Since this work wishes to demonstrate the positive outcome of
philosophy, the reader may ask the author what are his proofs that
instead of the quintessence of thousands of years of philosophical work
he is not offered the elaboration of any individual philosopher, or even
that of the author himself.
In reply I wish to say that my work would be rendered uselessly
voluminous by quotations from the works of the most prominent
philosophical writers, without proving anything, since the words of one
often contradict those of another.
What is said by Kant, Fichte, Schelling, or Hegel, in one place of any
of their works, is at least considerably modified, if not contradicted,
in another place of the same work. It is of little consequence, how and
by whose help I have arrived at the positive outcome of philosophy as
here rendered. Whether it is the actual outcome or not can be judged
only by the expert, and every opinion is necessarily very subjective.
Under the circumstances I, as author, claim that my opinion is worth as
much as any other, and the reader may therefore accept my assurance. As
to the further value of that which I offer, it is a peculiarity of the
subject under discussion that every reader carries it and its
experiences within himself and may, without consulting any other author,
at once draw his own conclusions about my views, provided he has
acquired the necessary training in thought. What a traveler tells us
about the interior of Africa must either be believed to the letter or
verified by the accounts of other travelers. But what I say about logic
will, I hope, find its corroboration in the logic of every reading
brain.
The theory of understanding which has become the special object of
philosophy, is nothing else, and cannot be anything else, but expanded
logic. Many practical rules and laws of this department are known and
recognized since the time of Aristotle. But the question whether there
is one world or two, a natural and unnatural, or supernatural as it is
called with preference, that is the point which has given much trouble
to philosophy and which will influence the health of logic so long as
it is undecided.
Dr. Friedrich Dittes, director of the institute of pedagogy in Vienna,
has published a _School of Pedagogy_, several editions of which have
appeared, in which he gives much attention to logic. Dittes is a
prominent pedagogue, well known through his writings. He confines
himself in his _School_ to teaching only that which is well established
and accepted without a doubt. As a practical man who addresses himself
mainly to teachers of primary grades, he would not place himself on the
pinnacle of the outcome of philosophy, even if he could. He must confine
himself to that which is well established, which is far removed from the
disputes of the day. But it may here serve as a whetstone by the help of
which we may give to the positive product of philosophy its latest and
greatest sharpness.
He writes right in the beginning of the first part: "Our ideas are as
manifold as the objects to which they refer. Several things may have
many or few, or at least one quality, in common. Still they may also be
totally different."
This last point, viz., that there may be things which are "totally"
different from one another, is the one which is decidedly rejected by
that science which has risen to the eminence of the positive acquisition
of philosophy. There can be no natural things which are "totally"
different from one another, because they must all of them have in common
the quality of being natural.
It sounds very commonplace to say that there are no unnatural things in
nature. Since the last witch was burnt, everybody is sufficiently
enlightened to know that. But the logical conclusions of natural monism
have not yet been drawn. True, natural science, properly socalled, is
busily engaged in arriving at them. But so much more strife is there in
the "science of mind" and there is no other remedy but a well founded
theory of understanding which teaches that nature is not alone absolute
nature, but also the nature of the absolute. From this doctrine it
necessarily follows that all things are not individually independent,
but related by sex, dependent children, "predicates" of the monistic
unity of the world.
"The arch fountain of the human spirit," says Dittes, "is perception....
Whether perception as such discloses to us the true nature of things, or
whether it makes us familiar only with their phenomena, this is not to
be discussed by logic." The practical pedagogue who confines himself to
the education of children's brains or who wishes at most to influence
such teachers as educate children's brains, is quite right in being
satisfied with the old traditional Aristotlean logic. But in the school
of the human race, this logic has not been sufficient. For this reason
the philosophers have broached the question whether perception, "the
arch fountain of the human spirit," is a true or a deceptive fountain.
The product of the philosophical investigation which we here offer
amounts to the declaration that the logicians are greatly mistaken about
the "arch fountain." It is a cardinal error of ancient logic to regard
perception as the ultimate source from which the human mind dips its
knowledge. It is nature which is the ultimate source, and our perception
is but the mediator of understanding. And its product, recognized
truth, is not truth itself, but merely a formal picture of it. Universal
nature is the arch fountain, is the eternal and imperishable truth
itself, and our perception, like every other part of universal
existence, is only an attribute, a particle of absolute nature. The
human mind, with whose nature logic is dealing, is no more an
independent thing than any other, but simply a phenomenon, a reflex or
predicate of nature.
To confound true perceptions or perceived truths with general truth,
with the _non plus ultra_ of all truths, is equivalent to regarding a
sparrow as _the_ bird in general, or a period of civilization as
civilization itself, which would mean the closing of the door to all
further development.
Modern philosophy, beginning with Bacon of Verulam and closing with
Hegel, carries on a constant struggle with the Aristotlean logic. The
product of this struggle, the outcome of philosophy, does not deny the
old rules of traditional logic, but adds a new and decidedly higher
circle of logical perception to the former ones. For the sake of better
understanding it may be well to give to this circle a special title, the
special name of "theory of understanding," which is sometimes called
"dialectics."
