The Philosophy of Freedom
GA 4
3. Thinking in the service of Knowledge
[ 1 ] When I observe how a billiard ball, when struck, communicates its motion to another, I remain entirely without influence on the course of this observed process. The direction of motion and the velocity of the second ball are determined by the direction and velocity of the first. As long as I remain a mere spectator, I can only say anything about the movement of the second ball when it has taken place. It is quite different when I begin to reflect on the content of my observation. The purpose of my reflection is to form concepts of the occurrence. I connect the concept of an elastic ball with certain other concepts of mechanics, and take into consideration the special circumstances which obtain in the instance in question. I try, in other words, to add to the occurrence which takes place without my assistance a second process which takes place in the conceptual sphere. This latter one is dependent on me. This is shown by the fact that I can rest content with the observation, and renounce all search for concepts if I have no need of them. If however, this need is present, then I am not satisfied until I have brought the concepts Ball, Elasticity, Motion, Impact, Velocity, etc., into a certain connection, to which the observed process is related in a definite way. As surely as the occurrence goes on independently of me, so surely is the conceptual process unable to take place without my assistance.
[ 2 ] We shall have to consider later whether this activity of mine really proceeds from my own independent being, or whether those modern physiologists are right who say that we cannot think as we will, but that we must think just as those thoughts and thought-connections determine that happen to be present in our consciousness.1E.g., Ziehen, Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie, Jena 1893, p 171. For the present we wish merely to establish the fact that we constantly feel obliged to seek for concepts and connections of concepts, which stand in a certain relation to the objects and events which are given independently of us. Whether this activity is really ours or whether we perform it according to an unalterable necessity, is a question we need not decide at present. That it appears in the first instance to be ours is beyond question. We know for certain that we are not given the concepts together with the objects. That I am myself the agent in the conceptual process may be an illusion, but to immediate observation it certainly appears to be so. The question is, therefore: What do we gain by supplementing an event with a conceptual counterpart?
[ 3 ] There is a profound difference between the ways in which, for me, the parts of an event are related to one another before, and after, the discovery of the corresponding concepts. Mere observation can trace the parts of a given event as they occur, but their connection remains obscure without the help of concepts. I see the first billiard ball move towards the second in a certain direction and with a certain velocity. What will happen after the impact I must await, and again I can only follow it with my eyes. Suppose someone, at the moment of impact, obstructs my view of the field where the event is taking place, then, as mere spectator, I remain ignorant of what happens afterwards. The situation is different if prior to the obstruction of my view I have discovered the concepts corresponding to the pattern of events. In that case I can say what will happen even when I am no longer able to observe. An event or an object which is merely observed, does not of itself reveal anything about its connection with other events or objects. This connection becomes evident only when observation is combined with thinking.
[ 4 ] Observation and thinking are the two points of departure for all the spiritual striving of man, in so far as he is conscious of such striving. The workings of common sense, as well as the most complicated scientific researches, rest on these two fundamental pillars of our spirit. Philosophers have started from various primary antitheses: idea and reality, subject and object, appearance and thing-in-itself, “I” and “Not-I”, idea and will, concept and matter, force and substance, the conscious and the unconscious. It is easy to show, however, that all these antitheses must be preceded by that of observation and thinking, this being for man the most important one.
[ 5 ] Whatever principle we choose to lay down, we must either prove that somewhere we have observed it, or we must enunciate it in the form of a clear thought which can be re-thought by any other thinker. Every philosopher who sets out to discuss his fundamental principles must express them in conceptual form and thus use thinking. He therefore indirectly admits that his activity presupposes thinking. Whether thinking or something else is the chief factor in the evolution of the world will not be decided at this point. But that without thinking, the philosopher can gain no knowledge of such evolution, is clear from the start. In the occurrence of the world phenomena, thinking may play a minor part; but in the forming of a view about them, there can be no doubt that, its part is a leading one.
[ 6 ] As regards observation, our need of it is due to the way we are constituted. Our thinking about a horse and the object “horse” are two things which for us emerge apart from each other. This object is accessible to us only by means of observation. As little as we can form a concept of a horse by merely staring at the animal, just as little are we able by mere thinking to produce a corresponding object.
[ 7 ] In sequence of time, observation does in fact come before thinking. For even thinking we must get to know first through observation. It was essentially a description of an observation when, at the beginning of this chapter, we gave an account of how thinking lights up in the presence of an event and goes beyond what is merely presented. Everything that enters the circle of our experience, we first become aware of through observation. The content of sensation, perception and contemplation, all feelings, acts of will, dreams and fancies, mental pictures, concepts and ideas, all illusions and hallucinations, are given to us through observation.
[ 8 ] But thinking as an object of observation differs essentially from all other objects. The observation of a table, or a tree, occurs in me as soon as these objects appear upon the horizon of my experience. Yet I do not, at the same time, observe my thinking about these things. I observe the table, and I carry out the thinking about the table, but I do not at the same moment observe this. I must first take up a standpoint outside my own activity if, in addition to observing the table, I want also to observe my thinking about the table. Whereas observation of things and events, and thinking about them, are everyday occurrences filling up the continuous current of my life, observation of the thinking itself is a kind of exceptional state. This fact must be properly taken into account when we come to determine the relationship of thinking to all other contents of observation. We must be quite clear about the fact that, in observing thinking, we are applying to it a procedure which constitutes the normal course of events for the study of the whole of the rest of the world-content, but which in this normal course of events is not applied to thinking itself.
[ 9 ] Someone might object that what I have said about thinking applies equally to feeling and to all other spiritual activities. Thus for instance, when I have a feeling of pleasure, the feeling is also kindled by the object, and it is this object that I observe, but not the feeling of pleasure. This objection, however, is based on an error. Pleasure does not stand at all in the same relation to its object as the concept formed by thinking. I am conscious, in the most positive way, that the concept of a thing is formed through my activity; whereas pleasure is produced in me by an object in the same way as, for instance, a change is caused in an object by a stone which falls on it. For observation, a pleasure is given in exactly the same way as the event which causes it. The same is not true of the concept. I can ask why a particular event arouses in me a feeling of pleasure, but I certainly cannot ask why an event produces in me a particular set of concepts. The question would be simply meaningless. In reflecting upon an event, I am in no way concerned with an effect upon myself. I can learn nothing about myself through knowing the concepts which correspond to the observed change in a pane of glass by a stone thrown against it. But I do very definitely learn something about my personality when I know the feeling which a certain event arouses in me. When I say of an observed object, “This is a rose,” I say absolutely nothing about myself; but when I say of the same thing that “it gives me a feeling of pleasure,” I characterize not only the rose, but also myself in my relation to the rose.
[ 10 ] There can, therefore, be no question of putting thinking and feeling on a level as objects of observation. And the same could easily be shown of other activities of the human spirit. Unlike thinking, they must be classed with other observed objects or events. The peculiar nature of thinking lies just in this, that it is an activity which is directed solely upon the observed object and not on the thinking personality. This is apparent even from the way in which we express our thoughts about an object, as distinct from our feelings or acts of will. When I see an object and recognize it as a table, I do not as a rule say, “I am thinking of a table,” but, “this is a table.” On the other hand, I do say, “I am pleased with the table.” In the former case, I am not at all interested in stating that I have entered into a relation with the table; whereas in the latter case, it is just this relation that matters. In saying, “I am thinking of a table,” I already enter the exceptional state characterized above, in which something that is always contained—though not as an observed object—within our spiritual activity, is itself made into an object of observation.
[ 11 ] This is just the peculiar nature of thinking, that the thinker forgets his thinking while actually engaged in it. What occupies his attention is not his thinking, but the object of his thinking, which he is observing.
[ 12 ] The first observation which we make about thinking is therefore this: that it is the unobserved element in our ordinary mental and spiritual life.
[ 13 ] The reason why we do not observe the thinking that goes on in our ordinary life is none other than this, that it is due to our own activity. Whatever I do not myself produce, appears in my field of observation as an object; I find myself confronted by it as something that has come about independently of me. It comes to meet me. I must accept it as something that precedes my thinking process, as a premise. While I am reflecting upon the object, I am occupied with it, my attention is focussed upon it. To be thus occupied is precisely to contemplate by thinking. I attend, not to my activity, but to the object of this activity. In other words, while I am thinking I pay no heed to my thinking, which is of my own making, but only to the object of my thinking, which is not of my making.
[ 14 ] I am, moreover, in the same position when I enter into the exceptional state and reflect on my own thinking. I can never observe my present thinking; I can only subsequently take my experiences of my thinking process as the object of fresh thinking. If I wanted to watch my present thinking, I should have to split myself into two persons, one to think, the other to observe this thinking. But this I cannot do. I can only accomplish it in two separate acts. The thinking to be observed is never that in which I am actually engaged, but another one. Whether, for this purpose, I make observations of my own former thinking, or follow the thinking process of another person, or finally, as in the example of the motions of the billiard balls, assume an imaginary thinking process, is immaterial.
[ 15 ] There are two things which are incompatible with one another: productive activity and the simultaneous contemplation of it. This is recognized even in Genesis (1, 31). Here God creates the world in the first six days, and only when it is there is any contemplation of it possible: “And God saw everything that he had made and, behold, it was very good.” The same applies to our thinking. It must be there first, if we would observe it.
[ 16 ] The reason why it is impossible to observe thinking in the actual moment of its occurrence, is the very one which makes it possible for us to know it more immediately and more intimately than any other process in the world. Just because it is our own creation do we know the characteristic features of its course, the manner in which the process takes place. What in all other spheres of observation can be found only indirectly, namely, the relevant context and the relationship between the individual objects, is, in the case of thinking, known to us in an absolutely direct way. I do not on the face of it know why, for my observation, thunder follows lightning; but I know directly, from the very content of the two concepts, why my thinking connects the concept of thunder with the concept of lightning. It does not matter in the least whether I have the right concepts of lightning and thunder. The connection between those concepts that I do have is clear to me, and this through the very concepts themselves.
[ 17 ] This transparent clearness concerning our thinking process is quite independent of our knowledge of the physiological basis of thinking. Here I am speaking of thinking in so far as we know it from the observation of our own spiritual activity. How one material process in my brain causes or influences another while I am carrying out a thinking operation, is quite irrelevant. What I observe about thinking is not what process in my brain connects the concept lightning with the concept thunder but what causes me to bring the two concepts into a particular relationship. My observation shows me that in linking one thought with another there is nothing to guide me but the content of my thoughts; I am not guided by any material processes in my brain. In a less materialistic age than our own, this remark would of course be entirely superfluous. Today, however, when there are people who believe that once we know what matter is we shall also know how it thinks, we do have to insist that one may talk about thinking without trespassing on the domain of brain physiology.
Many people today find it difficult to grasp the concept of thinking in its purity. Anyone who challenges the description of thinking which I have given here by quoting Cabanis' statement that “the brain secretes thoughts as the liver does gall or the spittle-glands spittle ...”, simply does not know what I am talking about. He tries to find thinking by a process of mere observation in the same way that we proceed in the case of other objects that make up the world. But he cannot find it in this way because, as I have shown, it eludes just this ordinary observation. Whoever cannot transcend materialism lacks the ability to bring about the exceptional condition I have described, in which he becomes conscious of what in all other spiritual activity remains unconscious. If someone is not willing to take this standpoint, then one can no more discuss thinking with him than one can discuss color with a blind man. But in any case he must not imagine that we regard physiological processes as thinking. He fails to explain thinking because he simply does not see it.
