The Rudolf Steiner Archive

[ 1 ] All propounders of theories of knowledge since Kant have been influenced to a greater or lesser degree by the mistaken way he formulated the problem of knowledge. As a result of his “a priorism” he advanced the view that all objects given to us are our representations. Ever since, this view has been made the basic principle and starting point of practically all epistemological systems. The only thing we can establish as an immediate certainty is the principle that we are aware of our representations; this principle has become an almost universally accepted belief of philosophers. As early as 1792 G. E. Schulze maintained in his Aenesidemus that all our knowledge consists of mere representations, and that we can never go beyond our representations. Schopenhauer, with a characteristic philosophical fervor, puts forward the view that the enduring achievement of Kantian philosophy is the principle that the world is “my representation.” Eduard von Hartmann finds this principle so irrefutable that in his book, Kritische Grundlegung des transzendentalen Realismus (Critical Basis of Transcendental Realism) he assumes that his readers, by critical reflection, have overcome the naive identification of the perceptual picture with the thing-in-itself, that they have convinced themselves of the absolute diversity of the subjective-ideal content of consciousness—given as perceptual object through the act of representing—and the thing existing by itself, independent both of the act of representing and of the form of consciousness; in other words, readers who have entirely convinced themselves that the totality of what is given us directly consists of our representations. In his final work on epistemology, Eduard von Hartmann did attempt to provide a foundation for this view. The validity of this in relation to a theory of knowledge free from presuppositions, will be discussed later. Otto Liebmann claims that the principle: “Consciousness cannot jump beyond itself” must be the inviolable and foremost principle of any science of knowledge. Volkelt is of the opinion that the first and most immediate truth is: “All our knowledge extends, to begin with, only as far as our representations” he called this the most positive principle of knowledge, and considered a theory of knowledge to be “eminently critical” only if it “considers this principle as the sole stable point from which to begin all philosophizing, and from then on thinks it through consistently.” Other philosophers make other assertions the center of epistemology, e.g.: the essential problem is the question of the relation between thinking and existence, as well as the possibility of mediation between them, or again: How does that which exists become conscious? (Rehmke) etc. Kirchmann starts from two epistemological axioms: “the perceived is” and “the contradictory is not.” According to E. L. Fischer knowledge consists in the recognition of something factual and real. He lays down this dogma without proof as does Goring, who maintains something similar: “Knowledge always means recognizing something that exists; this is a fact that neither scepticism nor Kantian criticism can deny.” The two latter philosophers simply lay down the law: This they say is knowledge, without judging themselves.

[ 2 ] Even if these different assertions were correct, or led to a correct formulation of the problem, the place to discuss them is definitely not at the beginning of a theory of knowledge. For they all represent at the outset a quite specific insight into the sphere of knowledge. To say that my knowledge extends to begin with only as far as my representations, is to express a quite definite judgment about cognition. In this sentence I add a predicate to the world given to me, namely, its existence in the form of representation. But how do I know, prior to all knowledge, that the things given to me are representations?

[ 3 ] Thus this principle ought not to be placed at the foundation of a theory of knowledge; that this is true is most easily appreciated by tracing the line of thought that leads up to it. This principle has become in effect a part of the whole modern scientific consciousness. The considerations which have led to it are to be found systematically and comprehensively summarized in Part I of Eduard von Hartmann's book, Das Grundproblem der Erkenntnistheorie (The Fundamental Problem of Epistemology). What is advanced there can thus serve as a kind of guide when discussing the reasons that led to the above assumption.

[ 4 ] These reasons are physical, psycho-physical, physiological, as well as philosophical. The physicist who observes phenomena that occur in our environment when, for instance, we perceive a sound, is led to conclude that these phenomena have not the slightest resemblance to what we directly perceive as sound. Out there in the space surrounding us, nothing is to be found except vibrations of material bodies and of air. It is concluded from this that what we ordinarily call sound or tone is solely a subjective reaction of our organism to those wave-like movements. Likewise it is found that light, color and heat are something purely subjective. The phenomena of color-diffraction, refraction, interference and polarization show that these sensations correspond to certain transverse vibrations in external space, which, so it is thought, must be ascribed partly to material bodies, partly to an infinitely fine elastic substance, the ether. Furthermore, because of certain physical phenomena, the physicist finds himself compelled to abandon the belief in the continuity of objects in space, and to analyze them into systems of minute particles (molecules, atoms) the size of which, in relation to the distance between them, is immeasurably small. Thus he concludes that material bodies affect one another across empty space, so that in reality force is exerted from a distance. The physicist believes he is justified in assuming that a material body does not affect our senses of touch and warmth by direct contact, because there must be a certain distance, even if very small, between the body and the place where it touches the skin. From this he concludes further that what we sense as the hardness or warmth of a body, for example, is only the reaction of the peripheral nerves of our senses of touch and warmth to the molecular forces of bodies which act upon them across empty space.

[ 5 ] These considerations of the physicist are amplified by those of the psycho-physicist in the form of a science of specific sense-energies. J. Müller has shown that each sense can be affected only in a characteristic manner which is conditioned by its structure, so that it always reacts in the same way to any external stimulus. If the optic nerve is stimulated, there is a sensation of light, whether the stimulus is in the form of pressure, electric current, or light. On the other hand, the same external phenomenon produces quite different sensations, according to which sense organ transmits it. This leads to the conclusion that there is only one kind of phenomenon in the external world, namely motion, and that the many aspects of the world which we perceive derive essentially from the reaction of our senses to this phenomenon. According to this view, we do not perceive the external world. itself, but merely the subjective sensations which it releases in us.

[ 6 ] Thus physiology is added to physics. Physics deals with the phenomena occurring outside our organism to which our perceptions correspond; physiology aims to investigate the processes that occur in man's body when he experiences a certain sense impression. It shows that the epidermis is completely insensitive to external stimuli. In order to reach the nerves connected with our sense of touch on the periphery of the body, an external vibration must first be transmitted through the epidermis. In the case of hearing and vision the external motion is further modified through a number of organs in these sense-tools, before it reaches the corresponding nerve. These effects, produced in the organs at the periphery of the body, now have to be conducted through the nerve to the central organ, where sensations are finally produced through purely mechanical processes in the brain. It is obvious that the stimulus which acts on the sense organ is so changed through these modifications that there can be no similarity between what first affected the sense organs, and the sensations that finally arise in consciousness. The result of these considerations is summed up by Hartmann in the following words:

[ 7 ] “The content of consciousness consists fundamentally of the sensations which are the soul's reflex response to processes of movement in the uppermost part of the brain, and these have not the slightest resemblance to the molecular movements which called them into being.”

[ 8 ] If this line of thought is correct and is pursued to its conclusion, it must then be admitted that our consciousness does not contain the slightest element of what could be called external existence.

[ 1 ] To the physical and physiological arguments against so-called “naive realism” Hartmann adds further objections which he describes as essentially philosophical. A logical examination of the first two objections reveals that in fact one can arrive at the above result only by first assuming the existence and interrelations of external things, as ordinary naive consciousness does, and then investigating how this external world enters our consciousness by means of our organism. We have seen that between receiving a sense impression and becoming conscious of a sensation, every trace of such an external world is lost, and all that remains in consciousness are our representations. We must therefore assume that our picture of the external world is built up by the soul, using the material of sensations. First of all, a spatial picture is constructed using the sensations produced by sight and touch, and sensations arising from the other senses are then added. When we are compelled to think of a certain complex of sensations as connected, we are led to the concept of matter, which we consider to be the carrier of sensations. If we notice that some sensations associated with a substance disappear, while others arise, we ascribe this to a change regulated by the causal laws in the world of phenomena. According to this view, our whole world-picture is composed of subjective sensations arranged by our own soul-activity. Hartmann says: “Thus all that the subject perceives are modifications of its own soul-condition and nothing else.”

[ 1 ] Let us examine how this conviction is arrived at. The argument may be summarized as follows: If an external world exists then we do not perceive it as such, but through our organism transform it into a world of representations. When followed out consistently, this is a self-canceling assumption. In any case, can this argument be used to establish any conviction at all? Are we justified in regarding our given world-picture as a subjective content of representations, just because we arrive inevitably at this conclusion if we start from the assumption made by naive consciousness? After all, the aim was just to prove this assumption invalid. It should then be possible for an assertion to be wrong, and yet lead to a correct result. This can happen, but the result cannot then be said to have been proved by the assertion.

[ 1 ] The view which accepts the reality of our directly given picture of the world as certain and beyond doubt, is usually called naive realism. The opposite view, which regards this world-picture as merely the content of our consciousness, is called transcendental idealism. Thus the preceding discussion could also be summarized as follows: Transcendental idealism demonstrates its truth by using the same premises as the naive realism which it aims to refute. Transcendental idealism is justified if naive realism is proved incorrect, but its incorrectness is only demonstrated by means of the incorrect view itself. Once this is realized there is no alternative but to abandon this path and to attempt to arrive at another view of the world. Does this mean proceeding by trial and error until we happen to hit on the right one? That is Hartmann's approach when he believes his epistemological standpoint established on the grounds that his view explains the phenomena, whereas others do not. According to him the various world-views are engaged in a sort of struggle for existence in which the fittest is ultimately accepted as victor. But the inconsistency of this procedure is immediately apparent, for there might well be other hypotheses which would explain the phenomena equally satisfactorily. For this reason we prefer to adhere to the above argument for the refuting of naive realism, and investigate precisely where its weakness lies. After all, naive realism is the viewpoint from which we all start. It is therefore the proper starting-point for a critical investigation. By recognizing its shortcomings we shall be led to the right path much more surely than by simply trusting to luck.

[ 1 ] The subjectivism outlined above is based on the use of thinking for elaborating certain facts. This presupposes that, starting from certain facts, a correct conclusion can be obtained through logical thinking (logical combination of particular observations). But the justification for using thinking in this way is not examined by this philosophical approach. This is its weakness. While naive realism begins by assuming that the content of experience, as we perceive it, is an objective reality without examining if this is so, the standpoint just characterized sets out from the equally uncritical conviction that thinking can be used to arrive at scientifically valid conclusions. In contrast to naive realism, this view could be called naive rationalism. To justify this term, a brief comment on the concept of “naive” is necessary here. A. Döring tries to define this concept in his essay, Ueber den Begriff des naiven Realismus (Concerning the Concept of naive Realism). He says:

[ 1 ] “The concept 'naive' designates the zero point in the scale of reflection about one's own relation to what one is doing. A naive content may well be correct, for although it is unreflecting and therefore simply non-critical or uncritical, this lack of reflection and criticism excludes the objective assurance of truth, and includes the possibility and danger of error, yet by no means necessitates them. One can be equally naive in one's life of feeling and will, as in the life of representing and thinking in the widest sense; furthermore, one may express this inner life in a naive manner rather than repressing and modifying it through consideration and reflection. To be naive means not to be influenced, or at least not consciously influenced by tradition, education or rules; it means to be, in all spheres of life, what the root of the word: 'nativus' implies. i.e., unconscious, impulsive, instinctive, daimonic.”

[ 1 ] Starting from this, we will endeavor to define “naive” still more precisely. In all our activities, two things must be taken into account: the activity itself, and our knowledge of its laws. We may be completely absorbed in the activity without worrying about its laws. The artist is in this position when he does not reflect about the laws according to which he creates, but applies them, using feeling and sensitivity. We may call him “naive.” It is possible, however, to observe oneself, and enquire into the laws inherent in one's own activity, thus abandoning the naive consciousness just described through knowing exactly the scope of and justification for what one does. This I shall call critical. I believe this definition comes nearest to the meaning of this concept as it has been used in philosophy, with greater or lesser clarity, ever since Kant. Critical reflection then is the opposite of the naive approach. A critical attitude is one that comes to grips with the laws of its own activity in order to discover their reliability and limits. Epistemology can only be a critical science. For its object is an essentially subjective activity of man: cognition, and it wishes to demonstrate the laws inherent in cognition. Thus everything “naive” must be excluded from this science. Its strength must lie in doing precisely what many thinkers, inclined more toward the practical doing of things, pride themselves that they have never done, namely, “think about thinking.”

[ 1 ] All epistemologists after Kant have been influenced to a greater or lesser extent by Kant’s flawed reasoning. Kant’s view (that all objects given to us are merely our mental representations) arises due to his a priori stance. His view consequently has been made the principle starting point of almost all epistemological systems. What is initially and immediately certain to us, he claims, is that we only know our mental pictures (Vorstellungen). This view has been believed almost universally by philosophers. As early as 1792, G. E. Schulze claimed in his Anesidemus ⁴⁵ that mental pictures are all that we know, and that we can never go beyond them. Schopenhauer presents this same view with his own philosophical pathos, that the lasting attainment of Kant's philosophy is the view that the world is simply my own mental picture. Eduard von Hartmann finds this sentence so inviolable, that in his work Critical Foundations of Transcendental Realism he takes for granted that all his readers, by critical reflection, have freed themselves from the naive identification of their perceptual image with a thing-in-itself, and consider as evident that the seeming diversity of objects of observation in the act of mental picturing is a singular subjective-ideal content of consciousness, and consider as evident that something else exists in and of itself, independent of the form of consciousness. In other words, his readers are permeated by the conviction that the totality of what is immediately given to us consists of mental pictures (Vorstellungen).⁴⁶

In his last epistemological publication, Hartmann tried to justify his view. Our further discussion will show how an unprejudiced epistemology must respond to this sort of justification. Otto Liebmann states as the sacrosanct supreme principle of all epistemology, “Consciousness cannot leap over itself.” ⁴⁷ Vokelt had the opinion that the first, most immediate truth is that "all our knowing extends initially only to our mental pictures, the positivistic principle of knowledge, and he only considers that theory of knowing as eminently critical which contains this principle, and then develops its consequences”.⁴⁸ Other philosophers put other claims at the forefront of epistemology, for example, that the real problem lies in the question of the relationship between thinking and existence, and the possibility of mediating between the two, or the question how a being becomes conscious.⁴⁹ Kirchmann ⁵⁰ starts from two epistemological axioms, “what is perceived is” and “the contradiction is not.⁵¹ According to E. L. Fischer, cognition consists in the knowledge of something actual, real,⁵² and he leaves this dogma unexamined, just as does Göring, who claims something similar, “Knowing always means recognizing a being, and that is a fact which neither skepticism nor Kantian criticism can deny.” ⁵³ In the case of the last two, one simply decrees what knowing consists of, without asking by what right this can happen.

[ 2 ] Even if these various claims were correct or led to correct problems, they could not be discussed at the beginning of a theory of knowing, because, as very specific insights, they all already stand within the domain of knowing. When I say that my knowledge initially only extends to my ideas or mental pictures, that is a very specific cognitive judgment. Through this sentence a predicate is added to the world given to me, namely existence in the form of a mental picture. But above all, how am I supposed to know that the things given to me are mental pictures?

[ 3 ] We will best convince ourselves of the correctness of not placing this sentence at the forefront of epistemology if we follow the path that the human mind must take to get to it. Yet the phrase has become a part of modern scientific consciousness. The considerations that pushed it to the front can be found systematically and completely compiled in the first section of Eduard von Hartmann's Critical Foundation of Transcendental Realism.⁵⁴ What has been put forward can therefore serve as a kind of guide, if one sets out to discuss all the reasons that could lead to that assumption. [ 4 ] These reasons are physical, psycho-physical, physiological, and specifically philosophical.

[ 5 ] A physicist tries to reach out through observation to actual events in our environment. When we, for instance, have a sensation of sound, a physicist conjectures that there is nothing in these actual happenings that has even the remotest similarity to what we simply perceive as sound. Outside, in the space surrounding us, only longitudinal vibrations of the bodies and the air can be found. From this it is concluded that what we call sound or tone in ordinary life is merely a subjective reaction of our organism to that wave movement. Likewise, one finds that light, color, and heat are all purely subjective. The varieties of color-scattering, light-refraction, light-wave-overlapping, and polarization teach us that the above-mentioned sensory qualities correspond to vibrations or waves moving in external space, which we feel compelled to attribute partly to bodies and partly to something immeasurably fine, elastic, and flowing in the atmosphere. Furthermore, due to certain phenomena in the physical world, the physicist is forced to give up the belief in the continuity of objects in space and to trace them back to systems of the smallest parts (molecules, atoms) whose sizes are immeasurably small in relation to their relative positions in space. From this he concludes that all effects of bodies on one-another work through empty space, which indicates forces acting over distances.⁵⁵ Physics believes it is justified in assuming that the effect of bodies on our sense of touch and warmth does not occur through direct contact, because there must always be a certain, albeit small, distance between the area of skin touching the body and the body itself. From this it follows that what we perceive, for example, as the hardness or warmth of the body, are only reactions of nerve endings that are sensitive to touch or heat, and heat, reacting to the molecular forces acting through empty space.

[ 6 ] These considerations of physicists are supplemented by those of psychophysicists,⁵⁶ which find expression in the doctrine of specific sensory energies. J. Müller ⁵⁷ has shown that every sense can only be affected in its own way, determined by its organization, and that it always reacts in the same way, whatever external impression is made on it. When the optic nerve is excited, we sense light, regardless of whether it is pressure or electric current or light that acts on the nerve. On the other hand, the same external stimuli produce completely different sensations, depending on how they are perceived by this or that sense. From this it has been concluded that there is only one type of process in the external world, namely movement, and that the diversity of the world we perceive is essentially a reaction of our senses to these processes. According to this view, we do not perceive the external world as such, but only the subjective feelings it triggers within us.

