Goethe's Conception of the World
GA 6
The Position of Goethe in the Evolution of Western Thought
III. Consequences of the Platonic View of the World
[ 1 ] In vain did Aristotle resist the Platonic division of the conception of the world. Aristotle saw Nature as a uniform entity containing the ideas as well as sense-perceptible objects and phenomena. Only in the human spirit can the ideas have an independent existence, but in this state of independence they have no reality. Only the soul can separate the idea from the perceptible objects in conjunction with which they constitute reality. If Western Philosophy had adhered to a true understanding of Aristotle's conception, it would have been preserved from a great deal that necessarily appears erroneous to the Goethean view of the world.
[ 2 ] But this true understanding of Aristotelianism was at first an inconvenience to many of those who sought to acquire a thought-basis for Christian conceptions. Many of those who considered themselves “Christian” thinkers in the true sense did not know what to make of a conception of Nature that removed the highest active principle into the realm of experience. Many Christian Philosophers and Theologians therefore interpreted Aristotle in a new sense. They attributed to his views a meaning which in their opinion was able to serve as logical support of Christian dogma.—The mind is not intended to seek in the objects for the creative ideas. Truth is communicated to men by God in the form of revelation. Reason is only there to verify what God has revealed. Aristotelian principles were interpreted by the mediaeval Christian thinkers in such a way that the religious doctrine of salvation received its philosophical corroboration from these principles. It is the conception of Thomas Aquinas, the most important of Christian thinkers, that first tries to weave Aristotelian thoughts into the Christian evolution of thought to the extent to which this was possible in his day. According to the conception of Thomas Aquinas, revelation contains the highest truths, the scriptural doctrine of salvation; but it is possible for reason to penetrate into objects in the Aristotelian sense and to extract their ideal content. Revelation descends so far, and reason can rise so high that at a certain point the doctrine of salvation and human knowledge can flow over into each other. Aristotle's mode of penetration into objects becomes, then, the means whereby Thomas Aquinas attains to the sphere of revelation.
[ 3 ] With Bacon and Descartes began an era where the will to seek for truth through the inherent power of the human personality asserted itself. Habits of thought had taken such direction that all endeavour ended in setting up views which, in spite of their apparent independence of the preceding Western world-conception, were in fact, only new forms of it. Bacon and Descartes had also acquired a distorted conception of the relation of experience and idea as heritage from a thought-world into which degeneration had entered. Bacon had perception and understanding only for the particulars of Nature. He believed that he arrived at general laws for natural events by gathering together equivalent or rather similar elements from the varied domain of space and time. Goethe speaks of Bacon in these apt words: “For even although he indicates that one should only gather the particulars together for the sake of being able to select from them, to coordinate them, and eventually to arrive at universalities, yet, with him, the particular cases retain undue prominence, and before one is able to arrive at simplification and finality through induction—even such induction as he recommends—life is spent and one's forces are worn out.” For Bacon these general rules are the means whereby reason is able to survey the region of the particulars. But he does not believe that these rules are rooted in the ideal content of the objects and are actual, creative forces of Nature. Therefore he does not directly seek for the idea in the particular, but abstracts it from a multiplicity of particulars. Those who do not believe that the idea lives within the single object will not be disposed to seek for it there. They accept the object as it is offered to external perception pure and simple. Bacon's significance lies in the fact that he pointed to the external mode of perception that has been undervalued by the one-sided form of Platonism already referred to. He emphasised the fact that in this external mode of conception there lies a source of truth. He was not, however, in a position to establish the rights of the world of ideas in relation to the world of perception. He pronounced the ideal to be a subjective element in the human mind. His mode of thinking is an inversion of Platonism. Plato sees reality only in the world of ideas, Bacon only in the world of perception that is free of ideas. In the Baconian conception we have the starting-point of that tendency of thought which still dominates investigators of Nature to-day. This tendency of thought suffers from a false view of the ideal element of the world of experience. It could not come to terms with the view of the Middle Ages that had arisen as the result of a question wrongly put and which led to ideas being regarded as mere names and not realities inherent in things.
[ 4 ] Three decades after Bacon we have the views of Descartes, proceeding, it is true, from a different standpoint, but no less influenced by one-sided Platonic modes of thought. Descartes also suffers from the hereditary sin of Western thought, from mistrust in an impartial observation of Nature. Doubt as to the existence of objects, doubt as to whether objects are capable of being cognised is the starting-point of his research. He does not concentrate his gaze on the objects in order to gain access to certainty, but he seeks a tiny door, a bye-way in the truest sense of the word. He withdraws into the most intimate region of thought. “All that I have hitherto believed to be truth may be false,” he says to himself. “My thoughts may be based on illusion. But the one fact remains that I think about the objects. Even if my thought amounts to falsehood and deception, I think, nevertheless. If I think, I also exist. I think, therefore I am.” Descartes believes that he has here obtained a permanent point of departure for all further reflection. He puts another question to himself: Is there not in the content of my thinking still something else that points to true existence? And then he finds the idea of God, as the idea of an All-Perfect Being. As man himself is imperfect how comes it that the idea of an All-Perfect Being is able to enter his world of thought? It is impossible for an imperfect being to produce an idea of this kind out of itself. For the greatest perfection which it is capable of conceiving is still imperfect. This idea must therefore have been put into man by the All-perfect Being himself. God must therefore exist. But how can a perfect Being deceive us by an illusion? The external world which presents itself to us as real must therefore be, in fact, a reality. Otherwise it would be a delusive image imposed on us by the Godhead. In this way Descartes tries to acquire the trust in reality which, as the result of inherited conceptions (Empfindungen), he did not at first possess. He seeks for truth by the most artificial means. He proceeds merely from thought. To thought alone he concedes the power to produce conviction. Conviction in regard to observation can only be acquired when it is imparted by thought. The consequences of this view were that it became the endeavour of Descartes' successors to establish the whole compass of truths which thought is able to evolve out of itself and prove. Their aim was to find the sum-total of all knowledge out of pure reason. They wanted to proceed from the simplest, immediately evident perceptions and to traverse progressively the whole orbit of pure thought. This system was supposed to be built up according to the model of Euclidean Geometry. For it was held that this too proceeds from simple, true premises and evolves its whole content merely by a chain of deduction, without recourse to observation. Spinoza endeavoured to give such a system of reasoned truths in his “Ethics.” He takes a number of conceptions: Substance, Attribute, Mode, Thought, Extension and so forth, and examines their connections and content purely with the reason. The essence of reality is considered to express itself in the thought structure. Spinoza considers that the only knowledge corresponding to the real essence of the universe and yielding adequate ideas is that which exists as a result of this activity that is alien to reality. Ideas derived from sense-perception are to him inadequate, confused, mutilated. It is easy to see the after-effects of the one-sided Platonic view, of the antithesis between perceptions and ideas in these conceptions also. Only those thoughts that are evolved independently of observation have any value for knowledge. Spinoza goes still further. He extends the antithesis to the moral sense and the actions of human beings. Feelings of unhappiness can only spring from ideas derived from sense perception; such ideas generate desires and passions in man, who becomes their slave if he gives himself up to them. Only that which originates from the reason can give birth to feelings of unqualified happiness. Hence the highest bliss of man is life in the ideas of reason, devotion to knowledge of the pure world of ideas. A man who has overcome all that is derived from the world of perception, and yet lives in the realm of pure knowledge, experiences the highest bliss.
