A Theory of Knowledge
GA 2
XIII. The Act of Cognition
[ 1 ] Reality has divided itself for us into two spheres: the spheres of experience and thought. Experience must be considered from a twofold point of view:—First, in so far as the total reality possesses, apart from our thinking, a form of manifestation which must emerge in the form of experience. Secondly, in so far as it is inherent in the character of our mind (whose essential nature consists in contemplation: that is, in an outwardly directed activity) that the objects to be observed must enter its field of vision: that is, again, must be given to it in the form of experience. It may be that this form of the given does not contain within itself the essential nature of the thing; in which case the thing itself requires that it shall first appear in perception (in experience) only later to reveal its essential nature to an activity of our mind which reaches beyond experience. Another possibility is that the essential nature may be present in the immediately given and that our not becoming forthwith conscious of that essential nature is due to the second circumstance: the requirement of our mind that everything must appear before it as experience. The second possibility is true of thought, the former of all other reality. In the case of thought, it is only necessary to overcome our subjective preconceptions in order to grasp this in its innermost essence. That which, in the case of all other reality, rests upon the actual situation in objective perception—that is, that the immediate form of appearance must be surmounted in order to interpret it—rests in the case of thought only upon a characteristic of our minds. In the former case, it is the thing itself which gives to itself the experiential form; in the latter, it is the organization of our mind. In the one case, we do not possess the whole thing when we lay hold of experience; in the other case, we do possess the whole thing.
[ 2 ] Upon this rests the dualism which must be surmounted by knowledge, which is cognition by means of thinking. Man finds himself confronted by two worlds whose interconnection he must bring about. One is experience, of which he knows that it contains only one half of reality; the other is thought, complete in itself, into which that external experiential reality must flow if there is to result a satisfying world-view. If the world were populated by mere sentient creatures, its essential nature (its ideal content) would remain forever hidden; laws would, of course, control the world processes, but these laws would never become manifest. If this is to occur, there must intervene between the law and the form of manifestation a being to whom is given both the organs requisite to perceive that sensible form of reality dependent upon the laws and also the capacity to perceive the conformity to law itself. From one side the sense-world must come to meet this being and from another side the ideal nature of this world, and he must unite these two factors of reality by means of his own activity.
[ 3 ] Here it is perfectly clear that our mind is not to be conceived as a receptacle for the ideal world, containing the thoughts within itself, but as an organ which perceives the thoughts.
[ 4 ] It is an organ of apprehension just as are the eye and the ear. Thought is related to our minds just as light is related to the eye, tone to the ear. It does not occur to any one to think of color as something which stamps itself on the eye, remaining there as if it adhered to the eye. But in regard to the mind this is the prevailing conception. It is supposed that a thought of each thing forms itself in the consciousness and there remains, to be drawn forth at need. A peculiar theory has been based upon this view as if those thoughts of which we are at any moment unconscious were really preserved in our minds, but were lying below the threshold of consciousness.
[ 5 ] These strange opinions dissolve into nothing the moment we reflect that the ideal world is self-determinative. What has this self-determinative content to do with the multiplicity of consciousnesses? It will not be supposed that this content so determines itself in indeterminate multiplicity that one fractional content is always independent of another! The thing is perfectly clear. Thought-content is of such a nature that it simply requires a mental organ for its manifestation, but that the number of beings possessed of such an organ is a matter of indifference. Therefore, an indefinite number of beings endowed with minds may be confronted by the one thought-content. That is, thinking as an organ of apprehension, perceives the thought-content of the world. There is only one single thought-content of the world. Our consciousness is not the capacity to produce thoughts and store them up, as is so generally supposed, but the capacity to perceive thoughts (ideas). Goethe expressed this strikingly in the following words: “The Idea is eternal and single; the fact that we use the plural is unfortunate. All things of which we become aware and of which we can speak are only manifestations of the Idea; we utter concepts, and to that extent the Idea itself is a concept.”
