A Theory of Knowledge
GA 2
VI. Correction of an Erroneous Conception of Experience As a Totality
[ 1 ] This is the proper point at which to refer to a preconception, persisting since the time of Kant, which has been so absorbed into the very life of certain circles as to pass for an axiom. Whoever should presume to question it would be considered a dilettante, a person not yet advanced beyond the most rudimentary concepts of modern philosophy. I refer to the opinion, held as if it were establisheda priori, that the whole perceptual world, this endless multiplicity of colors and forms, of tones and degrees of heat, were nothing more than our subjective world of representations,9Vorstellungswelt possessing existence only so long as we keep our senses receptive to the influences from a world quite unknown to us. The whole phenomenal world is interpreted on the basis of this opinion, as a representation (Vorstellung) inside our individual consciousness; and, on the basis of this hypothesis, are constructed further assertions regarding the nature of cognition. Volkelt also has adopted this opinion and bases upon it his theory of knowledge, a masterly production in its scientific process of development. Yet this is no basic truth, and least of all is it appropriate to form the very culmination of the science of knowledge.
[ 2 ] We would not be misunderstood. We have no desire to utter a protest—which would certainly be futile—against the contemporary achievements in physiology. But what is wholly justified as physiology is by no means for that reason appropriate to be set up before the very gateway leading to a theory of knowledge. It may pass as an unassailable physiological truth that the complex of sensations and percepts which we call experience first comes into existence through the cooperation of our organism. Yet it remains quite certain that such an item of knowledge as this can result only from much reflection and research. This characterization—that our phenomenal world is, in a physiological sense, of a subjective character—is itself a characterization of that world reached by thinking, and has, therefore, nothing whatever to do with its first manifestation. It presupposes the application of thinking to experience. It must, therefore, be preceded by an inquiry as to the interrelationship between the two factors in the act of cognition.
[ 3 ] It is supposed that this opinion raises one above the pre-Kantian naïveté, which considered the things in space and in time as constituting reality, as is still done by the “naïve” person who has no scientific training.
[ 4 ] Volkelt makes the assertion: “All acts that call themselves objective cognitions are inseparably bound up with the individual cognizing consciousness; they take their course at first and immediately nowhere else than in the consciousness of the individual; and they are utterly incapable of reaching beyond the sphere of the individual and laying hold of the sphere of the real lying outside, or of entering it.”10Cf. Volkelt: Erfahrung und Denken, p. 4.
[ 5] But it is quite impossible for unprejudiced thought to discover what that form of reality which touches us directly (experience) bears within itself that could in any way justify us in designating it as mere representation.
[ 6 ] Even the simple reflection that the “naïve” person observes in things nothing which could lead him to this opinion teaches us that no compelling reason for this assumption exists in things themselves. What does a tree, a table, bear within itself that could lead me to look upon it as a mere mental image? This should not, then, be asserted—least of all as a self-evident truth.
[ 7 ] Just because Volkelt does this, he entangles himself in a contradiction of his fundamental principles. According to our conviction, he could maintain the subjective nature of experience only by being disloyal to the truth recognized by him, that experience consists of nothing but an unrelated chaos of images without any thinkable definition. Otherwise he would have been forced to see that the cognizing subject, the observer, is just as unrelated within the world of experience as is any other object belonging to it. But, if one predicates subjectivity of the world of experience, this is at once a thought-characterization, just as if one looks upon a falling stone as the cause of an impression made in the ground. Yet Volkelt himself will not admit any sort of interrelationships among the things of experience. Here lies the inconsistency in his conception; here he becomes disloyal to the principle he has expressed regarding pure experience. Through this he shuts himself up within his individuality, and is no longer capable of emerging. Indeed, he admits this without reservation. Everything that lies beyond the disconnected images of perception remains for him in uncertainty. Our thinking, to be sure, endeavors according to his view to reach out from this world of mental images and infer an objective reality, but our going out beyond this world cannot lead to really known truths. All knowledge that we win by means of thinking is, according to Volkelt, not protected against doubt. It does not by any means attain to a certitude like that of immediate experience. This alone affords an indubitable knowledge. We have seen how defective is this knowledge.