[ 5 ] Not quite a century after Spinoza there appeared the Scotchman, David Hume, with a mode of thought again assuming knowledge to be derived from perception only. Only single objects in space and time are given. Thought connects the single perceptions together, not, however, because there lies in the objects themselves anything corresponding to such a connection, but because the intellect is accustomed to bringing them into connection. Man is accustomed to see that one thing follows another in time. He forms for himself the idea that there must be sequence. He calls the first, cause; the second, effect. Man is further accustomed to see that a thought in his mind is followed by a movement of his body. He explains this by saying that the mind brings about bodily movement. Man's ideas are habits of thought and nothing more. Perceptions alone have reality.
[ 6 ] The combination of the most varied trends of thought that had come into existence through the course of the centuries appears in the Kantian view of the world. Kant also has no natural sense of the relation of perception and idea. He lives in the midst of philosophical preconceptions which he has assimilated from the study of his predecessors. One of these preconceptions is that there exist necessary truths, brought into being by pure thought, free of all element of experience. In Kant's view the proof of this is afforded by the existence of mathematics and pure physics which contain such truths. Another of his preconceptions consists in denying to experience the possibility of attaining to equally necessary truths. Mistrust of the world of perception is present in Kant also. These thought-habits of Kant are further influenced by Hume. Kant admits that Hume is right when the latter asserts that the ideas into which thought unites the single perceptions are not derived from experience but that they are added by thought to experience. These three preconceptions are the basis of the Kantian thought-structure. Man is in possession of essential truths, but these essential truths cannot be derived from experience, because experience has nothing of the kind to offer. Man, however, applies them to experience. He connects the single perceptions in conformity with these truths. They are derived from man himself. It is inherent in his nature to bring things into a connection that is in line with the truths which have been acquired by pure thought. Kant goes still further. He credits the senses also with the capacity for bringing what is imparted to them from without into a definite order. This order does not flow in from outside with the impressions of the objects. The impressions receive spatial and temporal order for the first time through sense-perception. Space and Time do not appertain to the objects. Man is so organised that when the objects make impressions on his senses he brings them into spatial or temporal order. From without man receives impressions, sensations only. Their arrangement in space and in time, their association into ideas is his own work. But neither are the sensations derived from the objects. Man does not become aware of the objects themselves but only of the impression they make upon him. I know nothing about an object when I have a sensation. I can only say I am aware of the appearance of a sensation in myself. I cannot experience the attributes which enable the objects to evoke sensations in me. In Kant's view man has nothing to do with the things-in-themselves, but only with the impression they make upon him and with the connections into which he himself brings these impressions. The realm of experience is not received objectively, from without, but is only instigated from without; it is produced subjectively from within. The character it bears is not imparted to it by the objects but by the organisation of man. It has therefore no existence per se apart from man. From this point of view the postulation of essential truths—truths that are independent of experience—is possible. For these truths are related merely to the way in which man determines his world of experience from out of himself. They contain the laws of his constitution. They have no relation to things-in-themselves. Kant, then, has found a way out which enables him to adhere to his preconception that there are essential truths which hold good for the content of the world of experience without being derived therefrom. In order to discover this way out he had, of course, to decide in favour of the view that the human mind is incapable of knowing anything about things-in-themselves. He had to limit all knowledge to the phenomenal world which the human organisation weaves out of itself as the result of the impressions produced by the objects. Why should Kant trouble about the essential being of the thing-in-itself if he could only preserve the eternal, necessary truths in the sense in which he conceived of them? One-sided Platonism produced in Kant a harvest that is paralysing to knowledge. Plato turned away from perception and directed his gaze to the eternal ideas, because it seemed to him that perception did not make manifest the essence of the objects. Kant, however, renounces the conception that the ideas open up a true insight into the essential being of the universe if only there remains to them the attribute of eternity and necessity. Plato adheres to the world of ideas because of his belief that the true being of the universe must be eternal, imperishable, unchangeable, and because he can ascribe these attributes only to the ideas. Kant is content with merely predicting these attributes of the ideas. They need not then any longer express the essential being of the universe.
[ 7 ] Kant's philosophical mode of conception was nourished in a yet higher degree by the trend of his religious sense. He did not proceed from vision of the living harmony of the world of ideas and sense-perception in the being of man, but he put this question to himself: Can anything be cognised by man, as the result of experience of the world of ideas that can never enter into the realm of sense perception? A man who thinks in the Goethean sense seeks to cognise the world of ideas in its real nature by apprehending the essential being of the idea, realising how this allows reality to be perceived in the world of sense-appearance. Then he may ask himself: To what extent does this experience of the real character of the world of ideas enable me to penetrate into the region wherein the relationship of the supersensible truths of Freedom, of Immortality, of the Divine World Order to human knowledge is discovered? Kant denies that it is possible to cognise anything about the reality of the world of ideas from its relationship to sense-perception. Out of this assumption there arose for him, as a scientific result, that which, unconsciously to him, was demanded by the trend of his religious sense: that scientific cognition must come to a standstill before problems which concern Freedom, Immortality, and the Divine World Order. It followed that, for him, human cognition can only reach to the boundaries enclosing the realm of sense and that in reference to everything that lies beyond faith alone is possible. He wanted to set bounds to cognition in order to preserve a place for faith. It inheres in the character of the Goethean world-conception first to provide knowledge with a firm foundation as the result of perceiving in Nature the world of ideas in its true being, in order hereafter, within this world of ideas, to proceed to experience lying outside the sense world. Even when regions are cognised which do not lie within the realm of the sense world, the gaze is directed to the living harmony of idea and experience, and certainty of knowledge is sought as a result of this. Kant could discover no such certainty. He therefore set out to discover, beyond knowledge, a foundation for the conceptions of Freedom, of Immortality and of the Divine World Order. Inherent in the character of the Goethean world-conception is the desire to know as much of the “things-in-themselves” as is permitted by the comprehension of the true being of the world of ideas within Nature. The nature of the Kantian world-conception makes it deny to knowledge the claim of being able to illuminate the world of the “things-in-themselves.” Goethe wants to kindle in knowledge a light that will illuminate the true essence of the objects. He realises that the true essence of the objects so illuminated does not lie in the light, but in spite of this he maintains that this true essence may become manifest as a result of the illumination. Kant insists that the true essence of the illuminated objects does not inhere in the light; the light therefore can reveal nothing of this true essence.
