Various criticisms on the part of philosophers with which this book
met immediately upon its publication, induce me to add to this Revised
Edition the following brief statement.
I can well understand that there are readers who are interested
in the rest of the book, but who will look upon what follows as a
tissue of abstract concepts which to them is irrelevant and makes
no appeal. They may, if they choose, leave this brief statement
unread. But in philosophy problems present themselves which have their
origin rather in certain prejudices on the thinker's part than in
the natural progression of normal human thinking. With the main body
of this book it seems to me to be the duty of every one to concern
himself, who is striving for clearness about the essential nature of
man and his relation to the world. What follows is rather a problem
the discussion of which certain philosophers demand as necessary to a
treatment of the topics of this book, because these philosophers, by
their whole way of thinking, have created certain difficulties which
do not otherwise occur. If I were to pass by these problems entirely,
certain people would be quick to accuse me of dilettantism, etc. The
impression would thus be created that the author of the views set
down in this book has not thought out his position with regard to
these problems because he has not discussed them in his book.
The problem to which I refer is this: there are thinkers who find a
particular difficulty in understanding how another mind can act on
one's own. They say: the world of my consciousness is a closed circle
within me; so is the world of another's consciousness within him. I
cannot look into the world of another's mind. How, then, do I know
that he and I are in a common world? The theory according to which
we can from the conscious world infer an unconscious world which
never can enter consciousness, attempts to solve this difficulty as
follows. The world, it says, which I have in my consciousness is the
representation in me of a real world to which my consciousness has no
access. In this transcendent world exist the unknown agents which cause
the world in my consciousness. In it, too, exists my own real self,
of which likewise I have only a representation in my consciousness. In
it, lastly, exists the essential self of the fellow-man who confronts
me. Whatever passes in the consciousness of my fellow-man corresponds
to a reality in his transcendent essence which is independent of
his consciousness. His essential nature acts in that realm which,
on this theory, is equally beyond consciousness. Thus an impression
is made in my consciousness which represents there what is present
in another's consciousness and wholly beyond the reach of my direct
awareness. Clearly the point of this theory is to add to the world
accessible to my consciousness an hypothetical world which is to my
immediate experience inaccessible. This is done to avoid the supposed
alternative of having to say that the external world, which I regard
as existing before me, is nothing but the world of my consciousness,
with the absurd--solipsistic--corollary that other persons likewise
exist only within my consciousness.
Several epistemological tendencies in recent speculation have joined
in creating this problem. But it is possible to attain to clearness
about it by surveying the situation from the point of view of spiritual
perception which underlies the exposition of this book. What is it
that, in the first instance, I have before me when I confront another
person? To begin with, there is the sensuous appearance of the other's
body, as given in perception. To this we might add the auditory
perception of what he is saying, and so forth. All this I apprehend,
not with a passive stare, but by the activity of my thinking which
is set in motion. Through the thinking with which I now confront the
other person, the percept of him becomes, as it were, psychically
transparent. As my thinking apprehends the percept, I am compelled to
judge that what I perceive is really quite other than it appears to the
outer senses. The sensuous appearance, in being what it immediately is,
reveals something else which it is mediately. In presenting itself to
me as a distinct object, it, at the same time, extinguishes itself
as a mere sensuous appearance. But in thus extinguishing itself it
reveals a character which, so long as it affects me, compels me as a
thinking being to extinguish my own thinking and to put its thinking
in the place of mine. Its thinking is then apprehended by my thinking
as an experience like my own. Thus I have really perceived another's
thinking. For the immediate percept, in extinguishing itself as
sensuous appearance, is apprehended by my thinking. It is a profess
which passes wholly in my consciousness and consists in this, that the
other's thinking takes the place of my thinking. The self-extinction
of the sensuous appearance actually abolishes the separation between
the spheres of the two consciousnesses. In my own consciousness this
fusion manifests itself in that, so long as I experience the contents
of the other's consciousness, I am aware of my own consciousness
as little as I am aware of it in dreamless sleep. Just as my waking
consciousness is eliminated from the latter, so are the contents of
my own consciousness eliminated from my perception of the contents
of another's consciousness. Two things tend to deceive us about
the true facts. The first is that, in perceiving another person, the
extinction of the contents of one's own consciousness is replaced not,
as in sleep, by unconsciousness, but by the contents of the other's
consciousness. The other is that my consciousness of my own self
oscillates so rapidly between extinction and recurrence, that these
alternations usually escape observation. The whole problem is to be
solved, not through artificial construction of concepts, involving an
inference from what is in consciousness to what always must transcend
consciousness, but through genuine experience of the connection between
thinking and perceiving. The same remark applies to many other problems
which appear in philosophical literature. Philosophers should seek
the road to unprejudiced spiritual observation, instead of hiding
reality behind an artificial frontage of concepts.
