The Science of Knowing
GA 2
XVIII. Psychological Knowing Activity
[ 1 ] The first science in which the human spirit has to do with itself is psychology. The human spirit confronts itself, contemplating.
[ 2 ] Fichte allowed existence to the human being only insofar as he himself posits this existence within himself. In other words, the human personality has only those traits, characteristics, capacities, etc., that, by virtue of insight into its essential being, it ascribes to itself. A person would not recognize as his own a human capacity about which he knew nothing; he would attribute it to something foreign to him. When Fichte supposed that he could found all the science of the universe upon this truth, he was in error. But it is suited to become the highest principle of psychology. It determines the method of psychology. If the human spirit possesses a quality only insofar as this spirit attributes it to itself, then the psychological method is the penetration of the human spirit into its own activity. Self-apprehension is therefore the method here.
[ 3 ] We are, of course, not limiting psychology to being a science of the chance characteristics of any one human individual. We are disengaging the individual spirit from its chance limitations, from its secondary features, and are seeking to raise ourselves to the contemplation of the human individual as such.
[ 4 ] To contemplate the entirely chance single individual is not, in fact, the important thing, but rather to become clear about the individual as such, which determines itself out of itself. If someone were to say in response to this that here too we are dealing with nothing more than the typus of mankind, he would be confusing the typus with a generalized concept. It is essential to the typus that it stand as something general over against its individual forms. This is not essential to the concept of the human individual. Here the general is directly active in the individual being, but this activity expresses itself in different ways according to the objects upon which it focuses. The typus presents itself in individual forms and in these enters into interaction with the outer world. The human spirit has only one form. But in one situation certain objects stir his feelings, in another an ideal inspires him to act, etc. We are not dealing with a particular form of the human spirit; but always with the whole and complete human being. We must separate him from his surroundings if we wish to understand him. If one wishes to attain the typus, then one must ascend from the single form to the archetypal form; if one wishes to attain the human spirit one must disregard the outer manifestations through which it expresses itself, disregard the specific actions it performs, and look at it in and for itself. We must observe it to see how it acts in general, not how it has acted in this or that situation. In the typus one must separate the general form by comparison out of the individual forms; in psychology one must merely separate the individual form from its surroundings.
[ 5 ] In psychology it is no longer the case, as in organic science, that we recognize in the particular being a configuration of the general, of the archetypal form; rather we recognize the perception of the particular as this archetypal form itself. The human spirit being is not one configuration of its idea but rather the configuration of its idea. When Jacobi believes that at the same time as we gain perception of our inner life we attain the conviction that a unified being underlies it (intuitive self-apprehension), he is in error, because in fact we perceive this unified being itself. What otherwise is intuition in fact becomes self-observation here. With regard to the highest form of existence this is also an objective necessity. What the human spirit can garner from the phenomena is the highest form of content that it can attain at all. If the human spirit then reflects upon itself, it must recognize itself as the direct manifestation of this highest form, as the bearer of this highest form. What the human spirit finds as unity in manifold reality it must find in the human spirit's singleness as direct existence. What it places, as something general, over against the particular it must ascribe to its own individuality as the essential being of this individuality itself.
[ 6 ] One can see from all this that a true psychology can be achieved only if one studies the nature of the human spirit as an active entity. In our time one has wanted to replace this method by another which considers psychology's object of study to be the phenomena in which the human spirit presents itself rather than this spirit itself. One believes that the individual expressions of the human spirit can be brought into external relationships just as much as the facts of inorganic nature can. In this way one wants to found a “theory of the soul without any soul.” Our study shows, however, that with this method one loses sight of the very thing that matters. [ 7 ] One should separate the human spirit from its various expressions and return to this spirit itself as the producer of them. One usually limits oneself to the expressions and forgets the spirit. Here also one has allowed oneself to be led astray to succumb to that incorrect standpoint that wants to apply the methods of mechanics, physics, etc., to all sciences.
[ 8 ] The unified soul is given to us in experience just as much as its individual actions are. Everyone is aware of the fact that his thinking, feeling, and willing proceed from his “I.” Every activity of our personality is connected with this center of our being. If one disregards this connection with the personality in an action, then the action ceases to be an expression of the soul at all. It falls either under the concept of inorganic or of organic nature. If two balls are lying on the table and I propel one against the other, then, if one disregards my intention and my will, everything is reduced to physical or physiological processes. The main thing with all manifestations of the human spirit—thinking, feeling, and willing—is to recognize them in their essential being as expressions of the personality. Psychology is based on this.
