7. Calling upon the Experience of Every Single Reader
We wish to avoid the error of attributing any characteristic
beforehand to the directly “given,” to the first form in
which the outer and inner world appear, and of thus presenting our
argument on the basis of any presupposition. In fact, we are
characterizing experience as precisely that in which our thinking
plays no part at all. There can be no question, therefore, of any
error in thinking at the beginning of our argument.
The basic error of many scientific endeavours, especially those of the
present day, consists precisely of the fact that they believe they
present pure experience, whereas in fact they only gather up the
concepts again that they themselves have inserted into it. Someone
could object that we have also assigned a whole number of attributes
to pure experience. We called it an endless manifoldness, an aggregate
of unconnected particulars, etc. Are those then not conceptual
characterizations also? In the sense in which we use them, certainly
not. We have only made use of these concepts in order to direct the
reader's eye to reality free of thoughts. We do not wish to ascribe
these concepts to experience; we make use of them only in order to
direct attention to that form of reality which is devoid of any
concept.
All scientific investigations must, in fact, be conducted in the
medium of language, and it can only express concepts. But there is,
after all, an essential difference between using certain words in
order to attribute this or that characteristic directly to a thing,
and making use of words only in order to direct the attention of the
reader or listener to an object. To use a comparison, we could say: It
is one thing for A to say to B, “Observe that man in the circle
of his family and you will gain a very different impression of him
than if you get to know him only through the way he is at work”;
it is another if A says, “That man is an excellent father.”
In the first case, B's attention is directed in a certain sense; he is
called upon to judge a personality under certain circumstances. In the
second case a particular characteristic is simply ascribed to this
personality; an assertion is there fore made. Just as the first case
relates to the second, so we believe the starting point of our book
relates to the starting point of other books on this subject. If,
because of necessities of style or possibilities of expression, the
matter appears at any point to be other than this, let us state here
expressly that our discussions have only the intention just described
and are far from any claim to having asserted any thing pertaining to
the things themselves.
If we now wished to have a name for the first form in which we observe
reality, we believe that the expression that fits the matter the very best is:
manifestation to the senses. (see Note 5)
By sense we do
not mean merely the outer senses, the mediators of the outer world,
but rather all bodily and spiritual organs whatsoever that sense the
perception of immediate facts. It is, indeed, quite usual in
psychology to use the expression inner sense for the ability to
perceive inner experiences.
Let us use the word manifestation, however, simply to designate a
thing perceptible to us or a perceptible process insofar as these
appear in space or in time.
We must still raise a question here that is to lead us to the second
factor we have to consider with respect to a science of knowledge: to
thinking.
Must we regard the form of experience we have described thus far as
how things actually are? Is it a characteristic of reality? A very
great deal depends upon answering this question. If this form of
experience is an essential characteristic of the things of experience,
if it is something which, in the truest sense of the word, belongs to
them by their very nature, then one could not imagine how one is ever
to transcend this stage of knowing at all. One would then simply have
to resort to writing down everything we perceive, in disconnected
notes, and our science would be a collection of such notes. For what
would be the purpose of any investigation into the interconnection of
things if the complete isolation we ascribe to them in the form of
experience were truly characteristic of them?
The situation would be entirely different (see Note 6)
if, in this form of reality, we had to do not with reality's essential
being but only with its inessential outer aspect, if we had only the shell
of the true being of the world before us which hides this being and
challenges us to search further for it. We would then have to strive
to penetrate this shell. We would have to take our start from this
first form of the world in order then to possess ourselves of its true
(essential) characteristics. We would then have to overcome its
manifestation to the senses in order to develop out of it a higher
form of manifestation. — The answer to this question is given in the
following investigations.
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