The positive outcome of philosophyDietzgen, Joseph
Philosophy
The positive outcome of philosophy
Dietzgen, Joseph
Knowledge, Theory of; Logic; Philosophy
Dear Eugene:
Today I am going to present my case with the precision of a
schoolmaster.
The concept of white cabbage embraces all white cabbage heads that ever
were and ever will be.
The concept of cabbage embraces red, white, and many other kinds of
cabbage. The concept of vegetable embraces a still wider range. The
organic field is still more comprehensive. And finally the world concept
embraces everything which we know and don't know, the end of which we
cannot conceive, and which therefore is called infinite.
When we trace our steps backward over the same reasoning, we find at
once that the universal concept is divided into two parts, viz., the
universe and the conception of it. We thus find the world in the concept
and the concept in the world, so that both of these parts are
interconnected, each is the predicate of the other, and whether we turn
the thing to the right or to the left, the concept is in the world and
the world in the concept.
Now it is true that the concept, or the faculty of understanding, is the
object of our study rather than the world outside of it. The faculty of
understanding, by the way, is nothing but a collective noun for all
concepts, hence simply another name for concept in general. But what I
eternally repeat is this: We cannot make a concept separated from all
the rest of the world the object of our study, because that would be an
empty abstraction which does not take on any meaning until we connect it
with the world, for instance the special concept of cabbage with
sense-perceived cabbage and so forth.
The concepts of white cabbage, cabbage in general, vegetables, or
plants, etc., are all of them special concepts and at the same time
general concepts. The one and the other is relative. Compared to the
various species it includes, the general concept of cabbage is abstract,
while compared to the general concept of vegetables it is concrete. And
so it is with all concepts. They are abstract and concrete at the same
time. Only the final concept, the world concept, is neither concrete nor
abstract, but absolute. It is the concept of the absolute, which is
indispensable for an understanding of logic.
We found a while ago that the absolute world concept consisted of two
parts, viz., the concept and the world. In the same way, the chemists
teach us that water consists of two elements, each of which by itself
does not make any water, while their compound makes pure water. But we
do not need such distant illustrations. My table in its present
composition is something different from what it would be if the same
pieces were put together in some other way and without a plan.
Therefore the world concept is a far more sublime concept than all the
parts of which it consists. And in order to make this quite clear, I may
honor this compound of the world and its concept by a special name, say
"universe," so as to distinguish it from its component parts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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