii) living being; or iv) finite being in possession of a mind.that Andany it issort towards being asand a combination whatness and existence of knowledge potentialitiesof for knowledge are directed. With all this to take into account is it then indeed an emptier world that we find ourselves in? We shall see in which order the existential relativity dissolves. Addendum. Solipsism, humanism as a natural world view, science, metaphysics, philosophy, and religion, are not abolished [in thereduction]. 5. Concerning the reduction of the I, Husserl says that the pure I cannot be reduced pure of I istheanI individual I, whereas say that the reduction of the. Te existence is quite possible. WhatI remains, however, is the individual whatness, and, in particular, the interconnection of whatnesses, so that Leibniz’ comment ‘Cogitatur ergo est’ [there is someone thinking therefore thinking exists] is all that is true [See my Te Nature o Sympathy]. 6. Is the general thesis [of Husserl’s] switched off or only his special thesis? Because genuine essences are part of real being – given in the essence of resistance to the spontaneous activity of acts involved in wanting, which comprise willing and attention – it must therefore be true that each genuine essence corresponds to an existence of something in general, and that means being real. Te ‘that it is’ of the real being of something in general remains therefore an atheoretical pregivenness. Only if this is so can something be taken away [in thereduction]. 7. a) Absolute consciousness never remains as a residuum [in the reduction]. Only ideal whatness can remain, and that can be both immanent in consciousness and transcendent to it at the same time. It is incorrect: i) to consider whatness to be able to be duplicated as two existential varieties; ii) to maintain either of the two philosophical positions – absolute idealism and critical realism; and, iii) to take up the position of agnosticism. What is then consciousness? It is first of all knowledge of the broader concept. Tere is no conscious ‘knowledge of ’ something in ecstatic knowledge. Furthermore, there can beno ‘overconscious’ knowledge of
something; but there can be unconscious knowledge of something, for example – 1 know that I know something, i.e. that it is in my sphere of knowledge but I can’t put my finger on precisely what. Tere is also instinctual knowledge of and reasoned knowledge. What is ‘knowledge ’ something then, if A knows B? It is a relationship between one being and another being –methexis or participation – whereby B remains unaltered by the occurrence ofthis relationship whereas A now has part of B’s whatness. It is A that changes, not B. B lights up in A. Secondarily, after anens intentionale [an intended entity] is there, it is also the givenness of an intended act, for example perception. In third place, it is the [new] subjective status of the one who carries it out, hence arises self-consciousness or apperception. ‘Consciousness is then that awhich webeing call ‘the approaching relationship’ofor’ something accessibility between human and a thing. Te following are to be distinguished: real being rom whatness – this latter being divided into intelligible, and unintelligible but volitionally, realisable being; three sorts of whatness – intuitively achieved whatness, meaningful whatness, and value-being; whatnessrom objectified being; and an object rom the sphere in which it occurs. b) Te knowledge of the transcendent ideas and essences must therefore precede knowledge as to the ideas and essences which are immanent in consciousness. c) Te problem of the srcin of ‘consciousness of ’ has to do with pure consciousness’ being the limit of reflection, and reflection itself first occurs when there is inhibition. All knowledge is directed towards the being of the thing known and the possible real relations it has with other existing things. Te problem is not: how does consciousness transcend itself? but how does an existing thing become immanent in consciousness? Tere are sorts of ideal participation which are not knowable to us. For example, all being of an act is unobjectifiable and therefore unintelligible it is only possible to isbethe a co-executor. sorts [of being; unknowable participations] act of love. One It actsofasthese the very determination of knowledge. 8. Te elevation of the forms of being – the categories – to the status of special objects of pure thinking and pure intuition [occurs]. Tere is also a cancellation of noetic differentiation. 9. Concerning the effects of thereduction on the subjective side, the following points can be made.
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a) Is the existence of God switched off? No, this is impossible. Te existence of an ’Ens a se’ [the ultimate entity in itself] rests on the hardest evidence that there is. b) But life; thewhatever biopsychic entityon; that are; carrying out of a reflective act on is going andwethe ‘I’,the as the consciousness of matters by a person; all these can be switched off. c) Tings appear as if part of an absolute mind, as if the act of knowing and thing known were one, even as if the whole situation were proof of God’s existence. d) It is not a question of any ‘abstraction from’ anything, as Husserl thought. Tere is no actual substantial separation between anything. Te whole situation is rather a functional elevation of consciousness.
. 1. If the reality element is cancelled, this does not automatically lead to everything’s being gathered up into the mind. Identical whatness, or the highest level of whatness, or genuine essences, or ideas, are given in this situation. Because, however, the whatness of objects is definitely partly extra-mental and partly in the mind, although the reduction does not affect this general rule, it does enhance the possibility that each whatness can be in the mind. Tere is anyway a close bond between the mental act and its respective object and between the form of this act and the form of the object, but this connection is not essentially between something happening in consciousness and the noema – the object which the consciousness is conscious of – but between a mental act – which is independent of any reflective awareness of this act – and the object itself – again, independently of how many‘noemata’ the object may induce in consciousness. Te ontical relationship between mind and objectifiable being lies, therefore, prior to these, and is the foundation of any conscious knowledge of matters or consciousness and its noema. 2. More central to our theme, however, is the fact that, when ‘life’ and its here-now characteristics fail [in thereduction], the individual centre at the root of the mind does not correspondingly fail. In fact, the very opposite occurs: thereduction isolates and purifies this mental centre from its erstwhile links [with life, for example], and there is now [in Husserl’s terms, there is indeed] a ‘pureI’. Tereduced ‘world’
is, therefore, a personal-individual world although part of God’s world too. Between three people – A, B and C – [on whom thereduction has been carried out] this new world of theirs is mutually incomprehensible ontically different another; this is in completebecause contrastittois the ‘generally valid’one [i.e.from interpersonally comprehensible] environmental world. Te reduction leads, therefore, to ‘absolute being’, but also to a multiplicity of individual worlds, which are first [i.e. only] united in the overall scheme of God’s world. Tis in itself switches off the influence of their status as a living animal with its corresponding environment, and affects their status as a human being as a whole. If we compare Husserl’s views on this, we see that he considered that the pure I could not be ‘bracketed off ’ and that each ray3.ofHow consciousness up aoff, different being. or abolition process, does this threw switching cancellation, happen? a) Tat part of us called Leib [the animality of us] is switched off, and by a certain process it then becomes objectified, and what is objectified is all that which [as others have called it] is vital or soul-like about us. Tis process is completely different from a merely logical setting aside of these matters. It has much more to do with excluding all influence of our living self on the ‘life’ of the mind – not dissimilar to the Indian technique of yoga. Te end-point and ideal aim of this technique is to alter the relationship between mind and our animality, namely that I, now, am a geistiger ‘ Person’ [a person with only mental, intellectual or spiritual dimensions] and consider myself merely to have or possess or dominate my animality. b) Te environment of my vital or animal self is abolished – its very structure, not just its formative capacity – and hence any sort of object which I might know through my intuitive mode of knowing. It is as if we had been living [imprisoned] hitherto between walls, without awareness of the walls, and suddenly see these walls, and then even see what spheres things lie off beyond. c) Tere is of a switching of our sense of cohesion with other human beings, at least in the sense that these are living beings like us. All social conventions, even those which underlie our language and the mutual understandings between people, are shut off [in thereduction], and that includes all conventional expressions of our common interpersonal situation. All preconceptions of a social or historical nature are also swept aside in the elevation of all things mental.
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d) Absolute Godliness as a positive revelation is denied the human being [in the reduction]. But the ‘idea’ of God remains, and, as essence and existence of something of this essence are necessarily one in this realm, God be put off out’ [i.e. of the question.will In fact, Godallmust ‘switched on’,cannot not ‘switched a Godliness pervade issuesbe in the reduced world]. e) Tere is a switching off of all ontical [actual] images of anything, and that includes pure logic and the usual ways of quantification of anything, but not their fundamental possibility [in some other form than that which we are accustomed to]. f ) Te sorts of pictures of reality which consciousness normally provides [the transformation of the phenomena which are the basis of all perception, memory is this? Either all matters of and fact expectation] pertaining toare thenot realabolished. world areWhy distorted or even determined by the rules of knowledge with which any living being is equipped [i.e. epistemology – the rules of how any living thing studies beings – is paramount], and these are reflected in what we call ‘phenomenology’? or the situation is the complete opposite of this [i.e. ontology is paramount, along with the transformation of how things are in the real world into the only ‘languages’ that we can regard them as]? I say that the latter is true. 4. Tere is a switching off of the reality of God, and each real God is a positive entity only in a theological sense [i.e. as a studied, intellectual object rather than as a living being].
. It is a constitutive basic feature of all human knowledge that the cognizing subject in a human being, from the very outset, and in all stages of actual development of the human psychophysical organization, looks out overwhich not one butway many of what something is, spheres, moreover, in no canspheres be derived one from another. A genuine sphere is only that which cannot be derived from another. Such spheres include: the external world with its appropriate external perception; the inner world withits inner perception; the spiritual and psychic component of another person; and the living and the dead. Before trying to demarcate these spheres, to show how they are irreducible, or to establish laws which obtain between them, it is neces-
sary to say something of a general nature concerning the ‘theory of the spheres’. 1. Te sphere is always given as a whole, and pregiven to whatever special appearancesformless one maypure find intuition in it. As atounified spherewhereas it only allows a completely be grasped; all non-philosophical knowledge, e.g. natural and scientific knowledge of an ‘x’, inhabits the sphere. In no way are the spheres only more or less arbitrary collections of unstructured continuous being. 2. Te spheres themselves are consequently givenapriori and constitute the directions of all possible experience and knowledge, in the sense of what can be observed and induced. Tey are not beholden to the accidental experience for their status as spheres. Each sphere comes to light, in its special way, with every matter which stands in the particular sphere. 3. However much philosophical or scientific dispute there might be as to what particular thing should be in this or that sphere, the essential differences between the spheres themselves are nevertheless sharp and discontinuous. 4. Te essential connections between acts of a particular sort and the corresponding sorts of being they give rise to also holds for the spheres. Each sphere of being corresponds to a special sort and manner of mental taking possession of this sphere, or, better, of the matters in it: whether inner perception, outer perception, or the perception of other people, etc. Te ways of knowing and the consciousness of something within each sphere are therefore just as different from each other as the spheres themselves. 5. Te spheres are not primarily amenable to thought – although they are at some stage – but rather primarily intuitable, even, rather, pre-sensual. As many spheres of what something is that there are, so there are that many forms of intuition. 6. Te spheres must not be equated with the so-called list of categories being and thought. Te categories – thing/property, activity,of equality, similarity, causality, goal-directedness, etc. – arething/ general forms of being, which appear in most spheres. Te category of substance, for example, crops up in theEns a se, and in body, soul,and organism. Its differences in thisrespect follow that of the spheres. Not only are the spheres pre-sensual, they are also pre-logical. Tey precede in the order of things all possible thoughts on some matter, even intuitions of the same.
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7. It is very important to appreciate that the spheres have even nothing actually to do with the opposition real-irreal, for they are immediate spheres of what something is, not of whether something exists or not, wrong and intoallsay its that modifications real, fictional or ideal, etc. been It is simply before the–reality of a certain body has established the sphere of the external world remains unestablished. Te sphere remains as a given, even if all reality in this sphere were questionable or void. Te distinction between real and ideal repeats itself in all spheres – in the psychic, in the spatio-temporal nature of the external world, in the intersubjective world M [ itwelt], in posterity [Nachwelt], and in former ages [Vorwelt]. Te belongingness to the inner world or the outer world of an appearance has nothing to do with its or ideality. Te feelings induced fictional figurefeelings belong justreality as much to the sphere of the inner worldbyasa do the actual induced by an actual person. Te rainbow belongs just as much to nature as does the actual sun. A dreamt or hallucinated table belongs just as much to the sphere of artefacts as does an actually perceived one. Te spheres are pre-given with respect to fantasy as they are with respect to perception. 8. Te spheres are most definitely to be distinguished from genuinely material essences – made up of ideas and urphenomena. For example, it might seem reasonable to suppose that Life is just as much a material urphenomenon as a sphere. But this is not so. Tere is a sphere of living entities, but there are also material essences and ideas of organisms or living things. In relation to the genuine material essences and ideas, spheres are regions of what something is, and equally they are regions of existing things, hence regions of being. In each region there can be any number of extant essences – urphenomenon and idea. 9. Existential relativity obtains in all spheres. 10. Tere is a fulfilment of the spheres, especially when real things are set in the sphere.
. – Each finite knowing subject has a sphere of the absolute, a sphere where nothing is any more relative, and which at the very least contains matters to which three predicates – absolutely real, absolutely valuable, i.e. holy, and absolutely essential, i.e. an ur-essence – apply.
Tis sphere stands correlatively opposed to spheres of being which are relative to another being, which contain relative as opposed to absolute values, and concern the world. If we call the first sphere the sphere of godliness, andasthe second the sphere of the world, then contains psychic well as physical entities, along withthe allworld possible organisms, and all possible ideal and fictional objects. Te absolute sphere is at the same time the sphere of the metascientific absolute being and the religious sphere. In so far as only this sphere in itself is taken into consideration, and not whatever is in it, or whether what is in it is real or not – e.g. God or idols, etc. – the sphere is simply given to anyone possessing human knowledge and consciousness. It can never be contrived or made up, as it is simply the absolute background for all finite relative Antoobject of positive religion is always only thebeing. answer the question as to what isand in metaphysics this sphere, and how one can achieve participation in what is there. It itself is therefore ever pre-supposed. One can nevertheless maintain that what holds sway in this sphere and what is actually there are forever unknowable to a human being – as agnosticism in general, and Kant and Spencer in particular, propose. One can maintain, further, as Buddha did, that the content of this sphere is ‘the Nothing’, where ‘nothing’ means non-effective being. Tis viewpoint, i.e. Buddhism, regards all real existing entities [i.e. effective entities] as bad and finite. With these last excluded from the sphere, there would be in it ‘nothing but’ absolute essences and absolute values. One can even maintain thatabsolutely nothing lies in this sphere – a view known as metaphysical nihilism, and proposed by Gorgias. According to this view, there is either nothing at all in this absolute sphere, or, if there is anything, then it is unknowable. Te sphere is undoubtedly there despite all such sceptical remarks. One can close ones mental and spiritual eyes to what might be in this sphere, and arbitrarily go along with the sensory images and relative being that one‘illusionist’ naturally. Even encounters. In sphere this case onenot is agometaphysical and religious then, the does away. One can then say that the ‘foreground’ scene facing us is hard enough to explain, without invoking yet more complications to do with its background. And further say that whatever there is in way of background we simply do not know. Another approach – and this is the commonest – is to insert into this absolute sphere of intuitional being any arbitrary thing whatsoever of a finite sort – a thing, a good, a creature,
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and in so doing one then finds oneself in a condition of the uttermost metaphysical deception. Tere is no thing in this entire world that one cannot put in this sphere. A child’s plaything, money or some other possession – as innationhood the worship– of Mammon – ones race or nation – as in extolling a person of the opposite sexones – a loved one – a yearned for object of ambition, or even oneself – absolute autoeroticism; there is always, always something for a human being, of which it is said: Everything, everything you can have, but you are required to sacrifice one thing, and that is the ‘nothing’. Everything, and you only have to forgo this one thing, and this one thing is as changeable as the human character. If a human being does vouch for such a finite value or ‘good’ in the absolute sphere then we tend to call him ‘smitten’ this, and ‘good’ a ‘world-smittenness’. If suchtosmittenness iswith to recover andthethe person regain a normal attitude the absolute sphere and its possible content we must point out to him the nature of his object of smittenness, his idol. Completely setting aside what a human being finds or does not find in the absolute sphere – whether true or false – he returns to a normal attitude to this sphere, whether through self-analysis of his life or because of someone else’s analysis of him, when the deception in this respect is brought home to him. Te idol which he hitherto placedin this sphere is a finite, relative thing [and should not therefore be in this sphere]. Te normal glimpse into the sphere of absolute being – which is the pre-supposition for all metaphysical striving towards knowledge – does not guarantee the truth or falsehood of any metaphysical or religious entity found therein, but is simply a shattering of idols. Te capacity of finite things to become idols is the great enemy of participation in the actual and true godliness. Tere is no life, no development of soul or mind – either in an individual or a race – which does not run through a chain of disenchantments or comes to see the need for the eradication of deception concerning the true meaning and importance of theisvalue worldly the things. thisimportance process of dis-enchantment there slowlyofrevealed truthInand of absolute things, values, goods and essences. Te human being is therefore essentially a metaphysical and religious creation. Heis so, not in an ongoing temporal sense i.e. because eventually he comes to this conclusion. On the contrary, the very having of this sphere defines the human being from the outset. Animals have an environment and live
ecstatically in this. Te human being has at the same time aknowledge of the world and a consciousness of God. Te critical point here is that religion and metaphysics are possible because already potential sense in God-like this sphere. EvenTe atheism isthey onlyare a denial of in an aalready determined entity. path whereby dis-enchantment over the finite things that have filled the absolute sphere can occur, which have caused these to be idols, is a path to absolute being. Once the contents and reality of the objects of the absolute sphere are set up, then the direction of gaze moves to the world. Te variation in the idea of God is the key to the changeability of the world images – and not the other way round – and the unity of the world is indeed even the consequence of the unity of divine matters.
We are indebted to Kant for the introduction of the basic cognitive concept of existential relativity in theoretical philosophy. His distinction between appearance and thing-in-itself is one of existential relativity. Tis is illustrated most sharply when he tries to show that all possible inner experience only rests on the organization of human intuition and understanding of existentially relative appearances, and, when regarding he attributes the primary givenness all beingastothe consciousness, it, following Descartes andofBerkeley, correlate of the Cogito. He saw that some of what had previously been regarded as subjective was correctly designated as such – i.e. what was in the soul – and which we call the inner world; but he also saw that some of what had previously been regarded as subjective was untenable as so designated, because it concerned matters to do with the existence or non-existence of things or the being-so or not-being-so of things which had nothing to do with a particular individual human being’s subjective outlook, and therefore must be deemed relative to something else. He also saw that there was a level of existential relativity in all spheres, and that this was generally the same; or, rather, he at least saw this so far as the spheres of the inner world and the outer world, psychic and physical, were concerned. Despite the unsatisfactory way in which he expressed this notion – partly because of his erroneous ‘Copernican’ revolution, partly because of his rationalism, and partly because he confused objectively real appearances with representations
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and conscious appearances – the notion itself should never be lost sight of. It is a far cry from Kant’s undoubted insight to then say that the givenness the world the determination of of what anything is, is a question ofofwhat sort ofand intuition and what sort categories knowledge brings to the matter. Tis sort of doctrine, which is at the root of all idealism, is further undermined when one realises that Kant’s approach was always based on a mathematical and scientific notion of what anything is, where the absolutely real is given no credence at all. No less incorrect, however, is the philosophy known as critical realism, where it goes off in the direction of pre-Kantian philosophy, and claims that what does not belong to the absolute reality of nature must belong to theitsubject, to the soul that subject. In other words took upand, whatexclusively, I call the notion of theoftwo-layeredness of existing things – that there areonly conscious appearances and absolute reality, the latter somehow being made accessible to the former. Kant’s contribution to the existential relativity thesis was already more profound, in that he proposed three levels of being: 1. a subjective conscious appearance; 2. an objective appearance – whose appearing was of an undetermined thing in itself – corresponding to what empirical and scientific approaches took it to be; and 3. an absolutely real ‘thing in itself ’. Te correct path leading us out of this muddle is certainly not the way of idealism – whether Husserl’s, Rickert’s or Cohen’s, etc. – which strikes out the sphereof the thing-in-itself and treats the scientific reality merely as accidental objective being-so experiences for a consciousness and the rules of all this. Te correct way is rather the laying out of the series of stages of the existential relativity of things with respect to the organization of the real bearer of knowledge, in order to completely account for what at each stage of the cognising act is precisely shown and determined for these stages. Te overall aim would be to establish a principle concerning the transcendence of what somethingtheis immanence at each stageofofknowledge existence. and Critical realism, on the other hand, whether it presents its building blocks as images or signs – the latter, for example, in the work of Schlick – reduces the existential levels to a subjective consciousness and absolute reality, abolishing therefore the second limb of the Kantian series – i.e. objective appearance – reality – and then arrives at the fundamentally flawed thesis that the ‘realities’, which science deals with, instead of as-
cribing them to levels of existential relativity which each science can itself determine, are regarded as the same absolute reality. Any metaphysics is in this way even more excluded than it was by Kant’s reasoning, ‘place’, reality, so-to-speak, its reality hascogalready been chosenbecause for it bythe scientific and anofindependent nitive principle is denied to it: namely, that there is essentially structured knowledge pertaining to each existential sphere, which isapriori and equally relevant for all existing entities, even for the thing-in-itself or absolute entities. Te theory of the levels of existential relativity of objects – and this applies to non-objectifiable being as well – is precisely constructed according to our principle that an identical being-so of some extra-mental entity that can be just as much in thea mind as outside the mind, and, secondly, knowledge is neither portrayal nor a description nor a transformation nor a design of the real object – and certainly not a logical judgement or conceptual working up of some matter or reproduction in immanent consciousness – but a concrete entity’s – i.e. the knowing subject’s – participation in, and sharing of, the being-so of another concrete entity. And existential relativity now means nothing other than existing extra-mentally but at the same time only relatively so – i.e. an existence dependent on the existence of some other entity, and objectively so, albeit relative to an entity which isthe real bearer of this knowledge. Each potentially appearing knowledge-relativity – i.e. anything that relies on the knowledge organisation of the subject, for example, a human and its relative knowledge of things – is therefore derived from the existential relativity of the known object itself and absolute knowledge of it. Or, in short, there is no relativity of knowledge, but only an absolute knowledge of existentially relative things. Even physical states of affairs can be existentially relative among themselves – e.g. the mirror image on the mirror and the mirrored object – something that I can establish without knowing anything about the laws lightusing waves refraction. of existential relativity here only for Weofare theorexpression the special case in which one of the things is a knowing object, for example, an animal or a human, with all its physical, vital, psychic and real properties. So, in our view, an hallucinated thing definitely has its existential status outside a mind, but at the same time it is existentially relative on an individual with a sick brain. In the same way as other perceptual things [i.e. existentially relative on a ‘normal’ brain] it
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can be grasped through various sensory functions – hearing, smelling; its visual form can be analysed physiologically and mathematically; it can be observed and attended to adequately or inadequately; true or false judgements it, and correct conclusions drawncan onbe themade basisabout of these. Oneeven can see fromor allincorrect this that measures of knowledge concerning true and false, correct and incorrect, or adequate and inadequate increases and reductions in intuitive fullness, have simply nothing to do with distinctions between sorts of existential relativity. If, however, the sort of entity which we have just been considering as existentially relative on an individual were relative to an entire cultural epoch – for example the God Apollo for 4th Century B.C. Greeks – or toorthe humanup’species whole –with for some example thebeing sun’s placed ‘going down’ ‘coming – we as areadealing entity in a false position in the order of existential relativity, and I call this a ‘metaphysical illusion’ and its objective correlate a metaphysical ‘phantom’. Tis notion can also be illustrated by considering the way a postCopernican vis-à-vis a pre-Copernican scientist treats the experience of the sun going down behind the horizon. Te post-Copernican regards it as a ‘phantom’, whereas in the Middle Ages it was taken for an event occurring in absolute reality. Furthermore, an adherent of the relativity theory of our times regards time as a ‘phantom’ – as he does constant mass or absolutely constant life forces – whereas Galileo and Newton took it for a real measure of simultaneity. Te following are some basic principles for establishing existential relativity. 1. Te range of that which a knowing subject has knowledge of – because knowledge is a relationship between beings – is dependent on the condition of the subject. Te existential status and the nature of the subject determines knowledge and knowledgeability – and consciousness – and not the other way round. If aaknown object– Aand is existentially relative on knowing subject– S, 2.then knowledge a knowledge-source forathis knowledge must also be present for the condition of the object S, and, moreover, a sort of knowledge, whose subject S, and whose object A, are not on the same level of existential relativity as A is to S. Anyone who, like Kant, claims that there are objects which are existentially relative to a form of thinking and form of intuition in an intellectual organisation, for example, man, must show that there is a knowledge and a source
of knowledge for these forms, i.e. a source of knowledge whose objects are not existentially relative on these forms. 3. If it can be shown that there is a genuinely irreducible essence of acorrespond real or irreal then theessence accidental being-so something to object, its appropriate at any stage of of its existence,must even if this is unrecognized or unrecognisable. For phantasy can produce any number of accidental fictions with any number of combinations, but never produce a genuine essence. 4. o negate something that has not been experienced so far – whether perceived or simply conjectured – but yet is an existent example of an already shown genuine essence, occurs only if it can be positively shown that the existence of the relevant thing is experiencable and has already been experienced. the other hand, ifananalready existing example is inexperienceable, even if, asOn above, it concerns shown genuine essence, then it cannot be falsified. Te principle behind this is that to each extant thing there belongs a so-being and to all so-beings which are genuine essences there belongs an existent version. 5. Existential relativity and metaphysical illusions and phantoms occur in each sphere of being and possible knowledge: e.g. in the sphere of ecstatic knowledge as well as in the sphere of consciousness – i.e. reflective knowledge; in the sphere ofthe inner world – i.e. the psychic – as well as the external world – i.e. the physical; in the sphere of the psycho-physically neutral givenness of life as well as in the spheres of self-knowledge and knowledge of others. 6. Te only definitely unknowable region of matters is the non-objectifiable being of the acts and the persons, because participation of another sort to that which applies in the case of knowledge belongs here. On the other hand there can occur any kind of being-so of an extant entity at all levels of existential relativity, even in the level of absolute existence, though admittedly in this case the adequation of possible knowledge available to a creature gets less and less the closer the object isoftothe thestars absolute Forgeography example, we haveearth no idiographic knowledge as welevel. do the of the nor of the moon in the moon sciences, even though such knowledge is in itself quite possible. 7. All objects and groups of such which are not existentially relative on a human being as a member of a species, but which are relative to an individual creature’s unique life – for example, an hallucinated object – cannot be the foundation of a known, generally valid judge-
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ment – true or false. Te samecaveat applies to knowledge which has its objects in the absolute sphere, but which is restricted to a handful of people of exceptional nature – for example, geniuses – or of a particular constitution with ahas particular technical know-how. In fact, allethical eventual knowledgeorwhich to do with the free opening-up of a person does not necessarily allow a generally valid judgement to be made about it. Tis follows because knowledge depends on the nature of the person who knows, and knowledge about absolute things, in particular, requires the knower to be at least in tune with an absolutely existing subject. Because the latter sort of knower is so rare, and cannot be an object himself, each piece of knowledge about absolute things must be an approximation, and each person who even achieves this havePerson a different knowledge another person. being Only God,will or ‘the of Persons’, can from actually know such the absolute of the world. 8. In order to establish existential relativity, the carriers of knowledge must be set in place, but only insofar as they allow essential ideas to be determined. For example, in order to determine existential relativity with regard to human beings, it is not necessary that the human being be an earth-bound anatomical and physiological creation of this or that type, but only set in place as an essential specimen of a human being, i.e. a finite entity with vitality and an embodied life, endowed with reason and mind with their own essential attribution, in contrast to that which constitutes animality or ‘plantness’, or in contrast to God, or to entities between God and man, such as angels and demons. 9. Existence precedes, in the order of things, the efficacy of what is an existing thing, i.e. the extant, insofar as it is real or efficacious. Although the existential relativity of an object is an existing fact, and is even ascertainable – for whatever objects of intention one wishes – before and independently of each causal connection between existing objects and a real carrier of knowledge, nevertheless each knowing participation real subject in theway, nature an existing objectan must be procured inbya aspecial and unique andofprocured through effective and causal connection with the subject, and both knower and known must lie on the same level of existence. Terefore, it is quite clear, for example, that for the human being, insofar as he or she is embodied life, only those bodies can be given in knowledge which have an effect, directly or indirectly, on this embodied life. And it is equally clear that each piece of knowledge about objects, whose pos-
sible givenness again assumes knowledge of bodies, likewise can only be given under the general condition that the human being, as a specimen of embodied life, is part of the universal mechanism of things – i.e. shares theitsame set oftochemical, as the entity will come know. physical and mechanical processes
, , , , , , , , Kennen [knowing] is knowledge about the accidental being-so of something [zuälliges Sosein] and Erkennen [cognition] is knowledge about something as a something.
. - Te ideal end-point, which the highest form of knowledge – cognition – can in principle achieve, though in fact almost never achieves, or only achieves in the case of the simplest objects of inner and outer intuition or only in the most elevated moments of mental exertions, would be the self-givenness of the entire nature of what some object is. It would form the insuperable maximum and therefore the ultimate and highest measure of each and every knowledge and cognition. A minimum on the same scale would be a clear-cut sign of something, for example the proper name of a person. Many philosophers deny that this radical goal is feasible. Some of these would assert that it even lies in the essence of cognition that the cognitive contents and the actual contents of an entity itself are always of two different sorts and remain different, and that all cognition is a symbol of something else. Others of this group would deny it specifically for human cognition. Te purest and most definite denial of the possibility of this goal of cognition can be found in Spinoza’sEthics, indeed even for the divine Substance itself. an ‘intuitive cognition’, when the mind had its obHe distinguished: ject completely and enjoyed it; discursive cognition through mediated thought; and cognition through hearsay. In intellectual love of God there takes place according to his teaching such a particular sort of identification of human mind with the divine substance that both are one and the same. He denies all so-called cognitive criteria and truth for this level, and expresses his famous words on the matter thus:
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‘verum signum sui ipsius et alsi’ – truth is a sign of itself and falsehood. Tis means that there is self-luminosity and self-illumination between them [i.e. the knower and the known] in the grasping of knowledge of given no longer makes sense among to ask by whatphilosocriterion thisobjects, arises. and Te itsame view can also any be found recent phers – Husserl in Logical Investigation, Brentano and his School; and in Augustine and the mystics. I myself started out from this position. Because the self-givenness still belongs to the actual ontic order of things, then for there to be any representation of this, two additional interposed concepts are necessary: the illumination of the object in the mind, and our immediate knowledge about this illumination – socalled evidence. Tese two should not be confused. Te illumination Er starts out from forth out its very [ scheint sein Was in ihmthe ] toobject. revealItanshines appearing of itswhatness hiddenness – as Heidegger wrote about with his notion of aletheuein, – to become itself an ens intentionale, in the sphere of truth. Evidence, on the other hand, is the immediate grasping of this illumination and truth. Tis entire notion has without doubt an important ontological presupposition. An object or state of affairs can only present itself to the mind, if, at the very least, what it is is part of something that is superior to all human knowledge – an ‘all-knowledge’, as it were – which human knowledge partly embraces. Tis knowledge, or, figuratively speaking, this ‘knowledge light’ [Wissenslicht], is then that very enlightening of the self-givenness of an object in the human mind and the consciousness thereof which is its precise whatness. Spinoza and Augustine simply assume this. In all evidential cognition, in all ‘Aha-cognition’, which denotes a clear solution to some problem, the human knower is at the very least identical in its carrying out of this act with the carrying out of the same act by theEns a se, which is also a knower. In no case can the actual existence of something be illuminated, a matter, which, according to our opinion, is not only absolutely ir-
rational but even o ascribe the object without itself an illumination wouldtrans-intelligible. be nebulous mysticism, andtononsensical this assumption of an overriding universal mind, whose knowledge content is the essence of the object. Te object as an existing entity has no little lamp burning in itself which could illuminate what it is. Te identifiability of a human mind with the mind of the Ens a se is presupposed in all talk, by Hegel and Fichte, for example, of an identity of thought and being.
What then is evidence? Evidence is the experience of that, which in everyday language is called an ‘insight’, through which a cognition and thought of a new, so far unknown, state of affairs suddenly becomes this very state of now affairs, a processreveals whichitself we call Aha,which now it becomes clear; something as ainsightful. ‘Some-thing’, exists independently of us. Te fog clears; the deception is uncovered. Or: I previously had a sign, instructions, as it were, about some matter, in symbolic form, whereas now it appears out in the open itself, and I now have it itself. Put this way we have merely characterized the psychological descriptive structure of the experience of evidence. Te question is: a) What is the actual evidence? and b) Under which conditions does it arise? What evidence is not is the following. First, is nothing to domakes with anything of the same name which demeans theitreal notion and evidence some ridiculous romantic and arbitrary power of the mind. Nor is it a more serious version of this, a view held by many outstanding thinkers – Schlick, Cohen, Natorp, Hartmann, Leibniz, Kant – to the effect that evidence is an isolated and qualitatively distinct psychic experience, to which one is finely attuned in a reflective state of selfobservation, and which, when it comes, encases a thought or an intuition with nothing less than the truth. A further view on the matter is to portray evidence as a qualitatively distinct feeling, the so-called ‘evidence-feeling’. A sign of the error involved here is that no-one can characterize it in any other way than to say that the feeling X is the actual evidence, which merely presupposes what one is trying to determine. Furthermore, evidence is not, as William James stated, an inner bell. Nor is it to be confused with subjective, personal certainty, which can accompany even the wildest superstitions. We know through the experimental investigations of J.E. Műller that, for example,in the case of memory, an objectively false memory can be held with a maximum of subjective certainty. Certainty is a measure of truthfulness, not of cognition andwhen truth. Finally, and evidence is never given in state; it is only cognition thought are turned to athereflective matter in question, and only when these two are ‘productive’, that evidence arises. Naturally, the opponents of the view that evidence is a measure or sub-division of cognition have made light of this. From a positive perspective evidence consists of the following. It is an immediate coincidence – or identification-experience – set up by productive thinking and cognition between intended states of affairs
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and objects, always involving a plurality of cognitive acts, and directed at one and the same object which is independent of these acts. Te acts in question can be: intuitive acts among themselves e.g. seeing and hearing the same thing, which reciprocally testifies to it among sensory functions; different actsthen of thinking among themselves, i.e. an act of grasping something’s meaning and an act grasping something’s relationship; they can be an act of intuitionand an act of thinking; and finally there can be apriori knowledge – intuitive or rational – coupled with an aposteriori knowledge, which is the most important case. In short, we can never call something evidence that only occurs in an isolated act – e.g. a perception or representation of a real surface, or if I simply think of the number 2 or the sun. Moreover, if there is no independent of meaning therewhich is no we evidence either. Tis meansabout that an ideal realm structure of thought can make judgements cannot by itself provide evidence of anything. For example, an‘evident’ memory is only given in the co-incidence of several rays of memory, or, if in the course of perception, I come across the same being-so of something that I hitherto only remembered. Other examples of evidence are if several sensory functions – e.g. seeing, hearing, touching – testify reciprocally to the same object; or if I actually gaze on something which hitherto I had only thought about or symbolically represented. Evidence is therefore always the experience of a coming together of several different and mutually independent intentional acts – in respect of what the intended act focuses on – on the same object. It is not therefore an established index of consciousness in a mind reflecting on itself, but a relationship experience of acts, and in fact an identification- and coincidence-experience of the contents of these acts on the same being-so of the entity. And how does evidence relate to self-givenness and illumination? Here we find that an object illuminates its being-so in the mind of a knower to the same extent that the knower has theorevidence-experience of the co-incidence of intuition with thought, ofapriori form and structure with the aposteriori matter of fact – whether sensually or intuitively gained. Te object reveals itself in the course of these conjunction-experiences, and enters the mind as a growing adequation of what it is as a result of such experiences. What the object is in itself does not break down into a pictorial entity and a thought form – as Aristotle considered was the case – but it is the cognitive acts –
thought and intuition, apriori and aposteriori – which do the breaking up into these mental elements.Ten the co-incidence [or recombination] reveals what the object is, in a growing fashion. All this assumes issues:such a) that an srcinal knowledge [Urwissentwo ] ofunderlying all these matters, thatweallhave our intentional acts pertain to one and the same world and bring forth the same entities into objects – i.e. there is a unity of being; and b) that all our intentional acts, however varied they may be, illuminate one and the same act of knowledge. Schematically this is as follows: seeing, hearing
Knowledge entity
remembering, perceiving thinking etc.
one act
estern ideas about the qualitative stages inherent in a living soul have undergone considerable changes from the timetoofthePlato Aristotle up to the day.lowest Tis applies equally mostand primitive properties of present soul in the creatures as well as to the highest processes and acts of the human mind – as in a genius, or, even beyond, as in God, or, even beyond that. If this is true for the range of living souls encountered, it applies even more so to the sequence of stages within a living creature to which we give the name d‘ evelopment’. We are setting ourselves two aims in the following account. First, we shall briefly describe the actual historical notions about these matters, as they appear in Western philosophy and science. Secondly, we shall draw attention to relevant contemporary findings within the sciences, although we shall put all this in the context of certain dominant philosophical ideas. Teories about the various stages that a living soul can achieve, and those concerning the actual development of these within a living creature, both touch on numerous disciplines of knowledge.We shall structure the discussion of both sets of questions according to the following scheme. First, we shall consider the sorts of living creatures to which we can attribute an inner way of being and set of events which ulfil criteria or a soul. We shall review, for example, plants, animals, humans, angels, devils and God, in this respect, and take a special look at the peculiarity of humans, and consider the possibility of an Űbermensch. Secondly, we shall examine the status of certain well-definedunctions o soul and mind to see whether they capture the essence of the matter. Such functions include sensation, perception, representation, memory and recollection, thinking, instinct, higher and lower emotional functions and acts, reflexes, drive impulses, conscious aims, expression,
W
and mental willing and choice. Tirdly, we shall surveycomplex acts and activities pertaining to the soul and mind, such as speech and language, ethical and aesthetic valuations, conscience, questions of taste, and of tools memory, and artistic productions; and how these relatethetoconstruction instinct, associative habit and intelligence. Finally, there are the achievements and works of a living creature to consider, whether possessed of soul or mind. Te last of these matters are not in themselves capable of being inwardly displayed to the creature itself, or even re-experienced or understood by it. Tey are nevertheless established, meaningful, goal-orientated activities. Tese stretch from animal nest-building to human civilization and culture, from its very beginning to its blossoming in our own age. Allied to this is the question whether we humans onasour own, have built up and the entireofworld structure in theourselves, above sense creative achievement work, or whether we owe it to some sort of super-human mind – God – or some other sort of meaningful and goal-directed effective agent to which we belong – call it God, ‘pan-reason’, ‘pan-life’, the ‘world soul’, or whatever. In any case we cannot bring up the issue of this question with the agent itself, as we have no direct intuitive or experiential contact with this powerful being in the sense of any religious experience of it. Of particular interest in this whole area is how certain psychic and mental functions – whether they be called instinct, intelligence, ideation, conscience, or something else – ended up as they are, from the achievements and actions and works of animals, and whether the latter could be the rudimentary srcins of the higher stages of soul and mind. Tis method, which at the very most only gives us a foretaste of the factual matters at issue here, is anyway the hardest to carry through, and is fraught with potential errors and false turnings. Nevertheless, it does raise the following questions. 1. First of all, we need to consider what right we have to conclude that achievements, and works animals,soul areorcomparablecertain to thoseactions, we imagine to be precursors of theinhuman mind. In the case of certain animal achievements it does seem that they have been carried out in an intelligent way: that is, a solution to some problem is reached without any previous experience of it or without the availability of a model to copy. In such cases either one invokes an acquired reflex, or one has to admit some completely different basis
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
for the behaviour: consider cats always landing on their feet, or wasps which can paralyse their victim without killing it. 2. A second problem in the method we are considering is whether it is justified to assume that justofbecause subject has the face of it achieved more in the way growth,one perfection, andon differentiation of his or her works and actions, than another subject, whose achievements appear more modest, then this means that the former is in possession of superior soul or mental functions. Whether the average human being in present-day Europe has a greater understanding of things, or more refined logical faculties, or a more sophisticated moral sense from birth onwards, than say an ancient Greek such as Aristotle, is arguable. Spencer, for example, believes it is so, whereas Weismann demurs. are there in talents, between, say, the black andOr, white races, genuine as Boas differences maintains, or is it simply a question of acceleration and slowing up of various aspects of their respective developments? Or, further, what about the issue of how a child learns to stand and walk? Some say that it comes about through a gradual accumulation of experiences concerning the various movements of its feet and legs. Others say that it is a natural consequence of a certain stage in the development of its nervous system, and has nothing to do with the assimilation of large amounts of experience. Recently, the latter explanation has been shown to be more plausible. In fact, all achievements and works of a purely cumulative nature, which come about through a quantitative growth of associations concerning the same physical function, cannot be regarded as evidence for the evolution of the soul itself – i.e. that they are a sign that a completely new function has arisen. Tis means, however, that we must already possess the essential concepts and ideas for any possible functions of soul or mind to emerge, and that we must have found examples of them in external works and achievements of various degrees of perfection in order that the achieving subject in question can organise their new functions. We cannot simplyhelp, acquire a completely differentcircumstances: sort of functionde novo and without but only in the following a) if the content and value of the performance or work are essentially different from those of the performance or work with which they are being compared – i.e. there must be nothing gradual about it, e.g. the shift from instinct to intelligence, or the example of monkeys throwing stones to some end;
b) if the mere accumulation of experiences can be treated as if it were switched off; and c) if the achievement in question is one which deviates markedly sprunghat diskontinuierlich] [contrast from ofitsexperiences comparablewhich predecessor in to und the simple accumulation will only lead to a mild improvement in performance. 3. Finally, this method we are tracing has to contend with yet more difficulties. If we consider nest-building, or a chimpanzee’s ability to reach down a fruit from a tree with a stick, or even Japanese Shintotemple construction, what we come up against is that the only way we can give sense to these is by means of a sort of ‘second-hand experience’ [Nacherleben], or by transporting ourselves in imagination into iterleben the mindempathy or soul of[Einűhlung the creator of the work in[Msuch ] or through so-called ]. Any success attempts diminishes the more our own state of soul and mind diverges from the state we are intending to get to know and understand. In the case of plants and lower animals, and already in children and primitive people, and, further, even in our own racially heterogeneous culture and civilization, this subjective understanding of another is particularly difficult. A source of ever-present deception is our tendency to read into whatever we want to understand our own world-picture, sorts of values and soul-functions. Illustrations of all this include: the actual approximation of a child’s perception and representation as being more separate than they really are, as theyare so in adults; the primitive person’s fear of nature being projected on to lions and tigers, for example, making them more dangerous than they really are; and the ‘animistic’ worldview in general as an investment of all things with the valence – life – actually attached to our soul functions. A sceptical approach to all such matters should not go so far as to dispense with the relevance of our knowledge of our mental or soul functions and their development, although the American school of
behaviour psychology does ifmove in that direction. this direction would be justified all understanding restedAdmittedly, on empirically derived analogous conclusions – i.e. assuming ourselves as the norm. In actual fact, however, we grasp the meaning of events in another soul in a broad and immediate fashion by way of a symbolic apprehension of its expressive appearances and actions. Te execution of this is completely unrelated to how we experience our self, and is rather
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
based on our construction of a universal grammar and pantomime of expressions. Tere is still much truth today in Aristotle’s notion that the human soul in certain all there is –itself i.e. aa microcosm. At theofvery least,isevery living respects entity carries within functional version a soul, even if in some cases it is in a very rudimentary form, as in plants and animals. Te portion in plants is what we call ‘vegetative life force” [vegetativer Drang], and in animals ‘instinct’. On the other hand, the highest examples of human beings – saints, geniuses – also possess soul-functions, which we can only get an inkling of through glimpsing their ideas, coming up with analogies, or engaging in thoughts ourselves touching on the infinite and the absolute. Te actual range of the functions in but the divine or semi-divine entities mentioned we can hardly imagine, they include an intuitive knowledge of both past and future. Te human soul can equally well descend to the level found in plants, animals, children and primitive people. It can, in fantasy, vault across the boundaries of race and historically distant and strange cultures. It can rise up to the level of the superhuman mind, and, to a certain extent, even to God’s. As a microcosm of all potentialities of the soul, though subject to all the complicated casual actualities of the matter, it is, in essence and in principle, in tune with the entire variety of souls and minds. Surveying the developmental theories put forward during the history of philosophy, we can identify four main types: 1. Aristotle’s timeless system; 2. Plotinus’ theory of emanation, Descartes’ way of posing the problem of thinking and Leibniz’ notion of a monad; 3. the theories of Lamarck, Darwin, Spencer and Wundt; and 4. Bergson’s vitalist metaphysics. Tere is much truth buried in each of these theories, but, the way the theory is put, it is hidden. Our own theory is only a new sort of synthesis of the theory, current in Ancient imes in theminds, Middle Ages, of a hierarchy of soul-containing organisms andand personal along with their empirically and mutually underivable essential differences, coupled with the Modern theory of a continuous, temporal and empirically demonstrable development in fortuitously occurring genera and species of creatures. Our theory puts forward a plausible explanation of the whole issue.
Te basic thought behind this synthesis is as follows. In all continuous and temporal physical and psychic transition states – which do occur – there emerges, in definite and distinctive places, and in aquantum relativelyleap] small number of cases question, a qualitative [or such that there is a in novel creation of psychic shift or mental functions, and this itself involves an immediate return to the srcins of the world and its two basic attributes – mind and pan-life [Alleben]. Or, in other words, during the continuous empirical development of the psychophysical organism, there is uncovered over time a realm of essential forms and ideal types of psychic and mental structures, which in themselves are discrete in essence, and which are displayed in front of the empirico-temporal development, as ideals in the mind of God, but at the disposaldispositions of the pan-life [Alleben ] in the course of its .activity.areSuch essential would be ‘plantness’ or a‘ nimality’ In itself the perfected entity precedes the imperfect in the order of things – the theory of the Ancients and those of the Middle Ages thereby supported – but ‘for us’ the perfection or completeness of matters only reveals itself in the opposite direction, wherein an imperfect leads to a perfect, or a simple specimen progresses to a differentiated one. In this way, the Scholastic term causae occasionalis is seen to cover an srcinal effect whereby ever new psychic and mental forces are unleashed. From all this our method of setting out the ideal systematised array of essences of the psychic and mental stages and centres seems to be the most correct. For example, we presume the existence of tropisms and a sensitive life force [Geűhlsdrang], then instinct, then associative memory, intelligence, and finally idea formation, on the basis of the stages of the various sorts of elements of soul and mind and their connections. Ten comes the question: Under what particular circumstances – what causae occasionalis – of the empirical, ongoing,developmental interconnections do these essential forms actually fit best? We are convinced that even the biological developmental theory, even it is based on a study get by organiwithout aiftheory of discrete shiftsofinactual stages,organisms, in which cannot the complete sation undergoes an alteration – as in mutation – and therefore we are in complete opposition to any theory which tries to explain the same process in terms of a quantitative accumulation of simple adaptations of a single organ in a hereditary manner – whether within an individual, as Lamarck and Wundt thought, or through some external environmental agency, as Weismann and the neo-Darwinians think. It
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
is rather only explicable in terms of a creative act of the unified world process, which allows a new thought to be realized through its eternal life-force [Lebensdrang].
. It is hard to be a human being. Te animal’s psychic life, by virtue of their soul, is played outin their environmental milieu, and the achievements which the higher vertebrates are capable of, touched on in the last section, have been until recently completely underestimated. Te animal possesses not only instinct, which can be put down neither to nor tropisms nor toinhereditary and which occursreflexes to a greater extent than humans –habituation, consider insects and herd animals. It also has the ability to learn through its associative memory, and, to some extent, hands on what it has learnt to its offspring. Even this is not all. It also possesses the beginnings of a mediated referential thought activity, by means of which the relationships of things are classified in terms of identity, similarity, analogy, and means-to-an-end references. It can even, to a degree, take an overview of a situation, and, in the sphere of what is intuitively present, appreciate simple relationships between matters, such as cause and effect, means-to-an-end, and appropriate ways of directing itself. It can then use all this knowledge in a free combination of ideas to serve its practical concerns. Furthermore, it possesses a vague sense of general representations. It can set up anticipatory schemata, whose content it can then intuit in diverse situations, even to the extent of recognizing recurring themes – i.e. behaving against its instinct. Te only points at which it fails in these sorts of endeavours are when the task involves consolidating a general notion in the form of an independent object of thought, or when it is required to distinguish between a general category of something and an individual something, and particularly so when it comes to comparing different members of the same abstract category. In other words, the representative functions which underpin language, number and quantity are lacking. What it can do, however, allows it to communicate with its peers. It has humanly analogous, expressive movements of joy, sorrow, curiosity, jealousy and tenderness, and even the beginnings of humour. It experiences anxiety and the rudiments of a higher fear. It shows
gratitude – for its food, for example – and there are stubbornness, defiance, forgiveness over punishment, gift-giving propensities in the way of offering food to other animals, and vengeful desires brought about throughfeelings anger or It can set the asideherd, its vengeance, co-experience andannoyance. affects arising within and even co-experience such with humans through contagion and empathy. It can have a sense of clothing and even the beginnings of a need to adorn itself. Tere is the start of tool construction, and the distinction between a valuation of one pleasure versus another. Authority, leadership, friendship, and various sorts of social bonds can be found, including specialization of tasks within these. Animals, moreover, do not simply display the character of their species, as Schopenhauer thought, but have themany seedsanimals of individual characters. respect to their sensory acuity, are actually muchWith superior to humans, and it is only their overview of broader spatio-temporal regions and their attention to distance which can be deemed impoverished relative to humans here. Nevertheless, all in all, their perceptual abilities are very similar to humans. For instance, the ability to apprehend size, colour-constancy, and the relationship of sensory appearances to a ‘thing’ or an ‘event’, are the same. An animal’s perceptual field is less tightly structured, but it has thesame set-up for projecting meaningful forms out of the chaotic mass of sensations. It avails itself of memory, reproduction and associative conscious representations. Tere is also a certain predilection for beautiful as opposed to ugly partners in its sexual selections. Te objective quality of ‘beauty’, which fills the living world in the form of patterns, plumage, song and symmetrical colours, not only corresponds to the function of preference for beauty rather than ugliness, but is in a far-reaching way exactly the same beauty for the animal as it is for us. Te peacock strutting for its mate gives us pleasure too. If, as I have endeavoured to show, all the usual distinctions between human being andthe animal – has the animal has ,instinct butofthe human being intelligence, animal no concepts no notion relationships, no altruism, etc. – are invalid, how do we then explain the equally obvious and massive difference between humans and animals?
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
Tere are three things in which the difference between human being and 1. animal First, itcannot cannotlie.be attributed to some detail of their anatomical make-up: for example, mobile thumbs, a larynx, or a particular jaw structure; the last two being alleged explanations for the ability to produce sound of such variety that it gives rise to speech, and, following on this, thought. Nor can it lie in the human’s erect posture. Tere must surely be something simple, pervasive and fundamental, which separates human and animal. 2. Nor can the difference be a purely bodily or vital matter, concerning their external structure or the internal make-up of their soul. Tis follows because the human being, in terms of its body and soul, differs only in degree from the animal, for example even in the size of its forehead. It has the same sensory acuity, perceptual awareness, affects, drives, sorrows, representational capacity and adaptational opportunities towards its environment. 3. It cannot, furthermore, merely consist of a quantitative increase in any characteristic of the animal soul, as positivism and Spencer teach; nor in some richer mediated thinking power – i.e. it is not simply superior technical intelligence; nor is it a consequence of a richer affective life or range of expressions. Assuming, as I do, that the human being is an empirical earth-bound thing – whether homogeneous as to its phylogenetic srcin or heterogeneous in this respect, the latter being more probable – and that it is something which has escaped from its animal srcins by way of a discrete leap, then, given the fact that its nervous system and brain are not greatly different from those of higher primates, in order to explain the exceptional place in the universe that we find ourselves in, which is just high enough to release us from the environmental constraints which characterize an animal – however this comes about,a breakthrough whether we are a newly created or whether we have effected from vital soul to a entity completely different sort of ‘acts’ rather than functions of the soul and which belong to what we call mind – then no amount of scientific observations about the human being can ever reveal its true nature or its true unity. Te difference between human and animals must therefore be of a ‘supravital’ order, and cannot be reduced to any obvious correlation with anything to do with the nervous system.
Before we ask ourselves what mind is, what a person is, what this human condition of being rooted in the mind is – i.e. to have ones core being in a mental world and its values – and what the specific mental lawsthere actually we need to consider the following.increase In a human being is notare, simply a quantitative developmental in the same psychical agency which we find in animals. Te human being is not just a complicated animal or a cleverer animal. What has happened at the root of the matter is a complete about-turn, a revolution [Umschwung], or, if you wish, an inversion of the basic relationship which obtains between the organic life of the entity and its mental order. Moreover, this turn-around [Umschwung] or this inversion, in respect of the metaphysical act which renders it viable, is the very thing, which, taken in non-temporal and non-empirical sense, is what the coming-to-be of a human being actually is. What does this radical shift [Umschwung] in a living entity consist in ? In short, it consists in the consciousness, which in animals serves the exigencies of life, now becoming the master of that life; it consists in the means, whereby an animal’s life is maintained and promoted, now becoming its own self-perpetuating goal or end; it consists in what, in animals and plants must be a parallel process to the actual living process [latent as to its eventual role], being raised up above these very life processes, to become an essential part of mind [i.e. making what was latent now overt], and then treating this organic life that it has left behind – with all its tendencies, drives and needs – as automatically serving itself – mind – and the will of its – mind’s – disinterested aims and values. In a similar way to how the life-centre and the animal psyche concentrates the physical and chemical forces which surround it in a temporal fashion to foster its – the life-centre’s or animal psyche’s – aims, so the mental soul – the mind – directs and steers the living agent [life-centre, animal psyche] to promote its – the mind’s – goals. is at astake here, the acoming-to-be of a human being, is].nothingWhat less than cosmic orineven metacosmic revoluti on [Revolutio Te earth-bound human being is only a testament to, or case history of, all this, an example thereof. It testifies to this: the human being as an idea is the point, phase or place in the cosmos through which all forms of families, species or sorts of unfolding specimens of life lose their own indeterminate control over themselves, and simply serve an overriding principle, which we call mind, for which, and for whose actuality, aims
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
and value-setting, the entire variety of the organic world has opened up a gap or a thoroughfare. Tis means that there is a three-fold causality in play and a three-fold parallelism: natural forces – life agency – mind. Looking at itofanother way,coming-to-be mind, through its acts, allowsdethe appearance of a form being and whose common nominator is that it is ‘supramaterial’ [űbermaterielle] and ‘supranatural’ [űbernaturdynamische] – i.e. a new and higher version ofthe matters of fact and natural dynamics of becoming and being in the vital sphere. Tis new version is freed from its organic links, and the mental acts which bring out its appearance now turn their allegiance to building up a consciousness of God. Te whole new situation is one whereby a new realm of evaluation springs up, and one which we call ‘culture’, leaving the sorts knowledgerealm’s and feelings appropriate to a living ture behind. Teofsupravital concerns are entirely to do creawith ideas and values relevant to a world where consciousness of the self and God are the determining aims, and the essential nature of things is the content it works with, and both are nothing to do with adaptation to nature or fortuitous inductive experiences derived from this. Te subject is now someone who not only knows nature, but knows what determines it. Te entire situation is no longer that of some subjective agency emerging out of whatever nature lets come-to-be, nor of a subjective agent finding itself in whatever corner of the world that it happens to have been born and brought up in. It is now a situation where the agent is in a position to withdraw from such chance contingencies, and survey the wider arena of values and goals which have already been gathered up by humans concerning the coming-to-be and the having-been of the world from the very beginning. If we focus more closely on the implications of this about-turn, whose final outcome is the genius, then we can see that animals’ perception, representation, instinct, rudimentary intelligence, and knowledge of various sorts, are all constrained by what is useful or harmful, although they know thatare they constrained in thisclose way.itTe boundaries of do its not environment likearethick walls which off from the breadth and height of the universe. On the other hand, a human being has world. It even knows that there is a world beyond the walls which it knows, and which it cannot know. No animal knows anything about the stars and the laws which govern them, nor indeed about mathematics, physics, science and metaphysics. It is first among human beings that there arises a will to know. It is first among them
also that any notion of truth, or a universe, or an ordered whole, springs up, and, along with this, a clear awareness that its sensory functions only give it an inadequate, miniscule and illusory version of all there is. Te cannot recognise the boundaries and its sensehuman of things witheven its sensory apparatus alone, but canconfines only doofthis with its reasoning faculty. It steps out from the confines of its animal environment, recognizing this very step, into the breadth and distance of the world. Tere can only be proper knowledge and truth on the part of a human being if there is an agency within it which can grasp that things in the world are such-and-such [Sosein], and whose activity is independent from its specific nervous and sensory organization. With these criteria met, a sphere phenomena, and for thinking ideas.isItavailable is only infor thisintuiting way thatthe thebasic human being can overcome the bounds of its sensory organization, just like the scientist or historian who does just that every day. Te human being can even grasp and recognize matters which lie in some sphere, which are in fact only relative to his specific organisation, yet distinguish what is relative about them from what is absolute. Te agency which can do this is not relative to the human organism [i.e. it is extra-human]. Te same goes for the ideas of what is good, beautiful and right, from which grow great works, comprehensive systems of morality, art and legal systems, all of which place life at their service, and all of which, as elements of civilization and its technological framework, seek to subjugate life, and consign it to the status of a substructure of their own self-enhancing existence. It is not critical to my argument whether individual aesthetic values, moral values, or simple feelings of what is right and wrong, do or do not occur here and there in the life and world of animals. What is decisive is that they only occur, in things or actions, as carriers of values which are meaningful for the preservation and promotion of the animal’s animal has desire, lack offreely it, in the presence of the beautiful,life. as Te Darwin showed, but itorneither produces beautiful things, nor does it show any sign of enjoying them – as Lotze showed. It has an emotional solidarity with the herd, and can contagiously take on the emotional state of others. But it has no free scope for compassion, and no spiritual [geistige] love and kindness against, or independently of, its own vital interests; only sexual appetite and tenderness belong to the animal in this respect. It has anxiety, and maybe fear at
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
what concerns it now, but no fear of death, and no sense of respect. It remembers its punishment, and what it has been frightened of, but has no sense of remorse. It hesitates if it comes up against something unfamiliar, a mirror image of itself, but has nopain sense of desire, astonishment andsuch no as admiration. An animal experiences and but has no notion of a suffering which actually tolerates this for some higher ideal, as in martyrdom, let alone an acknowledgement that some people enjoy suffering. Even less has the animal a notion that life is a trial. Te animal occasionally chooses perhaps between one or other item within its sphere of vital interests, but there is no question of an objective and definite preferential ordering of values and goods. It is a question of the animal’s vacillating between one thing and another, ancomes actual to choosing. Te rather humanthan being life again as a mental and spiritual person – in the form of his or her mental and spiritual individual selfconsciousness. In this form it is indivisible, individualized, independent, actual, supra-temporal, and supra-spatial. In this form, too, it possesses its life, which means that it freely steers it, and is able to control it within definite limits. Furthermore, it, the mental agent, is able to bring the inner play of the automatic goings-on of life – drive impulses, representations – to a state of objectivity, and, according to its own supravital aims, enables it, as if from the outside, to steer these and utilise them. By contrast, the animal has only a functional, divisible, vital soul-centre and corresponding consciousness of itself, the last of these reliant only on the continuity of its memory. It is first individualized through the chemical and physical substances and energies which make up its body. Te plant is probably only momentarily and discontinuously in charge of its movements, and is a disunited collection of sensitive life forces [ Dranggeűhl]. It has no consciousness, and no sensations of a sort which can report back its state and movements to some central place which one could call a ‘self ’. It has no life of the sortisolated, that an animal and human have. In humans hypnosis, the vital soul is relatively and only shows through in dreams, mass contagious behaviour, sexual intercourse, and, in the child, in its first few months. What is free and active about the act centre of the person is by no means arbitrary, but refers to its conforming to rules and determinations of its timeless individual nature, whosemodus vivendi is to have an effect or not to have an effect on the life-centre, and never to be a
passive recipient of what the life-centre might have to pass on. Tis results in the nature of the person’s only being revealed slowly in the course of its [subordinate partner’s] empirical vital development [- i.e. it, the person, as in thethe exhibition what it, theinperson, lets appear of whatisisrevealed going on psychic of domain and, a negative manner, what it, the person, does not let appear]. Te favourableness or otherwise of our genetic inheritance, and our organic fate with respect to illness and longevity, and the hazards in our environment, can all reveal themselves to a greater or lesser extent in this way. However, its own nature, its own fate, and what has led it to be what it is, the person knows differently from how the organic living part of it knows, despite the two being part of one another. Te human is not atime product of development history.is.Only a creature whobeing is outside can understand whatand history Each person is newly created by the circumstances of their parental begetting, in conjunction with the laws of the universal life process of which they are part. From that point onwards – i.e. its parents’ begetting – the human being’s life is available to serve whatever mental schemes the mind has in store, which in essence concern God himself and His unfolding. In this context the following words are apposite: ‘And if a man gain the whole world and lose his soul …….’.
Te motive that made me decide to choose the theme ‘Life and Soul’ for a public lecture was not that I wanted to set out a conventional philosophical theory about this obscure relationship. For, it is rather my utter conviction that all conventional theories – whether those of the Scholastics, which treat the soul as a corporal form of life; whether those which allow all sorts of interaction between the two; or those which see a standpoint parallelism of between the two – are allinvestigation. found wanting fromI the current appropriate scientific When began to concern myself with this scientific problem about twenty-five years ago the entire philosophical contribution, both in Germany and elsewhere, was as to whether the soul was a sort of substance which could influence the body, or whether the principle of conservation of energy in its broader version as a simple mechanical law of natural causality forbade anything other than a parallelism between conscious
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
psychic events and nervous or brain physiological events. From the viewpoint of this latter position – so-called psycho-physical parallelism – there were three alternative formulations put forward for these strange parallel 1. First, therehappenings. was the so-called idealistic or pan-psychic version, which at root considered the entire sequence of physical causality as only the content of a universal consciousness, and as an assertion of a continuous psychic causality. 2. A second version, an epiphenomenological one, which made psychic experience equivalent to conscious appearances, was that the appearances of the soul were among themselves completely disconnected and only occurred in exceptional places in the physical causal nexus – in more organized creatures, and certainly not plants. theory was highly near enough a sort of materialism, and made out thatTis all psychic connections were ultimately only explicable as cerebro-physiological events. 3. A third proposal was a version of monism, whereby the two series of events, viewed as having the same span and continuity, each reflected the same natural event but from two different angles – one psychic and one physiological. However, in the final analysis both series were regarded as objective appearances of the same metaphysical unknown substance and its modifications – as Spinoza thought. Whoever today takes a serious look at the problem of life and soul, takes on something which, on the face of it, is a dry-as-dust, boring, Scholastic, intellectual gymnastics. It reeks of some bygone venture, full of unproven assumptions, short on living matters of fact, and addicted to theory-building, in short, insulated, equally, from the facts of life and the scientific approach. It is, however, childish to put matters in this way, as if either there is a parallelism or there is an interaction. Surely there must be numerous possible ways of expressing the relationship between the two, in addition to parallelism or simple interaction. Even Ancientformat. philosophers came up with plausible alternatives to thisthe ‘either-or’ Tere are Plato’s parable of the prisoners in the cave, and Aristotle’s theory, which St. Tomas Aquinas reworked in a peculiar way, to start with. In recent times we have Bergson’s account, as set out in Matter and Memory. Furthermore, it is completely childish to assume that in human beings there are only two possible realms to consider: soul – which is phenomenologically reduced to consciousness – and life – which is generally treated in the
accounts in question as reduced to its chemical and physical components. Why could there not be three, or five, such realms in play? How do you know, before a proper investigation of the matter is undertaken, that there iswrite not aoff ‘trichotomy’ – say, life, o completely this suggestion is tosoul fall and intomind? the very trap whereby this problematic has previously been tackled, a method which I like to call the ‘method of principles’. What I mean by this is that noone first of all asks how the actual experienced or inferred workings of the soul do interrelate with events of the living body in any of the scientific domains where it is appropriate to ask this question. Tese include empirical psychology, physiology, anatomy, and the relevant parts of medicine. Moreover, no-one asks whether, in all this tangle, there might not betosome connecting theme. Instead, all one are defeatist remarks the effect that none of this can even be hears properly thought about if the two principles of nature themselves are shrouded in mystery and are intangible. Te whole point, however, is that these two principles – soul and life – are set up and then deemed enigmatic, whereas the proper way to proceed is surely to start with all the facts of the matter and then see whether these two principles fit the facts. Allow me, before I get on to an actual broadening of our question, to give a brief account of the causes and basis for the completely altered formulation of the question which our contemporary philosophy and science adopts, as opposed to the way the same obscure questions were asked in the past. We can divide this up into six main considerations. 1. First, there is the influence of the pervasively differentZeitgeist of our own times. 2. Secondly, there are masses of new psychological facts and theories on the matter, which have a bearing on the way the questions might be asked. 3. Tirdly, profound revolutions in the fields of physics and chemistry, particularly the theories of Einstein and Planck, have to be borne in No lessthoughts relevant are transformations in biologicalmind. and medical andfundamental their implications, for example, on the meaning of vitalism, on the very notion of what medicine is, in endocrinological research, in the growing investigation into brain function, and for the progress of developmental psychology and pathological psychology, and, in particular, knowledge about psychopathology. 4. Fourthly, there is the role of so-called phenomenological philosophy to consider, which offers a philosophical method which is more
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
relevant to our question than any other recent suggestion in the field. Tere are two aspects to this: i) its separation of questions about the essence of something from questions thing; andabout the fortuitous experience one might have of the same ii) the linking of the life-soul problem with issues to do with theories of cognition and ontological, metaphysical questions. 5. Ten, there is the contribution of one man, Freud, to take into account. He has illuminated aspects of what we call life and soul and their inner connections in an entirely new way. Te obscure world of the human unconscious drives and their energy, along with their dual effects, on the one hand influencing conscious states, and on the other hand channelling into physiological all sorts breathing, diac activity, sexual activity, digestionevents etc. –ofhave been–opened up. car-
. Whether the so-called Zeitgeist is a source of truth or error – it is frequently one or the other – there is no doubt that it affects the way our above-mentioned question is put. Te profound thinker George Simmel once said, in the same vein as Rudolph Eucken in his bookBasic Concepts o Present-day Lie, that each era has its own model category of how world isit conceived and ‘imbibed’ , as it were.ofFor example, in the 18ththe Century was the heavenly constellations stars and their movements. oday there is no doubt that our model category is ‘Life’. Tis trend has been taken to extremes, perhaps to a laughable degree in its uncriticalness, in the clamour with whichLebensphilosophie has been adopted in all countries. I do not wish to labour this point. But anyone can see the meaning which sport, dance, and the worship of the body, have for the youth movements in all countries, and can only be amazed at the dual renunciation on the part of our era, on the one hand of the values of intellectual and spiritual achievement – sportsmen and popular singers are these days much more important people than any poet, philosopher, painter or scientist – and on the other hand the ideals of a mechanistic work ethic. You only have to feel the Dionysian undercurrents in all this to see what I mean. Te English economist Keynes has captured this trend in striking images.
Nietzsche, Bergson, Simmel and Dilthey, and a variety of neo-pragmatists, make up this so-called Lebensphilosophie of a primitive sort, and even some rationalist philosophers, such as Rickert, fall into the category. At this point one should note that ‘Life’, the dominant world category of our time, is quite neutral with respect to the psycho-physical distinction. For, what is ‘psychic’ and what‘physical’ when a human being smiles, blushes, hesitates or dances? Especially since Descartes, the usual thinking about all this, in Western circles, is to cram it into a dualistic framework. For such things to occur, it is assumed, there must first of all be some event in consciousness, and, secondly, in addition and in a strange way, all sorts of physical movements which one must conceive of intophysical and chemical terms – the which takenbehaviour as a whole are referred as mechanistic. Alternatively, human in question is attributed to an unknown X – which stands for soul – which relies for its activity in an unknown way on the molecules and atoms of its nervous system, which, according to this view, it is nothing else besides. But none of this is acceptable in our era. Where, in all this, resides ‘Life’ and its ‘unity’? Has it not been spirited away, if all this were true? Is the sequence of conscious events then life itself? No, they are merely knowledge o what is happening in psychic life! Are, then, chemical and physical processes life? If we take an actual example of what I mean, we can see that if I am presented with a lemon, then I salivate. Tis is Pavlov’s core experiment. Te perception, indeed even the suggestion, of a fruit, and even in sleep, stimulates the activity of the salivary gland, and further causes a build-up of gastric juices. How does it do this? Te traditional way of explaining it, deriving from Descartes, and invoking soul – as equivalent to consciousness – and body – as a mechanistic entity – and both in this formulation being separately stimulated because they are separate ‘substances’, is as follows. A series of light waves impinges on the eyes and generates multiple of this stimulus in a path from theorsensory nerves a to thereproductions occipital cortex, where, without further ado explanation, conscious image is somehow created. Te whole issue is considered to be a purely receptive event. But no-one can say how and why there is this conversion of a stimulus event into a motor event in the stomach involving chemical happenings in this organ. Why should this gastrointestinal activity happen in this precise way, and not correspond to
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
the visual presentation of some other food? No-one seems to understand the mystery. How should we put the matter these days, or at least counter this traditional versionofofthe events? of all,other it is not correct say that the visual perception lemonFirst or some fruit is onlytodetermined by the stimulus, sensory organ, efficient nervous conduction, and occipital cortical arousal. Te situation is rather that there must be some drive-based hunger or appetite, or some other such drive-based attention of a spontaneous sort, which already bears on the situation. Otherwise, no perception would arise in the first place. A receptive set of events is simply not enough. Te formula E = f (R + tr A) must hold – i.e. E – Empfindung [sensation] = function of Reiz [stimulus] Aumerksamkeit and [attention]. Secondly, is nottriebhater true that[drive-based] the functional unity of the build-up of gastric juicesit or the salivary glands’ output can be solely explained within a physical and chemical framework. Teir functional unity cannot be directly explained within the framework of matter and energy even, although the last two play a part, and their role can be investigated. Even in respect of the role played by the physical and chemical factors, the same psycho-physically neutral, living drive-impulse is necessary to activate the physical and chemical factors. For how else could the last-named make these gastric juices as opposed to some other juices flow, or act as a constituting determination for the perception which the fruit comprises? By now the picture we have built up is completely different from the one we started out with. It is no more a case of there being a pure visual perception arriving from outside us, and, in the absence of any arousal of the organism, setting in train gastric secretion by mechanistic or purely chemical motor direction, along with chemical and physical events. Te true situation is schematically as follows. Drive impulse – an actual living matter, psycho-physically neutral
Perception Functional unity of the build-up of this gastric juice An undivided life event now operates in the place of two completely disparate things [proposed by the erstwhile philosophical theory],
things about whose connections no-one knows anything anyway, and for the possibility of whose coming together Descartes’ pupils had to resort to coining the term ‘occasionalism’ – which required the intervention of God – or had explain the strange betweenrecomthem by coming up with the tonotion ofaway ‘parallelism’ – asgapSpinoza mended. For our part, we think that it is high time that one stopped casting out ‘life’ from our world, and stopped substituting it with passive, so-called conscious events on the one hand, and physico-chemical formulae on the other. If we make the same point more formally, this runs as follows. Te specifically, vitally orientedZeitgeist in our day has destroyed the previous Western pattern of thinking, itself fairly new, and one to which most adhered. pattern of thinking in question is the alisticscholars Cartesian way of Te thought, which on the one hand makes of duthe body something that purloins force only to make of it nothing more than a bit of ‘extension’, and on the other hand turns the might of the soul into nothing more than a passive,so-called consciousness. All this has the net result of demeaning knowing and reflective knowing, and of disastrously splitting apart body and soul one from the other.
