Goethean Science
GA 1
6. Goethe's Way of Knowledge
[ 1 ] In June 1794, Johann Gottlieb Fichte sent the first sections of his Theory of Science 45Wissenschaftslehre to Goethe. The latter wrote back to the philosopher on June 24: “As far as I am concerned, I will owe you the greatest thanks if you finally reconcile me with the philosophers, with whom I can never do without and with whom I have never been able to unite myself.” What the poet is here seeking from Fichte is what he sought earlier from Spinoza and later from Schelling and Hegel: a philosophical world view that would be in accordance with his way of thinking. None of the philosophical directions with which he became acquainted, however, brought the poet complete satisfaction.
[ 2 ] This fact makes our task considerably more difficult. We want to draw nearer to Goethe from the philosophical side. If he himself had designated one standpoint of knowledge as his own, then we could refer to it. But this is not the case. And so the task devolves on us to recognize the philosophical core of all we have from the poet and to sketch a picture of it. We consider the right way to accomplish this task to be a direction in thinking that is gained upon the foundations of German idealistic philosophy. This philosophy sought, in fact, in its own way to satisfy the same highest human needs to which Goethe and Schiller devoted their lives. It came forth from the same contemporary stream. It therefore also stands much nearer to Goethe than do those views that to a large degree govern the sciences today. What Goethe expressed in poetic form and what he presented scientifically can be regarded as the consequence of a view that can be formed out of that philosophy. They could definitely never be the consequence of such scientific directions as our present-day ones. We are very far removed today from that way of thinking which lay in Goethe's nature.
[ 3 ] It is indeed true that we must acknowledge progress in all areas of culture. But that this progress is one into the depths of things can hardly be asserted. For the content of an epoch, however, only progress into the depths of things is decisive, after all. But our epoch might best be characterized by the statement: It rejects, as unattainable for man, any progress at all into the depths of things. We have become faint-hearted in all areas, especially in that of thinking and willing. With respect to thinking: one observes endlessly, stores up the observations, and lacks the courage to develop them into a scientific, whole view of reality. One accuses German idealistic philosophy of being unscientific, however, because it did have this courage. Today one wants only to look with one's senses, not think. One has lost all trust in thinking. One does not consider it able to penetrate into the mysteries of the world and of life; one altogether renounces any solution to the great riddle questions of existence. The only thing one considers possible is: to bring what experience tells us, into a system. But in doing so one forgets that with this view one is approaching a standpoint considered to have been overcome long ago. The rejection of all thinking and the insistence upon sense experience is, grasped more deeply, nothing more, after all, than the blind faith in revelation of the religions. The latter rests, after all, only upon the fact that the church provides finished truths that one has to believe. Thinking may struggle to penetrate into the deeper meaning of these truths; but thinking is deprived of the ability to test the truth itself, to penetrate by its own power into the depths of the world. And the science of experience, what does it ask of thinking? That it listen to what the facts say, and interpret, order, etc., what is heard. It also denies to thinking the ability to penetrate independently into the core of the world.
On the one hand, theology demands the blind subjection of thinking to the statements of the church; on the other, science demands blind subjection to the statements of sense observation. Here as there, independent thinking that penetrates into the depths counts as nothing. The science of experience forgets only one thing. Thousands and thousands of people have looked at a sense-perceptible fact and passed it by without noting anything striking about it. Then someone came along who looked at it and became aware of an important law about it. How? This can only stem from the fact that the discoverer knew how to look differently than his predecessors. He saw the fact with different eyes than his fellow men. In looking, he had a definite thought as to how one must bring the fact into relationship with other facts, what is significant for it and what is not. And so, thinking, he set the matter in order and saw more than the others. He saw with the eyes of the spirit. All scientific discoveries rest on the fact that the observer knows how to observe in a way governed by the right thought. Thinking must naturally guide observation. It cannot do so if the researcher has lost his belief in thinking, if he does not know what to make of thinking's significance. The science of experience wanders helplessly about in the world of phenomena; the sense world becomes a confusing manifoldness for it, because it does not have enough energy in thinking to penetrate into the center.
[ 4 ] One speaks today of limits to knowledge because one does not know where the goal of thinking lies. One has no clear view of what one wants to attain and doubts that one will attain it. If someone came today and pointed out clearly to us the solution to the riddle of the world, we would gain nothing from it, because we would not know what to make of this solution.
