The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. Thought and Consciousness

[ 1 ] But now it seems as if we ourselves are introducing the subjectivist element here, which we so resolutely wanted to keep away from our theory of cognition. If not the rest of the world of perception - one could read from our arguments - then thought, even in our view, has a subjective character.

[ 2 ] This objection is based on a confusion of the scene of our thoughts with the element from which they receive their content-related determinations, their inner lawfulness. We do not produce a thought content in such a way that we determine in this production which connections our thoughts have to enter into. We only provide the opportunity for the thought content to unfold in accordance with its own nature. We grasp the thought a and the thought b and give them the opportunity to enter into a lawful connection by bringing them into interaction with each other. It is not our subjective organization that determines this connection of a and b in a certain way, but the content of a and b itself is the only determining factor. We have not the slightest influence on the fact that a relates to b in a certain way and not otherwise. Our mind only carries out the composition of thought masses according to their content. We therefore fulfill the principle of experience in its harshest form in thinking.

[ 3 ] This refutes the view of Kant and Schopenhauer, and by extension Fichte, that the laws we assume for the purpose of explaining the world are only a result of our own mental organization, that we only insert them into the world by virtue of our mental individuality.

[ 4 ] One could still object from the subjectivist point of view. If the legal connection of thought masses is not carried out by us according to the measure of our organization, but depends on their content, then this very content could be a purely subjective product, a mere quality of our mind; so that we would only connect elements that we ourselves produced in the first place. Then our world of thought would be no less a subjective semblance. But this objection is quite easy to counter. For, if it were well founded, we would connect the contents of our thought according to laws of which we really did not know where they came from. If they do not spring from our subjectivity, which we denied earlier and can now regard as dismissed, then what is to provide us with laws of association for a content that we ourselves generate?

[ 5 ] Our world of thought is therefore an entity built entirely on itself, a self-contained, self-contained, perfect and complete entity. We see here which of the two sides of the world of thought is the essential one: the objective of its content and not the subjective of its appearance.

[ 6 ] This insight into the inner solidity and perfection of thought appears most clearly in Hegel's scientific system. No one has believed thinking to have such a perfect power as he did that it could establish a world view by itself. Hegel has absolute confidence in thinking, indeed it is the only factor of reality that he trusts in the true sense of the word. As correct as his view is in general, however, it is precisely he who has robbed thinking of all prestige through the overly harsh form in which he defends it. The way in which he put forward his view is to blame for the hopeless confusion that has come into our "thinking about thinking". He wanted to make the meaning of thought, of the idea, quite clear by describing the necessity of thought as the necessity of facts. In this way he caused the error that the determinations of thought are not purely ideal, but actual. His view was soon taken as if he had sought thought as a thing in the world of sensible reality itself. He probably never quite made this clear. It must be established that the field of thought is solely human consciousness. Then it must be shown that the world of thought loses nothing of its objectivity through this circumstance. Hegel brought out only the objective side of thought; but the majority, because this is easier, see only the subjective; and it seems to them that he treated something purely ideal as a thing, mystified it. Even many contemporary scholars cannot be absolved from this error. They condemn Hegel for a defect which he does not have in himself, but which can certainly be attributed to him because he has not made the matter in question sufficiently clear.

[ 7 ] We admit that there is a difficulty here for our judgment. But we believe that it can be overcome by any energetic thinking. We must imagine two things: first, that we bring the ideal world actively into existence, and at the same time that what we actively call into existence is based on its own laws. We are, of course, accustomed to imagining an appearance in such a way that we only need to confront it passively, observationally. But this is not an absolute requirement. As unfamiliar as the idea may be to us that we ourselves actively bring an objective to appearance, that we, in other words, not only perceive an appearance, but at the same time produce it: it is not an inadmissible one.

[ 8 ] One need only abandon the common opinion that there are as many worlds of thought as there are human individuals. This opinion is nothing more than an old-fashioned prejudice anyway. It is tacitly assumed everywhere, without realizing that another is at least equally possible, and that the reasons for the validity of one or the other must first be considered. In place of this opinion, consider the following: There is only one single thought content at all, and our individual thinking is nothing more than a working of our self, our individual personality, into the thought center of the world. Whether this view is correct or not is not the place to examine it here; but it is possible, and we have achieved what we wanted, namely to show that it is at least quite possible to make the objectivity of thought, which we regard as necessary, appear to be without contradiction in other respects as well.

[ 9 ] In view of objectivity, the work of the thinker can be compared quite well with that of the mechanic. Just as the latter brings the forces of nature into an interplay and thereby brings about a purposeful activity and expression of force, so the thinker allows the masses of thought to enter into living interaction, and they develop into the systems of thought that make up our sciences.

[ 10 ] Nothing illuminates a view better than the discovery of the errors that oppose it. We would like to return to this method, which we have already used repeatedly with advantage.

[ 11 ] We usually believe that we combine certain concepts into larger complexes, or that we think in a certain way because we feel a certain inner (logical) compulsion to do so. Volkelt has also subscribed to this view. But how does it correspond to the transparent clarity with which our entire world of thought is present in our consciousness? We know nothing in the world more precisely than our thoughts. Should a certain connection be established on the basis of an inner compulsion when everything is so clear? Why do I need the compulsion if I know the nature of what is to be connected, know it through and through, and can therefore orient myself according to it? All our thought operations are processes that take place on the basis of insight into the nature of thought and not according to compulsion. Such a compulsion contradicts the nature of thought.

[ 12 ] It could at least be that it is in the nature of thought to imprint its content into its appearance at the same time, but that we nevertheless cannot perceive the latter directly due to the organization of our mind. But this is not the case. The way in which the content of the thought approaches us is a guarantee that we have the essence of the thing before us. We are aware that we accompany every process within the world of thought with our spirit. One can only imagine that the form of appearance is conditioned by the being of the thing. How could we create the manifestation if we did not know the essence of the thing? One can well imagine that the manifestation confronts us as a finished whole and that we then search for its core. But one cannot be of the opinion that one contributes to the production of the phenomenon without bringing about this production from the nucleus.