. Independently of the Zeitgeist , thereaffect are a and number investigations into sensation, perception, memory, acts ofoffeeling and will -particularly those of Kulpe and his school, which inaugurated the psychology of thinking – whose rich results provide a new set of facts and elementary laws governing relationships in this area, and are absolutely critical to our understanding of the issue of soul and life. Here, I shall only deal with a few general points of view. In the course of the above investigations, three connected, theoretical and basic assumptions on the whole matter have been gradually destroyed. 1) Te first of these is sensualism. Tis theory takes the stimulusproportional, isolated sensation to be the most elementary, in the sense of simplicity, and hence as the most causally earliest, conscious experience. But, in fact, it is not a sensation, but the emotional, drive-based and motor sides of the soul’s life, which are demonstrably the elementary obscure womb from which all sorts of intellectual processes first causally spring forth. It is probably the case that in plants and lower animals there is a living soul, which, in general, possesses nothing re-
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
sembling sensations or consciousness, but merely drive-based, directed movement. Furthermore,there simply does not exist any strictly, pure, stimulus-proportional sensation, independent of either drive-based attentional motoric impulses. A sensation is athespecial [Grenzbegriffevents ]. But or virtually everyone continues to treat notioncase of a sensation as a fact of the elementary stage of the life of the soul, and that is because they simply assume the truth of the traditional psychological teachings. A relatively stimulus-proportional sensation is, as Jaensch showed, just a late product of a soul’s development, and therefore is to be regarded as a by-product of the growing dissociation between representations and perceptions which occur – normally – as one grows old. Perception itself is an adaptation to spontaneous, drive-induced fantasy. Moreover, whata these is],variously called a holistic approach, a unified complex, form days [Gestalt or a structure, all such precede the isolated sensation in the order of things, and the experience and observation of a so-called sensation are demonstrably dependent on the nature and structure of these ‘totalities’ in every consideration. For this reason, the older versions of sensualism – Hume’s, Condillac’s, Mach’s – and a mechanistic version of the philosophical notion of parallelism, were made for each other. Even the assumption of higher order supervisory faculties of the soul, which first allegedly give order, allow assimilation, and allocate relationships, to the scattered points of sensations – an assumption which lies at the basis of Kant’s philosophy – should, in the light of the new experimental psychology, be jettisoned, and with it any distinction between a ‘higher’ and a ‘lower’ soul, as Wundt envisaged. In fact, if one joins the sensualist doctrine to that of epiphenomenal parallelism then what one gets is Lotze’s version of an interaction between the two entities, whereby it is now referential thinking [beziehende Denken] [and not simply consciousness as in the traditional formulation] which is supposed to bring ordered meaning and purposefulness to otherwise isolated sensations, andchief which, according to Lotze school,ofis asupposed to assume the burden of evidence forand thehis existence substantial soul which works on the body. 2) Association psychology, which is closely bound up with the truth of sensualism, is the next traditional assumption to have been undermined. Association psychology was historically a metaphorical analogy drawn from Newton’s vision of how everything worked in the same mechanistic way, from celestial bodies to simple molecules. Te im-
petus to fashion an association psychology was further fuelled by two considerations. Te first was the tendency to regard the living soul as something that could be controlled – a tendency particularly prominent among and Jesuits, doctors pedagogues – and treat itconsideras rather amorphous needing an and imposed structure. Tetosecond ation was the view, taken by Priestley and Hartley for instance, that its smooth running bore a one-to-one relationship with the physiological activity of the nervous system, a physiology moreover which treated life’s events as merely applied physics and chemistry, they themselves being regarded as purely mechanistic sciences, a view directly attributable to Descartes. Neither of these two influences on the subject was an insight derived from actual investigation of the matter in question, but was mere to wishful thinking, prior investigation. corresponded the wish to bring thetolifeany of such the soul in line withTey the Weltbild of the physics and biology of the Newtonian era. Tis association psychology, the nature of which is to view all soul complexes, meaningful connections and motivating currents, as isolated spatiotemporal potential contact points – so-called representations – which recur in identical fashion, join up then fall apart, and carry out their business with all sorts of tendencies, such as reproduction and perseveration, is nowadays, generally, though not completely, discredited. Philosophically, we can say that pure associations of the above sort generally do not occur. Approximation to these, however, do turn up as pathological instances – for example, the word association university – universe, instead of university – rector. But they are least of all seen in elementary states of the soul, such as in children and animals. Tey are rather special cases of cognition, which may occur in some sorts of mental illness. For these reasons, i.e. the demise of association psychology, we have to adopt one of two positions with regard to any replacement. Either we give up the notion that there is any co-ordination between the representational processes and physiological events. Or have to rethink our ideas of what physiological events actuallyelse are.we Te latter is the route known as functional vitalism, and, in a different way, is reflected in Gestalt psychology and Gestalt physiology. It is the latter, not the former, path along which we have to go. Tere are certainly a wealth of psychic connections not derived from either association, reproduction or perseveration; for example, the naming function of a word, instinctual activity, judgement and proposition
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
formation, the simplest thought processes, and even the solution of the most elementary tasks. A so-called ‘mental soul’ G [ eistseele] is not what first brings order and sense in some consequential act dealing with supposed chaos to it, with by some other part the soul. Ach’sthe treatise on Will andproffered emperament his notion of a ‘dofetermining tendency’, provided the first inklings of our new concept of a soul. Te critical insight here was that the soul’s inherent way of proceeding, from the very outset, is characterized by a functional aim-directedness without the intervention of any mental acts. Tis occurs at all stages of development, and does not just apply at a special point in this development. Tis means that tasks are being carried out, referential links of a meaningful sort are being made, and organized and unified reactions are occurring inchanges the organism as a whole, and this inTe the living context of corresponding in the environment as all a whole. soul – hitherto, in the previous epoch of psychology, regarded as an exotic addition to the life process itself – now becomes the very living event itself of the entire organism, closely and inwardly linked to everything that is going on. In fact, this new account has much in common with the Ancients’ views, in which biology and psychology are again tightly joined. Psychology again becomes the study of the life of inwardness, a biology of the inner life. Instead of laws of association-forming, there is one overriding law in play: each organized complex and each form and structure has the tendency to amplify its own meaningful totality, though under the influence of value-laden and emotionally appropriate anticipatory drive aims. Anything resembling an association is a sheer co-incidence, and, if it occurs, is more likely to be a manifestation of a failing, disintegrating organism, a situation as far as one can possibly get from how any elementary, early, or causally prior living set-up proceeds. Tese are only a few examples of the new psychology. [Tere are many others in all areas of psychic life.] those who study thearelabyrinth that isexpert our brain arebrain, more of 3) anBecause expert on psychology than psychologists on the the picture of the soul that we are building up here has quickly led to marked revisions in our knowledge of how the brain works. Tis new knowledge in turn has influenced philosophical formulations of life and soul. A psycho-mechanistic parallelism of any sort has been abandoned, as has any theory of mutual interaction. For, if the very simplest creation of the soul – an elementary perception, for instance
– is already possessed of a form and unified meaning in its own right, and does not derive this from any additions or supplementary laws, and the same is true for the simplest memory events – for example, learning nonsense – there is simply no needfirst to invoke theunity existence ofstrings some of authoritarian soul substance which confers and meaning in a supposedly ‘associative’ accord with whatever an allegedly existing ‘under-soul’ brings to this supposed accord.
. With this we arrive at the most obscure, and, even today, still unclear side of the contemporary problematic. All present-day philosophical theories concerning life and soul, however different, and that includes Driesch’s, take as read, to a greater or lesser extent, a mechanisticviewpoint of nature, at the very least when it comes to the inorganic realm. Teir model is classical Newtonian physics. At the very least they formulate matters as if they had never heard of Einstein, Planck, Duhem, Poincarē, Bergson, Le Roy, Meyerson, Mach, Schlick or Reichenbach. Such ignorance can also be seen among philosophers following in the Kantian tradition – Riehl, Cohen, Natorp – who regard the problem of life and soul as nothing more than a challenge for the theory of knowledge. In fact, if one takes a mechanistic view of nature to be the endeavour to make the perceivable phenomena of natural things merely the consequence of measurable alterations in place in space and time – or in some four-dimensional matrix as Minkowsky proposed – and to grasp the laws of such changes and how they are determined, then virtually all philosophers can be accused of adhering to a mechanistic view of nature, a ‘pangeometry’, as it were. But if one gets to grips with what contemporary physicists are telling us about nature, or then notions of an absolute space, time, absolute movement, absolutely extended matter, are absolute simply wrong. Contemporary physics has simply no truck with a unified, overarching Weltbild, but, on the contrary, is coming up with an obscure, unimaginable, and even contradictory relativity, whose only truth is contained in the equations of quantum physics. Some physicists deem the laws of nature to be the laws of large numbers. Others, Planck, for example, conceive of there being two sorts. Te whole issue of what nature is has
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
been reduced to a question of electrons, and that in itself only intensifies the whole question as to what matter is. Te quantum physicist is questioning the very fabric of his discipline just like a physical Bolshevist, comingofup new answers,principles and demanding a complete overthrow thewith old,radically formal, mechanistic of causality in the field of physics. Teir endeavours have hardly been exploited by those of us tackling our own philosophical problems. But there is one notable exception, a partial application of the young physics, and that is Koehler’s book Physical Forms o Rest and Stationary States, published in 1920. Te gist of this briefly is that in the inorganic world, looked at in a purely theoretical way and excluding any practical considerations, there is as little in the way of a mechanistic set-up as there is in the physiological andofpsychic domains. Tere exists a set of in laws, especially in the field electricity, whereby, at any given point a field of forces, what happens is dependent on the potential structural alterations of the entire field. Tis structural law has led to the discovery of a similar law in the domain of the psychic, a matter which Wertheimer sets out in his Visual Experience o Movement. From this we can conclude that in spite of the demise of association theory we neither need to resort to any sort of vitalism – whereby the dead world is deemed to have an intrinsic goal-orientation towards mechanistic workings, as Driesch thought – nor to any sort of soul-substance, to account for a strict parallelism between the physical and the psychic. Tat which is outside is also inside! Tis proposition has been taken to mean, and so far rightly so, that the inorganic world is so stupid and meaningless that everything in it has to work according to sacrosanct and necessary laws of a mechanistic sort. For us, however, the proposition has potentially a completely new meaning: there is an amechanistic parallelism between the goings-on in the physicaland the psychic realm. I myself do not believe that this hypothesis is sufficiently robust to justify a reinstatement of an unequivocal parallel organization and monism between physiological matters, events. Tis forms neither suffices tophysical explainand all physiological nor, law evenofless, those of a psychological nature. Even the supposed similarities between physiological and physical events are not properly thought through. All the same, the whole approach opens a new perspective. What if, though, the entire formal- mechanistic view of nature had merely a practical and biological determining value, as Bergson in his Matter and Memory and Creative Evolution and I in my Cognition and
Work have proposed? Here for the first time the life-soul problem is recognized as being inextricably linked with cognitive theories about physics, an issue that Bergson first realized. If it could be demonstrat-
ed that the basic categories intuitively derivedwere maninot fold,determined which the formal-mechanistic versionand of nature assumes, by human reason and what it establishes, as Kant thought, but that, for example, space, relative time and the laws of the formal mechanistic structures, were already pre-rational and biological, then the consequence of all this would be to make it illegitimate to try to explain life itself by means of categories which are themselves the tools of life. Tis then raises the question as to whether there are not entirely different ways of knowing inorganic nature. What about Goethe’s notions of a secret intelligence or witness of something pastonly [ Kunde ] or a panphysiognomy? Perhaps inorganic nature long is itself ‘petrified dead life’ [erstarrtes gestorbenes Leben]. When life dies does it petrify according to discoverable laws? Pan-vitalism or pan-psychism [are so general as to be virtually meaningless]. Bergson’s solution is too rash and the way he poses the problem is classical – see myCognition and Work.
. But what is now the most remarkable thing of all in the profound reorganization of ourofthoughts all along these with matters that at the time as the dualism life and on soul, theis,processes of same the soul and the physiological life processes, are being completely dismantled, and the thesis of an independent soul becomes merely the ‘biology of inwardness’, and all this has repercussions on what the soul is regarded as encompassing – stretching from the lowest forms of animal life, even the protozoon, to at least the lower centres of the nervous system in humans – at the very same time as all this is up for consideration an entirely new dualism opens up. Tis dualism has been largely unsuspected by anyone in the 19th or even the 20th Centuries, and was completely overlookedby the Ancient Greeks or Kant. In fact the more Life and Soul becomeone concept of life itself along with a vitally, unified set of functional laws – i.e. monism – the more the dualism of Life and Mind advances and eventually reaches the stage where it alone lays claim to metaphysical validity. In this way, certain hoary philosophical problems – e.g. psychologism, whether in logic, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics or natural theology – are overcome.
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
Mind realizes itself only in partnership with the highest level of a living creature, which we refer to as its technical intelligence. Mind, in its most essential sense, ‘is’ something only by virtue of its carrying out acts 1)ofareintention. directedTese upon acts: pure objective ideas and the essential nature of things; 2) possess a final goal whose direction has nothing to do with any values belonging to life, but with truth, beauty and goodness, for example, and with devotion to God; 3) concern the being-so and laws of matters which are nothing to do with any comparable laws which apply in the sphere of living entities; and are free of–any on theorchanging states –of but a psycho-physical4)organism be reliance these psychic physiological have to do with the very nature of what things are, their being such-and-such and none other. [Te following remarks and questions should give a flavour of the nature of mind.] i) Is mind part of the psyche? Or is it rather only linked with the psyche by virtue of the latter’s necessary role in the mind’s actualisation, without mind being in any way comprehensible in terms of any of life’s characteristics? ii) Mind is transcendent to all objective psychology. Tere is objectifiable being and non-objectifiable being, and mind is of the latter sort. iii) Mind has sociological and historical determinations. iv) Mind should be studied in the context of objective cultural achievements. v) Can mind have a definite correlate within the nervous system? No doubt there is mental activation in a given individual, but the intrinsic nature of the intention and act can have no such correlation. vi) ideas Tereon arethe implications for between the theory of what theand mind is in the new relationship sub-cortical cortical regions of the brain. vii) echnical intelligence and mind are not the same. viii) Our notion of mind leads to the demise of: nominalism, subjective accounts of the nature of values, and biological formulations of ethics and aesthetics.
ix) Human beings and animals are now, through our theory of mind, appropriately contrasted as, respectively, an open and a closed system. x) Mind reveals itself and grows as the human being ages. xi) sick or healthy. xii)Mind Mindisis not notsomething something that that can onebe inherits. xiii) Mind is outside space – i.e. non-extended – and outside time. xiv) Mind is outside consciousness, for the reason that it –mind – is that very thing of which one is conscious. xv) Mind is an opening to genuine freedom in contrast to the mere spontaneity of the vital soul. xvi) Following death the act-centre of the mind is not completely wiped out, insofar as the mind is also part of God, and that part of the centre God. and as a subject of mental activity can the huxvii)remains Only as in a mind man being embrace both psyche and nature.
. Te totality of noetic-psychic, physiological, and physiologico-physical relationships breaks down not into two but into three levels. Tese are: 1) a mind and person centre; 2) a vital centre with a vital soul and living agent; and 3) centres and fields of forces, whose activity underlies each special sets of laws. Tese sets of laws are, in the cases of 2) and 3), rules of form-building, but not in general formal-mechanistic ones, the latter being special cases of the former. But within the ambit of the effectiveness of the vital centre, there are, in addition to the form-building rules applicable to the physical and chemical material to hand, yet another set of laws which deal with building up temporal forms – in an absolute time – which have the same structure from a physiological and a psychological viewpoint. All vital happenings: a) areofaimed at something; are automatic; area based on a hierarchy functions and drives,b)which is orderedc)like monarchy; d) are those which pertain to the preservation and development of the living psycho-physical entity as a whole, and are aimed at something relatively immediate but do not have a pre-planned ultimate or extrinsically meaning-invested goal – i.e. they are teleoclinical and not teleological; and e) are intrinsically meaningful [sinn-voll] and not ex-
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
trinsically meaning-invested [nicht sinnhat], and neutral with respect to mental values. Life and soul are not like substances, but are only two objective groupings of appearances the same psycho-physically neutral vital-centre. Livingderiving events from are both physiological processes of life and psychic goings-on, and both are strictly co-ordinated one with another. Te appearances exist as physiologicaland psychological at the same time, and stem from one and the same elements and therefore should not be counted twice as two intrinsically separate entities. Te two are each functions; they are not in one case actual appearances and in the other case only potentialities for such. Mind is divorced from life, autonomous, and not a part or a function of the soul. A person individuated whose subject an attribute of istheansrcinal basis ofact-centre the world. But itultimate is lacking bothis activity and force.
Concerning causality, there are two sorts of genuine, metaphysical and actual causal connections to distinguish, neither type being a simple interaction. One is the relationship between person and the life centre, the other the relationship between the life centre and the centre of forces. Onelower, general common to both is that the higher set-up works on the so rule the person works on the life centre and the latter on the force centre. 1) A person determines, directs and steers – by way of inhibiting and disinhibiting –the activity of the life centre. By means of this it imposes its own ideas and values on to the actual real order of the world. Te person is in this process intentionally related to the real world, functionalizes1 what is there, and holds up its own agenda to the im1tion’ [Te bringsofto attention twowhich comments ‘functionalizain editor other parts clarifyabout this crucial notion Teour Collected Works of Scheler’s.] 1. I call ‘functionalization’ the process by which the experience of a definite object sheds all but its essential, distinguishing features to become the form of the concept of all other objects of the same nature. C( oll. Works, Vol.5, p.198) 2. Tere is no inheritance of acquired properties but there is inheritance of acquired functions. Te acquisition of functions, however, is by way of the
pulses of the life centre as a precursor to guiding them. Tis guiding is carried out by checking whether each particular impulse of the life centre suits the person’s own project or not, or whether promoting this one not that one will serve the purpose of fostering its preferred valueand regime, or whether inhibiting that drive impulse and dis-inhibiting this one – ‘saying no’ or‘not saying no’, as it were – will contribute to realizing its project or not. All this happens without any increase in drive activity on the part of the life centre, and without any expenditure of energy on the part of the person in any physical sense. Furthermore, the upshot for the person in all this is not to be affected or worked on. Te person, on his or her part, either determines the situation through the acts that he or she carries out, or does not determine what is going on by leaving the vital happenings free to go their own way. 2) Te second overriding causal relationship is between the vital centre and the centre and fields of forces. Tis only takes place in absolute time. Otherwise it is very similar to the way the person deals with the life centre – by guiding and steering – but, in the present case, what is guided and steered are the form-building rules of the chemical and physical processes, which are made to serve the aims of the psychic processes, through the intermediary of the physiological processes. In this way there is a continuous link between the dead inorganic environment and psychic processes. But here, as in the case of the person, there is no equal interaction: either the life centre exerts its veto, or it does not [by ‘saying’ no, or not so saying.] Tere is a comparison in all this with the disparate elements which make up a concert [see below]. Relationship 1), between person and life centre, is like that of the composer to the eventual performance of the piece. Relationship 2), between life centre and form building, regulated electrodynamic and static forces, is like that of the conductor to the musicians. In no case is there an equal interaction between the3 two Teparties. spatio-temporal matrix assumed by the formal-mechanistic formulation of nature, both the version of it in the physical and chemical spheres and the one allegedly providing the framework of the psyfunctionalization of attitudes of the organism in an early period of its life in response to definite stimuli – experience – but which then become fixed such that they accommodate all experiences of the same general nature.Coll. ( Works, Vol.8, p.24-29, 37)
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
chic sphere, is merely fictitious and at best a statistical invention. At most it only occurs as an ideal, special case in the actual scheme of things and has no actual existence itself and no actual efficacy.
As for parallelisms, if we now move on from the real metaphysical relationships just considered to functionally dependent relationships, there are four firm parallelisms to distinguish. 1) First, there is an associative-mechanistic parallelism. Tis is between physiological pathways which are deemed to approximate to stimulus-proportionality, on the one hand, and a psychic association matrix, on the other hand. But the whole scheme here is just a metaphorical fiction, a handy substitute for what is really going on. 2) Tere is then a parallelism between the form-building laws regulating chemical and physical processes, on the one hand, and psychic form processes on the other. 3) Next, there is a parallelism between physiological structurebuilding processes, on the one hand, and psychic happenings, on the other. Tis parallelism is between temporal events on both sides, is occurring at the subconscious level and has nothing to do with mental values, and is, essentially, the two sides of the coin of the soul. 4) Te parallelism is between acts and and aesthetic the rules governing thefourth way objective values – suchmental as ethical – are ordered. Tese four parallelisms can be presented schematically as follows: [See diagram, next page.] 1) What is physical and what is world generally consist of the same elements: striving and force, quality and sensation, thoughts and objective meaning, values and feeling, representation and pictorial image, experienced relation and relationship to being. Tey also contain the same lawful structures: formal-mechanistic, chemical associative formation rules, teleoclinical – i.e. determining tendencies, and noetic rules. 2. Te critical difference is that one, world, is being-for-itself, and the other, physical, is being-for-others. Tis applies to all living creatures.
Person
Mental acts
Rules of ‘being’
Vital centre
Psychic
Physiological lawfulness
Centre of forces
Psychic lawful formations
Physiological lawful formations Mechanistic parallel
3. Forand thisof reason there is It nofollows, double therefore, bookkeeping contents – of nature consciousness. thatofonly thepsychical unctional course o events has a strict parallel link with physiological matters. Te actual contents of perception, feeling, representation and thinking do not have this link. 4. What forces are for bodily images, drives are for representations. Te implications of all this for the problem of causal development in history I have discussed in my treatise on Te Sociology o Knowledge. All this leads to a final reflection, that the human being is truly a microcosm, and, at the same time, as Leibniz said, a ‘little God’. Trough his or her mental person centre he or she is in touch with God, indeed a part-centre of God’s. And he or she is part of a speck of dust too, and the laws determining it. And, we can add, he or she is part of everything else in between God and a speck of dust.
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
. It would be attractive to pursue the theory of mind and person still further, continuing from where I left off in the two previous lectures. But I intend in this last lecture to cut this short, and to give you a schematic version of my theory. I shall seek to show that everything I have brought out in a successive manner is in fact capable of being grasped altogether and simultaneously. At the same time I shall be proposing that they provide the basic framework of a new theory of life-soul-mind, which, in my opinion, will stand as the foundation for any subsequent particular theory of this. A theory such as mine has to answer three questions: 1) o what ultimate centres and agencies does the human being owe its existence? 2) What ontological and metaphysical causal relationships are there between these centres? 3) What functional parallel dependencies are assumed between appearances of anything? o help get my meaning across, I propose to devote this lecture to an illustrative analogy of these matters, and I shall choose a subject whose structure is as ‘isomorphic’ as possible with the human activity I wish to illustrate. Imagine that we are listening to a Beethoven symphony, played by an orchestra under the guidance of a conductor, and performed by awhich number musicians andhas their Te entire experience, we of hear and enjoy, fiveinstruments. principle components, with completely different sorts of causal sources. 1. First, there is the composition, whose aesthetic and artistically meaningful context is the symphony, and whose composer is Beethoven. We are equating this composer with the mental person centre in a human being, and with the way the human being’s individual nature determines matters – i.e. it is not real, but something that is only present and value-conferring, or not, in this or that human being, if it there can, oris cannot, be brought realization. 2. Next, the conductor, whosetomusical conception and baton movements are motivated by the artistic meaning content of the composition, without which the musicians would soon fall into confusion. We are equating the conductor isomorphically with the vital centre in a human being, each vital centre being a function-bundle of pan-life – life itself – a centre, moreover, which is in itself neutral with respect to
what is psychic and what is physical, but which is able tomake maniest both sides of this intrinsically unified entity. 3. Now we come to the musicians, many in number, well-practised, and ordered among on themselves – e.g. firstthey violinist, second ist, etc. – depending the meaning which wish to bring violinto the performance of the artwork. We are equating them, in our model of the human being, with the psycho-physical part-centres, in which the form-giving functional and drive-based course of the living process has its sources, physiological and psychological structure-building alike. 4. Ten there are the instruments that the musicians play – violins, drums, trumpets, etc. – each with its special sound-effect within the system as a whole. We are equating these as isomorphic with the physical and the elementary psychic 5. Finally, immediate causesform-building of our sensorylaws. hearing is the world of air vibrations, which trigger our hearing and all the specificities of this functional modality. We are equating these with the formal-mechanistic dependencies which we find in physiological events of all sorts and which belong to the principle of controllability. Tere are still two other considerations which emerge from this comparison. a) Te direction of what determines what along the chain is composer → conductor → musicians → instruments → airwaves, and not the reverse order. Tere is no interaction at play at any point in the chain. b) Each higher, more complex cause or determinant does not owe its power to condition the coming-to-be of something to the existence and effectiveness of a lower determinant, even though the latter are responsible for our possible experience of what comes-to-be. What is an unperformed symphony? Or a score without a conductor? What is a conductor without musicians? What is a musician without an instrument or with one that does not work? And if I could only make out a confused noise from the air vibrations, then the composition would be a closed book to me for ever. In the same way, the mind is nothing without a vital soul; the latter is nothing without events conforming to the lawfulness of vital temporal formations; these last nothing without matter and energy. In spite of these considerations the higher determinant is never completely accounted for by the lower. Te higher one could always be something else than what it actually is. Te meaningful content of
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
the symphony stems from the mind of Beethoven, who has long been dead and whose works have outlived him. What actually accounts for what we experience, from among the various determinants which we have considered, a strange Te lower determinants have force behindhas them, whereaslook the about higherit.determinants only have an idea [and yet the latter are the more powerful]. One then arrives at the even more curious conclusion that what is predominantly responsible for our experience – i.e. Beethoven – has ceased to exist: it is no more; it is false. o conclude our illustrative analogy, the advocate of a psycho-mechanistic parallelism is equivalent to someone who wants to derive the entire living composition from the airwaves and sensations. Te Gestalt psychologist is someone who wants derive from itthefrom instruments. Te psychovitalist is someone whototries to itderive the musicians and conductor. Mind is nothing to do with the psychic. Let’s put this behind us and get on with the crux of the matter.
If we start out with the behaviour of a human and at the same time consider what is given to us in immediate experience we can readily list the following essentially different sorts of behaviour which underlie the human being. 1. In one way the human being behaves exactly like the bodily things which he experiences in the external world under conditions ofa natural Weltanschauung. Were he to fall from a tower he would fall exactly as a stone does, and according to the same laws. A boulder or a rifle shot can destroy him; he can burn up. In short, he is, and experiences himself as, a body, just as if he were perceiving part of his life from an external viewpoint. Should he forget for a moment that he is a body he only has to stumble and hit himself against something and he will soon notice that he is a body – a body among bodies. Te laws governing the relationships between bodies apply equally to him as a body and as a subject with bodily behaviour. Te body or the bodily thing is a genuine essential idea. Te structure of the determinations of a thing with this essential nature – e.g. movement potential, extension, duration, form, and all sorts of quali-
ties – and the essential order with which these determinations are built up, are the same for the human body as for all other possible bodily things. Everything that science established the way of mechanical, physical and chemical laws,hasalong with theinaccompanying basic notions of what matter and force are, apply to that sort of body which we call a human body as well as to how that body interacts with other bodies – living or dead – and the same principles to do with exchange of energy apply. Te laws of geometry, physics, chemistry, and ontology and metaphysics, apply to his body as to all others. According to St. Tomas Aquinas and Aristotle one should expect a different sort of chemistry and physics in the former case. But this is ruled out, by, among things,ofthewhatever principlesort. of the conservation of energy, which applies other to all bodies Note that what this embodiment of a human being alerts us to from a metaphysical point of view is that whatever else a human being might be it also enters into the problematic of the metaphysics and ontology of bodily things. And for those of us who are concerned with metaphysics, bodies, in their essence, if we set aside their existence and dynamic effects, are nothing but pictorial images B[ ilder] or objective – i.e. consciousness-transcendent – appearances, underlying which is a centre of force and field of forces and its accompanying fields of forces. Space as a real factor is a product of this. One can arrive at this principle of a centre of force in two ways. First, it can be seen as the end-result of modern physics. Secondly, it follows from a purely ontological analysis of the construction and founding of the nature of a body. Such an analysis leads us, independently of the conclusion of modern physics, to the following ordered foundation. 1. First, there arises an effective agency in the form of centres of forces. Tis allows transformation. It then allows movement – alteration – separation in four dimensions. 2. stage is extension duration physical time. 3. Te Terenext then emerges spatial and formation andinrhythmic alterations. 4. Next colours come on the scene – light and dark, bright. 5. Ten come all the remaining qualities. Te order of these determinations is in the first place a sequence of the givennesses and pre-givennesses which enter into the constitution of a body. Tis means that whatever is earlier in this order is pre-given with respect to what is later. Tis order of givennesses is an
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
order of what is in being and what is coming-to-be. In the second place the order is also that of our potential knowledge, because knowledge is only a relationship to what is in being [Seinsverhaltnis]. However, there is oneisexception the step exacttwo, correspondence betwee and what in being. to Only three, four and fiven knowledge is [a potential] appearance, a pictorial image available for knowledge. Te first stage, the effective reality [Wirken] is only experienced in the form of resistance to our volition and then objectified through the function which provides objectivity, having first been transmitted through the relationship of the two bodies involved – i.e. the resisted and the resisting. What cannot enter into a lawful effective exchange with the human body cannot be known. Te haphazard nature of something or theinfortuitous behaviour a body can only be explained cally accordance with theofessential construction of a body,scientifias given above. Tat means that we can make any number of observations, measurements and mathematical formulae about some thing or quality, but what it is has already been partly determined by the position it holds in the sequence of determinations referred to earlier. So, for example, extension and duration and space and time are only possible if the founding determinants movement and alteration are in place, and these last two are derived from the transformation possibilities inherent in the manifestation of force. Colour and all sensory qualities are further down the chain than form, rhythm, extension, duration, speed and movement. All this means that there are primary, secondary, tertiary, and so forth, essential determinants of a body. But the existence of these primary or secondary qualities does not mean that the later ones in the chain, for example colours, are only subjective contents of consciousness. All determinations, with the exception of those of the first stage, are equally transcendent to consciousness. Nevertheless, none of them achieves an absolutely constant state of being something, only a relative state of being such and such (inSosein ). Extension, form andqualities colour are of a similar nature this respect. Te secondary arecertainly just as consciousness-transcendent as the primary ones; the primary qualities are just as relative as the secondary ones – that means variable with respect to the changing flux of the spatio-temporal relationships of the body. Tere is no extended matter. Whilst temporality is chiefly a way of being of the actual effectiveness of the centres of forces, spatiality is only a product of this, and
is, above all, a way of being relative to a living creature. What is intelligible is only that part of the temporal formation which the force factors determine in space; neither extension nor spatiality themselves, nor theare intuitive rendering force centre, can become Tere therefore stimuliofofthe a purely metaphysical natureintelligible. which affect the life-centre, and there are stimuli within the spatio-temporal matrix; only the latter are intelligible, and these are what we call the pictorial image [Bild]. All this means that the human body is a pictorial image B[ ild] among other pictorial images, one which is nevertheless transcendent to consciousness, and one which, as an immanent experience, is only partly what it in fact is. Its extension and spatiality are only a form of what can potentially be meaningfully intuited wereI we a living creature with a life-centre. Tis applies to what can purely intuit about myself and to what I can intuit about others, and is nothing to do with reason, as Kant thought. In the real sphere of metaphysical concern, the body is only a certain grouping of non-spatial, but potentially space-forming, centres and fields of forces, which are inter-relating with all other remaining centres and fields of forces in the universe in a unified and lawful manner. Te entity and the corresponding substrate it resides in can be schematically set out as follows. 1. Material stimulus 2. Movement event 3. Pictorial image 4. Environmental thing
1. Material sphere. Brain 2. Movement mechanism 3. Pictorial image. World 4. Subjective appearance
Te lawful unity of this effective exchange,whose manifestations are the pictorial images of the body, is only comprehensible if the centres are part-centres of one and the same agent. Otherwise one cannot exclude a pluralistic universe in which nothing connects with anything else in any way whatsoever. Only this proposal above – the penetration of part-centres in some all-embracing centre – guarantees the unity of space. All determinations such as intensity, duration, direction, dimensionality of effectiveness, quality, and the lawfulness of an effect, which we are crediting to the centres of forces as the ultimate
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
actual repository of all scientific meaning, are exclusively proportional to the appearances and the rules governing the transformation ofthese appearances in a four-dimensional separateness which we investigate scientifically as a dead world. above concerning its embodied condi2. In addition to everything tion, the human being has a completely different way of behaving, appropriate to its being a living creature, in which manner it resembles animals and plants. What a living creature might be, the human being can only srcinally grasp from within himself, and not in the same way as he can grasp the nature of a thing or an effect or a body or an environmental thing, which he can conceive of through himself, but in the case of must his modeFor of being creature it from within himself. there isas ata living the very least aheside andgrasp a determination of a living creature, which he can only srcinally grasp by taking himself as an example of one, and one, which once aware of, hemust then carry over to all other living creatures. Tis side or determination is the ‘inwardness’ of a living creature, which is also the quintessence of what the notion ‘psychic’ means. A living creature is: a) something which is capable of spontaneous movement, something which has inwardness, and something which is always in the process of becoming [something else], and these together comprise the ultimate phenomenon of life [Urphänomenon des Lebens]; and b) a unified, changing, spatial form, where what changes is chiefly its matter, and whose form is unified owing to its time-forming processes. Tat which makes a human being into a living creature, or that which he experiences as being alive in him, is, in the first place, his very life, and the fact that everything comes to him with an inbuilt reference to a living creature, despite everything, including himself, being changeable in all other respects. Te human being is therefore not only a bodily entity, but also a living entity. And to this appearance
of his life there an activity centre, out dramatizing of which he experiences, andcorresponds which somehow has him at its from disposal, and expressing itself through him. Tis we call the life centre. In addition, the human being not only experiences his life and everything that stems from life’s essence with the life centre, but has a further access to what is alive by being surrounded by a living environment which is essentially related to the life centre. Tese points can be schematically presented as follows:
Life, life centre, and living environment, belong together, and do so for each living creature. Tey comprise a collective structure which provides the category ‘life’ with its essential meaning, and, in which any empirical is grounded. it no livingperception creature of cansomething’s be given asbeing alivealive for any potentialWithout knower. Everything alive is a group of temporal processes between these three poles. Finally, the natural Weltanschauung is the human environment. I Life Centre
Life
II Life Centre
Environment; physically factors real
Sensory
Motor
apparatus
system
Body
) It seems funny to say this, but philosophy has recently had to rediscover life. It is however true. It has ignored life as a unified, inseparable totality, and as a proper sphere in its own right, with a tremendous variety of empirically occurring entities and categories. For, philosophy and psychology, hitherto, have half consciously, half unconsciously, laboured under two cardinal misapprehensions, which phenomenology and Gestalt psychology are just beginning to unravel. 1) Te first of these is that life is taken to be merely a product of experienced associations, of which one set pertains to perception of bodily things in the outside world, and the other set has to do with the psychic, this latter set even being equated with conscious psychic phenomena. In this scheme everything is duplicated, so that, for example, in the case of the experience of our own body, there are assumed to be tactile sensations and internal sensations of tendon tension, or movement, pain, etc. Somehow the two haphazard sets are supposed to join up to produce the peculiar combination they call life. 2) Secondly, it is assumed that life can only be given in the form of its exterior aspect, especially so in the case of other living creatures. Life, by this account, is nothing more than a summation and a particular arrangement of bodily things of the same general nature as dead bodily things. Inside a living organism there is nothing except a fluc-
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
tuating swarm of organ sensations – this was Descartes’ and Rickert’s view, for instance. Te first assumption denies that life can have a genuine inside and an put, an inwardness an exterior, anyway thatoutside, this canor,bebetter experienced. Te secondand denies that the or totality of the givenness of life is actually a ‘sphere’ of its own, and is actually pregiven to a human being, with respect to any single sensory experience of it which might appear in it, e.g. pain, proprioception. Te core experience, ‘I have life’, precedes all sensory experiences of it. It is completely naïve to equate life with a mere body, as is frequently done, especially since Descartes. It is admittedly correct that what it is to be alive, and what it is to be a mere body, natural unity. Life appears in bodies in bodily forms, andform it isaunderstandable to want to call those and bodies which are required for the appearance of a life – Life itself or living bodies. But what goes into a body, as it were, or belongs to a body, which circumscribes the very sphere of the living, is precisely something pre-given to the body itself. It is nothing to do with a self, and the situation is certainly not the other way round – i.e.a certain sort of body cannot come to life – but rather life makes a body alive. Mutual exchanges between bodies which play a part in my life are going on continuously, and this includes the entire physical and chemical world, and this stretches as far as the sun and moon, and even beyond. If we restricted ourselves merely to concepts of what a body is, in trying to ascertain what life is, we would never know where and when our life stopped. Someone might say: But a child doesn’t know what life is, because sometimes it treats an inorganic object as if it were a living thing, and often takes its own feet for foreign bodies. No! Te first is not true; only the second is. It takeseverything for something alive, but not necessarily as belonging toits life. And the second point only demonstrates that the child must learn which special bodily things which it perceivesofdowhat in fact belong to itsnot own living as ahas pre-a given sub-sphere is alive; it does learn thatbody it itself life and therefore is not an angel.
) ’ Te single totality of life which is manifest in each living body shows itself in two main ways. It shows itself, first, as an expressive sphere of
the human being as a living creature, and, secondly, as an inwardness [Innes-ein] which is the quintessence of the living soul, and through which the human being, at least, experiences a for-himself or for-herself in the form of an immediate of their[ Fűr-sich-Sein actions. Te] sphere of inwardness and the region sphereofofcontrol expression cohere, and this coherence applies to all living creatures, even to those which are merely ideally possible. How much we actually notice of this is immaterial. Tis coherence of the two ways of appearing, along with the strict parallelism between the two, is based on their actual identity, which I experience or reflect on as an immediate givenness. Once I grasp this coherence in myself, it generalizes to my experience of all living creatures I might encounter. I call this inwardness – which is an objectivity anything in of being, because it belongs to not the actually earlier stage of pictorialofimageability bodies – psychic being [psychisches Sein]. If this is so, then the following are true. 1) Each living creature is above all something which has an inwardness of a psychic make-up. 2) Each living creature is something which has a for-itself [ Fűr-sichSein] about it, though it does not need to know this, and certainly does not need to be conscious of this or to be able to reflect on this, for this to be true. 3) Dead creatures or bodily things have no inwardness about them. It is generally so that other entities with a soul – i.e. living creatures – are first given to us on the basis of this above-mentioned coherence through the medium of their expressive sphere of their living body. It is not out of the question that another creature’s very inwardness is available to us as direct knowledge which we intuit by means of their expressivity – see my book Te Nature and Forms o Sympathy. In the case of our own selves it is generally so that we are given to ourselves in such a way that the actual coherence of our inwardness and expressions are mutually realized in the same time period. For example, my joy as my experiencing myself and my grief as mourning.ends Eachupaccompanies the other. Butsmiling, the coherence of one with the other, the inwardness and the expression, is a pre-given fact and not a created experienced association. Every living creature I encounter, I do so, knowing intuitively that it possesses an inwardness, knowing without further ado that it has a ‘psychicity’ [Psychizität] about it. Tis is even true of my experience of plants, which I so little resemble. When I encounter something dead, moreover, it is precisely the above that I
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
do not experience. In other words, how we experience something as dead is still based on the way we know that something is alive, except in the case of the dead it is the absence of aliveness that strikes us, i.e. astill negative state affairs. Teidentity monopoly of the phenomenon in force. Teofsame actual of something’s being aliveofis life evenis given in every living movement, in contrast to arbitrary movements [of the dead, say leaves being blown about]. Tink of the expressivity of the movement of someone who has stubbed their toe. Drive-motivated action is an undivided, unified event through and through. It is wrong to regard it as only a series of sensations and representations plus a consciously monitored execution of movement based on information from these, as Descartes thought. Tis would make no different from any movement my body, active whichmovement someone else might induce by passive lifting my arm, or offrom any reflex jerking of my leg if someone tapped my knee. A spontaneous living movement is none of this, but a unified, indivisible sort of psychic-bodily happening. Tis explains why I experience a sense of inhibition [when I don’t move in a certain situation, which would otherwise be nonsensical if sensation and representation were all there were, as nothing is happening to these last if I do not move].
Te ‘living soul’, for me, encapsulates the quintessential meaning of all inner states, which are best consideredas states or as movements and alterations of our life and its parts, even the organs themselves. But from this alone there does not stem what we mean by an objective experience of the soul. If we try and characterize what is common to all experiences of the soul, we shall find that it is impossible to come up with a single material property, such as, for example,being extended, or being material or immaterial, or being simple or cohesive, or being qualitative or quantitative, etc. It is much more to do with a relationship, and one which is immediately experienced and not thought through, which circumscribes what is psychic. What belongs to the human psyche, besides a life schema, is everything which has been immediately related to the human life centre,insofar as it – the life centre – is the subject of its inwardness. As such, the life centre is the experienced-self Erlebnis-Ich [ ],
which, on reflection upon, becomes a self-experiencing I[cherlebnis]. It is an essential phenomenological principle that each life centre is also an experiencing centre [Erlebenszentrum] insofar as it is inwardness. Teofperceptual this experienced relation, i.e. the appearances the livingcontents functionsin of perceiving – and the same applies to representational, drive-based strivings and strivings against resistance, along with all vital and soul-based feelings – are psychic experiences. Tey are sharply distinguished phenomenally from all immediate givennesses which are not experienced in relation to life or the life centre. Tese latter experiences have an objective reference to an external source, to objects or resistances in a temporo-spatial separateness, and their intuitively given nature in this manner is precisely what we experience as their to physical phenomenality. Tese latter are in fact referred something in the environment, andphenomena everything which can eventually appear in the environment is built up from this srcinal experience – e.g. colours of things, colours of surfaces, sound qualities of things, even mirror reflections, and all sorts of illusions and mirages. Te psychic realm of experience further stands in strict contrast to two other realms of objects. 1) Te first comprises acts and objective correlates of these acts, and this realm we designate the mental sphere. What one experiences [psychically] is outside our control [Schicksal – fate]. Tere is nothing one can do about it, unlike what one can do or bring about when our mental acts come into play. Psychic experience is automatic, in the sense of being spontaneous but not free; it arises on its own, comes and goes, and carries on in its own way, now like this, now like that. Mental acts, in contrast, do not carry on in this way, but we carry them out, and from a different centre. We carry them out from the person centre, and not the life centre where psychic experience is generated. 2) Te other realm which is separate from that in which psychic experience is that ofonthe of the environment, whichresides only touches thephenomenal inner world content of the [psychic] experience centre in a fragmentary fashion, and only insofar as it simultaneously and momentarily meets some need of the living body in the form of a sign or a stimulus value. It is therefore wrong, first of all, to characterize all form of givenness as primarily psychic. Tere are also physical phenomena. Te physical is not reconstructed [out of the psychic], as Wundt thought. In addi-
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
tion, the mental acts are not psychic, because they are essentially unobjectifiable. No less psychic are the objects of the mental acts, which may be ideal, real or fictitious, but never essentially psychic. If they were psychic any or fortuitous psychic experience could be made the object of athen thought a contemplation or become the resistant to our will. It is also incorrect to maintain that only functions – e.g. seeing or hearing – can be psychic. Tere are psychic appearances as well, including illusions and hallucinations as well as genuine appearances. Admittedly, a psychic appearance is only something that can appear in the setting of a psychic function. On the other hand, the functions which permit the appearances of things in the external world – e.g. seeing – and which are definitely living functions, are not only psychic but temporality, spatiality, extension physiological and durationfunctions. all crop upMoreover, in both realms, whereas a separateness is unique to the physical and an intermingling of elements is unique to the psychic. Because we defined psychic as the inwardness of a living creature, its sphere of potentially objectifiable objects – i.e. not objective objects – and its centre – the experiencing centre – have nothing whatsoever to do with the sphere of consciousness – which is not concerned with the ecstatic mode of presentation characteristic of the psychic, but with what can be given in reflection at various levels. What it is that passes from this psychic realm, or what does not pass on, into the sphere of alertness, reflection and knowledge of what is going on – which characterise what one is conscious of – is a completely different question. Each circumscribed vital part of life has its own portion of inwardness as part of the total state of inwardness of the individual, and therefore its own measure of the psychic. It is not the psyche, but only the conscious having of the psychic – along with the conscious having of the physical, the ideal, etc. – which are therefore somehow conditioned through the human brain and its activity. Tis means that just because we must start out with the consciousness psychic in our scientific knowledge of the psychic itself and whatofitthe might be, this fact does not allow us to demarcate the psychic from other realms on this point alone, because what is physical, what is ideal, and what the soul of another living creature is like, all have to be filtered through the same channel of consciousness. A ‘consciousness of ’ is a general characteristic of all rational knowledge geared at all objects, and is not privileged with respect to the psychic over any other realm of objects
– if anything, it is more distant. Each organ, even each cell, partakes of vital functional fields, and is therefore psychic. We have two definitions of psychic. 1) Psychic isis whatever the inwardness real. related to the life cen2) Psychic is givenofasanything immediately tre as an experiencing centre and that means also something that is experienced. Te first definition is the most general; it does not exclude the possibility that even things that we regard as dead could have a psychically inward side to them. Te second definition is valid across the range of living creatures – animals and plants included. Whether there is a psychic component to entities outside this range is an issue that the definition does not cover. It is important to note that the realm of the psychic only covers real entities and objectifiable entities. Mental acts, their objects, and the centre for these – the person – are neither of these. Tey are not real, especially so in the case of the person and the acts, because their sort of being what they are is only an act or a bringing into presence, and only to what is real belong positive and gradable – and therefore quantitative – activity. Te being of an act and the bringing into presence of something – each of which corresponds to the other – are not real sorts of being for another reason, and that is because real being itself is first co-defined through its very independence from mind, and especially from consciousness – as an act of mind. Mind cannot be independent from itself [and therefore cannot, at the same time as presenting what is real, present itself]. Te mental person is not a form of reality with the capacity to have an effect on something. It is only the X which acts as a focus for collecting oneself [zu dem man ‘sich sammeln’ kann] – from the standpoint of the way it is given. Actually, its way of being in the scheme of things is something which it itself and only it itself determines anditwhich creates itself as an entity in us by carrying out the acts which does [was sich ‘in’ uns durch sein Akten vollzieht]. It is above all the cause of itself, where ‘cause’ here means the basis of being what it is and not the capacity to have an effect on something else. Te person can realize itself only by performing acts which are completely reliant on the activity and functioning of the vital centre, though, on the other hand, the person can influence the latter by guiding and steering it. We assume here that guiding is not generally a way of ef-
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
fecting something, but only holding up an idea to some agent, and nor is steering a positive effect either, but only a negative inhibition and disinhibition, and neither is an effectiveness with graded steps. Even less the possible person carrying out such of entity. Te isonly elaboration of theacts actanis objectifiable by means ofsort a reflection on it, certainly not objectivization of any sort. o participate in the nature of what a person does is not an objectifying sort of knowledge, but an understanding sort [verstehendes Wissen] or one based on coperforming [Mitvollzug] and re-performing [Nachvollzug] the acts of that person, none of which involves any sort of objectivization.
, , -- Te much advocated claim that the psychic and the physical fall into two absolutely distinct sets of objective realms each with their own sort of effectiveness, or into two sorts of substances, or into two sorts of appearances, or comprise two different sorts of independent real entities with their own power and capabilities, is historically nothing more than an heirloom of primitive animism – a totem cult. Western thought tooknotion this over Asia. For this reason alone we should treat simply the whole withfrom mistrust. Te first assumption, if all this were true, would be the expectation of finding some empirical definition of a generic difference, and then specific differences, between psychic and physical. Tis is simply completely excluded by the facts. A strict phenomenological analysis can even show the opposite, namely that there is no objective phenomenal distinction, even though there is one in the way the matters are treated by us – as in Kant’s philosophy. We maintain the following theses. 1) In the analysis, is not the slightest between psychic and final physical, whenthere the elementary qualitiesdifference out of which psychic experiences and physical things are built up are defined in clear terms. 2) Te essential laws according to which physical and psychic objectivities are built up out of these elementary qualities are, wherever encountered and whether inner or outer, exactly the same.
3) Te level, at which the laws responsible for joining, interweaving, unifying, and multiplying, the output of the psychic and physical processes, is not further reducible, is exactly the same for the two spheres. 4) A strict, reciprocal parallelism exists between physical and psychic phenomena, their transformations, and their alterations, as well as between each different stage of the relativity of their existence. 5) Tis parallelism of phenomena at the very heart of the matter, however, is only the consequence of an actual identity of something real which underlies both groups of phenomena. Te different ways in which we consider this same real bedrock of matter and its activities can never be simultaneous or executed in the same act, but can only be successive. real attributes, state of affairs looksit as if it has two actual sidesTat to it,isorwhy twothe actual whereas is only our two ways of contemplating the whole matter, or the fact that two existentially-relative forms [daseinsrelative Formen] are in play, which give this false impression. Consider, as an illustration, the difference between concave and convex. 6) A mutual interaction between physical and psychic does not occur. Anyway there is no causal relationship, but only a functionally reciprocal dependence of objective appearances one on the other, which is only a consequence of one causality, or rather a series of sorts of causalities, which in themselves are neither physical nor psychic, but are psycho-physically neutral. 7) Te ‘consciousness-of ’ anything, however, has to what it is that is made conscious – whether this is physical or psychic – neither a causal relationship nor a functional relationship, but only an intentional relationship, and in fact a relationship of knowledge to what is known – as a reflection by the former on the latter – and this is an irreducible relationship between beings [Seinsverhältnis]. Tere is, moreover, no effect of anything on consciousness. 8) A truetake causal thesorts otherofhand, and centres of a special sort, does placerelationship, within the on basic dynamic and what they influence, from which all objective appearances of the world derive. Tese relationships are between: a) the centres of forces and their fields; b) the vital centres and their functional fields; and c) the person and mental centresand the negative influence of their guiding and steering realms.
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
Tese centres each have a basically different relationship to the diversity of appearances that can occur, and especially to space and time. 9) Te human consistsprimary of these causes three sorts of centres, as the metaphysical andbeing metapsychic of three essentially and lawfully determined different sorts of appearances.
One opinion has it that the two series of processes – physiological and psychological – are completely dissimilar. It further holds that one cannot separate psychic functions and appearances, and that not only psychic butsystem. psychicTis appearances tooexample, have a one-to-one relate infunctions the nervous means, for that whencorred or green themselves appear, or when I perceive the sun or this tree, or when I recollect my father or mother, such a brain correlate occurs. If it were merely the functions which had such a correlate then the equivalent situation would be: when I carried out an act here and now of a certain sort, or when I comported myself in one and not in another way towards many possible objects, these objects – my father and mother – and no other would be chosen. But the something that I takeitsup in my of psychic functions produce appearance is, in terms of content my psychic life,toneither anan elementary psychological something nor a physiological something. It is something in my environment. Tis is true even for the most elementary somethings – for example red, green or the tone C. Qualities are psycho-physically neutral, ideal contents, which one cannot explain further in terms of the physical, nor the physiological, nor even the psychological. Tey are not part of some geometry of colour, nor of any tone geometry, and are neither constituents of nervous processes or even of the soul. At a physical explanatory level one can say that the red is a conditioned nuance that occurs here and now as a surface colour or as a coloured patch of a bodily thing, and then describe how this is determined by light refraction and the absorption and reflection of rays. At a physiological level the sorts of relevant issues that crop up are: how I have the sensation of red then green as contrast phenomena; that I would see everything as yellow if I were given the drug santonin; and
why I do not sense qualities which other animals do, for example ultraviolet light, as do ants, bees, and birds. Tis means that the contents of psychic appearances are always relative to physical ‘objective – i.e. the imageMoreof the body-thing – and to our appearances’ social environment andpictorial its contents. over, there is information to be had not just in the subjective or psychic but in the objectively physical, social and historical appearances. Even in each electron or molecule there is something in the way of information, a fact which will remain forever a closed book to mathematical physics. Te pictorial bodily images [Kőrperbilder] themselves, in respect of what they are and how they might be made up, will never be explained by mathematical physics. For this science, they are, and will forever remain, a case of haphazard accidental so (zuälliges Sosein]. merely Te laws according to whichand they arise andbeingpass away in some predetermined spatio-temporal position – their beingso now and here and their being-otherwise then and there – can be grasped within scientific notions of lawfulness. In this sense, however, the same goes for the chemical elements and chemistry in general. But when it comes to the pictorial images of bodies [ Kőrperbilder] and psychic appearances a complete scientific explanation now eludes us, and they are only accessible as heralds [Kunde] of something or as understandable [Verstehen]. What can only be brought together at this sort of level in a definite relationship are physiologicaland psychic functional unities, which are not at all dissimilar, but, on the contrary quite similar. On both sides of the relationship one finds: 1) automatic occurrences; 2) teleoclinical directions [aim-directedness]; 3) a definite rhythmicity; 4) an integrated relationship with the total performance of the organism; 5) the development of new functions and a greater reliance on the cortex of the brain during the growth of the organism; and 6) the same set of dominant functions, sub-functions, associated functions, auxiliary functions, and inhibitory functions, arranged in a non-mechanistic way. Te substrates on which any psychic function, as a temporally unified process, happens are appearances, and the elements of these: subjective appearances on the psychic side, and physico-chemical ingredients and physical processing unities on the physiological side. Te particular function in question is then developed in the context of the
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
performance and behaviour of the organism as a whole, but with its own rhythmical unity, direction and goal. If one now considers that even the ingredients of matter in modern physics are not entities, are onlyasspecial fields of forces, then oneultimate is not allowed to but speculate, Becherplaces does ininhis book Brain and Soul, as to whether a psychic experience might be a passing event on a permanent object, because there are no permanent objects anyway, and therefore they can only be ever-newly becoming and everpassing away unities of events in a temporal, but not spatial, coherent flux. Becher sees an essential dissimilarity between the two because he regards the brain as ultimately composed of constant atoms, molecules and electrons – thus providing a constant substrate – whereas he sees themake psychic a substrate-less [substratloser ] event. cannot therefore oneascorrespond with the other. Becher is He wrong on a number of counts. 1. First, he clings on to a notion of physiology based on a conduction or a telegraph wire principle, which admittedly cannot be brought into any appropriate comparisonwith a simple psychic event, as Wertheimer, for example, showed. Ten, if the traces of a visual perception had a definite place in the cortex, in the form of a circumscribed braincomplex – of atoms, electrons and molecules – it would admittedly be inconceivable how such traces could keep track of the same object seen at different distances and under different illuminations, or how any traces could keep a constant correspondence to it when the same position on the retina which was its entry point must also be the subsequent entry points for all sorts of other objects: why does it not then cover the srcinal one up, or allow it to fade, or disturb it in some way? But the very notion of such object-specific neurophysiological representations has long been abandoned, following Goldstein’s work in particular. Anyway, even if this localization theory were correct, one would have to physiological propose independent, but localized, as well as traces [otherwise there ‘psychic would bedispositions’, no path from physiological to psychic according to the sort of theory which Becher is promoting], and then a substrate of the soul for them to have their own sphere, and then the existence of a mutual interaction Wechsel[ wirkung] between them and the physiological conduction processes, and even well-worn anatomical pathways [ausgeschliffenen Bahnen] for the conduction to pass down, to tie up all the loose ends in such a
scheme. But all this is unnecessary if one realizes that parts of the brain, which are aroused by one and the same physiological function, are capable of considerable flexibility, whereby, for example, a circumscribed of the brain – say a cell complex can beit sensitive a field ofpart numerous different functions, none of–which needs de-to compose in any way. Te so-called localization of brain processes – as Semon partly demonstrated in his bookMneme – is a transformation of the temporal succession of functions [zeitliches Nacheinander] into a corresponding structure in the form of a side-to-side [Nebeneinander] arrangement. Tis is referred to as ‘chronogenic localization’. Te conduction principle, which could only explain habits or patterns of behaviour by assuming habitual pathways of physiological events between two separate places, is thereby overcome.functions It is therefore a coarse mechanical formulation of physiological whichonly fools Becher into claiming that a disparity exists between physiological and psychic functions, and leaves him open to criticisms of ‘psychism’ and to having to resort to the false notion of a mutual interaction between the two. 2) Moreover Becher completely overlooks the fact that even physics and chemistry have given up the notion of absolute ingredients of matter in favour of field physics, and therefore his proposed disparity between psychic and physical, which is based on an out-of-date version of physics, simply evaporates. All ingredients are only relatively constant, not absolutely so, and are only intersections [or nodal points] in law-governed interconnected movement and in a co-ordinated assembly of forces. All spatially determined pictorial bodily images right down to their simplest elements – molecules, atoms, electrons – must be considered at every moment as a newly becoming, existing and effective entity, because of the very nature of the ever-changing situation in the centres and fields of forces. Tey resemble in this respect what James referred to as the ‘substance-like’ [substanzartigen] elements of the lifealways of thecoming-to-be soul, whose and appearances and elementary are likewise passing away, but not, asparts Herbart coarsely put it, sinking under the waves and rising above them, as if they were memory images in a black box which could be taken out and put back. What Herbart’s theory illustrates is simply the straightforward application of the philosophy of ‘substances’, long the prevailing framework in physics, to the life of the soul, representation and sensation, turning them all thereby into mere lumps of this and that. Tis
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
Becher also forgot. His overall theory collapses on both sides – [faulty formulations of both physiology and the psyche]. 3) Te many difficulties which Becher found in trying to tie up psychic and physiological functions have already been dissipated on a purely physical basis by Kőhler, in his book Form in Physics. Becher’s writings teach us the same as Lotze’s did and the same as Descartes’ did – to quote a classical example – that the only way in which the notion of a duality of substances and their mutual interaction can be salvaged is if in both physics and physiology one has recourse to a crude mechanistic model, in which case the resulting laws apply. It is not sufficient to say that referential thinking or judgement are not mechanistic, as Lotze argues. I accept that they are not mechanistic. But the crucial pointit is that in its physical is not mechanistic either; only nature treateditself, as mechanistic by usrealm, for pragmatic reasons. Te same, even more so, goes for nature in a physiological sense, which is already at least one level above the physical. rying to marry a functional psychology based on the intrinsic priority of drives – which is correct – to a mechanistic model of physiology – which is incorrect – is bound to lead to disparities between the two realms. Even in physics itself there is a dispute between those who hold to a mechanistic version and those who propose a Gestalt-based model, and the same obtains within physiology. Just as in physics, where matter as a constituent of any sort is only a relatively constant nodal point in a field of forces, what we call structural formations in the physiological and anatomical regions are, even if not perfectly the same as in physics, nothing other than a frequently used functional field or a functional field unity. Te general thesis that our living body is simply an agglomerate of cells, or that our nervous system is only a bundle of neurones with a loosely interconnecting set of dendritic processes, is still being promoted at a time when physics has got rid of any such notion of matter on they could drawditched support.inAt the same old associationwhich psychology has been favour of acttime andthe function psychology. 4. It has also been said that many experiences of the soul are simple, whereas their physiological correlate is a complicated coherence of several factors. Alleged examples of this are: a simpler tone and a more complicated physiological set of happenings along a whole series of centres and nerves; or a psychological simplicity of a so-called
mixed colour [e.g. orange] as an absolute quality without the underlying complexity of their place in the colour spectrum being taken into account. We shall not reject, what Schlick did reject, namely that there might be in complicated simplicity. processes aBut simpler corresponds to these the psychological whatprocess should which be rejected is a confrontation of a simple quality, which in itself is neither psychic nor physical, with a nervous process. Te same tone quality – which is never given as something psychically isolated – can be heard and ‘had’ psychically in a thousand ways and can possess the most manifold function in one psychic form content. Alertness and attention in auditory and other modalities can vary almost imperceptibly, but such changes can make a world of difference, between something’s becoming object or not, there or a sign of something or not. Into the hearing of aantone, therefore, enters a whole host of psychic functions, each of which demands its own appropriate physiological function in a definite way. Te psychic experience must then always be a new one, whereas the tone C itself is as an individual an ideal something, in the same general [metaphysical] category of things as the number two. As a psychic experience the tone C is an abstract content, not a real piece of anything, and for each individual person the experience of hearing it is different every time. Te contention by Meinong, for instance, that one might not see the resemblance between a mixed colour and a basic colour, but that in trying toremember it one is reliant on whether one makes an association between its position in the spectrum with respect to a basic colour – orange to green – is rightly contested by Hering. Te conclusion from all this is that what might be a simple appearance in consciousness can be a very complicated real entity in the soul [and therefore any complicated physiological make-up has to be measured against its psychic status and not its appearance in consciousness]. 5. Driesch also puts forward a multi-faceted argument against the notion of a one-to-one between thehispsychic and the physiological. It seems tocoordination me that it undermines own theory of vital-psychic conscious parallelism. Anyway, what he claims is that the psychic manifold is more powerful than the physical manifold. In the psychic area, according to him, there are many discrete qualities and the most diverse sorts of interconnections. In the physical region, on the contrary, there are far fewer ultimate things – atoms, positive and negative electrons [and that is about it] – and, besides these, only
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
space, time and movement, which are anyway also part of the psychic manifold. Is it not the case then that the psychic arena is much more diverse, much richer? How can there then be a one-to-one coordination with an But exhausts the mistake is to assume thatimpoverished a mechanisticphysical versionregion? of physics whathere there actually is in the physical. Tis assumption is completely unfounded. In fact the richness lies on the side of the physical region, which is incomparably rich compared with what our sensory thresholds allow us to sense of this. Driesch further assumes that absolute space, absolute time and absolute movement are validfor physical things, whereas even in the case of the centres of forces [- which he does not even recognize -] which are actually responsible for the pictorial images of bodies [which he, people,constructs take to beofphysical things]if such ‘absolutes’ areand onlymost our other [pragmatic] these. Even one treats the theory as applicable to groupings of such matters, as Schlick does, it is open to attack. But above all, with what right does Driesch compare a mechanistic, mathematical, scientific version of nature not with a mechanistic version of the soul, which would have some sense, but with the way in which consciousness represents the soul’s intuitions? It is fair to compare the natural [man-in-the-street’s] view of any matter with a lawfully reduced version of this or that matter, but one cannot compare a physically reduced version of nature along mechanistic lines with a non-reduced psychic version. Are there not in the natural view of the world a whole host of qualities? How come Driesch knows that the qualitiesen bloc are subjective? and that it is not rather thatthe formal-mechanistic view gives absolute priority to the spatial-temporal determination of their appearance as a sign of their being a solid thing without clarifying in any way what they really are. Finally, and this is the chief issue I wish to address, it is false, and putting matters the wrong way round, to compare the psychic manifold only with its physical determination, rather than with the biological or physiological in conjunction with the physical. Driesch’s overall thesis, to which I am more sympathetic than I am to Schlick’s or Kőhler’s, is still invalid because there is no one-to-one co-ordination between purely physico-chemical events and psychic events. It is only when we introduce the notion of physiological functions that we can bring the psychic, and only in the form of functions, into mutual accord.
6. Lotze saw in relational or referential thinking b[ eziehenden Denken] – for example, the rose is red, A is equal to B – an achievement of the soul for which no physiological correlate could be found. For here red – and the situation thatrose two items are both separate –roseonly andhappen, together – theisred – simultaneously. Tat could he thought, through an activity of a soul-substance which wasabove all representational processes. In the physical world, forces obeyed the ‘principle of the resultant of forces’, which means that forces merged as a result of some interaction, and could not therefore remain separate if they were not actually asunder. But against this one could say that relationship experiences [in the way he meant] leave out: a) the transitional experience of how one is relatedb)tothe thing another, which at the same an experience of transition; reflective component in alltime this,is where there is some identical core experience of ‘relationship’ in all actual experiences of any relationship; and c) the general concept of there being an underlying essence of ‘identity’ which can account for the fact that there are such concepts as ‘relationships’ or any other such concept, anyway. For such notions to have developed into what they are in human beings, except the last point [which is a prerogative of mind alone], one should expect to find some physiological counterpart in some parallel appearance. Relationships are not something special [i.e. not outside any physical/physiological/psychic/mental explanation]. Tey might fit in, for example, with: a) a formulation which proposes that physiological functions are completely explained by physical and chemical processes; or b) a scheme in which physiological functions are mechanistic. But both of these assumptions are false, according to Planck. And the second one is undermined by evidence from von Kries, Wertheimer, Koffka and Kőhler. [Terefore, what does underlie them?] Certainly against Lotze’s suggestions one can even think of physical processes which can clearly be attributed to a relationship
experience. all relationships which become relationship experiences areBecause determined by drive-bound factors the sort of parallelism adduced by Köhler is not sufficient. Central nervous physiological functions are temporal processes and are besides this still under the direction of the life centre. 7. If one defines ‘psychic’, in the way both Wundt and Schlick do, as the content of immediate experience, and physical as the content of mediated experience, then according to Wundt there would be dis-
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
similarities but according to Schlick similarities [between psychic and physiological realms]. Tis definition is however false. What it is that is immediately given as the something that is the focus thepsychology. ‘consciousness of something’ is a problem phenomenology,ofnot Psychology is science of what for is real. Certainly even the psychic has something in existence in its immediate experience – such as a number, a body, or even God. Tis would come under the phenomenology of the psychic. But although this region can be the focus of phenomenology it cannot be clarified by science because the immediate experiences are not identifiable or repeatable [i.e. they are unique], and are only given to a ‘self ’ in its immediately present circumstances. Even a psychological enquiry is mediated, and forever falls short of explaining immediate concerns. Wundtcounterpart confounds the physiological event withitsknowledge [of its psychic and elaboration]. 8. On the relevance of the distinction between understanding Ver[ stehen] and explaining [Erklären] we can say that even in physiology there is room for an‘understanding’ of objective meaningful complexes, which is distinct from any chemical or physical ‘explanation’ of them. On the other hand, the so-called understandable psychic coherence of motivation must also be amenable to explanatory classification as well, and that means, in this case, to be derivable from its psychic elements. 9. In the objectifiable psychic sphere there is as little and as much ‘freedom’ as there is in the physiological domain. What crops up here and then crops up there [hier und dort] is not a return of the same simple case of whatever, but has to be put in the context of an entire history of its predecessors. Te only truly free entities are the nonobjectifiable mental acts of a person, and that means acts by means of which the person determines the very nature of who or what it is. Tat an event involving choice between two options can have no physiological to Lotze, because, to him, the case ofcorrelate, drives, itaccording is always the strongest whichaccording prevails [i.e. there inis no choice], is just as wrong as was his notion of a ‘relationship experience’. According to him, each organism chooses its nourishment, and if, by choice, we understand him to mean something that is going on independently from any chemical or physical determinations, the very nature of a simple tropism disproves his thesis. Freedom is won [only in the case of the human being], but is already constrained by its reli-
ance on the [automatic] activities of the life centre, on which, it, the person, can only ply its ‘freedom’, by its will saying Yes or No to the life centre for the purpose of promoting its – the person’s – projects. No such constrained available toofanitsanimal. What it ‘sees’ is what even it ‘wants’ – i.e. thechoice simpleis realization drives and their lawful elaboration through its vital centre. 10. Te unity of consciousness, or, better put, the ‘recognizability’ [Erkennbarkeit] of an object of experience, is nothing at all in the way of being physically real, but is, quite simply, an ideal principle. Te empirically objectifiable unity of consciousness is neither a simple nor a rigid matter of fact. Anyway its unity is not superior in some way to the unity which the organism manifests. one reduces the the latter wholeatorganism to the stateformer, of its constituentOnly cells,ifexaggerating the expense of the does one even approximate a situation where the physiological and the psychic appear dissimilar. Te primacy of the ‘cell’ in the whole construct of what we call life is today generally abandoned. But, if this is so, where do we look for the ‘simple essence’ [einache Wesen] of a creature? No part of the brain, if missing, would push the soul off course.
Te qualitative concept of affinity of force already appears in chemistry, something which so far every mechanistic explanation in this area has evaded. One can even talk about the force having a c‘ haracter’, meaning that there is a constitutional predilection for a particular reaction rather than some other one. It would appear that the function involved is at a chemical and not a physical level. Tere is no direct effect of psychic material on physical matter. But in the various theories of ‘character’ in general – those of Klages, Heyer, and Pfänder, for example – despite a consensus that there is a psycho-physical neutrality, there is a view that there is some in-between realm Z [ wischengebiet], between what is conscious or psychic on the one hand, and, on the other hand, physical. Tis would account for the fact that a psychic agent can inhibit and disinhibit the potential chemical links which are the basis for its affinities, and, although this agent is doing what it does in absolute time, it presents itself as something working in objective time, and hence we only have cognisance of measures of time.