[ 5 ] And it is exactly the same with willing and acting. One cannot set oneself any definite task in life of which one would be capable. One dreams oneself into indefinite unclear ideals and then complains about the fact that one does not achieve something of which one hardly has a dim, let alone a clear, picture. Just ask one of the pessimists of our day what he actually wants and what it is he despairs of attaining. He does not know. Problematical natures are they all, incapable of meeting any situation and yet satisfied with none. Do not misunderstand me. I do not wish to extol that superficial optimism which, satisfied with the trivial enjoyments of life, demands nothing higher and therefore never suffers want. I do not wish to condemn individuals who painfully feel the deep tragedy that lies in the fact that we are dependent on conditions that have a laming effect on everything we do and that we strive in vain to change. But we should not forget that pain is the woof and happiness the warp. Think of the mother, how her joy in the well-being of her children is increased if it has been achieved by earlier cares, suffering, and effort. Every right-minded person would in fact have to refuse a happiness that some external power might offer him, because he cannot after all experience something as happiness that is just handed him as an unearned gift. If some creator or other had undertaken the creation of man with the thought in mind of bestowing happiness upon his likeness at the same time, as an inheritance, then he would have done better to leave him uncreated. The fact that what man creates is always ruthlessly destroyed again raises his stature; for he must always build and create anew; and it is in activity that our happiness lies; it lies in what we ourselves accomplish. It is the same with bestowed happiness as with revealed truth. Only this is worthy of man: that he seek truth himself, that neither experience nor revelation lead him. When that has been thoroughly recognized once and for all, then the religions based on revelation will be finished. The human being will then no longer want God to reveal Himself or bestow blessings upon him. He will want to know through his own thinking and to establish his happiness through his own strength. Whether some higher power or other guides our fate to the good or to the bad, this does not concern us at all; we ourselves must determine the path we have to travel. The loftiest idea of God is still the one which assumes that God, after His creation of the human being, withdrew completely from the world and gave man completely over to himself.
[ 6 ] Whoever acknowledges to thinking its ability to perceive beyond the grasp of the senses must necessarily acknowledge that it also has objects that lie beyond merely sense-perceptible reality. The objects of thinking, however, are ideas. Inasmuch as thinking takes possession of the idea, thinking fuses with the primal ground of world existence; what is at work outside enters into the spirit of man: he becomes one with objective reality in its highest potency. Becoming aware of the idea within reality is the true communion of man.
[ 7 ] Thinking has the same significance with respect to ideas as the eye has with respect to light, the ear to tone. It is an organ of apprehension.
[ 8 ] This view is in a position to unite two things that are regarded today as completely incompatible: the empirical method, and idealism as a scientific world view. It is believed that to accept the former means necessarily to reject the latter. This is absolutely not true. To be sure, if one considers the senses to be the only organs of apprehension for objective reality, then one must arrive at the above view. For, the senses offer us only such relationships of things as can be traced back to mechanical laws. And the mechanistic world view would thus be given as the only true form of any such world view. In this, one is making the mistake of simply overlooking the other component parts of reality which are just as objective but which cannot be traced back to mechanical laws. What is objectively given by no means coincides with what is sense-perceptibly given, as the mechanistic world conception believes. What is sense-perceptibly given is only half of the given. The other half of the given is ideas, which are also objects of experience—of a higher experience, to be sure, whose organ is thinking. Ideas are also accessible to the inductive method.
[ 9 ] Today's science of sense experience follows the altogether correct method of holding fast to the given; but it adds the inadmissible assertion that this method can provide only facts of a sense-perceptible nature. Instead of limiting itself to the question of how we arrive at our views, this science determines from the start what we can see. The only satisfactory way to grasp reality is the empirical method with idealistic results. That is idealism, but not of the kind that pursues some nebulous, dreamed-up unity of things, but rather of a kind that seeks the concrete ideal content of reality in a way that is just as much in accordance with experience as is the search of modern hyper-exact science for the factual content.
[ 10 ] By approaching Goethe with these views, we believe we are entering into his essential nature. We hold fast to idealism and develop it, not on the basis of Hegel's dialectic method, but rather upon a clarified higher empiricism.
[ 11 ] This kind of empiricism also underlies the philosophy of Eduard v. Hartmann. Eduard v. Hartmann seeks the ideal unity in nature, as this does positively yield itself to a thinking that has real content. He rejects the merely mechanistic view of nature and the hyper-Darwinism that is stuck on externals. In science, he is the founder of a concrete monism. In history and aesthetics, he seeks concrete ideas, and does all this according to empirical inductive methods.
[ 12 ] Hartmann's philosophy differs from mine only on the question of pessimism and through the metaphysical orientation of his system toward the “unconscious.” We will consider the latter point further on in the book. But with respect to pessimism, let the following be said: What Hartmann cites as grounds for pessimism—i.e., for the view that nothing in the world can fully satisfy us, that pain always outweighs pleasure—that is precisely what I would designate as the good fortune of mankind. What he brings forward is for me only proof that it is futile to strive for happiness. We must, in fact, entirely give up any such striving and seek our destiny purely in selflessly fulfilling those ideal tasks that our reason prescribes for us. What else does this mean than that we should seek our happiness only in doing, in unflagging activity?