[ 18 ] For everyone, however, who has the ability to observe thinking—and with good will every normal man has this ability—this observation is the most important one he can possibly make. For he observes something of which he himself is the creator; he finds himself confronted, not by an apparently foreign object, but by his own activity. He knows how the thing he is observing comes into being. He sees into its connections and relationships. A firm point has now been reached from which one can, with some hope of success, seek an explanation of all other phenomena of the world.
[ 19 ] The feeling that he had found such a firm point led the father of modern philosophy, Descartes, to base the whole of human knowledge on the principle: I think, therefore I am. All other things, all other events, are there independently of me. Whether they be truth, or illusion, or dream, I know not. There is only one thing of which I am absolutely certain, for I myself give it its certain existence; and that is my thinking. Whatever other origin it may ultimately have, may it come from God or from elsewhere, of one thing I am certain: that it exists in the sense that I myself bring it forth. Descartes had, to begin with, no justification for giving his statement more meaning than this. All that he had any right to assert was that within the whole world content I apprehend myself in my thinking as in that activity which is most uniquely my own. What the attached “therefore I am” is supposed to mean has been much debated. It can have a meaning on one condition only. The simplest assertion I can make of a thing is that it is, that it exists. How this existence can be further defined in the case of any particular thing that appears on the horizon of my experience, is at first sight impossible to say. Each object must first be studied in its relation to others before we can determine in what sense it can be said to exist. An experienced event may be a set of percepts or it may be a dream, an hallucination, or something else. In short, I am unable to say in what sense it exists. I cannot gather this from the event in itself, but I shall find it out when I consider the event in its relation to other things. But here again I cannot know more than just how it stands in relation to these other things. My investigation touches firm ground only when I find an object which exists in a sense which I can derive from the object itself. But I am myself such an object in that I think, for I give to my existence the definite, self-determined content of the thinking activity. From here I can go on to ask whether other things exist in the same or in some other sense.
[ 20 ] When we make thinking an object of observation, we add to the other observed contents of the world something which usually escapes our attention. But the way we stand in relation to the other things is in no way altered. We add to the number of objects of observation, but not to the number of methods. While we are observing the other things, there enters among the processes of the world—among which I now include observation—one process which is overlooked. Something is present which is different from all other processes, something which is not taken into account. But when I observe my own thinking, no such neglected element is present. For what now hovers in the background is once more just thinking itself. The object of observation is qualitatively identical with the activity directed upon it. This is another characteristic feature of thinking. When we make it an object of observation, we are not compelled to do so with the help of something qualitatively different, but can remain within the same element.
[ 21 ] When I weave an independently given object into my thinking, I transcend my observation, and the question arises: What right have I to do this? Why do I not simply let the object impress itself upon me? How is it possible for my thinking to be related to the object? These are questions which everyone must put to himself who reflects on his own thought processes. But all these questions cease to exist when we think about thinking itself. We then add nothing to our thinking that is foreign to it, and therefore have no need to justify any such addition.
[ 22 ] Schelling says, “To know Nature means to create Nature.” If we take these words of this bold Nature-philosopher literally, we shall have to renounce for ever all hope of gaining knowledge of Nature. For Nature is there already, and in order to create it a second time, we must first know the principles according to which it has originated. From the Nature that already exists we should have to borrow or crib the fundamental principles for the Nature we want to begin by creating. This borrowing, which would have to precede the creating, would however mean knowing Nature, and this would still be so even if after the borrowing no creation were to take place. The only kind of Nature we could create without first having knowledge of it would be a Nature that does not yet exist.
[ 23 ] What is impossible for us with regard to Nature, namely, creating before knowing, we achieve in the case of thinking. Were we to refrain from thinking until we had first gained knowledge of it, we would never come to it at all. We must resolutely plunge right into the activity of thinking, so that afterwards, by observing what we have done, we may gain knowledge of it. For the observation of thinking, we ourselves first create an object; the presence of all other objects is taken care of without any activity on our part.
[ 24 ] My contention that we must think before we can examine thinking might easily be countered by the apparently equally valid contention that we cannot wait with digesting until we have first observed the process of digestion. This objection would be similar to that brought by Pascal against Descartes, when he asserted that we might also say, “I walk, therefore I am.” Certainly I must go straight ahead with digesting and not wait until I have studied the physiological process of digestion. But I could only compare this with the study of thinking if, after digestion, I set myself not to study it by thinking, but to eat and digest it. It is after all not without reason that, whereas digestion cannot become the object of digestion, thinking can very well become the object of thinking.
[ 25 ] This then is indisputable, that in thinking we have got hold of one corner of the whole world process which requires our presence if anything is to happen. And this is just the point upon which everything turns. The very reason why things confront me in such a puzzling way is just that I play no part in their production. They are simply given to me, whereas in the case of thinking I know how it is done. Hence for the study of all that happens in the world there can be no more fundamental starting point than thinking itself.
[ 26 ] I should now like to mention a widely current error which prevails with regard to thinking. It is often said that thinking, as it is in itself, is nowhere given to us: the thinking that connects our observations and weaves a network of concepts about them is not at all the same as that which we subsequently extract from the objects of observation in order to make it the object of our study. What we first weave unconsciously into the things is said to be quite different from what we consciously extract from them again.
[ 27 ] Those who hold this view do not see that it is impossible in this way to escape from thinking. I cannot get outside thinking when I want to study it. If we want to distinguish between thinking before we have become conscious of it, and thinking of which we have subsequently become aware, we should not forget that this distinction is a purely external one which has nothing to do with the thing itself. I do not in any way alter a thing by thinking about it. I can well imagine that a being with quite differently constructed sense organs and with a differently functioning intelligence, would have a very different mental picture of a horse from mine, but I cannot imagine that my own thinking becomes something different through the fact that I observe it. I myself observe what I myself produce. Here we are not talking of how my thinking looks to an intelligence other than mine, but of how it looks to me. In any case the picture of my thinking which another intelligence might have cannot be a truer one than my own. Only if I were not myself the being doing the thinking, but if the thinking were to confront me as the activity of a being quite foreign to me, might I then say that although my own picture of the thinking may arise in a particular way, what the thinking of that being may be like in itself, I am quite unable to know.
[ 28 ] So far, there is not the slightest reason why I should regard my own thinking from any point of view other than my own. After all, I contemplate the rest of the world by means of thinking. Why should I make my thinking an exception?
[ 29 ] I believe I have given sufficient reasons for making thinking the starting point for my study of the world. When Archimedes had discovered the lever, he thought he could lift the whole cosmos from its hinges, if only he could find a point of support for his instrument. He needed something that was supported by itself and by nothing else. In thinking we have a principle which subsists through itself. Let us try, therefore, to understand the world starting from this basis. We can grasp thinking by means of itself. The question is, whether we can also grasp anything else through it.
[ 30 ] I have so far spoken of thinking without taking account of its vehicle, human consciousness. Most present-day philosophers would object that before there can be thinking, there must be consciousness. Hence we ought to start, not from thinking, but from consciousness. There is no thinking, they say, without consciousness. To this I must reply that in order to clear up the relation between thinking and consciousness, I must think about it. Hence I presuppose thinking. Nevertheless one could still argue that although, when the philosopher tries to understand consciousness he makes use of thinking and to that extent presupposes it, yet in the ordinary course of life thinking does arise within consciousness and therefore presupposes consciousness.
Now if this answer were given to the world creator when he was about to create thinking, it would doubtless be to the point. Naturally it is not possible to create thinking before consciousness. The philosopher, however, is not concerned with creating the world but with understanding it. Accordingly he has to seek the starting points not for the creation of the world but for the understanding of it. It seems to me very strange that the philosopher should be reproached for troubling himself first and foremost about the correctness of his principles instead of turning straight to the objects which he seeks to understand. The world creator had above all to know how to find a vehicle for thinking, but the philosopher has to seek a secure foundation for his attempts to understand what already exists. How does it help us to start with consciousness and subject it to the scrutiny of thinking, if we do not first know whether thinking is in fact able to give us insight into things at all?
[ 31 ] We must first consider thinking quite impartially, without reference to a thinking subject or a thought object. For both subject and object are concepts formed by thinking. There is no denying that before anything else can be understood, thinking must be understood. Whoever denies this fails to realize that man is not the first link in the chain of creation but the last. Hence, in order to explain the world by means of concepts, we cannot start from the elements of existence which came first in time, but we must begin with that element which is given to us as the nearest and most intimate. We cannot at one bound transport ourselves back to the beginning of the world in order to begin our studies from there, but we must start from the present moment and see whether we can ascend from the later to the earlier. As long as Geology invented fabulous catastrophes to account for the present state of the earth, it groped in darkness. It was only when it began to study the processes at present at work on the earth, and from these to argue back to the past, that it gained a firm foundation. As long as Philosophy goes on assuming all sorts of basic principles, such as atom, motion, matter, will, or the unconscious, it will hang in the air. Only if the philosopher recognizes that which is last in time as his first point of attack, can he reach his goal. This absolutely last thing at which world evolution has arrived is in fact thinking.
[ 32 ] There are people who say it is impossible to ascertain with certainty whether our thinking is right or wrong, and thus our starting point is in any case a doubtful one. It would be just as sensible to doubt whether a tree is in itself right or wrong. Thinking is a fact, and it is meaningless to speak of the truth or falsity of a fact. I can, at most, be in doubt as to whether thinking is correctly applied, just as I can doubt whether a certain tree supplies wood adapted to the making of this or that useful object. To show how far the application of thinking to the world is right or wrong, is precisely the task of this book. I can understand anyone doubting whether, by means of thinking, we can gain knowledge of the world, but it is incomprehensible to me how anyone can doubt the rightness of thinking in itself.
Author's addition, 1918
[ 33 ] In the preceding discussion I have pointed out the significant difference between thinking and all other activities of the soul, as a fact which presents itself to genuinely unprejudiced observation. Anyone who does not strive towards this unprejudiced observation will be tempted to bring against my arguments such objections as these: When I think about a rose, this after all only expresses a relation of my “I” to the rose, just as when I feel the beauty of the rose. There is a relation between “I” and object in the case of thinking just as much as in the case of feeling or perceiving. Such an objection leaves out of account the fact that only in the thinking activity does the “I” know itself to be one and the same being with that which is active, right into all the ramifications of this activity. With no other soul activity is this so completely the case. For example, in a feeling of pleasure it is perfectly possible for a more delicate observation to discriminate between the extent to which the “I” knows itself to be one and the same being with what is active, and the extent to which there is something passive in the “I” to which the pleasure merely presents itself. The same applies to the other soul activities. Above all one should not confuse the “having of thought-images” with the elaboration of thought by thinking. Thought-images may appear in the soul after the fashion of dreams, like vague intimations. But this is not thinking. True, someone might now say: If this is what you mean by “thinking”, then your thinking involves willing and you have to do not merely with thinking but also with the will in the thinking. However, this would simply justify us in saying: Genuine thinking must always be willed. But this is quite irrelevant to the characterization of thinking as this has been given in the preceding discussion. Granted that the nature of thinking necessarily implies its being willed, the point that matters is that nothing is willed which, in being carried out, does not appear to the “I” as an activity completely its own and under its own supervision. Indeed, we must say that owing to the very nature of thinking as here defined, it must appear to the observer as willed through and through. If we really make the effort to grasp everything that is relevant to a judgment about the nature of thinking, we cannot fail to see that this soul activity does have the unique character we have here described.