In order to demonstrate the essential contents of this philosophical
product by an investigation of the fundamental laws of traditional logic
and to explain it thereby, I refer once more to the teacher of
elementary logic, Dittes.
Under the caption of "Principles of Judgment" he teaches: "Since
judging, like all thinking, aims at the perception of truth, the rules
have been sought after by which this purpose might be accomplished. As
universally applicable rules, as principles or laws of thought, the
following four have been named:
(1) The law of uniformity (identity).
(2) The law of contradiction.
(3) The law of the excluded third.
(4) The law of adequate cause."
So much scholastic talk has been indulged in over these four
"principles," that I can hardly bring myself to discuss them further.
But since my purpose, the demonstration of the positive outcome of
philosophy, consists in throwing a new light on the logic contained in
these four so-called principles or laws, I am compelled to lay bare
their inmost kernel.
The first principle, then, declares that A is A, or to speak
mathematically, every quantity is equal to itself. In plain English: a
thing is what it is; no thing is what it is not. "Characters which are
excluded by any conception must not be attributed to it." The square is
excluded from the conception of a circle, therefore the predicate
"square" must not be given to a circle. For the same reason a straight
line must not be crooked, and a lie must not be true.
Now this so-called law of thought may be well enough for household use,
where nothing but known quantities are under consideration. A thing is
what it is. Right is not left and one hundred is not one thousand.
Whoever is named Peter or Paul remains Peter or Paul all his life. This,
I say, is all right for household use.
But when we consider matters from the wider point of view of cosmic
universal life, then this famous law of thought proves to be nothing but
an expedient in logic which is not adequate to the nature of things, but
merely a means of mutual understanding for us human beings. Hence the
left bank of the Rhine is not the right, because we have agreed that in
naming the banks of a river we will turn our backs to the source and our
faces to the mouth of the river and then designate the banks as right
and left. Such a way of distinguishing, thinking, and judging is good
and practical, so long as this narrow standpoint is accompanied by the
consciousness of its narrowness. Hitherto this has not been the case.
This determined logic has overlooked that the perception which is
produced by its rules is not truth, not the real world, but only gives
an ideal, more or less accurate, reflection of it. Peter and Paul, who
according to the law of identity are the same all their lives, are in
fact different fellows every minute and every day of their lives, and
all things of this world are, like those two, not constant, but very
variable quantities. The mathematical points, the straight lines, the
round circles, are ideals. In reality every point has a certain
dimension, every straight line, when seen through a magnifying glass, is
full of many crooked turns, and even the roundest circle, according to
the mathematicians, consists of an infinite number of straight lines.
The traditional logic, then, declares with its law of identity, or in
the words of Dittes "law of uniformity," that Peter and Paul are the
same fellows from beginning to end, or that the western mountains remain
the same western mountains so long as they exist. The product of modern
philosophy, on the other hand, declares that the identity of people,
woods, and rocks is inseparably linked to their opposite, their
incessant transformation. The old school logic treats things, the
objects of perception, like stereotyped moulds, while the
philosophically expanded logic considers such treatment adequate for
household use only. The logical household use of stereotyped
conceptions extends, and should extend, to all of science. The
consideration of things as remaining "the same" is indispensable, and
yet it is very salubrious to know and remember that the things are not
only the same permanent and stereotyped, but at the same time variable
and in flow. That is a contradiction, but not a senseless one. This
contradiction has confused the minds and given much trouble to the
philosophers. The solution of this problem, the elucidation of this
simple fact, is the positive product of philosophy.
I have just declared that logic so far did not know that the perception
produced by its principles does not offer us truth itself, but only a
more or less accurate picture of it. I have furthermore contended that
the positive outcome of philosophy has materially added to the clearness
of the portrait of the human mind. Logic claims to be "the doctrine of
the forms and laws of thought." Dialectics, the product of philosophy,
aims to be the same, and its first paragraph declares: Not thought
produces truth, but being, of which thought is only that part which is
engaged in securing a picture of truth. The fact resulting from this
statement may easily confuse the reader, viz., that the philosophy which
has been bequeathed to us by logical dialectics, or dialectic logic,
must explain not alone thought, but also the original of which thought
is a reflex.
While, therefore, traditional logic teaches in its first law that all
things are equal to themselves, the new dialectics teaches not only that
things are equal to themselves and identical from start to finish, but
also that these same things have the contradictory quality of being the
same and yet widely variable. If it is a law of thought that we gain as
accurate as possible a conception of things by the help of thought, it
is at the same time a law of thought that all things, processes, and
proceedings are not things but resemble the color of that silk which,
although equal to itself and identical throughout, still plays from one
color into another. The things of which the thinking thing or human
intellect is one are so far from being one and the same from beginning
to end that they are in truth and fact without beginning and end. And as
phenomena of nature, as parts of infinite nature, they only seem to have
a beginning and end, while they are in reality but natural
transformations arising temporarily from the infinite and returning into
it after a while.