[ 13 ] Only the active person, indeed only the selflessly active person who seeks no recompense for his activity, fulfills his destiny. It is foolish to want to be recompensed for one's activity; there is no true recompense. Here Hartmann ought to build further. He ought to show what, with such presuppositions, can be the only mainspring of all our actions. This can, when the prospect of a goal one is striving for falls away, only be the selfless devotion to the object to which one is dedicating one's activity; this can only be love. Only an action out of love can be a moral one. In science, the idea, and in our action, love, must be our guiding star. And this brings us back to Goethe. “The main thing for the active person is that he do what is right; he should not worry about whether the right occurs.” “Our whole feat consists in giving up our existence in order to exist” (Aphorisms in Prose).
[ 14 ] I have not arrived at my world view only through the study of Goethe or even of Hegelianism, for example. I took my start from the mechanistic-naturalistic conception of the world, but recognized that, with intensive thinking, one cannot remain there. Proceeding strictly according to natural-scientific methods, I found in objective idealism the only satisfying world view. My epistemology 46The Science of Knowing: Outline of an Epistemology Implicit in the Goethean World View (Grundlinien einer Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung), also translated as A Theory of Knowledge shows the way by which a kind of thinking that understands itself and is not self-contradictory arrives at this world view. I then found that this objective idealism, in its basic features, permeates the Goethean world view. Thus the elaborating of my views does, to be sure, for years now run parallel with my study of Goethe; and I have never found any conflict in principle between my basic views and the Goethean scientific activity. I consider my task fulfilled if I have been at least partially successful in, firstly, developing my standpoint in such a way that it can also become alive in other people, and secondly, bringing about the conviction that this standpoint really is the Goethean one.
6. Goethes Erkenntnis-Art
[ 1 ] Johann Gottlieb Fichte sandte im Juni 1794 die ersten Bogen seiner «Wissenschaftslehre» an Goethe. Dieser schrieb hierauf am 24. Juni an den Philosophen: «Was mich betrifft, werde ich Ihnen den größten Dank schuldig sein, wenn Sie mich endlich mit den Philosophen versöhnen, die ich nie entbehren und mit denen ich mich niemals vereinigen konnte.» [WA 10, 167] Was der Dichter hier bei Fichte, das hatte er früher bei Spinoza gesucht; später suchte er es bei Schelling und Hegel: eine philosophische Weltansicht, die seiner Denkweise gemäß wäre. Völlige Befriedigung aber brachte dem Dichter keine der philosophischen Richtungen, die er kennen lernte.
[ 2 ] Das erschwert wesentlich unsere Aufgabe. Wir wollen Goethe von der philosophischen Seite näherkommen. Hätte er selbst einen wissenschaftlichen Standpunkt als den seinigen bezeichnet, so könnten wir uns auf diesen berufen. Das ist aber nicht der Fall. Und so obliegt uns denn die Aufgabe, aus alledem, was uns von dem Dichter vorliegt, den philosophischen Kern zu erkennen, der in ihm lag, und davon ein Bild zu entwerfen. Wir halten für den richtigen Weg, diese Aufgabe zu lösen, eine auf Grundlage der deutschen idealistischen Philosophie gewonnene Ideenrichtung. Diese Philosophie suchte ja in ihrer Weise denselben höchsten menschlichen Bedürfnissen zu genügen, denen Goethe und Schiller ihr Leben widmeten. Sie ging aus derselben Zeitströmung hervor. Sie steht daher auch Goethe viel näher als diejenigen Anschauungen, die heute vielfach die Wissenschaften beherrschen. Aus jener Philosophie wird sich eine Ansicht bilden lassen, als deren Konsequenz sich das ergibt, was Goethe dichterisch gestaltet, was er wissenschaftlich dargelegt hat. Aus unseren heutigen wissenschaftlichen Richtungen wohl nimmermehr. Wir sind heute sehr weit von jener Denkweise entfernt, die in Goethes Natur lag.
