The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. The World as Perception

[ 1 ] Thinking gives rise to concepts and ideas. What a concept is cannot be said with words. Words can only make people aware that they have concepts. When someone sees a tree, his thinking reacts to his observation; an ideal counterpart is added to the object, and he regards the object and the ideal counterpart as belonging together; when the object disappears from his field of observation, only the ideal counterpart remains. The latter is the concept of the object. The more our experience expands, the greater the sum of our concepts becomes. However, the concepts are not isolated. They come together to form a lawful whole. The term "organism", for example, joins the others: "lawful development, growth". Other concepts formed from individual things merge completely into one. All the concepts that I form of lions coincide in the overall concept "lion". In this way, the individual concepts combine to form a closed conceptual system in which each has its own special place. Ideas are not qualitatively different from concepts. They are only more substantial, more saturated and more comprehensive concepts. I must place particular emphasis here on the fact that I have designated thinking as my starting point and not concepts and ideas, which are only gained through thinking. These already presuppose thinking. Therefore, what I have said with regard to the self-contained nature of thinking, which is not determined by anything, cannot simply be transferred to concepts. (I note this here explicitly because this is where my difference with Hegel lies. The latter places the concept as the first and original.)

[ 2 ] The concept cannot be derived from observation. This is already evident from the fact that the growing human being only slowly and gradually forms concepts about the objects that surround him. The concepts are added to the observation.

[ 3 ] A much-read contemporary philosopher, Herbert Spencer, describes the mental process that we carry out in relation to observation as follows:

[ 4 ] "If, walking through the fields on a September day, we hear a sound a few paces in front of us, and see the grass in motion on the side of the ditch from whence it seemed to come, we are likely to go to the spot to learn what produced the sound and the motion. As we approach, a partridge flutters into the ditch, and our curiosity is satisfied: we have what we call an explanation of the phenomena. This explanation, it should be noted, amounts to the following: because we have experienced infinitely often in life that a disturbance of the still position of small bodies accompanies the motion of other bodies situated between them, and because we have therefore generalized the relations between such disturbances and such motions, we consider this particular disturbance explained as soon as we find that it presents an example of this very relation." On closer inspection, the matter is quite different from what is described here. When I hear a sound, I first look for the term for this observation. Only this concept leads me beyond the sound. If you don't think about it any further, you just hear the sound and are satisfied with that. Through my thinking, however, it is clear to me that I have to understand a sound as an effect. So it is only when I connect the concept of effect with the perception of the sound that I am prompted to go beyond the individual observation and search for the cause. The concept of effect evokes that of cause, and I then search for the causative object, which I find in the shape of the partridge. However, I can never gain these concepts, cause and effect, through mere observation, no matter how many cases it extends to. Observation challenges thinking, and it is only this that shows me the way to connect the individual experience to another.

[ 5 ] If one demands of a "strictly objective science" that it takes its content only from observation, one must at the same time demand that it renounces all thinking. For this, by its very nature, goes beyond what is observed.

[ 6 ] Now it is time to move on from thinking to the thinking being. For through this, thinking is connected with observation. Human consciousness is the arena where concept and observation meet and where they are linked. But this (human) consciousness is characterized by this at the same time. It is the mediator between thinking and observation. Insofar as man observes an object, it appears to him as given; insofar as he thinks, he appears to himself as active. He regards the object as an object, himself as the thinking subject. Because he directs his thinking towards observation, he has consciousness of the objects; because he directs his thinking towards himself, he has consciousness of himself or self-consciousness. Human consciousness must necessarily be self-consciousness at the same time, because it is thinking consciousness. For when thinking focuses on its own activity, it has its very own essence, i.e. its subject, as its object.

[ 7 ] Now, however, it must not be overlooked that we can only define ourselves as subjects and oppose ourselves to objects with the help of thinking. Therefore, thinking must never be understood as a purely subjective activity. Thinking is beyond subject and object. It forms these two concepts as well as all others. So if we, as a thinking subject, relate the concept to an object, we must not understand this relationship as something merely subjective. It is not the subject that brings about the relationship, but thinking. The subject does not think because it is a subject; rather, it appears to be a subject because it is able to think. The activity that man performs as a thinking being is therefore not a merely subjective one, but one that is neither subjective nor objective, one that transcends these two concepts. I may never say that my individual subject thinks; rather, it lives by the grace of thinking itself. Thinking is thus an element that leads me beyond my self and connects me with the objects. But at the same time, it separates me from them by opposing me to them as a subject.