[ 7 ] In addition to the considerations of physics and psychophysicists, there are also those of physiologists. The former follows the phenomena that occur outside our organism and which correspond to our perceptions. Physiology seeks to explore the processes in people's own bodies that take place when certain sensory nerves are stimulated. Physiology teaches that the epidermis is completely insensitive to stimuli from the outside world. So, if the end-organs of our touch-sensitive nerves near the surface of the body are to be stimulated by the influences of the outside world, the vibrations or waves that lie outside our body must first propagate through the epidermis. In the auditory and visual senses, the external movement process is also modified by many organelles in the sensory apparatus before it reaches the auditory or visual nerves. This action on the end-organs is then conducted through the nerves to the central organ, and only there, from purely mechanical processes in the brain, the sensation is generated, is born.

It is quite clear that the sensory organ stimulation is converted on its way into the brain, so much so that every trace of resemblance between the first impact on the sensory system and the final sensation in awareness is obliterated. Hartmann summarizes this consideration in the following words, “This content of consciousness originally consists of sensations with which the soul reacts reflexively to the states of movement in its highest brain center, but which do not have the slightest resemblance to the molecular states of movement through which they are exercised”. [ 8 ] Anyone who thinks this train of thought through to the end must admit that if it is correct, not the slightest remnant of what can be called external existence would be contained in the content of our consciousness.

[ 9 ] To his physical and physiological objections to what he calls naive realism, Hartman adds what he calls purely philosophical objections. When we examine the first two objections logically, however, we notice that we can only really come to the result indicated if we start from the existence of and our connection to external things, just as ordinary naive consciousness assumes, and afterward examine how this external world can come into our awareness inside our bodily organization. We have seen that we lose every trace of such an external world on the way from the sensory impression to the entry into consciousness, and in the latter, in our awareness, nothing remains but our ideas, our mental pictures (Vorstellungen). We must therefore assume that our image of the external world is built by the soul based on sensations. First, a spatial picture of the world is constructed from the sensations of sight and touch, into which the sensations of the other senses are then inserted. If we find ourselves forced to think that a certain complex of sensations is coherent, we come to the concept of substance, which carries itself. If we notice that certain sensed qualities of a substance disappear as others appear, we attribute this to a change in the material world, regulated by the law of causality. According to this view, our entire worldview is made up of subjective sensory content, which is regulated by our own soul activity. Hartmann says, “The subject perceives only modifications of his own psychological states and nothing else.” ⁵⁸

[ 10 ] Let us now ask ourselves, how do we come to such a conclusion? The skeleton of the thought process is that if an external world exists, we do not perceive it as such, but rather transform it into a world of mental pictures through our organization. What we are dealing with here is a premise, that if pursued rigorously, cancels itself out. Is this line of thought a suitable basis for any conviction? Are we justified in viewing the world given to us as subjective conceptual content when this view necessarily leads to the assumption of naive consciousness, of naive realism? Our goal is to prove this assumption itself to be invalid. Can it be possible for an assertion to turn out to be false, and yet arrive at a proper conclusion? Well, that may happen, but the conclusion can never be regarded as proven in that way.

[ 11 ] The world view that accepts the reality of the world picture that is immediately given to us as something that cannot be questioned, and is self-evident, is usually called naive realism. The opposite, on the other hand, which considers this world view to be merely the content of our consciousness, is transcendental idealism. We can therefore also summarize the result of the previous considerations with the following words: transcendental idealism proves its correctness by operating with the means of naive realism, which it aims to refute.

Naive realism may be false, but its falseness is proven here only with the help of the false view itself. Anyone who keeps this in mind has no alternative but to leave the path taken here, and attempt to take up another view of the world. But should this be done on a trial basis, with luck, until we accidentally come across the right thing? Eduard von Hartmann has taken this path; he believes he has demonstrated the validity of his epistemological approach, for it explains world phenomena while others do not. According to him, individual world views struggle for existence, and the one that proves itself best is ultimately accepted as the winner. But such a procedure seems inadmissible to us, simply because there could easily be several hypotheses that lead to an equally satisfactory explanation of world phenomena. Therefore, we would rather stick to the above line of thought for refuting naive realism and see where specifically its deficiency lies.

Naive realism is the viewpoint from which all people start. For this reason alone, it is advisable to start the correction with it. If we understand what in it is defective, then we will be guided onto the right path with a completely different degree of certainty than if we simply try something randomly. [ 12 ] The subjectivism outlined above is based on mental processing of certain facts. It therefore presupposes, from an actual starting point, that correct convictions can be obtained through logical thinking (logical combination of certain observations). The right to apply our thinking in this way, however, is not examined from this point of view. And therein lies its weakness. While naive realism is based on the unexamined assumption that our perceived experience has objective reality, the characterized viewpoint above is based on the equally unexamined belief that one can arrive at scientifically justified convictions through the application of thinking. In contrast to naive realism, this point of view can be called naive rationalism. As a means of justifying this terminology, we would like to make a brief comment about the term “naive”. A. Doring seeks to define this concept more closely in his essay on the concept of naive realism.⁵⁹ He says about it, “The concept of naïveté describes, as it were, the zero point on the scale of reflection on one's own behavior. In terms of content, naïveté can certainly make the right decision, because it is indeed without reflection and therefore uncritical, but this lack of reflection and criticism only excludes the objective certainty of doing the right thing; it includes the possibility and danger of failing, but by no means the necessity of it. There is a naïveté of feeling and willing, as well as of imagining and thinking, in the broadest sense of the latter word, as well as a naïveté of the expressions of these inner states in contrast to the repression or modification of them brought about by considerations and reflection. Naïveté (at least consciously, not influenced by what is traditional, learned, and prescriptive) is in all areas what the root word nativus expresses, namely unconscious, impulsive, instinctive, demonic.”

Starting from these sentences, we want the concept of being naive to be a little more precise. In every activity we carry out, two things come into consideration: the activity itself and a consideration of its consequences. We can be completely absorbed in the former without asking about the latter. This is the case when an artist fails to consider how his work affects others, but rather practices his art according to his own feelings and sensations. We call him naive. But there is a type of self-observation that considers the consequences of one's own actions, and which exchanges this awareness for naïveté, and knows exactly the scope and justification of what it is doing. We want to call this critical. We believe that this best captures the meaning of the term critical, as it has become established in philosophy with various degrees of clarity since Kant. Critical prudence is therefore the opposite of naïveté. We call behavior critical when it takes control of the laws of one's own activity, to learn about their safety and limits. Therefore, a theory of knowing, epistemology, can only be a critical science. Its object to a high degree is the subjective human activity of cognition,⁶⁰ and what it wants to demonstrate are the laws of cognition. All naïveté must therefore be excluded from this science. It must see its strength precisely in the fact that it accomplishes what many practical minds boast that they have never done, namely "thinking about thinking."

• 45. Gottlob Ernst Schulze (1761–1833), Aenesidemus, Helmstädt, 1792.
• 46. Eduard von Hartmann, Kritische Grundlegung, Berlin 1875, Foreword, p. 10 of the German ed.
• 47. Otto Liebmann, Zur Analysis, p. 28 ff. of the German ed
• 48. Vokelt, Kant’s Erkenntnistheorie, section 1.
• 49. J. Rehmke, Die Welt als Wahrnehmung und Begriff uns; Berlin 1880.
• 50. Julius Heinrich v. Kirchmann (1802–1884), Die Lehre vom Wissen, The Theory of Knowledge, Berlin, 1868.
• 51. A. Dorner, Das menschliche Erkennen, usw., Human Cognition, Berlin, 1887.
• 52. E. L. Fischer, Die Grundfragen der Erkenntnistheorie, Basic Questions of the Theory of Cognition, Mainz 1887, p. 385.
• 53. C. Göring, System der kritischen Philosophie, System of Critical Philosophy, Leipzig, 1874, Part I, p. 257.
• 54. Eduard von Hartmann, Kritische Grundlegung des transzendentalen Realismus; 2. Aufl. Berlin 1875, S.37.
• 55. t/n Physicists consider electromagnetic forces, gravitational forces, weak and strong nuclear forces, as well as quantum entanglement (EPR pairs).
• 56. t/n A psychophysicist is someone who deals with the relationship between a physical stimulus and the sensation and perception it produces.
• 57. t/n Johannes Müller (1801–1858)
• 58. Hartmann's Grundproblem, p. 37
• 59. A. Döring, article in Philosophische Monatshefte, Vol. XXVI, 1890, p. 390. publ. Heidelberg.
• 60. t/n Cognition is the mental activity of acquiring understanding of sense perceptions and concepts.

While the empirical sciences seek to fathom and explain the context in the world of given objects and to explain the relationships between the individual empirical phenomena, philosophy sets out to explain the given in its entirety itself, to show how the finite, the limited, is connected to the infinite, the unlimited. For the empirical scientist, the world of phenomena is a foundation on which he thinks he stands firmly, but he does not venture to ask further questions about it. The philosopher, however, seeing the conditionality of this foundation, unhinges it in order to rebuild it and let it emerge from the only unchanging and absolute. What the human mind unconsciously created in an earlier period becomes its object in a later one. The inner becomes an outer for it and as such it is taken up and endowed with new life. Whenever the old is taken as an object and given new breath, then the human mind has reached a new level.

When minds inspired by old ideas are awakened and infuse new life into them, a new epoch in human history has begun. The longer ideas reproduce without the infusion of fresh life, the more rigid they become; they appear to be alive, but they are dead. This was the state of German culture in all its branches at the beginning of the last century. But then the time came when a new ray of sunshine warmed the frozen world and new life sprouted everywhere. In the realm of the beautiful there arose a Lessing, a Herder, a Goethe, a Schiller; in philosophy there was a Kant.

In 1746, the death of his father deprived him of the necessary funds to continue his university studies, and he was forced to leave the university. He left by publishing a treatise that already foreshadowed his ingenuity: “On the True Estimation of the Living Forces of Nature”.

Through the spirited [illegible word] Martin Knutzen, who introduced him to Newton, the studies on this great man were the immediate cause of the cited writing. Now he became a private tutor and remained in this position for nine years until he had sufficient material means to be able to pursue his career as an academic teacher. In 1755, he earned the degree of Magister with his treatise “A New Illumination of the First Principles of All Metaphysical Knowledge,” and at the same time he began his beneficial academic work as a private lecturer.

In the aforementioned treatise, he now presents himself to us fully as a philosopher. Although he still starts from the Leibniz-Wolffian direction, he is already standing completely independently, declaring the ontological proof of the existence of God to be fraudulent, showing the impossibility of assuming that a simple being could have the reason for its change within itself.

In 1762, he proves that the four syllogistic figures [two unreadable words] of contemporary philosophy are only false subtleties.

In 1763, he attempts to introduce negative quantities into world wisdom.

1764 he shows that if philosophy is to be more than a dead skeleton of the active and living world view, and correspond to reality, it must emulate the mathematical method, for this is the view that corresponds to reality [and is more true to life].

In 1766, in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, he regards old metaphysics as nothing more than a form of enthusiasm, which he equates with the musings of Swedenborg, who was well known at the time.

In 1768, he also broke with Leibniz's assumption that space is nothing but the relationship between things that are next to each other; he attributed to it an independent and original significance.

And so the dilapidated house of old metaphysics was demolished piece by piece, and David Hume's skeptical investigations had left a deep impression.

Not as fast as in his inner philosophical views, he progressed in his external career. He had to remain a private lecturer for 15 years. His circumstances were not brilliant; this is proved by the fact that the only coat was so worn out that his friends would have bought him a new one if he had agreed. He had been proposed for a full professorship since 1756. But the then seven-year war was an obstacle to his aspirations. Only in 1762 was he offered a full professorship in poetry.

Those who have had even a small amount of contact with Kantian intellectual products will hardly be surprised when they hear that the philosopher turned down a position in which he would have had the obligation to [illegible word] all possible daily phenomena in the field of poetry, to make occasional poems and the like. He was proposed for a position that was next to be filled. And so he was brought to the royal castle in 1766 as a sub-librarian with an annual salary of - 62 thalers.

Meanwhile, however, his seeds had also found more fertile soil here and there in the rest of Germany, and in November 1769 he was called to Erlangen and in January 1770 to Jena. Already determined to accept the latter appointment, in March 1770 the long-awaited opportunity arose for him to take up the post of full professor in his native Königsberg; he became a full professor of logic and metaphysics.

In August 1770, he then [emerged] with the treatise “On the Principles of the Sensual and the Intellectual World” and in this, the transformation had already taken place, the old dogmatic philosophy was concluded and the foundation for the critical one was laid. Here it is already clearly stated that the conditions under which things can appear to us cannot at the same time provide the conditions of the possibility of things in themselves. And now he sets to work on the most famous of all philosophical works, the work by which he made himself immortal, the “Critique of Pure Reason”.

In February 1772, he writes to Herz in Berlin, the man who, in defense of the aforementioned essay, replied that he hoped to finish his work in three months.

In Nov. 1776, he does not think he will be finished by Easter, and he believes he will have to work all summer long; the systematic development presents enormous difficulties.

In Aug. 1777, he hopes to be finished by winter, and in August of the following year, he speaks of a handbook of metaphysics that is to be published by him soon. However, it is not until 1781 that the work appears under the title “Critique of Pure Reason”.

This was

not a critique of books and systems, but [the] of reason in general, in view of all knowledge to which it may aspire independently of all experience, and thus the decision of the possibility or impossibility of metaphysics in general and the determination of both the sources and the scope and limits of the same, all from principles

given. Wormy dogmatism, together with destructive skepticism, was thrown overboard, mere groping under mere concepts abandoned, the whole world view placed on different feet. Until then, it had been assumed that

all our knowledge must conform to the objects; but all attempts to determine a priori something through concepts by which our knowledge would be expanded came to nothing under this assumption.

Kant tried

therefore tried to see whether we would not get better results in the tasks of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must be based on our knowledge, which [so] better agrees with the desired possibility [of] knowledge of the same a priori, which is to establish something about objects before they are given to us. The situation here is similar to that of Copernicus's first thoughts, who, [after not much success in explaining the movements in the heavens when he assumed that the whole starry sky rotated around the observer, tried to see if he might not be more successful if he made the observer rotate and left the stars at rest. In metaphysics, we can now try a similar approach with regard to the perception of objects. If perception had to conform to the nature of objects, then I do not see how we can know anything about it a priori; but if the object (as an object of the senses) conforms to the nature of our faculty of perception, then I can well imagine this possibility.

[breaks off]

The question repeatedly arises within the intellectual movement that this journal serves: How does theosophy relate to the scientific foundations of the epistemology that currently prevail? In the following, I would like to present some of the ideas of Kant's epistemology, which is probably the starting point for most modern epistemologies. “Back to Kant” has been the motto of our philosophers since the 1960s. Therefore, an epistemological consideration must probably be linked to Kant's thoughts.

The theory of knowledge is supposed to be a scientific investigation of that which all other sciences presuppose without examination: cognition itself. This means that it is assigned the character of a philosophical fundamental science from the outset. For only through it can we learn what value and what significance the insights gained by the other sciences have. In this respect, it forms the basis for all scientific endeavor. It is clear, however, that it can only fulfill this task if it itself, as far as the nature of human cognitive faculty allows, is free of presuppositions. This is generally conceded. Nevertheless, a close examination of the better-known epistemological systems reveals that a whole series of presuppositions are made at the very outset of the investigation, which then significantly impair the convincing effect of the further explanations. In particular, it will be noticed that certain hidden assumptions are usually made even when the basic epistemological problems are being formulated. But if the questions posed by a science are wrong, then one must doubt the correctness of the solution from the outset. The history of science teaches us that countless errors, which have plagued entire ages, are solely and exclusively due to the fact that certain problems were posed incorrectly. To give just one example: what modifications did certain questions in physics undergo as a result of the discovery of the mechanical equivalent of heat and the law of the conservation of energy! In short, the success of scientific investigations depends to a large extent on whether one is able to pose the problems correctly. Even though epistemology, as the basis of all other sciences, occupies a very special position, it is nevertheless foreseeable that successful progress in its investigation will only be possible if the fundamental questions are posed in the correct form.

One could rightly object to the view that Kant was the founder of epistemology in the modern sense of the word, that the history of philosophy before Kant shows numerous investigations that can be seen as more than just the seeds of such a science. Volkelt, for example, notes in his fundamental work on epistemology (“Erfahrung und Denken. Kritische Grundlegung der Erkenntnistheorie” by Johannes Volkelt. Hamburg and Leipzig 1886, page 20) that the critical treatment of this science began with Locke. But even in the case of earlier philosophers, even in the philosophy of the Greeks, one finds discussions that are currently being held in epistemology. However, Kant has stirred up all the problems that come into consideration here in their depths, and numerous thinkers have followed up on him and worked through them so thoroughly that one finds the earlier attempts at solutions either in Kant himself or in his epigones. If, then, we are dealing with a purely factual and not a historical study of epistemology, we can hardly fail to recognize an important phenomenon if we take into account only the period since Kant's appearance with the “Critique of Pure Reason”. What had been achieved in this field before is repeated in this epoch.

Kant's fundamental epistemological question is: How are synthetic judgments a priori possible? Let us examine this question in terms of its presuppositions! Kant raises this question because he believes that we can only attain an absolutely certain knowledge if we are able to prove the justification of synthetic judgments a priori. He says: “The solution of the above problem also includes the possibility of the pure use of reason in the foundation and execution of all sciences that contain a theoretical knowledge a priori of objects” (“Critique of Pure Reason”, page 61 ff. according to the edition by Kirchmann, to which edition all other page numbers in quotations from the Critique of Pure Reason and the Prolegomena are to be referred), and “The resolution of this task is the be-all and end-all of metaphysics, and thus of its very existence” (Prolegomena$ 5).

