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. scnviv
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ro rnv vosrnuous wos,
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r.wsi.rvn nv
;onw curriwc
iin.v or cowcvss c.r.iociwc-iw-vuniic.riow n.r.
Scheler, Max, 1874-1928.
[Selections. English. 2008]
On the constitution of the human being : from the posthumous works, volumes 11
and 12 / Max Scheler ; translated by John Cutting.
p. cm. (Marquette studies in philosophy ; no. 62)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-87462-760-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-87462-760-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Iuman beings. I. Cutting, John ( John C.) II. Title.
B3329.S482E5 2008
193dc22
2008012753
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
2008 Marquette University Press
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201-3141
All rights reserved.
www.marquette.edu/mupress/
rouwnvn +,+o
.quvrrv srunivs iw vniiosovnv
wo. oa
.wnvw r.iiow, svivs vniro
Cover photo compliments of Max-Scheler-Gesellschaft e.V.
www.max-scheler.de
aznrr or cowarwas
About the Translator ............................................................................... 6
Translators Introduction ....................................................................... 7
1. Te Essential Teory and Typology of Metaphysical Systems
and Vc|torsc|ouurgcr ................................................................... 11
2. My Teory of the Cognitive and Methodological
Aspects of Metaphysics ................................................................. 77
3. Te Constitution of the Iuman Being ........................................ 129
4. Te Metaphysics of the Iuman Being ......................................... 203
5. Te Metaphysics of Cognition ...................................................... 255
6. Te Metasciences ............................................................................ 261
7. Teory of the Causes of Everything ............................................. 323
8. Supplementary Remarks ................................................................ 369
Bibliography ........................................................................................ 421
Index of Key Terms ............................................................................. 423
Index of Names .................................................................................... 427
znour rnn rnzwsrzron
]o|r Cuttirg uos oorr ir Aocrccr ir Scot|or, uos oroug|t up
ir Yor|s|irc, or |os |ivc ir or rcor Loror jor most oj |is |ijc. Hc
quo|ic os o octor oj mcicirc ir Loror, t|cr stuic psyc|iotry
or uor|c os o corsu|tort psyc|iotrist ot t|c Mous|cy or Bct||cm
Hospito|s or t|c Irstitutc oj |syc|iotry ir Loror jor tucrty ycors.
Ior t|c |ost jtccr ycors |c |os occr stuyirg p|i|osop|y uit| t|c oim
oj cortrioutirg to t|c grouirg iscip|irc oj p|i|osop|ico| psyc|opot|o-
|ogy cxp|oirirg coritiors suc| os sc|izop|rcrio or cprcssior ir
p|i|osop|ico| tcrms. Hc is morric uit| vc c|i|rcr.
anzwsrzaons rwanonucarow
nioc.vnic.i svrcn
Max Scheler was born in 1874 in Munich. Iis father was a Irotestant,
who administered the estates of the King of Bavaria, and his mother
was Jewish. Ie was brought up as an orthodox Jew, but later converted
to Catholicism, and at the end of his life renounced all ocial theisms
and developed his own theological notions, which he referred to as
panentheism the perpetual becoming of God.
Ie was an unpromising student at school, being engrossed in Niet-
zsches books rather than the main lessons. Ie began his university
studies in Munich, electing for medicine and philosophy, but soon
opted for philosophy, and his rst mentor was Rudolph Eucken in
Jena, who won the Nobel Irize for his writings, and who was a neo-
Kantian philosopher interested in the relationship between culture,
religion and work. Ie then returned to Munich and in the rst decade
of the 20th Century he began his own independent philosophical ca-
reer, acknowledging the parallel work of Iusserl, but never being a
student of Iusserl, as some commentators falsely maintain. After the
First Vorld Var he was appointed Irofessor of Ihilosophy in Co-
logne and just before he died he was planning to move to a chair in
Frankfurt.
Iis personal life was quite turbulent, much more so than that of
most philosophers, but probably fed into his particular philosophical
preoccupations, which were early on to do with the emotional life of
a human being. Ie was married three times, had a high sexual drive,
and his career was blighted by scandal concerning his aairs. Never-
theless, he was a charismatic lecturer, who shortly before his death
held the German Iigh Command spellbound for four hours on the
subject, of all things, of pacism. Ie was a wonderful companion who
could transform the most mundane situation into a magical aair. And
he was regarded as an incomparable genius by all those who had the
intellectual quality to see it, most notably the other great philosophers
of that era Martin Ieidegger, Nicolai Iartmann. Iusserl regarded
s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
him as one of his two antipodes, the other being Ieidegger. Not only
this; he took the greatest interest in contemporary life. Ie was a pa-
triot at the outset of the First Vorld Var and wrote semi-propaganda
on the issue. Ie then became a pacist and oered his services in the
search for an Armistice. Ie was a close friend of Valter Rathenau
who was Foreign Minister in the Veimar Republic, and who was mur-
dered by the Brown-shirts. Ie was immensely knowledgeable about
sociology, psychology, psychiatry, physics and biology, in which respect
he is virtually the last of the philosopher-polymaths akin to Ber-
trand Russell.
Ie had quite uncanny premonitions of his own death, as he told his
wife, and sure enough, after surviving one heart attack, he developed
chest pain one day, asked for a beer, and was dead in a few moments.
Ieidegger, in his eulogy, referred to him as the greatest of contempo-
rary philosophers.
vniiosovnic.i sicwiric.wcv
Schelers total writings amount to fourteen volumes, and are available
from the publishers thanks to his third wife who preserved and col-
lated them, and to Manfred Frings, a German philosopher who took
up residence in the United States and who is the current editor. Over
the years there have been translations of some of these, the greatest
part of which has been carried out by Manfred Frings himself.
To those philosophers who are acquainted with Scheler, he has the
reputation of being the phenomenologist who studied the emotional
life of the human being, and in their eyes a minor gure relative to
Iusserl or Ieidegger, who supposedly took on the task of explicating
the entire human being. Tis reputation is utterly false, and is attribut-
able to the neglect of his late works concerning metaphysics and the
anthropology of the human being. Te impetus for translating these
late works, dense though they be, and incomplete they are almost
short notes for a work that he never lived to write is the overwhelm-
ing sense, conveyed by these, that Scheler saw himself as a metaphysi-
cian, indeed almost the only metaphysician around, and the notes he
made are to be seen in that light.
Schelers position in the pantheon of philosophers is in no way se-
cure, but his reputation is undoubtedly growing among psychiatrists
engaged in nding a non-psychoanalytical and non-biological way of
Q lrors|otor's Irtrouctior ,
formulating psychopathology for one thing and it is hoped that this
translation will alert or in my case completely bowl over the phi-
losopher, would-be philosopher, or intelligent lay-person on issues
which no-one else even dreamt about.
+
zwuscnrva ow anr rssrwarzr
anronv zwn avvoroov or
razvnvsrczr svsars zwn
wrranwscunttwcrw
|anronv or wrranwscunttwc|
rwrnonucrrow
S
ince every sort of knowledge and all sorts of cognition are a
participation by the knowing subject in a being which is inde-
pendent from him himself, and actually exists, then metaphys-
ics is equally the eternal attempt by human beings, by virtue of their
spontaneous reason, to participate in the absolute reality of things
themselves. In the rst place, by virtue of this spontaneous knowledge
of reason, it sets metaphysics sharply apart from all religions, which al-
ways concern some privileged revelation. Metaphysics seeks to provide
knowledge whether hard evidence, or of a probable sort; it is not
belief, or faith. Secondly, metaphysics seeks out the absolute reality
in which endeavour it diers from conventional science. Tis absolute
reality is one whose existence and nature is no longer inuenced in
any way by the special organization of the psycho-physical make-up
of the human being. Nor is it beholden to any other sort of reality
or actuality for its existence, and it is therefore absolute in an objec-
tive sense, and conforms to the principles and reasons which Aristotle
laid down as betting a First Ihilosophy. Furthermore, any human
participation in this absolute realm which metaphysics seeks also
means coming to know all other realms which are deeply rooted in this
absolute realm the dead as well as the living world, plants, animals,
human beings themselves and their reason, along with consciousness
and each level of the soul, and even the irreal, ideal world of objects.
Tirdly, for all these reasons, metaphysics is knowledge of the real,
+a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
and that separates it from all formal and ideal sciences, such as logic,
mathematics, and any study of the structure of essences of the world.
Tey are undoubtedly necessary for constructing metaphysics, but
they are not metaphysics itself. Vhoever restricts metaphysics to ex-
istence-free ideas and ideal connections in this way, like Iusserl does,
or to values, as Rickert and Vindelband do, or to the bare content of
consciousness, for example, that person is denying what metaphysics
actually comprises.
Even the person who coined the very word metaphysics restricted
what it connoted by putting Aristotles writings on the matter after
those where he had written about physics, and it was only later that
this editorial decision was graced with the title Krou|cgc oj t|c
|ig|cst prircip|cs or oosis oj ocirgs which Aristotle had indicated his
Iirst ||i|osop|y was about.
Admittedly, the word metaphysics points to a fairly clear-cut sub-
ject matter for discussion, to do with the absolute reality underlying
physics and nature. But one can, and should, with no lesser right, talk
about a metapsychology or a metamathematics or a metahistory or a
metabiology or a metasociology, or even a metanoetics, or a metaphys-
ics of art, or a metaphysics of nationhood and law. For, each of these
major subdivisions of human knowledge and its subject matter has its
own peculiar meta-problems or metascience, which were deliberately
ignored by the actual practitioners of such disciplines, for the purpos-
es of getting on with their work, but ought now to be looked at. Tis
applies to subjects other than physics, even physics in the broad sense
which Aristotle took it to mean. Tese metasciences are the bridging
connections between the individual sciences themselves and the high-
est reaches of metaphysics. Tey each each metascience help build
up a picture of a background to the world by framing the results of
their own science in such a way that it can be looked at in conjunction
with [and with the same vocabulary of ] the other metasciences [to
esh out the absolute reality].
Metaphysics is then in contrast to the individual sciences a total
and universal sort of knowledge, in fact, wisdom of the world [Vc|t-
ucis|cit]. It reintegrates the centuries-old scattered and fragmented
scientic observations, by dint of a method which is unique to it, and
is unlike any scientic method. For, in spite of what I have said, meta-
physics is not simply the gathering up of the results of the various
sciences to produce a coherent view of Being as a whole, as Vundt
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms +,
thought. It rather treats what we know of the world from a dierent
vantage point than do the individual sciences, looking at it under the
guidance of the whole itself, and allocating a particular place within
this totality of things to what each individual science contributes.
Te subjective consequence of this objective exercise is that in genu-
ine metaphysics it is always the whole human being, as a mental and
spiritual creature, who is active and knowledgeable, and we are not
talking about any specic human function or part of his spiritual and
mental make-up. Iow it is that the human being can gain access to
the absolute reality of things, and with what part of him whether
through thinking, sensory perception, intuition, feeling, drives or will;
whether immediately in a mystical fashion, as Schopenhauer thought,
or mediately; and through what practice or technique of life or spiritu-
al means : all this must be left open at the beginning of our metaphysi-
cal quest. Only one thing is certain, and that is that only by bringing
to bear the total human being to the task, can the totality of existing
things be grasped. Only the human being in its entirety is equal to the
entirety of what there is : in short, the human being is a microcosm.
Iow the absolute reality of the human participation allows the very
human to do what he must do in this situation which spiritual activ-
ity and in which order he must bring to the situation to achieve his
aim lies exclusively in the nature of this very reality.
So much for the rst hazy denition of the matter in question. I
shall now set out my preparatory considerations as to what I think
each of us knows and nds, or does not nd, in the realm of metaphys-
ics, loosely dened above.
It is denitely not my intention to present a metaphysical system,
in the way the traditional philosophical schools approach things. I
eschew this, rst, because philosophy itself is not primarily a set of
opinions held by previous human beings, but is something on-going,
and of the nature of an immersion into the living book of the world.
Secondly, the very claim of metaphysics, as we have dened it, to a
rightful place in the scheme of things, has been vigorously contested
for centuries, and this from a variety of powerful philosophical di-
rections, right up to our current times. Tirdly, I myself have never
understood, and it will never be understood, why one can read ten
thousand books, all held in more or less high esteem, and contain-
ing the opinions of the supposed greatest academic minds, and yet
each and every one announces the demise of metaphysics. Ve must
+ rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
be clear from the start that the way I dene metaphysics as a pure
claim on our knowledge is denied by Kant, by all Neo-Kantians,
by all Iositivist philosophers from Bacon to Mach and Avenarius
by any adherent of Iusserls phenomenology, by all historicist phi-
losophers like Dilthey and Spengler, and by all philosophers whose
notions are dominated by values or consciousness. In fact, it is true
to say that what I have in mind is denied by virtually all modern phi-
losophers. From the time when I was a university student, and during
the rst ten years of my tenure as a university lecturer, a lecture on
metaphysics, outside anything the Scholastics had to say about it, was
virtually unheard of. It is only in the course of the last ten years that
this attitude is slowly receding, and that has to do with the waning of
the Neo-Kantian inuence. Admittedly, a literary gure has recently
talked about a rebirth of metaphysics, and it is scarcely believable how
much is now written, even outside strictly philosophical circles, about
this supposed event. But even though this metaphysical philosophy of
the Vilhelminian era, as well as the more recent sort, are refreshing
to behold, in terms of their cultural-psychological signicance, they
have little or no bearing on the question as to the rightful position of
metaphysics. Te claim of metaphysics on us can only be addressed by
looking at the actual facts of our situation, facts which must hold sway
or not long before anyone starts speculating in a metaphysical way.
Tis foundation can be investigated in two major ways, an exercise we
shall follow ourselves.
Iart 1A will consist of Essential Teory and Typology of Metaphysi-
cal Systems and Vorld-views, and Iart 1B of Cognition and Method-
ological Teory in respect of Metaphysics as Iositive Knowledge. Iart
IIA Te Metasciences and Iart IIB A Teory concerning the
Cause of Everything, subtitled a Teory of God are the two chief
divisions of metaphysics which will come under scrutiny following our
discussion in Iart 1 of classicatory and methodological issues.
Te traditional classication into: ontology consideration of what
sorts, forms or categories of beings there are; cosmology notions
about the inorganic and organic world; and psychology and theology;
we consider as of secondary importance.
In the second part, just alluded to, I shall report my own investiga-
tions into the matter, especially the results I have come to in the last
two years or so, and will for the rst time present an overview of the
systematic structure to my thoughts about philosophy and the notion
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms +,
of God, an overview in which all my far-reaching excursions into phi-
losophy will be accorded their latest meaning.
First, though, we must try and secure a rm and secure basis for
metaphysics, and this is the purpose of the rst part of the book, un-
der the two headings Lsscrtio| lcory or lypo|ogy and Cogritivc
lcory or Mctop|ysics.
Te rst of these has almost become a discipline in its own right
in the past decade, and any philosopher, whether he accepts the right
of metaphysics to exist or not, must be conversant with it. For, we are
concerned here with the essential characteristics of all spiritual and
mental structures and productions, among which we include meta-
physics. But there are others, with which we need to compare meta-
physics itself, e.g. myth, religion, art, mysticism, spiritual healing and
science; and, further, we need to place the metaphysical world-view in
some perspective, alongside the natural world-view and the scientic
world-view. It is only through a comparison of these dierent struc-
tures, with a special eye on their mutual boundaries, that this ques-
tion can be solved. For example, do Ilatos myths belong to his meta-
physics. and is Spinozas Lt|ics rather a rationalist doctrine belonging
to metaphysics than a work of rened mysticism. Any discussion of
all this should include the motive behind any metaphysical enquiry,
in comparison with what motivates the theologian or scientist, and
should further consider the emotional background to what is being
presented as a formal treatise, and even take note of what technol-
ogy and art orc, at root; all of this has a bearing on metaphysics. Of
relevance, too, are important questions concerning the type of person
who becomes a metaphysician, as opposed to a great individualist or
a prophet or a mystic; there are questions too about the social group-
ing to which a metaphysical scheme appeals i.e. school or sect and
how it is preserved, reproduced and subject to changes in the course
of history. Next there is the issue of whether a metaphysical sort of
knowledge is actually outdated or not. Tere are a great number of
problems facing the humanities as a whole, which face any individual
investigator in these subjects, but none of these is metaphysics itself,
and is not even part of the subdivision of cognitive theory and meta-
physics, which I mentioned.
Because a vast number of metaphysical systems have cropped up in
the course of history, we should give some order to them, according to
+o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
their principal theme. Tere are four separate points of view to heed
in any such exercise.
1. First, there is a psychological point of view i.e. Vhat dierent
types of human being are persistently over history linked with one
metaphysical system rather than another, e.g. materialism, positivism,
pantheism.
2. Secondly, which objective unities of meaning are incorporated in
the chief varieties of metaphysical systems e.g. in accordance with
Diltheys well-known classication into naturalism, objective idealism,
and personal idealism of freedom. Linked with this are the questions
as to how the parts of a metaphysical system go together, and which
parts necessarily belong together and which parts not.
3. Tirdly, how do the various metaphysical Vc|torsc|ouurgcr re-
late to the major historical cultural groupings of humans e.g. Indian,
East Asian and Vestern and over history itself e.g. Ancient and
Modern.
4. Finally, there is the historical point of view itself, concerning what
in a metaphysical system corresponds to the particular preoccupations
[or maturity] of an era, and what not. For example, the Ancient ones
share the inuence of a mental set towards substance and geometrical
thinking, whereas the more recent ones acknowledge functional and
temporal inuences. Iow do we start to analyse a metaphysical sys-
tem. Each major metaphysical system can and should be attributed
to a group of urphenomena and ur-experiences on the one hand, and
a conceptual elaboration of these on the other. Te appropriate ap-
proach would be a phenomenological reconstruction of the system.
Overall one would have to separate the original basic intuition of the
person who initiated the system from the arcane way in which it was
expressed, but also take into account the historical climate in which it
was formulated.
Tis part of what I call the essence and typology of metaphysics has
been used in recent years precisely to undermine the very possibil-
ity of there being any metaphysics at all [i.e. by historicizing all such
attempts]. Comte, Mill, Dilthey, Simmel, Jaspers, Veber and others
have argued just this. Indeed, they tried to subordinate metaphysics
to science for this very reason. Ve, on our part, resolutely reject this
attempt, because we think we can show that metaphysics is, and how
it is, possible. But, setting aside the value for the humanities as a whole,
which any such an attempt on our part possesses, we think it is doubly
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms +;
necessary and essential for the construction of a metaphysics itself.
In the rst place, we can easily avoid innumerable one-sidednesses
and basic errors if we penetrate the rules by which the major extant
metaphysical systems have been constructed. In fact, we shall allow
ourselves to be guided by the principle which Leibniz and Iegel rst
made good use of, which is that any metaphysics must contain within
itself the part-truths of all previous systems, and must even conserve
and touch on the compressed truth and wisdom of the entire history
of metaphysics and raise it to a condensed and higher plane [ouj-
|cocr]. It is through such a broader truth and a broader whole that
relative falsehoods and inadequacies, and a partial one-sidedness, are
brought to light. Anyway, there is no metaphysical system which did
not contain a great deal of essential part-truths, and the questions
which should be put are : Truth about what. and, About which sort
of objectivity. and, About what level of existential relativity this ob-
jectivity is to be set at. Tis means that a fully adequate metaphysi-
cal knowledge is one which permits even the inadequate and merely
partial truth of all other systems to be completely explained. It further
entails that a correct metaphysical theory is always an integrated part-
result of metaphysics itself. Metaphysics must not only determine the
nature of absolute reality, which is pre-given to any knowledge of it; it
must also show how knowledge is possibly derived from the very real-
ity it seeks to know, and in what order all this happens. A metaphys-
ics of knowledge and a knowledge of metaphysics go hand in hand,
as Iartmann realized. Ve intend to show the complete untenability
of the following relativistic world-views: Jaspers and Simmels notion
of dierent metaphysical systems as an expression of certain essential
types and spiritual physiognomies; metaphysics as merely a historical
series of interesting sketches as to what certain high-prole characters
thought and wrote Nietzsches view; Germains description of meta-
physics as a novel about thinkers; the claim that metaphysics is only
the expressions of certain psychopathic types; and even the claim by
Iegel that metaphysics is only a series of encapsulations of the pre-
vailing Zcitgcist. Tese are already the consequences of the conviction
of these authors that metaphysics is impossible. Tis conviction en-
demic among positivists and Neo-Kantians is completely false, and
is even false for the average man in the street, who has at least a modi-
cum of metaphysical talent, whether it turns out to be true or false.
+s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
It is even the case that relativistic thinkers, such as the above, are
steeped in metaphysics too. Metaphysics belongs to the basic com-
portment of what it is to be a human being, and indeed is essential
to it. Te choice for each and every one of us is only whether it is
good or bad metaphysics, whether we are conscious or unconscious
of it, and whether it is a traditional variety or self-formulated. It is
true that none of this makes up a logical and cognitive justication
for metaphysics, and certainly does not add up to a comprehensive
theory of cognition. But it would be a unique state of aairs in the hu-
man condition if a human being possessed a mysterious tendency to
persuade himself of something, whose truth or falsehood he himself
had no power to study.
One of the metaphysical world-views and essential notions at the
core of our exercise is what I call the Lr|crrtris|c|rc cr Mctop|ysi|
[Cognitive theory of metaphysics].
Vith this, we come much closer to what metaphysics is really about,
and begin to get a feel for the actual cognitive activity and power, the
application of which makes metaphysical knowledge at all possible.
Even if our exercise does not succeed in showing that metaphysics is
possible, then it would surely be of inestimable benet if we could show
unlike the more recent claims which simply wrote it o why this
is so, and give the various reasons. In fact, Kant, in his Critiquc oj |urc
Rcosor, started out with the avowed aim of showing that metaphysics
was possible, though ended up giving reasons for its impossibility. In
the same way, modern mathematics demands that when something
has been incapable of being proven for a long time, then the precise
proof of this very unprovability should be demonstrated.
Te demand that some measure and analysis of human knowledge,
and a theory of it, should precede any statement that we might make
about Being itself, was not Kants original contribution, but had been
mooted by the modern wave of philosophers from Descartes and
Locke onwards. Ancient and Medieval philosophers had little or no
time for a theory of knowledge, or else considered such a consequence
of what was really out there: Aristotle, St. Tomas, and even Spinoza
thought along these lines. Te new wave of philosophers deemed this
dogmatic, and combated it with their critical philosophy. To the ex-
tent that I believe that a theory of knowledge should be given proper
consideration before any metaphysical notion itself can be approved, I
am at one with these critical metaphysicians. Nevertheless, I am com-
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms +,
pletely opposed to their associated [and central] notion that theoreti-
cal philosophy is nothing more than a theory of cognition or knowl-
edge. Tis last point of view is the result of a completely erroneous
notion of what knowledge and truth are, and is tied up with the [most
pernicious] philosophical view [of all], which is that everything is a
subjective content of consciousness. Te heuristic value of the theory
of knowledge, as I expound it, became completely enmired, in a variety
of ways, from Locke onwards. Although any theory of knowledge has
to be in place, to some extent, before any metaphysical insight them-
selves can be gleaned, we cannot assume that there is a logical depen-
dence of metaphysics on how we know what we know. Te human
understanding cannot examine its own capacity and breadth ocjorc
its actual achievements and works are on display, but only in them
and with them on view. If one mistrusts the way human beings go
about matters, why should we have any more condence in the actual
things that they investigate. Any critique of knowledge is only possi-
ble through knowledge itself. Te nave creative spirit, which not only
Ancient and Medieval thinkers paid lip service to, but so did relatively
modern ones such as Spinoza and Goethe, is simply a notion where
the primacy of Being vis--vis our knowledge of it is extolled. One
might well comment: My child, I spent my life without thinking about
thinking itself.
Recently, Lotze has taken up a completely contrary position against
the critical theory of knowledge. Ie maintained that in order to exam-
ine the entire range of what my human knowledge covers, I must al-
ready possess a vague impression of reality itself to know what I want
to know. In this way, he deliberately puts the metaphysical situation
before the theoretical cognitive one, and demands that metaphysics
should even make knowledge about it understandable. Let us leave
aside for the moment a detailed examination of this argument. But,
instead, I shall present this well-considered thesis. Logically, I assume
there to be neither a dependence of metaphysics on cognition, nor an
inverse dependence as Lotze would have it. Instead, the basic princi-
ple applies that the various sorts, and nature, of objects are intimately
connected with an essential act of cognition. Tere is, therefore, an
objective independence of both disciplines metaphysics and cogni-
tive theory one from the other, but at the same time a strict recipro-
cal logical dependence of the truths they bring out. Tat means that a
cognitive theory of metaphysics is equally a metaphysics of cognition.
ao rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Tis further means, that, as Schelling aptly put it, there is a path from
the ideal to the real as well as a path from real to the ideal, and that
both metaphysics and cognitive theory co-determine both paths,
and, reciprocally, contribute to both. Iow the reality at issue here,
slowly, and stage by stage via plants, animals, and then humans ar-
rives at a state whereby knowledge of what is happening accrues to the
actual happenings, and ultimately at a state which allows metaphysi-
cal knowledge, and how I, as a conscious and knowing subject, get to
know real nature, my fellow humans, God, and nally the absolute
reality which metaphysics illuminates, are questions which are per-
fectly co-original and co-justied. Tere are, equally, several ways to
knowledge, but they must be ways which have some point of contact,
and must be reciprocally justied. Both theories that we are consider-
ing that of metaphysics and that of cognitive theory have, however,
over and above each of them, a superordinate philosophical discipline,
which is neither one or other of them, but is that of pure logic and the
ontology of essences [Vcscrsorto|ogic]. Tis last is neither a science of
consciousness nor a science of the whys and wherefores of anythings
existence, but rather an attempt to grasp the very organization of ideas
about the content of the world independently from the separate issues
of what constitutes and what comes-to-be as an accidental being-
so, and what constitutes and what comes-to-be in consciousness.
Vhat we will be concerned with in the second subdivision of Iart 1
of our presentation is not the whole theory of knowledge, but only an
examination in the most general terms of the nature of knowledge and
cognition, with a particular emphasis on the special sort of knowledge
involved in metaphysics. Te sorts of knowledge pertaining to the
individual sciences, or to myth, art, mysticism and religion, we shall
exclude unless we need to mention the way in which they dier from
that concerning metaphysics. It is pleasing to know that even the fol-
lowers of Kant recognize more and more that to restrict all knowledge
to the sort of knowledge that is appropriate to mathematical science
and to that accidentally obtaining in Newtons era to boot is grossly
one-sided. Kant had to ascribe to a knowledge supposedly betting
mathematics not only the means to tackle metaphysical problems but
also the way into chemistry, psychology and history. In fact, even the
question, as to how mot|cmotics and the pure sciences are possible,
is completely untouched by assuming that the full power and range
of the human mind has to be brought to bear on it, even further as-
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms a+
suming a certain functional leeway in the Kantian system a further
assumption that I steadfastly refuse to accept, because his so-called
Copernican turn can only mean that our understanding of anything
actually prescribes the rules for that somethings being. At the most, all
Kant proved was that if one assumes that the same means and power
of a knowledge that enables one to do mathematics will o for meta-
physics, then one is mistaken. In this he is undoubtedly correct. But
it does not mean that metaphysics is impossible. One of the foremost
mathematical physicists of our time wrote the much quoted words:
To have a physical existence is only that something allows itself to be
measured. Tis is more correct and more illuminating a way of demar-
cating the physical than any more dignied way of putting it. Iowever,
anyone who said or wrote that oryt|irg rco| is only what allows itself
to be measured, would be laughed out of court by a philosopher, and
then be shown ten thousand undoubted ways in which something can
be real without being measurable. Te limits of the scientic meth-
ods for investigating the world are not the limits of what is real. All
versions of what we can call methodologism i.e. the thesis that the
methods belonging to our way of knowing an object determine the
actual object, either pulling it out of some chaos, or even producing
it c rovo, as Cohen and Natorp taught are not only utterly false,
but a crude form of a most dangerous tendency in science towards
German subjectivism. And although the broadening of this function-
alism and methodologism into the realms of myth, language, religion
and history, in the sense which Cassirer and Simmel gave to it, can be
taken as a noteworthy step beyond Kants one-sidedness, looked at
another way, it can be taken as a more wrong-headed and a still more
impossible way forward than even Kants path. Vhat is impossible in
all this is, rst, the lumping together, without gradation or rank or-
der, of all these disciplines and realms of aairs; and, secondly, the law
[presumably unknown to or ignored by the above-mentioned school
of thought] that the degree of existential and what-something-is
relativity of an object to the human organization is proportionately
smaller the more that object approaches the absolute realm, and there-
fore the less inuence the understanding and methods of the human
being prescribe the laws of such objects. To all intents and purposes,
we can only dictate the process of knowing something when it comes
down to the signs and names with which we unequivocally, but spar-
ingly, designate what is given to us. Vhenever we step outside this,
aa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
we come up against intrinsic [i.e. extrinsic to us] connections between
phenomena and things. Even the axioms of arithmetic display some-
thing which is outside our mind, and the formal, logical laws [which
our mind does contribute on this particular matter] are merely contin-
gent on the former. Te planetary orbits may seem to an astronomer
as if the astronomer were dictating the laws governing these, and not
the stars themselves by inuencing what we pick up of these through
our senses. Even the smallest movement of a primitive plant frees itself
in a similar way from complete dependence on anything outside it, and
conforms in a rudimentary way to Kants Copernican turn, whereby
the understanding prescribes to nature its rules. But it belongs to the
very essence of personhood humans as well as Gods that it cannot
know anything in a spontaneous way. It is precisely the incalculabil-
ity and uncontrollability of what is given that is a sign of the degree
of absoluteness and of an absolute level of the existence of anything.
Methods directed at the nature of objects which are in or close to the
absolute realm must therefore be in tune with the objects themselves
[as compared to methods appropriate for relatively non-absolute ob-
jects e.g. relatively more humanly-relative objects]. Tis last rule ap-
plies precisely to metaphysics [which is uniquely concerned with ab-
solute objects].
All this we can briey summarize here by saying that the theory
of knowledge as it pertains to metaphysics is a specially independent
part of this whole area. Te sorts of questions which belong here are:
Vhat categories or concepts of being still retain metaphysical signif-
icance, and which not. Vhich method is particular to metaphysics
as opposed to the methods of the individual sciences. e.g. dialectical
methods. intuition. Ve can further say now that neither the method
appropriate to the individual sciences for example, the mathematical
model promoted by Kant and Descartes nor that applied to history
for example, by Iegel and Croce is the method betting meta-
physics. Vhat is critical here is the very nature of the object itself.
Tis demand on our subject we hold most strongly, and we consider
there to be the sharpest distinction, in respect to independence and
autonomy, between philosophy and any other discipline; in particular,
philosophy is neither the handmaiden of theology nor of science.
In the rst part of our deliberations we shall aim at a precise ap-
preciation of all the reasons why metaphysics has been denied any in-
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms a,
dependent status. Tere are six major schools of thought which have
taken just such a view.
Tese comprise:
1) sensory positivism which treats metaphysical questions as ata-
vistic and of historical signicance only;
2) Kant and his school;
3) relativistic historicism and psychologism;
4) traditionalism and deism which relegate metaphysics to a
branch of religion or faith;
5) scepticism; and
6) subjective idealism of consciousness.
In the second part of our survey we shall be concerned with our own
positive methods for investigating metaphysics. Ve reject Kants de-
nition of the matter, which was that metaphysics is an intuitive science
based on pure opriori concepts. Tis denition only makes sense any-
way in the context of the Volan school of philosophy [which was
the mainstream in Germany before Kant], a school which gave undue
emphasis to unbridled conceptual thought, and in whose atmosphere
Kant was spiritually steeped. In actual fact, this denition is quite ex-
treme, even by the standards of previous metaphysics. Schopenhauer
rightly treated it as ludicrous.
xnrzrnvsrcs zwn xvsrrcrsx
By mysticism we understand an attempt by the human mind to be
at one with absolute reality, and to have an immediate, living partici-
pation in what that reality is and its ultimate nature. By mysticism,
therefore, we understand a unication with this reality on the part of
the human mind, not just some association with a particular content
of it. If the prevailing relationship with this reality is deemed, on the
human side, to be our intuition, or our emotion, or our will, then one
can talk about, respectively, intellectual, emotional, or practical-ascetic
sorts of mysticism. Te majority of Vestern mystics, beginning with
Ilotinus and Dionysius the Areopagite, have been of the intellectual
sort. Indian mysticism is a mixture of aristocratic and intellectual el-
ements, with more down-to-earth feelings and intoxication-induced
tendencies. A work such as Tomas Kempis lc Imitotior oj C|rist
is the best example of the practical-ascetic variety.
a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
In terms of the relationship between metaphysics and mysticism,
although mysticism may often be linked with either religion or a vari-
ety of metaphysical systems, fundamentally it need not be. Certainly,
metaphysics is not mysticism. In fact, the claim by the mystic to have
a preferential and sure entry into reality, by some soul-technique, is
just that, a claim, as his technique cannot do what he claims, and his
claim that it does so is a mere presupposition. Vhether the claim in-
volves bringing to light some religious matter of faith, or some original
insight properly belonging to metaphysics, the claim is bogus. Tis
explains why there are Ancient Greek mystics, Indian mystics, Chris-
tian mystics, and pantheistic mystics including Spinoza because
all mysticism is interdenominational [irtcr|orjcssiorc|| ur irtcruc|t-
orsc|ou|ic|] i.e. an independent category vis-o-vis religion and meta-
physics. Tis also shows that mysticism is a secondary, derivative phe-
nomenon, as opposed to the mental powers and methods which bring
forth the contents of religion, metaphysics and Vc|torsc|ouurg.
Te mystic supposes that he has reached reality itself, by whatever
method he proclaims intuition, life, feeling yet all he is doing is
presupposing a belief or an idea that he already had, and then vaulting
over [and ignoring] what he believes or knows, to claim a togetherness
with reality. Tere is, however, no possible way in which the existence
or nature of this reality can originally emerge from anything the mys-
tic claims to do.
From this, there already follows a strict and distinct boundary be-
tween metaphysics and mysticism, and also between religion and mys-
ticism. For metaphysics, reaching this reality is precisely what it wants
to [and can] do. Mysticism simply cannot deliver the goods. Mysticism
is always beholden to an extant religious or metaphysical system, and
never contributes anything new on its own to either. Moreover, one
might point out that mysticism has no greater kinship with religion
than with metaphysics. Tere are completely non-mystical religious
Vc|torsc|ouurgcr and ways of life, and there is a whole series of non-
religious metaphysicians whose claim to knowledge is mystical. Scho-
penhauer was an atheist and a mystic.
Tere is, however, at least one similarity between the metaphysician
and the mystic, in that each wants to know something ultimate, and
in those metaphysical systems where this ultimate is proclaimed to
be known in an immediate way, to be had and relished, as it were, a
separation from mysticism is [supercially] hard to detect. But even
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms a,
here, it is not the mystical form of this immediate having of some-
thing which one expects a metaphysical system to justify. It is rather
the meaning of the system as a whole which one cares about [and how
that meaning, if worthy of our attention, comes about is secondary].
Tere are a variety of metaphysical proposals which we could well call
mystical-like. On the other hand, there are philosophers, to whom the
real sources of their system are quite hidden Iegel, for example,
and his dialectical method [which does not account for what he came
up with]. Vhat mysticism and some metaphysics share is what one
might call intuitionism. As a formal denition, the intuition involved
here is: an immediate, non-sensory, having of something actual, in the
form of something that independently exists outside us, and whose
nature or very existence we have in this having. So taught Ilotinus,
anyway, whom we can regard as the most extreme case of someone
claiming that we could ecstatically catch sight of something without
the aid of concepts or language. Schopenhauer also maintained that
one could grasp internally [vor irrcr |cr] that the absolute existence
of the world was Vill, and that the same experience was true for the
rest of the world Is not the nature of human beings in the heart.
Schelling, too, considered that there was an intellectual intuition, and
that it was the authentic organ of philosophical knowledge. Iegel be-
lieved in this as well, and thought that in the dialectical movement of
thought, as thesis antithesis synthesis, one could actually grasp
Gods ideas themselves, through which the world was necessarily al-
lowed to spring forth. In this, he was a mystical, dynamic rationalist.
Bergson also teaches that intuition unites the merits of understanding
and instinct, but at the same time exceeds them both, allowing some-
one to grasp the c|or vito| and its very existence, as well as the version
of time he calls urcc.
Vhat concerned the earlier philosophers, what we now regard as
ontologism [i.e. an overreliance on pure ontology], is also an intuition-
istic philosophy and is exemplied by St. Augustine, Malebranche,
and others. Te negative theology, which was current in the Middle
Ages, which proposed an exaggerated contradictoriness in original
Being [ocrgcgcrsotz|ic||cit cs Urscirs], and which rejected rational
categories as a means for grasping this, was a mystical philosophy too
Nicholas de Cusa being an example. Vhatever this system of intu-
ition claims as to truth or profundity, however, and which may very
well be hidden in it, is, with respect to the claim that this sort of intu-
ao rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
ition brought it forth, a mere illusion, a contradiction of the facts, and
all this is common to every intuitionistic metaphysics.
Vhat is true and correct about intuitionism is, rst, that a non-
sensory intuition and its corresponding content does occur, and that
it is wrong to suppose that all our knowledge derives from sensory
perception and mediated deductive [and inductive] thinking; and, sec-
ondly, that this intuition is completely independent from all measures
of conventional thinking.
Vhat is principally wrong about it is the notion that only denitive
and illusion-free access to anything real can be achieved through an
immediate, asensory intuition, and, that this applies, above all, to what
is absolutely real. Te strictly asensory intuition, that we o possess,
and which indeed gives us denitive knowledge, and in an opriori man-
ner, has, for its object, exclusively, something that does not actually
exist, and something that is independent of anything that does exist
[oscirjrcic ur oscirsuroo|orgigc]. In fact it gives only the nature
of what something is, and the relations between such natures or es-
sences [Vos|citcr ur Rc|otiorcr so|c|cr Vos ocr Vcscr|citcr]. It
gives urphenomena and ideas. It can never have for its object some-
thing actually real: either 1) a concrete entity; or 2) some chance oc-
currence which does not necessarily owe its existence to its suchness
[so|c||cit] which is then displayed in space and time; or 3) something
whose being is independent of our mind. Metaphysics, remember, is
the cognition of the real; indeed it is this por cxcc||crcc. Te real, how-
ever, can only be accessed through either sensory stimulus-determined
perception or through a mixture of sensory and asensory perceptual
intuition, but then this only gives an inadequate version of what is
given. Te asensory intuition that we possess is therefore restricted
to what is ideal, though not at all to what is consciously immanent of
this ideal world.
Furthermore, what is available to grasp of something real is only
its suchness [So|c||cit], which cannot be achieved solely through in-
tuition and perception, but requires thinking in meanings. Tis last
contribution is not a back-up for intuition, but is essential for picking
up anything about the real, which is not amenable to intuition at all.
Tinking in meanings can pick up signs and characteristics of the real,
for example the number of a given set of bodies in the world. So, not
only is the existence of an existent entity transcendent to a knowing
mind to intuition and thinking alike but, as we shall see, is only
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms a;
traceable [sproor] by the volitional [vo|itivcr] component of mind,
and then only by its ability to sense resistance to the world.
Moreover, even the complete roturc of what something is [in addi-
tion to the existence of that something] is transcendent to intuition.
Anyone who merely holds the view, against this, that there is such a
thing as asensory intuition and that it gives a secure knowledge of es-
sences and their connections for example, an intuition of the es-
sence of the divine is no intuitionist. Otherwise, Aristotle himself
and even Iume would t the bill. On this point it was completely
wrong for these people to have labelled phenomenological philosophy
in general, and my version even more so, as intuitionistic.
Te particular error of intuitionism is none of the above, but simply
that what they claim to have discovered [through intuition] cannot
also be something that is amenable to being thought or expressed in
language.
Despite this, mysticism and metaphysics do share something in
common, which has long been underrated, even though Ilato, Spi-
noza, and several others, understood it, and that is a particular tech-
nique for arriving at essential knowledge. Tey both realized that it
was something to do with cancelling out the element of reality that
could bring the essential component of the world into view, i.e. achiev-
ing some sort of pure contemplation of the essence of things.
Iusserls error on this score was to think that looking away [oo-
sc|cr] from reality was sucient to remove it from play. But that does
nothing of the sort. [A more radical cancellation is needed].
If metaphysics and mysticism were indistinguishable, there would
be a complete collapse of all metaphysical viewpoints into a morass of
mystical obfuscation, coupled with the following trends.
First, there would be an increasing alienation between philosophy
and science, with Ilato, rather than Aristotle, the role model. Ihiloso-
phy would furthermore become a theology, as it did in the case of
Iroclus, a pupil of Ilotinus. It would proclaim the ecstatic spectacle of
a simple unication of everything philosophers had ever said. Spinoza
and Schopenhauer have something of this in their outlook.
Secondly, lacking any strict method and technique, metaphysics
would risk degenerating into an arbitrary subjectivism, as did the an-
throposophical movement of our times. Ihilosophy would lose any
claim to be generally valid. On this point, the claim by mystics to have
their own emotional feel for the truth is completely unacceptable.
as rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Tirdly, mysticism can at times, through its exaggeration of the mys-
tery of everything, actually lead to the anti-metaphysical notion of ag-
nosticism. If one violates and distorts the actual things that there are,
this is exactly what happens. Vhat metaphysics aims for is to reveal
the mystery of the world, but not just in the way of a silent, thought-
less reverence for it, leaving it alone as an uninvestigated jewel. On
the one hand, it takes the view that what is absolutely real is not com-
pletely unknowable, but, on the other hand, it is not so foolhardy as
to assume that we can gain more than an inadequate knowledge of all
possible essences, all possible ways of being, or all attributes of what
is absolutely real.
Nevertheless, our opponents, who maintain that what we are up
against is a completely unknowable sphere of things and events, should
be asked two questions.
First, how they themselves would set about uncovering what exactly
they know and dont know about the world i.e. their placing of a
boundary in this respect.
Secondly, how would they show that if the real itself does not guide
us as to what we come to know about it, what does. If nothing real has
any direct or indirect inuence on our senses, what is then our own
situation in the middle of all this. If their view is correct, we are any-
way free to either propose a metaphysical point of view or repudiate it
[as it will have no eect on t|cir opinion]. Vhat do they say.
In answer to all this, we propose two guiding principles. 1) Ve must
not deny the accidental existence of anything, if its ideal nature has
been demonstrated. 2) Ve should not positively promote it either.
Anyone who proposes that we must know an accidental reality
simply because our cognitive apparatus tells us it is there is simply
wrong.
Anyone who proposes that we corrot know an accidental reality
when it is actually there enters problematical ground, although it is
probably correct to assume that at some time in the future our capac-
ity in this respect will increase.
Vhat is of ultimate signicance in all this, and circumscribes meta-
physical knowledge as opposed to the boundless mystique and mys-
tery we have been combating in this section, is the following proposi-
tion. To each genuine essence there corresponds an accidentally real
entity, because every existent entity has an essential nature of some
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms a,
sort, and to every essence or essential nature there belongs at least one
extant exemplar.
xnrzrnvsrcs zwn znr
Tere has been no shortage of attempts to invoke art as a way of get-
ting closer to the meaning of metaphysics, though the sort of art en-
visaged in such a model is not the same as we normally mean by art.
Tis way of looking at metaphysics is admittedly never a starting point
for metaphysicians themselves, but rather stems from metaphysically-
agnostic thinkers. Even those metaphysicians whose thoughts them-
selves are presented in a particularly artistic way, and whose overall
philosophy approaches the unity, harmony, compactness, insight, and
aesthetic impetus of a work of art in itself, have never adopted the view
that metaphysics be subsumed under art. One thinks, in this respect,
of Ilato, Schopenhauer, Schelling and Novalis, and, in recent times,
Nietzsche and Bergson. In fact Bergsons chief work Crcotivc Lvo|u-
tior was considered more a work of art than a piece of science by one
critic. From time to time, at the very most, such philosophers have
suggested that metaphysics is more similar to art than it is to science
as Schopenhauer, for example, did say. Aristotle considered meta-
physics to be theoretical, as opposed to practical activities, and to be
more similar to art particularly dramatic art than it was to history.
Iis reason for thinking so was that philosophy and art had to do not
with chance events but with typical and general states of aairs. And
whereas art ivirc the idea, the cios in things, in especially outstand-
ing cases mimcsis, it was up to philosophy to grosp t|is corccptuo||y.
On the other hand, quite paradoxically, as he was probably the greatest
artist of all among metaphysicians, Ilato accorded art a very low status
in the system of values and goods, and it did not occur to him to look
on metaphysics as art.
Almost the only philosopher to have contended that metaphysics
can only rightly be seen as art by which he meant poetry [Dic|turg]
was Albert Lange. It was his interpretation of Schillers intellectual
verse, and its connection with Kants philosophy, which Lange took as
his model. Iis proposal that metaphysics was poetry in concepts
was meant in a negative or a positive way. Albert Lange, from this
denition, believed in the Kantian thesis that rational metaphysical
knowledge of absolute reality, by way of concepts, was not possible,
,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
but at the same time went beyond Kant, in saying, contrary to Kants
forthright dismissal of the matter, that metaphysics provided a func-
tion in the human mind and life which could not be gainsaid. Tis is
the starting point for the so-called ctionalism of Vaihinger, where
not only metaphysics and religion, but science, even mathematics and
mechanics, were only structures as-if suppositions which ulti-
mately rested on ctions. Because Vaihinger held that our knowledge
and thoughts of the world, including anything that the most exact sci-
ences could come up with, were all based on deliberate ction, then in
one sense what he was saying is that the entire range of sciences was
nothing more than art. Anglo-Saxon pragmatism is essentially dif-
ferent from this thesis. Iragmatism, for instance, holds that not only
thinking is conditioned by our actions, but so are perception and sen-
sation conditioned by motor impulses and processes, and that truth
is merely the course of an action which has certain consequences. For
Vaihinger, the question Vhat is given. has a strict sensualistic
meaning, as, for him, truth is merely becoming aware of the content
of sensation; everything else is ction, meaning the work of deliberate
ction. Moreover, the ction in question is something that stems from
our activity, partly an eternal, unstoppable and spontaneous set of c-
titious reasonings, but partly a set of purposeful ctions with some
aesthetic and practical motives. Vhat this ction was, at root, was
therefore an apparently continuous, law-governed thinking, which
somehow succeeded in pinning us down to a traditional and earthly
way of living. Vaihinger meant that such ctions were unreal and de-
liberately false, somewhat akin to Fiedlers notion of a deliberate activ-
ity of fantasy, which was responsible for artistic inventions and scien-
tic models. According to Vaihinger, the only truth that was available
to us, which was responsible for something blue or something sour,
etc., was already a ctional object or thing or relationship, and this
itself founded what would be a scientic explanation [hence science
itself was based on ction].
Among those metaphysicians who imagined that they had un-
covered a particularly deep connection between a metaphysical and
an aesthetic way of looking at things, and who were inclined to see
metaphysics and art as interrelated, Ilotinus has pride of place. But
Schopenhauer, the young Nietzsche, and Burckhardt as a philoso-
pher of history also belong here. Tey had, in common, a sense of
despair about the world as something willed, and taught that an aes-