[ 8 ] This is the basis of man's dual nature: he thinks and thus encloses himself and the rest of the world; but by means of thinking he must at the same time define himself as an individual facing things.

[ 9 ] The next thing to ask ourselves is: How does the other element, which we have so far merely described as an object of observation and which meets with thought in consciousness, come into the latter?

[ 10 ] In order to answer this question, we must separate out from our field of observation everything that has already been brought into it by thinking. For our respective content of consciousness is always already interspersed with concepts in the most diverse ways.

[ 11 ] We must imagine that a being with fully developed human intelligence arises out of nothing and confronts the world. What it would become aware of there, before it brings its thinking into activity, is the pure content of observation. The world then showed this being only the mere incoherent aggregate of sensory objects: colors, sounds, pressure, warmth, taste, and olfactory sensations; then feelings of pleasure and displeasure. This aggregate is the content of pure, thoughtless observation. Opposite it is thinking, which is ready to develop its activity when a point of attack is found. Experience soon teaches that it will be found; thinking is capable of drawing threads from one element of observation to another. It links certain concepts with these elements and thereby brings them into a relationship. We have already seen above how a sound we encounter is linked to another observation by describing the former as the effect of the latter.

[ 12 ] If we now remember that the activity of thinking is not at all to be understood as a subjective one, we will not be tempted to believe that such relations, which are established through thinking, have merely a subjective validity.

[ 13 ] It will now be a matter of seeking, through thinking reflection, the relationship that the directly given observational content indicated above has to our conscious subject.

[ 14 ] In view of the fluctuation in the use of language, it seems necessary to me that I come to an understanding with my reader about the use of a word that I must apply in the following. I shall call the immediate objects of sensation which I have mentioned above, in so far as the conscious subject takes cognizance of them by observation, perceptions. So it is not the process of observation, but the object of this observation that I designate by this name.

[ 15 ] I do not choose the term sensation because it has a specific meaning in physiology that is narrower than that of my concept of perception. I can certainly describe a feeling in myself as perception, but not as sensation in the physiological sense. I also gain knowledge of my feeling by the fact that it becomes perception for me. And the way in which we obtain knowledge of our thinking through observation is such that we can also call thinking in its first appearance for our consciousness perception.

[ 16 ] The naive man regards his perceptions in the sense in which they appear to him immediately, as things that have an existence quite independent of him. When he sees a tree, he first believes that it is standing there in the place where his gaze is directed, in the shape he sees, with the colors its parts have, and so on. When the same person sees the sun appear as a disk on the horizon in the morning and follows the course of this disk, he believes that everything exists and happens in the way he observes it. He holds on to this belief until he encounters other perceptions that contradict it. The child, who has no experience of distances, reaches for the moon and only realizes what he thought was real at first sight when a second perception contradicts the first. Every widening of the circle of my perceptions forces me to correct my image of the world. This can be seen in daily life as well as in the spiritual development of mankind. The image that the ancients had of the relationship of the earth to the sun and the other celestial bodies had to be replaced by Copernicus because it did not agree with perceptions that were previously unknown. When Dr. Franz operated on a man born blind, he said that before his operation he had formed a completely different picture of the size of objects through the perceptions of his sense of touch. He had to correct his tactile perceptions with his visual perceptions.

[ 17 ] Where does it come from that we are forced to make such continual corrections to our observations?

