Causation; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy, German; Reason
The dialectical illusion in rational psychology arises from our
confounding an idea of reason (of a pure intelligence) with the
conception—in every respect undetermined—of a thinking being in
general. I cogitate myself in behalf of a possible experience, at the
same time making abstraction of all actual experience; and infer
therefrom that I can be conscious of myself apart from experience and
its empirical conditions. I consequently confound the possible
abstraction of my empirically determined existence with the supposed
consciousness of a possible separate existence of my thinking self; and
I believe that I cognize what is substantial in myself as a
transcendental subject, when I have nothing more in thought than the
unity of consciousness, which lies at the basis of all determination of
cognition.
The task of explaining the community of the soul with the body does not
properly belong to the psychology of which we are here speaking;
because it proposes to prove the personality of the soul apart from
this communion (after death), and is therefore transcendent in the
proper sense of the word, although occupying itself with an object of
experience—only in so far, however, as it ceases to be an object of
experience. But a sufficient answer may be found to the question in our
system. The difficulty which lies in the execution of this task
consists, as is well known, in the presupposed heterogeneity of the
object of the internal sense (the soul) and the objects of the external
senses; inasmuch as the formal condition of the intuition of the one is
time, and of that of the other space also. But if we consider that both
kinds of objects do not differ internally, but only in so far as the
one appears externally to the other—consequently, that what lies at the
basis of phenomena, as a thing in itself, may not be heterogeneous;
this difficulty disappears. There then remains no other difficulty than
is to be found in the question—how a community of substances is
possible; a question which lies out of the region of psychology, and
which the reader, after what in our analytic has been said of primitive
forces and faculties, will easily judge to be also beyond the region of
human cognition.
GENERAL REMARK
On the Transition from Rational Psychology to Cosmology.
The proposition, “I think,” or, “I exist thinking,” is an empirical
proposition. But such a proposition must be based on empirical
intuition, and the object cogitated as a phenomenon; and thus our
theory appears to maintain that the soul, even in thought, is merely a
phenomenon; and in this way our consciousness itself, in fact, abuts
upon nothing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account