[ 9 ] But the human being does not belong only to himself; he also belongs to society. What lives and manifests in him is not merely his individuality but also that of the nation to which he belongs. What he accomplishes emerges just as much out of the full strength of his people as out of his own. With his mission he also fulfills a part of the mission of the larger community of his people. The point is for his place within his people to be such that he can bring to full expression the strength of his individuality. [ 10 ] This is possible only if the social organism is such that the individual is able to find the place where he can set to work. It must not be left to chance whether he finds this place or not.
[ 11 ] It is the task of ethnology and political science to investigate how the individual lives and acts within the social community. The individuality of peoples is the subject of this science. It has to show what form the organism of the state has to assume if the individuality of a people is to come to expression in it. The constitution a people gives itself must be developed out of its innermost being. In this domain also, errors of no small scope are in circulation. One does not regard political science as an experiential science. It is believed that all peoples can set up a constitution according to a certain model.
[ 12 ] The constitution of a people, however, is nothing other than its individual character brought into a definite form of laws. A person who wants to predetermine the direction a particular activity of a people has to take must not impose anything upon it from outside; he must simply express what lies unconsciously within the character of his people. “It is not the intelligent person that rules, but rather intelligence; not the reasonable person, but rather reason,” says Goethe.
[ 13 ] To grasp the individuality of a people as a reasonable one is the method of ethnology. The human being belongs to a whole, whose nature is an organization of reason. Here again we can quote a statement of Goethe's: “The rational world is to be regarded as a great immortal individual that unceasingly brings about the necessary, and through doing so in fact makes itself master over chance.” Just as psychology has to investigate the nature of the single individual, so ethnology (the psychology of peoples) has to investigate that “immortal individual.”
18. Psychologisches Erkennen
[ 1 ] Die erste Wissenschaft, in der es der Geist mit sich selbst zu tun hat, ist die Psychologie. Der Geist steht sich betrachtend selbst gegenüber.
[ 2 ] Fichte sprach dem Menschen nur insofern eine Existenz zu, als er sie selbst in sich setzt. Mit andern Worten: Die menschliche Persönlichkeit hat nur jene Merkmale, Eigenschaften, Fähigkeiten usw., die sie sich vermöge der Einsicht in ihr Wesen selbst zuschreibt. Eine menschliche Fähigkeit, von der der Mensch nichts wüßte, erkennte er nicht als die seinige an, er legte sie einem ihm Fremden bei. Wenn Fichte vermeinte, auf diese Wahrheit die ganze Wissenschaft des Universums begründen zu können, so war das ein Irrtum. Sie ist dazu bestimmt, das oberste Prinzip der Psychologie zu werden. Sie bestimmt die Methode derselben. Wenn der Geist eine Eigenschaft nur insofern besitzt, als er sich sie selbst beilegt, so ist die psychologische Methode das Vertiefen des Geistes in seine eigene Tätigkeit. Selbsterfassung ist also hier die Methode.
[ 3 ] Es ist natürlich, daß wir hiermit die Psychologie nicht darauf beschränken, eine Wissenschaft von den zufälligen Eigenschaften irgend eines (dieses oder jenes˃ menschlichen Individuums zu sein. Wir lösen den Einzelgeist von seinen zufälligen Beschränkungen, von seinen nebensächlichen Merkmalen ab und suchen uns zu der Betrachtung des menschlichen Individuums überhaupt zu erheben.