[ 3 ] Es ist ja richtig: Wir haben auf allen Gebieten der Kultur Fortschritte zu verzeichnen. Daß das aber Fortschritte in die Tiefe sind, kann kaum behauptet werden. Für den Gehalt eines Zeitalters sind aber doch nur die Fortschritte in die Tiefe maßgebend. Unsere Zeit möchte man aber am besten damit bezeichnen, daß man sagt: Sie weist überhaupt Fortschritte in die Tiefe als für den Menschen unerreichbar zurück. Wir sind mutlos auf allen Gebieten geworden, besonders aber auf jenem des Denkens und des Wollens. Was das Denken betrifft: Man beobachtet endlos, speichert die Beobachtungen auf und hat nicht den Mut, sie zu einer wissenschaftlichen Gesamtauffassung der Wirklichkeit zu gestalten. Die deutsche idealistische Philosophie aber zeiht man der Unwissenschaftlichkeit, weil sie diesen Mut hatte. Man will heute nur sinnlich schauen, nicht denken. Man hat alles Vertrauen in das Denken verloren. Man hält es nicht für ausreichend, in die Geheimnisse der Welt und des Lebens einzudringen; man verzichtet überhaupt auf jegliche Lösung der großen Rätselfragen des Daseins. Das einzige, was man für möglich hält, ist: die Aussagen der Erfahrung in ein System zu bringen. Dabei vergißt man nur, daß man sich mit dieser Ansicht einem Standpunkt nähert, den man längst für überwunden hält. Die Abweisung alles Denkens und das Pochen auf die sinnliche Erfahrung ist, tiefer erfaßt, doch nichts als der blinde Offenbarungsglaube der Religionen. Der letztere beruht doch nur darauf, daß die Kirche fertige Wahrheiten überliefert, an die man zu glauben hat. Das Denken mag sich abmühen, in ihren tieferen Sinn einzudringen; benommen aber ist es ihm, die Wahrheit selbst zu prüfen, aus eigener Kraft in die Tiefen der Welt zu dringen. Und die Erfahrungswissenschaft: was fordert sie vom Denken? Daß es lausche, was die Tatsachen sagen, und diese Aussagen auslege, ordne usw. Selbständig in den Kern der Welt einzudringen, versagt auch sie dem Denken. Dort fordert die Theologie blinde Unterwerfung des Denkens unter die Aussprüche der Kirche, hier die Wissenschaft blinde Unterwerfung unter die Aussprüche der Sinnenbeobachtung. Da wie dort gilt das selbständige, in die Tiefen dringende Denken nichts. Die Erfahrungswissenschaft vergißt nur eins. Tausende und aber Tausende schauten eine sinnenfällige Tatsache und gingen an ihr vorüber, ohne etwas Auffälliges an ihr zu merken. Dann kam einer, der sie anblickte und ein wichtiges Gesetz an ihr gewahr wurde. Woher kommt das? Doch nur davon, weil der Entdecker anders zu schauen verstand als seine Vorgänger. Er sah die Tatsache mit andern Augen an als seine Mitmenschen. Er hatte bei dem Schauen einen bestimmten Gedanken, wie man die Tatsache mit andern in Zusammenhang bringen müsse, was für sie bedeutsam sei, was nicht. Und so legte er sich denkend die Sache zurecht und er sah mehr als die andern. Er sah mit den Augen des Geistes. Alle wissenschaftlichen Entdeckungen beruhen darauf, daß der Beobachter in der durch den richtigen Gedanken geregelten Weise zu beobachten versteht. Das Denken muß die Beobachtung naturgemäß leiten. Das kann es nicht, wenn der Forscher den Glauben an das Denken verloren hat, wenn er nicht weiß, was er von dessen Tragweite zu halten hat. Die Erfahrungswissenschaft irrt ratlos in der Welt der Erscheinungen umher; die Sinnenwelt wird ihr eine verwirrende Mannigfaltigkeit, weil sie nicht die Energie im Denken hat, in das Zentrum zu dringen.
[ 4 ] Man spricht heute von Erkenntnisgrenzen, weil man nicht weiß, wo das Ziel des Denkens liegt. Man hat keine klare Ansicht, was man erreichen will und zweifelt daran, daß man es erreichen wird. Wenn heute irgend jemand käme und uns mit Fingern auf die Lösung des Welträtsels zeigte, wir hätten nichts davon, weil wir nicht wüßten, was wir von der Lösung zu halten haben.
[ 5 ] Und mit dem Wollen und Handeln ist es ja geradeso. Man weiß sich keine bestimmten Lebensaufgaben zu stellen, denen man gewachsen wäre. Man träumt sich in unbestimmte, unklare Ideale hinein und klagt dann, wenn man das nicht erreicht, wovon man kaum eine dunkle, viel weniger eine klare Vorstellung hat. Man frage einen der Pessimisten unserer Zeit, was er denn eigentlich will, und was er zu erreichen verzweifelt? Er weiß es nicht. Problematische Naturen sind sie alle, die keiner Lage gewachsen sind, und denen doch keine genügt. Man mißverstehe mich nicht. Ich will dem flachen Optimismus keine Lobrede halten, der, mit den trivialen Genüssen des Lebens zufrieden, nach nichts Höherem verlangt und deshalb nie etwas entbehrt. Ich will nicht den Stab brechen über Individuen, die die tiefe Tragik schmerzlich empfinden, die darinnen liegt, daß wir von Verhältnissen abhängig sind, die lähmend auf all unser Tun wirken, und die zu ändern, wir uns vergebens bestreben. Vergessen wir aber nur nicht, daß der Schmerz der Einschlag des Glückes ist. Man denke an die Mutter: wie wird ihr die Freude an dem Gedeihen ihrer Kinder versüßt, wenn sie es mit Sorgen, Leiden und Mühen dereinst errungen hat. Jeder besser denkende Mensch müßte ja ein Glück, das ihm irgendeine äußere Macht böte, zurückweisen, weil er doch nicht als Glück empfinden kann, was ihm als unverdientes Geschenk verabreicht wird. Wäre irgendein Schöpfer mit dem Gedanken an die Erschaffung des Menschen gegangen, daß er seinem Ebenbilde zugleich das Glück mit als Erbstück gäbe, so hätte er besser getan, ihn ungeschaffen zu lassen. Es erhöht die Würde des Menschen, daß grausam immer zerstört wird, was er schafft; denn er muß immer aufs neue bilden und schaffen; und im Tun liegt unser Glück, in dem, was wir selbst vollbringen. Mit dem geschenkten Glück ist es wie mit der geoffenbarten Wahrheit. Es ist allein des Menschen würdig, daß er selbst die Wahrheit suche, daß ihn weder Erfahrung noch Offenbarung leite. Wenn das einmal durchgreifend erkannt sein wird, dann haben die Offenbarungsreligionen abgewirtschaftet. Der Mensch wird dann gar nicht mehr wollen, daß sich Gott ihm offenbare oder Segen spende. Er wird durch eigenes Denken erkennen, durch eigene Kraft sein Glück begründen wollen. Ob irgendeine höhere Macht unsere Geschicke zum Guten oder Bösen lenkt, das geht uns nichts an; wir haben uns selbst die Bahn vorzuzeichnen, die wir zu wandeln haben. Die erhabenste Gottesidee bleibt doch immer die, welche annimmt, daß Gott sich nach Schöpfung des Menschen ganz von der Welt zurückgezogen und den letzteren ganz sich selbst überlassen habe.
