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PARERGA AND PARALIPOMENA: SHORT PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS |
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[b]VOLUME TWO[/b]
[quote]Vitam impendere vero
-- Juvenal, Sat. IV. 91 ["Dedicate one's life to truth"][/quote]
[b]STRAY YET SYSTEMATICALLY ARRANGED THOUGHTS ON A VARIETY OF SUBJECTS[/b]
[quote]Eleusis servat quod ostendat revisentibus.
-- Seneca, Naturales quaestiones, VII. 30.
['Eleusis keeps something that it can disclose only on a second visit.'][/quote]
[b]CHAPTER 1: On Philosophy and its Method[/b]
§ 1 The ultimate basis on which all our knowledge and science rest is the inexplicable. Therefore every explanation leads back to this by means of more or less intermediate stages, just as in the sea the plummet finds the bottom sometimes at a greater and sometimes at a lesser depth, yet everywhere it must ultimately reach this. This inexplicable something devolves on metaphysics.
§ 2
Almost all are for ever thinking that they are such and such a man ([x]), together with the corollaries resulting therefrom. On the other hand, it hardly ever occurs to them that they are in general a human being ([x]) with all the corollaries following from this; and yet this is the vital question. The few who adhere more to the latter than to the former proposition are philosophers. The tendency of the others, however, is reducible to the fact that generally they always see in things only their particular and individual aspect, never their universal. Only the more highly gifted, according to the degree of their eminence, see more and more in individual things their universal aspect. This important distinction penetrates the whole faculty of knowledge to such a degree that it reaches down to the intuitive perception of the most ordinary everyday objects. Hence such perception is in the eminent mind different from what it is in the ordinary. This grasping of the universal in the particular that always presents itself coincides also with what I have called the pure will-less subject of knowing, and have set up as the subjective correlative of the Platonic Idea. For only if knowledge is directed to the universal can it remain will-less; on the other hand, the objects of willing are to be found in individual things. Therefore the knowledge of animals is strictly limited to these particular things and accordingly their intellect remains exclusively in the service of their will. On the other hand, that tendency of the mind to the universal is the indispensable condition for true and original achievements in philosophy, poetry, and the arts and sciences generally.
For the intellect in the service of the will and thus in practical use, there are only particular things,. for the intellect which pursues art or science and is, therefore, active for its own sake, there are only universalities, whole kinds, species, classes, Ideas of things; for even the creative artist tries in the individual to present the Idea, the species. This is due to the fact that the will is directly turned only to particular things which are its real objects, for they alone have empirical reality. Concepts, classes, and species, on the other hand, can become its objects only very indirectly; and so the vulgar and uncultured have no thought or desire for universal truths, whereas the genius overlooks and ignores what is individual. Enforced occupation with the particular thing as such, in so far as this constitutes the material of practical life, is for him an irksome bondage.
§3
The two primary requirements for philosophizing are first that we have the courage to make a clean breast of a question, and secondly that we become clearly conscious of everything that is self-evident in order to comprehend it as a problem. Finally in order really to philosophize, the mind must be truly at leisure. It must not pursue any aims and so must not be guided by the will; it must give its undivided attention to the instruction that is imparted to it by the world of intuitive perception and by its own consciousness. Professors of philosophy, on the other hand, have in mind their personal interest and advantage and what leads thereto; this is where they are in earnest. Hence there are so many distinct things which they do not see at all; in fact, not even the problems of philosophy ever occur to them.
§4
The poet brings before the imagination pictures of life, human characters and situations, all of which he sets in motion and then leaves it to everyone to think in the case of such pictures as much as his mental powers will allow. For this reason, he is able to satisfy men of the most varied capacities, indeed fools and sages simultaneously. The philosopher, on the other hand, does not bring life itself in this way, but the completed ideas he has abstracted therefrom, and he now requires that his reader will think in precisely the same way and to just the same extent as does he himself; and so his public will be very small. The poet is, accordingly, comparable to the man who brings the flowers, whereas the philosopher resembles one who brings their quintessence.