[ 34 ] A person whom the author of this book rates very highly as a thinker has objected that it is impossible to speak about thinking as we are doing here, because what one believes oneself to have observed as active thinking is nothing but an illusion. In reality one is observing only the results of an unconscious activity which lies at the basis of thinking. Only because this unconscious activity is not observed does the illusion arise that the observed thinking exists in its own right, just as when in an illumination by means of a rapid succession of electric sparks we believe that we are seeing a continuous movement. This objection, too, rests only on an inaccurate view of the facts. In making it, one forgets that it is the “I” itself which, from its standpoint inside the thinking, observes its own activity. The “I” would have to stand outside the thinking in order to suffer the sort of deception which is caused by an illumination with a rapid succession of electric sparks. It would be much truer to say that precisely in using such an analogy one is forcibly deceiving oneself, just as if someone seeing a moving light were to insist that it is being freshly lit by an unknown hand at every point where it appears. No, whoever is determined to see in thinking anything other than a clearly surveyable activity produced by the “I” itself, must first shut his eyes to the plain facts that are there for the seeing, in order then to invent a hypothetical activity as the basis of thinking. If he does not thus blind himself, he will have to recognize that everything which he “thinks up” in this way as an addition to the thinking only leads him away from its real nature. Unprejudiced observation shows that nothing is to be counted as belonging to the nature of thinking except what is found in thinking itself. One will never arrive at something which is the cause of thinking if one steps outside the realm of thinking itself.
III. Das Denken im Dienste der Weltanschauung
[ 1 ] Wenn ich beobachte, wie eine Billardkugel, die gestoßen wird, ihre Bewegung auf eine andere überträgt, so bleibe ich auf den Verlauf dieses beobachteten Vorganges ganz ohne Einfluß. Die Bewegungsrichtung und Schnelligkeit der zweiten Kugel ist durch die Richtung und Schnelligkeit der ersten bestimmt. Solange ich mich bloß als Beobachter verhalte, weiß ich über die Bewegung der zweiten Kugel erst dann etwas zu sagen, wenn dieselbe eingetreten ist. Anders ist die Sache, wenn ich über den Inhalt meiner Beobachtung nachzudenken beginne. Mein Nachdenken hat den Zweck, von dem Vorgange Begriffe zu bilden. Ich bringe den Begriff einer elastischen Kugel in Verbindung mit gewissen anderen Begriffen der Mechanik und ziehe die besonderen Umstände in Erwägung, die in dem vorkommenden Falle obwalten. Ich suche also zu dem Vorgange, der sich ohne mein Zutun abspielt, einen zweiten hinzuzufügen, der sich in der begrifflichen Sphäre vollzieht. Der letztere ist von mir abhängig. Das zeigt sich dadurch, daß ich mich mit der Beobachtung begnügen und auf alles Begriffesuchen verzichten kann, wenn ich kein Bedürfnis danach habe. Wenn dieses Bedürfnis aber vorhanden ist, dann beruhige ich mich erst, wenn ich die Begriffe: Kugel, Elastizität, Bewegung, Stoß, Geschwindigkeit usw. in eine gewisse Verbindung gebracht habe, zu welcher der beobachtete Vorgang in einem bestimmten Verhältnisse steht. So gewiß es nun ist, daß sich der Vorgang unabhängig von mir vollzieht, so gewiß ist es, daß sich der begriffliche Prozeß ohne mein Zutun nicht abspielen kann.
[ 2 ] Ob diese meine Tätigkeit wirklich der Ausfluß meines selbständigen Wesens ist, oder ob die modernen Physiologen recht haben, welche sagen, daß wir nicht denken können, wie wir wollen, sondern denken müssen, wie es die gerade in unserem Bewußtsein vorhandenen Gedanken und Gedankenverbindungen bestimmen (vergleiche Ziehen, Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie, Jena 1893, S. 171), wird Gegenstand einer späteren Auseinandersetzung sein. Vorläufig wollen wir bloß die Tatsache feststellen, daß wir uns fortwährend gezwungen fühlen, zu den ohne unser Zutun uns gegebenen Gegenständen und Vorgängen Begriffe und Begriffsverbindungen zu suchen, die zu jenen in einer gewissen Beziehung stehen. Ob dies Tun in Wahrheit unser Tun ist, oder ob wir es einer unabänderlichen Notwendigkeit gemäß vollziehen, lassen wir vorläufig dahingestellt. Daß es uns zunächst als das unsrige erscheint, ist ohne Frage. Wir wissen ganz genau, daß uns mit den Gegenständen nicht zugleich deren Begriffe mitgegeben werden. Daß ich selbst der Tätige bin, mag auf einem Schein beruhen; der unmittelbaren Beobachtung stellt sich die Sache jedenfalls so dar. Die Frage ist nun: was gewinnen wir dadurch, daß wir zu einem Vorgange ein begriffliches Gegenstück hinzufinden?
[ 3 ] Es ist ein tiefgreifender Unterschied zwischen der Art, wie sich für mich die Teile eines Vorganges zueinander verhalten vor und nach der Auffindung der entsprechenden Begriffe. Die bloße Beobachtung kann dieTeile eines gegebenen Vorganges in ihrem Verlaufe verfolgen; ihr Zusammenhang bleibt aber vor der Zuhilfenahme von Begriffen dunkel. Ich sehe die erste Billardkugel in einer gewissen Richtung und mit einer bestimmten Geschwindigkeit gegen die zweite sich bewegen; was nach erfolgtem Stoß geschieht, muß ich abwarten und kann es dann auch wieder nur mit den Augen verfolgen. Nehmen wir an, es verdecke mir im Augenblicke des Stoßes jemand das Feld, auf dem der Vorgang sich abspielt, so bin ich — als bloßer Beobachter — ohne Kenntnis, was nachher geschieht. Anders ist das, wenn ich für die Konstellation der Verhältnisse vor dem Verdecken die entsprechenden Begriffe gefunden habe. In diesem Falle kann ich angeben, was geschieht, auch wenn die Möglichkeit der Beobachtung aufhört. Ein bloß beobachteter Vorgang oder Gegenstand ergibt aus sich selbst nichts über seinen Zusammenhang mit anderen Vorgängen oder Gegenständen. Dieser Zusammenhang wird erst ersichtlich, wenn sich die Beobachtung mit dem Denken verbindet.
[ 4 ] Beobachtung und Denken sind die beiden Ausgangspunkte für alles geistige Streben des Menschen, insoferne er sich eines solchen bewußt ist. Die Verrichtungen des gemeinen Menschenverstandes und die verwickeltesten wissenschaftlichen Forschungen ruhen auf diesen beiden Grundsäulen unseres Geistes. Die Philosophen sind von verschiedenen Urgegensätzen ausgegangen: Idee und Wirklichkeit, Subjekt und Objekt, Erscheinung und Ding an sich, Ich und Nicht-Ich, Idee und Wille, Begriff und Materie, Kraft und Stoff, Bewußtes und Unbewußtes. Es läßt sich aber leicht zeigen, daß allen diesen Gegensätzen der von Beobachtung und Denken, als der für den Menschen wichtigste, vorangehen muß.
[ 5 ] Was für ein Prinzip wir auch aufstellen mögen: wir müssen es irgendwo als von uns beobachtet nachweisen, oder in Form eines klaren Gedankens, der von jedem anderen nachgedacht werden kann, aussprechen. Jeder Philosoph, der anfängt über seine Urprinzipien zu sprechen, muß sich der begrifflichen Form, und damit des Denkens bedienen. Er gibt damit indirekt zu, daß er zu seiner Betätigung das Denken bereits voraussetzt. Ob das Denken oder irgend etwas anderes Hauptelement der Weltentwickelung ist, darüber werde hier noch nichts ausgemacht. Daß aber der Philosoph ohne das Denken kein Wissen darüber gewinnen kann, das ist von vornherein klar. Beim Zustandekommen der Welterscheinungen mag das Denken eine Nebenrolle spielen, beim Zustandekommen einer Ansicht darüber kommt ihm aber sicher eine Hauptrolle zu.
[ 6] Was nun die Beobachtung betrifft, so liegt es in unserer Organisation, daß wir derselben bedürfen. Unser Denken über ein Pferd und der Gegenstand Pferd sind zwei Dinge, die für uns getrennt auftreten. Und dieser Gegenstand ist uns nur durch Beobachtung zugänglich. So wenig wir durch das bloße Anstarren eines Pferdes uns einen Begriff von demselben machen können, ebensowenig sind wir imstande, durch bloßes Denken einen entsprechenden Gegenstand hervorzubringen.
[ 7 ] Zeitlich geht die Beobachtung sogar dem Denken voraus. Denn auch das Denken müssen wir erst durch Beobachtung kennenlernen. Es war wesentlich die Beschreibung einer Beobachtung, als wir am Eingange dieses Kapitels darstellten, wie sich das Denken an einem Vorgange entzündet und über das ohne sein Zutun Gegebene hinausgeht. Alles was in den Kreis unserer Erlebnisse eintritt, werden wir durch die Beobachtung erst gewahr. Der Inhalt von Empfindungen, Wahrnehmungen, Anschauungen, die Gefühle, Willensakte, Traum, und Phantasiegebilde, Vorstellungen, Begriffe und Ideen, sämtliche Illusionen und Halluzinationen werden uns durch die Beobachtung gegeben.
[ 8 ] Nur unterscheidet sich das Denken als Beobachtungsobjekt doch wesentlich von allen andern Dingen. Die Beobachtung eines Tisches, eines Baumes tritt bei mir ein, sobald diese Gegenstände auf dem Horizonte meiner Erlebnisse auftauchen. Das Denken aber über diese Gegenstände beobachte ich nicht gleichzeitig. Den Tisch beobachte ich, das Denken über den Tisch führe ich aus, aber ich beobachte es nicht in demselben Augenblicke. Ich muß mich erst auf einen Standpunkt außerhalb meiner eigenen Tätigkeit versetzen, wenn ich neben dem Tische auch mein Denken über den Tisch beobachten will. Während das Beobachten der Gegenstände und Vorgänge und das Denken darüber ganz alltägliche, mein fortlaufendes Leben ausfüllende Zustände sind, ist die Beobachtung des Denkens eine Art Ausnahmezustand. Diese Tatsache muß in entsprechender Weise berücksichtigt werden, wenn es sich darum handelt, das Verhältnis des Denkens zu allen anderen Beobachtungsinhalten zu bestimmen. Man muß sich klar darüber sein, daß man bei der Beobachtung des Denkens auf dieses ein Verfahren anwendet, das für dieBetrachtung des ganzen übrigen Weltinhaltes den normalen Zustand bildet, das aber im Verfolge dieses normalen Zustandes für das Denken selbst nicht eintritt.