Is this question, as Kant puts it, without presuppositions? Not at all, for it makes the possibility of an absolutely certain system of knowledge dependent on the fact that it is built up only from synthetic judgments and from such judgments as are won independently of all experience. Kant calls synthetic judgments those in which the predicate concept adds something to the subject concept that lies completely outside of it, “even though it is linked to it” (“Critique of Pure Reason”, p. 53 f.), whereas in analytical judgments the predicate only states something that (hidden) is already contained in the subject. This is not the place to discuss Johannes Rehmke's astute objections to this classification of judgments (“Die Welt als Wahrnehmung und Begriff”, page 161ff.). For our present purposes, it is sufficient to realize that we can only attain true knowledge through judgments that add a second concept to a first, the content of which was not yet present in the first concept, at least for us. If we wish to call this class of judgments synthetic judgments, we can still concede that knowledge can only be gained in the form of judgments if the connection between the predicate and the subject is a synthetic one. The matter is different, however, with the second part of the question, which requires that these judgments must be arrived at a priori, that is, independently of all experience. It is quite possible (we mean here, of course, the mere possibility of thought) that such judgments do not exist at all. For the beginning of epistemology, it must be considered completely undecided whether we can arrive at judgments other than through experience, or only through it. Indeed, such independence seems impossible from the outset in the face of unbiased reflection. For whatever may become the object of our knowledge, it must first approach us as an immediate, individual experience, that is, it must become an experience. We also gain mathematical judgments in no other way than by experiencing them in certain individual cases. Even if, as Otto Liebmann does, for example, in his book “Analysis of Reality: Thoughts and Facts”, one allows the same to be based on a certain organization of our consciousness, the matter does not present itself differently. We can then say that this or that proposition is necessarily valid, for if its truth were annulled, consciousness would be annulled with it; but we can only gain the content of consciousness as knowledge if it becomes an experience for us, in exactly the same way as a process in external nature. The content of such a proposition may always contain elements that guarantee its absolute validity, or it may be secured for other reasons: I cannot get hold of it in any other way than when it confronts me as an experience. This is the one.

The second concern is that at the beginning of epistemological investigations, one should not claim that absolutely valid knowledge cannot come from experience. It is certainly quite conceivable that experience itself would have a characteristic that would guarantee the certainty of the insights gained from it.

Thus, Kant's question contains two presuppositions: firstly, that we must have a way of gaining knowledge other than experience, and secondly, that all knowledge gained through experience can only have limited validity. Kant is not at all aware that these statements need to be examined, that they can be doubted. He simply takes them over from dogmatic philosophy as prejudices and uses them as the basis for his critical investigations. Dogmatic philosophy presupposes them as valid and simply applies them in order to arrive at knowledge corresponding to them; Kant presupposes them as valid and only asks himself: under what conditions can they be valid? What if they were not valid at all? Then Kant's edifice of doctrine lacks any foundation.

Everything that Kant presents in the five paragraphs that precede the formulation of his fundamental question is an attempt to prove that mathematical judgments are synthetic. (An attempt that, incidentally, is not completely refuted by Robert Zimmermann's objections – “On Kant's mathematical prejudice and its consequences” – but is very much called into question.) But the two premises we have cited remain as scientific prejudices. In Introduction II of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant writes: “Experience teaches us that something is so or so, but not that it could not be otherwise,” and: “Experience never gives its judgments true or strict generality, but only assumed and comparative generality (through induction). In the “Prolegomena” § I we find: “First, as regards the sources of metaphysical knowledge, it is already in their concept that they cannot be empirical. The principles of the same (to which not only their principles, but also their basic concepts belong) must therefore never be derived from experience; for it is not physical, but metaphysical, that is, knowledge beyond experience.” Finally, in the Critique of Pure Reason (page 58), Kant says: “First of all, it must be noted that actual mathematical propositions are always judgments a priori and not empirical, because they involve necessity, which cannot be derived from experience. But if you do not want to concede this, then I limit my proposition to pure mathematics, whose concept already implies that it does not contain empirical, but only pure knowledge a priori.” We may open the Critique of Pure Reason wherever we like, and we will find that all the investigations within it are conducted under the assumption of these dogmatic propositions. Cohen (“Kants Theorie der Erfahrung”, p. 90ff.) and Stadler (“Die Grundsätze der reinen Erkenntnistheorie in der Kantschen Philosophie”, p. 76£.) attempt to prove that Kant demonstrated the a priori nature of mathematical and pure scientific propositions. However, everything that is attempted in the Critique can be summarized as follows: Because mathematics and pure natural science are a priori sciences, the form of all experience must be grounded in the subject. Thus, only the material of sensations, which is given empirically, remains. This is built up into a system of experience by the forms lying in the mind. The formal truths of a priori theories only have meaning and significance as organizing principles for the material of sensations; they make experience possible, but do not extend beyond it. These formal truths are, however, the synthetic judgments a priori, which, as conditions of all possible experience, must therefore extend as far as this experience itself. The Critique of Pure Reason does not, therefore, prove the a priori nature of mathematics and pure natural science, but only determines their area of validity under the precondition that their truths are to be obtained independently of experience. In fact, Kant is so reluctant to provide a proof of this a priori nature that he simply excludes that part of mathematics (see above) in which, even in his view, it could be doubted and confines himself to that in which he believes he can deduce it from the mere concept. Johannes Volkelt also finds that “Kant proceeds from the explicit assumption” that “there is in fact a general and necessary knowledge”. He goes on to say: “This assumption, which Kant never explicitly examined, is so contrary to the character of the critical theory of knowledge that one must seriously ask oneself whether the ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ can be considered a critical theory of knowledge.” Volkelt finds that this question can be answered in the affirmative for good reasons, but that “the critical attitude of Kant's epistemology is thoroughly disturbed by that dogmatic presupposition” (“Erfahrung und Denken”, p. 21). Suffice it to say that Volkelt also finds that the “Critique of Pure Reason” is not an epistemology without presuppositions.

The views of Otto Liebmann (“Zur Analysis der Wirklichkeit”, p. 211 ff.), Hölder (“Darstellung der Kantischen Erkenntnistheorie”, p. 14f.), Windelband (“Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie”, p. 239, 1877), Überweg (“System der Logik”, 3rd edition , p. 380f.), Eduard von Hartmann's (“Kritische Grundlegung des transcendentalen Realismus”, pp. 142-172) and Kuno Fischer's (“Geschichte der neueren Philosophie” V.Bd., p. 60. Volkelt is mistaken in his reference to Kuno Fischer when he says - “Kants Erkenntnistheorie”, p. 198f. Note - says that it is “not clear from K. Fischer's account whether, in his view, Kant presupposes only the psychological actuality of general and necessary judgments or at the same time the objective validity and legitimacy of the same”. For at the point in question, Fischer says that the main difficulty of the “Critique of Pure Reason” is to be found in the fact that its “foundations are dependent on certain presuppositions” that “one must have conceded in order to accept the following”. For Fischer, these preconditions are the fact that “first the fact of knowledge” is established and then, through analysis, the cognitive faculties are found “from which that fact itself is explained”) in relation to the fact that Kant places the a priori validity of pure mathematics and natural science at the forefront of his discussions as a precondition.

That we really have knowledge that is independent of all experience, and that the latter only provides insights of comparative generality, we could only accept as corollaries of other judgments. These assertions would have to be preceded by an investigation into the nature of experience and one into the nature of our knowledge. The first of the above propositions could follow from the former, the second from the latter.

Now, one could still reply to our objections to the criticism of reason as follows. One could say that every epistemology must first lead the reader to the point where the starting point without presuppositions is to be found. For what we possess as knowledge at any point in our lives has moved far from this starting point, and we must first be led back to it artificially. Indeed, such a purely didactic understanding of the beginning of his science is a necessity for every epistemologist. But it must in any case be limited to showing in what way the beginning of knowledge in question is really such a beginning; it should proceed in purely self-evident analytical propositions and should not make any real, substantial assertions that influence the content of the following discussions, as is the case with Kant. It is also incumbent upon the epistemologist to show that the beginning he assumes is really without presuppositions. But all this has nothing to do with the nature of this beginning itself, is completely outside of it, and says nothing about it. Even at the beginning of a mathematics lesson, I have to try to convince the student of the axiomatic character of certain truths. But no one will want to claim that the content of the axioms is made dependent on these considerations. In exactly the same way, the epistemologist would have to show in his introductory remarks the way in which one can arrive at a beginning without presuppositions; the actual content of this beginning, however, must be independent of these considerations. But anyone who, like Kant, makes assertions of a very definite, dogmatic character at the beginning is far removed from such an introduction to epistemology.

[ 1 ] Kant is generally considered to be the founder of epistemology in the modern sense. However, the history of philosophy before Kant contains a number of investigations which must be considered as more than mere beginnings of such a science. Volkelt points to this in his standard work on epistemology, saying that critical treatments of this science began as early as Locke.ⁱ However, discussions which to-day come under the heading of epistemology ⁱⁱ can be found as far back as in the philosophy of ancient Greece. Kant then went into every aspect of all the relevant problems, and innumerable thinkers following in his footsteps went over the ground so thoroughly that in their works or in Kant's are to be found repetitions of all earlier attempts to solve these problems. Thus where a factual rather than a historical study of epistemology is concerned, there is no danger of omitting anything important if one considers only the period since the appearance of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. All earlier achievements in this field have been repeated since Kant.

[ 2 ] Kant's fundamental question concerning epistemology is: How are synthetical judgments a priori possible? Let us consider whether or not this question is free of presuppositions. Kant formulates it because he believes that we can arrive at certain, unconditional knowledge only if we can prove the validity of synthetical judgments a priori. He says:

In the solution of the above problem is comprehended at the same time the possibility of the use of pure reason in the foundation and construction of all sciences which contain theoretical knowledge a priori of objects.ⁱⁱⁱ

Upon the solution of this problem depends the existence or downfall of the science of metaphysics.^iv

[ 5 ] Is this problem as Kant formulates it, free of all presuppositions? Not at all, for it says that a system of absolute, certain knowledge can be erected only on a foundation of judgments that are synthetical and acquired independently of all experience. Kant calls a judgment “synthetical” where the concept of the predicate brings to the concept of the subject something which lies completely outside the subject—“although it stands in connection with the subject,” ^v by contrast, in analytical judgment, the predicate merely expresses something which is already contained (though hidden) in the subject. It would be out of place here to go into the extremely acute objections made by Johannes Rehmke ^vi to this classification of judgments. For our present purpose it will suffice to recognize that we can arrive at true knowledge only through judgments which add one concept to another in such a way that the content of the second was not already contained—at least for us—in the first. If, with Kant, we wish to call this category of judgment synthetical, then it must be agreed that knowledge in the form of judgment can only be attained when the connection between predicate and subject is synthetical in this sense. But the position is different in regard to the second part of Kant's question, which demands that these judgments must be acquired a priori, i.e., independent of all experience. After all, it is conceivable that such judgments might not exist at all. A theory of knowledge must leave open, to begin with, the question of whether we can arrive at a judgment solely by means of experience, or by some other means as well. Indeed, to an unprejudiced mind it must seem that for something to be independent of experience in this way is impossible. For whatever object we are concerned to know, we must become aware of it directly and individually, that is, it must become experience. We acquire mathematical judgment too, only through direct experience of particular single examples. This is the case even if we regard them, with Otto Liebmann as rooted in a certain faculty of our consciousness. In this case, we must say: This or that proposition must be valid, for, if its truth were denied, consciousness would be denied as well; but we could only grasp its content, as knowledge, through experience in exactly the same way as we experience a process in outer nature. Irrespective of whether the content of such a proposition contains elements which guarantee its absolute validity or whether it is certain for other reasons, the fact remains that we cannot make it our own unless at some stage it becomes experience for us. This is the first objection to Kant's question.

[ 1 ] The second consists in the fact that at the beginning of a theoretical investigation of knowledge, one ought not to maintain that no valid and absolute knowledge can be obtained by means of experience. For it is quite conceivable that experience itself could contain some characteristic feature which would guarantee the validity of insight gained by means of it.

[ 1 ] Two presuppositions are thus contained in Kant's formulation of the question. One presupposition is that we need other means of gaining knowledge besides experience, and the second is that all knowledge gained through experience is only approximately valid. It does not occur to Kant that these principles need proof, that they are open to doubt. They are prejudices which he simply takes over from dogmatic philosophy and then uses as the basis of his critical investigations. Dogmatic philosophy assumes them to be valid, and simply uses them to arrive at knowledge accordingly; Kant makes the same assumptions and merely inquires under what conditions they are valid. But suppose they are not valid at all? In that case, the edifice of Kant's doctrine has no foundation whatever.

[ 6 ] All that Kant brings forward in the five paragraphs preceding his actual formulation of the problem, is an attempt to prove that mathematical judgments are synthetical (an attempt which Robert Zimmermann,^vii if he does not refute it, at least shows it to be highly questionable). But the two assumptions discussed above are retained as scientific prejudices. In the Critique of Pure Reason ^viii it is said:

Experience no doubt teaches us that this or that object is constituted in such and such a manner, but not that it could not possibly exist otherwise.” “Experience never exhibits strict and absolute, but only assumed and comparative universality (by induction).

In Prolegomena ^ix we find it said:

Firstly, as regards the sources of metaphysical knowledge, the very conception of the latter shows that these cannot be empirical. Its principles (under which not merely its axioms, but also its fundamental conceptions are included) must consequently never be derived from experience, since it is not physical but metaphysical knowledge, i.e., knowledge beyond experience, that is wanted.

And finally Kant says:

“Before all, be it observed, that proper mathematical propositions are always judgments a priori, and not empirical, because they carry along with them the conception of necessity, which cannot be given by experience. If this be demurred to, it matters not; I will then limit my assertion to pure mathematics, the very conception of which implies that it consists of knowledge altogether non-empirical and a priori.” ^x

No matter where we open the Critique of Pure Reason we find that all the investigations pursued in it are based on these dogmatic principles. Cohen ^xi and Stadler ^xii attempt to prove that Kant has established the a priori nature of mathematical and purely scientific principles. However, all that the Critique of Pure Reason attempts to show can be summed up as follows: Mathematics and pure natural science are a priori sciences; from this it follows that the form of all experiences must be inherent in the subject itself. Therefore, the only thing left that is empirically given is the material of sensations. This is built up into a system of experiences, the form of which is inherent in the subject. The formal truths of a priori theories have meaning and significance only as principles which regulate the material of sensation; they make experience possible, but do not go further than experience. However, these formal truths are the synthetical judgment a priori, and they must—as condition necessary for experience—extend as far as experience itself. The Critique of Pure Reason does not at all prove that mathematics and pure science are a priori sciences but only establishes their sphere of validity, pre-supposing that their truths are acquired independently of experience. Kant, in fact, avoids discussing the question of proof of the a priori sciences in that he simply excludes that section of mathematics (see conclusion of Kant's last statement quoted above) where even in his own opinion the a priori nature is open to doubt; and he limits himself to that section where he believes proof can be inferred from the concepts alone. Even Johannes Volkelt finds that:

Kant starts from the positive assumption that a necessary and universal knowledge exists as an actual fact. These presuppositions which Kant never specifically attempted to prove, are so contrary to a proper critical theory of knowledge that one must seriously ask oneself whether the Critique of Pure Reason is valid as critical epistemology.

Volkelt does find that there are good reasons for answering this question affirmatively, but he adds: “The critical conviction of Kant's theory of knowledge is nevertheless seriously disturbed by this dogmatic assumption.” ^xiii It is evident from this that Volkelt, too, finds that the Critique of Pure Reason as a theory of knowledge, is not free of presuppositions.

[ 7 ] O. Liebmann, Hölder, Windelband, Ueberweg, Ed. v. Hartmann ^xiv and Kuno Fischer,^xv hold essentially similar views on this point, namely, that Kant bases his whole argument on the assumption that knowledge of pure mathematics and natural science is acquired a priori.

[ 8 ] That we acquire knowledge independently of all experience, and that the insight gained from experience is of general value only to a limited extent, can only be conclusions derived from some other investigation. These assertions must definitely be preceded by an examination both of the nature of experience and of knowledge. Examination of experience could lead to the first principle; examination of knowledge, to the second.

[ 9 ] In reply to these criticisms of Kant's critique of reason, it could be said that every theory of knowledge must first lead the reader to where the starting point, free of all presuppositions, is to be found. For what we possess as knowledge at any moment in our life is far removed from this point, and we must first be led back to it artificially. In actual fact, it is a necessity for every epistemologist to come to such a purely didactic arrangement concerning the starting point of this science. But this must always be limited merely to showing to what extent the starting point for cognition really is the absolute start; it must be presented in purely self evident, analytical sentences and, unlike Kant's argument, contain no assertions which will influence the content of the subsequent discussion. It is also incumbent on the epistemologist to show that his starting point is really free of all presuppositions. All this, however, has nothing to do with the nature of the starting point itself, but is quite independent of it and makes no assertions about it. Even when he begins to teach mathematics, the teacher must try to convince the pupil that certain truths are to be understood as axioms. But no one would assert that the content of the axioms is made dependent on these preliminary considerations. (In the chapter titled “The Starting Point of Epistemology,” I shall show to what extent my discussion fulfils these conditions). In exactly the same way the epistemologist must show in his introductory remarks how one can arrive at a starting point free of all presuppositions; yet the actual content of this starting point must be quite independent of these considerations. However, anyone who, like Kant, makes definite, dogmatic assertions at the very outset, is certainly very far from fulfilling these conditions when he introduces his theory of knowledge.