[ 6 ] Dwelling in two worlds, the world of the senses and the world of thoughts—the one pressing in from below and the other shining down from above—man makes himself master of knowledge, whereby he unites the two into an undivided unity. From one side, external form beckons to us; from the other side, inner being; we must unite the two into one. Here our theory of knowledge has lifted itself above those points of view generally adopted by similar inquiries, which never get beyond mere formulae. From those points of view it is said that knowledge is the elaboration of experience, without specifying what is elaborated into experience; the matter is defined by saying that in cognition perception flows over into thinking, or else thinking, by virtue of a certain inner compulsion, presses forward from experience to the real entity which is behind experience. But these are the merest formulae. A science of knowledge that seeks to grasp cognition in its world-important role must, first of all, postulate the ideal goal of cognition. This goal is to give a solution to inconclusive experience by revealing its central core. Such a theory must, in the second place, determine what this central core is, considered as to its content. It is thought, Idea. Third, and lastly, it must show how this uncovering of the core is achieved. Our chapter on Thinking and Perception explains this. Our theory of knowledge leads to the positive conclusion that thought is the essential nature of the world, and the individual human thinking is the only phenomenal form of this essential nature. A merely formal theory of knowledge cannot do this, but remains forever barren. It possesses no opinion as to the relationship between that which knowledge attains and the nature and fabric of the world. And yet it is precisely in the theory of knowledge that this relationship must be found. This science must show us where we arrive by way of cognition; to what point every other form of knowledge leads us.
[ 7 ] Not otherwise than by way of a theory of knowledge does one attain to the view that thought is the central core of the world. For this science shows us the connection between thought and the rest of reality. But through what other means shall we learn in reference to thought what its relation to experience is unless it be through that science which takes as the very object of its inquiry just this relationship? Furthermore, how should we ever know in regard to a certain spiritual or sensible entity that it is the very primal force of the world if we do not investigate its relationship to reality? If, therefore, we have to do in any manner whatever with an inquiry as to the essential nature of a thing, this discovery will always consist in a return to the ideal content of the world. The sphere of this content must not be transgressed if we mean to remain within clear characterizations and do not wish to grope around in the indeterminate. Thought is a totality within itself, sufficient unto itself, which cannot pass beyond itself without entering a void. In other words, it must not, in an endeavor to explain anything whatever, have recourse to things which are not to be found within itself. A thing which could not be comprised within thought would be a no-thing. All finally resolves itself into thought; all at last finds its place within thought.
[ 8 ] Expressed in reference to our individual consciousness, this means that, in order to establish anything scientifically, we must limit ourselves rigidly to what is given to us in consciousness; beyond this we cannot go. When any one perceives clearly that we cannot leap over our own consciousness without finding ourselves in the unreal, but does not at the same time perceive that the essential nature of things is to be met within our consciousness in the act of perceiving Ideas, he then falls into the fallacy of talking about limitations of human knowledge. If we cannot get beyond our consciousness, and if the essential nature of reality is not within consciousness, then we can never force our way through to that reality in its true nature.
[ 9 ] Our thought is bound to the hither side and knows nothing of a yonder side.
[ 10 ] But, according to our point of view, this opinion is nothing more than a thinking which misunderstands itself. A limitation of knowledge would be possible only if external experience in itself forced upon us the inquiry into its own nature, only if it determined the question which must be posed in its presence. But such is not the case. In thought itself arises the need to match with experience, as it perceives this, the essential nature of what is experienced. Thinking can have only the most definite tendency to see in the rest of the world its own conformity to law, but never anything of which it has not the least information.
[ 11 ] Another fallacy must also be corrected at this point. It is that which considers thought not sufficient in itself to constitute the world; as if something else (force, will, etc.) must supervene in order to render the world possible.
[ 12 ] As soon, however, as we reflect sufficiently, we see that all such factors really amount to nothing more than abstractions drawn from the perceptual world, and must themselves await interpretation by thought. Every component of the World-Being other than thought would require a form of apprehension, of cognition, other than that through thought. These other components we should have to reach otherwise than by means of thought. For thinking yields only thoughts. But, as soon as we endeavor to explain the part played in the fabric of the world by these other components, and resort to concepts for this explanation, we fall into self-contradiction. Moreover, there is no third part given to us in addition to sense-perception and thought. And we cannot consider any part of the former as the core of the world, since a closer inspection of all its constituents shows that, as such, they do not contain its own essential nature. This can be found nowhere save in thought.
