An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's PhilosophyJones, W. Tudor (William Tudor)
Religion
An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy
Jones, W. Tudor (William Tudor)
Eucken, Rudolf, 1846-1926
When the _neo-Kantian_ movement is examined, we find that its long and
honourable history presents us with gains which cannot be measured. But
we have already noticed that in so far as this movement has specialised
within the domain of the connections of mind and body, and has attempted
to reduce psychology to the limits of the relations between the two, it
is largely outside the _inner_ meaning and value of the life of
consciousness. [p.216] Its work has proved useful in many important
respects. It has made man realise that the connection of body and mind
is not so simple a matter as materialistic naturalism would lead us to
suppose; and it has shown, on the whole, the impossibility of reducing
consciousness to mechanical elements. Even in the various forms of
psycho-physical parallelism the factor of mind and meaning stands apart
in its origin from the factors of bodily movement. But neo-Kantianism
has developed on higher lines than those of physiological psychology. It
has dealt with the presence of an inner world of thought--a world of
values and judgments of values, of norms, imperatives, and
ideals--realities which are not presented in any scheme of natural
science. It is impossible to read such a great book as the late
Professor Otto Liebmann's _Analysis der Wirklichkeit_[77] without
discovering this truth. In this great work, as well as in his _Gedanken
und Thatsachen_, Liebmann shows how man is more than a natural product.
[p.217] "Natural science," he tells us, "is a very useful, and, indeed,
an indispensable handmaid to philosophy, but it is in no manner the
first, the deepest, the most original basis of philosophy."[78]
Liebmann's successors, especially Windelband, Rickert, Muensterberg,
Adickes, and Vaihinger, work on similar lines. And there is a great deal
in Eucken's teaching which tends in the same direction. But he goes a
step further than all the neo-Kantians. We have already noticed how he
gives judgments of value and spiritual norms a _cosmic_ significance. He
finds that when these norms and values have awakened with great
clearness within man's spirit they inevitably lead to the conception of
the Godhead. And it is in this work that Eucken's Metaphysic of Life
becomes a _religious metaphysic_. As values and norms mean so much when
a reality is granted them by the truest of the neo-Kantians, they come
to mean infinitely more when they are acknowledged as somehow
constituting the foundation and the acme of all existence. Eucken's main
desire is to establish such norms and values beyond the possibility of
dispute and beyond the constant changes of Life-systems. They mean for
him what is present within their spiritual content as a realisation as
well as the _More_ to which they still point. His teaching is not
contradicted by anything in the neo-Kantian movement;[p.218] he accepts
its transcendental reality and lifts it out of the realm of
individuality and of history into a cosmic realm. After having followed
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