[ 18 ] A simple consideration provides the answer to this question. If I am standing at one end of an avenue, the trees at the other end, farther away from me, appear smaller and closer together than where I am standing. My perceptual image changes when I change the place from which I am making my observations. The form in which it approaches me is therefore dependent on a purpose that does not depend on the object, but on me, the perceiver. It makes no difference to an avenue where I stand. But the image I get of it is essentially dependent on it. In the same way, it makes no difference to the sun and the planetary system that people are looking at them from the earth. But the perceptual image that presents itself to them is determined by their place of residence. This dependence of the perceptual image on our place of observation is the easiest to see through. The matter becomes more difficult when we get to know the dependence of our perceptual world on our physical and mental organization. The physicist shows us that within the space in which we hear a sound, vibrations of the air take place, and that the body in which we seek the origin of the sound also exhibits a vibrating movement of its parts. We only perceive this movement as sound if we have a normally organized ear. Without such an ear, the whole world would remain eternally mute to us. Physiology teaches us that there are people who perceive nothing of the glorious splendor of color that surrounds us. Their perceptual image only shows nuances of light and dark. Others do not perceive a certain color, for example red. Their view of the world lacks this shade of color and is therefore actually different from that of the average person. I would like to call the dependence of my perceptual image on my place of observation a mathematical one, and that of my organization a qualitative one. By the former the proportions and mutual distances of my perceptions are determined, by the latter the quality of them. The fact that I see a red surface as red - this qualitative determination - depends on the organization of my eye.

[ 19 ] My perceptual images are therefore initially subjective. The realization of the subjective character of our perceptions can easily lead to doubts as to whether they are based on anything objective at all. If we know that a perception, for example of the red color or of a certain sound, is not possible without a certain facility of our organism, we can come to the belief that the same, apart from our subjective organism, has no existence, that without the act of perception, of which it is the object, it has no kind of existence. This view has found a classical exponent in George Berkeley, who was of the opinion that from the moment man has become aware of the importance of the subject for perception, he can no longer believe in a world existing without the conscious mind. He says: "Some truths are so close and so obvious that one need only open one's eyes to see them. One such I consider to be the important proposition that the whole choir in the sky and everything that belongs to the earth, in a word all the bodies that compose the vast structure of the world, have no subsistence outside the mind, that their existence consists in their being perceived or recognized, that consequently, as long as they are not really perceived by me or exist in my consciousness or that of another created mind, they either have no existence at all or exist in the consciousness of an eternal mind." For this view, there is nothing left of perception apart from being perceived. There is no color if none is seen, no sound if none is heard. Just as little as color and sound do expansion, form and movement exist outside the act of perception. Nowhere do we see mere extension or shape, but these are always linked to color or other properties that are indisputably dependent on our subjectivity. If the latter disappear with our perception, then this must also be the case with the former, which are bound to them.

[ 20 ] The objection that, even if figure, color, sound, etc. have no other existence than that within the act of perception, there must nevertheless be things that exist without consciousness and to which the conscious perceptual images are similar, is countered by the view described above by saying that a color can only be similar to a color, a figure similar to a figure. Our perceptions can only be similar to our perceptions, but not to any other things. Even what we call an object is nothing other than a group of perceptions that are connected in a certain way. If I take away from a table shape, extension, color, etc., in short, everything that is only my perception, then nothing remains. This view, if pursued consistently, leads to the assertion that the objects of my perceptions exist only through me, and only insofar and as long as I perceive them; they disappear with the perception and have no meaning without it. Apart from my perceptions, however, I know of no objects and can know of none.

[ 21 ] There is no objection to this assertion as long as I merely take into account the fact that perception is co-determined by the organization of my subject. The matter would be considerably different, however, if we were able to indicate what the function of our perception is in the formation of a perception. We would then know what happens to the perception during perception and could also determine what must already be there before it is perceived.

[ 22 ] Thus, our consideration is derived from the object of perception to the subject of perception. I not only perceive other things, but I perceive myself. The perception of myself initially has the content that I am what remains in relation to the perceptual images that are always coming and going. The perception of the I can always appear in my consciousness while I have other perceptions. When I am absorbed in the perception of a given object, I am only conscious of it for the time being. The perception of my self can then be added to this. I am now not only aware of the object, but also of my personality, which stands opposite the object and observes it. I not only see a tree, but I also know that it is me who sees it. I also recognize that something is going on in me while I am observing the tree. When the tree disappears from my field of vision, a residue of this process remains for my consciousness: an image of the tree. This image has joined with my self during my observation. My self has been enriched; its content has absorbed a new element. I call this element my image of the tree. I would never be able to speak of perceptions if I did not experience them in the perception of my self. Perceptions would come and go; I would let them pass. Only by perceiving my self and realizing that its content also changes with each perception do I see myself compelled to connect the observation of the object with my own change of state and to speak of my imagination.