Another great advantage that poetical achievements have over philosophical is that all the works of poetry can exist simultaneously without thwarting and impeding one another; in fact even the most heterogeneous can be enjoyed and appreciated by one and the same mind. On the other hand, hardly has any philosophical system come into the world when it already contemplates the destruction of all its brothers, like an Asiatic sultan when he ascends the throne. For just as there can be only one queen in a beehive, so can only one philosophy be the order of the day. Thus systems are by nature as unsociable as spiders, each of which sits alone in its web and sees how many flies will allow themselves to be caught therein, but approaches another spider merely in order to battle with it. Thus whereas the works of poets pasture peacefully side by side like lambs, those of philosophy are born beasts of prey and, even in their destructive impulse, they are like scorpions, spiders, and the larvae of some insects and are turned primarily against their own species. They appear in the world like men clad in armour from the seed of the dragon's teeth ofjason and till now have, like these, mutually exterminated one another. This struggle has already lasted for more than two thousand years; will there ever result from it a final victory and lasting peace?
In consequence of this essentially polemical nature, this bellum omnium contra omnes [1] of philosophical systems, it is infinitely more difficult to gain recognition as a philosopher than as a poet. The poet's work demands of the reader nothing more than an entry into the series of writings that entertain or elevate him and the devotion thereto of a few hours. The philosopher's work, on the other hand, tries to revolutionize the reader's whole mode of thought. It demands of him that he shall acknowledge as error all that he has hitherto learnt and believed in this branch of knowledge; that he shall declare all his time and trouble to be wasted; and that he shall begin again at the beginning. At most, it leaves standing a few fragments of a predecessor in order thereon to make its foundation. Again, there is the fact that it has in every teacher of an already existing system an opponent by virtue of his office. In fact, even the State sometimes takes under its protection a favourite philosophical system and, by means of its powerful material resources, prevents the success of any other. Moreover, if we bear in mind that the size of the philosophical public and that of the poetical are in the same proportion as the number of those who want to be taught is to the number who want to be amused, we shall be able to judge, quibus auspiciis, [2] a philosopher makes his appearance. On the other hand, of course, it is the approbation of thinkers, of the elect of long intervals of time and of all countries without national distinction, with which the philosopher is rewarded. Gradually, on the strength of authority, the crowd learns to respect and honour his name. In accordance with this and on account of the slow but profound effect of the course of philosophy on that of the whole human race, the history of philosophers has proceeded for thousands of years along with that of kings and has numbered a hundred times fewer names than has the latter. It is, therefore, a great thing for anyone to procure for his name a permanent place in the history of philosophers.
§ 5
The philosophical author is the leader, his reader the wanderer. If they are to arrive together, they must above all start out together; in other words, the author must take up his reader at a standpoint which they undoubtedly have in common. This, however, can be none other than that of empirical consciousness that is common to us all. Let him, therefore, take him firmly by the hand and see how high above the clouds he can reach, step by step on the mountain path. Kant proceeded in this way; he started from the entirely common consciousness of other things as well as of his own self. On the other hand, how absurd it is to attempt to start from the standpoint of a pretended intellectual intuition of hyperphysical relations, or of events, or even of a reason [Vernunft] that perceives the supernatural, or of an absolute self-thinking reason [Vernunft]! For all this means starting from the standpoint of cognitions that are not directly communicable; and so here, at the very beginning, the reader never knows whether he is standing near his author or is miles away from him.
§ 6
Conversation about things with someone else is related to our own serious meditation and profound consideration of them as is a machine to a living organism. For only in the latter is everything as if it were cut from one piece or played in one key; and thus it can attain absolute clearness, distinctness, and true coherence, in fact unity; whereas with the former heterogeneous pieces of very different origin are put together and a certain unity of movement is forced which often stops unexpectedly. Thus only ourselves do we thoroughly understand; others are only half-understood, for at best we can attain to a community of concepts, not to that of intuitive apprehension which is the very basis thereof. Therefore profound philosophical truths will never be brought to light by way of common thinking in dialogue. Yet such a thing is very useful for the preliminary practice, hunting up, and ventilation of problems, and subsequently for the testing, control, and criticism of the suggested solution. Plato's dialogues are drawn up in this sense, and accordingly from his school there issued the second and third academies with an increasingly sceptical tendency. As a form for the communication of philosophical ideas the written dialogue is appropriate only when the subject admits of two or more quite different or even opposite views. The judgement concerning them is to be left to the reader; or taken together they lead to a complete and correct comprehension of the matter. To the first case belongs the refutation of objections that are raised. But then the dialogue form that is chosen for this purpose must become genuinely dramatic in that the variety of views is thoroughly stressed and worked out; there must really be two who speak. Without some such purpose it is mere idle play, as is often the case.