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ,+
thetic, contemplative attitude arising in human spirit was the highest
of all human attitudes. Nietzsches Dionysian pessimism lies in this
way of thinking. In general, there is a close link between metaphysical
pessimism and the promotion of an aesthetic attitude to life. Another
group of metaphysicians, who considered the originator of the world
itself to be some sort of artist in the rst place, and who attributed
fantasy to it as a primary and fundamental attribute, also belong here.
Te Logos and ethos of the world are then traceable to this very fan-
tasy, in such metaphysicians formulations. Goethe and Schelling are
examples of this view, in which the world is a living work of art.
Tere are even attempts to see aesthetic principles of pleasing rela-
tionships and congurations in subjects such as logic. Certainly, as far
as mathematics is concerned, Ioincar expressly stated that the highest
measure of mathematical achievement was not logic itself, but an aes-
thetic value, whereby a unity and harmony of thought and proposition
were reached. Ioincar sought to prove, against the opinion of pure
logicians, that there were an innite number of mathematical repre-
sentations of some logical problem, all of which could be equally cor-
rect, and that it was innitely boring, and scientically pointless, to go
through all, or even most, of the proofs. Te achievement of a creative
mathematician lay exclusively in being able to select that sort of proof,
from among equally correct candidates, which was the most elegant,
in terms of a harmony between axioms, consequences, theoretical
principles and proofs. Tis selection of aesthetic, valuable and elegant
proofs constitutes, according to Ioincar, the only and ultimate way
of measuring the value of mathematical achievement. Even illogical
and contradictory propositions can, and should, conform to the same
value of maximum unity and harmony as proposed for logical ones,
according to him. Above all, the principle of the non-contradiction of
a proposition if A = B then A = non-B cannot be true would be
deniable [if its denial were couched in more aesthetic terms than the
actual proposition itself ]. Certainly Ieraclitus and Iegel denied this,
but not on the aesthetic grounds as are being mooted here.
If, then, the most obvious and certain science that we know of
mathematics is deemed to be subordinate to aesthetics, and if logic
is only a technical means for the realization of aesthetic rules, how can
it stand otherwise with less certain sorts of knowledge. And the same
situation must obtain in the case of metaphysics. Anything in its do-
main can only be true, if it manages to convert a maximum amount of
,a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
accidental and essential experience into a system which is maximally
harmonious with principles and concepts.
Any strictly metaphysical theory of Vc|torsc|ouurg, which sets up
the above thesis, has to take account of the following problems. Can
one really subsume philosophy, and especially metaphysics, because it
is certainly not a science, under the umbrella of art, in particular po-
etry. Vhich historically occurring objective relationships, in the form
of spiritual anities, exist between metaphysics and art, in particular
poetry. Vhich subjective dependencies exist between them, i.e. be-
tween poet and metaphysician. Vhat relationships are there between
the work of art and a metaphysical system. Above all, what csscrtio|
relationship is there between art and metaphysics. In what way [if
any] are the proposals of the metaphysicians mentioned above, who
advocated this link, denitely correct and denitely incorrect. Is there
anything worthwhile in the suggestions that logic be subsumed as a
variety of aesthetics. Vhat is there in the notion of ctions referred
to above, of any signicance. Finally, what role does fantasy play in
metaphysics or in art.
Turning to the rst question: metaphysics is cognition, and, like all
cognition, is rot ort. Knowledge, the ur-concept for cognition, is par-
ticipation in being. Art is poicir, making something [Bi|cr], bring-
ing forth a meaning-structure in, or on, some material stu, a formed
thing [Gcoi|cs], which, at the very least, cannot be measured by the
degree it accords with the haphazard reality of the world. Vhoever
makes out that cognition is indebted to a ready-made pictorial form,
or is poicir, or must adhere to some form or shape, like Neo-Kantians
do, particularly Vaihinger, and that it is not merely a way of knowing,
i.e. a participating in the being of an object, or, whoever sees in artists
pictures only a way of knowing something, or only a sort of knowledge,
simply fails to realize [both the nature of cognition or the nature of
art and] the most critical and essential distinction between pictures
or images and knowledge. Even if all possible concepts, rules and c-
tions, with which both philosophy and science work, and all ways of
signifying things which are admittedly the product of human activ-
ity were exhaustively brought to light, it would still be the case that
in order to use all this, t|cy uou| |ovc to oc |rour, i.e. they would still
be the subject of an enlightenment as to what the state of aairs was in
the human mind. Alternatively, if all knowledge about the world were
complete, as we imagine it to be if there were an all-knowing God,
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ,,
then it would be the case that not a single work of art could be created,
and the aesthetic value of the world, its beauty and its ugliness, would
remain unsuspected. It is simply a folly of Neo-Kantians, especially
Cohen, to want to derive how we know art [i.e. one sort of knowing]
from art itself. And it is further nonsense to make knowledge, as the
pragmatists do, into a sort of action, which [apart from anything else]
makes action itself superuous.
Knowing is t|c rcgistcrirg oj somct|irg u|ic| is t|crc, and this covers
metaphysical knowing as well. Art is mo|irg up jBi|cr] u|ot is rot
t|crc, but which is worthy of being there, or deserves to be there, by
virtue of certain aesthetic notions of value. Tats the way things are.
In metaphysics there is the intention to know what is absolutely real.
To maintain that metaphysics is conceptual poetry is quite ridiculous.
At most, one could say that there is no metaphysics. Te thesis of Al-
bert Lange, referred to above, was only supposedly justied anyway
under the agnostic assumption of Kants and his notion of a produc-
tive understanding. If his categories are actually forms of being [and
not categories of judgement] then his entire theory collapses.
Te very notion of conceptual poetry, in which there are only un-
intuitable concepts, and not, as in all other poetry, intuitable images,
which symbolize the highest ideas and concepts, and have values ad-
hering to their intended objects, and linguistic values of all sorts, in the
material they use, is simply nonsense. In any case any so-called poetry
of ideas Dantes Divine comedy, Goethes Ioust, Schillers thought-
poetry is not poetry uit| ideas, but poetry about ideas, written with
images, with an eye to the appropriate mood, along with characteriza-
tion and concrete events and deeds, which, altogether, may refer to
some symbolic idea. Te very concept of conceptual poetry is there-
fore a falsication of what poetry is about, which, like any art, is invari-
ably an ideal structure realized through its concrete intuitable content,
and which owes its meaning, not simply to the bare tract in front of
one, but to its being able to convey some immediate givenness.
Albert Langes proposal, that metaphysics is art, and is poetry in
concepts, may have seemed, to an age saturated with science, as an un-
requited urge to reverse the progress of the German spirit, and retrieve
the extravagant romantic and idealistic philosophy of Fichte, Iegel
and Schelling, who in fact mistook the essence and limits of meta-
physics, as indeed did scientists, from a completely dierent angle.
But a one-sided historical occurrence, such as that, does not give us
, rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
any right to re-formulate metaphysics in this vein. Metaphysics is not
science, but neither is it art. Even Schopenhauer went too far in the
direction of bringing art and metaphysics together.
On the other hand, it is an undoubted fact that, historically, the re-
lationship between metaphysics and art has been closer than that be-
tween art and science, and that, in any era, what is meant by, and what
is carried out in the name of, art, and what is meant by, and carried out
in the name of, metaphysics, attain some sort of unity. Doubtless, the
actual and profound links between metaphysics and art, particularly
poetry as spoken art, have a shared basis. Ve can point to similari-
ties between Ilatos philosophy and Sophocles tragedies; or between
the Sophists and Euripedes; or between St. Tomas mysticism and
Gothic art; or between Dante and St. Tomas; or between Descartes
and classical, French tragedy; or between Schelling and the Vc|toi| of
the romantic poets; or between Kant and Schiller. Tese metaphysical
and artistic interconnections, even at their most interesting, fruitful
and profound, are not an indication of deliberate subjective inuences
on one group by the other, whether poet on philosopher, or the other
way round, but are rather the inuence on oot| sets of practitioners
of the same objective Zcitgcist, independently of any particular indi-
vidual, and aecting all experience of the world through the same cat-
egories inherent in their shared Vc|torsc|ouurg metaphysicians and
artists alike. I regard this connection, between the two groups, as all
the more deeper and fertile, because it is, in itself, quite desirable that
artist and philosopher do not work with ideas which they have so-to-
speak borrowed from one another, but each, with his own materials,
and the rules of his trade, do their separate thing [in the same era].
No artist of the rst order has worked to a philosophical programme,
and no great philosopher ever wanted only works of art to feature in
the way he spoke about philosophical concepts. Despite all this, there
exists a deliberate dependency, one on the other, which, in its most
obvious form, can be illustrated by the cases of St. Tomas and Dante,
Kant and Schiller, and Spinoza and Goethe.
Even the relationship between metaphysical systems and works of
art, which has often been pointed to, in support of their identity, has
an insucient basis in fact. Any similarity, anyway, only applies to
those metaphysical systems which I call closed e.g. Spinozas ||i|oso-
p|io or Schopenhauers Vor| os Vi|| or Rcprcscrtotior but these
are the very sorts of philosophy which I do not consider to be on the
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ,,
right track to get to grips with metaphysics. Te work of art is at rest
with itself, self-sucient, and a closed structure [and that is right].
But a closed philosophical system, which is the one most similar to the
work of art, is a system which is not open to new experience, cannot
develop, and can only be accepted or rejected cr o|oc.
Te deep connection that we nd historically between metaphys-
ics and art has its ultimate basis in the fact that metaphysics, like art,
must be primarily directed at that in the happenstance of the world
whether inner or outer world which is only an embodied exemplar
of the realm of essences and ideas. Tis distinguishes what both have
in common from science, which ignores essences, and also distinguish-
es them from all practical considerations and technology. Te known
and recognized set-up and order of this world of essences is in unied
form by virtue of the stage that spirit has reached in any era, and this
is why art and metaphysics cannot but have some similarities, if they
are accessing the same stage of spiritual development.
Admittedly, only the rst component of metaphysical knowledge
the essential ontology of the world contributes to this connection
between metaphysics and art, not the second connection to do with
the contingent or accidental state of reality. In fact, this second com-
ponent is what concerns science, and, we have, therefore, a unity here
between metaphysics and science, from which art is completely shut
out. For art has no connection whatsoever with the accidental world
of reality, or indeed with any reality. It creates a new world of what
something is [circ rcuc Vc|t cs Soscirs], which is not in harmony with
a real world such as would produce a world of objects [circ Oojc|tcr-
uc|t], but is only a world in images [im Bi|c] an ideal, though not
a consciousness-immanent world and one guided by a certain sort
of values aesthetic values. Although it creates this world with real
means, what it creates the ort-work in the real work of art holds
sway in the sphere of purely ideal being.
Nevertheless, even in this ideal world, art must and this is its rst
objective rule perfectly meet the conditions demanded by the struc-
ture and connections of essences. Indeed, it must do this in a clearer,
more immediate, and purer way, than any exemplar of these essences
achieves in our actual, everyday world. Artistic truth is simultaneously
truer or falser than that of either philosophy or science. Te work of
art seems to want to have something to say from the far-o reaches
of the eternal basis of everything, without being capable of precisely
,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
saying what this is, or of penetrating the will of God on the matter.
In other words, it is as if God is allowing it to say something that Ie
would have wanted to say, without letting on that Ie Iimself is the
sovereign of the world of essences. Terefore, although art is an objec-
tive exercise, it is not an arbitrary, boundless ow of fantasy, nor even
something constrained by contemporary taste. It is connected, in the
same way as metaphysics, to the core essences that govern our world,
and is not merely a set of subjective, functional laws to do with taste.
But whereas metaphysics is, in addition, connected to the real world,
and, in contrast to science, is focused on the absolute level of this, art
is not connected to this at all. Art rather creates a new world, and adds
its own brand of reality to it, which, unlike Gods ability to produce a
newly real world, is merely idealistic, albeit, just like the real world, a
version that is concretely intuitable.
Te relationship of the artist to the basis of everything is unique.
Ie transposes himself, as it were, without taking this to have any
temporal implications, into a position where the coming-to-be of the
world opens up for him, and he suspends the actual way in which the
rational, impenetrable will determines by at whether the existence
of things are this way or that, laying out only essences and ideas as
contributors to the world. Te artist manages all this by means of a
procedure which, in a philosophical context, we call the existential re-
duction [Doscirsrcu|tior], meaning the deliberate holding back of all
desire, in respect of which world is actually the one given to us. Te
result is a disinterested, apractical intuition of the bare what of the
essence of the world, a relationship originating from a pure contem-
plation of matters, and something which sets in train both philoso-
phers and artists shared activities. Once this profound alienation and
distancing from the actual accidental world has taken place, and the
ensuing nature of whatever is experienced becomes nothing less than a
love for what it has become, then the paths of artist and metaphysician
diverge. Te artist a little God then creates a world in miniature,
and in images through an active manipulation of real material, into
the sign language of qualities, the precise version of which depends on
whatever art he is practising. Te metaphysician, on the other hand,
turns back towards the real world, in order to know the levels of exis-
tence he has journeyed through, from the stage he reached, with the
artist, all the way back to the absolutely real. Tat [the consequences
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ,;
they both experience when they carry out the existential reduction] is
their meeting point, but it is also the point where they part company.
Vhat I have just said is already a gross simplication. For, before
their above-mentioned parting of the ways, there is already a profound
dierence in the way in which metaphysician and artist penetrate the
realm of the ur-essence and its interconnections, a dierence which
is evident in the intentional object ur-essence which each comes
across, as well as in the way they penetrate it. Each ur-essence is a
combination of urphenomenon and idea, the rst of the pair being
intuitable though not in the form of a sensory experience whereas
the second of the pair is non-intuitable. Te coincidence and comple-
menting of the two reveals the ur-essence of an object as self-given. In
itself it is simple, when considered from the point of view of its own
ideal being; its bipartite nature only comes to light when it is an crs
irtcrtioro|c [the entity the mind intends or focuses on]. Te metaphy-
sician approaches the essence from a perspective focusing on the ur-
p|cromcror or t|c ico, treating it as a limiting case [Grcrzjo||] in the
overall objective of his referential thinking. Vith the help of mediated
thinking, what the metaphysician wants is something that lies beyond
this mediated thinking something that is graspable in immciotc
thinking through ideas. It is thus connected with language or writing.
Te artist and the pleasure-seeking aesthete approach the ur-essence
solely from the side of the urphenomenon, whose idea-correlate, in
itself, they are indierent to. Tey carry out this exercise in an analytic
and synthetic way, by virtue of a re-constructive intuition [syrt|ctisc|-
roc|-|orstru|tivc Arsc|ouurg], or, in other words, having an immedi-
ate image of what is at stake. For the artist, even the urphenomenon
becomes, in the process whereby he arrives at his goal, a limiting case
the limiting case of his sensory intuition and active observation of
what has been intuited. As for language, the artist is not beholden to
this except in his role as poet. Ie can carry out his re-constructive
intuition, and his intuitable remaking of an urphenomenon, both for
the sake of others and for himself, with materials completely dierent
from language.
Vhat is essential about art whether poetry, sculpture, painting,
music, drawing, dance or song is the process of representation that
must accompany it. Tings stand with a representation which is
only the mental objectivization of the expression of the idea and emo-
tion of the artist in the same way as the intuiting of an urphenom-
,s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
enon or the thinking of an idea stand with respect to a living being
who perceives in a sensory way or who thinks with intelligence. For
this reason metaphysics and conceptual poetry are completely dier-
ent when it comes to their symbolic and communication functions. In
poetry, language functions as a means of representation, i.e. as a means
whereby the urphenomenon rst comes to givenness. In contrast, for
metaphysics, and indeed for cognition in general, language functions
in a normal way the more it is merely the grasping of some state of af-
fairs by intuition and thinking, i.e. a functional sign for what has been
shown and thought. It is not a creative process in which, at the end of
this, the urphenomenon comes to fruition. In poetry, for instance, lan-
guage is even the material from which the end-product is forged. It is
equivalent to marble, colour and light for sculpture and painting, and
to the world of sounds for music. Te poet represents in words. For
philosophy, however, language is either an object as in the philoso-
phy of language or only a rather unsatisfactory means for getting
to grips with the thoughts themselves, and the relationships between
thoughts that the practitioner seeks. In fact, because it is so unsatisfac-
tory, the philosopher even nds it better, to a certain extent, to supple-
ment everyday language with artistic terminology, a way of expressing
things that the poet knows nothing about and must not know.
A more profound distinction between art and metaphysics is the
very dierence in what each means by representation. Vhereas meta-
physics has its movement in the following direction concrete, in-
dividual structure to ur-essence, then to immediate showing of the
urphenomenon, coupled with the critical thought of the idea and
whereas it achieves in this process the systematic interconnections
of the realms of the urphenomenon and idea, and thereby the entire
world as an interweaving of eternal Logos, the artist has a completely
dierent approach. Te artist starts with the germ of a given urphe-
nomenon, exemplies the urphenomenon in a concrete form, and cre-
ates this as an ideal image. Ie illustrates all this by a representation of
what he had intuited. But it is not the systematic interconnections or
step-wise arrangements of the urphenomenon and idea that he wants
to give, but, in each work of art, he is concerned with only orc urphe-
nomenon. In fact, the artist even deliberately cuts through all referen-
tial threads which urphenomena possess in the contextual mass of es-
sences hence the closedness of a work of art and makes immanent
only the references which pertain to the particular urphenomenon he
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ,,
has chosen. Ie does not see the particular in the order of the world,
but rather the order of the world in the particular entity that he cre-
ates. Ie represents subjectively by virtue of his freedom from the
constraining inuence of the happenstance of the real what is, ob-
jectively, the urphenomenon itself, a representation, moreover, which
he strives to depict in the most perfect and pure sense.
And now to the chief matter of all. Ir the representational pro-
cess and oy virtuc oj the representational process itself of the ur-
phenomenon the artist penetrates concretely the full content of the
urphenomenon with his object, an object which at the beginning of
this process was only vague and inchoate, a phase which has been re-
ferred to as the artists conception. Ie then develops and opens out
the urphenomenon, moving on from this conceptual phase, through
the process of representative exemplication painting, constructing,
word-nding, etc. To the artist, the urphenomenon is therefore not
given at the beginning of the representational process in its full and
adequate exemplication, but it is rather the case that the representa-
tion is only an outer conveyance of the same entity in a sensory form,
or it is conveyed by means of some body of material: what he is aiming
at, however, is something he already had in mind. Te painter thus
sees with the end of the brush, and the drawer with the point where
his pencil touches the surface on which he is drawing. For this rea-
son, says Fiedler, even the art itself contains knowledge and cognition.
Moreover, this knowledge and cognition is not already there ocjorc the
representation, but becomes so in the course of the realization process,
and, as such, it is only attainable through this process, and in all its
uniqueness. Again, we see that art cannot be replaced by philosophy.
In fact, what the artist does is not just to tag on the urphenomenon
and the idea as an afterthought to the work of art graft them on to
it as it were but make them completely intuitable and represented.
Furthermore, the artist manages to make the intuitable content of the
work of art without any explicit programme as to what he is do-
ing, nor any commentary, nor any additional instructions completely
comprehensible to anyone looking at his work, just as if the complete
work of art were as normal as anything in the world is to any empirical
grasp of it. Only then is the urphenomenon or the idea completely
objectively complemented [by the idea or urphenomenon, respective-
ly], and not half-baked [as it would be if one without the other was
presented]. Vith all this in place, the work of art then says something
o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
to us, it addresses us; it does not merely give us something to think
about in the sense of setting up associative factors.
So far, in our delineation of the work of art, we have hardly spoken
a word about aesthetic values, or, indeed, the particularly unique posi-
tive aesthetic values, which we call the beautiful, and against which, on
one hand, we set the ugly as their negative correlate, and, on the other,
we recognize an assortment of other associated positive values, such
as the sublime. the charming, the dainty, the attractive, the delightful,
etc. Are these values completely without signicance for the work of
art. Is art which is certainly something to do with showing the ur-
phenomenon and the idea only cognition through representation. If
Fiedler were right, then there would indeed be a much deeper connec-
tion between metaphysics and art than I have deemed t to give here.
For one could say that the aesthetic values already realized in nature,
along with the mutual lawfulness which determines how they crop up
in this or that shape or form, are quite sucient for an artist to rep-
licate, without any need for invoking a philosophical theory of what
an artist is doing to be an artist, that I have set out here. But if this
[Fied lers opinion] were correct, then non-aesthetic values, aesthetical-
ly- compromised values, and even aesthetically-negative values, would
all be legitimate objects of an artists representational repertoire, in
addition to the specically positive values I maintain are at stake, and,
[more astoundingly] the same [sort of positive, decient and negative
values] would obtain for philosophy and metaphysics as well.
Vhat is correct about this thesis is only this: art is not only a rep-
resentation of the beautiful a view which earlier philosophies of art
maintained; this is because the beautiful is only a subset of aesthetic
values, and not the overriding characteristic of all positive, aesthetic
values. Tere are other positive aesthetic values, as well as negative
aesthetic values, which can just as well be perfectly represented. Vhat
I cannot associate myself with in the above thesis is that the aesthetic
values are only objects which mediate knowledge through represen-
tation. Tey are, if anything, signposts directing the selection and
composition of the representational forms of the objects, which are
eventually the representations. Moreover, I cannot accept, either, that
anything aesthetically value-free can be a possible object for art. To
be sure, aesthetic values are not restricted to art. Tere is, of course,
natural beauty or natural grace or natural decorativeness, along with
their opposites, and each of these can be found in the organic, inor-
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms +
ganic, psychic and spiritual realms. Even if metaphysics were accepted
as valid, and its aim understood as letting the objectively pre-given
essences and ideas in the actual world be the thoughts of an innite,
spiritual being, this natural, objective beauty, though independent
from our consciousness though it could be construed as a work of
art of this innite, spiritual being nevertheless has a completely dif-
ferent meaning from that of the works of art produced by humans,
which we rormo||y refer to as art. In the former [supposed works of
art] we must disregard reality to see them like this; in the latter [Art]
it comes about as an addition to [not a subtraction from] something
real, and that is the representation.
On the other hand, for philosophy and metaphysics, the aesthetic
values, in either nature or art, are only an object of cognition and true
judgement upon what is cognised, and are not guiding and direct-
ing, selection principles with respect to the urphenomenon and idea.
Metaphysics must be true. If the true world is additionally beautiful
and harmonious, or worthy of esteem, then this is a bonus. To as-
sume this from the outset, as the Iythagorans did, is to overstep the
mark by far. If, in addition, the ideas in a metaphysical corpus are fe-
licitously expressed, or the language well-chosen, then this is a second
bonus. Schopenhauers philosophy is well-written, but this does not
guarantee the truth of anything he wrote. Te artistic truth, however,
is completely dierent from the metaphysical version. Te work of art
must be aesthetically worthy or essentially true, but does not have
to be true in respect of the real; moreover, it must not be aesthetically
neutral. Metaphysics must not only be essentially true, but also true
in the sense of whether it measures up to the accidental reality; there
is no place for aesthetics in metaphysics. Te same applies for all sci-
ences, for example mathematics or theoretical physics. In contrast to
Ioincars all too Gallic comments about elegance in mathematics, I
recommend the down-to-earth German remark of Einsteins: the el-
egant I leave to my tailor. Tere are certainly many, perhaps an innite
number of, equally correct logical proofs for a proposition, but only in
the sense that you cor get from Cologne to Berlin via America or the
North Iole. Tere is no purely aesthetic value of beauty or harmony
which will tip the balance in favour of the best proof, of which, in my
opinion, there is only one, and this is anyway some minimal principle
of reason, similar to that which obtains in physics under the name of
the smallest eective route, discovered by Ilanck. Each mathematical
a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
region has, in addition to the laws of logic, its own essentially-linked
laws of an intuitive minimum of the manifold it covers, which then
give mathematical objects their ultimate truthfulness.
It is crucial that the work of art, from the outset, does not bring to
light all the realizable essences that there are in the world, but only
the aesthetically valuable ones. Ierhaps, for a more substantial spirit
than we humans are, all essences are aesthetically valuable. Ve hu-
mans, however, know aesthetically neutral ones, and they are certainly
not objects of art. Fiedler, however, fails to see this. Ie also fails to
understand that, on the subjective side of the process of representa-
tion, the sort of feelings and form induced by the aesthetic values are
not something that are being grasped by a spiritual gaze of our heart,
as it were, but are directing and leading us through the very on-going
artistic conception which gives rise to the representation of the urphe-
nomenon in the concrete artistic structure. For this reason, the soul
is the artistic history of the change in creative feelings of style, not of
taste, which, at most, develops from the created and enjoyed work of
art. And this changing pattern of feeling for style is primary, as op-
posed to technique, and material and sociological inuences.
Admittedly, the sense of style in its simplest form is not rst of
all a spiritual or reasoning function. It is in its elementary form already
eective in the natural perception of the world, and is responsible for
the realization of our sensory options if we can so name everything
which crops up before any stimulus or normal nerve pathway takes
such up. And these too are o|so aesthetically valuable. Our inner, law-
fully organized, drive-based attention also acts in an aesthetic way, in
that, out of our sensory options, it only realizes those whose partial
elements are good i.e. with a concise [prcgrort] form. For the spiri-
tually not drive-based aesthetic feelings this selection of concise
forms is only one element in their make-up. And all this is rst made
at least implicit in a work of art.
Finally, we come to the role of fantasy in metaphysics and art. Any-
one can tell straight away that metaphysics and art are in a dierent
league from science when it comes to fantasy, and that in art it is much
more signicant than in metaphysics. But what is fantasy. and what
is its relationship to our knowledge of the essences and to our knowl-
edge of what is accidentally real.
Ve humans have the peculiar ability to create objects, which, if we
do create these, must be deemed ctions, and, although they can have
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ,
no being other than an existentially-free whatness, which is, though
not exclusively so, immanent to consciousness, they are not unique to
any individual consciousness, because they can be identied through
a variety of acts other than consciousness, and are common to a va-
riety of other individuals. Number 3, Sleeping Beauty, and the god
Apollo as a collective ction of the ancient Greeks, are such ctions.
Fictions are therefore essentially consciousness-immanent, but are not
necessarily relative to any one individual or even to a psycho-physical
organism. Tey cor be either of these: for example, the hallucinated
object of a madman, which he only has once; or the content of a dream
by a dreamer while he is dreaming it. But, for example, the number
3 a mental ction although a ction, is neither relative to an in-
dividual nor to a collection of such, but supra-individual and supra-
psychophysical. Sleeping Beauty, on the other hand, is not relative to
an individual, but is relative to a collection of individuals.
Tis peculiar ability of humans is certainly a prouctivc activity,
and not a mere transformation or re-arrangement of perceptual or
representational contents, let alone an arbitrary matter. Association
psychology knows nothing of such productive imaginative powers
a concept which is specic to German philosophy. It knows only a
reproductive sort of fantasy, and would attribute any fantasy to this.
Iume, whose profound acumen makes him the leading light of sen-
sory associationism, posed a question which is quite pertinent to the
notion of productive imagination. Can a human being, he asked, who
has never experienced a certain colour for example, a particular nu-
ance of green bring this forth through his fantasy. or can he only
ever have ideas of something which he has already experienced as
an impression, which he then somehow copies. Tat we can imag-
ine things that do not exist golden mountains, diamond castles, the
Kingdom of Ieaven as by Mohammed is without question. But can
we imagine completely new elementary constituents of our conscious-
ness, such as green or red. Iume denies that this is possible. But he
never proved his case. Vhat we can denitely say on the matter is
only this: the human being, in general, cannot represent or fantasize
a colour which he has never experienced in the form of a sensation.
But this does not mean that he can only represent u|otcvcr he has
actually had a sensation of. It is, for example, quite possible to notice
something in a representational object of a representation that one
did not even notice in the perception belonging to it. Our natural per-
rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
ception is anyway always three-fold sensation + memory + fantasy.
Te primary representations and intuitively-derived images contain
all three, if not more components. Te pure observation of something
must rst be learned i.e. fantasy must be curbed.
Te activity of fantasy is in itself anyway neutral with respect to
ideas, essences, and even values. In fact, it is o|ir to ideas, value, truth,
falsehood, knowledge and deception, and is an ability of the vital soul.
It does not belong to spirit, and is the highest representative function
which the vital soul can bring to bear on things achieving a mix of
freedom, liveliness and versatility, which other functions of the vital
soul e.g. sensory perception and reproduction lack. Its goals can
be guided by the ideas and values of the spirit, and it can be aroused
by the drives, and, sometimes, in this latter case, be whipped up to
produce senseless and chaotic images. Generally, it is led to meaning-
ful images partly serving the spirit, and partly at the service of the
drives. Just because fantasy is neutral as to value, truth and knowledge,
this does not mean, as it is often taken to imply, that fantasy is hostile
to value, truth and knowledge. Te highest or lowest, the morally
best or the most depraved, and the truth or the falsehood of an
image of the world, can just as equally be a result of fantasy. Fantasy
has just as much a role to play in the lives of successful businessmen,
statesmen, generals, artists, scholars and scientists, as it has in those
of utopians and demagogues, and this applies to their successes and
to their embarrassing failures. Anyone who possesses only a meagre
capacity for fantasy is simple and insignicant in whatever good or
bad they do, and in their mistakes as well as what they do know of
anything. From a thousand projects of fantasy, only one is ever real-
ized. Even history is a work of partly realized utopias. Fantasy even
creates the objects of ideal sciences, such as mathematics, with the aid
of pure intuitively-derived matter, such as number or geometric form.
In astronomy, just as in physics, fantasy is at work; for example, it is
behind the model for the relationships and positions of positive and
negative electrons in the atom. Vhatever thought one has, be it a fun-
damental one, such as the coming together of intuition with ideation
to produce cognition of their respective co-incidental correlates, then
this too needs fantasy. Fantasy, therefore, does not necessarily lead to
deception and error, but can just as well serve our knowledge of what
is real, and even truth itself.
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ,
Now, to the role of fantasy in metaphysics and art. Because meta-
physics, which is knowledge of the real, and not simply an insight into
ideas, begins at the very point where possible direct and indirect sen-
sory experience come to an end, o|| its concrete intuitively-derived set-
tings-out not just some, as in science, which is only half rounded o
in the sensory perceptual givenness are works of fantasy. Te yawn-
ing gap between knowledge of essences and accidental experience i.e.
sensory experience is lled up or|y by fantasy. If we renounce the
presupposition that there can be an intuition of something which does
not correspond to the roturc of something real, than we see that it is
fantasy that mediates this [translation into the nature of ] something.
Te important role which fantasy plays in metaphysics makes meta-
physics again closer to art than art is to science. Tis might seem fur-
ther support for the theory that metaphysics is conceptual poetry, but
this is not a justied step. For the role which fantasy plays, with its
intrinsic neutrality towards true-false or evidence-deception distinc-
tions, in metaphysics and art, is completely dierent in the two disci-
plines. In the former metaphysics fantasy ought to lead to intuitive
knowledge of something which is transcendent to sensory perception;
in the latter art it should lead to the representation of an image of
an object ir a sensory, material form, which [normally, i.e. outside art]
only the essences the Logos represent.
If fantasy, as we are saying, is blind and neutral with respect to
true and false, beautiful and ugly, and other spiritual value-contrasts,
and is not something that actually belongs to that stratum of spiri-
tual existence which we call ethical-spiritual in nature, then nor does
it belong to the sensory-mechanistic stratum of the soul. Strange to
say, the most boundless, bursting, uncritical and confused in short,
unbridled fantasy, which occurs, for example, in the mad and de-
lirious, has nevertheless some goal. It may be that some simple drive
impulse is behind it hunger, thirst, sex or some more complicated
one, such as power, ambition or aggression. Tese changing impulses
each determine their own image, and provide the aim of the impulses.
But the same fantasy can be directed and steered by spirit and reason,
whereupon it is transformed into aesthetic or logico-constructive or
technico-constructive fantasy. Tese situations show that fantasy is
not merely image-producing fantasy, but can be fantasy for feeling or
striving making up the realm of wishing as opposed to willing, this
latter, in contrast to wishing, thereby belonging to the experience of I
o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
can. Ve can feel what we have never exactly experienced, and wish for
something that we have never personally known.
Te activity of fantasy has its place, therefore, in the vital sphere of
the living soul, and is amechanistic, though automatic, and goal-di-
rected. Vhat sets it going are determining tendencies, but never mere
associative, reproductive motives.
Te erroneous way in which association psychology treats fantasy
is shown up particularly by the fact that in the early psychic develop-
ment of a human, as an individual and as a group, fantasy activity is
at its height, although even here it is directed to some extent by our
spirit. From childhood and youth onwards, however, experience and
thoughtful assimilation of this, and, furthermore, because of the com-
ing up against the ineectiveness of pure wishing, there is a gradual
shrinking of the realm of wishing. Te philosophical school of positiv-
ism, which is poor in fantasy, and which is so prevalent these days, is,
in historical terms, an attendant phenomenon of an over-ripe civiliza-
tion. Te imagination of children, primitive peoples, and certain psy-
chopathological types, are, in the highest degree, fantastic, and there is
a continuous confusion between mere drive-fantasy and reality. But, as
every scientic observer knows, it is even dicult for an adult to dis-
tinguish the content of an observation from the accretion of fantasy,
and this applies to their theoretical reection on observations, as well.
In the same way, as [in the course of civilization] there is a transforma-
tion in the realm of striving from what was originally a will rain-
making, domination of Nature, indeed domination of Gods to a
wish, when the impracticability is experienced, so, in each individuals
old age what was once a will becomes a wish. Faced with thousands
of such established facts, sensualist psychology and theory of mind
would still have us believe that the purest and most primary way that
the soul functions is by linking up a stimulus with a corresponding
sensation, whereas, in actual fact, this is the most derived and [devel-
opmentally dilapidated] last way it ever occurs.
Vhat actually happens is that there is an original, prouctivc power
of imagination, in every living creature in possession of a higher, more
complicated, psychic structure, powerfully impelled by the drives of
the vital soul, but eventually considerably reduced in mature creatures
[humans] to a pure sensory perception, and this is subjected by the no-
etic acts of spirit to an increasing correction, critique and selection. In
the mature and optimal states of a human being it is not extinguished
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ;
or neutralized, but rather enters more and more into the service of
the spirit, whose reasoning will curbs the drive impulse, and steers it
towards serving its [Gcists] aims. Te aesthetic felt values of fantasy
are then placed in the service of artistic ends, and its images are taken
up by the asensual intuition and thought of metaphysical knowledge,
to provide an order with which one can grasp absolute reality itself.
Once the essential place of fantasy in the stratication of our spirit,
mind and soul is worked out, we have in our hand nothing less than a
criterion with which to pose the question, as to whether the very basis
of the world, and divine Being itself, might not be credited to fantasy
itself, or not.
xnrzrnvsrcs, scrnwcn, zwn
rnn wzrunzr vonrn-vrnv
Vith regard to the relationship that holds between metaphysics and
science, there are two extreme theoretical positions. Te rst is the
view, known as inductive metaphysics, as stated by Fechner, accord-
ing to which metaphysics is only an additional connecting up of the
results of the various individual sciences a quantitative elaboration
of their formulations, carried out with the same ways of thinking,
intuition and methods, and without a unique sort of knowledge of
its own. Tis position knows essentially nothing about the notion of
existential relativity and its various levels. A second theoretical posi-
tion which itself has several strands is engaged in a search for the
royal road to metaphysics, independently of any individual science. To
this approach belong Kants denition of a sort of o priori knowledge
based on pure concepts, intuitivism, all sorts of mystical metaphys-
ics, and adherents of dialectical and intellectually intuitive methods.
A third approach which I believe is required involves a fertile in-
tegration of three dierent sorts of knowledge: the philosophically-
achieved existence-free nature [Vosscir] of something, as an o priori
venture, equivalent, in our terms, to the ontology of essences of the
world [Vcscrsorto|ogic]; the results of the individual sciences them-
selves; and knowledge concerning the natural view of the world. In
my opinion, the philosophical and scientic components of this triad
must both start out from the natural view of the world, but their paths
must then radically diverge indeed oppose one another in order to
achieve what they are trying to achieve. Further, metaphysics is not just
s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
a quantitative elaboration of scientic formulations, but is, in Kants
words, to do with matters in themselves [Soc|cr or sic|], matters with
which science has absolutely nothing to do. Its objects and realities
lie on another existential level from those of science the absolute
existential level. On the other hand, the objects of science are exis-
tentially relative only to: a) possible direct or indirect perceptibility,
through sensory intuition, and, simultaneously, on practical alterabil-
ity of things; b) a spiritual entity tic to a vital, living organism which
gives understanding [\crstor] but not to a pure spiritual entity;
and c) their own actual interrelationships. Tis again is in contrast to
metaphysics, whose aim is to know the actual nature of reality which
does not show itself through any direct or indirect perception, nor has
anything to do with practical alterability of things, and nor does it
rest on a spiritual entity ottoc|c to a vital organism i.e. does not show
itself through understanding. In fact, metaphysics must uncover the
very forms of intuition and thought in which science interprets things,
in order to show what the origin of these is. Metaphysics itself is only
relative to a pure spiritual entity.
Metaphysics, in short, aims to reach a position where it can actually
ask: Iow is science possible.
For a start [despite what scientists might believe on this point] the
sort of reality applicable to, and the existential nature of, the natural
world-view cannot be explained through science itself. On the con-
trary, science takes as its starting point the very environment of the
human being that is meant by world-view. Vhat it can explain is only
the particular sensory contents of this environment, in terms of sen-
sory physiology and psychology. It is true that science goes beyond the
actual givenness of a humans environment, but this is in a direction
which alters what is real both in a microscropic and macroscopic
way such that sciences Vc|toi| is generally valid for all possible
creatures possessed of sensory organs, not just humans. Its Vc|toi|
remains existentially relative to a |ivirg crcoturc ir gcrcro| i.e. relative
to both spirit and life but not to any particular organized version of
life.
Again, this contrasts with the aim of philosophy, which is to make
the various existential forms of anything the subject of a formless
knowledge, a knowledge: 1) which concerns existentially absolute ob-
jects; and 2) whose relativity to a living creature is cancelled out. As an
illustration of the three approaches natural, scientic, metaphysical
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ,
consider how the sun can be an object of a natural Vc|torsc|ouurg,
can be the sun of astronomical investigation, and can be the sun as a
being-in-itself [Dirg or sic|].
Teoretical philosophy has its starting point, in respect of that com-
ponent of it which I refer to as an ontology of essences, not in the
world of science, but in the natural Vc|torsc|ouurg. It starts out by
studying the latters various existential forms, and the laws determin-
ing the givenness of these. It achieves this by the technique of cancel-
ling [Auj|courg] the existential status and element of reality in these
objects, in order to reveal how they look when shorn of this accidental,
existential status. In this new state they become what they essentially
are a coincidence of idea and urphenomenon. Vhat I am emphasiz-
ing here is only that the direction which the [metaphysical] technique
must lead us in this exercise, surpassing the natural world-view, is con-
trary to that adopted by science.
Each of the three world-views considered above natural, scientic,
metaphysical ontology of essences is uniquely linked to one sort of
knowledge, and this latter to its own set of values and demerits [Ur-
ucrtc].
If we now consider the merits [\orzugc] and demerits [Noc|tci|c]
of the three world-views natural, scientic, phenomenologically re-
duced world [i.e. ontology of essences] we shall see that metaphysics
itself integrates the merits of all three and evens out their demerits.
i w.ru.i wrrr.wscn.uuwc
In the rst place this is characterized by its insurmountability [Ur-
uocruir|ic||cit].
Its merits are ve-fold.
1) It gives a sense of reality which neither science nor philosophy
can match nor detract from. Ihenomenologically, we can still ask what
this reality is, and how it is given. It is certainly a specic sort of real-
ity, but the nave knower of this remains completely oblivious of its
one-among-many nature. Science, on the other hand, knows what is
general about it, but cannot account for its very specicity.
2) Te existential forms of the objects of the natural Vc|torsc|ou-
urg i.e. everything which is pre-given to human sensory perception
and independent of the humans sensory organs have their ultimate
basis in the absolute existence of things. In this sense the natural Vc|t-
,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
orsc|ouurg partakes of absolute knowledge, and even metaphysics
must take its cue from what this gives. But, metaphysics must look
into whether, and, if so, to what extent, there are regional dierences
in entities, and on what level of existential relativity these regions lie.
A scientic explanation of the forms of existence is impossible; it can
only provide their eidology [their general make-up] and their mutual
interdependencies, all the time ignoring their particular way of ap-
pearing in the natural world-view.
3. Te same goes for the spheres.
4. Te natural world-view gives adequate knowledge within the
boundaries of what is biological and practically valuable.
5. It gives qualities and their respective contrary qualities.
Its demerits are four-fold.
1. It gives inductive knowledge only.
2. Te entire content of this is objectively, existentially relative to the
psychophysical entity we know as a human being. Te entire content
will then disappear if we strike out this human being in the order of
things. It is therefore anthropocentric.
3. Te voids of absolute space and time, conceived of as indepen-
dently varying extents, are phantoms even artistic ctions.
4. Te natural world-view gives imperfect knowledge of reality, be-
cause it only gives that part of an intrinsically much wider realm of
qualities which directly aect our particular human sense. Science,
moreover, is csscrtio||y dierent, not just in degree, from the natural
world-view.
ii scivwcv
Its merits are that it provides a general thesis as to what reality is vis--
vis the natural world-view in more exact and more complete terms,
and independently of the human sensory organization. It broadens our
acquaintance of the world, through technological advances and experi-
ment, and does so in an indirect way by means of mediated thinking.
It thereby provides an index [Ircx] for all the possible experiences
that a human being might have of a sensory nature. Its world-picture
is conveyed by language [including mathematical symbols], and all
other ways of conveying sense or meaning are translated into language
of some sort. It only gives quantitative references to anything, and, in
fact, merely temporo-spatial co-incidences of appearances.
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ,+
It takes over the existential forms and spheres as they are in the
natural world-view, and then investigates the forms, not according
to any ontological ordering, but simply along the lines in which they
are given as naturally perceived things. So, for example, a substantive
entity [Suostorz] becomes an x and force becomes y, and this whole
formulation of things becomes the model for how any matter of fact
is dealt with. In respect of the spheres, the scientic ordering of these
[with the huge implication that the rst-mentioned cause the later] is:
dead living psychic spiritual/mental. As for causation itself, the
supposed sequences are: from simple to complex, from parts to whole,
and from what is empirically earlier to what is later.
Sciences demerits are as follows.
1) It takes for granted the phantoms of space and time.
2) It only explores the spatio-temporal co-incidences of the appear-
ances, and deliberately ignores their essence and the eective workings
of substances and forces. It is overall a rule-bound, functional relativ-
ism.
3) It derives all qualities from quantities, and all sorts of coming-
to-be from movement which it anyway regards as merely a change
in place.
4) It has no concern for anything that is not controllable by the pos-
sible movement of a living creature.
5) Te nature of life remains transcendent to it, and especially so
does the nature of mind or spirit.
6) Te nature of freedom whether an autonomous spontaneity
or a spiritual freedom makes no dierence it also by-passes, because
it only looks into what would happen if nothing free or spontaneous
were the case. Its methodology specically excludes any sense of won-
der and any free action by a person.
7) Its adequation to what there is is nil. It is pure symbolism.
iii owroiocv or vssvwcvs
Its merits are the fact that its knowledge is evident, adequate, opriori
and absolute. Tis goes for the knowledge that it seeks of inexperien-
cable reality.
Its demerits are that the knowledge which it gives is only of an exis-
tentially-free essence, even though it acknowledges that to each genu-
ine essence there belongs some extant entity. Its knowledge is achieved
,a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
by veering o in a completely dierent direction from that intrinsic to
the natural world-view.
vr.vnvsics .s .w iwrvc.riow or rnvsv rnvv
It is above all metaphysics role to integrate the merits of these three
Vc|toi|cr, while at the same time setting aside their defects.
Tat is why we assign the discipline of the metasciences a critical
and bridging role between science itself on the one hand and the lofti-
est problems of metaphysics itself the theory of the causes of every-
thing.
Te claim that we are putting forward here has been far too little ap-
preciated throughout the entire history of metaphysics. On the other
hand, there is hardly a major region of science, particularly when it
is still in its infancy, which has not claimed, or has been claimed by
others, to be itself a one-sided metaphysics. Te basic concept of such
a science is then taken for the very nature of absolute reality itself.
In fact, one can say that it is almost a law that each major scientic
advance has a tendency to accord its particular objective reality the
status of absolute reality, and to claim that its basic concepts are what
determines this reality. To give a few examples. Mathematics, espe-
cially the branch dealing with numbers, becomes, in the hands of the
Iythagorans, metaphysics itself. True things, so they say, are numbers.
Logic becomes metaphysics, in the case of Ilato, for whom indeed
dialectics and metaphysics co-incide hence the reication of ideas
as things. Aristotles metaphysics of matter and form which had the
most pervasive and long-lasting inuence on Vestern spiritual history
and on Arabic thought as well is a compromise between dynamic,
metaphysical logic and an elaborated biological thesis, with the end-
result a metaphysical conceptualisation of existence, whereby the en-
tire world including inorganic nature, as well as spirit, and God too
are made to conform to this bipartite formula of form or matter.
In fact the specic claims of the inorganic and the spiritual in this
respect were a closed book to Aristotle, and everything else was what
one can call a logicized biologism. Vhen, in the 16
th
and 17
th
Cen-
turies, through Leonardo, Galileo, Descartes, Iuygens and Newton,
mechanics, especially the dynamic sort, began its triumphant progress
through science, this was then hailed as an incursion into metaphys-
ics itself, and the absolutely real was deemed nothing other than the
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ,,
movement of very small particles. Materialism is only mechanics made
universally valid. In Britain, through empirical psychology, in the form
of association psychology, Berkeley, Iume and others, attempted to
ground the absolutely real in impressions, ideas and laws of associa-
tion. Te soul, bodily substance, everything in fact, were only constant
complexes of impressions. Causality was only a subjective constraint
brought about by habit to link an idea A with an idea B. Iume wanted
to explain the category of things through impressions and ideas and
to regard these things as absolute, which meant that he treated the
rules of association themselves as absolute. Tis further means that
he must have held psychic causality too to be absolute. Vhat the ge-
nial Scot did not realize was that in doing so he was also making the
laws of formal mechanics absolute too. On the Continent, in the 18
th