[ 23 ] I perceive the idea in my self, in the same sense that I perceive color, sound, etc. in other objects. I can now also make the distinction that I call these other objects, which confront me, the external world, while I call the content of my self-perception the internal world. The misunderstanding of the relationship between perception and object has led to the greatest misunderstandings in modern philosophy. The perception of a change in us, the modification that my self undergoes, has been pushed to the fore and the object that causes this modification has been completely lost sight of. It has been said that we do not perceive objects, but only our ideas. I should know nothing of the table itself, which is the object of my observation, but only of the change that takes place in myself while I perceive the table. This view must not be confused with Berkeley's view mentioned earlier. Berkeley asserts the subjective nature of my perceptual content, but he does not say that I can only know of my perceptions. He restricts my knowledge to my conceptions because he thinks that there are no objects outside of conception. What I see as a table is no longer there in Berkeley's sense as soon as I stop looking at it. Berkeley therefore allows my perceptions to arise directly through the power of God. I see a table because God produces this perception in me. Berkeley therefore knows of no real beings other than God and human spirits. What we call the world exists only within the spirits. What the naive person calls the outside world, physical nature, does not exist for Berkeley. This view is opposed to the Kantian view now prevailing, which restricts our knowledge of the world to our ideas, not because it is convinced that there can be no things apart from these ideas, but because it believes us to be so organized that we can only know of the changes of our own selves, not of the things in themselves which cause these changes. It does not conclude from the fact that I only know my ideas that there is no existence independent of these ideas, but only that the subject cannot directly take such an existence into himself, cannot imagine, invent, think, recognize, perhaps also not recognize it other than through the "medium of his subjective thoughts" (O. Liebmann, Zur Analysis der Wirklichkeit, page 28). This view believes to say something absolutely certain, something that is immediately obvious without any evidence. "The first fundamental proposition which the philosopher must bring to clear awareness consists in the realization that our knowledge extends first to nothing more than our conceptions. Our ideas are the only things that we experience directly, that we experience directly; and precisely because we experience them directly, even the most radical doubt cannot wrest knowledge of them from us. On the other hand, knowledge that goes beyond our imagination - I take this expression here everywhere in the broadest sense, so that all psychic events fall under it - is not protected from doubt. Therefore, at the beginning of philosophizing, all knowledge that goes beyond the imagination must be expressly posited as doubtful", is how Volkelt begins his book on "Immanuel Kant's Epistemology". What is here presented as if it were an immediate and self-evident truth is in reality the result of an operation of thought that proceeds as follows: The naive person believes that objects, as he perceives them, also exist outside his consciousness. Physics, physiology and psychology, however, seem to teach that our organization is necessary for our perceptions, that we can therefore know nothing but what our organization tells us about things. Our perceptions are thus modifications of our organization, not things in themselves. The train of thought indicated here has indeed been characterized by Eduard von Hartmann as the one that must lead to the conviction that we can only have direct knowledge of our perceptions (see his "Grundproblem der Erkenntnistheorie", pp. 16-40). Since we find vibrations of bodies and air outside our organism which present themselves to us as sound, it is concluded that what we call sound is nothing more than a subjective reaction of our organism to those movements in the external world. In the same way, we find that color and heat are only modifications of our organism. It is believed that these two types of perception are caused in us by the effect of processes in the external world that are quite different from the experience of warmth or color. When such processes excite the skin nerves of my body, I have the subjective perception of warmth; when such processes affect the optic nerve, I perceive light and color. So light, color and warmth are what my sensory nerves respond to the external stimulus with. The sense of touch does not provide me with the objects of the outside world either, but only my own states. In the sense of modern physics, one could think that bodies consist of infinitely small parts, the molecules, and that these molecules are not directly adjacent to each other, but have certain distances between them. There is therefore empty space between them. Through this they act on each other by means of attractive and repulsive forces. When I bring my hand close to a body, the molecules of my hand by no means touch those of the body directly, but a certain distance remains between body and hand, and what I perceive as the resistance of the body is nothing more than the effect of the repulsive force that its molecules exert on my hand. I am outside the body altogether and only perceive its effect on my organism.