§ 7 Neither our knowledge nor our insight will ever be increased to any great extent by a comparison and discussion of what has been said by others; for this is always merely like pouring water from one vessel into another. Only through our own contemplation of things themselves can insight and knowledge be really enriched; for it alone is the living source that is always ready and at hand. It is, therefore, curious to see how would-be philosophers are always busy on the former path and do not appear to know the latter at all; how they are always concerned with what one man has said and what another may have meant. Thus they are, so to speak, always turning old vessels upside down to see whether some drop may have been left behind, whereas the living source flows neglected at their feet. Nothing so much as this betrays their incapacity and gives the lie to their assumed air of importance, profundity, and originality.
§ 8
Those who hope to become philosophers by studying the history of philosophy ought rather to infer from this that philosophers, like poets, are only born, and indeed much more rarely.
§ 9
A strange and unworthy definition of philosophy, which even Kant gives, is that it is a branch of learning from mere concepts. Yet the whole property of concepts is nothing but what has been deposited in them, after it had been begged and borrowed from knowledge of intuitive perception, that real and inexhaustible source of all insight. Therefore a true philosophy cannot be spun out of mere abstract concepts, but must be based on observation and experience, both inner and outer. It is not by the attempts at the combination of concepts, such as have been so often carried out, especially by the sophists of our times, Fichte and Schelling, yet in its most repulsive form by Hegel and also in morality by Schleiermacher, that anything sound will ever be achieved in philosophy. Like art and poetry, it must have its source in an apprehension of the world through intuitive perception. Moreover, however much the head has to remain uppermost, the course of things should not be so cold-blooded that the whole man, with heart and head, does not in the end take action and become thoroughly roused. Philosophy is no algebraical sum; on the contrary, Vauvenargues is right when he says: Les grandes pensees viennent du coeur. [3]
§ 10
On the whole, the philosophy of all times can be conceived as a pendulum swinging between rationalism and illuminism, that is, between the use of the objective source of knowledge and that of the subjective.
Rationalism, having for its organ the intellect that is originally destined to serve the will alone and is thus directed outwards, makes its first appearance as dogmatism; and as such it maintains a completely objective attitude. It then changes to scepticism and, in consequence thereof, ultimately becomes criticism. Through a consideration of the subject, it undertakes to settle the dispute; in other words, it becomes transcendental philosophy. By this I understand every philosophy that starts from the fact that its nearest and immediate object are not things, but only man's consciousness thereof, which should, therefore, never be left out of account. The French somewhat inaccurately call this the methode psychologique as opposed to the methode purement logique, by which they understand quite simply the philosophy that starts from objects or from objectively thought concepts, and hence dogmatism. Having now reached this point, rationalism arrives at the knowledge that its organon grasps only the phenomenon, but does not reach the ultimate, inner, and original essence of things.
At all its stages, yet here most of all, illuminism asserts itself as its antithesis. Directed essentially inwards, illuminism has as its organon inner illumination, intellectual intuition, higher consciousness, immediately knowing reason [Vernunft], divine consciousness, unification, and the like, and disparages rationalism as the 'light of nature'. Now if here it takes as its basis a religion, it becomes mysticism; but its fundamental defect is that its knowledge is not communicable. This is due partly to the fact that for inner perception there is no criterion of identity of the object of different subjects, and partly to the fact that such knowledge would nevertheless have to be communicated by means of language. But this has arisen for the purpose of the intellect's outwardly directed knowledge by means of abstractions therefrom and is quite unsuited for expressing the inner states or conditions which are fundamentally different from it and are the material of illuminism. And so this would have to form a language of its own; but this again is not possible, on account of the first reason previously mentioned. Now as such a knowledge is not communicable, it is also undemonstrable, whereupon rationalism again enters the field hand in hand with scepticism. Illuminism can be traced even in certain passages of Plato; but it makes a more definite appearance in the philosophy of the Neo-Platonists, the Gnostics, Dionysius the Areopagite, as well as in that of Scotus Erigena; further among the Mohammedans in the teaching of the Sufi)" in India it is dominant in the Vedanta and Mimansa; it appears most decidedly in Jacob Boehme and all the Christian mystics. It always appears when rationalism has run its course without attaining its goal. Thus it came towards the end of the scholastic philosophy and in opposition thereto as mysticism, especially of the Germans, in Tauler and the author of the Theologia Germanica among others; and likewise in modern times in opposition to the Kantian philosophy, in Jacobi and Schelling and similarly in Fichte's last period. But philosophy should be communicable knowledge and must, therefore, be rationalism. Accordingly, at the end of my philosophy I have indicated the sphere of illuminism as something that exists but I have guarded against setting even one foot thereon. For I have not undertaken to give an ultimate explanation of the world's existence, but have only gone as far as is possible on the objective path of rationalism. I have left the ground free for illuminism where, in its own way, it may arrive at a solution to all problems without obstructing my path or having to engage in polemic against me.