[ 6 ] Wer dem Denken seine über die Sinnesauffassung hinausgehende Wahrnehmungsfähigkeit zuerkennt, der muß ihm notgedrungen auch Objekte zuerkennen, die über die bloße sinnenfällige Wirklichkeit hinaus liegen. Die Objekte des Denkens sind aber die Ideen. Indem sich das Denken der Idee bemächtigt, verschmilzt es mit dem Urgrunde des Weltendaseins; das, was außen wirkt, tritt in den Geist des Menschen ein: er wird mit der objektiven Wirklichkeit auf ihrer höchsten Potenz eins. Das Gewahrwerden der Idee in der Wirklichkeit ist die wahre Kommunion des Menschen.
[ 7 ] Das Denken hat den Ideen gegenüber dieselbe Bedeutung wie das Auge dem Lichte, das Ohr dem Ton gegenüber. Es ist Organ der Auffassung.
[ 8 ] Diese Ansicht ist in der Lage, zwei Dinge zu vereinigen, die man heute für völlig unvereinbar hält: empirische Methode und Idealismus als wissenschaftliche Weltansicht. Man glaubt, die Anerkennung der ersteren habe die Abweisung des letzteren im Gefolge. Das ist durchaus nicht richtig. Wenn man freilich die Sinne für die einzigen Auffassungsorgane einer objektiven Wirklichkeit hält, so muß man zu dieser Ansicht kommen. Denn die Sinne liefern bloß solche Zusammenhänge der Dinge, die sich auf mechanische Gesetze zurückführen lassen. Und damit wäre die mechanische Weltansicht als die einzig wahre Gestalt einer solchen gegeben. Dabei begeht man den Fehler, daß man die andern ebenso objektiven Bestandteile der Wirklichkeit, die sich auf mechanische Gesetze nicht zurückführen lassen, einfach übersieht. Das objektiv Gegebene deckt sich durchaus nicht mit dem sinnlich Gegebenen, wie die mechanische Weltauffassung glaubt. Das letztere ist nur die Hälfte des Gegebenen. Die andere Hälfte desselben sind die Ideen, die ebenso Gegenstand der Erfahrung sind, freilich einer höheren, deren Organ das Denken ist. Auch die Ideen sind für eine induktive Methode erreichbar.
[ 9 ] Die heutige Erfahrungswissenschaft befolgt die ganz richtige Methode: am Gegebenen festzuhalten; aber sie fügt die unstatthafte Behauptung hinzu, daß diese Methode nur SinnenfälligTatsächliches liefern kann. Statt bei dem, wie wir zu unseren Ansichten kommen, stehenzubleiben, bestimmt sie von vornherein das Was derselben. Die einzig befriedigende Wirklichkeitsauffassung ist empirische Methode mit idealistischem Forschungsresultate. Das ist Idealismus, aber kein solcher, der einer nebelhaften, geträumten Einheit der Dinge nachgeht, sondern ein solcher, der den konkreten Ideengehalt der Wirklichkeit ebenso erfahrungsgemäß sucht wie die heutige hyperexakte Forschung den Tatsachengehalt.
[ 10 ] Indem wir mit diesen Ansichten an Goethe herantreten, glauben wir in sein Wesen einzudringen. Wir halten an dem Idealismus fest, legen aber bei der Entwicklung desselben nicht die dialektische Methode Hegels, sondern einen geläuterten, höheren Empirismus zugrunde.