[ 8 ] The Kantian world-conception can only appear to Goethe's in the following light: the Kantian world-conception has not arisen as the result of the removal of old errors, nor of a free, original penetration into reality, but as the result of a logical interblending of acquired and inherited philosophical and religious preconceptions. It could only emanate from a mind where the sense of the living, creative activity in Nature has remained in an undeveloped condition. And it could only influence minds that also suffered from the same defect. The far-reaching influence which Kant's mode of thought exercised on his contemporaries proves to what an extent they were living under the ban of a one-sided Platonism.
Die Folgen der platonischen Weltanschauung
[ 1 ] Vergeblich hat sich Aristoteles gegen die platonische Spaltung der Weltvorstellung aufgelehnt. Er sah in der Natur ein einheitliches Wesen, das die Ideen ebenso enthält, wie die durch die Sinne wahrnehmbaren Dinge und Erscheinungen. Nur im menschlichen Geiste können die Ideen ein selbständiges Dasein haben. Aber in dieser Selbständigkeit kommt ihnen keine Wirklichkeit zu. Bloß die Seele kann sie abtrennen von den wahrnehmbaren Dingen, mit denen zusammen sie die Wirklichkeit ausmachen. Hätte die abendländische Philosophie an die richtig verstandene Anschauung des Aristoteles angeknüpft, so wäre sie bewahrt geblieben vor manchem, was der Goetheschen Weltanschauung als Verirrung erscheinen muß.
[ 2 ] Aber dieser richtig verstandene Aristoteles war zunächst manchem unbequem, der eine Gedankengrundlage für die christlichen Vorstellungen gewinnen wollte. Mit einer Naturauffassung, welche das höchste wirksame Prinzip in die Erfahrungswelt verlegt, wußte mancher, der sich für einen echt «christlichen» Denker hielt, nichts anzufangen. Manche christliche Philosophen und Theologen deuteten deshalb den Aristoteles um. Sie legten seinen Ansichten einen Sinn unter, der nach ihrer Meinung geeignet war, dem christlichen Dogma zur logischen Stütze zu dienen. Nicht suchen sollte der Geist in den Dingen die schaffenden Ideen. Die Wahrheit ist ja den Menschen von Gott in Form der Offenbarung mitgeteilt. Nur bestätigen sollte die Vernunft, was Gott geoffenbart hat. Die aristotelischen Sätze wurden von den christlichen Denkern des Mittelalters so gedeutet, daß die religiöse Heilswahrheit durch sie ihre philosophische Bekräftigung erhielt. Erst die Auffassung Thomas' von Aquino, des bedeutendsten christlichen Denkers, sucht die aristotelischen Gedanken in einer tiefgehenden Art in die christliche Ideenentwicklung so weit einzuweben, als es in der Zeit dieses Denkers möglich war. Nach dieser Auffassung enthält die Offenbarung die höchsten Wahrheiten, die Heilslehre der heiligen Schrift; aber es ist der Vernunft möglich, in aristotelischer Weise in die Dinge sich zu vertiefen und deren Ideengehalt aus ihnen herauszuholen. Die Offenbarung steigt so tief herab und die Vernunft kann sich so weit erheben, daß die Heilslehre und die menschliche Erkenntnis an einer Grenze in einander übergehen. Die Art des Aristoteles, in die Dinge einzudringen, dient also für Thomas dazu, bis zu dem Gebiete der Offenbarung zu kommen.
[ 3 ] Als mit Bacon von Verulam und Descartes eine Zeit anhob, in welcher der Wille sich geltend machte, die Wahrheit durch die eigene Kraft der menschlichen Persönlichkeit zu suchen, waren die Denkgewohnheiten in solche Richtungen gebracht, daß alles Streben zu nichts anderem führte als zur Aufstellung von Ansichten, die trotz ihrer scheinbaren Unabhängigkeit von der vorangehenden abendländischen Vorstellungswelt, doch nichts waren als neue Formen derselben. Auch Bacon und Descartes haben den bösen Blick für das Verhältnis von Erfahrung und Idee als Erbstück einer entarteten Gedankenwelt mitbekommen. Bacon hatte nur Sinn und Verständnis für die Einzelheiten der Natur. Durch Sammeln desjenigen, was durch die räumliche und zeitliche Mannigfaltigkeit als Gleiches oder Ähnliches sich hindurchzieht, glaubte er zu allgemeinen Regeln über das Naturgeschehen zu kommen. Goethe spricht über ihn das treffende Wort: «Denn ob er schon selbst immer darauf hindeutet, man solle die Partikularien nur deswegen sammeln, damit man aus ihnen wählen, sie ordnen und endlich zu Universalien gelangen könne, so behalten doch bei ihm die einzelnen Fälle zu viele Rechte, und ehe man durch Induktion, selbst diejenige, die er anpreist, zur Vereinfachung und zum Abschluß gelangen kann, geht das Leben weg, und die Kräfte verzehren sich.» Für Bacon sind diese allgemeinen Regeln Mittel, durch welche es der Vernunft möglich ist, das Gebiet der Einzelheiten bequem zu überschauen. Aber er glaubt nicht, daß diese Regeln in dem Ideengehalte der Dinge begründet und wirklich schaffende Kräfte der Natur sind. Deshalb sucht er auch nicht unmittelbar in der Einzelheit die Idee auf, sondern abstrahiert sie aus einer Vielheit von Einzelheiten. Wer nicht daran glaubt, daß in dem einzelnen Dinge die Idee lebt, kann auch keine Neigung haben, sie in demselben zu suchen. Er nimmt das Ding so hin, wie es sich der bloßen äußeren Anschauung darbietet. Bacons Bedeutung ist darin zu suchen, daß er auf die durch den gekennzeichneten einseitigen Platonismus herabgewürdigte äußere Anschauungsweise hinwies. Daß er betonte, in ihr sei eine Quelle der Wahrheit. Er war aber nicht im Stande, der Ideenwelt in gleicher Weise zu ihrem Rechte gegenüber der Anschauungswelt zu verhelfen. Er erklärte das Ideelle für ein subjektives Element im menschlichen Geiste. Seine Denkweise ist umgekehrter Platonismus. Plato sieht nur in der Ideenwelt, Bacon nur in der ideenlosen Wahrnehmungswelt die Wirklichkeit. In Bacons Auffassung liegt der Ausgangspunkt jener Denkergesinnung, von welcher die Naturforscher bis in die Gegenwart beherrscht sind. Sie leidet an einer falschen Ansicht über das ideelle Element der Erfahrungswelt. Sie konnte nicht zurechtkommen mit der durch eine einseitige Fragestellung erzeugten Ansicht des Mittelalters, die dahin ging, daß die Ideen nur Namen, keine in den Dingen liegenden Wirklichkeiten seien.