In a monograph by Eduard von Hartmann on "The Ultimate Problems of
Epistemology and Metaphysics" (in the Zeitschrift für Philosophie und
philosophische Kritik, Vol. 108, p. 55), my Philosophy of Spiritual
Activity has been classed with the philosophical tendency which seeks
to build upon an "epistemological Monism." Eduard von Hartmann rejects
this position as untenable, for the following reasons. According to
the point of view maintained in his monograph, there are only three
possible positions in the theory of knowledge. The first consists in
remaining true to the naïve point of view, which regards objects of
sense-perception as real things existing outside the human mind. This,
urges Von Hartmann, implies a lack of critical reflection. I fail
to realise that with all my contents of consciousness I remain
imprisoned in my own consciousness. I fail to perceive that I am
dealing, not with a "table-in-itself," but only with a phenomenon
in my own consciousness. If I stop at this point of view, or if
for whatever reasons I return to it, I am a Naïve Realist. But this
whole position is untenable, for it ignores that consciousness has no
other objects than its own contents. The second position consists in
appreciating this situation and confessing it to oneself. As a result,
I become a Transcendental Idealist. As such, says Von Hartmann, I am
obliged to deny that a "thing-in-itself" can ever appear in any way
within the human mind. But, if developed with unflinching consistency,
this view ends in Absolute Illusionism. For the world which confronts
me is now transformed into a mere sum of contents of consciousness,
and, moreover, of contents of my private consciousness. The objects
of other human minds, too, I am then compelled to conceive--absurdly
enough--as present solely in my own consciousness. Hence, the only
tenable position, according to Von Hartmann, is the third, viz.,
Transcendental Realism. On this view, there are "things-in-themselves,"
but consciousness can have no dealings with them by way of immediate
experience. Existing beyond the sphere of human consciousness, they
cause, in a way of which we remain unconscious, the appearance of
objects in consciousness. These "things-in-themselves" are known only
by inference from the contents of consciousness, which are immediately
experienced but for that very reason, purely ideal. Eduard von
Hartmann maintains in the monograph cited above, that "epistemological
Monism"--for such he takes my point of view to be--is bound to declare
itself identical with one or other of the above three positions;
and that its failure to do so is due only to its inconsistency in not
drawing the actual consequences of its presuppositions. The monograph
goes on to say: "If we want to find out which epistemological position
a so-called Epistemological Monist occupies, all we have to do is
to put to him certain questions and compel him to answer them. For,
out of his own initiative, no Monist will condescend to state his
views on these points, and likewise he will seek to dodge in every
way giving a straight answer to our questions, because every answer he
may give will betray that Epistemological Monism does not differ from
one or other of the three positions. Our questions are the following:
(1) Are things continuous or intermittent in their existence? If the
answer is 'continuous,' we have before us some one of the forms of
Naïve Realism. If the answer is 'intermittent,' we have Transcendental
Idealism. But if the answer is: 'They are, on the one hand, continuous,
viz., as contents of the Absolute Mind, or as unconscious ideas,
or as permanent possibilities of perception, but, on the other hand,
intermittent, viz., as contents of finite consciousness,' we recognise
Transcendental Realism. (2) When three persons are sitting at a table,
how many distinct tables are there? The Naïve Realist answers 'one';
the Transcendental Idealist answers 'three'; but the Transcendental
Realist answers 'four.' This last answer does, indeed, presuppose
that it is legitimate to group together in the single question,
'How many tables?' things so unlike each other as the one table
which is the 'thing-in-itself' and the three tables which are the
objects of perception in the three perceivers' minds. If this seems
too great a licence to anyone, he will have to answer 'one and three,'
instead of 'four.' (3) When two persons are alone together in a room,
