Whether we say that philosophy has the understanding for the object of
its study, or whether we say that philosophy investigates the method of
utilizing subjective understanding in order to arrive at genuine,
correct, excellent, objective knowledge, that is only a matter of using
different terms for the same process. It makes no difference whether we
designate the object of our special science as a thing or as a process.
It is much more essential to understand that the distinction between the
thing and its action is in this instance of little consequence.
According to modern natural science all existence is resolved into
motion. It is well known now that even rocks do not stand still, but are
continuously active, growing and decaying.
The understanding, the intellect, is an active object, or an objective
action, the same as sunshine, the flow of waters, growing of trees,
disintegration of rocks, or any other natural phenomenon. Also the
understanding, the thinking which takes place consciously or
unconsciously in the human brain, is a phenomenon of as indubitable
actuality as the most material of them. It cannot in the least shake our
contention of the materially perceptible nature of intellectual activity
that we become aware of this activity by an internal, not by an
external, sense. Whether a stone is externally perceptible or thought
internally, what difference does this slight distinction make in the
incontestable fact that both perceptions are of equal material, natural
and sense-perceptible kind? Why should not the action of the brain
belong in the same category as the action of the heart? And though the
movement of the heart be internal and that of the tongue of the
nightingale external, what is to prevent us from considering these two
movements from the higher viewpoint of natural or material processes?
If the function of the heart may be referred to as material, why not the
function of the brain? True, the present usages of language are in
conflict with this mode of thought. But it must be remembered that every
science comes into conflict with usages of language by progressive
development. The discovery of every new thing in plant and animal life
compels the discoverer to invent a new term or change the meaning of an
old one. The term material has not had a well defined, but rather an
indefinite meaning so far. Now, since it is necessary, in order to
understand the function of the brain to remove it from the class of
transcendental or metaphysical conceptions and assign to it a place
among the material things, the question arises: What will be the most
appropriate term for it? The material and the spiritual are both two
species of the same genus. How are we to designate the species, how the
genus? For the sake of complete clearness, we require three different
names, one for each species and a common general name. But since we are
much less concerned about the name than about the understanding of these
facts which cannot be well explained without terms, we do not insist
dogmatically on calling the understanding material. It is sufficient to
point out that the function of the heart and of the brain both belong to
the same class, no matter whether this class be called material, real,
physical, or what not. So long as language has not established a
definite meaning for these terms, all of them serve equally well and are
equally deceptive.
The positive outcome of philosophy which culminates in placing the
theory of understanding in the same class with all other theories,
cannot be easily demonstrated on account of a natural confusion of
thought which arises from an equally natural confusion of language. In
the special department of handicraft as well as in that of scientific
brain work the terminology is well systematized, while in the general
affairs of life and science there is a confusion which is as great in
the matter of conceptions as in that of applying the terms by which
those awkward conceptions are expressed.
Wherever understanding is clear, there the language is also clear. The
man who does not understand shoemaking does not understand its
terminology. This is not saying that the understanding of a trade and
the understanding of its terminology are identical, but only indicating
their actual connection.
If the reader has had a glimpse of the enormity of the work of more than
two thousand years of philosophy in order to state what little we know
today of its achievement in the science of understanding, he will not be
very much surprised at the difficulties we here meet with in finding
terms for its demonstration.
The function of the brain is as material as that of the heart. The heart
and its function are two things, but they are dependent one upon the
other so that one cannot exist without the other. The function may
partly be felt. We feel the heart beating, the brain working. The
working of the heart may even be felt by touch, which is not the case
with the working of the brain. But it would be a mistake to imagine that
our knowledge of the function of the heart is exhausted by our
perception of it through the touch. Once we have overcome the habit of
making exaggerated distinctions between things, and have learned to
consider the differences of things as well as their interconnection, we
can easily understand that the science of the function of the heart is
an infinite science which is connected with all others. The heart cannot
work without the blood, the blood cannot exist without food, and this is
connected with the air, the plants, the animals, the sun, and the moon.
The function of the brain and its product, the understanding, is
likewise inseparable from the universal interdependence of things. The
health of the blood which is produced by the action of the heart is no
more and no less a material phenomenon than the total knowledge of
science which appears as a product of brain life.
Although we represent the doctrine of the material nature of
understanding as the positive outcome of philosophy, this is not
proclaiming the victory of that narrow materialism which has been
spreading itself particularly since the eighteenth century. On the
contrary, this mechanical materialism wholly misunderstands the nature
of the problem. It teaches that the faculty of thought is a function of
the brain, the brain is the object of study and its function, the
faculty of thought, is fully explained as a brain quality or function.
This materialism is enamored of mechanics, idolizes it, does not regard
it as a part of the world, but as the sole substance which comprises the
whole universe. Because it misunderstands the relation of thing and
function, of subject and predicate, it has no inkling of the fact that
this relation which it handles in such a matter-of-fact way, but not at
all scientifically, may be an object worthy of study. The materialist
of the old school is too horny-handed to consider the function or
quality of understanding as an object worthy of a separate scientific
department. We, on the other hand, follow the suggestion of Spinoza, who
required of the philosophers that they should consider everything in the
light of eternity. In so doing we find that the tangible things, such as
the brain, are qualities of nature, and that in the same way the
socalled functions are natural things, substantial parts of the
universe.
Not only tangible objects are "things," but also the rays of the sun and
the scent of flowers belong to this category, and perceptions are no
exception to the rule. But all these "things" are only relative things,
since they are qualities of the one and absolute which is the only
thing, the "thing itself," well known to every one by the name of the
universe, or cosmos.