[ 4 ] Von anderen Gesichtspunkten aus, aber nicht minder beeinflußt durch einseitig platonisierende Denkungsarten, stellte drei Jahrzehnte nach Bacon Descartes seine Betrachtungen an. Auch er krankt an der Erbsünde des abendländischen Denkens, an dem Mißtrauen gegenüber der unbefangenen Beobachtung der Natur. Der Zweifel an der Existenz und Erkennbarkeit der Dinge ist der Anfang seines Forschens. Nicht auf die Dinge richtet er den Blick, um Zugang zur Gewißheit zu erlangen, sondern eine ganz kleine Pforte, einen Schleichweg, im vollsten Sinne des Wortes sucht er auf. In das intimste Gebiet des Denkens zieht er sich zurück. Alles, was ich bisher als Wahrheit geglaubt habe, kann falsch sein, sagt er sich. Was ich gedacht habe, kann auf Täuschung beruhen. Aber die eine Tatsache bleibt doch bestehen, daß ich über die Dinge denke. Auch wenn ich Lug und Trug denke, so denke ich doch. Und wenn ich denke, so existiere ich auch. Ich denke, also bin ich. Damit glaubt Descartes einen festen Ausgangspunkt für alles weitere Nachdenken gewonnen zu haben. Er fragt sich weiter: gibt es nicht in dem Inhalte meines Denkens noch anderes, das auf ein wahrhaftes Sein hindeutet? Und da findet er die Idee Gottes, als eines allervollkommensten Wesens. Da der Mensch selbst unvollkommen ist: wie kommt die Idee eines allervollkommensten Wesens in seine Gedankenwelt? Ein unvollkommenes Wesen kann eine solche Idee unmöglich aus sich selbst erzeugen. Denn das vollkommenste, das es zu denken vermag, ist eben ein unvollkommenes. Es muß also diese Idee von dem vollkommensten Wesen selbst in den Menschen gelegt sein. Also muß auch Gott existieren. Wie aber soll ein vollkommenes Wesen uns eine Täuschung vorspiegeln? Die Außenwelt, die sich uns als wirklich darstellt, muß deshalb auch wirklich sein. Sonst wäre sie ein Trugbild, das uns die Gottheit vormachte. Auf diese Weise sucht Descartes das Vertrauen zur Wirklichkeit zu gewinnen, das ihm wegen ererbter Empfindungen zuerst fehlte. Auf einem äußerst künstlichen Wege sucht er die Wahrheit. Einseitig vom Denken geht er aus. Nur dem Denken gesteht er die Kraft zu, Überzeugung hervorzubringen. Über die Beobachtung kann nur eine Überzeugung gewonnen werden, wenn sie durch das Denken vermittelt wird. Die Folge dieser Ansicht war, daß es das Streben der Nachfolger Descartes wurde, den ganzen Umfang der Wahrheiten, die das Denken aus sich heraus entwickeln und beweisen kann, festzustellen. Die Summe aller Erkenntnisse aus reiner Vernunft wollte man finden. Von den einfachsten unmittelbar klaren Einsichten wollte man ausgehen, und fortschreitend den ganzen Kreis des reinen Denkens durchwandern. Nach dem Muster der Euklidischen Geometrie sollte dieses System aufgebaut werden. Denn man war der Ansicht, auch diese gehe von einfachen, wahren Sätzen aus und entwickle durch bloße Schlußfolgerung, ohne Zuhilfenahme der Beobachtung, ihren ganzen Inhalt. Ein solches System reiner Vernunftwahrheiten zu liefern, hat Spinoza in seiner «Ethik» versucht. Eine Anzahl von Vorstellungen: Substanz, Attribut, Modus, Denken, Ausdehnung usw. nimmt er vor und untersucht rein verstandesmäßig die Beziehungen und den Inhalt dieser Vorstellungen. In dem Gedankengebäude soll das Wesen der Wirklichkeit sich aussprechen. Spinoza betrachtet nur die Erkenntnis, die durch diese wirklichkeitsfremde Tätigkeit zustande kommt, als eine solche, die dem wahren Wesen der Welt entspricht, die adäquate Ideen liefert. Die aus der Sinneswahmehmung entsprungenen Ideen sind ihm inadäquat, verworren und verstümmelt. Es ist leicht einzusehen, daß auch in dieser Vorstellungswelt die einseitig platonische Auffassungsweise von dem Gegensatz der Wahrnehmungen und der Ideen nachwirkt. Die Gedanken, die unabhängig von der Wahrnehmung gebildet werden, sind allein das Wertvolle für die Erkenntnis. Spinoza geht noch weiter. Er dehnt den Gegensatz auch auf das sittliche Empfinden und Handeln der Menschen aus. Unlustempfindungen können nur aus Ideen entspringen, die von der Wahrnehmung stammen; solche Ideen erzeugen die Begierden und Leidenschaften im Menschen, deren Sklave er werden kann, wenn er sich ihnen hingibt. Nur was aus der Vernunft entspringt, erzeugt unbedingte Lustempfindungen. Das höchste Glück des Menschen ist daher sein Leben in den Vernunftideen, die Hingabe an die Erkenntnis der reinen Ideenwelt. Wer überwunden hat, was aus der Wahrnehmungswelt stammt, und nur noch in der reinen Erkenntnis lebt, empfindet die höchste Seligkeit.