[ 8 ] But all this grows out of the fact that Volkelt attributes to sense-reality (experience) a characteristic which can by no means pertain thereto, and on this presupposition bases his further assumptions.
[ 9 ] It has been necessary to give special attention to this writing of Volkelt's because it is the most important contemporary work in this field, and also for the reason that it may serve as a typical specimen of all endeavors after a theory of knowledge which are in basic opposition to the direction of thinking that we represent, founded upon Goethe's world-conception.
6. Berichtigung einer irrigen Auffassung der Gesamt-Erfahrung
[ 1 ] Hier ist nun der Ort, auf ein seit Kant bestehendes Vorurteil hinzuweisen, das sich bereits in gewissen Kreisen so eingelebt hat, daß es als Axiom gilt. Jeder, der es bezweifeln wollte, würde als ein Dilettant hingestellt, als ein Mensch, der nicht über die elementarsten Begriffe moderner Wissenschaft hinausgekommen Ist. Ich meine die Ansicht, als ob es von vornherein feststünde, daß die gesamte Wahrnehmungswelt, diese unendliche Mannigfaltigkeit von Farben und Formen, von Tönen und Wärmedifferenzen usw. nichts weiter sei als unsere subjektive Vorstellungswelt, die nur Bestand habe, solange wir unsere Sinne den Einwirkungen einer uns unbekannten Welt offen halten. Die ganze Erscheinungswelt wird von dieser Ansicht für eine Vorstellung innerhalb unseres individuellen Bewußtseins erklärt, und auf Grundlage dieser Voraussetzung baut man weitere Behauptungen über die Natur des Erkennens auf. Auch Volkelt hat sich dieser Ansicht angeschlossen und seine in bezug auf die wissenschaftliche Durchführung meisterhafte Erkenntnistheorie darauf gegründet. Dennoch ist das keine Grundwahrheit und am wenigsten dazu berufen, an der Spitze der Erkenntniswissenschaft zu stehen.
[ 2 ] Man mißverstehe uns nur ja nicht. Wir wollen nicht gegen die physiologischen Errungenschaften der Gegenwart einen gewiß ohnmächtigen Protest erheben. Was aber physiologisch vollkommen gerechtfertigt ist, das ist deshalb noch lange nicht berufen, an die Pforte der Erkenntnistheorie gestellt zu werden. Es mag als eine unumstößliche physiologische Wahrheit gelten, daß erst durch die Mitwirkung unseres Organismus der Komplex von Empfindungen und Anschauungen entsteht, den wir Erfahrung nannten. Es bleibt doch sicher, daß eine solche Erkenntnis erst das Resultat vieler Erwägungen und Forschungen sein kann. Dieses Charakteristikon, daß unsere Erscheinungswelt in physiologischem Sinne subjektiver Natur ist, ist schon eine gedankliche Bestimmung derselben; hat also ganz und gar nichts zu tun mit ihrem ersten Auftreten. Es setzt schon die Anwendung des Denkens auf die Erfahrung voraus. Es muß ihm daher die Untersuchung des Zusammenhanges dieser beiden Faktoren des Erkennens vorausgehen.
[ 3 ] Man glaubt sich mit jener Ansicht erhaben über die vorkantsche «Naivität», die die Dinge im Raume und in der Zeit für Wirklichkeit hielt, wie es der naive Mensch, der keine wissenschaftliche Bildung hat, heute noch tut.
[ 4 ] Volkelt behauptet: «daß alle Akte, die darauf Anspruch machen, ein objektives Erkennen zu sein, unabtrennbar an das erkennende, individuelle Bewußtsein gebunden sind, daß sie sich zunächst und unmittelbar nirgends anderswo als im Bewußtsein des Individuums vollziehen und daß sie über das Gebiet des Individuums hinauszugreifen und das Gebiet des draußenliegenden Wirklichen zu fassen oder zu betreten völlig außerstande sind.» 7Siehe Volkelt, «Erfahrung und Denken», Seite 4.