[ 24 ] In addition to these considerations, there is the doctrine of the so-called specific sensory energies, which J. Müller (1801-1858) put forward. It consists in the fact that each sense has the peculiarity of responding to all external stimuli in only one specific way. If an effect is exerted on the optic nerve, light perception arises, regardless of whether the excitation is caused by what we call light or whether a mechanical pressure or an electric current acts on the nerve. On the other hand, different perceptions are evoked in different senses by the same external stimuli. From this it appears that our senses can only transmit what is going on within themselves, but nothing from the outside world. They determine the perceptions according to their nature.

[ 25 ] Physiology shows that there can be no question of a direct knowledge of what the objects in our sensory organs cause. By following the processes in our own bodies, the physiologist finds that the effects of external movement are already transformed in the most varied ways in the sensory organs. We see this most clearly in the eye and ear. Both are very complicated organs that substantially change the external stimulus before they bring it to the corresponding nerve. From the peripheral end of the nerve, the already altered stimulus is then transmitted to the brain. Only here must the central organs be excited again. From this it is concluded that the external process has undergone a series of transformations before it comes to consciousness. What takes place in the brain is connected with the external process by so many intermediate processes that a resemblance to it can no longer be thought of. What the brain ultimately conveys to the soul are neither external processes nor processes in the sense organs, but only those within the brain. But even the latter are not yet directly perceived by the soul. What we ultimately have in our consciousness are not brain processes at all, but perceptions. My sensation of red bears no resemblance at all to the process that takes place in the brain when I perceive red. The latter only occurs again as an effect in the soul and is only caused by the brain process. This is why Hartmann says (Grundproblem der Erkenntnistheorie, p. 37): "What the subject perceives are therefore always only modifications of his own mental states and nothing else." If I have sensations, then these are by no means grouped into what I perceive as things. Only individual sensations can be conveyed to me by the brain. The sensations of hardness and softness are conveyed to me through the sense of touch, the colors, and the sensations of light through the sense of sight. But they are united in one and the same object. This union must therefore first be brought about by the soul itself. That is to say, the soul assembles the individual sensations conveyed by the brain into bodies. My brain transmits to me individually the sensations of sight, touch and hearing, in quite different ways, which the soul then assembles into the idea of the trumpet. This final link (the idea of the trumpet) of a process is what is first of all given to my consciousness. There is nothing more to be found in it of what is outside me and originally made an impression on my senses; the external object has been completely lost on the way to the brain and through the brain to the soul.

[ 26 ] It will be difficult to find a second structure of thought in the history of human mental life that has been assembled with greater acumen and yet, on closer examination, falls apart into nothing. Let us take a closer look at how it comes about. First we start from what is given to the naive consciousness, from what is perceived. Then we show that everything that is found in this thing would not be there for us if we had no senses. No eye: no color. So color is not yet present in that which acts on the eye. It only arises through the interaction of the eye with the object. This is therefore colorless. But color is not present in the eye either, because a chemical or physical process is present there that is first transmitted to the brain through the nerve, where it triggers another process. This is still not the color. It is only caused in the soul by the brain process. There it still does not enter my consciousness, but is only transferred outwards through the soul to a body. In this body I believe I finally perceive it. We have gone through a complete cycle. We have become conscious of a colored body. That is the first thing. Now the thought operation begins. If I had no eyes, the body would be colorless for me. So I cannot transfer the color into the body. I go in search of it. I search for it in the eye: in vain; in the nerve: in vain; in the brain: also in vain; in the soul: here I find it, but not connected to the body. I only find the colored body again where I have gone out. The circle is complete. I believe that I recognize as the product of my soul what the naive person thinks of as existing outside in space.