[ 5 ] Nicht ganz ein Jahrhundert nach Spinoza tritt der Schotte David Hume mit einer Denkweise auf, die wieder aus der Wahrnehmung allein die Erkenntnis entspringen läßt. Nur einzelne Dinge in Raum und Zeit sind gegeben. Das Denken verknüpft die einzelnen Wahrnehmungen, aber nicht, weil in diesen selbst etwas liegt, was dieser Verknüpfung entspricht, sondern weil sich der Verstand daran gewöhnt hat, die Dinge in einen Zusammenhang zu bringen. Der Mensch ist gewohnt, zu sehen, daß ein Ding auf ein anderes der Zeit nach folgt. Er bildet sich die Vorstellung, daß es folgen müsse. Er macht das erste zur Ursache, das zweite zur Wirkung. Der Mensch ist ferner gewohnt zu sehen, daß auf einen Gedanken seines Geistes eine Bewegung seines Leibes folgt. Er erklärt sich dies dadurch, daß er sagt, der Geist habe die Leibesbewegung bewirkt. Denkgewohnheiten, nichts weiter sind die menschlichen Ideen. Wirklichkeit haben nur die Wahrnehmungen.
[ 6 ] Die Vereinigung der verschiedensten durch die Jahrhunderte hindurch zum Dasein gelangten Denkrichtungen ist die Kantsche Weltanschauung. Auch Kant fehlt die natürliche Empfindung für das Verhältnis von Wahrnehmung und Idee. Er lebt in philosophischen Vorurteilen, die er durch Studium seiner Vorgänger in sich aufgenommen hat. Das eine dieser Vorurteile ist, daß es notwendige Wahrheiten gebe, die durch reines, von aller Erfahrung freies Denken erzeugt werden. Der Beweis davon ist, nach seiner Ansicht, durch die Existenz der Mathematik und der reinen Physik erbracht, die solche Wahrheiten enthalten. Ein anderes seiner Vorurteile besteht darin, daß er der Erfahrung die Fähigkeit abspricht, zu gleich notwendigen Wahrheiten zu gelangen. Das Mißtrauen gegenüber der Wahrnehmungswelt ist auch in Kant vorhanden. Zu diesen seinen Denkgewohnheiten tritt bei Kant der Einfluß Humes hinzu. Er gibt Hume recht in Bezug auf die Behauptung, daß die Ideen, in die das Denken die einzelnen Wahrnehmungen zusammenfaßt, nicht aus der Erfahrung stammen. Sondern daß das Denken sie zur Erfahrung hinzufügt. Diese drei Vorurteile sind die Wurzeln des Kantschen Gedankengebäudes. Der Mensch besitzt notwendige Wahrheiten. Sie können nicht aus der Erfahrung stammen, weil diese keine solchen darbietet. Dennoch wendet sie der Mensch auf die Erfahrung an. Er verknüpft die einzelnen Wahrnehmungen diesen Wahrheiten gemäß. Sie stammen aus dem Menschen selbst. Es liegt in seiner Natur, daß er die Dinge in einen solchen Zusammenhang bringt, der den durch reines Denken gewonnenen Wahrheiten entspricht. Kant geht nun noch weiter. Er spricht auch den Sinnen die Fähigkeit zu, das was ihnen von außen gegeben wird, in eine bestimmte Ordnung zu bringen. Auch diese Ordnung fließt nicht mit den Eindrücken der Dinge von außen ein. Die räumliche und die zeitliche Ordnung erhalten die Eindrücke erst durch die sinnliche Wahrnehmung. Raum und Zeit gehören nicht den Dingen an. Der Mensch ist so organisiert, daß er, wenn die Dinge auf seine Sinne Eindrücke machen, diese in räumliche oder zeitliche Zusammenhänge bringt. Nur Eindrücke, Empfindungen erhält der Mensch von außen. Die Anordnung derselben im Raum und in der Zeit, ihre Zusammenfassung zu Ideen ist sein eigenes Werk. Aber auch die Empfindungen sind nichts, was aus den Dingen stammt. Nicht die Dinge nimmt der Mensch wahr, sondern nur die Eindrücke, die sie auf ihn ausüben. Ich weiß nichts von einem Dinge, wenn ich eine Empfindung habe. Ich kann nur sagen: ich bemerke das Auftreten einer Empfindung bei mir. Durch welche Eigenschaften das Ding befähigt ist, in mir die Empfindungen hervorzurufen, darüber kann ich nichts erfahren. Der Mensch hat es, nach Kants Meinung, nicht mit den Dingen an sich zu tun, sondern nur mit den Eindrücken, die sie auf ihn machen und mit den Zusammenhängen, in die er selbst diese Eindrücke bringt. Nicht objektiv von außen aufgenommen, sondern nur auf äußere Veranlassung hin, subjektiv von innen erzeugt, ist die Erfahrungswelt. Das Gepräge, das sie trägt, geben ihr nicht die Dinge, sondern die menschliche Organisation. Sie ist folglich als solche unabhängig von dem Menschen gar nicht vorhanden. Von diesem Standpunkte aus ist die Annahme notwendiger, von der Erfahrung unabhängiger Wahrheiten möglich. Denn diese Wahrheiten beziehen sich bloß auf die Art, wie der Mensch von sich selbst aus seine Erfahrungswelt bestimmt. Sie enthalten die Gesetze seiner Organisation. Sie haben keinen Bezug auf die Dinge an sich selbst. Kant hat also einen Ausweg gefunden, der es ihm gestattet, bei seinem Vorurteile stehen zu bleiben, daß es notwendige Wahrheiten gebe, die für den Inhalt der Erfahrungswelt gelten, ohne doch daraus zu stammen. Allerdings mußte er, um diesen Ausweg zu finden, sich zu der Ansicht entschließen, daß der menschliche Geist unfähig sei, irgend etwas über die Dinge an sich zu wissen. Er mußte alles Erkennen auf die Erscheinungswelt einschränken, welche die menschliche Organisation aus sich herausspinnt infolge der von den Dingen verursachten Eindrücke. Aber was kümmerte Kant das Wesen der Dinge an sich, wenn er nur die ewigen, notwendig-gültigen Wahrheiten in dem Sinne retten konnte, wie er sich dieselben vorstellte. Der einseitige Platonismus hat in Kant eine die Erkenntnis lähmende Frucht hervorgebracht. Plato hat sich von der Wahrnehmung abgewendet und den Blick auf die ewigen Ideen gerichtet, weil ihm jene das Wesen der Dinge nicht auszusprechen schien. Kant aber verzichtet darauf, daß die Ideen eine wirkliche Einsicht in das Wesen der Welt eröffnen, wenn ihnen nur die Eigenschaft des Ewigen und Notwendigen verbleibt. Plato hält sich an die Ideenwelt, weil er glaubt, daß das wahre Wesen der Welt ewig, unzerstörbar, unwandelbar sein muß, und er diese Eigenschaften nur den Ideen zusprechen kann. Kant ist zufrieden, wenn er nur diese Eigenschaften von den Ideen behaupten kann. Sie brauchen dann gar nicht mehr das Wesen der Welt auszusprechen.