[ 5 ] Nun ist es aber doch für ein unbefangenes Denken ganz unerfindlich, was die unmittelbar an uns herantretende Form der Wirklichkeit (die Erfahrung) an sich trage, das uns irgendwie berechtigen könnte, sie als bloße Vorstellung zu bezeichnen.
[ 6 ] Schon die einfache Erwägung, daß der naive Mensch gar nichts an den Dingen bemerkt, was ihn auf diese Ansicht bringen könnte, lehrt uns, daß in den Objekten selbst ein zwingender Grund zu dieser Annahme nicht liegt. Was trägt ein Baum, ein Tisch an sich, was mich dazu veranlassen könnte, ihn als bloßes Vorstellungsgebilde anzusehen? Zum mindesten darf das also nicht wie eine selbstverständliche Wahrheit hingestellt werden.
[ 7 ] Indem Volkelt das letztere tut, verwickelt er sich in einen Widerspruch mit seinen eigenen Grundprinzipien. Nach unserer Überzeugung mußte er der von ihm erkannten Wahrheit, daß die Erfahrung nichts enthalte als ein zusammenhangloses Chaos von Bildern ohne jegliche gedankliche Bestimmung, untreu werden, um die subjektive Natur derselben Erfahrung behaupten zu können. Er hätte sonst einsehen müssen, daß das Subjekt des Erkennens, der Betrachter, ebenso beziehungslos innerhalb der Erfahrungswelt dasteht wie ein beliebiger anderer Gegenstand derselben. Legt man aber der wahrgenommenen Welt das Prädikat subjektiv bei, so ist das ebenso eine gedankliche Bestimmung, wie wenn man den fallenden Stein für die Ursache des Eindruckes im Boden ansieht. Volkelt selbst will doch aber keinerlei Zusammenhang der Erfahrungsdinge gelten lassen. Da liegt der Widerspruch seiner Anschauung, da wurde er seinem Prinzipe, das er von der reinen Erfahrung ausspricht, untreu. Er schließt sich dadurch in seine Individualität ein und ist nicht mehr imstande, aus derselben herauszukommen. Ja, er gibt das rücksichtslos zu. Es bleibt für ihn alles zweifelhaft, was über die abgerissenen Bilder der Wahrnehmungen hinaus liegt. Zwar bemüht sich, nach seiner Ansicht, unser Denken, von dieser Vorstellungswelt aus auf eine obektive Wirklichkeit zu schließen; allein alles Hinausgehen über dieselbe kann uns nicht zu wirklich gewissen Wahrheiten führen. Alles Wissen, das wir durch das Denken gewinnen, ist nach Volkelt vor dem Zweifel nicht geschützt. Es kommt in keiner Weise an Gewißheit der unmittelbaren Erfahrung gleich. Diese allein liefert ein nicht zu bezweifelndes Wissen. Wir haben gesehen, was für ein mangelhaftes.
[ 8 ] Doch das alles kommt nur daher, daß Volkelt der sinnenfälligen Wirklichkeit (Erfahrung) eine Eigenschaft beilegt, die ihr in keiner Weise zukommen kann, und dann auf dieser Voraussetzung seine weiteren Annahmen aufbaut.
[ 9 ] Wir mußten auf die Schrift von Volkelt besondere Rücksicht nehmen, weil sie die bedeutendste Leistung der Gegenwart auf diesem Gebiete ist, und auch deshalb, weil sie als Typus für alle erkenntnistheoretischen Bemühungen gelten kann, die der von uns auf Grundlage der Goetheschen Weltanschauung vertretenen Richtung prinzipiell gegenüberstehen.