• i. John Locke (1632–1704), English philosopher, scholar, chemist, student of meteorology, practicing physician, political advisor, traveler, and author. For details on his life and thought, consult any standard encyclopedia.
i
• ii. see reference to Volkelt's book in note i, above.
ii
• iii. 81.p. 61 ff. of Kirchmann's German edition of Kant's Kritik. See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Introd. to 2nd edition. Sec. vi.
iii
• iv. Kant, Prolegomena, Sec. v.
iv
• v. Kant, Kritik, p. 53 f. of the German ed. Introduction, Sec. iv.
v
• vi. Rehmke, Johannes: Die Welt als Wahrnehmung und Begriff, usw., The World as Percept and Concept, etc., Berlin, 1880, p. 161 ff. of the German ed.
vi
• vii. Note by Rudolf Steiner: This attempt, incidentally, is one which the objections of Robert Zimmermann (Uber Kant's mathematisches Vorurteil und dessen Folgen, On Kant's Mathematical Notions and their Results) show to be, if not altogether in error, at least highly questionable. (Robert Zimmermann, 1824–1898, was Professor of Philosophy in the University of Vienna, 1861–95. His book on Aesthetics was published in 2 volumes, Vienna, 1870. Rudolf Steiner attended lectures by Zimmermann on fundamentals of ethics at the University of Vienna. Steiner's impressions of this great interpreter of Herbart's aesthetics are contained in the 3rd chapter of the former's autobiography.)
vii
• viii . Kant, Kritik, Introduction to 2nd edition. Sec. ii.
viii
• ix. See Kant's Theorie der Erfahrung, Theory of Experience, pp. 90, ff. of the German ed.
ix
• x. Kant, Kritik, p. 58, Sec. v.
x
• xi. Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, Kant's Theory of Experience, Berlin, 1871, pp. 90 ff. of the German ed.
xi
• xii. August Stadler (1850–1910), Die Grundsätze der reinen Erkenntnistheorie in der Kantschen Philosophie, The Principles of the Pure Theory of Cognition in the Philosophy of Kant, Leipzig, 1876, p. 76 f. of the German ed.
xii
• xiii. Volkelt, op. cit., p. 21.
xiii
• xiv. Otto Liebmann (1840–1912), Analysis, 1880, p. an ff.; A. Holder, Kantischen Erkenntnistheorie, Kant's Theory of Cognition, Tübingen, 1874, p. 14 ff.; Wilhelm Windelband (1848–1915) Phasen der Kantschen Lehre, Phases of Kant's Theory, p. 239; F. Ueberweg, System der Logik, System of Logic, p. 380 f.; Eduard v. Hartmann (1842–1906), Kritische Grundlegung, Berlin, 1875, p. 142–172 of the 2nd German ed.
xiv
• xv. Note by Rudolf Steiner: Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, History of More Recent Philosophy, 1860, Vol. 5, p. 60. Volkelt is mistaken about Fischer when he says (Kant's Erkenntnistheorie, Kant's Theory of Cognition, p. 198 f.) that “it is not clear from the account by K. Fischer whether, in his opinion, Kant takes for granted only the psychological fact of the occurrence of universal and necessary judgments, but also their objective validity and truth.” For, in the passage cited above, Fischer says that the main difficulty of the Critique of Pure Reason is to be found in the fact that “its basic points rest on certain presuppositions,” which “must be allowed if the remainder is to be valid.” For Fischer, these presuppositions consist in that “first the fact of knowledge is affirmed,” and then analysis reveals the cognitive faculties “by means of which the fact itself is explained.”
xv

[ 1 ] Kant is usually cited as the founder of the theory of knowing (Erkenntnistheorie) ²⁴ in the modern sense of the word. One could rightly object to this view by saying that the history of philosophy before Kant contains numerous investigations that should be viewed as more than just the seeds of such a science. Volkelt also notes in his fundamental work on the theory of knowing that the critical treatment of this science began with Locke. ²⁵ But even in earlier philosophers, even in the philosophy of the Greeks, one finds discussions that are currently brought up again to clarify the theory of knowing. All the problems discussed there were churned and digested in depth by Kant, and following him, numerous thinkers worked through them in such a comprehensive manner, that the earlier attempts at solutions can be found either in Kant himself or in his followers. So, by being purely factual rather than historical, the present study of the theory of knowing will not miss anything of importance, but of course while also including everything of importance since the appearance of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft). What was achieved beforehand in this field has been recreated in this epoch starting with Kant.

[ 2 ] Kant's basic epistemological question is: How are synthetic judgments possible a priori? ²⁶ Let's look at this question in terms of its lack of presuppositions! Kant raises the issue because he is of the opinion that we can only acquire unconditionally certain knowledge if we are able to prove the justification of synthetic judgments a priori. He says: "Proving this justification must include the possibility of the pure use of reason in the founding and implementation of all sciences, all that that contain a priori theoretical knowledge of objects." ²⁷ “Proving this involves whether philosophy’s first principles (metaphysics) stand or fall, and therefore whether they exist at all.” ²⁸

[ 3 ] Is this question, as Kant poses it, free of presuppositions? Not at all, because it makes the possibility of an unconditionally certain system of knowledge dependent on the fact that it is built up only from synthetic judgments and from judgments that are gained independently of all experience. Kant calls synthetic judgments those in which the concept of the predicate adds something to the concept of the subject that lies entirely outside of it, “even though it is connected with it” ²⁹ whereas in analytical judgments the predicate only says something that already exists in the subject in a hidden way. This probably is not the place to address Johannes Rehmke's ³⁰ sharp objections to this structure of the judgments. For our present purpose it is sufficient to see that we can only attain truthful understanding (das Wissen) through judgments which add to a concept a second concept, the content of which, at least for us, was not yet contained in the first. If, with Kant, we want to call this class of judgments synthetic, we can at least admit that knowing, that understanding, can only be gained in the form of judgment if the connection between the predicate and the subject is synthetic. But things are different with the second part of the question, which requires that these judgments be gained a priori, independently of all experience. It is quite possible (by this we mean, of course, the mere possibility of thinking) that such judgments do not exist at all. At the beginning of the theory of knowing it must be considered completely undetermined whether we can come to judgments only through experience or without any prior similar experience. Yes, when viewed without bias, such independence seems impossible from the outset. Whatever becomes known, it must first enter our immediate and individual awareness, it must be a direct experience.

We also acquire mathematical judgments by simply experiencing them individually. Even if you were to believe, as B. Otto Liebmann does,³¹ that mathematical facts are grounded in the specific organization of our consciousness, then the matter would be no different. One can then say that this or that sentence is necessarily valid, because if its truth were to be abolished, consciousness would also be abolished, but we can only know it if it becomes an experience for us, exactly the way a process in external nature is experienced. No matter whether the content of such a sentence contains elements that guarantee its absolute validity, or whether it is secured for other reasons, I cannot get hold of it in any other way than by its confronting me as an experience. This is one thing.

[ 4 ] The second concern is that at the beginning of epistemological investigations, one must not claim that knowing something’s absolute validity cannot come from experience. It is quite conceivable that the experience itself could have some characteristic which would guarantee the certainty of the insights gained from it.

[ 5 ] There are two presuppositions in Kant's line of questioning. The first is that we must have a way other than experience to know something. The second is that all understanding of experience can only have limited validity. Kant is not at all aware that these propositions need to be examined, that they can be doubted. He simply takes them over as prejudices from dogmatic philosophy and uses them as the basis for his critical investigations. Dogmatic philosophy presupposes them as valid and simply applies them, arriving at the process of knowing corresponding to them. Kant assumes they are valid, and then only asks himself under what conditions can they be valid? But what if they are not valid at all? Then Kant's theory lacks any basis. Everything Kant puts forward in the five paragraphs that precede the formulation of his basic question is an attempt to prove that mathematical judgments are synthetic.^{32 33 34}

[ 6 ] But the two assumptions cited remain as scientific prejudices. In Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, he says “Experience teaches us that something is one way or another, but not that it cannot be otherwise” and “Experience never gives its judgments true or strict ones, only assumed ones and comparative generality (by induction).” ³⁵ In his preface we find, “First, as far as the sources of metaphysical knowledge are concerned, it is already inherent in their concept that they cannot be empirical. Their principles (not only their basic axioms but also their basic concepts) must therefore never be taken from experience, that is, from knowing something from physical sensation, but from metaphysical sources, from knowledge beyond experience.” ³⁶ Finally, Kant says, “First of all, it must be noted that actual mathematical propositions are always a priori judgments and not empirical, because they entail necessity which cannot be derived from experience. But if you don't want to admit this, then I'll limit my statement to pure mathematics, the very concept of which implies that it does not contain empirical knowing, but only pure a priori knowing.³⁷ We may open the Critique of Pure Reason wherever we want, and we will find that all investigations within it are conducted under the presupposition of these dogmatic propositions. Cohen ³⁸ and Stadler ³⁹ try to prove that Kant demonstrated the a priori nature of mathematical and purely scientific propositions. Now everything that is attempted in the criticism can be summarized as follows:

‘Because mathematics and pure natural science are a priori sciences, the form of all experience must be grounded in the subject. So, all that remains is the material of sensations that is empirically given (given through sensory nerves). This is built up into a system of experience through the forms lying in the mind. The formal truths of the a priori theories only have meaning and significance as organizing principles for the material of sensation; they make experience possible, but do not extend beyond it. However, these formal truths are the synthetic judgments a priori, which, as conditions of all possible experience, must therefore reach as far as the latter itself. The critique of pure reason therefore does not prove the apriority of mathematics and pure natural science, but only determines their area of validity. The prerequisite is that its truths should be gained independently of experience.’ Yes, Kant does so little to provide a proof for this a priori, rather he simply excludes it. The part of mathematics, Kant says, in which the same could be doubted, even in his opinion, is limited only to what he says can be deduced from simpler concepts. ⁴⁰ Johannes Volkelt also finds that “Kant starts from the explicit presupposition that there actually is a general and necessary Wissen (the experience of understanding sense perceptions and non-sensory concepts).” He goes on to say, "This presupposition, which Kant never explicitly examined, is so contradictory to the character of a critical examination of epistemology (kritischen Erkenntnistheorie, critique of theory of knowing) that one must seriously consider the question of whether the Critique of Pure Reason is a valid critique of epistemology." Although Volkelt believes that one can answer this question in the affirmative, for good reasons, "the attitude of critiquing in Kant's epistemology is fundamentally disturbed by this dogmatic presupposition." ⁴¹ But enough, even Volkelt finds that the Critique of Pure Reason is not an epistemology without presuppositions.

[ 7 ] The views of O. Liebmann, Hölder, Windelband, Überweg, Eduard von Hartmann ⁴² and Kuno Fischer ⁴³ also essentially agree with my view, that Kant places the a priori validity of pure mathematics and natural theory as a prerequisite at the top of his discussions, [ 8 ] that we really know things independently of all experience, and that experience only provide insights of comparative generality, that we could accept only as a corollary of other judgments. These claims must necessarily be preceded by an investigation into the nature of experience and one into the nature of knowing. Only after this could the first and all following sentences follow.

[ 9 ] Now one could reply to any objections raised in these reasoned critiques the following: that every theory of knowing must first lead the reader to an unconditional starting point. What we generally know at any point in our lives is far removed from this starting point, so we first must be artificially led back to it. In fact, such a purely didactic instructional intention is necessary for every epistemologist at the start of any consideration. This must be limited to showing to what extent the beginning of knowing in question really is the beginning, for it would have to proceed in purely self-evident analytic logically-reasoned sentences, and unlike Kant’s argument, should not make any supposedly meaningful claims that might influence the content of the following discussions. It is also the responsibility of the epistemologist (Erkenntnistheoretiker) to show that the beginning that he assumes is really without presuppositions. But all of this has nothing to do with the nature of this beginning itself, but stands entirely outside of it, and says nothing about it. Even at the beginning of mathematics lessons, I must try to teach students the axiomatic character of certain truths. But no one will want to claim that the content of axioms is dependent on previous considerations. ⁴⁴ In the same way, the epistemologist should show in his introductory remarks how one can arrive at a beginning without presuppositions of any sort, for the actual content must be free of any prior considerations. The work of Kant, whose initial assertions are specifically dogmatic, is far from a proper introduction to epistemology.

• 24. t/n Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason was published in 1781, well before the term epistemology was introduced into the world of philosophy in 1854 by the Scottish philosopher Ferrier. The term epistemology has become more and more popular with English-speaking philosophers, and is usually used by them to translate Erkenntnistheorie, which when properly translated into native English words is Theory of Knowing.
• 25. Vokelt, Erfahrung und Denken. Kritische Grundlegung der Erkenntnistheorie. Hamburg und Leipzig 1886, S.20.
• 26. t/n a priori is knowing something having nothing to do with physical sense-perceptions. a priori knowing includes analytic concepts such as 2+2=4 true by virtue of their meaning alone, and synthetic concepts like “all physical bodies are heavy” (have gravitational attraction to other bodies), true both because of what they mean and because of the way the world is..
• 27. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 61ff, Kirchmann’s German edition. (All other page numbers in reference to Critique of Pure Reason are from this edition.)
• 28. Ibid, Preface Section V
• 29. Ibid p. 53f.
• 30. Rehmke, Johannes: Die Welt als Wahrnehmung und Begriff, usw., The World as Percept and Concept, etc., Berlin, 1880, p. 161 ff.
• 31. B. Otto Liebmann, Zur Analysis derWirklichkeit. Gedanken und Tatsachen, On the Analysis of Reality. Thoughts and Facts
• 32. Note added later by Rudolf Steiner: This attempt, incidentally, is one which the objections of Robert Zimmermann (Über Kant's mathematisches Vorurteil und dessen Folgen) show it to be, if not altogether in error, at least highly questionable.
• 33. t/n (Robert Zimmermann, 1824–1898, was Professor of Philosophy in the University of Vienna, 1861–95. His book on Aesthetics was published in 2 volumes, Vienna, 1870. Rudolf Steiner attended lectures by Zimmermann on fundamentals of ethics at the University of Vienna. Steiner's impressions of this great interpreter of Herbart's aesthetics are contained in the 3rd chapter of Steiner’s own autobiography.)
• 34. t/n Analytic truths such as 2 + 2 = 4 are true just due to their meaning, but synthetic truths such as snow is white depends on the meaning in relationship to other perceptions in the world.
• 35. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, in Einleitung II, p. 58, Sec. v.
• 36. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Prolegomena Paragraph 1
• 37. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, p. 58, Sec. v.
• 38. Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, Kant's Theory of Experience, Berlin, 1871, pp. 90 ff. of the German ed.
• 39. August Stadler (1850–1910), Die Grundsätze der reinen Erkenntnistheorie in der Kantschen Philosophie, The Principles of the Pure Theory of Cognition in the Philosophy of Kant, Leipzig, 1876, p. 76 f. of the German ed.
• 40. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, p. 29, line 26f.
• 41. Vokelt, Erfahrung und Denken. Kritische Grundlegung der Erkenntnistheorie. Hamburg und Leipzig 1886, p. 21
• 42. Otto Liebmann (1840–1912), Analysis, 1880, A. Holder, Kantischen Erkenntnistheorie, Tübingen, 1874, p. 14 ff., Wilhelm Windelband (1848–1915) Phasen der Kantschen Lehre, p. 239, F. Ueberweg, System der Logik, p. 380 f., Eduard von Hartmann (1842–1906), Kritische Grundlegung, Berlin, 1875, p. 142–172 of the 2nd German ed., and Kuno Fischer hold essentially similar views on this point, namely, that Kant bases his whole argument on the assumption that knowledge of pure mathematics and natural science is acquired a priori.
• 43. Kuno Fischer Geschichte der neueren Philosophie VB. S.60 says that Volkelt is wrong when he comments on my own (Kuno Fischer’s) comments on Kant's epistemology (p. 198 f.) that "it is not clear from K. Fischer's presentation whether in his view Kant only supports the psychological actuality of the general and necessary judgments or at the same time presupposes the objective validity and lawfulness of the same. In the passage cited, Fischer says that the main difficulty in the Critique of Pure Reason is due to its “foundations being dependent on certain presuppositions”, “which one must have admitted to accept the following”. For Fischer, these prerequisites of Kant’s argument are that “first the fact of knowing” is established, and then, through analysis, the properties of knowing are found “from which that fact itself is explained”.
• 44. In the chapter titled "The Starting Point of Epistemology," I shall show to what extent my discussion fulfils these conditions.

Mr. Burle: April 22 was the [200th] birthday of Kant. If I may ask Dr. Steiner to tell us something about Kant's teachings, what the differences would be, and whether they would be a contemporary anthroposophical teaching.

Dr. Steiner: Yes, gentlemen, if I am to answer this question, then you will just have to follow me a little today into a field that is difficult to understand. But Mr. Burle, who also asked the question about relativism, always asks such difficult questions! And so today you may have to be prepared for the fact that things are not as easy to understand as what I usually report. But you see, Kant cannot be presented in an easily understandable way because he is not easily understandable in himself. It is true that today the whole world, which is interested in such things at all (I don't want to say interested, because in reality very few people are interested in it, but the whole world pretends to be interested in it), talks about Kant as if he were something that concerns the world very much in the most fundamental sense. And you know, of course, that a whole series of articles have been written for this 200th birthday, which are supposed to make clear to the world what an enormous significance Immanuel Kant had for the entire intellectual life.

You see, even as a boy at school, I often heard from our teacher of literary history: Immanuel Kant was the emperor of literary Germany! – I once misspoke and said: the king of literary Germany. He immediately corrected me and said: the emperor of literary Germany!

Well, I have been studying Kant a great deal at the moment and – as I mentioned in my biography – I had a teacher of history for a while who actually only ever read from other books; I thought to myself, I can read that at home myself. And once, when he had stepped out, I looked up what he was actually reading and got hold of it myself. That was more economical. I got Kant's Critique of Pure Reason from Reclam's Universal Library; I unbound it and stapled it to my schoolbook, which I had in front of me during the lesson, and now read Kant while history was taught by the teacher. That is why I dared to talk quite a bit about Kant, who everyone actually always talks about in such a way that when you say something that has to do with the spiritual, people say, “Yes, but Kant said...” As one always says in theology: Yes, but the Bible says – so many enlightened people actually say: Yes, but Kant said. – I gave lectures twenty-four years ago; I met a person sitting in the auditorium who always slept, always listened asleep; sometimes, when my voice rose a little, he woke up, and especially at the end. I also said something about the spiritual there – he woke up again, jumped up like a jack-in-the-box and shouted: But Kant said! – Well, it is true that Kant makes an enormous amount of essence out of it.