[ 9 ] Es könnte jemand den Einwand machen, daß das gleiche, was ich hier von dem Denken bemerkt habe, auch von dem Fühlen und den übrigen geistigen Tätigkeiten gelte. Wenn wir zum Beispiel das Gefühl der Lust haben, so entzünde sich das auch an einem Gegenstande, und ich beobachte zwar diesen Gegenstand, nicht aber das Gefühl der Lust. Dieser Einwand beruht aber auf einem Irrtum. Die Lust steht durchaus nicht in demselben Verhältnisse zu ihrem Gegenstande wie der Begriff, den das Denken bildet. Ich bin mir auf das bestimmteste bewußt, daß der Begriff einer Sache durch meine Tätigkeit gebildet wird, während die Lust in mir auf ähnliche Art durch einen Gegenstand erzeugt wird, wie zum Beispiel die Veränderung, die ein fallender Stein in einem Gegenstande bewirkt, auf den er auffällt. Für die Beobachtung ist die Lust in genau derselben Weise gegeben, wie der sie veranlassende Vorgang. Ein gleiches gilt nicht vom Begriffe. Ich kann fragen: warum erzeugt ein bestimmter Vorgang bei mir das Gefühl der Lust? Aber ich kann durchaus nicht fragen: warum erzeugt ein Vorgang bei mir eine bestimmte Summe von Begriffen? Das hätte einfach keinen Sinn. Bei dem Nachdenken über einen Vorgang handelt es sich gar nicht um eine Wirkung auf mich. Ich kann dadurch nichts über mich erfahren, daß ich für die beobachtete Veränderung, die ein gegen eine Fensterscheibe geworfener Stein in dieser bewirkt, die entsprechenden Begriffe kenne. Aber ich erfahre sehr wohl etwas über meine Persönlichkeit, wenn ich das Gefühl kenne, das ein bestimmter Vorgang in mir erweckt. Wenn ich einem beobachteten Gegenstand gegenüber sage: dies ist eine Rose, so sage ich über mich selbst nicht das geringste aus; wenn ich aber von demselben Dinge sage: es bereitet mir das Gefühl der Lust, so habe ich nicht nur die Rose, sondern auch mich selbst in meinem Verhältnis zur Rose charakterisiert.
[ 10 ] Von einer Gleichstellung des Denkens mit dem Fühlen der Beobachtung gegenüber kann also nicht die Rede sein. Dasselbe ließe sich leicht auch für die andern Tätigkeiten des menschlichen Geistes ableiten. Sie gehören dem Denken gegenüber in eine Reihe mit anderen beobachteten Gegenständen und Vorgängen. Es gehört eben zu der eigentüm lichen Natur des Denkens, daß es eine Tätigkeit ist, die bloß auf den beobachteten Gegenstand gelenkt ist und nicht auf die denkende Persönlichkeit. Das spricht sich schon in der Art aus, wie wir unsere Gedanken über eine Sache zum Ausdruck bringen im Gegensatz zu unseren Gefühlen oder Willensakten. Wenn ich einen Gegenstand sehe und diesen als einen Tisch erkenne, werde ich im allgemeinen nicht sagen: ich denke über einen Tisch, sondern: dies ist ein Tisch. Wohl aber werde ich sagen: ich freue mich über den Tisch. Im ersteren Falle kommt es mir eben gar nicht darauf an, auszusprechen, daß ich zu dem Tisch in ein Verhältnis trete; in dem zweiten Falle handelt es sich aber gerade um dieses Verhältnis. Mit dem Ausspruch: ich denke über einen Tisch, trete ich bereits in den oben charakterisierten Ausnahmezustand ein, wo etwas zum Gegenstand der Beobachtung gemacht wird, was in unserer geistigen Tätigkeit immer mit-enthalten ist, aber nicht als beobachtetes Objekt.
[ 11 ] Das ist die eigentümliche Natur des Denkens, daß der Denkende das Denken vergißt, während er es ausübt. Nicht das Denken beschäftigt ihn, sondern der Gegenstand des Denkens, den er beobachtet.
[ 12 ] Die erste Beobachtung, die wir über das Denken machen, ist also die, daß es das unbeobachtete Element unseres gewöhnlichen Geisteslebens ist.
[ 13 ] Der Grund, warum wir das Denken im alltäglichen Geistesleben nicht beobachten, ist kein anderer als der, daß es auf unserer eigenen Tätigkeit beruht. Was ich nicht selbst hervorbringe, tritt als ein Gegenständliches in mein Beobachtungsfeld ein. Ich sehe mich ihm als einem ohne mich zustande Gekommenen gegenüber; es tritt an mich heran; ich muß es als die Voraussetzung meines Denkprozesses hinnehmen. Während ich über den Gegenstand nachdenke, bin ich mit diesem beschäftigt, mein Blick ist ihm zugewandt. Diese Beschäftigung ist eben die denkende Betrachtung. Nicht auf meine Tätigkeit, sondern auf das Objekt dieser Tätigkeit ist meine Aufmerksamkeit gerichtet. Mit anderen Worten: während ich denke, sehe ich nicht auf mein Denken, das ich selbst hervorbringe, sondern auf das Objekt des Denkens, das ich nicht hervorbringe.
[ 14 ] Ich bin sogar in demselben Fall, wenn ich den Ausnahmezustand eintreten lasse, und über mein Denken selbst nachdenke. Ich kann mein gegenwärtigesDenken nie beobachten; sondern nur die Erfahrungen, die ich über meinen Denkprozeß gemacht habe, kann ich nachher zum Objekt des Denkens machen. Ich müßte mich in zwei Persönlichkeiten spalten: in eine, die denkt, und in die andere, welche sich bei diesem Denken selbst zusieht, wenn ich mein gegenwärtiges Denken beobachten wollte. Das kann ich nicht. Ich kann das nur in zwei getrennten Akten ausführen. Das Denken, das beobachtet werden soll, ist nie das dabei in Tätigkeit befindliche, sondern ein anderes. Ob ich zu diesem Zwecke meine Beobachtungen an meinem eigenen früheren Denken mache, oder ob ich den Gedankenprozeß einer anderen Person verfolge, oder endlich, ob ich, wie im obigen Falle mit der Bewegung der Billardkugeln, einen fingierten Gedankenprozeß voraussetze, darauf kommt es nicht an.
[ 15 ] Zwei Dinge vertragen sich nicht: tätiges Hervorbringen und beschauliches Gegenüberstellen. Das weiß schon das erste Buch Moses. An den ersten sechs Welttagen läßt es Gott die Welt hervorbringen, und erst als sie da ist, ist die Möglichkeit vorhanden, sie zu beschauen: «Und Gott sahe an alles, was er gemacht hatte; und siehe da, es war sehr gut.» So ist es auch mit unserem Denken. Es muß erst da sein, wenn wir es beobachten wollen.
[ 16 ] Der Grund, der es uns unmöglich macht, das Denken in seinem jeweilig gegenwärtigen Verlauf zu beobachten, ist der gleiche wie der, der es uns unmittelbarer und intimer erkennen läßt als jeden andern Prozeß der Welt. Eben weil wir es selbst hervorbringen, kennen wir das Charakteristische seines Verlaufs, dieArt, wie sich das dabei in Betracht kommende Geschehen vollzieht. Was in den übrigen Beobachtungssphären nur auf mittelbare Weise gefunden werden kann: der sachlich-entsprechende Zusammenhang und das Verhältnis der einzelnen Gegenstände, das wissen wir beim Denken auf ganz unmittelbare Weise. Warum für meine Beobachtung der Donner auf den Blitz folgt, weiß ich nicht ohne weiteres; warum mein Denken den Begriff Donner mit dem des Blitzes verbindet, weiß ich unmittelbar aus den Inhalten der beiden Begriffe. Es kommt natürlich gar nicht darauf an, ob ich die richtigen Begriffe von Blitz und Donner habe. Der Zusammenhang derer, die ich habe, ist mir klar, und zwar durch sie selbst.
[ 17 ] Diese durchsichtige Klarheit in bezug auf den Denkprozeß ist ganz unabhängig von unserer Kenntnis der physiologischen Grundlagen des Denkens. Ich spreche hier von dem Denken, insoferne es sich aus der Beobachtung unserer geistigen Tätigkeit ergibt. Wie ein materieller Vorgang meines Gehirns einen andern veranlaßt oder beeinflußt, während ich eine Gedankenoperation ausführe, kommt dabei gar nicht in Betracht. Was ich am Denken beobachte, ist nicht: welcher Vorgang in meinem Gehirne den Begriff des Blitz es mit dem des Donners verbindet, sondern, was mich veranlaßt, die beiden Begriffe in ein bestimmtes Verhältnis zu bringen. Meine Beobachtung ergibt, daß mir für meine Gedankenverbindungen nichts vorliegt, nach dem ich mich richte, als der Inhalt meiner Gedanken; nicht nach den materiellen Vorgängen in meinem Gehirn richte ich mich. Für ein weniger materialistisches Zeitalter als das unsrige wäre diese Bemerkung natürlich vollständig überflüssig. Gegenwärtig aber, wo es Leute gibt, die glauben: wenn wir wissen, was Materie ist, werden wir auch wissen, wie die Materie denkt, muß doch gesagt werden, daß man vom Denken reden kann, ohne sogleich mit der Gehirnphysiologie in Kollision zu treten. Es wird heute sehr vielen Menschen schwer, den Begriff des Denkens in seiner Reinheit zu fassen. Wer der Vorstellung, die ich hier vom Denken entwickelt habe, sogleich den Satz des Cabanis entgegensetzt: «Das Gehirn sondert Gedanken ab wie die Leber Galle, die Speicheldrüse Speichel usw.», der weiß einfach nicht, wovon ich rede. Er sucht das Denken durch einen bloßen Beobachtungsprozeß zu finden in derselben Art, wie wir bei anderen Gegenständen des Weltinhaltes verfahren. Er kann es aber auf diesem Wege nicht finden, weil es sich, wie ich nachgewiesen habe, gerade da der normalen Beobachtung entzieht. Wer den Materialismus nicht überwinden kann, dem fehlt die Fähigkeit, bei sich den geschilderten Ausnahmezustand herbeizuführen, der ihm zum Bewußtsein bringt, was bei aller andern Geistestätigkeit unbewußt bleibt. Wer den guten Willen nicht hat, sich in diesen Standpunkt zu versetzen, mit dem könnte man über das Denken so wenig wie mit dem Blinden über die Farbe sprechen. Er möge nur aber nicht glauben, daß wir physiologische Prozesse für Denken halten. Er erklärt das Denken nicht, weil er es überhaupt nicht sieht.
