The Science of Knowing
GA 2
XII. Intellect and Reason
[ 1 ] Our thinking has a twofold task: firstly, to create concepts with sharply delineated contours; secondly, to bring together the individual concepts thus created into a unified whole. In the first case we are dealing with the activity that makes distinctions; in the second, with the activity that joins. These two spiritual tendencies by no means enjoy the same cultivation in the sciences. The keen intellect that enters into the smallest details in making its distinctions is given to a significantly larger number of people than the uniting power of thinking that penetrates into the depths of beings.
[ 2 ] For a long time one saw the only task of science to be the making of exact distinctions between things. We need only recall the state of affairs in which Goethe found natural history. Through Linnaeus it had become the ideal to seek the exact differences between individual plants in order in this way to be able to use the most insignificant characteristics to set up new species and subspecies. Two kinds of animals or plants that differed in only the most inessential things were assigned right away to different species. If an unexpected deviation from the arbitrarily established character of the species was found in one or another creature that until then had been assigned to one or another species, one did not then reflect how such a deviation could be explained from this character itself; one simply set up a new species.
[ 3 ] Making distinctions like this is the task of the intellect (Verstand). It has only to separate concepts and maintain them in this separation. This is a necessary preliminary stage of any higher scientific work. Above all, in fact, we need firmly established, clearly delineated concepts before we can seek their harmony. But we must not remain in this separation. For the intellect, things are separated that humanity has an essential need to see in a harmonious unity. Remaining separate for the intellect are: cause and effect, mechanism and organism, freedom and necessity, idea and reality, spirit and nature, and so on. All these distinctions are introduced by the intellect. They must be introduced, because otherwise the world would appear to us as a blurred, obscure chaos that would form a unity only because it would be totally undefined for us.
[ 4 ] The intellect itself is in no position to go beyond this separation. It holds firmly to the separated parts.
[ 5 ] To go beyond this is the task of reason (Vernunft). It has to allow the concepts created by the intellect to pass over into one another. It has to show that what the intellect keeps strictly separated is actually an inner unity. The separation is something brought about artificially, a necessary intermediary stage for our activity of knowing, not its conclusion. A person who grasps reality in a merely intellectual way distances himself from it. He sets in reality's place—since it is in truth a unity—an artificial multiplicity, a manifoldness that has nothing to do with the essential being of reality.
[ 6 ] The conflict that has arisen between an intellectually motivated science and the human heart stems from this. Many people whose thinking is not yet developed enough for them to arrive at a unified world view grasped in full conceptual clarity are, nevertheless, very well able to penetrate into the inner harmony of the universe with their feeling. Their hearts give them what reason offers the scientifically developed person.
[ 7 ] When such people meet the intellectual view of the world, they reject with scorn the infinite multiplicity and cling to the unity that they do not know, indeed, but that they feel more or less intensely. They see very well that the intellect withdraws from nature, that it loses sight of the spiritual bond joining the parts of reality.
[ 8 ] Reason leads back to reality again. The unity of all existence, which before was felt or of which one even had only dim inklings, is clearly penetrated and seen by reason. The intellectual view must be deepened by the view of reason. If the former is regarded as an end in itself instead of as a necessary intermediary stage, then it does not yield reality but rather a distorted image of it.
[ 9 ] There are sometimes difficulties in connecting the thoughts that the intellect has created. The history of science provides us with many proofs of this. We often see the human spirit struggle to bridge the differences created by the intellect.
[ 10 ] In reason's view of the world the human being merges with the world in undivided unity.
[ 11 ] Kant pointed already to the difference between intellect and reason. He designated reason as the ability to perceive ideas; the intellect, on the other hand, is limited merely to beholding the world in its dividedness, in its separateness.
[ 12 ] Now reason is, in fact, the ability to perceive ideas. Here we must determine the difference between concept and idea, to which we have hitherto paid no attention. For our purposes until now it has only been a matter of finding those qualities of the element of thought that present themselves in concept and idea. The concept is the single thought as it is grasped and held by the intellect. If I bring a number of such single thoughts into living flux in such a way that they pass over into one another, connect with one another, then thought-configurations arise that are present only for reason, that the intellect cannot attain. For reason, the creations of the intellect give up their separate existences and live on only as part of a totality. These configurations that reason has created shall be called ideas.