Now let us try to imagine how Kant actually viewed the world. He said, with a certain amount of justification, that everything we see and feel, in short, everything we perceive through our senses, in other words all of nature outside of us, is not reality but appearance. But how does it come about? Yes, it arises from the fact – and this is the difficult part, so you must pay close attention – that something, which he called the “thing in itself”, that is, something completely unknown, of which we know nothing, makes an impression on us; and this impression is what we actually see, not the thing in itself.

So you see, gentlemen, when I draw it for you, it's like this: there is the human being – you could just as easily do it with hearing and feeling, if we want to do it with seeing – there is the thing in itself somewhere out there. But we know nothing about it, it is completely unknown, we know nothing about it. But this thing in itself now makes an impression on the eye. We don't know anything about that either, but it makes an impression on the eye. And inside the human being, an appearance is now created, and we inflate this appearance to the whole world. (Pointing to the drawing): We know nothing about the red, only about what we have as an appearance; what I now draw as violet, we know something about. So actually, according to Kant, the whole world is basically man-made. You see the tree. You know nothing about the tree itself; the tree only makes an impression on you, that is to say: something unknown makes an impression on you, and you form this impression into a tree, and you place the tree in your perceptions. So consider, gentlemen: here is a chair, an armchair - a thing in itself. What is actually there, you do not know; but what is there makes an impression on me. And I actually put the chair there. So when I sit on the chair, I do not know what kind of thing I am actually sitting on. The thing in itself, that which I sit on, that is actually what I put there.

You see, Kant speaks of the limits of knowledge in such a way that you can never know what the thing in itself is, because everything is actually only a world made by man. It is very difficult to make the matter seriously understandable. And when you are asked about this Kant, it is indeed the case that if you really want to characterize him, you have to say some very strange things. For when one looks at the true Kant, it is actually difficult to believe that this is the case. But it is the case that Kant simply asserts from theory, from thinking: No one knows anything about the thing in itself, but the whole world is made only from the impression we receive from things.

I once said: if you don't know what the thing in itself is, then it could be anything; it could consist of pinheads, for example! – And that's how it is with Kant. You could easily say that, according to him, the thing in itself could consist of anything. But now comes the rest: If you stop at this theory, then all of you here, as I see you here, are only my appearance; I have placed all of you on the chairs here, and what is behind each of you as a thing-in-itself, I do not know. And again, when I stand there, you also do not know what kind of thing-in-itself it is, but you see the appearance that you yourself place there. And what I am talking about is what you are listening to yourself! So, what I am actually doing there – the thing in itself, what that is actually doing there, you all don't know; but this thing in itself makes an impression on you. You then project this impression here; you basically hear what you yourself are doing!

Now, taking this example, if we speak in a Kantian sense, we could say something like the following: You sit out there having breakfast and say, “Yes, now we want to go into the hall and listen to this and that for an hour.” We cannot know what the thing in itself is that we hear; but we will look at the stone there, so that we have this phenomenon - at least for an hour - and afterwards we will listen to what we want to hear. That is actually what Kant says first of all, because he claims: We never know anything about the thing in itself!

You see, one of Kant's successors, Schopenhauer, found the matter so clear that he said: There's no doubt about it! - That is absolutely certain, he says, that when I see blue, something out there is not blue, but the blue comes from me when a thing in itself makes an impression on me. If I hear someone out there moaning and suffering pain, then the pain and the moaning come not from him but from me! That, says Schopenhauer, is actually quite clear. And when a person closes his eyes and sleeps, then the whole world is dark and silent; then there is nothing there for him.

Now, gentlemen, according to this theory, you can create the world in the simplest way and then remove it again. You fall asleep, the world is gone; and you wake up again: and you have recreated the whole world - at least the one you see. Apart from that, only the thing in itself is there, of which you know nothing. Yes, Schopenhauer found that quite clear. But Schopenhauer did feel a little queasy about it. He was not entirely comfortable with the assertion. So he said: At least something is outside - blue and red, and all cold and warmth is not outside; when I feel cold, I myself create the cold - but what is outside is the will. Will lives in everything. And the will, that is a completely free demonic power. But it lives in all things.

So he has already put a little something into “the thing in itself”. He also regarded everything we imagine as a mere appearance that we ourselves make; but at least he has already endowed the thing in itself with the will. There were many people and there are still many people today who do not really realize what the consequences of Kant's teaching are. I once met a person who was really - as one should be when one has a doctrine - completely imbued with this Kantian doctrine, and he said to himself: I made everything myself: the mountains, the clouds, the stars, everything, everything, and I also made humanity myself, and I made everything in the world myself. Now, however, I don't like what I have made. I created everything; but now I don't like it. Now I want to get rid of it again. - And then he said that he had started by killing a few people - he was just insane; he said that he started killing a few people in order to fulfill his desire to get rid of the people he had made himself. I told him he should just think about what kind of difference it makes: He has a pair of boots; according to Kant's teachings, he also made them. But he should just think about what, in addition to what he is now doing as an appearance of the boots, the shoemaker has also done!

Yes, you see, that's how it is: the most famous things in the world are often the most nonsensical! And people cling to the most nonsensical with the greatest obstinacy. And, curiously enough, it is the enlightened who cling to it.

What I have told you in a few words, which are already quite difficult to understand, must be read in many books when reading Kant; for that is what he has now peeled apart in long, long theories; and he begins his book “Critique of Pure Reason” - that is what he calls it - by first proving that Space is not outside in the world, I make it myself, I spin it out of myself. So first of all: space is an appearance. Secondly: time is also an appearance. Because it is said: there was once an Aristotle – yes, but I put him into time myself, because I make all of time myself!

Now he has written this great book, the “Critique of Pure Reason”; it makes quite a nice impression. Now if some Philistine comes along and gets hold of a thick book called Critique of Pure Reason, he'll think it's really something, because it's terribly clever. You become a kind of god on earth yourself when you read something like that! But then, after the introduction, it says: Part One. Transcendental Aesthetics. – Well, no, it says: Transcendental Aesthetics. – If someone opens my Philosophy of Freedom, then the chapter title might just be: Man and the World. – Oh, Man and the World, that's something ordinary, you don't even read that. But transcendental aesthetics! – When the philistine opens such a book, he does so with the feeling that it must be something quite tremendous! He does not usually think about what transcendental aesthetics is, but that is just as well for him; it is a word that makes him trip over his tongue a little when he speaks it. That is the main title.

Now comes the subtitle: First Section. The transcendental deduction of space. - Now, you can't think of anything better for a Philistine than to have a chapter like that. And afterwards it begins in a way that he doesn't really understand. But for more than a hundred years everyone has been saying: Kant is a great man. - So when he reads that, he gets a little something out of it himself, and so he gets a little delusions of grandeur.

Then comes the second section: the transcendental deduction of time. - If you have now fought your way through the transcendental deduction of space and time, then comes the second major section: the transcendental analytics. - And in the transcendental analytics, the main thing is to prove that man has transcendental apperception.

Well, gentlemen, I was asked, and I have to tell you these things, the story of transcendental apperception. You have to read through many hundreds of pages to get everything that is contained in this chapter on transcendental apperception. With transcendental apperception, it is meant that man makes his ideas and is a unity in this presentation. So if everything is just an idea, the whole world, then actually now through this transcendental apperception the whole world must be spun out of the nothingness of one's own being. Yes, that's roughly how it is presented there.

So now we come to it: In the chapter on transcendental apperception, Kant spins the whole world with all its trees, clouds, stars and so on out of himself. Yes, he spins them out – that's what he says. But what he actually spins out and what one always has to deal with in this whole wide chapter are the same ideas, only translated a little later, which I recently wrote down for you on the Sephiroth Tree, but only in the form of a mere alphabet, not in such a way that one can read with it, know something! And what's more: at least there it was something very concrete. But Kant spins it out in such a way that he says: the world consists, first, of quantity, second, of quality, third, of relation, fourth, of modality. Now, each of these concepts in turn has three sub-concepts; for example, quantity: unity, multiplicity, allness. Now, quality has: reality, negation, limitation, and so on. There were twelve concepts – three times four is twelve – and you can spin the world out of them. Good old Kant didn't spin the world out of them at all, but actually only spun out twelve concepts with transcendental apperception. So he actually only created twelve concepts, not the world.

If there were any truth in the story, something would come of it! But the Philistines don't even notice that nothing comes of it, that only twelve terms come out, but they now go around the world with a full stomach and with Kantian philosophy, saying, “Nothing can be grasped!” Well, that can be understood with the Philistines; they feel honored when they are told, If they do not understand anything, it is not because of them, but because of the whole world. If you believe that you know nothing, you are right; but that is not because you can do nothing, but because the whole world can know nothing. - And so these twelve concepts come out. That is then the transcendental analytics.

But now the really difficult chapters are coming. Then there is the big chapter entitled: Of the Transcendental Paralogisms. - That's how it goes on in general. In Kant's “Critique of Pure Reason” you get title after title! It says: There are people who claim that space is infinite. This proves how people who see that space is infinite prove it. But there are also people who say: space is limited. This is also proved, just as the people prove it. So you will find in the “Critique of Pure Reason” - in the later chapters it shows two opposing sides everywhere - on the one hand it is proved: space is infinite; on the other hand it is proved: space is finite. Then it is proved again: time is infinite, is an eternity. Then it is proved that time had a beginning and will come to an end. And so on, gentlemen. Then it is proved that man is free. And on the other hand, man is not free.

What does Kant mean by providing the evidence for these two opposing assertions? He means to say: we cannot prove anything at all! We might just as well assert: space is infinite as well as finite; time is eternal, time will come to an end! - We might just as well say: man is free, or: he is unfree. - So that boils down to the fact that in modern times you have to say: think as you want to think, you will not arrive at the truth, but for you humans everything is the same.

Then you also get instructions on how to think in this way, taught in transcendental methodology. In this way, one can first take on a book by Kant. So one can ask: Why did Kant actually undertake all this? Then one comes to what Kant actually wanted. You see, up to Kant, people who did philosophy didn't really know much either, but at least they claimed: There is some knowledge about the world that can be known. This was countered by what had already come from the Middle Ages, because, as I have shown you, in the Middle Ages the old knowledge was lost. What had already been grasped in the Middle Ages as a thought was that one can only know something of what the senses represent, and cannot know anything of what is of the spirit. You have to believe that. And so, through the Middle Ages and up to Kant, the assertion arose: You cannot know anything about the spiritual; you can only believe something about the spiritual.

The churches, of course, got away very well with this teaching that one cannot know anything about the spiritual, one must believe that, because then they can dictate what man should believe about the spiritual!

Now, as already mentioned, there were philosophers – Leibniz, Wolff and so on – who, up to Kant, asserted that at least some of the spiritual things in the world can be known by mere reason. Kant now said: It is all nonsense to believe that one can know anything of the spiritual, but one must merely believe all of the spiritual! Because the spiritual lies in the “thing in itself”. You cannot know anything about the 'thing in itself'. Therefore, everything that refers to the spiritual must be believed. And Kant also betrayed himself when he wrote the second edition of his 'Critique of Pure Reason'. In this second edition there is a curious sentence in it; it says: 'I had to stop knowing in order to make room for believing.' That is the confession, actually, gentlemen! That is what led to the unknown thing in itself! That is why Kant called his book “Critique of Pure Reason”: reason itself was to be criticized, that it cannot know anything. And in this sentence: “I had to abandon knowledge in order to make room for faith,” in this actually lies the truth of Kant's philosophy. But that opens the floodgates to all faith. And in fact all positive religion could refer to Kant! But those people who do not want to know anything at all can also refer to Kant, who say: Why do we not know anything? Because one cannot know anything! - You see, so actually the teaching of Kant has become a support of faith. Therefore, it was quite natural that I myself had to completely reject Kant's teachings from the very beginning; although I read the whole Kant as a schoolboy, I always have to completely reject Kant's teachings for the simple reason that one would then simply have to stop at what people believe about the spiritual world and never have any real spiritual knowledge. Kant is actually the one who excludes all spiritual science the most and only wants a certain belief.

So Kant first wrote this first book: “Critique of Pure Reason.” In this “Critique of Pure Reason” it is thus proved: we know nothing of the thing in itself. We can only have a belief about what the “thing in itself” is.

Then he wrote a second book: “Critique of Practical Reason.” He then wrote a third book: “Critique of Judgment,” but that is not so important. So he wrote “Critique of Practical Reason” as his second book. There he has now outlined his own belief. So, first of all, he wrote a book of knowledge: “Critique of Pure Reason”; in it he proved that one can know nothing. Now the Philistine can put the book down; it is proved to him that one can know nothing. Then Kant wrote the “Critique of Practical Reason”; there he now builds his faith. How does he build his faith? He says: If man looks at himself in the world, he is an imperfect being; but to be so imperfect is not really human; so there must be a greater perfection of man somewhere. We know nothing about it; but we believe that there is a greater perfection of man somewhere within the earth, we believe in immortality.

Yes, you see, gentlemen, that is indeed quite different from the scientific considerations I give you for what survives in man when he passes through death! But Kant does not want any such knowledge at all; he simply wants to prove from man's imperfection that man should believe in immortality.

Then he proves in the same way that one should only believe that one cannot know anything about freedom, but should believe that man is free; because if he were not free, he would not be responsible for his actions. So one believes that he can be responsible for being free.

Kant's doctrine of freedom often reminded me of another doctrine that a professor of jurisprudence always mentioned at the beginning of his lectures. He said: “Gentlemen, there are people who say: Man is not free. But, gentlemen, if man were not free, then he would not be responsible for his actions. But then there could be no punishment either. But if there are no punishments, then there can be no science of punishment. I present the science of punishment myself – so then I could not exist either. But I do exist, so there is also a science of punishment, consequently there is also a punishment, consequently also a freedom – so I have proved to you that there is a freedom! What Kant says about freedom reminds me very much of the professor's speech. And Kant speaks of God in the same way. He says: We cannot know anything about any power in itself. But I cannot make an elephant; so I believe that someone else can make it, someone who can make more than I can. So I believe in a God.

Now Kant has written this second book, the “Critique of Practical Reason”. In it, he says that we as human beings should believe in God, freedom and immortality. We cannot know anything about it, but we should believe it. Just think about what an inhuman idea this actually is: first, it is proven that knowledge is actually nothing; secondly, that one should believe in God, in whom one cannot know anything, in freedom and immortality! So Kant is basically the greatest reactionary. People use fine words; that is why they called him the destroyer of everything. Yes, knowledge, he destroyed everything, but only as one destroys toys. Because the world still remains, of course! And faith, he actually supported it in a very considerable way.

This went on throughout the entire 19th century and into the 20th, and today, of course, people everywhere are writing about Kant's 200th birthday! And in reality, Kant is an example of how little people actually think. Because what I have told you now is simply a pure presentation of Kant's teachings! But what people say – that Kant was the greatest philosopher, that Kant cannot be refuted, and so on – well, if you take this example, you really get a good idea of how Kant, in particular, can be used by opponents of spiritual science. Simply because they can then say: Yes, we do not start from religion, but we start from the most enlightened philosopher! But it is really the case that Kant could just as easily be the starting point for the most dogmatic teacher of religion as for any enlightened person.

Then Kant wrote other works, one of which was about the question: How will metaphysics be possible as a science in the future?, in which he actually proves again that it is impossible and so on. You actually have to say: All of science in the 19th century actually suffered from Kant; Kant was basically a disease of science.

Now, if you take Kant as an example of how nonsensical intellectual development sometimes is, then you have taken him in the right way. But then you will also say to yourself: one really has to be careful in knowledge, because the world is terribly bent on perpetrating the very greatest nonsense in knowledge. And you can well imagine the difficult position in which a representative of spiritual science finds himself: not only do you have the representatives of religion against you, but also all the other philosophers and those who have been infected by them, and so on. Every philistine comes and says: Yes, you claim this about the spiritual world; Kant has already proved – so they say – that one cannot know anything about it! – That is actually the best general objection one can make. Some people say: I don't want to hear anything at all about what Steiner says, because Kant has already proved that one cannot know anything about all this.

Are you satisfied?

Mr. Burle says he mainly wanted to hear what Kant meant. It is as Dr. Steiner says: one hears so much about Kant, but nothing positive. It is true that one has to work hard to understand it.

Dr. Steiner: The matter then had consequences. In 1869, a book appeared by someone who was inspired by Kant, 'The Philosophy of the Unconscious', which in turn caused a huge stir. And Eduard von Hartmann was already a very clever person! If Eduard von Hartmann had lived before Kant, if Kant had not had such an influence on him, much more would probably have come of him. But he could not actually go beyond this strong prejudice that one has of Kant. So it was, just as Schopenhauer before, also clear to Eduard von Hartmann that one knows nothing of the whole world but one's own ideas, that which one puts out there oneself. But in addition, he had accepted the Schopenhauerian doctrine that one must equip the thing in itself with the will. Now the will is everywhere inside. I once wrote an article about Eduard von Hartmann, and in it I also mentioned Schopenhauer. Now Schopenhauer said: We know nothing of the thing in itself; we have only ideas about it. Only the ideas are intelligent; the will is stupid. So that actually everything we know about ourselves is nothing more than the stupid will.

In the article in which I mentioned Schopenhauer, I said: According to Schopenhauer, everything in the world that is clever is actually the work of man; because man creates everything in the world; and what is behind it is the stupid will. So the stupidity of the deity is the world. But they confiscated it at the time! It was supposed to be published in Austria.