6. Correction of an Erroneous View of Total Experience
[ 1 ] This is the place to point out a prejudice that has existed since Kant and has already become so ingrained in certain circles that it is considered an axiom. Anyone who wanted to doubt it would be portrayed as a dilettante, as a person who has not progressed beyond the most elementary concepts of modern science. I mean the view as if it were a foregone conclusion that the entire world of perception, this infinite variety of colors and forms, of sounds and differences in warmth, etc., is nothing more than our subjective world of imagination, which only exists as long as we keep our senses open to the influences of a world unknown to us. The whole world of appearances is declared by this view to be a conception within our individual consciousness, and further assertions about the nature of cognition are based on this premise. Volkelt also subscribed to this view and based his epistemology, which is masterful in terms of its scientific implementation, on it. Nevertheless, this is not a fundamental truth and least of all called upon to stand at the pinnacle of epistemology.
[ 2 ] Just don't misunderstand us. We do not want to raise a protest against the physiological achievements of the present, which is certainly impotent. But what is perfectly justified physiologically is by no means called upon to be placed at the gates of epistemology. It may be regarded as an incontrovertible physiological truth that it is only through the cooperation of our organism that the complex of sensations and perceptions which we call experience arises. It remains certain, however, that such a realization can only be the result of many considerations and researches. This characteristic, that our phenomenal world is of a physiological subjective nature, is already a mental determination of it; thus it has nothing at all to do with its first appearance. It already presupposes the application of thought to experience. It must therefore be preceded by the investigation of the connection between these two factors of cognition.
[ 3 ] With this view, one believes oneself to be superior to the pre-Kantian "naivety" that took things in space and time for reality, as the naive person who has no scientific education still does today.
[ 4 ] Volkelt claims: "that all acts that claim to be objective cognition are inseparably bound to the cognizing, individual consciousness, that they do not take place initially and directly anywhere other than in the consciousness of the individual and that they are completely incapable of reaching beyond the realm of the individual and grasping or entering the realm of the external real." 7See Volkelt, "Experience and Thought", page 4.
[ 5 ] Now, however, it is quite unfathomable to an unbiased mind what the form of reality (experience) that immediately approaches us has in itself that could somehow entitle us to call it mere imagination.
[ 6 ] The simple consideration that the naive person does not notice anything about things that could lead him to this view teaches us that there is no compelling reason for this assumption in the objects themselves. What is there about a tree, a table, that could lead me to regard it as a mere figment of the imagination? At the very least, this should not be taken as a self-evident truth.
[ 7 ] In doing the latter, Volkelt entangles himself in a contradiction with his own basic principles. According to our conviction, he had to be unfaithful to the truth he recognized, that experience contains nothing but an incoherent chaos of images without any mental determination, in order to be able to assert the subjective nature of the same experience. Otherwise he would have had to recognize that the subject of cognition, the observer, is just as unrelated within the world of experience as any other object in it. But if one attaches the predicate subjective to the perceived world, then this is just as much a conceptual determination as if one regards the falling stone as the cause of the impression in the ground. Volkelt himself, however, does not want to accept any connection between the things of experience. There lies the contradiction of his view, there he has been unfaithful to the principle he expresses of pure experience. He thereby locks himself into his individuality and is no longer able to get out of it. Indeed, he admits this ruthlessly. Everything that lies beyond the torn-off images of perception remains doubtful for him. It is true, in his view, that our thinking endeavors to deduce an objective reality from this imaginary world; but all going beyond it cannot lead us to really certain truths. According to Volkelt, all knowledge that we gain through thinking is not protected from doubt. It is in no way equal in certainty to direct experience. This alone provides knowledge that cannot be doubted. We have seen what a deficient one.
[ 8 ] But all this is only because Volkelt ascribes to sensible reality (experience) a quality that cannot be attributed to it in any way, and then builds his further assumptions on this presupposition.
[ 9 ] We had to take Volkelt's work into particular consideration because it is the most significant contemporary achievement in this field, and also because it can be regarded as a type for all epistemological efforts that are opposed in principle to the direction we advocate on the basis of Goethe's worldview.