Century, there was a tendency to regard the objects of mathematics as
absolute objects oc|ir the brightness of our outer and inner experi-
ences, and to accord them the status of absolutely real, and to consider
what was absolutely real as comprising nothing more than something
mathematically simple, clear and all-pervasive. Tis was instead of see-
ing mathematical objects for what they actually are i.e. special sorts
of ctions, which we humans use to order and determine the perceiv-
able outer world by virtue of their forms and clear-cut laws. It was only
Kant at that time who realized that there was a distinction between
the mathematical method and metaphysics.
In the 19
th
Century after the Romantics had re-claimed the his-
tory of the spirit in their terms metaphysics became a completely
one-sided story of human inwardness, and, nally, in the case of Fichte
and Iegel, it became the metaphysics of history. Soon after, when the
Century was becoming highly capitalistic and realistic in character,
even though Germany itself was initially left behind in this trend,
along came someone Marx who proclaimed that economic his-
tory and the mundane aairs of humans were the critical factor in
the progress of the world, and that all art, religion and science were
epiphenomena of this economic history. Ten in the second half of
the 19
th
Century when biology took on a new lease of life, there then
arose a biological Vc|torsc|ouurg of a metaphysical sort, whereby the
dead world and spirit alike were deemed outgrowths of life itself, and
several thinkers Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bergson, Simmel, and
others, including Driesch to some extent set about trying to explain
life in terms of absolute reality itself. Ostwald, whose background was
, rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
in physical chemistry, took the concept of energy, which in the hands
of Meyer, Joule, Ielmholtz, Carnot and Clausius, had been given a
new signicance, and explained energy in terms of the absolutely real,
and then attempted to derive virtually everything matter, soul, spirit
and thoughts in terms of its form and changing forms.
It is at this point that this philosophy, which emphasizes its scientic
credentials, feels condent to simply deny philosophy and metaphys-
ics any autonomous status, despite the fact that scientic philosophy
itself is one-sided, even childish, in this pretence. In any case, everyone
has his or her own metaphysical outlook, whether they know this or
not, and it is a grotesque overstatement to make out that the partic-
ular science one is studying is t|c metaphysical, absolute, existential
region. But this sort of opinion is hardly surprising if one denies any
independent metaphysical method, and if one degrades philosophy to
the status of a mere science. Even to take the view that philosophy is
indeed not an auxiliary branch of science, but the queen of sciences or
it is nothing, is wrong-headed. Tis would be the case if philosophys
task were merely to elaborate on the results of science, or to take a
loftier view of science as a whole. But this is precisely how pseudophi-
losophy arises an anarchic set of claims for why one mans science
should be the absolutely real. One might just as well give credence to
a cobblers opinion as to why a particularly marvellous set of boots are
what is absolutely real. All this talk of scientic philosophy is nothing
but journalistic nonsense, and does not deserve serious consideration.
But setting aside these grotesque caricatures of pseudo-scientic
metaphysics thrown up in recent times by Marx, for example, as well
as by Ostwald we have to admit that even serious-minded, would-
be metaphysicians in the ancient past, as well as now, have had grave
misgivings and doubts about the possibility of metaphysics. Te very
fact that whenever a new breakthrough is made in the eld of science
that particular individual science is then elevated to be t|c metaphysi-
cal claim of all time, along with the fact that metaphysics throughout
its history has been dened in terms of the scientic domain [ever
encroaching], which it is not, simply encourage such profound scepti-
cism. Te radically sceptical question then arises as to whether meta-
physics will not always be condemned to frame its deliberations in
terms of some nitely circumscribed factual experience in the place of
absolute reality, or to at least need a basic concept of some such, in the
form of a reication [|ypostosicrcr] as Kant called it, in order to have
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ,,
any sense of Being-itself. Tis is certainly the position of relativistic
positivism, which wants to restrict itself to the laws governing what
actually appears, and therewith deny all metaphysics.
I myself do not believe that this radical scepticism is justied, if only
one could secure a clear metaphysical method, and if only one could
come up with a sort of cognition which were strictly independent from
the sort germane to the sciences. My own approach via an ontology
of essences should give the metaphysical investigator precisely the
exact theory of metaphysical cognition he has so far lacked.
For then, in my opinion, it should be obvious, despite the collective
scientic clamour to the contrary, that metaphysics reveals the entire
set of human self-experiences and world-experiences to lie at icrcrt
proximities or distances from absolute reality, and, that within their
very nature, there is an essential gradation among them in the extent
to which they are aected by the absolute realm for example, spirit,
life, inorganic [are dierentially aected in this respect].
In fact, I can go further. If there were one thing in the entire world,
that was not party to all possible essences, but was nevertheless party
to everything that was knowable in the form of essences and relation-
ships between them which were eective in this thing and which this
thing had in itself in other words, a thing in which all essences of
this world came together at the same time then this thing would be
truly exceptional. It would be something with an irreplaceable signi-
cance for metaphysics, and of the very rst rank among all objects that
metaphysics has to deal with.
I have already indicated earlier that there is such a thing. Tis thing
is the human being. Te determination of its essence and its origin is
then the critical question for metaphysics, as everything else meets up
in this very thing. It is actually ir everything, in an essential sense a
microcosm, just as the old and profound concept put it. Te human
is in this way everything. It is numerate and numerable; it is equally
an example of mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, no-
ology, history and ethnology, and, in a certain sense, an example of
theology, insofar as something divine is inside it. Inside a human being
and on the surface of a human being one can not only study this hu-
man being, but everything else in the world as well, in all the spheres
and levels of being that exist metaphysically, and, moreover, from the
point of view of all essences and ideas that have ever been realized
and that includes all forms of nature and all forms of the soul. And
,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
this is not all: in a human being alone in him and on him we have
access to the most supreme nite joct that we know the form of the
being of a person and spirit. Metaphysical anthropology is the focal
point of the metasciences.
Moreover, we can show that the issue of the nature and the struc-
tural make-up of this thing the human being possesses at the very
least an heuristic priority above all other metaphysical questions, and,
if once its nature were clearly known, then not only the human being
itself, but the nature of all other things too, would be known. It is not
outside of yourself that the gate [to knowledge] lies, but inside you; it
is you yourself who bring forth what you seek. Dont think, moreover,
that I am not being serious. Te very core of human nature is in the
heart.
For this reason, the essential nature of what humans are [Vcscrsor-
t|ropo|ogic] is the most central point of the ontology of essences itself,
above all other eidetic disciplines, serving metaphysical knowledge.
Iaving given a boost to metaphysics in this way, and set in train a
programme for beginning to understand its relationship to religion,
mysticism, art, the natural Vc|torsc|ouurg, science and the ontology
of essences, as well as sketching out something of the method we pro-
pose to adopt, there still remains one introductory question to lay out:
Vhat is the relationship between metaphysical knowledge regarding
the nature of what is absolutely real and those sorts of knowledge
which we can call knowledge of values [Vcrtuisscr], axiology the
highest integrated synopsis of values ethics, aesthetics and the re-
maining value-sciences.
xnrzrnvsrcs zwn wovrnnon or vzruns,
nsrncrzrrv nrnrcs
First of all, there is no doubt that just as there is a meta-logic and a
meta-mathematics, there is also a meta-axiology and a meta-ethics,
and that these metasciences must have some signicance for the meta-
physical knowledge of the basis of the world.
Te basis of the world, or, from a dualistic or pluralistic perspective,
the bases of the world as its unity is itself a metaphysical problem,
and by no means a foregone conclusion has been intimately linked
with the sphere of values by all the greatest metaphysicians in history.
Ilatos highest idea was for him the idea of goodness, though admit-
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ,;
tedly he did subordinate it to something [even higher] which he called
ortos or [unchanging being or the really real], which was itself the Be-
ing of beings [Scir cs Scicrcr]. Te entire era of Vestern metaphys-
ics, which has been most powerfully inuenced by Ilato and Aristotle,
has clung on to this central Greek notion that something that is [any-
thing at all] is also good [ouc| gut] i.e. it is good simply because it
is and [looked at from the viewpoint of what is good] the highest
sort of goodness is that something simply is, or [alternatively] that a
being in itself and through its being a being is by this very fact good.
Tis thesis exemplies [in metaphysical terms] the most intimate link
between axiology [the study of value] and metaphysics [the study of
what is real] that there could possibly be. Every being is good [omrc
crs cst oorum], as the Scholastics also maintained. Taking the meaning
of good as iridescent [sc|i||crrcr] is dubious, but it certainly had the
meaning of most perfect or most complete, with respect to its content
or nature for what it was. Consequently, the bad and the evil must be
of a non-positive sort of being mc or [non-being] or of a status
lacking in being stcrcsis [a state of privation].
By the standards of our contemporary, Vestern way of thinking,
these categories have become completely alien. Tey simply do not
correspond to the way the Logos has come down to us, and how we
understand it in our epoch. In fact, very few philosophers would un-
derstand it either, and those would be specialist historians of philoso-
phy. Many now would say that it meant that the most perfect beings
were the ones with the most perfect nature [i.e. beings are rank or-
dered, e.g. God higher than a speck of dust]. But this is not what it
means at all. It means something completely dierent. It means that in
a perfect being, the being is the participle of the verb [os |ortizip cs
\croums]. Te more perfect, the closer the being of some entity is to
the verb, not to some representation of its nature. Tis way of thinking
confused the ultimate grounding of all axiology with the theoretical
basis of metaphysics. It neither knew our own concept of value-free
being for example, science nor any sort of being which was neutral
in value, as opposed to positively and negatively valued, or higher and
lower valued beings. Tere are metaphysical systems, for example Bud-
dhas, whose point of departure is that being [of a doing nature, i.e.]
the verb is value-unfriendly [ucrtjcir|ic|] i.e. everything is bad,
if it is a realized entity. Schopenhauer, who went along with this, then
deemed good any activity which subverted this. Nevertheless, the vast
,s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
thrust of Vestern metaphysics, until the end of the Middle Ages, took
place under the axiomatic pre-supposition that: It is better that there
is something than that there is nothing. A metaphysical optimism lies
at the root of this metaphysics of Ancient and Medieval epochs.
Tis way of interpreting things supposes a simple connection be-
tween the axiology of the world and its existing entities. To be good,
in an ethical sense, means to be and to act in accordance with what
is. Making distinctions between values identifying so-called norms
also follows the same pattern: the most perfect and most realized
entities are those which are re-mirrored in the world as the image
of the Supreme Being as Aristotle thought. Spinoza, Leibniz and
Vol took the same view, even elevating its signicance. Spinoza, for
example, considered that the distinction between true and false could
only become apparent to us through gradations of adequacy and inad-
equacy of our ideas, and, in the same way, good and bad, or good and
evil, only became accessible to us in the course of our activities, or our
sense of power, or our sense of being able to do things. Iis thesis was
that it were better that everything possible were brought to light than
that nothing at all were brought forth.
In Leibniz case, this tendency is taken to peculiar lengths. In his
famous Irinciple of the better, according to which God has created
the ocst and most perfect of all possible worlds, the concept of good
changes to better, and is no longer linked to existential possibilities at
all. For, to the question as to which world is the best or most perfect,
he answers not like Spinoza, who says that it should be the one
which maintains the maximum of possibilities but that it should
contain the maximum of compossibilities [i.e. it should be maximally,
internally coherent.]
In Christian metaphysics, this categorical conation of goodness
and being is introduced by St. Augustine, who is concerned to coun-
ter the arguments of the Manichaeans who believed in the co-orig-
inality of good and evil and is keen to prove the original perfection
of Gods creation.
Despite the similarity of the basic views on this matter of Ilato, Ar-
istotle, St. Augustine, the Scholastics and the Iigh Scholastics, on the
one hand, and Spinoza, Leibniz and Vol, on the other hand, there
are a series of important dierences between the two groups. Tese
can be dealt with under two headings. In the rst group of metaphy-
sicians, all existing entities and not just those to do with life and
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ,,
reason are subject to an ongoing, goal-orientated activity [zic||ojtc
lotig|cit], the ultimate aim of which is Being-itself or God. In this
way, the value of anything lies in the extent to which it achieves its idea
and essential form. Moral goodness is a special case of this, because
the self-development is [subject to the vagaries of ] a creature with free
reasoning. Become who you are is the motto. But, in the case of
Spinoza, Leibniz and Vol, this element is omitted from their for-
mulation to the greatest extent by Leibniz. Te activity, movement
and alterations [deemed integral to the process by the rst group] are
no longer accorded any immanent role, and that is because all three
metaphysicians are immersed in the new mathematico-mechanistic
version of nature. Te only conditions which anything is subject to
now are mathematical laws, and these make no allowances for value,
goal or purpose. Vhat emerges with these metaphysicians is a situa-
tion where the concept of value with respect to good and bad is com-
pletely quantied.
Te second dierence between the two groups of metaphysicians is
that whereas the rst group recognizes a second dimension of dier-
ences between values in addition to their being positive or negative
the second grouping of metaphysicians do not: this dimension which
disappears in the second groups formulations is a ror| orcrirg of
values according to high and low. But even this rank ordering is, ac-
cording to comments by the Ancient and Medieval philosophers, one
which is based on dierences between the existential status of things,
namely on the dierences between somethings independence. From
pure matter, which has not yet got its own existential status, but is only
in a state of objective possibility; on to the realms of inorganic forms
and bodies central point of a mass at one end to crystalline structure
at the other; then organic living creatures, with all the numerous sorts
of plants and animals; right up to humans and their reason; culmi-
nating in angels and the Supreme Being Iimself; all these illustrate
the tremendous growth in independence and intrinsic generation of
extant entities. Te same older philosophers conceived of there being
a rank ordering of values and degrees of goodness to match these, an
order, however, which at times was out of kilter with the rank order of
independencies. For example the Devil is certainly evil, but in the rank
order of forms of being it was superior to the best of men. Neverthe-
less, the Supreme Being is the ultimate in goodness, because it is Bcirg
ir-or-jor-Itsc|j. And human beings, despite being free creatures, al-
oo rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
ready have within them a constant attachment to higher values which
they are responsible to. Te second group of philosophers, referred to
earlier, simply did not subscribe to this, because their adherence to a
mathematico-mechanistic model of everything does not allow it, as
this model levels out all rank ordering of values, and all discrete levels
of existential status, allowing [at most] a quantication of value dier-
ences. In this way, everything from a stone to a human becomes
increasingly similar and increasingly a non-independent member of
the universal mechanism.
If this trend were extrapolated to its logical conclusion, then exactly
what happened to qualities, purposes and forms, would apply to val-
ues. Tey are suojcctivizc, and attempts are then made to derive them
from pleasant or unpleasant experiences, or from desiring or detest-
ing states of an organism, or from some experience of I ought to do
such-and-such conditioned by an immanent law of practical reason
as Kant supposed. In such proposals, what is good is originally ei-
ther what occasions pleasure, or what is desired, or what ought to be.
But this boils down to the following: values have no more signicance
whatsoever for either science or metaphysics. All theoretical knowl-
edge must be value-free.
In fact, this conclusion is as unjustied with respect to values as it
is with respect to qualities. Te natural Vc|torsc|ouurg, for one thing,
makes all values appear as properties of things or psychic processes,
exactly as it does with qualities. Its anthropocentrism does not consist
in the fact that it does this, but in the particular selection of values
that it prefers. It simply gives preference to those values which appear
on goods which are important for the living processes of an organism,
or to those which lead into a particular practical activity. Even ethical
and aesthetic values only appear by virtue of the fact that the things
which carry them are useful or harmful. Science, then, achieves its
value-free object by abstracting from the objective existence of values
and from the value dierences inherent in beings. It treats and inves-
tigates the world as if no free and spontaneous acts ever occur. Vhy
does it do this. It does so because it does not possess the sense or aim
to give adequate knowledge about the absolute state and nature of the
world, but is only concerned with a symbolic, one-sided ordering of
all possible coincidental relationships of objects that might crop up in
space and time an order, moreover, which it makes possible in order
to control events through actions and technique. Further, in order to
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms o+
control the objective values of the world, it has to adopt the mental set
that all appearances are dependent variables of a universal and formal
mechanism. Tis follows, because or|y if the world is considered to be
similar to a mechanism is it amenable to being technically controlled
and mastered. Insofar as this does not apply, then all that is left for
the world is to be an object of contemplation. Te apparent value-free
nature of the world that emerges under these conditions is actually its
[articial] manipulation under the isolated inuence of orc value alone
[i.e. its supposed value-free status is nothing of the sort], precisely to
master it, and the value in question normally belongs in an objective
arrangement of other values, with a specic place in this arrangement
as part of the subdivision of values belonging to life [Lcocrsucrtcr].
Metaphysics sees its role as an elevation above both the natural and
the scientic world-views, a vantage point from which the whole range
of values can be seen in their proper objective character a vantage
point that restores the values to what they are before they are restrict-
ed by either the anthropomorphic or scientic constraints. It aims to
impart the very lay-out of a philosophical axiology incorporating
both an axiology and ontology of essences by means of an eidetic re-
duction. But even this axiology gives nothing ultimate. Tis is because
each value belongs to an existing entity even if we do not know to
which one it does belong. Metaphysics, indeed, seeks the absolute or-
der of anything good and bad i.e. seeks to know realized values, not
free-oating value-qualities. In fact, its nal task a thesis on the basis
of the world seeks both to know the absolute itself, and to know
the highest level of values that obtain there. Te various levels that
anything can exist on, or the various levels that something of good
value or bad can exist on, must correspond one to another, in fact
must correspond exactly, because ontically [actually] it is not a value
that founds anythings existence, but an existing entity that founds a
value. At this point in our deliberations we can reassert the truth of
what the Ancient and Medieval philosophers held about the value of a
things residing in its existence.
Vhat is still true in their collective views on the matter is:
1) it is not a value which founds an existing entity, but an existing
entity which underlies a value; and
2) there are discrete levels of value-modalities, e.g. pleasant and
useful as distinct from good [agathon] Aristotle.
oa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
But despite this, the whole set of metaphysical positions from Ila-
tos up to St. Tomas contain a profound error. Tis consists in the
logical consequence that one has to draw if everything in existence
is good. It is true that values rest on extant entities, but if the orcr
of values is made to rest on the degree of independence that an en-
tity has from anything else, and if the contrasting values of good and
bad are also derived from the mere status of somethings being extant,
then to conclude that everything is good is nothing more than an ana-
lytic proposition, which takes no account of the actual experience of
whether things are good or bad, or whether any examination of the
matter might show up some extant entities to be bad. One can even
say that metaphysical optimism becomes merely a bare denition, and
even that Gods all-goodness is nothing but a logical fact. Te actual
state of aairs is rather that although the extant entity is necessarily
the carrier of value, and is essentially imbued with value, whether we
humans nd positive or negative value there or not, the most one can
say is that everything is value-laden [omrc crs cst ocstimotivum], but
not that it is good just because it is there. It has a nature, whether good
or bad. Moreover, one cannot make out that the goal of the world or
the origin of this goal must be good, because it can always be asked
whether it is not simply bad. Still less can one assume, based on an ico
of purpose or totality, that this purpose or totality must be good. For
example, it can always be asked about pain whether it is good e.g. as
a way of helping preserve the total organism or bad.
Te situation is therefore that an extant entity must be irtrirsico|-
|y neutral as to whether it is valuable or valueless, and that there is
required a special experience as to its nature before we can establish
what any extant entitys nature, over and above [its extantness and
nature], is in the hierarchy of good things, and which positive or
negative value belongs to it. Tis must also apply to Bcirg-itsc|j the
basis of the world, which certainly carries the highest form of value
there is. But whether this value is good, or bad, or both, or ethically
blind in value demonic is a question which can only be decided
by inquiring into the essential nature and value structure of the world
itself. Otherwise, the world could turn out to be utterly bad, while
Bcirg-itsc|j remained utterly good.
Te value of an entity is ultimately just as basic a sort of being as is
the existence or the nature of an entity. If this is not recognized, then
values either become falsely subjectivized a form of scienticism
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms o,
or become the focus of a dogmatic optimism. Tis latter stance, which
supposes a maximum amount of good co-original with the creative
process, of which Leibniz version is the crassest, has two quite nefari-
ous consequences. First, the overestimation of good in the world kills
the sense and power of will and action to make the world better, inso-
far as anything can be altered. Secondly, with respect to matters which
cannot be altered, it kills by inducing an illusionary satisfaction with
the world the value and power of an attitude of resignation to the in-
evitability of certain things, along with a sense of pity at all the suer-
ing in the world [Mit|cicr cs Vc|t|cicr] which latter stance is the
only appropriate attitude to take towards unalterable evil. Obviously,
an overestimation of the actual evil in the world deadens the power of
action and will too, because it induces a false resignation to something
that may not be there, or may not be there eternally if certain actions
or guided development over the course of history were set in train to
overcome it. Vhoever views the world with rose-coloured spectacles
simply ignores the task of making it better. On the other hand, Marx
and the pragmatists do not see that some things both good and bad
are from a practical point of view unalterable.
But this is not the only error of the one-sided Ancient and Medieval
metaphysics emphasizing existence. As well as ignoring the thesis that
Bcirg-itsc|j is subdivided into the existence, nature or value of some-
thing and that all three are equal in metaphysical status and as well
as conceiving of value as a derivative of existence, with the further er-
ror of equating goodness with existence incidentally Buddha made
the same error in the opposite direction when he equated existence
with being bad another no less serious error was as follows.
Te issue involved is: In which intended act are values grasped, if
they are grasped. Te answer given by every single major school has
always been, and could not have been otherwise, given their overall
philosophical position, that they are grasped in an obscure, muddled
and implicit fashion, through perception, representation and thinking,
i.e. by means of the very classes of act, in which the nature of what
something is is grasped although each of the schools actually [and
erroneously] supposes that the existence of that something is grasped
in this way too. Te fact that our spirit and mind, according to the
very way it works, has the capacity for intentionally feeling something
at the highest level through preference of something and the setting
aside of something else, and through love and hate and that it pos-
o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
sesses its own irreplaceable organ to do just this grasp and arrange
the objective realm of value qualities was completely overlooked.
Furthermore, what was also ignored was the fact that our reason pos-
sesses just as much of a growing capacity to reveal feelings for the value
of things as it does an indispensable tool for understanding proposi-
tions and the like. It, therefore, has an order of the heart, or a logic of
the heart [in addition to, or ircpcrcrt|y oj, the propositional vari-
ety]. It is therefore a complete mistake when someone like Irzywara
supposes that feeling for values, preference, love, and hate, are nothing
more than implicit thinking or natural thinking. Tis is a reversion
to the previous outmoded theory that our feelings are merely obscure
and muddled inchoate versions [\orjormcr] of thought i.e. things,
which once developed, must fade away. But, in fact, just as red and
blue are not amenable to being grasped by our thinking alone, neither
are pleasant, unpleasant, etc. Tough, on this point, Descartes, Leib-
niz, Iobbes and others, did actually believe that red and blue were
only obscure and indistinct thoughts, or tendencies in this direction
which were physically linked with them. Tis theory is as false for
colours as the former is for values.
Te philosophers coming after the above-mentioned, right up till
now, completely overlooked the role of intentionality and the real
meaning of our emotional life, and, at most, referred to blind feeling-
states which were projected as value-free states of aairs. Overall, the
independence of emotions, and the fact that they cannot be resolved
into will or intellect, was not realized. Te faculty of evaluation was
considered a mixture of desire and judgement, or will and judgement,
and even love and hate were subordinated to our striving for some-
thing or against something. Te entire source of our experience of val-
ues, which is actually independent of the specic organization of the
bearer of this experience and that applies even for animals and God
was therefore overlooked. Te fact that values can o|so be thought
about as in conceptualisation of values or judgements about values
ojtcr they are felt, misled thinkers into assuming that they could be
thought about uit|out rst having felt them. A state of value-blind-
ness then became lack of judgement concerning values, and value-
deception became simply error.
Ve claim, however, that the experience of value is one of the most
fundamental experiences there is, that it stems from what one can call
the cognitive heart, that it grasps not only essential matters in the world
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms o,
but in God too, and that it provides certain [sic|crcs] metaphysical
data. Metaphysics has one material presupposition, one which results
from the axiology of essences and the accidental empirical knowledge
of values, and that is history, which is the chief showcase for the re-
alization of values over time. Tis does not mean that metaphysics
ought to give the mind and the heart a satisfactory world-view [bet-
ting them], in the sense that it should somehow interfere with them or
manipulate them in some way. Tis is nonsense. Vhat it means is that
the objective world of being portrayed by the heart the world of val-
ues and the heart as the means of grasping these values builds up a
sort of ultimate state of aairs for metaphysics, which it metaphysics
has to make understandable from the very basis of the world itself.
In fact, if values were able to be explained psychologically, they would
become without signicance for metaphysics. Metaphysics itself is
nothing to do with the heart, but a matter for understanding and rea-
son. But the hearts data, and everything which in the broadest sense
belongs to spirit including conscience, taste, style, and aesthetic and
religious feelings are irreplaceable, and cannot be recast in terms of
a metaphysical investigation.
Axiology, especially the eidetic variety, i.e. ethics, must therefore be
independent of metaphysics, and cannot as Fichte and Iegel sup-
posed be merely deduced from some metaphysical hypothesis.
Tere is yet another point which the one-sided, intellectual phase of
metaphysics completely missed. Tis concerns the ontological order of
an extant entity, its nature, and its value, and the totally dierent way
in which these three sorts of being are each given to us.
Because no-one recognized that the existence of something its
real being is transintelligible, whereas only the nature of something
is intelligible, it was supposed that not only the nature of some extant
entity which was accessible to us, or the existence of some particular
sort of thing, was able to be known, but even the very existence of
something hitherto unsuspected by our knowledge could be known.
And although it was correctly appreciated that the value of something
in or ortico| jrco|] scrsc is always only the value of some already ex-
isting entity whose nature is also already determined, it was rot ap-
preciated that, in terms of the order in which these are givcr, it is the
other way round i.e. value is given ocjorc the nature or existence of
anything is given and that we can only know u|ot something is, and
oo rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
t|ot it is, if that something is loved, hated, preferred or rejected i.e.
if it is felt.
Tis principle, that value is prior in its givenness to the other two
fundamental ways of being, a principle, moreover, that I have pro-
moted for years, and given evidence to this eect from every possible
angle, has been strangely misunderstood. It has been either taken as an
ontic priority [which I mentioned above], or as a priority in time itself,
rather than in the time ordering of certain given acts.
St. Augustines views on this, as interpreted by Irzywara, are that:
one cannot love something that one has no knowledge of whatsoever,
but love makes what one knows only slightly into something better
and completely known. If that is what St. Augustine did mean, then it
would be a complete contradiction of my views on the priority of the
act of love vis--vis that of cognition. In actual fact, I too admit that
empirically one cannot love something without knowing something
about the loved object, nor without there being some appreciation of
its existential status whether real, ctional or ideal.
Tere are only two ways in which we can sort out the relationship
between two acts of this nature [i.e. love and cognition]. One is by
establishing which precedes and which succeeds the other as St. Au-
gustine did. Te other way is the method I refer to as the limiting case
method [Grcrzjo||c], whereby one sees what if anything remains when
each of the two givennesses is [articially] taken out of the situation. If
indeed St. Augustine had said what Irzywara alleges he said, then he
[St. Augustine] and I would be at loggerheads about whether cogni-
tion or love precedes one another [St. Augustine favouring cognition, I
love]. But he did not say this, and therefore we are at one on the issue.
Vhat I dispute [and this is where both St. Augustine and myself have
been misinterpreted] is the time-ordering of both acts [as formulated
by Irzywara]. I do not say: rst love, then cognition; nor do I say: love
causes cognition. Vhat I do say is that both are simultaneous, as far as
one can place any measurement of time on them. Looking at the same
issue using the limiting case method, it is clear that one can perceive
or remember that something is or was pleasant or unpleasant without
knowing u|ot it is that is or was pleasant or unpleasant [i.e. a value
remains even if its cognized object has disappeared].
Furthermore, the primacy of the givenness of a value can be dem-
onstrated separately for all such situations i.e. perception, memory,
expectation, fantasy, intuition-free thinking, immediate idea-thinking,
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms o;
showing the urphenomenon of something, etc. It would therefore
seem that it is a strictly generalizable principle.
Te same holds good for the relationship between the appreciation
of the value of something and willing. Iere again the projection of a
value precedes the projection of an image, and therefore love or hate
precede both knowledge and willing, a principle that can be conrmed
by the results of developmental psychology: our understanding and
will in all matters to do with soul and spirit are rst dierentiated
from a primitive feeling-laden urge [Gcj||srorg], which itself is not
yet either sensation or striving.
From these considerations there follow several important principles.
First, axiology must not only be independently grounded from meta-
physics itself i.e. ethics cannot be based on the existence or nature
of God but the situation is rather that the prevailing value system
determines the structure of a metaphysical system. Secondly, it means
that there could be values in the sphere of absolute being whose nature
remains unknown to any particular individual capable of picking up
values. And thirdly, metaphysical knowledge must require a particular
emotional disposition on the part of any would-be metaphysician [be-
cause if values precede knowledge then the would-be metaphysician
must grasp the appropriate values before such knowledge can occur].
Furthermore, such a disposition is not just advantageous, but actually
necessary, for such an exercise.
Tis special requirement of a particular moral sort of being and at-
titude before metaphysical knowledge can be attained was well known
to Ilato, failed to impress St. Augustine, but inuenced Spinoza to a
great extent.
I myself have given a comprehensive account of such disposition in
my essay Or t|c Noturc oj ||i|osop|y. It is precisely what is involved
in the technique [of the phenomenological reduction], whereby the
element of reality the individuating principle is cancelled and the
[philosophical] objects [- the essences -] are revealed. It is, in the rst
place, a disposition towards a spiritual love for uncovering such es-
sences in all things, and the [thirst for such] knowledge is a dening
feature of a philosopher from Ilato onwards. In the second place, it
requires a humiliation of the self in the face of the pure beings them-
selves, and a propensity to seek out what is absolute in anything by
dint of sweeping aside all anthropocentric drives, and, furthermore,
all relative values and existential relativities, in particular those which
os rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
lead a scientist to seek control of whatever there is. Metaphysics is even
that sort of knowledge which surpasses the living part of us. Tirdly,
the appropriate emotion which best bets the would-be metaphysi-
cian is that of reverence, a state which facilitates the dim apprecia-
tion of the values of things whose cognitively-determined nature still
eludes us. Te central role played by emotion in all this gives the lie to
all those who propose that metaphysics can provide adequate and evi-
dent knowledge of the absolute. Fourthly, self-control over our drive-
impulses and over volitional behaviour in general disposes to: a) objec-
tization, and b) the cognition of essences. Fifthly, pure sympathetic
understanding [Noc|j||cr] is a condition for knowing all aspects of
the historical soul of the world.
Curiously, there are philosophers Vindelband and Rickert, for
example who subscribe to the theory, which, since Kants time, has
been called the primacy of practical reason over theoretical reason. I
myself was deceived by this residue of Kantianism at one time. I am
now of the opinion that it is as false as anything can be. It, and its as-
sociated axioms, can be formulated as follows. 1) Tere is a primacy of
practical attitudes in the scheme of things vis--vis theory. 2) Iractical
matters are what count; not love. 3) Teoretical knowledge, so far as
it occurs, is quite possible uit|out any moral disposition for this to
emerge. 4) Te appreciation of what we might call a supra-empirical
object rst takes place in the act of fullling a duty in the realization
of a pure ought [So||cr]. 5) Te existence of anything is nothing but
the correlate of a true judgement, namely an existential judgement, as
to what a mental act that I perform demands as its object. Tis means
that anythings existence is merely the X of what s|ou| be there. Both
its existence and its nature are derived from a sort of construed thought
of what ought to be, based on intuited material. 6) All cognition and
all knowledge of any kind is related to what is good for us, and their
value is only a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Tat all this is the complete opposite of the sort of disposition that I
set out earlier is clear. Kant restricted our knowledge to whatever con-
cerned our moral duty, and placed the latter itself in the metaphysical
absolute sphere. Ilato and Spinoza adopted the opposite stance, and
ascribed signicance to ethics only to the extent that it served pure
theory. Tis view on their part, concerning the relationship between
ethics and metaphysics, is also false because it is too one-sided. For
although an ethical attitude is both a form of asceticism and a dispo-
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms o,
sition towards attaining metaphysical knowledge, it is not just these.
It has its own value for facilitating our participation in Being-itself,
something which can only be achieved by co-executing our will and
Gods at the same time, without which any practical or ethical atti-
tudes on our part are incomplete.
If we turn to the actual state of aairs, we must refuse to accept the
absolute dualism between the value of something and its existence or
its nature, which was put forward during Ancient and Medieval times,
whereby an ideal value and validity were taken to be the highest sort of
being, and the existence and nature of a being were, in respect of this,
considered derived, subordinate sorts of being. Similarly, we deny any
claim whether Kants moderate one or Fichtes and Rickerts extreme
one to the eect that practical reason is primary vis--vis theoretical
reason. It is simply not an option to make out the existence of an ob-
ject to be a mere exercise in construing sensory material as something,
nor to make truth into a value and say that the existence of an object
is merely an armative proposition to this eect. Tis latter claim is
simply to confuse the existence of an object with its possible status as
an oojcctivc object. Truth is always the agreement between a meaning-
ful judgement and some particular state of aairs. Anyway, truth itself
is not a value; only the knowledge of truth can be a bearer of a value
for us. Truth is not something that determines an objects existence or
nature, however beautiful, good or pleasant that may seem. For this
reason, the expression value-metaphysics is nonsense, and so is the
idea of a transcendent region of values or truth, while, at the same
time, making out all existing things to be immanent to consciousness.
Setting aside other errors in the doctrine of so-called value-meta-
physics, its proponents fail to see that the ortic [actual] sequence of
foundations of the existence, nature and value of anything, one upon
the other, is completely reversed when it comes to the issue of how
they are givcr to us [i.e. octuo||y existence and nature precede value,
but uc grasp values rst before we can know anythings existence or
nature]. Te proponents of the above doctrine cannot see this because
they are wedded to the notion of cognitive idealism, whereby what
is absolute is simply a transcendent supra-individual consciousness,
a notion I was at pains to refute in my book Or t|c Ltcrro| ir Mor.
Tese adherents of value-metaphysics cannot see that the connections
between the existence, the nature and the value of something, obey
synthetic axioms which are completely independent of our inductive
;o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
experience of any of them, and that this excludes the possibility of
there being free-oating values lacking any attachment to an existing
thing but somehow linked with a transcendent object of knowledge.
Tey further assume quite uncritically a mechanistic and dynamic
view of nature something which is anyway outdated even in the eld
of physics and compound this error by accepting the outdated tenets
of association psychology, with the net result that, in their eyes, the
entire eld of empirical reality is dominated by a value-blind causality,
and there is no room for any essential connection between what is real
and what is of value, nor for any agent who is driven by values. Vhen
Max Veber, for example, wants to free science from any value-judge-
ments he is quite right. Science, strictly speaking, has only a technical
and practical signicance. It can never make pronouncements about its
own values or activities, but only set the scene for other conditions, e.g.
if you act like this or like that, or if you venerate this or that idol, then
this or that is likely to happen.
To expect science to come up with a theory of the order of values
is nonsense. But Max Vebers refusal to acknowledge the possibil-
ity of objective value-judgements in philosophy and metaphysics is
completely wrong. In fact, metaphysics assigns scicrcc its place in the
scheme of things, and any claim by science that the only things worth
knowing are those with a technical purpose precisely shows up its lim-
ited role as an adjunct to life.
Max Veber is also wrong with regard to his views on history as
the Italian philosopher Croce pointed out. Vhat is realized in the ma-
terial of history are values which we can come to know, not [as Veber
supposes] the imposed norms and values of the present generation
[an example of ] relativism. Ie is right about the causal factors in all
historical events being blind to purposes, except if human subjects are
involved. But even here he is only partially correct, because, although
drives are without purposc, they are not without oims or goo|s, and are
not blind as to values but only blind as to purposes. In fact they exert
an inuence on the intentions and purposes of individuals and groups,
and it is one of the objects of the philosophy of history to study just
such matters. Furthermore, as well as ignoring such subconscious and
collective factors with which history is steeped, he fails to see that
there is also a supraconscious spiritual direction through the agency of
the spirit of Being-itself. Even though the spiritual Godhead is not the
positive regent, director or steersman of history as it is in strict the-
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ;+
ism nevertheless it does exert an inuence, by virtue of an act of not
allowing everything to be excluded from happening which could hap-
pen according to the blind historical factors, but which now, because
of this act, can only happen if it the event does not clash with
the absolute system of rank ordering and laws of preferential quality,
dictated by the law that positive values are to be given precedence over
negative values, laws which we must represent to ourselves as emanat-
ing, as they do, from the hold that Gods love or hate has over us.
If we consider the Ancient and Medieval interdependencies of the
value, existence and nature of anything as unduly optimistic to be
interpreted psychologically as an expression of a youthful and arma-
tive life-force, a life instinct almost divorced from all logic and axiology
then we must further dub this way of thinking pantragical in nature.
Vhy. Because if the overriding principle of this philosophy were true,
genuinely true, not just words on paper i.e. that everything, irreal
or real, is only brought about by a completely value-blind causality,
with no contribution from an eternal and reasonable hand then it
doesnt matter a hoot whether good or bad, or moral goodness or evil,
comes into being or not. If one further subscribes to the view that
anything that exists is valueless, and that any value is adrift of anything
that exists, then this reinforces my view that this way of thinking is
pantragical. Anything that is valuable becomes so, completely by ac-
cident. Tat is what is false about this philosophy. For it denies the
axiom that everything is at least of value. Te only saving grace of this
philosophy in which some relative truth can be salvaged is its no-
tion that a positive value attaches to something purely because it ex-
ists. In this respect it rightly counters the irrational antithesis of this,
which is to say that everything which exists is bad. It is further wrong
in holding that metaphysics is a purely practical aair, and that science
is in any way theoretical.
If the thrust of this way of thinking i.e. that there is no connection
between the existence, the nature and the value of anything is then
joined to the thesis espoused by Rickert, Vindelband and Veber
i.e. that value s|ou| be stamped on things then we have a situation
where the only place that this could happen is in the juturc. Tis then
transforms the pantragical outlook into its complete opposite, and we
have the situation of a metaphysical value-utopia or a Messianic view.
According to this way of thinking, positive and higher values oug|t to
occur in the future. Te major incorporation of this into a historical
;a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
context is the Judaic notion of Messianism, whereby there is an eternal
coming of the Messiah and the Kingdom of God. Iere, the King-
dom of God is exclusively promised at each historical moment, out
o|uoys ir t|c juturc, a situation which sets up a spiritual realm of eter-
nal awaiting. You might well ask what would happen if this actually
came about. Ah: It would be something indeed: Tis way of think-
ing the eternal expectation of something good is accompanied by
a complete failure to heed anything which is good here and now. It is
a romantic notion, at root, a way of thinking which only recognizes
positive and higher values as occurring in some impossible fullment
of a longing for something that was in the past or in the distance
e.g. Ancient Greece, the Middle Ages. It is also a way of thinking one
can call futuristic and utopian, because its principal attitude to values,
which it holds as an opriori law, is that a sphere is better solely because
it comes later, a notion not dissimilar to the Romantics attitude to
love, which is to the eect that absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Te delusion of unlimited progress of mankind, which came to a halt
with the Great Var, had a similar origin, as do all epochs where es-
chatological hopes are prominent e.g. early Christianity, especially
Judaic Christianity prior to St. Iaul, the theological beliefs underly-
ing the Ieasants Vars, the expectation of a Tousand Year Kingdom
prevalent prior to the 11
th
Century, and even the Social Democratic
faith in a State of the Future.
It is self-evident to any thinker that the opposition of values con-
tained in good bad or good and evil cannot have the slightest bit to
do with whether they are realized in the past or the future. Tere may
well be certain sorts of values or modalities of values which are of
concern in such contexts. It is probably not incorrect to consider that
there is a change of vital values over time, and a growth of human
spiritual values over history, although we should restrict such consid-
erations to a dierentiation and integration of values, because the vital
higher organization or encephalization of such values is determined
by a [pre-existing] spirit itself. Tis re-organization opens up new av-
enues for spirit. It is utter nonsense to expect that the qualitative con-
trasts between good and bad or good and evil somehow become expe-
rienced as more marked, or that their equilibrium is altered, through
any such process o|orc.
A human being does not become more evil or better in the course
of history, because whether he is good or evil remains a free act of the
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ;,
person that he is, whose source is suprahistorical, and he adopts good
or evil intentions from a whole host of factors involving the make-up
of the circumstances and matter of his life. Good and evil have al-
ways been around, whatever the particular ethos, vital circumstances
or environment, which have obtained, and even if sometimes the same
action which is deemed evil in some epoch is now deemed good. It is
not in the action itself, let alone the consequences of an action, that
the seat of what we call good and evil lies: it is in the actual mental
disposition [totocrcitcr Gcsirrurg]. A law whereby there is a moral
progressivity in human aairs simply does not exist. Nor could there
be any, as long as there is freedom, the existence of which only sci-
ence, for its own practical purposes, ignores. Vhat there is, is an ever
increasing development of human aairs [Argc|cgcr|cit], in which
what good or evil is becomes ever clearer and ever more signicant for
the nal sense of the world. From Gods point of view epochs are all
immediate. Tey do not undergo self-mediatization. Each epoch and
each individual has characteristic determinations and goals. Indeed so
does each day. Tis call of the day is not something that anyone else
can heed [ist ric|t crsctz|ic|]. It does not obey general norms which
derive from generally applicable values. It is a matter for each persons
individual conscience and the rules they live by. It can be obeyed, or
it can pass by unheeded. Vhat happens in this respect depends on a
persons intuition and their freedom. Te developmental tendency of
history, which is always there, takes its course only when I or you act
rot as another with respect to this or that directional sense or value,
but when we take on the full weight of our free personhood. Te value
and sense of history do not lie in some original state of aairs as Ro-
manticism would have it nor in some end-state, but in the meaning-
ful cooperation across generations, epochs, peoples, races and cultural
groupings: in fact, bringing to fruition that which from all periods is to
the good and which promotes higher values. Iistory could have taken
an entirely dierent course from the one it did at each historical mo-
ment. Iistory is not the law of the world. Even the future of history
is not a foregone conclusion, given what has gone on beforehand. Iu-
manity can end up as a state of holiness or as complete villainy. Vhich
outcome ensues depends on how it is personally led, and this lead is
dependent on the extent to which the leading is in tune with the basis
of things [Grur cr Dirgc] or against them.
; rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Te Godhead makes itself felt, not just in either allowing or pre-
venting actions the means through which it steers the course of his-
tory, and through which it can avoid bad and evil or neutral events
happening but it also has a part to play in an epochs creative mo-
ment something which the Greeks called |oiros and in moulding
those abiding leading gures and iconic symbols of history, who then
inuence the leaders and trend-setters within each age itself.
Iistory is not something which sweeps everyone along. A man or
woman is not someone who is simply enveloped by history, but rather
someone who includes himself or herself in it. Te human being is
rather the mode in which all values are taken up, and history is only an
attribute of humans, albeit a necessary one.
In each era there are supra-historical, incidental [rcocr|istorisc|c],
and historically-inert [urtcr|istorisc|c] events going on. Metaphysical
knowledge, a prayer, or an act of love even if no-one notices them
are supra-historical matters, and no less a matter because they are
supra-historical. Anything which does not impinge on the overall
course of human things is rcocr|istorisc|c. My pure sensory pleasures
or pains, for example when a tooth is extracted, are urtcr|istorisc|c
matters, no less matters because they are historically-inert, but below
the threshold which is historically noteworthy. It is historically impor-
tant that Caesar or Napoleon, or indeed in our day Mayor Soundsa,
died. But whether they died of a fever or a heart attack is not a histori-
cal matter. Te sun at Austerlitz is a historical fact, because it inu-
enced the outcome of the battle, and therefore is still signicant today.
But although every dawn which breaks or dusk which falls on a simple
human dwelling is a fact, as is the mountain peak glistening at sun-
set a fact too, they are historically irrelevant. Even though knowledge,
beauty, hate, goodness or evil, are all connected with every single fact,
this does not turn them into a historical value either.
Vhat is the essence of a historical fact, then. It is a fact which is
both relevant in respect of a value or which also exerts some inu-
ence on the fate of some human grouping, in short, an eect on the
social person. Merely having a great eect does not turn a fact into a
historical fact. Te Japanese earthquake is nothing like the Great Var
in terms of being a historical fact. Consider the relative signicance of
the two slogans: No more earthquakes: No more war: But a historical
fact is not something which is merely relevant and ows from the act
of an individually free person, as Rickert thought. At the very least,
1 Q lc Lsscrtio| lcory lypo|ogy oj Mctop|ysico| Systcms ;,
history is something that always contains something good about it,
but it is party-politicking to think that history can be twisted to suit
whatever value good or bad one happens to hold. Te historian
must be opcr to values which he actually did not appreciate before
his studies. Tere are forms in which ethics, taste and thinking, occur
over time, which are historically relative; and judgements as to what
is good or evil, true or false, beautiful or ugly, must take these into
consideration. But these forms themselves must be measured against
what is given to the person as eternally true, good or bad, i.e. what is
given to the free, supra-historical and God-counselled person.
All specically philosophical disciplines concerning values must be
strictly independently grounded vis--vis metaphysics. Tey can never
be deduced from any metaphysical theory, for example as something
that is posited by the will, as Duns Scotus, Iobbes, Kant and Vundt
thought. Nevertheless they are just as signicant for metaphysics as
any other new sort of givennesses.
z
zwuscnrva ow v anronv
or anr coowrarvr zwn
ranonoroorczr zsvrcas
or razvnvsrcs vrrvrn zs
vosrarvr coowrarow:
nrsarwoursnrwo v vnrrosovnv
rno anosr or ovvowrwas
vnzr nrszrrnzns zwn rw vnrcn onnnn
vrrn rnn |czwcnrrzrrow orj
rnn nnzrrrv rzcron:
1. Because originally the vital act which gives us the fundamental sense
of reality gives this as a pre-givenness with respect to all other sorts of
givennesses for example, spatial and temporal manifolds, existing
entities and their form, the existence of anything itself, the value of
anything, and, particularly, what anything at all is and its interconnec-
tion with anything else and is denitely not given after these then
[if this vital act is considered cancelled] what is left is of a restricted
nature lessened in scope with respect to the fullness of what is
given.
2. Belonging to the sense of reality a sense that things simply are
given as they are there is a whole host of other fundamental sorts of
givennesses concerning the natural and scientic worlds, givennesses
which must also drop out if the sense of reality fails or, better put,
if the vital act which determines this sense of reality fails. Te loss of
such co-givennesses and post-givennesses, which are essentially linked
with the givenness of reality, have in common the eect of restricting
;s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
the fullness of what the human mind can achieve and conceive, name-
ly the appreciation of the range of chance happenings and accidental
beings-so of anything. In place of this, however, a human subject will
divert the released energy into the mental act of love, with the result
that, instead of anythings being accidentally so and so, the very es-
sence of anything will stream in to that subject, who, by virtue of hav-
ing a latent mental apparatus capable of appreciating the essence of
something, will begin to grasp the essential structure of the world.
A detailed exposition would show the strictly determined order in
which such matters disappear along with the sense of reality. Iere is a
provisional list of what and in which order such matters disappear.
i) Te rst casualty is the absence of any reective knowledge of, and
therefore consciousness of, the matters which have disappeared. For
as we shall see it is originally our suering of the resistance of the
world to our vital drive impulses, whose original undierentiated root
I call Lcocrsrorg [the urgency of life], which sets everything going
for us, including the very fact that one can be conscious of anything,
although this last is a mental act whose functional basis involves will
and attention. Nevertheless, everything stems from this original resis-
tance, and the original subjective experience of suering.
ii) Next, there is a disappearance of all qualifying reference points to
matters, leaving everything in the form of two basic sorts of being-so:
a generally pure manifold devoid of quantication or actual number;
and a pure interconnection of essences.
iii) In particular, there disappears all causal interconnections, be-
cause reality itself is the basis of all such causes. Te result of this is
that the rcucc world is a perfectly adynamic world nothing has
an eect on anything else any more. Vith the prevention thereby of
any eectiveness of things impinging on either lifes urges or subjective
will, which between them account for all ways in which activity can
be experienced, this in turn precludes all known interaction between
things themselves.
iv) Tere then disappears that which people have long falsely held
to be the principle of individuation it were better and more correct
to call it a principle of singularization which is anyway not a prin-
ciple of singularization, but merely an index; this index is space and
time, as an apparent void underlying things and events, thereby creat-
ing a sense of the here and now or background and gure. Further-
more, the function [vital act] which gives the primary experience of
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics ;,
the world as resistance, and the functions which provide an overview
of the uctuating changes in the attention guided by each drive, which
are the source of givenness of this void, are tightly bound together. [So
if the sense of reality is cancelled, so is the ctitious sense of an empty
vessel waiting to be lled.] Vhat then remains [in the rcuctior] is
a heterogeneous extension lacking magnitude and measurability
which changes with the qualities to which it belongs and in eect is
determined by these qualities. Temporal and spatial extension, as the
appearance of dynamically conditioned acts of what is itself extended,
are not yet dierentiated in this residuum. Of the two special forms
of separateness, namely next-to-one-another and after-one-another,
whose givennesses set in train the givenness of a ready-made void,
there is no trace whatsoever.
v) Reality is therefore prior in its givenness to any spatial or tempo-
ral manifold a principle, which, apart from his notion of the thing-
in-itself, even Kant correctly recognised, as did Spencer. And reality
itself not space and time, nor, as Iusserl seems to assume, time on
its own is the true principle of singularization : whereby an acciden-
tal being-such of something is determined by an accidental being-so,
and this means that the singularization which is the spatial-temporal
here-and-now is rst a consequence of the being-such of reality.
Tis makes it rst understandable that there is in space and time
something already conditioned, and that these two modes of things
are not merely arbitrary ways of altering the order of things, but rather
they allow a translation into the language of space and time of some-
thing already in absolute reality, a such-and-such which already be-
longs to the real. Kant, who denied that our mind could know anything
emanating from the realm of absolute reality, and who considered time
and space to be positive forms of intuitive knowledge, and who falsely
thought that things and events preceded time and space in the order of
givenness whereas, on this last point, they result from a negative sort
of looking away from what is given to us of the real in the form of re-
sistance because of his views on all these points can no longer derive
the actual order of conditioning which I regard as correct. Iis scheme
may serve the investigator of natural philosophy, but extension, and
certainly time and space, are not part of absolute reality.
If, however, it is real being itself, or, more correctly stated, the ex-
istence of anything itself, which is the original source of what can be
given through its eective resistance to us, then this itself must be the
so rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
principle of singularization. It therefore follows that with the fading
away of the reality factor [in the rcuctior] as a correlate of the two
centres Lcocrsrorg [lifes urgency] and will all that is left in the
form of a residuum are pure essences and their structural connections,
matters which are open to intuitive knowledge and which we call ideas
and forms.
vi) Vith this in mind we need to stress that what remains behind
[at the stage of the rcuctior we are considering here] is not, as in
Iusserls philosophy, the accidental such-and-such of objects, as in
his example of the apple tree in bloom. For all empirical-accidental
such-and-suchs are correlates not of intuitive knowledge of essences
but of bare observation, which is itself dependent on a pre-existing
intuitive knowledge of essences to direct and guide it, and is empirical
and accidental by virtue of the further fact that it is also dependent on
a co-given spatial and temporal lay-out for its very status as accidental.
So, if the givenness of reality is abolished, with it is also abolished the
whole realm of accidental such-and-such, leaving nothing but the pure
and typical essences of things behind, all of which are available for
intuitive knowledge and thought.
Iusserls specic mistake on this point, a Ilatonic one, is that he al-
ternates between two meanings of essence: sometimes treating it as an
ideal species an abstract object obtained through ideation; at other
times as an essence, but meaning by this an ideal existing entity above
and outside concretely given things, and even requiring a special sort
of mental technique for it to be grasped.
Te essence is however only the typical identical such-and-such con-
tent of the things themselves; it is certainly not derived each time from
its distribution in what exists, but is there before this distribution, as
an example already achieved and seen, in which form it is seen again in
conjunction with an appropriate event. Te same form, for example a
triangle, is really immanent [experienced as it is] in many triangles; the
self-same experience of what it is to be a human being accompanies
the factual experience of every human we meet. An idea is above all a
certain amount of particularity, in which form it realizes itself.
Iusserl does not want to allow this identical, immanent whatness
to inhabit many individuals, the reason being that he assumes that
such whatness simply cannot really be inherent in many individuals.
Setting aside the issue of the existence of anything necessarily stem-
ming from reality, he believes that everything is a chance consequence
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics s+
of being here and now. Tis is erroneous because the givenness of ex-
isting entities and the givenness of reality as well as existent entities
themselves and reality itself precede the givenness of time and space,
and the latter givenness simply confers the place of anything in the
overall scheme. Aristotle, not Ilato, was generally right in this respect,
in that he saw that a universal was present ir anything, even though
he made the nature of the essence of anything too closely linked to a
concept, jumped too readily to the conclusion that these were bound
to the dynamism of a living organism, and did not distinguish between
the genuine essence and an empirical concept. If, however, as Iusserl
assumes, or seems to assume, time were the principle of singulariza-
tion, then with the cancellation of the reality element the individual
nature of a chance occurrence e.g. the same particular redness of
something, the same nuance of it on several red spheres could not be
replicated. But a mental action and technique which renders the world
irreal, and cuts out temporal and spatial givennesses, would simply
make the notion of an ideal species over what was given, or the notion
of a special direction of gaze, redundant, as theoretical explanations
for how we achieve a universal. A perfectly carried out irrealization of
the extant world would both de-singularize it or enhance an essen-
tialization of it at the same time.
Certainly, there is a proviso to what we say. Ve are explicitly saying
only that if the reality of the world is envisaged as cancelled, then its
essential connections would be available to intuitive knowledge; or we
are saying that the world would then be a residuum of essential struc-
tures. Ve are not saying that such essential structures emerge auto-
matically. Knowledge as to the intuitive essence of something; an idea
of something which reaches us in immediate not discursive think-
ing; and the simultaneous conjunction of the two intuitively derived
essence or what I call the Urp|oromcr or idea which together
give us what I call the Urucscr [core-essence]; all these come about
through the irrealization of the givenness, in which case the essential
nature of the world stands out in all its purity. But such knowledge is
not yet complete. For this to happen, it requires a positive contribu-
tion from the mcrto| oct oj |ovc, which then ensures that essences and
ideas appear in their complete form, a process which only occurs if
the energies of Lcocrsrorg [urgency of life] and of the will are dis-
empowered.
sa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
vii) Tere then disappear sensory states. If the rcuctior, in my
sense, is perfectly thought through, there remains in the intuitively
derived sphere of knowledge or in its correlate, which I call the Bi|-
sp|orc [realm of images] only that remnant of the givenness of the
world which, with respect to the sensory features of the natural world,
is: a) completely independent of this; and b) pre-given to it, in the
form of non-sensory features such as essence, idea or Urp|oromcr.
And in the sphere of pure thinking or in its correlate which I call
the ror-irtuitivc Bccuturgsuc|t [the world of non-intuitive meaning]
what is wiped out is everything to do with the subjective access of
our discursive thought to the unities and subdivisions in which mat-
ters are conveyed to this sort of thinking e.g. propositions, concepts,
conclusions; nothing remains of this, nor of the versions of truth and
falsehood appropriate to this sort of thinking, whereas what does re-
main is an opposition-free sphere where the facts of any matter are
also free of the constraints of time and space and are available to oc
realized in existing things. Tis remnant forms a purely logical sphere
of meaning dimensions. Ve also call this sphere the sphere of ideas, in
sharp distinction to the objects of all merely empirical and accidental,
historically changing concepts, which, for their part, are actually under
the direction of idea-thinking, but are directed to the sensory given
material of existing matters and reality, which our subjective activity,
whether automatic or artistically based, works on. To describe this
state of aairs as applicable to the realm of ideas is a gross mistake,
already of Ilatos, and of Aristotles, and unfortunately of still many
philosophers today, Iusserl, for example. On the other hand, to deny
that the essence is part of each concrete whatness is no less serious a
mistake, and indeed is the greatest mistake of all nominalism.
viii) Qualities, values, forms of existence (categories), and quantity,
nally achieve in the rcucc and irreal givenness of the world an equal-
ly fundamentally altered status. Depending on the extent to which
the reality factor disappears, there then grows in meaningfulness an
ever intuitively given fullness of qualities. For that aspect of reality on
which the vital drive-based attention is directed is only those qualities
of existing things in reality which can act as signs for that subdivi-
sion of the multitude of things, properties, samenesses, similarities or
collective eectivenesses in this reality [which have a vital relevance
to that living organism]. Tis means, however, that they block o all
those potentially intuitively-knowable qualities which this system of
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics s,
signication [i.e. signication for us and me] nds dispensable [which
do not have a relevance for that living organism]. Tenceforth come,
so to speak, free-oating qualities [in a rcuctior which cancels out
the above vital relevancies]. Te quality of a things colour, a surfaces
colour, and an areas colour, are all such free-oating qualities. Even
here, there will be oscillations of the vital attention between real uni-
ties and those given as existing objects, both of which are given prior
to the bare quality. [Te rcuctior] leads via a movement process to a
situation where the appearance of qualities, as experienced by a liv-
ing individual in a time-based system, would become fuller in rich-
ness than in the natural world-view. For, as Iering has shown [in the
natural world-view], only those possible qualities which are of use to
an organism for distinguishing things, happenings, and causal conse-
quences of events, enter its awareness. Te same principle, which Katz
rst showed in the case of colours, applies to all modalities touch,
smell, hearing. Te order of matters is not yet denitely known, but, in
the case of colour, the precondition is an area, followed by a coloured
patch, and then the pure quo|io. Tis order, which is certainly the same
for all qualities which have been studied, has a direction which con-
forms to the rule that there is an increasing detachment of qualities
from the real world to which they were originally joined, a detachment
which is intensied in the rcuctior.
But there are still two other directions in which the rcuctior frees
up the qualities, so to speak. In the order of givennesses, reality and
existing entities things, activities not only precede the qualities,
but so do the unities of form precede them, in so far as qualities can
only become objects of knowledge in the natural world whether in
consciousness or subconsciousness if they are foundations for the
pre-intended form. Te rcuctior, to the extent that it succeeds, dis-
torts this by imposing a new limitation in the givenness of qualities,
to no lesser extent than the rcuctiors eect on existing reality, by, in
the present case, enforcing a uniform, so to speak, on matters. Forms,
whose whatness has been limited in this way, become, in the rcucc
world, independent objects and known through intuitive knowledge
and not sensory knowledge and each then exists as a one-o ver-
sion of a pure essence. Triangularity or a trochaic rhythm are always
the same whatness or form. Te nature of triangularity is not aected
one jot if things that were triangular become square as Lotze rea-
lised nor is the nature of red or green if red things become green.
s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Furthermore, all the drive-based, conditioned preferences among the
various qualities, some before others, a matter which cannot be elu-
cidated here, collapse in the rcuctior. Te fact, that, for example, the
[eventual] quo|io solid, liquid and gaseous qualities of touch are
given before visual and auditory qualities of the same stu, and are so
by virtue of their obtrusiveness for the vital drive attention system, is
completely abolished in the rcuctior. Such matters are rules of the
natural world-view, determined by the vital values which decide what
can possibly come into existence for a living being and be clothed in a
certain way. All this falls by the wayside in the rcuctior. Te natural
tendency in the natural world-view to prefer something good for life
as opposed to something bad a rule which applies equally in remem-
bering, perceiving and expecting is cancelled out too in the rcuctior,
and is replaced by complete indierence in this respect, a fact which
alters the preference for or against each stem of, for example, the pairs
fast/slow, warm/cold, bright/dark, small/big, little/much, active/
passive, etc. Also in the rcuctior there is a falling away of the tem-
poral and spatial perspectives determined by interest [i.e. what I am
interested in rormo||y looms large and near], perspectives which are
completely dierent from those presupposed by mathematical notions
of space and time.
Furthermore, the realm of meanings itself, whose subjective corre-
late is human thinking, is no less perspectival in character than the
contents of intuition, whose subjective correlate is intuition itself; even
science cannot completely overcome a perspectival view on matters,
and its perspective on the givenness of the noetic cosmos it investi-
gates is equally as original as the perspective of intuitive thinking, and
is certainly not a derivation of the latter, as most philosophers and
scientists alike assume. From amongst the myriad meanings of things,
our understanding extracts only that tiny fraction which is appropri-
ate to the cultural and historical norms of our natural world-view. For
example, as a European in 1922, the natural meaning of that black,
longish thing over there is umbrella: I have this meaning in a dierent
way from the thousands of statements that I can make about this um-
brella. Te meaning is given to me automatically in my intuitive think-
ing, certainly in complete contrast to a primitive Negro, who does not
know this meaning at all. In object agnosia this meaning can also be
lost to an adult European who once had it, without any accompanying
loss of the status of the object at the image level, or the various visual
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics s,
and tactile aspects of this image, a fact which all forms of rational-
ism can never explain. Te interest perspective at the meaning level
ensures that out of the myriad meanings in the natural world-view
only those which elicit the interest and value preferences of a thinking
subject are addressed. Useful plants and useful animals become sharp-
ly separated from other plants and animals by the rich vocabulary
concerning the former. Science manages to overcome racial, national,
professional and class dierences in ideology to achieve its noetic cos-
mos, but cannot overcome the general human vital interest perspec-
tive. It even surmounts all dierences ascribable to particular sensory
organizations in the animal kingdom, but never the constraints which
intuition imposes on the range of sensory awareness overall [ the
bounds of sense]. Te vital drive structure and its accompanying inter-
est perspective is the self-same root of both the perspective attached
to intuition or that attached to the realm of non-intuitive meanings,
and this remains so even in the course of the rcuctior, even though
other functions and avenues of meaning are opened up.
Finally, the rcuctior leads, in the measure to which it is successful,
to a four-fold blocking of the givenness of qualities achieved through
intuition. Tis aects and distorts the natural tendency in the follow-
ing four respects. a) First, it aects the spatial and temporal statistical
summation of the inconsistencies of events, which normally favours
the emergence of constant images and therefore simple objective
urqualities [e.g. red and blue, sour and sweet]. b) Secondly, it aects
the preference for regularity above all in any sort of happening; this
normal trend stems from seeing what benets there are in regularities
in the actual events which have a bearing on lifes needs as in the
expression voir pour prvoir. c) Tirdly, it aects the overall trend in
the natural view to interpret the world in quantitative terms. d) Tere
is a tendency, nally, other things being equal for the phenom-
enon of movement to be preferentially experienced at the expense of
an alteration in state in the normal state [e.g. a uctuating pattern of
shadows under a tree in the sun can be seen as the same shapes moving
or as shapes altering] this too is aected; there is a further normal
tendency for the alteration of one form to be preferred over complete
transformation of that form this too is aected; and, further for such
transformation to be preferred over a pure change in qualities this
is aected too.
so rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
In addition to all this, there are distortions to do with the eect of
the reduction on space and time.
A constant image in space which is inexplicable from a physical
point of view and is only explicable psychologically, or rather biologi-
cally, and is never a bare noema at an unconscious level, as Ielmholtz
thought is actually, in the normal state, for example, the inherent
colour of a visual object as distinct from the colour of the light illu-
minating it. Iowever, if the structure of solid things is undermined
in the reduction, at its very root, by removing the givenness of objects,
then this dierence between inherent colour and the colour of illumi-
nating rays is completely levelled out.
Te constancy of an image in time is given in the duration constants
of colours, shapes, and the apparent size of visual things. Tese ap-
pearances Jaensch has recently shown to be derived not through as-
sociations, or empirically through some value-indierent unconscious
inference, but to actually form the basis of these very associations and
any value-indierent conclusions. Te very notion of a so-called stim-
ulus X or Y as a real physical object is nonsense [see my Arocit ur
Lr|crrtris, in particular]. Tese time constants are in fact biologically
preferred rhythms which determine the facts that we choose: straight
lines as opposed to crooked, a circle rather than a polygon, and a regu-
lar polygon over an irregular one. Furthermore, these preferences have
in common the rule that qualities can only emerge into experience in
the natural world-view in so far as they themselves are appropriate
to the forms and founding relationships of things. Tis then has the
consequence that possible qualities with no such appropriate link with
forms and foundational relationships are simply suppressed. In the re-
duction all such preferences are null and void, and so qualities which
were suppressed can emerge into the daylight, so to speak.
nssnwcn, un-rnnwoxnwow zwn rnnz,
nvrnnwcn, nzrrowzrrsx zwn rwrurrrvrsx
Vhatever some entity is however simple and indivisible in itself
it breaks down into an image content and a meaning content, whose
reciprocal coincidence then provides the full concrete version of what
it is. If we now consider the intuitively derived image content to be the
genuine nature of something which we designate the ur-phenome-
non or ur-image [Ur-oi|] and consider the meaning content to be
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics s;
the genuine idea of something, then the unied coincidence of the two
makes up the very ur-essence [Urucscr|cit] of something. Tis ur-
essence precedes, in the order of things, all existing entities, all reality,
and even the accidental being-so of something as we intuit it through
our senses, along with the empirical concept of it that results; the ur-
essence is an aspect of Gods essence itself, making up part of the Su-
preme Being.
In that I maintain that we rst achieve the ultimate evidence of
something in the sense of being mentally illuminated as to what
something is through the reciprocal unity of the coincidence of the
intuitive correlate image, ur-phenomenon and the thought corre-
late the empirical meaning of the matter in question incorporated by
its idea and I consequently grasp this coincidence in consciousness
as subjective evidence, a process whereby an object comes to present
its intrinsic nature, my formulation of all this sets me apart from all
those thinkers, such as Ilato and Iusserl, whom we can designate as
predominately rationalist or intuitive in orientation.
A rationalist philosopher and this applies whether they are objec-
tive rationalists, like Ilato, Aristotle, and the Scholastics; or whether
they are subjective rationalists, like Kant, or, particularly so, the Mar-
burg School of Neo-Kantianism is characterized as follows. Ie or
she takes for granted that it is rst of all the t|oug|t of something
which gives to the unconditioned, formless and disordered stu [Hy|c]
or primary material, which is the intuited material, its objectivity, its
order, its bounds, and its form. A denite fact, for these philosophers,
rst becomes so through the possibility of agreement of the stu of the
intuited given uit| the purely ctional concept, which is, so to speak,
cut out of this stu. Vhoever, for example, would go along with Ilato,
Ielmholtz and Natorp, and maintain that the individual tree standing
before me is actually a conceptual object which directs the synthesis of
sensory appearances in a particular direction to make this object, an
object which maintains itself as it is across dierent intuited aspects
which can crop up, adhering to the same general concept of tree re-
gardless of what any individual tree might be, and whose concept rst
sets the boundaries of the non-being of the stu of sensory givenness,
that person is in this sense a rationalist. Te ramications of this way
of looking at things are extensive. For example, it pervades the modern
theory of knowledge, which, in conformity with modern science, has
shifted the notion of objectivity from types of things to rule-governed
ss rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
relationships as a central tenet, and indeed sees reality, and the very
existence of an object, as part of the lawful interconnections of na-
ture, and then relegates everything of an intuitively-derived nature to
a questionable or unjustiable claim against our reason. Vhat we nd
in this line of thought is precisely a one-sided correspondence of any-
thing intuitive uit| a rational version of the object.
Closely and essentially linked with this rationalist theory, we nd a
particular theory of what intuition is taken to be. Te intuitive given-
ness is rst of all deemed to be relative to the human make-up, and
therefore to have no validity for the nature of the thing in itself. Fur-
thermore, intuition is regarded as providing nothing which does not
derive from sensory data, or from some developmental product of
this. In other words, any pure intuitive sort of grasping of the nature
of something is basically beholden to an unproven sensualist theory. If
this last assumption were true then we would be correct to infer that
everything is only intuitive and humanly relative. It is, however, false if
any one of the following is true.
1. It is false, if intuition allows direct contact to be made outside of
ourselves with the nature of existing things.
2. It is false, if the essential givennesses provided by intuition are not
in the least bit derived from specic sensory material.
3. It is false, if the sensory phenomena, which all intuition in any
natural outlook on the world and which all scientic observation as-
sumes to be primary, are in fact secondary, and only occur as a special
or selective case, and that what is primarily given to intuition are forms
and structural unities as part of the milieu.
4 It is false, if the materialization of all intuitions of what is intuit-
able is not a purely receptive aair as Aristotle and Kant both as-
sume but is tied up with emotional and volitional factors, in other
words is drive-based; or, put another way, if not only is the principle
wrong that nothing can reach the irtc||cct that was not once in the
senses, but so is the claim that nothing can reach irtuitior that was not
once in the senses.
5. It is false, if, nally, it is not even in the intuitive grasping of what
something is that one arrives at what is primary or secondary i.e. it
is not purely intuitive or rational knowledge that counts but it is the
combination of the two opriori intuitive knowledge or opostcriori
sensory acquisition that make up evidence for something.
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics s,
If we could show that a free-functioning mind, released from its
dependency on the exigencies of life, takes its bearings, not only from
thought but equally originally from intuition, then the whole edice of
rationalism would come tumbling down.
Rationalism, however, not only owes its continuing inuence to a
false understanding of the meaning of things to be gleaned from in-
tuition, but also to a false over-estimation of the role of pure thinking
in the human enterprise. It is not intrinsically false that rationalism
should ascribe an overall role to thought in achieving a valid mea-
sure of what things are, or that it should maintain that only through
thought can there be a denite element of what something is, which
can never be gained through intuition alone. All this which nominal-
ism, pragmatism, and the intuitivism of Bergson and Iusserl under-
line is undoubtedly true. But rationalism and these oshoots fail
to see that thought and its correlate, the sphere of meaning, is, above
all, essentially divisible into, on the one hand, a human and sociologi-
cal component which is relatively reective and discursive as an act
or, on the other hand, a valid act in its own right, which grasps the
nature of something in an immediate fashion. In this way, intuition
and thought both break down into humanly relative or non-relative
factors, as do their respective correlates which provide a version of
what something is. Rationalists, in all eras, despite dierences in the
precise way in which they formulate matters, have no satisfactory an-
swer to the trail-blazing analyses of Emil Lask of a sphere of thinking
which he called the unnatural sphere [gc|rstc|tc Sp|orc]. Te ratio-
nalist simply assumes that there is only one sort of thinking subjec-
tive, mediated, reective, and discursive, and to which labels such as
conceptualization, judgement and inference are given, along with the
correlate of what they do. So, for example, in ancient and Scholastic
rationalism, a concept was taken to be a true form of something, or, in
recent times, a quantitative or rule-governed part of nature, whereas,
in fact, none of these versions is anything other than a humanly-rela-
tive ction. Finally, even Kants presuppositions, that intuition is only
a receptive faculty whereas thinking is spontaneous and creative, are
actually a false portrayal of their contributions to matters. Te rst
presupposition, involving intuition, brings Kant and Aristotle to-
gether; the second does not. According to Aristotles generally correct
teaching here, pure thinking is receptive and immediately so as is
Ilatos ideation and is not form-giving or shape-giving. But Aristotle
,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
assigns this purely receptive faculty a place which is not appropriate,
as his reication of a concept as an actual existing form clearly shows.
Te empirical concept, which, moreover, he fails to distinguish from
a general idea, is without doubt merely an artefact of human thought,
and what is receptive in this is only the grasping of the ideal formative
rules which apply. It is of no consequence whatsoever to the potential
meaning which lies within the world what we actually extract from
the objective and timeless meanings therein, nor how we do it for
example, whether we concentrate on cause rather than eect, or eect
rather than cause, or whether we home in on a concept, a judgement or
an inference, or even whether we approach matters by seeing positive
similarities or make negative comparisons. In fact, we can go further,
and say that the objective sphere of meaning runs its course indepen-
dently of our notions of true and false. Such a sphere stands outside
the opposition that true and false entail. Te rst condition before
anything can be deemed true is that there is an objective aliation
of each meaningful unity with a corresponding existing and pictorial
object. To this truth condition there corresponds no possible falsity.
Ve must already presuppose that this antithesis-free truth is rela-
tive to a potentially knowing subject, and then that only through the
cooperation of intuition and thought can knowledge occur. For in the
actual matter focused on there is no separation between meaning and
picture. To move from a material truth to a judgement as to some-
things being true is then the agreement between a judgement which
means here the relative part of a previously grasped extract of objec-
tive meaning or a particular pictorially-given and intuitively-derived
existent and that original truth. It is only at this point that falsehood
enters the situation in the form of a conict between a judgement and
this original truth. Tere can be neither a truth itself in the sphere of
world meaning ror controversy about truth as to whether judgement
conforms or not to the antithesis-free realm of meaning, both of which
rationalism maintains. Still less can there be a correct or an incorrect