[ 13 ] The fact that the idea leads a multiplicity of the concepts created by the intellect back to a unity was also expressed by Kant. But he presented the configurations that come to manifestation through reason as mere deceptive images, as illusions that the human spirit eternally conjures up because it is eternally striving to find some unity to experience that is never to be found. According to Kant, the unities created in ideas do not rest upon objective circumstances; they do not flow from the things themselves; rather they are merely subjective norms by which we bring order into our knowing. Kant therefore does not characterize ideas as constitutive principles, which would have to be essential to the things, but rather as regulative principles, which have meaning and significance only for the systematics of our knowing.
[ 14 ] If one looks at the way in which ideas come about, however, this view immediately proves erroneous. It is indeed correct that subjective reason has the need for unity. But this need is without any content; it is an empty striving for unity. If something confronts it that is absolutely lacking in any unified nature, it cannot itself produce this unity out of itself. If, on the other hand, a multiplicity confronts it that allows itself to be led back into an inner harmony, it then brings about this harmony. The world of concepts created by the intellect is just such a multiplicity.
[ 15 ] Reason does not presuppose any particular unity but rather the empty form of unification; reason is the ability to bring harmony to light when harmony lies within the object itself. Within reason, the concepts themselves combine into ideas. Reason brings into view the higher unity of the intellect's concepts, a unity that the intellect certainly has in its configurations but is unable to see. The fact that this is overlooked is the basis of many misunderstandings about the application of reason in the sciences.
[ 16 ] To a small degree every science, even at its starting point—yes, even our everyday thinking—needs reason. If, in the judgment that every body has weight, we join the subject-concept with the predicate-concept, there already lies in this a uniting of two concepts and therefore the simplest activity of reason.
[ 17 ] The unity that reason takes as its object is certain before all thinking, before any use of reason; but it is hidden, is present only as potential, does not manifest as a fact in its own right. Then the human spirit brings about separation, in order, by uniting the separate parts through reason, to see fully into reality.
[ 18 ] Whoever does not presuppose this must either regard all connecting of thoughts as an arbitrary activity of the subjective spirit, or he must assume that the unity stands behind the world experienced by us and compels us in some way unknown to us to lead the manifoldness back to a unity. In that case we join thoughts without insight into the true basis of the connection that we bring about; then the truth is not known by us, but rather is forced upon us from outside. Let us call all science taking its start from this presupposition dogmatic. We will still have to come back to this.
[ 19 ] Every scientific view of this kind will run into difficulty when it has to give reasons for why we make one or another connection between thoughts. It has to look around for a subjective basis for drawing objects together whose objective connection remains hidden to us. Why do I make a judgment, if the thing which demands that subject-concept and predicate-concept belong together has nothing to do with the making of this judgment?
[ 20 ] Kant made this question the starting point of his critical work. At the beginning of his Critique of Pure Reason we find the question: How are synthetical judgments possible a priori?—this means, how is it possible for me to join two concepts (subject, predicate), if the content of the one is not already contained in the other, and if the judgment is not merely a perception judgment, i.e., the establishing of an individual fact? Kant believes that such judgments are possible only if experience can exist only under the presumption of their validity. The possibility of experience is therefore the determining factor for us if we are to make a judgment of this kind. If I can say to myself that experience is possible only if one or another synthetical judgment is true a priori, only then is the judgment valid. But this does not apply to ideas themselves. For Kant these do not have even this degree of objectivity.
[ 21 ] Kant finds that the principles of mathematics and of pure natural science are such valid synthetical principles a priori. He takes, for example, the principle that \(7 + 5 = 12\). In \(7\) and \(5\) the sum \(12\) is in no way contained, concludes Kant. I must go beyond \(7\) and \(5\) and call upon my intuition; 1Anschauung—“Intuition” is the conventional translation of Kant's Anschauang.—Ed. then I find the concept \(12\). My intuition makes it necessary for me to picture that \(7 + 5 = 12\). But the objects of my experience must approach me through the medium of my intuition, must submit to the laws of my intuition. If experience is to be possible, such principles must be correct.