13. Das Erkennen
[ 1 ] Die Wirklichkeit hat sich uns in zwei Gebiete auseinandergelegt: in die Erfahrung und in das Denken. Die Erfahrung kommt in zweifacher Hinsicht in Betracht. Erstens insofern, als die gesamte Wirklichkeit außer dem Denken eine Erscheinungsform hat, die in der Erfahrungsform auftreten muß. Zweitens insofern, als es in der Natur unseres Geistes liegt, dessen Wesen ja in der Betrachtung besteht (also in einer nach außen gerichteten Tätigkeit), daß die zu beobachtenden Gegenstände in sein Gesichtsfeld einrücken, das heißt wieder ihm erfahrungsgem? gegeben werden. Es kann nun sein, daß diese Form des Gegebenen das Wesen der Sache nicht in sich schließt, dann fordert die Sache selbst, daß sie zuerst in der Wahrnehmung (Erfahrung) erscheine, um später einer über die Wahrnehmung hinausgehenden Tätigkeit unseres Geistes das Wesen zu zeigen. Eine andere Möglichkeit ist die, daß in dem unmittelbar Gegebenen schon das Wesen liege und daß es nur dem zweiten Umstande, daß unserm Geiste alles als Erfahrung vor Augen treten muß, zuzuschreiben ist, wenn wir dieses Wesen nicht sogleich gewahr werden. Das letztere ist beim Denken, das erstere bei der übrigen Wirklichkeit der Fall. Beim Denken ist nur erforderlich, daß wir unsere subjektive Befangenheit überwinden, um es in seinem Kerne zu begreifen. Was bei der übrigen Wirklichkeit in der objektiven Wahrnehmung sachlich begründet liegt, daß die unmittelbare Form des Auftretens überwunden werden muß, um sie zu erklären, das liegt beim Denken nur in einer Eigentümlichkeit unseres Geistes. Dort ist es die Sache selbst, welche sich die Erfahrungsform gibt, hier ist es die Organisation unseres Geistes. Dort haben wir noch nicht die ganze Sache, wenn wir die Erfahrung auffassen, hier haben wir sie.
[ 2 ] Darinnen liegt der Dualismus begründet, den die Wissenschaft, das denkende Erkennen, zu überwinden hat. Der Mensch findet sich zwei Welten gegenüber, deren Zusammenhang er herzustellen hat. Die eine ist die Erfahrung, von der er weiß, daß sie nur die Hälfte der Wirklichkeit enthält; die andere ist das Denken, das in sich vollendet ist, in das jene äußere Erfahrungswirklichkeit einfließen muß, wenn eine befriedigende Weltansicht resultieren soll. Wenn die Welt bloß von Sinnenwesen bewohnt wäre, so bliebe ihr Wesen (ihr ideeller Inhalt) stets im Verborgenen; die Gesetze würden zwar die Weltprozesse beherrschen, aber sie kämen nicht zur Erscheinung. Soll das letztere sein, so muß zwischen Erscheinungsform und Gesetz ein Wesen treten, dem sowohl Organe gegeben sind, durch die es jene sinnenfällige, von den Gesetzen abhängige Wirklichkeitsform wahrnimmt, als auch das Vermögen, die Gesetzlichkeit selbst wahrzunehmen. Von der einen Seite muß an ein solches Wesen die Sinnenwelt, von der anderen das ideelle Wesen derselben herantreten, und es muß in eigener Tätigkeit diese beiden Wirklichkeitsfaktoren verbinden.
[ 3 ] Hier sieht man wohl ganz klar, daß unser Geist nicht wie ein Behälter der Ideenwelt anzusehen ist, der die Gedanken in sich enthält, sondern wie ein Organ, das dieselben wahrnimmt.