Nevertheless, a concealed illuminism may often enough underlie rationalism; and to such an illuminism the philosopher then looks as to a hidden compass, whereas he admittedly steers his course only by the stars, that is, in accordance with external objects which clearly lie before him and which alone he takes into account. This is admissible because he does not undertake to communicate incommunicable knowledge, but his communications remain purely objective and rational. This may have been the case with Plato, Spinoza, Malebranche, and many others; it does not concern anyone, for they are the secrets of their own breast. On the other hand, the noisy appeal to intellectual intuition and the bold statement of its substance with a claim to the objective validity thereof, as in the case of Fichte and Schelling, are impudent and objectionable.
For the rest, illuminism is in itself a natural, and to that extent justifiable, attempt to ascertain the truth. For the outwardly directed intellect, as mere organon for the purposes of the will and consequently something merely secondary, is nevertheless only a part of our entire human nature. It belongs to the phenomenon and its knowledge merely corresponds thereto, since it exists solely for the purpose of the phenomenon. Therefore what can be more natural than that, when we have failed with the objectively knowing intellect, we now bring into play all that remains of our true being which must also be the thing-in-itself and thus belong to the true nature of the world and consequently somehow carry within itself the solution to all the riddles in order through it to seek help? This would be like the ancient Germans who, when they had gambled away everything, finally staked their own persons. But the only correct and objectively valid way of carrying this out is for us to apprehend the empirical fact of a will that proclaims itself in our inmost being and constitutes our only true nature and to apply this fact in order to explain objective external knowledge, as I have accordingly done. On the other hand, for the reasons already stated, the path of illuminism does not lead to the goal.
§ 11
Mere astuteness qualifies one to be a sceptic, but not a philosopher. Nevertheless, scepticism is in philosophy what the opposition is in parliament; it is as beneficial as it is necessary. It is everywhere based on the fact that philosophy is not capable of evidence of the kind that mathematics has, any more than a human being is capable of the tricks of animal instinct which are also just as a priori certain. Therefore against every system, scepticism will always be able to lay itself in the other scale; but compared with the other, its weight will ultimately become so insignificant that it no more impairs it than it does the arithmetical squaring of the circle which in fact is only approximate.
What we know has a double value if at the same time we own up to not knowing what we do not know. For in this way, what we know becomes free from suspicion to which it is exposed when, like the Schellingites for instance, we pretend to know even what we do not know.
§ 12
Declarations of reason [Vernunft] is the expression used by everyone for certain propositions which he regards as true without investigation and which he believes with so firm a conviction that, even if he wanted to, he could never bring himself seriously to test them, for to do so he would meanwhile have to call them in question. They have become firmly believed by him because, when he began to speak and think, they were constantly taught to him and were thus implanted in his mind. Therefore his habit of thinking them is just as old as is the habit of thinking itself, so that the result is that he is no longer able to separate the two; in fact they have grown up with his brain. What is said here is so true that to support it with examples would be superfluous on the one hand, and hazardous on the other.
§ 13
No view of the world can be entirely false which has sprung from an objective intuitive apprehension of things and has been logically and consistently maintained. On the contrary, such a view is in the worst case only one-sided as, for example, thorough materialism, absolute idealism, and others. They are all true, but they are all this simultaneously; consequently their truth is only relative. Thus every such conception is true only from a definite standpoint just as a picture presents a landscape only from one point of view. If, however, we raise ourselves above the standpoint of such a system, we recognize the relative nature of its truth, that is, its one-sidedness. Only the highest standpoint that surveys and takes into account everything can furnish us with absolute truth. Accordingly, it is true, for instance, when I consider myself as a merely temporal product of nature which has come into being and is destined to complete destruction, somewhat after the manner of Ecclesiastes. At the same time, it is true that everything that ever was and ever will be I am, and outside me there is nothing. It is just as true when, after the manner of Anacreon, I put the greatest happiness in the enjoyment of the present moment; but at the same time it is true when I recognize the salutary nature of suffering and the emptiness and even pernicious influence of all pleasure, and conceive death as the aim and object of my existence.