[ 22 ] This entire artificial thought-edifice of Kant does not stand up to objective examination. It is impossible that I have absolutely no point of reference in the subject-concept which leads me to the predicate-concept. For, both concepts were won by my intellect, and won from something that in itself is unified. Let us not deceive ourselves here. The mathematical unit that underlies the number is not primary. What is primary is the magnitude, which is so and so many repetitions of the unit. I must presuppose a magnitude when I speak of a unit. The unit is an entity of our intellect separated by the intellect out of a totality, in the same way that it distinguishes effect from cause, substance from its attributes, etc. Now, when I think \(7 + 5\), I am in fact grasping \(12\) mathematical units in thought, only not all at once, but rather in two parts. If I think the total of these mathematical units at one time, then that is exactly the same thing. And I express this identity in the judgment \(7 + 5 = 12\). It is exactly the same with the geometrical example Kant presents. A limited straight line with end points \(A\) and \(B\) is an indivisible unit. My intellect can form two concepts of it. On the one hand it can regard the straight line as direction, on the other as the distance between two points \(A\) and \(B\). From this results the judgment that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points.
[ 23 ] All judging, insofar as the parts entering into the judgment are concepts, is nothing more than a reuniting of what the intellect has separated. The connection reveals itself at once when one goes into the content of the concepts provided by the intellect.
12. Verstand und Vernunft
[ 1 ] Unser Denken hat eine zweifache Aufgabe ,zu vollbringen: erstens, Begriffe mit scharf umrissenen Konturen zu schaffen; zweitens, die so geschaffenen Einzelbegriffe zu einem einheitlichen Ganzen zusammenzufassen. Im ersten Falle handelt es sich um die unterscheidende Tätigkeit, im zweiten um die verbindende. Diese beiden geistigen Tendenzen erfreuen sich in den Wissenschaften keineswegs der gleichen Pflege. Der Scharfsinn, der bis zu den geringsten Kleinigkeiten in seinen Unterscheidungen herabgeht, ist einer bedeutend größeren Zahl von Menschen gegeben als die zusammenfassende Kraft des Denkens, die in die Tiefe der Wesen dringt.
[ 2 ] Lange Zeit hat man die Aufgabe der Wissenschaft überhaupt nur in einer genauen Unterscheidung der Dinge gesucht. Wir brauchen nur des Zustandes zu gedenken, in dem Goethe die Naturgeschichte vorfand. Durch Linné war es ihr zum Ideale geworden, genau die Unterschiede der einzelnen Pflanzenindividuen zu suchen, um so die geringfügigsten Merkmale benutzen zu können, neue Arten und Unterarten aufzustellen. Zwei Tier- oder Pflanzenspezies, die sich nur in höchst unwesentlichen Dingen unterscheiden, wurden sogleich verschiedenen Arten zugerechnet. Fand man an irgendeinem Lebewesen, das man bisher irgendeiner Art zugerechnet, eine unerwartete Abweichung von dem willkürlich aufgestellten Artcharakter, so dachte man nicht nach: wie sich eine solche Abweichung aus diesem Charakter selbst erklären lasse, sondern man stellte einfach eine neue Art auf.
[ 3 ] Diese Unterscheidung ist die Sache des Verstandes. Er hat nur zu trennen und die Begriffe in der Trennung festzuhalten. Er ist eine notwendige Vorstufe jeder höheren Wissenschaftlichkeit. Vor allem bedarf es ja festbestimmter, klar umrissener Begriffe, ehe wir nach einer Harmonie derselben suchen können. Aber wir dürfen bei der Trennung nicht stehen bleiben. Für den Verstand sind Dinge getrennt, die in einer harmonischen Einheit zu sehen, ein wesentliches Bedürfnis der Menschheit ist. Für den Verstand sind getrennt: Ursache und Wirkung, Mechanismus und Organismus, Freiheit und Notwendigkeit, Idee und Wirklichkeit, Geist und Natur und so weiter. Alle diese Unterscheidungen sind durch den Verstand herbeigeführt. Sie müssen herbeigeführt werden, weil uns sonst die Welt als ein verschwommenes, dunkles Chaos erschiene, das nur deshalb eine Einheit bildete, weil es für uns völlig unbestimmt wäre.
[ 4 ] Der Verstand selbst ist nicht in der Lage, über diese Trennung hinauszukommen. Er hält die getrennten Glieder fest.