[ 4 ] Das ist ja nicht das Maßgebende, daß wir die ganz zufällige Einzelindividualität betrachten, sondern daß wir uns über das sich aus sich selbst bestimmende Individuum überhaupt klar werden. Wer da sagen wollte, da hätten wir ja auch mit nichts weiter als mit dem Typus der Menschheit zu tun, verwechselt den Typus mit dem generalisierten Begriff. Dem Typus ist es wesentlich, daß er als allgemeiner seinen Einzelformen gegenübersteht. Nicht so dem Begriff des menschlichen Individuums. Hier ist das Allgemeine unmittelbar im Einzelwesen tätig, nur daß sich diese Tätigkeit in verschiedener Weise äußert, je nach den Gegenständen, auf die sie sich richtet. Der Typus lebt sich in einzelnen Formen dar und tritt in diesen mit der Außenwelt in Wechselwirkung. Der Menschengeist hat nur eine Form. Hier aber bewegen jene Gegenstände sein Fühlen, dort begeistert ihn dieses Ideal zu Handlungen usw. Es ist nicht eine besondere Form des Menschengeistes; es ist immer der ganze, volle Mensch, mit dem man es zu tun hat. Diesen muß man aus seiner Umgebung loslösen, wenn man ihn erfassen will. Will man zum Typus gelangen, dann muß man von der Einzelform zur Urform aufsteigen; will man zum Geiste gelangen, muß man von den Äußerungen, durch die er sich kundgibt, von den speziellen Taten, die er vollbringt, absehen und ihn an und für sich betrachten. Man muß ihn belauschen, wie er überhaupt handelt, nicht wie er in dieser oder jener Lage gehandelt hat. Im Typus muß man die allgemeine Form durch Vergleichung von den einzelnen loslösen; in der Psychologie muß man die Einzelform bloß von ihrer Umgebung loslösen.
[ 5 ] Es ist da nicht mehr so wie in der Organik, daß wir in dem besonderen Wesen eine Gestaltung des Allgemeinen, der Urform erkennen, sondern die Wahrnehmung des Besonderen als diese Urform selbst. Nicht eine Ausgestaltung ihrer Idee ist das menschliche Geisteswesen, sondern die Ausgestaltung derselben. Wenn Jacobi glaubt, daß wir mit der Wahrnehmung unseres Innern zugleich die Überzeugung davon gewinnen, daß demselben ein einheitliches Wesen zugrunde liege (intuitive Selbsterfassung˃, so ist der Gedanke deswegen ein verfehlter, weil wir ja dieses einheitliche Wesen selbst wahrnehmen. Was sonst Intuition ist, wird hier eben Selbstbetrachtung. Das ist bei der höchsten Form des Daseins sachlich auch notwendig. Das, was der Geist aus den Erscheinungen herauslesen kann, ist die höchste Form des Inhaltes, den er überhaupt gewinnen kann. Reflektiert er dann auf sich selbst, so muß er sich als die unmittelbare Manifestation dieser höchsten Form, als den Träger derselben selbst erkennen. Was der Geist als Einheit in der vielgestaltigen Wirklichkeit findet, das muß er in seiner Einzelheit als unmittelbares Dasein finden. Was er der Besonderheit als Allgemeines gegenüberstellt, das muß er seinem Individuum als dessen Wesen selbst zuerkennen.
[ 6 ] Man ersieht aus alledem, daß man eine wahrhafte Psychologie nur gewinnen kann, wenn man auf die Beschaffenheit des Geistes als eines Tätigen eingeht. Man hat in unserer Zeit an die Stelle dieser Methode eine andere setzen wollen, welche die Erscheinungen, in denen sich der Geist darlebt, nicht diesen selbst, zum Gegenstande der Psychologie macht. Man glaubt die einzelnen Äußerungen desselben ebenso in einen äußerlichen Zusammenhang bringen zu können, wie das bei den unorganischen Naturtatsachen geschieht. So will man eine «Seelenlehre ohne Seele» begründen. Aus unseren Betrachtungen ergibt sich, daß man bei dieser Methode gerade das aus dem Auge verliert, auf das es ankommt.
[ 7 ] Man sollte den Geist von seinen Äußerungen loslösen und auf ihn als den Produzenten derselben zurückgehen. Man beschränkt sich auf die ersteren und vergißt den letzteren. Man hat sich eben auch hier zu jenem falschen Standpunkt verleiten lassen, der die Methoden der Mechanik, Physik usw. auf alle Wissenschaften anwenden will.
[ 8 ] Die einheitliche Seele ist uns ebenso erfahrungsgemäß gegeben wie ihre einzelnen Handlungen. Jedermann ist sich dessen bewußt, daß sein Denken, Fühlen und Wollen von seinem «Ich» ausgeht. Jede Tätigkeit unserer Persönlichkeit ist mit diesem Zentrum unseres Wesens verbunden. Sieht man bei einer Handlung von dieser Verbindung mit der Persönlichkeit ab, dann hört sie überhaupt auf. eine Seelenerscheinung zu sein. Sie fällt entweder unter den Begriff der unorganischen oder der organischen Natur. Liegen zwei Kugeln auf dem Tische, und ich stoße die eine an die andere, so löst sich alles, wenn man von meiner Absicht und meinem Wollen absieht, in physikalisches oder physiologisches Geschehen auf. Bei allen Manifestationen des Geistes: Denken, Fühlen, Wollen, kommt es darauf an, sie in ihrer Wesenheit als Äußerungen der Persönlichkeit zu erkennen. Darauf beruht die Psychologie.
