Riddles of the Soul
GA 21
5. The Real Basis of an Intentional Relation
[ 1 ] With the "intentional relation" characterized in chapter 3, a soul element enters into Brentano's psychology but only as a fact of ordinary consciousness, without this fact being further explained and incorporated into our experience of the soul. I would like to be allowed here to sketch out some things about this fact that are based for me upon views that I have worked out in many different directions. To be sure, these views still need to be brought into more detailed form and to be fully substantiated. My situation until now, however, has only made it possible for me to present certain salient points in lectures. What I can bring here are only some findings sketched out in brief. And I beg the reader to take them as such for now. These are not “sudden fancies”; We are dealing here with something that I have worked for years to substantiate, employing the scientific means of our day.
[ 2 ] In that soul experience which Franz Brentano calls “judging,” an acceptance or rejection of our mental pictures comes to meet this mere mental picturing (that consists in an inner shaping of pictures). The question arises for the soul researcher: What is it in our soul experience by which there does not merely arise the mental picture "green tree," but also the judgment "this is a green tree"? The something that accomplishes this cannot lie within the narrower circle of our life in mental pictures circumscribed by our ordinary consciousness. The fact that we cannot find it here has led to the epistemological thought that I describe in the second volume of my Riddles of Philosophy in the chapter “The World as Illusion.” At issue here is an experience lying outside this circle. The point is to discover the “where" in the realm of our soul experiences.
When a person is confronting a sense-perceptible object and unfolding his activity of perception, this something cannot be found anywhere in all that he receives in the process of perception in such a way that this receiving is grasped through the physiological and psychological pictures that relate to the outer object on the one hand, and to the pertinent sense organ on the other. When someone has the visual perception “green tree,” the fact of the judgment “this is a green tree” cannot be found in any directly evident physiological or psychological relation between “tree” and “eye.” What is experienced in the soul as the inner fact of judging is actually an additional relation between the “person” and the “tree” different from the relation between “tree” and “eye.” Nevertheless, only the latter relation is experienced in all its sharpness in ordinary consciousness. The other relation remains in a dim state of subconsciousness and only comes to light in its result as the recognition of the “green tree” as something that exists. With every perception that comes to a head as a judgment one is dealing with a twofold relation of man to objectivity.
One gains insight into this twofold relation only if one can replace today's fragmentary science of the senses with a complete one. Anyone who takes into consideration everything that pertains to a characterization of a human sense organ will find that one must call other things “senses” besides what is usually designated as such. What makes the “eye” a “sense organ,” for example, is also present when one experiences the fact that someone else's ‘I’ is observed or that someone else's thought is recognized as such. With respect to such facts one usually errs in not making a thoroughly justified and necessary distinction. One believes, for example, that when hearing the words of another person, it suffices to speak of a “sense” only insofar as “hearing” comes into question and that everything else is to be ascribed to a non-sensory, inner activity. But that is not the actual state of affairs. In hearing human words and understanding them as thoughts, a threefold activity comes into consideration. And each component of this threefold activity must be studied in its own right, if a valid scientific view is to arise. Hearing is one of these activities. But hearing as such is just as little a perception of words as touching is a seeing. And if, in accordance with the facts, one distinguishes between the sense of touch and the sense of sight, one must also make distinctions between hearing, perceiving words, and then apprehending the thought. It leads to a faulty psychology and to a faulty epistemology if one does not make a sharp distinction between our apprehension of a thought and our thought activity, and if one does not recognize the sensory nature of the former. One makes this mistake only because the organ by which we perceive a word and that by which we apprehend a thought are not as outwardly perceptible as the ear is for hearing. In reality sense organs are present for these two activities of perception just as the ear is present for hearing. If one follows through on what physiology and psychology can find in this regard if they investigate fully, one arrives at the following view of the human sense organization. One must distinguish: the sense for the T of another person; the sense for apprehending thoughts; the sense for perceiving words; the sense of hearing; the sense of warmth; the sense of sight; the sense of taste; the sense of smell; the sense of balance (the perceptive experience of finding oneself in a certain state of equilibrium with respect to the outer world); the sense of movement (the perceptive experience of the resting state or movement of one's own limbs on the one hand, and the state of rest or movement with respect to the outer world; the sense of life (the experience of the state of one's own organism; the feeling of how one is); the sense of touch. All these senses bear the traits which lead us, in truth, to call eyes and ears “senses.”