[ 5 ] Dieses Hinauskommen ist Sache der Vernunft. Sie hat die vom Verstande geschaffenen Begriffe ineinander übergehen zu lassen. Sie hat zu zeigen, daß das, was der Verstand in strenger Trennung festhält, eigentlich eine innerliche Einheit ist. Die Trennung ist etwas künstlich herbeigeführtes, ein notwendiger Durchgangspunkt für unser Erkennen, nicht dessen Abschluß. Wer die Wirklichkeit bloß verstandesmäßig erfaßt, entfernt sich von ihr. Er setzt an ihre Stelle, da sie in Wahrheit eine Einheit ist, eine künstliche Vielheit, eine Mannigfaltigkeit, die mit dem Wesen der Wirklichkeit nichts zu tun hat.
[ 6 ] Daher rührt der Zwiespalt, in den die verstandesmäßig betriebene Wissenschaft mit dem menschlichen Herzen kommt. Viele Menschen, deren Denken nicht so ausgebildet ist, daß sie es bis zu einer einheitlichen Weltansicht bringen, die sie in voller begrifflicher Klarheit erfassen, sind aber sehr wohl imstande, die innere Harmonie des Weltganzen mit dem Gefühle zu durchdringen. Ihnen gibt das Herz, was dem wissenschaftlich Gebildeten die Vernunft bietet.
[ 7 ] Tritt an solche Menschen die Verstandesansicht der Welt heran, so weisen sie mit Verachtung die unendliche Vielheit zurück und halten sich an die Einheit, die sie wohl nicht erkennen, aber mehr oder minder lebhaft empfinden. Sie sehen sehr wohl, daß der Verstand sich von der Natur entfernt, daß er das geistige Band aus dem Auge verliert, das die Teile der Wirklichkeit verbindet.
[ 8 ] Die Vernunft führt wieder zur Wirklichkeit zurück. Die Einheitlichkeit alles Seins, die früher gefühlt oder gar nur dunkel geahnt wurde, wird von der Vernunft vollkommen durchschaut. Die Verstandesansicht muß durch die Vernunftansicht vertieft werden. Wird die erste statt für einen notwendigen Durchgangspunkt für Selbstzweck angesehen, dann liefert sie nicht die Wirklichkeit, sondern ein Zerrbild derselben.
[ 9 ] Es macht bisweilen Schwierigkeiten, die durch den Verstand geschaffenen Gedanken zu verbinden. Die Geschichte der Wissenschaften liefert uns vielfache Beweise dafür. Oft sehen wir den Menschengeist ringen, von dem Verstande geschaffene Differenzen zu überbrücken.
[ 10 ] In der Vernunftansicht von der Welt geht der Mensch in der letzteren in ungetrennter Einheit auf.
[ 11 ] Kant hat auf den Unterschied von Verstand und Vernunft bereits hingewiesen. Er bezeichnet die Vernunft als das Vermögen, Ideen wahrzunehmen; wogegen der Verstand darauf beschränkt ist, bloß die Welt in ihrer Getrenntheit, Vereinzelung zu schauen.
[ 12 ] Die Vernunft ist nun in der Tat das Vermögen, Ideen wahrzunehmen. Wir müssen hier den Unterschied zwischen Begriff und Idee feststellen, den wir bisher außer acht gelassen haben. Für unsere bisherigen Zwecke kam es nur darauf an, jene Qualitäten des Gedankenmäßigen, die sich in Begriff und Idee darleben, zu finden. Begriff ist der Einzelgedanke, wie er vom Verstande festgehalten wird. Bringe ich eine Mehrheit von solchen Einzelgedanken in lebendigen Fluß, so daß sie ineinander übergehen, sich verbinden, so entstehen gedankenmäßige Gebilde, die nur für die Vernunft da sind, die der Verstand nicht erreichen kann. Für die Vernunft geben die Geschöpfe des Verstandes ihre gesonderten Existenzen auf und leben nur mehr als ein Teil einer Totalität weiter. Diese von der Vernunft geschaffenen Gebilde sollen Ideen heißen.