[ 9 ] Der Mensch gehört aber nicht nur sich, er gehört auch der Gesellschaft an. Was sich in ihm darlebt, ist nicht bloß seine Individualität, sondern zugleich jene des Volksverbandes, dem er angehört. Was er vollbringt, geht ebenso wie aus der seinen, zugleich aus der Vollkraft seines Volkes hervor. Er erfüllt mit seiner Sendung einen Teil von der seiner Volksgenossenschaft. Es kommt darauf an, daß sein Platz innerhalb seines Volkes ein solcher ist, daß er die Macht seiner Individualität voll zur Geltung bringen kann.
[ 10 ] Das ist nur möglich, wenn der Volksorganismus ein derartiger ist, daß der einzelne den Ort finden kann, wo er seinen Hebel anzusetzen vermag. Es darf nicht dem Zufall überlassen bleiben, ob er diesen Platz findet.
[ 11 ] Die Weise zu erforschen, wie sich die Individualität innerhalb der Volksgemeinde darlebt, ist Sache der Volkskunde und der Staatswissenschaft. Die Volksindividualität ist der Gegenstand dieser Wissenschaft. Diese hat zu zeigen, welche Form der staatliche Organismus anzunehmen hat, wenn die Volksindividualität in demselben zum Ausdrucke kommen soll. Die Verfassung, die sich ein Volk gibt, muß aus seinem innersten Wesen heraus entwickelt werden. Auch hier sind nicht geringe Irrtümer im Umlauf. Man hält die Staatswissenschaft nicht für eine Erfahrungswissenschaft. Man glaubt die Verfassung aller Völker nach einer gewissen Schablone einrichten zu können.
[ 12 ] Die Verfassung eines Volkes ist aber nichts anderes, als sein individueller Charakter in festbestimmte Gesetzesformen gebracht. Wer die Richtung vorzeichnen will, in der sich eine bestimmte Tätigkeit eines Volkes zu bewegen hat, darf diesem nichts Äußerliches aufdrängen: er muß einfach aussprechen, was im Volkscharakter unbewußt liegt. «Der Verständige regiert nicht, aber der Verstand: nicht der Vernünftige, sondern die Vernunft», sagt Goethe.
[ 13 ] Die Volksindividualität als vernünftige zu begreifen, ist die Methode der Volkskunde. Der Mensch gehört einem Ganzen an, dessen Natur die Vernunftorganisation ist. Wir können auch hier wieder ein bedeutsames Wort Goethes anführen: «Die vernünftige Welt ist als ein großes unsterbliches Individuum zu betrachten, das unaufhaltsam das Notwendige bewirkt und dadurch sich sogar über das Zufällige zum Herrn macht.» - Wie die Psychologie das Wesen des Einzelindividuums, so hat die Volkskunde (Völkerpsychologie) jenes «unsterbliche Individuum» zu erforschen.
18. Psychological Cognition
[ 1 ] The first science in which the mind deals with itself is psychology. The mind faces itself in contemplation.
[ 2 ] Fichte only attributed an existence to man insofar as he places it in himself. In other words, the human personality has only those characteristics, qualities, abilities, etc. that it ascribes to itself by virtue of the insight into its essence. A human ability of which man would know nothing, he would not recognize as his own; he would attribute it to a stranger. If Fichte thought he could base the entire science of the universe on this truth, he was mistaken. It is destined to become the supreme principle of psychology. It determines its method. If the mind possesses a quality only in so far as it attributes it to itself, then the psychological method is the immersion of the mind in its own activity. Self-perception is therefore the method here.
[ 3 ] It is natural that we do not limit psychology to being a science of the accidental properties of any (this or that˃ human individual. We detach the individual mind from its accidental limitations, from its incidental characteristics, and seek to elevate ourselves to the consideration of the human individual in general.