[ 7 ] Die philosophische Vorstellungsart Kants wurde noch besonders genährt von seiner religiösen Empfindungsrichtung. Er ging nicht davon aus, in der menschlichen Wesenheit den lebendigen Zusammenklang von Ideenwelt und Sinneswahmehmung zu schauen, sondern er legte sich die Frage vor: Kann von dem Menschen durch das Erleben der Ideenwelt etwas erkannt werden, das niemals in den Bereich der Sinneswahrung eintreten kann? Wer im Sinne der Goetheschen Weltanschauung denkt, der sucht den Wirklichkeitscharakter der Ideenwelt dadurch zu erkennen, daß er das Wesen der Idee erfaßt, indem ihm klar wird, wie diese in der sinnlichen Scheinwelt Wirklichkeit anschauen läßt. Dann darf er sich fragen: In wie weit kann ich durch den so erlebten Wirklichkeitscharakter der Ideenwelt in die Gebiete dringen, in denen die übersinnlichen Wahrheiten der Freiheit, der Unsterblichkeit, der göttlichen Weltordnung ihr Verhältnis zur menschlichen Erkenntnis finden? Kant verneinte die Möglichkeit, über die Wirklichkeit der Ideenwelt aus deren Verhältnis zur Sinneswahmehmung etwas wissen zu können. Aus dieser Voraussetzung heraus ergab sich für ihn als wissenschaftliches Ergebnis dasjenige, was, ihm unbewußt, von seiner religiösen Empfindungsrichtung gefordert wurde: daß das wissenschaftliche Erkennen Halt machen müsse vor solchen Fragen, welche die Freiheit, die Unsterblichkeit, die göttliche Weltordnung betreffen. Ihm ergab sich, daß das menschliche Erkennen nur bis an die Grenzen gehen könne, die den Sinnesbereich umschließen, und daß für alles, was darüber hinausliegt, nur ein Glaube möglich sei. Er wollte das Wissen eingrenzen, um für den Glauben Platz zu erhalten. Im Sinne der Goetheschen Weltanschauung liegt es, das Wissen erst dadurch mit einer festen Grundlage zu versehen, daß die Ideenwelt in ihrem Wesen an der Natur geschaut wird, um dann in der befestigten Ideenwelt zu einer über die Sinnenwelt hinausliegenden Erfahrung zu schreiten. Auch dann, wenn Gebiete erkannt werden, die nicht im Bereich der Sinneswelt liegen, wird der Blick auf den lebendigen Zusammenklang von Idee und Erfahrung gelenkt und dadurch die Sicherheit des Erkennens gesucht. Kant konnte eine solche Sicherheit nicht finden. Deshalb ging er darauf aus, für die Vorstellungen von Freiheit, Unsterblichkeit und Gottesordnung außerhalb des Erkennens eine Grundlage zu finden. Im Sinne der Goetheschen Weltanschauung liegt es, von «Dingen an sich» so viel erkennen zu wollen, als das an der Natur erfaßte Wesen der Ideenwelt gestattet. Im Sinne der Kantschen Weltanschauung liegt es, der Erkenntnis das Recht abzusprechen, in die Welt der «Dinge an sich» hineinzuleuchten. Goethe will in der Erkenntnis ein Licht anzünden, welches das Wesen der Dinge beleuchtet. Ihm ist auch klar, daß im Licht nicht das Wesen der beleuchteten Dinge liegt; aber er will trotzdem nicht darauf verzichten, dieses Wesen durch die Beleuchtung mit dem Lichte offenbar werden zu lassen. Kant hält daran fest: in dem Lichte liegt nicht das Wesen der beleuchteten Dinge; deshalb kann das Licht nichts offenbaren über dieses Wesen.
[ 8 ] Vor der Goetheschen Weltanschauung kann diejenige Kants nur im Sinne der folgenden Vorstellungen stehen: Nicht durch Hinwegräumung alter Irrtümer, nicht durch eine freie, ursprüngliche Vertiefung in die Wirklichkeit ist diese Weltanschauung entstanden, sondern durch logische Verschmelzung anerzogener und ererbter philosophischer und religiöser Vorurteile. Sie konnte nur aus einem Geiste entspringen, in dem der Sinn für das lebendige Schaffen innerhalb der Natur unentwickelt geblieben ist. Und sie konnte nur auf solche Geister wirken, die an dem gleichen Mangel litten. Aus dem weitgehenden Einflusse, den Kants Denkweise auf seine Zeitgenossen ausübte, ist zu ersehen, wie stark diese in dem Banne des einseitigen Platonismus standen.
The consequences of the Platonic worldview
[ 1 ] Aristotle rebelled in vain against the Platonic division of the conception of the world. He saw in nature a unified being that contains the ideas as well as the things and phenomena that can be perceived by the senses. Only in the human mind can ideas have an independent existence. But in this independence they have no reality. Only the soul can separate them from the perceptible things with which they make up reality. If Western philosophy had followed the correctly understood view of Aristotle, it would have been saved from many things that must appear as aberrations to Goethe's world view.