The thing is this: Eduard von Hartmann assumed that the thing in itself must be endowed with will; but the will is actually stupid, and that is why things are so bad in the world. And that is why Eduard von Hartmann became a pessimist, as they say. That is why he had the view that the world is no good, is not good, but is basically bad, very bad. And not just what people do, but everything in the world is bad. He said: You can calculate that the world is bad. You just have to put on one side, on the debit side, everything you have in life in terms of happiness and pleasure and so on, and on the other side, everything you have in terms of suffering and so on: There is always more on the other side. The balance is always negative. So the whole world is bad. - That's why Hartmann became a pessimist.

But you see, Eduard von Hartmann was, first of all, basically a clever person and, secondly, someone who then also drew the consequences. He said: Why do people still live? Why don't they prefer to kill themselves? If everything is bad, it would be much wiser if one day general human suicide were decided upon; then all this that is created would be gone. But Eduard von Hartmann said, on the other hand, “No, you can't manage to set such a general day of world suicide. And even if we set it - people have emerged from animals; the animals would not kill themselves; then people would emerge from the animals again! So we can't manage it that way. Therefore, he came up with something else. He said to himself: If you really want to wipe out everything in the earthly world, then you can't do it by people committing suicide, but you have to thoroughly exterminate the whole earth. We do not yet have the necessary machines for this today; but people have already invented many machines; therefore, all wisdom must be applied to inventing a machine that can be used to drill into the earth, so that one goes deep enough, and then, by means of a special dynamite or similar device, blows up the whole earth, so that the debris flies out into the world and turns to dust. Then the real ultimate goal will have been achieved.

Yes, this is no joke, gentlemen! This is really the teaching of Eduard von Hartmann, that one should invent a machine that can, one might say, blow up the whole Earth, atomizing and splintering the Earth.

Interjection: In America, they want to build cannons that can shoot the moon down!

Dr. Steiner: But what I have told you is a real philosophical teaching from the 19th century!

Now you will say: There was such a clever man - how can that be? He must have been stupid to have said that! - No, truly, Eduard von Hartmann was not stupid, but he was cleverer than all the others. I can prove that to you right away. But precisely because he was cleverer than the doctrine inspired by Kant, this stupidity arose from the machine with which one is to hurl the world into nothingness. This was asserted by a very clever man, only thoroughly corrupted by Kant.

Now he has written this “Philosophy of the Unconscious”. In this “Philosophy of the Unconscious” he said: Yes, it is quite true that humans have developed from animals; but spiritual forces were also involved. Now these forces are forces of will, not clever but stupid forces. And he presented this very cleverly, and in doing so he presented something that contradicted Darwinism.

Now, back then – just imagine, this was in the 1860s! – there was this clever philosophy of the unconscious by Hartmann and the Darwinism that Haeckel, Oscar Schmidt and others represented, but which was the cleverest thing since sliced bread for the rest of humanity. Now all those who were again stubborn Darwinists, came forward and said: This Eduard von Hartmann, he must be thoroughly refuted; he knows nothing about science! But what did Hartmann do? The following shows what he did at the time. After the others had shouted themselves hoarse – that is, on printing paper – a book also appeared: “The Unconscious from the Point of View of Darwinism”. A thorough refutation of Eduard von Hartmann from the point of view of Darwinism! – But no one knew who it was from.

Well, gentlemen, now the natural scientists were all pleased, because it contained the refutation of Eduard von Hartmann. Even Haeckel said: “Let such a person who has written this against Hartmann call himself to us, and we will consider him one of our own, a naturalist of the first rank!” And sure enough, the book was sold very, very quickly and a second edition appeared: the author named himself - it was Eduard von Hartmann himself! He had written it against himself. But now they stopped praising him; the matter did not become very well known! So he proved that he was cleverer than all the others! But you see, the news that people are given is silent about these stories. But such a piece in the history of ideas must be told; then one comes to this: Eduard von Hartmann was a person who was corrupted by Kant, but who is extremely clever.

Now, if I told you that he wants to blow up the world with a big machine that someone is supposed to invent, you might quite rightly say that he may have been terribly clever, Eduard von Hartmann, but for those of us who have not yet studied Kant, it seems like a stupid thing to do after all. And you might well believe that, however cleverly I describe Eduard von Hartmann, he must have been stupid. You could easily believe that. But then you would have to tell and think that the others were even stupider; and then I am satisfied for my own sake! But it can be proved historically that the others were even more stupid than one who proves that the earth should be blown up.

It is important to know such a thing, because today there still exists this peculiar worship of everything that is printed. And since Kant appeared in the “Universal Library” - I was only able to read him because of it, because otherwise I couldn't have bought him; but he was cheap, even though the books are so thick - since then, there's been even more of a devil's mess with Kant than before, because since then everyone has been reading Kant. That is, they read the first page, but they don't understand anything. Then they hear that Kant is “the emperor of literary Germany”; so they think: Gosh, now that we know about Kant, we're smart people ourselves! And most of them are such that they admit: Yes, I have to say that I understand Kant, because otherwise the others will say I'm stupid if I don't understand Kant. In reality, people don't understand him, but they don't admit that; they say, “I have to understand Kant because he's very clever.” So I say, “I understand something very clever when I understand Kant!” Then it also impresses people.

But really, gentlemen, although it was difficult to present this question in a somewhat popular way, I am nevertheless glad that it was chosen as the question, because it showed what is actually going on in the so-called intellectual life of people, and how careful people actually have to be when something like this affects them, which itself leads to the fact that now in all newspapers a lot is made of the 200th birthday of Kant. I am not saying that Kant should not be celebrated – others are celebrated as well – but the truth is as I have told you.

We will continue our discussion next Saturday at nine o'clock.

An unprejudiced view of the world. Leipzig 1898

In 1865, Otto Liebmann demanded in his essay "Kant and the Epigones" that we must return to Kant in philosophy. He saw the salvation of his science in the fulfillment of this demand. In doing so, he was merely expressing the view of the vast majority of philosophers of our time. And many natural scientists, insofar as they are still concerned with philosophical concepts, also see Kant's doctrine as the only possible form of central science. Starting with philosophers and naturalists, this opinion has also penetrated the wider circles of educated people with an interest in philosophy. Kant's view has thus become a driving force in our scientific thinking. Without ever having read a line from Kant or heard a sentence from his teachings, many of our contemporaries view world events in his way. For a century, the proud-sounding word has been uttered again and again: Kant had liberated thinking humanity from the shackles of philosophical dogmatism, which made empty assertions about the essence of things without undertaking a critical investigation into whether the human mind was also capable of making out something absolutely valid about this essence. For many who utter this word, however, the old dogma has been replaced by a new one, namely that of the irrefutable truth of Kant's fundamental views. These can be summarized in the following sentences: A thing can only be perceived by us if it makes an impression on us, exerts an effect. But then it is always only this effect that we perceive, never the thing itself. We cannot form any concept of the latter. The effects of things on us are our perceptions. What we know of the world is therefore not the things, but our ideas of the things. The world given to us is not a world of being, but a world of imagination or appearance. The laws according to which the details of this imaginary world are linked can of course not be the laws of the "things in themselves", but those of our subjective organism. What is to become an appearance for us must obey the laws of our subject. Things can only appear to us in a way that corresponds to our nature. We ourselves prescribe the laws of the world that appears to us - and this alone we know.

What Kant thought he had gained for philosophy with these views becomes clear if we take a look at the scientific currents from which he grew and which he confronted. Before the Kantian reform, the teachings of the Leibniz-Wolff school were the only dominant ones in Germany. The followers of this school wanted to arrive at the fundamental truths about the nature of things by means of purely conceptual thinking. The knowledge gained in this way was regarded as clear and necessary as opposed to that gained through sensory experience, which was seen as confused and random. Only pure concepts were believed to lead to scientific insights into the deeper context of world events, the nature of the soul and God, i.e. to the so-called absolute truths. Kant was also a follower of this school in his pre-critical period. His first writings are entirely in its spirit.

A change in his views occurred when he became acquainted with the explanations of the English philosopher Hume. The latter sought to prove that there was no evidence other than experience. We perceive the sunbeam, and then we notice that the stone on which it falls has warmed up. We perceive this again and again and get used to it. We therefore assume that the connection between the ray of sunlight and the warming of the stone will also manifest itself in the same way in the future. However, this is by no means a certain and necessary realization. Nothing guarantees us that an event which we are accustomed to seeing in a certain way will not take a completely different course at the next opportunity. All propositions in our sciences are only expressions established by habit for frequently noticed connections between things. Therefore, there can be no knowledge about those objects which philosophers strive for. Here we lack experience, which is the only source of our knowledge. About these things man must be content with mere belief. If science wants to deal with them, it degenerates into an empty game of concepts without content. These propositions apply, in the sense of Hume, not only to the last psychological and theological insights, but also to the simplest laws of nature, for example, to the proposition that every effect must have a cause. This judgment, too, is derived only from experience and established by habit. Hume only accepts as absolutely valid and necessary those propositions in which the predicate is basically already included in the subject, as is the case, in his view, with mathematical judgments.

Kant seeks to save absolute knowledge by making it a component of the human mind. Man is organized in such a way that he sees processes in necessary contexts, for example of cause and effect. If they are to appear to man, all things must appear in these contexts. For this reason, however, the whole world of experience is only an appearance, that is, a world that may be as it wishes in itself; for us it appears according to the organization of our mind. We cannot know how it is in itself. Kant sought to save human knowledge from its necessity, its unconditional validity; therefore he gave up its applicability to "things in themselves". H. v. Schoeler stands on Kantian ground. He seeks to prove, with the expenditure of a wealth of knowledge, with a commendable knowledge of the details of the individual sciences, that our knowledge does not reach to the sources of being. Like Kant, he does not seek in knowledge the highest content of man's existence. Kant destroyed knowledge in order to make room for the world that he conjures up from the categorical imperative with the help of faith. Schoeler seeks to show that, independently of all knowledge, goals of existence arise in our souls that make life seem much more worth living than the contemplation of the "crude mechanism of nature" and the "physiological automatism of the body in which our desires are rooted". "The ideality of the emotional life is the saving remedy which preserves our bodily organs from degeneration and keeps our soul healthy and puts it in a position to develop all its powers harmoniously, in the lively activity of which alone, no matter in what field of charitable work, is the purpose of a humane existence. He who has lived the ideals of reason and the cultural aims of humanity has lived for all time; for ability is more important than knowledge - action is the highest." No supporter of the modern scientific world view need contradict this conclusion. For those who understand the modern theory of development, it is a necessary consequence of it. H. v. Schoeler would have found proof of this if he had added to the wealth of knowledge he has acquired the knowledge of my "Philosophy of Freedom" published five years ago. I do not resent him because he has not done so, but I also do not feel obliged to tell him here what he can better read in context in my book.

With the remark that the present, in particular the German philosophy and its epistemology makes it difficult to its supporters to find access to the theosophical world view I have started these talks before eight days, and I added that I try to outline this theory of knowledge, this present philosophical world view and to show how somebody with an absolutely serious conscience in this direction finds it hard to be a theosophist.

On the whole, the theories of knowledge which developed from Kantianism are excellent and absolutely correct. However, one cannot understand from their point of view how the human being can find out anything about beings, generally about real beings which are different from him. The consideration of Kantianism has shown us that this view comes to the result in the end that everything that we have round ourselves is appearance, is only our mental picture. What we have round ourselves is no reality, but it is controlled by the laws which we ourselves prescribe to our surroundings. I said: as we must see with coloured glasses the whole world in this colour nuance, in the same way the human being must see the world—after Kant’s view—coloured as he sees them according to his organisation no matter how it may be in the external reality. That is why we are not allowed to speak of a “thing-in-itself,” but only of the quite subjective world of appearance. If this is the case, everything that surrounds me—the table, the chairs et cetera, is an image of my mind; because they all are there for me only, in so far as I perceive them, in so far as I give form to these perceptions according to the law of my own mind, prescribe the laws to them.

I cannot state whether still anything exists except for my perception of the table and the chairs. This is basically the result of Kant’s philosophy in the end. This is not compatible, of course, with the fact that we can penetrate into the true nature of the things. Theosophy is inseparable from the view that we can penetrate not only into the physical existence of the things, but also into the spiritual of the things; that we have knowledge not only of that which surrounds us physically, but that we can also have experiences of that which is purely spiritual.

I want to show you how a vigorous book of the world view which is called “theosophy” today represents that which became Kantianism later. I read up a passage of the book that was written a short time before Kantianism was founded. It appeared in 1766. It is a book which—we can say it absolutely that way—could be written by a theosophist. The view is represented in it that the human being has not only a relationship to the physical world surrounding him, but that it would be proved scientifically one day that the human being belongs also to a spiritual world, and that also the way of being together with it could be scientifically proved. Something is well demonstrated that one could assume that it is proved more or less or that it is proved in future: “I do not know where or when that the human soul is in relation to others that they have effect on each other and receive impressions from each other. The human being is not aware of that, however, as long as everything is good.” Then another passage: “Indeed, it does not matter whichever ideas of the other world we have, and, hence, any thinking about spirit does not penetrate to a state of spirit at all ...” and so on.

The human being with his average mental capacity cannot realise the spirit; but it is said that one can assume such a common life with a spiritual world. With such a view Kant’s epistemology is not compatible. He who wrote the foundation of this view is Immanuel Kant himself. That means that we have to register a reversal in Kant himself. Because he writes this in 1766, and fourteen years later he founds that theory of knowledge which makes it impossible to find the way to theosophy. Our modern philosophy is based on Kantianism. It has taken on different forms, those from Herbart and Schopenhauer to Otto Liebmann and Johannes Volkelt and Friedrich Albert Lange. We find more or less Kantian coloured epistemology everywhere according to which we deal only with phenomena, with our subjective world of perception, so that we cannot penetrate to the being, to the root of the “thing-in-itself.”

At first I would like to bring forward to you everything that developed in the course of the 19th century, and what we can call the modified epistemology of Kant. I would like to demonstrate how the current epistemology developed which looks with a certain arrogance at somebody who believes that one can know something. I want to show how somebody forms a basic epistemological view whose kind of view is based on Kant. Everything that science has brought seems to verify the Kantian epistemology. It seems to be so firm that one cannot escape from it. Today we want to roll up it and next time we want to see how one can find the way with it.

First of all physics seems to teach us everywhere that that is no reality the naive human being believes that it is reality. Let us take the tone. You know that the oscillation of the air is there outside our organ, outside our ear which hears the tone. What takes place outside us is an oscillation of the air particles. Only because this oscillation comes to our ear and sets the eardrum swinging the movement continues to the brain. There we perceive what we call tone and sound. The whole world would be silent and toneless; only because the external movement of our ear is taken up by the ear, and that which is only an oscillation is transformed; we experience what we feel as a sound world. Thus the epistemologist can easily say: tone is only what exists in you, and if you imagine it without this, nothing but moved air is there.

The same applies to the colours and the light of the external world. The physicist has the view that colour is an oscillation of the ether which fulfils the whole universe. Just as the air is set swinging by the sound and nothing else than the movement of the air exists if we hear a sound, light is only an oscillatory movement of the ether. The ether oscillations are a little bit different from those of the air. The ether oscillates vertically to the direction of the propagation of the waves. This is made clear by experimenting physics. If we have the colour sensation “red,” we have to do it with a sensation. Then we must ask ourselves: what is there if no feeling eye exists?—It should be nothing else of the colours in space than oscillatory ether. The colour quality is removed from the world if the feeling eye is removed from the world.

What you see as red is 392 to 454 trillions oscillations, with violet 751 to 757 trillions oscillations. This is inconceivably fast. Physics of the 19th century transformed any light sensation and colour sensation into oscillations of the ether. If no eye were there, the whole colour world would not exist. Everything would be pitch-dark. One could not talk about colour quality in the outer space. This goes so far that Helmholtz said: we have the sensations of colour and light, of sound and tone in ourselves. This is not even like that which takes place without us. We are even not allowed to use an image of that which takes place without us.—What we know as a colour quality of red is not similar to about 420 trillions oscillations per second. Therefore, Helmholtz means: what really exists in our consciousness is not an image but a mere sign.

Physics has maintained that space and time exist as I perceive them. The physicist imagines that a movement in space takes place if I have a colour sensation. It is the same with the time image if I have the sensation red and the sensation violet. Both are subjective processes in me. They follow each other in time. The oscillations follow each other outside. Physics does not go so far as Kant. Whether the “things-in-themselves” are space-filled whether they are in space or follow each other in time, we cannot know—in terms of Kant; but we know only: we are organised this and that way, and, therefore, something—may it be spatial or not—has to take on spatial form. We spread out this form over that. For physics the oscillatory movement has to take place in space, it has to take a certain time ... The ether oscillates, we say, 480 trillions times per second. This includes the images of space and time already. The physicist assumes space and time being without us. However, the rest is only a mental picture, is subjective. You can read in physical works that for somebody who has realised what happens in the outside world nothing exists than oscillatory air, than oscillatory ether. Physics seems to have contributed that everything that we have exists only within our consciousness and except this nothing exists.

The second that the science of the 19th century can present to us is the reasons which physiology delivers. The great physiologist Johannes Müller found the law of the specific nerve energy. According to this law any organ reacts with a particular sensation. If you push the eye, you can perceive a gleam of light; if electricity penetrates it, also. The eye answers to any influence from without in such a way as it just corresponds to it. It has the strength from within to answer with light and colour. If light and ether penetrate, the eye answers with light and colour sensations.

Physiology still delivers additional building stones to prove what the subjective view has put up. Imagine that we have a sensation of touch. The naive human being imagines that he perceives the object. But what does he perceive really? The epistemologist asks. What is before me is nothing else than a combination of the smallest particles, of molecules. They are in movement. Every particle is in such movement which cannot be perceived by the senses because the oscillations are too small. Basically it is nothing else than the movement only which I can perceive, because the particle is not able to creep into me. What is it if you put the hand on the body? The hand carries out a movement. This continues down to the nerve and the nerve transforms it into a sensation: in heat and cold, in softy and hard. Also in the outside world movements are included, and if my sense of touch is concerned, the organ transforms it into heat or cold, into softness or hardness.

