The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. I, Nos. 1-4, 1867Various
Philosophy
The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. I, Nos. 1-4, 1867
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
Only three objections can be raised against this. Somebody might deny
that representations, accompanied by the feeling of necessity, and
referred to a Truth determined without any action of ours, do ever occur
in our consciousness. Such a person would either deny his own knowledge,
or be altogether differently constructed from other men; in which latter
case his denial would be of no concern to us. Or somebody might say: the
question is completely unanswerable, we are in irremovable ignorance
concerning it, and must remain so. To enter into argument with such a
person is altogether superfluous. The best reply he can receive is an
actual answer to the question, and then all he can do is to examine our
answer, and tell us why and in what matters it does not appear
satisfactory to him. Finally, somebody might quarrel about the
designation, and assert: “Philosophy is something else than what you
have stated above, or at least something else besides.” It might be
easily shown to such a one, that scholars have at all times designated
exactly what we have just stated to be Philosophy, and that whatever
else he might assert to be Philosophy, has already another name, and
that if this word signifies anything at all, it must mean exactly this
Science. But as we are not inclined to enter upon any dispute about
words, we, for our part, have already given up the name of Philosophy,
and have called the Science which has the solution of this problem for
its object, the _Science of Knowledge_.
II. Only when speaking of something, which we consider accidental, i. e.
which we suppose might also have been otherwise, though it was not
determined by freedom, can we ask for its ground; and by this very
asking for its ground does it become accidental to the questioner. To
find the ground of anything accidental means, to find something else,
from the determinedness of which it can be seen why the accidental,
amongst the various conditions it might have assumed, assumed precisely
the one it did. The ground lies—by the very thinking of a ground—beyond
its Grounded, and both are, in so far as they are Ground and Grounded,
opposed to each other, related to each other, and thus the latter is
explained from the former.
Now Philosophy is to discover the ground of all experience; hence its
object lies necessarily _beyond all Experience_. This sentence applies
to all Philosophy, and has been so applied always heretofore, if we
except these latter days of Kant’s misconstruers and their facts of
consciousness, i. e. of inner experience.
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