[ 2 ] But this correctly understood Aristotle was initially uncomfortable for some who wanted to gain a basis of thought for Christian ideas. Some people who considered themselves to be genuinely "Christian" thinkers did not know what to do with a view of nature that transferred the highest effective principle to the world of experience. Some Christian philosophers and theologians therefore reinterpreted Aristotle. They gave his views a meaning which, in their opinion, was suitable to serve as logical support for Christian dogma. The mind should not search for the creative ideas in things. After all, the truth is communicated to people by God in the form of revelation. Reason should only confirm what God has revealed. The Aristotelian propositions were interpreted by the Christian thinkers of the Middle Ages in such a way that the religious truth of salvation received its philosophical affirmation through them. Only the view of Thomas Aquinas, the most important Christian thinker, sought to weave Aristotle's thoughts into the Christian development of ideas in a profound way, as far as was possible in the time of this thinker. According to this view, revelation contains the highest truths, the doctrine of salvation of Holy Scripture; but it is possible for reason to delve into things in an Aristotelian way and to extract their idea content from them. Revelation descends so low and reason can rise so high that the doctrine of salvation and human knowledge merge into one another at a boundary. Aristotle's way of penetrating into things thus serves Thomas to reach the realm of revelation.
[ 3 ] When, with Bacon of Verulam and Descartes, a time arose in which the will to seek the truth by the own power of the human personality asserted itself, the habits of thought were taken in such directions that all striving led to nothing other than the establishment of views which, despite their apparent independence from the preceding occidental world of ideas, were nothing but new forms of the same. Bacon and Descartes also inherited the evil eye for the relationship between experience and idea as an heirloom of a degenerate world of thought. Bacon only had a sense and understanding of the details of nature. He believed that he could arrive at general rules about natural events by collecting together what was the same or similar through the spatial and temporal diversity. Goethe says the following about him: "For although he himself always indicates that particulars should only be collected so that one can choose from them, organize them and finally arrive at universals, the individual cases retain too many rights for him, and before one can arrive at simplification and conclusion through induction, even that which he praises, life goes away and the forces consume themselves." For Bacon, these general rules are means by which reason is able to comfortably survey the realm of details. But he does not believe that these rules are grounded in the idea content of things and are truly creative forces of nature. Therefore he does not seek the idea directly in the particular, but abstracts it from a multiplicity of particulars. He who does not believe that the idea lives in the individual thing can also have no inclination to seek it in it. He accepts the thing as it presents itself to mere external perception. Bacon's significance is to be sought in the fact that he pointed to the external way of looking at things, which had been degraded by the one-sided Platonism that characterized it. He emphasized that there was a source of truth in it. However, he was not able to help the world of ideas to gain its rights in the same way as the world of perception. He declared the ideal to be a subjective element in the human spirit. His way of thinking is inverted Platonism. Plato sees reality only in the world of ideas, Bacon only in the world of perception without ideas. In Bacon's view lies the starting point of the way of thinking that has dominated natural scientists up to the present day. It suffers from a false view of the ideal element of the world of experience. It could not come to terms with the view of the Middle Ages, which was generated by a one-sided approach to questions and which held that ideas were only names, not realities lying in things.
[ 4 ] Three decades after Bacon, Descartes made his observations from a different point of view, but no less influenced by one-sided, platonizing ways of thinking. He too suffers from the original sin of Western thought, the mistrust of unbiased observation of nature. Doubt about the existence and recognizability of things is the beginning of his research. He does not focus his gaze on things in order to gain access to certainty, but rather seeks out a very small gateway, a secret path, in the fullest sense of the word. He withdraws into the most intimate area of thought. Everything I have believed to be true up to now can be wrong, he says to himself. What I have thought can be based on deception. But the one fact remains that I think about things. Even if I think lies and deception, I still think. And when I think, I also exist. I think, therefore I am. With this, Descartes believes he has gained a firm starting point for all further reflection. He goes on to ask himself: is there not something else in the content of my thinking that points to a true existence? And there he finds the idea of God as a most perfect being. Since man himself is imperfect, how does the idea of a most perfect being enter his world of thought? An imperfect being cannot possibly generate such an idea from within itself. For the most perfect thing it is capable of thinking is precisely an imperfect one. This idea of the most perfect being must therefore be placed in man himself. So God must also exist. But how can a perfect being deceive us? The external world, which presents itself to us as real, must therefore also be real. Otherwise it would be an illusion that the deity is pretending to be. In this way, Descartes seeks to gain the trust in reality that he initially lacked because of inherited sensations. He seeks the truth in an extremely artificial way. He proceeds unilaterally from thinking. He concedes that only thinking has the power to produce conviction. Conviction can only be gained through observation if it is mediated by thinking. The consequence of this view was that it became the endeavor of Descartes' successors to determine the full extent of the truths that thinking can develop and prove on its own. They wanted to find the sum of all knowledge from pure reason. They wanted to start from the simplest, immediately clear insights and progressively wander through the entire circle of pure thought. This system was to be structured along the lines of Euclidean geometry. For it was believed that this, too, proceeded from simple, true propositions and developed its entire content by mere deduction, without the aid of observation. Spinoza attempted to provide such a system of pure rational truths in his "Ethics". A number of ideas: Substance, attribute, mode, thought, extension, etc., he takes and examines purely rationally the relations and content of these ideas. The essence of reality is to be expressed in the structure of thought. Spinoza regards only the cognition that comes about through this activity that is alien to reality as one that corresponds to the true nature of the world, that provides adequate ideas. The ideas arising from sense perception are for him inadequate, confused and mutilated. It is easy to see that even in this world of ideas the one-sided Platonic conception of the opposition of perceptions and ideas continues to have an effect. Thoughts, which are formed independently of perception, are the only thing of value for knowledge. Spinoza goes even further. He also extends the contrast to people's moral feelings and actions. Feelings of displeasure can only arise from ideas that originate from perception; such ideas generate the desires and passions in man, to which he can become a slave if he surrenders to them. Only that which springs from reason generates unconditional sensations of pleasure. Man's highest happiness is therefore his life in the ideas of reason, his devotion to the knowledge of the pure world of ideas. He who has overcome what comes from the world of perception and lives only in pure knowledge feels the highest bliss.