All this is due to the fact that every view that is logically carried out is only an objective apprehension of nature through intuitive perception, which is translated into concepts and thereby fixed. But nature, in other words, that which is intuitively perceptual, never lies or contradicts herself, for her inner essence excludes any such thing. Therefore whenever we have contradiction and falsehood, we have ideas that have not sprung from objective apprehension, e.g., in optimism. On the other hand, an objective apprehension may be incomplete and one-sided; it then needs to be supplemented, not refuted.
§ 14
One is never tired of reproaching metaphysics with its very small progress in face of the great advance made by the physical sciences. Even Voltaire exclaims: O metaphysique! nous sommes aussi avances que du tems des premiers Druides [4] (Melanges philosophiques, ch. 9). But what other branch of knowledge has always had, like metaphysics, an ex officio antagonist, an appointed fiscal prosecutor, a king's champion in full armour, as a permanent hindrance, who falls upon it defenceless and weaponless? It will never show its true powers, never be able to make its giant strides, so long as it is expected under threats to accommodate itself to dogmas that are adapted to the very small capacity of the masses. First our arms are tied and then we are ridiculed because we cannot achieve anything.
Religions have taken possession of man's metaphysical tendency partly by paralysing it through the early inculcation of their dogmas and partly by forbidding and tabooing all free and unprejudiced expressions of it. Thus for man the free investigation concerning the most important and interesting affairs, namely his very existence, is to some extent directly forbidden, indirectly prevented, or rendered impossible subjectively through that paralysing effect; and in this way the sublimest of his faculties lies in fetters.
§ 15
In order to become tolerant of the views of others which are opposed to our own and to be patient with contradiction, perhaps nothing is more effective than for us to remember how often we ourselves have successively held quite opposite opinions on the same subject and have repeatedly changed them, sometimes even within a very short period; how we have rejected and again taken up an opinion and then its opposite, according as the subject presented itself now in this light and now in that.
In the same way, nothing is more calculated to find favour with another, after we have contradicted his opinion, than the phrase: 'I was previously of the same opinion but' and so on.
§ 16
A false teaching, whether founded on an erroneous view or sprung from an unworthy purpose, is always intended only for special circumstances and consequently for a certain time; but truth is for all time, although for a while it may be misunderstood or stifled. For as soon as a little light comes from within or a little air from without, someone is found to proclaim or defend it. Thus since it has not sprung from the design or purpose of any party, any eminent mind becomes its champion at any time. For it is like the magnet that points always and everywhere in one absolutely definite direction; the false teaching, on the other hand, is like a statue which with its hand points to another; when once it is separated from this, it has lost all significance.
§ 17
What is most opposed to the discovery of truth is not the false appearance that proceeds from things and leads to error, or even directly a weakness of the intellect. On the contrary, it is the preconceived opinion, the prejudice, which, as a spurious a priori, is opposed to truth. It is then like a contrary wind that drives the ship back from the direction in which the land lies, so that rudder and sail now work to no purpose.
§ 18
I comment as follows on the verse from Goethe's Faust:
[quote]What from your fathers' heritage is lent, Earn it anew, really to possess it! [5][/quote]
It is of great value and advantage for us to discover by our own means, independently of thinkers and before we know it, what they have already discovered before us. For what we have thought out for ourselves is understood much more thoroughly than what we have learnt; and when we subsequently find it in the works of those earlier thinkers, it obtains through the acknowledged authority of others an unexpected confirmation that speaks strongly in favour of its truth. In this way, we then gain confidence and assurance for championing it in face of every contradiction.
If, on the other hand, we have first discovered something in books, but have then arrived at the same result through our own reflection, we never know for certain whether we have thought this out and judged it for ourselves and have not merely repeated the words of those earlier thinkers or appropriated their sentiments. Now this makes a very great difference as regards the certainty of the matter. For in the latter case, we might after all have erred with those thinkers through our being preoccupied with them, just as water readily follows a well-worn course. If two men independently do a calculation and obtain the same result, this is sure and certain; but not if the calculation of one of them has been merely looked through by the other.