Anyone who does not acknowledge the validity of these distinctions falls into disorder in his knowledge of reality. With his mental pictures, he succumbs to the fate of their not allowing him to experience anything truly real. For someone, for example, who calls the eye a sense but assumes no sense organ for the perception of words, even the picture he forms of the eye will remain an unreal configuration.
I believe that Fritz Mauthner, in his critique of language, speaks in his clever way of a “sense for chance” only because he is looking at a fragmentary science of the human senses. If this were not the case, he would notice how a sense organ places itself into reality.
Now, when a person confronts a sense-perceptible object, the situation is such that he never receives an impression through only one sense, but always through at least one other sense as well from the series listed above. The relation to one sense enters ordinary consciousness with particular distinctness; the relation to the other sense remains dimmer. A distinction exists between the senses, however: a number of the senses allow our relation to the outer world to be experienced more as an outer one; the other senses allow us to experience the outer world more as something closely connected to our own existence. The senses that find themselves in close connection to our own existence are, for example, our sense of balance, our sense of movement, our sense of life, and even our sense of touch. In the perceptions of these senses with respect to the outer world, our own existence is dimly felt along with them. Yes, one could say that a dullness of our conscious perceiving occurs just because the relation out into the world is drowned out by the experiencing of our own being. If there occurs the seeing of an object, for example, and at the same time our sense of balance is communicating an impression, what is seen will be sharply perceived. What is seen leads to a mental picture of the object. As a perception, our experience through the sense of balance remains dull; nevertheless it manifests in the judgment that “what I see exists” or “that is what I see.”
In reality, things do not stand beside each other in abstract differentiation; they pass over into one another with their characteristics. Thus it comes about that, in the full complement of our senses, there are some that transmit less a relation to the outer world and more an experience of one's own being. These latter senses dip down more into our inner soul life than do, say, the eye or ear; therefore the results of what they transmit as perceptions appear as inner soul experiences. However, even with them, one should distinguish the actual soul element from the perceptual element just as, when seeing something, for example, one distinguishes the outer fact from the inner soul experiences one has in connection with it.
Anyone who takes the anthroposophical point of view must not shrink from such subtle distinctions in mental pictures like those made here. He must be able to distinguish between perceiving the word and hearing, on the one hand, and between perceiving the word and understanding it through his own thoughts, on the other, just as ordinary consciousness distinguishes between a tree and a rock. If one would take this more into account, one would recognize that anthroposophy does not just have the one aspect— usually called the mystical side—but also the other, by which anthroposophy leads to a research no less scientific than that of natural science; it leads in fact to a more scientific approach which requires a more subtle and more methodological elaboration of our life in mental pictures than even ordinary philosophy does. I believe that in his philosophical research Wilhelm Dilthey was on his way to the science of the senses that I have sketched out here, but that he could not attain his goal because he did not push through to a complete elaboration of the pertinent mental pictures. (Please see what I said about this in my Riddles of Philosophy).