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
Apropos this, one can make the following remarks. 1. A functional unity is preserved in an organism despite huge differences between its organs and even parts of each organ. 2. Tere must be a function whose primary nature is that of form creation. 3. Te unity of such a function is independent of its starting point and of whether there is a lack of some normal organ in the system. 4. Development in an organism involves the break-up of the srcinal functional coherence, at the very least the bond between function and ‘field’, and, within the ‘field’, between function and the bearer of the field – i.e. an organ – which the function has created. 5. Te interplay of the functions is determined by the drives, and a drive has to be regarded as a psycho-physically neutral, basic category [of life]. 6. Te more highly differentiated the organ, the less its function in a psychic sense is related to the organ and the more its contents are objectifiable. For instance, the functions of the cerebral cortex are not themselves represented in consciousness. Te objective localization [e.g. the fact that the objects that the cortex fashions reside outside the cortex] and the subjective localization [e.g. nevertheless the fashioning is done in the cortex] become ever more separated. 7. A unity of functional lawfulness is maintained across various modalities. And within the modalities there is a priority – seeing is above the rest. 8. Te activity of a mind, but not the srcinal ‘mentality’ of its activity [which is part of God], is determined by cortical functions. But the cortical contribution is only: a) the connection of potential mental acts with this particular living individual; b) their actualization through psychic energy; and c) the provision of the psychic correlate of cortical function – e.g. waking consciousness, intelligence, association and dissociation, acts of choice, soul-based feelings – in the form of ‘material’ for mind. Te cortex also supplies the condition of its own freedom providing the wherewithal in the form of a technically civilized worldby [technischen Zivilisation]. Finally, by means of the vehicle of mind there comes forth language, which provides the social determination of mind. Eros, name-giving, utensil manufacture, and capacity for selection, are the highest properties of psyche – not mind. 9. Drives are above all intensive quanta ofenergy – e.g. strong-weak. Tey are not, however,measurable quantities, and are not such because
they are not constant forces. Tey are rather ever-changing dynamic factors in a state of mutual antagonism, and their precise condition at any one time depends on the overall state of the organism and its unified situation. For different this reason it cannot be theofsame quanta which enter into the various overall situations the organism. One can still talk about ‘drive energy’, however. But there is no psychic energy in the way there is physical energy. Te drive is self-directed and qualitatively self-related. Tese two alone set it apart from the concept of physical energy. Nevertheless it can still be as an effective cause of something as can physical energy, because not all causes are measurable. Not only is it effective, but, in fact, it is the srcinal source of this very concept o effect; the will cannot be such a source because it only has drives. its say-so in a negative manner – being able to thwart the aims of the 10. Parallelism – the associationist-mechanistic variety as well as the vital one championed by von Driesch and von Hartmann – sets up a double world as the actual place we live in, if such a theory also takes the contents of perception to be physiological as well as psychological. Tese contents anyway are only variations on how the environmental world is, with different degrees of adequation and with different parts highlighted, each such version being existentially relative to the interests of the individual psychophysical organism. Expectation, recollection and perception are each evident in even the tiniest part of the psychic flow of material and form a reciprocity within the content of the whole. An appearance of an object and an act-related appearance – or function-related appearance – can be the same appearance. Real representations do not occur. Tere are only acts, functions, drives, forces, and ideal contents. Representations are either the being such-and-such of what is real, or they are the contents of the act of representing. Schematically, the input into representations can be put as follows:
▁
← ▁
←
Drive — Representation — Object (pictorial image) If X is a function of (a) and X is also a function of (b), then instead of X and X one arrives at X and Y. Tis is how the form of the parallelism arises.
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
Moreover although it looks less binding than a causal relationship, the relationship between psyche and physics is actually more profound than any causal relationship; it is even a sort of identity. Teisrepresentation is not a thing, butis the something represents still a thing, and a thing which altered in somewhich way. Ifitthe actual representation is altered then it now represents a different object. Te true dualism does not lie between the psychic and the physical, but between a dynamic factor and the content of a pictorial m i age – on the subjective and objective side. 11. Consciousness is only the most general form of the appearing of all things for a self [Ich], and not just psychic ‘things’. It has an intentional relationship to what its content is, not a causal one. Tere B[ ewusstseins-erare not],any ‘experiences of consciousness’ lebnisse onlyso-called experience and ‘experienced self-awareness’ E[ rlebnisbewusstheiten]. As a reflection the effect of the psychic is made manifest, whereas consciousness itself has no efficacy. All [? proper] knowledge is mental. 12. Te drive-impulses belong completely to the real causes of things, and have nothing to do with purposes. 13. Mind has no direct effect on life. It only holds up ideas, values, and projects to the vital psychic stream of events, and through its will inhibits or disinhibits the drive impulses. In this way it can influence the course of life’s events and also physiological events. Freud and Adler were correct in principle here. Mind directs and steers. Its pure determination of what can or cannot be such-and-such [ Soseinsdetermination] is not a form of causality. It is rather a sort of pure understanding [reine Verständlichkeit]. Causality involves real existing entities and their fortuitously distributed being-so. Tere are, for example, ‘psychogenic’ illnesses, but no ‘noogenic’ ones. For this reason good and evil are fundamentally different fromhealthy and ill. Adler muddles all this up. Tat mind can indirectly affect vital events is correct. It can do
so through inhibiting and disinhibiting the drive by establishing cultural works [which influence life impulses, in a varietyand of also ways]. Tere is no mental ‘psychotherapy’, even though therapeutic goals can be worked upon with the aid of mental communication. Mental conflicts frequently become psychic issues [psychisieren] if they remain mentally unresolved, something which Schilder correctly pointed out. Moreover where this appears to be so there are subsequent rationalizations and illusory attributions of meaning, while the seat of
the problem lies in less developed levels of the human being. Anyway, every illness and any notion of health are invested with a moral and religious meaning. It is quite possible that illness disposes one to certain otherwise impossible achievements – as Birnbaum Schneider speculated. Onemental of Freud’s basic contentions was thatand all sorts of disturbances and [physical] illnesses srcinated in the mind and the psyche. In such cases only dealing with the conscious issues helps matters. What had gone wrong was that repressed material had undergone an inversion or had discharged itself into some symbolic image and had pushed its way into consciousness in that form. Te whole problem of parallelism boils down to two points of view about life processes, which in fact are one united whole, but these two points of are viewthen aredeemed held to in refer tooftwo actualagain, concrete series of events, which need uniting the difficulties of which seem insuperable, and so they are deemed parallel. None of the extant versions of this formula – e.g. critical monism, epiphenomenalism, psycho-physically neutral monism – overcomes the basic flaw in this argument. Tis is that it refers to a transcendental X, which stands outside both parallel series without having any effect on our experience. But whatwe [I] mean by the unified nexus of the two is: 1) something which we can grasp intuitively; 2) something which is pregiven to both psychic and physical realms; and 3) something which is by no means mysterious, because it islie itself. Consciousness is intrinsically an intermittent activity, and the higher the level of reflection and self-concentration involved, the greater this is. Te drive-based affective life, on the other hand, over which the conscious levels are superimposed, is characterized by continuous activity, or at least rhythmic activity, and the more unconscious the psychic activity the more it is regulated by rhythms. Such rhythmic activity becomes pronounced when the higher activity is switched off [Ausschalten] for whatever reason. [We come to the issueasofpsychic] how thesomething physical and physiological aspects of life now are experienced which I call the ‘smooth transition’ [fliessende Űbergang]. [I shall first consider why this has been overlooked for so long.] Te whole issue will be concealed if one adopts the following [false] philosophical options. 1) It is concealed if one fails to recognize the determining role of the drives in producing physiological functions and perception.
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
2) It occurs if one only takes into account the pairing consciousnesssoul, and neglects the intrinsic movement and intrinsic self-control of each living part of the organism. 3) It further applies if the drive is taken for a mere auxiliary concept. 4) Te transition is obscured if one overlooks the facts that life and its parts form a meaningful unity of behaviour, that they are given in two ways [but are not actually dual], and that they are pre-given with respect to any scheme of their special sensory contents when seen from outside. 5) A further prerequisite for an understanding of the transition is that one appreciates that living feelings such as cardiac anxiety precede any single sensations ‘on’ any of organ that such living feelings actually determine the occurrence theseand sensations. 6) If one regards the action of the will as a conscious ‘I will’ with immediate causal effect on body movement instead of its having only a negative effect on the psychic side of drive impulses, again the whole position of a transition will not even be raised. 7) Te same failure to understand what is going on will occur if one only recognizes the physical stimulus aspect of perception and further tries only to explain it physiologically, chemically and physically; and overlooks aspects involving a conscious pictorial image, the environmental stimulus and the metaphysical stimulus. 8) Finally, the whole matter will be completely obscured if one mistakes the condition of life for something in space, and treats it as surrounded by a Euclidean spatial layout as any dead body would be.
Tese include: 1) a tension between the two; 2) vital feelings and states; 3) drive; 4) life and its expressivity; 5) the [mutual] conversion of psychic and physical energy, not unlike Hertz demonstrated when he showed the identity of electricity and light; and 6) tactile sensation, and how they can alternate between a subjective and then objective impression. Tere are then certain functions of life which cut right across the distinction between psychic and physical. Tese include: a) individual differences in cells, tissues, organs, endocrine systems, and layers of
the nervous system; and 2) the sorts of rules according to which matters are assimilated, integrated, taken up into new forms, and related to time-based processes. In the history of ofscience one can[dasfind nothing whatsoever about thisentire collective realm betweenness gesamte Zwischenreich ] of the smooth transitions [der fliessenden Űbergänge]. It has been completely covered up. Instead of any mention of this, science has done the following: 1) it has torn apart the biological unity of life; 2) treated everything in the same concrete way; 3) turned physiology into applied chemistry or physics, and psychology into the scientific study of consciousness and human beings; and 4) adopted the mechanistic model as an explanation for absolutely everything. Te end-result of allbody, this isand thatthe theother human is torn apart,soul. into one part a mere living partbeing a mere conscious Te unity of life is thereby destroyed, and yet at the same time the true dualism between mind and life is completely lost to view.
– 1. Tere is a basic methodological principle which is that whatever can still be influenced by hypnosis and suggestion is to do with the soul. 2. Anything to do with the soultoisdoautomatic, [goal-directed] and directional; anything with mindteleoclinical is, respectively, with regard to the above three designations, an act of the person, teleological [purposeful] and intentional. 3. Te mind deals with the determinations of objects, the soul with determinations of states. 4. Te mind has purpose [Zweck] and runs its affairs through its will; the soul has aim [Ziel] and is drive-bound. 5. With respect to their spatio-temporal relationships, the soul and z[ eitlich physiological events are only ‘within time’ time ], whereas mental events are punctuated acts in their own [zeitlich punktueller Akt]. 6. Schematically, the following illustrates the issue: 7. o equate mind with practical intelligence is to completely misunderstand the notion of ‘functionalization’ of theapriori. It is equally wrong to equate its ability to grasp essences and ideas as merely a sort of empirical concept formation.
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
8. Social and historical determinations of the human being are misplaced if it is not realized that mind is something which is generated between human beings, not in a human being. Anotherand mistake is not to seeisthat acts basically constitute the9.person, that the person not mental some pre-existing and substanMental centre (outside time)
Life centre (temporal in absolute time)
Organism
World (intermediate zone)
_______________ ! Environment
Spatiality !
Inorganic world
tial entity. Further, the identity of the principles of being and mind necessarily requires a mind, even if the mind has to be individualized to make this come about. 10. Mind cannot be objectified, but can only be studied through what it carries out, what it co-executes, and in terms of the correlate of the meaning of works it has actually produced. 11. Space is under vital control; time is under mental control, and is the ‘form of mental activity’. 12. What it is to be a person is to be identical to oneself Sosein[ sidentität der Personen] and this pre-empts their being multiple [ihre Vielheit], but also their freedom.
13. What is hereditary or non-hereditary in all this? Mind is not something that obeys Mendel’s laws [Geist mendelt nicht]. Psychic life, on the other hand, with its aptitudes and talents, does have a hereditary basis. Mind anyway is not something that can be ill or healthy, and there are no no-ogenic illnesses. 14. Mind has its own set of values and feelings, and has a monopoly on the will.
15. It is not strictly correct to say that the more organized living creatures have drives; it is rather that the drives guide their morphogenesis. Te living creature is in its inner aspect a system of drives, and its external a form ofevents. life founded and realized bodily termsin by physical aspect and chemical For these reasons, inproposed links between bodily structure and character, such as were suggested by Schopenhauer and Schilder, are, in principle, correct. What is in fact ‘driving’ a living creature is in the final analysis its being part of, in respect to its drives and function, pan-life A [ lleben].
If, as we have seen, in the final analysis the phenomenal elements of the appearances of psychic and physical are exactly the same, and if the laws which go into forming them are also the same – pictorial images and representations resulting from the same dynamic factors – the question then arises as to what ultimately the difference between these two actually is, remembering that we cannot recognize all physical qualities. Te answer is that psychic is the name for each finite, real entity, as something which is a ‘being-for-itself ’ [Sein-űr-sich], whereas physical is the name for each real entity, as something which is a ‘being-forother beings’ [Sein-űr-andere Seiende]. Even dead things have a corresponding psychic element – though without any having- or knowingrelationship, which first emerges with living creatures. Psychic being does not entail having a reference to an ‘I’ [Ichbezug], but does entail there being a relationship to oneself [Bezogenheit au sich selbst]. Anything that were only an object, and not in addition a subject, could not be a real being. By essential laws there belongs to the pictorial images the ability to become representations V [ orgestelltseinwerdenkönnen]. If the pictorial images are independent from us, and if they follow purely arithmetical laws, according to which their form, extension and duration can change, then we must accept that they participate in a vital ‘pan-subject’ [Allsubjekt]. Te same conclusion also follows for many other reasons in the fields of metabiology, metaethics and sociology. Tis notion is a version of monism of the psychic and physical, in the sense that every entity in itself has an existence and nature which
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
is neither psychic nor physical. Tere are two ways of existing, whose two ways correspond to [different] perception[s] – self-perception and perception-of-another [Fremdwahrnehmung] – but only in the case of entities where knowledge comes into play. a subjectboth with a mind – a human being – can simultaneously graspOnly and separate of these. Each physical entity even has an expression which points symbolically to its ‘being-for-itself ’, the varieties of which depict something of what any thing has meant over the course of time. Te physical Weltbild is therefore, from a human point of view, the world as how it is for an ‘everyman’, i.e. what is generally valid about it for anybody [als allgemeine gűltig gehabt]. Leibniz’ concept of representation wasright thattrack. in each was mirrored. He was probably on the Butmonad is the the trueworld situation not rather a mirroring of a mirroring? In any case he gave preference to a one-sided being-for-itself. Te dead world in point of fact is even ‘immaterial’. Te atoms of energy are special cases of a being-for-itself. For example, they have a direction – a direction in space and a place in space to which they return time and again – even though this directionality is completely overlooked if one regards them as haphazard entities. Secondly, the very existence of quanta of an indivisible sort attests to their having an extremely primitive sort of soul. Tirdly, they exert their effects in a lawful, temporal manner.
Te notion of a soul-substance, whether in an Aristotelian or a Cartesian or a Lotzean sense, is just as implausible as is the notion of an extended bodily-substance. Te soul is a structure of drives of various importance, and of various relevance to the entire organism, arranged a four-fold complex, and without extension or measurability. Tey in determine spatio-temporal formations, but run their own course in the absolute time of the pan-life [Alleben]. At some point in the developmental course of biological species, mind is revealed, mind being one and the same, and set above all diverse forms of life.
Te individual human life means different things – it has a meaning in the context of God, in the context of fate, and in its own right. Te soul, however, is not immortal. Teinlaws underlying progression in –the soul’s lifecontradict – at a maximum children, and inthe decline in old age completely the notion of a [constant] soul-substance. Te raw material of a mind must be present in some form in animals, even plants, and even in them it must have some rudimentary activity. But only humans can be said to possess it properly. For human beings, furthermore, it is not just raw material or a latent object, but the human being is now actually the carrier and subject of mind.
[ ] arise On account of various psychopathological conditions which from the splitting and misidentification of the self, along with states of possession and automatisms, the absolute constancy of an individual self is today just as questionable as the persistence of matter. What still holds true is that a unified structure retains its identity despite continual alterations in the dominant mental act at any time. Consciousness of the self or self-consciousness [Selbst-Bewusstsein], like all kinds of consciousness, is always a consequence of both men
and psychic tal activity together, not self-consciousness therefore the prerequisite of these activities. Although that ofand which is conscious is partly in an objectively real sphere – and in this respect is what in fact is going on in the vital relative level and is individual and substantial – it is also part of something where body and organism are no longer either substances or genuine individual entities, and this part is a participant in God’s mental act-centre, whose substance has to be deemed the ultimate substance. God could not create a free creature. He could only set up the condi-
tions Himself God – in many people. Tefor person is a –construction of acts under the guidance of an individual idea of value which is part of the idea of value which God has of Himself in his capacity as a possible person. Any theory which maintains that a person is substantial – i.e. has an absolute reality – is mistaken for the following reasons. 1. Te act centre is transposed [verlegt] into time and lasts in it. Kant was the first to see this.
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
2. Consciousness is bestowed on mind, and self-consciousness then becomes a criterion of being a person. 3. Te genesis of self-consciousness and its ‘phantoms’ is misunderstood. A knowledge conditions of the alterations in self-consciousness in various psychopathological is critical for any correct philosophical formulation of the self. 4. Mind and the soul are insufficiently separated, and hence their assumed product is taken as one substance. 5. Te srcinal cohesion of the person in the person of God himself – as God’s coming-to-be – is not appreciated. Furthermore, the solidarity between people which consciousness bestows and theapriori of the Tou are also unnoticed. 6. What istotrue is that any the isperson its very relationship the organism andsubstantiality body. What isoffalse that a isperson is seen as in some way opposed to God; whereas to be free entails being ‘in’ God, and being part of this coming-to-be. 7. Even the idea of the person is first realized through and in life, even God’s person. God becomes a person, first of all, through the world-process. 8. Persons are the most immediate revelations and self-creations of God as mind that there can be, if not the only ones. 9. Te disinhibition of the force of life [Drang] led to the first realization of the lowest level of existence – that is, to the dynamic impulses which lie metaphysically at the basis of the simplest forms of matter. Only on the assumption of a mind is that conceivable.
Te thesis that the appearances of consciousness might be derived from a substance and its activities receives support from the fact that the experience of self seems simple and seems not to lend itself to any piecemeal analysis. a more accurate examination of the facts of the matter showsHowever, the following. 1. Te unity is only a monarchic, structural ordering of acts and functions. What this order excludes is a physical correlate of a formalmechanistic type. It further excludes the psychological theory that the so-called identity and continuity of the self is a result of associative memory activity, as Hume proposed. For example, severe memory disorders do not damage the sense of person.
2. A self-consciousness is to be found on various levels of consciousness, and is therefore itself multi-faceted. For example, what is going on in the vital centre, in life in general, in the ‘social centre’ of the human being, and identification in the intimacy a person, all concern which it. 3. Te actual of of a self is a phenomenon belongs to another person – outside the self which is the focus of identification. 4. Te dissociability and variety of the self is spread amongst both psychic functions and mental acts. 5. Te self can simply be abandoned in states of ecstasy. 6. Te mental centre can be inactivated in the course of hypnosis, deep sleep, or sleepwalking. It can be dominated by the mental centres of others. As for its temporal manner of being what it is: it is outside time. It is in itself individualized. 7. In a social context it can take on a variety of guises: it can be submerged in some mass movement, it can be a participant in a close-knit community, it can reflect the amorphousness of society, and can hold up in solidarity when needed. 8. o some extent the self is subject to changes in its size or dimensions. For example, with the loss of a bodily organ there is the consequent experience of a diminution in the self’s capabilities. Its unity, as well as the unity of mind and equally so the soul, is only a functional one, and there is simply nothing substantial about it. 9. Te gradual build-up of a centralization to the psychological multiplicity of a living organism, which is evident both on an evolutionary scale – plant, animal – and in a human being in the course of their life – child, adult – is reflected in the tendency for consciousness in general to become concentrated into a consciousness of a self and selfconsciousness. A self-consciousness is the work of the psychic functions in conjunction mental acts, which longer emanates from itanything real, with but isthe rather modelled on thenophenomenal self which copies. Te ordinary self-consciousness that is evident to us is only an appearance of consciousness in which a whole host of psychic functions and mental acts meet up. 10. Te self-consciousness first emerges through reflection on the ecstatic manifestation of all matters brought to us through perception, memory and expectation.
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
11. Tat aspect of the organism to which consciousness belongs is not the morphological one but rather the physiological and functional aspect, which is nevertheless a unified entity. ‘we’ andisthe hou’ are pre-given the which ‘I’, when the12.‘I’ Te in question an‘tindividual I and notwith therespect generaltoform a self takes [Ichorm]. 13. Te individuality of the mental centre as the subject of a selfconsciousness does not require any substantiality for it to be what it is. 14. Te psychic centre is only the cohering of the leading drive-impulses amongst themselves in absolute time. Any apparent substantial identity should be explained on the basis of an actual series of psychic events which beenstage bound together over and according biological lawshave at each of Evolution –not time the other way round.to Te material, psychic self can alter what it is focusing on just as readily as the organism alters daily in respect of what matter it is composed of. My own childhood, for example, seems to me today as objective and foreign as if it were someone else’s. In spite of this a life-long functional togetherness is forged, which clearly then does not rely on the continuity of the contents of memory. In fact the converse is true – the latter assumes the former. 15. Even when there are marked changes in what is given to it from the psycho-vital realm, the unity and sameness of the mental act centre persists. For example, in situations where the perceptual world takes on an alienated look, or when I do not approve of a post-hypnotic suggestion, or when I experience an obsessional urge, under all these circumstances where my vital centre has become estranged I am still the same person with the same mental centre. 16. In hypnosis, the two centres – vital and person – are most sharply separated. 17. Tere is no absolute physiological centre, from which a substantial18. soul could being receivetakes stimuli, as actual Fechner thought. Psychic up no place, but it does have a sort of spatiality in the form of a domain of changing functional fields within life as a whole. Te mental centre is utterly devoid of spatial characteristics and is also outside time. Its acts cut into the psychic stream, and each act centre belongs to a particular psychic stream and appropriates its intensive energy.
19. Te mental centre is only a structural unity of acts which essentially back one another up. What each act centre is, in relation to the vital psychic way of being, is a modification of the act of divine mind. Because the centre is outside time its activity completed in each act [ist es ganz in jedem Akte tätig].is discharged and 20. Substances without place or time, individuated in themselves, would be absolute monads, and could not communicate with each other unless they were groups of acts already part of one mind, and that means God’s mind. 21. Mind as an attribute of the Supreme Being [Ens a se] is a prerequisite for any individual human mind. It is a concentration of what gives rise to a personality, but is not the actual capacity to be such. It activates itself thethe form of personal unities, the latter being entities onlyinin execution of their acts and hence[persons] self-positing entities. 22. Te individuality of the person is only the idea and the essential value which hover in front of the act of an act centre as a goal. Tere is nothing real in any of this. Consider the maxim: Become who you are. It cannot even be realized without the help of some aspect of the drives, which belong to the vital centre, and which are subject to direction and steering by mind. 23. Whereas spatiality, both as an intuitive way of knowing something and as a way of being itself, is relative to the vital nature of a creature, absolute time is its actual requirement for its coming-to-be. However, in respect of the acts and the act centre absolute time itself is a sphere where objects created through the mental acts can appear ein [ Gegen-standsbereich der Akte]. Te person is outside time and reveals itself only as an individual in the temporal development of a human being. 24. Te person is therefore secured through a combination of temperament, character, intelligence and will. 25. For the realfollows order ofbeing matters what counts is only the principle: fromempirically action there [ex operari sequitur esse]. In the absolute order of matters what is valid is: from being there follows action [ex esse sequitur operari]. 26. In the same way as the person is an act product of a divine mind, or, better put, an act product of a divine mind in concentrated form in the light of an essential idea, so is the whole centre an ordered functional cluster of pan-life [Alleben]. What we call matter is a pictorial
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On the Constitution o the Human Being
result of forces. Tere is no constancy in any of these centres, and, as for referring to any part of the above scheme of things, outside the divine, as ‘substance’, at most one can talk about ‘pseudosubstances’. every respect, the human is antoopen – 27. andIn that means opentherefore, to God, open to life, being and open the system world. Tere is nothing in him of a finished substantial nature, and he or she is in no sense simple. His or her unity, in an actual sense, lies only in the unity of the very basis of the world itself and its fundamental groupings of matters, which simultaneously encompass subject and object, mind and life force [Drang], and substance and subject. Te human being is a ‘little God’ and God a ‘great human’. 28. Te pure or transcendent person in my philosophy is the act centre and its individual empirical personality is the productessence of this and ‘pureessential person’ value. and theTe drive – and function-clusters along with their associated ways of sensing anything – hence character and intelligence. Teindividual life is only the bodybased objective manifestations of this cluster of drives along with the organic forces at play – hence temperament. 29. All pure personhoods in humankind are connected to the mind of God alone, and in an immediate fashion, and are not therefore created finite substances. Similarly, all living natures in humankind are connected to pan-life [Alleben]. 30. According to our theory of existential relativity (seeIdealism and Realism) the person centre, on the one hand, in respect of its jurisdiction over objectivity, is relative to life, and by virtue of this side to it, can be considered a substance in respect of its simplicity. Any upheavals, any alterations of any sort, in the vital-psychic sphere cannot fragment it, dissolve it, change its individual nature, or influence the lawfulness of the acts. Any such upheavals or simple alterations can only affect what the mind or person centre makes externally evident, reveals, consciously displays or does not consciously display. On the other hand the sameof person centre, respect the absolute sphere being and in theinvery basisofofitstheparticipation world itself, in is neither a substance nor simple. If a person were ever to achieve a genuine grasp of himself or herself, he or she would discover themselves as an entity ‘in God’. It was an error of Spinoza’s, and in a different way of Schopenhauer’s – the latter completely overlooking the existence of any independent mental sphere in a person – that they denied that any aspect of the multiplicity that makes up a person could have a real
objective part to it. Tey then tried to relate the contents of consciousness either to God or to very basis of the world itself. Tis is simply an error resulting from restricting the discrete realms or levels of the ways of being to two: consciousness and what is absolutely real.
t is a fact, which also applies to its language, art, fabrication of tools, and all sorts of social communion, that the human being’s most profound sort of existence at all times is anchored in an absolutely superior and absolutely holy, but invisible, actuality. Te form of the divine being – a holy being in and through itself – is an idea which was always and everywhere present to a human being, and which belongs to his world-consciousness as immediately and essentially as it does to his consciousness of self. Te srcin of religion or metaphysics – i.e. a recognition of something over and above natural things – is as an important indication [as to who we are] as the evalu-
I
ation human –beings themselves. Von Humboldt’s words aboutoflanguage that the human being could never profound have discovered this, for the simple reason that the human being is already constituted in language – apply with the same force to the formal sphere in which we have a finite experience of the independence of this absolute sort of being, of its awe-inspiring nature, and of the power of its unconditional superiority. In this yet empty formality there lies the idea of absolute being as the first apriori idea which the human being possesses, and which he can then apply to each example of a being. Wherever there is the accidental being-so of something, there is also something unconditionally almighty; wherever there is relativity there is something absolute; wherever there is one world – and not simply many environments – there is also one root cause, one essential cause, and one real cause, of the existence of this world. What can fill this absolute sphere is remarkably varied – as childish, restricted, foolish and superstitious as one can imagine – but whatever it is, it makes no difference to the fact that the absolute sphere is pregiven to human beings before any fi-
nite thing comes into being, and that its historical status is established before a human being can intuit anything to do with their world, their self or their social set-up. Te human being has always seen itself in terms of the be brilliance and because, darknessinofthe its gods. It cannot otherwise, same act in which the coming-to-be of a human being takes place – the transformation into a self, and the opening up of an infinite vastness, which is what the very word ‘world’ means – as opposed to an animal’s environment, at the same moment when the words ‘No, no’ entered the finite present, there was the dawning of the mind, a mind whose defining feature is negative determination of anything. Furthermore, the mind’s tendency to sublimate and ‘encephalise’ everything are the precise physiological weltoffene preconditions its all ‘world-opening’ ] attitude to everything. Tere is,for from this, a release [of an unquiet searching, and a boundless surging forward into a new world-sphere, which nothing will quell. Some act with this in mind, or, better, whatever component X of the human being is responsible for the matter in question, then simply by-passes the whole environmental set-up and heads off in another direction. Te implications for the world in this new situation are clear – it serves the cortical processes of the hemispheres and forms the field structures for these highest physiological processes. Tis is now in complete contrast to the animal, where the brain is an auxiliary organ of the entire organism. Te new situation is one where the nature X of a human being breaks completely with the principles pertaining to a natural creature, and rather fall in line with the artists’ principle, so to speak, that we start from scratch. In any case, the mind’s centre is neither anchored outside nor beyond the domain of the natural creature, but right on top of it. Because of all this, the historical contents with which the holy, absolute sphere is filled on the part of the human being – who is perforce God-related – and the relationship which the human has to his self
and the world – which latter islevel the correlate of a mental become the deepest core of the mental of the human being. act Te–religious and metaphysical history, into which a human being is born, is the kernel or the independent variable of all his mental and spiritual history, a state of affairs in which blood plays a comparably critical role in the case of his real history. It is always the case that humans form their own history before history influences humans, and this in the shadow
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of his own consciousness of his self and of God. History as a branch of knowledge is concerned with both. If we now consider a few of the main sorts of relationship which have been obtaining man and examples God, a relationship we canproposed express asasXY, we findbetween among Western of this, to which we shall restrict ourselves, a curious set of parables, drawn, for the most part, from social relationships between humans themselves. For example, in Judaism, man forges a pact with God on the condition that God chooses their race to be His select one. Or else man is God’s slave, and seeks to influence Him, now with cunning and slavish prostration, now with threats. Or man is a faithful servant of the sovereign master. Or man is a free servant of a self-recognized source of authority. else, asand in all Christianity, man isoftheGod, son as of God, identical to theOrfather, the rest areone children long as they listen to and obey the first-born son and accept what he says, orders and advises in his father’s name. Moreover, in all religions there is always a first stage in which a group of followers attach themselves to the founder – the srcinally holy man – and a later stage in which the common mass of people idolize the founder with the help of things associated with him, and this dissolves the tight-knit srcinal disciple set-up and gives rise to a worship of the founder himself. In Greece, after a slow ebbing away of its polytheistic pantheon, there arose a philosopher–god or a wise god, who, from a position outside the human being, infused them with the gift of mind – reason, which by virtue of the subject’s free will alone could appreciate ideas – and thereby allowed them to think and feel, and to contemplate the noble forms of the cosmos just like he – the philosopher-god – himself did, in his capacity as the thinker of thinking and blessed with creative powers. But this philosopher-god is not actively exerting his will over mankind, nor expressing eternal love, nor even pitying the world and the human beings in it. He is through and through a lucid, perfect and pure individual, whoselikeactivity theone world, whose effectone, in this respect is rather that ofmoves a loved on abut lover, a loved furthermore, who does not actually reciprocate this love. Te above are only a handful of the extant relationships. But we are not primarily interested in the history of the relationships – a vast theme – but in the critical question as to what man might and ought to know and experience from his position as a member of humanity
with respect to the very basis of every conceivable thing around him. What is his special place in all this? 1. Because mind and life force can have their being in the eternal substance as objectsfirst andbecomes as real things, andbybecause, everything that is objectifiable an object means in of fact, the mind, and because everything that first enters intoexistence [ins Dasein tritt] does so through the offices of the life force, this invalidates any attempt to formulate the basis for anything at all in terms of these two modes of being – object and existent entity [i.e. because these are derived modes of some more basic state of affairs]. We simply are, or live, or spin out our lives, or think, or look out on the world, inside, through and with, whatever this basic foundation is. It is always behind us, just as is always inaccounted front of for us! by What a thing or anmind objectormight notitcompletely invoking human humanbelifeis force, let alone talk of the highest sort of being. Whatever is involved in this basic foundation of everything, it is eternally self-positing and we are in it. But everything to do with religion involves being a follower of someone, worship is at most putting oneself in a position of being such a follower, and praying as a supplication is a nonsense [ein Nichts]. Now if the eternal being [which we equate with the basic foundation of everything] is neither thing nor object, then nor can it be a holy man, and nor can objective deification be the root of religion, and it certainly cannot be the church and its dogma. Te mind itself is the self-revelation of the highest sort of being, but it does not work alone in this respect, and is anyway only an entity which is comingto-be, and works in alliance with the life force and with all the images that the latter conveys to the equation. Te concept of a ‘supernatural’ entity results from our confusing mind and reason with ‘intelligence’, and then counting the first two as natural talents. Tere is a sense in which the mind’s field of activity is ‘supernatural’, although this has no spatial connotations, but in the main the mind is best regarded as ‘counter-natural’ [widernatürlich as Spinoza aptly it. ships to the 2. Te human being does not ],stand in any of the put relation basic foundation of everything which were listed earlier. Tis remains true even if we take account of the outdated ideas in which Christianity is expressed, with mention of covenants, slaves, bondage and service. We might point out anyway that the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount and St. Paul’s profound wisdom were to the effect that the Law is nothing other than an encouragement to sin. In any case, is man
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oward a Metaphysics o the Human Being
really a ‘child’ of God’s? Devotion to, and a hope of security in, a power which will make everything alright, is quite understandable, but one should remember that under Roman law a father had the right to kill his child, thoughtothis the father hisa hand, which he and was even not obliged doobliged if he killed a slaveto– cut whooffwas thing – the constant terror engendered in the relationship must have been considerable, and strikes us now as a completely un-Christian-like state of affairs. If I seriously and honestly examine my self-consciousness and what I am aware of consciously as to my responsibilities, and, at the same time, apply my profound and well-founded scepticism as to whether any paternal guidance – however well-meaning – is warranted for me or the world, my overall response to this last issue is a general resounding childinnot , evenelse’s though didGod’s. have a living father,No! butIIam amno certainly anyone child,I do notoreven I, Max Scheler, this social figure, this psycho-physical living creature endowed with uncertain hereditary values, this creature related to a thousand other groups of creatures, and even I myself as a naked and unique I, whom one can shunt about at different times without my essential nature being broken, an I, furthermore, who can only guess at why he feels responsible for good and bad without actually knowing why, an I who cannot achieve an integrated view of himself without finding that God is intertwined with my existence and nature : despite and because of this, and much more, I am nobody’s child. For one thing I do not have a child’s bliss or sense of security, or its trepidation and fears, or its care-free attitude about the fate of this world. I repudiate a God who wants to be my father, and who has taken such bad care of me that I must suffer as I do, and the same goes for the rest of the world. What there is in me of a God with any actual driving force whispers to me something quite different from any of the above. He says: It’s not you – Adam – who is the sinner, who set the world into a tumbling confusion; not even Lucifer, a fallen angel, is to blame; it is I
Myself, thethan founttoofbring all things, inhabits couldn’ t do otherwise forth and youwho and also the world as you; you Iare. I Myself am still suffering; I Myself am still in a state of becoming; I Myself am not perfect. Terefore I need your help, Adam, from that part of me which is in you, and from that part of you which is in me, to keep up the direction of an eternal Divinity, and to accomplish what has to become – an all-inclusive God under your influence. Te budding hatred against the supposed ‘father of all fathers’, who has treated his children
so badly, can henceforth be transformed into loveand reverence for the eternal ‘Substance’. What I have just related is an indication of the way in which I, as a mature person, a man of our times, has again learned to love thehas fount of in everything andtrust faithand that God faith God. that is, and have faith in Him, Yet again I say: No, man is no child of God’s. He is a collaborator of God’s, as well as a living creaturein the world befitting a God, both roles reflecting the srcinal conflict at the source of everything that is, but man’s conflicting roles are played out in the world process, basically in the form of a microcosm reflecting the macrocosm. In his role as a coming-to-be human he surmounts the problems inherent in God’s srcinal conflict, which to me, as a man, are virtually a closed book – in thisparty respect God’s workings being unknown andmicrocosm foreign – which but is then to just as much as is needed to form this reflects the macrocosm itself. Te human being endlessly weaves a mantle for and with God [i.e.? fleshes out God in the world]. Man is a co-creator, co-thinker, co-worker anda ‘co-exponent’ [Mitschauer] of the world, co-writing the rules as concern Nature, and not simply a transcriber of some interpretation of them. I am impelled to say that it seems to me false to object to the theistic idea of God, which is anyway much more extensive than my position set out above, and, in addition, deny the notion of a unique basis for the world, without realizing that in its place we are confronted with a major difficulty, namely, that we ourselves are in the last resort responsible for what becomes of this very world. Te impetus for this ‘demanding atheism’ [postulatorischen Atheismus], as I call it, and it is not a biological version of the Űbermensch, srcinates in the following profound remark of Nietzsche’s: ‘If there were gods, how could I bear not to be a god, and therefore thereare no gods’. Tis way of thinking, in what it bravelyand beautifully expresses, is completely different from the sort of atheism that stems from resentN ment, where the simply all-seeing eye and yet ‘loin-teasing’ [ ierenprűer ] of an eternal judge cannot be endured and is therefore dismissed as fiction. It is further far removed from the atheism whose only standpoint is that because there is no way of proving the existence of a God then such an entity cannot exist, or from those versions which appeal to the failure of our experience of the world itself to throw up any evidence for a god or which regard the human as merely a tiny cog in the vast world machine. It is indeed a quite revolutionary remark, as
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oward a Metaphysics o the Human Being
it is put in the context of a human being face to face with the overwhelming nature of the world, to which he is encouraged to respond with responsibility because he is free. Te human being is the most responsible of beings – that is what ought to be interpreted as. He is the pinnacle andNietzsche’s the ultimateremark being of the entire cosmos. Furthermore, it means that any notion of an entity which has an existence before and independently of humans, and which decrees the latter’s future, by being able to predict it or by having power to set goals and ideas about it, is simply stealing the responsibility, freedom and autonomy that belongs to a human being. o wager ones very being, to venture forth, and to be decisive, and all this in the absence of any hope that one will be protected or that ones goals will be promoted, is Nietzsche’s prescription. Teyears whole has beenphilosopher neatly and exhaustively considered in recent by issue the German Nicolai Hartmann in his Ethics. Admittedly, in Hartmann’s thesis, there is a significant difference from that of Nietzsche’s, in that Hartmann subscribes to there being an objective order of ideas and values before, and independently of, the mind and consciousness of a human being, which a human being is free to assess. Nietzsche’s view is that the human being, or rather a virtuoso of the species, sets up its – the human being’s – values for later menial and plebeian members to take up, as if they were God-given. A similar view of these matters can be found in the work of Kerler and Ziegler. Tis new atheistic direction of ideas srcinates in a justified rejection of theism – with all its assumptions that at the back of man there is a perfect, universal, all-wise and all-powerful God and father. What sustains the new atheism is an overwhelming feeling for, and a clear awareness of, the autonomy of reason, and of the human being as a person, along with a disdain for the way theism invokes a child-like notion of mankind. Allied to these insights the new atheist condemns the lack of scepticism and mistrust inherent in a theistic approach, and is highlyofdubious aboutinthe invocationitsofvalidity. nation In or fact race,there and is thea involvement the masses establishing strong undercurrent of aristocratic prejudice in theism, although, in general, there is no need at all for theism to be aristocratic. Te irresponsible masses may well continue to hang on to their ‘God’, something which their‘free’ peers now look upon as merely a security charm of the weak. But what Nietzsche’s remark implies is that even if God might be dead the Űbermensch is already in play – His being actually
dead is only an extreme case of the state of affairs. Everyone else [bar the Űbermensch and similar souls] should heed God’s word. Masses need authority and their very mediocrity invites the authority. A similar notion of canGod be found in Machiavelli. And the core thought – the repudiation as almighty when it comes to goodness and wisdom in the world – is contained in my own philosophy. I too accord the human being the most weighty role in respect of steering the course of the srcinal basis of the world, and deny him any reliance on God or on any pre-set teleological path. Te objective world-order is, in my philosophy, to be inscribed [einzuschreiben] in the deity – in eternal mind – but is not already written into some programme for the worldprocess. Te order forms itself around events as they crop up. But onhave whose account are we promoting ‘demanding ofatheism’? Where we reached, by establishing theour responsibility human beings? It is at the expense of any unity of being, any unity of the realm of values, and at the expense of the very possibility of grasping the srcins and goal of mankind and of their proper place in the cosmos, indeed, even asking about it. Te human being is anyway not a selfpropelled spinning wheel. If a person were some ultimate and absolute lone traveller there would be as many worlds as there are persons. But this last point is false. Te Nietzschean perspective envisages a human individual torn asunder from nature, society and history, and with nothing else to support him but himself – alone in an absolute sense, not simply as a hermit who restricts his contact with world and society, but alone and mistrustful of everything which he has not decided upon himself; this is the Űbermensch portrayed here. Te M ‘ ensch’ referred to is no longer the crowning glory of God’s works, but a dictator of nature, subject to his own approval and interpretation of right and wrong alone. But, consider this: I‘ I am not or mysel, who is it then who is or me? and, ‘I I am only or mysel, then what am I supposed to be? Tis second question of Rabbi Hillel invites as answer a similar idea of mankind as most the Nietzschean one. But this ideaclassical is not only aberration, but the extreme exaggeration of the view an of man, in which reason alone is power, and sets up our freedom. Any notion of solidarity with the cosmos and with other human beings completely disappears. Tis version of theŰbermensch idea, according to which the world peaks in humans as the highest form ofbeing, with human beings being its supreme ‘exemplars’, makes humans to be out
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oward a Metaphysics o the Human Being
for themselves – even though it is to be objectively and not subjectively interpreted, i.e. it is the opposite of egoism. In our view the special metaphysical situation of a human being in relation to themselves the srcinal become basis of conscious everythingofisand notwhich something which only humans only humans grasp, know and come upon – a thesis which one finds in Spinoza, Hegel and von Hartmann. Our view is that the human being has two ‘attributes’ – an unconscious life force and a supra-conscious mind [űberbewussten Geistes] – and although the whole matter of these two attributes may become the focus of consciousness, as it is in the classical version of Western philosophy, this seems to us to make the human out to be far too isolated and intellectual. Te real in our is not that ‘eternal substance’ brought to situation, consciousness onlyview, in humans and the in their world – as Spi-is noza thought – nor that the same process occurs in world history –as Hegel thought. It is rather that human beings are capable of knowing a certain amount of the highest sort of being because they have a mental and spiritual centre, and also a heart, which allows them access to the ideal demands of the divinity, which they then co-execute with Him. Moreover, the very place where this is carried out – a place where one can also say that the self-deification of the srcinal basis of the world occurs – is the human being itself, and its heart. Although at every instant things emanate from the eternal substance, and from the inherent tension of its two attributes, in a continuously creative flow – with maintenance of such and their creation being one and the same – nevertheless, a harmonious accord is only effected in the self-consciousness of a living creature. Te human being can as little achieve its designated status without the help of the eternal substance and without the ever-growing substantiality of the divinity in the course of the world process, as can this substance itself without the human being. Mind and life force are in fact never finished with their reciprocal dealings. Tey apace inthereby terms ofgrows their manifestations, and one can truly sayboth that grow God Himself in stature and triumphs when viewed over a vast stretch of time. It has been put to me that a human being cannot endure the thought of such an imperfect God in the making, and that He would mean nothing if the human being could not rely on Him for support and confidence, particularly so if the eternal substance was itself always on a journey to become a God, and making history and the world in
the process. My answer to this is simply that God is not a ‘crutch’ for the feeble, nor is true faith an ‘insurance policy’, and, moreover, that it is actually up to you, my brother or my sister who talk in this way, through the way you conduct whether or not this the eternal substance becomes moreyourself or less and of aact, God, and whether substance within or outside of you continues to suffer the srcinal tensions [of its partition into two attributes]. Whoever cannot cope with the notion of an imperfect God in the making, and one moreover who is dependent on the human being for its development, and who can only abide the thought of an all-powerful, kindly father in the background, is simply not mature enough for our times. In any case such a person might well ask himself how it is that a perfect being created a world full of evilit.and suffering, or even such allowed the possibility of wickedness to enter Teism answers this inadequately, with the notion that God created the world for His glorification, otherwise for no reason and in other respects arbitrarily; others say that He did it out of love. But, if this were so, why would an absolutely perfect God need acclamation, renown, honour and glorification? Is He an ambitious priest? Why isn’t an eternal satisfaction with Himself sufficient, as it was with Goethe’s watchman? And, if out of love, love for whom? – because surely nothing was there other than He Himself, before he created it. I am also reproached with having ‘demonized’ eternal being, on the grounds that I admit a mind-value-indifferent life force alongside the srcinal powerless mind and the divinity with its attributes, and that I try to understand the nature of evil and the possibility of man’s wickedness in the light of God Himself. All this may be so. But I do dispense with the notion of the devil, which in theistic versions of God accompanies Him as his shadow, and without whose inclusion the theistic formula is not only false but completely senseless. What we call a sin – i.e. wickedness committed in relation – is not an affront God –basis whichofiseverything pure nonsense – but a waytoofGod causing suffering to thetosrcinal in its on-going conflict between the real and demonic principles within itself, a cause of suffering because it impedes the very becoming of God Himself. What we call ‘being good’, in its strictest sense, is nothing that in itself directly fosters the well-being of the world – whether today, tomorrow or in the distant future. Quite often wicked acts have more ef-
4
oward a Metaphysics o the Human Being
fect in this way than do good ones. ‘Being good’ is a direct matter only for God – for His development – and only indirectly for the world, because a world is better for the presence of perfect God in it. Virtue needs reward, because it itself is for bliss, there positivenoand negative consequences thebut world of would good oranyway evil ac-be tions – as mentioned. ‘Bliss is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself ’, as Spinoza said, though we would say that it [bliss] is its [virtue’s] source. Te relationship between human beings and the basis of all things is not essentially one of slavery, servitude, service, duty, or even filial obligation, but membership of the substance itself, and, at the same time, of mind and life force. Tere is a tension in all true lives, and the best are those who maintain the greatest tension in the eternal substance. I have also been reproached for anthropomorphizing God. On this point I reply that all I know about the eternal substance itself with its infinite attributes is what I know in respect of being. I anthropomorphize it so little in fact that I hold the view that all these infinite attributes outside only two – mind and life force – are absolutely unknowable. All metaphysics comes up against its absolute limit in the form of unknown being. But whatever there is of an eternal self-positing being, which does enter the cosmos and can be demonstrated in some way, and must also enter into the microsm, I do, admittedly, assign to the Supreme Being in an infinite form. But I only attribute the essences to this Being in this context, and I do not treat the empirical predicates of real earthbound humans in this way, nor their particular psycho-physical organization. Only such epithets as God as king, as master, or as father, deserve to be called anthropomorphisms. Tere is anyway an older theological discussion on the matter – ‘if God created humans according to His own image, why shouldn’t humans apprehend God in their own image’. A human being, however, is more than just an exact likeness. It has a shareroots of being, and that and means share only of the essence and the existential of everything, yet aalways a share of the mental act which belongs to the eternally self-positing substance. Moreover, the human being is a centre of all finite being and its own unifying microcosm, and through this means assigns its own essence on to the Supreme Being. For this reason it is completely irrelevant that the earth-bound human happens to live on a peripheral satellite of the sun, or that he is
in temporal and spatial terms a ridiculous speck of dust compared to the rest of cosmos, or that his life on Earth is but a fleeting moment of joy. In that he is a ‘thinking reed’ he is already superior to the bare facts of his cosmic domicile. Furthermore, in that that–spatiality is only the modus vivendi – and later the formheofknows intuition not of his mind but of his status as a living creature and its sensory equipment and that an extended and absolutely constant material basis for spatiality is now repudiated by physics – he has no need to fear the particularity of his cosmic situation. Te metaphysical centre of things is not the physical realm, which anyway does not even exist in its own right. What the world knows does not completely belong to it either. And life itself, to which spatiality merelythe relative, is not physical either, rather a temporal process,is where time in question is truly andbut ontologically irreversible, because the processes involved are such that the time in which the processes proceed is, without the processes and their inter-relationships, a pure fiction of our understanding. In the case of the inorganic realm it is still doubtful whether there are any irreversible microprocesses at all. Boltzmann certainly disputes this. Tis seems to me correct, because time – and I mean absolute time – has a higher valence of being than does space – Kant’s mistake here was to think too much in physical terms – and this absolute time is completely different from the relative time which pertains to the moving state of the observer. But, unlike space, whose quintessence is to allow the possibility of movement for a living creature, this time we are considering, which sets up the flow of life in its very flowing, is still relative to a mental act which takes an overview of all this. Te X, which oversees it, can therefore not itself be any more in time. It is part of the eternal by virtue of its centre, and this makes it part of the self-positing substance itself.
Does something such as freedom belong to the metaphysical account of the special place of a human being? Freedom! Everything’s at stake, that’s what the word ‘freedom’ means first and foremost, when we use it in the objective sense as objective possibility, as physicists thus use it when they talk about the degrees of freedom within a system, and from start to finish, from electron to the human being, it means a stepwise growth in laws governing form and individuality. At the same
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time, when we talk about a growing freedom in the indeterminancy of any existing entity, we imply a growing necessity for the essence of something to arise. Teoretical is divided today, whenultimate considering the quantum theory, asphysics to whether it applies to each microprocess or whether it only applies to some statistical aggregate of these. If the latter of these views is true, a view which physicists such as Einstein and Planck sympathize with, the problem we are faced with would be made much simpler. In fact the concept of ‘natural laws’ would become subordinate to that of ‘vital laws’, and there would be a ‘monism of causality’. Te laws determining the creation of forms would have an ontological necessity, something which scientists from Descartes till now have Te human a creature would be freedisputed. of this necessity, butbeing, his willas and actions with woulda mind, be subject to the essential necessity attached to his individual make-up, and would be further constrained by his situation as an act-centre of the eternal substance, whereby he has to will and act within the parameters of the direction of ideas and values of the divine mind. In fact, his freedom would stand or fall with that of the Divinity Himself. In the case of the empirical human being, such freedom is only a possibility. Tis possibility would be the very thing which constituted his special place in the cosmos, in other words his scope for avoiding the strict oneto-one determinations which obtain in all other states of affairs and things in the cosmos. Moreover, because the will has only a negative effect on action – i.e. don’t do or don’t not do – a human’s freedom is more in the way of a freedom to default [Unterlassung] rather than a freedom to actually do something. Tis further means that the degree to which a human being is actually free is dependent on the extent to which he has achieved a sublimation of his drives. Te human being is essentially both free and determined [reiundeterminiest] – both involving finite causality – and is free in a positive sense in so as factually he frees himself. Whether a human’s essential freedom can be far made so is in his own hands. Te whole question of what constitutes human freedom has hitherto been erroneously posed, by indiscriminately lumping all humans together as possessing free will or not possessing it, a practice which is also found in designating them mortal or immortal. Te principle here is that reason gives humans the essential possibility of becoming free in a negative sense – free from something [rei wovon] – but not an unlimited degree of
actual freedom nor freedom in a positive sense – free for something [rei wozu]. It is grace of the external energy supply accumulated in the drives which becomes available to mind reason thatthe a factual and positivethen freedom comes into being. Tis and freedom allows individual mentally and personally endowed creature to realize itself at the expense of the psycho-physical organism, and promotes a spiritualising and ‘mentalizing’ [vergeistigen] of its life and an embodiment [verleiben] of its mind. Freedom, in a positive sense for a living creature, is a determined way, by means of its own, individual and personal nature, of sharing in the mind of the srcinator of all there is, and thereby partially participating in eternal freedom and in the self-positing itself of the Gott] Supreme is no freedom opposed opposed totoaGod’s [gegenűber . EvenBeing. less soTere is there a freedom fully adequate insight into the values that apply in some situation, or any situation where one is idiosyncratically free to designate one value as higher than another, or where ones own individual nature can be reconstituted avoiding God and the entire extant value system. In fact at the very highest zenith of ones mental and spiritual life there comes a point where even the freedom of choice [Wahlreiheit] – which even animals have in some degree – disappears [a state of affairs which appears paradoxical given all the above], and one arrives at a position where one can say: ‘Here I stand; I can’t do anything other than this’.
We have to reject the notion of an individual, personal immortality for the soul, in the sense given to this by the theistic system, because the soul and the person are simply not ‘substances’. Te psycho-physical organism is only an organized clustering of functions of a universal life, a transit point of its rhythmically growing action and movement. But because this universal life is growing in all individual versions of it – and in all varieties, species, branches, organizations and realms of it – any effort taking place in one part of the system, from plant to man, is not without metaphysical consequence for the srcinal root of the living being itself. A dynamic after-effect of a metaphysical sort permeates the seemingly self-contained life-process of each plant and animal, and this is not solely through some empirical effect of altered conditions in the earth’s crust. But even the human being, in whom
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spirit and mind ‘come to life’, cannot be said to be everlastingly immortal in respect of his individual act-centre. Tere is, however, a sense in which his individual version of the life process does outlast his bodily demise, thattransferred is because the living energy the –course of his life is graduallyand being to his mind and in spirit through a process that I, and indeed Goethe, call the sublimation of living into mental and spiritual energy. Te individual act-centres which profit from this process do not themselves outlast his demise, but their contribution to God’s growing substantiality does. A human being as such only possesses an essential possibility of achieving an immortal effect of this nature, and whether it actual happens or not depends on the extent to which he acquired freedom [during his life-time], and that in turn depends on how heand acted. Goethe,that in his with Eckermann, saw profoundly correctly anyconversations outlasting effect of a person’s life and death was entirely dependent on what he called the power of a ‘spiritual entelechy’, but that it had to be of the right sort, because immortality is not everlasting and is not bestowed in equal measure on all. Te transcendent fate of mankind cannot depend on a ‘few drops of hot oil’, which could easily destroy his bodily organism, as Pascal noted; that is a certainty. Te lines of our fate, of our mental activity and doings, have a significance way beyond the history of this earth, its empirical culture, and our meagre remaining achievements, which are so easily eroded by moths and worms – admittedly not their meaning and value, but certainly the material which conveys these, a material which makes them knowable for future generations. Te fact that mental and spiritual cultural achievements can outlast any human being or any nation is no substitute for the continuing personal input into the Godhead. Tis negative assertion concerning religion is correctly rebutted by positive religions. But there are no grounds for assuming an everlasting after-existence for a person, independent of the being of the basis of all things [to which they belong anyway], whichconducted would betheir the same all human regardless of whether they livesfor more akin tobeings animals or to God. Te eternal mind is at will to loosen the ties which bind individual clusters of self-concentrated mind and spirit – which are anyway only an ordering of acts – as soon as they have fulfilled their purpose and rendered their contribution to the self-development of God. God is not ‘in’ any sort of heaven, but is there,where the eternal mind and spirit are, and that means in the scope or range of affairs where His
goodness and wisdom are at stake – which counts as heaven – whether it is on the earth or elsewhere. Te person, on the other hand, is, weaves its way, and has an effect, in the infinite attributes of the eternal substance – asI became does life.involved in studying the theistic system – a peOnly after riod of my life which I look on today as an odyssey, and to whose views as to what constitutes the essence of man and to what one can generally make out God to be I have alluded to briefly here – did I know what I as a human being live for. Nevertheless, it was not that alone which allowed me to work out what I saw, heard and apprehended all around me. What struck me was how little there was of all this available to me, compared with the wealth for the future of my nation, or for the world of the humanity the cosmic potential of humanity. Even life of in us general, on earthorasfor a species is immeasurably short, as is even the life and existence of our planet, compared with the coming into existence and passing away of the stars. In the light of all this, positivism, which cannot see beyond what has to do with humanity, leaves both my reason and my heart completely unsatisfied. In Rabbi Hillel’s words: ‘If I am not out for myself, whois out for me? and if I am only out for myself, what am I supposed to be?’ Te theistic system itself is deeper [than I have had time to deal with here]. But my reason and my heart do not allow it to satisfy me. It is anyway rendered obsolete by our experience of world history. A God, who had created a world and living forms up to the level of humans, and without any inner necessity, and who had given them reason and freedom and indestructible souls, knowing beforehand how they would behave, and yet punishing or rewarding them for how they behaved, seems to me a completely unacceptable state of affairs. It makes God out to be in charge of a kindergarten or to be running a moral gymnasium, rather than the God of the tempest which we see the world as. No, the world, along with human beings and their history, must surelyperfect be more than spectacle a courthouse for for an eternal, absolutely God. It amust surelyorsignify something the very fate of the eternal substance itself! And when I, from within this system, then ask, ‘What am I living for?’, I repeatedly receive the answer, ‘For You, for You, for You’ – for this so-called eternal bliss, a life for which the price I pay is to make God feel good. Tis is a God, then, who wants nothing other than that I make Him feel good. He doesn’t take any delight in my well-being. I can only bring about some-
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thing which is more than I am myself, and which surpasses me. But I must, nevertheless, do precisely this – that is, must be able to live for this other being, whom I cannot oppose, and who is eternally perfect, good, almighty. is to always reverberating in me.and o live orwise God,and however, can His onlyidea mean livewith Him, to struggle fight for His self-development in the course of the world-process, a world which is, from His point of view, only one of an infinite number of histories of God, i.e. a miniscule detail of his biography and ideography. Te human being, in this scenario, is the creature in whom and through whom the srcinal basis of everything takes effect as a God. Tis then assigns to all human beings, whoever they are and wherever they reside in the cosmos, one and the same goal, which confers value on their being and goal life. Ieither cannot anyortrace of the unity, seriousness or very dignity of this in find theism, in any form of naturalism or positivism. Am I the only person who thinks along these lines? Not at all. It is far too little known that everyone or almost everyone in our universe thinks or has thought in a metaphysical way contrary to traditional theism. Te following three very general metaphysical principles, each with numerous ramifications, are examples of what I believe many would subscribe to. 1. Te ultimate basis of the world is in the process of becoming something other than it has been – not necessarily in time – and is not absolutely completed. 2. Te coming-to-be of this world-basis stands in a reciprocal relationship with the events occurring in the world and the history of human beings. 3. Te basis of the world, if it is pure spirit or mind, cannot be almighty. Tere must be both light and dark, spirituality or mentality and something non-spiritual or non-mental, incorporated into it, with the relaxation of whose tension the world process has to do. Tere are a handful of contemporary nkers and writers whose and thoughts revolve around this theme,thiwhose names I shall now life mention, though not with the aim of bolstering my own position. I do not need such support, and anyway one person can be right and everyone else wrong in these matters. Neither a show of hands nor democratic procedures count for anything when it comes to the truth. I just want to show how much certain thinkers of undoubted significance resemble me and one another in their thoughts about the basis of things and man’s
relationship to this. I exclude those long dead, such as Master Eckhart, Böhme, Spinoza, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, von Hartmann and others, and shall just mention Stumpf, Becker, Schwarz, Ziegler and Rathenau in Germany; Bergson in France; and H.G. Wells in England.
, : ( ) Te human being is organized into a unified life-centre on the basis of a unity of energy centres and a hierarchy of functional clusterings. As a natural creature he is nothing other than the richest, most concentrated product of nature and its evolution. But then nature itself is in reality and as a whole a coming-to-be and a developmental process, and a history in absolute time of the structure of historical causality. What emerges into a spatial lay-out of all this is only the quintessential dynamic movement possibilities, which presuppose the intrinsic changes, movements and transformations being wrought within time itself as the absolute way life comes-to-be. A human being is therefore neither his physical body alone, nor his living nature alone, and nor his psychic capabilities as something ready created – as the older version of theismvertebrate would have Instead, is nothing than ,a highly developed withit.that specialhetendency to ‘eother ncephalize’ whereby the instincts decay more and more to make place for a highly augmented associative memory and a highly developed technical intelligence. Like all discrete types of animals and plants he has become what he is by virtue of intrinsic causal factors of biological development occurring in the highest vertebrates – even though so far it is not possible to trace his ascent with any exactitude, and the transition forms between Homo Dubois and Homo sapiens are not yet identified. Discrete birth lineages are involved in this, not exclusively those to do with adaptation and selection within an environment, but rather to do with creative ventures deep within the ramifications of universal life itself, and laid down as a result of diverse experiences which groups of organisms have made use of over time. Te functions that he possesses have been formed over time in an orderly way, according to the principle of maximum form-creation at the cost of least energy, and all this ‘beyond good and evil’ or nasty and nice. Te upshot are goal-
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directed rule-formations, leading to memory, phantasy, and a growing technical intelligence, all of which belong to the universal life itself, or, better, to the life-force – the second attribute ofthe srcinal substance, of which first attribute or spirit. Te objective world ofspace images of thethematerial universeis –mind supplying ‘bodies’ – and objective are products of universal life in its lowest form, i.e. where only soulless energy factors prevail. We study the objective appearances of these when we engage in inorganic science, when their intelligible order is manifest in a four-dimensional matrix that can be investigated. But all such natural ways of portraying a human being fall short of the whole truth of what this being is. Whereas the whole world of finite things springs from an ever new continuous creation, according to an ideal structural plan under the governance of the life-force andand its essential motivating impulses, at the same time humans also spring from the mental or spiritual attribute of the srcinal substance, which is manifest in them in the form of an individual centre where divine mind and spirit is concentrated, and which we call ‘personhood’. We, as humans, are not really ‘creatures’, as a free spiritual and mentally-endowed being cannot be ‘created’, and in fact would be better named ‘creators’ rather than ‘creatures’. Te world has become what it is, or, better put, is becoming ever new, by virtue of the divine thoughts. But only humans [among all other things and life forms] are actual participants in divine spirit. He – mankind – is not only like all other things, constructed according to eternal thoughts, but is also, unlike all other things, a thinking agent himself, who thinks in and with the divinity. He thinks, loves and wills in the Godhead and with Him; he lives and is effective on account of Him. Te idea of a human being, therefore, cannot be separated from either the idea of God as the substance of all substances, or from the spiritual attribute of this substance. He, the human being, is a theomorphic being, or, as Leibniz said, ‘a little God’. I havespirit systematically andevolutionary elsewhere] that we cannot attribute and reasonshow to any[here earlier rudiments of these in the way of vital or psychic precursors, and therefore we are forced to derive them – as we have the existence of all genuine essences – from the Supreme Being. If, then, the human being is neither a natural creature – neither bodily thing nor living entity – and is not a spiritual creature either – in the sense of being someone’s creation – but is more than any of
these, in that he is both those manifestations of God which all humanly knowable and infinite things contain,and, in addition, is a very spirit or mind incorporated into the divine spirit or mind – then the human and his history be anything other thansubstance. an extratemporalbeing coming-to-be of thecannot very eternally self-positing Moreover, this substance cannot in any way be indifferent to, or treat as insignificant, our plight, as if it were a mere creation or object of its knowing, commanding or judging. It is rather the case that the human being realizes, or is co-responsible for, the spirituality of God. Tis must be so for each of His ideas, or at least he – man – must be potentially capable of this task, for there is always the actual possibility that man can sink back into animality. – man – is neitherforged servant, child nor tool of God.to Te betweenHethem is solidarity, from mutual attention thebond task of realizing divine spirituality, including its ideas and values, by dint of harnessing the energies of the life-force and transforming those into ideation [Ideierung], spiritualization [Vergeistigung] and essentialization [Verwesentlichung]. And now it should be clear how enormously serious and significant world history is, and that both human thought and human action are behind everything, and that the way and the form in which they happen affects the eventual realization of God.
, . 1. Sociology is to do with the human being as: a) a trembling slave of God’s, or as a humble servant, or as the one who is afraid; b) the freely serving one of God; c) a child of God’s; d) a small God – as Leibniz proposed; e) a microcosm and as a partnership; and f) a creator of God. 2. In human beings mind and spirit are not just the region where the application of things is worked out, nor are they just the most developed level where the validity of things is brought into focus through the noematic structure, nor are they even where a subjective participation in things takes place. Tey are not even just the place where consciousness and self-consciousness first emerge. It is rather that
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mind and spirit first meet up with the consciousness of the drives in ‘consciousness’ itself, and the two attributes of the srcinal being for the first time are immediately brought into proximity and their separateness made conscious. Te human being is the place and theatre where the fate of God is ultimately brought to a head. In man alone, in the workshop of his freedom, there takes place the ‘vitalization’ V [ erlebendigung] of the mind and the spiritualization [Vergeistigung] of life. Te human being is the struggle and the potential for victory that God has with, and over, Himself. His breast is riven in two, in constant turmoil, and completely given over to the unrepeatable and irreplaceable fact that nature and spirit have theirhuman very firstbeing meeting in his consciousness. 3. Te is the manifestation of the ultimate self-unfolding of the Godhead. He marches along within the manifestation of God to their very summit, and that leaves him with nothing more above him. 4. Te human being is: a) in a condition of solidarity with God – both as a creature with drives and as a spiritual entity; b) srcinally just as much ecstatic life-force as he is ecstatic mind and spirit; c) at root a possessor of double membership, but at the cost of double the struggle; and d) someone who makes God more of a beingwith him [man] around than without him. In fact a human being is more of a being than God is Himself when there are no human beings around – surely the ultimate and highest accolade one can pay a human being. e) Te human being is the place where the self-production S[ elbsterzeugung] of God occurs. f) We must think about matters like this – God reveals his eternal spiritual light first of all in a human being. He extends his freedom, sovereignty, holiness and kindness, and wisdom and knowledge of ideas to us. But, at the same time, the human being draws the divine spirit into himsel. He, mankind, having arrived at the ultimate of the by manifestations of alone, nature,beseeches a point beyond which he can gopoint no further means of ‘Life’ god as a spiritual being to open up fresh ground. It is a prayer from the living to overcome life itself. 5. It is therefore quite impossible to accept the notion – of Feuerbach, for example – that human beings have only formed an idea of God along the lines of their own image. Te human being, forever in transition towards the goal of coming-to-be within God, and living his
life with all its troubles, struggles, victories and defeats, simply cannot recognize such a notion. Nevertheless, in one sense the human being is theomorphic and God anthropomorphic. Tis way of looking at things isFor relatively accurate against the notion of man ‘creature’. the human beingwhen is thesetexecutor of the ultimate goalasofa the coming-to-be of God Himself – or rather the co-executor – and indeed the director and steersman of this project. If we take away our role in such highest manifestation of God, then how petty does that make the human being? – almost nothing. It is this very enactment of the ultimate and highest part of His lifein man – not over him or outside him or alongside him – which provides the setting for His struggle to realize Himself. Te supernatural realm in question comes and through not as 6.some miracle. It isabout in usinthat all this mankind, happens, and through the fact of our being who we are that it is achieved. 7. It is only among mystics that one finds a religious socialism which combines service to the realm in question and justification of the poor. 8. Just as man cannot create God, neither can God man. Te reason for this is that mind or spirit cannot create life or extant material, and therefore cannot create anything. Te human being is anyway an entity with drives, and these drives are locked in a constant struggle with mind and spirit, hence the myth of the Fall of Man from Eden. Moreover, a free entity cannot be created, and anyway mind or spirit is substantially one entity and not several. Another reason why God could not have created man nor man God is the undoubted genetic connection between humans and other animals in respect of their physical make-up and psyche, and therefore if God had some plan for salvation or revelation, it would have to apply to every living thing throughout history, not just mankind. In any case the account in Genesis is wrong on a number of counts – e.g. humans are much older than is made out there – aand, well as aanJewish inbuiltsrcin contempt for animals the story, there is biasastowards for humans, and a innumber of other biases and foolishnesses.
(
)
1. Myth is an attempt by the life-force, as part of universal life’s highest stage in man, to produce a preliminary draft of its possible im-
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age forms. Mythical images are therefore potentially contained in the universal life which each individual partakes of. It isapriori to the real history of mankind, and demarcates the range of possible history, in the same way a child’s the experience of its andhuman the grown-ups it models itselfasondoprefigure actual fate of drives an adult being. 2. Myth forms the possible perceptual world, and it must d‘ ie’ before ceding place to a more advanced perception adapted to what is real. 3. We have to consider the relationship between myth and the notion of ‘longing’ in Schelling’s writings, and also myth in Jung’s and Freud’s work. 4. Tere is then myth as self-experience and self-draft of the Supreme Being as a life-force. 5. Myth, and being given drives,pre-determines bring the human being in direct contact withover theecstatically life-force.toMyth the philosophical and scientific images of a culture, all of which are connected to the sociological stage of development known as the living community [which precedes, for example, bourgeois society]. 6. Myth runs its course in vital time – a variety of absolute time which I refer to as a ‘group’s absolute time’. It is simultaneouslybeore and ater history, if we are referring to mere physical time. It is the fount of possible worlds and world history. 7. Each era has its own myth for its own actuality, and there is then a period of disillusionment with the intoxication that adhered to its heyday. o be able to show enthusiasm for such disillusion is something in itself. 8. Tere are myths of empty space, of empty time, of a mechanical world-view – tied to bourgeois society. Tere are myths of a Utopia, of man’s Fall and srcinal sin, of theism, and even of the body and soul. 9. Myths are rooted in the drive dispositions of the races, and in pre-human and pre-linguistic primary experiences of humans. Tey are the remnants of a transition period during whichHomo sapiens was 10.coming-to-be. Tey have to do with a ‘vitalapriori’, and have a functional role within an undifferentiated living community. 11. By studying myths – mythology – one destroys their mythical nature, and one certainly cannot build them up or preserve them by trying to understand what they mean by recourse to reason. 12. Bachofen regarded them as primitive attempts to investigate nature and as re-enlivenings of our psychic categorical system.
13. It is correct to see a romantic theme in the way they put across psychic events, but it is wrong to take their value judgments seriously. 14. Myth and Logos are just as srcinal as the life-force and mind. 15. Nature is the themeawareness of consolidated 16. A myth itself is a preconscious of the myths. srcin of a supraindividual object as such. 17. Te mythical objects lie somewhere between image and straightforward perception. 18. o interpret a myth means to co-produce or re-produce it, for there is nothing substantialto interpret which would not be distorted by putting it into our idiom.