version of a controversial issue solely in mediated thought which bears
the truth for the meaningful realm itself.
But just as we reject the rationalist formulation of these matters, so
we also reject any purely intuitivistic way of putting the issues, both
in the radical form that Bergson proposed, and in the less radical way
that Iusserl wrote about. Tese thinkers denied that any reciprocal
coming together of meaning and image, or idea and urphenomenon,
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics ,+
was at the root of the self-givenness of the nature of extra-mental ex-
isting entities. Tey denied this by demanding that for every meaning
there was intuitive evidence in the same way as Iume saw the need
for a sensation to underlie each idea, except that the former two had
got rid of Iumes sensualist doctrine. Tis alleviated the problem of
having to account for a shape with a thousand angles, which is obvi-
ously denable and the subject of a possible investigation, but which
cannot be intuited, and also the problems of getting to grips with our
distance from the moon or sun, or with the speed of light, etc. For a
pure intuitivistic theory has to admit that anything we humans grasp
about what anything is has to come from intuition. Such a theorist
then has to make do with only the simplest examples of original mean-
ings to prove their point that intuition is the core faculty for anything
to be known, to which mediated thinking might be applied as an elab-
orative faculty. Ve dispute this proposal.
Te actual situation with respect to the original meanings and ideas,
and for genuinely intuitively-derived essences i.e. urphenomena
and furthermore for connections of ideas and connection of essences,
is that there are a variety of sound critcrio as to how these come about.
Tese not only distinguish sharply between concept and idea, rule and
principle, or between a phenomenon that can be shown and the sen-
sorily observed fortuitous nature of something, or from inductively
summating temporo-spatial connections and essential bonds, but also
distinguish sharply between a thinkable idea and a showable urphe-
nomenon, and, moreover, between thinkable connections of ideas and
showable inter-connections of essences.
cnrrnnrow-rnnonv
I shall state the facts briey.
1. An idea is an unintuitable meaning, and is to be distinguished
from a concept because the former has a genuine shadow-correlate in
the world itself, whereas the latter does not. Further, an idea is that
whose meaning cannot be demonstrated by recourse to any hierarchi-
cal denition, and any attempt to do so necessarily leads to a circular
denition. An idea is necessarily involved when concepts themselves
are dened. Tis criterion holds good for sensation-free, pure con-
cepts, such as mathematically ideal and scientic ones. Vithin these
regions, however, there are concepts or ideas. For example, there is an
,a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
idea of a number or an idea of a group, and also a concept of a number
or a group.
In the case of non-formal and real meanings the following criterion
applies : they are ideas, if, regardless of how they come into psychic
being, any attempt to x what they are through abstracting from a
concrete existing object turns out to be a futile exercise, because the
very range or population of objects which they apply to is already pre-
supposed. Ve have regional ideas before us, but they are never actually
caught sight of themselves, for the reason that they are unintuitable
even though they may be immediately thought. Tey are objects of
reason [\crrurjts-Gcgcrstorc].
2. A genuine ideational connection or a principle of being [Scir-
sprirzip] in the context of the formal sciences is an objective meaning
relation in the judgemental form that if something is X then it is Y
if the attempt to deduce its propositional correlate from established
propositions inevitably gets entangled in a circular argument, for the
precise reason that each possible deduction on which the appropriate
theoretical subject matter for the ideational connection rests is already
assumed this holds for the axiom of mathematics, and the so-called
geometry of colours and sounds. In contrast, in the inductive real sci-
ences, an ideational connection is a principle, if, during an attempt,
either in the case of actual or ctitiously observed objects, to make an
induction, it becomes evident that the boundary of the surrounding
area of induction of the connection of ideas is already assumed.
Quantitative determinations, which always only represent approxi-
mations, can never comprise principles, in distinction to laws of na-
ture. Irinciples are also never derived one from another; they form
for each regional matter a reciprocally supporting and basic system.
At root this criterion is not essentially dierent from the one whose
discovery we owe to Kant, i.e. the one which he not entirely felici-
tously named a deduction from the basic principle of the possible
experience of objects. It would have been better to call it a reduction
instead of a deduction, and, instead of experience, to refer to it as per-
taining to regional experience. In this sense, there is, for each major
region of knowledge, a theoretical principle and this holds, not only
for all the varieties of natural sciences, but also for all the humanities
and for biology too.
3. An intuitable content of what anything is is a ur-phenomenon,
if, during an attempt to establish a real or ctional object through ob-
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics ,,
servation, whether it corresponds to this content or not, the intuitable
content i.e. the urphenomenon must have already been grasped
in order that the observation leads in the direction of the pertinent
objects. Observation, in contrast to perception, is a goaldirected
procedure, which never comes into the open as such, but is rather a
procedure of questioning, in the form : Is the object like this c =
x or like that c = y or is this something already assumed within
the object or not. But, if the givenness of the intuitable content has
already to be assumed in order to nd the pertinent object out of the
untold abundance of the world, then this content cannot be the con-
tent of observation. It must come to light at [or] the object itself, or,
alternatively, the something, whose nature ought to comply with the
already determined object, must precede the instalment of the obser-
vation as the phenomenon which directs and leads it. From this, the
ur-phenomenon can be precisely dened as the intuitable which is
never observed, but can only be shown in something else [crsc|out].
Te urphenemenon unites ctitious entities, phantoms and real rela-
tions between what is [Soscirsvcr|o|tc], and is just as much in evidence
and demonstrable in ctional entities and phantoms as in real things.
In formal sciences the urphenomenon corresponds exactly to an in-
tuitive minimum, which is the material basis of the relevant system of
propositions and theorems, and out of which the sort of entities we
know as ctitious objects of mathematics are produced. Te proposi-
tions and theorems are valid in an o priori manner for possible nature,
only because these intuitive minima precede, in the order of givenness,
all meaningful possible perceptual contents.
4. An intuitable ensemble of essences, nally, is a relation between
intuitable data A and B, if there can be no datum A without the other
datum B, however one actually or potentially through imagination
observes one without the other.
All opriori knowledges of ideas, urphenomena, interconnections of
ideas and ensembles of urphenomena although they are receptive
in themselves are, in relation to all experience through observation
and induction, and in relation to all possible mediated thinking, and
considering the innite nature of its thought processes, completely in-
dependent of the amount of experience. On the other hand, new re-
lationships between what things are, and new ideas and new essences,
can always be uncovered in the course of the history of knowledge.
, rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
As things stand, however, the ultimate guarantee of what anything
is, in terms of opriori knowledge, obtains in the reciprocal but uni-
ed co-incidence of both opriori regions the intuitively-determined
and the thought-based. It is above all in this coming together that
there is revealed the fact that there is something or someone opriori
to our world, which latter world then appears as contingent. Vhat is
revealed is that our intellectual intuition is intimately linked with the
intellectual intuition of an Lrs o sc. Furthermore, the contrast between
idea and essence is only a relative contrast, valid for a nite mentally-
endowed creature in possession of a life. Ve, as such, know ideas nei-
ther primarily in God as Malebranche thought nor primarily in
the world. In knowing them we simultaneously grasp the immanence
of God in the world or the world in God.
unrnnwoxnwow zs onrorwzr ronx
|tncrsanraj
1. Vhat we call urphenomena are intuitively known, formed objective
appearances, and connections between such, which must precede in
the order of givenness all possible observation and induction of any
functional and causal laws. For the various sciences, they are an ul-
timate presupposition. For metaphysics, they are a very window on
the absolute as Goethe and Iegel both realized. Tey are the phe-
nomena of metaphysics, and its way of understanding and explaining
anything. For example, there are urphenomena of colours and sounds,
along with their pure qualitative harmonic order; there are the basic
ideas of a plant, an animal and a human all of which rely on an ur-
phenomenon; there are the possible elements of chemistry.
Tese urphenomena, in unity with their idea correlate, make up the
essence of something. Te ordering of all these amongst themselves
comprises the specic matter which metaphysics addresses, and must
be made understandable and explicable by this discipline.
Urphenomena are neutral with respect to the ideal-real and psychic-
physical modes of being.
2. Goethe imagined himself transported into the very source of the
coming-to-be of animals and plants, in the course of which he cap-
tured in his works the very type of this form. Ie projected himself
into the drive structure, whose objective manifestations of life are the
morphological organization of animals and plants and the way they
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics ,,
behave. Te productive phantasy of the life forces of nature and his
own productive phantasy must have come together for him to have
seen what he did. Ie had to re-create and re-discover the very struc-
ture of life.
Te urphenomenon is a wholly positive aair; it is not curtailed or
limited in any way, unlike the idea.
3. An intellectual intuition is available to the genius, who thereby
comes close to the living process which emerges as an eternal structure
from God himself. It is a unication of one and the other.
4. Te essence of something and its incidental nature are related
only by their mutual negation of the other i.e. the coming into being
of an essence of something wipes out its incidental happenstance. Tis
holds for actual entities themselves and for our knowledge of them.
Iowever, this only makes sense if the following are assumed to be
true:
a) reality itself is cognitively and metaphysically a willed aair;
b) there is an ordered abolition of the temporo-spatial and acciden-
tal being-so of anything as a precondition for the emergence of its es-
sence; and
c) without the co-operation of mind and life force, which is a meta-
physical fact, cognition itself cannot proceed.
From the perspective of the sphere of essences, everything in the
way of an accidental being-so of something appears in a negative light
as a modication of something whole in line with Spinozas prin-
ciple that all determinations of anything are negative.
But from the perspective of the sphere of the accidental nature of
anything, the essence too has a negative look about it, as if one had
dissected out some residue, and in this case the principle is still that
everything negative is a determination.
Te objects of both spheres, on the one hand, from that within
ourselves, as a knowing entity, which is responsible for bringing out
objectivity through an act and its correlative object, or, on the other
hand, the accidentally being-so state the whatness lack a common
identical subject i.e. there is no king but are rst allocated to each
other through this very situation that I have just described.
Te entity, as an essence, through its demarcation from other es-
sences, already presupposes the existence of anything and a life force,
but also presupposes the very existence of essences, in order to bestow
its particular range of possibilities on anything.
,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Tis itself only makes sense because we ourselves are only ever given
the concrete structures themselves os a product of idea and life force,
and therefore the pure essences can never apply to experiential struc-
tures, and, besides, what applies to the essences never applies alone
to the accidental way something is; on the other hand, each natural,
living thing is thereby capable of intention and movement towards
something which it could never have otherwise reached.
Te essence rules the appearances but does not control them. It is
the essence itself which itself appears in the appearances, the way in
which the appearances are grounded in the essence. If we take our
starting point on matters from the perspective of the essences, then
time merely seems to be a diminution of eternity.
If we take our base as the accidental ecacy of things, then eternity
is only a very long time [scmpitcrritos].
Metaphysically, this means putting oneself in the very eternal and
temporal production of nature and history, and treating everything
that |os become as re-produced or co-produced.
Speculation wants to treat everything according to its ideational
side; the Dionysian technique wants to consider everything as real.
5. Te negativity of the metaphysical method, as a specic negation,
corresponds exactly to the actual delimiting role that the mental prin-
ciple plays in the coming-to-be of the world.
6. First philosophy formal and material ontology is not meta-
physics; it is only its metaphysics rst presupposition. Its second
presupposition is the speculative perception, the co- and post-expe-
riencing of the life force and its consequent imagination, which sets
before us the nite images of what things are. Science is only a spring-
board in this endeavour.
7. Vhat metaphysics makes possible, in the nal analysis, as a meta-
physics of metaphysical knowledge, is the dual participation by human
beings in the being and ecacy of the Vorld-ground itself: on the one
hand, the substantial, but partial, identity of human mind with divine
mind, and, on the other hand, the human life drive with the divine
life force. Mind knows itself, and the essence knows itself, only in the
course of human knowledge. Before human beings and their knowl-
edge came on the scene, mind would have worked away in a knowing
way, but without it itself being aware of its knowing, i.e. its knowing
and knowledge were of an ecstatic sort. In analogous fashion, the life
force would have only had a capacity for feeling in the way an animal
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics ,;
does. In this respect, it would have only been a feelingful drive, as in
plants, that was in play. In humans, both mind and life-force interpen-
etrate in the unity of a consciousness.
8. Vhereas a scientic analysis only shows how one can think of
something as made in a logically simple fashion metaphysics wants
to get inside the actual world of God.
9. Vhat is the relationship between metaphysics and art.
10. Te exhibition of the essence as a condition of the knowing crea-
ture itself, itself as participation in the productive intuitive meaningful
lay-out of things, rst allows the very possibility of metaphysics, in
conjunction with the productive imaginative powers of the life-force.
Any inductive ndings, in terms of laws, rules and functional connec-
tions, are only an occasion of this. Metaphysics is the re-production of
the world out of its divine ground the world as a totality.
11. Metaphysics is knowledge of the world as a totality and deter-
mination of what meaning each preceding step, each appearance, each
force, and each expression of force, has in this entirety. It seeks to un-
derstand the world.
12. Intellectual intuition and intuitive understanding are only lim-
iting concepts of a mind, to which, according to its theoretical side,
thoughts and intuitions alike are intrinsic facts. An undierentiated
primitivity as Klages promotes is not its subject matter, the latter
being rather a reintegration of the highest dierentiations of all men-
tal and emotional forces.
13. Te pictorial images are not just examples of an idea. Otherwise,
how could they be good and bad examples. Vithout images of what
something is even ideas could not be such examples either. Te divine
mind is only a potency to bring forth ideas, not a realm where plans
are being hatched not a place where ideas exist before any actual
thing.
An empirical concept cannot contain a sign of something, which the
objects, which are its eld of application, have not in themselves some-
how already concretised. It may well be, on the other hand, that the
ideas provide an insight into how to build such concepts.
Even less does perception contain the urphenomenon. Even the per-
ceptual objects do not contain the urphenomenon.
Tere are neither: ideas prior to some matter; nor ideas ir some mat-
ter, if in is taken to mean that the things contain the idea, in the sense
of a content of a concept of a superordinate nature; nor are there ideas
,s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
supcrvcrirg or some matter, as a portrayal of how a matter might be
seen. Te only condition which applies in this respect is that of ideas
uit| matters equally originally and simultaneously.
Because the divine mind is only a potential to produce ideas, even
our knowledge of ideas must be an aair after the event, not a hav-
ing of the object; and not even a portrait. Te ideas are spontaneous-
ly brought forth and grasped simultaneously, but not as objects are
grasped, but grasped in humans in the course of their production.
14. An individual is a type, the more it allows the fullness of the
idea and the more it represents the wealth or the pregnancy of the
idea. Te type is therefore denitely an individual version and not a
generality of individuals.
15. Ilato, Aristotle, and the philosophers of the Middle Ages took
an empirical concept to be the idea; nominalism which was right
about empirical concepts on their own took ideas to be empirical
concepts.
16. Te immanent essence is denitely only an inadequate part of
the transcendent essence, the latter being a rounded totality.
17. An empirical concept is a concept whose content is bound to-
gether by a nite compass, which must be able to be dened by its po-
sition in a hierarchy of superordinates and subordinates. Te concrete
and individual objects have an exact position in this hierarchy which
coincides with what they are.
On the other hand, an idea of something is quintessentially a predi-
cate which can only function as a predicate if, in the series of deni-
tions A is B, B is C no denition of the second member can then
supplement its meaning above what is intrinsic in the predicated state-
ment.
18. Urphenomena and their connections, their structures, their ap-
propriate ideas and their connections, the ways they are, and the forms
in which they exist, all transfer their validity to the realm in which we
actually perceive them. It was an error by Kant to abandon the notion
that non-formal intuition is relevant to metaphysics, and to restrict
himself only to categories and ideas, and, furthermore, even to under-
mine these by deeming the categories to be merely subjective.
But even the postulates of existence, and real relationships between
all possible real entities, are translated into our own experience of re-
sistance, which gives us the experience of the real. Tere exists a for-
mal ontology of the real, which is independent of anything which is
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics ,,
valid for the accidental being-so and being-there of something which
is time- and place-bound. Te actual existence of anything is not re-
ducible to anything else.
19. Structure is a complex framework of individual forms, which
are themselves part-forms of a complete form which regulates their
being-so.
20. Meaning is then something which is to be gleaned from what-
ever something is in relationship to something else and to the entirety
of things.
21. Metaphysics is the process of jo||ouirg ir the footsteps of God,
and trovc||irg uit| Iim in the world as a whole.
22. Ve separate: a) the meaningful lay-out of all things as part of the
divine mind, which is the potential to bring this forth from the pure
essences; b) the essences and their inter-connections in any moment
of absolute time; c) the essences themselves, which become accessible
in the process of thinking an idea and grasping a urphenomenon; d)
the urphenomena and their interconnections; e) the types of anything;
f ) the forms of anything; g) the constancies of the contents of our
observation and individual rules, all of which contribute to the acci-
dental being-so of anything; h) empirical concepts and empirical rules;
i) pictorial images and their contribution to the accidental being-so of
anything; and j) perceptions, conclusions, judgements, rememberings
and expectations.
rovznns rnn
rnnwoxnworoorczr nnnucrrow
i. rvcnwv
1. Te cpoc| [or rcuctior] is not a question of the cancellation of an
existential judgment, but rather the switching o of the function in us
through which the factual reality element is given and happens to us.
Te judgment of reality is itself built on this givenness. Te relevant
function in the cases of the givenness of scientic and artistic reality is
the will and its accompanying active attention, whereas in the case of
the natural view of the world the function is drive-based Lcocrsrorg
[urgency of life] along with passive attention. Te sensory theory of
perception is not a true version of events in either case. Iusserls gen-
eral thesis is based on resistance to this urgency of life.
+oo rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
It is decisive for the correctness of our formulation that the follow-
ing are shown to have one and the same basis : a) reality and intercon-
nected causality; b) a spatial and temporal interpretation of the world
as a presupposition of the here and now; c) a foundation order of ref-
erences in contrast to absolute being; and d) the individuation of an
identical whatness in many discoverable and accidental instances.
But underlying them all is not the here and now or time, but real be-
ing itself. Real being is the being that oers resistance; it is being that
actually has an eect on something, and is a unity of eective causes.
2. Te switching o [of the function which renders the reality of the
world as given] will fail [to achieve the chain of events in the rcuctior],
despite the elevation of mental consciousness over will and drive, over
any considerations of a particular perspective on matters, and even
over the whole set of interlocking causes in the world, if what there
is is only a denite order of accidental facts conditioned by time and
space, such as Schopenhauer thought. [In addition, for the rcuctior to
succeed, what is necessary is that] each genuine essence is constituted
in reality. Moreover the fact that each genuine essence is real means
that it demands that there are primary and eternal causes under the
aegis of Gods will which determine all secondary causes in a time-
less way, the latter being merely the distribution of many realizations
of the same whatness in time and space. Vhat is explicable in all this
is that something is so here and now, and further that this something
here and now is such and such, i.e. it happens to be such and such;
what is not explicable is why there are such things in the rst place.
3. Vhereas the imposition of technical purposes on vital values has
the eect of leading to the categories of understanding and scientic
principles, by splitting up the function of intuitive thought into its
meaningful parts, the phenomenological rcuctior is an attempt : a)
to reverse this, and to restore the unity of meaning in a ruined world;
and b) to reinstate the unity of the intuitive mode of thinking. Te set-
ting of technical goals in life only has any sense within the volitionally
given sphere of reality.
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics +o+
ii. wn.r sors or wvw civvwwvssvs .v
vvv.ivn iw rnv vnvwovwoiocic.i vnucriow
1. All references to anything except the internal coherence of the
system of whatnesses are made immanent [i.e. gathered up into the
mind].
2. Qualities become richer, and the richer they become the more de-
tached they are from their function as signs indicating what real being
is, what things are, and what events are.
3. An identical whatness appears in many instances and in the tem-
poral conditioning of things. Tis is the [true] principle of the iden-
tity of indiscernibles. Empirical concepts and observed facts are to be
distinguished from ideas and essences. Only ideas and essences can be
identical; everything else is merely similar.
4. Te spatial-temporal void is to be distinguished from the pro-
cess whereby spatial and temporal references are gathered up into the
mind. In the latter situation, the same event occurring at a dierent
time becomes a dierent event, and the same objects in dierent places
become in the course of the rcuctior dierent from one another.
5. Te notion of generality in respect of reality in the two world-
views natural and scientic as opposed to any individual existing
entity disappears [in the rcuctior], so that universal and singular are
interchangeable, as are general and individual. Tis is because general
is an idea and essence rst of all in respect of the real; it is not in itself
anything.
6. Te direction towards absolute being is promoted at the expense
of everything which is existentially relative bar what is co-given with
absolute being.
7. Te ideal whatness and ideal essence of anything are not imma-
nent in absolute consciousness because a such-and-such which was
thrown up by real being is simply cancelled. Tere is rather an inten-
sication of the process whereby the mind develops a more adequate
version [of this real such-and-such, which, when perfect, I call] evi-
dence. [I describe these matters elsewhere in my works.]
8. It must be that it is only individual things determined by real be-
ing which are cancelled; the generality of thingness is not cancelled.
Tis follows because each genuine essence corresponds to a real ob-
ject with this essence, regardless of whether we, with our particular
+oa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
psychophysical organisation, can know anything about it or not. Real
being is still, however, the determination of objects. Vhich.
9. Tere is an abolition of the dierences between noemata [the ob-
jective correlates of consciousness], as these are only achieved through
the performance of a human act which somehow enters into the actual
qualities. [Vith the abandonment in the rcuctior of all existentially-
relative handles on things, and that includes human consciousness, all
the usual trappings of conscious experience go by the board].
10. Te rcuctior has nothing to do with a spontaneous judgment,
but concerns the very raw material which possible judgments rely on.
A situation is set up [in the rcuctior] in which neither the real world
is considered abolished nor is any judgment on this matter suspended;
what is struck out is the reality element, by virtue of a suspension of
that act which give us reality as givenness. Te rcuctior is probably
something which goes on ir consciousness, where it concerns a mir-
rored transformation of the actual being of the mind and the person
who is the functionary of the act of consciousness.
Something is happening both outside us or inside us in these acts
of consciousness, and the consciousness of these objects is merely a
sign of the objects.
Tis process entails a complete change in the person aected, as it
is a penetration by that persons environment into the world [of the
mind].
11. Te rcuctior enacts an essentialization of the world in the way
it is experienced, and transforms the world into an idea for the sake of
thought immediate thought.
12. Does the rcuctior result in a loss of anything. Indeed it does.
Tere is a loss of volitional practical references to the world, because
the world is now a cohesive structure of essences [without any rules as
to how an individual might use them]. Anything to do with the philo-
sophical position of realism is out of the question. For everything has
now to be seen in the light of an absolute world. Iusserls notion of
absolute consciousness is actually an admission that God exists. But it
is a God without a partner, i.e. a God with no will to create anything.
For Iusserl, the reality of the world is nothing more than the content
of an absolute consciousness.
13. Only love holds together the conscious act [which can produce
anything at will] and the vagaries of caprice [i.e. the chance that it
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics +o,
will produce complete nonsense] in some sort of unity [i.e. love keeps
consciousness on the track of what really is].
14. Te categorical forms become themselves material for my intu-
ition.
15. Tere is a shift in the status of my act of thinking [in the rcuc-
tior] whereby it becomes not an act of consciousness of whatever is
around, but an act within the realm of absolute being. Te sovereignty
of this act, previously mine, now becomes completely under the aegis
of God. It is not simply a matter of logic, nor of any abstraction from
the psychophysical unit of life which a human being also is, but rather
a breaking free by the mind of the subservience to the needs and exer-
cises and aims of life, in a direction which subserves mental exigencies
thinking, loving, contemplating and wishing, and all in the further-
ance of Gods aims. A simple disregard of everything that life and its
aims stand for is insucient to achieve the results of the rcuctior.
Such a procedure would have no bearing on the nature, direction, aim,
or enactment of the act [of rcuctior]. Te whole issue has to do with
an ascetic and practised overcoming of the usual givennesses which are
the way in which the world is granted to us when the human being is
considered a drive-centred organism. Iowever, when it is a question
of trying to isolate what the human being as a conscious entity is up
to, this is completely dierent from the human being as a vital entity.
Again, the rcuctior has nothing to do with ignoring reality, but is a
specic [thought experiment on the possible consequences of ] what
would happen if the reality element is deemed to be cancelled. Vhat
we are considering is not what would happen if a person were com-
pletely detached from life, but what would happen if the functional
bond linking them to life [in a specic way, i.e. the cancellation of the
givenness of reality] were severed.
16. Te natural, vital determinedness which is the correlate of our
natural world-view holds an analogous correspondence to technical
goal setting in the same way in which the artistic positive armation
of life does to mathematical physics.
17. Iusserls false teachings about the rcuctior completely distort
what the psychic is.
18. Iusserls I is pure, and hardly dierent from Kants notion of
transcendental apperception.
19. Te withdrawal of everything into essences is a return to the
original idea of Gods, before Ie freely created the world.
+o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
iii. ow rnv nvcoiwc i.wvwr or vrvvwcvs
1. Leibniz had already made such a claim by virtue of his basic prin-
ciple that a predicate is part of the subject. It is still a long way from
this to suggest that references are neither the product of referential
thinking nor absolutely indissociable givennesses, but are rather the
consequence and residuum of an ever partly suppressed content of our
intuitive thinking. For example, successive comparisons in size of the
lines a) and b) show that with bs thinning a sense of greater
than is bound to the experience if the smaller line a) comes rst. Te
a) and the b) are intrinsically bound together by an and, a binding
which falls under the essence size. Overall, however, what is changing
in this situation is an absolute content of a qualitative nature in the
sense that there is a decline in the fullness of the quality : size merely
functions as a foundation for a reference. [But in this very decline from
an absolute fullness, which, in its absolute fullness, would not be avail-
able as an experience to us humans] the possibility of the fullness does
become transintelligible, as in another example the co-registration
of same and similar.
Actually, the situation is that we are embedded in the natural view
of the world theoretically, ethically and aesthetically and can only
experience objects: a) in their referential determinations as resistance
to our drive-based requirements : and b) in their reciprocal referential
determinations as exit points for what we regard as biologically im-
portant in their interactions in the here and now. Because drive-based
attention determines the actual sensory content we experience, our
sensory functions are already part of the structures which determine
the importance of matters to ourselves.
Vhat is true is this : what is given at a higher stage of development
life, humanity as an intrinsic fullness A is only given at a lower
stage as a foundation of a reference. Te references are therefore prior
to what is being referred to in the order of foundation. Tis means that
the essence of a human being has nothing to do with what Lindworsky
called the ability to make reference to things, but [rather the opposite,
in that] it is the mental ability to allow something which originally
appears as a foundation for something else to be seen as a fullness in
its own right, in other words to make immanent [make mentally sub-
stantial or alive] what is rst of all given as a reference. A child takes
similar to mean the same and same to mean identical. Vhat for us
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics +o,
adults is a referential foundation e.g. ying is similar in the case of a
buttery and of a bird is for the child the self-same activity. Only the
loosening of the changing foundation of the rules of reference among
themselves, which they already possess as they are essences of deter-
mination, leads to thinking, even to inferential thinking.
Science makes absolute the rule of the natural world-view that ref-
erences precede foundations, and foundations precede the appearance
of some matter in its own intrinsic fullness. Tat is why it leads to
relativism, which, taken to its extremes, makes the actual things X,
Y and 7, transcendent and unintelligible. But it loses, on the other
hand, any link between these references and : a) an individual and its
needs; and b) the changing directions of the drives responsible for goal
setting. In place of these, all that remains is a form of reference which
is guided by a living organism and conscious will ir gcrcro|. Even the
various sorts of importance of the givenness of the drives are levelled
out in favour of a common denominator which is merely an [empty]
general importance overall. Tis means that the scientic world is a
rule-governed causal nexus where the only value in sight is what hap-
pens to be here and now [which is no value at all, or worse a travesty
of the meaning of value].
Te phenomenological approach to matters starts out from the
same base [as does the scientic], namely the natural world-view, but
then takes o in a direction which is the complete opposite of the sci-
entic. In that it switches o the urgency of life the root of all drives,
needs and vital attention it attempts, in the rst place, to reinstate
the intrinsic fullness of matters which have hitherto been attenuated
through their subservience to lifes drives. Secondly, it tries to trace the
very references back to their origin in the intrinsic meaningful coher-
ence of matters, that is to see how they look in their immanent form
[as gathered up in the mind] or in the form the Greeks referred to as
Logos. In this form they are held together in their coherence of es-
sences by the single binding and. For example, similarity, sameness,
etc. are in fact qualitative phenomena, in which form they are essences.
Te essence of the experience of sameness contains nothing quantita-
tive, as it would if it were of the nature of . more. Sameness is a
qualitative phenomenon, and that means that a perfectly rcucc world
would contain only pure dierences: everything therein would be non-
identical. Te relationship between such essences in this rcucc world
would be themselves essences as a logical order connecting them.
+oo rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Metaphysics is then that superordinate discipline which encompass-
es both the phenomenologically rcucc world and that of science.
In absolute being, then, all references to anything except that of non-
identity disappear, because any other reference is only a condition of
our oscillating attention which is then placed in a separateness which
we call time and spare.
But what does it mean to say that things have a reference to one
another independently of our mental grasp of this. It means that they
have a constitution which actually determines what reference can be in
a human mind. Te relationships between what is actually real cau-
sality, real goal-directed relationships are more real than anything
in the mind, as they are constellations of forces which are merely rep-
resented in the human mind. Te laws of nature are only human ver-
sions of such constellations, even though such original constellations
may well be part of Gods design for life.
As reality precedes all contents of perception in space and time in
the scheme of things, so is causality a more primordial eectiveness
than either : i) the spatial continuum; or ii) the immediate succession
of cause and eect. Kant was right: only through original causality
can there be an unequivocal order of objective consequences. Te true
situation is not that cause and eect is the regularity of succession as a
rule of our knowledge of matters, but is a true ontical principle of the
way reality is.
2. Iow qualities and the category of quantity look like in the phe-
nomenological approach is as follows. Quantity is essentially linked
with a being for which the following axiom holds good : identical
whatness can exist as multiple instances, whose multiplicity allows it
to exist in a variety of sizes. Tis sort of being calls for there to be
a fundamental separateness which itself is an identical essence, but
which then allows number, space, time and intensity to come into be-
ing. Because the reference to separateness disappears in the rcuctior,
so must any notion of quantity disappear as well. To think otherwise
would entail the fact that quantities are extant in the sphere of the
real [which is not true]. Te rcucc world contains only simple quali-
ties, which give rise to the appearance of quantity only through a sum-
marising and statistical treatment of them. Reality and quantity are
therefore volitionally related through the joint intermediaries of
drive and will. All magnitude must be explained within any theory
of knowledge by deriving it originally from spatial dimensions, and
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics +o;
from an ontic point of view from intensity. Te legitimacy of the ra-
tional treatment of long-short, fast-slow, large-small or strong-weak,
and, analogously black-white, quiet-noise, rest-movement, suering-
eecting or arising-passing away, etc. is always the same : one of the
contraries is struck out slow, short, little, black, rest, suering, etc.
Ve are the potential recipients of the givenness of the world in four
sorts of general ways:
i) as a natural world view, which can be absolute or historically rela-
tive, with various degrees of adequation and with versions which are
existentially-relative to dierent species, including the human one;
ii) as a result of the phenomenological rcuctior, where adequation
is perfect and hence evidence complete;
iii) in a scientic mode, which is generally valid and complete, but
existentially-relative to a living organism in general, and generally in-
adequate, even completely so; and
iv) metaphysics, which is adequate, existentially absolute, and a sort
of knowledge which is person-based, hypothetical and probable.
Metaphysics is a synthesis of the rst three sorts of world-view ac-
cording to a quite denitive method. Te phenomenologically rcucc
world, which is a combination of Logos or the essential structure of
intuition, yields the most basic facts of the world which are true ab-
solutely and for us humans. Each genuine essence corresponds to an
innite series of realities, of which only a certain part are directly in-
telligible to us. Tere is, in fact, an innite number of dead worlds, an
innite number of organic realms over even one life, and the same ap-
plies to the personal world. Tere are people, organisms, dead things,
etc. which remain completely unknown to us by whatever mode of
knowledge.
Science broadens our world picture along a quantitative and me-
chanical front, compared to what is covered by the natural world-view,
and then treats these forms as absolute building blocks of the world.
In metaphysics the aim is to portray the following matters. Iow
do we get a handle on the transintelligible realities, whether directly
here or indirectly so. Te natural world-view is reinstated along with
its relative form of things, but enriched on two counts: rst, through
the addition of an appreciation of the cohesive realm of essences: and,
secondly, through a development of the previously unacknowledged
component of scientic thought. [Te metaphysical contribution is]
+os rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
the fact that all quantitative elements correspond to unknown quali-
ties.
3. Identical whatness is the potential raw material for the appearance
of genuine essences in dierent instances of here-and-now objects. Be-
cause we deny that ideal objects have a specic being, but rather con-
tend that anything ideal is only a whatness, which is further only what
is ours to discover from the genuine essence, we now need to show to
what extent the phenomenological rcuctior, with its removal of the
reality element, can make even singular matters of fact [in English in
original] disappear os singular. Te purpose of such a demonstration
would be to clarify how the contents of identical whatnesses can be
given to us, and, how, as these contents are denitely not general in
themselves, they become so if they are referred back to singular reality
as in the examples triangle and human being.
Te answer lies in the nature of the interconnection of essences. As
only the real is concrete, then, if two or however many things have the
same form or the same colour, the very possibility of a multitude of
forms or colours can only occur through the intervention [or penetra-
tion] by some freely available complex of content deriving from the
essence [into the actual givenness of the reality element], and all this
independently of the role of time and space as [further] individuating
inuences.
4. Te phenomenological rcuctior is directed towards absolute be-
ing. Iusserl is right in that the phenomenological rcuctior leads to
absolute being, if what he meant by this was absolute whatness, but he
was wrong to claim that it led to absolute consciousness, and wrong to
say that it led to a sort of absolute existence ideal existence. Vhat,
however, is absolute being. It is being whose essence or existence
are one and the same thing. Vhat is absolute whatness. It is the genu-
ine essence of something which all existentially relative entities must
partake of.
Iow does the phenomenological rcuctior lead to absolute being
or absolute whatness. It does so because it disregards what whatness
specically means for the following sorts of entities: a) an Ego; b) a
human being and its social group; c) any kind of living being; and d)
any nite sort of being with a mind. Depending on the extent to which
this happens, the stage of being to which it leads becomes ever more
empty. But the stages themselves remain behind in all the spheres of
being as separate unities within these. For humans conserve the ves-
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics +o,
tiges of all the stages that they are [or were] : i) Ego; ii) human being
with its social group, national identity, culture adherences and gen-
eration characteristics; iii) living being; or iv) nite being in possession
of a mind. And it is towards being as a combination of whatness and
existence that any sort of knowledge and potentialities for knowledge
are directed. Vith all this to take into account is it then indeed an
emptier world that we nd ourselves in. Ve shall see in which order
the existential relativity dissolves.
Addendum. Solipsism, humanism as a natural world view, science,
metaphysics, philosophy, and religion, are not abolished [in the rcuc-
tior].
5. Concerning the rcuctior of the I, Iusserl says that the pure I
cannot be rcucc. Te pure I is an individual I, whereas I say that
the rcuctior of the existence of the I is quite possible. Vhat remains,
however, is the individual whatness, and, in particular, the intercon-
nection of whatnesses, so that Leibniz comment Cogitatur ergo est
[there is someone thinking therefore thinking exists] is all that is true
[See my lc Noturc oj Sympot|y].
6. Is the general thesis [of Iusserls] switched o or only his special
thesis. Because genuine essences are part of real being given in the
essence of resistance to the spontaneous activity of acts involved in
wanting, which comprise willing and attention it must therefore be
true that each genuine essence corresponds to an existence of some-
thing in general, and that means being real. Te that it is of the real
being of something in general remains therefore an atheoretical pre-
givenness. Only if this is so can something be taken away [in the rcuc-
tior].
7. a) Absolute consciousness never remains as a residuum [in the
rcuctior]. Only ideal whatness can remain, and that can be both im-
manent in consciousness and transcendent to it at the same time. It is
incorrect:
i) to consider whatness to be able to be duplicated as two existential
varieties;
ii) to maintain either of the two philosophical positions absolute
idealism and critical realism; and,
iii) to take up the position of agnosticism.
Vhat is then consciousness. It is rst of all knowledge of the broad-
er concept. Tere is no conscious knowledge of something in ecstatic
knowledge. Furthermore, there can be no overconscious knowledge of
++o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
something; but there can be unconscious knowledge of something, for
example 1 know that I know something, i.e. that it is in my sphere
of knowledge but I cant put my nger on precisely what. Tere is also
instinctual knowledge and reasoned knowledge.
Vhat is knowledge of something then, if A knows B. It is a rela-
tionship between one being and another being mct|cxis or participa-
tion whereby B remains unaltered by the occurrence of this relation-
ship whereas A now has part of Bs whatness. It is A that changes, not
B. B lights up in A. Secondarily, after an crs irtcrtioro|c [an intended
entity] is there, it is also the givenness of an intended act, for example
perception. In third place, it is the [new] subjective status of the one
who carries it out, hence arises self-consciousness or apperception.
Consciousness of something is then that which we call the approach-
ing relationship or accessibility between a human being and a thing.
Te following are to be distinguished: real being jrom whatness
this latter being divided into intelligible, and unintelligible but voli-
tionally, realisable being; three sorts of whatness intuitively achieved
whatness, meaningful whatness, and value-being; whatness jrom ob-
jectied being; and an object jrom the sphere in which it occurs.
b) Te knowledge of the transcendent ideas and essences must
therefore precede knowledge as to the ideas and essences which are
immanent in consciousness.
c) Te problem of the origin of consciousness of has to do with
pure consciousness being the limit of reection, and reection itself
rst occurs when there is inhibition.
All knowledge is directed towards the being of the thing known and
the possible real relations it has with other existing things.
Te problem is not: how does consciousness transcend itself. but
how does an existing thing become immanent in consciousness.
Tere are sorts of ideal participation which are not knowable to us.
For example, all being of an act is unobjectiable and therefore unin-
telligible being; it is only possible to be a co-executor. One of these
sorts [of unknowable participations] is the act of love. It acts as the
very determination of knowledge.
8. Te elevation of the forms of being the categories to the status
of special objects of pure thinking and pure intuition [occurs]. Tere
is also a cancellation of noetic dierentiation.
9. Concerning the eects of the rcuctior on the subjective side, the
following points can be made.
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics +++
a) Is the existence of God switched o. No, this is impossible. Te
existence of an Lrs o sc [the ultimate entity in itself ] rests on the
hardest evidence that there is.
b) But life; the biopsychic entity that we are; the carrying out of a
reective act on whatever is going on; and the I, as the consciousness
of matters by a person; all these can be switched o.
c) Tings appear as if part of an absolute mind, as if the act of know-
ing and thing known were one, even as if the whole situation were
proof of Gods existence.
d) It is not a question of any abstraction from anything, as Iusserl
thought. Tere is no actual substantial separation between anything.
Te whole situation is rather a functional elevation of consciousness.
iv. novs rnv vnucriow iv.n ro
.w .nsoiurv cowsciouswvss-
1. If the reality element is cancelled, this does not automatically lead
to everythings being gathered up into the mind. Identical whatness, or
the highest level of whatness, or genuine essences, or ideas, are given in
this situation. Because, however, the whatness of objects is denitely
partly extra-mental and partly in the mind, although the rcuctior does
not aect this general rule, it does enhance the possibility that each
whatness can be in the mind. Tere is anyway a close bond between
the mental act and its respective object and between the form of this
act and the form of the object, but this connection is not essentially
between something happening in consciousness and the noema the
object which the consciousness is conscious of but between a mental
act which is independent of any reective awareness of this act
and the object itself again, independently of how many noemata the
object may induce in consciousness. Te ontical relationship between
mind and objectiable being lies, therefore, prior to these, and is the
foundation of any conscious knowledge of matters or consciousness
and its noema.
2. More central to our theme, however, is the fact that, when life
and its here-now characteristics fail [in the rcuctior], the individual
centre at the root of the mind does not correspondingly fail. In fact,
the very opposite occurs: the rcuctior isolates and puries this mental
centre from its erstwhile links [with life, for example], and there is
now [in Iusserls terms, there is indeed] a pure I. Te rcucc world
++a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
is, therefore, a personal-individual world although part of Gods world
too. Between three people A, B and C [on whom the rcuctior
has been carried out] this new world of theirs is mutually incompre-
hensible because it is ontically dierent one from another; this is in
complete contrast to the generally valid [i.e. interpersonally compre-
hensible] environmental world. Te rcuctior leads, therefore, to ab-
solute being, but also to a multiplicity of individual worlds, which are
rst [i.e. only] united in the overall scheme of Gods world. Tis in
itself switches o the inuence of their status as a living animal with
its corresponding environment, and aects their status as a human
being as a whole. If we compare Iusserls views on this, we see that he
considered that the pure I could not be bracketed o and that each
ray of consciousness threw up a dierent being.
3. Iow does this switching o, cancellation, or abolition process,
happen.
a) Tat part of us called Lcio [the animality of us] is switched o,
and by a certain process it then becomes objectied, and what is ob-
jectied is all that which [as others have called it] is vital or soul-like
about us. Tis process is completely dierent from a merely logical
setting aside of these matters. It has much more to do with excluding
all inuence of our living self on the life of the mind not dissimilar
to the Indian technique of yoga. Te end-point and ideal aim of this
technique is to alter the relationship between mind and our animality,
namely that I, now, am a gcistigcr |crsor [a person with only mental,
intellectual or spiritual dimensions] and consider myself merely to
|ovc or posscss or omirotc my animality.
b) Te environment of my vital or animal self is abolished its very
structure, not just its formative capacity and hence any sort of object
which I might know through my intuitive mode of knowing. It is as
if we had been living [imprisoned] hitherto between walls, without
awareness of the walls, and suddenly see these walls, and then even see
what spheres of things lie beyond.
c) Tere is a switching o of our sense of cohesion with other hu-
man beings, at least in the sense that these are living beings like us. All
social conventions, even those which underlie our language and the
mutual understandings between people, are shut o [in the rcuctior],
and that includes all conventional expressions of our common inter-
personal situation. All preconceptions of a social or historical nature
are also swept aside in the elevation of all things mental.
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics ++,
d) Absolute Godliness as a positive revelation is denied the human
being [in the rcuctior]. But the idea of God remains, and, as essence
and existence of something of this essence are necessarily orc in this
realm, God cannot be put out of the question. In fact, God must be
switched on, not switched o [i.e. a Godliness will pervade all issues
in the rcucc world].
e) Tere is a switching o of all ontical [actual] images of anything,
and that includes pure logic and the usual ways of quantication of
anything, but not their fundamental possibility [in some other form
than that which we are accustomed to].
f ) Te sorts of pictures of reality which consciousness normally pro-
vides [the transformation of the phenomena which are the basis of all
perception, memory and expectation] are not abolished. Vhy is this.
Either all matters of fact pertaining to the real world are distorted or
even determined by the rules of knowledge with which any living be-
ing is equipped [i.e. epistemology the rules of how any living thing
studies beings is paramount], and these are reected in what we call
phenomenology. or the situation is the complete opposite of this [i.e.
ontology is paramount, along with the transformation of how things
are in the real world into the only languages that we can regard them
as]. I say that the latter is true.
4. Tere is a switching o of the reality of God, and each real God
is a positive entity only in a theological sense [i.e. as a studied, intel-
lectual object rather than as a living being].
i. rnv voniv or rnv svnvvs or
wn.r sovrniwc is
It is a constitutive basic feature of all human knowledge that the
cognizing subject in a human being, from the very outset, and in all
stages of actual development of the human psychophysical organiza-
tion, looks out over not one but many spheres of what something is,
spheres, moreover, which in no way can be derived one from another.
A genuine sphere is only that which cannot be derived from another.
Such spheres include: the external world with its appropriate external
perception; the inner world with its inner perception; the spiritual and
psychic component of another person; and the living and the dead.
Before trying to demarcate these spheres, to show how they are ir-
reducible, or to establish laws which obtain between them, it is neces-
++ rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
sary to say something of a general nature concerning the theory of the
spheres.
1. Te sphere is always given as a whole, and pregiven to whatever
special appearances one may nd in it. As a unied sphere it only al-
lows a completely formless pure intuition to be grasped; whereas all
non-philosophical knowledge, e.g. natural and scientic knowledge of
an x, inhabits the sphere. In no way are the spheres only more or less
arbitrary collections of unstructured continuous being.
2. Te spheres themselves are consequently given opriori and con-
stitute the directions of all possible experience and knowledge, in the
sense of what can be observed and induced. Tey are not beholden
to the accidental experience for their status as spheres. Each sphere
comes to light, in its special way, with every matter which stands in the
particular sphere.
3. Iowever much philosophical or scientic dispute there might be
as to what particular thing should be in this or that sphere, the essen-
tial dierences between the spheres themselves are nevertheless sharp
and discontinuous.
4. Te essential connections between acts of a particular sort and
the corresponding sorts of being they give rise to also holds for the
spheres. Each sphere of being corresponds to a special sort and man-
ner of mental taking possession of this sphere, or, better, of the matters
in it: whether inner perception, outer perception, or the perception
of other people, etc. Te ways of knowing and the consciousness of
something within each sphere are therefore just as dierent from each
other as the spheres themselves.
5. Te spheres are not primarily amenable to thought although
they are at some stage but rather primarily intuitable, even, rather,
pre-sensual. As many spheres of what something is that there are, so
there are that many forms of intuition.
6. Te spheres must not be equated with the so-called list of cat-
egories of being and thought. Te categories thing/property, thing/
activity, equality, similarity, causality, goal-directedness, etc. are gen-
eral forms of being, which appear in most spheres. Te category of
substance, for example, crops up in the Lrs o sc, and in body, soul, and
organism. Its dierences in this respect follow that of the spheres. Not
only are the spheres pre-sensual, they are also pre-logical. Tey pre-
cede in the order of things all possible thoughts on some matter, even
intuitions of the same.
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics ++,
7. It is very important to appreciate that the spheres have even noth-
ing actually to do with the opposition real-irreal, for they are imme-
diate spheres of u|ot something is, not of whether something exists
or not, and in all its modications real, ctional or ideal, etc. It is
simply wrong to say that before the reality of a certain body has been
established the sphere of the external world remains unestablished.
Te sphere remains as a given, even if all reality in this sphere were
questionable or void. Te distinction between real and ideal repeats
itself in all spheres in the psychic, in the spatio-temporal nature of
the external world, in the intersubjective world [Mituc|t], in posterity
[Noc|uc|t], and in former ages [\oruc|t]. Te belongingness to the in-
ner world or the outer world of an appearance has nothing to do with
its reality or ideality. Te feelings induced by a ctional gure belong
just as much to the sphere of the inner world as do the actual feelings
induced by an actual person. Te rainbow belongs just as much to
nature as does the actual sun. A dreamt or hallucinated table belongs
just as much to the sphere of artefacts as does an actually perceived
one. Te spheres are pre-given with respect to fantasy as they are with
respect to perception.
8. Te spheres are most denitely to be distinguished from genuinely
material essences made up of ideas and urphenomena. For example,
it might seem reasonable to suppose that Life is just as much a mate-
rial urphenomenon as a sphere. But this is not so. Tere is a sphere of
living entities, but there are also material essences and ideas of organ-
isms or living things. In relation to the genuine material essences and
ideas, spheres are regions of what something is, and equally they are
regions of existing things, hence regions of being. In each region there
can be any number of extant essences urphenomenon and idea.
9. Existential relativity obtains in all spheres.
10. Tere is a fullment of the spheres, especially when real things
are set in the sphere.
ii. .nsoiurv svnvv .wn woin
coniiwvss .wn woiniiwvss
Each nite knowing subject has a sphere of the absolute, a sphere
where nothing is any more relative, and which at the very least con-
tains matters to which three predicates absolutely real, absolutely
valuable, i.e. holy, and absolutely essential, i.e. an ur-essence apply.
++o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Tis sphere stands correlatively opposed to spheres of being which are
relative to another being, which contain relative as opposed to absolute
values, and concern the world. If we call the rst sphere the sphere of
godliness, and the second the sphere of the world, the world then con-
tains psychic as well as physical entities, along with all possible organ-
isms, and all possible ideal and ctional objects. Te absolute sphere
is at the same time the sphere of the metascientic absolute being and
the religious sphere. In so far as only this sphere in itself is taken into
consideration, and not whatever is in it, or whether what is in it is real
or not e.g. God or idols, etc. the sphere is simply given to anyone
possessing human knowledge and consciousness. It can never be con-
trived or made up, as it is simply the absolute background for all nite
relative being. An object of positive religion and metaphysics is always
only the answer to the question as to what is in this sphere, and how
one can achieve participation in what is there. It itself is therefore ever
pre-supposed. One can nevertheless maintain that what holds sway
in this sphere and what is actually there are forever unknowable to a
human being as agnosticism in general, and Kant and Spencer in
particular, propose.
One can maintain, further, as Buddha did, that the content of this
sphere is the Nothing, where nothing means non-eective being. Tis
viewpoint, i.e. Buddhism, regards all real existing entities [i.e. eective
entities] as bad and nite. Vith these last excluded from the sphere,
there would be in it nothing but absolute essences and absolute val-
ues. One can even maintain that ooso|utc|y nothing lies in this sphere
a view known as metaphysical nihilism, and proposed by Gorgias.
According to this view, there is either nothing at all in this absolute
sphere, or, if there is anything, then it is unknowable.
Te sphere is undoubtedly there despite all such sceptical remarks.
One can close ones mental and spiritual eyes to what might be in this
sphere, and arbitrarily go along with the sensory images and relative
being that one naturally encounters. In this case one is a metaphysical
and religious illusionist. Even then, the sphere does not go away. One
can then say that the foreground scene facing us is hard enough to
explain, without invoking yet more complications to do with its back-
ground. And further say that whatever there is in way of background
we simply do not know. Another approach and this is the common-
est is to insert into this absolute sphere of intuitional being any ar-
bitrary thing whatsoever of a nite sort a thing, a good, a creature,
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics ++;
and in so doing one then nds oneself in a condition of the uttermost
metaphysical deception. Tere is no thing in this entire world that one
cannot put in this sphere. A childs plaything, money or some other
possession as in the worship of Mammon ones race or ones nation
as in extolling nationhood a person of the opposite sex a loved
one a yearned for object of ambition, or even oneself absolute
autoeroticism; there is always, always something for a human being,
of which it is said: Everything, everything you can have, but you are
required to sacrice one thing, and that is the nothing. Everything, and
you only have to forgo this one thing, and this one thing is as change-
able as the human character. If a human being does vouch for such a
nite value or good in the absolute sphere then we tend to call him
smitten with this, and the good a world-smittenness. If such smit-
tenness is to recover and the person regain a normal attitude to the
absolute sphere and its possible content we must point out to him the
nature of his object of smittenness, his idol. Completely setting aside
what a human being nds or does not nd in the absolute sphere
whether true or false he returns to a normal attitude to this sphere,
whether through self-analysis of his life or because of someone elses
analysis of him, when the deception in this respect is brought home to
him. Te idol which he hitherto placed in this sphere is a nite, relative
thing [and should not therefore be in this sphere]. Te normal glimpse
into the sphere of absolute being which is the pre-supposition for
all metaphysical striving towards knowledge does not guarantee the
truth or falsehood of any metaphysical or religious entity found there-
in, but is simply a shattering of idols.
Te capacity of nite things to become idols is the great enemy of
participation in the actual and true godliness. Tere is no life, no de-
velopment of soul or mind either in an individual or a race which
does not run through a chain of disenchantments or comes to see the
need for the eradication of deception concerning the true meaning and
importance of the value of worldly things. In this process of dis-en-
chantment there is slowly revealed the truth and importance of abso-
lute things, values, goods and essences. Te human being is therefore
essentially a metaphysical and religious creation. Ie is so, not in an
ongoing temporal sense i.e. because eventually he comes to this con-
clusion. On the contrary, the very having of this sphere denes the
human being from the outset. Animals have an environment and live
++s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
ecstatically in this. Te human being has at the same time a knowledge
of the world or a consciousness of God.
Te critical point here is that religion and metaphysics are possible
because they are already in a potential sense in this sphere. Even a-
theism is only a denial of an already determined God-like entity. Te
path whereby dis-enchantment over the nite things that have lled
the absolute sphere can occur, which have caused these to be idols, is a
path to absolute being. Once the contents and reality of the objects of
the absolute sphere are set up, then the direction of gaze moves to the
world. Te variation in the idea of God is the key to the changeability
of the world images and not the other way round and the unity of
the world is indeed even the consequence of the unity of divine mat-
ters.
visrvwri.i vi.rivirv iwsinv rnv svnvvs
Ve are indebted to Kant for the introduction of the basic cognitive
concept of existential relativity in theoretical philosophy. Iis dis-
tinction between appearance and thing-in-itself is one of existential
relativity. Tis is illustrated most sharply when he tries to show that
all possible inner experience only rests on the organization of human
intuition and understanding of existentially relative appearances, and,
when he attributes the primary givenness of all being to conscious-
ness, regarding it, following Descartes and Berkeley, as the correlate
of the Cogito. Ie saw that some of what had previously been regarded
as subjective was correctly designated as such i.e. what was in the
soul and which we call the inner world; but he also saw that some
of what had previously been regarded as subjective was untenable as
so designated, because it concerned matters to do with the existence
or non-existence of things or the being-so or not-being-so of things
which had nothing to do with a particular individual human beings
subjective outlook, and therefore must be deemed relative to some-
thing else. Ie also saw that there was a level of existential relativity in
all spheres, and that this was generally the same; or, rather, he at least
saw this so far as the spheres of the inner world and the outer world,
psychic and physical, were concerned. Despite the unsatisfactory way
in which he expressed this notion partly because of his erroneous
Copernican revolution, partly because of his rationalism, and partly
because he confused objectively real appearances with representations
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics ++,
and conscious appearances the notion itself should never be lost
sight of.
It is a far cry from Kants undoubted insight to then say that the
givenness of the world and the determination of what anything is, is a
question of what sort of intuition and what sort of categories knowl-
edge brings to the matter. Tis sort of doctrine, which is at the root
of all idealism, is further undermined when one realises that Kants
approach was always based on a mathematical and scientic notion of
what anything is, where the absolutely real is given no credence at all.
No less incorrect, however, is the philosophy known as critical real-
ism, where it goes o in the direction of pre-Kantian philosophy, and
claims that what does not belong to the absolute reality of nature must
belong to the subject, and, exclusively, to the soul of that subject. In
other words it took up what I call the notion of the two-layeredness
of existing things that there are or|y conscious appearances or ab-
solute reality, the latter somehow being made accessible to the former.
Kants contribution to the existential relativity thesis was already more
profound, in that he proposed three levels of being: 1. a subjective con-
scious appearance; 2. an objective appearance whose appearing was
of an undetermined thing in itself corresponding to what empirical
and scientic approaches took it to be; and 3. an absolutely real thing
in itself .
Te correct path leading us out of this muddle is certainly not the
way of idealism whether Iusserls, Rickerts or Cohens, etc. which
strikes out the sphere of the thing-in-itself and treats the scientic real-
ity merely as accidental objective being-so experiences for a conscious-
ness and the rules of all this. Te correct way is rather the laying out
of the series of stages of the existential relativity of things with respect
to the organization of the rco| ocorcr of knowledge, in order to com-
pletely account for what at each stage of the cognising act is precisely
shown and determined for these stages. Te overall aim would be to
establish a principle concerning the immanence of knowledge and the
transcendence of what something is at each stage of existence. Critical
realism, on the other hand, whether it presents its building blocks as
images or signs the latter, for example, in the work of Schlick re-
duces the existential levels to a subjective consciousness and absolute
reality, abolishing therefore the second limb of the Kantian series i.e.
objective appearance reality and then arrives at the fundamentally
awed thesis that the realities, which science deals with, instead of as-
+ao rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
cribing them to levels of existential relativity which each science can
itself determine, are regarded as the same absolute reality.
Any metaphysics is in this way even more excluded than it was by
Kants reasoning, because the place, so-to-speak, of its reality has al-
ready been chosen for it by scientic reality, and an independent cog-
nitive principle is denied to it: namely, that there is essentially struc-
tured knowledge pertaining to each existential sphere, which is opriori
and equally relevant for all existing entities, even for the thing-in-itself
or absolute entities.
Te theory of the levels of existential relativity of objects and this
applies to non-objectiable being as well is precisely constructed ac-
cording to our principle that an identical being-so of some extra-men-
tal entity can be just as much in the mind as outside the mind, and,
secondly, that knowledge is neither a portrayal nor a description nor
a transformation nor a design of the real object and certainly not a
logical judgement or conceptual working up of some matter or repro-
duction in immanent consciousness but a concrete entitys i.e. the
knowing subjects participation in, and sharing of, the being-so of
another concrete entity. And existential relativity now means nothing
other than existing extra-mentally but at the same time only relatively
so i.e. an existence dependent on the existence of some other entity,
and objectively so, albeit relative to an entity which is the real bearer of
this knowledge. Each potentially appearing knowledge-relativity i.e.
anything that relies on the knowledge organisation of the subject, for
example, a human and its relative knowledge of things is therefore
derived from the existential relativity of the known object itself and
absolute knowledge of it. Or, in short, there is no relativity of knowl-
edge, but only an absolute knowledge of existentially relative things.
Even physical states of aairs can be existentially relative among them-
selves e.g. the mirror image on the mirror and the mirrored object
something that I can establish without knowing anything about the
laws of light waves or refraction.
Ve are using the expression of existential relativity here only for
the special case in which one of the things is a knowing object, for
example, an animal or a human, with all its physical, vital, psychic and
real properties. So, in our view, an hallucinated thing denitely has its
existential status outside a mind, but at the same time it is existen-
tially relative on an individual with a sick brain. In the same way as
other perceptual things [i.e. existentially relative on a normal brain] it
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics +a+
can be grasped through various sensory functions hearing, smelling;
its visual form can be analysed physiologically and mathematically; it
can be observed and attended to adequately or inadequately; true or
false judgements can be made about it, and even correct or incorrect
conclusions drawn on the basis of these. One can see from all this that
measures of knowledge concerning true and false, correct and incor-
rect, or adequate and inadequate increases and reductions in intuitive
fullness, have simply nothing to do with distinctions between sorts of
existential relativity.
If, however, the sort of entity which we have just been considering
as existentially relative on an individual were relative to an entire cul-
tural epoch for example the God Apollo for 4
th
Century B.C. Greeks
or to the human species as a whole for example the suns going
down or coming up we are dealing with some entity being placed
in a false position in the order of existential relativity, and I call this a
metaphysical illusion and its objective correlate a metaphysical phan-
tom. Tis notion can also be illustrated by considering the way a post-
Copernican vis--vis a pre-Copernican scientist treats the experience
of the sun going down behind the horizon. Te post-Copernican re-
gards it as a phantom, whereas in the Middle Ages it was taken for an
event occurring in absolute reality. Furthermore, an adherent of the
relativity theory of our times regards time as a phantom as he does
constant mass or absolutely constant life forces whereas Galileo and
Newton took it for a real measure of simultaneity.
Te following are some basic principles for establishing existential
relativity.
1. Te range of that which a knowing subject has knowledge of
because knowledge is a relationship between beings is dependent on
the condition of the subject. Te existential status and the nature of
the subject determines knowledge and knowledgeability and con-
sciousness and not the other way round.
2. If a known object A is existentially relative on a knowing subject
S, then a knowledge and a knowledge-source for this knowledge
must also be present for the condition of the object S, and, moreover,
a sort of knowledge, whose subject S, and whose object A, are not on
the same level of existential relativity as A is to S. Anyone who, like
Kant, claims that there are objects which are existentially relative to a
form of thinking and form of intuition in an intellectual organisation,
for example, man, must show that there is a knowledge and a source
+aa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
of knowledge for these forms, i.e. a source of knowledge whose objects
are not existentially relative on these forms.
3. If it can be shown that there is a genuinely irreducible essence of
a real or irreal object, then the accidental being-so of something must
correspond to its appropriate essence at any stage of its existence, even
if this is unrecognized or unrecognisable. For phantasy can produce
any number of accidental ctions with any number of combinations,
but never produce a genuine essence.
4. To negate something that has not been experienced so far wheth-
er perceived or simply conjectured but yet is an existent example of
an already shown genuine essence, occurs only if it can be positively
shown that the existence of the relevant thing is experiencable and has
already been experienced. On the other hand, if an existing example is
inexperienceable, even if, as above, it concerns an already shown genu-
ine essence, then it cannot be falsied. Te principle behind this is
that to each extant thing there belongs a so-being and to all so-beings
which are genuine essences there belongs an existent version.
5. Existential relativity and metaphysical illusions and phantoms oc-
cur in each sphere of being and possible knowledge: e.g. in the sphere
of ecstatic knowledge as well as in the sphere of consciousness i.e.
reective knowledge; in the sphere of the inner world i.e. the psychic
as well as the external world i.e. the physical; in the sphere of the
psycho-physically neutral givenness of life as well as in the spheres of
self-knowledge and knowledge of others.
6. Te only denitely unknowable region of matters is the non-ob-
jectiable being of the acts and the persons, because participation of
another sort to that which applies in the case of knowledge belongs
here. On the other hand there can occur any kind of being-so of an
extant entity at all levels of existential relativity, even in the level of
absolute existence, though admittedly in this case the adequation of
possible knowledge available to a creature gets less and less the closer
the object is to the absolute level. For example, we have no idiographic
knowledge of the stars as we do the geography of the earth nor of the
moon in the moon sciences, even though such knowledge is in itself
quite possible.
7. All objects and groups of such which are not existentially relative
on a human being as a member of a species, but which are relative
to an individual creatures unique life for example, an hallucinated
object cannot be the foundation of a known, generally valid judge-
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics +a,
ment true or false. Te same covcot applies to knowledge which has
its objects in the absolute sphere, but which is restricted to a handful
of people of exceptional nature for example, geniuses or of a par-
ticular ethical constitution or with a particular technical know-how. In
fact, all eventual knowledge which has to do with the free opening-up
of a person does not necessarily allow a generally valid judgement to
be made about it. Tis follows because knowledge depends on the na-
ture of the person who knows, and knowledge about absolute things,
in particular, requires the knower to be at least in tune with an abso-
lutely existing subject. Because the latter sort of knower is so rare, and
cannot be an object himself, each piece of knowledge about absolute
things must be an approximation, and each person who even achieves
this will have a dierent knowledge from another such person. Only
God, or the Ierson of Iersons, can actually know the absolute being
of the world.
8. In order to establish existential relativity, the carriers of knowl-
edge must be set in place, but only insofar as they allow essential ideas
to be determined. For example, in order to determine existential rela-
tivity with regard to human beings, it is not necessary that the human
being be an earth-bound anatomical and physiological creation of this
or that type, but only set in place as an essential specimen of a human
being, i.e. a nite entity with vitality and an embodied life, endowed
with reason and mind with their own essential attribution, in contrast
to that which constitutes animality or plantness, or in contrast to God,
or to entities between God and man, such as angels and demons.
9. Existence precedes, in the order of things, the ecacy of what
is an existing thing, i.e. the extant, insofar as it is real or ecacious.
Although the existential relativity of an object is an existing fact, and
is even ascertainable for whatever objects of intention one wishes
before and independently of each causal connection between exist-
ing objects and a real carrier of knowledge, nevertheless each knowing
participation by a real subject in the nature of an existing object must
be procured in a special and unique way, and procured through an ef-
fective and causal connection with the subject, and both knower and
known must lie on the same level of existence. Terefore, it is quite
clear, for example, that for the human being, insofar as he or she is
embodied life, only those bodies can be given in knowledge which
have an eect, directly or indirectly, on this embodied life. And it is
equally clear that each piece of knowledge about objects, whose pos-
+a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
sible givenness again assumes knowledge of bodies, likewise can only
be given under the general condition that the human being, as a speci-
men of embodied life, is part of the universal mechanism of things
i.e. shares the same set of chemical, physical and mechanical processes
as the entity it will come to know.
sunnivisiows or wowivncv
wissvw, vwwvw, vvwwvw, nvcvirvw, vi\vw,
vvsrvnvw, nvurvw, nvscnvinvw, i.ssirizivvw
Kcrrcr [knowing] is knowledge about the accidental being-so of
something [zujo||igcs Soscir] and Lr|crrcr [cognition] is knowledge
about something as a something.
+. svir-civvwwvss .wn vvinvwcv
Te ideal end-point, which the highest form of knowledge cogni-
tion can in principle achieve, though in fact almost never achieves,
or only achieves in the case of the simplest objects of inner and outer
intuition or only in the most elevated moments of mental exertions,
would be the self-givenness of the entire nature of what some object
is. It would form the insuperable maximum and therefore the ultimate
and highest measure of each and every knowledge and cognition. A
minimum on the same scale would be a clear-cut sign of something,
for example the proper name of a person. Many philosophers deny
that this radical goal is feasible. Some of these would assert that it
even lies in the essence of cognition that the cognitive contents and the
actual contents of an entity itself are always of two dierent sorts and
remain dierent, and that all cognition is a symbol of something else.
Others of this group would deny it specically for human cognition.
Te purest and most denite denial of the possibility of this goal of
cognition can be found in Spinozas Lt|ics, indeed even for the divine
Substance itself.
Ie distinguished: an intuitive cognition, when the mind had its ob-
ject completely and enjoyed it; discursive cognition through mediated
thought; and cognition through hearsay. In intellectual love of God
there takes place according to his teaching such a particular sort of
identication of human mind with the divine substance that both are
one and the same. Ie denies all so-called cognitive criteria and truth
for this level, and expresses his famous words on the matter thus:
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics +a,
vcrum sigrum sui ipsius ct jo|si truth is a sign of itself and falsehood.
Tis means that there is self-luminosity and self-illumination between
them [i.e. the knower and the known] in the grasping of knowledge of
given objects, and it no longer makes any sense to ask by what criteri-
on this arises. Te same view can also be found among recent philoso-
phers Iusserl in Logico| Irvcstigotior, Brentano and his School; and
in Augustine and the mystics. I myself started out from this position.
Because the self-givenness still belongs to the actual ontic order of
things, then for there to be any representation of this, two additional
interposed concepts are necessary: the illumination of the object in
the mind, and our immediate knowledge about this illumination so-
called evidence. Tese two should not be confused. Te illumination
starts out from the object. It shines forth its very whatness [Lr sc|cirt
scir Vos ir i|m] to reveal an appearing out of its hiddenness as
Ieidegger wrote about with his notion of o|ct|cucir, to become it-
self an crs irtcrtioro|c, in the sphere of truth. Evidence, on the other
hand, is the immediate grasping of this illumination and truth. Tis
entire notion has without doubt an important ontological presupposi-
tion. An object or state of aairs can only present itself to the mind,
if, at the very least, what it is is part of something that is superior to
all human knowledge an all-knowledge, as it were which human
knowledge partly embraces. Tis knowledge, or, guratively speaking,
this knowledge light [Visscrs|ic|t], is then that very enlightening of
the self-givenness of an object in the human mind and the conscious-
ness thereof which is its precise whatness. Spinoza and Augustine
simply assume this. In all evidential cognition, in all Aha-cognition,
which denotes a clear solution to some problem, the human knower is
at the very least identical in its carrying out of this act with the carry-
ing out of the same act by the Lrs o sc, which is also a knower.
In no case can the actual existence of something be illuminated,
a matter, which, according to our opinion, is not only absolutely ir-
rational but even trans-intelligible. To ascribe to the object itself an
illumination would be nebulous mysticism, and nonsensical without
this assumption of an overriding universal mind, whose knowledge
content is the essence of the object. Te object as an existing entity has
no little lamp burning in itself which could illuminate what it is. Te
identiability of a human mind with the mind of the Lrs o sc is pre-
supposed in all talk, by Iegel and Fichte, for example, of an identity
of thought and being.
+ao rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Vhat then is evidence. Evidence is the experience of that, which in
everyday language is called an insight, through which a cognition and
thought of a new, so far unknown, state of aairs suddenly becomes
this very state of aairs, a process which we call insightful. Aha, now
it becomes clear; now something reveals itself as a Some-thing, which
exists independently of us. Te fog clears; the deception is uncovered.
Or: I previously had a sign, instructions, as it were, about some mat-
ter, in symbolic form, whereas now it appears out in the open itself,
and I now have it itself. Iut this way we have merely characterized
the psychological descriptive structure of the experience of evidence.
Te question is: a) Vhat is the actual evidence. and b) Under which
conditions does it arise.
Vhat evidence is not is the following. First, it is nothing to do with
anything of the same name which demeans the real notion and makes
evidence some ridiculous romantic and arbitrary power of the mind.
Nor is it a more serious version of this, a view held by many outstand-
ing thinkers Schlick, Cohen, Natorp, Iartmann, Leibniz, Kant to
the eect that evidence is an isolated and qualitatively distinct psychic
experience, to which one is nely attuned in a reective state of self-
observation, and which, when it comes, encases a thought or an intu-
ition with nothing less than the truth. A further view on the matter
is to portray evidence as a qualitatively distinct feeling, the so-called
evidence-feeling. A sign of the error involved here is that no-one can
characterize it in any other way than to say that the feeling X is the
actual evidence, which merely presupposes what one is trying to deter-
mine. Furthermore, evidence is not, as Villiam James stated, an inner
bell. Nor is it to be confused with subjective, personal certainty, which
can accompany even the wildest superstitions. Ve know through the
experimental investigations of J.E. Mller that, for example, in the case
of memory, an objectively false memory can be held with a maximum
of subjective certainty. Certainty is a measure of truthfulness, not
of cognition and truth. Finally, evidence is never given in a reective
state; it is only when cognition and thought are turned to the matter
in question, and only when these two are productive, that evidence
arises. Naturally, the opponents of the view that evidence is a measure
or sub-division of cognition have made light of this.
From a positive perspective evidence consists of the following. It is
an immediate coincidence or identication-experience set up by
productive thinking and cognition between intended states of aairs
2 Q Cogritivc Mct|oo|ogico| Aspccts oj Mctop|ysics +a;
and objects, always involving a plurality of cognitive acts, and directed
at one and the same object which is independent of these acts. Te
acts in question can be: intuitive acts among themselves e.g. seeing and
hearing the same thing, which then reciprocally testies to it among
sensory functions; dierent acts of thinking among themselves, i.e. an
act of grasping somethings meaning and an act grasping somethings
relationship; they can be an act of intuition or an act of thinking; and
nally there can be opriori knowledge intuitive or rational coupled
with an opostcriori knowledge, which is the most important case. In
short, we can never call something evidence that only occurs in an iso-
lated act e.g. a perception or representation of a real surface, or if I
simply think of the number 2 or the sun. Moreover, if there is no inde-
pendent realm of meaning there is no evidence either. Tis means that
an ideal structure of thought which we can make judgements about
cannot by itself provide evidence of anything. For example, an evident
memory is only given in the co-incidence of several rays of memory,
or, if in the course of perception, I come across the same being-so of
something that I hitherto only remembered. Other examples of evi-
dence are if several sensory functions e.g. seeing, hearing, touch-
ing testify reciprocally to the same object; or if I actually gaze on
something which hitherto I had only thought about or symbolically
represented.
Evidence is therefore always the experience of a coming together of
several dierent and mutually independent intentional acts in re-
spect of what the intended act focuses on or t|c somc object. It is not
therefore an established index of consciousness in a mind reecting on
itself, but a relationship experience of acts, and in fact an identica-
tion- and coincidence-experience of the contents of these acts on the
same being-so of the entity.
And how does evidence relate to self-givenness and illumination.
Iere we nd that an object illuminates its being-so in the mind of a
knower to the same extent that the knower has the evidence-experi-
ence of the co-incidence of intuition with thought, or of opriori form
and structure with the opostcriori matter of fact whether sensually
or intuitively gained. Te object reveals itself in the course of these
conjunction-experiences, and enters the mind as a growing adequa-
tion of what it is as a result of such experiences. Vhat the object is in
itself does not break down into a pictorial entity and a thought form
as Aristotle considered was the case but it is the cognitive acts
+as rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
thought and intuition, opriori and opostcriori which do the breaking
up into these mental elements. lcr the co-incidence [or recombina-
tion] reveals what the object is, in a growing fashion.
All this assumes two underlying issues: a) that we have an original
knowledge [Uruisscr] of all these matters, such that all our intentional
acts pertain to one and the same world and bring forth the same en-
tities into objects i.e. there is a unity of being; and b) that all our
intentional acts, however varied they may be, illuminate one and the
same act of knowledge. Schematically this is as follows:
91