[ 13 ] Daß die Idee eine Vielheit von Verstandesbegriffen auf eine Einheit zurückführt, das hat auch schon Kant ausgesprochen. Er hat jedoch die Gebilde, die durch die Vernunft zur Erscheinung kommen, als bloße Trugbilder hingestellt, als Illusionen, die sich der Menschengeist ewig vorspiegelt, weil er ewig nach einer Einheit der Erfahrung strebt, die ihm nirgend gegeben ist. Die Einheiten, die in den Ideen geschaffen werden, beruhen nach Kant nicht auf objektiven Verhältnissen, sie fließen nicht aus der Sache selbst, sondern sind bloß subjektive Normen, nach denen wir Ordnung in unser Wissen bringen. Kant bezeichnet daher die Ideen nicht als konstitutive Prinzipien, die für die Sache maßgebend sein müßten, sondern als regulative, die allein für die Systematik unseres Wissens Sinn und Bedeutung haben.
[ 14 ] Sieht man aber auf die Art, wie die Ideen zustande kommen, so erweist sich diese Ansicht sogleich als irrtümlich. Es ist zwar richtig, daß die subjektive Vernunft 10als menschliches Geistesvermögen aufgefaßt. das Bedürfnis nach Einheit hat. Aber dieses Bedürfnis ist ohne allen Inhalt, ein leeres Einheitsbestreben. Tritt ihm etwas entgegen, das absolut jeder einheitlichen Natur entbehrt, so kann es diese Einheit nicht selbst aus sich heraus erzeugen. Tritt ihm hingegen eine Vielheit entgegen, die ein Zurückführen auf eine innere Harmonie gestattet, dann vollbringt sie dasselbe. Eine solche Vielheit ist die vom Verstande geschaffene Begriffswelt.
[ 15 ] Die Vernunft setzt nicht eine bestimmte Einheit voraus, sondern die leere Form der Einheitlichkeit, sie ist das Vermögen, die Harmonie an das Tageslicht zu ziehen, wenn sie im Objekte selbst liegt. Die Begriffe setzen sich in der Vernunft selbst zu Ideen zusammen. Die Vernunft bringt die höhere Einheit der Verstandesbgriffe zum Vorschein, die der Verstand in seinen Gebilden zwar hat, aber nicht zu sehen vermag. Daß dies übersehen wird, ist der Grund vieler Mißverständnisse über die Anwendung der Vernunft in den Wissenschaften.
[ 16] In geringem Grade hat jede Wissenschaft schon in den Anfängen, ja das alltägliche Denken schon Vernunft nötig. Wenn wir in dem Urteile: Jeder Körper ist schwer, den Subjektsbegriff mit dem Prädikatsbegriff verbinden, so liegt darinnen schon eine Vereinigung von zwei Begriffen, also die einfachste Tätigkeit der Vernunft.
[ 17 ] Die Einheit, welche die Vernunft zu ihrem Gegenstande macht, ist vor allem Denken, vor allem Vernunftgebrauche gewiß; nur ist sie verborgen, ist nur der Möglichkeit nach vorhanden, nicht als faktische Erscheinung. Dann führt der Menschengeist die Trennung herbei, um im vernunftgemäßen Vereinigen der getrennten Glieder die Wirklichkeit vollständig zu durchschauen.
[ 18 ] Wer das nicht voraussetzt, muß entweder alle Gedankenverbindung als eine Willkür des subjektiven Geistes ansehen, oder er muß annehmen, daß die Einheit hinter der von uns erlebten Welt stehe und uns auf eine uns unbekannte Weise zwinge, die Mannigfaltigkeit auf eine Einheit zurückzuführen. Dann verbinden wir Gedanken ohne Einsicht in die wahren Gründe des Zusammenhanges, den wir herstellen; dann ist die Wahrheit nicht von uns erkannt, sondern uns von außen aufgedrängt. Alle Wissenschaft, welche von dieser Voraussetzung ausgeht, möchten wir eine dogmatische nennen. Wir werden noch darauf zurückkommen.
[ 19 ] Jede solche wissenschaftliche Ansicht wird auf Schwierigkeiten stoßen, wenn sie Gründe angeben soll, warum wir diese oder jene Gedankenverbindung vollziehen. Sie hat sich nämlich nach subjektiven Gründen der Zusammenfassung von Objekten umzusehen, deren objektiver Zusammenhang uns verborgen bleibt. Warum vollziehe ich ein Urteil, wenn die Sache, die die Zusammengehörigkeit von Subjekt- und Prädikatbegriff fordert, mit dem Fällen desselben nichts zu tun hat?