[ 18 ] Für jeden aber, der die Fähigkeit hat, das Denken zu beobachten — und bei gutem Willen hat sie jeder normal organisierte Mensch — , ist diese Beobachtung die allerwichtigste, die er machen kann. Denn er beobachtet etwas, dessen Hervorbringer er selbst ist; er sieht sich nicht einem zunächst fremden Gegenstande, sondern seiner eigenen Tätigkeit gegenüber. Er weiß, wie das zustande kommt, was er beobachtet. Er durchschaut die Verhältnisse und Beziehungen. Es ist ein fester Punkt gewonnen, von dem aus man mit begründeter Hoffnung nach der Erklärung der übrigen Welterscheinungen suchen kann.
[ 19 ] Das Gefühl, einen solchen festen Punkt zu haben, veranlaßte den Begründer der neueren Philosophie, Renatus Cartesius, das ganze menschliche Wissen auf den Satz zu gründen: Ich denke, also bin ich. Alle andern Dinge, alles andere Geschehen ist ohne mich da; ich weiß nicht, ob als Wahrheit, ob als Gaukelspiel und Traum. Nur eines weiß ich ganz unbedingt sicher, denn ich bringe es selbst zu seinem sichern Dasein: mein Denken. Mag es noch einen andern Ursprung seines Daseins haben, mag es von Gott oder anderswoher kommen; daß es in dem Sinne da ist, in dem ich es selbst hervorbringe, dessen bin ich gewiß. Einen andern Sinn seinem Satze unterzulegen hatte Cartesius zunächst keine Berechtigung. Nur daß ich mich innerhalb des Weltinhaltes in meinem Denken als in meiner ureigensten Tätigkeit erfasse, konnte er behaupten. Was das daran-gehängte: also bin ich heißen soll, darüber ist viel gestritten worden. Einen Sinn kann es aber nur unter einer einzigen Bedingung haben. Die einfachste Aussage, die ich von einem Dinge machen kann, ist die, daß es ist, daß es existiert. Wie dann dieses Dasein näher zu bestimmen ist, das ist bei keinem Dinge, das in den Horizont meiner Erlebnisse eintritt, sogleich im Augenblicke zu sagen. Es wird jeder Gegenstand erst in seinem Verhältnisse zu andern zu untersuchen sein, um bestimmen zu können, in welchem Sinne von ihm als einem existierenden gesprochen werden kann. Ein erlebter Vorgang kann eine Summe von Wahrnehmungen, aber auch ein Traum, eine Halluzination und so weiter sein. Kurz, ich kann nicht sagen, in welchem Sinne er existiert. Das werde ich dem Vorgange selbst nicht entnehmen können, sondern ich werde es erfahren, wenn ich ihn im Verhältnisse zu andern Dingen betrachte. Da kann ich aber wieder nicht mehr wissen, als wie er im Verhältnisse zu diesen Dingen steht. Mein Suchen kommt erst auf einen festen Grund, wenn ich ein Objekt finde, bei dem ich den Sinn seines Daseins aus ihm selbst schöpfen kann. Das bin ich aber selbst als Denkender, denn ich gebe meinem Dasein den bestimmten, in sich beruhenden Inhalt der denkenden Tätigkeit. Nun kann ich von da ausgehen und fragen: Existieren die andern Dinge in dem gleichen oder in einem andern Sinne?
[ 20] Wenn man das Denken zum Objekt der Beobachtung macht, fügt man zu dem übrigen beobachteten Weltinhalte etwas dazu, was sonst der Aufmerksamkeit entgeht; man ändert aber nicht die Art, wie sich der Mensch auch den andern Dingen gegenüber verhält. Man vermehrt die Zahl der Beobachtungsobjekte, aber nicht die Methode des Beobachtens. Während wir die andern Dinge beobachten, mischt sich in das Weltgeschehen — zu dem ich jetzt das Beobachten mitzähle — ein Prozeß, der übersehen wird. Es ist etwas von allem andern Geschehen verschiedenes vorhanden, das nicht mitberücksichtigt wird. Wenn ich aber mein Denken betrachte, so ist kein solches unberücksichtigtes Element vorhanden. Denn was jetzt im Hintergrunde schwebt, ist selbst wieder nur das Denken. Der beobachtete Gegenstand ist qualitativ derselbe wie die Tätigkeit, die sich auf ihn richtet. Und das ist wieder eine charakteristische Eigentümlichkeit des Denkens. Wenn wir es zum Betrachtungsobjekt machen, sehen wir uns nicht gezwungen, dies mit Hilfe eines Oualitativ-Verschiedenen zu tun, sondern wir können in demselben Element verbleiben.
[ 21 ] Wenn ich einen ohne mein Zutun gegebenen Gegenstand in mein Denken einspinne, so gehe ich über meine Beobachtung hinaus, und es wird sich darum handeln: was gibt mir ein Recht dazu? Warum lasse ich den Gegenstand nicht einfach auf mich einwirken? Auf welche Weise ist es möglich, daß mein Denken einen Bezug zu dem Gegenstande hat? Das sind Fragen, die sich jeder stellen muß, der über seine eigenen Gedankenprozesse nachdenkt. Sie fallen weg, wenn man über das Denken selbst nachdenkt. Wir fügen zu dem Denken nichts ihm Fremdes hinzu, haben uns also auch über ein solches Hinzufügen nicht zu rechtfertigen.
[ 22 ] Schelling sagt: Die Natur erkennen, heißt die Natur schaffen. — Wer diese Worte des kühnen Naturphilosophen wörtlich nimmt, wird wohl zeitlebens auf alles Naturerkennen verzichten müssen. Denn die Natur ist einmal da, und um sie ein zweites Mal zu schaffen, muß man die Prinzipien erkennen, nach denen sie entstanden ist. Für die Natur, die man erst schaffen wollte, müßte man der bereits bestehenden die Bedingungen ihres Daseins abgucken. Dieses Abgucken, das dem Schaffen vorausgehen müßte, wäre aber das Erkennen der Natur, und zwar auch dann, wenn nach erfolgtem Abgucken das Schaffen ganz unterbliebe. Nur eine noch nicht vorhandene Natur könnte man schaffen, ohne sie vorher zu erkennen.
[ 23 ] Was bei der Natur unmöglich ist: das Schaffen vor dem Erkennen; beim Denken vollbringen wir es. Wollten wir mit dem Denken warten, bis wir es erkannt haben, dann kämen wir nie dazu. Wir müssen resolut darauf losdenken, um hinterher mittels der Beobachtung des Selbstgetanen zu seiner Erkenntnis zu kommen. Der Beobachtung des Denkens schaffen wir selbst erst ein Objekt. Für das Vorhandensein aller anderen Objekte ist ohne unser Zutun gesorgt worden.
[ 24 ] Leicht könnte jemand meinem Satze: wir müssen denken, bevor wir das Denken betrachten können, den andern als gleichberechtigt entgegenstellen: wir können auch mit dem Verdauen nicht warten, bis wir den Vorgang des Verdauens beobachtet haben. Das wäre ein Einwand ähnlich dem, den Pascal dem Cartesius machte, indem er behauptete, man könne auch sagen: ich gehe spazieren, also bin ich. Ganz gewiß muß ich auch resolut verdauen, bevor ich den physiologischen Prozeß der Verdauung studiert habe. Aber mit der Betrachtung des Denkens ließe sich das nur vergleichen, wenn ich die Verdauung hinterher nicht denkend betrachten, sondern essen und verdauen wollte. Das ist doch eben auch nicht ohne Grund, daß das Verdauen zwar nicht Gegenstand des Verdauens, das Denken aber sehr wohl Gegenstand des Denkens werden kann.
[ 25 ] Es ist also zweifellos: in dem Denken halten wir das Weltgeschehen an einem Zipfel, wo wir dabei sein müssen, wenn etwas zustandekommen soll. Und das ist doch gerade das, worauf es ankommt. Das ist gerade der Grund, warum mir die Dinge so rätselhaft gegenüberstehen: daß ich an ihrem Zustandekommen so unbeteiligt bin. Ich finde sie einfach vor; beim Denken aber weiß ich, wie es gemacht wird. Daher gibt es keinen ursprünglicheren Ausgangspunkt für das Betrachten alles Weltgeschehens als das Denken.
[ 26 ] Ich möchte nun einen weitverbreiteten Irrtum noch erwähnen, der in bezug auf das Denken herrscht. Er besteht darin, daß man sagt: das Denken, so wie es an sich selbst ist, ist uns nirgends gegeben. Das Denken, das die Beobachtungen unserer Erfahrungen verbindet und mit einem Netz von Begriffen durchspinnt, sei durchaus nicht dasselbe, wie dasjenige, das wir hinterher wieder von den Gegenständen der Beobachtung herausschälen und zum Gegenstande unserer Betrachtung machen. Was wir erst unbewußt in die Dinge hineinweben, sei ein ganz anderes, als was wir dann mit Bewußtsein wieder herauslösen.
[ 27 ] Wer so schließt, der begreift nicht, daß es ihm auf diese Art gar nicht möglich ist, dem Denken zu entschlüpfen. Ich kann aus dem Denken gar nicht herauskommen, wenn ich das Denken betrachten will. Wenn man das vorbewußte Denken von dem nachher bewußten Denken unterscheidet, so sollte man doch nicht vergessen, daß diese Unterscheidung eine ganz äußerliche ist, die mit der Sache selbst gar nichts zu tun hat. Ich mache eine Sache dadurch überhaupt nicht zu einer andern, daß ich sie denkend betrachte. Ich kann mir denken, daß ein Wesen mit ganz anders gearteten Sinnesorganen und mit einer anders funktionierenden Intelligenz von einem Pferde eine ganz andere Vorstellung habe als ich, aber ich kann mir nicht denken, daß mein eigenes Denken dadurch ein anderes wird, daß ich es beobachte. Ich beobachte selbst, was ich selbst vollbringe. Wie mein Denken sich für eine andere Intelligenz ausnimmt als die meine, davon ist jetzt nicht die Rede; sondern davon, wie es sich für mich ausnimmt. Jedenfalls aber kann das Bild meines Denkens in einer andern Intelligenz nicht ein wahreres sein als mein eigenes. Nur wenn ich nicht selbst das denkende Wesen wäre, sondern dasDenken mir als Tätigkeit eines mir fremdartigen Wesens gegenüberträte, könnte ich davon sprechen, daß mein Bild des Denkens zwar auf eine bestimmte Weise auftrete; wie das Denken des Wesens aber an sich selber sei, das könne ich nicht wissen.
[ 28 ] Mein eigenes Denken von einem anderen Standpunkte aus anzusehen, liegt aber vorläufig für mich nicht die geringste Veranlassung vor. Ich betrachte ja die ganze übrige Welt mit Hilfe des Denkens. Wie sollte ich bei meinem Denken hiervon eine Ausnahme machen?