[ 11 ] Ein solcher liegt auch der Philosophie Eduard v. Hartmanns zugrunde. Eduard v. Hartmann sucht in der Natur die ideengemäße Einheit, wie sie sich positiv für ein inhaltvolles Denken ergibt. Er weist die bloß mechanische Naturauffassung und den am Äußerlichen haftenden Hyper-Darwinismus zurück. Er ist in der Wissenschaft Begründer eines konkreten Monismus. In der Geschichte und Ästhetik sucht er die konkrete Idee. Das alles nach empirisch-induktiver Methode.
[ 12 ] Hartmanns Philosophie ist von meiner nur durch die Pessimismus-Frage und durch die metaphysische Zuspitzung des Systems nach dem «Unbewußten» verschieden. Was den letzteren Punkt betrifft, wolle man weiter unten nachsehen. In bezug auf den Pessimismus aber sei folgendes bemerkt: Was Hartmann als Gründe für den Pessimismus anführt, d. h. für die Ansicht, daß uns nichts in der Welt voll befriedigen kann, daß stets die Unlust die Lust überwiegt, das möchte ich geradezu als das Glück der Menschheit bezeichnen. Was er vorbringt, sind für mich nur Beweise dafür, daß es vergebens ist, eine Glückseligkeit zu erstreben. Wir müssen eben ein solches Bestreben ganz aufgeben und unsere Bestimmung rein darinnen suchen, selbstlos jene idealen Aufgaben zu erfüllen, die uns unsere Vernunft vorzeichnet. Was heißt das anders, als daß wir nur im Schaffen, in rastloser Tätigkeit unser Glück suchen sollen?
[ 13 ] Nur der Tätige und zwar der selbstlos Tätige, der mit seiner Tätigkeit keinen Lohn anstrebt, erfüllt seine Bestimmung. Es ist töricht, für seine Tätigkeit belohnt sein zu wollen; es gibt keinen wahren Lohn. Hier sollte Hartmann weiterbauen. Er sollte zeigen, was denn unter solchen Voraussetzungen die einzige Triebfeder aller unserer Handlungen sein kann. Es kann, wenn die Aussicht auf ein erstrebtes Ziel wegfällt, nur die selbstlose Hingabe an das Objekt sein, dem man seine Tätigkeit widmet, es kann nur die Liebe sein. Nur eine Handlung aus Liebe kann eine sittliche sein. Die Idee muß in der Wissenschaft, die Liebe im Handeln unser Leitstern sein. Und damit sind wir wieder bei Goethe angelangt. «Dem tätigen Menschen kommt es darauf an, daß er das Rechte tue, ob das Rechte geschehe, soll ihn nicht kümmern.» «Unser ganzes Kunststück besteht darin, daß wir unsere Existenz aufgeben, um zu existieren.» («Sprüche in Prosa»; Natw. Schr., 4. Bd., 2. Abt., S. 464 u. 441.)
[ 14 ] Ich bin zu meiner Weltansicht nicht allein durch das Studium Goethes oder etwa gar des Hegelianismus gekommen. Ich ging von der mechanisch-naturalistischen Weltauffassung aus, erkannte aber, daß bei intensivem Denken dabei nicht stehengeblieben werden kann. Ich fand, streng nach naturwissenschaftlicher Methode verfahrend, in dem objektiven Idealismus die einzig befriedigende Weltansicht. Die Art, wie ein sich selbst verstehendes, widerspruchsloses Denken zu dieser Weltansicht gelangt, zeigt meine Erkenntnistheorie. 86Rudolf Steiner, Grundlinien einer Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Schiller. Berlin u. Stuttgart 1886, 6. Aufl. Gesamtausgabe Dornach 1960. Ich fand dann, daß dieser objektive Idealismus seinem Grundzuge nach die Goethesche Weltansicht durchtränkt. So geht denn dann freilich der Ausbau meiner Ansichten seit Jahren parallel mit dem Studium Goethes; und ich habe nie einen prinzipiellen Gegensatz zwischen meinen Grundansichten und der Goetheschen wissenschaftlichen Tätigkeit gefunden. Wenn es mir wenigstens teilweise gelungen ist: erstens meinen Standpunkt so zu entwickeln, daß er auch in andern lebendig wird, und zweitens die Überzeugung herbeizuführen, daß dieser Standpunkt wirklich der Goethesche ist, dann betrachte ich meine Aufgabe als erfüllt.
6 Goethe's way of knowing
[ 1 ] Johann Gottlieb Fichte sent the first sheets of his "Wissenschaftslehre" to Goethe in June 1794. The latter wrote to the philosopher on June 24: "As far as I am concerned, I will owe you the greatest thanks when you finally reconcile me with the philosophers whom I have never been able to do without and with whom I have never been able to unite." [WA 10, 167] What the poet sought here in Fichte, he had earlier sought in Spinoza; later he sought it in Schelling and Hegel: a philosophical view of the world that would suit his way of thinking. However, none of the philosophical directions he became acquainted with brought the poet complete satisfaction.