§19
It is a consequence of the nature of our intellect, sprung as it is from the will, that we cannot help conceiving the world either as end or as means. Now the first would assert that its existence was justified by its essence and that such existence would, therefore, be decidedly preferable to its non-existence. But the knowledge that it is only the scene of struggle for suffering and dying beings renders this idea untenable. Again, the infinity of the time that has already elapsed does not admit of its being conceived as means, for by virtue of infinite time, every end to be attained would necessarily have been reached long ago. From this it follows that that application of the presupposition, natural to our intellect, to the totality of things or to the world is transcendent j in other words, it is one that is valid in the world, but not of the world. This can be explained from the fact that it springs from the nature of an intellect that has originated, as I have shown, for the service of an individual will, that is to say, for attaining the objects thereof. Such an intellect is exclusively concerned with ends and means and consequently neither knows nor conceives anything else at all.
§20
When one looks outwards, where the vastness of the world and the infinitude of its beings display themselves, one's own self as a mere individual shrinks to nothing and seems to vanish. Carried away by this very immensity of mass and number, one thinks further that only the outwardly directed, and hence objective, philosophy can be on the right path; it had never even occurred to the oldest Greek philosophers to doubt this.
On the other hand, if we look inwards, we find in the first place that every individual takes an immediate interest only in himself; indeed he has his own self more at heart than all else put together. This comes from the fact that he knows directly only himself, but everything else merely indirectly. Now if in addition we consider that conscious and knowing beings are conceivable solely as individuals, but that those without consciousness have only a half-existence, one that is merely mediate, then all real and true existence comes down to individuals. Finally, we call to mind that the object is conditioned by the subject, that this immeasurable outside world, therefore, has its existence only in the consciousness of knowing beings. Consequently, this world is so definitely tied to the existence of individuals who are its bearers that it can in this sense be regarded even as a mere equipment, an accident, of the always individual consciousness. If we bear all this in mind, we arrive at the view that only the inwardly directed philosophy, starting from the subject as that which is immediately given, and hence the philosophy of the moderns since Descartes, is on the right lines and that the ancients have, therefore, overlooked the main point. But of this we become perfectly convinced only when we descend into and commune with ourselves and bring to our consciousness the feeling of originality which resides in every knowing being. More than this, everyone, even the most insignificant, finds himself in his simple self-consciousness as the most real of all beings and necessarily recognizes in himself the true centre of the world, indeed the primary source of all reality. And could this ultimate consciousness lie? Its most powerful expression is the words of the Upanishad: hae omnes creaturae in totum ego sum, et praeter me ens aliud non est, et omnia ego creata feci [6] (Oupnek'hat, Pt. 1, p. 122). This of, course, is the transition to illuminism and even mysticism. This, then, is the result of inwardly directed contemplation, whereas the outwardly directed shows us as the goal of our existence a heap of ashes.* From my point of view, the following would be of use concerning the division of philosophy which is of importance especially as regards its exposition.
§21
From my point of view, the following would be of use concerning the division of philosophy which is of importance especially as regards its exposition.
Philosophy, it is true, has as its object experience, but not, like the other branches of knowledge, this or that definite experience. On the contrary, it has just experience itself, generally and as such, according to its possibility, its sphere, its essential content, its inner and outer elements, its form and matter. Consequently, philosophy must certainly have empirical foundations and cannot be spun out of pure abstract concepts, as I have explained at length in the second volume of my chief work, chapter 17, and have also given as a brief resume in § 9 above. From its declared subject-matter, it follows also that the first thing it has to consider must be the medium wherein experience in general presents itself, together with the form and nature of that medium. This is the representation, the mental picture, knowledge, and thus the intellect. Therefore every philosophy has to begin with an investigation of the faculty of knowledge, its forms and laws, and also the validity and limits thereof. Accordingly, such an investigation will be philosophia prima. It is divided into a consideration of primary representations, i.e. representations of intuitive perception, and this part may be called dianoiology or theory of the understanding; and into a consideration of secondary representations, i.e. abstract representations, together with the order of their manipulation, and thus logic or the theory of reason [Vernunft]. Now this general part at the same time embraces or rather replaces what was formerly called ontology and was put forward as the doctrine of the most universal and essential properties and qualities of things in general and as such. For one regarded as the properties of things-in-themselves that which belongs to them only in consequence of the form and nature of our representation-faculty, since all beings to be apprehended thereby must exhibit themselves in accordance with its form and nature and in consequence they then bear certain properties or qualities that are common to them all. This is comparable to our attributing the colour of a glass to the objects that are seen through it.