[ 20 ] Kant hat diese Frage zum Ausgangspunkte seiner kritischen Arbeit gemacht. Wir finden am Anfange seiner «Kritik der reinen Vernunft» die Frage: Wie sind synthetische Urteile a priori möglich? das heißt, wie ist es möglich, daß ich zwei Begriffe (Subjekt, Prädikat) verbinde, wenn nicht der Inhalt des einen schon in dem andern enthalten ist und wenn das Urteil kein bloßes Erfahrungsurteil, d. i. das Feststellen einer einzigen Tatsache ist? Kant meint, solche Urteile seien nur dann möglich, wenn Erfahrung nur unter der Voraussetzung ihrer Gültigkeit bestehen kann. Die Möglichkeit der Erfahrung ist also für uns maßgebend, um ein solches Urteil zu vollziehen. Wenn ich mir sagen kann: nur dann, wenn dieses oder jenes synthetische Urteil apriori wahr ist, ist Erfahrung möglich, dann hat es Gültigkeit. Auf die Ideen selbst aber ist das nicht anzuwenden. Diese haben nach Kant nicht einmal diesen Grad von Objektivität.
[ 21 ] Kant findet, daß die Sätze der Mathematik und der reinen Naturwissenschaft solche gültige synthetische Sätze a priori sind. Er nimmt da zum Beispiel den Satz \(7 + 5 = 12\). In \(7\) und \(5\) ist die Summe \(12\) keineswegs enthalten, so schließt Kant. Ich muß über \(7\) und \(5\) hinausgehen und an meine Anschauung appellieren, dann finde ich den Begriff \(12\). Meine Anschauung macht es notwendig, daß \(7 + 5 = 12\) vorgestellt wird. Meine Erfahrungsobjekte müssen aber durch das Medium meiner Anschauung an mich herantreten, sich also deren Gesetzen fügen. Wenn Erfahrung möglich sein soll, müssen solche Sätze richtig sein.
[ 22 ] Vor einer objektiven Erwägung hält dieses ganze künstliche Gedankengebäude Kants nicht stand. Es ist unmöglich, daß ich im Subjektbegriffe gar keinen Anhaltspunkt habe, der mich zum Prädikatbegriffe führt. Denn beide Begriffe sind von meinem Verstande gewonnen und das an einer Sache, die in sich einheitlich ist. Man täusche sich hier nicht. Die mathematische Einheit, welche der Zahl zugrunde liegt, ist nicht das erste. Das erste ist die Größe, welche eine so und so oftmalige Wiederholung der Einheit ist. Ich muß eine Größe voraussetzen, wenn ich von einer Einheit spreche. Die Einheit ist ein Gebilde unseres Verstandes, das er von einer Totalität abtrennt, so wie er die Wirkung von der Ursache, die Substanz von ihren Merkmalen scheidet usw. Indem ich nun \(7 + 5\) denke, halte ich in Wahrheit \(12\) mathematische Einheiten im Gedanken fest, nur nicht auf einmal, sondern in zwei Teilen. Denke ich die Gesamtheit der mathematischen Einheiten auf einmal, so ist das ganz dieselbe Sache. Und diese Identität spreche ich in dem Urteile \(7 + 5 = 12\) aus. Ebenso ist es mit dem geometrischen Beispiele, das Kant anführt. Eine begrenzte Gerade mit den Endpunkten \(A\) und \(B\) ist eine untrennbare Einheit. Mein Verstand kann sich zwei Begriffe davon bilden. Einmal kann er die Gerade als Richtung annehmen und dann als Weg zwischen den zwei Punkten \(A\) und/(B\). Daraus fließt das Urteil: Die Gerade ist der kürzeste Weg zwischen zwei Punkten.
[ 23 ] Alles Urteilen, insofern die Glieder, die in das Urteil eingehen, Begriffe sind, ist nichts weiter als eine Wiedervereinigung dessen, was der Verstand getrennt hat. Der Zusammenhang ergibt sich sofort, wenn man auf den Inhalt der Verstandesbegriffe eingeht.
12. Understanding and Reason
[ 1 ] Our thinking has a twofold task to accomplish: firstly, to create concepts with sharply defined contours; secondly, to combine the individual concepts thus created into a unified whole. In the first case it is a matter of differentiating activity, in the second of unifying activity. These two intellectual tendencies are by no means cultivated in the same way in the sciences. Acumen, which goes down to the smallest details in its distinctions, is given to a considerably larger number of people than the summarizing power of thought, which penetrates into the depths of beings.