[ 2 ] This makes our task considerably more difficult. We want to approach Goethe from the philosophical side. If he himself had described a scientific point of view as his own, we could refer to it. But that is not the case. And so it falls to us to recognize the philosophical core that lay within the poet from all that we have of him and to sketch a picture of it. We consider the right way to solve this task to be a direction of ideas based on German idealist philosophy. This philosophy sought in its way to satisfy the same highest human needs to which Goethe and Schiller dedicated their lives. It emerged from the same zeitgeist. It is therefore also much closer to Goethe than the views that often dominate the sciences today. It will be possible to form a view from that philosophy, the consequence of which will be what Goethe shaped poetically, what he set out scientifically. From our present scientific directions probably never again. Today we are very far removed from the way of thinking that was in Goethe's nature.
[ 3 ] It is true that we have made progress in all areas of culture. But it can hardly be claimed that this is progress in depth. However, only progress in depth is decisive for the content of an age. The best way to describe our age, however, is to say that it rejects any progress into the depths as unattainable for man. We have become despondent in all areas, but especially in that of thinking and willing. As far as thinking is concerned, we observe endlessly, record our observations and do not have the courage to shape them into a scientific overall view of reality. German idealistic philosophy, however, is accused of being unscientific because it had this courage. Today, people only want to look sensually, not think. They have lost all trust in thinking. People do not consider it sufficient to penetrate the secrets of the world and of life; they renounce any solution to the great riddles of existence. The only thing that is considered possible is: to bring the statements of experience into a system. The only thing they forget is that with this view they are approaching a point of view that they consider to have long been overcome. The rejection of all thinking and the insistence on sensory experience is, when understood more deeply, nothing but the blind belief in revelation of the religions. The latter is only based on the fact that the church hands down ready-made truths in which one has to believe. Thought may struggle to penetrate their deeper meaning, but it is deprived of the power to test the truth itself, to penetrate the depths of the world on its own. And the science of experience: what does it demand of thinking? That it listens to what the facts say and interprets these statements, organizes them, etc. It also denies thinking the ability to penetrate the core of the world independently. There theology demands blind submission of thought to the sayings of the church, here science demands blind submission to the sayings of sensory observation. There as there, independent thinking that penetrates into the depths counts for nothing. The science of experience forgets only one thing. Thousands upon thousands have looked at a sensory fact and passed it by without noticing anything remarkable about it. Then came one who looked at it and realized an important law about it. Where did that come from? Only because the discoverer knew how to look differently than his predecessors. He looked at the fact with different eyes than his fellow human beings. When he looked, he had a certain thought about how to relate the fact to others, what was significant for them and what was not. And so he thought about the matter and saw more than the others. He saw with the eyes of the spirit. All scientific discoveries are based on the fact that the observer knows how to observe in a way that is regulated by the right thought. Thought must naturally guide observation. It cannot do this if the researcher has lost faith in thinking, if he does not know what to make of its implications. The science of experience wanders helplessly in the world of phenomena; the world of the senses becomes a confusing multiplicity for it because it does not have the energy in its thinking to penetrate into the center.
[ 4 ] Today we speak of the limits of knowledge because we do not know where the goal of thought lies. We have no clear view of what we want to achieve and doubt that we will achieve it. If someone were to come along today and point fingers at the solution to the world puzzle, we would have none of it because we wouldn't know what to make of the solution.
[ 5 ] And it is exactly the same with wanting and acting. You don't know how to set yourself specific tasks in life that you would be up to. One dreams oneself into vague, unclear ideals and then complains when one does not achieve what one hardly has a dark, much less a clear idea of. Ask one of the pessimists of our time what he actually wants and what he is desperate to achieve? He doesn't know. They are all problematic natures, unable to cope with any situation and yet none is enough. Don't misunderstand me. I do not want to eulogize shallow optimism, which, satisfied with the trivial pleasures of life, desires nothing higher and therefore never lacks anything. I do not want to break the baton over individuals who painfully feel the deep tragedy that lies in the fact that we are dependent on circumstances that have a paralyzing effect on all our actions and that we strive in vain to change. But let us not forget that pain is the impact of happiness. Think of the mother: how sweet is the joy of her children's prosperity when she has achieved it through sorrow, suffering and toil. Every better-thinking person would have to reject the happiness offered to him by any external power, because he cannot perceive as happiness what is given to him as an undeserved gift. If any creator had approached the creation of man with the thought that he would also give happiness to his image as an inheritance, he would have done better to leave him uncreated. It enhances the dignity of man that what he creates is always cruelly destroyed; for he must always form and create anew; and in doing lies our happiness, in what we ourselves accomplish. The gift of happiness is like the revealed truth. It is worthy of man alone that he himself should seek the truth, that neither experience nor revelation should guide him. Once this has been thoroughly recognized, the religions of revelation will have had their day. Man will then no longer want God to reveal himself to him or to bestow blessings. He will want to recognize through his own thinking, to justify his happiness through his own power. Whether some higher power directs our destiny for good or evil is none of our business; we have to mark out for ourselves the path we have to follow. The most sublime idea of God always remains that which assumes that God withdrew completely from the world after the creation of man and left the latter entirely to himself.
