A Theory of Knowledge
GA 2
VII. Reference to the Experience of the Individual Reader
[ 1 ] We would avoid the fallacy of attributing a characteristic a priori to the immediately given, to the first form in which the outer and the inner world appear to us, and then establishing the validity of our reasoning on the basis of this presupposition. Indeed, by our very definition, experience is that in which thinking has no share. There cannot be any charge, therefore, of an error in thinking at the outset of our discussion.
[ 2 ] It is just here that the fundamental fallacy arises in many scientific endeavors, especially at the present time. Such scientists imagine that they are reproducing pure experience, whereas they are really reading again concepts which they themselves have interjected into the content of experience. It may be charged that we also have assigned a number of attributes to pure experience. We described it as endless multiplicity, as an aggregate of unrelated units, etc. Are not these also characterizations made by thought? Certainly not in the sense in which we have used them. We have made use of these concepts only to fix the reader's attention upon reality free from thought. We do not desire to attribute these concepts to experience; we employ them only to direct attention to that form of reality which is void of any concept whatever.
[ 3 ] All scientific inquiries must naturally be conducted by means of language, and language can express nothing except concepts. But there is an essential difference between employing certain words for the purpose of directly attributing this or that characteristic to a thing, on the one hand, and, on the other, employing these words merely to direct the reader's or the hearer's attention to an object. If we may resort to an analogy, we might say: These are two different things, when A says on the one hand to B: “Observe that man in his family circle, and you will form an essentially different opinion of him from that which you form of him in his official behavior;” and, on the other hand, when he says: “That man is an excellent father to his family.” In the first instance the attention of B is attracted in a certain manner; he is advised to form a judgment of a certain person under certain circumstances. In the second instance a certain characteristic is attributed to this person, and therefore an assertion is made. As the first case here compares with the second, so does our initial step in the discussion compare with similar phenomena in literature. Since the exigencies of style or the difficulty of expressing our thought may at times give to the matter a different appearance, we wish to declare expressly at this point that our discussion is to be taken only in the sense here explained and is far removed from any pretension of having advanced any assertion whatever which holds good of things in themselves.
[ 4 ] If, now, we are to have a name for the first form in which we observe reality, we are convinced that the name most adequately applicable is to be found in the expression “appearance to the senses.” We here understand by the term sense not only the external senses, mediators of the external world, but all bodily and mental organs whatsoever which have to do with our becoming aware of the immediate facts. Indeed, the term inner sense is quite ordinarily used in psychology for the perceptive capacity as to inner experience.
[ 5 ] By the term appearance, however, we would designate merely a thing perceptible to us or a perceptible occurrence in so far as this appears in space or time.
[ 6 ] Here we must raise still another question, which will bring us to the second factor that we must observe in relation to the science of cognition—that is, thinking.
[ 7 ] Must we regard the form in which experience has hitherto been recognized by us as something rooted in the nature of things? Is it a characteristic of reality?
[ 8 ] Much depends upon the answer to this question. That is, if this form is an essential characteristic of the things of experience, something which belongs to them by their nature in the truest sense of the word, then it is impossible to see how this stage of knowledge can ever be surmounted. We should simply have to apply ourselves to the task of making unrelated notes of all that we experience, and such an assemblage of notes would constitute our science. For what could all research into the interrelationships of things accomplish if the complete isolatedness characterizing them in the form of experience represented their real nature?
[ 9 ] The state of the case will be entirely different if in this form of reality we have to do, not with its essential nature, but only with its quite unessential external aspect; if we have before us only a shell of the true nature of the world which conceals that nature from us and requires us to search further for it. In that case, we should have to strive to break through this shell. We should have to proceed from this first form of the world in order to master its true characteristics (those essential to its being). We should have to surmount the “appearance for the senses” in order to unfold out of this a higher form of appearance.
The answer to this question is given in the following inquiries.
7. Berufung auf die Erfahrung jedes einzelnen Lesers
[ 1 ] Wir wollen den Fehler vermeiden, dem unmittelbar Gegebenen, der ersten Form des Auftretens der Außen- und Innenwelt, von vornherein eine Eigenschaft beizulegen und so auf Grund einer Voraussetzung unsere Ausführungen zur Geltung zu bringen. Ja, wir bestimmen die Erfahrung geradezu als dasjenige, an dem unser Denken gar keinen Anteil hat. Von einem gedanklichen Irrtum kann also am Anfange unserer Ausführungen nicht die Rede sein.
