Life's Basis and Life's Ideal: The Fundamentals of a New Philosophy of LifeEucken, Rudolf
Philosophy
Life's Basis and Life's Ideal: The Fundamentals of a New Philosophy of Life
Eucken, Rudolf
Life; Ontology
real life shows man in so many relations, so closely implicated with his
environment, that he can strive for nothing for himself without also
striving for others. This extension of interests has no limits; there is
nothing in the whole of infinity which could not in this way become to
man, indirectly, a means of self-preservation and thus an object of
desire.
The naturalistic type of life extends from the most general of impulses
to every branch of activity, and forms every department of life in a
distinctive fashion. Knowledge depends entirely upon experience; every
speculative element must be excluded as a subjective delusion; in all
its branches knowledge is nothing else than a broadened Natural Science.
Art may not pursue imaginary ideals; it finds its single task in the
faithful and simple reproduction of the natural environment. Social life
and endeavour will develop, above all, natural powers, and will seek to
adapt itself to the conditions given by nature, and, rejecting all aims
based upon mere imagination, it will care chiefly for the physical
welfare of the whole, as the source of all power and of all success.
It is not difficult to understand how this form of life was able to win
and carry away the minds of its contemporaries. In the first place it
has the character of simplicity and immediacy, which, in contrast with
the complexity and the remoteness of the traditional position, appears a
great advantage. For, in this scheme, life, with all its multiplicity,
is dominated and unified by the idea of natural self-preservation; and
the things which immediately affect us, which lie physically and
psychically near to us, come most directly into relation to this aim. It
is a further tendency of this scheme of life to bring the whole of
existence into a state of activity and restless advance. For the state
of conflict which prevails under the naturalistic system allows nothing
to persist merely because of its present existence or through the weight
of tradition, but everything must always be reasserting its right to
existence; it must stretch and extend itself in order to be useful in
the life of the present. That which cannot satisfy this test is
unmercifully thrown over as a dead weight. It is also of great
importance to the theory in question that nature and the world are
involved in ceaseless change, and that, along with the conditions of
life, the requirements also alter: the matter is one of continually
accommodating oneself anew; and so life is placed entirely in the
present, and the fixity of an absolute conception and treatment of
change yields to the instability of a relative one. Last of all, and
most especially, life according to its own conviction bears the
character of truth. For human striving appears to attain the firm basis
of reality, and to become truthful in itself only when it is definitely
related to the surrounding world; while, so long as it trusted to the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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