seeing, hearing

remembering, perceiving one
Knowledge act
entity
thinking

etc.

}
ow anr cowsarauarow or anr
nuzw nrrwo
nrvrrovrwazr sazors or anr sour
V
estern ideas about the qualitative stages inherent in a liv-
ing soul have undergone considerable changes from the
time of Ilato and Aristotle up to the present day. Tis
applies equally to the most primitive properties of soul in the lowest
creatures as well as to the highest processes and acts of the human
mind as in a genius, or, even beyond, as in God, or, even beyond that.
If this is true for the range of living souls encountered, it applies even
more so to the sequence of stages within a living creature to which we
give the name development.
Ve are setting ourselves two aims in the following account. First, we
shall briey describe the actual historical notions about these matters,
as they appear in Vestern philosophy and science. Secondly, we shall
draw attention to relevant contemporary ndings within the sciences,
although we shall put all this in the context of certain dominant philo-
sophical ideas.
Teories about the various stages that a living soul can achieve, and
those concerning the actual development of these within a living crea-
ture, both touch on numerous disciplines of knowledge. Ve shall struc-
ture the discussion of both sets of questions according to the following
scheme. First, we shall consider the sorts of living creatures to which
we can attribute an inner way of being and set of events which ju|| cri-
tcrio jor o sou|. Ve shall review, for example, plants, animals, humans,
angels, devils and God, in this respect, and take a special look at the
peculiarity of humans, and consider the possibility of an ocrmcrsc|.
Secondly, we shall examine the status of certain well-dened jurctiors
oj sou| or mir to see whether they capture the essence of the matter.
Such functions include sensation, perception, representation, memory
and recollection, thinking, instinct, higher and lower emotional func-
tions and acts, reexes, drive impulses, conscious aims, expression,
+,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
and mental willing and choice. Tirdly, we shall survey comp|cx octs
or octivitics pcrtoirirg to t|c sou| or mir, such as speech and lan-
guage, ethical and aesthetic valuations, conscience, questions of taste,
and the construction of tools and artistic productions; and how these
relate to instinct, associative memory, habit and intelligence. Finally,
there are the oc|icvcmcrts or uor|s of a living creature to consider,
whether possessed of soul or mind. Te last of these matters are not
in themselves capable of being inwardly displayed to the creature it-
self, or even re-experienced or understood by it. Tey are nevertheless
established, meaningful, goal-orientated activities. Tese stretch from
animal nest-building to human civilization and culture, from its very
beginning to its blossoming in our own age. Allied to this is the ques-
tion of whether we humans ourselves, on our own, have built up the
entire world structure in the above sense as creative achievement and
work, or whether we owe it to some sort of super-human mind God
or some other sort of meaningful and goal-directed eective agent
to which we belong call it God, pan-reason, pan-life, the world soul,
or whatever. In any case we cannot bring up the issue of this question
with the agent itself, as we have no direct intuitive or experiential con-
tact with this powerful being in the sense of any religious experience
of it. Of particular interest in this whole area is how certain psychic
and mental functions whether they be called instinct, intelligence,
ideation, conscience, or something else ended up as they are, from
the achievements and actions and works of animals, and whether the
latter could be the rudimentary origins of the higher stages of soul
and mind.
Tis method, which at the very most only gives us a foretaste of the
factual matters at issue here, is anyway the hardest to carry through,
and is fraught with potential errors and false turnings. Nevertheless, it
does raise the following questions.
1. First of all, we need to consider what right we have to conclude
that certain actions, achievements, and works in animals, are compa-
rable to those we imagine to be precursors of the human soul or mind.
In the case of certain animal achievements it does seem that they have
been carried out in an intelligent way: that is, a solution to some prob-
lem is reached without any previous experience of it or without the
availability of a model to copy. In such cases either one invokes an
acquired reex, or one has to admit some completely dierent basis
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,+
for the behaviour: consider cats always landing on their feet, or wasps
which can paralyse their victim without killing it.
2. A second problem in the method we are considering is whether it
is justied to assume that just because one subject has on the face of
it achieved more in the way of growth, perfection, and dierentiation
of his or her works and actions, than another subject, whose achieve-
ments appear more modest, then this means that the former is in pos-
session of superior soul or mental functions. Vhether the average
human being in present-day Europe has a greater understanding of
things, or more rened logical faculties, or a more sophisticated moral
sense from birth onwards, than say an ancient Greek such as Aristotle,
is arguable. Spencer, for example, believes it is so, whereas Veismann
demurs. Or, are there genuine dierences in talents, between, say, the
black and white races, as Boas maintains, or is it simply a question of
acceleration and slowing up of various aspects of their respective de-
velopments. Or, further, what about the issue of how a child learns to
stand and walk. Some say that it comes about through a gradual accu-
mulation of experiences concerning the various movements of its feet
and legs. Others say that it is a natural consequence of a certain stage
in the development of its nervous system, and has nothing to do with
the assimilation of large amounts of experience. Recently, the latter
explanation has been shown to be more plausible. In fact, all achieve-
ments and works of a purely cumulative nature, which come about
through a quantitative growth of associations concerning the same
physical function, cannot be regarded as evidence for the evolution of
the soul itself i.e. that they are a sign that a completely new function
has arisen. Tis means, however, that we must already possess the es-
sential concepts and ideas for any possible functions of soul or mind
to emerge, and that we must have found examples of them in external
works and achievements of various degrees of perfection in order that
the achieving subject in question can organise their new functions. Ve
cannot simply acquire a completely dierent sort of function c rovo
and without help, but only in the following circumstances:
a) if the content and value of the performance or work are essentially
dierent from those of the performance or work with which they are
being compared i.e. there must be nothing gradual about it, e.g. the
shift from instinct to intelligence, or the example of monkeys throwing
stones to some end;
+,a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
b) if the mere accumulation of experiences can be treated as if it
were switched o; and
c) if the achievement in question is one which deviates markedly
[sprurg|ojt ur is|ortiruicr|ic|] from its comparable predecessor in
contrast to the simple accumulation of experiences which will only
lead to a mild improvement in performance.
3. Finally, this method we are tracing has to contend with yet more
diculties. If we consider nest-building, or a chimpanzees ability to
reach down a fruit from a tree with a stick, or even Japanese Shinto-
temple construction, what we come up against is that the only way we
can give sense to these is by means of a sort of second-hand experi-
ence [Noc|cr|cocr], or by transporting ourselves in imagination into
the mind or soul of the creator of the work [Mitcr|cocr] or through
so-called empathy [Lirj||urg]. Any success in such attempts dimin-
ishes the more our own state of soul and mind diverges from the state
we are intending to get to know and understand. In the case of plants
and lower animals, and already in children and primitive people, and,
further, even in our own racially heterogeneous culture and civiliza-
tion, this subjective understanding of another is particularly dicult.
A source of ever-present deception is our tendency to read into what-
ever we want to understand our own world-picture, sorts of values and
soul-functions. Illustrations of all this include: the actual approxima-
tion of a childs perception and representation as being more separate
than they really are, as they orc so in adults; the primitive persons fear
of nature being projected on to lions and tigers, for example, making
them more dangerous than they really are; and the animistic world-
view in general as an investment of all things with the valence life
actually attached to our soul functions.
A sceptical approach to all such matters should not go so far as to
dispense with the relevance of our knowledge of our mental or soul
functions and their development, although the American school of
behaviour psychology does move in that direction. Admittedly, this
direction would be justied if all understanding rested on empirically
derived analogous conclusions i.e. assuming ourselves as the norm.
In actual fact, however, we grasp the meaning of events in another soul
in a broad and immediate fashion by way of a symbolic apprehen-
sion of its expressive appearances and actions. Te execution of this
is completely unrelated to how we experience our self, and is rather
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,,
based on our construction of a universal grammar and pantomime of
expressions.
Tere is still much truth today in Aristotles notion that the human
soul is in certain respects all there is i.e. a microcosm. At the very
least, every living entity carries within itself a functional version of a
soul, even if in some cases it is in a very rudimentary form, as in plants
and animals. Te portion in plants is what we call vegetative life force
[vcgctotivcr Drorg], and in animals instinct. On the other hand, the
highest examples of human beings saints, geniuses also possess
soul-functions, which we can only get an inkling of through glimpsing
their ideas, coming up with analogies, or engaging in thoughts our-
selves touching on the innite and the absolute. Te actual range of
the functions in the divine or semi-divine entities mentioned we can
hardly imagine, but they include an intuitive knowledge of both past
and future. Te human soul can equally well descend to the level found
in plants, animals, children and primitive people. It can, in fantasy,
vault across the boundaries of race and historically distant and strange
cultures. It can rise up to the level of the superhuman mind, and, to
a certain extent, even to Gods. As a microcosm of all potentialities of
the soul, though subject to all the complicated casual actualities of the
matter, it is, in essence and in principle, in tune with the entire variety
of souls and minds.
Surveying the developmental theories put forward during the his-
tory of philosophy, we can identify four main types:
1. Aristotles timeless system;
2. Ilotinus theory of emanation, Descartes way of posing the prob-
lem of thinking and Leibniz notion of a monad;
3. the theories of Lamarck, Darwin, Spencer and Vundt; and
4. Bergsons vitalist metaphysics.
Tere is much truth buried in each of these theories, but, the way
the theory is put, it is hidden. Our own theory is only a new sort of
synthesis of the theory, current in Ancient Times and in the Middle
Ages, of a hierarchy of soul-containing organisms and personal minds,
along with their empirically and mutually underivable essential dif-
ferences, coup|c uit| the Modern theory of a continuous, temporal
and empirically demonstrable development in fortuitously occurring
genera and species of creatures. Our theory puts forward a plausible
explanation of the whole issue.
+, rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Te basic thought behind this synthesis is as follows. In all con-
tinuous and temporal physical and psychic transition states which
do occur there emerges, in denite and distinctive places, and in
a relatively small number of cases in question, a qualitative shift [or
quantum leap] such that there is a novel creation of psychic or mental
functions, and this itself involves an immediate return to the origins
of the world and its two basic attributes mind and pan-life [A||cocr].
Or, in other words, during the continuous empirical development of
the psychophysical organism, there is uncovered over time a realm of
essential forms and ideal types of psychic and mental structures, which
in themselves are discrete in essence, and which are displayed in front
of the empirico-temporal development, as ideals in the mind of God,
but are at the disposal of the pan-life [A||cocr] in the course of its ac-
tivity. Such essential dispositions would be plantness or animality. In
itself the perfected entity precedes the imperfect in the order of things
the theory of the Ancients and those of the Middle Ages thereby
supported but for us the perfection or completeness of matters only
reveals itself in the opposite direction, wherein an imperfect leads to a
perfect, or a simple specimen progresses to a dierentiated one. In this
way, the Scholastic term cousoc occosioro|is is seen to cover an original
eect whereby ever new psychic and mental forces are unleashed.
From all this our method of setting out the ideal systematised array
of essences of the psychic and mental stages and centres seems to be
the most correct. For example, we presume the existence of tropisms
and a sensitive life force [Gcj||srorg], then instinct, then associative
memory, intelligence, and nally idea formation, on the basis of the
stages of the various sorts of elements of soul and mind and their con-
nections. Ten comes the question: Under what particular circum-
stances what cousoc occosioro|is of the empirical, ongoing, develop-
mental interconnections do these essential forms actually t best.
Ve are convinced that even the biological developmental theory,
even if it is based on a study of actual organisms, cannot get by with-
out a theory of discrete shifts in stages, in which the complete organi-
sation undergoes an alteration as in mutation and therefore we
are in complete opposition to any theory which tries to explain the
same process in terms of a quantitative accumulation of simple adap-
tations of a single organ in a hereditary manner whether within an
individual, as Lamarck and Vundt thought, or through some external
environmental agency, as Veismann and the neo-Darwinians think. It
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,,
is rather only explicable in terms of a creative act of the unied world
process, which allows a new thought to be realized through its eternal
life-force [Lcocrsrorg].
z nnvorurrow rw nuxzw nnrwos.
rnn nuxzw xrwn
It is hard to be a human being. Te animals psychic life, by virtue of
their soul, is played out in their environmental milieu, and the achieve-
ments which the higher vertebrates are capable of, touched on in the
last section, have been until recently completely underestimated. Te
animal possesses not only instinct, which can be put down neither
to reexes nor tropisms nor to hereditary habituation, and which oc-
curs to a greater extent than in humans consider insects and herd
animals. It also has the ability to learn through its associative memory,
and, to some extent, hands on what it has learnt to its ospring. Even
this is not all. It also possesses the beginnings of a mediated referen-
tial thought activity, by means of which the relationships of things are
classied in terms of identity, similarity, analogy, and means-to-an-end
references. It can even, to a degree, take an overview of a situation, and,
in the sphere of what is intuitively present, appreciate simple relation-
ships between matters, such as cause and eect, means-to-an-end, and
appropriate ways of directing itself. It can then use all this knowledge
in a free combination of ideas to serve its practical concerns. Further-
more, it possesses a vague sense of general representations. It can set
up anticipatory schemata, whose content it can then intuit in diverse
situations, even to the extent of recognizing recurring themes i.e.
behaving against its instinct. Te only points at which it fails in these
sorts of endeavours are when the task involves consolidating a general
notion in the form of an independent object of thought, or when it is
required to distinguish between a general category of something and
an individual something, and particularly so when it comes to compar-
ing dierent members of the same abstract category. In other words,
the representative functions which underpin language, number and
quantity are lacking.
Vhat it can do, however, allows it to communicate with its peers.
It has humanly analogous, expressive movements of joy, sorrow, cu-
riosity, jealousy and tenderness, and even the beginnings of humour.
It experiences anxiety and the rudiments of a higher fear. It shows
+,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
gratitude for its food, for example and there are stubbornness,
deance, forgiveness over punishment, gift-giving propensities in the
way of oering food to other animals, and vengeful desires brought
about through anger or annoyance. It can set aside its vengeance,
co-experience feelings and aects arising within the herd, and even
co-experience such with humans through contagion and empathy.
It can have a sense of clothing and even the beginnings of a need to
adorn itself. Tere is the start of tool construction, and the distinc-
tion between a valuation of one pleasure versus another. Authority,
leadership, friendship, and various sorts of social bonds can be found,
including specialization of tasks within these. Animals, moreover, do
not simply display the character of their species, as Schopenhauer
thought, but have the seeds of individual characters. Vith respect to
their sensory acuity, many animals are actually much superior to hu-
mans, and it is only their overview of broader spatio-temporal regions
and their attention to distance which can be deemed impoverished
relative to humans here. Nevertheless, all in all, their perceptual abili-
ties are very similar to humans. For instance, the ability to apprehend
size, colour-constancy, and the relationship of sensory appearances to
a thing or an event, are the same. An animals perceptual eld is less
tightly structured, but it has the same set-up for projecting meaningful
forms out of the chaotic mass of sensations. It avails itself of memory,
reproduction and associative conscious representations. Tere is also
a certain predilection for beautiful as opposed to ugly partners in its
sexual selections. Te objective quality of beauty, which lls the living
world in the form of patterns, plumage, song and symmetrical colours,
not only corresponds to the function of preference for beauty rather
than ugliness, but is in a far-reaching way exactly the same beauty for
the animal as it is for us. Te peacock strutting for its mate gives us
pleasure too.
If, as I have endeavoured to show, all the usual distinctions between
human being and animal the animal has instinct but the human be-
ing intelligence, the animal has no concepts, no notion of relationships,
no altruism, etc. are invalid, how do we then explain the equally ob-
vious and massive dierence between humans and animals.
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,;
rnn nnvorurrow
Tere are three things in which the dierence between human being
and animal cannot lie.
1. First, it cannot be attributed to some detail of their anatomical
make-up: for example, mobile thumbs, a larynx, or a particular jaw
structure; the last two being alleged explanations for the ability to pro-
duce sound of such variety that it gives rise to speech, and, following
on this, thought. Nor can it lie in the humans erect posture. Tere
must surely be something simple, pervasive and fundamental, which
separates human and animal.
2. Nor can the dierence be a purely bodily or vital matter, concern-
ing their external structure or the internal make-up of their soul. Tis
follows because the human being, in terms of its body and soul, dif-
fers only in degree from the animal, for example even in the size of its
forehead. It has the same sensory acuity, perceptual awareness, aects,
drives, sorrows, representational capacity and adaptational opportuni-
ties towards its environment.
3. It cannot, furthermore, merely consist of a quantitative increase in
any characteristic of the animal soul, as positivism and Spencer teach;
nor in some richer mediated thinking power i.e. it is not simply su-
perior technical intelligence; nor is it a consequence of a richer aec-
tive life or range of expressions. Assuming, as I do, that the human
being is an empirical earth-bound thing whether homogeneous as to
its phylogenetic origin or heterogeneous in this respect, the latter be-
ing more probable and that it is something which has escaped from
its animal origins by way of a discrete leap, then, given the fact that its
nervous system and brain are not greatly dierent from those of higher
primates, in order to explain the exceptional place in the universe that
we nd ourselves in, which is just high enough to release us from the
environmental constraints which characterize an animal however
this comes about, whether we are a newly created entity or whether
we have eected a breakthrough from vital soul to a completely dier-
ent sort of acts rather than functions of the soul and which belong to
what we call mind then no amount of scientic observations about
the human being can ever reveal its true nature or its true unity. Te
dierence between human and animals must therefore be of a supra-
vital order, and cannot be reduced to any obvious correlation with
anything to do with the nervous system.
+,s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Before we ask ourselves what mind is, what a person is, what this
human condition of being rooted in the mind is i.e. to have ones
core being in a mental world and its values and what the specic
mental laws actually are, we need to consider the following. In a hu-
man being there is not simply a quantitative developmental increase in
the same psychical agency which we nd in animals. Te human being
is not just a complicated animal or a cleverer animal. Vhat has hap-
pened at the root of the matter is a complete about-turn, a revolution
[Umsc|uurg], or, if you wish, an inversion of the basic relationship
which obtains between the organic life of the entity and its mental or-
der. Moreover, this turn-around [Umsc|uurg] or this inversion, in re-
spect of the metaphysical act which renders it viable, is the very thing,
which, taken in a non-temporal and non-empirical sense, is what the
coming-to-be of a human being actually is.
Vhat does this radical shift [Umsc|uurg] in a living entity consist
in . In short, it consists in the consciousness, which in animals serves
the exigencies of life, now becoming the master of that life; it consists
in the means, whereby an animals life is maintained and promoted,
now becoming its own self-perpetuating goal or end; it consists in
what, in animals and plants must be a parallel process to the actual liv-
ing process [latent as to its eventual role], being raised up above these
very life processes, to become an essential part of mind [i.e. making
what was latent now overt], and then treating this organic life that it
has left behind with all its tendencies, drives and needs as auto-
matically serving itself mind and the will of its minds disin-
terested aims and values. In a similar way to how the life-centre and
the animal psyche concentrates the physical and chemical forces which
surround it in a temporal fashion to foster its the life-centres or
animal psyches aims, so the mental soul the mind directs and
steers the living agent [life-centre, animal psyche] to promote its the
minds goals.
Vhat is at stake here, in the coming-to-be of a human being, is noth-
ing less than a cosmic or even a metacosmic revolution [Rcvo|utio]. Te
earth-bound human being is only a testament to, or case history of, all
this, an example thereof. It testies to this: the human being as an idea
is the point, phase or place in the cosmos through which all forms of
families, species or sorts of unfolding specimens of life lose their own
indeterminate control over themselves, and simply serve an overriding
principle, which we call mind, for which, and for whose actuality, aims
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,,
and value-setting, the entire variety of the organic world has opened
up a gap or a thoroughfare. Tis means that there is a three-fold cau-
sality in play and a three-fold parallelism: natural forces life agency
mind. Looking at it another way, mind, through its acts, allows the
appearance of a form of being and coming-to-be whose common de-
nominator is that it is supramaterial [ocrmotcric||c] and supranatural
[ocrroturyromisc|c] i.e. a new and higher version of the matters of
fact and natural dynamics of becoming and being in the vital sphere.
Tis new version is freed from its organic links, and the mental acts
which bring out its appearance now turn their allegiance to building
up a consciousness of God. Te whole new situation is one whereby
a new realm of evaluation springs up, and one which we call culture,
leaving the sorts of knowledge and feelings appropriate to a living crea-
ture behind. Te supravital realms concerns are entirely to do with
ideas and values relevant to a world where consciousness of the self
and God are the determining aims, and the essential nature of things
is the content it works with, and both are nothing to do with adapta-
tion to nature or fortuitous inductive experiences derived from this.
Te subject is now someone who not only knows nature, but knows
what determines it. Te entire situation is no longer that of some sub-
jective agency emerging out of whatever nature lets come-to-be, nor of
a subjective agent nding itself in whatever corner of the world that
it happens to have been born and brought up in. It is now a situation
where the agent is in a position to withdraw from such chance contin-
gencies, and survey the wider arena of values and goals which have al-
ready been gathered up by humans concerning the coming-to-be and
the having-been of the world from the very beginning.
If we focus more closely on the implications of this about-turn,
whose nal outcome is the genius, then we can see that animals per-
ception, representation, instinct, rudimentary intelligence, and knowl-
edge of various sorts, are all constrained by what is useful or harmful,
although they do not know that they are constrained in this way. Te
boundaries of its environment are like thick walls which close it o
from the breadth and height of the universe. On the other hand, a hu-
man being |os uor|. It even knows that there is a world beyond the
walls which it knows, and which it cannot know. No animal knows
anything about the stars and the laws which govern them, nor indeed
about mathematics, physics, science and metaphysics. It is rst among
human beings that there arises a will to know. It is rst among them
+o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
also that any notion of truth, or a universe, or an ordered whole, springs
up, and, along with this, a clear awareness that its sensory functions
only give it an inadequate, miniscule and illusory version of all there is.
Te human cannot even recognise the boundaries and connes of its
sense of things with its sensory apparatus alone, but can only do this
with its reasoning faculty. It steps out from the connes of its animal
environment, recognizing this very step, into the breadth and distance
of the world.
Tere can only be proper knowledge and truth on the part of a hu-
man being if there is an agency within it which can grasp that things in
the world are such-and-such [Soscir], and whose activity is indepen-
dent from its specic nervous and sensory organization. Vith these
criteria met, a sphere is available for intuiting the basic phenomena,
and for thinking ideas. It is only in this way that the human being can
overcome the bounds of its sensory organization, just like the scientist
or historian who does just that every day. Te human being can even
grasp and recognize matters which lie in some sphere, which are in fact
only relative to his specic organisation, yet distinguish what is rela-
tive about them from what is absolute. Te agency which can do this is
not relative to the human organism [i.e. it is extra-human].
Te same goes for the ideas of what is good, beautiful and right,
from which grow great works, comprehensive systems of morality,
art and legal systems, all of which place life at their service, and all
of which, as elements of civilization and its technological framework,
seek to subjugate life, and consign it to the status of a substructure of
their own self-enhancing existence.
It is not critical to my argument whether individual aesthetic values,
moral values, or simple feelings of what is right and wrong, do or do
not occur here and there in the life and world of animals. Vhat is
decisive is that they only occur, in things or actions, as carriers of val-
ues which are meaningful for the preservation and promotion of the
animals life. Te animal has desire, or lack of it, in the presence of the
beautiful, as Darwin showed, but it neither freely produces beautiful
things, nor does it show any sign of enjoying them as Lotze showed.
It has an emotional solidarity with the herd, and can contagiously take
on the emotional state of others. But it has no free scope for compas-
sion, and no spiritual [gcistigc] love and kindness against, or indepen-
dently of, its own vital interests; only sexual appetite and tenderness
belong to the animal in this respect. It has anxiety, and maybe fear at
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg ++
what concerns it now, but no fear of death, and no sense of respect. It
remembers its punishment, and what it has been frightened of, but
has no sense of remorse. It hesitates if it comes up against something
unfamiliar, such as a mirror image of itself, but has no sense of aston-
ishment and no admiration. An animal experiences pain and desire,
but has no notion of a suering which actually tolerates this for some
higher ideal, as in martyrdom, let alone an acknowledgement that
some people enjoy suering. Even less has the animal a notion that
life is a trial. Te animal occasionally chooses perhaps between one or
other item within its sphere of vital interests, but there is no question
of an objective and denite preferential ordering of values and goods.
It is a question of the animals vacillating between one thing and an-
other, rather than an actual choosing.
Te human being comes to life again as a mental and spiritual per-
son in the form of his or her mental and spiritual individual self-
consciousness. In this form it is indivisible, individualized, indepen-
dent, actual, supra-temporal, and supra-spatial. In this form, too, it
possesses its life, which means that it freely steers it, and is able to
control it within denite limits. Furthermore, it, the mental agent, is
able to bring the inner play of the automatic goings-on of life drive
impulses, representations to a state of objectivity, and, according to
its own supravital aims, enables it, as if from the outside, to steer these
and utilise them. By contrast, the animal has only a functional, divis-
ible, vital soul-centre and corresponding consciousness of itself, the
last of these reliant only on the continuity of its memory. It is rst indi-
vidualized through the chemical and physical substances and energies
which make up its body. Te plant is probably only momentarily and
discontinuously in charge of its movements, and is a disunited col-
lection of sensitive life forces [Drorggcj||]. It has no consciousness,
and no sensations of a sort which can report back its state and move-
ments to some central place which one could call a self . It has no life
of the sort that an animal and human have. In humans the vital soul is
relatively isolated, and only shows through in dreams, hypnosis, mass
contagious behaviour, sexual intercourse, and, in the child, in its rst
few months.
Vhat is free and active about the act centre of the person is by no
means arbitrary, but refers to its conforming to rules and determina-
tions of its timeless individual nature, whose mous vivcri is to have
an eect or not to have an eect on the life-centre, and never to be a
+a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
passive recipient of what the life-centre might have to pass on. Tis
results in the nature of the persons only being revealed slowly in the
course of its [subordinate partners] empirical vital development [- i.e.
it, the person, is revealed as the exhibition of what it, the person, lets
appear of what is going on in the psychic domain and, in a negative
manner, what it, the person, does not let appear]. Te favourableness
or otherwise of our genetic inheritance, and our organic fate with re-
spect to illness and longevity, and the hazards in our environment, can
all reveal themselves to a greater or lesser extent in this way. Iowever,
its own nature, its own fate, and what has led it to be what it is, the
person knows dierently from how the organic living part of it knows,
despite the two being part of one another.
Te human being is not a product of development and history. Only
a creature who is outside time can understand what history is. Each
person is newly created by the circumstances of their parental beget-
ting, in conjunction with the laws of the universal life process of which
they are part.
From that point onwards i.e. its parents begetting the human
beings life is available to serve whatever mental schemes the mind has
in store, which in essence concern God himself and Iis unfolding. In
this context the following words are apposite: And if a man gain the
whole world and lose his soul ..
rncrunn ow rrrn zwn sour
Te motive that made me decide to choose the theme Life and Soul
for a public lecture was not that I wanted to set out a conventional
philosophical theory about this obscure relationship. For, it is rather
my utter conviction that all conventional theories whether those of
the Scholastics, which treat the soul as a corporal form of life; whether
those which allow all sorts of interaction between the two; or those
which see a parallelism between the two are all found wanting from
the current standpoint of appropriate scientic investigation. Vhen I
began to concern myself with this scientic problem about twenty-ve
years ago the entire philosophical contribution, both in Germany and
elsewhere, was as to whether the soul was a sort of substance which
could inuence the body, or whether the principle of conservation of
energy in its broader version as a simple mechanical law of natural
causality forbade anything other than a parallelism between conscious
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,
psychic events and nervous or brain physiological events. From the
viewpoint of this latter position so-called psycho-physical parallel-
ism there were three alternative formulations put forward for these
strange parallel happenings.
1. First, there was the so-called idealistic or pan-psychic version,
which at root considered the entire sequence of physical causality as
only the content of a universal consciousness, and as an assertion of a
continuous psychic causality.
2. A second version, an epiphenomenological one, which made psy-
chic experience equivalent to conscious appearances, was that the ap-
pearances of the soul were among themselves completely disconnected
and only occurred in exceptional places in the physical causal nexus
in more highly organized creatures, and certainly not plants. Tis
theory was near enough a sort of materialism, and made out that all
psychic connections were ultimately only explicable as cerebro-physi-
ological events.
3. A third proposal was a version of monism, whereby the two series
of events, viewed as having the same span and continuity, each reect-
ed the same natural event but from two dierent angles one psychic
and one physiological. Iowever, in the nal analysis both series were
regarded as objective appearances of the same metaphysical unknown
substance and its modications as Spinoza thought.
Vhoever today takes a serious look at the problem of life and soul,
takes on something which, on the face of it, is a dry-as-dust, boring,
Scholastic, intellectual gymnastics. It reeks of some bygone venture,
full of unproven assumptions, short on living matters of fact, and ad-
dicted to theory-building, in short, insulated, equally, from the facts
of life and the scientic approach. It is, however, childish to put mat-
ters in this way, as if cit|cr there is a parallelism or there is an inter-
action. Surely there must be numerous possible ways of expressing
the relationship between the two, in addition to parallelism or simple
interaction. Even the Ancient philosophers came up with plausible
alternatives to this either-or format. Tere are Ilatos parable of the
prisoners in the cave, and Aristotles theory, which St. Tomas Aqui-
nas reworked in a peculiar way, to start with. In recent times we have
Bergsons account, as set out in Mottcr or Mcmory. Furthermore, it
is completely childish to assume that in human beings there are only
two possible realms to consider: soul which is phenomenologically
reduced to consciousness and life which is generally treated in the
+ rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
accounts in question as reduced to its chemical and physical compo-
nents. Vhy could there not be three, or ve, such realms in play. Iow
do you know, before a proper investigation of the matter is under-
taken, that there is not a trichotomy say, life, soul and mind.
To completely write o this suggestion is to fall into the very trap
whereby this problematic has previously been tackled, a method which
I like to call the method of principles. Vhat I mean by this is that no-
one rst of all asks how the actual experienced or inferred workings
of the soul do interrelate with events of the living body in any of the
scientic domains where it is appropriate to ask this question. Tese
include empirical psychology, physiology, anatomy, and the relevant
parts of medicine. Moreover, no-one asks whether, in all this tangle,
there might not be some connecting theme. Instead, all one hears are
defeatist remarks to the eect that none of this can even be properly
thought about if the two principles of nature themselves are shrouded
in mystery and are intangible. Te whole point, however, is that these
two principles soul and life are set up and then deemed enigmatic,
whereas the proper way to proceed is surely to start with all the facts
of the matter and then see whether these two principles t the facts.
Allow me, before I get on to an actual broadening of our question, to
give a brief account of the causes and basis for the completely altered
formulation of the question which our contemporary philosophy and
science adopts, as opposed to the way the same obscure questions were
asked in the past. Ve can divide this up into six main considerations.
1. First, there is the inuence of the pervasively dierent Zcitgcist of
our own times.
2. Secondly, there are masses of new psychological facts and theories
on the matter, which have a bearing on the way the questions might
be asked.
3. Tirdly, profound revolutions in the elds of physics and chemis-
try, particularly the theories of Einstein and Ilanck, have to be borne
in mind. No less relevant are fundamental transformations in biologi-
cal and medical thoughts and their implications, for example, on the
meaning of vitalism, on the very notion of what medicine is, in endo-
crinological research, in the growing investigation into brain function,
and for the progress of developmental psychology and pathological
psychology, and, in particular, knowledge about psychopathology.
4. Fourthly, there is the role of so-called phenomenological philoso-
phy to consider, which oers a philosophical method which is more
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,
relevant to our question than any other recent suggestion in the eld.
Tere are two aspects to this:
i) its separation of questions about the essence of something from
questions about the fortuitous experience one might have of the same
thing; and
ii) the linking of the life-soul problem with issues to do with theo-
ries of cognition and ontological, metaphysical questions.
5. Ten, there is the contribution of one man, Freud, to take into
account. Ie has illuminated aspects of what we call life and soul and
their inner connections in an entirely new way. Te obscure world of
the human unconscious drives and their energy, along with their dual
eects, on the one hand inuencing conscious states, and on the other
hand channelling into physiological events of all sorts breathing, car-
diac activity, sexual activity, digestion etc. have been opened up.
+. zvircvisr
Vhether the so-called Zcitgcist is a source of truth or error it is fre-
quently one or the other there is no doubt that it aects the way our
above-mentioned question is put. Te profound thinker George Sim-
mel once said, in the same vein as Rudolph Eucken in his book Bosic
Corccpts oj |rcscrt-oy Lijc, that each era has its own model category
of how the world is conceived and imbibed, as it were. For example, in
the 18
th
Century it was the heavenly constellations of stars and their
movements. Today there is no doubt that our model category is Life.
Tis trend has been taken to extremes, perhaps to a laughable degree
in its uncriticalness, in the clamour with which Lcocrsp|i|osop|ic has
been adopted in all countries.
I do not wish to labour this point. But anyone can see the meaning
which sport, dance, and the worship of the body, have for the youth
movements in all countries, and can only be amazed at the dual renun-
ciation on the part of our era, on the one hand of the values of intel-
lectual and spiritual achievement sportsmen and popular singers are
these days much more important people than any poet, philosopher,
painter or scientist and on the other hand the ideals of a mechanistic
work ethic. You only have to feel the Dionysian undercurrents in all
this to see what I mean. Te English economist Keynes has captured
this trend in striking images.
+o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Nietzsche, Bergson, Simmel and Dilthey, and a variety of neo-prag-
matists, make up this so-called Lcocrsp|i|osop|ic of a primitive sort,
and even some rationalist philosophers, such as Rickert, fall into the
category.
At this point one should note that Life, the dominant world cat-
egory of our time, is quite neutral with respect to the psycho-physical
distinction. For, what is psychic and what physical when a human be-
ing smiles, blushes, hesitates or dances. Especially since Descartes, the
usual thinking about all this, in Vestern circles, is to cram it into a du-
alistic framework. For such things to occur, it is assumed, there must
rst of all be some event in consciousness, and, secondly, in addition
and in a strange way, all sorts of physical movements which one must
conceive of in physical and chemical terms which taken as a whole
are referred to as mechanistic. Alternatively, the human behaviour in
question is attributed to an unknown X which stands for soul
which relies for its activity in an unknown way on the molecules and
atoms of its nervous system, which, according to this view, it is noth-
ing else besides. But none of this is acceptable in our era. Vhere, in
all this, resides Life and its unity. Ias it not been spirited away, if all
this were true. Is the sequence of conscious events then life itself. No,
they are merely knowledge oj what is happening in psychic life: Are,
then, chemical and physical processes life. If we take an actual example
of what I mean, we can see that if I am presented with a lemon, then I
salivate. Tis is Iavlovs core experiment. Te perception, indeed even
the suggestion, of a fruit, and even in sleep, stimulates the activity of
the salivary gland, and further causes a build-up of gastric juices. Iow
does it do this. Te traditional way of explaining it, deriving from
Descartes, and invoking soul as equivalent to consciousness and
body as a mechanistic entity and both in this formulation being
separately stimulated because they are separate substances, is as fol-
lows. A series of light waves impinges on the eyes and generates mul-
tiple reproductions of this stimulus in a path from the sensory nerves
to the occipital cortex, where, without further ado or explanation, a
conscious image is somehow created. Te whole issue is considered to
be a purely receptive event. But no-one can say how and why there is
this conversion of a stimulus event into a motor event in the stomach
involving chemical happenings in this organ. Vhy should this gastro-
intestinal activity happen in this precise way, and not correspond to
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +;
the visual presentation of some other food. No-one seems to under-
stand the mystery.
Iow should we put the matter these days, or at least counter this
traditional version of events. First of all, it is not correct to say that the
visual perception of the lemon or some other fruit is only determined
by the stimulus, sensory organ, ecient nervous conduction, and oc-
cipital cortical arousal. Te situation is rather that there must be some
drive-based hunger or appetite, or some other such drive-based at-
tention of a spontaneous sort, which already bears on the situation.
Otherwise, no perception would arise in the rst place. A receptive
set of events is simply not enough. Te formula E = f (R + tr A) must
hold i.e. E Lmprurg [sensation] = function of Rciz [stimulus]
and trico|ojtcr [drive-based] Aujmcr|som|cit [attention]. Secondly, it
is not true that the functional unity of the build-up of gastric juices
or the salivary glands output can be solely explained within a physi-
cal and chemical framework. Teir functional unity cannot be directly
explained within the framework of matter and energy even, although
the last two play a part, and their role can be investigated. Even in re-
spect of the role played by the physical and chemical factors, the same
psycho-physically neutral, living drive-impulse is necessary to activate
the physical and chemical factors. For how else could the last-named
make t|csc gastric juices as opposed to some other juices ow, or act as
a constituting determination for the perception which the fruit com-
prises.
By now the picture we have built up is completely dierent from
the one we started out with. It is no more a case of there being a pure
visual perception arriving from outside us, and, in the absence of any
arousal of the organism, setting in train gastric secretion by mechanis-
tic or purely chemical motor direction, along with chemical and physi-
cal events. Te true situation is schematically as follows.
Drive impulse an actual living matter, psycho-physically neutral
Ierception Functional unity of the build-up of this gastric juice
An undivided life event now operates in the place of two completely
disparate things [proposed by the erstwhile philosophical theory],