how many distinct persons are there? If you answer 'two'--you are a
Naïve Realist. If you answer 'four,' viz., in each of the two minds
one 'I' and one 'Other,' you are a Transcendental Idealist. If you
answer 'six,' viz., two persons as 'things-in-themselves' and four
persons as ideal objects in the two minds, you are a Transcendental
Realist. In order to show that Epistemological Monism is not one of
these three positions, we should have to give other answers than the
above to each of these three questions. But I cannot imagine what
answers these could be." The answers of the Philosophy of Spiritual
Activity would have to be: (1) Whoever apprehends only what he
perceives of a thing and mistakes these percepts for the reality of
the thing, is a Naïve Realist. He does not realise that, strictly,
he ought to regard these perceptual contents as existing only so long
as he is looking at the objects, so that he ought to conceive the
objects before him as intermittent. As soon, however, as it becomes
clear to him that reality is to be met with only in the percepts
which are organised by thinking, he attains to the insight that the
percepts which appear as intermittent events, reveal themselves as
continuously in existence as soon as they are interpreted by the
constructions of thought. Hence continuity of existence must be
predicated of the contents of perception which living thought has
organised. Only that part which is only perceived, not thought, would
have to be regarded as intermittent if--which is not the case--there
were such a part. (2) When three persons are sitting at a table,
how many distinct tables are there? There is only one table. But
so long as the three persons stop short at their perceptual images,
they ought to say: "These percepts are not the reality at all." As
soon as they pass on to the table as apprehended by thinking, there
is revealed to them the one real table. They are then united with
their three contents of consciousness in this one reality. (3) When
two persons are alone together in a room, how many distinct persons
are there? Most assuredly there are not six--not even in the sense
of the Transcendental Realist's theory--but only two. Only, at first,
each person has nothing but the unreal percept of himself and of the
other person. There are four such percepts, the presence of which in
the minds of the two persons is the stimulus for the apprehension of
reality by their thinking. In this activity of thinking each of the
two persons transcends the sphere of his own consciousness. A living
awareness of the consciousness of the other person as well as of his
own arises in each. In these moments of living awareness the persons
are as little imprisoned within their consciousness as they are in
sleep. But at other moments consciousness of this identification
with the other returns, so that each person, in the experience of
thinking, apprehends consciously both himself and the other person. I
know that a Transcendental Realist describes this view as a relapse
into Naïve Realism. But, then, I have already pointed out in this
book that Naïve Realism retains its justification for our thinking
as we actually experience it. The Transcendental Realist ignores
the true situation in the process of cognition completely. He cuts
himself off from the facts by a tissue of concepts and entangles
himself in it. Moreover, the Monism which appears in the Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity ought not to be labelled "epistemological,"
but, if an epithet is wanted, then a "Monism of Thought." All this
has been misunderstood by Eduard von Hartmann. Ignoring all that
is specific in the argumentation of the Philosophy of Spiritual
Activity, he has charged me with having attempted to combine Hegel's
Universalistic Panlogism with Hume's Individualistic Phenomenalism
(Zeitschrift für Philosophie, vol. 108, p. 71, note). But, in truth,
the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity has nothing whatever to do with
the two positions which it is accused of trying to combine. (This,
too, is the reason why I could feel no interest in polemics against,
e.g., the Epistemological Monism of Johannes Rehmke. The point of view
of the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity is simply quite different from
what Eduard von Hartmann and others call "Epistemological Monism.")