[ 4 ] Er ist gerade so Organ des Auffassens wie Auge und Ohr. Der Gedanke verhält sich zu unserem Geiste nicht anders wie das Licht zum Auge, der Ton zum Ohr. Es fällt gewiß niemandem ein, die Farbe wie etwas anzusehen, das sich dem Auge als Bleibendes einprägt, das gleichsam haften bleibt an demselben. Beim Geiste ist diese Ansicht sogar die vorherrschende. Im Bewußtsein soll sich von jedem Dinge ein Gedanke bilden, der dann in demselben verbleibt, um aus demselben je nach Bedarf hervorgeholt zu werden. Man hat darauf eine eigene Theorie gegründet, als wenn die Gedanken, deren wir uns im Momente nicht bewußt sind, zwar in unserem Geiste aufbewahrt seien; nur liegen sie unter der Schwelle des Bewußtseins.
[ 5 ] Diese abenteuerlichen Ansichten zerfließen sofort in nichts, wenn man bedenkt, daß die Ideenwelt doch eine aus sich heraus bestimmte ist. Was hat dieser durch sich selbst bestimmte Inhalt mit der Vielheit der Bewußtseine zu tun? Man wird doch nicht annehmen, daß er sich in unbestimmter Vielheit so bestimmt, daß immer der eine Teilinhalt von dem andern unabhängig ist! Die Sache liegt ja ganz klar. Der Gedankeninhalt ist ein solcher, daß nur überhaupt ein geistiges Organ notwendig ist zu seiner Erscheinung, daß aber die Zahl der mit diesem Organe begabten Wesen gleichgültig ist. Es können also unbestimmt viele geistbegabte Individuen dem einen Gedankeninhalte gegenüberstehen. Der Geist nimmt also den Gedankengehalt der Welt wahr, wie ein Auffassungsorgan. Es gibt nur einen Gedankeninhalt der Welt. Unser Bewußtsein ist nicht die Fähigkeit, Gedanken zu erzeugen und aufzubewahren, wie man so vielfach glaubt, sondern die Gedanken (Ideen) wahrzunehmen. Goethe hat dies so vortrefflich mit den Worten ausgedrückt: «Die Idee ist ewig und einzig; daß wir auch den Plural brauchen, ist nicht wohlgetan. Alles, was wir gewahr werden und wovon wir reden können, sind nur Manifestationen der Idee; Begriffe sprechen wir aus, und insofern ist die Idee selbst ein Begriff.»
[ 6 ] Bürger zweier Welten, der Sinnen- und der Gedanken-welt, die eine von unten an ihn herandringend, die andere von oben leuchtend, bemächtigt sich der Mensch der Wissenschaft, durch die er beide in eine ungetrennte Einheit verbindet. Von der einen Seite winkt uns die äußere Form, von der andern das innere Wesen; wir müssen beide vereinigen. Damit hat sich unsere Erkenntnistheorie über jenen Standpunkt erhoben, den ähnliche Untersuchungen zumeist einnehmen und der nicht über Formalitäten hinauskommt. Da sagt man: «Das Erkennen sei Bearbeitung der Erfahrung», ohne zu bestimmen, was in die letztere hineingearbeitet wird; man bestimmt: «Im Erkennen fließe die Wahrnehmung in das Denken ein, oder das Denken dringe vermöge eines inneren Zwanges von der Erfahrung zu dem hinter derselben stehenden Wesen vor.» Das sind aber lauter bloße Formalitäten. Eine Erkenntniswissenschaft, welche das Erkennen in seiner weltbedeutsamen Rolle erfassen will, muß: erstens den idealen Zweck desselben angeben. Er besteht darinnen, der unabgeschlossenen Erfahrung durch das Enthüllen ihres Kernes ihren Abschluß zu geben. Sie muß, zweitens, bestimmen, was dieser Kern, inhaltlich genommen, ist. Er ist Gedanke, Idee. Endlich, drittens, muß sie zeigen, wie dieses Enthüllen geschieht. Unser Kapitel: «Denken und Wahrnehmung» gibt darüber Aufschluß. Unsere Erkenntnistheorie führt zu dem positiven Ergebnis, daß das Denken das Wesen der Welt ist und daß das individuelle menschliche Denken die einzelne Erscheinungsform dieses Wesens ist. Eine bloße formale Erkenntniswissenschaft kann das nicht, sie bleibt ewig unfruchtbar. Sie hat keine Ansicht darüber, welche Beziehung das, was die Wissenschaft gewinnt, zum Weltwesen und Weltgetriebe hat.