Natural truth or true nature, without beginning and end, is so
contradictory that it only expresses itself by shifting phenomena which
are nevertheless quite true. To old line logic this contradiction
appears senseless. It insists on its first, second, and third law, on
its identity, its law of contradiction and excluded third, which must be
either straight or crooked, cold or warm, and excludes all intermediary
conceptions. And in a way it is right. For every-day use it is all right
to deal in this summary fashion with thoughts and words. But it is at
the same time judicious to learn from the positive outcome of philosophy
that in reality and truth things do not come to pass so ideally. The
logical laws think quite correctly of thoughts and their forms and
applications. But they do not exhaust thinking and its thoughts. They
overlook the consciousness of the inexhaustibleness of all natural
creations, of which the object of logic, human understanding, is a part.
This object did not fall from heaven, but is a finite part of the
infinite which actually has the contradictory quality of possessing in
and with its logical nature that universal nature which is superior to
all logic.
From this critique of the three first "fundamental laws of logic" it is
apparent that the human understanding is not only everywhere identical,
but also different in each individual and has a historical development.
We are, of course, logically entitled to consider this faculty like all
others by itself and give it a birthday. Wherever man begins, there
understanding, the faculty of thought, begins. But we are
philosophically and dialectically no less entitled, and it is even our
duty, to know that the faculty of understanding, the same as its human
bearer, has no beginning, in spite of the fact that we ascribe a
beginning to them. When we trace the historical development of these
two, of man and understanding, backward to their origin, we arrive at a
transition to the animal and see their special nature merging into
general nature. The same is found in tracing the development of the
individual mind. Where does consciousness begin in the child? Before,
at, or after birth? Consciousness arises from its opposite,
unconsciousness, and returns to it. In consequence we regard the
unconscious as the substance and the conscious as its predicate or
attribute. And the fixed conceptions which we make for ourselves of the
units or phenomena of the natural substance are recognized by us as
necessary means in explaining nature, but at the same time it is
necessary to learn from dialectics that all fixed conceptions are
floating in a liquid element. The infinite substance of nature is a very
mobile element, in which all fixed things appear and sink, thus being
temporarily fixed and yet not fixed.
Now let us briefly review the fourth fundamental law of logic, according
to which everything must have an adequate cause. This law is likewise
very well worthy of attention, yet it is very inadequate, because the
question what should be our conception of the world and what is the
constitution of the most highly developed thinking faculty of the world
requires the answer: the world, in which everything has its adequate
cause, is nevertheless, including consciousness and the faculty of
thought, without beginning, end, and cause, that is, a thing justified
in itself and by itself. The law of the adequate cause applies only to
pictures made by the human mind. In our logical pictures of the world
everything must have its adequate cause. But the original, the universal
cosmos, has no cause, it is its own cause and effect. To understand that
all causes rest on the causeless is an important dialectic knowledge
which first throws the requisite light on the law of the necessity of an
adequate cause.
Formally everything must have its cause. But really everything has not
only one cause, but innumerable causes. Not alone father and mother are
the cause of my existence, but also the grand parents and great grand
parents, together with the air they breathed, the food they ate, the
earth on which they walked, the sun which warmed the earth, etc. Not a
thing, not a process, not a change is the adequate cause of another, but
everything is rather caused by the universe which is absolute.
When philosophy began its career with the intention of understanding the
world, it soon discovered that this purpose could be accomplished only
by special study. When it chose understanding, or the faculty of
thought, as the special object of its study, it separated its specific
object too far from the general existence. Its logic, in opposing
thought to the rest of existence, forgot the interconnection of the
opposites, forgot that thought is a form, a species, an individuality
which belongs to the genus of existence, the same as fish to the genus
of meat, night to the genus of day, art to nature, word to action, and
death to life. It does not attempt to explore the essence of thought for
its own sake, but for the purpose of discovering the rules of exploring
and thinking correctly. It could not very well arrive at those coveted
rules, so long as it idealized truth transcendentally and elevated it
far above the phenomena. All phenomena of nature are true parts of
truth. Even error and lies are not opposed to truth in that exaggerated
sense in which the old style logic represents them, which teaches that
two contradictory predicates must not be simultaneously applied to the
same subject, that any one subject is either true or false, and that any
third alternative is out of the question. Such statements are due to an
entire misconception of truth. Truth is the absolute, universal sum of
all existing things, of all phenomena of the past, present, and future.
Truth is the real universe from which errors and lies are not excluded.
In so far as stray thoughts, giants and brownies, lies and errors are
really existing, though only in the imagination of men, to that extent
they are true. They belong to the sum of all phenomena, but they are not
the whole truth, not the infinite sum. And even the most positive
knowledge is nothing but an excellent picture of a certain part. The
pictures in our minds have this in common with their originals that they
are true. All errors and lies are true errors and true lies, hence are
not so far removed from truth that one should belong to heaven and the
other to eternal damnation. Let us remain human.
Since old line logic with its four principles was too narrowminded, its
development had to produce that dialectics which is the positive
outcome of philosophy. This science of thought so expanded regards the
universe as the truly universal or infinite, in which all contradictions
slumber as in the womb of conciliation. Whether the new logic shall have
the same name as the old, or assume the separate title of theory of
understanding or dialectics, is simply a question of terms which must be
decided by considerations of expediency.
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