IV-5. Über die wirkliche Grundlage der intenlionalen Beziehung
[ 1 ] Mit der in der vorliegenden Schrift (3. Kapitel über Franz Brentano) charakterisierten «intentionalen Beziehung» tritt in Brentanos Psychologie ein Seelisches nur als Tatbestand des gewöhnlichen Bewußtseins auf, ohne daß dieser Tatbestand weiter in das seelische Erleben erklärend eingegliedert wird. Ich möchte mir nun hier gestatten, über diesen Tatbestand einiges skizzenhaft vorzubringen, das bei mir in durchgearbeiteten Anschauungen nach den verschiedensten Richtungen hin begründet ist. Diese Anschauungen verlangen allerdings, daß sie auch noch in ausführlicherer Gestalt - mit allen Begründungen - gegeben werden. Doch haben mir die Verhältnisse bisher nur möglich gemacht, manches Einschlägige in mündlichen Vorträgen vorzubringen. Was ich hier anführen kann, sind Ergebnisse in kurzer skizzenhafter Darstellung. Und ich bitte den Leser, sie vorläufig als solche aufzunehmen. Es handelt sich nicht um «Einfälle», sondern um etwas, dessen Begründung mit den wissenschaftlichen Mitteln der Gegenwart von mir in jahrelanger Arbeit versucht worden ist.
[ 2 ] Bei demjenigen Seelen-Erleben, das von Franz Brentano als Urteilen bezeichnet wird, kommt zu dem bloßen Vorstellen, das in einem inneren Bildgestalten besteht, ein Anerkennen oder Verwerfen der Vorstellungsbilder hinzu. Es entsteht für den Seelenforscher die Frage: was ist im seelischen Erleben dasjenige, wodurch nicht bloß das Vorstellungsbild: «grüner Baum», sondern das Urteil: «es ist ein grüner Baum» zustande kommt? Innerhalb des engeren Kreises des Vorstellungslebens, den man im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein umschreibt, kann dieses «Etwas» nicht liegen. Daß man es hier nicht finden kann, hat zu denjenigen erkenntnistheoretischen Gedanken geführt, welche ich im zweiten Bande meiner «Rätsel der Philosophie» in dem Abschnitte: «Die Welt als Illusion» dargestellt habe. Es handelt sich dabei um ein Erlebnis, das außerhalb dieses Kreises liegt. Es kommt darauf an, das «Wo» im Bereich der seelischen Erlebnisse zu finden.
Steht der Mensch in wahrnehmender Tätigkeit einem Sinnesobjekt gegenüber, so kann dieses «Etwas»in alledem nicht gefunden werden, was der Mensch in dem Wahrnehmungsvorgange so empfängt, daß dieses Empfangen durch die physiologischen und psychologischen Vorstellungen erfaßt wird, welche sich auf das äußere Objekt einerseits und den unmittelbar in Betracht kommenden Sinn anderseits beziehen. Hat jemand die Seh-Wahrnehmung «grüner Baum», so kann der Tatbestand des Urteiles «es ist ein grüner Baum» nicht in der physiologisch oder psychologisch unmittelbar aufzeigbaren Beziehung zwischen «Baum» und «Auge» gefunden werden. Was in der Seele als solcher innerer Tatbestand des Urteilens erlebt wird, ist eben noch eine andere Beziehung zwischen dem «Menschen» und «dem Baum» als diejenige ist zwischen dem «Baum» und dem «Auge». Doch wird nur die letztere Beziehung in dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein mit voller Schärfe erlebt. Die andere Beziehung bleibt in einem dumpfen Unterbewußtsein und tritt nur in dem Ergebnis zutage, das in der Anerkennung des «grünen Baumes» als eines Seienden liegt. Man hat es bei jeder Wahrnehmung, die auf ein Urteil sich zuspitzt, mit einer Doppelbeziehung des Menschen zu der Objektivität zu tun.
