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Precision in action is opposed to the far-sighted and often uncertain judgments of caution: the latter is led by the deeper instinct.
528.
The chief error of psychologists: they regard the indistinct idea as of a lower kind than the distinct; but that which keeps at a distance from our consciousness and which is therefore obscure, may on[Pg 42] that very account be quite clear in itself. The fact that a thing becomes obscure is a question of the perspective of consciousness.
529.
The great misapprehensions:—
(1) The senseless overestimation of consciousness, its elevation to the dignity of an entity: "a spirit," "a soul," something that feels, thinks, and wills;
(2) The spirit regarded as a cause, especially where finality, system, and co-ordination appear;
(3) Consciousness classed as the highest form attainable, as the most superior kind of being, as "God";
(4) Will introduced wherever effects are observed;
(5) The "real world" regarded as the spiritual world, accessible by means of the facts of consciousness;
(6) Absolute knowledge regarded as the faculty of consciousness, wherever knowledge exists at all.
Consequences:—
Every step forward consists of a step forward in consciousness; every step backwards is a step into unconsciousness (unconsciousness was regarded as a falling-back upon the passions and senses—as a state of animalism ....)
Man approaches reality and real being through dialectics: man departs from them by means of instincts, senses, and automatism....
To convert man into a spirit, would mean to make a god of him: spirit, will, goodness—all one.
All goodness must take its root in spirituality, must be a fact of consciousness.
Every step made towards something better can be only a step forward in consciousness.
(g) Judgment. True—false.
530.
Kant's theological bias, his unconscious dogmatism, his moral outlook, ruled, guided, and directed him.
The : how is the fact knowledge possible? Is knowledge a fact at all? What is knowledge? If we do not know what knowledge is, we cannot possibly reply to the question, Is there such a thing as knowledge? Very fine! But if I do not already "know" whether there is, or can be, such a thing as knowledge, I cannot reasonably ask the question, "What is knowledge?" Kant believes in the fact of knowledge: what he requires is a piece of navet: the knowledge of knowledge!
"Knowledge is judgment." But judgment is a belief that something is this or that! And not knowledge! "All knowledge consists in synthetic judgments" which have the character of being universally true (the fact is so in all cases, and does not change), and which have the character of being necessary (the reverse of the proposition cannot be imagined to exist).
The validity of a belief in knowledge is always taken for granted; as is also the validity of the feelings which conscience dictates. Here moral ontology is the ruling bias.
The conclusion, therefore, is: (1) there are propositions which we believe to be universally true and necessary.
(2) This character of universal truth and of necessity cannot spring from experience.
(3) Consequently it must base itself upon no experience at all, but upon something else, it must be derived from another source of knowledge!
Kant concludes (1) that there are some propositions which hold good only on one condition; (2) this condition is that they do not spring from experience, but from pure reason.
Thus, the question is, whence do we derive our reasons for believing in the truth of such propositions? No, whence does our belief get its cause? But the origin of a belief, of a strong conviction, is a psychological problem: and very limited and narrow experience frequently brings about such a belief! It already presupposes that there are not only "data a posteriori" but also "data a priori"— that is to say, "previous to experience." Necessary and universal truth cannot be given by experience: it is therefore quite clear that it has come to us without experience at all?
There is no such thing as an isolated judgment!
An isolated judgment is never "true," it is never knowledge; only in connection with, and when related to, many other judgments, is a guarantee of its truth forthcoming.
What is the difference between true and false belief? What is knowledge? He "knows" it, that is heavenly! Necessary and universal truth cannot be given[Pg 45] by experience! It is therefore independent of experience, of all experience! The view which comes quite a priori, and therefore independent of all experience, merely out of reason, is "pure knowledge"!
"The principles of logic, the principle of identity and of contradiction, are examples of pure knowledge, because they precede all experience."—But these principles are not cognitions, but regulative articles of faith.
In order to establish the a priori character (the pure rationality) of mathematical axioms, space must be conceived as a form of pure reason.
Hume had declared that there were no a priori synthetic judgments. Kant says there are—the mathematical ones! And if there are such judgments, there may also be such things as metaphysics and a knowledge of things by means of pure reason!
Mathematics is possible under conditions which are not allowed to metaphysics. All human knowledge is either experience or mathematics.
A judgment is synthetic—that is to say, it co-ordinates various ideas. It is a priori—that is to say, this co-ordination is universally true and necessary, and is arrived at, not by sensual experience, but by pure reason.
If there are such things as a priori judgments, then reason must be able to co-ordinate: co-ordination is a form. Reason must possess a formative faculty.
531.
Judging is our oldest faith; it is our habit of believing this to be true or false, of asserting or[Pg 46] denying, our certainty that something is thus and not otherwise, our belief that we really "know"—what is believed to be true in all judgments?
What are attributes?—We did not regard changes in ourselves merely as such, but as "things in themselves," which are strange to us, and which we only "perceive"; and we did not class them as phenomena, but as Being, as "attributes"; and in addition we invented a creature to which they attach themselves—that is to say, we made the effect the working cause, and the latter we made Being. But even in this plain statement, the concept "effect" is arbitrary: for in regard to those changes which occur in us, and of which we are convinced we ourselves are not the cause, we still argue that they must be effects: and this is in accordance with the belief that "every change must have its author";—but this belief in itself is already mythology; for it separates the working cause from the cause in work. When I say the "lightning flashes," I set the flash down, once as an action and a second time as a subject acting; and thus a thing is fancifully affixed to a phenomenon, which is not one with it, but which is stable, which is, and does not "come."—To make the phenomenon the working cause, and to make the effect into a thing—into Being: this is the double error, or interpretation, of which we are guilty.