[ 29 ] Damit betrachte ich für genügend gerechtfertigt, wenn ich in meiner Weltbetrachtung von dem Denken ausgehe. Als Archimedes den Hebel erfunden hatte, da glaubte er mit seiner Hilfe den ganzen Kosmos aus den Angeln heben zu können, wenn er nur einen Punkt fände, wo er sein Instrument aufstützen könnte. Er brauchte etwas, was durch sich selbst, nicht durch anderes getragen wird. Im Denken haben wir ein Prinzip, das durch sich selbst besteht. Von hier aus sei es versucht, die Welt zu begreifen. Das Denken können wir durch es selbst erfassen. Die Frage ist nur, ob wir durch dasselbe auch noch etwas anderes ergreifen können.
[ 30 ] Ich habe bisher von dem Denken gesprochen, ohne auf seinen Träger, das menschliche Bewußtsein, Rücksicht zu nehmen. Die meisten Philosophen der Gegenwart werden mir einwenden: bevor es ein Denken gibt, muß es ein Bewußtsein geben. Deshalb sei vom Bewußtsein und nicht vom Denken auszugehen. Es gebe kein Denken ohne Bewußtsein. Ich muß dem gegenüber erwidern: Wenn ich darüber Aufklärung haben will, welches Verhältnis zwischen Denken und Bewußtsein besteht, so muß ich darüber nachdenken. Ich setze das Denken damit voraus. Nun kann man darauf allerdings antworten: Wenn der Philosoph das Bewußtsein begreifen will, dann bedient er sich des Denkens; er setzt es insoferne voraus; im gewöhnlichen Verlaufe des Lebens aber entsteht das Denken innerhalb des Bewußtseins und setzt also dieses voraus. Wenn diese Antwort dem Weltschöpfer gegeben würde, der das Denken schaffen will, so wäre sie ohne Zweifel berechtigt. Man kann natürlich das Denken nicht entstehen lassen, ohne vorher das Bewußtsein zustande zu bringen. Dem Philosophen aber handelt es sich nicht um die Weltschöpfung, sondern um das Begreifen derselben. Er hat daher auch nicht die Ausgangspunkte für das Schaffen, sondern für das Begreifen der Welt zu suchen. Ich finde es ganz sonderbar, wenn man dem Philosophen vorwirft, daß er sich vor allen andern Dingen um die Richtigkeit seiner Prinzipien, nicht aber sogleich um die Gegenstände bekümmert, die er begreifen will. Der Weltschöpfer mußte vor allem wissen, wie er einen Träger für das Denken findet, der Philosoph aber muß nach einer sichern Grundlage suchen, von der aus er das Vorhandene begreifen kann. Was frommt es uns, wenn wir vom Bewußtsein ausgehen und es der denkenden Betrachtung unterwerfen, wenn wir vorher über die Möglichkeit, durch denkende Betrachtung Aufschluß über die Dinge zu bekommen, nichts wissen?
[ 31 ] Wir müssen erst das Denken ganz neutral, ohne Beziehung auf ein denkendes Subjekt oder ein gedachtes Objekt betrachten. Denn in Subjekt und Objekt haben wir bereits Begriffe, die durch das Denken gebildet sind. Es ist nicht zu leugnen: Ehe anderes begriffen werden kann, muß es das Denken werden. Wer es leugnet, der übersieht, daß er als Mensch nicht einAnfangsglied der Schöpfung, sondern deren Endglied ist. Man kann deswegen behufs Erklärung der Welt durch Begriffe nicht von den zeitlich ersten Elementen des Daseins ausgehen, sondern von dem, was uns als das Nächste, als das Intimste gegeben ist. Wir können uns nicht mit einem Sprunge an den Anfang der Welt versetzen, um da unsere Betrachtung anzufangen, sondern wir müssen von dem gegenwärtigen Augenblick ausgehen und sehen, ob wir von dem Späteren zu dem Früheren aufsteigen können. Solange die Geologie von erdichteten Revolutionen gesprochen hat, um den gegenwärtigen Zustand der Erde zu erklären, solange tappte sie in der Finsternis. Erst als sie ihren Anfang damit machte, zu untersuchen, welche Vorgänge gegenwärtig noch auf der Erde sich abspielen und von diesen zurückschloß auf das Vergangene, hatte sie einen sicheren Boden gewonnen. Solange diePhilosophie alle möglichen Prinzipien annehmen wird, wie Atom, Bewegung, Materie, Wille, Unbewußtes, wird sie in der Luft schweben. Erst wenn der Philosoph das absolut Letzte als sein Erstes ansehen wird, kann er zum Ziele kommen. Dieses absolut Letzte, zu dem es die Weltentwickelung gebracht hat, ist aber das Denken.
[ 32 ] Es gibt Leute, die sagen: ob unser Denken an sich richtig sei oder nicht, können wir aber doch nicht mit Sicherheit feststellen. Insoferne bleibt also der Ausgangspunkt jedenfalls ein zweifelhafter. Das ist gerade so vernünftig gesprochen, wie wenn man Zweifel hegt, ob ein Baum an sich richtig sei oder nicht. Das Denken ist eine Tatsache; und über die Richtigkeit oder Falschheit einer solchen zu sprechen, ist sinnlos. Ich kann höchstens darüber Zweifel haben, ob das Denken richtig verwendet wird, wie ich zweifeln kann, ob ein gewisser Baum ein entsprechendes Holz zu einem zweckmäßigen Gerät gibt. Zu zeigen, inwieferne die Anwendung des Denkens auf die Welt eine richtige oder falsche ist, wird gerade Aufgabe dieser Schrift sein. Ich kann es verstehen, wenn jemand Zweifel hegt, daß durch das Denken über die Welt etwas ausgemacht werden kann; das aber ist mir unbegreiflich, wie jemand die Richtigkeit des Denkens an sich anzweifeln kann.
Zusatz zur Neuausgabe (1918)
[ 33 ] In den vorangehenden Ausführungen wird auf den bedeutungsvollen Unterschied zwischen dem Denken und allen andern Seelentätigkeiten hingewiesen als auf eine Tatsache, die sich einer wirklich unbefangenen Beobachtung ergibt. Wer diese unbefangene Beobachtung nicht anstrebt, der wird gegen diese Ausführungen versucht sein, Einwendungen zu machen wie diese: wenn ich über eine Rose denke, so ist damit doch auch nur ein Verhältnis meines «Ich» zur Rose ausgedrückt, wie wenn ich die Schönheit der Rose fühle. Es bestehe geradeso ein Verhältnis zwischen «Ich» und Gegenstand beim Denken, wie zum Beispiel beim Fühlen oder Wahrnehmen. Wer diesen Einwand macht, der zieht nicht in Erwägung, daß nur in der Betätigung des Denkens das «Ich» bis in alle Verzweigungen der Tätigkeit sich mit dem Tätigen als ein Wesen weiß. Bei keiner andern Seelentätigkeit ist dies restlos der Fall. Wenn zum Beispiel eine Lust gefühlt wird, kann eine feinere Beobachtung sehr wohl unterscheiden, inwieferne das «Ich» sich mit einem Tätigen eins weiß und inwiefern in ihm ein Passives vorhanden ist, so daß die Lust für das «Ich» bloß auftritt. Und so ist es auch bei den andern Seelenbetätigungen. Man sollte nur nicht verwechseln: «Gedankenbilder haben» und Gedanken durch das Denken verarbeiten. Gedankenbilder können traumhaft, wie vage Eingebungen in der Seele auftreten. Ein Denken ist dieses nicht. — Allerdings könnte nun jemand sagen: wenn das Denken so gemeint ist, steckt das Wollen in dem Denken drinnen, und man habe es dann nicht bloß mit dem Denken, sondern auch mit dem Wollen des Denkens zu tun. Doch würde dies nur berechtigen zu sagen: das wirkliche Denken muß immer gewollt sein. Nur hat dies mit der Kennzeichnung des Denkens, wie sie in diesen Ausführungen gemacht ist, nichts zu schaffen. Mag es das Wesen des Denkens immerhin notwendig machen, daß dieses gewollt wird: es kommt darauf an, daß nichts gewollt wird, was, indem es sich vollzieht, vor dem «Ich» nicht restlos als seine eigene, von ihm überschaubare Tätigkeit erscheint. Man muß sogar sagen, wegen der hier geltend gemachten Wesenheit des Denkens erscheint dieses dem Beobachter als durch und durch gewollt. Wer alles, was für die Beurteilung des Denkens in Betracht kommt, wirklich zu durchschauen sich bemüht, der wird nicht umhin können, zu bemerken, daß dieser Seelenbetätigung die Eigenheit zukommt, von der hier gesprochen ist.
[ 34] Von einer Persönlichkeit, welche der Verfasser dieses Buches als Denker sehr hochschätzt, ist ihm eingewendet worden, daß so, wie es hier geschieht, nicht über das Denken gesprochen werden könne, weil es nur ein Schein sei, was man als tätiges Denken zu beobachten glaube. In Wirklichkeit beobachte man nur die Ergebnisse einer nicht bewußten Tätigkeit, die dem Denken zugrunde liegt. Nur weil diese nicht bewußte Tätigkeit eben nicht beobachtet werde, entstehe die Täuschung, es bestehe das beobachtete Denken durch sich selbst, wie wenn man bei rasch aufeinanderfolgender Beleuchtung durch elektrische Funken eine Bewegung zu sehen glaubt. Auch dieser Einwand beruht nur auf einer ungenauen Anschauung der Sachlage. Wer ihn macht, berücksichtigt nicht, daß es das «Ich» selbst ist, das im Denken drinnen stehend seine Tätigkeit beobachtet. Es müßte das «Ich» außer dem Denken stehen, wenn es so getäuscht werden könnte, wie bei rasch aufeinanderfolgender Beleuchtung durch elektrische Funken. Man könnte vielmehr sagen: wer einen solchen Vergleich macht, der täuscht sich gewaltsam etwa wie jemand, der von einem in Bewegung begriffenen Licht durchaus sagen wollte: es wird an jedem Orte, an dem es erscheint, von unbekannter Hand neu angezündet. — Nein, wer in dem Denken etwas anderes sehen will als das im « Ich» selbst als überschaubare Tätigkeit Hervorgebrachte, der muß sich erst für den einfachen, der Beobachtung vorliegenden Tatbestand blind machen, um dann eine hypothetische Tätigkeit dem Denken zugrunde legen zu können. Wer sich nicht so blind macht, der muß erkennen, daß alles, was er in dieser Art zu dem Denken «hinzudenkt», aus dem Wesen des Denkens herausführt. Die unbefangene Beobachtung ergibt, daß nichts zum Wesen des Denkens gerechnet werden kann, was nicht im Denken selbst gefunden wird. Man kann nicht zu etwas kommen, was das Denken bewirkt, wenn man den Bereich des Denkens verläßt.
III Thinking in the service of worldview
[ 1 ] If I observe how a billiard ball that is hit transfers its movement to another, I have no influence whatsoever on the course of this observed process. The direction of movement and speed of the second ball is determined by the direction and speed of the first. As long as I act merely as an observer, I can only say something about the movement of the second ball when it has occurred. The situation is different when I begin to think about the content of my observation. The purpose of my reflection is to form concepts of the process. I bring the concept of an elastic sphere into connection with certain other concepts of mechanics and take into consideration the particular circumstances that prevail in the case in question. I thus seek to add to the process that takes place without my intervention a second process that takes place in the conceptual sphere. The latter is dependent on me. This is shown by the fact that I can content myself with observation and dispense with all search for concepts if I have no need for them. But if this need is present, then I only calm down when I have brought the concepts: ball, elasticity, movement, impact, speed etc. into a certain connection with which the observed process stands in a certain relationship. As certain as it is that the process takes place independently of me, it is equally certain that the conceptual process cannot take place without my intervention.