-- ( ) Te essential nature of a human being comes into focus if we bring to mind the entire structure of the entity in question. All possible strands of life accumulate in such a way that there results an increased interiorization [Verinnerung], centralization, sublimation and reflection. All this comes about by dint of an ever increasing and almost unbearable suffering, as one comes up against the resistance to life of the inorganic being around us. With growing alarm at the powerful crescendo of drive suppression going on, there is a pervasive sense of unease. Te direct enjoyment resulting from the satisfaction of the drives soon gives way to, at the very most, an indirect sort of enjoyment, but there then comes a point where the derived pleasure resulting from the satisfaction, the replacement of pleasure with displeasure, is no longer commensurate with the costs in suffering needed to achieve this. In other words, the costs of this way of conducting a life outweigh the benefits, and such a life is not worth living. Or, to put it another way, the task allotted to he or she who would be a proper human being can only be attempted with unsuitable means, the end-result being a blind alley, a ‘Hamlet situation’. Te poor creature who is trying to be a human being can then only hover between ‘being’ and ‘not-being’. ‘o be or nor to be – that is the question’. Te implantation of Logos in this creature which has lost its way is the critical event by means of which the act of becoming a human is effected. It has the following repercussions for all concerned. Te Su-
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preme Being becomes self-conscious because its Logos is implanted in this creature and is effective through its implantation. Te creature itself becomes self-conscious as a result of the self-determination which ensues, the gathering up ofa its hitherto scattered strands of being.and Tethrough experienced contact with metacosmic being – which is what Being-itself [Ens a se] is – leads to knowledge about this Beingitself. Tere is then a sense of continual self-elevation over all finite things, and this carries on until it is a constitutional elevation – symbolised by upright gait – and until the world sphere itself opens up in front of us. Finally there comes the realization that both world and self are contingent on something else, which is indeed what has been true all along i.e. an intra-divine process [innergöttlicher Vorgang], whereby there the partand of God, mutual together, joining ofin handsisona self-discovery the part of theonlife-force spiritand – aacoming other words, of primal Nature [natura naturans] and srcinal ‘ordering’ [ordo ordinans]. Te coming-to-be of a human being is the ideal-real meeting point of two trends and actions – a movement in which the life-force reaches its zenith and a movement in which the spiritual dimension of the Supreme Being lets itself down and implants itself into the very highest peak of the life-force which is welling up and is thrown against it. Any philosophy which wants to derive the fundamental nature of the human being from only one of these movements – e.g. theism, panlogism [Panlogismus], and all naturalistic varieties – is in the wrong. Any philosophy which wants to derive one of these two movements from part of the other one – e.g. St. Tomas Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Darwin, etc. – is also in the wrong, because they stand together only in the undivided act of Being-itself. Te experience of the I and the we, the grasping of self and world, the apprehension of world and God, God’s self-conscious coming-tobe through human beings, the self-awareness of being alive and having ation psychic-physical unity, and social person, and–the of the self along withtheitsintimate concentrated self-knowledge all elevathese acts are equally srcinal part-views and part-elements of what it is to be an entire human being. Anyone who does not realize that these aspects lie at the back of what it is to be human or who tries to derive them from particular features of a human being – e.g. language – does not understand the uniqueness of man. Tis applies whether the person studying the hu-
man being is an anatomist, historian, psychologist or physiologist, or even a mortician. Tere is no category of being in the entire gamut of being human which does not owe something to a conspectus or synopsis of humans things, and does not contain some other categorical outlook on or awhich derivation therefrom. An analytic approach to the human being is completely ruled out, because the nature of a human being is entirely circular. All the celebrated contrasting features of a human being – the so-called contradictions within its nature – are only artificial abstractions from an otherwise totality. All essential qualities are penetrated by other essences, and all drive directions by other drives. In fact even to talk about contrasts and contradictions in human nature is meaningless. Teofprinciple non-contradictability, and even its converse, are still parts what it isofto be human, because both arise within our capacity to think, and are therefore essential qualities of us. Te human being is not a human being because he thinks – as Descartes and Pascal maintained – but the human being thinks because he is a human being, and while he is a human being. Tinking is based upon: 1) there being knowing and consciousness; 2) our having images and meanings of things; and 3) our participating as humans in the collective concentration of what is common to us. It is clear, therefore, that to think – the act which Descartes, Pascal, Hegel and Kant delegate to an ‘I’ which thinks and which Kant calls transcendental apperception – has been artificially taken out of context of the entire human being and should be firmly re-installed where it belongs. Only the entity we call a person can think, and, even then, only if he is an entity which loves. Moreover, the person cannot ‘love’ if it is not capable of loving itself or of affirming its very being, by virtue of which it determines who it is, lights up its being, collects up what is his, as it were, and holds its head high. Tere is no possibility, furthermore, of being able to love without co-executing the act love emanating from the Supreme Being as a spiritual or mental act of within the human being. o think, furthermore, is only the segregation or breaking away [Abspaltung] from the intellectual archetype which the human mind coconstructs, and is above all the apprehension of the sphere of meaning. Tinking through reason gives the idea; thinking through intelligence gives the empirical meanings of the images.
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Even consciousness can only be determined through thinking, if consciousness is deemed to be reflective knowledge as a partial consequence of thinking, which then means that there must be a form of pre-conscious being-thought thinking. [denkendesWhat Sein]?do we then understand by the entity If we take thinking to cover judgements, conclusions and concepts, then this sort of thinking is precisely what can only be relative to the earth-bound human being with its sensory organization. On the other hand we maintain that his sensory organization also has an apriori essential component which the animal lacks, and that: 1) the different modalities are strands of a more comprehensive perceptual act which reaches out to achieve objective being; 2) the images are transcendent to thesensations act whichand apprehends them; and 3)functions. the human can reflect on both the different modality It therefore follows that the human sensory organization is less essential to his status as a human being than is his thinking – and to ignore this is an error which pervades all rationalist philosophy, excluding Kant to some extent, as he partly saw through it. In the final analysis the human being onlyhas a mind because he is a human being, and can only inhibit the boundless life-force because he is a human being. Although mind and the phantasy accruing to the life-force are the two ultimately essential attributes of what it is to be a human being, that the human being does have both of them depends solely on the fact that he is a human being and so long as he is a human being, and not the other way round. Neither the pairings – soul and living body [Leib] – the former being the form and the latter the matter of the other – nor corpse [Körper] and thought – which in Descarte’s scheme are respectively extended substance and thinking substance – is an ultimate human attribute, because living body and soul are rather founded on life itself, and life is founded on the capacity for self-movement, moreover, and living body are founded on the life-force.and, Neither is thecorpse pair consciousness-unconsciousness such an ultimate component as mind and life, because consciousness is founded on both mind and soul. At root the human being has both because it is a part-component of the existence and nature-bestowing property of Being-itself, and because it has the self-determination of, and is the entity which manifests, the coming-to-be tendencies of this Being-itself. It is further so that the human being possesses core es-
sences pertaining to the essence of the world, for the human being is the very entity it is because it co-determines what everything else is, which makes it no wonder that it holds itself in such high esteem. Te fact that the human’ofs special place in the scheme is to activate the coming-to-be God and to ‘ideate’ [ideierenof] things the life-force – i.e. render it idea – and turn it to account [verwerten], and thereby to become the image of God – with the net result, however, of reducing what God’s essence of man’s image is – all this only emphasizes that the human being has both mind and life-force.
‘ ’ ‘ ’ Only the human being has a proportionately higher ability to release his instincts and disinhibit his drives. Tis allows him – despite the fact that his nature is spiritually constituted, and in fact only because this is the case – to go far beyond the point where he is merely preserving objective goals or allowing his organic nature to grow. By being able to disinhibit the very drive centre itself means that he can delve into the eternal life-force more fully than can any other animal. Te human being can achieve such penetration into, and feeling for, life, not simply because he is a creature of drives, but because he can make himself into a ‘homo eroticus ecstaticus’ and sympathize commensurately as such, and he does this by inhibiting and repressing the sexual drive system, and in this condition he is at the very summit of the life-force and of animal life. Eros is sublimated sexual drive energy which has worked its way up to control the perceptual system and its various modalities. In humans this energy component stops serving only the sexual act and reproduction, and rather illuminates more and more what perception brings forth. In this way it transforms, albeit in an oscillatory fashion, what was objective in animals, merely because their particular drives determined it so, into a subjective viewpoint. Tis then lays out the world and its images in such a way that their transcendental status comes to the fore, and, unlike animals, they – the world and its images – are not exclusively linked to whatever drive is presently paramount. In this way, the human being has available to it the energy of the life-force, but is not in the sway of the particular drives which once monopolized it.
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All this happens in such a way that an unencumbered pleasure in the world as image results, something which acts as the srcinal motive for art. However, the pleasure, for anyone, then permeates the reflection and the to, the world, and isinduced bound up with a sense of on, distance to self-reference the world. Tere is then a feeling towards the world which is rather one of compassion [Mitleiden] as opposed to the intimate pity [Eins-leidung] and intimate joy [Eins-reudung] which the animal cannot but experience. Eros – sympathy – first makes it possible for anyone to feel pure pleasure, or any pure emotion, without its being intrinsically attached to the subjective needs which bias how an object is looked at, and, hence, there is an entrance into the ‘objectively beautiful’, with all self-references to any particular individual’s prejudices being excluded. What is achieved here,both above isa ‘supraorganic’ infiltration into, and attunement with, theall, demonic and divine life-force [supra-organic because the view is one level above the erstwhile immersion in it]. It is ecstatic and yet recognized as such. Te fact that humans, as opposed to animals, can achieve a ‘disinterested’, but nevertheless ‘impassioned’, view of the world, free of their drives, and allowing them to see the world as an image, is exclusively because of ‘Eros’. Tere is no greater error than that of Schopenhauer’s, who came up with the notion of a ‘will-less’ intuition – i.e. free of any life-force – in the context of aesthetics. Kant had already made a similar error when writing about ‘disinterested’ intuitions in the same context, for, although the erotic intuitionis disinterested because it is drive-free, it is further disinterested not because it is passion less but because it is impassioned – i.e. erotic. In the grip of a sympathetic-erotic take on the world we experience something of the srcinal imagistic make-up of the world. Not only this, but in such a condition we are co-generating the very images themselves – as accidental being-so’s of something; we can here transcend own make-up– of drives and needs and individual nature to grasp theourconsciousness transcendent images themselves. Tis sense of being-at-one with the life-force is only possible because we are part of this anyway. Our relationship to the centre of forces belonging to dead nature is not of this sort, as here we can only either control or order what is there, as a physicist does, or engage in pure contemplation, in accord with our erotic intuitions, but without any actual contact with the force itself.
All modes of experience are at root derived from either suffering or joy at being at one with things. But whereas thinking with ideas, uncovering the srcinal phenomena in the world, or being part of the essence what all havethat to do withphilosophy inhibiting isthe – in keeping ofwith theis,insight to do to life-centre be eternally dying – what we are concerned with here, in the notion of sympathetic intuition, is the complete opposite: it is an ecstasis into the highest component of life, in fact experiencing life itself, and what is inhibited or cancelled under these circumstances is only our singular life as singular. Because death in real terms is a re-immersion in the well of life, in the sea of universal life, the sympathetic-ecstatic oneness we are considering is actually an anticipation or foretaste of be death, a celebration of the harvest of universal life. It must therefore deemed a fading away of life [Ersterben], but not an extinction [Absterben] or complete passing away [Versterben]. As death, from the point of view of nature, is the other side of the same developmental process as reproduction, so similarly the sympathy of Eros, in its ecstatic demonstration ofthe images of the life-force, is the essential entry point to the philosophical revelation of the sort of entities which a life deals with, whilst at the same time requiring a fading away of a unique form in order to achieve an intuitive understanding of everything that life, death and the life-force component of Being-itself mean – its other side in this case being reason, ideas and thoughts without which Eros does what it does quite adequately. Te meaning of all this is precisely contained in the myth of Dionysis, who is both the God of the living organism, as the form of the latter’s knowledge and participation,and also the God of death. Te erotic, ecstatic participation in the life-force component of Being-itself appears to be proportionately greater, and more dominant, in matriarchal as opposed to patriarchal communities. Without this assumption we women cannot as explain the to peculiar categorical systems obtain in such opposed men. For instance, amongwhich such women, death gives meaning to life not life to death; this can be found in Homer too, who celebrates death, not life. Other beliefs and attitudes to which they incline include the importance of the cult of the soul, the weight of the past, the value of retrospection, and the propensity to see in movement continual phases of repose.
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A re-establishment of this being-at-one was aimed at in a highly intellectual fashion in patriarchal societies through the technique of consciously switching off the contribution of mind and spirit. Tis is essentiallyworship, what trends such as the romantic devoted to Dionysian the Renaissance, the 19thmovement Century Romantics, and contemporary Panromantics, were aiming at. It is a fair question as to why it is only the sexual sphere – and not the nutritional or power drive systems – which can lead, through repression and sublimation, and detachment from their drives, to forms of feeling and forms of love. Te reason is, first, because the reproductive system is the oldest, most srcinal and most energized, and, secondly, because the nutritional drive is essentially a self-preservation drive, and, thirdly, because power drive is a drive mixture of only self- and collective-preservation drives.theTe reproductive is the one of these which is srcinally teleoclinically [i.e. aim-orientated] directed towards another creature, and therefore is also the only one of the three which is objectifiable and ‘intentionalizable’ – i.e. provides a reservoir for Eros as a participating act. It is first of all in the specifically human form of Eros that the energy of the life-force becomes free, and detached from real objects whose properties are merely either useful or harmful to life, and therefore disengaged from the teleoclinical [drive-orientated] situation in force in the animal. Eros, as a function of the soul, is anyway not exclusively focused on possible sexual objects, certainly not of a heterosexual kind. It can generally make itself completely free from sexual matters, and then direct itself towards all sorts of values. In this way it becomes the starting point for the sense of the beautiful, and for showing up qualities in general. Where it remains half-bound to the sexually attractive is in the case of male-male or female-female homosexuality, if there is a favourable disposition for its coming to the surface rather than heterosexuality.
( ) , Among the highest psychic functions that we know about – restricting ourselves to sub-mental ones – Eros is more srcinal than either intelligence or drive-free choice. I am not claiming that intelligence
and choice can somehow be derived from Eros. Such an enterprise would be nonsense. But I do think that the way these two functions are applied to what is given of the bio-organic closed world which is our – or of why whatmediated is ‘to hand’ – comes the jurisdictionenvironment of Eros. Te reason thinking andunder a genuine act of choice remain so restricted in quality and rudimentary in scope is the fault of Eros. Eros is both objectifying and relatively ‘realizing’ in nature. It draws our glance out over what is useful and available, even if in the first instance it only steers us in the direction of aesthetic values. It converts mere curiosity into a thirst for knowledge. Schiller’s remark, that the ‘gate of beauty’ leads both to a land of knowledge and to what is good, is, from a developmental point of view,ofquite justified. Eros releases actuality andpsychological the accidental being-so anything, though not the existence or essence of anything, because, in contrast with drive, it finds its goal in the nature of somethingas an image – by way of its pictorial or musical component. Te existence or real being of something is discovered through resistance, and, for this, the sense of touch has a definite primacy. [Te essence of something is achieved through our mental make-up]. Te release of the nature of something, and even its reality, is howeverpromoted by Eros, as is the release of what constitutes form in formed things. Eros brings out the preference for concise forms, but it is the form itself which carries the meaning which lies in store for the intelligence. In the transition from what is merely at hand to what is objective, it is Eros which is the intermediary. Eros broadens both the scope of future and past events, is responsible for hope or fear with respect to the future, and is the gateway to reminiscence about the past. Eros is the father of yearning – of detached love – and vision is its most refined accomplice, this latter being no less than love at a distance [Fernliebe] itself. Eros is also the source of the very ability of the past to enliven the present. Te mare remembers who firstbackward-looking, impregnated her. Eros, in matriarchies, becomesthe the stallion source of piety, and the cult of death. In Eros there is the first intimation of a pure happiness, over and above the joy of being in love, and even as a future possibility – a step above the immediacy of erotic feelings. Desire is then procured in phantasy. I am then love-sick with yearning Sehn[ suchtskranke] – what a nice present for mankind [die ‘schenkende ugend’ des Menschen.]
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It is, however, also Eros which differentiates the sphere of choice in respect to action. Trough it, the value qualities begin to be separated from real goods. It is the source of preference – a function which animals do not possess. It organizes itself the impulses. form of a world-knowing function over and above the play of in drive Te freeing of our momentary survey of anything from the drive impulse is one of its main accomplishments. Te independence which then accrues to preference broadens the sphere of choice. Animals’ sexual selections are often imaginative, but, where this is the case, it is on the basis of showiness rather than beauty. Te source of morality is female sympathy, and Eros is behind ethical behaviour. Woman, with her natural calm, with her more gradually ebbingwith stimulation curve, and withto aher greater sense of unitytoand sympathy everything, in addition greater adherence the monogamous instinct, is man’s teacher about the entire sphere ofwhat is and what is valuable. A man in our era is anyway already a mixture of female-erotic and male-dominant-intellectual mentality. Whatever goes beyond the conventional and humdrum ways in which a function can be known we owe to Eros. As for the expressive feelings contained in the sounds of song, for one thing rhythm is not based on work, as some have suggested. Dance, song, and individual art works, have a primary erotic function. Even games – human as opposed to animal – get their particular value from Eros, and are precursors of art. rue understanding – i.e. the apprehension of the intention of someone else’s utterance – srcinates with Eros. Even today one learns a language best when one is in love with the speaker of it. Te much greater variety in facial expressions than can be explained in terms of their biological advantages is a consequence of Eros. Human expressivity is anyway essentially different from that of animals: ita different lacks purpose, is a reaction to natural phantasy-objects, and utenit has sort ofitvariety to it. Te undoubted fact that the first sils were not specially made to serve a purpose [but as play-things] testifies to the power of ‘purpose-less’ Eros. Eros first of all marks out the activity of phantasy, and then secures its supremacy over perception, in the life of the human being.
Eros is the anticipation or presentiment [Vorgeühl] of better reproduction. It is only through it that a true marriage is possible – something more than just habit, as an animal-like instinct. Eros and the desire for marriage grow apace simultaneously, definitely so in the case of woman, where there is also an economic bond in her need of a man for procreation. Summing up, I would say that the entire value attaching to the sensually intuited world as opposed to the mere set of signals which it conveys to an animal – i.e. the entire ‘higher’ pleasure if affords us – is down to Eros.
Te clash between Eros itself – through which there arises a beautiful image of a love free of biological needs – and the sensory desire which it provokes, becomes the source of a self-concealment, in which saving oneself for the worthy partner is the name of the game. Tis is aided and abetted by shameful feelings. Shame is the conscience of sexual love. If marriage and the feelings that go with it have their source in a drive for power or a craving for recognition, then Eros is behind these too. A disappointment with everything Eros stands for leads to selfdeprecation, and therefore a craving to be recognized, in a forlorn quest to revive what has been lost of Eros. Eros – the purest assay of life that there is – is then carried forward by means of technical intelligence to serve as the basis for objectively formed things. Te suppression of the cut and thrust of life which leads to Eros is not an innovation of our mind or spirit, but is a biological necessity in itself, and, if anything, is what draws mind and spirit into the dayto-day exigencies of life. Eros all the meansand whereby we are saved from overpopulation, lossisofabove personal identity, an otherwise completely disorganized sway of human drive impulses. It is precisely the cement which binds mind and life-force.
[] Whereas sensuality for the drives comes through touch, smell and taste, and is an active laying hold of booty, Eros works in quite an-
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other way – its modus vivendi being love at a remove, and its tools eyes and ears. Its objective is detached from actual sensations and bare vital feelings, and takes place in the sphere of objectivity, along with values and psychic sort feelings which the lacks. arrives enderness is probably the highest of emotion thatanimal the animal at, whereas Eros lies at an entirely different level. Te Christian world tried to excise it, and it was Arabic culture which re-introduced it to the West.
Te intrinsically powerless mind does not extract its energy immediately from the sphere of drives, as Freud maintained. Between drive energy and mind there is, in humans, an intermediate reservoir of energy, and this is Eros.the Hunger striving afterafter powerextra-mentally may disturb the mind, although actual and goalsthe will be sought with the help of intelligence. Any involvement of mind in this is anyway not sublimation. Sublimation is in the first place energising of mind itself, and this can only take place through the offices of Eros. Eros itself, when it is concerned with goals to do with economic and power values, and when actual work is involved, is a ‘middle-man’ in all this. Te basic act of mind is the Agape – whereby a kindly affirmation that athis being is aisbeing andwhether has a value place, or independently of what being and of it hastakes a positive negative value. Tis act has nothing to do with Eros, not even sublimated sexual energy. A gift from an animal does not involveAgape. Agape is something for which theanimal possesses not the slightest disposition, even though its tenderness appears to us as if it were.Agape is an affirmation of world and of Being-itself, and indeed of everything, even the acknowledgement of suffering resulting from the resistance to the real. Neither Buddha nor Christ plumbed the full depth of this, though Buddha did so better than Christ. Te energy which Agape can acquire comes only from Eros. Eros therefore is linked to all of the following – everything that is over and above me d[ as Über mir], positive values, image, form, the beautiful, and the concise prägnante [ ]. Agape. activated by Eros, then becomes the source of the illumination into the very essence of things. Agape is srcinally a male characteristic, and enables that person to take a complete overview of essence, idea and urphenomenon, irrespective of their content or value.
It was a basic mistake of Greek philosophy to make Eros the faculty which unlocked the essence. Eros does nothing of the sort; it remains in the sphere of images and its highest achievement is the form G [ estalt ], not essences. mistake bound up withactual the Greeks’ misunderstanding of formTis [Form ] – andiswhether it was or potentially in the non-being of the life-force. Mind, and its source Agape, although founded on our apprehension of essences and essential values, nourishes this activity with Eros’ energy, as the only energy source available to it.
What hasisbeen refinement in life’salong driveswith overthe thelife-force’s course of evolution nonecalled othera than Eros, which, phantasy, and the aid of technical intelligence, has helped bring forth ever more complex forms. It is not universal life which positive mutations has brought forth [- which was there at the beginning -] but universal Eros. Eros grows with every achievement it effects, and is sited at a level above intelligence and phantasy. It sketches out the ideal possibilities of how life can take form. It is the vision [sehend of what the life-force has come-to-be, but at a sub-mental stage. Eros] remains demonic.
It springs forth in the contact between two human beings and is at the same time a single independent function of universal life, in which two humans can merely participate. So far as I know the phenomenon of Eros is most magnificently described by Klopstock. Schopenhauer referred to it as ‘the genius of the species’ considered that ‘in it and lay Elysium’. Jung’s remarks ‘anima’ and and ‘animus’ are outstanding, Kretschmer wrote about on it. Schopenhauer, however, got it wrong when he called it a ‘swindler’, and when he related it only to reproduction. Bliss and the best of what is biological meet together in Eros. Lovers behold themselves and the possibility of a beautiful life at the same instant, and see something more than just two human beings propagating the species. Te sexual drives are bound to a living
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organism, and remain arrested at the level of an individual’s pleasure. Not so Eros, which is, like language, myth, and mind – in this respect – bound essentially to a mutual togetherness [Miteinandersein], yet is inexplicable purely asfor an language, interaction. It shows here thenon immediate presupposition and, indeed,itself as the sineasqua of mutual understanding itself.
Eros is the single positive basis for all authority and otherwise unfathomable reverence. Everything else is angst. Te higher forms of the life-force never emerge from lower ones in a way that their essence, quality and special lawfulness can be directly traced. Eros isIt no exception: it is not simply a consequence of drive suppression. – and other higher manifestations – are founded on this, but not wholly explained through it. Eros, along with its correlate – beautiful forms – is eternal. In the beauty of the forms of nature the mirror of its smiling gracefulness is unveiled. But in human beings Eros allows the opportunity offered by an ascetic setting aside of drives for all this to appear as a subjective experience. In this way Eros becomes conscious of its own endeavours.
Eros opens up pure images, first of all life as an image of opposing sexual phenomena – male, female – but all other entities as well, and it does so by uncovering their expression physiognomically – as a face. It gives preference to visible beauty, the noble, and adequate types of things. It is at odds with the notion of grasping something, an attitude typical of drive. Quality is first activated by Eros, but it – quality – then organizes Erosinvisible to servedemands its – quality’s own to essential according to the of the –mind, which valuation, quality – but not Eros – belongs. ogether, Eros and quality result in love. Quality affirms according to the way the essential mental and spiritual values are set up. Eros’ role in this, with its capacity to emote at a distance from an entity, is to activate the growth of love, and to be the very source of that love which is quite specific to humans.
Eros, not quality, is sublimated sexual energy, and this infuses visual intuitions which the person has available. Te upshot of this process is that Eros, guided by phantasy, can create an adequate, concrete example of something, an essence isessences]. only a mental ucthow [i.e. it exemplifies, flesheswhereas outand individuates Tisconstr is itself artistic conceptions arise. o try and explain art in terms of a ‘will to power’ is absolute nonsense. All art has to do with pathos, not will; it is to do with ‘being seized’ [Ergriffenheit], not with seizing [Ergreien]. Kant’s notion of an ‘interest-free’ intuition, or Schopenhauer’s, of a pure contemplation free of the constraints of the will, are just as false. What neither philosopher saw was that there was somethingbetween drive and reason, and this something is Eros. Aesthetic joy, however naïve, is always a joy in some actual state of affairs and values – Yes, that is how it is; or, Yes, you are just like that. Tis needs Eros. Te images are first set free from their mere status as functional signs of real being by Eros. Without this release they remain simple lures or repulsions experienced as non-resistance, resistance, or possible resistance. Eros has its rudimentary beginnings among animals in the form of: 1) a choice of available sexual partners; 2) tenderness – an eroticism of touch; and 3) gift-giving. In fact, in the very grasping of something, the beautiful image of it dwindles away, and melts into nothing. Eros stops desire from getting too strong, yet at the same time summons it up. It releases kindness, energizes it, and particularizes it, yet at the same time subsuming it under an essence. In this way Eros spans the poles of what it is to be a human being as a uniying tendency.
- ( ) In the human being the mentally-creative, srcinal, basic factor raises itself to a consciousness of its totality. Whereas the mind is only active in the way of technical intelligence in the sphere of inorganic matters, when it comes to organic life it rises up to be a purveyor of particular forms, and when it comes to the human level there is [for the first
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time] a ‘being out for itself ’ [űr sich sein] and a unification with the life-force and drives, all this despite the inevitable conflict. Te human being is that creature where a unification of the lifeforce minddirection; comes about, mind getsanits ownentity strength, drivesand get their wherewhere God becomes actual fromand its erstwhile potential in this respect from amongst the srcinal basis of the world; and where the mental potentials of what lies in the power of things actually leads to a powerful status of mind.
(
/
)
Without doubt, Schopenhauer found an essential truth about the way everything is. But he encumbered his notion of ‘will’ with all sorts of Christian – ascetic – paraphernalia, and denies it any creative potential. He knew nothing of either the Dionysian affirmation or of the relatively negative bringing forth of matters through the offices of the mind. Te darkest reaches of the immeasurable fertility ofthe life-force is certainly blind, in one sense, but this sense is only in respect of the values entertained by mind; it is not blind ‘in itself ’. Anyway, it – lifeforce – is not a unified entity. It is multifaceted, and each facet has its own goal. Its highest level is Eros, which seeks the perfect shape, condensing it in the most appropriate way. It is geared to pinpoint what is beautiful. has itseventually own principle to back it up, and leads on to whatIt mind doesofdo.phantasy From Eros – the highest that the life-force achieves – to mind, the following transformations occur: form → idea; noble → good; intelligence→ mind; and Eros → quality. What drives this transposition is not a simple ‘no’, but a steering and a directing through mind and will to a realization of God’s own goal. Mind gets power and positivity, and the life-force learns ideas and values. All ideas and values come from divine mind, through love of God, even though at root they are derived from the life-force itself. What is irrational is irrational only when measured against reason. In itself, the irrational is not irrational, and it has its own recognizability and its own way of being.
(
)
Te human female represents the life-force, insofar as it has evolved into an idea and can be the subject of a longing for it.
Te male represents mind and spirit, insofar as they have a tendency to realize what sun, earth, light and darkness mean. Te two of them, male and female, in their coming together in love, bring to fruition thedivine disposition forlife-force. God Himself to come about, from the melding of the with the Tis last is the ultimate reason why both are appropriately paired, one to the other, and why what is Holy can only appear as this pairing of the ‘mother-world’ and the ‘father-world’, and why this is an endresult of the amalgamation of the two ‘sexual’ cultures. You – woman – daughter of the earth, Is not the moon and its light sufficient for your purposes? What need do you have of the sun? Te drive towards death and the reproductive drive – Are they not amply you?notYou – woman – werefor anyway because of the sufficient latter, andforwhy serve them, suffer them,born put up with them and even be sacrificed to them? You, not we – Man – hold the key of life in your hands. Gentle you should be, and an eternal example for man to turn to as to what gives shape to life. If it were only to you that we men ever turned, then we would love and be tender. You – woman – are children of the night of the soul, of life, of fate, and of what is constant. You are the guardian of what comes round again, of tradition, of decency, of morals, and of shame. You are the prey of the hunter, the hunter being the man, and even consciousness itself is a male preserve – ‘capture the booty’ is its motto. On the other hand, you – woman – remain the negative politician, the martyr, and yet the producer. You are allied to the church and the priest. In Dionysian times you were at the forefront of humanity. It is to you that we owe our eternity, but rom you there arose the spirit of God. Without you, what would we – Men – be or do? We would fly off into atmosphere of in ideas. us,are youblind – Women – wouldtheberarefied like worms, trapped the Without earth. You without us men; we men are lame without you. We men alone steer us both through life. We – Men – make ourselves heroes to please you. You – Women – make yourselves into courtesans to please us, or did so in the Middle Ages.
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Asceticism and chivalry, protection of maidens, and all sorts of other renunciations – these are the most beautiful ways in which human life has taken shape. engine which drives world historyofishuman not fuelled by ideas butJust byasthethelife-force, so is the true activation beings in and by women and not in and by men. Te man has such a great sex drive that he no longer notices how often and how much he is actually serving women, and most so at the very moment when he thinks he is controlling them. A mind that believes it is becoming powerful is definitely deceived. Terefore, it is man as opposed to women who is responsible for the actual sociological determination of mind. Man thinks; finds woman directs. If a creature itself in a situation of self-defeating resistance, it begins to control its impulses. In fact the disequilibrium in aims between plants and inorganic matter was the direct cause of the creation of animals. Te plant is seemingly in a state of confidence in, and solidarity with, its inorganic environment, but what it lacks is catabolic metabolism. All progress takes place at the junction of some lack of adaptation – a mal-adaptation to future conditions, a dissatisfaction, a repression, a resistance. In the ensuing suffering there lies the basis for progress.
As an ‘open system’ the human being is equally at liberty to apprehend ideas and to co-determine which ones will be realized in nature, as well as to penetrate into the drive-based ecstasis which gives him a taste of universal life and its imagistic world. He can just as well hitch his horses to a mental and spiritual vehicle which will take him far beyond the mundane of hisallneeds and purposes, aseditake off in another directionconstraints altogether with its technical and moral fices for promoting the sophisticated animal in us. In one direction, one is participating in one of the attributes of the basis of everything, and one becomes homo sapiens, whereas in the other, one participates in the second of the world-ground’s attributes, and one becomes Dionysian man. If one of these two paths becomes a prevailing route for mankind, then the other is deemed sinful. Tis is what all spiritual
religions have done to Dionysian humans. Tey have branded them impure and flawed [unrein], and demeaned their very way of life, their culture and their traditions; their moral codes too have been denigrated as tendency too emotional, too close to the rawsort endhas of life. Any to extoltoo therelaxed, virtues and of ‘communism’ of any been damned and hounded out. Above all they have taken issue with the notion that sexuality is the srcinal drive of life, and have simply condemned the charms of this and charged it with being sinful and dirty, with the sole motive of channelling all its vast energy into fuelling mind and spirit through its sublimation. When Plato called philosophising an eternal dying he expressed the fundamental principle of a pure asceticism. History, however, is replete with rhythmic homo sapiens movements or against humancults, path,thetowards or towards the for Dionysian maneach – orphic Renaissance, Romanticism, the peasant Bolsheviks against Marxism. Tis rhythm – now one path, now another – is, however, tied up with the respective preponderance of the female psyche or the male mind and spirit. Tis is an essential truth of all knowledge, according to Bachofen, and is valid over and above all wrong turnings in history. All culture is a consequence of the fertilization of these two principles – Apollonian and Dionysian, in Nietzsche’s account. Te Romantic spirit is childish and female at root. In Schopenhauer’s and Kant’s ethics the Dionysian and classical moral schemes come together in a way which is reminiscent of more recent ‘marriages’ – Jewish Marxism and peasant Bolshevism – or more ancient – Plato and Buddha. Phenomenologically, the two types of culture in question are aptly described, by Strich, for example, as ‘romantic’ and c‘ lassical’. Nadler proposed an ethnological-biological exposition of the two in the following terms. Romanticism appears when a foreign folklore interpolates itself at a time of crisis within an indigenous culture, with the result that the indigenous folklore takes the form of a receptive‘mother’ to the foreign
import. If female and male are functional and srcinal ways of being of two sorts of living cells, then it would appear as if Life itself, which fosters these, is bisexual. Bisexuality would then be a core characteristic of Life, which would only be partitioned into ‘male’ and ‘female’ as an idea. Te Dionysian human being represents an essentially primitive aspect of ourselves, the Apollonian that of progress. Te Romantic mentality is essentially backwards-looking, a longing for what has been lost.
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It can be conservative or revolutionary, and is above all a condition of the soul, which can have any number of actual contents. Te following dichotomy holds good. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
Classical Space Concept Outside Dayandlight Heaven Law Form Finitude ension Plasticity Stationary/static
Romantic ime Feeling,introvertedstate Inside Night Earth Individual Expression Infinitude Relaxation Musicality Coming-to-be
Catholicism is a High-Classical or Roman appearance of things. But in times when this seems outdated it turns to the Romantic mentality, which is quite un-Catholic and too subjective. Tese are illusions of the first order.butGerman is Romantic whenTe compared with France, Russianspiritual is morehistory Romantic than German. future is definitely taking a turn for the Dionysian mode: consider the victory for women in Socialism; or the growing clamour of the East – which is collectively motherly and Romantic. Education has always taught what would lead to human totality. Te attraction between the opposite sexes is bound up with character types which reflect the Classical and Romantic modes, so that no person ends up with too extreme a set of drives. Te Greek culture was two-faced – Apollonian and Dionysian. Homo sapiens was a Greek conception, but first fully realized in Roman times, whereas in Russia the features of the Hellenistic Eros entered more deeply into the national spirit. As for morality, there are Apollonian and Dionysian versions. Tere is an asceticism of mind and spirit, just as there is an asceticism of drives. Te Catholic Church’s forbidding of doubt stems from a deliberate attempt to impoverish the role of mind ni human affairs. Instead,
it celebrates tradition and authority, and gives preference to a communal life over rational progress. Each moral code is a sort of asceticism because willing is always a way of saying no. Te move towards physical the ‘culture of theand body’ and sport are atoconscious ity education, against intellectualisation against the urge think toomoralmuch. Tis is in complete contrast to the Scholastic era, which encouraged thinking among a select and closely-knit group. Te medieval sort of rationalism was anyway not a course of instruction leading to rational thinking, but rather the conveyance of a pre-set idealistic system. Yet another reversal of notions is exemplified by modern irrationalism – Nietzsche, Schopenhauer,Bergson – where it is taken for granted that thinking has become too instinctive, too overindulged in, and needs taking downofa mental peg or two, by encouraging sport, forworked example. is an example asceticism and a consciously outSuch relaxation technique. Freud and psychoanalysis, and Nietzsche’s exhortation ‘Become hard’, are in the same general vein. Every morality is a system of forbiddings – a set of No’s – aimed at a particular image of a human being.
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In the same way as goodness and Eros – emotional affirmation of the other such and the noble forms of theand selective Eros –Phantasy become beever more as interpenetrated, so also do Logos phantasy. comes ‘reasonable’ and spiritualized, and the world of ideas becomes realized through constructions pertaining to shape and the life-force. Phantasy in ourselves, and metaphysical phantasy belonging to the life-force, which are the building blocks of the accidental being-so of something in a consciousness-transcendent realm, are one and the same. Te psychology of artistic creation and its designs show us this very process in miniature – i.e. how a world can become such. Te world anywaythejust such asings ‘workfirst. of art’, world history is a tale or songiswhich Divinity It isand a song of melancholy, but nevertheless of victory. Phantasy, beginning with intuitively given images and analogous levels of other sensory givennesses, is much more primary in the scheme of things than are perception and reproduction, and this applies to the child and the primitive person. Each representation, which is ever newly built from reproduction, memory, expectation and phantasy,
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never returns. But what perception and reproduction or memory and expectation were becomes phantasy, in the same way as will becomes a mere wish. Tewithout animal they and the child liverecognizing in a worldthis of as phantasy reproductions themselves such. Caspar took a speckled ball to be a face with eyes. Animals do not seem to be able to distinguish the living from the dead. Te stimulus which an image arouses does not mean that a proportional sensation is thereby given, let alone that any sensation is a copy of the thing, but only means that the ever active production of drive-directed phantasy is being curtailed and restricted in terms of what the actual phantasy content can be, to the point where it even appears [inverting the true situation] as ifappropriate it is the starting pointTe forstimulus a purposeful in response some occasion. is a attitude narrowing down of to phantasy and the wishful life of the soul. Te same process occurs at higher levels too – in the cases of reproduction and association – so that the images themselves seem ever more proportional to the surroundings. Te tendency to fill in blank dots, the tendency for conciseness of form to stand out, or for complementary qualities in a row of qualities to be ‘seen’, cannot be explained in terms of ‘stimuli’ of the presenting form nor of any shared stimuli. Te same goes for the production of dark regions of space, for the stability of the ‘field’ in which we experience a face, the indeterminate sphere of the environment and its intuitively given space, or the body scheme, or the phantom-limb experience of amputees. All these, as well as testifying to the dearth of sense in a stimulus-response explanation for such, also make clear that as in some of them there is no actual stimulus at all – e.g. phantom-limb – then only phantasy, with its objective correlate of thelack of any resistant ‘thing’, whose subjective side is wish, can go any way to explaining them. Tey conform to the developmental law, which is that what was once perception, reproduction, memory or expectation becomes was will becomes wish. But ever more known as phantasy, what if, nevertheless, phantasy activityascan transform itself into perception, memory or expectation, then the reason for this is threefold: 1) the actual phantasy belonging to the worldand any organism are the very same entity; 2) they both abide by the same laws of shape-formation; and 3) the drive structures which correspond to what is selected from the milieu are the same as those which control the activity of phantasy,
with the consequence that an individual’s phantasy gradually adapts to the world of things in the milieu structure and to what there is there. Te being-so of the world as image is definitely transcendent to consciousness, made out same materialof as dreams. Te objectively but idealisqualities are of thethe building-blocks thisareimagistic world. Each organic creature has at its disposal only a certain number of these, and they are ever produced according to what specific energy lies in that organism’s sensory nerves in respect of their seeing and hearing, in conjunction with the all-pervasive vital soul of the universe. Tere are in fact two principles at work here: 1) the principle of the specific sensory energies – alluded to; and 2) the objectivity and psycho-physical neutrality of the qualities. What is inside is also outside, and the following correspondences obtain. 1) With regard to phantasy and qualities, theinner is the accidental image of perception and representation, and theouter is the being-so of things. 2) With regard to mind and Logos, the inner is our apriori essences and ideas, and the outer is the objective world of ideas. 3) With regard to the life-force, theinner is drive, and the outer comprises both forces with a variety of goals and our experience of reality. 4) With regard to Eros, theinner are subjective shape-forming laws, and the outer are ontic or actual laws of shape formation. 5) With regard to love, theinner are value-feelings and preferences, and the outer objective value-orderings. 6) With regard to life, theinner is the mini-organism, the outer the world-organism as the life of God. Te human being is at the same time both part of nature and the greatest concentration of it. Nature is its object only when the mind or spirit supervene. Te superior impulse [Oberimpuls] sets the conditions for a sphere of butonwhat the inferiorlawfulness forces [Unterkräte ] make of thispossible dependsevents, entirely the mechanical which they bring to bear on the entire situation. Te superior force has the effect of only excluding certain consequences.
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In a nutshell, the problem of metaphysics is that of metaphysical anthropology and human history. Te divine substance, which is in an eternal state of coming to an end and setting out, is both mind/life-force and life-force/mind, working in functional unison as a continual slackening of an srcinal tension. Te passage from mind to life-force is the will; the passage from life-force to mind is Eros, which exerts its influence by creating the noble, the well-formed, freedom and beauty. Te will is the servant of mind; Eros is the ‘King of life’. Shape is the agency for meaning, whereby ideas and images are channelled from the life-force and its intrinsic phantasy
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If the nature of God and the nature of humans are partially identical, then it must follow that the ideas of God and substitute idols and the forms that religious history take are similar and correspond to the way humans are and to the forms of their social communities. Teism, which rejects this essential idea – which is so uncontroversial these days that even secular, constitutional concepts are couched in theological terms – is simply burying its head in the sand on this point. I see the whole matter as part of an essential relationship between God and man. I do not, however, consider the views of Feuerbach, or the sociological thesis of Durkheim that the idea of God is merely an idealistic human projection, as part of the mainstream of religious history. Nor do I see any virtue in making religion out to be merely a ‘group cult’ or one of many transcendental idols, nor of seriously entertaining Marx’ notion of religion as a way of bamboozling the population with ideological froth and as an epiphenomenon of the supposed economic realities in some epoch. Gods and the Hereafter are instead true realities and powers, ‘relatively absolute’ to the human type and its existing social situation, but in the form of an enveloping divinity, and just as real for any race ornation as the polar sun or the equatorial sun are in such peoples’environment, except that God and the Hereafter concern the absolute sphere. Tey are facets of God Himself, perspectives and glimpses of the true and unique Supreme Being, and, just like the polar sun in being emanations from the Divinity itself, indeed self-projections of God ever
related to the conditions and nature of a race or nation. Make no mistake! It is not simply that a human being comes to believe in, or puts his faith in, such matters, but that such matters are already stronger and a higher reality than thecome human beingif anyway, andmerely this latter statehave of affairs could never have about they were wish and phantasy-structures of humans. As Cassirer wrote: ‘Te human being takes his image from them, not them from him’. In an objective sense the history of religion is not the history of piousness, but the way the very idea of God is given down the ages, the way Being-itself ’s own Self-consciousness waxes in human beings, and even the way the Self-actualization of God is taking place, albeit subject to constraints of the perspectival intuitions of contemporary human groups the limits ofschool their of understanding. Te way the and philosophical positivism formulates all this, that man creates gods and should not love what he creates, or that he is merely worshiping himself or his group, is completely false. Positivism misunderstands the essential nature of a human being, and takes it to be a new projection at every moment, and a mature and adynamic projection at that. In this it misunderstands the nature of life, just as much as it does the nature of mind. In fact positivism assumes that a human being is a complete and completed ‘given’ e[inen Menschen als voll ‘gegeben’], whereas this can only apply to a dead body, an object, or an extant real thing, and not to an entity which at each moment is coming-to-be [werdendes] what, at most, it is truly and genuinely supposed to be, or, at least, struggling to come to terms with what this is. Te relationship God-man is a reciprocal relationship, in which, of the two, God predominates in being, fullness and power. Just as it is true that there can be no polar sun or equatorial sun without the astronomical sun, and no astronomical sun without the group of unified form-centres and fields of the life-force’s impulse which lie at the basis of such images, it is no less true that without Being-itself there can be no Apollo,what Jehovah or Indra. all scraps and fragments God Himself, human beingsTey haveare prayed to throughout theofhistory of religion, but in no way at all are they mere projections of a pious state of mind. Te only person who initiates this last way of thinking is the theist who has invented a god as an absolute being and yet denied Him any possibility of coming-to-be, and therefore given Him nothing that can be deemed eternal. Te same theist presumably regards the history of
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the world as nothing more than a haze, an empty, futile cloud flying past. He, however, who does know that God is a coming-to be and that His fate in this respect is entwined with His works, deeds, and self-manifestations the world andininthe history, thatdescribed. person will soon be disabused of the in impulse to think way just Of course our ‘theist’, in the same way as the believer in Apollo, is a human being, with his own partial view on God. He has, as much as anyone else now or previously, potential access to the knowledge of God’s coming-to-be and of the world’s development, but instead reifies [hypostasiert] the spirit and life of the Divinity – Being-itself – and takes them for real, extant, thing-like objects. But this is precisely what Being-itself can never be. Being-itself is isthat entity whichofis Being–itself still undecided in nature, but this ‘undecidedness’ itself a resolve to make Its mode of existence and nature something that It is driving at, something that changes in every manifestation of It itself – in short, a determined attempt to keep things incomplete [something which is almost a definition of what Being-itself is]. But this anticipation of a goal of what comes-to-be as an extant being – i.e. God is a person and world as a living entity – is an unwarranted imposition on Being-itself, ignoring the very dynamic nature of Being-itself and the world. It is a rigid will which states that: You – God – must be, and be in such a way, that you areor me, not, however, I or you. Tis is gross impudence on our part to assume that we can rein in the steed which is God, as it were, and make it do whatever we want it to do to promote our need for security in our particular era. One comes up against completely false anthropomorphism here – in the writings of anti-theists, e.g. Feuerbach, Comte and Durkeim, and theists alike. Both groups place within a category of eternal – what in fact is a self-positing and self-movement of some srcinal being – what is secondarily given to us of all this, i.e. its being extant, its real varieties, whatever can be ascertained these goings-on, and whether is perfect or complete. All this isofa all complete accommodation to whatit suits the bourgeoisie. Any previous version of God, as the entity which is superior to man and transcendent to him, is completely forgotten. Positivism, which makes out that humans create gods, has been, since the time of Epicurus, merely the ridiculous antithesis to an equally ridiculous theism, both mired by the foolish notion of a complete and completed God.
It is the paradox of the theist that he is all for supporting the notion of God’s will and God’s being, and proclaiming that God’s will should be done, but when it comes to whether God is working for His own realization, and thatinto thathis is precisely what His will of being donea means, the theist retreats own pragmatic mode asking readymade God for help. Te theist claims that he wants God’s will to live, but only so as he can adapt it for his own purposes. When he parrots, Ty will be done, he claims to know already what that will is. Tis is a prime example of supposedly predicting what is going to happen, when all that it really is, is justification after the event.
( ’ -- ) I believe that the completion of the world lies in God’s hands, and that God’s realization and self-redemption depends on His acts in bringing forward the world process. But what is at stake in this are not finite matters, but infinite. Moreover, what is at issue is not piousness and contemplation of God’s works, but an active role in what God is doing along with an informed participation in His Idea. I believe that our spiritual and mental contributions to God are continuously needed, and that the same applies to all finite creatures. We are surely mature enough to cope with the notion of an incomplete, struggling and suffering God. We might even love Him better if we knew that in these respects He is like us. If I seriously took the world to be the work of an all-wise, all-good and almighty God, then surely I would scarcely dare to breathe, never mind alter it, in case I damaged the work of such a high and holy person through some improper act on my behalf. We cannot but sense, in the light of the Japanese earthquake, the First World War or the Russian famine, that God struggles and suffers, and that He is neither good nor evil. Te world is the comingto-be of His life, and for us is the simple expression of His state of mind. All we know is that so far we cannot produce human beings and cannot control Nature, and that everything attests to the intrinsic goodness and nobility of human beings.
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Human beings are ever improving on techniques which were srcinally the blind drives accorded to living creatures by their Master, Whose further contribution is the potential empowerment of their mind making availableTe of bare ideasbeing, and rank orderingsofof mind values toand thethe creative life-force. human as possessor and spirit, is a positive accomplice and tool ofGod, not His apprentice or slave. echnology, anyway, has its own ‘metatechnology’.
Te act and the technique through which there is an elevation into the sphere of essences as a whole – which from a subjective point of view is a participation in the mental network of meanings – precedes any particular knowledge of an essence and–the ability to grasp interconnections. It is the Platonic impetus a simultaneous loveitsfor the essences and a switching off of the resistance of reality and the accidental being-so of anything. Tis sphere is in itself continuous and it possesses its own logic, a logic which is different from formal logic – this last being so far only an essential logic of everything that is inorganic. It is definitely the case that after the elevation in question a structure of essences as a whole is in play and this precedes any particular grasping of an essence or its relationships and structure. I cannot, for example, grasp the essence of a living organism without also having a notion of the essence of a dead body or of what mind is. Nor can I capture the essence of a human being without also knowing what it is to be an animal, a plant or something divine. Tis integrated structure breaks down into part-structures, out of which essential forms and essential relationships arise. Because the pure essences are only a small number and form a closed system – in contrast to the infinite number of accidentally being-so’s of anything – each negation of an essence has a knock-on effect on all the remaining ones. Tis effect only occurs in the sphere of essences. Tere is no such dialectical principle in the case of the accidentally being-so of anything. In the sphere of essences, however, each essence is related to the whole and to every other essence. Because ideas and essences only express directions and ways forward for the empirical formation of concepts – tendencies whereby what is becoming becomes actual – any specific negation has a greater effect than in other realms, especially if polarities are involved. For ex-
ample, if something is dead then it is not alive as well, if infinite then it is not finite. In the case of a mechanistic network of meanings, such negation would only cancel out the opposite [not enhance it, as in the realm of essences].
- 1. A draft [Entwur] is, in distinction to a precise blueprint or plan [Vorbild], a structural scheme, which, for it to be carried out or fulfilled, needs special materials and forces, allows considerable leeway for alteration, and will actually be altered. Te same goes for a sketch [Skizze]. It therefore lies in the nature of a draft that it neither already contains within itself the complete set of rules for dealing with all contingencies that may crop up in the execution of the necessary actions – i.e. there is no unequivocal way of proceeding – nor that its enactment should take account of everything written into the draft. Despite these provisos the draft does determine, in every respect and at each stage, the overall carrying out of the proposal. It further belongs to the draft that without any actual enactment of what it is proposing it remains meaningless, and only in the enactment does it have any truth or not. Before the proposal is carried out it does not have any inner measure of anything, and its value cannot be established by means of some inner logic and forces meaning. only as an extant project when independent takeItup itsachieves carryingvalue through. All essences and ideas are of this nature, whether as entities having an actual objective existence or whether as part of our knowledge. Precisely because nature works like a genius, and, according to Kant, brings forth exemplary models of things without any available design, and does not work like a craftsman, who simply reproduces an arbitrary form, there are no pre-conceived ideas i[deae ante res]. Anomalies, abortive projects, mistakes, inadequacies, and stupidities in the organic andwithin are neither explicableview. within a teleological view world, of the abound, world nor a mechanistic A mechanistic view of the world simply cannot accommodate hiccoughs, stupidities and mistakes in the course of events, but neither can it take account of perfection, meaning and direction. But these crop up all the time in organic and in inorganic nature. In the latter case, for example, no atom conforms perfectly to a model atom. Even here normality and abnormality are merely statistical.
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2. Our way of forming ideas is not merely an after-thought, but a ‘co-draft’ [Mit-entwur]. Te ideas derive their truth at the very door of the experience which reveals whether the draft presuppositions are in 3.play not. Teorstructural draft even precedes any individual grasping of an essence. An essence is in fact always even an ‘ideal type’ of something, in the sense first set out by Max Weber. But it is not really a humanly subjective endeavour or an arbitrary form of something which gives order to some manifold, but a co-endeavour with the eternal Mind itself. 4. Te ‘world-draft’ changes in content over absolute time. God must become untrue to yesterday’s ordering of ideas in order to be true to those of today. this reason ournow, job isastowell keepasrunning afterstudies, God in this respect. In For philosophy up till in historical mathematics and the natural sciences, there is an unbelievable array of false proposals as to the relationship between being and knowledge, in particular emphasizing how human knowledge comes about instead of considering the burden of being. Tis is srcinally an elementary error of the Eleatics. It shows how important it is to take account of the existential relativity of things.
-- [-] We have already seen that, in relationship to actual empirical things, the essence is neither ‘pre-thing’ nor a‘ bove-thing’ nor ‘in the thing’. It is only an ideal draft of the goal of what is coming-to-be, for it depends on the autonomous workings of the life-force itself how far it gets and to extent the co-operation goal is reached. Te actual world is always already thewhat product of the of both principle components of everything that is – the Supreme Mind which drafts the essences; and the Supreme Life-force which sets forth the actuality of the real and determines the positive accidental being-so of anything. In a strictly analogous way to how the relationship stands between idea, life force and actual thing, the way we participate in the nature of something – and hence ‘know’ it – is not through some single act of
ours – be it thought or intuition – which latches on to an independent object, but we construct an object through our mind in the coming together of an ur-phenomenon and idea, albeit under the influence of an or phantasized or notion image. that Tisthe thesis proposed hereempirical is in complete contrast toexample Husserl’s ‘species’ itself has some ideal being which we can somehow actually perceive. It is also in even sharper contrast to Hartmann’s theory, which proposes that essences are ideal things in themselves which have a free-floating existence in the real sphere of things. Te collective world of mathematical structures has no so-called ‘ideal being’ independently of all mental acts. It is a world of freely constructed structures, but underpinned by what axioms are provided byTe puresame intuition’s pre-sensory excursions. goes formaterial the realand empirical existence of anything as for the realm of essences. We draft a version of it, in order to grasp the empirical world through this very draft. How we come by the appropriate matter or the appropriate being of something is through constructing, or rather co-constructing with the aid of the supra-singular mind that envelops us, the objective nature of something. We do not simply stumble on the essence of something nor are we let in to some cavern of truth; we are driven by our life-force and its creative images and accommodate these to our drafts. Our constructions are then objective and valid only if they are co-produced with the divine Mind, and if they acknowledge the life force’s images which underpin them. Tere is no objective knowledge before all such events; it is rather that the nature of something only evolves at the end of the mental process, and whether this something exists or not is dependent on our achieving this construction with all the rules that are involved. 1. Our own thinking and the eternal thinking of the Divine Mind narrow down whatever the real actually is, though our own thinking does not simply repeat the contents of eternal thinking, but rather co-constitutes it by grasping it, to thereby making our knowledge and consciousness additional our thought. 2. Te transcendental givenness has nothing to do with the notion of a pervasive supra-individual thinking which I might somehow incorporate into my judgement. Even eternal thought must presuppose the givenness that I am referring to here. 3. Te essence is co-constructed by our thought and that of the universal thinking, and not either picked up by us as it is, nor
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portrayed in some way. Our thought – stripped of its purely social, human dimension – is a co-production, admittedly only in a negative unbounded sense. 4. It is correct regard universal thinking, all thinking, as nature, a product of to a concrete act-centre that haslike its own individual and we humans are individual part-centres. 5. Tis thinking is only a part-function of a mind, whose capacity to know something is preceded by love for that something, a something, moreover, whose value-correlate determines our knowledge of it. 6. Furthermore, the actual being which we encounter [– our sense of reality –] is co-produced from what there is by means of our urges and our actions, and istonot there waiting to be recognized when we happen feelsimply its resistance. 7. Because our drivesand our thoughts are part-elements, respectively, of the divine life-force and divine thought, then God himself is not only transcendent but immanent.
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hat being, to which the phenomenological reduction opens a passage, is the most central problem of philosophy, though not the only one. It concerns what is known asphilosophia prima, and deals with the essential structure of the world, its objective Logos, and how it is realized. Te way we come to know this essential structure, however, is the focus of two entirely different standpoints. Scientists build up their knowledge of how the essential elements go together by means of thematically different axiomatic systems, and this approach is their most deeply held presupposition. Tis is then a springboard for them to take a shot at philosophia prima, by this route of tapping into metascience. What they then glean ofBeingitsel through their incursions into it is definitely valid, but the totality of it is a closed book. What results is then a series of circumscribed knowledge forms, depending on the particular approach, and these include meta-physics, meta-biology, meta-psychology, meta-noetics, meta-history, and meta-axiology. Each metascience develops from the particular region of entities that it studies. But taking the metasciences a whole, have their own unified structure amongst themselves.asTey find they this unity in the metascience of that entity in whose being all regions of relative being intersect and have their unity, because this being itself is the quintessence of all such regions. Tis being is the human being and the core metascience which underpins all the others is metanthropology. Te question as to what all essential structures of the world are is reduced to a macroanthropology, and this then rests on the fact that the human being
itself is a micro-cosm, that is, a unity of all essential regions of being. For this reason, human history is the kernel of the entirety of history, and this is equivalent to what the world is in absolute time. in this metanthropology that have just described, which theBut metasciences as a whole unite andwedemonstrate what theyin are capable of showing, lies the means for a passage from the metasciences – a superficial metaphysics, as it were – to the most central problem of all – the metaphysics of Being-itsel and its attributes. Te very fact that there is such Being-itsel is in the scheme of things by far the most obvious truth, and one which immediately follows the most fundamental insight that there is, which is: Tere is not nothing. Te metaphysics of the absolute has to do with its attributes, not with its being. All being a relative nature demands that there is a being an absolute sort. of Any [relative] entity we encounter cannot itself of carry all the paraphernalia of reciprocal being. Because space and time – as objective forms – owe their unity to an srcinal unity of the reality in which they are founded, and any apparent force accruing to them comes from the interaction of realBeing-itsel, then what Democritus, and latterly Newton, maintained about an atomic framework, where there were any number of worlds without mutual effects, is out of the question. In fact, the unity of Being-itsel guarantees the unity of the world, and the unity of the world guarantees the unity of the spatiotemporal system of things – and not vice versa. Space and time are immanent in the world, and the world is not thereforein space and time. Ideal relationships, such as equality or similarity, simply could not obtain if there were, in the final analysis, merely a plurality of beings, chained together. For ideal relationships – even if they were transcendent to the human’s mental act – could only crop up with their particular sort of being in a mind, if the mind itself, which grasps them, had already presupposed them. Te same goes for every sort of being, even absolute being, and this makes nonsense of any sort of pluralism. Even the unity ofofknowledge with cognition not,ofasthe Kant the precondition the unity of being, but theisresult last.taught, Tis means that knowledge is itself a relationship between beings. Kant’s ‘transcendental apperception’, in which admittedly there is a kernel of awareness of the notion of a ‘suprasingular mind’, is itself merely a consequence of the unity of Being-itsel, whose simple sort of being does not yet contain any separation between what something is and extant specimens of this. Te sort of being which characterizes Being-itsel –
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a problem which is central to both the question as to what evidence we have about Being-itsel, and the question about its attributes – has to be considered in such a way that both the sort of being that the human , is and thecase veryofbeing of Being-itselof become understandable. In the the metaphysics Being-itsel , we are talking about how the quintessence of cognition can get a hold on the highest reaches of the attributes of Being-itsel, and that means how cognition can grasp the essential structure of the world, including the microcosm. Tis sort of issue is completely alien to anything science sets out to do, or even to its various grounding disciplines, which I refer to as metasciences. Whereas the metasciences, whose unifying common denominator is metanthropology, have to do with the nature of what
exists contingently our of objects, andthis collectively lead to thebeyond ultimate realpossible subjectexperience and the rules governing in the interplay of real events, the metaphysics of the attributes of the absolute deals with how this ultimate subject relates toBeing-itsel – how bodies, living creatures and persons are rooted inBeing-itsel, and in which order they have taken root. What is involved here – pertaining to typical essences of all matters – is no longer explicable in terms of science, but is of the nature of a window on to the attributes of Being-itsel. Te essential knowledge aimed at by philosophy thus has a double function. First, it constructs the ultimate presuppositions for science, and for the latter’s ever increasing dependence on the metasciences, and, secondly, it forms the lowest level at which we can know anything of the ideal attributes of Being-itsel. In order to grasp the accidental being-so of what is real we have to climb above what is merely experiencable, and, on the other hand, we have to treat essential philosophical knowledge as a springboard which brings into relief the attributes of Being-itsel. Tese attributes are so constituted that the essential structure of the world, along with all finite entities – particularly the essential structure and of sort of entity that we possible only by virtue their being what theyhuman are. beings are – are But, because the essential structure of being does not determine in a clear-cut manner any actual individually extant thing, nor the accidental being-so of anything, there is asecond principle, which is associated with the first, to account for all eventualities in the metaphysics of the absolute, and that is what we call attribute X ofBeing-itsel. If we set aside time, position in space, mass and number, and further discount
the being-so of something here and now – which are anyway what are also discarded in the primary objective of science – then what we have – if we further demand that we are considering a non-spiritually, non-idealistically, and non-essentially state of affairsallow – is a state of affairs where real being anddetermined what is accidentally-so themselves to be set out. Te way in which we are led to this real principle ofBeing-itsel is also the way we are led to acknowledge that there is a supra-singular spirit as the other attribute ofBeing-itsel. If real being is only given in having a sense of resistance to our striving for something in life against some X, and through an actual action – whereas mental willing only gives a project and the intimation of a worthwhile idea, but not the realization the project – and,being, if theand being real is independent from the of being of a human is of notbeing existentially relative to a human being, but existentially absolute, then there must be a unique, supra-singular, image-creating Nature as an attribute of Being-itsel, which sets out this real being and accidental being-so of anything as images. All real being is therefore a coming forth from something that is a real coming-to-be, and therefore from something that is pre-real and with an unobjectifiable nature, something which is seeking out, or thirsty for, or pressing forward towards, reality, and something moreover whose coming-to-be we can get inside and be part of, in order to know it, but are never able to grasp it as an object, or, which is quite absurd, as a ‘real’ object. Being-itsel is in fact the purest example of something unobjectifiable, the most perfect version of an un-thinglike being, and this applies to its attributes too. Tat, within which we are and live, is self-evidently unobjectifiable. Real being cannot be explained by recourse to reality, as the philosophical school of Critical Realism would have us believe.Being-itsel cannot ever stabilize itself, come to a rest, or even make itself identical with itself, and therefore can never be a sort of being that ‘has come to be’, but only one whose identifying feature is its ‘coming-to-be’ – an eternally self-setting-forth sort of being.
In the dynamic metaphysics of inorganic nature, which we shall deal with here, there are both essential laws and empirical issues to consider. First, there are the theoretical notions and founding laws, whereby
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space is based on movement, movement on alterations in state, and the last on forces. Tere are then the findings of theoretical physics, that the unity of the electromagnetic field of forces is the ultimate basis for all physical matter, fromconcept which of theelectromagnetic electronic massforce of positive negative electrons and the can beand arrived at. Te mechanics of heavier masses then turns out to be a special case of such electrodynamics. In the context of such elementary particles, there is no place for either space nor time nor our conventional notion of force. Tere is neither an absolutely stationary ether, in which such changing fields could operate; nor is there an effect over distance which some central force could maintain, something which both Leibniz and Kant assumed could be responsible for attraction and veryofchangeability the this strength of thetofield is therepulsion. ultimate Te subject any enquiry,inand conforms thealone laws of Maxwellian equations. Tis in itself is the final word on the matter from the viewpoint of mathematical physics concerning the images and principles of the world, the whole thrust of which simply relies on our observation of what surrounds us. Te metaphysics of nature begins at the very point where the physics of images and principles leaves off. Te supreme subject as an absolutely real subject, which can exert any real effectiveness, and in a four-dimensional changing matrix of separate entities, can now be negatively described as follows. 1. It is not only not ‘in’ space, but not even ‘in’ objective time. 2. Te relative space–time–mass-energy determinations of bodies are relative to the state of motion of the observer, and are, as a whole, only consequences of the alternating dynamics of the situation in which the unified fields of forces influence one another, and interpenetrate one another and the images. Te strictly unified lawfulness of these changes in unified fields of forces – which follows the principle of least resistance – indicates that one thebesame force is altogether involved, otherwise the separatenessand would inconceivable. 3. Te supreme subject is anyway not in a four-dimensional separateness, but rather this is only the form of its first manifestation as changing fields of forces. 4. Nevertheless, there belongs to what is real this four-dimensional elementary unity, and this comes as a potential.
5. Tis force is at work in the coming-to-be processes of absolute time, which we cannot measure for the world-image as a whole. 5a Absolute time is something which is set going byNature as a form of transition its – Nature’s effectiveness,toNature itself being timeless, and the from– potentiality actuality being timeless too. Tis underlies our subjective time perspectives, and gives us actuality [now], immediate memory [past] and immediate expectation [future]. It does not underlie the actual images, which wax and wane, but does underlie the changing drive impulses in three directions, and gives : 1) the past – what can no longer be affected by our vital centre; 2) the present – what is being modified; and c) the future – what is still modifiable and what the drive is directed at. In this way, the future span of phenomenal timeisgets out. which absolute time casts, and, Relative, physical time the laid shadow whereas in absolute time itself there can be no recurrence of the same, in relative time the manifold of an intuitively graspable spaceis permitted [in which sameness at least persists]. 6. Physics restricts itself to the principle that only secondary causes of anything can be investigated, and recognizes only changing effectiveness and quantitative properties. Metaphysics, on the other hand, must regard it [absolute time] as a basic constant, and consider even the images as something that reflect its qualitative nature, which, outside our consciousness, possess only an ideal nature. Tat means that it [absolute time] must add a logical, directed fantasy toNature’s impulses. 7. Te causal nature of this force is formally to be thought of as one which: a) is neither ‘pull’ nor ‘push’, but ‘in front’ and ‘behind’ in the same act, and that is what Nature is; and b) is such that it sets out a four-dimensional spatio-temporal form as its primary job, and one which has no measurable dimensions; and c) is such thatNature acquires a framework for determining what things are. 8. A material substance, which is not simultaneously existentially relative on knowledge and life, is thereby excluded. But also excluded is an absolute contrast between material and non-material forces. Tere are only forces which conform to the specification ofNature, in addition to which there are images which manifest the former’s inter-dynamic relationships. Both –Nature and images – exist beyond our, and beyond all finite living creatures’, consciousness, the latter as objective manifestations and appearances of an ideal nature, and the
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former as that which lies at the basis of everything dead, and, in fact, creates them ever anew, and is the fount of whatever comes-to-be. Te images and their schematic order, their four-dimensional arrangement and their lawfulness, constitute the naturaland andthe physical existence of things. Teir quantitative determinations relations between these are what we can call their ‘physical existence’. Nature, which is the metaphysical reality behind them, produces them ever anew. It is decisive in all this that a material, absolutely supporting, impenetrable, spatial, and persisting substance does not exist. Because all spatial and temporal magnitudes, forms, masses, ‘befores and afters’, places, and packages of energy, and even the living force, are all relative to an observer and its state of motion, then an absolute reality can have no role in all this. Tis anyway thecan strict conclusion we find in the Teory of Relativity. A isblock of iron only ‘be’ an image; it cannot be a material substance in absolute reality. An event a and an event b cannot be simultaneous and non-simultaneous, or long and short in duration, in any supposed measuring carried out in absolute reality. It is only when they are images that any conscious view of such matters makes any sense. Te true situation is as follows. Any apparent ‘thing’ is relative to an observer and their state of motion, and, therefore, from the foregoing, this must be a changeable image, and, for a human being, arelatively absolute matter. Such ‘apparent things’ are not relative, however, to his psychophysical organization, and certainly not relative to him as an individual or to his sensory experience. But they are not absolutely real either, in any metaphysical sense. For, only what is not relative to an observer and his state of motion, and even explains this very observer and his state of motion, can be deemed metaphysically absolute. One way of looking at it is to imagine that the images relate to the metaphysical forces, i.e. concentrations ofNature, as do bodies to their mirror images. We can even describe the images as simulations V [ orspiegelungen] of a productive, intuitive – or, better, examining – power, which belongs to and is guided by,Nature i.e. the second attribute of the Godhead. o the nature of something there belongs knowledge; to the imagistic intuition of something, which is not simply a copy of this something, but imaging [bildendes] knowledge itself, there belongs productive fantasy. From a metaphysical point of view, the images convey what is real [but are not real themselves], and in one sense we can describe them as our affliction [Drangsale] – i.e. manifestations or
objective appearances of Nature. But our perception of them is inadequate, because of the limitations of our senses, and, for us, what we do experience is a copy, but conforming to the same essential lawfulness with which actual image in a‘the first place. What we the are calling ‘images’is, ‘sconstructed imulations’ or fflictions’ are definitely consciousness-transcendent, in the sense that their nature is objective, and that they are in themselves much richer than what we can perceive of them. We can only know that small part of them which our natural circumstances as inhabitants of the earth allows them to convey. None of this detracts from the fact that, in themselves, in terms of the sort of entities which they actually are, they are empty eitel [ ], ephemeral, irreal, powerless, and completely insubstantial. Tey are spun out ofillusory the same stuff–asinare dreams and fantasies. What ates their reality theour natural worldview – is only thecreattraction which they possess for arousing our drive impulses, without which, in fact, no perception of them would be possible. If we imagine these impulses as switched off – which would also involve switching off our specific allocation of Nature and our natural worldview – but ater such perceptions had been given, we would be metaphysically dis-illusioned [i.e. disabused of the illusion], and would see that nothing of any substantiality or solidity adhered to them, and that they were indeed images, with no independent status, and merely relative to universal Nature which lies behind them and brings them forth as a coming-to-be of this life-force. But the images also mean something else, a meaning which adheres to them over and above their ephemeral existence, and this is by virtue of their sharing in the ideal content of the first attribute of the worldbasis and its dependence on this content.Nature, which brings these images forth in profusion, is nevertheless limited by what is essentially possible for, and compatible with, the divine Logos and divine image. Nature, and its fantasies, therefore, although underpinning the images, is still constrained by thelove. negative influence of what God can do, itself a consequence of God’s
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‘Bodies’ are nothing but images, which are built up according to definite essential laws, but are in themselves – as ‘bodies’ – irreal and insubstantial. Te most profound and central illusion of human beings si that they take ‘bodies’ to be absolutely real, or that they claim to derive everyday sort of ‘bodies’ from very small, absolute real bodies such as atoms or electrons, or from absolute centres of forces with a fixed intensity. All masses are relative with respect to a particular law-governed motion, and with respect to the particular stage at which substance itself has reached. If Berkeley and Fichte saidideal thisnature i.e. that– bodies, matter and material qualities, are ofhad anonly irreal, and they did say this – they would have contributed a profound truth to metaphysics. Teir only false step was to deny that bodies were transcendent to consciousness, and, instead, to maintain that they owed their objective ideality to the ideality of conscious representation, and were therefore subjective percepts. Tis is false. Te images – of which bodies are an example here – are ‘transsubjective’ for all finite individuals and their group. Nevertheless, they are ideal, and, by nature, an accidental beingso of something. Tey are not, and no part of them is, metaphysically real, by which we mean absolutely constant. Tey are objective ‘appearances of’, and ‘manifestations of the power’ of, Nature. Te new metaphysics of bodies and their ultimate constituents has simply jettisoned not only the atom of chemistry, but also the electron with its positive or negative charge, as the smallest thing that there is, and, with this, any notion of an absolute solidity at the root of matter. It has also given up the notion of such supposed tiny bodies having certain fixed properties, which it now realizes should be deemed functions of inter-dynamic relationships [between fields of forces]. Everything that the terms ‘bodies’, ‘matter’ or ‘material properties’, used to stand for, has simply lost any semblance of what it is metaphysically to be real. Recent physics has confirmed the correctness of this philosophy of dynamism, and has disproved the subjective ideality of bodies, matter and material qualities, just as it has their absolute reality. All that is left for them to be is images, and that is what they must be.
As images, one would expect the following: that they were now one size, the next instant bigger, the next instant smaller; that they be shaped so or otherwise; that they be now one after another and the and the nextthat instant totime, vary among themselves in intensity. Or, same, one would expect space, and all sorts of forces, could alter them, and ever according to their relationship to other bodies and with respect to their own state of motion. One can only expect all this to be possible if they are genuine forces, but not genuine substances. Te Teory of Relativity lends no support either to positivism – i.e. that man is the measure of all things – nor to Kant’s idealism of consciousness, although it does support an objective idealism for bodies. you dissect a body, you doit it, youitexpect toimage, have a what c‘ ore’, a ‘sIfomething’ which youhowever can say makes what is. Butitan does an image have inside? Nothing; it is nothing but an image. You find it has a surface and all you can say is that God alone knows what’s inside. But when you try and divide it up, you still have only a surface and nothing substantial. And this goes on for ever. Matter, along with absolute space and absolute time, are the greatest fictions of human beings. Tey are nothing but figments of imagination of a weak, frail, bodily creature. A law whereby there is an ordered construction of qualities – a law which applies to Nature and its fantasy, and one which is independent of a particular human subject – is hypostatized [reified] as occurring in bodies or in matter. Images – three-dimensional, mirror images – are simply confused for reality, substance and force. What we call material or matter is brought forth at each instant anew by divine Nature. Tis being so, it follows that there is: 1) no creation [i.e. a unique Creation] which can be distinguished from the everyday, continuous creation happening all the time, the latter beingsubstance one where[Being-itsel a body is] aand changing of the absolute its twoproduct attributes; and activity of 2) only the essential idea of a body, and its orderly construction, in the mind of God as an established idea. For all these reasons, neither materialism, nor any theism which presupposes absolute matter, can be defended.