+s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
things about whose connections no-one knows anything anyway, and
for the possibility of whose coming together Descartes pupils had to
resort to coining the term occasionalism which required the inter-
vention of God or had to explain away the strange gap between them
by coming up with the notion of parallelism as Spinoza recom-
mended. For our part, we think that it is high time that one stopped
casting out life from our world, and stopped substituting it with pas-
sive, so-called conscious events on the one hand, and physico-chemical
formulae on the other.
If we make the same point more formally, this runs as follows. Te
specically, vitally oriented Zcitgcist in our day has destroyed the pre-
vious Vestern pattern of thinking, itself fairly new, and one to which
most scholars adhered. Te pattern of thinking in question is the du-
alistic Cartesian way of thought, which on the one hand makes of the
body something that purloins force only to make of it nothing more
than a bit of extension, and on the other hand turns the might of the
soul into nothing more than a passive, so-called consciousness. All this
has the net result of demeaning knowing and reective knowing, and
of disastrously splitting apart body and soul one from the other.
a. rnv wvw vvvivwr.i vsvcnoiocv
Independently of the Zcitgcist, there are a number of investigations
into sensation, perception, memory, aect and acts of feeling and will
-particularly those of Kulpe and his school, which inaugurated the
psychology of thinking whose rich results provide a new set of facts
and elementary laws governing relationships in this area, and are abso-
lutely critical to our understanding of the issue of soul and life. Iere,
I shall only deal with a few general points of view. In the course of the
above investigations, three connected, theoretical and basic assump-
tions on the whole matter have been gradually destroyed.
1) Te rst of these is sensualism. Tis theory takes the stimulus-
proportional, isolated sensation to be the most elementary, in the sense
of simplicity, and hence as the most causally earliest, conscious experi-
ence. But, in fact, it is not a sensation, but the emotional, drive-based
and motor sides of the souls life, which are demonstrably the elemen-
tary obscure womb from which all sorts of intellectual processes rst
causally spring forth. It is probably the case that in plants and lower
animals there is a living soul, which, in general, possesses nothing re-
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,
sembling sensations or consciousness, but merely drive-based, directed
movement. Furthermore, there simply does not exist any strictly, pure,
stimulus-proportional sensation, independent of either drive-based
attentional events or motoric impulses. A sensation is a special case
[Grcrzocgri]. But virtually everyone continues to treat the notion of
a sensation as a fact of the elementary stage of the life of the soul,
and that is because they simply assume the truth of the traditional
psychological teachings. A relatively stimulus-proportional sensation
is, as Jaensch showed, just a late product of a souls development, and
therefore is to be regarded as a by-product of the growing dissociation
between representations and perceptions which occur normally
as one grows old. Ierception itself is an adaptation to spontaneous,
drive-induced fantasy. Moreover, what these days is variously called a
holistic approach, a unied complex, a form [Gcsto|t], or a structure,
all such precede the isolated sensation in the order of things, and the
experience and observation of a so-called sensation are demonstrably
dependent on the nature and structure of these totalities in every con-
sideration. For this reason, the older versions of sensualism Iumes,
Condillacs, Machs and a mechanistic version of the philosophical
notion of parallelism, were made for each other. Even the assumption
of higher order supervisory faculties of the soul, which rst allegedly
give order, allow assimilation, and allocate relationships, to the scat-
tered points of sensations an assumption which lies at the basis of
Kants philosophy should, in the light of the new experimental psy-
chology, be jettisoned, and with it any distinction between a higher
and a lower soul, as Vundt envisaged. In fact, if one joins the sensual-
ist doctrine to that of epiphenomenal parallelism then what one gets
is Lotzes version of an interaction between the two entities, whereby
it is now referential thinking [oczic|crc Dcr|cr] [and not simply
consciousness as in the traditional formulation] which is supposed to
bring ordered meaning and purposefulness to otherwise isolated sen-
sations, and which, according to Lotze and his school, is supposed to
assume the chief burden of evidence for the existence of a substantial
soul which works on the body.
2) Association psychology, which is closely bound up with the truth
of sensualism, is the next traditional assumption to have been under-
mined. Association psychology was historically a metaphorical analo-
gy drawn from Newtons vision of how everything worked in the same
mechanistic way, from celestial bodies to simple molecules. Te im-
+,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
petus to fashion an ossociotior psychology was further fuelled by two
considerations. Te rst was the tendency to regard the living soul as
something that could be controlled a tendency particularly promi-
nent among Jesuits, doctors and pedagogues and to treat it as rather
amorphous and needing an imposed structure. Te second consider-
ation was the view, taken by Iriestley and Iartley for instance, that its
smooth running bore a one-to-one relationship with the physiological
activity of the nervous system, a physiology moreover which treated
lifes events as merely applied physics and chemistry, they themselves
being regarded as purely mechanistic sciences, a view directly attribut-
able to Descartes. Neither of these two inuences on the subject was
an insight derived from actual investigation of the matter in question,
but was mere wishful thinking, prior to any such investigation. Tey
corresponded to the wish to bring the life of the soul in line with the
Vc|toi| of the physics and biology of the Newtonian era. Tis asso-
ciation psychology, the nature of which is to view all soul complexes,
meaningful connections and motivating currents, as isolated spatio-
temporal potential contact points so-called representations which
recur in identical fashion, join up then fall apart, and carry out their
business with all sorts of tendencies, such as reproduction and perse-
veration, is nowadays, generally, though not completely, discredited.
Ihilosophically, we can say that pure associations of the above sort
generally do not occur. Approximation to these, however, do turn up
as pathological instances for example, the word association univer-
sity universe, instead of university rector. But they are least of all
seen in elementary states of the soul, such as in children and animals.
Tey are rather special cases of cognition, which may occur in some
sorts of mental illness. For these reasons, i.e. the demise of association
psychology, we have to adopt one of two positions with regard to any
replacement. Either we give up the notion that there is any co-ordina-
tion between the representational processes and physiological events.
Or else we have to rethink our ideas of what physiological events actu-
ally are. Te latter is the route known as functional vitalism, and, in a
dierent way, is reected in Gestalt psychology and Gestalt physiol-
ogy.
It is the latter, not the former, path along which we have to go. Tere
are certainly a wealth of psychic connections not derived from either
association, reproduction or perseveration; for example, the naming
function of a word, instinctual activity, judgement and proposition
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,+
formation, the simplest thought processes, and even the solution of
the most elementary tasks. A so-called mental soul [Gcistscc|c] is not
what rst brings order and sense in some consequential act dealing
with the supposed chaos proered to it by some other part of the soul.
Achs treatise on Vi|| or lcmpcromcrt, with his notion of a determin-
ing tendency, provided the rst inklings of our new concept of a soul.
Te critical insight here was that the souls inherent way of proceeding,
from the very outset, is characterized by a functional aim-directedness
without the intervention of any mental acts. Tis occurs at all stages of
development, and does not just apply at a special point in this develop-
ment. Tis means that tasks are being carried out, referential links of
a meaningful sort are being made, and organized and unied reactions
are occurring in the organism as a whole, and all this in the context of
corresponding changes in the environment as a whole. Te living soul
hitherto, in the previous epoch of psychology, regarded as an exotic
addition to the life process itself now becomes the very living event
itself of the entire organism, closely and inwardly linked to everything
that is going on. In fact, this new account has much in common with
the Ancients views, in which biology and psychology are again tightly
joined. Isychology again becomes the study of the life of inwardness, a
biology of the inner life. Instead of laws of association-forming, there
is one overriding law in play: each organized complex and each form
and structure has the tendency to amplify its own meaningful totality,
though under the inuence of value-laden and emotionally appropri-
ate anticipatory drive aims. Anything resembling an association is a
sheer co-incidence, and, if it occurs, is more likely to be a manifesta-
tion of a failing, disintegrating organism, a situation as far as one can
possibly get from how any elementary, early, or causally prior living
set-up proceeds.
Tese are only a few examples of the new psychology. [Tere are
many others in all areas of psychic life.]
3) Because those who study the labyrinth that is our brain are more
of an expert on psychology than are psychologists expert on the brain,
the picture of the soul that we are building up here has quickly led
to marked revisions in our knowledge of how the brain works. Tis
new knowledge in turn has inuenced philosophical formulations of
life and soul. A psycho-mechanistic parallelism of any sort has been
abandoned, as has any theory of mutual interaction. For, if the very
simplest creation of the soul an elementary perception, for instance
+,a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
is already possessed of a form and unied meaning in its own right,
and does not derive this from any additions or supplementary laws,
and the same is true for the simplest memory events for example,
learning strings of nonsense there is simply no need to invoke the ex-
istence of some authoritarian soul substance which rst confers unity
and meaning in a supposedly associative accord with whatever an al-
legedly existing under-soul brings to this supposed accord.
,. r.wsro.riow or rnv scivwriric
wrrrnrr or w.ruv irsvir
Vith this we arrive at the most obscure, and, even today, still unclear
side of the contemporary problematic. All present-day philosophical
theories concerning life and soul, however dierent, and that includes
Drieschs, take as read, to a greater or lesser extent, a mechanistic view-
point of nature, at the very least when it comes to the inorganic realm.
Teir model is classical Newtonian physics. At the very least they for-
mulate matters as if they had never heard of Einstein, Ilanck, Duhem,
Ioincar, Bergson, Le Roy, Meyerson, Mach, Schlick or Reichenbach.
Such ignorance can also be seen among philosophers following in the
Kantian tradition Riehl, Cohen, Natorp who regard the problem
of life and soul as nothing more than a challenge for the theory of
knowledge.
In fact, if one takes a mechanistic view of nature to be the endeav-
our to make the perceivable phenomena of natural things merely the
consequence of measurable alterations in place in space and time or
in some four-dimensional matrix as Minkowsky proposed and to
grasp the laws of such changes and how they are determined, then
virtually all philosophers can be accused of adhering to a mechanistic
view of nature, a pangeometry, as it were.
But if one gets to grips with what contemporary physicists are tell-
ing us about nature, then notions of an absolute space, absolute time,
absolute movement, or absolutely extended matter, are simply wrong.
Contemporary physics has simply no truck with a unied, overarching
Vc|toi|, but, on the contrary, is coming up with an obscure, unimagi-
nable, and even contradictory relativity, whose only truth is contained
in the equations of quantum physics. Some physicists deem the laws
of nature to be the laws of large numbers. Others, Ilanck, for example,
conceive of there being two sorts. Te whole issue of what nature is has
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,,
been reduced to a question of electrons, and that in itself only intensi-
es the whole question as to what matter is. Te quantum physicist is
questioning the very fabric of his discipline just like a physical Bolshe-
vist, coming up with radically new answers, and demanding a complete
overthrow of the old, formal, mechanistic principles of causality in the
eld of physics. Teir endeavours have hardly been exploited by those
of us tackling our own philosophical problems. But there is one no-
table exception, a partial application of the young physics, and that is
Koehlers book ||ysico| Iorms oj Rcst or Stotiorory Stotcs, published
in 1920. Te gist of this briey is that in the inorganic world, looked at
in a purely theoretical way and excluding any practical considerations,
there is as little in the way of a mechanistic set-up as there is in the
physiological and psychic domains. Tere exists a set of laws, espe-
cially in the eld of electricity, whereby, at any given point in a eld of
forces, what happens is dependent on the potential structural altera-
tions of the entire eld. Tis structural law has led to the discovery of
a similar law in the domain of the psychic, a matter which Vertheimer
sets out in his \isuo| Lxpcricrcc oj Movcmcrt. From this we can con-
clude that in spite of the demise of association theory we neither need
to resort to any sort of vitalism whereby the dead world is deemed
to have an intrinsic goal-orientation towards mechanistic workings, as
Driesch thought nor to any sort of soul-substance, to account for a
strict parallelism between the physical and the psychic. Tat which is
outside is also inside: Tis proposition has been taken to mean, and
so far rightly so, that the inorganic world is so stupid and meaningless
that everything in it has to work according to sacrosanct and necessary
laws of a mechanistic sort. For us, however, the proposition has poten-
tially a completely new meaning: there is an amechanistic parallelism
between the goings-on in the physical or the psychic realm. I myself
do not believe that this hypothesis is suciently robust to justify a
reinstatement of an unequivocal parallel organization and monism
between physical and physiological events. Tis law of forms neither
suces to explain all physiological matters, nor, even less, those of a
psychological nature. Even the supposed similarities between physi-
ological and physical events are not properly thought through. All the
same, the whole approach opens a new perspective.
Vhat if, though, the entire formal- mechanistic view of nature had
merely a practical and biological determining value, as Bergson in his
Mottcr or Mcmory and Crcotivc Lvo|utior and I in my Cogritior or
+, rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Vor| have proposed. Iere for the rst time the life-soul problem is
recognized as being inextricably linked with cognitive theories about
physics, an issue that Bergson rst realized. If it could be demonstrat-
ed that the basic categories and intuitively derived manifold, which the
formal-mechanistic version of nature assumes, were not determined
by human reason and what it establishes, as Kant thought, but that,
for example, space, relative time and the laws of the formal mechanistic
structures, were already pre-rational and biological, then the conse-
quence of all this would be to make it illegitimate to try to explain life
itself by means of categories which are themselves the tools of life. Tis
then raises the question as to whether there are not entirely dierent
ways of knowing inorganic nature. Vhat about Goethes notions of a
secret intelligence or witness of something long past [Kurc] or a pan-
physiognomy. Ierhaps inorganic nature is itself only petried dead
life [crstorrtcs gcstorocrcs Lcocr]. Vhen life dies does it petrify accord-
ing to discoverable laws. Ian-vitalism or pan-psychism [are so general
as to be virtually meaningless]. Bergsons solution is too rash and the
way he poses the problem is classical see my Cogritior or Vor|.
. iwn .wn iirv .wn rnv wvw nu.iis
But what is now the most remarkable thing of all in the profound
reorganization of our thoughts on all these matters is, that at the same
time as the dualism of life and soul, along with the processes of the
soul and the physiological life processes, are being completely dis-
mantled, and the thesis of an independent soul becomes merely the
biology of inwardness, and all this has repercussions on what the soul
is regarded as encompassing stretching from the lowest forms of
animal life, even the protozoon, to at least the lower centres of the
nervous system in humans at the very same time as all this is up
for consideration an entirely new dualism opens up. Tis dualism has
been largely unsuspected by anyone in the 19
th
or even the 20
th
Centu-
ries, and was completely overlooked by the Ancient Greeks or Kant. In
fact the more Life and Soul become orc concept of life itself along with
a vitally, unied set of functional laws i.e. monism the more the
dualism of Life and Mind advances and eventually reaches the stage
where it alone lays claim to metaphysical validity. In this way, certain
hoary philosophical problems e.g. psychologism, whether in logic,
ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics or natural theology are overcome.
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,,
Mind realizes itself only in partnership with the highest level of a
living creature, which we refer to as its technical intelligence. Mind, in
its most essential sense, is something only by virtue of its carrying out
acts of intention. Tese acts:
1) are directed upon pure objective ideas and the essential nature
of things;
2) possess a nal goal whose direction has nothing to do with any
values belonging to life, but with truth, beauty and goodness, for ex-
ample, and with devotion to God;
3) concern the being-so and laws of matters which are nothing to do
with any comparable laws which apply in the sphere of living entities;
and
4) are free of any reliance on the changing states of a psycho-phys-
ical organism be these psychic or physiological but have to do
with the very nature of what things are, their being such-and-such and
none other.
[Te following remarks and questions should give a avour of the
nature of mind.]
i) Is mind part of the psyche. Or is it rather only linked with the
psyche by virtue of the latters necessary role in the minds actualisa-
tion, without mind being in any way comprehensible in terms of any
of lifes characteristics.
ii) Mind is transcendent to all objective psychology. Tere is ob-
jectiable being and non-objectiable being, and mind is of the latter
sort.
iii) Mind has sociological and historical determinations.
iv) Mind should be studied in the context of objective cultural
achievements.
v) Can mind have a denite correlate within the nervous system. No
doubt there is mental activation in a given individual, but the intrinsic
nature of the intention and act can have no such correlation.
vi) Tere are implications for the theory of what the mind is in the
new ideas on the relationship between sub-cortical and cortical re-
gions of the brain.
vii) Technical intelligence and mind are not the same.
viii) Our notion of mind leads to the demise of: nominalism, sub-
jective accounts of the nature of values, and biological formulations of
ethics and aesthetics.
+,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
ix) Iuman beings and animals are now, through our theory of mind,
appropriately contrasted as, respectively, an open and a closed system.
x) Mind reveals itself and grows as the human being ages.
xi) Mind is not something that can be sick or healthy.
xii) Mind is not something that one inherits.
xiii) Mind is outside space i.e. non-extended and outside time.
xiv) Mind is outside consciousness, for the reason that it mind is
that very thing of which one is conscious.
xv) Mind is an opening to genuine freedom in contrast to the mere
spontaneity of the vital soul.
xvi) Following death the act-centre of the mind is not completely
wiped out, insofar as the mind is also part of God, and that part of the
centre remains in God.
xvii) Only as a mind and as a subject of mental activity can the hu-
man being embrace both psyche and nature.
,. rnvsvs
i
Te totality of noetic-psychic, physiological, and physiologico-physical
relationships breaks down not into two but into three levels.
Tese are: 1) a mind and person centre; 2) a vital centre with a vital
soul and living agent; and 3) centres and elds of forces, whose activity
underlies each special sets of laws. Tese sets of laws are, in the cases
of 2) and 3), rules of form-building, but not in general formal-mecha-
nistic ones, the latter being special cases of the former. But within the
ambit of the eectiveness of the vital centre, there are, in addition to
the form-building rules applicable to the physical and chemical ma-
terial to hand, yet another set of laws which deal with building up
temporal forms in an absolute time which have the same structure
from a physiological and a psychological viewpoint. All vital happen-
ings: a) are aimed at something; b) are automatic; c) are based on a
hierarchy of functions and drives, which is ordered like a monarchy;
d) are those which pertain to the preservation and development of the
living psycho-physical entity as a whole, and are aimed at something
relatively immediate but do not have a pre-planned ultimate or ex-
trinsically meaning-invested goal i.e. they are teleoclinical and not
teleological; and e) are intrinsically meaningful [sirr-vo||] and not ex-
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,;
trinsically meaning-invested [ric|t sirr|ojt], and neutral with respect
to mental values.
Life and soul are not like substances, but are only two objective
groupings of appearances deriving from the same psycho-physically
neutral vital-centre. Living events are both physiological processes
of life or psychic goings-on, and both are strictly co-ordinated one
with another. Te appearances exist as physiological or psychologi-
cal at the same time, and stem from one and the same elements and
therefore should not be counted twice as two intrinsically separate
entities. Te two are each functions; they are not in one case actual
appearances and in the other case only potentialities for such. Mind
is divorced from life, autonomous, and not a part or a function of the
soul. A person is an individuated act-centre whose ultimate subject is
an attribute of the original basis of the world. But it is lacking both
activity and force.
ii
Concerning causality, there are two sorts of genuine, metaphysical and
actual causal connections to distinguish, neither type being a simple
interaction. One is the relationship between person and the life cen-
tre, the other the relationship between the life centre and the centre
of forces. One general rule common to both is that the higher set-up
works on the lower, so the person works on the life centre and the lat-
ter on the force centre.
1) A person determines, directs and steers by way of inhibiting
and disinhibiting the activity of the life centre. By means of this it
imposes its own ideas and values on to the actual real order of the
world.
Te person is in this process intentionally related to the real world,
functionalizes
1
what is there, and holds up its own agenda to the im-
1 [Te editor brings to our attention two comments about functionaliza-
tion in other parts of lc Co||cctc Vor|s which clarify this crucial notion
of Schelers.]
1. I call functionalization the process by which the experience of a denite
object sheds all but its essential, distinguishing features to become the form
of the concept of all other objects of the same nature. (Co||. Vor|s, Vol.5,
p.198)
2. Tere is no inheritance of acquired properties but there is inheritance of
acquired functions. Te acquisition of functions, however, is by way of the
+,s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
pulses of the life centre as a precursor to guiding them. Tis guiding
is carried out by checking whether each particular impulse of the life
centre suits the persons own project or not, or whether promoting this
one and not that one will serve the purpose of fostering its preferred
value regime, or whether inhibiting that drive impulse and dis-inhib-
iting this one saying no or not saying no, as it were will contribute
to realizing its project or not. All this happens without any increase in
drive activity on the part of the life centre, and without any expendi-
ture of energy on the part of the person in any physical sense.
Furthermore, the upshot for the person in all this is not to be af-
fected or worked on. Te person, on his or her part, either determines
the situation through the acts that he or she carries out, or does not
determine what is going on by leaving the vital happenings free to go
their own way.
2) Te second overriding causal relationship is between the vital
centre and the centre and elds of forces. Tis only takes place in ab-
solute time. Otherwise it is very similar to the way the person deals
with the life centre by guiding and steering but, in the present
case, what is guided and steered are the form-building rules of the
chemical and physical processes, which are made to serve the aims of
the psychic processes, through the intermediary of the physiological
processes. In this way there is a continuous link between the dead in-
organic environment and psychic processes. But here, as in the case of
the person, there is no equal interaction: either the life centre exerts its
veto, or it does not [by saying no, or not so saying.]
Tere is a comparison in all this with the disparate elements which
make up a concert [see below]. Relationship 1), between person and
life centre, is like that of the composer to the eventual performance
of the piece. Relationship 2), between life centre and form building,
regulated electrodynamic and static forces, is like that of the conduc-
tor to the musicians. In no case is there an equal interaction between
the two parties.
3 Te spatio-temporal matrix assumed by the formal-mechanistic
formulation of nature, both the version of it in the physical and chemi-
cal spheres or the one allegedly providing the framework of the psy-
functionalization of attitudes of the organism in an early period of its life
in response to denite stimuli experience but which then become xed
such that they accommodate all experiences of the same general nature. (Co||.
Vor|s, Vol.8, p.24-29, 37)
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,,
chic sphere, is merely ctitious and at best a statistical invention. At
most it only occurs as an ideal, special case in the actual scheme of
things and has no actual existence itself and no actual ecacy.
iii
As for parallelisms, if we now move on from the real metaphysical
relationships just considered to functionally dependent relationships,
there are four rm parallelisms to distinguish.
1) First, there is an associative-mechanistic parallelism. Tis is be-
tween physiological pathways which are deemed to approximate to
stimulus-proportionality, on the one hand, and a psychic association
matrix, on the other hand. But the whole scheme here is just a meta-
phorical ction, a handy substitute for what is really going on.
2) Tere is then a parallelism between the form-building laws regu-
lating chemical and physical processes, on the one hand, and psychic
form processes on the other.
3) Next, there is a parallelism between physiological structure-
building processes, on the one hand, and psychic happenings, on the
other. Tis parallelism is between temporal events on both sides, is
occurring at the subconscious level and has nothing to do with mental
values, and is, essentially, the two sides of the coin of the soul.
4) Te fourth parallelism is between mental acts and the rules gov-
erning the way objective values such as ethical and aesthetic are
ordered.
Tese four parallelisms can be presented schematically as follows:
[See diagram, next page.]
1) Vhat is physical and what is world generally consist of the same
elements: striving and force, quality and sensation, thoughts and ob-
jective meaning, values and feeling, representation and pictorial im-
age, experienced relation and relationship to being. Tey also contain
the same lawful structures: formal-mechanistic, chemical associative
formation rules, teleoclinical i.e. determining tendencies, and noetic
rules.
2. Te critical dierence is that one, world, is being-for-itself, and
the other, physical, is being-for-others. Tis applies to all living crea-
tures.
+oo rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
3. For this reason there is no double bookkeeping of contents of
nature and of consciousness. It follows, therefore, that only the psyc|i-
co| jurctioro| coursc oj cvcrts has a strict parallel link with physiological
matters. Te actual contents of perception, feeling, representation and
thinking do not have this link.
4. Vhat forces are for bodily images, drives are for representations.
Te implications of all this for the problem of causal development in
history I have discussed in my treatise on lc Socio|ogy oj Krou|cgc.
All this leads to a nal reection, that the human being is truly a mi-
crocosm, and, at the same time, as Leibniz said, a little God. Trough
his or her mental person centre he or she is in touch with God, indeed
a part-centre of Gods. And he or she is part of a speck of dust too, and
the laws determining it. And, we can add, he or she is part of every-
thing else in between God and a speck of dust.

50


Person



Mental acts Rules of being


Vital centre



Psychic Physiological lawfulness


Centre of forces



Psychic Physiological
lawful formations lawful formations

Mechanistic
parallel









3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +o+
o. rnv isoovnic .w.iocv or iwn
It would be attractive to pursue the theory of mind and person still
further, continuing from where I left o in the two previous lectures.
But I intend in this last lecture to cut this short, and to give you a
schematic version of my theory. I shall seek to show that everything
I have brought out in a successive manner is in fact capable of being
grasped altogether and simultaneously. At the same time I shall be
proposing that they provide the basic framework of a new theory of
life-soul-mind, which, in my opinion, will stand as the foundation for
any subsequent particular theory of this.
A theory such as mine has to answer three questions: 1) To what
ultimate centres and agencies does the human being owe its existence.
2) Vhat ontological and metaphysical causal relationships are there
between these centres. 3) Vhat functional parallel dependencies are
assumed between appearances of anything.
To help get my meaning across, I propose to devote this lecture to
an illustrative analogy of these matters, and I shall choose a subject
whose structure is as isomorphic as possible with the human activity
I wish to illustrate.
Imagine that we are listening to a Beethoven symphony, played by
an orchestra under the guidance of a conductor, and performed by
a number of musicians and their instruments. Te entire experience,
which we hear and enjoy, has ve principle components, with com-
pletely dierent sorts of causal sources.
1. First, there is the composition, whose aesthetic and artisti-
cally meaningful context is the symphony, and whose composer is
Beethoven. Ve are equating this composer with the mental person
centre in a human being, and with the way the human beings indi-
vidual nature determines matters i.e. it is not real, but something
that is only present and value-conferring, or not, in this or that human
being, if it can, or cannot, be brought to realization.
2. Next, there is the conductor, whose musical conception and baton
movements are motivated by the artistic meaning content of the com-
position, without which the musicians would soon fall into confusion.
Ve are equating the conductor isomorphically with the vital centre in
a human being, each vital centre being a function-bundle of pan-life
life itself a centre, moreover, which is in itself neutral with respect to
+oa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
what is psychic and what is physical, but which is able to mo|c morijcst
both sides of this intrinsically unied entity.
3. Now we come to the musicians, many in number, well-practised,
and ordered among themselves e.g. rst violinist, second violin-
ist, etc. depending on the meaning which they wish to bring to the
performance of the artwork. Ve are equating them, in our model of
the human being, with the psycho-physical part-centres, in which the
form-giving functional and drive-based course of the living process has
its sources, physiological and psychological structure-building alike.
4. Ten there are the instruments that the musicians play vio-
lins, drums, trumpets, etc. each with its special sound-eect within
the system as a whole. Ve are equating these as isomorphic with the
physical and elementary psychic form-building laws.
5. Finally, the immediate causes of our sensory hearing is the world
of air vibrations, which trigger our hearing and all the specicities of
this functional modality. Ve are equating these with the formal-mech-
anistic dependencies which we nd in physiological events of all sorts
and which belong to the principle of controllability.
Tere are still two other considerations which emerge from this
comparison.
a) Te direction of what determines what along the chain is com-
poser conductor musicians instruments airwaves, and not
the reverse order. Tere is no interaction at play at any point in the
chain.
b) Each higher, more complex cause or determinant does not owe
its power to condition the coming-to-be of something to the existence
and eectiveness of a lower determinant, even though the latter are re-
sponsible for our possible experience of what comes-to-be. Vhat is an
unperformed symphony. Or a score without a conductor. Vhat is a
conductor without musicians. Vhat is a musician without an instru-
ment or with one that does not work. And if I could only make out
a confused noise from the air vibrations, then the composition would
be a closed book to me for ever. In the same way, the mind is nothing
without a vital soul; the latter is nothing without events conforming to
the lawfulness of vital temporal formations; these last nothing with-
out matter and energy.
In spite of these considerations the higher determinant is never
completely accounted for by the lower. Te higher one could always
be something else than what it actually is. Te meaningful content of
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +o,
the symphony stems from the mind of Beethoven, who has long been
dead and whose works have outlived him. Vhat actually accounts for
what we experience, from among the various determinants which we
have considered, has a strange look about it. Te lower determinants
have force behind them, whereas the higher determinants only have an
idea [and yet the latter are the more powerful]. One then arrives at the
even more curious conclusion that what is predominantly responsible
for our experience i.e. Beethoven has ceased to exist: it is no more;
it is false.
To conclude our illustrative analogy, the advocate of a psycho-mech-
anistic parallelism is equivalent to someone who wants to derive the
entire living composition from the airwaves and sensations. Te Ge-
stalt psychologist is someone who wants to derive it from the instru-
ments. Te psychovitalist is someone who tries to derive it from the
musicians and conductor.
Mind is nothing to do with the psychic. Lets put this behind us and
get on with the crux of the matter.
nssnwrrzr owroroov or rnn nuxzw
nnrwo zs zw nxnonrnn cnnzrunn
If we start out with the behaviour of a human and at the same time
consider what is given to us in immediate experience we can readily
list the following essentially dierent sorts of behaviour which under-
lie the human being.
1. In one way the human being behaves exactly like the bodily things
which he experiences in the external world under conditions of a natu-
ral Vc|torsc|ouurg. Vere he to fall from a tower he would fall exactly
as a stone does, and according to the same laws. A boulder or a rie
shot can destroy him; he can burn up. In short, he is, and experiences
himself as, a body, just as if he were perceiving part of his life from an
external viewpoint. Should he forget for a moment that he is a body
he only has to stumble and hit himself against something and he will
soon notice that he is a body a body among bodies. Te laws govern-
ing the relationships between bodies apply equally to him as a body
and as a subject with bodily behaviour.
Te body or the bodily thing is a genuine essential idea. Te struc-
ture of the determinations of a thing with this essential nature e.g.
movement potential, extension, duration, form, and all sorts of quali-
+o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
ties and the essential order with which these determinations are
built up, are the same for the human body as for all other possible
bodily things.
Everything that science has established in the way of mechanical,
physical and chemical laws, along with the accompanying basic no-
tions of what matter and force are, apply to that sort of body which
we call a human body as well as to how that body interacts with other
bodies living or dead and the same principles to do with exchange
of energy apply. Te laws of geometry, physics, chemistry, and ontol-
ogy and metaphysics, apply to his body as to all others. According to
St. Tomas Aquinas and Aristotle one should expect a dierent sort
of chemistry and physics in the former case. But this is ruled out, by,
among other things, the principle of the conservation of energy, which
applies to all bodies of whatever sort.
Note that what this embodiment of a human being alerts us to
from a metaphysical point of view is that whatever else a human being
might be it also enters into the problematic of the metaphysics and
ontology of bodily things. And for those of us who are concerned with
metaphysics, bodies, in their essence, if we set aside their existence and
dynamic eects, are nothing but pictorial images [Bi|cr] or objective
i.e. consciousness-transcendent appearances, underlying which
is a centre of force and eld of forces and its accompanying elds of
forces. Space as a real factor is a product of this. One can arrive at
this principle of a centre of force in two ways. First, it can be seen as
the end-result of modern physics. Secondly, it follows from a purely
ontological analysis of the construction and founding of the nature of
a body. Such an analysis leads us, independently of the conclusion of
modern physics, to the following ordered foundation.
1. First, there arises an eective agency in the form of centres of
forces. Tis allows transformation. It then allows movement altera-
tion separation in four dimensions.
2. Te next stage is extension and duration in physical time.
3. Tere then emerges spatial formation and rhythmic alterations.
4. Next colours come on the scene light and dark, bright.
5. Ten come all the remaining qualities.
Te order of these determinations is in the rst place a sequence
of the givennesses and pre-givennesses which enter into the consti-
tution of a body. Tis means that whatever is earlier in this order is
pre-given with respect to what is later. Tis order of givennesses is an
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +o,
order of what is in being and what is coming-to-be. In the second place
the order is also that of our potential knowledge, because knowledge
is only a relationship to what is in being [Scirsvcr|o|tris]. Iowever,
there is one exception to the exact correspondence between knowledge
and what is in being. Only step two, three, four and ve is [a poten-
tial] appearance, a pictorial image available for knowledge. Te rst
stage, the eective reality [Vir|cr] is only experienced in the form
of resistance to our volition and then objectied through the func-
tion which provides objectivity, having rst been transmitted through
the relationship of the two bodies involved i.e. the resisted and the
resisting. Vhat cannot enter into a lawful eective exchange with the
human body cannot be known. Te haphazard nature of something
or the fortuitous behaviour of a body can only be explained scienti-
cally in accordance with the essential construction of a body, as given
above. Tat means that we can make any number of observations,
measurements and mathematical formulae about some thing or qual-
ity, but what it is has already been partly determined by the position
it holds in the sequence of determinations referred to earlier. So, for
example, extension and duration and space and time are only possible
if the founding determinants movement and alteration are in place,
and these last two are derived from the transformation possibilities
inherent in the manifestation of force. Colour and all sensory qualities
are further down the chain than form, rhythm, extension, duration,
speed and movement. All this means that there are primary, secondary,
tertiary, and so forth, essential determinants of a body.
But the existence of these primary or secondary qualities does not
mean that the later ones in the chain, for example colours, are only
subjective contents of consciousness. All determinations, with the ex-
ception of those of the rst stage, are equally transcendent to con-
sciousness. Nevertheless, none of them achieves an absolutely constant
state of being something, only a relative state of being such and such
(Soscir). Extension, form and colour are certainly of a similar nature
in this respect. Te secondary qualities are just as consciousness-tran-
scendent as the primary ones; the primary qualities are just as relative
as the secondary ones that means variable with respect to the chang-
ing ux of the spatio-temporal relationships of the body. Tere is no
extended matter.
Vhilst temporality is chiey a way of being of the actual eective-
ness of the centres of forces, spatiality is only a product of this, and
+oo rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
is, above all, a way of being relative to a living creature. Vhat is intel-
ligible is only that part of the temporal formation which the force fac-
tors determine in space; neither extension nor spatiality themselves,
nor the intuitive rendering of the force centre, can become intelligible.
Tere are therefore stimuli of a purely metaphysical nature which af-
fect the life-centre, and there are stimuli within the spatio-temporal
matrix; only the latter are intelligible, and these are what we call the
pictorial image [Bi|].
All this means that the human body is a pictorial image [Bi|]
among other pictorial images, one which is nevertheless transcendent
to consciousness, and one which, as an immanent experience, is only
partly what it in fact is. Its extension and spatiality are only a form of
what can potentially be meaningfully intuited were we purely a liv-
ing creature with a life-centre. Tis applies to what I can intuit about
myself and to what I can intuit about others, and is nothing to do with
reason, as Kant thought.
In the real sphere of metaphysical concern, the body is only a certain
grouping of non-spatial, but potentially space-forming, centres and
elds of forces, which are inter-relating with all other remaining
centres and elds of forces in the universe in a unied and lawful man-
ner.
Te entity and the corresponding substrate it resides in can be sche-
matically set out as follows.
1. Material stimulus 1. Material sphere. Brain
2. Movement event 2. Movement mechanism
3. Iictorial image 3. Iictorial image. Vorld
4. Environmental thing 4. Subjective appearance
Te lawful unity of this eective exchange, whose manifestations are
the pictorial images of the body, is only comprehensible if the centres
are part-centres of one and the same agent. Otherwise one cannot ex-
clude a pluralistic universe in which nothing connects with anything
else in any way whatsoever. Only this proposal above the penetra-
tion of part-centres in some all-embracing centre guarantees the
unity of space. All determinations such as intensity, duration, direc-
tion, dimensionality of eectiveness, quality, and the lawfulness of an
eect, which we are crediting to the centres of forces as the ultimate
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +o;
actual repository of all scientic meaning, are exclusively proportional
to the appearances and the rules governing the transformation of these
appearances in a four-dimensional separateness which we investigate
scientically as a dead world.
2. In addition to everything above concerning its embodied condi-
tion, the human being has a completely dierent way of behaving, ap-
propriate to its being a living creature, in which manner it resembles
animals and plants.
Vhat a living creature might be, the human being can only origi-
nally grasp from within himself, and not in the same way as he can
grasp the nature of a thing or an eect or a body or an environmental
thing, which he cor conceive of through himself, but in the case of
his mode of being as a living creature he must grasp it from within
himself. For there is at the very least a side and a determination of a
living creature, which he can only originally grasp by taking himself as
an example of one, and one, which once aware of, he must then carry
over to all other living creatures. Tis side or determination is the in-
wardness of a living creature, which is also the quintessence of what
the notion psychic means. A living creature is: a) something which is
capable of spontaneous movement, something which has inwardness,
and something which is always in the process of becoming [something
else], and these together comprise the ultimate phenomenon of life
[Urp|oromcror cs Lcocrs]; and b) a unied, changing, spatial form,
where what changes is chiey its matter, and whose form is unied
owing to its time-forming processes.
Tat which makes a human being into a living creature, or that
which he experiences as being alive in him, is, in the rst place, his
very life, and the fact that everything comes to him with an inbuilt
reference to a living creature, despite everything, including himself, be-
ing changeable in all other respects. Te human being is therefore not
only a bodily entity, but also a living entity. And to this appearance
of his life there corresponds an activity centre, from out of which he
experiences, and which somehow has him at its disposal, dramatizing
and expressing itself through him. Tis we call the life centre. In addi-
tion, the human being not only experiences his life and everything that
stems from lifes essence with the life centre, but has a further access
to what is alive by being surrounded by a living environment which is
essentially related to the life centre.
Tese points can be schematically presented as follows:
+os rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Life, life centre, and living environment, belong together, and do so
for each living creature. Tey comprise a collective structure which
provides the category life with its essential meaning, and, in which any
empirical perception of somethings being alive is grounded. Vithout
it no living creature can be given as alive for any potential knower.
Everything alive is a group of temporal processes between these three
poles. Finally, the natural Vc|torsc|ouurg is the human environment.
.) iirv
It seems funny to say this, but philosophy has recently had to redis-
cover life. It is however true. It has ignored life as a unied, inseparable
totality, and as a proper sphere in its own right, with a tremendous va-
riety of empirically occurring entities and categories. For, philosophy
and psychology, hitherto, have half consciously, half unconsciously, la-
boured under two cardinal misapprehensions, which phenomenology
and Gestalt psychology are just beginning to unravel.
1) Te rst of these is that life is taken to be merely a product of
experienced associations, of which one set pertains to perception of
bodily things in the outside world, and the other set has to do with the
psychic, this latter set even being equated with conscious psychic phe-
nomena. In this scheme everything is duplicated, so that, for example,
in the case of the experience of our own body, there are assumed to be
tactile sensations or internal sensations of tendon tension, or move-
ment, pain, etc. Somehow the two haphazard sets are supposed to join
up to produce the peculiar combination they call life.
2) Secondly, it is assumed that life can only be given in the form of
its exterior aspect, especially so in the case of other living creatures.
Life, by this account, is nothing more than a summation and a particu-
lar arrangement of bodily things of the same general nature as dead
bodily things. Inside a living organism there is nothing except a uc-