[ 2 ] Whether this activity of mine is really the outflow of my independent being, or whether the modern physiologists are right, who say that we cannot think as we want, but must think as determined by the thoughts and thought connections present in our consciousness (see Ziehen, Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie, Jena 1893, p. 171), will be the subject of a later discussion. For the present we merely wish to establish the fact that we feel ourselves continually compelled to seek concepts and conceptual connections to objects and processes given to us without our intervention, which stand in a certain relationship to those objects and processes. Whether this action is in truth our action, or whether we carry it out according to an unalterable necessity, we leave aside for the time being. That it initially appears to us as our own is without question. We know quite well that we are not given their concepts at the same time as the objects. That I myself am the doer may be based on an appearance; to direct observation, at any rate, this is how the matter presents itself. The question now is: what do we gain by finding a conceptual counterpart to a process?
[ 3 ] There is a profound difference between the way in which the parts of a process relate to each other before and after the corresponding concepts have been found. Mere observation can follow the parts of a given process in their course; but their connection remains obscure before the aid of concepts. I see the first billiard ball moving in a certain direction and at a certain speed towards the second; I have to wait and see what happens after the shot and can then follow it again only with my eyes. Let us assume that at the moment of impact someone obscures the field on which the process takes place, then I - as a mere observer - am unaware of what happens afterwards. The situation is different if I have found the corresponding concepts for the constellation of conditions before the obscuring. In this case, I can state what happens, even if the possibility of observation ceases. A merely observed process or object does not in itself reveal anything about its connection with other processes or objects. This connection only becomes apparent when observation is combined with thinking.
[ 4 ] Observation and thinking are the two starting points for all of man's spiritual endeavors, insofar as he is aware of them. The operations of common sense and the most intricate scientific research rest on these two basic pillars of our mind. Philosophers have proceeded from various primordial opposites: Idea and reality, subject and object, appearance and thing-in-itself, ego and non-ego, idea and will, concept and matter, force and substance, conscious and unconscious. But it is easy to show that all these opposites must be preceded by that of observation and thought, as the most important for man.
[ 5 ] Whatever principle we may establish: we must prove it somewhere as observed by us, or express it in the form of a clear thought that can be thought by anyone else. Every philosopher who begins to speak about his original principles must make use of the conceptual form, and thus of thought. He thus indirectly admits that he already presupposes thinking for his activity. Whether thinking or something else is the main element in the development of the world is not yet decided here. But it is clear from the outset that the philosopher cannot gain any knowledge about it without thinking. Thinking may play a secondary role in the emergence of world phenomena, but it certainly plays a major role in the emergence of an opinion about them.
[ 6] As far as observation is concerned, it is in our organization that we need it. Our thinking about a horse and the object horse are two things that appear separately to us. And this object is only accessible to us through observation. Just as we cannot form an idea of a horse by merely staring at it, we are just as little able to produce a corresponding object by merely thinking about it.
[ 7 ] In terms of time, observation even precedes thinking. For we must first get to know thinking through observation. It was essentially the description of an observation when we described at the beginning of this chapter how thinking is ignited by a process and goes beyond what is given without its intervention. We first become aware of everything that enters the circle of our experiences through observation. The content of sensations, perceptions, views, feelings, acts of will, dreams and fantasies, notions, concepts and ideas, all illusions and hallucinations are given to us through observation.
[ 8 ] But thinking as an object of observation is essentially different from all other things. The observation of a table or a tree occurs to me as soon as these objects appear on the horizon of my experiences. But I do not observe thinking about these objects at the same time. I observe the table, I carry out the thinking about the table, but I do not observe it at the same moment. I must first place myself in a position outside my own activity if I want to observe my thinking about the table as well as the table. While observing objects and processes and thinking about them are quite everyday states that fill my ongoing life, the observation of thinking is a kind of exceptional state. This fact must be taken into account accordingly when it comes to determining the relationship of thinking to all other contents of observation. One must be clear about the fact that in the observation of thinking one applies to it a procedure that forms the normal state for the observation of the entire remaining content of the world, but which does not occur in the pursuit of this normal state for thinking itself.
[ 9 ] Someone might object that what I have said here about thinking also applies to feeling and other mental activities. If, for example, we have the feeling of pleasure, it is also kindled by an object, and I observe this object, but not the feeling of pleasure. But this objection is based on a mistake. Pleasure does not stand in the same relation to its object as the concept formed by thought. I am most definitely aware that the concept of a thing is formed by my activity, whereas pleasure is produced in me in a similar way by an object, as, for example, the change that a falling stone causes in an object on which it falls. For observation, pleasure is given in exactly the same way as the process that causes it. The same is not true of the concept. I can ask: why does a certain process produce the feeling of pleasure in me? But I cannot ask: why does a process produce a certain sum of concepts in me? That would simply make no sense. Thinking about a process has no effect on me at all. I cannot learn anything about myself by knowing the corresponding concepts for the observed change that a stone thrown against a window pane causes in it. But I can learn something about my personality if I know the feeling that a certain process arouses in me. If I say to an observed object: this is a rose, I am not saying the slightest thing about myself; but if I say of the same thing: it gives me a feeling of pleasure, I have characterized not only the rose but also myself in my relationship to the rose.
[ 10 ] There can therefore be no question of equating thinking with feeling in relation to observation. The same could easily be deduced for the other activities of the human mind. They belong to the same series as thinking as other observed objects and processes. It belongs to the peculiar nature of thinking that it is an activity which is directed merely to the observed object and not to the thinking personality. This is already expressed in the way we express our thoughts about a thing in contrast to our feelings or acts of will. If I see an object and recognize it as a table, I will generally not say: I am thinking about a table, but rather: this is a table. But I will say: I am happy about the table. In the former case it is not at all important for me to say that I enter into a relationship with the table; in the latter case, however, it is precisely about this relationship. By saying: I think about a table, I already enter into the exceptional state characterized above, where something is made the object of observation that is always included in our mental activity, but not as an observed object.
[ 11 ] This is the peculiar nature of thinking, that the thinker forgets thinking while he is practicing it. It is not thinking that preoccupies him, but the object of thinking that he observes.<
[ 12 ] The first observation we make about thinking, then, is that it is the unobserved element of our ordinary mental life.
[ 13 ] The reason why we do not observe thinking in everyday mental life is none other than that it is based on our own activity. What I do not produce myself enters my field of observation as something objective. I face it as something that has come about without me; it approaches me; I must accept it as the precondition of my thinking process. While I am thinking about the object, I am occupied with it, my gaze is turned towards it. This preoccupation is thinking contemplation. My attention is not focused on my activity, but on the object of this activity. In other words: while I am thinking, I am not looking at my thinking, which I produce myself, but at the object of thinking, which I do not produce.
[ 14 ] I am even in the same case when I allow the state of exception to occur and think about my thinking itself. I can never observe my present thinking; I can only make the experiences I have had about my thinking process the object of my thinking afterwards. I would have to divide myself into two personalities: one that thinks and the other that observes itself thinking, if I wanted to observe my present thinking. I can't do that. I can only do this in two separate acts. The thinking that is to be observed is never the one that is active, but a different one. Whether for this purpose I make my observations on my own earlier thinking, or whether I follow the thought process of another person, or finally, whether I presuppose a fictitious thought process, as in the above case with the movement of the billiard balls, it does not matter.
[ 15 ] Two things are not compatible: active production and contemplative juxtaposition. The first book of Moses already knows this. In the first six days of the world, God brings the world into being, and only when it is there is it possible to contemplate it: "And God looked upon all that he had made, and behold, it was very good." It is the same with our thinking. It must first be there if we want to observe it.
[ 16 ] The reason that makes it impossible for us to observe thinking in its respective present course is the same as the reason that allows us to recognize it more directly and intimately than any other process in the world. It is precisely because we produce it ourselves that we know the characteristic features of its course, the way in which the event under consideration takes place. What can only be found in an indirect way in the other spheres of observation: the factually corresponding connection and the relationship of the individual objects, we know in a very direct way in thinking. Why, for my observation, thunder follows lightning, I do not know without further ado; why my thinking connects the concept of thunder with that of lightning, I know directly from the contents of the two concepts. Of course, it is not at all important whether I have the right concepts of lightning and thunder. The connection of the ones I have is clear to me, through them themselves.<
[ 17 ] This transparent clarity with regard to the thinking process is completely independent of our knowledge of the physiological foundations of thinking. I am speaking here of thinking insofar as it arises from the observation of our mental activity. How one material process of my brain causes or influences another while I am carrying out an operation of thought does not come into consideration at all. What I observe in thinking is not: what process in my brain connects the concept of lightning with that of thunder, but what causes me to bring the two concepts into a certain relationship. My observation shows that there is nothing available to me for my thought connections that I am guided by other than the content of my thoughts; I am not guided by the material processes in my brain. For a less materialistic age than ours, this remark would of course be completely superfluous. At the present time, however, when there are people who believe that if we know what matter is, we will also know how matter thinks, it must be said that one can speak of thinking without immediately coming into collision with brain physiology. Many people today find it difficult to grasp the concept of thinking in its purity. Anyone who immediately opposes the idea I have developed here of thinking with the sentence of Cabanis: "The brain secretes thoughts like the liver secretes bile, the salivary gland secretes saliva, etc." simply does not know what I am talking about. He seeks to find thought through a mere process of observation in the same way that we proceed with other objects of the world's content. But he cannot find it in this way because, as I have shown, it eludes normal observation precisely there. He who cannot overcome materialism lacks the ability to bring about in himself the exceptional state I have described, which makes him conscious of what remains unconscious in all other mental activity. Anyone who does not have the good will to put himself in this position could no more talk to him about thinking than to a blind man about color. But let him not believe that we take physiological processes for thinking. He does not explain thinking because he does not see it at all.
[ 18 ] But for anyone who has the ability to observe thinking - and with good will every normally organized person has it - this observation is the most important one he can make. For he observes something of which he himself is the originator; he does not see himself confronted with an initially alien object, but with his own activity. He knows how what he observes comes about. He sees through the conditions and relationships. A firm point has been gained from which one can search with justified hope for an explanation of the other phenomena of the world.