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Tat time has no beginning and no end, or that space has no limits, are obvious. But this does not help us when it comes to the matters of finitude and infinitude themselves. Because there is a coming-to-be outside of time, a coming-to-be and an srcin of time can occur in the first place. If time is the form whereby coming-to-be takes place [werde-orm), in which Nature manifests itself in images, then the images must form a time sequence, but only insofar as Nature does manifest itself. Te future is only the sphere of expectation of a universal vital subject, and the past its memory content. Te unlimitedness of time is nothing but the dynamic infinitude of Nature, whose infinitude is however potential, whereas time itself is finitely realized. 1. Objective physical time is life-relative, but retrograde r[ückläufig]. 2. Space is only a component of a four-dimensional spatial manifold, which is actually curved or spherical, but in relatively small parts has a Euclidean character. Te Euclidean three-dimensional space and actual space relate to one another as does a small plane on a sphere to its entire surface. 3. Objective time then combines with the three-dimensional space to produce a finite manifold of four-dimensional separation. 4. Just as there is no absolute mass, there is no absolute movement and no absolute energy. Energy is nothing if there are no differentials. But because the differences are always getting less, the law of exchange of energies of different kinds demands that there be a growth in the overall stock of energy in the universe. From a metaphysical point of view, therefore, there is no principle of conservation of energy. Tis also follows from relativity physics, in respect to electrodynamics, which shows that a progressive exchange between matter and energy can occur, but that it is ‘material plus energy’ which remains constant, not energy on its own. Te principle of the declining energy differentials proves that the world is getting older. It is a metaphysical principle, and is quite counter to the scientific principle of conservation of energy, which it shows up as false. Only the principle of the equivalence of different forms of
potential energy is valid. Te inorganic world strives towards death and annihilation, in as much as it is not being renewed from the bosom and capital of the infinite potential of Nature. is energy, Te only absolute principles are: a) that substance i.e. the principle of Nature ; and 2) that maximal richness of images is achieved through the least effort. Te second principle of physical matter, the gradual diminution in energy over time, is only true if one builds into the equation the utilitarian values of work. From a metaphysical point of view, if the dead world were dissipated and taken up everywhere by life, there would be a transformation of energy into streams of warmth and light, which would count as higher values, because the Godhead would then have
more available ].and a greater scope for all visual matters would ensue light [Seh-Spielraum Space is anyway the free-play of light. Movement of living things would be in complete disarray if it conformed to mechanic laws.
Nature exerts its effect in the form of absolute time. Tis is a form of activity on its part, and not a form of intuition on our part (as Kant maintained). Te multitude of its impulses and images take place in an aspatial manifold of simultaneous qualities. Whatever in this manifold undergoes a reversible change constitutes spatiality; whatever undergoes irreversible change makes up objectively real temporality. Only objective time – the flow of time – is based on this change and its irreversibility; this does not apply to absolute time. In absolute time the content of every instant is pregnant with the entire future, whose content lies dormant within it and also contains the entire past. Te human being only ever approaches eternity in
such moments. On the other hand, objectively real time is theflowing present, a continuous row of present points. In contrast, subjectively ideal time does contain past, present and future, but this only applies to the individual experience of an organism, and even this only in respect of a supraconscious representation. In the objectively real sphere, space is only the ordering of homogeneously extended bodies, which themselves are only ideally objective,
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and only come into contact with the spatial contents of intuition – what one is ‘conscious-of ’ – in this homogeneous extension. Substance and its highest essences are eternal – beyond time – not everlasting ]. and fantasy-space which are infinite. Real sempiternal It is only [fantasy-time space and time are finite, like things. In actual fact, fantasy-time, which is given to us as infinite, is only a part of the short, objective life-span of humans. Objectively real space is not just an unknown three-dimensional order of mysterious qualities. It is at least understandable as something of an ideally objective nature to which a homogeneous extension adheres, admittedly an extension which is closely dependent on the lows
of Nature, i.e.But the because causes and relationships between the actual reality. the effects extent of andthe form of this extension is not independent of the states of motion of bodies, the extension itself cannot be real. Te foundation for both objective time and space in the objective sphere is definitely the state of motion of all matters. We then need to consider change, movement and alterations instate in each of the four spheres: 1) relative to humans; 2) relative to life; 3) relative to finite mind and 4) absolute. Because space and time are homogeneous extensions, and first get separated through the possibilities of change, they are overall fourdimensional. Te extension of objectively real space is continuous, a point which applies to everything real, but not to the nature of what we can know. Te nature of what we know, as opposed to what is real, is atomistic [atomistisch], and this applies to space as well as time. Te centres of forces, which, metaphysically, lie at the root of all dead being as functions of Nature, are centres which determine fields of forces in which it is not possible to construe appearances by merely summating the effective points. Tey determine a four-dimensional spatio-temporal form, in each form, the summated mechanical happenings have only a and, statistical character. Te intensity of Nature’s impulses and their quality, i.e. combinations of elementary qualities guided by fantasy, determine the extent and quality of the objectively ideal bodies. Subjective qualities are merely a sample of the objective ones, and the purer the quality – e.g. basic colours, vocal sounds – the closer they are to the objective ones.
– 1. If it is true that objective space owes its real being to nothing that is independent of the if it isthat further true that is no absolutely solidabsolutely material, real, then and it follows in actual fact there is no static and absolute space. From a subjective point of view it is a fictional object, whose reified, supposedly independent status actually derives from the perceptual law of figure and background. [What obtrudes in any situation is deemed figure and what does not is deemed background ‘space’]. From an objective point of view it is, quintessentially, what allows [negatively] the possibility of movement. From a physicist’s point of view it must be thought of as something which allows the laws of movement to remain possible [i.e. again a negative determination]. 2. Te natural fiction of space belonging to the natural world-view is nothing but the reversibility of potential change, i.e. where an essential possibility of movement dominates the actual movement in our vitally-conditioned intuitions. Te scope for expectation and expectancy-representations on the issue of possible movementsbecomes an independent content of our intuitions. 3. Te irreversibility of potential change leads to alteration or modification, and time is then the essential possibility of modification, which in our intuition dominates any actual alteration. 4. From a phenomenological point of view, what is given in our external intuition is a four-dimensional manifold – made up of the present as a succession of present contents, and a three-dimensional spatial order of simultaneous items. With age, phenomenal time and phenomenal space themselves alter. ‘Present’ is a neutral term with respect to either time or space. 5. Te ultimately real, objective actuality, to which physicists aspire, is fields of forces, i.e. effective fields of force which determine the nature things, and spatialofbeginning andwhich end inthemselves a functionalhave sense.their imeown andtemporal space are and inextricably bound to these, as they are to phenomenological experience, although in the former case we can only summate this statistically. 6. Te dynamic srcin of the forces giving rise to these fields of forces is neither in space, as Kant, for example, thought, norin objective time, which is first set going by the forces themselves, although they are, in a certain way,in absolute time.
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7. Te forces corresponding to the fields of forces are intensively arranged, and work in the direction of the four dimensions of possible alteration. 8. Movement can and and musttobeour derived the continuous attractions in the state of spatial position, sensesfrom it looks – but think of cinematography. A force has a rectilinear trajectory and guarantees an identity because of this, for example, ensuring a stone will not be a qualitatively different something during its fall. If this trajectory is even slightly awry one receives the corresponding impression of a continuous change of place of an identical something. 9. Te form of a force’s actuality is taking place in absolute time, in which an absolute simultaneity of force direction is still possible. Objective time is thenis only one of these directions of force. In it – objective time – there simultaneity. 10. Objective time has no present, future or past, and therefore no absolute before and after, only a relative before and after, i.e. one which is dependent on the observer in the four-dimensional matrix. 11. All bodies are an objective, imagistic appearance, which is based on the absolute simultaneity of penetrating forces in four directions. Tey have no absolute impenetrability, their apparent impenetrability only stemming from the fiction of space, which excludes two figures in space overlapping. 12. Because all mediated establishment of anything is based on an immediate one, and because immediate ones are only spatiotemporal coincidences of two appearances, then the rules of coincidence of appearances are the very ones which mathematical science allows us to establish. 13. Te objective and phenomenal spatio-temporal matrices only share extension, succession and being beside one another, along with the four-dimensional framework for changes in any heterogeneous qualities. In all other ways they are different. 14. Because and time are, objectively, between occupiedspace extension and duration, they canonly onlyrelationships be unified if the underlying force which determines the fields of forces is also unified. If such forces were actually various there would be a variety of spatiotemporal systems. Tis is impossible; this means that all centres of forces are parts of one force. 15. Te intensity of the impulses of Nature determines the extent of the spatial and temporal form of bodies. Te direction is only de-
terminable through the nature of the force. Te forms themselves, in their relationship to one another, are presupposed by the changing positions and relative places which the bare image takes up. Images are the qualitative of Nature . Tethe lawsorder of howdetermined images are by formed, and their directions coincidences, determine in which they appear, along with their spatial distance and temporal duration and succession. Te movement and alteration of the images are a consequence of the impulses which lie beneath the images, and whose objective appearances they are. Impulses have qualitative directions. Tese dynamic relationships are, at their most elementary, attraction and repulsion, which are such that they correspond to the laws of the images. Where an elementary relationship of this sort can no longer be to found, then weofare the levelpart of a in force, andthe its images quality corresponds the quality theatsimplest which run their course. Te form in which all this occurs determines the objective meaning that is available. Te measurable intuitive extent of this is something that is then organically subjective. Space and time as independent forms are organically subjective. On account of this, anything organic is relative to the pre-given extension. With all this in place, each bodily thing is now perfectly and unequivocally determinable. Tere is no need of an objectively real and absolute space nor an objectively real and physical time to explain such things. Instead we only need to assume a four-dimensional variation in impulses and their dynamic directions, whereby the resting mass of electrons and the smallest effective quantum of energy together account for the most elementary real unity of spatio-temporal form. Te demand, articulated by von Hartmann, for example, that a principle of individuation requires that any body occupies a particular place in space and time, is notand needed. Hartmann dimensions – three for space two forVon time, i.e. beforerequires and afterfive – for his version of matters to hold good. Furthermore, he takes forms to be mechanistically constructed, which is incorrect, and denies that the images and qualities are transcendent to consciousness. For his scheme to work, he has to bring in objectively real time and objectively real extended space, and at the same time make space part of the divine substance.
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Te objective images are objective appearances of divine Naturephantasy, which is transcendent to our human knowledge and consciousness, even though they are still ideal. Te images appear for us in the or coincidence our nervous apparatus’ independently imagined visual acoustic oroftactile representation of things and the same preexisting forms which the images themselves present [in their own sphere]. Tey are, as Indian philosophers recognized, made out of the same stuff as our dreams, only they are everyday dreams [ räume der Nűchternheit], or perceptions, or, alternatively, the coincidences of memories, perceptions and expectations. In the same way as our drives track down [aufagen] the images of fantasy, and, like wind drivNatureour ing along leaves in front of it, so doestone, divinearouse manage get hold of them, and, through their value drives,toand then, through this, our own fantasy, from whom, by dint of the subsequent removal of their inter-individual image-content, our own perceptions are derived. Space and time, as relationships between images, are relative to life, but because there is a supra-individual life as the stuff of Nature, they are at the same time objective. Only, they are not part of actual reality. Tey are relationship products of Nature itself, and, as such, forceproducts of its impulse.
– Objective space, along with the imagistic nature of what is given of real beings and effective causes, is noreal entity itself, but an objectively ideal entity. For this reason it is completely unnecessary to debate whether space is a substance or an accident or some real relationship. As it is not real it does not come under the category of existential forms. Tis does not mean that phenomenal space, which is a sample of the ideal space, cannot existentially tive to aobjectively psycho-physical organism, justbeasconsidered sensations of the qualityrelaof something are functional contents of the intuition of a subject, but are based on a more srcinal fantasy. Again, there is a further relativity to consider, in that the constellations of images are themselves based on the objectively ideal space. Te partial agreement between subjectively and objectively ideal space is to be understood as follows. Te same fantasy which, as a
function of supra-individual life, creates first space and then the images, also produces in us the phenomenal intuition of spacebeore the qualities, because our fantasy is only an organized and meaningful version of the overall fantasy. ideal space andofsubjectively phenomenal spacevital are then theObjectively mutual intuitional forms the fantasy of Nature, and both precede the respective possibility of any form, in the former case, and movement as a dynamic something, in the latter case. Te disjunction involving subjectiveapriori and objective apriori is false, i.e. they are not mutually exclusive. Both areapriori, one objective, the other subjective. Te images are ‘accidental’ but extension and form are e‘ ssential’. Objectively ideal space is objective, to be sure, but it is an objectivity of possibilities for the possibility various sorts of extension andimages, forms.and, Its ideal objectivity secures of the forms of the equally so, the elementary qualities – red, hard, etc. – of the images which obtain between them. Te objective space of images [ objective Bilderraum] is not real either. It is only a manifestation – an objective appearance – of real forces, whose efficacy is played out in absolute time, and which is relative to Nature, but not, like objective space, relatively vital to a supraindividual vitality. It is the phenomenal unity of form which provides the basis for our subjective, sensory qualities, and it is physical form which predetermines what can appear in individual, objective points of space. Geometry, therefore, as the science of the dependencies of possible spatial forms among themselves, applies to all possible, positive knowledge of nature. In this way Kant’s problem is solved. Te movement – and action – possibilities open to Nature’s fantasy determine shape, and this constitutes the objectively, ideal space. Tis space, therefore, enables forms to take up an objective appearance. Such space would remain, even if all human and animal subjects were consideration, would disappear if one struckremoved out – in from a thought experimentalthough – all traceit of the vital stuff which constitutes Nature as a whole, and which is alone responsible for the world of images. Tere are two basic facts to consider in all this talk of space, which itself boils down to phenomenal space and objectively ideal space – 1) form, and 2) movement.
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Movement, as a dynamic phenomenon, objectively determines the forms of spatial events and stationary images, which are longer or shorter ways in which real events appear. Each form of a body must be conceived of through the law of alteration of direction some produced movement. In this respect, space, which for us, isofthe possibility of a variety of forms and the relationships between their bodily appearances, is the quintessential enablement of possible movement. Te same goes for touch and kinaesthetic experiences as for visual, but none is by itself responsible for space, as a homogeneous extension precedes all of them. What is shared by both phenomenal and objective space is the identity of forms wherever they appear in it. Teand essential attributes of to thethestationary bodies and form, they must adhere smallest part of are the extension matter in question. Te fact that they are not real, but only objectively ideal and dependent on the coming-to-be of the underlying impulses of Nature, proves that there is no absolute solidity in anything in space, and that even matter is objectively ideal. Form is neither a bare quality poion [ ], as Aristotle thought, nor an essential relationship R[ elationsinbegriff], as Marty thought. Form precedes both in the order of things. Form is not some accidental way in which bodies crop up in either objectively real or ideal spheres, but bodies themselves owe their very core and spatial configuration to form, which determines what they can possibly be. Forms can only be explained by form itself, never through some measurable quantity. Te same applies to temporal forms and time. Schematically the situation is as follows. (1) (2) (3) (4) Subjective Forces in the Objectively ideal phenomenal metaphysical Nature images and space space sphere ↓
↓
↓
spatial intuitions of geometricians
space of the natural world-view of humans
panvital effect
↓
animal spatial intuitions
1. Aristotle and the Scholastics viewed space as merely a set of relationships between, and limits of, bodies. He made primary matter, which itself was not extended, into the principle of extension, and into what allowed something to be the same in different points of a spatial field, and hence a principle of individuation. All actual bodily extension was a product of form arising from matter. Tis left the unity of space completely unexplained, and he merely linked it with his impossible theory of bodies having a natural place. In actual fact, neither form nor matter can explain extension, and neither can both taken together. A primary in Aristotle’s sense, excludes any whereby creation of the world, and thematter, Scholastics’ interpretation of Aristotle, God created the primary matter, is just nonsense, because, from a pure form – which is what the Godhead would be here – there can never be any way of grasping how its most extreme contrary – i.e. matter – could come about. Aristotle, moreover, took space to be: 1) something filled – in line with the notion that nature abhors a vacuum; 2) finite; and 3) limited – at the end of the world where the scope of God’s control through His mind [nous] of the movement of the fixed stars ended. He believed in a midpoint of worldly space, but, at the same time, in an infinite, Euclidean space, and in a finite, unlimited, curved, three-dimensional space. 2. Te Judaic-Christian theism holds space, at the most, to be a creation of God’s, but there is no unified thinking on the subject, as there is on the subject of the creation of matter. Te only certainty is that God, as spirit, is not in space. In addition, space is not an accident of God’s, but is either an absolute form of emptiness or an accident of the world. God’s efficacy, though not his existence, is ubiquitous. God also ordered the world in terms of extent and number, but space and its adhering reality are beyond human consciousness. In general, space, like the world, is to be thought of as finite, not infinite. Te thesis of a temporal world creation means that God was already aroundbeore the creation in time, or, at least was active in some way, and then created the world at a particular point in time. Te notion of St. Augustine that time itself is a creation of God is half-heretical. Medieval theism
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places the soul in space, but in each part of an organism it remains whole. 3. Spinoza held extension to be an attribute of God’s. 4. For Malebranche, space was the and placeitwhere bodies were; it existed outside of us as absolute being; was brought forth ever anew by means of the primary agent – a moving cause. 5. Newton and Clark took it to be thesensorium Dei. 6. For Leibniz it was an ideal matrix of relationships of the representation of the world, which was unified in the worldly idea of a universal central monad. 7. In Kant’s case, it was a human form of intuition.
1. Space and time, as physical conceptual measures, are coordinated. Tey are not, however, ontological. Tis is so because time encompasses all life processes, along with everything objectifiably psychic, and only excludes the person-centre, as this is outside time. Above all, time is the form of the coming-to-be of finite entities, even non-spatial entities. Kant’s thesis, that it is only a form of inner sense or of what can be given there, is false. It encompassesboth givenesses, i.e. of the sense of what can be given and what can be given itself. 2. If and we assume it is ato ‘before and after’ in sense, that it isthat relative the standpoint of aanphysical, observerontological and their state of motion in a four-dimensional separateness, then there must still be an absolute ‘before and after’ to take account of growing old and death, and this has an objective component as well as a psychic. An observer is a living creature – a being with mind and spirit in absolute time. 3. Space can be a function of temporal events – as the way reversible change would be, i.e. as an ideal possibility for this. In this case space and timec)would be collectively the and determinants a) unity; b) homogeneity; continuity; d) infinity; e) a way ofof:transforming a temporal sequence into a spatial order. An alternative situation, whereby time were the fourth dimension of space, is impossible, because it is incompatible with the nature of life and the psyche. 4. Tere are definitely a variety of differences in the intensity and duality of each indivisible point of time, as occurs in the content of a
single moment of consciousness. But, in the case of a single element of space, there is only an intensive shading of reality. 5. In addition, because space, in order to be what it is, must last, without time, it cannot a world, although there can be apsychic world of finite existence withoutgive space – consider the stream of the manifold. 6. Physics teaches us that there are absolute, atomic constancies in time – as in the form of the smallest, effective quantum of energy; but there are no absolute constancies in space – the resting mass of electrons [is artificial]. 7. Tere is certainly an absolute simultaneity – as in the content of conscious experience. But it is not so certain that things and events in space can be absolutely simultaneous. On the contrary, ifis space is only the possibility of movement, any absolute simultaneity excluded. 8. Te objective time of physics has no: a) efficacy; b) absolute simultaneity; c) past, present or future; d) absolute ‘before and after’; e) different sorts of ‘filledness’ at each point of time; f) irreversibility; or g) absolute rhythm. Whereas, absolute time does have all of these. 9. Whereas there is no absolute simultaneity in the physical world, there is such in absolute time, which does not include spatial extension. 10. Te relationship between objective time and the absolute can be formulated by the following propositions. a) Te contents of objective time are contained in each absolute present of the supra-individual life. Only what is identical in all absolute presents occurs in objective time. b) Only what is in phase in objective time can have been a component of absolute time. Any acceleration of any process is not noticed. 11. Absolute time is the living time [Lebenszeit] and living duration of the world organism, or, alternatively, the life of God, or, even better, the form of the coming-to-be of God’s vivification V [ erleibung Gottes]. In this there onlyfuture a flowing, whose phasic streams each theallcomplete pastis and in potential form. Hartmann andcontain Bergson are also of this view. On the other hand, objective time is only a fleeting now, without past, present or future, and without an absolute ‘before and after’ grounded in what things are. Objective time is a continuous row of ‘presents’, which, only through the memory and expectation of a living creature, preserve the character of a definitive passage of time.
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12. Te standpoint of the observer in the four-dimensional matrix is not completely accidental and arbitrary, which it would be from a purely physical point of view, but is rather pre-determined by the stage in 13. absolute time that surveys matter from. A creature thatheflew off from earth at a speed greater than the speed of light would experience the progress of the inorganic world as a reverse sequence of events, but it would not experience the organic or historical processes in this way. 14. Whereas objective space is relative to life and is, by virtue of this, more than just the laws of spatial perspective, in the case of supraindividual life what is vitally relative is only measured time, and this does not include an overall ‘before and after’ nor any rhythmic events [which to absolute time]. 15. If belong a creature could travel at the speed of light, it would be keeping up with the‘present’ of generation after generation. If it travelled at less than the speed of the light it would experience our ‘past’. If it travelled above the speed of light it would see our ‘future’. All this is only explicable if objective time lies in the ‘present’ of an absolute time. Te first of these scenarios is possible because light waves always keep visible the same time contents. It was formerly thought that what someone would see in this situation would be what had already passed – even light years ago – but this is false, because, according to Michelson’s earlier version of relativity theory, only simultaneity can be maintained in such a journey.
If one accepts, as Einstein does, in the Special Teory of Relativity, that the speed of light is constant between whatever two points of the material world that one chooses, and that it is independent of all relative movements going on in a system within which an observer finds himself, then the consequence is that all spatial and temporal measurements, as well as all quantitative determinations of any body, will be relative to the state of motion of that observer. Te distance between Paris and London would be actually different for an observer on earth vis-à-vis an observer on the sun, and their respective clocks would mark different durations of time for the same ray of light travelling between London and Paris.
Is philosophy capable of responding to this challenge, and actually getting to the bottom of it, a challenge which Einstein comes up with through his pragmatic method? It in fact to possibility be quite possible to do this, assume: 1) appears that space is the of movement; andif2)wethat real movements, from the standpoint of physical investigations, must be related to those which have maximum speed. In this case, simultaneity – which is only truly given in consciousness – does not actually occur in the dead world. What is then customarily taken for such – i.e. simultaneity – thus turns out to be only the fastest possible reversible movement. Te suggestion that simultaneity can be measured by comparing clocks as well as by observing is to beg the question, cause the assumption that themovement different places where the clocksbeare sited will not affect what they show is unproven, and, in fact, follows from the very theory which the objection tries to undermine. Te situation we are faced with is that we cannot expect there to be any subjective conditioning of simultaneity when it comes to what is actually real, but, on the contrary, any such conditioning will be a consequence of the nature of space itself, which is the very possibility of there being ‘light’. Te special principle of observation is that because observations must coincide, and yet such might come from different sense modalities, the sense modality which is most appropriate to the task must be that with the finest differences in thresholds, and that points to the visual modality. Te thesis at stake here, concerning the equivocation about the measures of space and time, is no longer a paradox, if the following points are appreciated. 1. Te first requirement is that the laws about movement, and not those of absolute time or spatial distance, are to be given priority in the scheme things. For then, the of measurable of bodies can freelyofalter without any loss identity ofdeterminations their metaphysically dynamic ‘srcins’. Even laws about the dynamic setting out of movement are absolute vis-à-vis their temporospatial and relative appearance formations. 2. Next, the perspective on the spatial and temporal extent of things must be reliant on the perspectival status of a supra-individual spiritually-endowed living creature X and its repertoire of imagistic contents.
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If such obtains, then absolute space and the absolute physical time of Newton will then be merely approximations to this perspective. Te tiny perspective which our individual senses give then forms part of objective absolute space and absolute physical time, absolute and thisreality. itself is part of a panoramic perspective which approximates 3. A further condition is that the functionally reciprocal dependencies of the extents of time and space have their common root in a changing matrix of separateness. 4. Furthermore, the observer and his state of movement have to be as one in absolute time. 5. Finally, the relativity of dead movement has to be put in the context of the laws of vital movement. Because, if space is the possibility of movement and physicalintime thea possibility of alteration, dead movement is movement which change in place or time then is opened up, i.e. simply one form of what happens in vital movement.
Te concept of separateness is the critical notion here. 1. We hold that an amorphous separateness, in which objective time and objective space are not yet distinguished, is a form of being which allows all possible objective appearances and images to occur. Te schematic organization of the dead world is therefore not purely logical. Te four dimensions are required because of the four directional variabilities of physical extent. We derive this latter set metaphysically from the ordering of the dynamic efficacy of matters in absolute time. But this makes the nature of being no separate item. 2. Objective space and objective time are anyway not absolute forms of being either, but only forms of intuiting its environment on the part of a living organism. We clarify their srcin by means of inner laws of selective drive-based attention, and the latter itself by movement impulses of a living creature. ogether, the possibilities of the oscillation of attention and the changing impulses are traced out in a scheme of actual acts. Because perception is actually determined by such a scheme, and the overall scheme is independent of each sense, all qualities which can be picked up by the sensory modalities must already appear in this scheme. Te intuition of space is therefore no coincidence of sensations, as Poincaré and Schlick maintained, but
space, and objective time, are practical fictions or hypostatizations [reifications] of the objective possibilities of the drive-based selections of figure-background, which are themselves then installed as collective expectations subjectively. 3. Te objectively logical srcin of our ideas of objective space and objective time presupposes not our experiences but the images, whose construction follows essential laws which are independent of our sensory organs. Te images are ‘intuitabilities’ or what intuition focuses on [Anschaulichkeiten], and are what are meant when we perceive something as sensory experience, but possess an existence as matters of fact outside the threshold of this sensory experience. Tey are forms, stripped of the qualities of our sensory experiences, but in no way beholden to images these experiences their existence. Te qualitative properties of the never coverfor themselves with our sensory experiences. In fact theimages can contain qualities for which we possess no means of incorporating into our sensory experience. Nevertheless they remain [theoretically] intuitable. If there existed no exchange, alteration or movement, between these images which our fantasy extracts from the data of sensory experience, and then construes – according to essential laws governing the foundation of what we take to be a consciousness-transcendent body – then we could never arrive at the natural ideas of time and space which we do have. Te srcin of both these ideas has to be seen in the light of exchange, alteration and movement of these objective appearances. If we think about the images in a resting condition – when they are not transforming themselves one into another or altering in some way – then their modus vivendi in a vital consciousness is a state of mutual togetherness. In this state their nature is comparable to how they are in my actual consciousness. Te phenomenon of exchange or transformation is already contained within this manifold as a potential toIfthis weeffect. now allow the images in consciousness to undergo their transformations, what will then detach itself – according to the rule whereby extension is founded before form and form before qualities – is a homogeneous extension as the possible backdrop for all forms, which is laid down in such a manner that this possibility predominates over any actuality. Tere then arises, along with this, the potential lay-out of a punctuate separation [the prerequisite for a matrix of positions in
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space], and also a four-dimensional lay-out in whose manifold spatiality and temporality are not yet distinguishable. Space is the potential for movement. ime is the potential for alteration. o give whinnying simultaneously withantheexample: sight ofSuppose a horse Ionhear theamove. Tesesound appearances are neither successive to, nor alongside, one another, but are both present in a presence of separated entities. We can further illustrate the transformation of images by considering the way a magician works. He takes out one egg and then another egg from his apparently empty hand. We do not see the movement whereby he achieves this feat, neither how the egg appears, nor where it comes from. Or, what about a pond teeming with fish or a mound of swarming a kaleidoscope which coloured shapes come and go,ants? now Or, thistake configuration, now inthat. What all these appearances have in common is that an identification of the images over and above their appearance does not occur, neither in the way of establishing a spatial location for what is going on through any act of attention, nor, on the other hand, pinning down what is happening to some qualitative state of affairs of a thing. ransformation of an image, as I understand the notion, is something beyond [and prior to] either of these two possible ways of capturing what is going on. Te very prerequisite of grasping the nature of the states of flux illustrated above is not identifying the appearance in either of these two ways. What is at the root of these appearances is the intuitive sensing that neither a spatial framework nor a temporal framework is yet in place. ime is anyway something that occurs to us as a consequence of some act which we carried out, and is somehow mediated through our inner experience. It is not an integral part of how or why we can grasp images in external perception. Tat which we later call spatiality and temporality, or alongside-one-another and after-one-another, which are special forms of separateness, are derivatives of a more basic undifferentiated How doesentity. this differentiation come about? Tere must undoubtedly be an act of identification which determines the spontaneous establishment of something as an X. Tis act, moreover, must have something to do with our drives, and cannot be purely arbitrary, although we do not consciously appreciate this, as it appears to be an arbitrary representation of what there is.
In order to tease all this out, we must choose instances of the fluctuating phenomenon which are so ambiguous that there are several options open to us as to what this fluctuating state of affairs might be. Tebeappearance state in front of us, forofexample, might interpretedofas:thea)fluctuating either a modification of the state a fixed, spatial position, in which case the extent of the variation in the homogeneous separateness, or the relation between images in this separateness, takes on the character of a temporal distance [between the variations or relations]; or b) alternatively, the fluctuating state appears to be more like a homogeneous movement of the images – in which something continuously changes place – or else the images, as in the case of the kaleidoscope, seem to be of one colour moving through several In the first case [a) above], the act in question homes in on a positions. piece of homogeneous extension, which thenceforth becomes ‘ place’. In the second case [b) above], it homes in on the qualitative character of the image – being blue or being triangular – and therefore the relationship of this image to some other possible quality. In the first case it is the qualitative character which changes; in the second case it is the location which changes. It is thus quite clear that any transformation of an image can be interpreted in two ways: 1) as the alteration of the state of something occupying a stationary piece of space; or 2) as the movement of some realized form. Note that the transformations of the images and the laws governing them are derived from the possible options that apply, and there is nothing already there in a spatial matrix. We can now ask the question as to which conditions in the natural way of seeing the world determine whether we interpret the more fundamental flux in one way rather than another. My answer is as follows. Te separateness becomes a spatial separateness, and transformation becomes movement in the same act, if the Aimmediate expectation transformation is taken asreversible change. homogeneous intuitionof of movement is therefore the possibility of reversible change. Spatiality is then the possibility of homogeneous movement. All movement is derived from alteration in a state of affairs, and not the other way round. On the other hand, the separateness becomes a temporal separateness, i.e. one-after-another,if the transformation which occurs is taken
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by the subject as irreversible. emporality is – in the external sphere of images – only the possibility of irreversible change. Te paradoxes [Zeno’s paradoxes] which result from assuming space [wrongly] to be absolute entity are satisfactorily solved through formulation. Allan‘empty space’ is only relatively empty – i.e. emptymy of X, Y and Z. Emptiness and holes are only intuitively grasped relative nothings – a negative state of affairs,me on. It is therefore also clear that our spatial and temporal intuitions X – inside the outside world – are only alternative arrangements of the same ‘material’ of the homogeneous extension in the form of different separatenesses. Tese are not two objective states of affairs independent from each other, but two ways of grasping the same material. Notenature that inofthis way we can, time, apriori properly explain the apriori principles suchfor as the thefirst synthetic which Kant tackled, which are inextricably linked to the nature of space and time. Kant overlooked this link, whereas Palagyi was on the track of it. Tey can be listed as follows. 1) All points in space each occur at the same point in time. Tis means that one part of space cannot be in another time than another part of space. Only bodies move. 2) Points in time are never simultaneous, but successive – as Kant did see. 3) All points in time, which we mark out from the flux of absolute time, are the same for each part of objective space. ime traverses each point in space, and in the same way. All the above are valid for fictional entities. Tey show that each point in a homogeneous separateness can becomeeither a point in space or a point in time, and that this depends on the way of looking at things. Furthermore, because a point in space and a point in time in the outside world of dead nature are ontically the same, time and space are necessarily bound together. Kant saw that without a persistence of space would be no external determination of without time, andtime thisthere was how hethere refuted idealism. But it is also the case that would be no space, because it is in fact only the possibility of movement – in accordance with Einstein’s laws. Our [everyday] separation of space and time in external intuition as mutually independent, objective states is therefore complete fiction, complete deception. What is in fact two possible ways of grasping the phenomenal separateness and transformations that can occur is objec-
tified as two independent, objective state of affairs, and then, on top of this, one even wonders how they come to be so well matched. Te actual facts that space emerges from the possibility of movement and time from the alterations in states, andcan both oweprobe their status to change in general, make us confident that we further their srcins, partly from a phenomenological perspective and partly from a logical one. 1. Logically, I maintain, it is impossible to reach an uncontradictory idea of movement if one holds to an absolutely empty space and an absolutely empty time which is independent from this. Bringing together both ideas will never give us the concept of movement. Te actual fact of the matter is much simpler. What gives the appearance of is justatnot the facttimes, that the something cana crop up in movement different places different for same example watching frictionless pendulum going to and fro. 2. Phenomenally-speaking, we first of all grasp, as a founding event, the possibility of change before any actual changing. Movement is grasped before spatial distance or temporal duration, and before any form is appreciated. Finally, alteration is given before any temporal magnitude of a durable content. From all this, we can conclude that the following are valid: a) the apriori sway of functional theory: b) the apriori sway of pure kinetics; and c) the priority of the principles to do with the growth of the complexity of things – because every time something alters it leaves a richness behind, and yet becomes richer. Furthermore, all such principles and theories hold regardless of whether something is real or not, as they have to do with the layer upon layer of appearances only. Movement is in all this a more srcinal concept than space or time, because the last two are bound together by movement. Inert mass is identical with energy. It is therefore not possible to think any massrelationship in world-space isolation, as each is inmass, a per-as petual,ofdynamic withinother entities. In mass fact any Mach proposed, is really a relationship concept. It is only the extent to which resistance against a moving force has come to some equilibrium. Leibniz’s notion, that inertness, taking up space and impenetrability – the essential determinations of a mass – are all based on forces, is also proved correct.
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Furthermore, what Faraday said about the movement of a body in space being an alteration in the state of reality along a certain track is neatly supported by Einstein’s discoveries. aking what Relativity Teory tells us spatialofdeterminations of size being dependent on the state of about movement an observer, along with Faraday’s idea, then the only situation where temporal matters come together as simultaneous is in the manifestations of consciousness. Te specific considerations of the Special Teory of Relativity allow us to propose that there is a four-dimensional arrangement governing the unity of movement and form. Te laws governing the images, pertaining to what something is in its intuitively-derived fullness, and the factors leading to its coincidence, are consequences of force,here andare these equations, as longonly as the forces in question notobey the Einstein’s forces making up a living centre nor derived ones which we calculate in objective time. Te forces in question are those concentrations we callDrang [Nature], which are at work in absolute time, but are themselves outside both time and space, and, from this position, actually determine the spatial and temporal frameworks of bodies. What anything in the dead world is ‘in-itself ’ is purely a four-dimensional arrangement of these spatial and temporal frameworks, which, with all elimination of extension and of the spatial separateness of things and of the difference between space and time and of all measurable determinations, is nothing else than an arrangement of effective force.
1. A pendulum swings to and fro in a frictionless environment in a state of balanced equilibrium. Objective physical time is under these circumstances a continuous series of movements, the existence D [ asein] traversed of which is constituted by the particular point as oncogthe path byentirely the pendulum. Because only we ourselves, nisant I’s, see the pendulum and the points ithas traversed and the points it will traverse – on account of our present time [Präsenzzeit] and our memory and our expectation – it makes no sense to ascribe to this time the extensions – present [Gegenwart], past and future. Physical time then consists of [besteht] a flowing series of present points, which can be filled with anything at all. If we suppose the existence of
a psychophysical creature, whose present time is O, then each point of its physical time is homologous only to the immediate present point of the present [Gegenwartspunkt], and at each moment the time of immediate andseries expectation tower [ragt …. hinaus] above the physical, memory continuous of points. 2. Does physical time have what we call succession? Without doubt. Otherwise it would not be time. But before and after, in the case of the pendulum, are only determinations of a relationship, as each point in its trajectory can just as well be a ‘before’ as an‘after’. For this reason we must deny physical time any so-called direction. Direction can only be ascribed to a dynamic event. Only what alters can have the direction that an event has. In the case of the ispendulum which moves to the up same there nothing against sayingback that and the forth time taken by positions, its entire swinging is only a return to the starting point. Te‘before’ and ‘after’ of physical time is therefore relative. What it is in these circumstances that ensues, such that there can be a ‘before’ and ‘after’ about it, is relative in a second sense. Tis is because the whole situation is dependent on the viewpoint and state of movement of the onlooker. 3. Te quantity of physical time which has elapsed is measured by distance – and angular-computations between two comparable movements, whose dynamic growth in speed at each moment of absolute time is zero, for uniform movement, or equal. As the growth in speed is equal or zero, the numerical physical measure does not change and neither does the extent of absolute time. Nor does it change as long as whatever rhythm a similar event has remains the same. 4. Whereas in the case of biological time, it is quite possible for a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ to be established in an absolute sense, without estimating the cause and means whereby A leads to B, this is not possible in the case of physical time. Here, as Kant first clearly saw, the exact dating what ‘before’ and ‘after’ are departing is dependent on theTese laws of nature, e.g.ofthe speed of sound or light an event. laws of nature determine the ‘before’ and ‘after’ of every single state of movement. 5. Whereas objective physical time gives a one-sided account of the ‘measurement’ of some event, biological time gives its one-sided account of an event’s rhythm. It is not just a case of different feelings about the elapse of time, but it is an objective fact that 12 hours of
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biological time in the life of a mayfly is just as much time passed as 35 years in the life of a human being. Each species, along with earthly life in general, is rooted in death. Teofincorporation of life an the organic body involves an integration this measurable timeinto [with rhythmic time of life]. Te life of a human being lasts X days, that of a mayfly one. Te two sorts of time must both be seen in the context of absolute time. Te coincidence of the phases of evolution in one point of absolute time is what is at issue here. At each point of absolute time the events of the world as they pertain to the sub-personal sphere u[ nterpersonale Weltgeschehen –i.e. non-geistige matters] are all happening without the slightest trace of memory and expectation such as would constitute a true ‘past’asor a truehas ‘future. God, spirit, an intuitive overview of this entire sub-personal worldly hustle and bustle [Weltgetriebe] of Nature at each point of absolute time. All sub-personal, worldly happenings are pre-destined at each point of absolute time. We can still know that this is so, even if we do not know the duration of absolute time or the forms it throws up. Our subjective, experiential time [Erlebniszeit] is a symbol, an approximate symbol of absolute time, and, in terms of its measurable extent, it is encompassed by objective time. A single person on their own cannot know the divine mind and spirit. It is only you and me together, through our joint willing, that can know it. I deny the possibility of any divine prescience. It is incompatible with personal freedom. It only has any sense if one believes that God in His spiritual form has jurisdiction over every possible entity. But God in this spiritual form simply cannot do this. Te same applies to any supposed calculating or intuitive foreseeing. If the latter were true He must be deemed either to have intuitively wanted an event such as the First World War to have occurred – in which case He is evil – or He must be considered not to have wanted it but then let it happen – but thenhappen the sameis event be laid Hisand, doorinbecause letting something an actcan of also freedom as at well, fact, the only way that the will can act. Anway why should He create a world for His glorification, if He already knew everything down to the last detail. In fact, God’s special privilege, to know the entire history of organic life, is in our hands, even though we cannot forecast it. But God Himself does not even know what He wants or does, and nor does He know what the future brings. God is a timeless coming-to-be. His-
tory is then the symbol of the expression of the eternal process of His becoming, in which He is absolutely intertwined. He – God – only knows what He ‘can make impossible’ and which therefore becomes impossible – for contains He is true Himself – but this very [negative] state of affairs already thetoseeds of what is positively possible. Tis positivity is achieved through the means of the human being as a person, but the human person itself can only achieve what it does achieve through the offices of His – God’s – second attribute D [ rang], and therefore God has to wait for this to run its course in absolute time. In this way He Himself becomes a concentrated version of Himself during the appropriate course of the process. Tis state of affairs [i.e. the particular course of Drang] determines what can crop up in absolute time any actisofitself Godaorself-concentration humans in respectofofdivine their personal being. Teasperson spirit itself. Because God does not know what He Himself wants in the progressive state of what Drang is becoming, then nor can He know what being a person entails, in respect to what a person wants, and nor can He know His own role is determining in a concentrated fashion what it is. If we now then assume that Geist and Drang are only two of any number of attributes of the srcinal substance – including others which we know nothing about – there is then no reason to doubt absolute predestination [because all these other attributes are affecting us and we are completely explained by them, although we know nothing about them]. Even God does not know about this predestination, because these other attributes can only know their own way of being if they themselves have their own spiritual and mental aspect [i.e. unless they too, like Drang, are paired with their equivalent ofGeist, they too, like Drang, will not be aware of what they are doing].
-: , , , , ,
1. As the inorganic forces are already centres ofNature with fourdimensional, formed, surrounding fields, i.e. spontaneous determinations of movement, then the centres of Life are isomorphically built
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up on the same arrangement. Formal mechanical laws do not apply in the absolutely actual realm we are considering here. Te centres of Life – or bio-centres – are distinguished from inorganic in the following ways: the energy at issue in is of a non-material nature;time; b) the only forms laida)down are temporal nature, and in absolute and c) image and psychic centre are established at the same time. 2. Te body vanishes into space like a line on the surface of a sphere vanishes. Space in turn vanishes into absolute time – in the aspatiality of the simultaneous force-impulses of Nature. 3. Te events in and outside the organism are in themselves identical but are not ontologically so. For, in the order in which structure is built up, the living agents do not first break into the material images and butthrough first assail theinteraction atomic parts ofNature. which they thentheir bringparts, to light their with It is therefore not necessary to assume that the appearance of Life on the scene is tantamount to a transgression of the principles of inorganic matter. 4. Living agency as a whole is the direction and steering of nature, and a mechanistic viewpoint is only symbolic and practical. 5. Living and dead Nature are constructed in the same way, although here and there with different empirical rules. Everything is in the end a lawful arrangement of form-building. But the arrangement of vital forms cannot be deduced from lower levels of the inorganic, because the two levels – vital and inorganic – are both derived from the same source. 6. In fact one can say that the organic and formal mechanistic worldviews both come under the notion of existential relativity – not unlike the way Leibniz envisaged two simultaneous takes on the same matter. 7. Te mistake the school of vitalism – and that includes psychovitalism – makes is that it assumes a ready-made physical and chemical world which is already up and running on mechanistic lines, and then further vital forces are tacked on tonaturans this, instead of assumes siting lifethat where it actually is –somehow in a Nature – natura or Drang – still undecided [noch unentschieden] as to whether it will be matter or life. 8. One should compare the views of Von Hartmann, Otto Wiener and Dűrken on the laws governing such frameworks. 9. Life is a reciprocally arranged grouping of functional processes, running their course in absolute time, and with a rhythm itself framed
by birth, maturity and death. An ordered wave-like movement of functional outpourings is what it is at root, based on a pre-material [vormateriellen] stage of Nature’s impulses. 10. Spirit and mind do not actually belong with theNatural side of a human being. Proof of this is: 1) that not until a child is two can it be said to have spirit and mind; and 2) that primitive people are pre-logical in outlook. Tat means that spirit and mind are based on a social interaction between the most highly intelligent living creatures and historical tradition, and the suffering of the former from the latter. Society and language are equally srcinal founts of spirit and mind.
Because there is such a thing as Life, and because it is eternal – i.e. the possibility of ‘organism’ being laid down inBeing-itsel is always there – there is an essential link between the existence and nature of the living and the inorganic. Life and the inorganic are both eternal. It is not a question of ‘matter’ andalso ‘organisms’. Te world itself is a living organism – i.e. a spatio-temporal totality – with a history and a passing away. Whereas science treats the inorganic world as a separate issue from life, philosophy must re-unite them. Te teleoclinical [goal-directed] relationships between life and earth are rooted in their combined srcin as Nature. It is only if one averages out matters that inorganic nature takes on an independent way of being. From both a micro – and a macro – perspective it is organic lawfulness that applies. A wave movement in a four-dimensional manifold is how the appearance of continual alterations in the direction ofNature itself and its impulses in absolute time strikes us. It is an aspatial, simultaneous manifold. Appearances unless there is space for this to themselves be groundedcan in.never Terebeis simultaneous always a conflict going on in the inorganic way of being of Nature – itself between differently directed impulses. Te usual mechanistic formulations of what is going on should anyway be derived from a more basic mechanism of wave forms – the usual one being an artificial summation in terms of static points of mass. Tis follows because movement and absolute time are the basic concepts, and the appropriate sequence of what
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forms what, is: 1) movement before moved matter; 2) movement before space and time; and 3) constant alteration of dynamic movement before lineality.
1. Can one say that living creatures hold an analogous position in space as they certainly do in time? It is obvious that organized bodies – the bearers of life and the visible theatres and bodily things where life goes on, the melody of life – are in space. But taking images as a whole, just because the piano is in space, does that mean that the melody which someone plays on it must be in space too? But the organism, in that it is endowed with life and ‘given’ as a bearer of life, is anyway not properly in space in this way of being, but is only properlyin space insofar as it is a piece of the world of bodies which can be grasped in a purely objective manner. But it is neither exhaustively this last way of being, and certainly not a spatial extension, but rather it is something which takes up, in its relation to all other bodies, the position of a central point of a sphere, whereupon all other bodies and entities group themselves around this. Tis feature of a living creature is quite remarkable. In the organic world there is no absolutely central point. What one regards as the centre of a sphere is merely conventional. Tere is no ‘telpunkthatigkeit centre of the world’ in the case an organism thisto centrality [Mit] is, but an absolute fact,ofand with respect its part of the world which stimulates it and to which it reacts, it itself is the centre. Te localized seat of the I of a human being is between the eyes and the forehead, according to Claparède. Maybe this seat is variable within bodily space. A person experiencing angina has their central point, during the time it is going on, in the heart. But wherever it is, there is always a central point, and the centre of life in an organism is the point where life events are centred. As for living organisms other in space, than to, myself, they are like dead bodies either – which next or outside, onenot another. When I take another bodyarefor a moving organism I must always transfer on to this body the essence of centrality which I assume for my own world. 2. Furthermore, the organism has an srcinal directionality, arising from its activity, towards its surrounding space, something which ni organic bodies know nothing about. ‘Above’, ‘not below’, ‘near’, ‘far’, ‘in front of ’, ‘behind’, ‘nearby’ and‘in’ – and in the case of humans ‘right’ and left’
– are distinctions which for an inorganic body possess as little sense as past, present, and future in respectto physical time. Is not this remarkable? Is it the case that what is behind me stretches beyond my back in a straight linethat – asitanisinorganic, geometric account make out – or is it rather my back which is behind, andwould my eyes which are in front? Te latter is the true situation. It is the same for ‘above’ and ‘below’, and ‘right’ and ‘left’. It has taken a couple of millennia for human beings to slowly discover that these contrasting positions in space, where objects can appear, have no sense at all for the objects themselves. Te notion that simultaneity is relative to the movement status of an observer took just as long to dawn on us, indeed until Einstein worked it out. Are these concepts only psychic in status? Not at Aristotle already butall.only an ‘above’ and arecognized ‘below’. that plants have no ‘right’ and ‘left’, Te sense of the word ‘in’ is peculiar to organic beings alone. A state of ‘inwardness’ [Innerlichkeit] is the model for everything that ‘in’ stands for, even in the realm of the inorganic, where an ‘in’ does not actually occur – and therefore where it is an illusion – but where there is only ‘away from one another’ [Aussereinander] and ‘near one another’ [Nebeneinander].
Just as the living creature is not ‘in’ space, as dead bodies are, but has an environment, in which ‘far’, ‘near’, ‘above’, ‘underneath’, ‘high’, ‘deep’, ‘behind’ and ‘in front of ’ all obtain, neither is it ‘in’ time, as an event, for example a movement in the dead world, is ‘in’ time. Rather the situation is that time emerges through it itself. Te life-centre – not in the first place the person-centre or mind and spirit – is already capable of setting in train and putting in place various spatial and material elements, by an act to this effect, and also setting going a variety of temporal events, and,allfurthermore, determining orders]innature whichitself. they are built up, and without affecting its [the lifthe e-centre’ Tis means only that it creates its own elbow-room for action and its own stretch of time. It further facilitates the spatial and temporal arrangement of the pair’s common precursor in the form of a separateness of the manifold, whereby it constructs spatial and temporal forms, whose respective relationship to the underlying separateness is that they arealternative
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manifestations [i.e. if the separateness is designated X, then the spatial symbol is A and the temporal A1]. Admittedly, the temporal order is the more srcinal, and only under certain conditions is it transposed into a spatial one. Because pure life is a pure coming-to-be, time itself is the very form of this coming-to-be; whereas space is only a piece of work [Werk] or a creation of what has become [Gewordenheiten], not the form of its very existence. ime is nevertheless existentially relative to mind and spirit, but not to life itself. Tis is because, although there would be no time without life, nevertheless time is the form of its [life’s] way of coming to-be itself.
] [ 1. Te basic form of dynamic causality in organic and inorganic nature is one and the same. It is neither mechanistic nor teleological. 2. Forces set up four-dimensional spatio-temporal forms, which are unities of force-fields, whose centre is only the point where the lines of forces intersect but not a dynamic exit point. 3. Form-bestowing, vital functions set up only process-forms in absolute time, which then attach themselves to arbitrary unities in the form of spatial Gestalts – a process which only takes place in living creatures. What is represented in this way is a totality, a directional goal, and something objectively meaningful. Such a unity of form is a functional field. A functional field is capable of being reduced to a force-field but is never merely a summation of the latter. 4. Te critical constituents of organic and inorganic entities are not the same, except when they are treated statistically. 5. Inorganic and organic entities emerge from the same general principles of nature. 6. If one studies the organism along biological principles, one then finds that inorganic unities simply do not apply. If one studies the organism from a chemical and physical standpoint there simply remains a host of irrationalities which cannot be incorporated. 7. If one reduces the psychic to ontological categories, however, one does find a perfect coordination with the physiological, in which case one can say that life allows itself to be read according to two alphabets.
8. Because the course of life allows itself to be represented by inorganic categories and laws, and the psychic in physiological terms, the psychic itself must allow itself to be represented in purely inorganic terms – justifying the behavioural formulations of Watson, for example. 9. Te advent of a higher determining factor never occurs – ontologically – through either the transition of inorganic to organic or physical to psychic or psychic to spiritual and mental. Te basis for such an advent is the following. a) Te entire gamut of laws applying to the lower category is not automatically taken up into the higher category – only an extract of these now apply, and these are anyway made subordinate to the higher category. b) Te higher determining – to do is – isdetermines never a factor which realizesfactor anything. c) with Tis what highersomething factor always what it can determine from a position of standing back or standing outside the manifold which it determines. So, for example, number‘overlooks’ a crowd, analogies ‘overlook’ instances, geometry ‘overlooks’ space, and the supra-temporal spiritual and mental acts ‘overlook’ absolute time. A conflict between lower and higher causality can therefore simply not occur, because a determining factor such as these can never clash with a realization factor.
Life is an event or a process. It can only be defined functionally and dynamically. No structural definition is sufficient and there is no way one can grasp its meaning by invoking some spatial arrangement of its parts – which was Kant’s starting point for an organism. Life is a sort of being, which can only be properly got to grips with by emphasizing its coming-to-be. If one starts out from the separation ofBeing into being and nonbeing, thenfrom coming-to-be is theoftransition non-being toexistence being. If one starts the separation being intofrom its nature and its – this latter meaning being real – then coming-to-be is the transition from the nature of something to its being real. Tere is nothing in the essential nature of coming-to-be that requires it to be a temporal way of being, i.e. being is not [necessarily] a being-in-time. Tere is time-free, coming-to-be – for example, mathematics – and ‘timely’ or temporal coming-to-be. Life is ‘timely’ or temporal [zeithates] coming-
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to-be. Tis characteristic process is unique to it, and all the forms belonging to it stem from its nature as a being which comes-to-be. In contrast to life, a dead being is something that has-come-to-be, and its spatial and precludes A temporal or ‘timely’ processbeing doesisnot essentially belong toa future. it. In fact a spatial arrangement is a prerequisite of the inorganic. Within living creatures events are not arranged along any spatial dimension, but along temporal. Te organism, in which a living process is active, has to do with the arising and passing away of ontological matters. In the dead world there is nothing of this, but only separation and joining together of spatial unities. Inside the living world everything ontic – actual – is based on what has become is coming-to-be. Anything thatworld is derived from whatis In the dead what ishere actually coming-to-be based on what has become. From a cognitive, theoretical framework the being that has come-to-be in living entities is immediately apparent. Te having-come-to-be, which we talk about as ‘coming-to-be’ in the dead world, is nothing of the sort, but, on the contrary, precisely a having-come-to-be, a concluded matter. In the case of living entities, we see how coming-to-be leads to having-come-to-be, and equally we see what could have become but did not – what was possible and what is still possible. Te chief types of temporal processes involving the coming-to-be of something are as follows. 1) Tere is always something changing, and the relationship between appearances of this is not yet an assumed thing. 2) Tere is a self-modification, which does presuppose a modifiable thing. 3) Tere is a self-movement. 4) Tere is a self-transformation or metamorphosis, where the relationship between appearances, in distinction to a simple self-modification – when only a few qualities change – is one in which all qualities simultaneously undergo a change. 5) Tere is growth and reproduction, the latter being a pure
and actual increase in 7) theTere fullness of the entity. 6) Tere is duration and self-preservation. is ageing. --
What pure, phenomenological, essential determinations for the appearance of life, in any respect, have we so far come up with?
1. First, we have established that there is a spatial and temporal self-encapsulation [Selbstbegrenzung], a ‘form of its own’ [‘Eigenorm’] of something, made up in a typical and organized way from a variety of qualities,external a form,tomoreover, which not owe itsfrom provenance something it, but seems to does be determined within. to 2. Tere is then a temporal succession of a series of forms, but all under the influence of a particular rhythm in absolute time – i.e. the living organism is a continuous coming-to-be of forms and any given form is only a temporary and transitional point of changes of a formaltering rhythm, which is relatively independent of outside influences. 3. Further, life is intrinsically linked with death, the end-point of a spontaneous inwardness, and the cessation of its efficacy. Tis endpoint not come about wholly from anything externalalready to the dead living processdoes – unlike the cessation in movement of something or never alive – but arises: a) from within; b) spontaneously; and c) as a qualitative end-phase of the regular phases of change themselves. Death is an absolute passing away of some matter which will never return. Only individuals die. 4. Te transformations involved constitute an increase in the manifold of parts – quantitatively and qualitatively – and these parts are neither something accruing from outside, nor something entirely explicable by the manifold itself. Tey are rather a living example of the untruth of the principle that cause and effect are equal. Tis is precisely what the phenomena of growth are. 5. In complete and essential contrast to any dead process, the living process is temporally irreversible. 6. It seems that only the entirety of each on-going process, with all its qualitative and quantitative part-states, determines what is carried over into the next phase of time. Tere is no one-to-one matching of every part-state in what was before with what goes after. 7. It also seems that time is itself active in the phases of the process and not something that one retrospectively confers on the process in oldis age. 8. Life has essentially built into itself two poles – the organism or central entity and the environment. Te latter stands in relation to the former as the former’s ambit of efficacy [Wirkspielroum], and the former to the latter as the latter’s reception area. Te organism and its environment belong together, and are so mutually harmonized that they are both influenced by the same unknown constant. Te value of
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the stimulus for the possible reactions of the organism is determined by the actions that an organism can anyway carry out. Such actions are affected by the totality of what is going on, and not just by the precise stimulus. 9. Something seems to us to be alive if its movements are not entirely influenced by changes in its environment, and appears, as if in addition, that there is an intrinsic, spontaneous activity arising from within; it thus appears to move by itself. 10. Te essential feature of vital movement is that there is a change in place of an identical something by means of an already existent tendency to this effect. 11. All causal relationships between the organism and its environment pens. break down into determining factors which affect what hap12. Te scope of what can happen gets narrower with every step of a living creature’s development.
I shall start out in this lecture from the most likely precise characterization of the problem in the light of the massive strides made in the last few years in the fields of biological science and philosophy. In the first part ofsolutions the lecture we problem shall come to know all essential sorts of attempted to the of life, and thereby uncover the historical situation and circumstances of these attempts. We shall also subject these to an ongoing critique, in the course of which we shall see at which points they connect with a philosophy of the organic. Because the problem of life can be looked at from completely different philosophical angles, we shall have to discuss these – especially those of Driesch and our own. In the second part of the lecture I shall attempt to give a positive phenomenology of life and its out three chief – plantness, animality and humankind – starting from theforms premise that an empirical conceptualization of the actual signs which distinguish living organisms from dead things simplycannot be achieved. In a third part we shall subject these essentially phenomenological fundamental problems to a philosophical examination, and show that they are critical for defining the limits of biological science itself. Phi-
losophy, above all, in this case, shows that each issue has its own methodological problematic. I would list the critical problems as follows. 1. Tere is first of all the problem of what can be known of a living organism. problem problem –Tere Whatisisno thephilosophical living organism? – is in so which tightlythe butontological complexly bound up with the question – How do I know what it is? Te nature of this conundrum is that the knowing human is not only a creature with reason, but is also a living creature, and that its collective potential Weltbild – both of itself as a psycho-physical organism and of its picture of other organisms – is dependent on the constitution and apparatus of its biological organization. Until now, cognitive theories and logic pertaining to inorganic science have been far too one-sidedly applied biological sciences. cognitiveany theory of lifetheory. [developmentally andtohistorically] actuallyAprecedes inorganic I have said elsewhere that we are indebted to Bergson as the first person to have exposed an entanglement of cognitive and ontological problems, when he asked: Can one investigate both the appearances of life and those of dead nature with the same sorts of understanding, and the same principles and basic concepts? Bergson’s answer has generally been rejected. But his question is still highly relevant. It raises issues concerning the sorts of categories that there are in living nature, concerning the nature of what we mean by psychic, and about expressive appearances, individuals as [mini-] totalities, space and time. 2. Among critical ontological problems which need tackling I would give precedence to the following. a) Tere is the problem of the srcin of life. b) Tere are philosophical problems as to the mechanics of development, beginning with Aristotle’s views, and culminating in Driesch’s notion of ‘Formvitalism’. c) Tere are then philosophical issues to do with whether the living creature can be systematically defined or otherwise portrayed. d) We then come to the problem of the unityand andthe thesorts variety of life. e) Next, there is the matter of phylogenesis of phylogenetic explanations that have been put forward. f) Ten one can point out the philosophical contribution to the problems of reproduction and hereditary transmission, as they have been formulated since Mendel’s time. Philosophical contributions to the problem of sex can also be mentioned, as this topic has been transformed in the last few years.
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g) Finally, there is the problem of ageing and death, along with the ‘sense’ [Sinn] of what it is to be alive and how it changes with ageing. In a fourth concluding part we shall consider what can be termed the profound metaphysical problems concerning our topic. Tesemost comprise: 1) the relationship between life and the inorganic or non-living nature; 2) the relationship between life itself and its various stages, particularly the various stages of what the term psychic means; 3) the relationship between life and certain mental acts and their centre in a ‘person’; and 4) the metaphysical place of the human being in the cosmos. Te ultimate andorganic most profound question onedoes can the ask philosophy within the philosophy of the is what contribution of the absolute make to the matter. Must not special attributes be ascribed to the srcinal basis of everything that there is in order that the facts and the apparatus of life could every have been willed? Te problem of life has anyway in all periods of history been inextricably bound up with metaphysical and religious systems of thought. Tis means that different sorts of theism – e.g. St. Tomas’, Descartes’ – led to very different notions of what life was – e.g. pantheism, Schopenhauer’s pandemonism, etc.
: Before we go into the contemporary philosophical theories of nature, and give a systematic account of these, we need to consider the different ways in which Nature was automatically viewed, and the corresponding Weltanschauung which was current, when the actual philosophical theories Nature were being proposed. of the succession of these isofanything but accidental, but, onTe thescheme contrary, conforms to a lawful arrangement. Moreover, the same lawful sequence can be found in: 1) the general development from primitive human beings through to our contemporary civilization; 2) the individual development of a child through to mature adult; and 3) the development of theories about Nature in any particular cultural setting – here I shall consider Western ideas.
In the beginning the human being experiences the appearances of nature in the manner of changing expressions, in fact as a sort of language, and derived from more or less individualized spiritual and demonic force, as I-like centres. Inisa panvitalistic second majorand phase of culturalcentres historyof the human world-picture organological. Instead of prevailing spirits and demons with their will to magically influence events – the former mythological phase – there arise categories which stem from the imagistic repertoire of the organism itself, but are then viewed as objective, and then become ways in which the entire panoply of nature is grasped. Tis natural world-view prevails until recent times. It is followed thirdly, but only in the West, by the era ushered in by Galileo’s discovery of the dead world and its basic laws,asprimarily a mechanical stage one no longer tries, Plato andofAristotle did, tonature. deriveAt thethis arrangement of laws of the dead world from that of the living, but tries to derive those of the living from that of the dead – i.e. a mechanistic epoch prevails. Tis is itself then followed finally by a fourth collective state of human mind and spirit, in which the dogmatic broadening of mechanical categories over the living world is called into question and put in reverse, and the two dogmatic positions of panvitalism and panmechanisticism are both given up. Tis then raises the critical question: which categories are then applicable to living things and which to dead things? At present we are still suspended in this phase and all current theory building belongs here. Tese four basic spiritual attitudes are not a consequence of the prevailing status of investigation at any time; they are developmental stages of human spirit itself, and are part and parcel of the development of society and collective culture. Te categorical characteristics of the major regions of nature and culture – the dead, the living, the psychic and the noetic – have only slowly been uncovered throughout human history, and from a variety of starting points, but in a strictly organized fashion. peculiarity of death is the to have discovered, and it isTe therefore nonsense to try andlast explain thebeen mythical worldpicture [the earliest phase] by means of a retrospective, projective empathy from our own times. Te historical course of knowledge has essentially been one of de-vivifying [Ent – lebendigung] nature, with a concomitant restriction in the range of applicability of genuine, living categories to both deadand spiritual matters. Specifically spiritual categories were uncovered at the same time as those appropriate to the
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dead were discovered. For a human being, the world was an organism before it became a mechanism in infinite space. Te biomorphic or organismic Weltbild preceded the physico-chemical one.
If we set aside cognitive theories for the moment, we come to the first division of theories about life, which take their starting point from the supposition that the organic appearances of life occupy a central position in a totality of everything that is. 1. First of all, one can regard life itself as a completely insoluble basic concept, but at the same time try and derive the inorganic, the psychic and the spiritual – the other three main categories of everything that is – from life itself. Tis position, a relatively rare one, we shall call ‘panvitalism’ – and is to be distinguished from a similar version which we call ‘dualistic vitalism’. In fact there is only one actual philosopher who has held this strict position – Bergson – though there have been several scientists of a similar view, e.g. the physiologist Fechner. Not only is the inorganic world deleted in such a formulation, and regarded as swallowed up by, or reduced to, life, but a similar fate is meted out to spirit and reason, which, for Bergson, are a created product of life. Te starting point for his position is that one can have the experience of something that alive then dying, but the other way round. one then adds to thisis theory concerning thenot absolute srcinality of lifeIfthe further notion that life is a supraindividually unified agent then one arrives at a further characterization of Bergson’s theory as ‘monistic vitalism’. Aristotle’s influential version of panvitalism is not quite the same as this. First of all, Aristotle divides up everything real into mind or spirit [Geist, Nous] and nature, human beings and God. Within nature, however, the inorganic and organic world is constructed along the same lines : both have the same combination of form and matter, and both have a goal-directing form – Entelechy – and passive matter. Neither a specifically chemical or physical or mechanical lawfulness, nor specifically inorganic sorts of matter or force, enter his scheme. Te same four sorts of causes, discussed in his Metaphysics, apply to both living and non-living entities. Modern vitalism assumes an independent mechanistic explanation for the dead world, but Aristotle did not know of such a concept of a formal, mechanistic lawfulness in
Nature. He recognized what today we regard as probabilistic or statistical laws, which arise when there is a breakdown in the elementary goal-directedness of something. Furthermore, Aristotle was a pluralistic vitalist respect i.e.dynamically the various timeEntelechies werewith eternal, like to thesub-human world, and nature, they were less. His prima causa was timeless – everything was constant and there was no evolution. He would not even have maintained, as Driesch did, that the difference between the dead and the living is a gradual one. For, what he believed was that the living organism had its principle of movement within, not outside, itself. Te something that did the moving of itself, according to Aristotle, was the X which he meant by the ‘psyche’, which was at the same time the ‘living agent’. Life was growth andeffectiveness decline of something, itself. Teand soulwas wasdefinitely the first integrated belonging through to a nature body, part of any organ too. As well as there being no gradual transition between plant and animal, or animal and human, the entire natural world – inorganic and organic – was constructed in the same way. He knew nothing of what modern vitalists refer to as the ‘binomism’ of dead and living nature. He neither knew of mechanistic laws nor even knew of any special lawfulness for inorganic nature. eleological and teleoclinical [goal-directed] causes are anyway central to his physics. In his treatise, theGeneration o Animals, he makes all organic comingto-be a consequence of sexual procreation. Te female exudate – in humans the menstrual fluid – gives the matter, and the male semen the active form, and by a process of transformation they both give rise to a seed. Te male semen is what determines the form and shape of the organism. In Aristotle’s view what constitutes the coming-to-be of a living creature is a definite, dynamic, logical and ideational, effective shape-determining factor, analogous to the artist’s situation, where from a given material something is constructed. He calls the formation process a ‘soul’ if it concerns an organic, living creature. A vitalistic or organological on nature not a on viewtheonpsyche. being –Tis is inseparable from the way heview formulates his–views concept of a soul Aristotle builds up from the object itself, and not from human conscious experience. As a result of this, the soul itself breaks down into as many basic sorts as there are realms of living things, and Aristotle recognizes as many special parts of the force in question as there are extant, vital basic functions and ways of behaving within any organism. Functions form organs. All organs possess a generative psyche
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– e.g. male semen, reproductive drive – a growth-engendering soul, and a nutritional soul: three basic drives. Tese three on their own make up the plant’s soul. With animals there in addition, a soul whose principle contribution is sensationaccrues, and memory, which Aristotle denies to plants. In human beings there is the additional arrival on the scene of pure theoretical reason. Te modern mechanistic notion of nature arose in deliberate opposition to this whole thesis, seen at its sharpest in Descartes’ philosophy, where the soul is res cogitans and the body res extensa, and Aristotle’s divisions of the soul, with the exclusion of human rationality, completely denied. Currently, Aristotle’s teachings, transformed by St. Tomas, are still onmost by the Neothomists. Te constancy everything whatcarried has been abandoned. But there are severalofother versionsisin which every aspect of his philosophy has been reassessed and redrafted. Driesch’s and Stern’s accounts are of this nature, though Driesch is an ‘ontic dualist’ concerning inorganic and organic, but a ‘monist’ by virtue of his conflating Life and Spirit. 2. Secondly, we can suppose that the living world might be known and explained through categories and principles which correspond to those of inorganic nature – so far as these categories are clearly what do belong to this. Again, however, life still occupies a central role in the scheme. Any such formulation as this is a chemico-physical explanation of life. Tis way of looking at organic life is also ‘monistic’ with respect to the relationship between the living and the dead, no less so than Bergson’s strong and Aristotle’s not so strong versions discussed above. In the present supposition, too, we have laws, matter and force of one and the same kind throughout Nature, though here they are those of an inorganic world. It does not exclude elaborations into a dualism between soul – taken as equivalent to spirit and mind in such versions – and body. Descartes, Malebranche, Leibniz, and Lotze in the 19th Century, are the strictest mechanistic philosophers, but at the same time dualists with respect to body and soul. Teir dualism here is anyway incoherent because they allow the soul to work on the body and what they end up with is a parallelism [which is an incoherent version of mechanistic monism]. Tere are eight chief sorts of chemico-physical monism.
a) Tere is a metaphysical materialism, which tries to derive, not only all physical appearances and life, but soul and mind too, from the movements of matter. Tis standpoint assumes the presence of an absolutely real Ancient space, absolutely real time, absolute matter and movement. Certain Greek philosophers – Empedocles, Democritus and Leucippus – and some modern – Hobbes, Lamettrie with his L’homme machine – held to this view, but today it is dead. b) Tere is next the standpoint of an absolute mechanistic set of explanations for everything in Nature. Tis is an ontological stance, which considers that the sole way anything works is material contact according to the simple order of before and after. Wherever it occurs in philosophy, and if it is not completely materialistic – as a) above it is combined with and a dualism Tis is ex-as plicitly–stated by Descartes Lotze.ofItbody cropsand up soul. in psychology association psychology, where events are treated as summated effects of forces. Hobbes and English association psychology epitomize this approach. Where there is a dualistic element, the soul is considered the X that does the thinking. Te general standpoint of all theories in this group is that the reality of the soul and conscious appearance are one and the same, and there is no subconscious or unconscious life of the soul. Our natural Weltanschauung, it derives from spontaneous activity of the soul. Despite its limited standpoint it spawned a variety of different versions of the psycho-physical problem. In one version – e.g. Lotze’s – thereis interaction between the psychic and physical. In another version, there is parallelism between two ontically separate series of happenings. Mechanistic philosophies of this nature are commoner today than materialistic ones, but overall rather rare. In any case the very way physics formulates the world [which such mechanistic philosophies aped] has itself discarded materialistic-mechanistic explanations, and at the very most strives for ormal-mechanistic formulae. Assumptions about an absolute three-dimensional space,toabsolute timeby andmodern absolute extended matter, have been consigned the dustbin physicists, as indeed they were by some philosophers before them. Te crucial thesis now is that energy and mass are mutually transformable. Quantum physics and relativity physics have between them destroyed materialistic-mechanical explanations of nature. For these reasons the very notion of a mechanistic set-up in organic or psychic spheres has been [or should have been] undermined.