Einsicht in diese Doppelbeziehung gewinnt man nur, wenn man die gegenwärtig vorhandene fragmentarische Sinnes-Lehre durch eine vollständige ersetzt. Wer alles in Betracht zieht, was zur Charakteristik eines menschlichen Sinnes in Betracht kommt, der findet, daß man noch anderes «Sinne» nennen muß als was man gewöhnlich so bezeichnet. Was das «Auge» zum «Sinn» macht, ist zum Beispiel auch dann vorhanden, wenn man den Tatbestand erlebt: «es wird ein anderes <Ich> beobachtet», oder «es wird ein menschlicher Gedanke eines anderen als solcher erkannt». Man macht gegenüber solchen Tatbeständen gewöhnlich den Fehler, daß man eine durchaus berechtigte und notwendige Unterscheidung nicht vollzieht. Man glaubt zum Beispiel, man käme damit aus, wenn man die Worte eines anderen hört, nur insoferne von «Sinn» zu sprechen, daß als solcher nur das «Gehör» in Frage kommt, und alles andere einer nicht-sinnlichen inneren Tätigkeit zuzuschreiben sei. So liegt aber die Sache nicht. Beim Hören menschlicher Worte und deren Verstehen als Gedanken kommt eine dreifache Tätigkeit in Betracht. Und jedes Glied dieser dreifachen Tätigkeit muß für sich betrachtet werden, wenn eine berechtigte wissenschaftliche Auffassung zustande kommen soll. Das «Hören»ist die eine Tätigkeit. Allein das «Hören»ist für sich ebenso wenig ein «Vernehmen von Worten» wie das «Tasten» ein «Sehen» ist. Und wie man sachgemäß unterscheiden muß zwischen dem Sinn des «Tastens» und demjenigen des «Sehens», so zwischen dem des «Hörens» und dem des «Vernehmens von Worten» und dem weiteren des «Erfassens von Gedanken». Es führt zu einer mangelhaften Psychologie und auch zu einer mangelhaften Erkenntnistheorie, wenn man das «Erfassen von Gedanken» nicht scharf von der Denktätigkeit absondert und den sinnesgemäßen Charakter des ersteren erkennt. Man begeht diesen Fehler nur deshalb, weil das Organ des «Vernehmens von Worten» und dasjenige des «Erfassens von Gedanken» nicht so äußerlich wahrnehmbar sind als das Ohr für das «Hören». In Wirklichkeit sind für die beiden Wahrnehmungstätigkeiten ebenso «Organe» vorhanden, wie für das «Hören» das Ohr.
Führt man durch, was Physiologie und Psychologie bei einer vollständigen Betrachtung in dieser Beziehung ergeben, so gelangt man zur folgenden Anschauung über die menschliche Sinnes-Organisation. Man muß unterscheiden: den Sinn für die «Ich-Wahrnehmung» des andern Menschen; den Sinn für «Gedanken-Erfassung»; den Sinn für «Vernehmen von Worten»; den Gehörsinn; den Wärmesinn; den Sehsinn; den Geschmacksinn; den Geruchsinn; den Gleichgewichtssinn (das wahrnehmende Erleben des sich in einer gewissen Gleichgewichtslage-Befindens gegenüber der Außenwelt); den Bewegungssinn (das wahrnehmende Erleben der Ruhe und Bewegung der eigenen Glieder einerseits, oder des Ruhens oder sich Bewegens gegenüber der Außenwelt andrerseits); den Lebenssinn (das Erleben der Verfassung im Organismus; Gefühl von dem subjektiven Sich-Befinden); den Tastsinn. Alle diese «Sinne» tragen die Merkmale in sich, wegen deren man «Auge» und «Ohr» in Wahrheit «Sinne» nennt.
Wer die Berechtigung einer solchen Unterscheidung nicht anerkennt, der gerät mit seiner Erkenntnis gegenüber der Wirklichkeit in Unordnung. Er verfällt mit seinen Vorstellungen dem Schicksal, daß sie ihn kein wahrhaft Wirkliches erleben lassen. Wer zum Beispiel das «Auge» einen «Sinn» nennt und keinen «Sinn» annimmt für das «Vernehmen von Worten», für den bleibt auch die Vorstellung, die er sich vom «Auge» bildet, ein unwirkliches Gebilde. - Ich bin der Meinung, daß Fritz Mauthner in seiner geistreichen Art - in seinen sprachkritischen Werken - nur deshalb von «Zufallssinnen» spricht, weil er bloß eine fragmentarische Sinnes-Lehre im Auge hat. Wäre dies nicht der Fall, so würde er bemerken, wie der «Sinn» sich in die «Wirklichkeit» hineinstellt.