We cannot even perceive what happens between the body and us, because the outer skin layer is insensible. If the epidermis is without a nerve, it can never feel anything. The epidermis is always between the thing and the body. The stimulus has an effect from a relatively far distance through the epidermis. Only what is excited in your nerve can be perceived. The outer body remains completely without the movement process. You are separated from the thing, and what you really feel is produced within the epidermis. Everything that can really penetrate into your consciousness happens in the area of the body, so that it is still separated from the epidermis. We would have to say after this physiological consideration that we get in nothing of that which takes place in the outside world, but that it is merely processes within our nerves which continue in the brain which excite us by quite unknown external processes. We can never reach beyond our epidermis. You are in your skin and perceive nothing else than what happens within it.

Let us go over to another sense, to the eye, from the physical to the physiological. You see that the oscillations propagate; they have to penetrate our body first. The eye consists of a skin, the cornea, first of all. Behind this is the lens and behind the lens the vitreous body. There the light has to go through. Then it arrives at the rear of the eye which is lined with the retina. If you removed the retina, the eye would never transform anything into light. If you see forms of objects, the rays have to penetrate into your eye first, and within the eye a small retina picture is outlined. This is the last that the sensation can cause. What is before the retina is insensible; we have no real perception of it. We can only perceive the picture on the retina. One imagines that there chemical changes of the visual purple take place. The effect of the outer object has to pass the lens and the vitreous body, then it causes a chemical change in the retina, and this becomes a sensation. Then the eye puts the picture again outwardly, surrounds itself with the stimuli which it has received, and puts them again around in the world without us. What takes place in our eye is not that which forms the stimulus, but a chemical process. The physiologists always deliver new reasons for the epistemologists. Apparently we have to agree with Schopenhauer completely if he says: the starry heaven is created by us. It is a reinterpretation of the stimuli. We can know nothing about the “thing-in-itself.”

You see that this epistemology limits the human being merely to the things, we say to the mental pictures which his consciousness creates. He is enclosed in his consciousness. He can suppose—if he wants—that anything exists in the world which makes impression on him. In any case nothing can penetrate into him. Everything that he feels is made by him. We cannot even know from anything that takes place in the periphery. Take the stimulus in the visual purple. It has to be directed to the nerve, and this has to be transformed anyhow into the real sensation, so that the whole world which surrounds us would be nothing else than what we would have created from our inside.

These are the physiological proofs which induce us to say that this is that way. However, there are also people who ask now why we can assume other human beings besides us whom we, nevertheless, recognise only from the impressions which we receive from them. If a human being stands before me, I have only oscillations as stimuli and then an image of my own consciousness. It is only a presupposition that except for the consciousness picture something similar to the human being exists. Thus the modern epistemology supports its view that the outer content of experience is merely of subjective nature. It says: what is perceived is exclusively the content of the own consciousness, is a change of this content of consciousness. Whether there are things-in-themselves, is beyond our experience. The world is a subjective appearance to me which is built up from my sensations consciously or unconsciously. Whether there are also other worlds, is beyond the field of my experience.

When I said: it is beyond the field of experience whether there is another world, it also beyond the field of experience whether there are still other human beings with other consciousnesses, because nothing of a consciousness of the other human beings can get into the human being. Nothing of the world of images of another human being and nothing of the consciousness of another human being can come into my consciousness. Those who have joined Kant’s epistemology have this view.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte also joined this view in his youth. He thought Kant’s theory thoroughly. There may be no nicer description of that than those which Fichte gave in his writing On the Determination of the Human Being (1800). He says in it: “nowhere anything permanent exists, not without me not within me, but there is only a continuous transformation. I nowhere know any being, and also not my own. There is no being.—I myself do not know at all, and I am not. Images are there: they are the only things that exist, and they know about themselves in the way of images—images which pass without anything existing that they pass; which are connected with images to images. Images which do not contain anything, without any significance and purpose. I myself am one of these images; yes, I myself am not this, but only a confused image of the images.”
Indeed—if you stick to the view that you deal in your subjective opinion only with the things of your own consciousness, then you must get inevitably to the view that you do not know more about yourselves than about the outside world. If you go over to the image of the own ego, then you do not have more of it than of the outside world. Keep this thought in mind in its full significance, then it becomes clear to you that the outside world dissolves in a sum of hallucinations, and that also the inside world is nothing else than a creation of subjective dreams fitted together. You can imagine already from the outside, I would like to say, from the corporeality that also you yourselves like the outside world are nothing else than dream images or illusions if you interpret the view correctly.

Look at your hand which transforms your movements to sensations of touch. This hand is nothing else than a creation of my subjective consciousness, and my whole body and what is in me is also a creation of my subjective consciousness. Or I take my brain: if I could investigate under the microscope how the sensation came into being in the brain, I would have nothing before myself than an object which I have to transform again to an image in my consciousness.

The idea of the ego is also an image; it is generated like any other. Dreams pass me, illusions pass me—this is the world view of illusionism which appears inevitably as the last consequence of Kantianism. Kant wanted to overcome the old dogmatic philosophy; he wanted to overcome what has been brought forward by Wolff and his school. He considered this as a sum of figments.

These were the proofs of freedom, of the will, of the immortality of the soul and of God’s existence which Kant exposed concerning their probative value as figments. What does he give as proofs? He proved that we can know nothing about a “thing-in-itself” that that which we have is only contents of consciousness that, however, God must be “something-in-itself.” Thus we cannot necessarily prove the existence of God according to Kant. Our reason, our mind is only applicable to that which is given in the perception. They are only there to prescribe laws of perception and, hence, the matters: God—soul—will—are completely outside our rational knowledge. Reason has a limit, and it is not able to overcome it.

In the preface of the second edition of Critique of Pure Reason he says at a passage: “I had to cancel knowledge to make room for faith.” He wanted this basically. He wanted to limit knowledge to sense-perception, and he wanted to achieve everything that goes beyond reason in other way. He wanted to achieve it on the way of moral faith. Hence, he said: in no way science can arrive at the objective existence of the things one day. But we find one thing in ourselves: the categorical imperative which appears with an unconditional obligation in us.—Kant calls it a divine voice. It is beyond the things, it is accompanied by unconditional moral necessity. From here Kant ascends to regain that for faith which he annihilates for knowledge. Because the categorical imperative deals with nothing that is caused by any sensory effect, but appears in us, something must exist that causes the senses as well as the categorical imperative, and appears if all duties of the categorical imperative are fulfilled. This would be blessedness. But no one can find the bridge between both. Because he cannot find it, a divine being has to build it. In doing so, we come to a concept of God which we can never find with the senses.

A harmony between the sensory world and the world of moral reason must be produced. Even if one did enough in a life as it were, nevertheless, we must not believe that the earthly life generally suffices. The human life goes beyond the earthly life because the categorical imperative demands it. That is why we have to assume a divine world order. How could the human being follow a divine world order, the categorical imperative, if he did not have freedom?—Kant annihilated knowledge that way to get to the higher things of the spirit by means of faith. We must believe! He tries to bring in on the way of the practical reason again what he has thrown out of the theoretical reason.

Those views which have no connection apparently to Kant’s philosophy are also completely based on this philosophy. Also a philosopher who had great influence—also in pedagogy: Herbart. He had developed an own view from Kant’s critique of reason: if we look at the world, we find contradictions there. Let us have a look at the own ego. Today it has these mental pictures, yesterday it had others, tomorrow it will have others again. What is this ego? It meets us and is fulfilled with a particular image world. At another moment it meets us with another image world. We have there a development, many qualities, and, nevertheless, it should be a thing. It is one and many. Any thing is a contradiction. Herbart says that only contradictions exist everywhere in the world. Above all we must reproach ourselves with the sentence that the contradiction cannot be the true being. Now from it Herbart deduces the task of his philosophy. He says: we have to remove the contradictions; we have to construct a world without contradiction to us. The world of experiences is an unreal one, a contradictory one. He sees the true sense, the true being in transforming the contradictory world to a world without contradictions. Herbart says: we find the way to the “thing-in-itself,” while we see the contradictions, and if we get them out of us, we penetrate to the true being, to true reality.—However, he also has this in common with Kant that that which surrounds us in the outside world is mere illusion. Also he tried in other way to support what should be valuable for the human being.

We come now, so to speak, to the heart of the matter. Nevertheless, we must keep in mind that any moral action makes only sense if there is reality in the world. What is any moral action if we live in a world of appearance? You can never be convinced that that which you do constitutes something real. Then any striving for morality and all your goals are floating in the air. There Fichte was admirably consistent. Later he changed his view and got to pure theosophy. With perception we can never know about the world—he says—anything else than dreams of these dreams. But something drives us to want the good. This lets us look into this big world of dreams like in a flash. He sees the realisation of the moral law in the world of dreams. The demands of the moral law should justify what reason cannot teach.—And Herbart says: because any perception is full of contradictions, we can never come to norms of our moral actions. Hence, there must be norms of our moral actions which are relieved of any judgment by mind and reason. Moral perfection, goodwill, inner freedom, they are independent of the activity of reason. Because everything is appearance in our world, we must have something in which we are relieved of reflection.

This is the first phase of the development of the 19th century: the transformation of truth to a world of dreams. The idealism of dreams was the only possible result of thinking about being and wanted to make the foundation of a moral world view independent of all knowledge and cognition. It wanted to limit knowledge to get room for faith. Therefore, the German philosophy has broken with the ancient traditions of those world views which we call theosophy. Anybody who calls himself theosophist could have never accepted this dualism, this separation of moral and the world of dreams. It was for him always a unity, from the lowest quantum of energy up to the highest spiritual reality. Because as well as that which the animal accomplishes in desire and listlessness is only relatively different from that which arises from the highest point of the cultural life out of the purest motives, that is only relatively different everywhere which happens below from that which happens on top. Kant left this uniform way to complete knowledge and world view while he split the world in a recognisable but apparent world and in a second world which has a quite different origin, in the world of morality. In doing so, he clouded the look of many people. Anybody who cannot find access to theosophy suffers from the aftermath of Kant’s philosophy.

In the end, you will see how theosophy emerges from a true theory of knowledge; however, it was necessary before that I have demonstrated the apparently firm construction of science. Science seems to have proved irrefutably that there are only the oscillations of the ether if we feel green or blue that we sense tone by the aerial oscillations. The contents of the next lecture will show how it is in reality.

It may well be regarded as a curious symptom of the times that on the occasion of the jubilee of that body of the German Reich which was supposed to be the most learned, a theologian was at the center of the celebration. It will be said that Professor Adolf Harnack was a liberal theologian. But one thing remains true: theology can only be free-minded to the extent that it is permitted by certain basic views, without the recognition of which it would cancel itself out. Indeed, it can only be scientific to the extent that its essential dogmatic ideas allow it to be. The question: "Is theology science in the modern sense?" can only be answered with a clear "no". Science, if it is to be worthy of the name, must come to a world view independently, from human reason. Today we hear this emphasized again and again in all variations. But when a scientific body of the first rank celebrates a great feast, it does not choose a man of science, but a theologian as the main speaker and actor of its history. Theological views played such an important role at this festival that the most ultramontane press organs speak of it with particular pleasure.

For many of our contemporaries, it took the shrill discord of the lex Heinze debates to make them realize how powerfully the most reactionary attitudes intervene in our lives. Even the writers of articles in "free-minded" journals are blind to more subtle signs, such as those that emerged at the Akademiefest.

However, the reasons for the reactionary course of the present lie deep. They are to be found in the fact that the official philosophers of the present are absolutely powerless, even helpless, in the face of the onslaught of unscientific contemporary currents. In order to explain these reasons, we shall have to look at the elements which have brought about the present existence of cathederal philosophy. My view is that this philosophy is indeed unsuited to fight the battle against outmoded ideas alongside liberal natural science. In proving this assertion, I will start from the man who exerts the most profound influence on contemporary philosophical thought, Kant, and I will try to show that this influence is a pernicious one.

I

Kant's acquaintance with Hume's view shook the conviction he had held in earlier years. He soon no longer doubted that all our knowledge is really gained with the help of experience. But certain scientific theorems seemed to him to have such a character of necessity that he did not want to believe in a merely habitual adherence to them. Kant could neither decide to go along with Hume's radicalism nor was he able to remain with the advocates of Leibniz-Wolff's science. The latter seemed to him to destroy all knowledge, in the latter he found no real content. Viewed correctly, Kantian criticism turned out to be a compromise between Leibniz-Wolff on the one hand and Hume on the other. And with this in mind, Kant's fundamental question is: How can we arrive at judgments that are necessarily valid in the sense of Leibniz and Wolff if we admit at the same time that we can only arrive at a real content of our knowledge through experience? The shape of Kant's philosophy can be understood from the tendency inherent in this question. Once Kant had admitted that we gain our knowledge from experience, he had to give the latter such a form that it did not exclude the possibility of generally and necessarily valid judgments. He achieved this by elevating our perceptual and intellectual organism to a power that co-creates experience. On this premise he was able to say: Whatever we receive from experience must conform to the laws according to which our sensuality and our intellect alone can comprehend. Whatever does not conform to these laws can never become an object of perception for us. What appears to us therefore depends on things outside us; how the latter appear to us is determined by the nature of our organism. The laws under which it can imagine something are therefore the most general laws of nature. In these also lies the necessary and universal nature of the course of the world. We see that, in Kant's sense, objects are not arranged spatially because spatiality is a property that belongs to them, but because space is a form under which our sense is able to perceive things; we do not connect two events according to the concept of causality because this has a reason in their essence, but because our understanding is organized in such a way that it must connect two processes perceived in successive moments of time according to this concept. Thus our sensuality and our intellect prescribe the laws of the world of experience. And of these laws, which we ourselves place in the phenomena, we can of course also form necessarily valid concepts.

But it is also clear that these concepts can only receive content from the outside, from experience. In themselves they are empty and meaningless. We do know through them how an object must appear to us if it is given to us at all. But that it is given to us, that it enters our field of vision, depends on experience. How things are in themselves, apart from our experience, we can therefore make nothing out through our concepts.

In this way, Kant has saved an area in which there are concepts of necessary validity, but at the same time he has cut off the possibility of using these concepts to make something out about the actual, absolute essence of things. In order to save the necessity of our concepts, Kant sacrificed their absolute applicability. For the sake of the latter, however, the former was valued in pre-Kantian philosophy. Kant's predecessors wanted to expose a central core from the totality of our knowledge, which by its nature is applicable to everything, including the absolute essences of things, the "interior of nature". The result of Kant's philosophy, however, is that this inner being, this "in itself of objects", can never enter the realm of our cognition, can never become an object of our knowledge. We must content ourselves with the subjective world of appearances that arises within us when the external world acts upon us. Kant thus sets insurmountable limits to our cognitive faculty. We cannot know anything about the "in itself of things". An official contemporary philosopher has given this view the following precise expression: "As long as the feat of looking around the corner, that is, of imagining without imagination, has not been invented, Kant's proud self-modesty will have its end, that of the existing thing its that, but never its what is recognizable." In other words, we know that something is there that causes the subjective appearance of the thing in us, but what is actually behind the latter remains hidden from us.

We have seen that Kant adopted this view in order to save as much as possible of each of the two opposing philosophical doctrines from which he started. This tendency gave rise to a contrived view of our cognition, which we need only compare with what direct and unbiased observation reveals in order to see the entire untenability of Kant's thought structure. Kant imagines our knowledge of experience to have arisen from two factors: from the impressions that things outside us make on our sensibility, and from the forms in which our sensibility and our understanding arrange these impressions. The former are subjective, for I do not perceive the thing, but only the way in which my sensuality is affected by it. My organism undergoes a change when something acts from the outside. This change, i.e. a state of my self, my sensation, is what is given to me. In the act of grasping, our sensuality organizes these sensations spatially and temporally, the mind again organizes the spatial and temporal according to concepts. This organization of sensations, the second factor of our cognition, is thus also entirely subjective. This theory is nothing more than an arbitrary construction of thought that cannot stand up to observation. Let us first ask ourselves the question: Does a single sensation occur anywhere for us, separately and apart from other elements of experience? Let us look at the content of the world given to us. It is a continuous whole. If we direct our attention to any point in our field of experience, we find that there is something else all around. There is nowhere here that exists in isolation. One sensation is connected to another. We can only artificially single it out from our experience; in truth it is connected with the whole of the reality given to us. This is where Kant made a mistake. He had a completely wrong idea of the nature of our experience. The latter does not, as he believed, consist of an infinite number of mosaic pieces from which we make a whole through purely subjective processes, but is given to us as a unity: one perception merges into the other without a definite boundary.

II The reasons for the reaction within modern science

A worldview strives to comprehend the totality of the phenomena given to us. However, we can only ever make details of reality the object of our experiential knowledge. If we want to look at a detail in isolation, we must first artificially lift it out of the context in which it is found. Nowhere, for example, is the individual sensation of red given to us as such; it is surrounded on all sides by other qualities to which it belongs and without which it could not exist. We must disregard everything else and focus our attention on the one perception if we want to consider it in its isolation. This lifting of a thing out of its context is a necessity for us if we want to look at the world at all. We are organized in such a way that we cannot perceive the world as a whole, as a single perception. The right and left, the above and below, the red next to the green in my field of vision are in reality in uninterrupted connection and mutual togetherness. However, we can only look in one direction and only perceive what is connected in nature separately. Our eye can only ever perceive individual colors from a multi-membered color whole, our mind individual conceptual elements from a coherent system of ideas. The separation of an individual sensation from the world context is therefore a mental act, caused by the peculiar arrangement of our mind. We must dissolve the unified world into individual perceptions if we want to observe it.