[ 6 ] Whoever acknowledges that thinking has a perceptive capacity that transcends the senses must necessarily also recognize objects that lie beyond mere sensory reality. The objects of thought, however, are ideas. When thinking takes possession of the idea, it merges with the primordial ground of world existence; that which works outside enters the spirit of man: he becomes one with objective reality at its highest potency. The realization of the idea in reality is the true communion of man.
[ 7 ] Thinking has the same significance in relation to ideas as the eye has to light, the ear to sound. It is the organ of perception.
[ 8 ] This view is able to unite two things that today are considered completely incompatible: empirical method and idealism as a scientific view of the world. It is believed that the recognition of the former entails the rejection of the latter. This is not at all correct. Admittedly, if one considers the senses to be the only organs of perception of an objective reality, one must arrive at this view. For the senses provide only those connections between things that can be traced back to mechanical laws. And thus the mechanical view of the world would be given as the only true form of such a view. In doing so, one makes the mistake of simply overlooking the other equally objective components of reality, which cannot be traced back to mechanical laws. The objective given does not coincide at all with the sensible given, as the mechanical view of the world believes. The latter is only half of the given. The other half of the given are the ideas, which are also the object of experience, albeit a higher one, whose organ is thinking. Ideas are also accessible to an inductive method.
[ 9 ] Today's empirical science follows the quite correct method: to hold fast to the given; but it adds the inadmissible assertion that this method can only deliver the sensuously factual. Instead of stopping at how we arrive at our views, it determines from the outset what they are. The only satisfactory view of reality is empirical method with idealistic research results. This is idealism, but not one that pursues a nebulous, dreamed unity of things, but one that seeks the concrete idea content of reality just as experientially as today's hyper-exact research seeks the factual content.
[ 10 ] By approaching Goethe with these views, we believe we are penetrating his essence. We adhere to idealism, but in developing it we do not base ourselves on Hegel's dialectical method, but on a purified, higher empiricism.
[ 11 ] This is also the basis of Eduard v. Hartmann's philosophy. Eduard v. Hartmann seeks in nature the unity of ideas that is positive for thinking full of content. He rejects the merely mechanical conception of nature and the hyper-Darwinism that clings to the external. In science, he is the founder of a concrete monism. In history and aesthetics, he seeks the concrete idea. All this according to an empirical-inductive method.
[ 12 ] Hartmann's philosophy differs from mine only in the question of pessimism and in the metaphysical intensification of the system according to the "unconscious". As far as the latter point is concerned, see below. With regard to pessimism, however, the following should be noted: What Hartmann cites as reasons for pessimism, i.e. for the view that nothing in the world can fully satisfy us, that unpleasure always outweighs pleasure, I would like to describe as the happiness of mankind. For me, what he presents is only evidence that it is in vain to strive for happiness. We must give up such aspirations altogether and seek our destiny purely in selflessly fulfilling the ideal tasks that our reason sets before us. What does this mean other than that we should seek our happiness only in creating, in restless activity?
[ 13 ] Only the active person, namely the selflessly active person who does not strive for a reward with his activity, fulfills his destiny. It is foolish to want to be rewarded for one's activity; there is no true reward. Hartmann should build on this. He should show what, under such conditions, can be the only driving force behind all our actions. If the prospect of a desired goal is eliminated, it can only be selfless devotion to the object to which one devotes one's activity, it can only be love. Only an action out of love can be a moral one. The idea must be our guiding star in science, love in action. And that brings us back to Goethe. "What matters to the active man is that he does the right thing; whether the right thing is done should not concern him." "Our whole art consists in the fact that we give up our existence in order to exist." ("Proverbs in Prose"; Natw. Schr., 4th vol., 2nd dept., pp. 464 and 441)
[ 14 ] I did not arrive at my view of the world solely through the study of Goethe or even Hegelianism. I started from the mechanical-naturalistic view of the world, but realized that intensive thinking could not stop there. Proceeding strictly according to the scientific method, I found the only satisfactory view of the world in objective idealism. My Theory of Knowledge 86Rudolf Steiner, Grundlinien einer Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Schiller shows the way in which a self-understanding, non-contradictory thinking arrives at this view of the world. Berlin and Stuttgart 1886, 6th ed. Complete edition Dornach 1960. I then found that this objective idealism permeates Goethe's view of the world. So, of course, the development of my views has been going on for years in parallel with the study of Goethe; and I have never found a principal contradiction between my basic views and Goethe's scientific activity. If I have at least partially succeeded: firstly, in developing my point of view in such a way that it also comes alive in others, and secondly, in bringing about the conviction that this point of view is really Goethe's, then I regard my task as fulfilled.