THE EXTENT TO WHICH THE DOUBTS OF THE POSSIBILITY OF CLEAR AND ACCURATE
UNDERSTANDING HAVE BEEN OVERCOME
A contemporaneous professor of philosophy, Kuno Fischer, of Jena, says:
"The problem of modern philosophy is the understanding of things." But
this problem does not occupy modern philosophy alone; it was also
considered by ancient philosophy. Even more, it belongs to the whole
world. All the world, I mean the whole human world, and especially the
sciences, search after understanding. I do not say this for the purpose
of setting the Professor right, for I acknowledge that he is a fairly
deserving philosopher. If I cared to go through his works, I should
surely find other passages which state the problem of philosophy more
accurately and concretely, to the effect that philosophy does not strive
merely for the indefinite "understanding of things," but rather for the
special understanding of that particular thing which bears the name of
"understanding." Philosophy at the climax of its development seeks to
understand "understanding." It has seriously attempted the solution of
this problem so long as men think, so far as our historical records go.
After that which we have already said about the beginning and the end of
things and about their immortality, it will be easily understood that
the thing called understanding has no more historical beginning than all
the rest. The known grows out of the unknown, the conscious out of the
unconscious. Our modern consciousness, though agreeably cultivated, is
still an undeveloped, unconscious consciousness. Nevertheless,
development has gone far enough to make it plain that understanding is
anti-religious. Especially the understanding of understanding, the
outcome of positive philosophy, has a pronounced anti-religious, and to
that extent "destructive," tendency. But one should not have an
exaggerated idea of this destruction. Here, under this sun, nothing is
destroyed without leaving the basis for the growth of new life from the
ruins. It belongs to the conception of the universe to understand that
it is the main conception required for the conception of conception, for
the understanding of understanding.
The history of philosophy begins with the decay of heathen religion, and
the history of modern philosophy with the decay of Christian religion.
Since religion must be preserved for the people according to the
official declarations of the rulers, the official professors are not
clear and accurate expounders of the positive outcome of philosophy. No
matter how great the work of Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel may be,
yet the followers of Kant and Hegel have no freedom of research, and
Kuno Fischer, although very close to the root of the subject, is
nevertheless doomed to remain in the mystification of the function of
conceiving and of understanding. His profession clouds his judgment.
"Nature," says this professor, "is regarded as the first object of
understanding, as the principle from which everything else follows. In
this respect modern philosophy is naturalistic. It is taken for granted
that nature can be understood, or that the possibility of understanding
things is given. Modern philosophy makes this assumption
dogmatically.... The Kantian philosophy, on the other hand, assumes a
critical, not a dogmatic, attitude toward the possibility of
understanding." (System of Logic and Metaphysics, by Kuno Fischer,
second edition, pages 104 and 109.) In this latter, critical, stage,
the subject is kept rather hot by the professors of philosophy. The
critics are still engaged in exclaiming: Be amazed, oh world! How is
understanding possible?
In the first place, there is nothing to be amazed at. Why is not the
"naturalistic" philosopher consistent by recognizing his special object,
understanding, as a natural object?
The "supposition" that an understanding of things is possible, is
neither a supposition nor anything "dogmatic."
The philosophers should abandon their old hobby of trying to prove
anything by syllogisms. Nowadays, a case is not substantiated by words,
but by facts, by deeds. The sciences are sufficiently equipped, and thus
the "possibility of understanding" is demonstrated beyond a doubt.
"But," say the critics who are so wise that they hear the grass growing,
"are those perceptions which are produced by the exact sciences really
perceptions? Are they not simply substitutes? Those sciences recognize
only the phenomena of things; but where is the understanding which
perceives the truth?"
We shall offer it to them. You are naturalists. Well, then, nature is
the truth. Or are you spiritualists who make a metaphysical distinction
between the truth and the phenomenon? To understand means to distinguish
and judge. The semblance must be distinguished from the truth, but not
in an excessive manner. It must be remembered that even the most evil
semblance is a natural phenomenon, and the sublimest truth is only
revealed by phenomena, just because it is natural.
But the old logic cannot stand any contradictions. Semblance and truth
are contradictions for it and they cannot be reconciled by it. But the
irreconcilable simply consists in entertaining, in this monistic world,
thoughts which are supposed to be totally different. Hence old style
logic lacks entirely the mediating manner of thought which does not
elevate understanding and its faculty of thought to the skies, but is
satisfied to regard it as a very valuable, but still natural, quality.
The old logic could not construct any valid rules of thought, because it
thought too transcendentally of thinking itself. It was not satisfied
that thought is only a faculty, a mode of doing, a part of true nature,
but the nature of truth was spiritualized by it into a transcendental
being. Instead of grasping the conception of spirit with blood and
flesh, it tries to dissolve blood and flesh into ideas. That would be
well enough, if such a solution of the riddles were meant to have no
other significance than that of symbols.