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c) Incidentally, we find within this out-of-date mechanistic standpoint two quite different subgroups. One is more chemical in nature, the other more physical. Te chemical versions [obviously] attempt to explain difference between the living andexplanations the dead along chemical lines, butthethey are nevertheless mechanistic at root. d) Physical versions of a mechanistic explanation are illustrated by suggestions as to how the ‘colloidal status’ in an organism might differ in living and dead entities. For such theorists it is not chemical or physical differences in themselves that account for differences between the living and the dead, but some essential constitution of the colloidal status in both these situations. e) I now turn briefly to theories which formulate life in terms of a particular of energy. Ostwald is theand mainsupposes representative He rejects thesort notion of extended matter, that allhere. appearances of matter are energy complexes. He further proposes a special sort of form-energy [Gestaltenergie] and another special sort of psychic energy, both of which maintain some sort of equilibrium with other mechanistic energies such as heat and light. Attempts such as Ostwald’s have generally been abandoned these days. f) One additional version of a chemico-physical mechanistic philosophy of the living and the dead is known as postivism – and exemplified by Comte, Spencer, Mach and Avenarius. Tis philosophical position rejects any notion of a vital or psychic efficacy in explaining organic appearances, and further refuses to accept that physical and chemical appearances rest on any ontological substrate or force. It maintains that only the laws governing the appearances themselves, and only such as are sensorily perceived, are objects for science; everything else is only a symbolic representational aid. Because, furthermore, the concrete law is never contained in general laws, but is something ‘contingent’, a relatively accidental nature to things and events supervenes, and organisms and living events can never be derived from chemical and physical laws.isDespite what is comprehensible to us of any organic appearance preciselythis, what is derived from the lawfulness of physical and chemical appearances. A certain autonomy of the science of life should exist, if all this were so, although nothing of any essential substance compared with physics, chemistry and mathematics. Te difference, then, between the objects of inorganic and biological sciences, according to this philosophical position, is only a general
logical one – a concrete-abstract dichotomy, not an ontological and essential one. g) Tere is then the ‘Gestalt-physicalism’ of Koehler, whereby a physicalh)Gestalt assumed to be a real configuration in Lotze, Nature.Schultz and Finallyisthere is ‘machinism’, championed by Henderson, whereby the organism is deemed scientifically inexplicable, but has a purposeful constellation of material and energy-based factors – forming a mechanical structure – which is ultimately derived from a ‘world intelligence’. 3. Te third main group of vitalist theories, in addition to thepanvitalist and the chemico-physical monistic which we have just covered, are those with a dualistic orientation. Tey are still monistic in respect of the andemphasis the dead,from but their dualistic orientation given a new and living different the ones we have discussedishitherto. No new ‘substances’ are admitted than there were in the previous theories – i.e. living, dead and inorganic – but a greater variety of effective factors and forces and a greater number of laws governing events are allowed. Some earlier exponents of vitalism, for example, even believed in a specific chemical ingredient to life, whereas all modern versions of vitalism conform to the more complex formula just alluded to. In deliberate opposition to Ancient and Medieval versions, they eschew materialistic and formal-mechanistic explanations of life, these being confined to their formulations of the dead world. But this then becomes a problem in its own right, as the modern vitalist is then faced with what is to be done about mechanical or physico-chemical laws, not to mention matter and energy. Aristotle and the Scholastics did not have this problem, whereas the modern vitalist has to ponder an interaction between a vital agent and the chemico-physical forces and substances without sacrificing the law of conservation of living force – the energy principle. Tere are three main types of dualistic vitalism, each with different pairings. a) Tere is objective vitalism, which wishes to show that there is a unique principle of life, and that certain appearances of life can neither result from any conceivable mechanism, nor from any chemicophysical explanation. Te latter, according to this theory, always leaves a residue to life that defies explanation in these terms, therefore demands its own unique explanation. Nothing of an essentially positive
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nature is proposed in this sort of vitalism, and one may well ask why its proponents assume that dead nature itself is mechanistic. b) Ten comes ‘psychovitalism’. What characterizes this is that the objective life and made onesteers and the same problem from theofoutset, andtheit life-soul holds theproblem psychic are to be what and directs the physical and chemical events in the organism and even underlies the conscious appearances of things. Te spiritual father of this orientation is Lamarck, and his theories about the meaning of needs for, and uses of, form building. c) A third distinction within vitalism is into those proponents of the notion who consider there to be a single supra-individual life-agent, in relation to which any individual life is only a part-agent. Driesch, example, says little about this,states but expressly seems to incline towards somefor unitary notion of agency. Becher that there is a supra-individual psychic agent, and Bergson and Lodge hold this too. Te older vitalists – e.g. Wundt – were pluralists on the matter. 4. Tere are then specifically noetic theories of life. Unfortunately, to the detriment of the thorny problems we are tackling, the various metaphysicians of absolute being have had a strong [but baleful] influence on theories about life. All metaphysicians who take their stance from there being a spiritual, and only spiritual, srcin of the world – whether theistic, pantheistic or panentheistic [i.e. God is coming-tobe] – have derived the appearances of life either directly or indirectly from this srcinal source. Te theistic, religious tradition, in particular, has posed the problem of life in a very one-sided manner, and what has had the most detrimental effect is its assumption that either life is teleological or mechanistic. As supposedly exhaustive alternatives this is a profound error, partly because the harmony and teleology which they assume simply do not exist, and partly because a whole series of laws prevail in life which are neither teleological nor mechanistic. Te theistic sort of noetic explanations of life come in two forms. Tere is, first, the Scholastic transformations of from Aristotle’s notions, according to which the appearances of life derive the soul’s entelechy, but the soul itself is a creation of God’s spirit. Te entire lifeworld is thereby created on an ideal plane, which has already existed in the divine spirit. A second form is a machine theory, according to which the divine spirit purposely constructed this machine on earth in the first instance following an intelligent plan, and without any entelechy or soul, and without the need of any matter and force as in the
dead world, which last He too then separately created out of nothing : Descartes and Malebranche believed this. In this latter form it resembles the way in which Aristotle compared an organism to a work of art. Whereas and pure vitalists like Driesch and reverse Becher derive spirit frompsychovitalists soul, theists and spiritual pantheists this direction, and derive everything to do with the soul from a creative or divine spirit : even Hegel went along with this. It was Schopenhauer who first tried to break away from this basic way of seeing things, and instead proposed that there was a‘Will’ – a drive-based, obscure, blind force of Nature – which explained the nature of the world, and the appearances of life were objectivizations of this will, which themselves had built an organ in the human brain with which the appearances of theVon human spirit – who not divine spirit – were connected. Hartmann, occupies a peculiar place between Hegel and Schopenhauer, derives the inorganic and the living appearances from two attributes of the world-base [Weltgrund]. One is an alogical energy and the other is a logical factor, and both are the idea of unconscious, divine spirit. ogether they allow the appearances of life and life’s development to be understood. Te process he suggested involved the rearrangement of the material forces and quanta of energy into superior forces, without contravening the principle of conservation of energy, so that the appearances of life could be constituted. Te superior forces he introduces are at the same time the real, unconscious basis of the appearances of consciousness – i.e. unconscious, soul-based real factors. In whatever way these ultimate metaphysical problems are posed, under no circumstances can an idea of absolute being, which is reached independently of any deliberations as to the nature of the appearances of life themselves, be itself a way of deducing anything at all about life. Te way in which a world-base is constituted when appearances of life are involved, must be viewed differently from the way it is constituted when none isessential involved.class Tisofapplies at least ifInappearances life form a genuinely appearances. fact, what isof generally understood by the teleology of living appearances, is nothing at all to do with the so-called teleological proof of a supposed all-good and almighty srcin of the world, and is no testimony at all to a ‘worldmaster builder’, as Kant would have it.
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With the foregoing we have all the theories–ofa sad life and organisms – about 18 incovered all – which areontological currently around state of affairs. A critique of these theories, which we can first of all mount in terms of the phenomenological basis of biology, will show us that not one of these ontological theories is satisfactory. Even taking them altogether, it is quite obvious that they share a common error, which is that they are all more or less ‘dogmatic’, in the sense that they do not pose or tackle the particular methodological issues raised by the problem of what it means to be a living cognising subject. o be sure, what constitutes cognition of, and by, an organism, is not the only issue facing any would-be philosopher of organic life. Nevertheless, it is my opinion that it is simply not possible, as Kant and his Neo-Kantian followers – and many others as well – assume, to treat the particular problems inherent in living cognition as if they did not exist, and lump together the living and the dead within the same cognitive exercise. On the other hand, it is not possible either to dismiss the claims of theoretical cognition in general for our project. It is a basic principle in my representation of philosophy that real, ontological problems and problems concerning cognition both have a common srcin in the objects themselves. What some appearance is, and what its essence is, are the common starting points for any theory of how we come to know this appearance and its real object, i.e. ontology determines appearances. Te real ontology of appearances of natural things must therefore be constituted in such a way that it conjointly explains the possibility of our knowledge of these appearances as well as these appearances themselves, or at least does not make such a venture impossible. Furthermore,I hold it fundamental that any theoryof cognition of the real basis of appearances must itself be so constituted that ances.it does not distort or dissolve the essential nature of these appearWe shall now propose a three-fold division in matters pertaining to the relationship between ontology and cognitive theory in the field of the organic. First, there is a dogmatic ontological method; secondly, a purely cognitive method; and thirdly a simultaneous sort of investigation into both.
On the third point, we need to ask what it is among the experiences we can have of nature that is relative to life in general, and relative to the particular properties of a cognizing subject; and, further, at what level of existential relativity. We should like what lies at the root of anything’ s being ontologically real,then bothtoinknow the case of living appearances and in the case of dead ones. On the second point – the pure cognitive method – the critical issue is how the differences between dead and living nature are taken into our knowledge and not how they stand in theOn ‘ ’ [Being] of real objects. Before we embark on all this, a few further remarks are needed. It might seem to many of you as if the 18 theories oflife that we sketched out exhausted the logical thatsay ontological explanations living appearances had topossibilities offer. I should straight away that thisofis not so, and I shall later give you a version which si not contained in any of the ones I mentioned. Te first remark concerns explanations about nature. Tere is an ultimate framework of essential laws which only provides a negative influence and limit to all appearances of nature – chemical, physical and living. Such a framework has its own logic and ontology, its own ultimate principles, and its own laws for forms in a temporo-spatial manifold. All these are neither vital nor chemico-physical, but lie above these contrasting regions. Furthermore, they are the same for the ontological existence of nature as for our cognition of nature. Secondly, there is a phenomenal dualism within an essentially phenomenological rather than empirical sphere, and this applies to living appearances as well as to dead ones. Tis particular dualism has gone unnoticed by every single monistic formulation, and that includes Aristotle’s, Bergson’s, and all the rest. In other words there is an ‘axiomatic’ of dead and living nature, and the relevant categories which go with this. Tis but only far as metaphysics of dualism the first extends level, notinto intometaphysics, the metaphysics of theasabsolute. At the level we are talking about the same dynamic and simultaneous image-producing principles are at work in dead and living nature, and are ever being newly brought forth. We call this image-creating Nature – ‘Nature in God’ [Drang]. Te special axiomatic we are still considering comes into its own, as valid for living and dead alike, in the passage from the absolute to the
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relative metaphysical spheres of being, in accordance with our own theory of the levels of existential relativity. We now ask: At what level of existential relativity does the dualism begin? My third is that thebetween most significant being is notpoint the dualism the livingdualism and theconcerning dead, butfinite that between Geist – ideas and values – and Nature – existence. Tis is in complete contrast to the views of Driesch, Becher, Bergson, etc. Te dualism I am referring to reaches into the essential attributes which are the cognisable attributes ofBeing-itsel. A functional vitalism, but not a vitalism of form – an entelechy – is justified, if the notion of a metaphysical unity of life is integrated with it. [Te editorsome writesremarks here that text of the off, andthe he summarizes of the Scheler’s. Telecture editor breaks then finishes section on Metaszienzien with four pages on vitalism taken from other notes written at the time.]
Any vitalism of a negative sort such as Driesch’s, along with any proposal in which the living agent is added on to the inorganic with separate lawfulness, is to be unconditionally rejected. is only abstraction from what is really going on that makes us seeItthe twoour – life and inorganic – as separate, whereas the inorganic and the dead are rather relative to the living, and not the other way round. Te inorganic laws of nature are anyway ‘statistical’. At root each appearance of nature is metaphysically inorganic and vital simultaneously and equally srcinally so. Te inorganic coming-to-be of nature and the vital coming-to-be are srcinally reciprocally arranged, not because God ordained it this way, and not because the forces of Nature are teleologically related, but because a single Nature is goal-directed and provides the ultimate framework for both the inorganic and the organic. Te dead and the living are only dynamic, chief directions of one Nature, which in itself is functionally unified. Te different laws applying to the living and the dead are merely objective phenomena, not metaphysical in srcin. Te fact that the inorganic world fits into life [rather than the other way round] excludes the notion of vitalism as a metaphysical thesis.
Te dead world is rather carved out of the environment of everything alive. Te force of life, therefore, is not something actually added on. Tis is unless one imagines thathypotheses a completeofbreak with theanyway laws ofunthinkable, inorganic nature prevails in life. All this sort are false and empty. Te living part ofNature itself enables the emergence of the inorganic from this Nature, long before any such metaphysical goings-on are at a stage when we can experience them. Terefore we can never know that such goings-on are taking place. But we can also never prove that they are not going on, and that they do go on is metaphysically likely, because only if it is so can our world-picture be free of contradictions. It is certainly false to want to prove that the laws manifestations nature canChemical determineand– as an governing entelechy inorganic – the forms we eventuallyofexperience. physical events and laws cannot explain our formed world. Maybe there is an intrinsic pattern, but we can never know it F[ űr ‘uns’ nicht; ‘an sich’ wohl.]
I call a vitalism ‘functional’ if it is maintained that any living behaviour or any function can be derived in a strictly one-to-one fashion from chemical and physical of affairs. A how functional unity istake in fact an urphenomenon, and westates can only explain the functions place and on what material substrates they work. We cannot explain why these and no others are in play. Te temporal form in which the functions run their course is a goal-directed process according to the particular laws pertaining to an organism’s birth-to-death framework. Life is an event, and only an event, and takes place in absolute time – i.e. is a part-manifestation of universal life itself. All morphology must be explained in the context of both functions and inorganic lawfulness. But in the case of inorganic science the only sort of time involved is that of successive relationships in absolute time. Is there then some force, as a dynamic determinant, which is the common denominator of living functions, and which we could call a vis vitalis [? a living current]. Not at all. Only the urphenomenon itself of the function requires a metaphysical explanation for its existence as something having-come-to-be. We especially need an explanation for how one function comes about through another function [but we have
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no need for some added on life-factor which makes anything inorganic organic and which pervades everything organic]. Tis means that although the functions can be considered within an inorganic scheme according to their temporal characteristics to the material which–they work on – metaphysics itself is not an and advanced sort of empirical science, and only life itself [the metaphysics of which underlies empirical science and not vice versa] determines what functions spring up, and from what source : life itself is part ofNature [Drang]. Again, we stress that life is not something that supervenes on an already existing ontologically real realm of inorganic things and forces. Life in fact directs and steers these very inorganic processes, although both – living and inorganic – are equally metaphysically srcinal. groupgo. of force-centres [zugeordnet ] to a life fromEach the word A life centre isisaassigned ‘source-point’ [Quellpunkt ] of centre living processes arranged in a certain three-dimensional frame – i.e. with the centre at the apex and the environment and the organismic event forming the two points of the base. Tis arrangement itself underlies change. Driesch’s proof proves nothing. It is a mish-mash of unmethodical, empirical and metaphysical approaches. In any case, an entelechy is an ‘asylum of ignorance’, crying out for the question to be asked : What can and cannot a machine actually achieve? A machine ‘can’ perhaps achieve more than it actually does achieve – as Buytendijk said. But a machine as part of a rigid system is incapable of explaining physical and chemical processes. Death is not the failure of entelechy. Death belongs to the phenomenon of life itself. No-one can say why this supposed entelechy now achieves what it is supposed to achieve, then achieves this no more, or achieves this and not that, or, for that matter, why it is now intelligent, now stupid. Te factor which sets up the temporal forms of things attaches itself not to matter in space, but to the temporal ingredients ofNature itself – atoms of energy, positive electromagnetic charges which lie at the basis of both the inorganic and organic, and which–are pre-material and pre-energizing – in the sense that they are not measurable as energy and matter themselves are. It is even mistaken to think of the determining factors of living events as something occurring in the time of something durably real, as Driesch’s notion of entelechy is so formulated. Te factor in question has its own way of coming-to-be and its own rhythm, and it is
therefore also false to represent it as ‘something’ which exhausts itself or is overcome by inorganic causality. Life is the quintessence of a force which resists death. What is most correct in Driesch’s theoryis aismarked his notion of something being ‘suspended’ or ‘not suspended’ , which change in direction from anything Descartesor von Hartmann had to say on the matter. Driesch’s theory supposes the existence of rotating forces, without any quantitative value or centralizing character – i.e. without any place where there is a starting-point. Furthermore,he recognizes that, whatever entelechy means, it can only allow to happen what it itself has [? not] suspended. Te suspension or non-suspension of something, however, must in addition be deemed to be occurring in the transition from a metaphysical a physical realm notrespect. something which is attached to an alreadytocompleted processand in is this Te intrinsic state of inorganic matter and its components are nothing other than the elementary force itself, which, together with other impulses of force, sets out a four-dimensional spatio-temporal form. Te centres of the force orient themselves according to their respective fields. Te identity of physical and chemical laws, and the relative constancies among these, do not imply the identity of the concrete chemical and physical events going on inside and outside a living organism. Tese are different. In the first place, the identity is a strict consequence of our hypothesis that the rhythmic and goal-determined factor underlying a living appearance is already at work prior to the coming-to-be of measurable quanta of energy, and prior to the ‘materialization’ of such quanta. All living creatures are ‘structures’, but not chemically or physically so. Te ‘structure’ is rather derived from a functional agglomeration of vital fields. Te branches of mathematics dealing with set theory and the topology four-dimensional manifolds valid for both inorganic livingofmatters; whereas linear, planarareand quantitative approachesand are only appropriate for inorganic matters. Te formal logic which applies to both regions must not be equated with ‘inorganic logic’. For example, the principle which states that an object cannot be identical to another object is only valid for the inorganic, i.e. it assumes something persisting in space and a constancy over time. Tere must, anyway, only be a constancy of the extent of
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movement, according to Planck, and energy and mass are therefore subordinate, relative constants. But neither the latter nor the unrevised former principle apply in the case of life. What holds sway here is only an identity of temporal in absolute Such identity does not exclude anything new, norforms any creation, nortime. any transformation. In fact life is transformation, but not simple alteration [Veränderung]. In the case of life the general is contained in the particular, and nominalism is simply false in any application to this realm. For individuals, sorts of individuals and families of living agents, are not separate one from another, but dynamicallywithin one another. Tis accounts for intraindividual and interindividual heterogeneity of goals. In dead nature the essential nature of something is having-come-to-be [Gewordenheit ], whereas in organic nature it is the logic of coming-to-be [Werdenslogik ]. Whereas Driesch’s entelechy assumes rigid forces just like inorganic versions of force, and supposes that the flux of life can be made understandable from two such rigidities [i.e. life and inorganic], we require even the metaphysical srcin of living appearances to include life itself, i.e. even the supraindividual life force itself must be conceived of as a functional waxing and waning. Tis further means that life’s dynamism, its tendency to maximise its image potential, its ultimate leading up to humans and essences, its intermediate appearances as plant and animal, its de-materialization [Ent-materialisierung] of the temporal units of Nature, and the withering away of simple tropisms [Antientropismus] – along with its promotion of memory and fantasy – must all be considered, not as properties of some ‘living substance’, but as properties of functions or as tendencies for repetition. Furthermore, all these wax and wane, as the concomitants of growth and dying. o conclude, they are, above all, not the subsequent joining up of something to the inorganic and its forces.
–
[Alleben f there is a universal matrix of life ], and if it is responsible for all acquired functional ‘methods’ whereby the forces of the dead world become incorporated into species and organisms, and if it serves the goal of Eros, which is to bring forth the maximum amount of entities while at the same time striving for unity and perfect forms, then the ideal end of this process is the evening out of organism and bodily material [der Ausgleich von Organismus und Kőrper] – the coming-to-be rom the world of inert bodily material of the living body
I
of theasorganismic world. Tis organismic world is notItan ever, was thought in the Middle Ages, but a goal. is aentity, goal inhowthe same way as the unification of spirit and life is a goal, a goal inherent in God’s personality and in the coming-to-be of life in the world. Te basic principles involved here are: 1) that all genuine essences and essential connections can only be elucidated as to their actual existence within a metaphysical framework; and 2) that, nevertheless, this does not exclude a genesis of essences and God. Te incarnation [Verkőrperung] of the matrix of life comes to an end when all possible ways of adapting matter and energy have been achieved, in a manner that allows everything to be penetrated by them. Te meaning of organic evolution is not just the preservation of the highest organisms, nor an increase and growth of life itself, but is the achievement of a maximum degree of spontaneous freedom over the combined resources of matter and energy. Organisms are only the means and tools through which the matrix of life elevates itself, ascends, and learns in an infinite sequence of trial and error. In this way,
even the dualism of the dead and the living, as indeed the dualism of life and spirit, are eventually overcome. Both the organic history of life and the history of the world are of the greatest significancenature for elucidating therealms coming-to -be of the world’s srcin. Even inorganic has layered of forms, which are not absolutely constant. It is also governed in what comes-to-be by a tendency for order, for ever clearer and concise forms to arise. Te electromagnetic face of nature gives way to an ever increasing optical dimension, in conformity with the law of least energy expenditure, whereby all other forms of energy and all matter tend to adopt the same [optical] character. Tere is anyway no absolute matter, and what matter there is is only relatively constant, and is furthermore only a transitional episode in the course of the world-process.
Te goal or aim of Nature is to achieve a maximum amount of reality and qualitatively various forms, with a minimal expenditure of effort, in keeping with the ‘law of least effort’. In this respect Nature is strictly goal-orientated, as are all its interrelated parts.Nature is therefore – even without spirit – goal-directed, though completely alogical, valuefree and purposeless.
’ 1. Nature is a multiplicity of unified elements, the number of which is unquantifiable, but whose structuring brings forth absolute time, which is not measurable either. 2. Nature is composed such that each of its unities – a, , A – belongs to the same order of goal-directions, but each of the impulses has a superordinate unity of impulses above it, which determines the scope of the subordinate impulses. It is only within the latitude that this affords that each of the subordinate impulses has any relationship to other simultaneous impulses, and that the various inhibitions, demands, freeing up or closing down, of such, become coordinated. Each existing unity, which is determined by its superordinate impulse, contains within itself impulses of various rank orders, and these too come under the control of their respective superordinate. Te lower impulses never govern the higher ones.
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In the overall scheme, vital impulses appear as a new stratum in the established rank order. Te distinction between material and non-material forces, however, is not energy clear-cut Driesch, would maintain. Tis as is because and– aasliving forceforareexample, interchangeable with matter, are energy and matter. Whenever the superordinate force is not actively at work, this leaves the subordinate forces to their own devices. Tere is no question of parallelism here, nor even of a chemico-mechanistic parallelism. Te force-functions of Nature, which determine organic life, are themselves constituted in such a way: a) that they are not materializable; b) that they control the rhythm of the life-events in absolute time; and c) that the mutual adaptation of living and dead nature one to each other is reciprocal and not one-sided, and is only understandable through assuming the unifying character ofNature, which sets forth both of them.
Te supreme principles according to whichNature works are as follows. 1. It brings forth the maximum possible amount of reality. 2. It produces the maximum amount of variability S[ o – Anders], i.e. fantasy. 3. It accords each effective element a maximum amount of intensity. Terefore any efficacy of an individual impulse at any point in absolute time is the smallest efficacious unit there is. 4. Nature is both cause and directional guide at each point in absolute time. It is both a starting point, in that something is being urged away from something,Te andsmallest an end-point, because something is being pushed to something. quantum of efficacy is the simplest element of Natural unity of an event. If there is set in train a multitude of such chains of events, then the relationship between these takes the form of a formal mechanistic and continuous lawfulness. 5. In addition, the chains themselves determine a unified form, which is itself determined by the superordinate impulse we know as Eros.
eleology [future determining present] and [conventional] causation [present determining future] are two human sides of the same coin. Nature 6. Teheat, values which brings withvery it are the movement of masses, diffuse energy, light, and the possibility of there being a vital agent – i.e. a psychophysically unified form. 7. Nature pervades [setzt seine Drangsale] matters in such a way that an absolute time is formed, and the pervasiveness of Nature then appears in a four-dimensional extension. It is both intensive and qualitatively diverse. Te four dimensions of the separatedness in absolute time form the basis for objective space and objective time, the extents of which are linked one to the other. Tey are existentially relative to
aindependent vital creature, but all livingTe organisms take them to be objective of themselves. apparent independence of space and time is, however, relative to the standpoint, or rather present standing point, of an observer in the four-dimensional spatio-temporal system. Objective time is the fleeting succession of ‘nows’, without past and without future. Only phenomenal time has a proper present, past and future, and has these at any point in such time – and this applies to remembered and expected points too. Absolute time also contains, within each of its realized parts, the absolute future and the absolute past.
1. A maximum amount of reality is aimed for. Because, therefore,Nature, by virtue of what it is, is potentially infinite – as is the Substance of which it is an attribute – reality itself, whichNature sets out, must also be infinite. But because Nature cannot set out the force of God’s will as spirit, which emanates from His love and is never infinite, but finite, then Nature can only strive for a maximum [which falls far short of infinity]. 2. Even its striving for a maximum is constrained by its finite supply of force, and [to compensate for this] it abides by the principle of achieving the maximum effect with the least expenditure of energy. Tat alone is its unconscious, technical ‘intelligence’. 3. Te same tendencies apply to the fantasy ofNature. As the aim is to get a maximum qualitative fullness with a finite amount of energy,
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the solution is to set forth ‘good’ forms, thus making the most of limited energy. In this respect it comes under the sway of the laws of Eros, an entity which prefers beautiful to ugly. Altogether, then, ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’ forms areoftheenergy. answer to the problem of maximizing reality on a limited budget 4. Nature is itself a multiplicity of unities; it possesses lots of impulses, so many that they are uncountable. What governs the mutual influence of the various unified patterns is absolute time. What determines the objective space and time which is relative to any organism is the form of Nature’sfantasy as a four-dimensional manifold. Te order of the imagistic content in this manifold results from the rules which go to make up the finite, accidental nature ofanything, and which precede in the order things, time themselves. 5. Te order in of which thespace worldand is created rom Nature and through Nature follows the order in which the intrinsic goals attached to each set of impulses are realized, the consequences of which being always accidental and arbitrary, as they do not derive from the goals of the superordinate stages. In other words, the simplest impulses are completely random and interact randomly with one another. 6. Each impulse possesses: a) intensity; b) direction in four dimensions; c) image; d) form; e) significance; f) position in absolute time; g) value and h) a real relationship to other impulses.
’ All the accidental and imagistic nature of reality is set out by virtue of the unity of Nature’sfantasy: Nature itself determining the accidental existence of anything, and its fantasy component the nature of the resulting entity. Fantasy comes under the same rules which constrain the urphenomenon, but within these limits it is haphazard and free. Te accidental meaning of things is a dual consequence of their essence Nature’s and Space is infantasy reality the form whereby this fantasy acquires an intensive, simultaneous and qualitative manifold. It is not a human form of intuition, but rather the overt form taken by fantasy, which is itself the second divine attribute. God, in His spiritual manifestation, has no ‘sensorium’, as Newton thought, but, on the contrary, space is existentially relative to a human being – as Kant was generally correct about.
Te elements of the divine fantasy are the simple qualities, which are then supplemented by unknown qualities, which are inexperiencable for humans but come to be known about through chemistry and physics. At root, however, everything is an impulse ofNature, which possesses a particular directional form. Te representations of fantasy are not explicable through the reproductions of their elementary parts. Any reproduction is a special case of the production which has the same motor effect. All in all, there is continuous creation.
() Spirit or mind is the passive ability to bring forth ideas, urphenomena, values and purposes. In contrast Nature is the active ability to set out reality and images. Both are activities of the attributes of the srcinal source of everything, whose eternal self-positing is itself what makes possible the functional unity of both sorts of activity. Te actualisation of spirit that is needed before any idea springs forth can only come about through the initiative ofNature after Nature itself has been disinhibited by the spiritual will. In fact this process is the only way in which Nature can be actualised, always by its disinhibition, and by means of thewhich spirittypifies holdingwhatever up an idea or isa value or a urphenomenon to Nature spirit proposing. Because we can only grasp the contributions of idea and urphenomenon in an actual concrete factual experience, and therefore cannot think of an idea as something prefiguring the actual experience, the entire absolute sphere of essences must be continually re-thought for each new entity. We grasp ideas as simultaneous possibilities of the nature [of something actually given]; we do not have access to possible ideas in themselves [in a vacuum, as it were]. Te isideas of the divine spirit form the contents of the worldthese itself. Tere no question of only a picture being involved. Because ideas are only produced to the extent that they are also realized – and do not prefigure or postdate the situation – there cannot be any prescience or world-plan. Te only ideal contribution to the actual situation is the eventual realized idea, which arises from the spiritual component of the Eternal Substance as the idea it has of itself, and it is this alone which is continually actual and determines all other ideas. Te
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same applies to Nature itself. At each moment of the world-process the entire past and future is contained as a potential, objective, logical sense, something which applies alike to both the living creature and the world itself treated as an organism.
() 1. Spirit is an inactive principle which brings forth essences, but it only does so in accordance with Nature’s motivational directions, never independently from it. It is neither purely spontaneous in its ability to produce ideas, but relies on the other principle N [ ature] to do so, and nor is it and the ideas and essences it comes up with of any intrinsic value in themselves. In the first place, it is set in train by the love of God, which affirms a maximum amount of reality. But, although it can only be motivated by virtue of this love, it must all the same be motivated by a simultaneous and co-srcinal direction of Nature. It is inherently wise – if we consider what the ultimate causal agent had in mind – to have produced ideas which are capable of maximizing the fullness which lies in Nature’s images. Te ideas themselves are therefore an attempt, and exclusively so, to realize these images. Te principle that ordains that things are realizable,and the further principle that things can be ideated, can only function together. Each idea intrinsically attached the coming-to-be what something is real, and realityis itself is both force and to ideality. An idea itself of is never that is realized in all its purity, because it is only a limitation, measure, negation or exclusion criterion of certain possibilities. Anything that is necessarily so is only the non-actuality [Unwirklichkeit] of the contrary. Heidegger understands quite correctly that Husserl’s notion of essences is false. But then he is only aware of contingencies, which is also false. 2. It is thing obvious thatsome theresort cannot be an idea existing with of nature – i.e.without images.any Teaccidentally interconnections of ideas possess a validity for things, but they do so for ‘this thing’, not for some general interplay of Logos. Te idea is there at the moment of realization. For this reason there are not even any subjective thoughts without fantasy or representation. Even in God himself such thoughts cannot occur.
Even though we can achieve a separation of ideas from their corresponding images and reality in the exercise of Reduction, in themselves [in the natural attitude] ideas cannot be so divorced. 3. a) Te sameentities, goes forasvalues. Terethought; are no free-floating values as ontical [actual] Hartmann there are only values ‘for us’. Values already appear in a natural setting, even in the inorganic realm of things, a realm not without goal-determined reference points. A dualism between values and reality is a false notion of how things are. Even the ethical values inherent in a spiritual being have a basis in the reality of God. And the shunting off of values into an ideal realm is a consequence of making everything else mechanistic. Geometry, for instance, is full of exceptional structures – straight lines, circles, etc. b) Te height of asort valueof has to do existentialis.relativity of something and the being thatwith thisthe something Only something that has actually come to be something definite a[ ktuales Sein] – not real or accidental being – has the highest value. Values themselves are a sort of being – value-being. In the case of loving something, its existence and value are as yet unseparated. c) Although the unity of value and reality is an accidental fact, the acts which grasp value and set out reality are closely connected. Memory and perception presuppose resistance [as sense of reality] and the evaluation of resistance. d) Everything contributes to the notion of the world’s being a history. As this happens, we find that there has been a growth of values, and not just an uncovering of pre-existing values for ourselves. Tere is also a value-led development. All inorganic matter and energy is not just a quantitative state of affairs, but it is rather the case that what is inorganic is still life of a sort, and what is life is inorganic of a sort too. Tis attests to the unity of Nature as a whole. e) Te laws underlying power of various kinds have their basis in nature. Energy self-destructs and in so doing creates matter. Matter is only a historical f ) Te highestfact. values are, at one point in the development of things, the life of drives with the weakest motivation behind them. But the law which accords the higher categories of anything to be weaker, and the lower to be stronger, generally reverses itself in the course of the world-process, with the result that there is a continual sublimation of forces, whereby the higher categories attract to themselves ever more force.
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Te world – at one time only an inchoate dream on the part of the Godhead – becomes more and more organized with the interventions of Nature, until it is a veritable cosmos, and then, even more, the history this cosmos. g) of Although values and accidental reality are dual, this does not apply to the essences, which are at the same time essences of value and of being. Te notion of an idea with its own value, in which value is somewhere beyond any actual entity, is bourgeois, and emanates from the upper classes’ wish to hark back to some golden age. Te only love which is not selective is the love of divine spirit. It treats a grain of sand and Goethe with equal respect, and, for this reason, it is truly the ultimate measure of values.
It is only through the actualisation – disinhibition – ofNature, by dint of spirit’s not saying no, that spirit itself can achieve a positive influence on things. For it is not on spirit’s say-so alone that it can exert its blind will and achieve any autonomous potential. Tat is to say that it does not possess an independent ability to activate anything, but depends on Nature. Before spirit forms a coalition with Nature its coalition its nature is inert. Before makesgoals with spirit, it –own Nature – possesses neitherNature ‘reasonable’ nor projects. Spirit is quite capable of outlining a perfectly harmonious ideal picture of itself and the world on its own accord – i.e. withoutNature. But such an ideal picture would simply remain dormant and ideal. It can only enable to happen what it thinks or loves, if it enlists the cooperation of Nature’spower to realize something.Nature, for its part, is desirous, from the word go, to set forth the maximum amount of reality, but it is only when the ‘do not do not’ role of spirit enters the equation, and Nature is allowed re-createsanything, the unityand of the srcinal to actualise join its ownSubstance inchoate, that fantasy-projects to those – of spirit’s – which turn them into genuinely possible and sensible ones. Nature and spirit are therefore essences, of a sort, which are eternally beholden to one another. ogether, they form an essential ‘body’ of contrasts, the members of which are themselves held in an interconnected matrix with its own mutual inter-determinations.
Te upshot of all this is not simply a brake on the reality goal of the world’s evaluation, but the putting into effect of spirit itself. Hartmann’s metaphysical pessimism has to do with the thought that itHis would if there no be world, andBoth if there noworld . idealbe is better that only spiritwere would at play. his were pessimism and his reliance on spirit alone would be quite in order if the realization of the world, and indeed the realization of anything at all [through Nature], were not necessary for the self-realization of God as a simple, eternal and perennial part of Substance itself. In order for God’s will to be done, the world must be ‘thought of ’ as ‘work to be done’. Tat alone guarantees the coming-to-be of the world and explains how anything at all can ‘exist’. It is certainly trueworld. that Substance has an eternal way pendently from the But the eternal love inhe rentofinbeing, God’sindespirit affirms the realization of His Substantial nature. Tis affirmation is a positive affair, and has as its consequence the option of ‘not saying no’ of the spiritual will. Hartmann does not see that there is a spiritual will – nor did Aristotle or Schopenhauer. Teism only errs in that it takes this will to be a positive operation instead of a negative one, and further confuses it with a positive love. God does not take back anything of the world at the end of the world-process, but reaches the point where His ‘idea’, set out in increasing measure, becomes perfectly plain as an eternal idea of Himself. He is mirrored in the history of the world, while the world at the same time becomes more and more divine. What is extinguished, as the world-process goes on, is only the ‘extra-divine’ [aussergotthate] elements of the world as modes of Substance, not the world overall. Te duality between spirit and Nature is increasingly eroded, but not the actualisation of Nature itself. Te divine spirit does not affirm the evil which Nature will unavoidably have to bring forth, nor the wickedness which it –Nature – is necessarily associated What this spirit, throughinNature its love,, indeed does affirm of Nature , is the with. component of Eros inherent its most profound core element, Eros being that component which is responsible for preferring values such as noble or beautiful. Te divine spirit does not affirm the inbuilt tendency of Nature to come up with the maximum number of forms – that is a projection of Nature’surge to achieve a maximum amount of reality – that is somethingNature possesses independently of its own erotic core. Nevertheless it con-
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dones these tendencies because they are dynamically at one with Eros [i.e. it can’t have the latter without the former]. Hartmann fails to see that between and above the components of Logos and will influence exerted by thebylove in God’s spirit, andthere that isthisa unifying leads to the intellectual intuition means of God’s will. He also fails to recognize the Eros component inNature, which is responsible for independent vital values, and which precedes in the scheme of things the striving for power inNature, and which is rather concerned with a qualitative, fantasy-driven fullness in the accidental nature of things. Hartmann’s duality – between ‘spirit and power’ – is something completely different from any dualism of ‘spirit and Nature’. Anyway, the notion of spirit that I hold by is not merely awithin logicalitself faculty, but components is primarily of an Logos entity and exuding holds the two will –love, the which latter to be understood as having a negative effect only. Moreover, the notion of Nature I hold to is one which ascribes to Nature not just blind, haphazard desires, but one which has room for two Eros-led processes – what I call the facility of making real [ Realprinzip] and that of making fantasy [ Phantasieprinzip]. In addition, I consider that ‘qualities’ are entities in themselves, and deserve metaphysical consideration in their own right; they are not exhausted by specifying their intensity. Even Nature is badly portrayed as something ‘blind’, as if it were a mechanical force. It is goal-orientated in itself, and only ‘blind’ with respect to spirit [geist-blind]; it would be better to depict it as indifferent to spirit [geist-indifferent], i.e. indifferent [or neutral] as to spiritual values. It even has an overall directional bias, which is to contribute to the eventual unification of itself and spirit in the one Substance, which last is superior to them both in the scheme of things. It is by no means blind desire or foolish bashing on regardless; on the contrary, it must learn to withdraw itself.
1. Purposefulness only comes into play when the understanding of an end-state occurs. In goal-directedness there is an srcinal, shared directionality of agents – A, B and C, for example – which is in agreement with their nature and possesses some constancy, but where there is no anticipation. 2. Tere occur no reasoned considerations as to what ought to happen in the light of any spiritual values. Te end-
result of several such concerted goal-directed activities can be stupid or clever. 3. Beginning, middle and end of such a process come about by forces acting linearly. 4. What results derives from the unity of the impulses. 5. Tisthat [unity] possible because shared spatiotemporal manifold they isfind themselves in.of6.the Goal-directedness is already subject to the constraints of quantum theory, whereby its temporal form and rhythm is affected. 7. Te formal-mechanistic formulation of anything is a statistical approximation. 8. Tere is only a pre-existing divine love, but no foresight, let alone a world plan. Reaching the goal of some whole entity is dependent on the goaldirectedness of its parts. But the latter are not srcinally tied up with the former, in the sense of sharing some teleological principle. In fact, the lawful goings-on the parts are never extinguished. Te particular forces behind them are everofactive. Terefore, although the goal of the entity as a whole can be set out, what comes to pass depends continually on the goal-directedness of its parts. MoreoverNature’s impulses are more in conflict the lower in the scheme of things that they are, and the lower they are – in this scheme – the more powerful they are. What determines victory in such a situation is the extent to which these warring impulses are guided by the directing idea. And the idea itself, given the situation it is faced with, is never perfectly realized. A [superordinate] goal-directedness can only achieve correspondence with its appropriate, subordinate goal-directedness by inhibiting and disinhibiting such. It can never completely divert them, nor create something from scratch in their absence. Te sequence of inhibitions and disinhibitions has to take account of the extant set-up of lower goals, and make whatever job it can out of them. Te basic elements that any such goal-directedness have to deal with are atoms of energy – indivisible centres of force – which science treats as possessing only intensity, direction and form. In fact, they possess more than this; they possess ‘character’ and quality besides. Space itself is in fact already determined by.the imagistic matrix of the dynamic relationships between such ‘atoms’ Te disinhibition of Nature, whose unity is guaranteed by the unity of the laws of movement, which itself indicates that there is a unity of force, results in an order being set up from the lower to the higher, and therefore also to a realization of the world in time. Autonomous energy diminishes the higher in the scheme the goal-directed agent is, until we reach the limit of spirit, where it becomes, as will, nothing at
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all, except, in a negative sense, as mere inhibition and disinhibition [of other lower agencies]. For example, if we consider three goal-directed sorts of activity – A, B, – B’s striving for its goalby is dependent itsand own intensity,C but it is also constrained the scope ofonA’s by intrinsic C’s activity. B then learns its own position in the hierarchy, from the effects on it of A and C. Te hierarchy then arranges itself as follows. Spirit Consciousness A Psychology – physiology ↓ Morphology B Colloidal and crystalline status ↓ Inorganic C which we might call pluralism, whichNaAn overall statestate of affairs ture conforms to, is not in any way simple. It is a functional structuring of impulses, with each component possessing c‘ haracter’ and ‘direction’. Force and drive-centres – or vital centres – are the two classes of impulses that we know about. Whether they continually merge with one another or not, we do not know. Te only sort of unity [or unified centre] which is more than a functional unification of goals and cooperation is that [instigated by spirit] which comes about through inhibited Nature. If it is in a state of disinhibition, it is a layered realm of different sorts of impulses. We can only make sense of the unity ofNature in terms of the unity of the laws of nature, so far as it includes the living and the dead, coupled with its derivation from time. We cannot, however, derive from the unity Nature the extent and characteristics of its particular impulses, or put these in an order of precedence.
order that some integratedevent. purpose fail,events therecertainly must already aIngoal-directed dysteleological Butcan living do notbe give any indication in themselves that there is an intelligent author behind them, who knows the contrasting spiritual values that might apply. Te huge evidence for dysteleology in nature – something which Darwin overlooked – in the form of an over-abundance of forms or stupid ways of carrying on – e.g. non-adaptive instincts – speaks volumes against the so-called teleological proof.
What there is of a harmonious or teleological scheme in nature – dysteleological as well – has to be considered in the light of the following. First, what we are faced with when we see empirical organisms or someaffair, vitalcomparable activity going is the remnant of some previously integrated to on a half-obliterated inscription in a fragment of some ancient cultural relic. Secondly, at its srcin, nature strives towards a maximum amount of structural diversity, whereas any logical appraisal [in retrospect] restricts what is set out, and certainly does not determine it. Te srcinal setting forth is not attuned to spiritual values, however much theism would deny this. Tirdly, it – nature – cannot be derived from mechanistic sources, which would make it already a mode of intelligence, or at least bordering on the intelligent, instead as it actually do ifwith something completely different fromof,intelligence. o is, be to sure, it were intelligent, then teleology would come into it, but as it is not, and as it is certainly not mechanistic, then teleology or dysteleology do not enter the discussion. Te lower individual levels of some organism are in a state of strife, war, and mutual repugnance, one from the other – the lower they are, the more marked this is – and what serves the higher individual levels is only the spare capacity freed up from such struggles. Tey are never simply controlled by the higher levels; rather they are utilized and exploited. Te lower impulses – electrons, for example – must be thought of as in a state of anarchy, and the picture we build up, of formal, mechanistic laws applying to them, really grows out of completely capricious and haphazard events concerning them, stretching down to the smallest elements imaginable.
If there is a living matrix [ Alleben], distributed throughout its higher anddefined lower unities among what callmatrix nature,plays thenwith nature itself be as the game that the we living itself. ocan be sure, qualities as qualia are necessarily related to seeing, hearing, etc. But at the same time the qualia are also outside the psychic realm, and outside of a supposed universal consciousness proposed by Fechner. Tey are inside the soul of the world and outside it at the same time, and therefore objective qualia do exist – as Duhem believed – even though we cannot but express their presence in the order of things in
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mathematical and formal mechanistic terms, and thereby substitute them for something else. All subjective, sensory organizations belonging to a living creature only determine what selection is made from qualitative systems, and the functions which they serve already belong to the metaphysical arrangement of life. But in another way too, seeing and hearing something in the hereand-now are dependent on the vital energy of Eros within a subject, which itself is part of the universal seeing and universal hearing of the Eros of the entire matrix of life. Yet further, objective qualities are themselves the consequence of constellations of goal-directed forces, which contain the most primitive sorts of unities.
unity or [ etc.is a definitive ] achieveTe functional of breathing walking, ment of the entire nervous system, represented as a network. If this or that organ is damaged or removed, the same function as before will be carried out in another way. Even species are primarily a functional classification. Te entire rhythm of life, and not temporary morphological make-up, is decisive for species’ becoming what they are. Expressive appearances precede purposeful actions, and are not some remnant of these.
It isthan therefore necessary to give the issue of functions tance that of individual morphology. Te matrix more of lifeimporworks on the environment by means of its species and individuals, and even through its constituent cells in their changing states. Environment and individual living form are both determined by functional groupings. Seeing, for example, is carried out by quite diverse-looking organs.
Because a God is pure spirit, it can only have a will ‘in spirit’, with no power to put its will into practice. Te power in question can only come about through the intervention of the matrix of life as an attribute of the Basis of the World, and not insofar as it is divine, but insofar as it is demonic. Te world, as the ‘life’ of the living matrix is finite, is onlyone living exemplification [Verleiblichung] of this living matrix, from which
an infinite number of other exemplars do and can come about, if the divine spirit allows it. God is not the creator of the world; He only lets it come into being. Tere there is no is positive decree that exemplification something should be created, instead, scope for a living by virtue of thebut, divine spirit’s desisting from forbidding it. In other words, the living matrix strives to exemplify itself. A world is given only to the extent that God’s spirit allows it to come about, and this itself is governed by His own essential ideas. Tis all happens, moreover, at a level of a timeless coming-to-be, eternally so, and from out of the living matrix. On the other hand, this world, from beginning to end, is only one of an infinite number which the matrix of lifecould allow to come forth. matrixofofa life itself, when it has its exemplification in Te the form world, then retires [tohanded await] over the death of the world [Weltentod]. Pending its [re]-entrance [Bis zu seinem Eintritt] the world ages, in accordance with the Second Law of Termodynamics. Te world comes-to-be [ent-wird], in the course of which it develops, spiritualizes itself and in due course passes away. Te meaning behind God’s release of the coming-to-be of the world is as follows. He achieves autonomy, and life is spiritualized. Te goal of all possible world-processes is the unity and interpenetration of spirit and the living matrix inBeing-itsel, this last, as the Ur-substance, being neither divine nor demonic. Although the matrix of life, with each world-exemplification that it brings forth – each one having a shorter duration than its predecessor – withdraws again in disenchantment, God benefits every time, because, as srcinally powerless and lacking any existential status, He, [with each round of life’s matrix coming and withdrawing] gains ever more power and ever more existential footholds. Te release of new world-exemplifications ceases when God, as a spiritual entity, has become, through His continually growing power, ever more relaxed geűgiger]. Te ‘mid-point in ime’ M Zeit] is the point where [there [ itteofder is the beginning of a predominance God’s spiritual power over the power to spiritualise [Machtgeist] of the living matrix. Tis ‘mid-point in ime’ of this world is now upon us. Te era of the predominance of the spiritualization of all matters has begun, and that means that what was coming-to-be has largely come-to-be des [ Entwerdens dieser Welt].
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When God is a finished entity [ertig geworden ist] – not just as idea and essence, which He is anyway and eternally so, but as an existentially viable and spiritually powerful entity as well – then we are at the end-point of all world-coming-to-be, spiritualising power [Machtgeistes]. and we have reached the end of Te srcinal tension in God, between spirit and life – goodness and Eros – is then at its most relaxed. God rests content with His life – His life as spirit. Te Fall of Man now becomes superseded. Te spiritual will is redeemed in God, and the notion of a blind will – as put forward by Schopenhauer and Hartmann – is avoided. For life is goal-directed and ‘sensible’ [sinnvoll] – not moralistic or intelligent. It is demonic, in the sense Goethe gave to the word. Te human being serves several purposes here: through in whom he is eternally safe and sound, he is liberated; and, at God, the same time, he contributes to God’s own liberation from His inner tension. It is just as terrible to make God responsible for the existence of this world, as it would be to deny His existence – as atheism does – or to deny the existence of the world even – as acosmic pantheism does. God is not responsible for the existence of the world, whereas He would be if He were all-good and all-powerful. It is not ‘God in God’, but the living matrix in God, which gave birth to the world. Any living creature itself cannot be responsible for such matters. Te existence of the world cannot even be interpreted in a moral sense, neither as the focus of blame – as Schopenhauer thought it could – nor as the focus of praise – as theism holds. In that all profound, contemporary, spiritual thinkers – such as William James, olstoy, Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, von Ehrenfels and Max Weber – deny that God can be all-powerful, this surely indicates the correct path to take. Te world is a living organism of the living matrix, and holds sway as a natura naturans [living nature] in God’s overall domain, eventually entheism. It comes-toleading to a overall more substantial hence pan be in God’s frameworkGod and –becomes, en route, more divine. Te actual history of religion began with God the master and the father. It ends with God the servant of love and the son. Power and domination is for the sake of love and goodness. Te father is now there for the sake of the son. Te first in God becomes the last. God had to release the exemplification of the living matrix – which led to the coming-to-be and birth of the world – if He did not want
His idea and spirit to remain powerless and without existential status. As a spiritual entity He was free to do so. Its – the world’s – essential nature was eternally predetermined within Him, but its – the world’s – existence not; itsitsexistence came–about virtue of the living matrix, this was last being – the world’s actualbyprimary cause. Furthermore God did not create the world for reasons of Self-glorification. He allowed its coming-to-be from out of love alone – of Himself and of all possible existential variants that are potentially in Himself too. In fact, God could have disallowed the coming-to-be of the world. For without His doubly negative say-so – i.e. ‘it will not not become’ – the world would not have come-to-be. If He had taken this line however – i.e. opposing – He would the fount of all things [Ens aits se]release to an eternal tensionhave andcondemned suffering. But God wanted harmony amongst the srcinal Being in which He found Himself embedded. He even wanted to liberate life itself from its eternal thirst to bring about its own existence into being. He more or less said to the matrix of life: pecca ‘ ortiter [sin away as much as you like]; get a move on, get the world on the road [Hinaus – ins Weltwerden]! And come back when you’ve done it! Te further course of actuality is the coming-to-be of the world in God, the ‘divinitization’ of the world – not the actualization of God, as heretofore. Pantheism, as a theory of the world, is false. But itis the eternal goal of all timeless coming-to-be. A timeless coming-to-be transformed into an emergence in time [entstehen in der Zeit] [that’s it in a nutshell] along with a fading away, also in time.
– 1. Without a living agent there would be no evolution. 2. Te adaptation of the living and the dead, one to another, excludes thenature dualistic biology of Driesch. inorganic – make upNature [Drangogether ] itself. – organic life and 3. If the goal of Nature is to produce a maximum amount of forms, each arranged along with their functions into a totality, and indifferent to the [spiritual values of] good and bad, and even strife or mutual support, then there is no reason to accept a spiritual srcin for nature. 4. In the same general way in which the Logos realizes its ideas, by appealing to the directional impulses of Nature, so does the matrix of
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life bring into the open its functions, through appealing to constellations of forces, thereby seeking to arrange them and adapt to them, in order to work on them, they, meanwhile, being never completely controlled. function remains for every species,down or example of such,Each to utilize, without its latent necessarily beingnew handed directly from its parents or its generic relatives. 5. Te notion of morphological vitalism is not a necessary correlate of the above theory, because it is a function – not a shape – which is the critical element, and, in fact, each organ and each structure is to be thought of as a ‘functional field’, analogous to the fields of force in the inorganic realm. 6. Te concept of ‘purpose’ should be removed from all biological considerations. theorganisms] first place, between we cannot speak of a separation [in most, if not all, In living a representation and an act of will. Secondly, [the critical spur to any action is] feeling the values, and [if there is] purpose [it] comes after such an event, and judgement [if that comes into it] even later. Tirdly, matters proceed by way of orientation towards a goal and this involves the whole organism. 7. Functional habits – as Roux conceived them – must be distinguished from a functional rhythm. Te former influence the size of an organ relative to its neighbours, the latter actually determines the shape and qualities of a structure. Overall, except for inorganic matter and energy and the collection of functions, which guarantee a unity of achievement, there is no third element: no entelechy, as in Driesch’s works, or Aristotle’s, is anywhere involved.
– 1. In the same way as the matrix of life ‘learns’ as it goes about bringing forth – i.e. it has a sort of ‘pan-organic’ memory – so does the srcinally, undifferentiated, divine Logos ‘learn’ from the history of its own past achievements. 2. In the cosmopolitan and world-historical participation of the human race, human spirit acquires s‘ tructures’, which thereafter take on a living and active role. Tese structures are also taken up into the divine spirit, which then utilizes them to direct and steerNature to realize its [spirit’s] own projects.
– Further examples are: 1) the unity of time and space and their interaction; impulses 2) the temporal, reciprocal dependence of events the realmofof force and those in the sphere of fantasy; 3) theinlawfulness form-building in space; and 4) the finitude of the world. Tere are, furthermore, principles of solidarity to be found between God and world, spirit andNature, and across the various social groupings in human interaction over history.
– -- Te world, as the love of God, is at each moment newly made corporeal from the eternally available raw material ofNature, according to the ideas and values imposed on this last by divine spirit. It is not strictly a continuous creation on the part of this spirit, but rather a [continuous] release and arrangement of what is being produced by divine Eros out of the material of Nature’s fantasy. Tere is no [unique] temporal creation of the world, therefore, because any point of absolute time is identical to any other point of time, in respect of what is happening by way of divine influence on the above material. Te world, moreover, is not co-srcinal with God, although intrinsically connected with the eternal tension and relaxation of this tension, which is part of God’s nature. Whether I say that the world is being produced now, or yesterday, or tomorrow, or was produced however many thousands of years ago that you like, amounts to the same thing. It is like asking where a stream of water starts – the water here being [a metaphor for the] world – when the water has but an eternal source in the Godhead. Te world’s ‘sempereternality’ is only a symbolic image for the [actual] eternity of the divine Substance. ime has no beginning, because any beginning said to havepresupposes an srcin. time itself and its contents. It can, however, be It is only with the complete neutralization of the tension [in the absolute Substance] that the world becomes wholly immanent in God. Better put, the world is consumed [verzehrt] by God, in a process whereby the intrinsic contrasts within God are erased in favour of the self-realization of God Himself. Even though the world has no beginning – but has an srcin – it does have an end, or rather a re-turn
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[Rűcksprung]. Te end is the end of time, as a form of production, and the srcin [ Ur-sprung] stands in direct opposition to the re-turn [Rűck-sprung]. Strict theism themaintenance notion of a continuous because that wouldcannot mean admit that the and creationcreation, of a world amounted to the same thing – which it cannot accept – and it would also mean that any unique temporal creation of the world was wrong. Furthermore, theism’s separation of ‘primary’ from ‘secondary’ causes would collapse. Te theory of continuous creation also requires the rejection of any notion of ‘matter’, in the form of some purely passive sort of stuff which God created in the beginning. In fact, any theism without such notion of ‘matter’ is inconceivable, because it is such ‘matter’, which bestows ‘substantiality’ world,[who in addition andwas outside of, God. Tis makes Berkeley,on forthe example deniedto, there such matter], a Gnostic. But if all matter is only an ideal image of force, then the substantial force must be part of the Godhead too – indeed its second attribute. It is not spiritual-being, to be sure, but it isNature – being. Furthermore, if matter is only a variable measure within the field of forces, then even the physical world is only the embodiment of the divine – Natural fields of forces. And if there is no sustained absolute material substance – in accord with the findings of recent physics – then there cannot be a separate world-substance – distinct from the divine substance itself – which God created at some point. All existing entities in the world must therefore be potentially ‘in God’, without God’s needing to have ever been in the world nor the world’s needing to have ever been already actually in God. In my scheme the supposed ‘secondary causes’ of things are not conflated with primary causes, but that is because the eternally continuous production is not a continuous creation but only a release. Indeed the notion of ‘secondary causes’ is quite essential to the scheme of things, because, without them, even God, in his spiritual capacity, cannot exclusively efficacy of anything, but Hebymust still up have potential determine efficacy, bythe which He can influence things holding Hisa own idea and value. Te secondary causes in this scheme of mine are thus the ‘occasional causes’ for the primary cause of spirit to appeal to – even though they are also part of the Godhead itself in the form of its Natural attribute.
Te principle – no more causation, no more effect – applies unconditionally for all spiritual issues, conditionally for all biological matters, but does not apply to mechanical versions of things. Te world is not a free of divine spirit. nothing ensues only nothing, and creation God, as spirit, lacks any From positive will orthere universal power. Moreover, the world is just as little an effect of a blind declaration of divine will. Divine will is only the potential to inhibit the second attribute [Nature]. God is responsible for the existence of the coming-to-be of the world, because He let it happen, but He is not responsible for what actually exists. Neither a no-strings-attached concern on His part for what might happen, nor His self-glorification, account for the inner reason for the coming-to-be of the world. Even if God wanted to to realize or embodiment realize His own substance He might want do toHimself give some to His love of–Hiwhich s own image – He simply could not do this unless He also released valueneutral Nature, which also involves setting in train all sorts of good as well as evil events. He had to take a big risk about the world Er [ riskierte die Welt] in order to become what was laid down in the image of His love. God did not require that the world would reflect any perfection, all-knowingness or all-goodness in respect of Himself; He was quite happy that He was in some way realized. Te basic reason for this is that God, in His spiritual mode, isboth essence and idea and devoid of energy to act. Te ‘power’ that He has is the power of being able to do something, and this precedes reality in the scheme of things. It is the possibility to bring forth reality. But God, in God, is independent of the world, and this is something that He is eternally: He is an ideal entity. He is also eternal knowledge of everything – at least outside of anything to do with Himself, as He does not have any srcinal consciousness. But His self-realization – as a historical subjectivity and as absolutely self-independent – was not possible without coming-to-be of the world. God therefore needed the world and the world-history to enable His self-development. God, in short, freely condescended to allow a world to be brought forth in order that He Himself could come-to-be as an extant entity. He could not avoid there being a world if He wanted to come-to-be Himself. In God there is a dynamic direction of what is coming-to-be, but no past, present or future. Tese temporal modes only apply to a finite living creature, and not even to the matrix of life, in relation to
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which time is the form whereby living forms are brought forth from it. Coming-to-be is anyway only the passage from the non-existence of a certain something to the existence of the same something. Even selfcoming-to-be srcin, entity an srcin Even to account for itsneeds beingan more in abecause state of every existing thanneeds not existing. God, therefore, is no exception to this. And, to sum up, that is why the world came into being. Aristotle’s God, which was in every way perfect, had at least the consequence that it did not need to create a world. It had no ‘will’ to do this because it was purely ’determination and thought’ B[ estimmtheit und Gedanke]. echnology has its meta-technology. If I took the world as the work of an ‘all-wise, and almighty God’, I wouldn’t even dare breathe, never mind all-good try to change it, in case I caused any damage to the achievement of such a lofty and holy person through my improper actions.
All inner properties or attributes of Substance, whose infinite nature results from its eternal self-setting-out, are completely unknowable to us. It is only because Substance is not only the basis of the world, but a primary cause, supreme good,exists and final goal of thetoworld process – and thatand suchthe a world process – that it came be knowable. A revelation as to the inner being and life of the Godhead does not occur. Metaphysical agnosticism, therefore, if it serves to draw the limit as to what metaphysics is, is quite in order, and, in fact, is demanded by the content of our metaphysics. If the coming-to-be of the world is only possible because of the tension between the two active attributes, which functionally kick-start things off, then the Godhead itself must be a coming-to-be, though [differingthis fromtension. the world its] eternally self-positing and atemporally relaxing It isin then clear that the Godhead, as a state of such tension, must itself be reached in some way. We ourselves, however, know absolutely nothing about the timeless pre-history of God beore the world-process was set in motion. Nor do we know anything about its eventual outcome [Nachgeschichte]. We are limited to what has been arranged as a world according to God’s idea of it.
In fact, the entire world-process is only an episode in the eternal lifeprocess of God Himself. Te world is a story, and one which is only an episode in the eternal life and being of God. only know God as being the foundation the world. But let’s clear: HeWe doesn’t exhaust His and life byofbeing the basis ofthisbeworld.
-- Te world emerges dynamically and necessarily from the workings of Nature, if divine spirit has freely waived its prohibitive option s[ein ‘non non fiat’]. Tis option waiving is not at all necessary in any causal or rational sense, because this ‘act of release’ is not a required effect of anything. It is rather teleologically required [i.e. needed for the future] for the self-realization of God. It is definitely a creation of something, but in an a-causal though motivated way. We have to admit that the world-process is finite, and so is absolute time – which first comes into being with the actualisation ofNature. But God Himself is eternal as Substance, and so are the activities of His two attributes, and therefore God’sSubstance does not need the world be He an entity. Whytohas not then eternally accomplished the teleological necessity of the coming-to-be of the world? If He had done so, then the world would also be eternal – in complete contrast to its current temporal finitude – and would mean that any entity would be the same at any point of time, and it would be immaterial whether time were finite or infinite. Our answer is as follows. God must have a way of comingto-be which is independent from that of the world’s [coming-to-be], and His attributes – infinite when considered as a mass – are kinds of ‘acts’ and [it is this fact] which makes any coming-to-be of anything possible. Tere must, also, already be a coming-to-be [of something] in God before any coming-to-be of the world. Te teleological necessity which attaches to God’s refraining from saying no [to the release of world-coming-to-be] is itself something which has come-to-be, not something which has applied eternally. Teism can never make comprehensible how a God, without undergoing change in Himself and without even a modicum of coming-to-
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be Himself, can create the world at one moment in time. It must resort to invoking God’s inscrutable ways. It cannot show by what means an act of creation – ‘Let there be world’ – differs from an absolutely arbitrary and random actworld of theenvisaged sort that in vontheism Hartmann talksteleological about. Te coming-to-be of the lacks any sense. On the other hand, von Hartmann, who is correct on the matter of the temporal finitude of the world as a process, has to assume that the translation of a potential will to do something into an actual act to this effect is haphazard and arbitrary, and totally devoid of any teleological or value-charged necessity. Teism, which teaches that the self-glorification of God has a teleological sense, but that the world is completely gratuitous gratuiter [ ], and not createdisthrough anyofneed of God’s, perfect can neither how isundignified the notion a completely entityappreciate wanting to glorify itself, nor explain why, if God did want self-glorification, He could not indulge in this beore creating the world. Moreover, if He were only to engage in thisater the Creation, the theist is guilty of imputing that God has become vain, and that any perfection beore Creation has become tarnished. Alternatively, if He is not interested in self-glorification, then the theist [lacking any other explanation] has no way of escaping the view that Creation is arbitrary and accidental, just as von Hartmann said it must be. Our view is that ‘creation’ is an on-going historical affair – i.e. it is a creative and continuous development [and not a one-off business] – and that it includes the history of the world or the worldas history, and that it must have some sense for God Himself. Only this way of looking at it makes any serious sense anyway, and shows how significant the matter really is. Otherwise, creation doesn’t rise a jot higher in the scheme of things than as a tragedy or comedy which the heavenly master puts on for Himself. Pantheistic ways of formulating the same matter are equally unsatisfactory. For Ifexample, cannot be isa logical necessity, in Spinoza’s sense. this werethe so,world how come there anything at all haphazard, or even reality itself, neither of which pre-existed God, but are the continuing product of His activity, even though they are ‘for us’. Anyway, a notion such as Spinoza’s on this matter presupposes that the world is eternal, and has been around for an infinite amount of time, either of which points is contradicted by what we know on this
score. In fact, any lawfulness of nature is dependent on the nature of reality [and not the other way round, as Spinoza assumes]. Another senseless notion is Hegel’s suggestion of ‘emanation’, something as a dialectical Godheisregarded not responsible for whatderivation. we find in the world, even though He does bear responsibility for its bare existence. Where should responsibility then lie? It cannot be laid at the door of a Substance which is supra-personal [űberpersőnlich], for the very reason that this is not a person, and because there is nothing that it could be answerable to or for before any person appeared on the scene.Nature in the form of natura naturans [self-creating Nature as opposed tonatura naturata – what is created] is not a suitable candidate for responsibility either. It simply does whatthe it does by strict necessity. Furthermore, spiritual dimension of God is not responsible for the world either – only for itself – because it does not create the world, but merely allows it to be. Te release, thus effected, cannot be construed as making the releasing-agent responsible forwhat the world is, only for its being brought into existence. Nevertheless God, and His spiritual dimension, is definitely responsible for the factthat the world is. Could He not have avoided bringing the world into existence? especially so, if He had anticipated the sorts of events that were to crop up, e.g. the Great War of 1914-18. And, even if God asSubstance could only come to His essential nature, and only achieve self-realization, by the very act of releasing the world so that it could come-to-be, but thereby allowing Nature free rein, must He not have hesitated before He gave the go-ahead, if He had anticipated the evil and wickedness that would follow? On this point we can make the following remarks. 1. God did not foresee what [das Sosein] world-history would be like. He knew, as ‘master of ideas’, that His potential had limits, and, within the confines of HisHespiritual dimension, wasnot as possible, or, in other words, what could stop. In His what incarnation Nature, He knew nothing. Te first of these [roles], however, gave Him a certain faith in carrying out his negative act. 2. God knew only what was impossible, but He did know that in His role as Nature He would be blind with respect to spiritual values. He deemed Nature to be innocent. So He must have known the likeli-
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hood that He would suffer. He even knew of the power which He had unleashed in Nature, and its infinite goal. 3. But God did let the world come into being, and, when He ‘spoke out’ ‘Let of it sufferi not not-be’, He simply resigned Himselfzation, to endurethe the words possibility ng, in order to achieve His self-reali along with a purification and harmonization. He loved the prospect of what He could become, i.e. what lay in store for what He would come to be. 4. He did not suffer on the Cross only for all the accumulated sins to that date, but had already suffered them in the hour of creation, even before they happened. He wept from the bottom of His heart as He spoke the fateful words, ‘Let it go ahead’, but there was profound joy in Him too God, as Heinforced Himselfmode, to takehas thefaith decision. 5. But His spiritual during the world-process that He will be victorious, i.e. that His idea will be victorious, the idea of His love for Himself. He remains true to Himself in this respect, and believes that everything can be accomplished through Him. He does not know precisely how things will turn out, but He does know that there will be an acceleration in the good accomplished, and a slowing down in the evil, although He knows that He cannot definitively prevent a negative balance of these. o believe in God means to keep faith with God’s intentions – to believe along with Him.
- [ ] Being-itself only has an eternal self-positing coming-to-be, and, through this, has, purely and simply, independent self-existence. Its infinite capacity for being what it is to become is based on this inexhaustible self-ness [Perseität]. Its spiritual dimension is not eternal, even though it is outside time, but it is able to acquire something from the absolute of and the can world-process enable it to grow. Spirit is always outsidetime time, only achievetowhat it wants to in absolute time, and by letting whatever outline of an idea it has be taken up by the temporal scheme which is underNature’sjurisdiction. It is Nature then that controls the absolute time which is the only process available for anything to be realized or for anything to cometo-be. Absolute time is dynamically infinite, but not actual, and that is why the images it produces spew forth in a never-ending stream.
In one sense, however, absolute time is finite, as it pertains to the particular course of events within one world, set against its infinite ability to sustain the course of an infinity of world histories in addition. In each of the worlds that it does sustain time. there is a relative, objective time, which is relative to itself – absolute Relative time is contained in this absolute time. Te world-process that runs in any particular version of absolute time expires in God, whenever the two attributes become one and completely interpenetrate one another. Our world is therefore only one of God’s story-lines, amongst innumerable others which could be based on other of His attributes, the only restrictions being that they [the attributes] are in a state of tension, thatideas theyhave can pan outtemporal historically. All of and God’s some connections, even though they are built out of the [supra-temporal] spiritual dimension of God Himself. Tis follows because of the nature of the world-process,beore which there were no ideas, and nor will there be any when it is done, and the same goes for Nature: all that will be left will be a continuing joy on the part of Being-itsel at the harmony achieved.
Te – spirit – is not something that be called a with person. first It hasattribute a capacity for being realized through itscan collaboration the second attribute [Nature, Drang]. Te existential form which then arises under such conditions of realization is ‘person’ P[ ersonalitas]. It is essentially linked with life and a living body. God, in the guise of the first attribute, is a coming-to-be-person [Person-Werden], and simultaneously a coming-to-be-world.
-- --
Independently of, and before, the world’s gaining its existence there is no absolute time. For this reason, one cannot ask what there was before there was world. But, in the case of God, thereis a timeless coming-to-be of eternity. Wedo know that. What we do not know is anything independent of the coming-to-be of the world in God. Te terms ‘beginning’ and ‘end’ in relation to the world-process are mean-
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ingless, because all beginnings and ends rest in Him, and are only partial processes. Te totality of the world-process is a consequence of His having given its go-ahead [i.e. not having not given it], coupled Nature with theSubstance offices of creative , by virtue of itsatbeing on theby eternal . Te world is becoming afresh everybased moment, virtue of what God does – i.e. continually condone its release. Te world is not eternal but sempiternal. Only God is strictly eternal.
[] -- Te entity Substance is eternal, whereas the existential status of God as the spirit andnature idea isisonly a coming-to-be. Teco-coming-tomaterializationidentity of God’sofessential impossible without the be of the world. At the same time, without spirit,Nature’s off-loading of its infinite riches, in the form of fantasy-images, would be nothing but ephemeral chaos. Nature must submit to the ideas and values of spirit, selected by spirit [with this in mind], for any enduring and indeed improved state of affairs to come about. Even the inorganic world contains neither quantities nor qualities which have any absolute constancy. Te more ancient the level that we consider in the scheme of things, the more it resembles chaos. Te haphazard array of natural things is a game played by God through His incarnation asNature, eventually through Eros, leading to forms and beauty.
Te eternal Substance contains a tension within it, which it tries to resolve. Tis resolution is what comes to be the dual process of both God’s and the world’s coming-to-be, or, [looked at slightly differently], ‘personal’ coming-to-be [in the former case] and the life of the world [inNeither the latter]. the coming-to-be of the world, nor the coming-to-be of humans as the highest creatures, were gratuitous, i.e.done for nothing by God. Te cost of realizing His eternal love in the form of the greatest good, and His needing to translate His eternal will into something efficacious, was His having to throw Himself, by means of His other side – Nature – into the absolute adventure of the world-process, with
its high point being the coming of the human being, and, all the time, not knowing precisely what might happen. Only an absolute trust in Himself and His spirit could sustain Him. o be sure, what God could have done was to persist in keeping going an eternal tension between a powerless spirit and an all-powerful Nature. But then, not only would no world have come to be, but neither would He Himself. Te eternal spirit would have had to endure a continuous encounter, throughout the vast night of eternity, with its [twin] Nature in a state of tension, with no expectation that a glimmer of light would be shed on the matter. part, Natureto[without spirit] to work ever forFor an its opportunity realize what it would can dohave [withhad spirit] –i.e.for[transform] God as purely spirit and, with the help of Eros, [incarnate and elaborate] the world.