Nun liegt, wenn der Mensch einem Sinnes-Objekte gegenübersteht, die Sache so, daß er niemals bloß durch einen Sinn einen Eindruck erhält, sondern außerdem immer noch durch wenigstens einen andern aus der Reihe der oben angeführten. Die Beziehung zu einem Sinne tritt mit besonderer Schärfe in das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein; die andere bleibt dumpfer. Es besteht aber zwischen den Sinnen der Unterschied, daß eine Anzahl der selben die Beziehung zur Außenwelt mehr als eine äußerliche erleben läßt; die andere mehr als etwas, was mit dem Eigen-Sein in engster Verknüpfung ist. Sinne, die mit dem Eigensein in engster Verknüpfung sich befinden, sind zum Beispiel der Gleichgewichtssinn, der Bewegungssinn, der Lebenssinn, ja auch der Tastsinn. In den Wahrnehmungen solcher Sinne gegenüber der Außenwelt wird stets das eigene Sein dumpf mitempfunden. Ja, man kann sagen, es tritt eine Dumpfheit des bewußten Wahrnehmens eben deshalb ein, weil die Beziehung nach außen von dem Erleben des Eigen-Seins übertönt wird. Ereignet sich zum Beispiel, daß ein Gegenstand gesehen wird, und zugleich der Gleichgewichtssinn einen Eindruck vermittelt, so wird scharf wahrgenommen das Gesehene. Dieses Gesehene führt zu der Vorstellung des Gegenstandes. Das Erlebnis durch den Gleichgewichtssinn bleibt als Wahrnehmung dumpf; jedoch es lebt auf in dem Urteile: «das Gesehene ist» oder «es ist das Gesehene».
Im Wirklichen stehen die Dinge nicht in abstrakten Unterschieden nebeneinander, sondern sie gehen mit ihren Merkmalen in einander über. So kommt es, daß in der vollständigen Reihe der «Sinne» solche sind, die weniger die Beziehung zur Außenwelt, sondern mehr das Erleben des Eigen-Seins vermitteln. Diese letzteren tauchen mehr in das innere seelische Leben ein als zum Beispiel Auge und Ohr; dadurch erscheint das Ergebnis ihrer Wahrnehmungs-Vermittelung als inneres seelisches Erlebnis. Aber man sollte auch bei ihnen das eigentlich Seelische von dem Wahrnehmungselemente so unterscheiden, wie man zum Beispiel beim Gesehenen den äußeren Tatbestand von dem an ihm gemachten inneren Seelen-Erlebnisse unterscheidet.
Für denjenigen, der sich auf den anthroposophischen Gesichtspunkt stellt, darf kein Zurückschrecken bestehen vor solchen feinen Vorstellungs-Unterscheidungen, wie sie hier gemacht werden. Er muß das «Vernehmen der Worte» von dem Gehör einerseits, und dieses «Vernehmen der Worte» von dem durch die eigenen Gedanken vermittelten «Verstehen der Worte» so unterscheiden können, wie das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein unterscheidet zwischen einem Baum und einem Felsblock. Würde dies mehr berücksichtigt, so würde man erkennen, daß die Anthroposophie nicht nur die eine Seite hat, welche man gewöhnlich als eine mystische bezeichnet, sondern auch die andere, durch die sie nicht zu einer weniger wissenschaftlichen Forschung führt als die Naturwissenschaft, sondern zu einer mehr wissenschaftlichen, die eine feinere, methodischere Ausarbeitung des Vorstellenslebens nötig macht als selbst die gewöhnliche Philosophie. Ich glaube, daß Wilhelm Dilthey mit seinen philosophischen Forschungen auf dem Wege war zu derjenigen Sinnes-Lehre, die ich hier skizziert habe, daß er aber nicht zu einem Ziele kommen konnte, weil er nicht durchdrang bis zu einer völligen Ausarbeitung der in Frage kommenden Vorstellungen. Vergleiche auch, was ich darüber im zweiten Bande meiner «Rätsel der Philosophie» gesagt habe, 7. Auflage, Seiten 567-572.