[ 2 ] For a long time, the task of science was sought only in the precise differentiation of things. We need only think of the state in which Goethe found natural history. Through Linné, it had become its ideal to search for the exact differences between individual plants in order to be able to use the slightest characteristics to establish new species and subspecies. Two animal or plant species that differed only in the most insignificant ways were immediately assigned to different species. If an unexpected deviation from the arbitrarily established species character was found in any living being that had previously been assigned to any species, no thought was given to how such a deviation could be explained by this character itself, but a new species was simply established.
[ 3 ] This distinction is a matter for the intellect. It only has to separate and hold the concepts in separation. It is a necessary preliminary stage of all higher science. Above all, we need clearly defined, clearly delineated concepts before we can search for harmony between them. But we must not stop at separation. For the mind, things are separate which it is an essential need of mankind to see in a harmonious unity. For the mind, cause and effect, mechanism and organism, freedom and necessity, idea and reality, spirit and nature, and so on, are separate. All these distinctions are brought about by the mind. They have to be brought about because otherwise the world would appear to us as a blurred, dark chaos that would only form a unity because it would be completely indeterminate for us.
[ 4 ] The mind itself is not able to get beyond this separation. It holds on to the separated limbs.
[ 5 ] This getting beyond is a matter for reason. It has to allow the concepts created by reason to merge into one another. It has to show that what the intellect holds in strict separation is actually an inner unity. The separation is something artificially brought about, a necessary point of passage for our cognition, not its conclusion. He who grasps reality merely intellectually distances himself from it. He puts in its place, since it is in truth a unity, an artificial multiplicity, a multiplicity that has nothing to do with the being of reality.
[ 6 ] This is the source of the conflict between rational science and the human heart. Many people whose thinking is not so developed that they are able to arrive at a unified view of the world, which they grasp with complete conceptual clarity, are, however, quite capable of penetrating the inner harmony of the world as a whole with their feelings. The heart gives them what reason offers the scientifically educated.
[ 7 ] When the intellectual view of the world approaches such people, they reject the infinite multiplicity with contempt and cling to the unity, which they do not recognize but feel more or less vividly. They see very well that the mind distances itself from nature, that it loses sight of the spiritual bond that connects the parts of reality.
[ 8 ] Reason leads back to reality. The unity of all being, which was previously felt or even only darkly perceived, is completely seen through by reason. The view of understanding must be deepened by the view of reason. If the first is regarded as a necessary point of passage instead of an end in itself, then it does not provide reality, but a distorted image of it.
[ 9 ] It is sometimes difficult to connect the thoughts created by reason. The history of science provides us with ample evidence of this. We often see the human spirit struggling to bridge differences created by the mind.
[ 10 ] In the rational view of the world, man merges into the latter in undivided unity.
[ 11 ] Kant has already pointed out the difference between understanding and reason. He describes reason as the ability to perceive ideas, whereas the understanding is limited to merely seeing the world in its separateness and isolation.
[ 12 ] Reason is indeed the faculty of perceiving ideas. Here we must note the difference between concept and idea, which we have so far ignored. For our purposes so far, it was only important to find those qualities of thought that are represented in the concept and idea. Concept is the individual thought as it is held by the intellect. If I bring a majority of such individual thoughts into a living flow, so that they merge into one another, combine, then thought-like formations arise which are only there for reason, which the intellect cannot reach. For reason, the creatures of the intellect give up their separate existences and continue to live only as part of a totality. These entities created by reason are called ideas.
[ 13 ] Kant already stated that the idea reduces a multiplicity of concepts of understanding to a unity. However, he portrayed the entities that appear through reason as mere illusions, as illusions that the human mind eternally imagines, because it eternally strives for a unity of experience that is not given to it anywhere. According to Kant, the unities that are created in the ideas are not based on objective relationships, they do not flow from the thing itself, but are merely subjective norms according to which we bring order into our knowledge. Kant therefore does not describe ideas as constitutive principles that should be decisive for the matter, but as regulative principles that only have meaning and significance for the systematics of our knowledge.