[ 7 ] Und doch muß sich ja gerade in der Erkenntnistheorie diese Beziehung ergeben. Diese Wissenschaft muß uns doch zeigen, wohin wir durch unser Erkennen kommen, wohin uns jede andre Wissenschaft führt.
[ 8 ] Auf keinem anderen als auf dem Wege der Erkenntnistheorie kommt man zu der Ansicht, daß das Denken der Kern der Welt ist. Denn sie zeigt uns den Zusammenhang des Denkens mit der übrigen Wirklichkeit. Woraus sollten wir aber vom Denken gewahr werden, in welcher Beziehung es zur Erfahrung steht, als aus der Wissenschaft, die sich diese Beziehung zu untersuchen direkt zum Ziele setzt? Und weiter, woher sollten wir von einem geistigen oder sinnlichen Wesen wissen, daß es die Urkraft der Welt ist, wenn wir seine Beziehung zur Wirklichkeit nicht untersuchten? Handelt es sich also irgendwo darum, das Wesen einer Sache zu finden, so besteht dieses Auffinden immer in dem Zurückgehen auf den Ideengehalt der Welt. Das Gebiet dieses Gehaltes darf nicht überschritten werden, wenn man innerhalb der klaren Bestimmungen bleiben will, wenn man nicht im Unbestimmten herumtappen will. Das Denken ist eine Totalität in sich, das sich selbst genug ist, das sich nicht überschreiten darf, ohne ins Leere zu kommen. Mit anderen Worten: es darf nicht, um irgend etwas zu erklären, zu Dingen seine Zuflucht nehmen, die es nicht in sich selbst findet. Ein Ding, das nicht mit dem Denken zu umspannen wäre, wäre ein Unding. Alles geht zuletzt im Denken auf, alles findet innerhalb desselben seine Stelle.
[ 9 ] In bezug auf unser individuelles Bewußtsein ausgedrückt, heißt das: Wir müssen behufs wissenschaftlicher Feststellungen streng innerhalb des uns im Bewußtsein Gegebenen stehen bleiben, wir können dies nicht überschreiten. Wenn man nun wohl einsieht, daß wir unser Bewußtsein nicht überspringen können, ohne ins Wesenlose zu kommen, nicht aber zugleich, daß das Wesen der Dinge innerhalb unseres Bewußtseins in der Ideenwahrnehmung anzutreffen ist, so entstehen jene Irrtümer, die von einer Grenze unserer Erkenntnis sprechen. Können wir über das Bewußtsein nicht hinaus und ist das Wesen der Wirklichkeit nicht innerhalb desselben, dann können wir zum Wesen überhaupt nicht vordringen. Unser Denken ist an das Diesseits gebunden und weiß nichts vom Jenseits.
[ 10 ] Unserer Ansicht gegenüber ist diese Meinung nichts als ein sich selbst mißverstehendes Denken. Eine Erkenntnisgrenze wäre nur möglich, wenn uns die äußere Erfahrung an sich selbst die Erforschung ihres Wesens aufdrängte, wenn sie die Fragen bestimmte, die in Ansehung ihrer zu stellen sind. Das ist aber nicht der Fall. Dem Denken entsteht das Bedürfnis, der Erfahrung, die es gewahr wird, ihr Wesen entgegenzuhalten. Das Denken kann doch nur die ganz bestimmte Tendenz haben, die ihm selbst eigene Gesetzlichkeit auch in der übrigen Welt zu sehen, nicht aber irgend etwas, wovon es selbst nicht die geringste Kunde hat.
[ 11 ] Ein anderer Irrtum muß hier noch seine Berichtigung erfahren. Es ist der, als ob das Denken nicht hinreichend wäre, die Welt zu konstituieren, als ob zum Gedankeninhalt noch etwas (Kraft, Wille usw.) hinzukommen müsse, um die Welt zu ermöglichen.