IV-5 On the real basis of the intenlional relationship
[ 1 ] With the "intentional relation" characterized in the present work (Chapter 3 on Franz Brentano), a psychic only appears in Brentano's psychology as a fact of ordinary consciousness, without this fact being further integrated into the psychic experience in an explanatory way. I would now like to take the liberty of sketching out a few things about this state of affairs, which are based on my well-developed views in various directions. These views, however, demand that they be given in more detail - with all their justifications. So far, however, circumstances have only made it possible for me to give some relevant information in oral presentations. What I can present here are results in brief sketch form. And I ask the reader to take them as such for the time being. They are not "ideas", but something that I have tried to substantiate over many years using the scientific means of the present day.
[ 2 ] In the experience of the soul that Franz Brentano calls judging, in addition to the mere imagining, which consists of an inner image-forming, there is an acknowledgment or rejection of the imagined images. The question arises for the soul researcher: what is it in the soul's experience that brings about not only the mental image: "green tree", but also the judgment: "it is a green tree"? This "something" cannot lie within the narrower circle of the imaginative life that is described in ordinary consciousness. The fact that it cannot be found here has led to those epistemological thoughts which I have presented in the second volume of my "Riddles of Philosophy" in the section: "The World as Illusion". This is an experience that lies outside this circle. The important thing is to find the "where" in the realm of mental experiences.
If a person faces a sensory object in perceptual activity, this "something" cannot be found in anything that the person receives in the perceptual process in such a way that this reception is grasped by the physiological and psychological ideas that relate to the external object on the one hand and the sense directly in question on the other. If someone has the visual perception "green tree", then the facts of the judgment "it is a green tree" cannot be found in the physiologically or psychologically directly demonstrable relationship between "tree" and "eye". What is experienced in the soul as such an inner fact of judgment is yet another relationship between the "human being" and "the tree" than that between the "tree" and the "eye". But only the latter relationship is experienced in ordinary consciousness with full acuity. The other relationship remains in a dull subconsciousness and only emerges in the result that lies in the recognition of the "green tree" as a being. With every perception that culminates in a judgment, we are dealing with a double relationship between the human being and objectivity.
Insight into this dual relationship can only be gained by replacing the current fragmentary doctrine of the senses with a complete one. Anyone who takes into consideration everything that can be considered to characterize a human sense will find that one must call something else "sense" than what is usually referred to as such. What makes the "eye" a "sense" is also present, for example, when one experiences the fact: "an other <I> is observed", or "a human thought of another is recognized as such". We usually make the mistake of not making a perfectly justified and necessary distinction in relation to such facts. One believes, for example, that one can get by with speaking of "sense" when one hears the words of another only in so far as only "hearing" comes into question as such, and that everything else is to be ascribed to a non-sensory inner activity. But this is not the case. In hearing human words and understanding them as thoughts, a threefold activity comes into consideration. And each element of this threefold activity must be considered separately if a justified scientific view is to be arrived at. Hearing" is the one activity. But "hearing" in itself is no more a "hearing of words" than "touching" is a "seeing". And just as a proper distinction must be made between the sense of "touching" and that of "seeing", so too between the sense of "hearing" and that of "hearing words" and the further sense of "grasping thoughts". It leads to an inadequate psychology and also to an inadequate theory of knowledge if one does not clearly separate the "grasping of thoughts" from the activity of thinking and recognize the sensory character of the former. This mistake is only made because the organ of "hearing words" and the organ of "grasping thoughts" are not as externally perceptible as the ear for "hearing". In reality, there are just as many "organs" for the two perceptual activities as there are ears for "hearing".