The old logic contains long chapters about the proofs of truth. It is
supposed to be "identical" with the idea and to be proven by ideas. This
would be all right, if we remained conscious of the secondary relation
in which the idea and understanding stand to truth. But old line logic
is not conscious of this relation. On the contrary. Its consciousness
distorts that relation. It elevates the mind to the first place and
relegates blood and flesh to the last.
"The necessity of a conception is proven by the impossibility of its
opposite. An idea is contradicted by proving its impossibility. This
impossibility is demonstrated when it can be proven that a thing is at
the same time A and not-A, or when it can be shown that a thing is
neither A nor not-A. The first mode of proof is called _antinomy_, the
second, _dilemma_."
In this representation of the logical proof much is said of the "thing,"
for instance this: A thing cannot be at the same time straight and
crooked, true and untrue, light and dark. The excellence of this
doctrine is easily apparent, because it is overlooked that the concept
"thing" is not a fixed, but a variable one. If a straight line is a
thing, and a crooked line another thing, and if these two things are
held to be opposed to one another, then the above logic is the most
justified in the world. But who claims that there are not many straight
lines which are crooked at one end, which run straight on for a certain
distance and then turn? Who will define to us what a line is? A line may
be composed of 10, 20, 30, etc., parts, and each part is a line.
Before anything to the point can be said about the logical laws, it is
necessary to say above all how it stands with the relation of the whole
to its parts, of the universe to its subdivisions. The old theological
question of God and his creatures, the old metaphysical question of the
unity and the multiplicity, of truth and its phenomena, reason and
consequence, etc., in one word, the question of metaphysical categories
must be solved and settled before the definition of the minor factors of
understanding, the questions of formal logic, can be attempted.
What is a "thing?" A clergyman would answer: Only God is something,
everything else is nothing! And we say: Only the universe is something,
and everything in it consists of vacillating, changing, precarious,
varicolored, fluid, variable phenomena or relativities.
In our times, up to which the theologians have speculated so much and
contributed so little to understanding, one can hardly touch on the God
concept without annoying the reader. Yet it is very essential for a
thorough understanding of the human mind to point out that the God
concept and the universe concept are analogous concepts. Not in vain
have the first minds of modern philosophy, such as Cartesius, Spinoza,
Leibniz, occupied themselves so closely with the God concept. They
invented the socalled ontological proof of the existence of God. This
proof if applied to the universe, testifies to its divinity. A
metaphysical cloud pusher as well as the physical cosmos are
fundamentally concepts of the most perfect being. It makes little
difference whether we say that the concept of the universe, or of the
cosmos, or of the most perfect being is innate in man. If this concept
were not existing, it would lack the main thing required for its
perfection. Hence the most perfect being must exist. And it does. It is
the universe, and everything belongs to its existence. Nothing is
excluded from it, least of all understanding. The latter is, therefore,
not only possible, but a fact, which is proven by the very concept of
the most perfect being.
This ought to be sufficient to help us over the doubts of the critics,
especially over Kantian criticism, or rather dualism. Kant did not care
to accept the dogma of the possibility of understanding without
examination; he wished to investigate first. He then discovered that we
may understand correctly, provided we remain with our understanding on
the field of common experience; in other words, in the physical
universe, and refrain from digressing into the metaphysical heaven. But
he did not understand that the metaphysical heaven against which he
warns us would be an obsolete standpoint in our days.
He still permits that transcendental possibility to remain and while he
warns us not to stray into it with our understanding he omits to tell us
to also keep away from it with our intuition. Kant struggles about
between the "thing as phenomenon" and the "thing itself." The former is
material and may be understood, the latter is supernatural and may be
believed or divined. With this doctrine, he again made understanding,
the object of modern philosophy, problematical, thus inviting us to
investigate further.
This we have done, and it is now the positive outcome of philosophy to
know clearly and definitely and understand that understanding is not
only a part of this world of phenomena, but a true part of the general
truth, beside which there is no other truth, and which is the most
perfect being.
Philosophy took its departure from confused wrangling about that which
is and that which is not, especially from the religious disappointments
met by the Greek nation when its world of deities dissolved into
phantasms. Humanity demands a positive, strong, unequivocal, reliable
understanding. Now, in this world of ours, the solid is so mixed with
the fluid, the imperishable with the perishable, that a total separation
is impossible. Nevertheless our intellect catches itself continually
making separations and distinctions. Should not that appear mysterious
to it? The necessary and natural result was the problem of the theory of
understanding, the special question of philosophy: Which is the way to
an indubitably clear and positive understanding?