[ 12 ] Bei genauer Erwägung sieht man aber sofort, daß sich alle solche Faktoren als nichts weiter ergeben, denn als Abstraktionen aus der Wahrnehmungswelt, die selbst erst der Erklärung durch das Denken harren. Jeder andere Bestandteil des Weltwesens als das Denken machte sofort auch eine andere Art von Auffassung, von Erkennen, nötig als die gedankliche. Wir müßten jenen anderen Bestandteil anders als durch das Denken erreichen. Denn das Denken liefert denn doch nur Gedanken. Schon dadurch aber, daß man den Anteil, den jener zweite Bestandteil am Weltgetriebe hat, erklären will und sich dabei der Begriffe bedient, widerspricht man sich. Außerdem aber ist uns außer der Sinneswahrnehmung und dem Denken kein Drittes gegeben. Und wir können keinen Teil von jener als Kern der Welt gelten lassen, weil alle ihre Glieder bei näherer Betrachtung zeigen, daß sie als solche ihr Wesen nicht enthalten. Das letztere kann daher einzig und allein im Denken gesucht werden.
13. cognition
[ 1 ] Reality has divided itself into two areas: experience and thought. Experience comes into consideration in two respects. Firstly, in so far as the whole of reality, apart from thought, has a form of appearance which must appear in the form of experience. Secondly, insofar as it is in the nature of our mind, whose essence consists in observation (i.e. in an outwardly directed activity), that the objects to be observed enter its field of vision, i.e. are again given to it in the form of experience. It is now possible that this form of the given does not include the essence of the thing in itself, in which case the thing itself demands that it first appears in perception (experience) in order to later reveal its essence to an activity of our mind that goes beyond perception. Another possibility is that the essence already lies in the immediately given and that it is only due to the second circumstance, that everything must appear to our mind as experience, if we do not immediately become aware of this essence. The latter is the case with thinking, the former with the rest of reality. With thinking it is only necessary that we overcome our subjective bias in order to grasp it at its core. What in the case of the rest of reality lies objectively in objective perception, that the immediate form of occurrence must be overcome in order to explain it, lies in thinking only in a peculiarity of our mind. There it is the thing itself that gives itself the form of experience, here it is the organization of our mind. There we do not yet have the whole thing when we grasp experience, here we have it.
[ 2 ] This is the basis of the dualism that science, the thinking cognition, has to overcome. Man finds himself confronted with two worlds whose connection he has to establish. One is experience, of which he knows that it contains only half of reality; the other is thinking, which is complete in itself, into which the external reality of experience must flow if a satisfactory world view is to result. If the world were inhabited only by sensory beings, its essence (its ideal content) would always remain hidden; the laws would indeed govern the world processes, but they would not appear. If the latter is to be the case, then between the form of appearance and the law there must be a being which is given both organs through which it perceives that sensory form of reality which is dependent on the laws, and the ability to perceive the law itself. From one side, such a being must be approached by the sensory world, from the other by its ideal essence, and it must combine these two factors of reality in its own activity.
[ 3 ] Here we can see quite clearly that our mind is not to be regarded as a container of the world of ideas that contains thoughts within itself, but as an organ that perceives them.
[ 4 ] It is just as much an organ of perception as the eye and ear. Thought relates to our mind no differently than light to the eye, sound to the ear. It certainly occurs to no one to regard color as something that impresses itself on the eye as something permanent, that sticks to it, as it were. In the mind this view is even the predominant one. A thought is supposed to form in the consciousness of every thing, which then remains in it in order to be brought out of it as required. A theory of its own has been founded on this, as if the thoughts of which we are not conscious in the moment were indeed stored in our mind; only they lie below the threshold of consciousness.
[ 5 ] These adventurous views immediately dissolve into nothing when one considers that the world of ideas is a world determined by itself. What has this self-determined content to do with the multiplicity of consciousnesses? Surely one will not assume that it is determined in indeterminate multiplicity in such a way that one partial content is always independent of the other! The matter is quite clear. The content of thought is such that only one spiritual organ is necessary for its appearance, but that the number of beings endowed with this organ is indifferent. There can therefore be an indeterminate number of spiritually endowed individuals standing opposite the one thought content. The spirit thus perceives the thought content of the world like an organ of perception. There is only one thought content of the world. Our consciousness is not the ability to generate and store thoughts, as is so often believed, but to perceive thoughts (ideas). Goethe expressed this so excellently with the words: "The idea is eternal and unique; that we also need the plural is not well done. Everything that we become aware of and can speak of are only manifestations of the idea; we express concepts, and in this respect the idea itself is a concept."