65



I Life Centre II Life Centre



Life Environment; Sensory Motor
physically real apparatus system
factors
Body



























3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +o,
tuating swarm of organ sensations this was Descartes and Rickerts
view, for instance.
Te rst assumption denies that life can have a genuine inside and
an outside, or, better put, an inwardness and an exterior, or anyway
that this can be experienced. Te second denies that the totality of
the givenness of life is actually a sphere of its own, and is actually pre-
given to a human being, with respect to any single sensory experience
of it which might appear in it, e.g. pain, proprioception. Te core expe-
rience, I have life, precedes all sensory experiences of it.
It is completely nave to equate life with a mere body, as is frequently
done, especially since Descartes.
It is admittedly correct that what it is to be alive, and what it is to
be a mere body, form a natural unity. Life appears in bodies and in
bodily forms, and it is understandable to want to call those bodies
which are required for the appearance of a life Life itself or living
bodies. But what goes into a body, as it were, or belongs to a body,
which circumscribes the very sphere of the living, is precisely some-
thing pre-given to the body itself. It is nothing to do with a self, and
the situation is certainly not the other way round i.e. a certain sort of
body cannot come to life but rather life makes a body alive. Mutual
exchanges between bodies which play a part in my life are going on
continuously, and this includes the entire physical and chemical world,
and this stretches as far as the sun and moon, and even beyond. If we
restricted ourselves merely to concepts of what a body is, in trying to
ascertain what life is, we would never know where and when our life
stopped. Someone might say: But a child doesnt know what life is,
because sometimes it treats an inorganic object as if it were a living
thing, and often takes its own feet for foreign bodies. No: Te rst
is not true; only the second is. It takes cvcryt|irg for something alive,
but not necessarily as belonging to its life. And the second point only
demonstrates that the child must learn which special bodily things
which it perceives do in fact belong to its own living body as a pre-
given sub-sphere of what is alive; it does not learn that it itself has a
life and therefore is not an angel.
n) iirvs w.vs or .vvv.iwc
Te single totality of life which is manifest in each living body shows
itself in two main ways. It shows itself, rst, as an expressive sphere of
+;o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
the human being as a living creature, and, secondly, as an inwardness
[Irrcs-cir] which is the quintessence of the living soul, and through
which the human being, at least, experiences a for-himself or for-her-
self [Ir-sic|-Scir] in the form of an immediate region of control of
their actions. Te sphere of inwardness and the sphere of expression
cohere, and this coherence applies to all living creatures, even to those
which are merely ideally possible. Iow much we actually notice of
this is immaterial. Tis coherence of the two ways of appearing, along
with the strict parallelism between the two, is based on their actual
identity, which I experience or reect on as an immediate givenness.
Once I grasp this coherence in myself, it generalizes to my experience
of all living creatures I might encounter. I call this inwardness which
is not actually an objectivity of anything in being, because it belongs
to the earlier stage of pictorial imageability of bodies psychic being
[psyc|isc|cs Scir]. If this is so, then the following are true.
1) Each living creature is above all something which has an inward-
ness of a psychic make-up.
2) Each living creature is something which has a for-itself [Ir-sic|-
Scir] about it, though it does not need to know this, and certainly does
not need to be conscious of this or to be able to reect on this, for this
to be true.
3) Dead creatures or bodily things have no inwardness about them.
It is generally so that other entities with a soul i.e. living creatures
are rst given to us on the basis of this above-mentioned coherence
through the medium of their expressive sphere of their living body. It
is not out of the question that another creatures very inwardness is
available to us as direct knowledge which we intuit by means of their
expressivity see my book lc Noturc or Iorms oj Sympot|y. In the
case of our own selves it is generally so that we are given to ourselves
in such a way that the actual coherence of our inwardness and expres-
sions are mutually realized in the same time period. For example, my
joy ends up as my experiencing myself smiling, and my grief as mourn-
ing. Each accompanies the other. But the coherence of one with the
other, the inwardness and the expression, is a pre-given fact and not a
created experienced association. Every living creature I encounter, I do
so, knowing intuitively that it possesses an inwardness, knowing with-
out further ado that it has a psychicity [|syc|izitot] about it. Tis is
even true of my experience of plants, which I so little resemble. Vhen
I encounter something dead, moreover, it is precisely the above that I
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +;+
do rot experience. In other words, how we experience something as
dead is still based on the way we know that something is alive, except
in the case of the dead it is the absence of aliveness that strikes us, i.e.
a negative state of aairs. Te monopoly of the phenomenon of life is
still in force. Te same actual identity of somethings being alive is even
given in every living movement, in contrast to arbitrary movements [of
the dead, say leaves being blown about]. Tink of the expressivity of
the movement of someone who has stubbed their toe.
Drive-motivated action is an undivided, unied event through and
through. It is wrong to regard it as only a series of sensations and rep-
resentations plus a consciously monitored execution of movement
based on information from these, as Descartes thought. Tis would
make active movement no dierent from any passive movement of my
body, which someone else might induce by lifting my arm, or from
any reex jerking of my leg if someone tapped my knee. A spontane-
ous living movement is none of this, but a unied, indivisible sort of
psychic-bodily happening. Tis explains why I experience a sense of
inhibition [when I dont move in a certain situation, which would oth-
erwise be nonsensical if sensation and representation were all there
were, as nothing is happening to these last if I do not move].
rnn nrsrrwcrrow nnrvnnw rnn srnnnns
or rnn rsvcnrc zwn rnn rnvsrczr
Te living soul, for me, encapsulates the quintessential meaning of all
inner states, which are best considered os states or as movements and
alterations of our life and its parts, even the organs themselves. But
from this alone there does not stem what we mean by an objective
experience of the soul.
If we try and characterize what is common to all experiences of the
soul, we shall nd that it is impossible to come up with a single mate-
rial property, such as, for example, being extended, or being material or
immaterial, or being simple or cohesive, or being qualitative or quan-
titative, etc. It is much more to do with a relationship, and one which
is immediately experienced and not thought through, which circum-
scribes what is psychic. Vhat belongs to the human psyche, besides a
life schema, is everything which has been immediately related to the
human life centre, insofar as it the life centre is the subject of its in-
wardness. As such, the life centre is the experienced-self [Lr|coris-Ic|],
+;a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
which, on reection upon, becomes a self-experiencing [Ic|cr|coris]. It
is an essential phenomenological principle that each life centre is also
an experiencing centre [Lr|cocrszcrtrum] insofar as it is inwardness.
Te perceptual contents in this experienced relation, i.e. the appear-
ances of the living functions of perceiving and the same applies to
representational, drive-based strivings and strivings against resistance,
along with all vital and soul-based feelings are psychic experiences.
Tey are sharply distinguished phenomenally from all immediate
givennesses which are not experienced in relation to life or the life cen-
tre. Tese latter experiences have an objective reference to an exter-
nal source, to objects or resistances in a temporo-spatial separateness,
and their intuitively given nature in this manner is precisely what we
experience as their physical phenomenality. Tese latter phenomena
are in fact referred to something in the environment, and everything
which can eventually appear in the environment is built up from this
original experience e.g. colours of things, colours of surfaces, sound
qualities of things, even mirror reections, and all sorts of illusions
and mirages.
Te psychic realm of experience further stands in strict contrast to
two other realms of objects.
1) Te rst comprises acts and objective correlates of these acts,
and this realm we designate the mental sphere. Vhat one experiences
[psychically] is outside our control [Sc|ic|so| fate]. Tere is noth-
ing one can do about it, unlike what one can do or bring about when
our mental acts come into play. Isychic experience is automatic, in the
sense of being spontaneous but not free; it arises on its own, comes
and goes, and carries on in its own way, now like this, now like that.
Mental acts, in contrast, do not carry on in this way, but uc carry them
out, and from a dierent centre. Ve carry them out from the person
centre, and not the life centre where psychic experience is generated.
2) Te other realm which is separate from that in which psychic
experience resides is that of the phenomenal content of the environ-
ment, which only touches on the inner world of the [psychic] experi-
ence centre in a fragmentary fashion, and only insofar as it simultane-
ously and momentarily meets some need of the living body in the form
of a sign or a stimulus value.
It is therefore wrong, rst of all, to characterize all form of givenness
as primarily psychic. Tere are also physical phenomena. Te physical
is not reconstructed [out of the psychic], as Vundt thought. In addi-
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +;,
tion, the mental acts are not psychic, because they are essentially un-
objectiable. No less psychic are the objects of the mental acts, which
may be ideal, real or ctitious, but never essentially psychic. If they
were psychic then any fortuitous psychic experience could be made
the object of a thought or a contemplation or become the resistant to
our will. It is also incorrect to maintain that only functions e.g. see-
ing or hearing can be psychic. Tere are psychic appearances as well,
including illusions and hallucinations as well as genuine appearances.
Admittedly, a psychic appearance is only something that can appear
in the setting of a psychic function. On the other hand, the functions
which permit the appearances of things in the external world e.g.
seeing and which are denitely living functions, are not only psychic
but physiological functions. Moreover, temporality, spatiality, exten-
sion and duration all crop up in both realms, whereas a separateness
is unique to the physical and an intermingling of elements is unique
to the psychic.
Because we dened psychic as the inwardness of a living creature, its
sphere of potentially objectiable objects i.e. not objective objects
and its centre the experiencing centre have nothing whatsoever to
do with the sphere of consciousness which is not concerned with the
ecstatic mode of presentation characteristic of the psychic, but with
what can be given in reection at various levels. Vhat it is that passes
from this psychic realm, or what does not pass on, into the sphere of
alertness, reection and knowledge of what is going on which char-
acterise what one is conscious of is a completely dierent question.
Each circumscribed vital part of life has its own portion of inward-
ness as part of the total state of inwardness of the individual, and
therefore its own measure of the psychic. It is not the psyche, but only
the conscious having of the psychic along with the conscious having
of the physical, the ideal, etc. which are therefore somehow condi-
tioned through the human brain and its activity. Tis means that just
because we must start out with the consciousness of the psychic in
our scientic knowledge of the psychic itself and what it might be, this
fact does not allow us to demarcate the psychic from other realms on
this point alone, because what is physical, what is ideal, and what the
soul of another living creature is like, all have to be ltered through
the same channel of consciousness. A consciousness of is a general
characteristic of all rational knowledge geared at all objects, and is not
privileged with respect to the psychic over any other realm of objects
+; rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
if anything, it is more distant. Each organ, even each cell, partakes of
vital functional elds, and is therefore psychic.
Ve have two denitions of psychic.
1) Isychic is the inwardness of anything real.
2) Isychic is whatever is given as immediately related to the life cen-
tre as an experiencing centre and that means also something that is
experienced.
Te rst denition is the most general; it does not exclude the pos-
sibility that even things that we regard as dead could have a psychically
inward side to them.
Te second denition is valid across the range of living creatures
animals and plants included. Vhether there is a psychic component
to entities outside this range is an issue that the denition does not
cover.
It is important to note that the realm of the psychic only covers real
entities and objectiable entities. Mental acts, their objects, and the
centre for these the person are neither of these. Tey are not real,
especially so in the case of the person and the acts, because their sort
of being what they are is only an act or a bringing into presence, and
only to what is real belong positive and gradable and therefore quan-
titative activity. Te being of an act and the bringing into presence of
something each of which corresponds to the other are not real sorts
of being for another reason, and that is because real being itself is rst
co-dened through its very independence from mind, and especially
from consciousness as an act of mind. Mind cannot be independent
from itself [and therefore cannot, at the same time as presenting what
is real, present itself ]. Te mental person is not a form of reality with
the capacity to have an eect on something. It is only the X which acts
as a focus for collecting oneself [zu cm mor sic| sommc|r |orr]
from the standpoint of the way it is given. Actually, its way of being
in the scheme of things is something which it itself and only it itself
determines and which creates itself as an entity in us by carrying out
the acts which it does [uos sic| ir urs urc| scir A|tcr vo||zic|t]. It is
above all the cause of itself, where cause here means the basis of being
what it is and not the capacity to have an eect on something else. Te
person can realize itself only by performing acts which are completely
reliant on the activity and functioning of the vital centre, though, on
the other hand, the person can inuence the latter by guiding and
steering it. Ve assume here that guiding is not generally a way of ef-
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +;,
fecting something, but only holding up an idea to some agent, and nor
is steering a positive eect either, but only a negative inhibition and
disinhibition, and neither is an eectiveness with graded steps. Even
less is the person carrying out such acts an objectiable sort of entity.
Te only possible elaboration of the act is by means of a reection
on it, certainly not objectivization of any sort. To participate in the
nature of what a person does is not an objectifying sort of knowledge,
but an understanding sort [vcrstc|crcs Visscr] or one based on co-
performing [Mitvo||zug] and re-performing [Noc|vo||zug] the acts of
that person, none of which involves any sort of objectivization.
rnv ovv.ii vssvwri.i owroiocic.i vi.riowsniv
nvrwvvw vsvcnic .wn vnvsic.i, rnvi v.ivrivs .wn
ros, .wn vvinvwcv ro .
vsvcno-nioiocic.i-vnvsic.i owis
Te much advocated claim that the psychic and the physical fall into
two absolutely distinct sets of objective realms each with their own
sort of eectiveness, or into two sorts of substances, or into two sorts
of appearances, or comprise two dierent sorts of independent real
entities with their own power and capabilities, is historically nothing
more than an heirloom of primitive animism a totem cult. Vest-
ern thought simply took this over from Asia. For this reason alone we
should treat the whole notion with mistrust.
Te rst assumption, if all this were true, would be the expectation
of nding some empirical denition of a generic dierence, and then
specic dierences, between psychic and physical. Tis is simply com-
pletely excluded by the facts. A strict phenomenological analysis can
even show the opposite, namely that there is no objective phenomenal
distinction, even though there is one in the way the matters are treated
by us as in Kants philosophy. Ve maintain the following theses.
1) In the nal analysis, there is not the slightest dierence between
psychic and physical, when the elementary qualities out of which psy-
chic experiences and physical things are built up are dened in clear
terms.
2) Te essential laws according to which physical and psychic ob-
jectivities are built up out of these elementary qualities are, wherever
encountered and whether inner or outer, exactly the same.
+;o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
3) Te level, at which the laws responsible for joining, interweav-
ing, unifying, and multiplying, the output of the psychic and physi-
cal processes, is not further reducible, is exactly the same for the two
spheres.
4) A strict, reciprocal parallelism exists between physical and psy-
chic phenomena, their transformations, and their alterations, as well
as between each dierent stage of the relativity of their existence.
5) Tis parallelism of phenomena at the very heart of the matter,
however, is only the consequence of an actual identity of something
real which underlies both groups of phenomena. Te dierent ways
in which we consider this same real bedrock of matter and its activi-
ties can never be simultaneous or executed in the same act, but can
only be successive. Tat is why the real state of aairs looks as if it
has two actual sides to it, or two actual attributes, whereas it is only
our two ways of contemplating the whole matter, or the fact that two
existentially-relative forms [oscirsrc|otivc Iormcr] are in play, which
give this false impression. Consider, as an illustration, the dierence
between concave and convex.
6) A mutual interaction between physical and psychic does not oc-
cur. Anyway there is no causal relationship, but only a functionally re-
ciprocal dependence of objective appearances one on the other, which
is only a consequence of one causality, or rather a series of sorts of
causalities, which in themselves are neither physical nor psychic, but
are psycho-physically neutral.
7) Te consciousness-of anything, however, has to what it is that is
made conscious whether this is physical or psychic neither a causal
relationship nor a functional relationship, but only an intentional re-
lationship, and in fact a relationship of knowledge to what is known
as a reection by the former on the latter and this is an irreducible
relationship between beings [Scirsvcr|o|tris]. Tere is, moreover, no
eect of anything on consciousness.
8) A true causal relationship, on the other hand, and of a special
sort, does take place within the basic sorts of dynamic centres and
what they inuence, from which all objective appearances of the world
derive. Tese relationships are between:
a) the centres of forces or their elds;
b) the vital centres or their functional elds; and
c) the person and mental centres or the negative inuence of their
guiding and steering realms.
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +;;
Tese centres each have a basically dierent relationship to the
diversity of appearances that can occur, and especially to space and
time.
9) Te human being consists of these three sorts of centres, as the
metaphysical and metapsychic primary causes of three essentially and
lawfully determined dierent sorts of appearances.
siii.irivs .wn nissiii.irivs nvrwvvw
vnvsioiocic.i .wn vsvcnic vocvssvs
One opinion has it that the two series of processes physiological
and psychological are completely dissimilar. It further holds that one
cannot separate psychic functions and appearances, and that not only
psychic functions but psychic appearances too have a one-to-one cor-
relate in the nervous system. Tis means, for example, that when red
or green themselves appear, or when I perceive the sun or this tree,
or when I recollect my father or mother, such a brain correlate oc-
curs. If it were merely the functions which had such a correlate then
the equivalent situation would be: when I carried out an act here and
now of a certain sort, or when I comported myself in one and not in
another way towards many possible objects, these objects my father
and mother and no other would be chosen. But the something that I
take up in my psychic functions to produce an appearance is, in terms
of its content of my psychic life, neither an elementary psychological
something nor a physiological something. It is something in my envi-
ronment. Tis is true even for the most elementary somethings for
example red, green or the tone C. Qualities are psycho-physically neu-
tral, ideal contents, which one cannot explain further in terms of the
physical, nor the physiological, nor even the psychological. Tey are
not part of some geometry of colour, nor of any tone geometry, and are
neither constituents of nervous processes or even of the soul.
At a physical explanatory level one can say that the red is a condi-
tioned nuance that occurs here and now as a surface colour or as a
coloured patch of a bodily thing, and then describe how this is deter-
mined by light refraction and the absorption and reection of rays. At
a physiological level the sorts of relevant issues that crop up are: how
I have the sensation of red then green as contrast phenomena; that I
would see everything as yellow if I were given the drug santonin; and
+;s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
why I do not sense qualities which other animals do, for example ul-
traviolet light, as do ants, bees, and birds.
Tis means that the contents of psychic appearances are always rela-
tive to physical objective appearances i.e. the pictorial image of the
body-thing and to our social environment and its contents. More-
over, there is information to be had not just in the subjective or psychic
but in the objectively physical, social and historical appearances. Even
in each electron or molecule there is something in the way of informa-
tion, a fact which will remain forever a closed book to mathemati-
cal physics. Te pictorial bodily images [Krpcroi|cr] themselves, in
respect of what they are and how they might be made up, will never
be explained by mathematical physics. For this science, they are, and
will forever remain, merely a case of haphazard and accidental being-
so (zujo||igcs Soscir]. Te laws according to which they arise and pass
away in some predetermined spatio-temporal position their being-
so now and here and their being-otherwise then and there can be
grasped within scientic notions of lawfulness. In this sense, however,
the same goes for the chemical elements and chemistry in general.
But when it comes to the pictorial images of bodies [Krpcroi|cr]
and psychic appearances a complete scientic explanation now eludes
us, and they are only accessible as heralds [Kurc] of something or as
understandable [\crstc|cr].
Vhat can only be brought together at this sort of level in a denite
relationship are physiological or psychic functional unities, which are
not at all dissimilar, but, on the contrary quite similar. On both sides
of the relationship one nds: 1) automatic occurrences; 2) teleoclini-
cal directions [aim-directedness]; 3) a denite rhythmicity; 4) an in-
tegrated relationship with the total performance of the organism; 5)
the development of new functions and a greater reliance on the cortex
of the brain during the growth of the organism; and 6) the same set
of dominant functions, sub-functions, associated functions, auxiliary
functions, and inhibitory functions, arranged in a non-mechanistic
way.
Te substrates on which any psychic function, as a temporally uni-
ed process, happens are appearances, and the elements of these: sub-
jective appearances on the psychic side, and physico-chemical ingre-
dients and physical processing unities on the physiological side. Te
particular function in question is then developed in the context of the
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +;,
performance and behaviour of the organism as a whole, but with its
own rhythmical unity, direction and goal.
If one now considers that even the ingredients of matter in modern
physics are not ultimate entities, but are only special places in elds of
forces, then one is not allowed to speculate, as Becher does in his book
Broir or Sou|, as to whether a psychic experience might be a passing
event on a permanent object, because there are no permanent objects
anyway, and therefore they can only be ever-newly becoming and ever-
passing away unities of events in a temporal, but not spatial, coherent
ux. Becher sees an essential dissimilarity between the two because
he regards the brain as ultimately composed of constant atoms, mol-
ecules and electrons thus providing a constant substrate whereas
he sees the psychic as a substrate-less [suostrot|oscr] event. Ie cannot
therefore make one correspond with the other. Becher is wrong on a
number of counts.
1. First, he clings on to a notion of physiology based on a conduction
or a telegraph wire principle, which admittedly cannot be brought into
any appropriate comparison with a simple psychic event, as Vertheim-
er, for example, showed. Ten, if the traces of a visual perception had
a denite place in the cortex, in the form of a circumscribed brain-
complex of atoms, electrons and molecules it would admittedly
be inconceivable how such traces could keep track of the same object
seen at dierent distances and under dierent illuminations, or how
any traces could keep a constant correspondence to it when the same
position on the retina which was its entry point must also be the sub-
sequent entry points for all sorts of other objects: why does it not then
cover the original one up, or allow it to fade, or disturb it in some
way. But the very notion of such object-specic neurophysiological
representations has long been abandoned, following Goldsteins work
in particular.
Anyway, even if this localization theory were correct, one would
have to propose independent, but localized, psychic dispositions, as
well as physiological traces [otherwise there would be no path from
physiological to psychic according to the sort of theory which Becher
is promoting], and then a substrate of the soul for them to have their
own sphere, and then the existence of a mutual interaction [Vcc|sc|-
uir|urg] between them and the physiological conduction processes,
and even well-worn anatomical pathways [ousgcsc||icrcr Bo|rcr] for
the conduction to pass down, to tie up all the loose ends in such a
+so rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
scheme. But all this is unnecessary if one realizes that parts of the
brain, which are aroused by one and the same physiological function,
are capable of considerable exibility, whereby, for example, a circum-
scribed part of the brain say a cell complex can be sensitive to
a eld of numerous dierent functions, none of which it needs de-
compose in any way. Te so-called localization of brain processes as
Semon partly demonstrated in his book Mrcmc is a transformation
of the temporal succession of functions [zcit|ic|cs Noc|cirorcr] into
a corresponding structure in the form of a side-to-side [Ncocrcir-
orcr] arrangement. Tis is referred to as chronogenic localization.
Te conduction principle, which could only explain habits or patterns
of behaviour by assuming habitual pathways of physiological events
between two separate places, is thereby overcome. It is therefore only a
coarse mechanical formulation of physiological functions which fools
Becher into claiming that a disparity exists between physiological and
psychic functions, and leaves him open to criticisms of psychism and
to having to resort to the false notion of a mutual interaction between
the two.
2) Moreover Becher completely overlooks the fact that even phys-
ics and chemistry have given up the notion of absolute ingredients of
matter in favour of eld physics, and therefore his proposed disparity
between psychic and physical, which is based on an out-of-date version
of physics, simply evaporates. All ingredients are only relatively con-
stant, not absolutely so, and are only intersections [or nodal points]
in law-governed interconnected movement and in a co-ordinated as-
sembly of forces. All spatially determined pictorial bodily images right
down to their simplest elements molecules, atoms, electrons must
be considered at every moment as a newly becoming, existing and ef-
fective entity, because of the very nature of the ever-changing situation
in the centres and elds of forces. Tey resemble in this respect what
James referred to as the substance-like [suostorzortigcr] elements
of the life of the soul, whose appearances and elementary parts are
likewise always coming-to-be and passing away, but not, as Ierbart
coarsely put it, sinking under the waves and rising above them, as if
they were memory images in a black box which could be taken out and
put back. Vhat Ierbarts theory illustrates is simply the straightfor-
ward application of the philosophy of substances, long the prevailing
framework in physics, to the life of the soul, representation and sensa-
tion, turning them all thereby into mere lumps of this and that. Tis
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +s+
Becher also forgot. Iis overall theory collapses on both sides [faulty
formulations of both physiology and the psyche].
3) Te many diculties which Becher found in trying to tie up
psychic and physiological functions have already been dissipated on a
purely physical basis by Khler, in his book Iorm ir ||ysics.
Bechers writings teach us the same as Lotzes did and the same as
Descartes did to quote a classical example that the only way in
which the notion of a duality of substances and their mutual interac-
tion can be salvaged is if in both physics and physiology one has re-
course to a crude mechanistic model, in which case the resulting laws
apply. It is not sucient to say that referential thinking or judgement
are not mechanistic, as Lotze argues. I accept that they are not mecha-
nistic. But the crucial point is that nature itself, in its physical realm,
is not mechanistic either; it is only treated as mechanistic by us for
pragmatic reasons. Te same, even more so, goes for nature in a physi-
ological sense, which is already at least one level above the physical.
Trying to marry a functional psychology based on the intrinsic pri-
ority of drives which is correct to a mechanistic model of physiol-
ogy which is incorrect is bound to lead to disparities between the
two realms. Even in physics itself there is a dispute between those who
hold to a mechanistic version and those who propose a Gestalt-based
model, and the same obtains within physiology. Just as in physics,
where matter as a constituent of any sort is only a relatively constant
nodal point in a eld of forces, what we call structural formations in
the physiological and anatomical regions are, even if not perfectly the
same as in physics, nothing other than a frequently used functional
eld or a functional eld unity.
Te general thesis that our living body is simply an agglomerate of
cells, or that our nervous system is only a bundle of neurones with a
loosely interconnecting set of dendritic processes, is still being pro-
moted at a time when physics has got rid of any such notion of matter
on which they could draw support. At the same time the old associa-
tion psychology has been ditched in favour of act and function psy-
chology.
4. It has also been said that many experiences of the soul are sim-
ple, whereas their physiological correlate is a complicated coherence
of several factors. Alleged examples of this are: a simpler tone and a
more complicated physiological set of happenings along a whole se-
ries of centres and nerves; or a psychological simplicity of a so-called
+sa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
mixed colour [e.g. orange] as an absolute quality without the underly-
ing complexity of their place in the colour spectrum being taken into
account. Ve shall not reject, what Schlick did reject, namely that there
might be in these complicated processes a simpler process which cor-
responds to the psychological simplicity. But what should be rejected
is a confrontation of a simple quality, which in itself is neither psychic
nor physical, with a nervous process. Te same tone quality which
is never given as something psychically isolated can be heard and
had psychically in a thousand ways and can possess the most mani-
fold function in one psychic form content. Alertness and attention in
auditory and other modalities can vary almost imperceptibly, but such
changes can make a world of dierence, between somethings becom-
ing an object or not, or a sign of something or not. Into the hearing
of a tone, therefore, there enters a whole host of psychic functions,
each of which demands its own appropriate physiological function in
a denite way. Te psychic experience must then always be a new one,
whereas the tone C itself is as an individual an ideal something, in the
same general [metaphysical] category of things as the number two. As
a psychic experience the tone C is an abstract content, not a real piece
of anything, and for each individual person the experience of hearing
it is dierent every time. Te contention by Meinong, for instance,
that one might not scc the resemblance between a mixed colour and a
basic colour, but that in trying to rcmcmocr it one is reliant on whether
one makes an association between its position in the spectrum with
respect to a basic colour orange to green is rightly contested by
Iering. Te conclusion from all this is that what might be a simple
appearance in consciousness can be a very complicated real entity in
the soul [and therefore any complicated physiological make-up has to
be measured against its psychic status and not its appearance in con-
sciousness].
5. Driesch also puts forward a multi-faceted argument against the
notion of a one-to-one coordination between the psychic and the
physiological. It seems to me that it undermines his own theory of
vital-psychic conscious parallelism. Anyway, what he claims is that
the psychic manifold is more powerful than the physical manifold. In
the psychic area, according to him, there are many discrete qualities
and the most diverse sorts of interconnections. In the physical region,
on the contrary, there are far fewer ultimate things atoms, positive
and negative electrons [and that is about it] and, besides these, only
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +s,
space, time and movement, which are anyway also part of the psychic
manifold. Is it not the case then that the psychic arena is much more
diverse, much richer. Iow can there then be a one-to-one coordina-
tion with an impoverished physical region. But the mistake here is
to assume that a mechanistic version of physics exhausts what there
actually is in the physical. Tis assumption is completely unfounded.
In fact the richness lies on the side of the physical region, which is
incomparably rich compared with what our sensory thresholds allow
us to sense of this. Driesch further assumes that absolute space, abso-
lute time and absolute movement are valid for physical things, whereas
even in the case of the centres of forces [- which he does not even
recognize -] which are actually responsible for the pictorial images of
bodies [which he, and most other people, take to be physical things]
such absolutes are only our [pragmatic] constructs of these. Even if
one treats the theory as applicable to groupings of such matters, as
Schlick does, it is open to attack. But above all, with what right does
Driesch compare a mechanistic, mathematical, scientic version of
nature not with a mechanistic version of the soul, which would have
some sense, but with the way in which consciousness represents the
souls intuitions. It is fair to compare the natural [man-in-the-streets]
view of any matter with a lawfully reduced version of this or that mat-
ter, but one cannot compare a physically reduced version of nature
along mechanistic lines with a non-reduced psychic version. Are there
not in the natural view of the world a whole host of qualities. Iow
come Driesch knows that the qualities cr o|oc are subjective. and that
it is not rather that the formal-mechanistic view gives absolute priority
to the spatial-temporal determination of their appearance as a sign of
their being a solid thing without clarifying in any way what they really
are.
Finally, and this is the chief issue I wish to address, it is false, and
putting matters the wrong way round, to compare the psychic manifold
only with its physical determination, rather than with the biological or
physiological ir corjurctior uit| the physical. Drieschs overall thesis,
to which I am more sympathetic than I am to Schlicks or Khlers,
is still invalid because there is no one-to-one co-ordination between
purely physico-chemical events and psychic events. It is only when we
introduce the notion of physiological functions that we can bring the
psychic, and only in the form of functions, into mutual accord.
+s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
6. Lotze saw in relational or referential thinking [oczic|crcr Dcr-
|cr] for example, the rose is red, A is equal to B an achievement of
the soul for which no physiological correlate could be found. For here
the situation is that two items are both separate rosc and rc and
together t|c rc rosc simultaneously. Tat could only happen, he
thought, through an activity of a soul-substance which was ooovc all
representational processes. In the physical world, forces obeyed the
principle of the resultant of forces, which means that forces merged as
a result of some interaction, and could not therefore remain separate
if they were not actually asunder.
But against this one could say that relationship experiences [in the
way he meant] leave out: a) the transitional experience of how one
thing is related to another, which at the same time is an experience
of transition; b) the reective component in all this, where there is
some identical core experience of relationship in all actual experi-
ences of any relationship; and c) the general concept of there being
an underlying essence of identity which can account for the fact that
there are such concepts as relationships or any other such concept,
anyway. For such notions to have developed into what they are in
human beings, except the last point [which is a prerogative of mind
alone], one should expect to nd some physiological counterpart in
some parallel appearance. Relationships are not something special [i.e.
not outside any physical/physiological/psychic/mental explanation].
Tey might t in, for example, with: a) a formulation which proposes
that physiological functions are completely explained by physical and
chemical processes; or b) a scheme in which physiological functions
are mechanistic. But both of these assumptions are false, according
to Ilanck. And the second one is undermined by evidence from von
Kries, Vertheimer, Koka and Khler. [Terefore, what does under-
lie them.] Certainly against Lotzes suggestions one can even think
of physical processes which can clearly be attributed to a relationship
experience. Because all relationships which become relationship ex-
periences are determined by drive-bound factors the sort of parallel-
ism adduced by Khler is not sucient. Central nervous physiological
functions are temporal processes and are besides this still under the
direction of the life centre.
7. If one denes psychic, in the way both Vundt and Schlick do, as
the content of immediate experience, and physical as the content of
mediated experience, then according to Vundt there would be dis-
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +s,
similarities but according to Schlick similarities [between psychic and
physiological realms]. Tis denition is however false.
Vhat it is that is immediately given as the something that is the fo-
cus of the consciousness of something is a problem for phenomenol-
ogy, not psychology. Isychology is science of what is real. Certainly
even the psychic has something in existence in its immediate experi-
ence such as a number, a body, or even God. Tis would come under
the phenomenology of the psychic. But although this region can be
the focus of phenomenology it cannot be claried by science because
the immediate experiences are not identiable or repeatable [i.e. they
are unique], and are only given to a self in its immediately present
circumstances. Even a psychological enquiry is mediated, and forever
falls short of explaining its immediate concerns. Vundt confounds the
physiological event with knowledge [of its psychic counterpart and
elaboration].
8. On the relevance of the distinction between understanding [\cr-
stc|cr] and explaining [Lr||orcr] we can say that even in physiology
there is room for an understanding of objective meaningful complexes,
which is distinct from any chemical or physical explanation of them.
On the other hand, the so-called understandable psychic coherence
of motivation must also be amenable to explanatory classication as
well, and that means, in this case, to be derivable from its psychic ele-
ments.
9. In the objectiable psychic sphere there is as little and as much
freedom as there is in the physiological domain. Vhat crops up here
and then crops up there [|icr ur ort] is not a return of the same
simple case of whatever, but has to be put in the context of an entire
history of its predecessors. Te only truly free entities are the non-
objectiable mental acts of a person, and that means acts by means
of which the person determines the very nature of who or what it is.
Tat an event involving choice between two options can have no phys-
iological correlate, according to Lotze, because, according to him, in
the case of drives, it is always the strongest which prevails [i.e. there is
no choice], is just as wrong as was his notion of a relationship experi-
ence. According to him, each organism chooses its nourishment, and
if, by choice, we understand him to mean something that is going on
independently from any chemical or physical determinations, the very
nature of a simple tropism disproves his thesis. Freedom is won [only
in the case of the human being], but is already constrained by its reli-
+so rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
ance on the [automatic] activities of the life centre, on which, it, the
person, can only ply its freedom, by its will saying Yes or No to the life
centre for the purpose of promoting its the persons projects. No
such even constrained choice is available to an animal. Vhat it sees is
what it wants i.e. the simple realization of its drives and their lawful
elaboration through its vital centre.
10. Te unity of consciousness, or, better put, the recognizability
[Lr|crroor|cit] of an object of experience, is nothing at all in the way
of being physically real, but is, quite simply, an ideal principle. Te
empirically objectiable unity of consciousness is neither a simple nor
a rigid matter of fact. Anyway its unity is not superior in some way to
the unity which the organism manifests.
Only if one reduces the whole organism to the state of its constitu-
ent cells, exaggerating the latter at the expense of the former, does one
even approximate a situation where the physiological and the psychic
appear dissimilar. Te primacy of the cell in the whole construct of
what we call life is today generally abandoned. But, if this is so, where
do we look for the simple essence [cirjoc|c Vcscr] of a creature. No
part of the brain, if missing, would push the soul o course.
quzrrrzrrvn zwn quzwrrrzrrvn
cowcnrr or roncn
Te qualitative concept of anity of force already appears in chem-
istry, something which so far every mechanistic explanation in this
area has evaded. One can even talk about the force having a character,
meaning that there is a constitutional predilection for a particular re-
action rather than some other one. It would appear that the function
involved is at a chemical and not a physical level. Tere is no direct ef-
fect of psychic material on physical matter. But in the various theories
of character in general those of Klages, Ieyer, and Ifnder, for ex-
ample despite a consensus that there is a psycho-physical neutrality,
there is a view that there is some in-between realm [Zuisc|crgcoict],
between what is conscious or psychic on the one hand, and, on the
other hand, physical. Tis would account for the fact that a psychic
agent can inhibit and disinhibit the potential chemical links which are
the basis for its anities, and, although this agent is doing what it does
in absolute time, it presents itself as something working in objective
time, and hence we only have cognisance of measures of time.
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +s;
Apropos this, one can make the following remarks.
1. A functional unity is preserved in an organism despite huge dif-
ferences between its organs and even parts of each organ.
2. Tere must be a function whose primary nature is that of form
creation.
3. Te unity of such a function is independent of its starting point
and of whether there is a lack of some normal organ in the system.
4. Development in an organism involves the break-up of the original
functional coherence, at the very least the bond between function and
eld, and, within the eld, between function and the bearer of the
eld i.e. an organ which the function has created.
5. Te interplay of the functions is determined by the drives, and a
drive has to be regarded as a psycho-physically neutral, basic category
[of life].
6. Te more highly dierentiated the organ, the less its function in
a psychic sense is related to the organ and the more its contents are
objectiable. For instance, the functions of the cerebral cortex are not
themselves represented in consciousness. Te objective localization
[e.g. the fact that the objects that the cortex fashions reside outside the
cortex] and the subjective localization [e.g. nevertheless the fashioning
is done ir the cortex] become ever more separated.
7. A unity of functional lawfulness is maintained across various mo-
dalities. And within the modalities there is a priority seeing is above
the rest.
8. Te activity of a mind, but not the original mentality of its activ-
ity [which is part of God], is determined by cortical functions. But the
cortical contribution is only: a) the connection of potential mental acts
with this particular living individual; b) their actualization through
psychic energy; and c) the provision of the psychic correlate of cortical
function e.g. waking consciousness, intelligence, association and dis-
sociation, acts of choice, soul-based feelings in the form of material
for mind. Te cortex also supplies the condition of its own freedom by
providing the wherewithal in the form of a technically civilized world
[tcc|risc|cr Zivi|isotior]. Finally, by means of the vehicle of mind
there comes forth language, which provides the social determination
of mind. Eros, name-giving, utensil manufacture, and capacity for se-
lection, are the highest properties of psyche not mind.
9. Drives are above all intensive quanta of energy e.g. strong-weak.
Tey are not, however, measurable quantities, and are not such because
+ss rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
they are not constant forces. Tey are rather ever-changing dynamic
factors in a state of mutual antagonism, and their precise condition
at any one time depends on the overall state of the organism and its
unied situation. For this reason it cannot be the same quanta which
enter into the various dierent overall situations of the organism. One
can still talk about drive energy, however.
But there is no psychic energy in the way there is physical energy. Te
drive is self-directed and qualitatively self-related. Tese two alone set
it apart from the concept of physical energy. Nevertheless it can still be
as an eective cause of something as can physical energy, because not
all causes are measurable. Not only is it eective, but, in fact, it is the
original source of this very concept oj eect; the will cannot be such a
source because it only has its say-so in a negative manner being able
to thwart the aims of the drives.
10. Iarallelism the associationist-mechanistic variety as well as
the vital one championed by von Driesch and von Iartmann sets up
a double world as the actual place we live in, if such a theory also takes
the contents of perception to be physiological as well as psychological.
Tese contents anyway are only variations on how the environmen-
tal world is, with dierent degrees of adequation and with dierent
parts highlighted, each such version being existentially relative to the
interests of the individual psychophysical organism. Expectation, rec-
ollection and perception are each evident in even the tiniest part of the
psychic ow of material and form a reciprocity within the content of
the whole.
An appearance of an object and an act-related appearance or func-
tion-related appearance can be the same appearance. Real represen-
tations do not occur. Tere are only acts, functions, drives, forces, and
ideal contents. Representations are either the being such-and-such of
what is real, or they are the contents of the act of representing. Sche-
matically, the input into representations can be put as follows:


Drive Representation Object (pictorial image)
If X is a function of (a) and X is also a function of (b), then instead
of X and X one arrives at X and Y. Tis is how the form of the paral-
lelism arises.

3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +s,

Moreover although it looks less binding than a causal relationship,
the relationship between psyche and physics is actually more profound
than any causal relationship; it is even a sort of identity.
Te representation is not a thing, but the something which it repre-
sents is still a thing, and a thing which is altered in some way. If the ac-
tual representation is altered then it now represents a dierent object.
Te true dualism does not lie between the psychic and the physical,
but between a dynamic factor and the content of a pictorial image on
the subjective and objective side.
11. Consciousness is only the most general form of the appearing
of all things for a self [Ic|], and not just psychic things. It has an in-
tentional relationship to what its content is, not a causal one. Tere
are not any so-called experiences of consciousness [Bcuusstscirs-cr-
|corissc], only experience and experienced self-awareness [Lr|corisoc-
uusst|citcr]. As a reection the eect of the psychic is made manifest,
whereas consciousness itself has no ecacy. All [. proper] knowledge
is mental.
12. Te drive-impulses belong completely to the real causes of
things, and have nothing to do with purposes.
13. Mind has no direct eect on life. It only holds up ideas, values,
and projects to the vital psychic stream of events, and through its will
inhibits or disinhibits the drive impulses. In this way it can inuence
the course of lifes events and also physiological events. Freud and
Adler were correct in principle here. Mind directs and steers. Its pure
determination of what can or cannot be such-and-such [Soscirsctcr-
mirotior] is not a form of causality. It is rather a sort of pure under-
standing [rcirc \crstor|ic||cit]. Causality involves real existing enti-
ties and their fortuitously distributed being-so. Tere are, for example,
psychogenic illnesses, but no noogenic ones. For this reason goo and
cvi| are fundamentally dierent from |co|t|y and i||. Adler muddles all
this up. Tat mind can indirectly aect vital events is correct. It can do
so through inhibiting and disinhibiting the drive impulses, and also by
establishing cultural works [which inuence life in a variety of ways].
Tere is no mental psychotherapy, even though therapeutic goals can
be worked upon with the aid of mental communication. Mental con-
icts frequently become psychic issues [psyc|isicrcr] if they remain
mentally unresolved, something which Schilder correctly pointed
out. Moreover where this appears to be so there are subsequent ra-
tionalizations and illusory attributions of meaning, while the seat of
+,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
the problem lies in less developed levels of the human being. Anyway,
every illness and any notion of health are invested with a moral and
religious meaning. It is quite possible that illness disposes one to cer-
tain otherwise impossible mental achievements as Birnbaum and
Schneider speculated. One of Freuds basic contentions was that all
sorts of disturbances and [physical] illnesses originated in the mind
and the psyche. In such cases only dealing with the conscious issues
helps matters. Vhat had gone wrong was that repressed material had
undergone an inversion or had discharged itself into some symbolic
image and had pushed its way into consciousness in that form.
Te whole problem of parallelism boils down to two points of view
about life processes, which in fact are one united whole, but these
two points of view are held to refer to two actual concrete series of
events, which are then deemed in need of uniting again, the diculties
of which seem insuperable, and so they are deemed parallel. None of
the extant versions of this formula e.g. critical monism, epiphenom-
enalism, psycho-physically neutral monism overcomes the basic aw
in this argument. Tis is that it refers to a transcendental X, which
stands outside both parallel series without having any eect on our
experience. But what uc [I] mean by the unied nexus of the two is: 1)
something which we can grasp intuitively; 2) something which is pre-
given to both psychic and physical realms; and 3) something which is
by no means mysterious, because it is |ijc itself.
Consciousness is intrinsically an intermittent activity, and the high-
er the level of reection and self-concentration involved, the greater
this is. Te drive-based aective life, on the other hand, over which
the conscious levels are superimposed, is characterized by continuous
activity, or at least rhythmic activity, and the more unconscious the
psychic activity the more it is regulated by rhythms. Such rhythmic
activity becomes pronounced when the higher activity is switched o
[Aussc|o|tcr] for whatever reason.
[Ve come now to the issue of how the physical and physiological
aspects of life are experienced as psychic] something which I call the
smooth transition [icsscrc ocrgorg]. [I shall rst consider why this
has been overlooked for so long.] Te whole issue will be concealed if
one adopts the following [false] philosophical options.
1) It is concealed if one fails to recognize the determining role of the
drives in producing physiological functions and perception.
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,+
2) It occurs if one only takes into account the pairing consciousness-
soul, and neglects the intrinsic movement and intrinsic self-control of
each living part of the organism.
3) It further applies if the drive is taken for a mere auxiliary con-
cept.
4) Te transition is obscured if one overlooks the facts that life and
its parts form a meaningful unity of behaviour, that they are given in
two ways [but are not actually dual], and that they are pre-given with
respect to any scheme of their special sensory contents when seen
from outside.
5) A further prerequisite for an understanding of the transition is
that one appreciates that living feelings such as cardiac anxiety precede
any single sensations on any organ and that such living feelings actu-
ally determine the occurrence of these sensations.
6) If one regards the action of the will as a conscious I will with
immediate causal eect on body movement instead of its having only
a negative eect on the psychic side of drive impulses, again the whole
position of a transition will not even be raised.
7) Te same failure to understand what is going on will occur if one
only recognizes the physical stimulus aspect of perception and further
tries only to explain it physiologically, chemically and physically; and
overlooks aspects involving a conscious pictorial image, the environ-
mental stimulus and the metaphysical stimulus.
8) Finally, the whole matter will be completely obscured if one mis-
takes the condition of life for something in space, and treats it as sur-
rounded by a Euclidean spatial layout as any dead body would be.
rosrrrvn zrrnznzwcns or rnn
sxoorn rnzwsrrrow
Tese include: 1) a tension between the two; 2) vital feelings and
states; 3) drive; 4) life and its expressivity; 5) the [mutual] conversion
of psychic and physical energy, not unlike Iertz demonstrated when
he showed the identity of electricity and light; and 6) tactile sensation,
and how they can alternate between a subjective and then objective
impression.
Tere are then certain functions of life which cut right across the
distinction between psychic and physical. Tese include: a) individual
dierences in cells, tissues, organs, endocrine systems, and layers of
+,a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
the nervous system; and 2) the sorts of rules according to which mat-
ters are assimilated, integrated, taken up into new forms, and related
to time-based processes.
In the entire history of science one can nd nothing whatsoever
about this collective realm of betweenness [os gcsomtc Zuisc|crrcic|]
of the smooth transitions [cr icsscrcr ocrgorgc]. It has been com-
pletely covered up. Instead of any mention of this, science has done
the following: 1) it has torn apart the biological unity of life; 2) treated
everything in the same concrete way; 3) turned physiology into ap-
plied chemistry or physics, and psychology into the scientic study
of consciousness and human beings; and 4) adopted the mechanistic
model as an explanation for absolutely everything.
Te end-result of all this is that the human being is torn apart, into
one part a mere living body, and the other part a mere conscious soul.
Te unity of life is thereby destroyed, and yet at the same time the true
dualism between mind and life is completely lost to view.
xrwn sour
1. Tere is a basic methodological principle which is that whatever
can still be inuenced by hypnosis and suggestion is to do with the
soul.
2. Anything to do with the soul is automatic, teleoclinical [goal-di-
rected] and directional; anything to do with mind is, respectively, with
regard to the above three designations, an act of the person, teleologi-
cal [purposeful] and intentional.
3. Te mind deals with the determinations of objects, the soul with
determinations of states.
4. Te mind has purpose [Zucc|] and runs its aairs through its
will; the soul has aim [Zic|] and is drive-bound.
5. Vith respect to their spatio-temporal relationships, the soul and
physiological events are only within time [zcit|ic|], whereas men-
tal events are punctuated acts in their own time [zcit|ic| pur|tuc||cr
A|t].
6. Schematically, the following illustrates the issue:
7. To equate mind with practical intelligence is to completely mis-
understand the notion of functionalization of the opriori. It is equally
wrong to equate its ability to grasp essences and ideas as merely a sort
of empirical concept formation.
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,,
8. Social and historical determinations of the human being are mis-
placed if it is not realized that mind is something which is generated
octuccr human beings, not ir a human being.
9. Another mistake is not to see that mental acts basically constitute
the person, and that the person is not some pre-existing and suostor-
tio| entity. Further, the identity of the principles of being and mind
necessarily requires a mind, even if the mind has to be individualized
to make this come about.
10. Mind cannot be objectied, but can only be studied through
what it carries out, what it co-executes, and in terms of the correlate of
the meaning of works it has actually produced.
11. Space is under vital control; time is under mental control, and is
the form of mental activity.
12. Vhat it is to be a person is to be identical to oneself [Soscir-
sicrtitot cr |crsorcr] and this pre-empts their being multiple [i|rc
\ic||cit], but also their freedom.
13. Vhat is hereditary or non-hereditary in all this. Mind is not
something that obeys Mendels laws [Gcist mcrc|t ric|t]. Isychic life,
on the other hand, with its aptitudes and talents, does have a heredi-
tary basis. Mind anyway is not something that can be ill or healthy,
and there are no no-ogenic illnesses.
14. Mind has its own set of values and feelings, and has a monopoly
on the will.

110

Mental centre (outside time)



Life centre (temporal in World (intermediate zone)
absolute time)