-- Te Substance of Being-itsel does not become a person. Personhood is something that comes-to-be by virtue of the interpenetration of spirit and Nature – the only two active attributes ofSubstance known to us. In this way the directed acts–oflove, spiritthen acquire power, doing so according to their intrinsic rank order Logos and intuition, then will. Te vital directives become spiritualized, according to their rankings – Eros, vital Nature, then the forces of Nature. But all this is merely the ‘tip of the iceberg’, as it were, compared to the rest of eternal Substance, which is capable of setting in train an infinite number of attributes. As far as we are concerned, however, the coming-to-be of a person is connected to there being a coming alive of the world as part of the world-process. It is further connected to the requirement that all dead nature a fully, part-mechanism of and the matrix and thatbecome this serve theworking realization of spirit’s ideas values, of in life, the process of which it too becomes spiritualized. MeanwhileSubstance, with its infinite attributes, remains in itself, and in a self-positing status, for ever behind this curtain. Te coming-to-be of personhood of a part-subject of eternal Substance is further only a curtain, an interlude, in the eternal being and coming-to-be of God Himself.
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-- ’ God, in His spiritual guise, is not supra-personal like Substance. God, as spirit, is independent of Hisand coming-to-be, a growing interpenetration of spirit Nature, and which is alsorequires impersonal, the way Nature is srcinally impersonal and disembodied. But with each phase of the interpenetration of these two, a process catalysed by the unifying function of each attribute itself, there is effected the comingto-be of personhood as the existential form [Daseins-orm] of spirit, and lie as the existential form of Nature. God’s spirit or God as spirit has indeed no existence, but only [as it were] ‘holds sway’ weset [ ]; the same goes for Nature, which has no srcinal existence of its own, but is rather in a state of being ‘thirsty for existence’ n[ ur Daseins-durst]. Te totality of Nature and spirit in their interpenetrations constitutes the person of God; the partial, functional unities P[ artialunktioneinheiten] of the three functions – knowing, loving and willing – constitute relative persons or finite persons. God as spirit only becomes a person in the course of the world’s completion, a process which concurrently leads up to the ‘enlivening’ of God [zum Leibe Gottes, i.e. God’s coming alive]. In such an eventuality God’s person is no longer an attribute ofSubstance, but, instead, personhood has become the existential form of the spiritual attribute. Similarly, the world is no longer an attribute ofSubstance either, but has become the embodiment [Leibhatigkeit] of, or the existential form of, the attribute Nature. Te divine spirit breaks up or resolves itself [lőst sich au] into personhood, while Nature [Drang] undergoes a parallel dissolution into the living core of this person.
Substance must occupy a position above bodies, organisms and persons; it cannot be considered to lie on the same level as these.Substance can only be deemed something which is eternally self-positing, and which, in the course of such simple self-positing, co-posits its attributes. Nevertheless, this self-positing comes about through, and with the help of, its attributive acts and activities, and that means that Substance determines and sets out its essential nature through the attribute of its Logos, its value through its love of itself, and its existence
through its eternal Nature. Personhood is only something which has the characteristic of lasting throughout such activities. Only when Nature realizes something that by chance falls within the boundaries what concerns an idea, and conforms to the direction taken up byofeternal love, is there a meeting of appropriate elements – impulse plus love – and the makings of a profitable act.Nature becomes spiritualized in such encounters, while spirit becomes empowered. At such moments Nature relates as a whole with its images to life, and love relates to the indiscriminate pouring forth of reality by Nature. All this is made possible in the first place by virtue of the selfpositing of Substance, whose background presence is guaranteed by the eternal positing of the two attributes. Te flow of images [from Nature Nature ] is achieved emanating fromand itself, whereby a maximum of reality,bya rules maximum of variety, a maximum of forms of all sorts, are kept up. Tere is no question of any teleology or plan here. Nature does not have a plan; but it does have an objective direction and goal wrapped up within it, which it realizes according to the universal law of trinomiality [? genus, species and subspecies] in four-dimensional separateness. Purposes only apply when spirit is involved, and are spirit’s ‘goals’, or appraisals, conforming to its ideals, which it tries to foster by inhibiting any goal-directed activities of Nature which are incompatible with their furtherance, and by channellingNature’s energy into activities compatible with them. In fact, human culture proceeds systematically in such a fashion. Te reciprocal relationships betweenNature’svarious goal-directed activities – what is ‘up’ and what is ‘down’ in terms of promotions and inhibitions, what is lively and what is dying – do not take their cue from anything we can call intelligence, but rather from whether an impulse fits the bill for what serves the ‘whole’ or not. If you break something, a pot for example, the shattered fragments can still be put
together, but simply not because of anyasintelligent because they go together part of a activity whole. on their part, but Even ‘unconscious intelligence’ is a nonsense in this context. Goaldirectedness and stupidity are quite compatible bedfellows. Te predominant sort of causality – cause then effect – which we find in the dead world is a fact of our practical interest and way of looking at things. Te predominant sort of causality at work in the living world – purpose then means to achieve this – is no less an illu-
7
Teory o the Causes o Everything
sion than the above. Teories such as Neolamarckism are just as false as those making out God to be a mechanical sort of being or a creator of a special kind of intelligent life. In the objective sphere, all we ever have is a beginning, a means, andfour-dimensional then a goal withmanifest. side-effects, all taking place in an interchangeable, With all this going on, we can see that our mind is faced with several choices. In dead nature the predominant choice is: starting point→ cause → effect. But in the living world it is: starting point→effect → cause, or goal then means. In the second case, above, whenever Nature appears to be following such a law, in keeping with a functional dependence on alterations along four variables, from which we then select causal relationships and this principle regularity is not ‘logical’, but only purposeful ‘economical’means, and ‘technical’ . It only of stems from Nature’s actual modus vivendi, which is to proffer maximum reality in shortest time. But this is not something of which one could say either that it is good or reasonable. Te ultimate basis on which technical intelligence rests is the relationship between Nature as a whole and the idea of God and the love of God for Himself.
Substance 1. is eternal, self-positing being, superior, in the scheme of things, to coming-to-be and having-come-to-be. 2. Te self-positing happens while, as spirit, it is in a potential state to love, think, intuit and will,and, as Nature, it is in a potential state of striving for existence. 3. Te self-positing can be either self-inhibition or self-disinhibition. 4. Te self-disinhibition is at the same time an srcinal actualising of love, Logos, will and nature: in short, it is the starting point of the
world-process. 5. Te result of this self-disinhibition is that God, as spirit and will, actualizes Nature. Nature is thenceforth motivated or lured by God’s loving image of Himself, which constitutes Eros. Te concern with this actualisation and motivation released both attributes from their potential status. Te actualisation ofNature – as Eros – was the effect of the eternal love of God for Himself purposefully seeking His selfrealization, and, at the same time, was a release of the temporal com-
ing-to-be of a world – i.e. world-coming-to be or world history. God’s self-enlivening goes hand in hand with the divination of Nature.
[- --] Tere is a sort of being or entity whose ‘being’ is both in-itself and for-itself. Te ‘per’ [for] in question is the cause of neither ‘what it is’ nor ‘that it is’. It is rather purely and simply the cause of Being itself [es ist Seinsgrund schlechthin]. However, by virtue of the first attribute, Substance is the positive and essential cause of God and the essential nature of the world; whereas by virtue of the second attribute,Substance is theWe positive cause of and the negative primary cause of the world. can present allGod this schematically as follows. One cannot turn our mystical notion of the self-realization of God into an exercise concerning human history, as this last – like the Substance
Being-for-itself
Realization of spirit
Spirit
Will condones (doesn’t
Nature
Whatness -
determining ordains
ordain) Being of world based on an en tity whose being is to be for itself
Essence & whatness of world
Existence of world
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Teory o the Causes o Everything
world-process itself – is only a transition point in the timeless history of what is absolutely real. World history is rather to be envisaged – along with work – as a spin-off of God’s own realization – through His personlives – and at the as a symbol self-realization. Everyone through , insame and time or God. Our taskofisthis to co-release Him from the shapelessness of His Nature, to avoid making Him suffer, and to animate Him and ourselves in Him.
Substance alone is eternal, and only accessible to us through whatever the attributes express of the infinitude of these attributes, which is re-mirrored in the world. Tese attributes are spirit andNature. Substance itself – absolute self-sufficient being in the absolute sphere – is eternally self-positing in an eternal state of self-coming-to-be. Attributes are act-attributes [Aktattribute] as well as act-Substances. Te acts can be potential or actual. But their potential being precedes their actual being in the scheme of things. Substance itself is the only entity where anything actual precedes anything potential. Because they form an eternal parallelism in Substance itself, spirit and Nature could only have been transposed – in an act of Substance – as a pair. Eros, as the most developed attribute ofNature, i.e. an the attributes attribute of one oflatent motivated to release the creative potential inNature.itself, But the impetusspirit responsible for the principle that a world be created was no-one’s ‘will’ – as Hartmann suggested – nor spirit itself – a view held by theists and spiritual pantheists. Only Substance itself could provide the basis from within itself for the conversion and change which took place in its own attributes such that what was potential became actual. Tis conversion and alteration was determined by means of a relationship between those attributes that are accessible to us and those
that aretonot known us.accessible, hence the full cause of what happened is un-
- -- It is quite possible to think of some entity as becoming something or other in the course of time, yet not through its own intrinsic nature, whereas some timeless entity must always newly create itself to be what it is.
1. Being-itsel is something that has already come-to-be, because it is something that eternally posits itself by virtue of what it is. What it is within itself, that does this, is also eternal. 2. What of train, it thatwe is at which is the basis for anything changing that it sets in canrest, never know. 3. If Being-itsel were the basis for the world, i.e. the cause of a finite history taking place in absolute time, it must be construed as comingto-be, because otherwise the world would be as eternal as God is – as Aristotle thought – or would be without cause. Te cause must itself have become timeless, in order for any beginning of the world-process to be explained. 4. God’s attributes are activities. Activity is, however, a coming-tobe.Objections to any of the above include the following. It is a contradiction in terms to say that something which causes its own self is a primary cause of anything; surely, a cause must be something which precedes its effect, or else it must be something which is identical with its consequence? Against this objection, I would say that: 1)) this applies only to temporal entities; and 2) the identity A = A is only a limiting case of the usual cause and effect relationship. An organic entity must preserve itself in order to be what it is. Te idea of absolute independence contains absolute freedom within this very notion. Only something which allows its existence and nature to remain as formal attributes of itself is absolutely free and independent. Everything looks as if it is at rest at first glance; but everything eventually reveals itself as coming-to-be. Tere is an atemporal comingto-be in the case of mathematics. And strict continuity guarantees coming-to-be. Under the conditions governing panentheism [the doctrine which asserts that God is coming-to-be] one has to understand the following about God: 1) He is eternally on a higher plane to that on which the being of theis world lies; 2) there are many worlds in their own time; the world a manifestation of some effect, but not something that 3) is detached from its cause, as it would be if it were transcendent; and 4) the world is continually created, though, from our point of view, in a negative way, and as an emanation.
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Teory o the Causes o Everything
- Substance is being, purely and simply; furthermore, it is what unifies
everyneither other sort of being. It is incontrovertible being, whose non-being can be, nor be contemplated. It is something which any being has, and is something that just cannot not be. Even if some entity is no more, Substance does not just disappear, as it is also something above both being and essences. If one holds that the value of something is connected with the nature and existence of that something, then Substance is also something over and above values. It is even above unity and multiplicity. It is metalogical, metamathematical and metadynamic, and is the place where opposites and the highest categories of anything co-incide. It can neither be thought, nor seen, nor felt. Only through two of its attributes, which do have an expression in the world and for us, can some glimmer of it be indirectly transmitted. It is, itself, above space and time, and it is transcendent to all finite and infinite things, and even to anything immanent. As the eternal essence of what spirit is, it is an ‘ens per se’ [something ‘for itself ’], and, as Nature, it is its own cause. In relation to the being of Substance itself, the two attributes have to do with its timeless coming-to-be. Tey are the two sides of the same act involved inSubstance’s self-positing. Substance thus causes itself, and causes all other subjects [and matters]. Substance posits itself through its eternal affirmation of its own values, by virtue of its eternal love, its self-orientated thinking, and its self-directed willing – the triad here constituting it as an entity for itself. Its self-realization is taken care of through another of its attributes – Nature. Tis last also has a three-fold role – whereby its component Eros sees to its self-procreation, its dynamism sees to its self-materialization, and its fantasy sees to its self-qualification. Nature and spirit are connected by essential necessity inSubstance, and canAonly as acauses functional causework which itselfunit. would be a logical impossibility if one considered Substance in isolation from its attributes, and it would also look the same way if one treated such a cause as the srcin of being rather than as a timeless coming-to-be. Whereas, as a coming-to-be, the determinations of the two attributes of Substance and their mutual relationship are such that their ‘essences’ do not come-to-be; their ‘essences’ continue to contain logically the entireSubstance, as the objec-
tive concept of its signs. An attribute is not a property or an activity. It is a peculiar relationship which the attribute has toSubstance which is the key to its nature. Each attribute containsSubstance in a state of logSubstance ical meanwhile thenature bearerbeyond of the attribute, not immanence, as an unknown X which has somebeing sort of whatever the attribute has, but as the unifier of the multiplicity of attributes.
’ All possible causality between spirit and life does not come in the form of interaction, but as a setting-in-train or not setting-in-train of life. Te efficacy which the will possesses is therefore only an efficacy of being able to inhibit something, for, when it allows something to happen, the will can only approve whatever events are being striven for by life, without being in any position to alter them, or even to effect them. Tis applies to any willing which srcinates with spirit. Teism is wrong to maintain that the will has primarily a positive nature, and to believe in its creative power. Schopenhauer confused will withNature, and denied it any separate characteristics. Hartmann also put it at the srcin of things, and made it ‘blind’. But will is only the conscious correlate of the efficacy of the entire spirit, which, as such, is only a ‘front’ for how a mixture of entities and activities – idea, value, inner meaning, approval and – can havewould their say. In fact, without this remonstrating on negation their behalf, anyway remain a mere Nature potential. Aristotle and Hegel denied that God had any will at all.
- Te human spirit is made up of various sorts of participations in things. It is quintessentially a set of act-intentions, which, if and when they are ever carried out, are self-regulated, and are independent and underivable from anything biological – whether psychic or physical – and yet whose form and laws do correspond to something that exists. Each actual carrying out of one of their repertoire of acts is independent from any vital-psychic or physiological influence, although these have a parallel correspondence with the acts. All activity and energy which is used up in the execution of one of these acts has to come from life-energy, ie. drive-energy. God ceases to have any influence on the physical body, although is responsible for its actualisation by activatingNature itself, without
7
Teory o the Causes o Everything
which act even God would never see any of His possible thoughts emerge into the light. Even the pure act itself does not possess any intrinsic power and force. Te world and world-history are the codeterminations of divine loving, intuitingbyand are the ‘life’ of God, whichthinking, latter is no less realized thewilling. divine, Tey spiritual self-activity, than are the same mental characteristics in a human being. In addition, divine spirit gains experiences during the course of the work it set in train, experiences which it never had srcinally. Inside the world, as set going by God’s love, there obtains a strictly unequivocal parallelism. Te elements of this appear to our conscious experience to be without any parallel elsewhere, but this is not so. It is only the diverselevel selection order which als is available at a‘supra-conscious’ and reflective [Ober-Bewusstsein Reflexpsychisches ] which creates the illusion that there is a physical side to things without a psychic parallel, or a psychic side alone to anything, and hence the appearance of an interaction between the two. Only the formal-mechanistic level of being has no corresponding psychic parallel, but then it is not real anyway. Te divine Substance ‘personalizes’ itself in the course of the interacting activities of its two attributes. It is therefore correct to say that theism is [at least] one goal of the divine coming-to-be. Divine spirit is effective only within the unified conditions of a person. But it is not something emanating from ‘person’ [God’s or man’s] which eventually turns the world into a perfect organ of divine spirit [but Nature].
1. If divine Substance itself is coming-to-be, then religious history is merely the culmination of finite spirit and its aberrations and delusions. It is also the end-result of the theogenic process itself – the temporal mirroring actual process.its object crops up. Religion mustofbethe found wherever 2. Worship remains, but prayer as supplication withers away. Te only prayer which remains is the perfect devotion to maintain whatever God’s will has decreed. Te empathic allegiance with everything life throws up, in a Dionysian ‘at-oneness’ with Nature, becomes a typical religious comportment, not unlike a complete surrender to fate.
3. o sin is to cause God suffering, and if the human being is the only known place [in the cosmos] where the coming-to-of God from out of the Godhead and Nature takes place, then any worry about huSubstanceaffairs. man beings that way percolates from above – from – is only an indirect [Umwegdown ] of regulating human historical Because the objective sense of all human acts and attitudes is merely the enablement of the coming-to-be of divine Substance, then the ultimate meaning of what it is to be human is an external direction of human beings. 4. One can only act in any sense – e.g. love or know – in conjunction with God; we cannot worship God as a thing-like object. Te most extreme waywardness of all is to take the view that there is an eternal tabula rasa, a divine nothing, as it were, and throw everything into the melting-pot. 5. God Himself is not without internal support [ Stűtzung] [i.e. He is not entirely reliant on us]. But this occurs after He has become what He becomes, and because He has incorporated into Himself the condensed history of human beings in the form of a fourfold ‘principle of solidarity’ – God, spirit, human spirit and life values. Religion is therefore essentially a cult for worshipping the dead and the heroes of the past, or, put another way, sympathy with the untold masses of humans whose lives were lived out beyond the zone that the illuminating torch of history picks out – Unknown Soldiers, and the like. Te dead come alive, as it were, more and more so as the srcinal tension of the srcin of the world dissipates as God becomes fleshed out geworden [ ist]. An historical way of thinking is therefore the revival of what has gone before, and the transformation of all its tensions into a cultural synthesis, but, at the same time, the greatest service we can pay to God. 6. Serving God is not something to be done for reward or [for us] in the name of God, but it is purely and simply serving God.
1. If we admit the existence ofone matrix of life [Alleben], the question then arises as to how this matrix of life stands vis-à-vis Being-itsel [Ens a se]. We have said that the matrix of life cannot have been the latter’s creation. What occurred was merely the materialization of an idea, by virtue of life’s drives. Any notion of creation in this context presupposes life, as well as spirit. Something more must have been involved,
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Teory o the Causes o Everything
and that [something more] was Substance’s attribute and its activity. Even in the case of Being-itsel, its existence does not automatically follow from its having an essence, and there has to be a ‘self-realization’ of Being-itsel this , brokered outside anything solely do with spirit. All this forces us to conclude that of there must be someto‘reality-positing’ attribute in addition to the attribute of spirit, in order that the essential forms – ideas and values – contained in Being-itsel can take root. In fact, this is a general ontological principle, and one cannot avoid coming up with some sort of notion such as a thirst [ Durst], or urge [Drang, Nature], for reality in this situation. In addition, we have to invoke something which will explain the undoubted accidental nature of images, and it is that which I call fantasy. Te matrix of life, thereDranges fore, of ‘Nature’s [eine ], a relatively higheris one sort sort of matter thanmatter’ that out of Stue whichdesthe inorganic world is made, this last being derived from centres of fields of forces. 2. Here are some general remarks onNature. a) Te eternal Being-itsel, which is eternally self-positingSubstance, is both Nature and spirit – its two attributes which are known to us. b) As attributes, they are above time – above absolute time – but they become activated when disinhibited, and, in that condition, give rise to absolute time. Otherwise [if not disinhibited] they remain as they were – above time; any act of spirit, for example, can only determine timeless essences. 3. Being-itsel [ or Substance] is dynamic and all-powerful, because it is so infinite, and that is why it can give rise to reality and the accidental nature of anything. 4. As for values, at the level of forces, any values are blind to vital goals, but at the level of the matrix of life there is a maximum of positive values. 5. Te general rule in nature is that a maximum of forms is achieved with the smallest amount of means. Tis principle of economy, combined with the principle of least effect [being behind the maximalizing and goal-directed situations. of 6.forms], appliesofboth to causal Te creation images, and thedetermination of all the accidental natures of things, occurs under the shadow of the essences and their inter-relationships. Nature’sfantasy takes qualities as its fundamental raw material. Te psychophysically identical qualities are the material of Nature, but, in this case, the qualities involved are unrestricted. Any theory invoking a subjective nature of qualities is wrong.
7. emporal forms are functional unities – not simple elements – and are set forth by Nature. Te lawfulness underlying them is arranged from top down, although a higher function never actually unequivocally determines a lower one;place it can onlybelow restrict it in some way. 8. Any increase in centres takes from upwards, starting with the simplest inorganic centres of forces. 9. Te same goes for the intensity of forces. 10. What spirit takes to be of primary concern – its idea of love and its value-preferences, for example, or the strivings of the eternal coming-to-be of Substance – are actually the last to occur in the order of temporal coming-to-be. On the other hand, whatNature sets forth, in the form of existential but accidental versions of anything, which it takes for its primary the simplest elements of bod Teism’s notion, that anconcern, almightyare spirit comes first, followed byies. a perfect human, followed by everything else, is utterly false. Te world evolves rom Substance [not purely from its spiritual attribute, and, although actually from its Nature attribute, this latter source is both condoned at the outset and steered by spirit in every phase.] 11. Te matrix of life obtains the energy to fuel its manifestations exclusively from the energy of the inorganic. Spirit obtains its energy – or power – exclusively from sublimated vital energy. Otherwise it is only a potential entity; directing, inhibiting and disinhibiting Nature are its repertoire in this respect. 12. We deny that any gratuitous creation of the world takes [or took] place. Being-itsel [Substance], if it wanted to realize the Godhead, had to put up with the world. Te supreme goal of theogeny and world-process, each reciprocally related to one another,is the complete transformation of the srcinal Nature – at that time blind to both vital and spiritual values – into an idea-laden, value-laden and purposeful entity, according to the ideas and values pertaining to the spiritual dimension of Being-itsel; or, looked at another way, the realization of the Godhead, which at that time was only an ‘essential God’ [nursrcinal ‘wesenden’ Deitas]; or, in yet another way, the spiritualization of the matrix of life and the realization of spirit; or, finally, in yet another way, the unity and interpenetration of all dead energy with the matrix of life, and the further pressing into service of all dead energy in the interests of the matrix of life. In short, we see in all this an indivisible process but proceeding in a two-fold manner.
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Teory o the Causes o Everything
13. In addition, Being-itsel, by virtue of what is happening to its two attributes, grows and matures in respect of what it is coming-to-be. Infinite spirit also grows in the course of the world-process, in terms of and values andthe in,essences, the actualideas historical spirit.it is capable of exhibiting, both with, Te matrix of life also grows in its functional manifestations, and this by dint of the births and deaths that it encompasses. We see here that the meaning of death is precisely to be a part-process in the entire world-process which is serving the self-realization of God. 14. Until the world achieves a state of completion,Being-itsel is also still incomplete, i.e. it is not yet ‘God’. As soon as the world, in the form of a perfect organism, i.e. life, has become God, then the Godhead itself realized. 15. isTe essence of the human being – a spiritual living creature and a microcosm – is also to be that creature or entity in whomBeing-itsel becomes aware of its two attributes and the tension which characterizes their relationship, and, in whom, and through whom, the most immediate sort of coming-to-be of God takes place. Te human being is therefore neither slave nor child of God, but friend and co-worker. o be a human is a direction, not a thing [eine Richtung – kein Ding]. Te direction of life taken up by a human is in fact just as much a continual humanization of God [Menschwerdung Gottes], as a divine participation on the part of humans – i.e. a self-deification. God is only a human – as a spiritual living creature – writ large; a human is a small God. 16. Te notion that world and Being-itsel – this latter being the supreme cause and srcin of the world – should be made aware of each other in the human being is common to the writings of Spinoza, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Hartmann. Tis becoming conscious of itself on the part of Being-itsel in the human being takes the form, on the part of a human being, of knowing God, and belongs to the very essence what abeing. human being is. In short, religion is selfconsciousness in aofhuman 17. In every sort of death, the organized functional arrangements of the matrix of life, which are represented rhythmically in the function field of an organic body, return enriched to the matrix of life. Te life of the Godhead grows with each death, most significantly with the death of an entire species.
In the case of a human being’s death, there is the additional return of his or her spirit back to the divine spirit – to the extent that this obtained activating energy from sublimation [of Nature], and therefore developed in the course thehislifeorofher theindividual person – person-act-centre so that there will be a concentrated residueof of in God, a point in favour of human immortality. Furthermore, a human’s death will contribute all the more to God’s self-realization if the human being let drive and spirit interpenetrate in their life-time. Te immortality at issue here is finite, what Goethe called relative, aristocratic immortality, as the immortality does not get taken up by Substance itself. 18. All finite creatures, therefore, are, live, think and act in, with, through and or, the God. In summary Substance, which is the basis of the world, has two attributes – spirit and life. Spirit realizes itself in the form of a person; life in the form of organisms. Its [Substance’s] coming-to-be consists of the spiritualization of life – with the critical movement being from below to above – and the enlivening or realization of spirit – with the critical movement here being from above to below. God’s will is only a ‘not saying no’, and is not a commandment. For these reasons, the spiritual Divinity is not responsible for the world, because its power was purely of a negative kind. Moreover, the [metaphysical impasse one comes up against in considering the notion] ‘out of nothing’ is avoided, because creative Nature creates what it creates from out of itself. Nature, the principle of realization, is in itself beyond good and evil, beyond good and bad.
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Teory o the Causes o Everything
Schematically, we can portray the situation as follows. Unknown attributes
Attribute 1
Love
!
being-of-value
Intellectual Essence
intuition
!
Spirit
Being-itself God in God
Supra-personal Substance
What something is Logos existence pure intuition existence
Will
"
!
release of
or condoning
Attribute 2 Eros
Empirical concept Fantasy Qualities
Drive Positive reality factor Quantity
Life drive Life Death !
drive
ontrary to the false theory that there is a complete independence between the appropriate mental act that gives us something and the essence of that somethingand the fact that this something exists, a philosophical position that crops up in a variety of guises, we teach that these three elements are inextricably bound together [i.e. mental act, essence and existing entity]. Te essence of something ‘is’ only in the mental unity of the idea of that something and its Urphänomen [its srcinal manifestation as a living image], along with the corresponding acts which give these; alternatively, we can consider the essence as an intellectual intuition of something that is actually in the mind of the Ens a se [the absolute Being]. Further-
C
more, hold that to each existing entityentity, thereand belongs an essence, which we is exemplified through this existing that for each essence there is [necessarily] some existing entity. Tere are no essences or values [adrift] ‘in themselves’, if ‘in themselves’ is taken to mean that any mental act which reveals these is secondary and consequent on their srcinal independence of this act, i.e. that act and essence are ontically independent one from another. Tis formulation of matters is counter to the views of Bolzano, Husserl, Linke and Hartmann alike. It is the bulwark of our philosophy against all Platonist views. Te second principle [that each essence necessarily entails existingagainst entity] is contrary to all forms of philosophical ‘idealism’ , andan therefore all theories which proclaim that an existing object is a consequential being of some thought to this effect: whether this ‘thought’ be a judgement as to something’s existence or an identification with its supposed object is immaterial to the thrust of this [false] argument; Rickert and Husserl went down this road.
If one does not realise that access to reality, on the one hand, and essences, on the other hand, are quite separate, and that for one or other to be given this requires a radical shift in our mental attitude, then one simply appreciate of these andsame essences] but thecannot same matter seen that in a both different way [reality and at the time.are In fact, the [blinkered] person we are criticizing would be led to assume that there must be an absolute and pre-existing duality between the actual being of anything and the objectively available being of it [for humans], and that this duality is independent of anything to do with any mental act which could bring either to light. Furthermore, anyone who held this view would be forced to maintain that extant things are in some way attached to a realm of essences which would still exist or still hold sway if thethat actual livethe in repository were no more, and would have to even maintain thisworld realmwewas of truth before anything actually existed; whether the truth of all this were God-based, or ‘in-itself ’, or independent from any communally-based mental disposition, would be irrelevant to the matter in question. Te same person [whom we consider on the wrong general path] might turn to Aristotle and claim that the essence of something was inherently attached to the thing, as a potentiality to this effect, whereby it somehow caused the form to arise. Such an invocation falls flat because it ignores the fact that there are two sorts of human acts [we might call them ‘vital’ and ‘mental’] – one to do with the drives of the living, human being, and the other to do with the human being as a thinker; the former encountering a world of resistance, the latter one of objectivity – and that the human being is that sort of living being which can shift at will between these two, and, therefore, any notion of a ‘sensory world’ and a ‘world of the intellect’ is merely an artificial consequence of our human apparatus, which cracks open the unity of the actual world. But any such solution as the above – where the essence of something deemed to justice be inherently invested in it or to precede it in some is way – doeseither not do to the actual relationship which holds between the essential nature of something and an accidental version of something, nor to the different sorts of knowledge which pertain to drive-based imagistic perception, to grasping the existence of something, and to completely knowing the essence of something. Let us begin with the last of these.
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Supplementary Remarks
Attempts to formulate this issue so far are littered with errors. For example, because the focus of the inquiry is an independent ‘object’, something that remains identical [over time and across space], the inquirer feels to Such assumea that there must be an independent sort of being to obliged essences. conclusion is completely unwarranted. Te objectivity of an object, and its independence or otherwise from a knower, tells us nothing about the actual being of an object. If the existential status of a thing is abolished [e.g. in the thought experiment we call reduction], even though the essence remains in this case, it does not mean that they [the essences] were hovering over the things all the time. If it were the case that the realm of essences were made up of such independent beings, why thenexperience is it generally necessary there to be a passageideal through accidental in order that anfor entry to the realm of essences can be achieved? According to the view we are criticizing, this would make no sense. For example,can one really form an idea of the number 3 without bringing in the notion of some set of numbered things, or the idea of a plant without ever having perceived one? Each knowledge of the essence of something must derive from some srcinal knowledge of an accidentally existing version. So, before there is anything which is an example of an essence, there is simply no essence of it, and, equally, there will be no essence of something when that something has ceased to exist. Te critical difference between essential knowledge of something and inductive experience or observation is not that the former does not require any actual experience at all in the form of a perception, etc., whereas the latter does, but is rather that the former is in principle possible on the basis ofone example only, whereas the latter depends on there being a number of cases and the creation of an empirical concept. If the being of an essence were independent from existing things, it would be open to us to know all possible essences, not just those which have been brought into play in the of knowledge the accidental world acquaintance. Suchcourse radical as incircumstances this scenarioofis our impossible. How could I ever know now some essential matter which will only first come to light in the future course of absolute historical time? Te acceptance of the preceding line of argument not only leads to the establishment of a static, ‘non-developing’ world of ideas, but also to the outrageous proposal, suggested by Husserl, that ideas can be ‘seen’, in the same way as perception lets things be perceived. Te fact
is, that essences are only the means of grasping ideas and can never be anything more than drafts put up by a mental apparatus geared to the coming-to-be of things, a mental apparatus, moreover, with an inbuilt tendency serve coming-to-be of things. In that toone canthis consider the essences in isolation from the mental production process and living forces which gave rise to them, one may well be inclined to talk about ‘things in themselves’, and indeed Hartmann uses these very words in this context. However, if one does do this, one is then driven to treat these essences as if they were even responsible for providing the actual sense and aim of all beings whatsoever. In which case, they seem to be there not for the sake of the world process – whereby the latter is led and controlled – but, their on the contrary, the world processand itself appears toof be purpose – in the form of examples illustrations theserving very ideas themselves. Becker’s remarks on Plato’s conception of mathematics are germane here. Ideas, however, are far from being the meaning of the world process; they rather only serve to guide it, and, in doing so, allow the concrete being of theEns a se to realize itself. Ideas serve a comingto-be, in the same way as knowledge of ideas fosters the cultural accomplishments of mankind and allows the world and everything in it to be captured by us. It goes completely unnoticed in all this that not only we humans, but every creature capable of knowledge, would remain in the thrall of such a ‘world of ideas’, without having any clue as to its orientation within it, and this regardless of whether the ideas themselves or only symbols for them were grasped, and how much of the ideas were grasped. By itself an all-knowing being could never know the complete world of ideas fashioned by God – that it was complete and that he was all-knowing – if ideas were independent from all possible acts and existed in a realm of their own. Can one really envisage ideas circulating in some manner in complete freedom from the essential referential
acts? It is moreover completely incomprehensible how this dualistic notion of being which sets up ideas and reality [on an equal footing] can account for the fact that ideas and their collective structure are valid ‘for’, and only rely ‘upon’, reality for their very significance. In this context the so-called ‘panarchy ofLogos’, which, as a matter of fact, is not an extant thing, needs explaining. If, on the other hand, one considers ideas to be an accompaniment of things, and fashioned such that they
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Supplementary Remarks
promote the coming-to-be of the imagistic realization of life and real being itself – as drafts or limitations of what can be, or otherwise conceived as guiding concepts of the very coming to fruition of the world – then theambiguous validity inherent in these ideas as negative restrictions, possessing determinations, with –partial and incomplete jurisdiction, and lacking in intrinsic power – becomes all too obvious. It is also easy to see that the human mind can only bring forth such ideas if it is part of a collective mind [a suprasingular Geist], otherwise it could not give its world that unified structure and form, something which the givenness of perception alone cannot supply, because this last could apply in a number of possible worlds. According to the theory we have been criticizing, however, there are only two solutions to the1.position a proponent of this has found himself in. of the Either one takes ideas to betheory the srcinal causes and forces actuality of the world, determining every twist and turn of it. In which case, one must deny that there is any independent principle whatsoever which sets forth reality, or that reality has its own rule-governed way of being. What this boils down to is that reason has a valid claim to reflect what is going on in the world only because it, reason, has created it, or is eternally creating it, whether directly so or through the mediation of a will to this effect. Even ‘matters of fact’ then become, in such a formulation, nothing other than ‘matters of reason’. Tis entire scenario is unacceptable to us, because we reject the very possibility that ideas have a positivity, or a power, or a clear-cut determination, vis-à-vis the world, and we further reject the attribution to reason of any creative power or even any element of a positive will. 2. Alternatively, one has to assume an independent principle of reality along with its own rule-governedness. But, in this case, it then becomes completely incomprehensible how any such process might lead to a corresponding idea of something, which leaves the realm of ideas completely out on a limb to conjure up its own way of being independently of whatever state affairs – in which ideas arecomprises ‘supra remthe ’ – reality no lessprinciple. than the Tis former caseof [alternative 1. above] – where ideas are ante ‘ rem’ – fails to make the plurality, content and interconnection of everything that is, in any way explicable. It is a situation, moreover, even though it is supposed to explain rationality, of a perfectly irrational world. Te way out of this impasse is to realize that the needs of the life force make the whole matter in any way understandable – why, for ex-
ample, this and no other idea appears, and in this or that phase of the world-process. Tat means that we can understand not only how particular ideas emerge from the mass of interconnected ideas and from the and dynamics It also explains how ideastotality are in part a product of of the the world-structure. coming-to-be of the Supreme Being and in part the progression of humankind. Further, it explains how even the content of the ideas comes about, as a selective realization of those ideas available to an infinite mental and spiritual being, which the life force calls for. What is now virtually agreed these days, in respect of the history of the human race, is that each era devises ideas which correspond to the real tasks and the constellations of being prevailing at that time, and this is equally true for the era of world-time measured against the entire theallworld, and forms. that includes the chemical composition of thehistory world of and its living Te ideas which a mental and spiritual entity brings forth – whether this entity is human or divine – are therefore meaningfully related to its historical situation, and, in an ontological sense, it is quite easy to explain the very existence of the entity we call ‘idea’. Reason itself is ontically explicable [i.e. in respect of its nature as an existing entity] in terms of the highest ideal and real principles of being and becoming. From the real principles on their own, however, ideas are not explicable, because they are the very means whereby the becoming of being is schematised and led. On the other hand, the determination of the content and structure of the world of essences in no way follows from the inherent logic alone of a mental entity capable of thinking, but, in addition to this logic, there is always required the presence of the constellation of the actual image-producing capacity of the life-force. From the above, it follows that it is unnecessary to conceive of ideas as existing ‘before’ and independently of the coming-to-be of the real world, and, therefore, for them [idea] to have an existence, or a being, or a truth value. Tey are ontically explicable [i.e. in respect of accompaniments of the coming-to-be of things, not their nature] precursors [oraspre-existing entities]. As finite being generally emerges at each moment of absolute time out of the Supreme entity, so there also arises at each moment out of the idea-creating mind those idea structures – and, as a consequence of this, those individual ideas also – which are necessary for the guiding of the world at this moment. What is absolute and eternal is only theprinciple o ideation, which sustains the external mind itself, but not its particular creations, the
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Supplementary Remarks
ideas. Te essence at any moment is only an abstraction of thought and a potential appearance – an entity with intellectual reference only, and not an intuition. Tere is no separation of the essences from this creative act.
From the above account it is therefore incorrect to regard the ideas as standing outside time or as eternal, without first specifying the notion of time which one has in mind here. We would like to show that the actual essences are outside time, if time is taken in this context to be physical or relative time, which is measurable. In this sort of time, the ideas are absolutely constant and there is no question of any repetition of different examples of the same idea: there is simply no exchange, no passing away, and no new creations. All this does not apply, however, when we have in mind the notion of an absolute time – to which no space corresponds – a time in which the very history of the world takes place, where coming-tobe and passing away do occur, and which is no longer relative to any particular life. In absolute time actual ideas are exchangeable, though not alterable, as ideas do not alter, and they are contents of the ideacreativity of mind, and are not part of some pre-ordained eternal plan oro prophetic give an ability. example: I make a plan to myself in order to realize some on-going project. I address the issues which are involved in bringing the plan to a successful outcome – before, after, or concurrent with, the steps and actions I need to take. In actual fact, my plan will alter as I encounter, and then adapt to, different circumstances along the way. But there may come a time, or may not, when the plan is achieved down to the last detail. In either case, if I review the plan, along with what has actually happened, I find that there is a history of what hapand run pened, a history of what to the plan. histories do not along the samehappened level of temporality, butTese are ontwo different levels. Te planning of the plan was not itself re-run; the plan simply came to be in me, like the ripening of a fruit from its seed. It came to be in ‘my’ absolute life span, not in ‘my’ relative temporality. en years on, an objective measure of relative time, on which my absolute life span is projectable, I can look back on the plan as a historical event which
has now become foreign to me, and I might even no longer understand what it was all about. Te same sort of process applies to peoples and nations as well. A nation mayand haveitsamores. vision Such of its afuture, character, its politics vision which has itsunderpins foundationitsdeep in the absolute time of its history. But what happens if a completely new vision erupts? Te nation in question can then barely understand its previous vision. What we have here is a shared set of temporal assumptions affecting what a nation does or strives to do within the scope of its vision. It involves a certain attitude towards the future, which a nation now has, but on a different plane from that on which its historical time rests, because the new vision even affects its actual history, including its sets traditions and the wayweitshave, history represented academically. In both of examples what andisthese are not contradictory notions, is: 1) a subjective relativity in relative time; and 2) the relativity of a subject in absolute time. In so far as these sorts of instances occur, the subjective sort of absolute time is an objective sort of generally valid time. But this entire way of looking at things no longer applies if we take into account the relativity of time to the Supreme Being. In so doing the relativity of a subject – be it individual or nation – to the time of its ancestors falls away. In this sort of absolute time – that of the Supreme Being – there is no ‘recurrence of the same’ and no reversibility of the past – without which relative time is unthinkable – and this sort of time is simply not amenable to measurement. In this absolute time we are talking about here, the very idea-structure of the world can undergo a transformation, making this sort of time the crucible, not only for creativity, but for creating anew. Te relative poverty and limitation of human reason consists, therefore, not in the fact that it only allows the construction of historically successive varieties of an eternal world of ideas, but its poverty lies in the precise opposite of this. It is that a renewal of the essences of the world absolute is simply not anfacing available reason,inand indeedtime the critical problem us isoption that weforarehuman stuck with ideas of yesterday and long ago. If the world itself is a coming-to-be in absolute time, and if there can be no essence without an existing entity, then even the very set-up of essential structures must be a coming-to-be, a transformation and self-unfolding.
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Supplementary Remarks
Once upon a time there was something called truth, but it was only the manifestation of our clinging to convictions, a soporific for changing times. Now, however, our knowledge of the world corresponds to Nietzsche’ s version – no-one is going to let themselves be killed for the sake of their convictions. Philosophy is not a ‘perennial’, whereas it would be such, according to the assumptions I have been criticizing. It is not even trying to trap the vagaries of time in an apposite thought. Rather what is written about in historical philosophy is at the very most the world of yesterday and even before that. When people say that despite the changes in our scientific knowledge over the centuries we are still at root Greeks in our world-view, that can onlytime, meanhas that, the abovepassed fact, ththem e coming-to-be essence in absolute completely by. It wasofbyanprofound necessity that Aristotle held scientific matters to have been completed [bar our understanding of them]. It corresponded to his view that all forms of things were constant – stars, elements, biological forms, ethical constraints, political arrangements, etc.He had no notion of an absolute time, and even relative time was only the way movement was counted, which is anyway an instantaneous matter. He confounded relative time with its measurement, and absolute time with relative time. We, however, take the view that the entire matter under discussion here should be treated in exactly the opposite manner. o uncover the truth of anything depends on the stage reached in absolute time, and the world process; it does not mean that one is searching for something already there. Te world is merely a history, and all apparent constancy in the world is relative to the subject caught up in this historical process. ruth is dependent on the being-true of the person, their self-gatheredness, and the creative base of things, all of which vary according to the state the world has reached in its development. Allschool truth of is thought thereforeknown ‘historical’, but not, rather in theitsense given to this by the asrelativism is historical because, and in so far as, the very being of what is real is itself historical. Even the being of mathematical objects does not stand outside time. Either it is to be deemed within perennial time, and, for example, 2 + 2 = 4 has to be perennially reconstituted. Or, it is rather to be deemed
within historical time, where again it is constituted, and where it owes its existence to the constituting process. All actual being is not in relative time, but in absolute time. All actual being – whether and coming-to-be, or lifeto and mental activity – is notpotential identicalbeing with itself from one moment the next in absolute time. A = A is only valid for the sort of being we call objectivity, which is completely relative to actual being. Te theory that absolute being is at rest and absolutely constant – the Eleatic notion of the equivalence of thought and being – is only a form of wishful thinking, allied to the human and general biological need for security, and is itself a manifestation of the need for control. It was kept alive during the mechanistic phase of modern mathematical notions of all sciences,towhich were anyway on a false viewconof mathematics. According Descartes, being isbased whatever remains stant, whatever one can be sure of finding in another time and place, and whatever is explicable from what is already known. Tese days this way of conceptualising nature has even been abandoned by physicists. Tink of the second law of thermodynamics or Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Te theory that real being is a coming-to-be is definitely correct, but the ‘forms’ which this being takes are not constant ideas, otherwise the central tenet of [my] philosophy – that existence, act, and idea are different but inextricably entwined – would be invalidated. A scientist might reply: Certainly the real being of matter – elements, atoms and stars – is time-based. But considering the millions of years it has taken to produce these, the time scale involved is so great that, in comparison, human life can be almost regarded as zero-time. I reply: It is a question of different sorts of time, not of magnitudes of time. All magnitudes of relative time are relative to humans – existentially relative and relative to consciousness. Tey are therefore relative to historical time. If we were to somehow do away with human beings, numbers would remain, but no one knowthat whatwithin they were enumerating. Tisstill does not exclude the would possibility the sphere of scientific objects they would retain meaning and correctness. In terms of the absolute time of human history, however, they would lack any orientation. A moment of absolute time would be able to contain within itself all forms of repeatable relative time. Te length or shortness of the time – relative time – that human beings have been around on earth has no significance in relation to
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Supplementary Remarks
their participation in the absolute time during which the Supreme Being realizes itself. All numerical measurements, which count relative durations of time, are relative not only to a mental apparatus, but are also to an arbitrarily pre-existing similarity, andzero expressrelative only propositions of partschosen of absolute time, which whether or infinity remain exactly the same. Te panarchic superiority in the regular retardation or acceleration of all pre-existing matters is only valid within relative time. Already in the life process everything has ‘its’ time, and here it is a question of everything temporalizing itself according to inherent phasic rules of maturation. Giving the absolute time of repeatable processes a zero or an infinite number has no effect whatsoever on the absolute time of my existence and life. Te coming-to-be Being in the course of theand world process is not unlike of thethe waySupreme the environment, circumstances, actions of a human being, make that human being into what it eventually becomes. Te history of human beings is longer and greater than any of our ideas. Te history of God is longer and greater than any of His ideas. For these reasons, any notion of predicting what is to come goes by the board. What the human being can predict is anyway only relative to life. Te sort of thing that life is itself is unpredictable, and only the rule-bound phases are predictable. Te sort of mental entity that we are – co-determined by historical factors, freedom and the possession of mind – is absolutely unpredictable, and although the acts involved in trying to predict matters end up as part of an absolute coming-tobe, this coming-to-be itself cannot be predicted. Te same goes for the decisions of our leaders. During the Great War, for example, it was rightly said that historians, particularly in Germany, were trying to make sense of events, which were actually the consequences of whirlwind decisions, as if they were the most natural consequences of centuries of history. Life and as to course, of butactual not simply because ourhistory mindsgive are no notclue up to thetheir task,future but because inherent reasons to do with the nature of life. Life and history temporalize themselves, and are not therefore ‘in’ time – the relative time of the dead. Te Supreme Being’s superiority in respect of mere mortals, who can actually predict their existential dependence on this Supreme Being, consists not in the fact that He can see what is coming and they
cannot, but that He cannot see what is coming, even though He Himself becomes everything which does come-to-be. o give an example: the actual situation is something like the way aintuition, good statesman – without a plan, but carefully and with followingproceeds step by step the minute by minute events.Alternatively, one can commend Napoleon’s saying to the effect that thought has to follow the nature of things themselves and has no need of predictions. Te category of prediction is the recourse of the weak, of the narrow-minded, of the impoverished in spirit, which man inappropriately and anthropomorphically attributes to God and His mind. It is a category whose illusory nature stems from pretending that what is in fact post-hoc is propter-hoc . Te knowing priest interprets which as a consequence of God’s wish foreverything it to happen, andhappens this applies also to philosophers like Hegel. All foresight, other than simple calculation, is merely hindsight dressed up as foresight. If there were indeed foresight, there would be no freedom and no genuine possibility of any human being’s being able to set goals. History would be the enactment of a puppet theatre, whose participants thought themselves free, whereas in actual fact the puppeteer already knew what was going to happen. Foresight is incompatible with freedom and the independence of human beings. It takes away the seriousness of the notion of the Supreme Being, whose very being history is shaping, and reduces history itself to a masquerade. Tere is no foresight because thought and reality are only one in God himself, even though they are separate attributes of Him.
1. Being itself is an ultimate entity. It is not only nonsensical to want to define it, but also nonsensical to want tosort, derive it from or consciousness or thinking of whatever or to regardknowledge it as the copula of the judgement of something. Kant went down this road. Te above holds true because even the being-known, being-thought or being-conscious of something are ultimately only varieties of being – again, in contrast to what Kant thought. It is therefore completely nonsensical, for example, to talk about an opposition between knowing and being. A correlate of knowing, in other words what all knowing is
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Supplementary Remarks
directed at, is the what-being of something, not its actual being. Tis what-being is what is known, though so far in undifferentiated form. Another false notion about knowing and being concerns ‘objective being’ – a knowing thinking or a knowing through and what is knownthrough in this way is not being itself. An even falsermeaning, notion is that which contrasts being with consciousness. Tis is because consciousness only reflexively knows i.e. it is a knowing that knows that something is known, as opposed to a naïve or ecstatic pre-conscious knowing and other preconscious experiences, such as that which gives us the experience of reality. Consciousness is a way of knowing that something is known, and is therefore a sort of being, a sort of ideal being, i.e. a logical being without real existence. Te bare contents of ‘are consciousness-of are therefore always onlyitself sortsmade of what-being, andit moreover ‘of ’something’ which is not conscious, be psychic, physical, fictional or mental in nature. 2. It is completely false to regard all being as objective being – or, for that matter, resistance-being or real-being – as the neo-Kantians, especially Rickert, did. What corresponds to objective being as its polar opposite is the being of an act, in this case an act of thinking. Corresponding to resistance-being is the will, and to value-being love and feelings-of something. In all these three cases, the sort of being of the act which gives the three sorts of being referred to is never itself something that can become an object [i.e. it is not even objectifiable being and certainly not an object]. Te being of such acts has at its basis the carrying out of what the act does. Te substance of the act is the person, and such acts include thinking, loving and judging. Te ‘I’ is an act centre. 3. No less false is to contrast being with any of the following – being-true, having value, being valid or having meaning. For all these are sorts of being, and even though they stand in stark opposition to sorts of being such as the existence of anything and to part of the whatbeing anything, among others,they are never in direct opposition to being of itself. 4. Te only thing which being must be opposed to is the ultimate thought of absolute nothingness, by which we understand a state of complete‘non-being’, a state which we can further denote as an absence of being itself – i.e. an absence of anything whatsoever and not just an absence of the existence of something – as in the state of Nirvana – nor a mere absence of the what-being of something – which would be
a state of there not being something. What we are considering here is ‘absolutely nothing’, a state which is quite possible to have a thought about – in which case it is an object – in which case such an object cannot notobject to beinconfused with ‘relatively nothing’be , i.e.denied. the notTis beingnotion there ofisone a situation where there is some other object there. In this situation not being green is an attribute of a swan no less than being white is. In fact for each finite being-so of an object a host of not-being-so’s would equally suit it. o all ideal objects and all ideal being (fictitious entities derived from real facts) – for example the consciousness of one of its contents – there is a not-being-so that fits the bill. Not-being is in no way a bare predicate of judgement or a sort of copula in judgement – as all those who derive itlusionment from a sortover of negation it tonot be,occurring whether they as a disila future take event’s or asregard a falseitaccount of a positive proposition. It is in fact an objective matter of fact. If, as Mill assumed, a negative judgement were a mere subsequent judgement correcting the falsity of a positive judgement, then the principle of non-contradiction [i.e. X cannot be X and non-X] would not be a true evidential principle but merely a definition or a convention. What this principle states is all of the following: 1) ‘A is B and A is not B’ is false; 2) A is not B means that it is false that AB is; 3) ‘A is B therefore A is not B’ is false; 4) A is not B therefore A is B is false and A is not B. [or, in real examples: 1) ‘Te animal is black and not black’ – false; 2) Te animal is not black therefore it is false that there is a black animal; 3) ‘Te animal is black therefore the animal is not black’ is false; 4) Te animal is not black therefore to say the animal is black is false and the animal is not black. ] the truthofofthis thejudgement fact that Awith is notthe Bnegative can be derived theBut agreement state ofdirectly affairs. from Te relative non-being is therefore just as much a non-existence, and this is an objective determination, and this is an objective determination of the object. Setting aside the situation with regard to the Supreme Being, a relative non-being belongs to each object thatis. In actual fact, therefore, the principle of non-contradiction is a relationship between relative being and relative non-being.
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Supplementary Remarks
Absolute nothingness, on the other hand, though very hard to have any notion of, is something which one should try to conceive, because only through a thought such as ‘there is something’ or, better, ‘there is not nothing’, can one achieve a valuable insight into truth itself, in fact the most valuable of all. Hegel’s conflation of the various meanings of nothingness is a gross error. Admittedly, the being of the absolute nothingness has nothing to do with whether something exists or not, or whether it has a particular nature or not. Tis seems to have seduced Hegel into putting so much emphasis on nothingness. Being itself, however, has a fictitious being and has its own nature, though no existential status. Even Bergson erred when he repudiated the notion of an absolute nothingness and recognized the possibility a relative nothingness. 5. Te being ofonly existence [Da-sein],ofwhat something is [So-sein ] and value [Wert-sein] the three sorts of being – must be strictly distinguished. Te Supreme Being does not yet contain this distinction. 6. Furthermore one should not set up an opposition between being and becoming, but only contrast coming-to-be with having-become. Even becoming is a sort of being – a way of being in which the primarily given ideal whatness of something passes over into existence. If this passage is effected it is then in a state of having-become. Coming-tobe [Werdesein] is not the same as the becoming of being [ Seinswerden] – as laid down in the future. Te reason for this is that there is only a coming-to-be of the existence of anything; there is no coming-to-be of being itself. What comes to be is determined by what can be. Te Supreme Being has not yet come to be. God, however, as an extant entity, has completely come to be, because each and every extant entity has come to be. Te coming-to-be of anything therefore precedes the existence of anything and is itself only subsequent to pure being. Te existence of the Supreme Being is just as much the consequence of an effect as any other existing thing, even though in its case this is effected through itself, as a self-causal event.has to do with the differentiation 7. A completely separate issue which the existence and whatness of something undergoes in respect of time or what sort of being something has in time. Tese ways of being we know as possibility [Möglichsein] actuality [Wirklichsein] and necessity [Notwendigsein]. Possibility is what-being which precedes the existence of a concrete entity in the given order of things. It is not to be confused with an-
other meaning of possibility which is to do with problematical judgements. Te possibility or possible-being we are primarily considering here is nothing to do with such judgements, which are concerned with gaps nationinis.our knowledge of what some extant entity’s cause or determiActuality is being, in whose givenness the existence of something is pre-ordained [Sein, in dessen Gegebenheit die Daseins vorhergeht]. Necessity is being, where the existence and nature of something both follow and are caused by the existence and nature of something else. Tese three ways of being are not equal in their srcin. Possibility precedes actuality and necessity. of being which these threeand concepts denote arefor nothing doTe withways relationships between objects our possibilities knowl-to edge through judgement, as Kant thought. Tey are not even sorts of knowledge or stages in securing evidence about something. If things stood as Kant thought, one could sensibly remark: ‘It is possible that a triangle has sides of equal length or unequal length, or has equal angles, or is right-angled, or has an obtuse angle, but as for me I don’t know which of these it does have’. [Tis is nonsense because] it lies in the essence of what a triangle is that the above predicates are constrained by one another, whether I judge this so or not. In the case of necessity, if Kant were right, I would have to review every single instance of some matter before its reason or cause were to be finally deemed necessary. As for actuality, we would be similarly forced to consider all present perceivable instances of some matter to ensure that they were capable of independent existence from out of the plethora of reasons, causes and conditions which might combine to prevent something’s being in an extant form. [But in fact none of the above occurs.] Te principal division of these modalities of being is rather exclusively into the threefold variable relationship thathas anasentity, its nature, and whatever sort of existential form it takes, something coming-to-be in respect o the order of givenness which a potential knower possesses. We generally refer to an entity’s having the status of possibly coming to be: when its nature 1) is determined, and 2) has [internally] compatible characteristics – i.e. its concept is not self-contradictory; but when its existential status is compromised by a complete or partial lack of grounds for its comingto-be or else we are conscious of having to leave this open.
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Tere are instances of something with a known nature achieving existential status without any grounds for its coming to be. One is the case of an objectively real possibility becoming an existential possibility. Te nature other isofthe case of objectively idealsituation possibility the possible something – e.g. the true thatbecoming each triangle is either right-angled or obtuse-angled. We refer to the being of an entity having actuality if its existential status has become so, or come-to-be, and it is no longer coming-to-be, and if it is capable of so founding its nature for a knower to know it. Its nature is accidental [zuälliges Sosein] if the basis for its coming-to-be is not given to the knower or is open to question. We ascribe an entity the mode of being called necessity if we do know perfectly for its coming-to-be. If the being is ideal the we talk about the the basisbasis or the grounds for its nature, for example proposition that 3 + 8 = 11; if the being is real we talk about an effective cause. Possibility is not as subjective as is necessity and actuality.
Te principle of the identity – i.e. self-sameness – of what anything is; the principle of the incompatibility of an entity with a particular essence having and such-and-such a nature at theofsame time another sort of nature; the principle that theand nature something should have an adequate basis in another instance of the nature of the same essence, for the sake of which it is so and not otherwise: these are the formal and highest principles of ontology. Logical principles with an analogous meaning are founded on them. Te nature of all finite relative entities forms a system of reciprocally determined causes and effects, in such a way that each nature of something can be seen as a cause and each as an effect, which attests to the relativity basis of cause andSupreme effect. But this which entire contains system itself has its own ultimate in the Being, the quintessence of all possible essences, whose givenness in the form of cause-effect relationship is presupposed. Te relationship that holds between cause and effect is: 1) synthetic, and not derivable from identity; 2) given and known prior to any single instance of this relationship; and 3) in the case of the pure essences something that refers to the srcinal essence, whereas the contingent
determinations of anything’s nature are only based on and result from the being-so or being-otherwise of entities in the ‘here and now’. An isolated nature of something is never given. It is given only as the starting-point or end-point and effect relation precedes the objective pointofofa cause time where the relation. nature ofTis something appears and determines it. Tere is no principle whereby all possible experience of objectively time-ordered matters is, as Kant thought,the basis for cause and effect relationships. On the contrary, the ultimate determination and presupposition of each particular ordering of matters in absolute time is the way life comes-to-be and, in the final analysis, the way the life principle itself holds sway.Post hoc propter hoc is again Kant’s fundamental mistake. particularorder temporal order immediately theTe mechanical – is only oneofof‘before severaland essential ways inafter’ which– lawfulness can occur in absolute time, and is certainly not the only way, as Kant assumed. wo additional ones are the teleoclinical and the teleological ways whereby two natures of something can be related: the former is goal-orientated, where the causal primacy in the before-after chain is reversed, i.e. after determines before; the latter is purpose-orientated, where the primacy of cause lies in a supra-temporal idea. Finally, there are orders through which each of two natures of anything, separated by a time interval, can co-determine two other natures of something, which can lie inside or outside the time interval. Such cases are the opposite of the “pull” and “push” which applies in the more general cause and effect relationship. Because time is only a relationship concept of the contents of such goings on – and is otherwise nothing – empty time is not only indistinguishable bit by bit, but does not actually exist. Te unity of time is dependent on the unity of life and on each temporal effect of the timeless ordering of these contents. Te nature of something A is a cause or effect of the nature of something B, if Ainand B are of examples two essencesTis W and W1 which go together a scheme essentialofrelationships. relationship is reciprocal. Efficacy, goal-orientation and purposeful activity – all exemplified in willed action – determine the existence of things and events which can stand together in causal, teleoclinical or teleological dependencies. As the cause-effect relationship is formally given before the time course of matters and the means of the cause are given, then the ef-
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Supplementary Remarks
ficacy and the tendency for this must be given before any actual cause and the effect of any efficacy. It is on this basis that we can say that all contingent natures can be causes or effects and that all contingent reality is in a state of continuous interaction. A real thing that was not part of the universal interconnected interactions, which is underpinned by the very life force itself, which is moreover a primary cause of anything and also a cause of itself, could neither be ‘given’ nor exist. For a thing is: phenomenal only in so far as it conforms to an ordered construction of its intrinsic factual matter, which then allows it to appear objectively; and is real only in so far as it occupies a nodal point in the field of forces which themselves penetrate it. of the existing world is the only guarantee of primary Te unity causes.
1. Te insight that there is no clear-cut definitive law in the sphere of atomic events, and that an energy principle such as the Second Law of Termodynamics only possesses a statistical character, are also of the greatest significance for biological problems. Te way forms take shape in absolute timeofowes the vitalprinciple’ s tendency to proceed along the lines leastmuch energytoexpenditure, a tendency which is alien to mechanical processes. In fact there is a whole host of principles of this sort which are unique to neither inorganic nor organic nature, and because of this we are led to conclude that dead and living nature are basically the same. Tis does not mean that within the superordinate dynamic principle which contains such similar sub principles as we have discussed above there are not further sub principles which organic and inorganic matters do not share. Under certain conditions, for example, there is activity a level of an intervals, organism and where effectsany are produced in accordance withatset temporal without new energy or material being involved, and without any contribution from lower levels which proceed along the lines of an uncomplicated driving force. Terefore, even though the overall order of things is the same for both the living and the dead worlds, nevertheless events pertaining to the living state can never be analysed in purely physical and chemical terms.
Any such analysis of the relationship between inorganic and organic nature must be called ‘metaphysical monism’ and ‘essential dualism’, and underlies any empirical dualism which one comes across. Te collective pictureofofrelative extended substances theirthen lawful interchange in a system space and timeand would be both ideal and at the same time relative to lie. Tis arrangement means that living bodies are not the same as inorganic bodies, as the latter are only in a relative temporo-spatial system. Te proposed arrangement also allows one to see that although there is an orientation towards an ideal formation of things, the ‘forms’ themselves are only momentarily solidified structures arising out of absolute time and best understood as emanating from the dynamics of the life process into whose parameters have now Onthey the other hand,been thetranslated. inorganic forms – physical, chemical, crystalline, gelatinous – although not to be explained along mechanistic lines either, and which must also be ascribed to the form-building potential of the life-force, are distinguished from the actual forms of life in the following way. First, life-forms are those which are primarily temporal forms; they are not like inorganic forms, which are spatial forms, and only a consequence of functions and chemico-physical causes. Secondly, life-forms are established in absolute time, whereas inorganic forms take their place in relative time.
, Te most recent philosophy – e.g. Husserl’s, Bolzano’s, Hartmann’s, Meinong’s – readily accepts the categories of ‘ideal being’ and ‘real being’. But what is understood by the term‘ideal being’? Tere is, for example, a proposed variety of ideal being, championed by Husserl, which takes ideal being to be a proposition in itself or a ‘species’ of meaning, whichofismathematical grasped in anobjects. individual example of associated it. Anothertypes example is that Tere are then which have been proposed: the nature of something orwhat something is [Sosein]; the images of things [Bilder]; the pure essences of something real; validity; values; qualities; even time and space themselves, by some philosophers. Moreover proponents of such ideal being tend to distinguish it from pure and empirical phantasy, from conscious experience and from objects immanent to consciousness. In fact, they tend
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Supplementary Remarks
to regard conscious experience as having to do with real being, and ideal being as being just as much transcendent to consciousness as is, according to them, real being. It must be said, and bluntlyany so, foundation, that this separation of real ideal being is completely without is unclear, and,and furthermore, is completely arbitrary. Historically, it began with Lotze and Herbart, was then taken up by Husserl and Bolzano, was accorded great significance by Rickert, but unfortunately then became even more muddled. My view is as follows. I deny in particular that there is an ideal being in the form of an independent region of being. Instead, I maintain that there is only: 1) a dependent nature and an essence of what something is, alongofwith the value of what something is and of anything real; a realm fictitious objects – both pure ones, meaningfully con-2) trived ones as in a ‘fabulous world’; and 3) real being. If one wants to call 1) and 2) above ideal being, so be it. But it must be made clear that there is no such thing as ideal being in the form of a special sort of entity that actually exists; there are only an ideal nature of what something is or an essence of something, and these are objects of knowledge and cognition, and therefore a type of being relative to an act [aktrelatives Sein]. Tis sort of being belongs ontologically to a real sort of being, and in fact cannot be separated from it. It is furthermore only separable in that it may belong to an intellect or a will, but, overall, it belongs inextricably to a mental act-centre which is not itself objectifiable. Everything which is not construable as the nature or essence of something real, is, I maintain, a fictitious entity, i.e. something which is created from human, representational thinking or phantasy activity alone, and is not an actual object. If one sets up a system where the nature of everything is duplicated – one sort in the mind, the other sort outside the mind – such that the intended of cognition whatevera isrepresentation transcendent to mind relates toobject the mind only as as a picture, or the a portrait would do, as Hartmann, for example, proposes – then ‘ontologicizing’ ideal being is the only means whereby one can escape nominalism. o take this philosophical step, however, means that you are no longer of the view that what you are proposing as the nature of something is actually part of the nature of the real object; it – your proposed being – is instead an independent sort of objectness. In such circum-
stances neither a concept nor an intuition reaches the nature of the object itself. In my scheme, on the other hand, it is the congruence of the meaning and the image which allows the appearance of the otherwise intrinsically undivided whereas the real being of this object nature cannotofin the anyreal wayobject enter to thearise, sphere of our cognition. Returning to the way of thinking that I am criticising, because it takes the separation between the meaningful nature of things and the imagistic nature of things to be ontological, and not, as in my scheme, merely relative to the acts and the difference between the corresponding acts involved – i.e. thinking and intuition – then this makes what is meaningful inhabit its own sphere and anything there be its own object, and the same goes for what is imagistic, which then must inhabit itsa ‘world own sphere, another sphere from the meaningful, and constitute for thebut senses’ . Similarly, Husserl arrives at his notion of an ‘ideal species’ through an erroneous process of abstraction. If I disregard the real being and the here-and-now status of a sphere, what still remains behind is ‘the red sphere’ of this shape and of this material make-up. Furthermore, three reds of the same shape and same shade of red will stop being three and different from one another if I manage to disregard their spatio-temporal differentiation and their status as properties of three different real things. Tey are not still individuated under these conditions, and nor are they opposed in some way to ‘red’. Te species ‘red entity’ is immanent to each concrete red. What would be transcendent to consciousness in this situation would be the sign of three things – threeness – though not the number 3, and that would be an independent ideal object. But redness would beimmanent to the object and existentially relative to it. Husserl fails to see that if the real being of something disappears so does its nature, and if the nature of something disappears so does the real being, and that there are not remnants of both in an ontological sphere. Mathematical objects are mental constructions. Te mathematician Kronecker recognized something of this when he said that the Good Lord made all the natural numbers whereas man made the fractions. As for values, they must be existentially relative to a finite life, and vis-à-vis humans they only have the character of a value relationship, or of an ordered set of particular qualities, to which some goods or an action or a person or a willing can belong. For the value, the existence
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Supplementary Remarks
and the nature of something are only separable in and through a mental act, and not in themselves and ontologically. Tere is no realm of values, nor are there values that no-one has felt or could feel. for qualities, the same considerations as the above areAseither determinations of objects, or determinations of apply. surfacesTey of bodies. Colours only arise if there is sight, and sounds if there is hearing. In the case of the Supreme Being, value, existence and essence are attributes of a being. Tere must therefore be some ultimate evaluation, if there is a Supreme Being. Everything is estimable – i.e. is potentially valuable, worth taking notice of, and with some intrinsic dignity. But this does not mean that everything is good or bad. Te realization – i.e. the coming into existence – of a positive value isvalue itselfisaapositive not coming into existence of a positive negativevalue, value.and Tetheexistence of a negative value is bad, and the non-existing of a negative value is good. Space and time are not independent sorts of ideal being, but fictitious entities.
Knowledge is being. But what sort of being? Knowledge must be capable of being expressed through the aforementioned sorts of givennesses. If knowledge is a sort of participation, in which the knowing being ‘has’ something, a something which comprises the nature and the objective status of another being, then two definite conclusions can be drawn. 1. Something must be given in a being, in so far as it exists, which allows it to pick up what it intends to [was das ens intentionale gibt]. Our first inclination is to call this an ‘act’. But what act can that be? What is it, that a being can command, that, so to speak, allows it to get outside the skin of in itsorder own to nature and ofexistential status being? and exceed or transcend itself get hold part of another Tis cannot be another sort of knowledge! It must be whatever makes knowledge possible, whatever leads to knowledge! What is it that stirs a beingto know? What leads to a situation where there is a participation in and sharing of some situation going on elsewhere? I have long pondered what one should call this reflective showing of something r[eflektiv Schaubare]. Even if I did not know the empirical findings showing that
all knowledge is driven by interest, attention or love,I should still come to the conclusion that knowledge is the most formal sort of love. Love is therefore the very basis of the act of intending something, whereby someTis being stretches out to another. means that love provides the foundation for every sort of knowing and every operation which leads to knowledge. Note carefully: He, who, like all Cartesian philosophers, starts out with knowledge, has no meaningful handle on the above question. Te problem of an act which leads to knowledge, which enables knowledge to occur, is simply not even recognized as a problem. ‘Something becomes known’ or ‘I know something’ or ‘I have something’ are what this sort of philosopher starts out with. He must bring love and interest to his somewhere. Butwhich he ismerely forceddirect necessarily to say thatinthese areaccount secondary sorts of acts us to what is already in the sphere of knowledge. But what if we wish to derive knowledge from being, the nature of something, its existence, and the relationship between them? If we deny the correctness of the starting point of such philosophers – i.e. that a thing knows something, and that is that – then the questions arise as to: Why something should know something else anyway? and: what is the purpose of knowledge? Knowledge can then neither be some srcinal bedrock of givenness nor an absolute self-evident value and purpose. Knowledge then has to be deemed to be founded in that act in and through which a being relinquishes its boundaries, and goes beyond itself – transcends its own very being. o know, furthermore, has then to be seen as resting on a wish to share and participate in the universal and in a being which is sufficient to itself i.e. God. o share a mental outlook on anything then does not mean to will in some static fashion whatever things give to us through our love for them, but to appreciate that everything is dynamic and that things actually mean what they can mean and that they become what they can become. amprimacy not saying that over I haveknowledge. single-handedly discovered principle of Ithe of love But I am glad thatthethose matters which I discovered in the course of empirical investigations into knowledge and the appearances offered to consciousness confirmed the conclusion which I arrived at through careful logical investigation as to what knowledge actually was. 2. Te second consequence [of the fact that knowledge is a participation in the nature of some other being) is this. Whenever there is
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Supplementary Remarks
a possibility of us knowing what something properly is, and not simply knowing a selected version of it, as when our drives and needs are paramount, then the love which leads to such knowledge must be a love of suchIta nature in its pureon form, it is self-referring andupon. selfinterested. cannot that, be dependent whatever it is directed Tis holds for evident and adequate knowledge, as occurs in human and animals, and for intellectual acts. What this means is that pure knowledge or knowledge of actual matters of fact assumes that the act of love through which we have such knowledge is not itself determined by the particular sort of organisation which the carrier of the act has. Only where there is a setting aside of the needs of an organism, whose wouldever normally give a restricted sort of knowledge matters,drives can there be knowledge of actual matters of fact. of
1. What Logos is is demonstrated through the essential coherence of act and objective correlate, itself accounted for by the consciousness-transcending nature of the pure essences and the unity of subject and object. Te unity of Logos itself, its subjective-objective tie-ups, is guaranteed by the partial identity of categories of thought and categories of existence the continuous dialecticalofnature of the world of essences, added toand which is the pre-givenness its entire structure and the general validity of rational laws. 2. Te potential is there for Logos to extend its influence over all possible ideas and essences, but, in fact, it does so only over those which are humanly knowable or are already known. 3. Only those ideas which have entered our existence are graspable, and only those which are available in our world and in the framework of our experience are exemplifiable. 4. Te of Logos set in trainofthrough will. Loveactivity also guides our isknowledge values. love, the life-force and 5. Logos is simultaneous thinking and intuition, simultaneous act and object, and this means that it is intellectual intuition and provides intellectual archetypes. 6. Logos is devoid of creative ability. It provides limits and measures.
