The idea of a thing in itself independent of space and time and the
unknowableness of the thing in itself are the basis of all agnosticism.
And an agnostic tendency is at present predominant even among positive
workers and thinkers. Agnosticism is still the philosophy of the day
even among those who have surrendered its basis (which is Kant’s
transcendental idealism) and accept the monistic world-conception.
Friedrich Jodl, professor at the University of Prague and author of the
well-known “History of Ethics,” in answer to a letter of mine formulates
in concise terms this modernised view of a thing in itself. He writes:
“You are right. The thing in itself is a dangerous idea,—one
that easily leads astray. But so long as we have no better
expression to represent the relation for which it stands we
shall have to use it. You also accept the following three
momenta: (1) Objective existence or reality. (2) Effectiveness
of Reality upon consciousness, i. e. sensation. (3)
Effectiveness of sensation upon consciousness and reproduction
of sensation in consciousness, i. e. representation. Nobody,
however, can maintain that in sensation, and still less
in representation, the whole of reality will appear in
consciousness. First we learn from history what progress has
been made in the cognition of reality and secondly it is
obvious that we are infinitely far from an actual comprehension
of reality. We have strong reasons to suspect that there
are many processes in reality which in no way affect our
sensibility and cannot enter into consciousness, and we know
for sure that we do not comprehend—i. e. reconstruct from
them assumed causes—many things, indeed most things, which we
observe in their effects. Our cognition of nature, if we begin
to construct, always leads us to some _x_. It may be doubted
whether this _x_ is an unknown or an unknowable. In my opinion
it is both—anyhow we cannot eliminate it.
“I am convinced that many things which are unknown to-day and
appear as unknowable will be known and knowable in a thousand
years. But I doubt whether the total mass of the Unknowable has
been noticeably diminished. For the Unknowable is infinite and
the infinite if divided by any finite number can never produce
a finite number. Every solved problem contains new and greater
problems. What shall we call this? I believe that the term
“thing in itself” is after all the best expression. Whoever
wants to turn a mystic on account of it cannot be prevented.
This state of things can be brought out of existence by an act
of violence only.”
It is most certainly true, as Professor Jodl says, that sensations do not
depict the whole of reality. But why should they? Cognition is possible
only by limiting the attention to a special point. Every sense organ is
an organ of abstraction. Every sense depicts the effects of reality in
its own way and in this way alone. It may freely be granted that there
are many processes in reality which do not affect our sensibility. Yet
there is nothing in reality which does not affect something in some
way. If it did not, it could not be said to exist. The chemical rays
of light do not affect our eye, they are invisible and were for that
reason not noticed. But these rays are not without any effects. If we
cannot observe them directly, we can invent sensitive plates or other
instruments for observing their effects indirectly. Indirect observation
makes it possible that the limitation of our senses does not result in a
limitation of knowledge.
Says Professor Jodl:
“Our cognition of nature if we begin to construct always leads
us to some _x_.”
This sentence indicates that Professor Jodl’s and our conception of
cognition are different. Cognition is not a reconstruction of assumed
causes; it is a unification of our representative sensations or ideas.
Something is again noticed, it is re-cognised, to be the same thing.
Cognition is adaptation of new facts to our present stock of knowledge;
it is the proper arrangement of new data in our system of mental
representations. Cognition, accordingly, is the reduction of the unknown
to terms of the known. How can it ever lead to an _x_? The positive
conception of cognition is, as Kirchoff defines, it “an exhaustive and
most simple description of facts.” It is a reconstruction of facts or,
as Mach says, _Ein Nachbilden der Thatsachen_. Cognition is based upon
_Anschauungen_; it will lead to an ultimate _x_, only in case we expect
that cognition instead of being a description of facts will have to give
us information about how it happens that facts exist, how they originated
out of nothing.
Professor Jodl’s thing in itself is not outside of Space and Time (as is
Kant’s thing in itself) but it is the overwhelming infinitude of problems
to be solved with which we cannot hope to get through even though our
life lasted billions of light-years. Let me repeat here what I said in
the second edition of “Fundamental Problems,”
“A philosophy which starts from the positive data of
experience, and arranges them in the system of a monistic
conception of the world, will meet with many great problems
and in solving them will again and again be confronted with
new problems. It will always grapple with something that is
not yet known. The unknown seems to expand before us like an
infinite ocean upon which the ship of knowledge advances. But
the unknown constantly changes into the known. We shall find no
real unknowable wherever we proceed. The idea of the unknowable
is like the horizon—an optic illusion. The more we advance,
the farther it recedes. The unknowable is no reality; the
unknowable can nowhere prevent knowledge nor can the horizon
debar a ship in her voyage, from further progress.” (p. 271.)
Man’s knowledge has value as positive information concerning the facts
he has to deal with, and the infinitude of the not known, the infinitude
of other problems and things which he will never face, is of no
consequence whatever. Positivism commences and has to commence with the
positive facts of the given experience and not with the infinitude of
possibilities which lie beyond our horizon. Compare knowledge to property
and suppose a man is to buy a farm. Shall we discourage him with the idea
that the whole amount of soil on the surface of the earth and of other
planets is infinite, and this infinitude of all existences if divided by
his finite little possession can never result in a finite number. Even
if it were doubled, if it were multiplied a thousand times, it remains
as good as nothing in comparison with the rest of the world which he
cannot acquire. However, his possession is something to him, whatever the
relation of infinite possibilities may be in proportion to it.
The concept of infinitude serves a good purpose in its place, but we
cannot use it for analogies in other fields or bring it in relation to
concrete realities. We produce confusion and drop into mysticism as soon
as we handle the idea of infinitude as if it were a positive thing. The
infinite is a function which is mathematically expressed by 1/0 = ∞, and
whenever we bring anything in relation to the infinite, we at once dwarf
the greatest number no less than the smallest number into zero.
Clearness of thought is the indispensable method of sound philosophy
for constructing a positive world-conception, which in great outlines
is a description of the facts of reality. By suffering mysticism as a
legitimate conception either in science or in philosophy, we enhance the
interests of those who prefer the chiaroscuro of vague notions to clear
thought.