If we consider what physiology and psychology reveal in a complete examination of this relationship, we arrive at the following view of the human sensory organization. One must distinguish between the sense of "ego-perception" of the other person; the sense of "thought-perception"; the sense of "hearing words"; the sense of hearing; the sense of heat; the sense of sight; the sense of taste; the sense of smell; the sense of balance (the perceptual experience of being in a certain state of equilibrium in relation to the outside world); the sense of movement (the perceptual experience of the rest and movement of one's own limbs on the one hand, or of resting or moving in relation to the outside world on the other); the sense of life (the experience of the state of the organism; the feeling of the subjective sense of self); the sense of touch. All these "senses" have the characteristics for which "eye" and "ear" are in fact called "senses".
Whoever does not recognize the legitimacy of such a distinction becomes confused with his knowledge of reality. With his ideas, he falls prey to the fate that they do not allow him to experience anything truly real. Whoever, for example, calls the "eye" a "sense" and does not accept a "sense" for the "hearing of words", for him the idea he forms of the "eye" also remains an unreal entity. - I am of the opinion that Fritz Mauthner, in his witty way - in his works on language criticism - only speaks of "accidental senses" because he only has a fragmentary doctrine of the senses in mind. If this were not the case, he would notice how the "sense" places itself in "reality".
Now, when man confronts a sense-object, the matter is such that he never receives an impression merely through one sense, but in addition always through at least one other of the series mentioned above. The relation to one sense enters the ordinary consciousness with particular acuteness; the other remains more dull. But there is the difference between the senses that a number of them allow the relation to the external world to be experienced more as an external one; the other more as something that is in closest connection with selfhood. Senses that are closely connected with the self are, for example, the sense of balance, the sense of movement, the sense of life, and even the sense of touch. In the perceptions of such senses in relation to the outside world, one's own being is always dully felt. Indeed, one can say that a dullness of conscious perception occurs precisely because the relationship to the outside world is drowned out by the experience of one's own being. If, for example, an object is seen and at the same time the sense of balance conveys an impression, then what is seen is perceived sharply. This sight leads to the perception of the object. The experience through the sense of balance remains dull as perception; however, it comes to life in the judgment: "what is seen is" or "it is what is seen".
In the real, things do not stand next to each other in abstract differences, but they merge into each other with their characteristics. Thus it is that in the complete series of "senses" there are those that convey less the relationship to the outside world and more the experience of being oneself. The latter immerse themselves more in the inner life of the soul than, for example, the eye and the ear; thus the result of their mediation of perception appears as an inner experience of the soul. However, one should also distinguish the actual spiritual from the perceptual element in the same way as one distinguishes, for example, the external fact from the inner spiritual experience of what is seen.
For those who adopt the anthroposophical point of view, there must be no shying away from such fine distinctions of perception as are made here. He must be able to distinguish the "hearing of the words" from the hearing on the one hand, and this "hearing of the words" from the "understanding of the words" conveyed by his own thoughts, just as the ordinary consciousness distinguishes between a tree and a boulder. If more consideration were given to this, it would be recognized that anthroposophy has not only the one side which is usually called a mystical one, but also the other, by which it does not lead to a less scientific research than natural science, but to a more scientific one, which necessitates a finer, more methodical elaboration of the life of the imagination than even ordinary philosophy. I believe that Wilhelm Dilthey's philosophical research was on the way to the doctrine of the senses that I have outlined here, but that he was unable to reach his goal because he did not penetrate as far as a complete elaboration of the ideas in question. Compare also what I have said about this in the second volume of my "Rätsel der Philosophie", 7th edition, pages 567-572.