The summit of Grecian philosophy bears the name of Aristotle. He was a
practical man who did not like to stray into the distance when he could
find good things near by, and he did not concern himself about the
descent of understanding. Its platonic origin from an ideal world went
instinctively against his grain. He, therefore, took hold of the
question at the nearest end and analyzed the positive knowledge
available at that time. But since Grecian science and the knowledge of
Aristotlean times were rather slim, his attempt to demonstrate logic
did not produce any decisive results. But it had been discovered that it
was possible to make positive deductions from fixed premises.
Aristotle clung to this. He showed clearly and definitely, excellently
and substantially, how logical deductions should be made in order to
arrive at positive understanding. All dogs are watchful. My pug-dog is a
dog, therefore it is watchful. What can be more evident? Why, then,
speculate about God, freedom, and immortality, when indubitable
knowledge may be obtained by the formal method of exact deductions?
But Aristotle had overlooked something, or, being a practical man,
perhaps overlooked it intentionally. The premise from which he deducted
the watchfulness of dogs in general, was handed down by tradition and
had been accepted on faith. But was it founded on fact? Could there not
be some dogs who lacked the quality of watchfulness, and might not our
pug-dog be very unreliable, in spite of all exact deductions? In the
case of the pug-dog this would not be of very great moment. But what
about the question of the beginning and end of the world, or the
question of the existence of God? The Grecian gods had been outgrown by
Aristotle.
The history of logic, and of philosophy in general, is interrupted by
Christianity and by the decline of the antique world, until the
reformation opens a new era. The Catholic church had, in its own way,
thoroughly settled the great questions of the true nature of things, of
beginning and end, reason and consequence. But when it, and with it
Christianity, began to disintegrate, disbelief once more posed in the
brains of the philosophers the old question: How do we obtain reliable
and true understanding? Reliability and truth were at that time still
identical.
Bacon and Descartes are the men who started the investigation. Both of
them were disgusted with Aristotle and with his formal logic,
particularly with the subtleties of scholasticism. It did not satisfy
this new epoch to found positive understanding on traditional
contentions and exact deductions therefrom. It is a radical epoch and,
therefore, epoch-making. The new philosophers have the aim of
unequivocal understanding in common with the ancient philosophers. Bacon
still connects himself with the stock in trade of the past. His
historian says of him that one should not reiterate that Bacon took his
departure from experience, for this means nothing or nothing more than
that Columbus was a mariner while the main thing is that he discovered
America.... He wanted to find a new logic corresponding to the new
life.... The inventive human mind has created the new time, the compass,
the powder, the art of typography.... He wanted a new logic which
corresponded to the spirit of invention. He, the philosopher of
invention, was Lord Chancellor of England, was a man of the world. Not
only himself, but also his science, was too ambitious, too full of
energy, too world-embracing, for him to bury himself in solitude. That
is a glory for a philosopher, but at the same time an obstacle for his
special task, for the new logic. He recognized the import of his task
only in its general outlines. But his contemporary and successor
Descartes approached the matter more radically and pointedly.
Although in recent times the human mind had demonstrated its positive
faculty of understanding in natural sciences, especially by inventions,
still it was prejudiced by religious improbabilities in its great
premises dealing with the essence of things and men, with the "good,
true, and beautiful," as the ancients called it. In order to end his
doubts, Descartes elevates radical doubt to the position of a principle
and of a starting point for all understanding. Then he cannot doubt that
he is at least searching for truth. He who does not believe in any
understanding, any science, any inventions, cannot doubt at all events
that the impulse for understanding is there. It, at least, is
undeniable. _Cogito, ergo sum_--I think, therefore I am--that is a
premise which cannot be shaken. The rest, thinks Descartes, may be
deducted by Aristotlean methods.
With this thought, the philosopher of modern times relapsed into the old
error that anything positively true could be ascertained with logical
formulas. His consciousness of the thoughts stirring in his brain, I
might say his flesh and blood, convinced him by matter-of-fact evidence
of the reality of their existence.
This fact had hitherto been misunderstood. It is claimed that Descartes
could convince himself only of the existence of his soul, of his
thought, by evidence. No, my feeling, my sight, my hearing, etc., are
just as evident to me as my thinking, and simultaneously with sight and
hearing that which is heard and seen. The separation of subject and
object can and must be merely a formality.
The Descartian thesis has been distorted into the statement that nothing
is evident to man but his own subjective conception. And the ideology
has been carried to the extreme of calling the whole world an idea, a
phantasmagoria. True, Descartes needed God in order to be sure that his
conceptions did not cheat him.
In order to prove that we no longer need such extravagant means in our
times, I shall devote another chapter to this subject.