[ 2 ] Gerade darin besteht der Grundfehler vieler wissenschaftlicher Bestrebungen, namentlich der Gegenwart, daß sie glauben die reine Erfahrung wiederzugeben, während sie nur die von ihnen selbst in dieselbe hineingelegten Begriffe wieder herauslesen. Nun kann man uns ja einwenden, daß auch wir der reinen Erfahrung eine Menge von Attributen beigelegt haben. Wir bezeichneten sie als unendliche Mannigfaltigkeit, als ein Aggregat zusammenhangloser Einzelheiten usw. Sind das denn nicht auch gedankliche Bestimmungen? In dem Sinne, wie wir sie gebrauchten, gewiß nicht. Wir haben uns dieser Begriffe nur bedient, um den Blick des Lesers auf die gedankenfreie Wirklichkeit zu lenken. Wir wollen diese Begriffe der Erfahrung nicht beilegen; wir bedienen uns ihrer nur, um die Aufmerksamkeit auf jene Form der Wirklichkeit zu lenken, die jedes Begriffes bar ist.
[ 3 ] Alle wissenschaftlichen Untersuchungen müssen ja mittels der Sprache vollführt werden, und die kann wieder nur Begriffe ausdrücken. Aber es ist doch etwas wesentlich anderes, ob man gewisse Worte braucht, um diese oder jene Eigenschaft einem Dinge direkt zuzusprechen, oder ob man sich ihrer nur bedient, um den Blick des Lesers oder Zuhörers auf einen Gegenstand zu lenken. Wenn wir uns eines Vergleiches bedienen dürften, so würden wir etwa sagen: Ein anderes ist es, wenn A zu B sagt: «Betrachte jenen Menschen im Kreise seiner Familie und du wirst ein wesentlich anderes Urteil über ihn gewinnen, als wenn du ihn nur in seiner Amtsgebarung kennen lernst»; ein anderes ist es, wenn er sagt: «Jener Mensch ist ein vortrefflicher Familienvater.» Im ersten Falle wird die Aufmerksamkeit des B in einem gewissen Sinne gelenkt; er wird darauf hingewiesen, eine Persönlichkeit unter gewissen Umständen zu beurteilen. Im zweiten Falle wird dieser Persönlichkeit einfach eine bestimmte Eigenschaft beigelegt, also eine Behauptung aufgestellt. So wie hier der erste Fall zum zweiten, so soll sich unser Anfang in dieser Schrift zu dem ähnlicher Erscheinungen der Literatur verhalten. Wenn irgendwo durch die notwendige Stilisierung oder um der Möglichkeit, sich auszudrücken, willen die Sache scheinbar anders ist, so bemerken wir hier ausdrücklich, daß unsere Ausführungen nur den hier auseinandergesetzten Sinn haben und weit entfernt sind von dem Anspruche, irgendwelche von den Dingen selbst geltende Behauptung vorgebracht zu haben.
[ 4 ] Wenn wir nun für die erste Form, in der wir die Wirklichkeit beobachten, einen Namen haben wollten, so glauben wir wohl den der Sache am angemessensten in dem Ausdrucke: Erscheinung für die Sinne zu finden. a5In diesen Ausführungen liegt schon die Andeutung auf die Anschauung des Geistigen, von der meine späteren Schriften reden, im Sinne dessen, was in der obigen Anmerkung zu Kapitel 4 gesagt worden ist. Wir verstehen da unter Sinn nicht bloß die äußeren Sinne, die Vermittler der Außenwelt, sondern überhaupt alle leiblichen und geistigen Organe, die der Wahrnehmung der unmittelbaren Tatsachen dienen. Es ist ja eine in der Psychologie ganz gebräuchliche Benennung: innerer Sinn für das Wahrnehmungsvermögen der inneren Erlebnisse.
[ 5 ] Mit dem Worte Erscheinung aber wollen wir einfach ein für uns wahrnehmbares Ding oder einen wahrnehmbaren Vorgang bezeichnen, insofern dieselben im Raume oder in der Zeit auftreten.
[ 6] Wir müssen hier nun noch eine Frage anregen, die uns zu dem zweiten Faktor, den wir behufs der Erkenntniswissenschaft zu betrachten haben, führen soll, zu dem Denken.
[ 7 ] Ist die Art, wie uns die Erfahrung bisher bekannt geworden ist, als etwas im Wesen der Sache Begründetes anzusehen? Ist sie eine Eigenschaft der Wirklichkeit?
[ 8 ] Von der Beantwortung dieser Frage hängt sehr viel ab. Ist nämlich diese Art eine wesentliche Eigenschaft der Erfahrungsdinge, etwas, was ihnen im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes ihrer Natur nach zukommt, dann ist nicht abzusehen, wie man überhaupt je diese Stufe des Erkennens überschreiten soll. Man mußte sich einfach darauf verlegen, alles, was wir wahrnehmen, in zusammenhanglosen Notizen aufzuzeichnen, und eine solche Notizensammlung wäre unsere Wissenschaft. Denn, was sollte alles Forschen nach dem Zusammenhange der Dinge, wenn die, ihnen in der Form der Erfahrung zukommende, vollständige Isoliertheit ihre wahre Eigenschaft wäre?