But we must be clear about the fact that this infinite multiplicity and isolation does not really exist, that it is without any objective meaning for reality itself. We create an image of it that initially deviates from reality because we lack the organs to grasp it in its very own form in one act. But separating is only one part of our cognitive process. We are constantly busy incorporating every individual perception that comes to us into an overall conception that we form of the world.

The question that necessarily follows here is this: According to what laws do we combine what we have first separated? The separation is a consequence of our organization, it has nothing to do with the thing itself. Therefore, the content of an individual perception cannot be changed by the fact that it initially appears to us to be torn from the context in which it belongs. But since this content is conditioned by the context, it initially appears quite incomprehensible in its separation. The fact that the perception of red occurs at a certain point in space is caused by the most varied circumstances. If I now perceive the red without at the same time directing my attention to these circumstances, it remains incomprehensible to me where the red comes from. Only when I draw on other perceptions, namely those things and processes to which the perception of the red is connected, do I understand the matter. Every perception points me beyond itself because it cannot be explained by itself. I therefore combine the details separated by my organization from the whole of the world according to their own nature into a whole. In this second act, what was destroyed in the first is thus restored: the unity of the real regains its rightful place in relation to the multiplicity initially absorbed by my spirit.

The reason why we can only take possession of the objective form of the world in the detour described above lies in the dual nature of man. As a rational being, he is very well able to imagine the cosmos as a unity in which each individual appears as a member of the whole. As a sensory being, however, he is bound to place and time, he can only perceive individual members of the infinite number of members of the cosmos. Experience can therefore only provide a form of reality conditioned by the limitations of our individuality, from which reason must first extract that which gives the individual things and processes within reality their lawful connection. Sensory perception thus distances us from reality; rational contemplation leads us back to it. A being whose sensuality could view the world in one act would not need reason. A single perception would provide it with what we can only achieve with our mental organization by combining an infinite number of individual acts of experience.

The above examination of our cognitive faculty leads us to the view that reason provides us with the actual form of reality when it processes the individual acts of experience in the appropriate way. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the fact that reason appears to lie entirely within ourselves. We have seen that in truth its activity is destined precisely to abolish the unreal character which our experience receives through sensory perception. Through this activity, the contents of perception themselves re-establish in our minds the objective context from which our senses have torn them.

We are now at the point where we can see through the fallacy of Kant's view. What is a consequence of our organization: the appearance of reality as an infinite number of separate particulars, Kant conceives as an objective fact; and the connection that is re-established, because it corresponds to objective truth, is for him a consequence of our subjective organization. Precisely the reverse of what Kant asserted is true. Cause and effect, for example, are a coherent whole. I perceive them separately and connect them in the way they themselves strive towards each other. Kant allowed himself to be driven into error by Hume. The latter says: If we perceive two events over and over again in such a way that one follows the other, we become accustomed to this togetherness, expect it in future cases as well, and designate one as the cause and the other as the effect. - This contradicts the facts. We only bring two events into a causal connection if such a connection follows from their content. This connection is no less given than the content of the events themselves.

From this point of view, the most mundane as well as the highest scientific thought finds its explanation. If we could encompass the whole world at a glance, this work would not be necessary. To explain a thing, to make it comprehensible, means nothing other than to put it back into the context from which our organization has torn it. There is no such thing as a thing that is separated from the world as a whole. All separation has merely a subjective validity for us. For us, the world as a whole is divided into above and below, before and after, cause and effect, object and idea, substance and force, object and subject and so on. However, all these opposites are only possible if the whole in which they occur confronts us as reality. Where this is not the case, we cannot speak of opposites. An impossible opposition is that which Kant calls "appearance" and "thing-in-itself". This latter term is completely meaningless. We have not the slightest reason to form it. It would only be justified for a consciousness that knows a second world in addition to the one that is given to us, and which can observe how this world affects our organism and results in what Kant calls an appearance. Such a consciousness could then say: the world of human beings is only a subjective appearance of that second world known to me. But people themselves can only recognize opposites within the world given to them. Bringing the sum of everything given into opposition to something else is pointless. The Kantian "thing in itself" does not follow from the character of the world given to us. It is invented.

As long as we do not break with such arbitrary assumptions as the "thing in itself", we can never arrive at a satisfactory world view. Something is only inexplicable to us as long as we do not know what is necessarily connected to it. But we have to look for this within our world, not outside it.

The mysteriousness of a thing only exists as long as we consider it in its particularity. However, this is created by us and can also be removed by us. A science that understands the nature of the human cognitive process can only proceed in such a way that it seeks everything it needs to explain a phenomenon within the world given to us. Such a science can be described as monism or a unified view of nature. It is opposed by dualism or the two-world theory, which assumes two absolutely different worlds and believes that the explanatory principles for one are contained in the other.

This latter doctrine is based on a false interpretation of the facts of our cognitive process. The Dualist separates the sum of all being into two areas, each of which has its own laws and which are externally opposed to each other. He forgets that every separation, every segregation of the individual realms of being has only subjective validity. What is a consequence of his organization, he considers to be an objective natural fact that lies outside him.

Such a dualism is also Kantianism. For in this worldview, appearance and the "in itself of things" are not opposites within the given world, but one side, the "in itself", lies outside the given. As long as we separate the latter into parts, however small they may be in relation to the universe, we are simply following a law of our personality; but if we regard everything given, all phenomena, as one part and then oppose it with a second, then we are philosophizing into the blue. We are then merely playing with concepts. We construct a contrast, but cannot gain any content for the second element, because such a content can only be drawn from the given. Any kind of being that is assumed to exist outside the latter is to be relegated to the realm of unjustified hypotheses. Kant's "thing-in-itself" belongs in this category, as does the idea that a large proportion of modern physicists have of matter and its atomistic composition. If I am given any sensory perception, for example the perception of color or heat, then I can make qualitative and quantitative distinctions within this perception; I can encompass the spatial structure and the temporal progression that I perceive with mathematical formulas, I can regard the phenomena according to their nature as cause and effect, and so on: but with this process of thinking I must remain within what is given to me. If we practise a careful self-criticism of ourselves, we also find that all our abstract views and concepts are only one-sided images of the given reality and only have sense and meaning as such. We can imagine a space closed on all sides, in which a number of elastic spheres move in all directions, bumping into each other, bouncing against and off the walls; but we must be clear that this is a one-sided image that only gains meaning when we think of the purely mathematical image as being filled with a sensibly real content. But if we believe that we can explain a perceived content causally through an imperceptible process of being which corresponds to the mathematical structure described and which takes place outside our given world, then we lack all self-criticism. Modern mechanical heat theory makes the mistake described above. If we say that the "red" is only a subjective sensation, as modern physiology does, and that a mechanical process, a movement, is to be assumed as the cause of this "red" outside in space, then we are committing an inconsistency. If the "red" were only subjective, then all mechanical processes connected with the "red" would also only be subjective. As soon as we take something from the interrelated world of perception into the mind, we must take everything into it, including the atoms and their movements. We would have to deny the entire external world.

The same can be said of the modern theory of color. It too places something that is only a one-sided image of the sense world behind it as its cause. The whole wave theory of light is only a mathematical picture which represents the spatio-temporal relations of this particular field of appearance in a one-sided way. The undulation theory turns this image into a real reality that can no longer be perceived, but rather is supposed to be the cause of what we perceive.

III The reasons for the reaction within science

It is not at all surprising that the dualistic thinker does not succeed in making the connection between the two worlds he assumes - the subjective one within us and the objective one outside us - comprehensible. The one is given to him experientially, the other is added by him. Consequently, he can only gain everything contained in the one through experience, and everything contained in the other only through thinking. But since all experiential content is only an effect of the added true being, the cause itself can never be found in the world accessible to our observation. Nor is the reverse possible: to deduce the experientially given reality from the imagined cause. This latter is not possible because, according to our previous arguments, all such imagined causes are only one-sided images of the full reality. When we survey such a picture, we can never find in it, by means of a mere thought process, what is connected with it only in the observed reality. For these reasons, he who assumes two worlds that are separated by themselves will never be able to arrive at a satisfactory explanation of their interrelation.

Whoever allows the actual real entities to exist outside the world of experience sets limits to our knowledge. For if his presupposition is correct, we would only perceive the effect that the real beings exert on us. These, as the causes, are a land entirely unknown to us. And here we have arrived at the gate where modern science can let in all the old religious ideas. So far and no further, says this science. Why shouldn't the pastor now start with his faith where Du Bois-Reymond stops with his scientific knowledge?

The follower of the monistic world view knows that the causes of the effects given to him must lie in the realm of his world. No matter how far removed the former may be from the latter in space or time, they must be found in the realm of experience. The fact that of two things which explain each other, only one is given to him at the moment, appears to him only as a consequence of his individuality, not as something founded in the object itself. The adherent of a dualistic view believes that he must assume the explanation of a known thing in an arbitrarily added unknown thing. Since he unjustifiably endows the latter with such properties that it cannot be found in our entire world, he sets a limit to cognition here. Our arguments have provided the proof that all things which our cognitive faculty supposedly cannot reach must first be artificially added to reality. We only fail to recognize that which we have first made unrecognizable. Kant commands our cognition to stop at a creature of his imagination, at the "thing-in-itself", and Du Bois-Reymond states that the imperceptible atoms of matter produce sensation and feeling through their position and movement, only to conclude that we can never arrive at a satisfactory explanation of how matter and movement produce sensation and feeling, for "it is quite and forever incomprehensible that a number of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. atoms should not be indifferent to each other. -atoms should not be indifferent to how they lie and move, how they lay and moved, how they will lie and move. It is in no way comprehensible how consciousness could arise from their interaction". This whole conclusion collapses into nothing if one considers that the atoms moving and lying in a certain way are a creature of the abstracting mind, to which an absolute existence separate from perceptible events cannot be ascribed.

A scientific dissection of our cognitive activity leads, as we have seen, to the conviction that the questions we have to ask of nature are a consequence of the peculiar relationship in which we stand to the world. We are limited individualities and can therefore only perceive the world piecemeal. Each piece considered in and of itself is a puzzle or, in other words, a question for our cognition. However, the more details we get to know, the clearer the world becomes to us. One perception explains another. There are no questions that the world poses to us that cannot be answered with the means it offers us. For monism, therefore, there are no fundamental limits to knowledge. This or that can be unresolved at any given time because we were not yet in a position in terms of time or space to find the things that are involved. But what has not yet been found today may be found tomorrow. The limits caused by this are only accidental ones that disappear with the progress of experience and thought. In such cases, the formation of hypotheses comes into its own. Hypotheses may not be formed about something that is supposed to be inaccessible to our knowledge in principle. The atomistic hypothesis is a completely unfounded one if it is to be conceived not merely as an aid to the abstracting intellect, but as a statement about real beings lying outside the qualities of sensation. A hypothesis can only be an assumption about a fact that is not accessible to us for accidental reasons, but which by its nature belongs to the world given to us. For example, a hypothesis about a certain state of our earth in a long-gone period is justified. Admittedly, this state can never become an object of experience because completely different conditions have arisen in the meantime. However, if a perceiving individual had been there at the assumed time, then he would have perceived the state. In contrast, the hypothesis that all sensory qualities owe their origin only to quantitative processes is unjustified, because qualityless processes cannot be perceived.

Monism or the unified explanation of nature emerges from a critical self-examination of man. This view leads us to reject all explanatory causes outside the world. However, we can also extend this view to man's practical relationship to the world. Human action is, after all, only a special case of general world events. Its explanatory principles can therefore likewise only be sought within the world given to us. Dualism, which seeks the basic forces of the reality available to us in a realm inaccessible to us, also places the commandments and norms of our actions there. Kant is also caught up in this error. He regards the moral law as a commandment imposed on man by a world that is alien to us, as a categorical imperative that he must obey, even when his own nature develops inclinations that oppose such a voice sounding from the hereafter into our here and now. One need only recall Kant's well-known apostrophe to duty to find this reinforced: "Duty! thou great and sublime name, who dost not hold in thyself anything that is pleasing and ingratiating, but dost demand submission", who dost "establish a law... before which all inclinations fall silent, even if they secretly work against it." Monism opposes such an imperative imposed on human nature from the outside with the moral motives born of the human soul itself. It is a delusion to believe that man can act according to other than self-made imperatives. The respective inclinations and cultural needs generate certain maxims that we call our moral principles. Since certain ages or peoples have similar inclinations and aspirations, the people who belong to them will also establish similar principles to satisfy them. In any case, however, such principles, which then act as ethical motives, are by no means implanted from outside, but are born out of needs, i.e. generated within the reality in which we live. The moral code of an age or people is simply the expression of how adaptation and heredity work within the ethical nature of man. Just as the effects of nature arise from causes that lie within the given nature, so our moral actions are the results of motives that lie within our cultural process. Monism thus seeks the reason for our actions within nature in the strictest sense of the word. However, it also makes man his own legislator. Man has no other norm than the necessities arising from the laws of nature. He continues the effects of nature in the area of moral action.

Dualism demands submission to moral commandments taken from somewhere; monism points man to himself and to nature, i.e. to his autonomous being. It makes him the master of himself. Only from the standpoint of monism can we understand man as a truly free being in the ethical sense. Duties are not imposed on him by another being, but his actions are simply guided by the principles that everyone finds lead him to the goals he considers worth striving for. A moral view based on monism is the enemy of all blind faith in authority. The autonomous person does not follow a guideline that he should merely believe will lead him to his goal, but he must realize that it will lead him there, and the goal itself must appear to him individually as a desirable one.

The autonomous human being wants to be governed according to laws that he has given himself. He has only one role model - nature. He continues where the organic nature below him has stopped. Our ethical principles are pre-formed at a more primitive level in the instincts of animals. No categorical imperative is anything other than a developed instinct.

IV

The assumption of the limits of human cognition brought about by the "regression to Kant" has had a truly paralyzing effect on the development of an all-embracing way of thinking. An unprejudiced worldview can only thrive if thinking has the courage to penetrate into the last nooks and crannies of being, to the heights of entities. Reactionary worldviews will always find their reckoning when thinking clips its own wings. A theory of knowledge that speaks of an unknowable "thing in itself" can be the best ally of the most regressive theology. It would be interesting to pursue the psychological problem of the unconscious, secret longing of the theorists of the limits of knowledge to leave a loophole open for theology. Nothing is more characteristic of human nature than what can otherwise be noted as a great joy by excellent thinkers. It comes over them when they seem to succeed in proving that there is something where no knowledge can penetrate - where therefore a good faith may set in. With true delight one hears meritorious researchers say: see, no experience, no reason can get there; one may follow the pastor there.

Try to imagine where we would be today if we had not had the doctrine of all possible limits to knowledge in our higher educational institutions in recent decades, but rather the Goethean spirit of research, to penetrate as far as experience allows at every moment with our thinking, and not to present everything else as a problem as unknowable, but to leave it calmly to the future. With such a maxim, philosophy could have brought the dispute against theological belief, which began somewhat clumsily but not incorrectly in the 1950s, to a good conclusion today. Perhaps we would be ready today to regard the theological faculties with a smile as living anachronisms. Theologizing philosophers, such as Lotze, have caused unheard-of misfortune. The clumsiness of Carl Vogt, who was on the right track, made the game easy for them. Oh, that Vogt! If only he had chosen a better comparison instead of the unfortunate one: thoughts relate to the brain like urine to the kidneys. It could easily be argued that the kidneys secrete matter; can thought be compared to matter? And if so, must not what is secreted already be present in a certain form before it is secreted? No, Vogt the Fat should have said, thoughts relate to brain processes like the heat developed during a friction process relates to this friction process. They are a function of the brain, not a substance separated from it. Lotze, the bland philosophical Struwwelpeter, could not have objected to this. For such a comparison stands up to all the facts that can be established about the connection between the brain and thinking according to scientific method. The materialists of the 1950s waged a clumsy outpost battle. Then came the "regressives to Kant" with their limits of knowledge and stabbed the scientific progressives in the back.

The reaction in all areas of life is spreading again today. And knowledge, which can be the only real fighter against it, has tied its own hands. What use is it for the natural scientist to open the eyes of his students to the laws of nature in his laboratory and at his teaching pulpit if his colleague, the philosopher, says: everything you hear from the natural scientist is only external work, is appearance, our knowledge cannot penetrate beyond a certain limit. I must confess that under such circumstances it is no wonder to me that the most blind charcoal-burner's faith boldly raises its head next to the most advanced science. Because science is discouraged, life is reactionary. You should be fighters, you philosophers, you should advance further and further into the unlimited. But you should not be watchdogs, so that the modern worldview does not overstep the boundaries beyond which outdated theology goes at every moment. It is truly strange that pastors are allowed every day to reveal the secrets of that world about which the unprejudiced thinker should impose careful silence. The more cowardly philosophy is, the bolder theology is. And even the views that prevail about the nature of our schools. They may try to keep everything out of the classroom that natural science links to its established facts as a consequence of worldview, because unproven hypotheses - as they say - do not belong in school, only absolutely certain facts. But in religious education! Yes, Bauer, that's different. There, the "unproven" articles of faith can continue to be cultivated. The religion teacher who knows what the geologist "can't know anything about". The reasons lie deep. Just imagine that modern natural science had confirmed everything that the Bible taught; imagine that Darwin, instead of his evil theory of man's descent from the animals, had delivered a confirmation of the faith in revelation based on natural science: Oh, then we would hear the good Darwin's fame proclaimed from all pulpits today, then the religion teachers would be allowed to talk about it. Children would probably be taught that the seven books of Moses are fully justified by an English naturalist. But perhaps we would then have no theories about the limits of knowledge. It would probably be permissible to transgress the boundaries that lead to theology. However, it is a different matter if this crossing of boundaries leads to purely natural causes of world phenomena.