[ 5 ] Not quite a century after Spinoza, the Scotsman David Hume came up with a way of thinking that again allows knowledge to arise from perception alone. Only individual things in space and time are given. Thought links the individual perceptions, but not because there is something in them that corresponds to this link, but because the mind has become accustomed to putting things into a context. Man is accustomed to seeing that one thing follows another in time. He forms the idea that it must follow. He makes the first the cause, the second the effect. Man is further accustomed to see that a thought of his mind is followed by a movement of his body. He explains this by saying that the spirit has caused the movement of the body. Human ideas are nothing more than habits of thought. Only perceptions have reality.
[ 6 ] The unification of the most diverse schools of thought that have come into existence through the centuries is the Kantian worldview. Kant also lacks a natural feeling for the relationship between perception and idea. He lives in philosophical prejudices that he has absorbed through the study of his predecessors. One of these prejudices is that there are necessary truths that are generated by pure thinking, free of all experience. The proof of this, in his view, is provided by the existence of mathematics and pure physics, which contain such truths. Another of his prejudices is that he denies experience the ability to arrive at equally necessary truths. Distrust of the world of perception is also present in Kant. In addition to these habits of thought, Kant is influenced by Hume. He agrees with Hume with regard to the assertion that the ideas into which thought summarizes individual perceptions do not come from experience. But that thought adds them to experience. These three prejudices are the roots of Kant's thought structure. Man possesses necessary truths. They cannot come from experience, because experience does not offer them. Nevertheless, man applies them to experience. He links the individual perceptions according to these truths. They come from man himself. It is in his nature that he brings things into such a connection that corresponds to the truths gained through pure thinking. Kant now goes even further. He also ascribes to the senses the ability to bring what is given to them from outside into a certain order. This order, too, does not flow in with the impressions of things from outside. The spatial and temporal order is only given to the impressions through sensory perception. Space and time do not belong to things. Man is organized in such a way that when things make impressions on his senses, he brings them into spatial or temporal contexts. Man only receives impressions, sensations from outside. The arrangement of these in space and time, their combination into ideas, is his own work. But even sensations are not something that originates from things. Man does not perceive things, but only the impressions they exert on him. I know nothing of a thing when I have a sensation. I can only say: I notice the occurrence of a sensation in me. I can find out nothing about the qualities that enable the thing to evoke sensations in me. According to Kant, man is not concerned with the things themselves, but only with the impressions they make on him and with the contexts into which he himself brings these impressions. The world of experience is not objectively received from outside, but only generated subjectively from within on external instigation. It is not the things that give it its character, but the human organization. Consequently, it does not exist as such independently of the human being. From this point of view, the assumption of necessary truths independent of experience is possible. For these truths merely refer to the way in which man determines his world of experience from within himself. They contain the laws of his organization. They have no reference to the things themselves. Kant has thus found a way out that allows him to stand by his prejudice that there are necessary truths that apply to the content of the world of experience without originating from it. However, in order to find this way out, he had to decide on the view that the human mind is incapable of knowing anything about things in themselves. He had to restrict all cognition to the world of appearances, which the human organization spins out of itself as a result of the impressions caused by things. But what did Kant care about the nature of things in themselves if he could only save the eternal, necessarily valid truths in the sense in which he imagined them. In Kant, one-sided Platonism produced a fruit that paralyzed knowledge. Plato turned away from perception and directed his gaze to the eternal Ideas, because they did not seem to him to express the essence of things. Kant, however, renounces the idea that the Ideas open up a real insight into the essence of the world if they only retain the quality of being eternal and necessary. Plato sticks to the world of ideas because he believes that the true essence of the world must be eternal, indestructible, unchangeable, and that he can only attribute these qualities to the ideas. Kant is satisfied if he can only assert these qualities of the ideas. They then no longer need to express the essence of the world at all.
[ 7 ] Kant's philosophical way of thinking was particularly nourished by his religious sensibility. He did not assume to see the living harmony of the world of ideas and sensory perception in the human being, but rather posed the question: Can something be recognized by man through the experience of the world of ideas that can never enter the realm of sense perception? Whoever thinks in the sense of Goethe's world view seeks to recognize the reality character of the world of ideas by grasping the essence of the idea, by realizing how it allows reality to be seen in the sensory illusory world. Then he may ask himself: To what extent can I, through the reality character of the world of ideas experienced in this way, penetrate into the realms in which the supersensible truths of freedom, immortality and the divine world order find their relation to human knowledge? Kant denied the possibility of being able to know anything about the reality of the world of ideas from its relationship to sense perception. From this presupposition arose for him as a scientific result that which, unconsciously to him, was demanded by his religious sensibility: that scientific knowledge must stop short of such questions as concern freedom, immortality, the divine world order. He realized that human cognition could only go as far as the limits that enclose the sensory realm, and that only faith was possible for everything beyond that. He wanted to limit knowledge in order to make room for faith. It is in the spirit of Goethe's world view to first provide knowledge with a firm foundation by seeing the world of ideas in its essence in nature, in order to then proceed in the fortified world of ideas to an experience that lies beyond the world of the senses. Even when areas are recognized that do not lie within the realm of the sense world, the gaze is directed to the living harmony of idea and experience and thereby the certainty of cognition is sought. Kant could not find such certainty. He therefore set out to find a basis for the ideas of freedom, immortality and the order of God outside of cognition. In the sense of Goethe's world view, it is to want to recognize as much of "things in themselves" as the essence of the world of ideas, grasped from nature, allows. It is in the spirit of Kant's world view to deny knowledge the right to shine a light into the world of "things in themselves". Goethe wants to light a light in knowledge that illuminates the essence of things. It is also clear to him that the essence of the illuminated things does not lie in the light; but he nevertheless does not want to do without allowing this essence to become apparent through illumination with the light. Kant maintains that the essence of the illuminated things does not lie in the light; therefore, the light cannot reveal anything about this essence
[ 8 ] Kant's worldview can only stand before Goethe's in the sense of the following ideas: This world-view arose not by the removal of old errors, not by a free, original immersion in reality, but by the logical fusion of acquired and inherited philosophical and religious prejudices. It could only spring from a mind in which the sense of living creation within nature remained undeveloped. And it could only have an effect on minds that suffered from the same deficiency. From the far-reaching influence that Kant's way of thinking exerted on his contemporaries, it can be seen how strongly they were under the spell of one-sided Platonism.