The philosophy following on such investigations is then metaphysics in the narrower sense, since it not only makes us acquainted with nature, with what is actually present, and considers the order and sequence thereof, but conceives it as a phenomenon which is given but somehow conditioned and in which an essence or entity manifests itself, such entity being different from the phenomenon itself and accordingly would be the thing-in-itself. Now philosophy in our sense tries to become more closely acquainted with this thing-in-itself. The means to this are par,tly the bringing together of outer and inner experience, partly the arrival at an understanding of the whole phenomenon by discovering its meaning and connection-comparable to the reading of hitherto mysterious characters of an unknowing writing. On this path our philosophy proceeds from the phenomenal appearance to that which appears, to that which is hidden behind the phenomenon; thus [x]. [7] Consequently, it is divided into three parts:
[quote]Metaphysics of Nature, Metaphysics of the Beautiful, Metaphysics of Morals.[/quote]
Nevertheless, the tracing of this division to its origin already presupposes metaphysics itself which shows the thing-in-itself, the inner and ultimate essence of the phenomenon, to be in our will. Therefore after its consideration as it manifests itself in external nature, its entirely different and immediate manifestation within ourselves is investigated, whence we have the metaphysics of morals. Prior to this, however, the purest and most perfect apprehension of the will's external or objective phenomenon is taken into consideration and this gives us the metaphysics of the beautiful.
There is no rational psychology or doctrine of the soul since, as Kant has proved, the soul is a transcendent hypostasis, undemonstrated and unwarranted as such; accordingly, the antithesis of 'spirit and nature' is left to Philistines and Hegelians. Man's essence-in-itself can be understood only in conjunction with the essence-in-itself of all things and thus of nature. Therefore in the Phaedrus Plato makes Socrates put the question in a negative sense (c. 54, 270C): [x] (Animae vero naturam absque totius natura suificienter cognosei posse existimas?). [8] Thus microcosm and macrocosm elucidate each other, whereby they prove to be essentially the same. This consideration that is associated with man's inner nature, penetrates and permeates the whole of metaphysics in all its parts and cannot again appear separately as psychology. On the other hand, anthropology, as a science of experience, can be established, but is partly anatomy and physiology-partly mere empirical psychology, that is to say, knowledge of the moral and intellectual manifestations and peculiarities of the human race which is drawn from observation as well as knowledge of the variety of individuals in this respect. Yet the most important thing from this is necessarily, as empirical material, taken up and worked out by the three parts of metaphysics. What still remains then calls for fine observation and intelligent interpretation, indeed contemplation from a somewhat higher point of view; I mean from that of a certain superiority. It is, therefore, to be enjoyed only in the works of eminent minds such as those of Theophrastus, Montaigne, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere, Helvetius, Chamfort, Addison, Shaftesbury, Shenstone, Lichtenberg, and others. But it is not to be sought or endured in the compendiums of professors of philosophy who have no intellect and therefore hate it.
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[b]Notes:[/b]
1 ['War of all against all'.] 2 ['Under what auspices'.]
3 ['Great thoughts come from the heart'.] 4 ['O metaphysics! We have come as far as the times of the early Druids.'] 5 [From Bayard Taylor's translation.]
* Finite and infinite are concepts that have significance merely in reference to space and time since both these are infinite, that is, endless, just as they are infinitely divisible. If we still apply these two concepts to other things, then it must be to such as fill space and time and partake of the qualities thereof. From this it may be gathered how much these two concepts have in the nineteenth century been abused by philosophasters and windbags.
6 ['I am all this creation collectively, and besides me there exists no other being. I have created everything.']
7 ['What follows on physics'. An allusion to the etymology of the term 'metaphysical' (lit. 'the books after the Physics').]
8 ['Do you believe that it is possible to know the essential nature of the soul in a proper way without knowing the essential nature of the whole universe?']
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