7. What is irrational is: a) all reality; b) all contingent natures of anything, including entities in the ideal realm e.g. irrational numbers in mathematics; and c) all accidental being-so of anything. 8. Human beings haveinimmediate access toLogos, and, thereby, are, above all, human beings the first place. 9. Logos precedes will but succeeds love in the order of things. It also succeeds the impulse of the life-force. 10. Logos is neither force nor life. 11. When applied to forms – when the possibilities of alteration, transformation and movement are involved –Logos comes under the influence of ‘technical intelligence’. 12. Concerning the relationship betweenLogos and human reason, Logos lacksb)any betweenc)intuition and reason there :ina)both; hasseparation no consciousness; is not discursive – i.e.asititisis continuous; and d) it lacks judgement, concept and conclusion. Pure Logos is not ‘technical intelligence’, which is mediated thinking.Logos is primarily wisdom, not knowledge. 13. It is subject to dialectical movement onthe occasions when it is motivated by the life-force. It rules but does not directly control anything, even though it can indirectly control matters. 14. Te tool of Logos is the technical intelligence, through which Logos’ ideas and essential forms are realized, under the ultimate influence of the life-force, which underpins technical intelligence. Tis means that Logos is subject to the constraints of the life-force and its principle that the least effort should have the greatest effect. echnical intelligence. echnical intelligence is the most delicate instrument of life, and the summit of what it can do in this respect. Te maximum of effect with the least effort is its principle and, in terms of the ordering of values, what it works on is the ‘useful’. It exploits the relevant motivation in order to satisfy the drives. Logos and absolute time. Because it isLogos that sets out essences,
as creative possibilities andare notcontinuas positivelimit-setting ideas prior arrangements to the matter for in hand, and because they ously developed in a dialectical manner, under the influence of the lifeforce and never without this influence, its idea-productions do have an indirect effect on the progress of the historical dimension of the world over absolute time.
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Supplementary Remarks
1. In the inorganic world meaning is given in the form of sameness and similarity. In the living world and it is all something more:functions it is immanent to the individual living creature, physiological are independent of the organisation’s unified sense. For this reason there can be a sociological difference between: 1) a word as a power in itself, as a property and as the realization of a concept in the living community; 2) the central position of nominalism in human society; and 3) the objective ideality of essences [in a third stage of human development] along with the actual continuity of meaning and sense which we subjectively tap into. All empirical concepts are biologically and socially relative. Te same goes for conclusions and judgements. 2. All ‘sense’ is understood; everything which ‘meaning’ stands for is thought. It is only when a creature has a mind that sense and meaning can be anything more than the ideal nature of something, namely, can have an existence. But the objective sense – and meaning – spheres cannot be disputed. Tey cannot just be taken for some social product. Each sphere is determined in a clear-cut way by the images and essences, respectively. Te interest-perspective of our concept formation is just as firmly established and is primarily a sociologically-induced break-up of language and speech. 3. Te moving apart of the ideas even occurs in the Divine, under the influence of the life-force, which selects and constructs its own images according to where its drives take it. Nevertheless it is theLogos, as a universal capacity for producing ideas, which is pre-supposed in all this. Ideas do not in reality pre-exist any divine action, even though the Logos does. 4. Any general concept is born through a combined reflection on the circumstances under which an image is perceived and the circumstances which lead to the very image itself. Te Divinity knows neither law individual nor5. species. Its Logos is intuitive, andnor thecasebook, demands neither of knowledge for itself and for action are not present. 6. In the same way as the intuitively derived image is the basis for perception and representation, a concept and an image are at the root of a relevant living scheme. Tinking and language are also involved in the coming into existence of a sensory perception – according to the [neuropsychological] work of Gelb. In the course of development
there is always a reciprocal differentiation of the perceptual, representing and meaning realms of a subject one from another. Te way things run is not from perception, via representation, to a final meaning. Logic is not a refined crystallization of with the various sorts of thinking7.and speaking. It is built up in parallel the rules whereby act and object establish themselves, and whose ultimate explanation lies in the fact that human thinking is part of God’s way of thinking. Te parallelism is in the end an identity of the two, in the same way as the life force and the images are one and the same, and drive and perception are the same. 8. In the same way as the formation of a concept is the reflection on the conditions underlying a drive-determined task and its solution, so is a single-word proposition the primitive of a judgement. It expresses at the same time a feeling and a wish,form for example Mummy, whereby the current unity of the symbolic function between word and object: 1) is not reflexively made conscious, as it is in the case of a concept; but 2) actually gives the meaning of what appears from out of the matter itself. Te sequence is object→ word, not word → object. In fact the thing is primarily a sort of ‘meness’ I[ch], and so the relationship between subject and activity – e.g. I am hungry, milk – is transferred on to the object. Verbs are the most srcinal sort of words. 9. Positivistic philosophy [the sub-class of realism which assumes that we can only know sensory qualities] is grossly mistaken on this point. It does not realize that whatever meaning we derive from an object srcinally belongs to that object, and not to our subsumption or meaning which we put on to it. Te srcinal meaning adhering to something actually forms the basis of the qualities and any image, and constitutes the full nature of what some concrete object is. A lump of lead is of a certain heaviness, greyness, etc. precisely because it is a lump of lead. A body is of a certain shape, or presents such an image, or gives out a meaning, or has such and such an effect, precisely because it exists as such. But none of this is normally appreciated: people simply take for granted a body’s existence and nature, and they completely deny this in asserting that it is our language or our concepts which accord the object any meaning. What is in fact happening is that it is only our selection of meaning which is ‘ours’, not the meaning itself. 10. Empirical concepts are simultaneously dependent on the given images of something and the variable categorical systematisation of the same something, and are not derived from the images alone.
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Supplementary Remarks
11. Te individual perceives or represents something in the same manner as does anyone in his society. Te form of the signs involved, and their content, are the same for numerous individuals. most important insight thisphenomenological whole area concerns the effect12.of Te the two ‘reductions’ . Te first –inthe reduction, whereby essences result from the cancellation of the spatiotemporal world picture along with its reality – and the second – whereby any practical viewpoint on this world picture is enhanced – both together reveal the human condition as one where the human mind moves back and forth between each of these. Any philosopher who construes these [options] as a system of two simultaneously extant worlds is on a false trail. 13. Te way. world itself is so structured that it can only be known in an integrated 14 Abstraction is presupposed in the process of generalization. Positive abstraction is a consequence ofan interest-led attention, which simultaneously points out – or brings out – and darkens some issue. If the content which is brought out in this way is to do with an object which is a function of meaning or naming, then what arises is always the ideal nature of something, which can be placed in some connection with another ideal nature. Husserl’s thesis, which is that red is an ideal species and that it is different from the above-mentioned nature of something, is false Platonism. If, for example, the element of redness in a red sphere is brought out from the complexity of orderings of essences in the sphere, everything other than the red fades away to zero, and what is now given in every sphere of the same colour is identical. It is no longer an individual sphere, not even a general example of one, because what we have now is a content in respect of many red spheres of the same nuance of colour and their various positions in time and space. Te primary abstraction was carried out ecstatically [i.e. preconsciously] – on a givenness which was a single object – and within the realm of drive-based A general or an individual object differentiate themselves operations. after this srcinal operation, and simultaneously so. 15. A factual matter unveils itself and objectivizes itself – whereupon it becomes amenable to intuition – during the course of a human being’s individualization. It emerges out of the background ‘chatter’ [Gerede] of tradition. Te stages of objectivization of the world follow on the stages of this human individualization.
16. Neither mind, thought, will, nor grace [die Güte], can ever be derived from feelings or drives, or from the reproduction, association or dissociation of some factual element. Only the application of ones own appropriate mentalof actacan grasp these. It and is, fornot example, always a question of the content subject’s concept the conceptuality of a content that counts. An ‘idea’ of truth or goodness can never be replaced by the usefulness, applicability, consequence or average worth of some corresponding matter. Te psychology of thinking shows us how actual thinking proceeds or how it solves some problem. But, as for the acts and rules governing these acts, by means of which thinking does proceed or solve problems, the psychology of thinking tells us nothing. 17. Onis the of governing pragmatismtheinactivity the fieldofofaddition mathematics, a number not question only a rule and subtraction. Tere are rules governing numbers which are not themselves rules governing such activity. A number is a fictional-ideal construct and is itself construed from out of a pre-given ‘intuitive minimum’. 18. As the actual state of affairs is one inwhich the forces of nature underpin the laws which regulate the images so it would seem that the will must itself be subject to the same set of laws. But looked at ontologically [i.e. what actually constitutes our will] the laws which determine it, as with all relationships, are subject to the particular dynamic make-up of the centre in question [i.e. in this case the mind]. For, there belongs to each of these three centres – i.e. force-centre, life-centre, person – a different species of cause and effect relationship – respectively, ‘causality’, goal and purpose. Te categories which are available to reflection and which have a bearing on these three cause and effect relationships – identity, equality and similarity – are actually only dynamic experiences of the translations of one sort of cause and effect into another, and only from the standpoint of the third centre – mind.
1. Just because x equals y excludes the fact that x does not equal y, this does not mean that the proposition A is B excludes the proposition that A is not B. [We are dealing with ‘equality’ of different categories and the possibility that equality in one means something different from equality in another].
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Supplementary Remarks
2. Te A that is B is another A from the A that is C: i.e. there is an A1 that is B, and an A2 that is C. In the absolute sphere of things there is no homogenous milieu in which A1 would be equal to A2. In this sphere there aisconscious nothing in existence which equal[i.e. to anything else, even though being can make suchis equal in one sphere there is a different sort of equality from in another]. 3. Concepts, judgements and conclusions are therefore always relative to this absolute sphere. 4. Formal logic is only valid for objects which are relative to some living being. 5. Köhler’s view on logic has to be seen in this light. 6. Perhaps the struggle between contradictory matters was an early creation. Perhaps things were not around before this struggle erupted.
1. Because the essences each stand in a unified complex, a negation can actually lead on to the emergence – but not ade novo creation – of a new essence. Tis point does not apply to propositions, because they do not concern essences. 2. Te negative limiting concepts, such as ‘finitude’, can indirectly provide positivewhereby meaning.negation leads to a definition ofthe essences 3. Teamethod is quite appropriate to the matter and can be taken to the point where they are so purified that they show themselves for what they are. It is not simply a method involving negative judgements. Negative theology, for example, is the outcome ofan attempt to grasp understandable categories of anything divine plus the accompanying insight that this is impossible. Because understanding, by its very nature, is of a negative ilk, whatever is presented to the understanding, however positive it actually must beofput into negative 4. Teis,principle identity, wherebypropositions. a particular A is set out instead of X and the two then deemed identical, is not an actual rational truth and has nothing to do with any ‘transcendental apperception’, as Kant thought. It is rather only the expression of the self-preservation of an organism in the face of ever-changing stimuli, which objectifies what is happening to it but which then makes it look as if it is a condition of the other being.
Te mind sublates the current fluctuating state of affairs into a new stable state of affairs to the effect X = X, i.e. that two actually disparate matters are identical. In other words it transforms the actual state of affairs –asinto it is ainnew absolute – where all ‘being’ isthe really only coming-to-be state time of affairs, incorporating principle which obtains here but not there – i.e. in absolute time – that matters can be the same. All in all, Heraclitus is proved right. 5. [o be explored]: dreaming, magical thinking, childhood thinking, primitive thinking – in contrast to logical thinking. 6. [o be explored]: the phenomenon of witchcraft as an apparent power to inflict injury. 7. [o be explored]: Lindworsky’s ideas. 8. Koffka’s observations. 9. [o be explored]: historical sorts of thinking in contrast to propositional thinking – e.g. Indian thinking v. German dialectical thought. 10. Hegel overlooked the fact that contradictions can generally be traced back to the dual srcinality of mind and life force, and certainly not to mind alone. Hegel’s entire thesis about the creative power of mind rests on his theory of the creative power of negation. But in being itself – the ens a se – there are no contradictions. A contradictory experience or a contradictory thought involve genuine conflicts, but these conflicts are only tendencies which the ideal content of thought carries. Te conflict is in thinking itself – dislike of contradictory experience, maybe. Tere is no contradiction itself in ideal being. Hegel’s logic stems from the dialectic of conflict, and political conflict at that. Te struggles of the classes and their conflicting interests, as portrayed by Marx, are the secret basis of a dialectic which is falsely deemed to dynamise the mind itself. Anyway there are not even only two positions. By radicalising political struggle into proletariat versus capital he omits any notion of a mediated position. Furthermore, he comes up with the impossible suggestion that the whole world is spun from some idea.
What an essence is is the congruence of an urphenomenon and an idea. Te essence, which appears in this very coincidence of both, is created by our mind, but in conjunction with God’s mind, and, furthermore, determined by the direction taken by the impulse of the
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Supplementary Remarks
life-force. Tis whole process is not a pre-ordained matter; nor is it achieved after the event – as would be the case if the will came before a thought, and only knew afterwards what it was that it had created. Te situation whichtrue they refer to.is that essences accompany the matter in question
- Image-making is a world event. It is the demarcation of, or goal-directed drawing of impetus from, the all-fertile life-force. Image-making out of turmoil and into a worldand the realization of God as an idea – these are the same thing.
Positive science switches off the very possibility of the following: 1) the Ens a se [absolute being], a procedure which is counter to the metaphysical one; 2) the human being, in respect of that part of it which is not objectifiable; 3) personal freedom and the spontaneity of life; 4) the realm of essences and the various major divisions of sorts of being, including anything to do with the mind, and including all stages of established ontological varieties; 5) the real being of the accidental being-so of anything; 6) all individual and personal versions of truth, along with those which stem from our communal life, e.g. public opinion [man sagt dass …] or traditional views; and 7) all empirical, human and relative forms of things of the sort which consider true by popular opinion. But we science doesgenerally not dispense with the law that things are ‘so here and now and different there and then’ in space and time. Moreover, it preserves something’s: a) practical value; b) its symbolic significance; c) its link to our vital needs; and d) its historical relativity with respect to the stage human reason has reached. Science is furthermore strongly bound to objectifiable being and to generally valid truths, which, despite their truth, are actually only existentially relative to the
stage the human being has reached in its overall development. Finally e) science respects the intellect, but under certain mental assumptions only, namely if these promote a version of truth which [values] things only in so far science as they are controllable by virtue our vital movements. In summary, follows the principle that of nothing exists unless it falls within the range of what we can observe or measure.
Te Dionysian reduction, known to Schopenhauer and Bergson, involves the following. 1) Tere is a switching off of mind, intellect and the experienced sense of the primacy of perception. 2) Tere is a coming to the fore of sympathy, animal sexuality and the imaginal portrayal of the world drawn from the forces of nature and life’s drives. 3) Our participation in all this is not objectified [i.e. none of this is experienced as things or qualities of things]. 4) Tere is an enhanced awareness of the historical dimension of mankind and a heightened sense of being part of nature. 5) Te artistic in the human is at the forefront. 6) Te power instinct is toofthe In respect of theof integration thefore. reductions with the metaphysics of the absolute the following remarks are pertinent. Te following, however, concern only the Dionysian. a) All images are expressive. b) Life is experienced physiognomically [i.e. as if everything were a face]. c) Te predominant mode of knowledge is through sympathy. d) Everything here stems from the sexual drive of the human. In place the nowsense switched off mental apparatus of the humane)there is anofintuitive of participating in everything to do with the life-force: a ‘co-striving’, a ‘co-feeling’ and a ‘co-urgency’. f ) Tis participation is non-objectified [i.e. not in the form of perceived things or qualities]. g) Animal instinct is already of this Dionysian realm. h) Te discipline of characterology comes into its own in nature and history.
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Supplementary Remarks
Te phenomenological gives including specific philosophical knowledge,reduction about only oneknowledge, of the two utterly fundamental sorts of being; the nature or essence of something. Tis knowledge penetrates into the Ens a se, because all essences are part of God. But this applies only to that part of God which [I call] the first of His two attributes, which is the only attribute we have knowledge of. Tis is achieved by way of our mind and its correlates – the essences. Because these essences are, however, ineffective, negative, and only the ideal impossibilities through which the possibilities of the real are first circumscribed, they determine nothing of an unequivocal nature. Tere is, however, another sort of participation from which we can derive knowledge, and this is united with that second principle [attribute] which we must likewise ascribe to the Ens a se. Tis participation concerns itself with the imagistic picturing of the world, a world of accidental being-so, which is the manifestation of the life-force, and whose being is given independently from us in an experience of reality, a being which, moreover, precedes any subjective perceptual or representational intentions. Both the accidental being-so of something and the value of something are what the life-force sets before us from what is actually happening in the centre of natural forces and the drive centre. Te interaction between these two centres is only understandable through an assumption of the unity of the life-force. What this unity is we can only know through the rules that govern the appearance of images.
Perception, insofar as it adequately conveys the accidental being-so of the images, is none other than a participation in and a sharing of the activity in which the divine life-force constructs its own images. Te images are objective appearances – manifestations of power, at work before any living creature is in a position to capture them – but which a living creature can capture, through its vision, hearing, smell, etc. and which are the same available sort of entity for perception and phantasy alike, and which allow the images to come into being when they are stimulated by dead forces. In that we, as drive-led creatures,
succeed in participating in the direction of drive of the universal lifeforce – i.e. drift along with it – and, further, in that we co-produce what we see and hear along the lines which the universal life-force allows, then an partly conveyed to ourand, knowledge adequately so image only ifwill the be participation is ecstatic we so tofaculty, speak, co-produce the image with energy from our drive-phantasy. In general, I only perceive that aspect of a tree or a piece of coal that I, as the sort of creature and individual that I am, am interested in. Tis means that I am simply focussing on a few paltry fragments of the entire image, and I am restricting my version of the latter to what my body’s image wants of the entire image. Tis means further that the restriction I impose interrupts the living and mystical ecstasies whereby cast forth a piece ofthis my centre life as aco-psychic unity into the centre of that Iimage and then from construct, with it, its structure, with the help of reproductive and productive phantasy. It is, in fact, the same life force that is coursing, both outside meas images, and inside me and through me as their inadequate likenesses, insofar as I bring them forth by my interest in them through my being the sort of creature and the individual creature that I am. For my drives are only partial functions of the universal life force and my sight and hearing, etc, are only a way of taking up a particular aspect of the workings of the undifferentiated phantasy and intuition and productive capacity of this universal life force itself. Furthermore the likenesses or portraits that I draw are not immaterial objects and things which approximate but do not touch or enter the actual images – as the philosophical school of Critical Realism supposes – but are the very images themselves, albeit in an attenuated and fragmentary form, subject to my particular interest in them and the constraints imposed by the contingencies of the act of perception. Only the form, order and manner of this ‘dissociation of images’ is available to any student of the physiology or psychology of cognitive processes. Te laws governing forms and their relationships, which boil down to the relationships of colours and tones among themselves and the variations in intensity, quality, brightness and dimness – or high and low in the case of sounds – and all the basic and mixed appearances of these, are exactly the same for the different sense modalities. Even the laws governing continuity and discrete intervals are the same across the board.
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Supplementary Remarks
Te switching off of the mind [Geist] is the first negative requirement for vital ecstasisthe to universal take place,lifeinforce the same way as–the switching off of drive – indeed as a whole is the first requirement for the ‘ecstasis’ of mind to take place. Whereas in the latter case this leads to a maximum amount of energy being diverted to the spiritual and mental love of things and an affirmation of all valuing, in the former case the positive requirement is a free outpouring of Eros [the highest animal-like sexuality and tenderness], which pervades everything and leads to a completely unselfish participation in the world. Whereas the cerebral cortex, as the ‘dissociation organ’ of the vital, sensory excitations, is acting for mind, what promotes the ‘vital ecstasis’, on the other hand, are a whole set of states and activities which effectively produce a narcosis of the cortex. Such states and activities include alcohol intoxication, self-hypnosis, rhythmic dancing as a way of losing oneself as opposed to concentrating on an idea of something, any other way of loosening willed self-control, orgiastic mass events, Dionysian-type music involving cymbals and drums, and, finally, and this is the ultimate technique, the act of sexual intercourse in which one attains a communion with nature. Te return to an all-embracing mother – Mother Earth in fact – and the overpowering urgency of life which this releases are a glimpse into the very‘becoming of God’, and the workings of His first attribute before any idea of God is manifest. Te purely dynamic drives at play, and the demonic nature of such goings-on – a turmoil of value-indifference and maximum energy – fill out the whole nature of life. Te obscure forms of mysticism have their srcin in all this – conveying the mystic senses of Earth, fertility, night and mother. ‘Mother’ here is not an idea, as it is in Husserl’s philosophy, but the complete Tere isantithesis. indeed a mysticism of ideas about the coming-to-be of God, [but this is not what we are talking about here.] Te critical matter in the vital ecstasis is not erotic pleasure, as Aristippius proclaimed, but a total immersion in passionate love, come what may. Te pursuit of pleasure as an end in itself, following Aristippius’ recommendations, is actually a form of egocentricism and a way of maximising sensory feelings. Whatwe are considering here, in
the vital ecstasis, is, in complete contrast, a way of getting rid of the self, consciousness, and ‘Me’ – these horrid little tyrantsas Rickert and Klages called them.
Te essence is not visible, in the way a thing is perceived. Anything ideal lacks resistance and for this reason we have no right to assume that the essence remains in existence when we are not thinking about it. Tis is nonsense. Husserl’s analogy of an essence residing in a solid block of being is fundamentally wrong. Where is the distance between object and act, if this were so? Where is the effective resistance which would first indicate that there was something independent from our mind? Granted, the essence is identifiable; but that does not allow us to assume an independent existence to essences. Te only part of Husserl’s theory which is correct is that the essence, in distinction to a mathematical object, is not fictitious or invented. It does have a sort of being, and that is pure being, and this is independent from human thought. But although the essence is re-produced or re-created from the general essences belonging to our cultural realm equally so it is co-produced through a cooperation between humanand divine mind. Te latter is the means whereby the human mind does what it does and fact mind, the human mind does is what is because the divine Te in divine moreover, notitsimply comeofupon ideas, mind. as Augustine thought, but is forever newly producing them. Any suggestion of spontaneity or receptivity is out of the question, in contrast to perceiving, which is determined by drive. Te essences do not impose themselves on mind. Mind, in conjunction with God, must ever newly produce them. Te technique of Wesenschau [showing the essences] is therefore a productive showing, and the supratemporal essence, which is not constantly there when it is not being thought about,heavenly is ‘carried’ by this act of productive showing. A stable and detached abode of essences and ideas simply does not exist. Te fact that an essence remains identical to itself does not require that we have to accept its independent existence. Te identity is a consequence of the fact that the act itself is identical with itself and when the act is triggered it recreates the [same essence]. Te whole situation is like a living mirror, where we find [as if already created] what we are creating.
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Supplementary Remarks
Te philosophical proposal – by Bolzano and Malebranche – that the essence pre-exists the mind’s involvement with it is therefore the complete inverse of the truth. Te ‘showing’ in the ‘showing of essences’ [Wesenschau is onlyofa the reflection on the co-recreated [Mit-Nach-geschaffene ] in the]course recreation [Nachschaffens]. Husserl confuses this reflection with the coming to light – or invention or arrival – itself of the created essence. [He mistakes the reflection on the recreation for the actual recreation; he takes an invention for an encounter]. But how can such essences also have any bearing on accidental and real events? Any connection between the infinite truth of essences and the time-based accidental happenings seems impossible. Nevertheless, the are only ‘for’ the demarcation of the accidental but real essences matters which thethere life force is creating. For this reason the ‘truth’ which the realm of essences imposes on casual actuality has the air of a counter-validity [rotzgeltung] and not a consensus [Hingeltung]. Tis is in keeping with the fact that the life force and mind only derive their sense and indeed their ‘life’ in the context of one another and in the final analysis are attributes of the same substance. All ideal truths – not only insights about values – must be maintained in opposition to, and with some resistance from, accidental experience, insofar as these truths as knowledge affect the development of new ‘types’ of things. Tis process is necessarily one of contradictions. It is not a case of fitting whatever crops up as accidental into a set of fixed truths, but of selecting which available essential truths are best suited for rendering knowable the images which the life force produces. Tis insight leads to the further realization that no actual essential truth is eternally valid, and that the only eternal truth is that there is an essence of essences [ nur das Wesen der Wesenheiten ist es], and it is this which corresponds to the divine mind. Because mind itself is timeless, there is scope for a changing content to the essential truths it conveys. In addition, the interconnections between essences are being continually created and re-arranged by means of synthesizing and dialectical activity. How can there be an essential relationship between Essence 1 and Essence 2 if neither of these is part of an all-pervasive totality of essences, which the continual dialectical movement of theLogos first isolates? Is the situation one where there is a simultaneous givenness of two essences joined by a rigid ‘and’? In which case, what lies behind
the necessity of the connection? Or is it a case of identical, analytic judgements being applied? Or is neither suggestion correct?
We grasp ideas at or on [an] things, not in them. Tis notion of ideas being in things is one of Aristotle’s big mistakes. Te entire corpus of mathematics contradicts the theory. Relative to Aristotle, Plato was right here. An idea is opposed to reality; it is ideal – a preliminary draft or sketch of the nature of something which the actual nature of the something in question never comes up to; it is a skeleton draft which is bound up with an agent’s own agenda and its implementation. Between the two of them [the ideal sketch and the actual nature] the version of reality involved is a compromise. Te influence of reality [das Realprinzip] is such, however, that there is a rejection of whatever in the positive idea is not realizable. Me on [non-being] and endekhomenon [possible being] are simply shadows of the mistaken notion that an idea has its own power, positivity and absolute objectivity.
- An idea as an articulation, realization, portrayal or manageability of an already determined process, or as the theoretical and methodical application of perceptual experience, cannot be deemed as in any way fixed prior to the matter articulated, realized, etc. Even God is no Utopian. He is the absolute artist of the movable idea, a paragon of resoluteness without fanaticism. Resoluteness towards godliness, towards himself, is his unique resoluteness. Even though the idea is first determined and realized as part of the life force, it is maintained by dint of its serving as a means of understanding the sense of experience. Alternative formulations would either be to make experience subordinate to an idea or to make an idea subordinate to experience, both of which are false. It is in the congruence of both that the real itself in its totality emerges. Even God is not party to an unconscious ecstatic foreknowledge of His own coming-to-be. Te situation here [analogous to that of humans] is a self-design of the Ens a se.
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Supplementary Remarks
Te question is: What would still be around as an appearance if the life-centre the subject of the ]?drive-based sensoryinsystem were putto out of playas[Ausserkratsetzung It is immaterial this context what extent the completeness of the reduction is actually carried out. It suffices that it can be carried out at all. If the reduction entails a cancellation of the reality element, then because the spatial and temporal order of matters are dependent on this element and on causality, the very order in which spatial and temporal issues come about will also be disrupted. All this stems from the fact that reality itself is the individuating principle. Space and time are only indices, and, in truth, only ‘singularizing’ indices of one and the same essence, whereas the accidental being-so of something must be different if it takes up another spatial and temporal position. It cannot be sufficient, therefore, for any simple disregarding of the position of something in a spatio-temporal system to lead to the identical nature of many such somethings being discovered. It is in fact possible to carry out an empirical abstraction without invoking the reduction. But this presupposes an essentially comparable direction [between the several items that are the focus of the abstraction], and this is different from what occurs in the cognition of essences. Te criteria for a genuine knowledge of something are: 1) that there are ideasand urphenomena; 2) that things can come into the worldand be observed; and 3) that there are fundamentally different ways in which something can be what it is and there are natural creatures [to appreciate this]. If space and time were absolute forms of being, as Newton thought, and independent from the mind and the vital centre, there could only be empirical abstraction of similar things, and this would be so even if real being were the focus of a reduction. Real being would be, in the order of givenness, ater space and time. Te multitude of the accidentally being-so’s ofif anything remain as it is.parts of the mind’s inAlternatively, space andwould time were integral tuitional apparatus, then: 1) the cancellation of real being, in the same way as in the scenario mentioned above, would also leave the multitude of accidental images intact, and neither would it lead to anything new, and certainly not to any essence of something; and 2) a situation in which space and time were mentally-based intuitions would mean that mind could never rise above its own intuitions, and its fate would
always be to be trapped by a spatio-temporal matrix of its own making – again, only empirical abstraction would be possible. If we now incorporate into the above notion our own theory of reality agent is in aalthough positionwithout to be responsible for spacethen and the timeonly is the life which force itself, any direction from a living entity as to what it should do. Tis is Schopenhauer’s position, in which he ascribes to reason only an empirical abstracting capacity and hands responsibility to the understanding for inferring causal connections according to the principle of sufficient reason. Schopenhauer’s formulation of ideas is incoherent. But the whole situation is completely transformed if space and time stand and fall with life itself – relative time and relative space with a living creature, and absolute with Life itself,lifewhose of becoming this is. For in this case antime inhibition of the centreway must dissolve the diversity of appearance along with our access to reality, but not in such a way that nothing at all remains, but, on the contrary, in a way that reveals the very essences in front of the mind itself. Te structure of essences governing the world – although actually o[ntisch] only to be found in conjunction with any thing – under the conditions just described [i.e. a true phenomenological reduction] is uncovered and remains behind for us, whereas and because the accidental being-so of anything, reality, and spatio-temporality, have been annulled. Likewise there is a disappearance of all connections between things which allows them to be near or far, because the spatio-temporal determinations of such positioning is biologically conditioned, and this last factor has been wiped out [in the reduction]. Te cognition of essences is therefore the attempt to grasp how the world would look independently of space and time, andbeore the world were invested with these two forms. In other words, if one carved out the structure of Logos in a cross-section of history what would the world look like? What one would be looking at here is [the correlate of]the reason. Without technique of the reduction [i.e. normally] the essences must appear transcendent to us. Such insight certainly opens up our dependence on the acts of the Ens a se, from Whom the world certainly srcinally proceeds, and from His ideas – not from any images, symbols or clues. But the essences are not actually transcendent to our mind, and can become immanent to it, and this is because our mind itself is immanent to God’s mind – as Spinoza realised. Official
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Supplementary Remarks
theological doctrine, following St. Tomas, denies this point. Its core teaching here is that ideas are present in God before any thing which they might refer to, whereas in our minds they come after whatever thing is encountered, our understanding only points. a soul of God, and not a part of supremeand reason itself. We denyisboth Te essences themselves are neither in themselves general nor in themselves individual. Te human being is therefore, in relation to its knowledge, in no way a creature who merely reflects or reproduces things. Its way of being is rather that of taking up a central position amongst all other sorts of entities. As a spiritual and mental creature, as a concentration of the forces of nature and as a creature with drives, it is part ofthe attributes Ens a se, and equally of in aitsco-producer ability to participate in entities. ideal andI realtheprinciples, thereforesobe of objective have attempted to show in myPhilosophy o Perception that the identity of the contents of perception and the image – insofar as they exist – can only be properly clarified by recourse to the identity of the drive impulses, which give rise to the content of subjective perception, in conjunction with the image-forming functions of the life force itself. In addition, perception, although appearing to consciousness to be a passive and reproductive process, is in fact psychic and a spontaneous product of drive-phantasy, in addition to which it bears a practical relationship to the real. An exactly analogous relationship pertains here as does between the way our mind grasps essences and the way the essences themselves are set out by the mind of the Ens a se. But even the mind of the Ens a se is not the subject of a static or eternal world of ideas, which in the progress of the world has always remained the same and which the human mind has only reproduced. Tis doctrine – a core feature of Plato’s and Aristotelian-Christian theological philosophy alike – is based on all the errors of Ancient Idealism: e.g. the existence of an ahistorical cosmos, in which only
one history runs [its course, which therefore cannot itself be historical; auto-generation Selbstmacht] of an idea; ideas preceding the thing referred to; foreknowledge; and a plurality of an ordered realm of ideas, independent from the real. All such philosophies deny anyactual movement of ideas, and only acknowledge any such movement in the history of human consciousness, which itself merely flows past with an ever fixed eternal order. But there are no such pre-existing ideas, and no world plan independent from and prior to the coming-to-be of
the world, or independent of the very history which is what the world essentially is. In addition, human ideas are produced by human mind, but ever under the influence of the combined life force and drive interests any given the ideas only serve to in direct steerand theneeds worldatprocess, andtime, are and not there to be some end itselfand or to dazzle for the sake of dazzling. Te same applies to the production of ideas by the mind of the Ens a se. Tey differentiate themselves in their very realization, with things, not beore things. At each moment of absolute time they are newly available for survey, and, when they change, the whole system of ideas changes. Te world can be regarded as having an ideal side [ideelen Seite] to it as opposed to a set of simple comings and goings, but this ideal side is not auto-genetic, as Hegel thought, butarehetero-genetic, theforce, comings andisgoings [on the other side] the workings because of the life which ever soliciting mind itself. Tere is no truth independent of the existence of objects and independent of the acts which think the ideas, etc. Maier and Heidegger appreciated something of this. Tere is certainly an independence from relative time on the part of cognition of essences, and there is a growth of our cumulative experience of them. But just as human reason rearranges itself and advances in terms of the structure of its principles and laws, so does the divine mind in terms of its eternal essential content, as the world process moves on in absolute time. Te divine mind forms and differentiates its world of ideas in the context of historical life forces. EvenHe grows, and, if you will, evenHe learns. He learns in and through human beings. Tis raises the question of what it is that is re-arranged. Te only eternal element in all this is a mind itself in God, and essentially a mind which humans make definitive, and not a particular ideal order, nor an order which is altered intrinsically or otherwise throughout history. Tere are in the world process no absolutely constant ideas, no and absolute principles, no absolute all stars come go, but so does and matter, and thelaws. sameNot goesonly for do all forms of life. Tere are no eternal forms or categories of being. Te only thing eternal is one essential entity (ein Wesen), the essence of the Divinity, which is the idea that theEns a se has of its concrete goal of becoming – in other words, the idea God has of Himself. It is the only idea which pre-exists any thing or state of affairs. Te limited capacity of human cognition stems not so much from any subjective con-
8
Supplementary Remarks
straints, but from an intrinsic incompleteness in the state of becoming of being itself. Te metaphysical world process is actually unpredictable. Even if we knew the history of mental structures and everything about hithertooexistentially relative the living creatures, it has would at most be calculable. complicate matters stage cognition reached is also a causal factor influencing the world process. Tis holds for the value of cognition as well. Anyone who speaks about ideas antedating their corresponding states of affairs is simply an ignoramus about human thoughts and actions. Humans develop no ideas unless they are challenged to solve some task posed by their drives. Any plan which they might come up with will have to conform to what is feasible. Foresight is only justifiand realby cation the event. Reality is madecannot up of ideal principles, and theafter coming-to-be of a thought be predicted a second thought, and that is why any ontological theory of the nature of things which accords primacy to thoughts themselves cannot be sustained. In other words, what becomes predictable, because it recurs, cannot itself be predictable from a single instance. It is turning matters on their head to attribute the lawfulness of natural events which concern us to our life itself, never mind our mind. Te Ens a se becomes what it is to become by first knowing what is happening to human beings. Te human mind is the reflection of the divine mind on itself. Te divine mind is like the mind of a perfect statesman, who has no basic principles and never knows what tomorrow will bring. It is no knowledge of a superior sort of being, but rather the debasement of a divinity, that one ends up with if one attributes the mores and customs of a natural creature to His thinking and acting.
, Whereas the notion of space presupposes a non-homogeneous extension, that of time is free of this presupposition. Everything that comes under the name of psychic is actually in time. Te acts have a temporal order, even if they do not have to follow this. What do strictly follow one another are inner intuition and its respective content, and it is this content which we take for present time.
Te person – the act centre – is above time. It only reveals its nature in the time in which the vital drive impulse realizes the content of its act’s intention. Kant was right to set the personal level above time. Te person in the spiritual and‘smental divinity, as both a concentrated centrerests of God and as mental ubstance’ . Space is always only the way the various images appear – the subjective and objective manifestations of acts involving drive and natural forces, not mental acts. On the other hand time, as a way for something to succeed something else, is the very way in which these acts can render something’s coming-to-be. Te world in itself is history and progression in absolute time, and objective time is only a measure of relationships within this. Concrete causality, realpositioning and absolute, lawfulness of suchisaindependent kind that it demands both that the of has the aelements involved of time and events. Te core feature of this lawfulness is that it allows the same thing to crop up at a different time and a different thing to crop up at the same time. In other words, natural lawfulness demands that there be a notion of space. It is incorrect to regard the person as lacking the ability to change, just because one places it a level above time. It is just as wrong to see it as sempiternal or even as eternal for this reason. In fact the person forms itself through instantaneous acts and only owes its existence to the carrying out of these acts. It is self-positing – the divine likewise in this respect – but the person is finite in terms of the potential acts available to it. One might say that a god who were not perfect or complete, and who is busy making himself as he goes along, hardly inspires confidence that he ever will be perfect. But consider the following. 1) Is it not up to you whether this process is hastened or not? 2) God is eternal as a mind, as well as the content of this, which He alone can bestow to drive and life force, by disinhibiting His own will, theGod life force. 3) thereby But thereleasing fact that does succeed in bringing harmony to Himself, that you have to take on trust. You have to commit yourself to God on this matter. 4) A God who were incomplete would never have had any motive to permit an emanation – a coming-to-be – of a world born in pain, though might well rejoice at a victory for religious faith despite adversity. But neither would a completed God have any motive either
8
Supplementary Remarks
to sustain the world process as it is. But, in fact, the world simply happens, and for Him, as well as for us, it is both experience and fate. He is not indifferent to what becomes of ‘being’. What makes God great is theHuman fact thatbeings historyhave is now seen asdemeaned the deliberate fate of God hitherto themselves and himself. have not given enough thought to the possible candidates as to what the divinity is – restricting these maybe to only spectator or judge. I should be able to weigh up a number of options and resolve these with my Father, not simply obey His will. Tis teacher – God – also learns through His pupil. My metaphysics is based on the qualities of a person; it is an ideal enabling of the divine, coupled with a realization that this itself emanates from Him. God allows the world to emerge from Himself, and through Himself. A movement without direction and aim is impossible. What counts is only the quantity of movement in the same direction. If space is relative, so must the direction of whatever it envelops. Te moving point must strive for something. Te life force, with its srcinal directionality, and the idea, with its possibilities with respect to essences – i.e. the possibilities of there being essences – are co-determined, one by the other. God has no design, nor plan. Love, and its affirmation of goodand evil, watches eternally over everyone. If the human being itself, as a participant in God’s mind, can rise sufficiently to the challenge and the fall-out of what the coming-to-be of God really means, and if by virtue of his drive energy, which now accrues to his mind, he resolves to loosen his inhibitions concerning that which he sees as evil, then he will sin against God, and at the same time deepen his sorrow. It is not a question of ‘each man for himself ’ and ‘God for all of us’, but ‘all of us for God’. But is it not true that one must suffer in order that one deserves ‘for’?of a God who suffers and struggles, but who, I adhere to the this notion by overcoming his sorrow, becomes a perfect God. I know that an act carried out against our conscience, against everything our person stands for and its metaphysical bonds, hurts everyone and everything. It even makes our body ill, and sets up an ailing for which there is no recovery. All that one can do then is show remorse, repent, and make good.
Could not a perfect God, as Brentano suggests, actually and voluntarily make a good, or better or still better world? Oh, choosey, hesitant and imperfect God! Whoever the Japanesethat earthquake andis the First World War would lived laughthrough at any suggestion your God all-good and almighty. His might is definitely not all-good, and His good is definitely not almighty. Even the devil can hurt Him. I know that in those moments when I feel kind-hearted and loving towards the world, I could not hurt a thing, not even inflict pain on a worm. And God, the infinite, who knows thousands of ways to avoid this, how do you think He could do this? My metaphysics is of a global enhancing of the coming-to-be of God in the world [Panentheismus . Te world as historyfurther, is only ait phase, a destiny, or an epochderofWelt the ]divine self-becoming; is a fashioned piece of work [Werkgestaltung], in which and through which the master craftsman grows and achieves His true nature in the course of realizing it. Te world emanates from God, if He lets it do so. God reveals His nature in the course of the very history in which He realizes Himself.
Te widestofgrounds for supposing the possibility of a metaphysics consisting the knowledge and cognition of absolutely existent objects and reality entail that the following are true. 1) Tere should be a prior givenness of apriori cognition vis-à-vis cognition of the accidental being-so and existence of anything; there should be a priority of matters of fact vis-à-vis any form of thinking about these – and that applies to the actual nature of anything, to the spheres where things can be, to categories, and to connections between all these. 2) and Tere should beabsolute a prior givenness the relationships within a real existentially real sphereof vis-à-vis the nature of anything in the world or existentially relative levels. 3) Tere should be a primacy of phantasy vis-à-vis perception. 4) Tere should be a primacy of the givenness of values vis-à-vis the givenness of images and meaning.
8
Supplementary Remarks
5) Tere should be a primacy of meaningful connections before truth or falsehood come into play, and a primacy of the ‘asensual’ vis-àvis the ‘sensual’. What constitutes oneof ofmetaphysical the principal reasons for supposing there is the possibility knowledge is the fact thatthat we can achieve a varied knowledge of this accidental, empirically existing world, and in each of its spheres. For despite the fact that this world affects our psychophysical make-up and is bound to the organization of our senses and vital psychic nature, we can nevertheless stand back from this realm and see in it merely examples of the same essence. In fact whether we are considering the urphenomenon or idea of a body or of a living creature, or whether we have regard to multiplicity or unity, or network whether or weitsarerole interested in the humanthe being a whole or its social in historical causality, veryasfact that we can arrive at such notions on the basis of one example only testifies to there being an absolute existence of something which is determining our ability in this respect. At the very least we can lay out the essential structure of such notions, whereas if we could not rise above what we were considering we could not actually consider it at all, and the realm of the accidentally being-so of anything would be forever locked away for us. [But this “looking down to open up something” comes at a price]. Our cognition of essences, by offering us knowledge of this sphere, i.e. the knowable accidental existence of anything, narrows by necessity what is there, which – i.e. the actual accidental being – is considerably greater than what can be known about it. Under what conditions, however, would metaphysics be definitely excluded? 1) It would be ruled out if there were no essential lawful structure joining objects and acts, but instead only non-binding summing up, so to speak, of successive individual matters of fact, taking the form a + b + c, etc. 2) Itfrom would be impossible if all ourtheir cognitive contents were derived thefurther contents of our senses and associative processing, from which the only meaning allowed is what is precisely given and nothing over and above that. Tis would only provide knowledge to the effect that here and now something is red or sour, and the same would go for sounds, etc. But none of this actually applies. In fact, the situation is completely and radically different. Te sensory contents and the positive con-
scious appearances of inner experience in any situation are only a drop in the ocean of a vast network of established orderings of being and forms of being. But Husserl not onlyrecognized this obtains. Tis not fundamental fact –a metaphysics. the only one which – would by itself permit For metaphysics is not only the cognition of ideas and their ordered arrangement; it is also the cognition of reality, indeed the cognition of the basis and root of all reality. A theoretical formulation of the essential structure of the world in all its spheres only gives us the essential and objective possible world, not a participation in the real or the absolutely real. If we are, furthermore, exclusively reliant for our knowledge of the real ononly accidental sensory information on theand way processcase this, which really have an ideal objectiveornature arewea special of this, then metaphysics is likewise impossible. Kant’s thesis, where categories and forms of intuition areapriori with respect to sensation, is a clear case of such a view. But this puts things the wrong way round. Te correct way matters stand is that it is only because resistance occurs to what we are striving for that any sensation enters our awareness in the first place and thereby achieves any ontological status for the first time. Only then do we begin to know anything about its effect on other things, and that is because it was called up, as it were, as an effect of our vital centre’s prior aspirations. For all these reasons our experience of what is really going on is again much broader than the extract of it which is shown to us in the form of sensory perception. We are acquainted with the world through suffering resistance to it, and this is our most direct awareness of its reality, before we know what it is that resists us, and before it is transformed into an object standing before our mind. Terefore, the sequence of events is not that causal connections and what they amount to are what is srcinally given to us as an extant state of affairs, as if they weresensory established andTe repeatable ships between images. situationtemporo-spatial is the other wayrelationround: we seek such laws between sensory perceivable manifestations and objective appearances of effective unities and effective centres because we already know that these centres operate in an analogous way to how I operate when striving for something and how in the course of such striving a unified psychic action results. It is not theTat, only the How, of this causally effective exchange that I seek to know in a so-
8
Supplementary Remarks
called lawful formula. I already know –apriori – that as many lawful structures as there are, so must there be as many independent sorts of operative centres to place these in. We must distinguish between twoofthings: theand metaphysics of thenow real,clearly or, better, the coming-to-be the real; the metaphysics of what is only real in the sense of its being accidentally so [zuälliges Sosein]. Te metaphysics of real coming-to-be has to do with the immediate participation by a subject, with respect to their status as a creature of drives and displaying the life force, in the multiplicity of impulse centres of various sorts which form the distributed life force of theEns a se Himself. Tis involves co-operative strivings, drives and searchings with the supreme andrelevant a production of unity harmony of our intact life forceentity, with the attribute of thisand supreme being. Te obscure mysticism of all eras recognized something of this, and prescribed one or other Dionysian technique to get close to it. Te life force is at the same time an image-creating force with a potentially infinite imaginative power in this respect. Tis would be enhanced if mind were put out of commission, as in the reduction I refer to as the Dionysian reduction, and anyway mind is blind to the power of the life force and its phantasy. Te dynamic participation of that part of our being which owes its nature to our drives with the characteristics of an outside centre of striving must give the same image as our phantasyimage, because the same objective life force is involved in both cases. Te essential element in all artistic production is for the artist to install himself or herself in the ‘inner flames’ of a thing, as Rodin, for example, did, and let the thing arise again at each step of the reproduction.
1. Our metaphysics is a metaphysics of a human race which has grown old andcompetence. which knows and recognizes the limits of their spiritual and mental 2. It is at the same time the first overcoming of the two class ideologies. 3. It is also a true reconciliation of the male and female outlooks on the world. 4. It is the first philosophical corpus which makes any sense of how we can live for God without merely obeying His orders.
Te appropriation by mind of the energy which lies in our drives and life force presupposes that even in the life force, at the very least at the highest level of sophistication it can achieve –Eros [animal-like tender sexuality] – thereoflives a propensity toward the idea ofthat a mind and toward the essence essence. Tis further presupposes even mind not only takes on the nature of the idea of the eternal substance – the unique, eternal idea, which we first dimly experience through history – but that there also belongs to mind a way of acting which is completely free of any nuance of intensity. Moreover, the impotence in this last respect it shares with the essential ideas.
Scheler, M. (1913-1916). Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik. rans. 1973 as Formalism in Ethics and Non-ormal Ethics o Values. Northwestern University Press, Evanston, I1. Scheler, M. (1915). Der Genius des Krieges und der Deutsche Krieg.Verlag der Weissen Bücher, Leipzig. Scheler, M. (1915). Zum Phänomen des ragischen. rans. 1954 as On the tragic, in ragedy: Vision and Form,ed. R.W. Corrigan. San Francisco. Scheler, M. (1915). “Die Psychologie der sogenannten Rentenhysterie und der recht Kampf gegen das Übel.” rans. 1984 as “Te Psychology of socalled compensation hysteria and the real battle against illness.”Journal o Phenomenological Psychology, 15, 125-143. Scheler, M. (1915). Versuche einer Philosophie des Lebens: Nietzsche – Dilthey – Bergson. Republished 1919 in Vom Umsturz der Werte.Neue Geist Verlag, Leipzig. Scheler, M. (1915). “Die Idole der Selbsterkenntnis.” rans. 1973 as “Te idols of self-knowledge.” In Max Scheler; Selected Philosophical Essays, ed. D.R. Lachterman. Northwestern University Press, Evanston. Scheler, M. (1916). Sinn des Leides.” rans. “Te meaning suffering.” In Max“Vom Scheler, ed. 1973 M.S.asFrings. Martinusof Centennial Essays, Nijhoff, Te Hague. Scheler, M. (1921). Vom Ewigen im Menschen. rans. 1960 as Te Eternal in Man. SCM Press, London. (Includes essay on Nature of Philosophy) Scheler, M. (1923). Wesen und Formen der Sympathie. rans. 1954 as Te Nature o Sympathy. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. Scheler, M. (1926). “Erkenntnis und Arbeit.” InDie Wissensormen und die Gesellschat. Der Neue-Geist Verlag, Leipzig. (Includes “Metaphysics of perception.”) Scheler, M. (1926). Probleme einder Soziologie des Wissens. rans. 1980 as Problems o a Sociology o Knowledge. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. Scheler, M. (1927). Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos. rans. 1961 as Man’s Place in Nature. Noonday, New York. Scheler, M. (1927). “Idealismus – Realismus.” rans. 1973 as “Idealism and Realism.” In Max Scheler, Selected Philosophical Essays, ed. D.R. Lachterman, Northwestern University Press, Evanston. Scheler, M. (1933). od und Fortleben. In Schriten aus dem Nachlass, Band 1. Der Neue Geist Verlag, Berlin.
Scheler, M. (1933).“Über Scham und Schamgefühl.” rans. 1987 as “Shame.” In Max Scheler, Person and Sel-value. Tree Essays,ed. M.S. Frings. Martinus Nijhoff, Te Hague. Scheler, M. (1933). “Vorbilder und Führer.” rans. 1987 as “Exemplars of Person and Leaders.” In Max Scheler, Person and Sel-value. Tree Essays, ed. M.S. Frings. Martinus Nijhoff, Te Hague. Scheler, M. (1933). “Lehre von den drei atsachen.” rans. 1973 as “Te Teory of the Tree Facts.” In Max Scheler,Selected Philosophical Essays, ed. D.R. Lachterman. Northwestern University Press, Evanston. Scheler, M. (1933). “Phänomenologie und Erkenntnistheorie.” rans. 1973 as “Phenomenology and the Teory of Cognition.” In Max Scheler, Selected Philosophical Essays,ed. D.R. Lachterman. Northwestern University Press, Evanston. Scheler, M. (1947). “Metaphysik und Kunst.” rans. 1974 as “Metaphysics Max Scheler, Centennial Essays, ed. M.S. Frings. Martinus Nijand hoff,Art Te.” In Hague. Scheler, M. (1976). “Idealismus und Realismus, V: Das emotionale Realitätsproblem.” rans. 1981 as “Reality and Resistance: On Being and ime, Section 43.” InHeidegger, Te Man and the Tinker,ed. . Sheehan. President Publishing, Chicago.
aim, 6, 13, 18, 22, 41, 45, 48, 59, 60, 103, 107, 112, 119, 192, 219, 324, 326, 372, 415
276, 277, 280, 282, 284, 286, 291, 314, 335, 336, 344, 378, 380-382, 388-390, 392, 394, 406, 411
Being-itself (see also Ens a se and Drang (see also life-force and NaSupreme Being), 55, 59, 69, 70, ture), 133, 197, 291, 294, 295, 227, 229, 232, 237, 250, 251, 349, 316, 319, 340, 350, 353, 363 356, 357, 367 being-so (Sosein), 78, 79, 87, 95, 99, Ens a se (see also Being-itself and 118-120, 122, 124, 127, 155, 189, Supreme Being), 94, 114, 125, 203, 231, 234, 246, 248, 255, 257, 200, 227, 340, 349, 356, 362, 369, 263, 264, 382, 386, 394, 401, 403, 372, 400, 401, 403, 408, 410-413, 409, 410, 416, 417 419 Eros, 187, 230-241, 245, 246, 248, cognition, 5, 11, 14, 18-20, 26, 32, 249, 323, 325, 327, 332, 333, 337, 38-41, 44, 55, 66, 68, 77, 95, 339, 342, 351, 352, 355, 357, 359, 124-126, 145, 150, 153, 154, 255, 367, 405, 420 257, 259, 262, 263, 315, 316, 389, essence, 16, 22, 27-29, 33, 36, 37, 51, 390, 409, 410, 412, 413, 416-418, 55, 74, 78, 80-83, 86, 87, 94-98, 422 100, 101, 104-109, 113, 122, 124, concept, 33, 43, 52, 54, 55, 57-59, 125, 129, 133, 134, 142, 145, 164, 81, 87, 89-92, 97, 98, 109, 118, 167, 184, 186, 201, 213, 215, 218, 151, 154, 157, 184, 186, 188, 191, 230, 232, 234, 237-240, 255, 257, 192, 195, 206, 215, 245, 265, 285, 258, 297, 315, 327, 339, 344, 290, 307, 308, 341, 360, 367, 371, 356, 359, 363, 365, 367, 369-371, 384, 386, 390, 394-396, 398 375-377, 384, 385, 389, 391, 399, consciousness, 11, 12, 14, 19, 20, 400, 403, 406, 407, 409, 412, 417, 23, 41, 43, 69, 78, 83, 87, 97, 420 100-103, 108-114, 116, 118-122, existential relativity, 17, 47, 50, 109, 125, 127, 138, 139, 141, 143, 146, 115, 118-123, 201, 257, 295, 316, 148, 149, 156, 160, 165, 166, 173, 317, 330 174, 176, 182, 183, 185-187, 189, 190, 192, 196-199, 202, 203, 205, fantasy, 30-32, 36, 42-47, 66, 115, 209, 211, 222, 223, 228, 229, 231, 133, 149, 266, 267, 270, 273, 277, 240, 242, 248, 258, 266, 269, 270,
278, 286, 321, 325-329, 333, 342, 359, 363, 367
327, 333, 352, 367, 369, 375, 380, 390, 393, 394, 397, 404, 413, 418
Geist , 193, 405, 421294, 307, 317, 333, 373, knowledge, 24-33, 35,11, 39,12, 40,14, 42,15, 44,17-22, 45, Gestalt (see also ur-phenomenon and 47-51, 56, 60, 65-70, 74, 78-83, image), 149, 150, 163, 168, 312 87, 88, 90, 92-98, 106, 107, goal (see also teleology), 37, 45, 59, 109-111, 113, 114, 116-125, 62, 103, 105, 124, 138, 155, 156, 127-129, 132, 133, 135, 139, 140, 179, 200, 210, 219, 220, 223, 224, 144, 146, 151, 152, 160, 165, 170, 234, 241, 251, 257, 299, 323, 324, 173, 175, 176, 185, 189, 195, 332-335, 338, 340, 341, 345, 349, 197, 205, 223, 227, 229, 232, 354, 355, 361, 364, 398, 41 234, 244, 251, 255-259, 261-263, 266, 267, 277, 278, 306, 315, 316, idea, 24, 29, 33, 37-41, 49, 53, 56, 344, 370-372, 377, 380, 384, 389, 59, 62, 69, 80-82, 86, 87, 90-92, 391-395, 402-404, 407, 409, 411, 94-99, 101-103, 113, 115, 118, 413, 416-418, 421 134, 138, 163, 175, 196, 197, 200, 203, 208, 210, 219, 221, 223, 228, life-force (see also Drang and 230, 237, 241, 244, 249, 250, 252, Nature), 71, 97, 135, 221-227, 256-258, 264, 270, 281, 290, 291, 229-233, 236, 238-243, 246, 314, 328, 329, 331, 332, 334, 248-250, 253, 257-259, 268, 374, 339, 340, 343-345, 349, 351, 354, 388, 393-395, 401-404 355, 358, 360-362, 364, 369, 371, 373-375, 378, 386, 398, 400, 401, mental, 13, 15, 16, 24, 37, 43, 51, 405, 408, 411, 412, 415, 417, 420 61, 68, 73, 78, 80, 81, 96, 97, 100, image (see also ur-phenomenon and 103, 104, 106, 111, 112, 114, 116, 124, 128, 130-132, 134, 138, Gestalt), 37, 38, 44, 45, 58, 67, 84-87, 90, 120, 141, 146, 159, 139, 141, 142, 150, 151, 155-157, 165, 166, 178, 188-191, 213, 223, 159-161, 172-174, 176, 184, 185, 226, 230, 231, 234, 236, 237, 239, 187, 189, 190, 192, 193, 196, 240, 246-248, 250, 258, 267, 268, 198-201, 204, 211, 213, 214, 216, 270, 276, 287, 288, 295, 321, 327, 217, 221, 228, 234, 239-241, 243, 342-344, 355, 369, 390, 395, 396, 246, 252, 255, 258, 262, 264, 294, 404, 411, 419 300, 305, 361, 369, 370, 372, 374, intuition, 13, 16, 22-27, 36-38, 44, 378, 379, 381, 389-392, 398, 402, 45, 47, 48, 73, 84, 85, 88-91, 94, 405, 411, 413, 414, 419 95, 97, 98, 103, 107, 110, 114, mind, 14, 20, 22, 23, 26, 27, 30, 32, 118, 119, 121, 124, 126-128, 214, 37, 39, 46, 47, 51, 63, 65, 78-80, 231, 232, 240, 258, 267, 272-274, 89, 95-99, 101-103, 105, 106, 277, 278, 281, 285, 286, 288, 289, 108, 109, 111, 112, 117, 120, 123-127, 129-135, 137-139, 142,
Index o Key erms
144, 154-157, 161-163, 174, 184, psyche, 138, 155, 156, 171, 173, 181, 187, 189, 190, 192, 193, 195-198, 187, 189, 190, 224, 244, 281, 308 200, 201, 204-206, 209-217, 219, psychic, 41, 46, 51, 53, 60, 92, 103, 221-224, 248-250, 226, 228-230, 233, 255, 236-245, 252, 253, 257-259, 262, 270, 273, 280, 281, 293, 296, 298, 299, 306, 307, 309, 310, 328, 329, 345, 351, 355, 369, 373-375, 379, 380, 389, 395, 397, 398, 400-403, 405-407, 409-415, 418-420
113, 134, 115, 135, 116, 142, 118, 143, 120, 146, 122, 126, 130, 150, 151, 153, 155, 157-160, 162, 163, 167, 168, 170-191, 193-196, 198-200, 220, 221, 225, 226, 233, 237, 281, 282, 295, 298-300, 304-307, 310, 311, 313, 336, 360, 361, 381, 404, 411, 413, 417, 418
Nature (see also Drang and lifereality, 11-13, 17, 19, 20, 23, 24, force), 11-13, 17, 19, 20, 22-29, 27-29, 32, 35, 36, 41, 46-55, 67, 32, 36, 37, 40, 41, 45-52, 55-57, 70, 77-83, 87, 88, 95, 99-103, 106, 59-63, 65-71, 77, 81, 83, 86-89, 108, 111, 113, 115, 118-121, 165, 91-93, 95-97, 103-106, 108, 109, 174, 196, 220, 234, 248, 250, 255, 112, 114, 115, 117, 119, 121, 123, 259, 262, 264, 267-270, 273, 277, 124, 131, 132, 137, 139, 141, 142, 280, 282, 285, 291, 310, 324-332, 144, 149, 150, 152-158, 160, 161, 344, 347, 348, 354, 355, 363, 367, 163-168, 170, 172, 175, 180, 181, 370, 372, 373, 380, 381, 387, 394, 183, 185, 187, 194, 200, 201, 203, 395, 397, 403, 408-410, 413, 416, 204, 207-210, 212, 216, 217, 220, 418, 422 223, 225-228, 230-232, 234, 239, Reduction, 36, 37, 61, 67, 79, 80, 243, 248-252, 256-259, 262-281, 82-86, 92, 99-103, 106-113, 261, 284-287, 289, 291-296, 298-301, 330, 371, 397, 402, 403, 409, 410, 304-319, 321, 323-336, 339-346, 419 348-364, 366, 370, 374, 378-381, 383-393, 395-399, 402, 403, 405, Sosein (see also being-so and what408, 409, 411, 413, 414, 416-421 ness), 124, 140, 165, 178, 193, 348, 385, 388, 419 person, 12, 15, 16, 51, 56, 73-75, 87, soul, 11, 42, 44-47, 53-55, 67, 68, 102, 103, 111-113, 115, 117, 123, 114, 117-119, 129-135, 137, 138, 124, 132, 138, 141, 142, 156-158, 141-146, 148-152, 154, 156, 157, 160, 161, 172, 174-176, 182, 185, 159, 162, 170, 171, 173, 177, 186, 192, 193, 196-201, 208-210, 179-184, 186, 192, 195-199, 216, 212, 216-219, 227, 228, 237, 240, 225, 229, 232, 233, 242, 245, 247, 245, 246, 250-252, 293, 294, 297, 248, 281, 308-310, 313, 314, 336, 304, 305, 345, 348, 350, 352, 353, 411 357, 361, 366, 370, 377, 381, 390, space, 26, 50, 51, 60, 78, 79, 81, 82, 398, 413-415, 422 84, 86, 100, 106, 108, 152, 154, personhood, 22, 73, 221, 352-354 156, 164-166, 177, 183, 191,
193, 195, 214, 221, 225, 245, 247, 261-263, 265, 266, 270-291, 294-300, 304, 307, 310, 319, 320,
396, 397, 400, 401, 409, 410, 412-415, 418, 419, 422
326, 391, 327, 397, 334, 401, 342, 409, 359, 410, 371, 375, ur-phenomenon image and 388, Gestalt), 86, 87,(see 92,also 93, 258 413-415 spirit, 19, 31, 33, 35, 42, 44-48, whatness (see also being-so and So51-56, 63, 65, 67, 70, 72, 217, sein), 43, 80, 82, 83, 95, 100, 101, 219, 221-224, 227, 233, 236, 242, 106, 108-111, 125, 356, 383 244, 245, 248, 251, 253, 264, 280, will, 9, 13-15, 20, 21, 23, 25, 28, 34, 281, 293, 294, 296, 298, 299, 306, 36, 41, 46, 47, 50, 54, 63, 64, 67, 307, 309, 313, 314, 323, 324, 326, 69, 75, 78, 80, 81, 83, 99, 100, 328, 329, 331-335, 337-344, 346, 102, 103, 105, 106, 113, 123, 349-357, 359-367, 380 124, 132, 138, 139, 148, 151, 158, Supreme Being (see also Ens a se 161, 163, 173, 178, 186, 188-193, and Being-itself ), 58, 59, 87, 200, 200, 204, 205, 207, 209, 215, 217, 213, 216, 221, 225, 227, 228, 249, 237, 240, 241, 243, 247, 249, 251, 374, 376, 379, 380, 382, 383, 385, 252, 256, 275, 283-286, 290, 291, 391, 419 293-295, 302, 306, 314, 315, 326, 328, 331-334, 337, 339-341, 344, teleoclinical, 156, 159, 178, 192, 345, 347, 349-352, 355-357, 360, 233, 296, 308, 386 361, 363, 366, 367, 370, 371, 373, teleology (see also goal), 313, 314, 375, 381, 389, 390, 392-394, 398, 326, 335, 336, 354 401, 404, 409, 412-415 time, 14, 18, 19, 21, 25, 26, 28-30, 50-55, 60, 65, 66, 68, 69, 72, 75, 78-82, 84, 86, 96, 99-101, 106, 108, 109, 116, 118, 120, 121, 129, 134, 142, 146, 148, 152, 154, 156-158, 160, 161, 163-165, 170, 174, 177, 181-184, 186, 188, 192, 193, 195, 196, 198-200, 207, 211, 213-215, 218-221, 223, 225, 232, 238, 240, 241, 244, 245, 248, 251, 256, 257, 261-263, 265, 266, 270-287, 289-300, 302, 304, 306-310, 314, 317-321, 323-327, 331, 332, 334-336, 338-340, 342, 343, 345-347, 349-352, 355, 357-359, 362-364, 370, 371, 374-379, 383, 385-388, 391, 394,
Ach, 151 Adler, 189 Aristotle, 11, 12, 18, 27, 29, 52, 57, 58, 61, 81, 82, 87-89, 98, 127, 129, 131, 133, 143, 164, 279, 280, 298, 304, 306-309, 312-314, 316, 332, 341, 345, 358, 360, 370, 377, 408 Avenarius, 14, 311
Condillac, 149 Croce, 22, 70
Carnot, 54 Cassirer, 21, 250 Christ, 23, 237 Claparède, 269 Clark, 281 Clausius, 54 Cohen, 21, 33, 119, 126, 152 Comte, 16, 251, 311
Faraday, 291 Fechner, 47, 199, 307, 336 Feuerbach, 223, 249, 251 Fichte, 33, 53, 65, 69, 125, 220, 269 Fiedler, 30, 39, 40, 42 Freud, 145, 189, 190, 225, 237, 246
Dante, 33, 34 Darwin, 133, 140, 227, 335 Democritus, 262, 310 Descartes, 18, 22, 34, 52, 64, 118,
133, 215, 146, 227, 148, 228, 150, 305, 169, 309, 171, 310, 181, 314, 320, 378 Bachofen, 225, 244 Dilthey, 14, 16, 146, 421 Bacon, 14 Dionysius the Areopagite, 23 Becher, 179-181, 313, 314, 317 Driesch, 53, 152, 153, 182, 183, 188, Bergson, 25, 29, 53, 89, 90, 133, 303, 304, 308, 309, 313, 314, 317, 143, 146, 152-154, 220, 246, 282, 319-321, 325, 340, 341 304, 307, 309, 313, 316, 317, 383, Duhem, 152, 336 402, 421 Duns Scotus, 75 Berkeley, 53, 118, 269, 343 Birnbaum, 190 Durkheim, 249 Boas, 131 Eckermann, 217 Böhme, 220 Eckhart, 220 Boltzmann, 214 Einstein, 41, 144, 152, 215, 283, Bolzano, 369, 388, 389, 407 284, 289, 291, 298 Brentano, 125, 416 Empedocles, 310 Buddha, 57, 63, 116, 237, 244 Epicurus, 251 Burckhardt, 30 Eucken, 7, 145 Buytendijk, 319 Euripedes, 34
Galileo, 52, 121, 306
Gelb, 395 Germain, 17 Goethe, 19, 31, 33, 34, 94, 154, 212, 217, 331,179 339, 366 Goldstein, Gorgias, 116 Hartley, 150 Hartmann, 7, 17, 126, 188, 209, 211, 220, 258, 276, 282, 295, 314, 320, 330, 332, 333, 339, 347, 357, 360, 365, 369, 372, 388, 389 Hegel, 17, 22, 25, 31, 33, 53, 65, 94, 125, 211, 220, 228, 314, 348, 360, 365, 380, 383, 400, 412 Heidegger, 7, 8, 125, 329, 412, 422 Heisenberg, 378 Helmholtz, 54, 86, 87 Henderson, 312 Heraclitus, 31, 400 Herbart, 180, 389 Hering, 83, 182 Hertz, 191 Heyer, 186 Hillel, 210, 218 Hobbes, 64, 75, 310 Homer, 232 Hume, 27, 43, 53, 91, 149, 197 Husserl, 7, 8, 12, 14, 27, 79-82, 87, 89, 90, 99, 102, 103, 108, 109, 111, 112, 119, 125, 258, 329, 369, 371, 388-390, 397, 405-407, 418 Huygens, 52 Jaensch, 86, 149 James, 126, 180, 339 Jaspers, 16, 17 Joule, 54 Jung, 225, 238 Kant, 14, 18, 20-23, 29, 30, 33, 34, 47, 48, 53, 54, 60, 68, 69, 75, 79,
87-89, 92, 98, 103, 106, 116, 118-121, 126, 149, 154, 166, 175, 196, 214, 227-229, 231, 240, 244, 256, 289, 262, 292, 265, 300, 270, 314, 272, 315, 274, 327, 278, 281, 380, 384, 386, 399, 414, 418 Katz, 83 Kerler, 209 Keynes, 145 Klages, 97, 186, 406 Klopstock, 238 Koehler, 153, 312 Koffka, 184, 400 Kretschmer, 238 Kronecker, 390 Kulpe, 148 Lamarck, 133, 134, 313 Lamettrie, 310 Lange, 29, 33 Lask, 89 Leibniz, 17, 58, 59, 63, 64, 104, 109, 126, 133, 160, 195, 221, 222, 265, 281, 290, 295, 309 Leonardo, 52 Le Roy, 152 Leucippus, 310 Linke, 369 Locke, 18, 19 Lodge, 313 Lotze, 19, 83, 140, 149, 181, 184, 185, 309, 310, 312, 389 Mach, 14, 149, 152, 290, 311 Machiavelli, 210 Malebranche, 25, 94, 281, 309, 314, 407 Marty, 279 Marx, 53, 54, 63, 249, 400 Meinong, 182, 388 Mendel, 193, 304 Meyer, 54
Index o Names
Meyerson, 152 Michelson, 283 Mill, 16, 382
Schlick, 119, 126, 152, 182-185, 285 Schneider, 190
Nadler, 244 Napoleon, 74, 380 Natorp, 21, 87, 126, 152 Newton, 20, 52, 121, 149, 262, 281, 285, 327, 409 Nicholas de Cusa, 25 Nietzsche, 7, 17, 29-31, 53, 146, 208, 209, 244, 246, 377, 421 Novalis, 29
Schopenhauer, 23-25, 29,201, 30, 34, 41, 53, 57,13, 100, 136,27, 194, 231, 238, 240, 241, 244, 246, 305, 314, 332, 339, 360, 365, 402, 410 Schultz, 312 Schwarz, 220 Semon, 180 Shaw, 339 Simmel, 16, 17, 21, 53, 145, 146 Sophocles, 34 Spencer, 79, 116, 131, 133, 137, 311 Spengler, 14 Spinoza, 15, 18, 19, 24, 27, 34, 58, 59, 67, 68, 95, 124, 125, 143, 148, 201, 206, 211, 213, 220, 281, 347, 348, 365, 410 St. Augustine, 25, 58, 66, 67, 280 St. Paul, 72, 206 St. Tomas Aquinas, 18, 34, 62, 143, 164, 227, 305, 309, 411 Stern, 309 Strich, 244 Stumpf, 220
Ostwald, 53, 54, 311 Palagyi, 289 Pascal, 217, 228 Pavlov, 146 Pfänder, 186 Planck, 41, 144, 152, 184, 215, 321 Plato, 15, 27, 29, 34, 52, 56-58, 62, 67, 68, 81, 82, 87, 89, 98, 129, 143, 244, 306, 372, 408, 411 Plotinus, 23, 25, 27, 30, 133 Poincaré, 31, 41, 285 Priestley, 150 Proclus, 27 Przywara, 64, 66 Pythagorans, 41, 52
Tomas à Kempis, 23 olstoy, 339
Vaihinger, 30, 32 Rathenau, 8, 220 Von Ehrenfels, 339 Reichenbach, 152 Von Hartmann, 188, 211, 220, 276, Rickert, 12, 68, 69, 71, 74, 119, 146, 295, 314, 320, 347 169, 369, 381, 389, 406 Von Humboldt, 203 Riehl, 152 Von Kries, 184 Schelling, 20, 25, 29, 31, 33, 34, 220, 225, 365 Schilder, 189, 194 Schiller, 29, 33, 34, 234
Watson, 300 Weber, 16, 70, 71, 257, 339 Weismann, 131, 134 Wells, 220, 339 Wertheimer, 153, 179, 184
Wiener, 295 Windelband, 12, 68, 71 Wolff, 23, 58, 59 Wundt, 12, 75, 184, 185, 313133, 134, 149, 172, Zeno, 289 Ziegler, 209, 220