[ 14 ] But if we look at the way in which ideas come about, this view immediately proves to be erroneous. It is true that subjective reason 10conceived as a human mental faculty has the need for unity. But this need is without any content, an empty striving for unity. If it is confronted by something that is absolutely devoid of any unified nature, it cannot generate this unity out of itself. If, on the other hand, it is confronted by a multiplicity that allows it to be traced back to an inner harmony, then it accomplishes the same thing. Such a multiplicity is the conceptual world created by the mind.
[ 15 ] Reason does not presuppose a certain unity, but rather the empty form of unity; it is the ability to draw harmony into the light of day when it lies in the object itself. The concepts are composed into ideas in reason itself. Reason brings to light the higher unity of the concepts of the intellect, which the intellect has in its formations but is unable to see. The fact that this is overlooked is the reason for many misunderstandings about the application of reason in the sciences.
[ 16 ] Every science, even in its beginnings, and indeed everyday thinking, requires reason to a small degree. If in the judgment: Every body is heavy, we combine the concept of the subject with the concept of the predicate, and this is already a union of two concepts, i.e. the simplest activity of reason.
[ 17 ] The unity which reason makes its object is certain before all thinking, before all use of reason; only it is hidden, is present only as a possibility, not as a factual appearance. Then the human spirit brings about the separation in order to see through reality completely by rationally uniting the separated parts.
[ 18 ] Those who do not presuppose this must either regard all thought connection as an arbitrary act of the subjective mind, or they must assume that the unity stands behind the world we experience and forces us in a way unknown to us to trace the multiplicity back to a unity. Then we combine thoughts without insight into the true reasons for the connection we establish; then the truth is not recognized by us, but imposed on us from outside. We would call all science that proceeds from this presupposition dogmatic. We will come back to this later.
[ 19 ] Any such scientific view will encounter difficulties if it is to give reasons why we make this or that thought connection. It has to look for subjective reasons for combining objects whose objective connection remains hidden from us. Why do I make a judgment if the thing that requires the subject and predicate concepts to belong together has nothing to do with the case of the same?
[ 20 ] Kant made this question the starting point of his critical work. At the beginning of his "Critique of Pure Reason" we find the question: How are synthetic judgments a priori possible? that is, how is it possible for me to combine two concepts (subject, predicate) if the content of one is not already contained in the other and if the judgment is not a mere judgment of experience, i.e. the establishment of a single fact? Kant thinks that such judgments are only possible if experience can only exist on the condition of its validity. The possibility of experience is therefore decisive for us to make such a judgment. If I can say to myself: experience is only possible if this or that synthetic judgment is a priori true, then it is valid. But this cannot be applied to the ideas themselves. According to Kant, they do not even have this degree of objectivity.
[ 21 ] Kant finds that the propositions of mathematics and pure natural science are such valid synthetic propositions a priori. He takes, for example, the proposition \(7 + 5 = 12\). In \(7\) and \(5\) the sum \(12\) is by no means contained, Kant concludes. I must go beyond \(7\) and \(5\) and appeal to my intuition, then I find the concept \(12\). My perception makes it necessary that \(7 + 5 = 12\) is presented. However, my objects of experience must approach me through the medium of my perception, i.e. they must obey its laws. If experience is to be possible, such propositions must be correct.
[ 22 ] This whole artificial structure of Kant's thought does not stand up to objective consideration. It is impossible that I have no point of reference at all in the subject-concept which leads me to the predicate-concept. For both concepts are derived from my intellect, and that from a thing that is in itself unified. Make no mistake here. The mathematical unit on which the number is based is not the first thing. The first is the magnitude, which is such and such a repetition of the unit. I must presuppose a magnitude when I speak of a unit. The unity is an entity of our understanding, which it separates from a totality, just as it separates the effect from the cause, the substance from its characteristics, etc. By thinking \(7 + 5\), I am actually holding \(12\) mathematical units in my mind, but not all at once, but in two parts. If I think the entirety of the mathematical units at once, it is quite the same thing. And I express this identity in the judgment \(7 + 5 = 12\). It is the same with the geometrical example Kant gives. A bounded straight line with the end points \(A\) and \(B\) is an inseparable unit. My mind can form two concepts of it. First, it can assume the straight line as a direction and then as a path between the two points \(A\) and \(B\). From this flows the judgment: The straight line is the shortest path between two points.
[ 23 ] All judgment, insofar as the links that enter into the judgment are concepts, is nothing more than a reunification of what the mind has separated. The connection is immediately apparent when one considers the content of the concepts of understanding.