IX
Thought and Consciousness
(See Exposition on Brief, Chapter 9)
I
T APPEARS,
however, as if we ourselves had here
introduced the very subjective element we were so determined to
exclude from our theory of knowledge. Although the rest of the
perceptual world does not possess a subjective character
— so it might be deduced from our explanation — yet
thoughts, even according to our own opinion, do bear such a
character.
This objection rests upon a confusion
of two things — the theater in which our thoughts play
their role and that element from which they derive the determination
of their content, the inner law of their nature. We do not at all
produce a thought-content in such fashion that, in this production,
we determine into what interconnections our thoughts shall enter. We
merely provide the occasion through which the thought-content unfolds
according to its own nature. We grasp thoughta
and thoughtb
and give them the opportunity to enter into a
connection according to principle by bringing them into mutual
interaction one with the other. It is not our subjective organization
which determines this interrelation betweena
andb
in a certain manner, but the content
ofa
andb
is the sole determinant. The fact
thata
is related tob
in a certain manner and not in another, — upon
this fact we have not the slightest influence. Our mind brings about
the interconnection between thought masses only according to
the measure of their own content. Thus we fulfill the principle of
experience in its very baldest form in the case of
thinking.
This refutes the opinion of Kant and
Schopenhauer, and in a broader sense of Fichte also, that
the laws we assume in order to explain the world are merely an effect
of our own mental organization, and that we inject them into
the world only because of our own mental
individuality.
Another objection might be raised
from a subjective point of view. Even though the law-controlled
relationship of the thought masses is not brought about according to
our own organization, but depends upon the thought-content, yet this
very content may be a mere subjective product, a mere quality of our
mind, so that we should merely be uniting elements produced first by
ourselves. In this case our thought-world would be none the less a
subjective appearance. But it is very easy to meet this
objection. That is, if it were well founded, we should be uniting the
content of our thoughts according to laws while remaining wholly
unaware as to whence these laws come. If these do not spring from our
subjective being — a supposition we have already taken under
consideration and set aside as untenable — what, then, could
provide us with laws of interconnection for a content produced
by ourselves?
In other words, our thought-world is
an entity resting wholly upon itself, a totality self-enclosed,
complete and entire within itself. Here we perceive which of the two
aspects of the thought-world is the essential one: the objective
aspect of its content and not the subjective aspect of its mode of
emergence.
This insight into
the inner purity and completeness of thought appears at its clearest
in the scientific system of Hegel. No one else has attributed to
thinking a power so complete that it could form a foundation in
itself for a world-conception. Hegel has absolute confidence in
thinking. Indeed, it is the only factor of reality which he
trusts in the fullest sense of the word. Yet, although his point of
view is in the main highly correct, he more than any one else has
destroyed confidence in thought by the excessively unqualified
form in which he has applied it. The way in which he has presented
his view is responsible for the irremediable confusion which
has found its way into our “thinking about thinking.” He
desired to make the importance of thought, of the idea, evident
by defining rational necessity in the same terms as factual
necessity. In doing so he has given rise to the fallacy that
thought-determinations are not purely ideal, but factual. His point
of view was soon so conceived as if he had sought for thought itself
as one of the facts in the world of sensible reality. Indeed, he
failed to make himself entirely clear in regard to this. The truth
must be firmly grasped that the sphere of thought is in human
consciousness alone. Then it must be shown that the thought-world
does not thereby sacrifice in the least its objectivity. Hegel
exposed to view only the objective aspects of thought; but most
persons see only what is easier to be seen — the
subjective aspect — and it seems to them that Hegel
treats something purely ideal as a thing — that is, that he
indulged in a mystification. Even many scholars of the present time
cannot be said to be quite free of this fallacy. They condemn Hegel
because of a defect which he himself did not possess, but which can
certainly be interjected into him because he failed to explain the
matter in question with sufficient clearness.
We admit that we
are here faced by something which is difficult for us to judge with
the capacities we possess. Yet we believe it can be mastered by every
energetic thinker. We must form two different conceptions: first,
that by our own activity we bring the ideal world to manifestation;
and, secondly, at the same time that what we by our activity call
into existence rests, nevertheless, upon its own laws. It is true
that we are accustomed so to conceive a phenomenon as if we
needed only to stand passive before it, observing it. But this is not
at all an absolute necessity. No matter how unfamiliar the conception
may be to us, that we by our activity bring an objective entity to
manifestation — that is, in other words, that we do not merely
become aware of a phenomenon, but at the same time produce it
— this conception is not at all invalid.
It is only necessary that we should
abandon the customary idea that there are as many thought-worlds as
there are human individuals. This idea is nothing more than an
ancient preconception. It is tacitly presupposed everywhere without
any consciousness that another conception is at least equally
possible, and that the arguments for the validity of one or the other
must, therefore, at least be weighed. Let us for a moment imagine, in
place of the above preconception, the following: that there is one
sole thought-content, and that our individual thinking is nothing
more than the act of working ourselves, our individual personalities,
into the thought-center of the world. This is not the place to
investigate whether this point of view is correct or not; but
it is possible, and we have attained what we wished to attain:
that is, we have shown that it is entirely in order to postpone for
the present undertaking to prove that the objectivity of thought,
which we have declared to be a matter of necessity, is not a
self-contradictory conception.
From the point of
view of its objectivity, the work of the thinker may very
appropriately be compared with that of a mechanic. Just as the
latter brings natural forces into reciprocal action and thus brings
about a purposeful activity and exertion of forces, so the thinker
causes thought-elements to come into reciprocal activity, and
these evolve into the thought-systems which compose our
sciences.
There is no better
means of throwing light upon a conception than by exposing the
fallacies arrayed against it. Here again let us resort to this
method, already profitably employed more than once.
It is generally supposed that the
reason why we unite certain concepts into greater complexes, or why
we think at all in certain ways, is because we sense a certain
inner (logical) compulsion to do this. Volkelt also has
appropriated this opinion. But how can this be harmonized with the
transparent clearness with which our whole thought-world is present
in consciousness? We know nothing in the world more thoroughly than
we know our thoughts. Must we, then, assume a certain connection on
the ground of an inner compulsion when everything is so clear? What
need have I of the compulsion when I know the nature of what is to be
united — know it through and through — and can guide
myself according to this nature? All the operations of our
thinking are processes which come to pass by reason of insight
into the essential nature of the thoughts, and not according to
compulsion. Such compulsion contradicts the nature of
thinking.
We might certainly
admit the possibility that it may be a part of the essential nature
of thinking to stamp its content directly upon its manifestation, but
that, nevertheless, we cannot immediately perceive this content
by means of our mental organization. But such is not the case. The
way in which the thought-content meets us is a guarantee to us that
we here have the essential nature of the thing before us. We
are assuredly aware that we accompany with our mind every
process in the thought-world. Yet we can only think that the form of
manifestation of a thing is determined by its essential nature. How
could we reproduce the form of appearance if we did not know the
essential nature of the thing? It is possible to conceive that the
form of appearance emerges before us as an existent whole and we then
seek for its central core. But it is impossible to maintain the point
of view that we cooperate in producing the appearance without
effecting this production by means of its own central
core.
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