[ 19 ] The feeling of having such a fixed point prompted the founder of modern philosophy, René Descartes, to base all human knowledge on the sentence: I think, therefore I am. All other things, all other events are there without me; I do not know whether as truth or as a fairy tale and dream. I only know one thing for certain, because I myself bring it to its secure existence: my thinking. May it have another origin of its existence, may it come from God or elsewhere; that it is there in the sense in which I myself bring it forth, of that I am certain. Descartes initially had no justification for attributing a different meaning to his proposition. He could only assert that I grasp myself within the content of the world in my thinking as in my very own activity. What the attached: therefore I am should mean has been much debated. But it can only have a meaning under one single condition. The simplest statement I can make about a thing is that it is, that it exists. How this existence is then to be determined more precisely cannot be said at once about any thing that enters the horizon of my experience. Each object will first have to be examined in its relation to others in order to be able to determine in what sense it can be spoken of as existing. An experienced process can be a sum of perceptions, but it can also be a dream, a hallucination and so on. In short, I cannot say in what sense it exists. I will not be able to deduce this from the process itself, but I will find out when I look at it in relation to other things. But there again I cannot know more than how it stands in relation to these things. My search only comes to a firm foundation when I find an object for which I can draw the meaning of its existence from itself. But this is myself as a thinker, for I give my existence the definite, intrinsically based content of thinking activity. Now I can start from there and ask: Do the other things exist in the same or in a different sense?
[ 120] If one makes thinking the object of observation, one adds something to the other observed contents of the world that otherwise escapes attention; but one does not change the way in which man also behaves towards other things. The number of objects of observation is increased, but not the method of observation. While we are observing other things, a process is intermingled with world events - to which I now include observation - which is overlooked. There is something different from all other events that is not taken into account. But when I look at my thinking, there is no such unconsidered element. For what now hovers in the background is itself only thinking. The observed object is qualitatively the same as the activity that is directed towards it. And this is again a characteristic peculiarity of thinking. When we make it an object of observation, we are not forced to do so with the help of an oualitative-different, but we can remain in the same element.
[ 21 ] If I spin an object given without my intervention into my thinking, I go beyond my observation, and it will be a question of: what gives me a right to do so? Why do I not simply allow the object to have an effect on me? In what way is it possible for my thinking to have a relation to the object? These are questions that everyone who thinks about his own thought processes must ask himself. They fall away when we think about thinking itself. We do not add anything foreign to thinking, so we do not have to justify such an addition.
[ 22 ] Schelling says: To recognize nature is to create nature. - Anyone who takes these words of the bold natural philosopher literally will probably have to do without all knowledge of nature for the rest of their lives. For nature exists once, and in order to create it a second time, one must recognize the principles according to which it came into being. For the nature that we first wanted to create, we would have to copy the conditions of its existence from those that already exist. But this copying, which would have to precede creation, would be the recognition of nature, even if, after copying has taken place, creation would not take place at all. Only a nature that does not yet exist could be created without recognizing it beforehand.
[ 23 ] What is impossible with nature: creating before recognizing; with thinking we accomplish it. If we wanted to wait to think until we had recognized it, we would never get around to it. We have to think resolutely in order to come to its realization afterwards by observing what we have created. We ourselves first create an object for the observation of thought. The existence of all other objects has been taken care of without our intervention.
[ 24 ] Someone could easily counter my sentence: we must think before we can observe thinking, with the other as equally valid: we cannot wait with digesting until we have observed the process of digesting. That would be an objection similar to the one Pascal made to Cartesius, claiming that one could also say: I am walking, therefore I am. Certainly I must also digest resolutely before I have studied the physiological process of digestion. But this could only be compared with the contemplation of thinking if I did not want to contemplate digestion afterwards in terms of thinking, but rather wanted to eat and digest. It is not without reason that digestion cannot be the object of digestion, but thinking can very well become the object of thinking.
[ 25 ] There is therefore no doubt that in thinking we hold world events at a point where we have to be present if something is to come about. And that is precisely what matters. That is precisely the reason why things are so mysterious to me: that I am so uninvolved in their creation. I simply find them; in thinking, however, I know how they are made. Therefore, there is no more original starting point for observing everything that happens in the world than thinking.
[ 26 ] I would now like to mention a widespread misconception that prevails with regard to thinking. It consists in saying that thinking, as it is in itself, is not given to us anywhere. The thinking that connects the observations of our experiences and weaves them into a web of concepts is not at all the same as that which we subsequently extract from the objects of observation and make the object of our contemplation. What we first unconsciously weave into things is quite different from what we then consciously separate out again.
[ 27 ] Those who conclude in this way do not understand that it is not possible for them to escape from thinking in this way. I cannot get out of thinking at all if I want to look at thinking. If one distinguishes preconscious thinking from later conscious thinking, one should not forget that this distinction is an entirely external one that has nothing at all to do with the thing itself. I do not make one thing into another at all by looking at it thinking. I can imagine that a being with completely different sensory organs and with a differently functioning intelligence has a completely different idea of a horse than I do, but I cannot imagine that my own thinking becomes different by the fact that I observe it. I myself observe what I myself accomplish. What my thinking looks like to another intelligence than mine is not the question now; but what it looks like to me. In any case, however, the image of my thinking in another intelligence cannot be a truer one than my own. Only if I were not the thinking being myself, but if thinking confronted me as the activity of a being alien to me, could I speak of my image of thinking appearing in a certain way, but I could not know what the thinking of the being itself was like.
[ 28 ] But for the time being I have not the slightest reason to view my own thinking from a different standpoint. I look at the rest of the world with the help of thinking. How could I make an exception to this in my own thinking?
[ 29 ] Thus I consider it sufficiently justified to start from thinking in my view of the world. When Archimedes invented the lever, he believed that he could unhinge the entire cosmos with its help if he could only find a point where he could support his instrument. He needed something that was supported by itself, not by something else. In thinking we have a principle that exists through itself. It is from here that an attempt is made to grasp the world. We can grasp thinking through itself. The only question is whether we can also grasp something else through it.
[ 30 ] I have so far spoken of thinking without taking its carrier, human consciousness, into consideration. Most contemporary philosophers will object to me: before there is thinking, there must be consciousness. Therefore, one should start from consciousness and not from thinking. There is no thinking without consciousness. I must reply to this: If I want to know the relationship between thinking and consciousness, I have to think about it. I thereby presuppose thinking. Now, however, one can reply to this: If the philosopher wants to comprehend consciousness, then he makes use of thinking; he presupposes it insofar; in the ordinary course of life, however, thinking arises within consciousness and thus presupposes it. If this answer were given to the creator of the world, who wants to create thinking, it would undoubtedly be justified. Of course, thinking cannot come into being without first bringing consciousness into being. The philosopher, however, is not concerned with the creation of the world, but with the comprehension of it. He must therefore not seek the starting points for creating the world, but for understanding it. I find it quite strange when the philosopher is reproached for being concerned above all else with the correctness of his principles, but not immediately with the objects he wants to comprehend. The creator of the world must above all know how to find a support for thought, but the philosopher must seek a secure foundation from which he can comprehend what exists. What good does it do us to start from consciousness and subject it to thinking contemplation if we know nothing beforehand about the possibility of gaining insight into things through thinking contemplation?
[ 31 ] We must first consider thinking in a completely neutral way, without reference to a thinking subject or a thought object. For in subject and object we already have concepts that are formed by thinking. It cannot be denied: before anything else can be understood, it must become thinking. Whoever denies it overlooks the fact that he, as a human being, is not the beginning of creation, but its end. Therefore, in order to explain the world through concepts, we cannot start from the temporally first elements of existence, but from what is given to us as the closest, as the most intimate. We cannot leap to the beginning of the world in order to begin our observation there, but we must start from the present moment and see whether we can ascend from the later to the earlier. As long as geology has spoken of imaginary revolutions to explain the present state of the earth, it has groped in the dark. Only when it began to investigate what processes were still taking place on the earth at the present time and inferred from them what had happened in the past, did it gain a firm footing. As long as philosophy assumes all possible principles, such as atom, movement, matter, will, the unconscious, it will hover in the air. Only when the philosopher will regard the absolute last as his first can he reach his goal. But this absolute ultimate, to which the development of the world has led, is thought.
[ 32] There are those who say that we cannot determine with certainty whether our thinking is correct or not. In this respect, the starting point remains dubious. That is just as reasonable as doubting whether a tree is right in itself or not. Thinking is a fact; and to talk about the rightness or wrongness of such a fact is pointless. The most I can do is to doubt whether reasoning is used rightly, just as I can doubt whether a certain tree gives the right wood for a useful tool. To show to what extent the application of thought to the world is right or wrong will be the task of this paper. I can understand if someone doubts that something can be determined about the world through thinking; but it is incomprehensible to me how someone can doubt the correctness of thinking itself.
Addition to the new edition (1918)
[ 33 ] In the preceding remarks, reference is made to the significant difference between thinking and all other activities of the soul as a fact that arises from truly impartial observation. Anyone who does not strive for this impartial observation will be tempted to make objections to these statements, such as the following: if I think about a rose, then this only expresses a relationship of my "I" to the rose, as if I feel the beauty of the rose. There is just as much a relationship between "I" and object in thinking as there is, for example, in feeling or perceiving. He who makes this objection does not take into consideration that only in the activity of thinking does the "I" know itself to be one being with the active being in all ramifications of the activity. In no other activity of the soul is this completely the case. When, for example, a pleasure is felt, a finer observation can very well distinguish to what extent the "I" knows itself to be one with an active being and to what extent a passive being is present in it, so that the pleasure merely arises for the "I". And so it is with the other activities of the soul. One should not confuse "having mental images" and processing thoughts through thinking. Thought images can appear in the soul like dreams, like vague intuitions. This is not thinking. - However, someone could now say: if thinking is meant in this way, the volition is in the thinking, and then one is not only dealing with thinking, but also with the volition of thinking. But this would only justify saying that real thinking must always be willed. But this has nothing to do with the characterization of thinking as it is made in these remarks. While the nature of thinking may make it necessary for it to be willed, what matters is that nothing is willed which, in the process of taking place, does not appear to the "I" completely as its own activity that it can comprehend. One must even say that because of the essence of thinking asserted here, it appears to the observer as thoroughly willed. Whoever really tries to see through everything that comes into consideration for the evaluation of thinking will not be able to avoid noticing that this activity of the soul has the peculiarity that is spoken of here.
[ 34] A person whom the author of this book holds in very high esteem as a thinker has objected to him that thinking cannot be spoken of as it is done here, because what one believes to observe as active thinking is only an appearance. In reality, one only observes the results of an unconscious activity that underlies thinking. It is only because this non-conscious activity is not observed that the illusion arises that the observed thinking exists by itself, as when one believes to see a movement in rapid successive illumination by electric sparks. This objection, too, is based only on an inaccurate view of the facts. Whoever makes it does not take into account that it is the "I" itself that observes its activity standing inside thinking. The "I" would have to be outside of thinking if it could be deceived in the same way as with rapid successive illumination by electric sparks. One could rather say: whoever makes such a comparison is violently deceiving himself, like someone who would say of a light in motion: it is lit anew by an unknown hand at every place where it appears. - No, whoever wants to see in thinking something other than that which is produced in the "I" itself as manageable activity, must first blind himself to the simple facts available to observation in order to be able to base thinking on a hypothetical activity. He who does not blind himself in this way must recognize that everything he "adds" to thinking in this way leads out of the essence of thinking. Unbiased observation shows that nothing can be counted as part of the essence of thinking that is not found in thinking itself. One cannot arrive at something that affects thinking if one leaves the realm of thinking.