[ 6 ] As a citizen of two worlds, the world of the senses and the world of thought, the one approaching him from below, the other shining from above, man takes possession of science, through which he unites the two into an undivided unity. From one side the outer form beckons us, from the other the inner being; we must unite the two. Our theory of knowledge has thus risen above the standpoint that similar investigations usually adopt and which does not go beyond formalities. We say: "Cognition is the working out of experience", without specifying what is worked into the latter; we say: "In cognition perception flows into thought, or thought, by virtue of an inner compulsion, penetrates from experience to the being behind it." But these are mere formalities. A cognitive science that wants to grasp cognition in its world-significant role must: firstly, state the ideal purpose of cognition. It consists in giving the unfinished experience its conclusion by revealing its core. It must, secondly, determine what this core is in terms of content. It is thought, idea. Finally, thirdly, it must show how this unveiling occurs. Our chapter "Thinking and Perception" provides information on this. Our theory of cognition leads to the positive result that thinking is the essence of the world and that individual human thinking is the individual manifestation of this essence. A merely formal epistemology cannot do this; it remains eternally unfruitful. It has no view of the relationship that what science gains has to the world being and the world mechanism.
[ 7 ] And yet this relationship must arise precisely in epistemology. This science must show us where our cognition leads us, where every other science leads us.
[ 8 ] In no other way than through epistemology does one arrive at the view that thinking is the core of the world. For it shows us the connection between thought and the rest of reality. But from what should we become aware of the relation of thought to experience but from science, which sets itself the direct aim of investigating this relation? And further, how should we know of a spiritual or sensuous being that it is the primal power of the world if we did not investigate its relation to reality? If it is a question of finding the essence of a thing, then this finding always consists in going back to the idea content of the world. The area of this content must not be exceeded if one wants to remain within the clear definitions, if one does not want to grope around in the indeterminate. Thinking is a totality in itself, which is sufficient unto itself, which may not transcend itself without coming to nothing. In other words: in order to explain something, it must not resort to things that it does not find in itself. A thing that could not be encompassed by thinking would be an absurdity. Everything ultimately merges into thinking, everything finds its place within it.
[ 9 ] In relation to our individual consciousness, this means that we must remain strictly within what is given to us in our consciousness in order to make scientific observations; we cannot go beyond this. If we now realize that we cannot go beyond our consciousness without reaching the essenceless, but not at the same time that the essence of things is to be found within our consciousness in the perception of ideas, then those errors arise which speak of a limit to our knowledge. If we cannot go beyond consciousness and the essence of reality is not within it, then we cannot penetrate to the essence at all. Our thinking is bound to this world and knows nothing of the hereafter.
[ 10 ] In our view, this opinion is nothing but thinking that misunderstands itself. A limit to knowledge would only be possible if external experience itself forced us to investigate its nature, if it determined the questions to be asked with regard to it. But this is not the case. Thinking needs to counter the experience it becomes aware of with its essence. Thinking can only have the very definite tendency to see its own lawfulness in the rest of the world, but not anything of which it itself has not the slightest knowledge.
[ 11 ] Another error must be corrected here. It is as if thought were not sufficient to constitute the world, as if something (power, will, etc.) had to be added to the content of thought in order to make the world possible.
[ 12 ] On closer consideration, however, one immediately sees that all such factors arise as nothing more than abstractions from the world of perception, which themselves await explanation by thought. Every component of the world being other than thinking immediately necessitated a different kind of conception, of cognition, than the mental one. We would have to reach that other component other than through thinking. For after all, thinking only provides thoughts. But the very fact that we want to explain the part that this second component has in the workings of the world, and in doing so make use of concepts, contradicts ourselves. Moreover, apart from sense perception and thinking, we have no third element. And we cannot accept any part of the latter as the core of the world, because all its members show on closer inspection that they do not contain its essence as such. The latter can therefore only be sought in thinking.