[ 4 ] The decisive point is not that we consider the completely random individuality, but that we become clear about the self-determining individual in general. Anyone who would say that we are dealing with nothing more than the type of humanity is confusing the type with the generalized concept. It is essential to the type that it stands opposite its individual forms in a generalized way. Not so the concept of the human individual. Here the general is directly active in the individual, only that this activity expresses itself in different ways, depending on the objects to which it is directed. The type lives itself out in individual forms and interacts in these with the outside world. The human spirit has only one form. Here, however, those objects move his feelings, there this ideal inspires him to action, etc. It is not a particular form of the human spirit; it is always the whole, complete human being with whom one is dealing. You have to detach it from its surroundings if you want to grasp it. If we want to reach the type, we must ascend from the individual form to the archetypal form; if we want to reach the spirit, we must disregard the expressions through which it manifests itself, the particular deeds it performs, and look at it in and of itself. One must listen to him as he acts in general, not as he has acted in this or that situation. In type one must detach the general form from the individual by comparison; in psychology one must merely detach the individual form from its environment.
[ 5 ] It is no longer the case, as in organics, that we recognize in the particular being a shaping of the general, the archetypal form, but the perception of the particular as this archetypal form itself. The human spiritual being is not a figuration of its idea, but the figuration of it. If Jacobi believes that with the perception of our inner being we simultaneously gain the conviction that it is based on a unified being (intuitive self-perception), then the idea is misguided because we perceive this unified being ourselves. What is otherwise intuition here becomes self-observation. This is also objectively necessary in the highest form of existence. What the spirit can read out of the phenomena is the highest form of content that it can gain at all. If it then reflects on itself, it must recognize itself as the direct manifestation of this highest form, as the bearer of it. What the spirit finds as unity in the multiform reality, it must find in its particularity as immediate existence. What it contrasts with particularity as generality, it must recognize in its individual as its essence itself.
[ 6 ] It can be seen from all this that a true psychology can only be gained if one deals with the nature of the mind as an active being. In our time, this method has been replaced by another, which makes the phenomena in which the mind lives, not the mind itself, the object of psychology. It is believed that the individual manifestations of the mind can be brought into an external context in the same way as is done with the inorganic facts of nature. Thus one wants to establish a "theory of the soul without a soul". It follows from our considerations that this method loses sight of the very thing that matters.
[ 7 ] We should detach the spirit from its manifestations and go back to it as the producer of them. One limits oneself to the former and forgets the latter. Here, too, one has allowed oneself to be misled into that false point of view which wants to apply the methods of mechanics, physics, etc. to all sciences.
[ 8 ] The unified soul is just as experientially given to us as its individual actions. Everyone is aware that their thinking, feeling and willing emanate from their "I". Every activity of our personality is connected to this center of our being. If one disregards this connection with the personality in the case of an action, then it ceases to be a soul phenomenon at all. It falls either under the concept of inorganic or organic nature. If there are two balls on the table and I bump one against the other, everything dissolves into physical or physiological events, if one disregards my intention and my will. With all manifestations of the spirit: thinking, feeling, willing, it is important to recognize them in their essence as expressions of the personality. Psychology is based on this.
[ 9 ] Humans not only belong to themselves, they also belong to society. What lives in him is not only his individuality, but also that of the national association to which he belongs. What he accomplishes emerges from the full power of his people as well as from his own. With his mission he fulfills a part of that of his national community. It is important that his place within his people is such that he can fully bring the power of his individuality to bear.
[ 10 ] This is only possible if the national organism is such that the individual can find the place where he can apply his leverage. It must not be left to chance whether he finds this place.
[ 11 ] It is a matter for folklore and political science to investigate the way in which individuality manifests itself within the national community. Folk individuality is the subject of this science. It has to show what form the state organism must take if the individuality of the people is to be expressed in it. The constitution that a people gives itself must be developed from its innermost essence. Here, too, there are not a few errors in circulation. Political science is not regarded as a science of experience. It is believed that the constitution of all peoples can be established according to a certain template.
[ 12 ] The constitution of a people, however, is nothing other than its individual character brought into fixed legal forms. Whoever wants to outline the direction in which a certain activity of a people must move must not impose anything external on it: he must simply express what lies unconsciously in the character of the people. "Understanding does not rule, but reason does: not the reasonable, but reason," says Goethe.
[ 13 ] The method of folklore is to understand the individuality of the people as a rational one. Man belongs to a whole whose nature is the organization of reason. Here again we can cite a significant quote from Goethe: "The rational world is to be regarded as a great immortal individual that inexorably brings about what is necessary and thereby makes itself master even over the accidental." - Just as psychology has to investigate the nature of the individual, so folklore (folk psychology) has to investigate that "immortal individual".