[ 27 ] As long as you stand still, everything seems to be in perfect order. But the matter has to be started all over again. Up to now, I have managed with one thing: with external perception, of which I used to have a completely wrong view as a naive person. I was of the opinion that it had an objective existence as I perceived it. Now I realize that it disappears with my imagination, that it is only a modification of my mental states. Do I still have any right to start from it in my observations? Can I say of it that it has an effect on my soul? From now on I must treat the table, which I used to believe had an effect on me and produced an idea of itself in me, as an idea itself. Consequently, my sense organs and the processes in them are also merely subjective. I have no right to speak of a real eye, but only of my imagination of the eye. It is the same with nerve conduction and the brain process, and no less with the process in the soul itself, by which things are to be constructed out of the chaos of manifold sensations. If I go through the links of my act of cognition again, assuming that the first train of thought is correct, then the latter shows itself to be a web of ideas which, as such, cannot act on each other. I cannot say: my conception of the object acts on my conception of the eye, and from this interaction the conception of color emerges. But neither do I need to. For as soon as I realize that my sense organs and their activities, my nervous and mental processes, can only be given to me through perception, the train of thought described above shows itself to be completely impossible. It is true: for me there is no perception without the corresponding sense organ. But neither is there a sense organ without perception. I can pass from my perception of the table to the eye, which sees it, to the skin nerves, which feel it; but again, I can only experience what is going on in these from perception. And then I soon notice that in the process that takes place in the eye there is not a trace of similarity with what I perceive as color. I cannot destroy my perception of color by pointing out the process that takes place in the eye during this perception. Nor do I find the color again in the nerves and brain processes; I only connect new perceptions within my organism with the first, which the naive person relocates outside his organism. I only pass from one perception to another.

[ 28 ] In addition, the whole conclusion contains a leap. I am able to trace the processes in my organism to the processes in my brain, even if my assumptions become more and more hypothetical the closer I get to the central processes of the brain. The path of external observation ends with the process in my brain, namely with that which I would perceive if I were able to treat the brain with physical, chemical, etc. aids and methods. tools and methods to treat the brain. The path of internal observation begins with sensation and extends to the construction of things from the sensory material. At the transition from the brain process to sensation, the path of observation is interrupted.

[ 29 ] The characterized way of thinking, which in contrast to the standpoint of naive consciousness, which it calls naive realism, calls itself critical idealism, makes the mistake of characterizing one perception as perception, but accepts the other precisely in the sense that naive realism, which it apparently refutes, does. It wants to prove the imaginary character of perceptions by naively accepting the perceptions of one's own organism as objectively valid facts and, in addition, overlooking the fact that it confuses two areas of observation between which it can find no mediation.

[ 30 ] Critical idealism can only refute naïve realism if it itself accepts its own organism as objectively existing in a naïve-realistic manner. At the same moment that it becomes aware of the complete similarity of the perceptions of its own organism with the perceptions assumed by naive realism to exist objectively, it can no longer rely on the former as a secure foundation. He would also have to regard his subjective organization as a mere imaginary complex. With this, however, the possibility of thinking the content of the perceived world to be caused by the mental organization is lost. One would have to assume that the idea of "color" is only a modification of the idea of "eye". So-called critical idealism cannot be proved without borrowing from naive realism. The latter is only refuted by allowing its own presuppositions in another field to stand unchecked.

[ 31 ] So much is certain from this: critical idealism cannot be proven by investigations within the field of perception, and thus perception cannot be stripped of its objective character.

[ 32 ] However, the sentence: "The perceived world is my imagination" can be presented even less as self-evident and in need of no proof. Schopenhauer begins his main work "The World as Will and Representation" with the words: "The world is my representation: - this is the truth which holds good in relation to every living and cognizing being; although man alone can bring it into reflected abstract consciousness: and if he really does so, philosophical prudence has entered into him. It then becomes clear and certain to him that he knows no sun and no earth; but always only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world which surrounds him is there only as a conception, that is, throughout only in relation to an Other, that which is above, which is himself. - If any truth can be stated a priori, it is this: for it is the statement of that form of all possible and conceivable experience which is more general than all others, than time, space, and causality: for all these presuppose that very one ... " The whole proposition fails because of the circumstance already mentioned by me above, that the eye and the hand are no less perceptions than the sun and the earth. And one could counter his sentences in the sense of Schopenhauer and with reference to his mode of expression: My eye, which sees the sun, and my hand, which feels the earth, are my perceptions just as much as the sun and the earth themselves. But it is quite clear that I am thereby canceling the sentence. For only my real eye and my real hand could have the ideas sun and earth as their modifications in themselves, but not my ideas eye and hand. But critical idealism may only speak of these.

[ 33 ] Critical idealism is completely unsuitable for gaining a view of the relationship between perception and imagination. It cannot make the distinction indicated on page 67f. between what happens to perception during perception and what must already be there before it is perceived. Another path must therefore be taken.