[ 9 ] Ganz anders verhielte es sich, a6Mit dieser Ausführung ist der Anschauung des Geistigen nicht widersprochen, sondern es wird darauf hingedeutet, daß für die Sinnes-Wahrnehmung, um zu deren Wesen zu gelangen, nicht gewissermaßen durch ein Durchstoßen derselben und ein Vordringen zu einem Sein hinter ihr zu deren Wesen zu gelangen ist, sondern durch ein Zurückgehen zu dem Gedanklichen, das im Menschen sich offenbart. wenn wir es in dieser Form der Wirklichkeit nicht mit deren Wesen, sondern nur mit ihrer ganz unwesentlichen Außenseite zu tun hätten, wenn wir nur eine Hülle von dem wahren Wesen der Welt vor uns hätten, die uns das letztere verbirgt und uns auffordert, weiter nach demselben zu forschen. Wir müßten dann danach trachten, diese Hülle zu durchdringen. Wir müßten von dieser ersten Form der Welt ausgehen, um uns ihrer wahren (wesentlichen) Eigenschaften zu bemächtigen. Wir müßten die Erscheinung für die Sinne überwinden, um daraus eine höhere Erscheinungsform zu entwickeln. - Die Antwort auf diese Frage ist in den folgenden Untersuchungen gegeben.
7. appeal to the experience of each individual reader
[ 1 ] We want to avoid the mistake of attributing a property from the outset to the immediately given, the first form of the appearance of the external and internal world, and thus to bring our explanations to bear on the basis of a presupposition. Indeed, we actually define experience as that in which our thinking has no part at all. There can therefore be no question of an intellectual error at the beginning of our explanations.
[ 2 ] This is precisely the fundamental error of many scientific endeavors, especially of the present day, that they believe they are reproducing pure experience, while they are only reading out the concepts that they themselves put into it. Now it may be objected to us that we too have attached a number of attributes to pure experience. We have described it as an infinite multiplicity, as an aggregate of incoherent details, and so on. Are these not also mental determinations? Certainly not in the sense in which we used them. We have only used these terms to direct the reader's gaze to thought-free reality. We do not want to attach these concepts to experience; we only use them to draw attention to that form of reality which is devoid of any concept.
[ 3 ] All scientific investigations must be carried out by means of language, and language can only express concepts. But it is something essentially different whether one needs certain words to directly ascribe this or that property to a thing, or whether one only uses them to direct the reader's or listener's gaze to an object. If we could make use of a comparison, we would say, for example: It is another thing for A to say to B: "Look at that man in the circle of his family and you will gain a substantially different judgment of him than if you only get to know him in his official capacity"; it is another thing for him to say: "That man is an excellent family man." In the first case, the B's attention is directed in a certain sense; he is being instructed to judge a personality under certain circumstances. In the second case, a certain quality is simply attributed to this personality, i.e. an assertion is made. As here the first case relates to the second, so shall our beginning in this writing relate to that of similar phenomena in literature. If anywhere, through the necessary stylization or for the sake of the possibility of expression, the matter is apparently different, we here expressly remark that our remarks have only the meaning here set forth and are far removed from the claim to have put forward any assertion valid of the things themselves.
[ 4 ] If we now wanted to have a name for the first form in which we observe reality, we believe that we find it most appropriate to the matter in the expression: appearance for the senses. a5In these remarks already lies the allusion to the perception of the spiritual, of which my later writings speak, in the sense of what has been said in note a3 in Chapter 4. We understand by sense not merely the external senses, the mediators of the external world, but in general all physical and mental organs which serve the perception of immediate facts. It is a common term in psychology: inner sense for the perceptive faculty of inner experiences.
[ 5 ] But with the word appearance we simply want to designate a perceptible thing or a perceptible process, insofar as they occur in space or in time.
[ 6] We must now raise another question that should lead us to the second factor that we have to consider for the sake of cognitive science, to thought.
[ 7 ] Is the way in which experience has become known to us so far to be regarded as something founded in the essence of the thing? Is it a property of reality?
[ 8 ] A great deal depends on the answer to this question. For if this kind is an essential property of experiential things, something that is inherent in them in the truest sense of the word, then it is impossible to see how one could ever go beyond this level of cognition. One would simply have to resort to recording everything we perceive in incoherent notes, and such a collection of notes would be our science. For what would be the point of all research into the coherence of things if their true quality were their complete isolation in the form of experience?
[ 9 ] It would be quite different if a6this explanation does not contradict the view of the spiritual, but indicates that for sense-perception, to arrive at its essence is not, as it were, to arrive at its essence by penetrating it and advancing to a being behind it, but by going back to the mental, which reveals itself in man. if in this form of reality we were not dealing with its essence, but only with its quite insignificant outside, if we had only a shell of the true essence of the world before us, which hides the latter from us and invites us to search further for it. We would then have to strive to penetrate this shell. We would have to start from this first form of the world in order to take possession of its true (essential) qualities. We would have to overcome the appearance to the senses in order to develop a higher form of appearance from it. - The answer to this question is given in the following investigations.