_______________
Organism ! Environment

Spatiality
!
Inorganic world





















7. To equate mind with practical intelligence is to completely
misunderstand the notion of functionalization of the apriori (see
+, rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
15. It is not strictly correct to say that the more organized living
creatures have drives; it is rather that the drives guide their morpho-
genesis. Te living creature is in its inner aspect a system of drives,
and in its external aspect a form of life founded and realized in bodily
terms by physical and chemical events. For these reasons, proposed
links between bodily structure and character, such as were suggested
by Schopenhauer and Schilder, are, in principle, correct. Vhat is in
fact driving a living creature is in the nal analysis its being part of, in
respect to its drives and function, pan-life [A||cocr].
rnn conn nrrrnnnwcn
nnrvnnw rsvcnrc zwn rnvsrczr
If, as we have seen, in the nal analysis the phenomenal elements of
the appearances of psychic and physical are exactly the same, and if
the laws which go into forming them are also the same pictorial
images and representations resulting from the same dynamic factors
the question then arises as to what ultimately the dierence between
these two actually is, remembering that we cannot recognize all physi-
cal qualities.
Te answer is that psychic is the name for each nite, real entity, as
something which is a being-for-itself [Scir-jr-sic|], whereas physical
is the name for each real entity, as something which is a being-for-
other beings [Scir-jr-orcrc Scicrc]. Even dead things have a corre-
sponding psychic element though without any having- or knowing-
relationship, which rst emerges with living creatures. Isychic being
does not entail having a reference to an I [Ic|oczug], but does entail
there being a relationship to oneself [Bczogcr|cit ouj sic| sc|ost].
Anything that were only an object, and not in addition a subject,
could not be a real being. By essential laws there belongs to the pic-
torial images the ability to become representations [\orgcstc||tscir-
ucrcr|orrcr]. If the pictorial images are independent from us, and
if they follow purely arithmetical laws, according to which their form,
extension and duration can change, then we must accept that they par-
ticipate in a vital pan-subject [A||suojc|t]. Te same conclusion also
follows for many other reasons in the elds of metabiology, metaethics
and sociology.
Tis notion is a version of monism of the psychic and physical, in
the sense that every entity in itself has an existence and nature which
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,,
is neither psychic nor physical. Tere are two ways of existing, whose
two ways correspond to [dierent] perception[s] self-perception
and perception-of-another [Ircmuo|rrc|murg] but only in the
case of entities where knowledge comes into play. Only a subject with
a mind a human being can simultaneously grasp and separate both
of these.
Each physical entity even has an expression which points symboli-
cally to its being-for-itself , the varieties of which depict something of
what any thing has meant over the course of time.
Te physical Vc|toi| is therefore, from a human point of view, the
world as how it is for an everyman, i.e. what is generally valid about it
for anybody [o|s o||gcmcirc g|tig gc|oot].
Leibniz concept of representation was that in each monad the world
was mirrored. Ie was probably on the right track. But is the true situ-
ation not rather a mirroring of a mirroring. In any case he gave prefer-
ence to a one-sided being-for-itself.
Te dead world in point of fact is even immaterial. Te atoms of
energy are special cases of a being-for-itself. For example, they have
a direction a direction in space and a place in space to which they
return time and again even though this directionality is completely
overlooked if one regards them as haphazard entities. Secondly, the
very existence of quanta of an indivisible sort attests to their having
an extremely primitive sort of soul. Tirdly, they exert their eects in
a lawful, temporal manner.
rnn sour
Te notion of a soul-substance, whether in an Aristotelian or a Car-
tesian or a Lotzean sense, is just as implausible as is the notion of an
extended bodily-substance.
Te soul is a structure of drives of various importance, and of vari-
ous relevance to the entire organism, arranged in a four-fold complex,
and without extension or measurability. Tey determine spatio-tem-
poral formations, but run their own course in the absolute time of the
pan-life [A||cocr].
At some point in the developmental course of biological species,
mind is revealed, mind being one and the same, and set above all di-
verse forms of life.
+,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Te individual human life means dierent things it has a meaning
in the context of God, in the context of fate, and in its own right. Te
soul, however, is not immortal.
Te laws underlying the progression in the souls life at a maxi-
mum in children, and in decline in old age completely contradict the
notion of a [constant] soul-substance.
Te raw material of a mind must be present in some form in ani-
mals, even plants, and even in them it must have some rudimentary
activity. But only humans can be said to possess it properly. For human
beings, furthermore, it is not just raw material or a latent object, but
the human being is now actually the carrier and subject of mind.
xzrrnn zwn snrr |saorr twn rcuj
On account of various psychopathological conditions which arise
from the splitting and misidentication of the self, along with states of
possession and automatisms, the absolute constancy of an individual
self is today just as questionable as the persistence of matter. Vhat
still holds true is that a unied structure retains its identity despite
continual alterations in the dominant mental act at any time.
Consciousness of the self or self-consciousness [Sc|ost-Bcuusstscir],
like all kinds of consciousness, is always a consequence of both men-
tal or psychic activity together, and not therefore the prerequisite
of these activities. Although that of which self-consciousness is con-
scious is partly in an objectively real sphere and in this respect is
what in fact is going on in the vital relative level and is individual and
substantial it is also part of something where body and organism
are no longer either substances or genuine individual entities, and this
part is a participant in Gods mental act-centre, whose substance has
to be deemed the ultimate substance.
God could not create a free creature. Ie could only set up the condi-
tions for Iimself God in many people.
Te person is a construction of acts under the guidance of an indi-
vidual idea of value which is part of the idea of value which God has
of Iimself in his capacity as a possible person.
Any theory which maintains that a person is substantial i.e. has an
absolute reality is mistaken for the following reasons.
1. Te act centre is transposed [vcr|cgt] into time and lasts in it. Kant
was the rst to see this.
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,;
2. Consciousness is bestowed on mind, and self-consciousness then
becomes a criterion of being a person.
3. Te genesis of self-consciousness and its phantoms is misunder-
stood. A knowledge of the alterations in self-consciousness in various
psychopathological conditions is critical for any correct philosophical
formulation of the self.
4. Mind and the soul are insuciently separated, and hence their
assumed product is taken as one substance.
5. Te original cohesion of the person in the person of God himself
as Gods coming-to-be is not appreciated. Furthermore, the soli-
darity between people which consciousness bestows and the opriori of
the Tou are also unnoticed.
6. Vhat is true is that any substantiality of the person is its very
relationship to the organism and body. Vhat is false is that a person is
seen as in some way opposed to God; whereas to be free entails being
in God, and being part of this coming-to-be.
7. Even the idea of the person is rst realized t|roug| and ir life, even
Gods person.
God becomes a person, rst of all, through the world-process.
8. Iersons are the most immediate revelations and self-creations of
God as mind that there can be, if not the only ones.
9. Te disinhibition of the force of life [Drorg] led to the rst re-
alization of the lowest level of existence that is, to the dynamic im-
pulses which lie metaphysically at the basis of the simplest forms of
matter. Only on the assumption of a mind is that conceivable.
rs rnnnn z sunsrzwrrzr sour:
Te thesis that the appearances of consciousness might be derived
from a substance and its activities receives support from the fact that
the experience of self seems simple and seems not to lend itself to any
piecemeal analysis. Iowever, a more accurate examination of the facts
of the matter shows the following.
1. Te unity is only a monarchic, structural ordering of acts and
functions. Vhat this order excludes is a physical correlate of a formal-
mechanistic type. It further excludes the psychological theory that the
so-called identity and continuity of the self is a result of associative
memory activity, as Iume proposed. For example, severe memory dis-
orders do not damage the sense of person.
+,s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
2. A self-consciousness is to be found on various levels of conscious-
ness, and is therefore itself multi-faceted. For example, what is going
on in the vital centre, in life in general, in the social centre of the hu-
man being, and in the intimacy of a person, all concern it.
3. Te actual identication of a self is a phenomenon which belongs
to another person outside the self which is the focus of identica-
tion.
4. Te dissociability and variety of the self is spread amongst both
psychic functions and mental acts.
5. Te self can simply be abandoned in states of ecstasy.
6. Te mental centre can be inactivated in the course of hypnosis,
deep sleep, or sleepwalking. It can be dominated by the mental centres
of others. As for its temporal manner of being what it is: it is outside
time.
It is in itself individualized.
7. In a social context it can take on a variety of guises: it can be sub-
merged in some mass movement, it can be a participant in a close-knit
community, it can reect the amorphousness of society, and can hold
up in solidarity when needed.
8. To some extent the self is subject to changes in its size or dimen-
sions. For example, with the loss of a bodily organ there is the conse-
quent experience of a diminution in the self s capabilities. Its unity, as
well as the unity of mind and equally so the soul, is only a functional
one, and there is simply nothing substantial about it.
9. Te gradual build-up of a centralization to the psychological mul-
tiplicity of a living organism, which is evident both on an evolutionary
scale plant, animal and in a human being in the course of their
life child, adult is reected in the tendency for consciousness in
general to become concentrated into a consciousness of a self and self-
consciousness.
A self-consciousness is the work of the psychic functions in conjunc-
tion with the mental acts, which no longer emanates from anything
real, but is rather modelled on the phenomenal self which it copies.
Te ordinary self-consciousness that is evident to us is only an appear-
ance of consciousness in which a whole host of psychic functions and
mental acts meet up.
10. Te self-consciousness rst emerges through reection on the
ecstatic manifestation of all matters brought to us through perception,
memory and expectation.
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg +,,
11. Tat aspect of the organism to which consciousness belongs is
not the morphological one but rather the physiological and functional
aspect, which is nevertheless a unied entity.
12. Te we and the thou are pre-given with respect to the I, when
the I in question is an individual I and not the general form which a
self takes [Ic|jorm].
13. Te individuality of the mental centre as the subject of a self-
consciousness does not require any substantiality for it to be what it
is.
14. Te psychic centre is only the cohering of the leading drive-im-
pulses amongst themselves in absolute time. Any apparent substantial
identity should be explained on the basis of an actual series of psychic
events which have been bound together over time and according to
biological laws at each stage of Evolution rot the other way round.
Te material, psychic self can alter what it is focusing on just as readily
as the organism alters daily in respect of what matter it is composed of.
My own childhood, for example, seems to me today as objective and
foreign as if it were someone elses. In spite of this a life-long functional
togetherness is forged, which clearly then does not rely on the continu-
ity of the contents of memory. In fact the converse is true the latter
assumes the former.
15. Even when there are marked changes in what is given to it from
the psycho-vital realm, the unity and sameness of the mental act centre
persists. For example, in situations where the perceptual world takes
on an alienated look, or when I do not approve of a post-hypnotic
suggestion, or when I experience an obsessional urge, under all these
circumstances where my vital centre has become estranged I am still
the same person with the same mental centre.
16. In hypnosis, the two centres vital and person are most sharp-
ly separated.
17. Tere is no absolute physiological centre, from which a substan-
tial soul could receive stimuli, as Fechner thought.
18. Isychic being takes up no actual place, but it does have a sort of
spatiality in the form of a domain of changing functional elds within
life as a whole.
Te mental centre is utterly devoid of spatial characteristics and is
also outside time. Its acts cut into the psychic stream, and each act
centre belongs to a particular psychic stream and appropriates its in-
tensive energy.
aoo rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
19. Te mental centre is only a structural unity of acts which es-
sentially back one another up. Vhat each act centre is, in relation to
the vital psychic way of being, is a modication of the act of divine
mind. Because the centre is outside time its activity is discharged and
completed in each act [ist cs gorz ir jccm A|tc totig].
20. Substances without place or time, individuated in themselves,
would be absolute monads, and could not communicate with each
other unless they were groups of acts already part of orc mind, and
that means Gods mind.
21. Mind as an attribute of the Supreme Being [Lrs o sc] is a pre-
requisite for any individual human mind. It is a concentration of what
gives rise to a personality, but is not the actual capacity to be such. It
activates itself in the form of personal unities, the latter [persons] be-
ing entities only in the execution of their acts and hence self-positing
entities.
22. Te individuality of the person is only the idea and the essential
value which hover in front of the act of an act centre as a goal. Tere
is nothing real in any of this. Consider the maxim: Become who you
are. It cannot even be realized without the help of some aspect of the
drives, which belong to the vital centre, and which are subject to direc-
tion and steering by mind.
23. Vhereas spatiality, both as an intuitive way of knowing some-
thing and as a way of being itself, is relative to the vital nature of a
creature, absolute time is its actual requirement for its coming-to-be.
Iowever, in respect of the acts and the act centre absolute time itself is
a sphere where objects created through the mental acts can appear [cir
Gcgcr-storsocrcic| cr A|tc]. Te person is outside time and reveals
itself only as an individual in the temporal development of a human
being.
24. Te person is therefore secured through a combination of tem-
perament, character, intelligence and will.
25. For the empirically real order of matters what counts is only the
principle: from action there follows being [cx opcrori scquitur cssc]. In
the absolute order of matters what is valid is: from being there follows
action [cx cssc scquitur opcrori].
26. In the same way as the person is an act product of a divine mind,
or, better put, an act product of a divine mind in concentrated form in
the light of an essential idea, so is the whole centre an ordered func-
tional cluster of pan-life [A||cocr]. Vhat we call matter is a pictorial
3 Q Or t|c Corstitutior oj t|c Humor Bcirg ao+
result of forces. Tere is no constancy in any of these centres, and, as
for referring to any part of the above scheme of things, outside the
divine, as substance, at most one can talk about pseudosubstances.
27. In every respect, therefore, the human being is an open system
and that means open to God, open to life, and open to the world.
Tere is nothing in him of a nished substantial nature, and he or
she is in no sense simple. Iis or her unity, in an actual sense, lies only
in the unity of the very basis of the world itself and its fundamental
groupings of matters, which simultaneously encompass subject and
object, mind and life force [Drorg], and substance and subject. Te
human being is a little God and God a great human.
28. Te pure or transcendent person in my philosophy is the act
centre and its individual essence and essential value. Te empirical
personality is the product of this pure person and the drive and
function-clusters along with their associated ways of sensing anything
hence character and intelligence. Te individual life is only the body-
based objective manifestations of this cluster of drives along with the
organic forces at play hence temperament.
29. All pure personhoods in humankind are connected to the mind
of God alone, and in an immediate fashion, and are not therefore cre-
ated nite substances. Similarly, all living natures in humankind are
connected to pan-life [A||cocr].
30. According to our theory of existential relativity (see Ico|ism or
Rco|ism) the person centre, on the one hand, in respect of its juris-
diction over objectivity, is relative to life, and by virtue of this side to
it, can be considered a substance in respect of its simplicity. Any up-
heavals, any alterations of any sort, in the vital-psychic sphere cannot
fragment it, dissolve it, change its individual nature, or inuence the
lawfulness of the acts. Any such upheavals or simple alterations can
only aect what the mind or person centre makes externally evident,
reveals, consciously displays or does not consciously display. On the
other hand the same person centre, in respect of its participation in
the absolute sphere of being and in the very basis of the world itself, is
neither a substance nor simple. If a person were ever to achieve a genu-
ine grasp of himself or herself, he or she would discover themselves as
an entity in God. It was an error of Spinozas, and in a dierent way
of Schopenhauers the latter completely overlooking the existence
of any independent mental sphere in a person that they denied that
any aspect of the multiplicity that makes up a person could have a real
aoa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
objective part to it. Tey then tried to relate the contents of conscious-
ness either to God or to very basis of the world itself. Tis is simply an
error resulting from restricting the discrete realms or levels of the ways
of being to tuo: consciousness and what is absolutely real.
|
aovznns z razvnvsrcs or
anr nuzw nrrwo
rnn nxcnrrrowzr xnrzrnvsrczr rrzcn or
rnn nuxzw nnrwo
I
t is a fact, which also applies to its language, art, fabrication of
tools, and all sorts of social communion, that the human beings
most profound sort of existence at all times is anchored in an
absolutely superior and absolutely holy, but invisible, actuality. Te
form of the divine being a holy being in and through itself is an
idea which was always and everywhere present to a human being, and
which belongs to his world-consciousness as immediately and essen-
tially as it does to his consciousness of self. Te origin of religion or
metaphysics i.e. a recognition of something over and above natural
things is as an important indication [as to who we are] as the evalu-
ation of human beings themselves. Von Iumboldts profound words
about language that the human being could never have discovered
this, for the simple reason that the human being is already constituted
in language apply with the same force to the formal sphere in which
we have a nite experience of the independence of this absolute sort of
being, of its awe-inspiring nature, and of the power of its uncondition-
al superiority. In this yet empty formality there lies the idea of absolute
being as the rst opriori idea which the human being possesses, and
which he can then apply to each example of a being. Vherever there
is the accidental being-so of something, there is also something un-
conditionally almighty; wherever there is relativity there is something
absolute; wherever there is one world and not simply many environ-
ments there is also one root cause, one essential cause, and one real
cause, of the existence of this world. Vhat can ll this absolute sphere
is remarkably varied as childish, restricted, foolish and superstitious
as one can imagine but whatever it is, it makes no dierence to the
fact that the absolute sphere is pregiven to human beings before any -
ao rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
nite thing comes into being, and that its historical status is established
before a human being can intuit anything to do with their world, their
self or their social set-up. Te human being has always seen itself in
terms of the brilliance and darkness of its gods.
It cannot be otherwise, because, in the same act in which the com-
ing-to-be of a human being takes place the transformation into a
self, and the opening up of an innite vastness, which is what the very
word world means as opposed to an animals environment, at the
same moment when the words No, no entered the nite present, there
was the dawning of the mind, a mind whose dening feature is nega-
tive determination of anything. Furthermore, the minds tendency to
sublimate and encephalise everything are the precise physiological
preconditions for its world-opening [uc|tocrc] attitude to every-
thing. Tere is, from all this, a release of an unquiet searching, and a
boundless surging forward into a new world-sphere, which nothing
will quell. Some act with this in mind, or, better, whatever compo-
nent X of the human being is responsible for the matter in question,
then simply by-passes the whole environmental set-up and heads o
in another direction. Te implications for the world in this new situa-
tion are clear it serves the cortical processes of the hemispheres and
forms the eld structures for these highest physiological processes.
Tis is now in complete contrast to the animal, where the brain is an
auxiliary organ of the entire organism. Te new situation is one where
the nature X of a human being breaks completely with the principles
pertaining to a natural creature, and rather fall in line with the art-
ists principle, so to speak, that we start from scratch. In any case, the
minds centre is neither anchored outside nor beyond the domain of
the natural creature, but right on top of it.
Because of all this, the historical contents with which the holy, abso-
lute sphere is lled on the part of the human being who is perforce
God-related and the relationship which the human has to his self
and the world which latter is the correlate of a mental act become
the deepest core of the mental level of the human being. Te religious
and metaphysical history, into which a human being is born, is the
kernel or the independent variable of all his mcrto| or spirituo| his-
tory, a state of aairs in which blood plays a comparably critical role in
the case of his rco| history. It is always the case that humans form their
own history before history inuences humans, and this in the shadow
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg ao,
of his own consciousness of his self and of God. Iistory as a branch
of knowledge is concerned with both.
If we now consider a few of the main sorts of relationship which
have been proposed as obtaining between man and God, a relation-
ship we can express as XY, we nd among Vestern examples of this,
to which we shall restrict ourselves, a curious set of parables, drawn,
for the most part, from social relationships between humans them-
selves. For example, in Judaism, man forges a pact with God on the
condition that God chooses their race to be Iis select one. Or else
man is Gods slave, and seeks to inuence Iim, now with cunning
and slavish prostration, now with threats. Or man is a faithful servant
of the sovereign master. Or man is a free servant of a self-recognized
source of authority. Or else, as in Christianity, one man is the son of
God, identical to the father, and all the rest are children of God, as
long as they listen to and obey the rst-born son and accept what he
says, orders and advises in his fathers name. Moreover, in all religions
there is always a rst stage in which a group of followers attach them-
selves to the founder the originally holy man and a later stage in
which the common mass of people idolize the founder with the help
of things associated with him, and this dissolves the tight-knit original
disciple set-up and gives rise to a worship of the founder himself. In
Greece, after a slow ebbing away of its polytheistic pantheon, there
arose a philosophergod or a wise god, who, from a position outside
the human being, infused them with the gift of mind reason, which
by virtue of the subjects free will alone could appreciate ideas and
thereby allowed them to think and feel, and to contemplate the noble
forms of the cosmos just like he the philosopher-god himself did,
in his capacity as the thinker of thinking and blessed with creative
powers. But this philosopher-god is not actively exerting his will over
mankind, nor expressing eternal love, nor even pitying the world and
the human beings in it. Ie is through and through a lucid, perfect and
pure individual, whose activity moves the world, but whose eect in
this respect is rather like that of a loved one on a lover, a loved one,
furthermore, who does not actually reciprocate this love.
Te above are only a handful of the extant relationships. But we are
not primarily interested in the history of the relationships a vast
theme but in the critical question as to what man might and ought
to know and experience from his position as a member of humanity
aoo rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
with respect to the very basis of every conceivable thing around him.
Vhat is his special place in all this.
1. Because mind and life force can have their being in the eternal
substance as objects and as real things, and because, in fact, everything
that is objectiable rst becomes an object by means of the mind, and
because everything that rst enters into existence [irs Doscir tritt] does
so through the oces of the life force, this invalidates any attempt to
formulate the basis for anything at all in terms of these two modes
of being object and existent entity [i.e. because these are derived
modes of some more basic state of aairs]. Ve simply are, or live, or
spin out our lives, or think, or look out on the world, inside, through
and with, whatever this basic foundation is. It is always behind us, just
as it is always in front of us: Vhat a thing or an object might be is
not completely accounted for by invoking human mind or human life
force, let alone talk of the highest sort of being. Vhatever is involved
in this basic foundation of everything, it is eternally self-positing and
we are ir it. But everything to do with religion involves being a fol-
lower of someone, worship is at most putting oneself in a position
of being such a follower, and praying as a supplication is a nonsense
[cir Nic|ts]. Now if the eternal being [which we equate with the basic
foundation of everything] is neither thing nor object, then nor can it
be a holy man, and nor can objective deication be the root of religion,
and it certainly cannot be the church and its dogma. Te mind itself
is the self-revelation of the highest sort of being, but it does not work
alone in this respect, and is anyway only an entity which is coming-
to-be, and works in alliance with the life force and with all the images
that the latter conveys to the equation. Te concept of a supernatural
entity results from our confusing mind and reason with intelligence,
and then counting the rst two as natural talents. Tere is a sense in
which the minds eld of activity is supernatural, although this has
no spatial connotations, but in the main the mind is best regarded as
counter-natural [uicrrotur|ic|], as Spinoza aptly put it.
2. Te human being does not stand in any of the relationships to the
basic foundation of everything which were listed earlier. Tis remains
true even if we take account of the outdated ideas in which Christian-
ity is expressed, with mention of covenants, slaves, bondage and ser-
vice. Ve might point out anyway that the meaning of the Sermon on
the Mount and St. Iauls profound wisdom were to the eect that the
Law is nothing other than an encouragement to sin. In any case, is man
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg ao;
really a child of Gods. Devotion to, and a hope of security in, a power
which will make everything alright, is quite understandable, but one
should remember that under Roman law a father had the right to kill
his child, and even though this obliged the father to cut o his hand,
which he was not obliged to do if he killed a slave who was a thing
the constant terror engendered in the relationship must have been
considerable, and strikes us now as a completely un-Christian-like
state of aairs. If I seriously and honestly examine my self-conscious-
ness and what I am aware of consciously as to my responsibilities, and,
at the same time, apply my profound and well-founded scepticism as
to whether any paternal guidance however well-meaning is war-
ranted for me or the world, my overall response to this last issue is a
resounding No: I am no child ir gcrcro|, even though I do or did have a
living father, but I am certainly not anyone elses child, not even Gods.
I, Max Scheler, this social gure, this psycho-physical living creature
endowed with uncertain hereditary values, this creature related to a
thousand other groups of creatures, and even I myself as a naked and
unique I, whom one can shunt about at dierent times without my
essential nature being broken, an I, furthermore, who can only guess
at why he feels responsible for good and bad without actually knowing
why, an I who cannot achieve an integrated view of himself without
nding that God is intertwined with my existence and nature : despite
and because of this, and much more, I am nobodys child. For one
thing I do not have a childs bliss or sense of security, or its trepidation
and fears, or its care-free attitude about the fate of this world. I repu-
diate a God who wants to be my father, and who has taken such bad
care of me that I must suer as I do, and the same goes for the rest of
the world. Vhat there is in me of a God with any actual driving force
whispers to me something quite dierent from any of the above. Ie
says: Its not you Adam who is the sinner, who set the world into a
tumbling confusion; not even Lucifer, a fallen angel, is to blame; it is I
Myself, the fount of all things, and who also inhabits you; I couldnt do
otherwise than to bring forth you and the world as you are. I Myself
am still suering; I Myself am still in a state of becoming; I Myself am
not perfect. Terefore I need your help, Adam, from that part of me
which is in you, and from that part of you which is in me, to keep up
the direction of an eternal Divinity, and to accomplish what has to be-
come an all-inclusive God under your inuence. Te budding hatred
against the supposed father of all fathers, who has treated his children
aos rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
so badly, can henceforth be transformed into love and reverence for the
eternal Substance. Vhat I have just related is an indication of the way
in which I, as a mature person, a man of our times, has again learned
to trust and love the fount of everything that is, and have faith in Iim,
and faith that God has faith in God.
Yet again I say: No, man is no child of Gods. Ie is a collaborator
of Gods, as well as a living creature ir the world betting a God, both
roles reecting the original conict at the source of everything that is,
but mans conicting roles are played out in the world process, basical-
ly in the form of a microcosm reecting the macrocosm. In his role as
a coming-to-be human he surmounts the problems inherent in Gods
original conict, which to me, as a man, are virtually a closed book
in this respect Gods workings being unknown and foreign but is
then party to just as much as is needed to form this microcosm which
reects the macrocosm itself. Te human being endlessly weaves a
mantle for and with God [i.e.. eshes out God in the world]. Man is
a co-creator, co-thinker, co-worker and a co-exponent [Mitsc|oucr] of
the world, co-writing the rules as concern Nature, and not simply a
transcriber of some interpretation of them.
I am impelled to say that it seems to me false to object to the theistic
idea of God, which is anyway much more extensive than my position
set out above, and, in addition, deny the notion of a unique basis for
the world, without realizing that in its place we are confronted with a
major diculty, namely, that we ourselves are in the last resort respon-
sible for what becomes of this very world.
Te impetus for this demanding atheism [postu|otorisc|cr At|cis-
mus], as I call it, and it is not a biological version of the ocrmcrsc|,
originates in the following profound remark of Nietzsches: If there
were gods, how could I bear not to be a god, and therefore there orc no
gods. Tis way of thinking, in what it bravely and beautifully expresses,
is completely dierent from the sort of atheism that stems from resent-
ment, where the all-seeing eye and yet loin-teasing [Nicrcrprjcr] of
an eternal judge simply cannot be endured and is therefore dismissed
as ction. It is further far removed from the atheism whose only stand-
point is that because there is no way of proving the existence of a God
then such an entity cannot exist, or from those versions which appeal
to the failure of our experience of the world itself to throw up any
evidence for a god or which regard the human as merely a tiny cog in
the vast world machine. It is indeed a quite revolutionary remark, as
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg ao,
it is put in the context of a human being face to face with the over-
whelming nature of the world, to which he is encouraged to respond
with responsibility because he is free. Te human being is the most
responsible of beings that is what Nietzsches remark ought to be
interpreted as. Ie is the pinnacle and the ultimate being of the entire
cosmos. Furthermore, it means that any notion of an entity which has
an existence before and independently of humans, and which decrees
the latters future, by being able to predict it or by having power to set
goals and ideas about it, is simply stealing the responsibility, freedom
and autonomy that belongs to a human being. To wager ones very be-
ing, to venture forth, and to be decisive, and all this in the absence of
any hope that one will be protected or that ones goals will be promot-
ed, is Nietzsches prescription. Te whole issue has been neatly and
exhaustively considered in recent years by the German philosopher
Nicolai Iartmann in his Lt|ics. Admittedly, in Iartmanns thesis,
there is a signicant dierence from that of Nietzsches, in that Iart-
mann subscribes to there being an objective order of ideas and values
before, and independently of, the mind and consciousness of a human
being, which a human being is free to assess. Nietzsches view is that
the human being, or rather a virtuoso of the species, sets up its the
human beings values for later menial and plebeian members to take
up, as if they were God-given. A similar view of these matters can be
found in the work of Kerler and 7iegler.
Tis new atheistic direction of ideas originates in a justied rejec-
tion of theism with all its assumptions that at the back of man there
is a perfect, universal, all-wise and all-powerful God and father. Vhat
sustains the new atheism is an overwhelming feeling for, and a clear
awareness of, the autonomy of reason, and of the human being as a
person, along with a disdain for the way theism invokes a child-like
notion of mankind. Allied to these insights the new atheist condemns
the lack of scepticism and mistrust inherent in a theistic approach,
and is highly dubious about the invocation of nation or race, and the
involvement of the masses in establishing its validity. In fact there is a
strong undercurrent of aristocratic prejudice in theism, although, in
general, there is no need at all for theism to be aristocratic. Te ir-
responsible masses may well continue to hang on to their God, some-
thing which their free peers now look upon as merely a security charm
of the weak. But what Nietzsches remark implies is that even if God
mig|t be dead the ocrmcrsc| is already in play Iis being actually
a+o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
dead is only an extreme case of the state of aairs. Everyone else [bar
the ocrmcrsc| and similar souls] should heed Gods word. Masses
need authority and their very mediocrity invites the authority. A simi-
lar notion can be found in Machiavelli. And the core thought the re-
pudiation of God as almighty when it comes to goodness and wisdom
in the world is contained in my own philosophy. I too accord the
human being the most weighty role in respect of steering the course
of the original basis of the world, and deny him any reliance on God
or on any pre-set teleological path. Te objective world-order is, in my
philosophy, to oc inscribed [cirzusc|rciocr] in the deity in eternal
mind but is not already written into some programme for the world-
process. Te order forms itself around events as they crop up.
But on whose account are we promoting our demanding atheism.
Vhere have we reached, by establishing the responsibility of human
beings. It is at the expense of any unity of being, any unity of the realm
of values, and at the expense of the very possibility of grasping the
origins and goal of mankind and of their proper place in the cosmos,
indeed, even asking about it. Te human being is anyway not a self-
propelled spinning wheel. If a person were some ultimate and absolute
lone traveller there would be as many worlds as there are persons. But
this last point is false. Te Nietzschean perspective envisages a human
individual torn asunder from nature, society and history, and with
nothing else to support him but himself alone in an absolute sense,
not simply as a hermit who restricts his contact with world and soci-
ety, but alone and mistrustful of everything which he has not decided
upon himself; this is the ocrmcrsc| portrayed here. Te Mcrsc| re-
ferred to is no longer the crowning glory of Gods works, but a dictator
of nature, subject to his our approval and interpretation of right and
wrong alone. But, consider this: Ij I om rot jor mysc|j, u|o is it t|cr
u|o is jor mc and, Ij I om or|y jor mysc|j, t|cr u|ot om I supposc to
oc Tis second question of Rabbi Iillel invites as answer a similar
idea of mankind as the Nietzschean one. But this idea is not only an
aberration, but the most extreme exaggeration of the classical view of
man, in which reason alone is power, and sets up our freedom. Any
notion of solidarity with the cosmos and with other human beings
completely disappears. Tis version of the ocrmcrsc| idea, according
to which the world peaks in humans as the highest form of being, with
human beings being its supreme exemplars, makes humans to be out
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a++
for themselves even though it is to be objectively and not subjectively
interpreted, i.e. it is the opposite of egoism.
In our view the special metaphysical situation of a human being
in relation to the original basis of everything is not something which
only humans themselves become conscious of and which only humans
grasp, know and come upon a thesis which one nds in Spinoza,
Iegel and von Iartmann. Our view is that the human being has two
attributes an unconscious life force and a supra-conscious mind
[ocrocuusstcr Gcistcs] and although the whole matter of these two
attributes may become the focus of consciousness, as it is in the classi-
cal version of Vestern philosophy, this seems to us to make the human
out to be far too isolated and intellectual.
Te real situation, in our view, is not that the eternal substance is
brought to consciousness or|y in humans and in their world as Spi-
noza thought nor that the same process occurs in world history as
Iegel thought. It is rather that human beings are capable of knowing a
certain amount of the highest sort of being because they have a mental
and spiritual centre, and also a heart, which allows them access to the
ideal demands of the divinity, which they then co-execute with Iim.
Moreover, the very place where this is carried out a place where one
can also say that the self-deication of the original basis of the world
occurs is the human being itself, and its heart.
Although at every instant things emanate from the eternal sub-
stance, and from the inherent tension of its two attributes, in a con-
tinuously creative ow with maintenance of such and their creation
being one and the same nevertheless, a harmonious accord is only
eected in the self-consciousness of a living creature. Te human be-
ing can as little achieve its designated status without the help of the
eternal substance and without the ever-growing substantiality of the
divinity in the course of the world process, as can this substance itself
uit|out the human being. Mind and life force are in fact never nished
with their reciprocal dealings. Tey both grow apace in terms of their
manifestations, and one can truly say that God Iimself thereby grows
in stature and triumphs when viewed over a vast stretch of time.
It has been put to me that a human being cannot endure the thought
of such an imperfect God in the making, and that Ie would mean
nothing if the human being could not rely on Iim for support and
condence, particularly so if the eternal substance was itself always
on a journey to become a God, and making history and the world in
a+a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
the process. My answer to this is simply that God is not a crutch for
the feeble, nor is true faith an insurance policy, and, moreover, that
it is actually up to you, my brother or my sister who talk in this way,
through the way you conduct yourself and act, whether or not the
eternal substance becomes more or less of a God, and whether this
substance within or outside of you continues to suer the original ten-
sions [of its partition into two attributes].
Vhoever cannot cope with the notion of an imperfect God in the
making, and one moreover who is dependent on the human being for
its development, and who can only abide the thought of an all-power-
ful, kindly father in the background, is simply not mature enough for
our times. In any case such a person might well ask himself how it is
that such a perfect being created a world full of evil and suering, or
even allowed the possibility of wickedness to enter it. Teism answers
this inadequately, with the notion that God created the world for Iis
glorication, otherwise for no reason and in other respects arbitrarily;
others say that Ie did it out of love. But, if this were so, why would
an absolutely perfect God need acclamation, renown, honour and glo-
rication. Is Ie an ambitious priest. Vhy isnt an eternal satisfaction
with Iimself sucient, as it was with Goethes watchman. And, if out
of love, love for whom. because surely nothing was there other than
Ie Iimself, before he created it.
I am also reproached with having demonized eternal being, on the
grounds that I admit a mind-value-indierent life force alongside the
original powerless mind and the divinity with its attributes, and that I
try to understand the nature of evil and the possibility of mans wick-
edness in the light of God Iimself.
All this may be so. But I do dispense with the notion of the devil,
which in theistic versions of God accompanies Iim as his shadow,
and without whose inclusion the theistic formula is not only false but
completely senseless. Vhat we call a sin i.e. wickedness committed
in relation to God is not an aront to God which is pure nonsense
but a way of causing suering to the original basis of everything in
its on-going conict between the real and demonic principles within
itself, a cause of suering because it impedes the very becoming of
God Iimself.
Vhat we call being good, in its strictest sense, is nothing that in
itself directly fosters the well-being of the world whether today, to-
morrow or in the distant future. Quite often wicked acts have more ef-
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a+,
fect in this way than do good ones. Being good is a direct matter only
for God for Iis development and only indirectly for the world,
because a world is better for the presence of perfect God in it. Virtue
needs no reward, because it itself is bliss, but there would anyway be
positive and negative consequences for the world of good or evil ac-
tions as mentioned. Bliss is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself ,
as Spinoza said, though we would say that it [bliss] is its [virtues]
source. Te relationship between human beings and the basis of all
things is not essentially one of slavery, servitude, service, duty, or even
lial obligation, but membership of the substance itself, and, at the
same time, of mind and life force. Tere is a tension in all true lives,
and the best are those who maintain the greatest tension in the eternal
substance.
I have also been reproached for anthropomorphizing God. On this
point I reply that all I know about the eternal substance itself with
its innite attributes is what I know in respect of being. I anthropo-
morphize it so little in fact that I hold the view that all these innite
attributes outside only two mind and life force are absolutely un-
knowable. All metaphysics comes up against its absolute limit in the
form of unknown being.
But whatever there is of an eternal self-positing being, which does
enter the cosmos and can be demonstrated in some way, and must also
enter into the microsm, I do, admittedly, assign to the Supreme Being
in an innite form. But I only attribute the essences to this Being in
this context, and I do not treat the empirical predicates of real earth-
bound humans in this way, nor their particular psycho-physical orga-
nization. Only such epithets as God as king, as master, or as father,
deserve to be called anthropomorphisms. Tere is anyway an older
theological discussion on the matter if God created humans accord-
ing to Iis own image, why shouldnt humans apprehend God in their
own image. A human being, however, is more than just an exact like-
ness. It has a share of being, and that means a share of the essence
and the existential roots of everything, and yet always only a share of
the mental act which belongs to the eternally self-positing substance.
Moreover, the human being is a centre of all nite being and its own
unifying microcosm, and through this means assigns its own essence
on to the Supreme Being.
For this reason it is completely irrelevant that the earth-bound hu-
man happens to live on a peripheral satellite of the sun, or that he is
a+ rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
in temporal and spatial terms a ridiculous speck of dust compared to
the rest of cosmos, or that his life on Earth is but a eeting moment of
joy. In that he is a thinking reed he is already superior to the bare facts
of his cosmic domicile. Furthermore, in that he knows that spatiality
is only the mous vivcri and later the form of intuition not of
his mind but of his status as a living creature and its sensory equip-
ment and that an extended and absolutely constant material basis for
spatiality is now repudiated by physics he has no need to fear the
particularity of his cosmic situation.
Te metaphysical centre of things is not the physical realm, which
anyway does not even exist in its own right. Vhat the world knows
does not completely belong to it either. And life itself, to which spatial-
ity is merely relative, is not physical either, but rather a temporal pro-
cess, where the time in question is truly and ontologically irreversible,
because the processes involved are such that the time in which the pro-
cesses proceed is, uit|out the processes and their inter-relationships, a
pure ction of our understanding. In the case of the inorganic realm it
is still doubtful whether there are any irreversible microprocesses at all.
Boltzmann certainly disputes this. Tis seems to me correct, because
time and I mean absolute time has a higher valence of being than
does space Kants mistake here was to think too much in physical
terms and this absolute time is completely dierent from the relative
time which pertains to the moving state of the observer. But, unlike
space, whose quintessence is to allow the possibility of movement for
a living creature, this time we are considering, which sets up the ow
of life in its very owing, is still relative to a mental act which takes an
overview of all this. Te X, which oversees it, can therefore not itself
be any more in time. It is part of the eternal by virtue of its centre, and
this makes it part of the self-positing substance itself.
rvvno
Does something such as freedom belong to the metaphysical account
of the special place of a human being. Freedom: Everythings at stake,
thats what the word freedom means rst and foremost, when we use
it in the objective sense as objective possibility, as physicists thus use
it when they talk about the degrees of freedom within a system, and
from start to nish, from electron to the human being, it means a step-
wise growth in laws governing form and individuality. At the same
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a+,
time, when we talk about a growing freedom in the indeterminancy
of any existing entity, we imply a growing necessity for the essence of
something to arise.
Teoretical physics is divided today, when considering the quan-
tum theory, as to whether it applies to each ultimate microprocess or
whether it only applies to some statistical aggregate of these. If the
latter of these views is true, a view which physicists such as Einstein
and Ilanck sympathize with, the problem we are faced with would be
made much simpler. In fact the concept of natural laws would become
subordinate to that of vital laws, and there would be a monism of cau-
sality. Te laws determining the creation of forms would have an on-
tological necessity, something which scientists from Descartes till now
have disputed. Te human being, as a creature with a mind, would
be free of this necessity, but his will and actions would be subject to
the essential necessity attached to his individual make-up, and would
be further constrained by his situation as an act-centre of the eternal
substance, whereby he has to will and act within the parameters of the
direction of ideas and values of the divine mind. In fact, his freedom
would stand or fall with that of the Divinity Iimself. In the case of
the empirical human being, such freedom is only a possibility. Tis
possibility would be the very thing which constituted his special place
in the cosmos, in other words his scope for avoiding the strict one-
to-one determinations which obtain in all other states of aairs and
things in the cosmos. Moreover, because the will has only a negative
eect on action i.e. dont do or dont not do a humans freedom is
more in the way of a freedom to default [Urtcr|ossurg] rather than a
freedom to actually do something. Tis further means that the degree
to which a human being is actually free is dependent on the extent to
which he has achieved a sublimation of his drives.
Te human being is essentially both free or determined [jrciurc-
tcrmiricst] both involving nite causality and is free in a positive
sense in so far as he frees himself. Vhether a humans essential free-
dom can be made factually so is in his own hands. Te whole question
of what constitutes human freedom has hitherto been erroneously
posed, by indiscriminately lumping all humans together as possessing
free will or not possessing it, a practice which is also found in designat-
ing them mortal or immortal. Te principle here is that reason gives
humans the essential possibility of becoming free in a negative sense
free from something [jrci uovor] but not an unlimited degree of
a+o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
actual freedom nor freedom in a positive sense free for something
[jrci uozu].
It is grace of the external energy supply accumulated in the drives
which then becomes available to mind and reason that a factual and
positive freedom comes into being. Tis freedom allows the individual
mentally and personally endowed creature to realize itself at the ex-
pense of the psycho-physical organism, and promotes a spiritualising
and mentalizing [vcrgcistigcr] of its life and an embodiment [vcr|ci-
ocr] of its mind. Freedom, in a positive sense for a living creature, is a
determined way, by means of its own, individual and personal nature,
of sharing in the mind of the originator of all there is, and thereby
partially participating in eternal freedom and in the self-positing it-
self of the Supreme Being. Tere is no freedom opposed to Gods
[gcgcrocr Gott]. Even less so is there a freedom opposed to a fully
adequate insight into the values that apply in some situation, or any
situation where one is idiosyncratically free to designate one value as
higher than another, or where ones own individual nature can be re-
constituted avoiding God and the entire extant value system. In fact
at the very highest zenith of ones mental and spiritual life there comes
a point where even the freedom of choice [Vo||jrci|cit] which even
animals have in some degree disappears [a state of aairs which ap-
pears paradoxical given all the above], and one arrives at a position
where one can say: Iere I stand; I cant do anything other than this.
ow ior.iirv
Ve have to reject the notion of an individual, personal immortality for
the soul, in the sense given to this by the theistic system, because the
soul and the person are simply not substances. Te psycho-physical
organism is only an organized clustering of functions of a universal
life, a transit point of its rhythmically growing action and movement.
But because this universal life is growing in all individual versions of
it and in all varieties, species, branches, organizations and realms
of it any eort taking place in one part of the system, from plant to
man, is not without metaphysical consequence for the original root of
the living being itself. A dynamic after-eect of a metaphysical sort
permeates the seemingly self-contained life-process of each plant and
animal, and this is not solely through some empirical eect of altered
conditions in the earths crust. But even the human being, in whom
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a+;
spirit and mind come to life, cannot be said to be everlastingly immor-
tal in respect of his individual act-centre. Tere is, however, a sense in
which his individual version of the life process does outlast his bodily
demise, and that is because the living energy in the course of his life is
gradually being transferred to his mind and spirit through a process
that I, and indeed Goethe, call the sublimation of living into mental
and spiritual energy. Te individual act-centres which prot from this
process do not themselves outlast his demise, but their contribution to
Gods growing substantiality does. A human being as such only pos-
sesses an essential possibility of achieving an immortal eect of this
nature, and whether it actual happens or not depends on the extent to
which he acquired freedom [during his life-time], and that in turn de-
pends on how he acted. Goethe, in his conversations with Eckermann,
saw profoundly and correctly that any outlasting eect of a persons
life and death was entirely dependent on what he called the power of a
spiritual entelechy, but that it had to be of the right sort, because im-
mortality is not everlasting and is not bestowed in equal measure on
all. Te transcendent fate of mankind cannot depend on a few drops
of hot oil, which could easily destroy his bodily organism, as Iascal
noted; that is a certainty. Te lines of our fate, of our mental activity
and doings, have a signicance way beyond the history of this earth, its
empirical culture, and our meagre remaining achievements, which are
so easily eroded by moths and worms admittedly not their meaning
and value, but certainly the material which conveys these, a material
which makes them knowable for future generations.
Te fact that mental and spiritual cultural achievements can out-
last any human being or any nation is no substitute for the continuing
personal input into the Godhead. Tis negative assertion concerning
religion is correctly rebutted by positive religions. But there are no
grounds for assuming an everlasting after-existence for a person, in-
dependent of the being of the basis of all things [to which they belong
anyway], which would be the somc for all human beings regardless of
whether they conducted their lives more akin to animals or to God.
Te eternal mind is at will to loosen the ties which bind individual
clusters of self-concentrated mind and spirit which are anyway only
an ordering of acts as soon as they have fullled their purpose and
rendered their contribution to the self-development of God. God is
not in any sort of heaven, but is there, u|crc the eternal mind and
spirit are, and that means in the scope or range of aairs where Iis
a+s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
goodness and wisdom are at stake which counts as heaven wheth-
er it is on the earth or elsewhere. Te person, on the other hand, is,
weaves its way, and has an eect, in the innite attributes of the eternal
substance as does life.
Only after I became involved in studying the theistic system a pe-
riod of my life which I look on today as an odyssey, and to whose views
as to what constitutes the essence of man and to what one can gener-
ally make out God to be I have alluded to briey here did I know
what I as a human being live for. Nevertheless, it was not that alone
which allowed me to work out what I saw, heard and apprehended all
around me. Vhat struck me was how little there was of all this avail-
able to me, compared with the wealth for the future of my nation, or
for the world of humanity in general, or for the cosmic potential of
humanity. Even the life of us on earth as a species is immeasurably
short, as is even the life and existence of our planet, compared with
the coming into existence and passing away of the stars. In the light
of all this, positivism, which cannot see beyond what has to do with
humanity, leaves both my reason and my heart completely unsatised.
In Rabbi Iillels words: If I am not out for myself, who is out for me.
and if I am or|y out for myself, what am I supposed to be.
Te theistic system itself is deeper [than I have had time to deal
with here]. But my reason and my heart do not allow it to satisfy me.
It is anyway rendered obsolete by our experience of world history. A
God, who had created a world and living forms up to the level of hu-
mans, and without any inner necessity, and who had given them rea-
son and freedom and indestructible souls, knowing beforehand how
they would behave, and yet punishing or rewarding them for how
they behaved, seems to me a completely unacceptable state of aairs.
It makes God out to be in charge of a kindergarten or to be running
a moral gymnasium, rather than the God of the tempest which we
see the world as. No, the world, along with human beings and their
history, must surely be more than a spectacle or a courthouse for an
eternal, absolutely perfect God. It must surely signify something for
the very fate of the eternal substance itself: And when I, from within
this system, then ask, Vhat am I living for., I repeatedly receive the
answer, For You, for You, for You for this so-called eternal bliss, a
life for which the price I pay is to make God feel good. Tis is a God,
then, who wants nothing other than that I make Iim feel good. Ie
doesnt take any delight in my well-being. I can only bring about some-
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a+,
thing which is more than I am myself, and which surpasses me. But I
must, nevertheless, do precisely this that is, must be able to live for
this other being, whom I cannot oppose, and who is eternally perfect,
good, wise and almighty. His idea is always reverberating in me. To
live jor God, however, can only mean to live uit| Iim, to struggle and
ght for Iis self-development in the course of the world-process, a
world which is, from Iis point of view, only one of an innite number
of histories of God, i.e. a miniscule detail of his biography and ideog-
raphy. Te human being, in this scenario, is the creature in whom and
through whom the original basis of everything takes eect as a God.
Tis then assigns to all human beings, whoever they are and wher-
ever they reside in the cosmos, one and the same goal, which confers
value on their very being and life. I cannot nd any trace of the unity,
seriousness or dignity of this goal either in theism, or in any form of
naturalism or positivism.
Am I the only person who thinks along these lines. Not at all. It is
far too little known that everyone or almost everyone in our universe
thinks or has thought in a metaphysical way contrary to traditional
theism. Te following three very general metaphysical principles, each
with numerous ramications, are examples of what I believe many
would subscribe to.
1. Te ultimate basis of the world is in the process of becoming
something other than it has been not necessarily in time and is
not absolutely completed.
2. Te coming-to-be of this world-basis stands in a reciprocal re-
lationship with the events occurring in the world and the history of
human beings.
3. Te basis of the world, if it is pure spirit or mind, cannot be al-
mighty. Tere must be both light or dark, spirituality or mentality
or something non-spiritual or non-mental, incorporated into it, with
the relaxation of whose tension the world process has to do. Tere are a
handful of contemporary thinkers and writers whose life and thoughts
revolve around this theme, whose names I shall now mention, though
not with the aim of bolstering my own position. I do not need such
support, and anyway one person can be right and everyone else wrong
in these matters. Neither a show of hands nor democratic procedures
count for anything when it comes to the truth. I just want to show
how much certain thinkers of undoubted signicance resemble me
and one another in their thoughts about the basis of things and mans
aao rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
relationship to this. I exclude those long dead, such as Master Eckhart,
Bhme, Spinoza, Fichte, Iegel, Schelling, von Iartmann and others,
and shall just mention Stumpf, Becker, Schwarz, 7iegler and Rath-
enau in Germany; Bergson in France; and I.G. Vells in England.
nuxzw nnrwo, wzrunn zwn oon:
nvorurrow zwn z
xnrzrnvsrczr vrnvrorwr (rqa,)
Te human being is organized into a unied life-centre on the basis
of a unity of energy centres and a hierarchy of functional clusterings.
As a natural creature he is nothing other than the richest, most con-
centrated product of nature and its evolution. But then nature itself is
in reality and as a whole a coming-to-be and a developmental process,
and a history in absolute time of the structure of historical causality.
Vhat emerges into a spatial lay-out of all this is only the quintessen-
tial dynamic movement possibilities, which presuppose the intrinsic
changes, movements and transformations being wrought within time
itself as the absolute way life comes-to-be. A human being is there-
fore neither his physical body alone, nor his living nature alone, and
nor his psychic capabilities as something ready created as the older
version of theism would have it. Instead, he is nothing other than a
highly developed vertebrate with that special tendency to encephalize,
whereby the instincts decay more and more to make place for a highly
augmented associative memory and a highly developed technical intel-
ligence. Like all discrete types of animals and plants he has become
what he is by virtue of intrinsic causal factors of biological develop-
ment occurring in the highest vertebrates even though so far it is
not possible to trace his ascent with any exactitude, and the transition
forms between Homo Duoois and Homo sopicrs are not yet identied.
Discrete birth lineages are involved in this, not exclusively those to do
with adaptation and selection within an environment, but rather to do
with creative ventures deep within the ramications of universal life
itself, and laid down as a result of diverse experiences which groups
of organisms have made use of over time. Te functions that he pos-
sesses have been formed over time in an orderly way, according to the
principle of maximum form-creation at the cost of least energy, and
all this beyond good and evil or nasty and nice. Te upshot are goal-
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg aa+
directed rule-formations, leading to memory, phantasy, and a growing
technical intelligence, all of which belong to the universal life itself, or,
better, to the life-force the second attribute of the original substance,
of which the rst attribute is mind or spirit. Te objective world of im-
ages of the material universe supplying bodies and objective space
are products of universal life in its lowest form, i.e. where only soul-
less energy factors prevail. Ve study the objective appearances of these
when we engage in inorganic science, when their intelligible order is
manifest in a four-dimensional matrix that can be investigated.
But all such natural ways of portraying a human being fall short of
the whole truth of what this being is.
Vhereas the whole world of nite things springs from an ever new
continuous creation, according to an ideal and essential structural plan
under the governance of the life-force and its motivating impulses, at
the same time humans also spring from the mental or spiritual attri-
bute of the original substance, which is manifest in them in the form of
an individual centre where divine mind and spirit is concentrated, and
which we call personhood. Ve, as humans, are not really creatures, as
a free spiritual and mentally-endowed being cannot be created, and in
fact would be better named creators rather than creatures. Te world
has become what it is, or, better put, is becoming ever new, by virtue of
the divine thoughts. But only humans [among all other things and life
forms] are actual participants in divine spirit. Ie mankind is not
only like all other things, constructed according to eternal thoughts,
but is also, unlike all other things, a thinking agent himself, who thinks
in and with the divinity. Ie thinks, loves and wills ir the Godhead and
uit| Iim; he lives and is eective on account of Iim.
Te idea of a human being, therefore, cannot be separated from ei-
ther the idea of God as t|c substance of all substances, or from the
spiritual attribute of this substance. Ie, the human being, is a theo-
morphic being, or, as Leibniz said, a little God.
I have systematically show [here and elsewhere] that we cannot at-
tribute spirit and reason to any earlier evolutionary rudiments of these
in the way of vital or psychic precursors, and therefore we are forced to
derive them as we have the existence of all genuine essences from
the Supreme Being.
If, then, the human being is neither a natural creature neither
bodily thing nor living entity and is not a spiritual creature either
in the sense of being someones creation but is more than any of
aaa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
these, in that he is oot| those manifestations of God which all hu-
manly knowable and innite things contain, or, in addition, is a very
spirit or mind incorporated into the divine spirit or mind then the
human being and his history cannot be anything other than an extra-
temporal coming-to-be of the very eternally self-positing substance.
Moreover, this substance cannot in any way be indierent to, or treat
as insignicant, our plight, as if it were a mere creation or object of its
knowing, commanding or judging.
It is rather the case that the human being realizes, or is co-responsi-
ble for, the spirituality of God. Tis must be so for each of Iis ideas,
or at least he man must be potentially capable of this task, for
there is always the actual possibility that man can sink back into ani-
mality. Ie man is neither servant, child nor tool of God. Te bond
between them is solidarity, forged from mutual attention to the task
of realizing divine spirituality, including its ideas and values, by dint of
harnessing the energies of the life-force and transforming those into
ideation [Icicrurg], spiritualization [\crgcistigurg] and essentializa-
tion [\crucscrt|ic|urg].
And now it should be clear how enormously serious and signicant
world history is, and that both human thought and human action are
behind everything, and that the way and the form in which they hap-
pen aects the eventual realization of God.
ow rnn nrsronv or nuxzw xnrzrnvsrczr
rnnnnox, xzw zwn oon.
nrsronrczr rvroroov
1. Sociology is to do with the human being as: a) a trembling slave of
Gods, or as a humble servant, or as the one who is afraid; b) the freely
serving one of God; c) a child of Gods; d) a small God as Leibniz
proposed; e) a microcosm and as a partnership; and f ) a creator of
God.
2. In human beings mind and spirit are not just the region where the
application of things is worked out, nor are they just the most devel-
oped level where the validity of things is brought into focus through
the noematic structure, nor are they even where a subjective partici-
pation in things takes place. Tey are not even just the place where
consciousness and self-consciousness rst emerge. It is rather that
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg aa,
mind and spirit rst meet up with the consciousness of the drives in
consciousness itself, and the two attributes of the original being for
the rst time are immediately brought into proximity and their separ-
ateness made conscious.
Te human being is the place and theatre where the fate of God is
ultimately brought to a head. In man alone, in the workshop of his
freedom, there takes place the vitalization [\cr|cocrigurg] of the
mind and the spiritualization [\crgcistigurg] of life.
Te human being is the struggle and the potential for victory that
God has with, and over, Iimself.
Iis breast is riven in two, in constant turmoil, and completely given
over to the unrepeatable and irreplaceable fact that nature and spirit
have their very rst meeting in his consciousness.
3. Te human being is the manifestation of the ultimate self-un-
folding of the Godhead. Ie marches along within the manifestation
of God to their very summit, and that leaves him with nothing more
above him.
4. Te human being is: a) in a condition of solidarity with God
both as a creature with drives and as a spiritual entity; b) originally
just as much ecstatic life-force as he is ecstatic mind and spirit; c) at
root a possessor of double membership, but at the cost of double the
struggle; and d) someone who makes God more of a being uit| him
[man] around than without him. In fact a human being is more of a
being than God is Iimself when there are no human beings around
surely the ultimate and highest accolade one can pay a human being.
e) Te human being is the place where the self-production [Sc|ostcr-
zcugurg] of God occurs. f ) Ve must think about matters like this
God reveals his eternal spiritual light rst of all in a human being. Ie
extends his freedom, sovereignty, holiness and kindness, and wisdom
and knowledge of ideas to us. But, at the same time, the human be-
ing draws the divine spirit into |imsc|j. Ie, mankind, having arrived
at the ultimate point of the manifestations of nature, a point beyond
which he can go no further by means of Life alone, beseeches god as
a spiritual being to open up fresh ground. It is a prayer from the living
to overcome life itself.
5. It is therefore quite impossible to accept the notion of Feuer-
bach, for example that human beings have only formed an idea of
God along the lines of their own image. Te human being, forever in
transition towards the goal of coming-to-be within God, and living his
aa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
life with all its troubles, struggles, victories and defeats, simply cannot
recognize such a notion. Nevertheless, in one sense the human be-
ing is theomorphic and God anthropomorphic. Tis way of looking
at things is relatively accurate when set against the notion of man as a
creature. For the human being is the executor of the ultimate goal of
the coming-to-be of God Iimself or rather the co-executor and
indeed the director and steersman of this project. If we take away our
role in such highest manifestation of God, then how petty does that
make the human being. almost nothing. It is this very enactment of
the ultimate and highest part of Iis life ir man not ovcr him or out-
sic him or o|orgsic him which provides the setting for Iis struggle
to realize Iimself.
6. Te realm in question comes about ir and t|roug| mankind, not
as some supernatural miracle. It is ir us that all this happens, and
through the fact of our being who we are that it is achieved.
7. It is only among mystics that one nds a religious socialism which
combines service to the realm in question and justication of the
poor.
8. Just as man cannot create God, neither can God man. Te reason
for this is that mind or spirit cannot create life or extant material, and
therefore cannot create anything. Te human being is anyway an en-
tity with drives, and these drives are locked in a constant struggle with
mind and spirit, hence the myth of the Fall of Man from Eden. More-
over, a free entity cannot be created, and anyway mind or spirit is sub-
stantially one entity and not several. Another reason why God could
not have created man nor man God is the undoubted genetic connec-
tion between humans and other animals in respect of their physical
make-up and psyche, and therefore if God had some plan for salvation
or revelation, it would have to apply to every living thing throughout
history, not just mankind. In any case the account in Genesis is wrong
on a number of counts e.g. humans are much older than is made out
there and, as well as an inbuilt contempt for animals in the story,
there is a bias towards a Jewish origin for humans, and a number of
other biases and foolishnesses.
worns ow xvrn (rqa;)
1. Myth is an attempt by the life-force, as part of universal lifes high-
est stage in man, to produce a preliminary draft of its possible im-
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg aa,
age forms. Mythical images are therefore potentially contained in the
universal life which each individual partakes of. It is opriori to the real
history of mankind, and demarcates the range of possible history, in
the same way as do a childs experience of its drives and the grown-ups
it models itself on pregure the actual fate of an adult human being.
2. Myth forms the possible perceptual world, and it must die before
ceding place to a more advanced perception adapted to what is real.
3. Ve have to consider the relationship between myth and the no-
tion of longing in Schellings writings, and also myth in Jungs and
Freuds work.
4. Tere is then myth as self-experience and self-draft of the Su-
preme Being as a life-force.
5. Myth, and being given over ecstatically to drives, bring the human
being in direct contact with the life-force. Myth pre-determines the
philosophical and scientic images of a culture, all of which are con-
nected to the sociological stage of development known as the living
community [which precedes, for example, bourgeois society].
6. Myth runs its course in vital time a variety of absolute time
which I refer to as a groups absolute time. It is simultaneously ocjorc
and ojtcr history, if we are referring to mere physical time. It is the
fount of possible worlds and world history.
7. Each era has its own myth for its own actuality, and there is then
a period of disillusionment with the intoxication that adhered to its
heyday. To be able to show enthusiasm for such disillusion is some-
thing in itself.
8. Tere are myths of empty space, of empty time, of a mechanical
world-view tied to bourgeois society. Tere are myths of a Utopia, of
mans Fall and original sin, of theism, and even of the body and soul.
9. Myths are rooted in the drive dispositions of the races, and in
pre-human and pre-linguistic primary experiences of humans. Tey
are the remnants of a transition period during which Homo sopicrs
was coming-to-be.
10. Tey have to do with a vital opriori, and have a functional role
within an undierentiated living community.
11. By studying myths mythology one destroys their mythical
nature, and one certainly cannot build them up or preserve them by
trying to understand what they mean by recourse to reason.
12. Bachofen regarded them as primitive attempts to investigate na-
ture and as re-enlivenings of our psychic categorical system.
aao rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
13. It is correct to see a romantic theme in the way they put across
psychic events, but it is wrong to take their value judgments seriously.
14. Myth and Logos are just as original as the life-force and mind.
15. Nature itself is the theme of consolidated myths.
16. A myth is a preconscious awareness of the origin of a supraindi-
vidual object as such.
17. Te mythical objects lie somewhere between image and straight-
forward perception.
18. To interpret a myth means to co-produce or re-produce it, for
there is nothing substantial to interpret which would not be distorted
by putting it into our idiom.
rnn zcr or rnn coxrwo-ro-nn or z
nuxzw nnrwo (rqa;)
Te essential nature of a human being comes into focus if we bring to
mind the entire structure of the entity in question. All possible strands
of life accumulate in such a way that there results an increased interi-
orization [\crirrcrurg], centralization, sublimation and reection. All
this comes about by dint of an ever increasing and almost unbearable
suering, as one comes up against the resistance to life of the inorganic
being around us. Vith growing alarm at the powerful crescendo of
drive suppression going on, there is a pervasive sense of unease. Te
direct enjoyment resulting from the satisfaction of the drives soon
gives way to, at the very most, an indirect sort of enjoyment, but there
then comes a point where the derived pleasure resulting from the sat-
isfaction, the replacement of pleasure with displeasure, is no longer
commensurate with the costs in suering needed to achieve this. In
other words, the costs of this way of conducting a life outweigh the
benets, and such a life is not worth living. Or, to put it another way,
the task allotted to he or she who would be a proper human being can
only be attempted with unsuitable means, the end-result being a blind
alley, a Iamlet situation.
Te poor creature who is trying to be a human being can then only
hover between being and not-being. To be or nor to be that is the
question.
Te implantation of Logos in this creature which has lost its way is
the critical event by means of which the act of becoming a human is
eected. It has the following repercussions for all concerned. Te Su-
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg aa;
preme Being becomes self-conscious because its Logos is implanted ir
this creature and is eective through its implantation. Te creature it-
self becomes self-conscious as a result of the self-determination which
ensues, and through the gathering up of its hitherto scattered strands
of being. Te experienced contact with a metacosmic being which is
what Being-itself [Lrs o sc] is leads to knowledge about this Being-
itself. Tere is then a sense of continual self-elevation over all nite
things, and this carries on until it is a constitutional elevation sym-
bolised by upright gait and until the world sphere itself opens up in
front of us. Finally there comes the realization that both world and self
are contingent on something else, which is indeed what has been true
all along i.e. an intra-divine process [irrcrgott|ic|cr \orgorg], whereby
there is a self-discovery on the part of God, and a mutual joining of
hands on the part of the life-force and spirit a coming together, in
other words, of primal Nature [roturo roturors] and original ordering
[oro orirors].
Te coming-to-be of a human being is the ideal-real meeting point
of two trends and actions a movement in which the life-force reaches
its zenith and a movement in which the spiritual dimension of the Su-
preme Being lets itself down and implants itself into the very highest
peak of the life-force which is welling up and is thrown against it.
Any philosophy which wants to derive the fundamental nature of
the human being from only one of these movements e.g. theism, pan-
logism [|or|ogismus], and all naturalistic varieties is in the wrong.
Any philosophy which wants to derive one of these two movements
from part of the other one e.g. St. Tomas Aquinas, Descartes, Kant,
Darwin, etc. is also in the wrong, because they stand together only in
the undivided act of Being-itself.
Te experience of the I and the we, the grasping of self and world,
the apprehension of world and God, Gods self-conscious coming-to-
be through human beings, the self-awareness of being alive and having
a psychic-physical unity, the intimate and social person, and the eleva-
tion of the self along with its concentrated self-knowledge all these
acts are equally original part-views and part-elements of what it is to
be an entire human being.
Anyone who does not realize that these aspects lie at the back of
what it is to be human or who tries to derive them from particular
features of a human being e.g. language does not understand the
uniqueness of man. Tis applies whether the person studying the hu-
aas rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
man being is an anatomist, historian, psychologist or physiologist, or
even a mortician. Tere is no category of being in the entire gamut
of being human which does not owe something to a conspectus or
synopsis of things, and which does not contain some other categorical
outlook on humans or a derivation therefrom.
An analytic approach to the human being is completely ruled out,
because the nature of a human being is entirely circular. All the cel-
ebrated contrasting features of a human being the so-called con-
tradictions within its nature are only articial abstractions from an
otherwise totality. All essential qualities are penetrated by other es-
sences, and all drive directions by other drives.
In fact even to talk about contrasts and contradictions in human
nature is meaningless. Te principle of non-contradictability, and even
its converse, are still parts of what it is to be human, because both arise
within our capacity to think, and are therefore essential qualities of
us.
Te human being is not a human being because he thinks as Des-
cartes and Iascal maintained but the human being thinks because
he is a |umor ocirg, and while he is a human being. Tinking is based
upon: 1) there being knowing and consciousness; 2) our having im-
ages and meanings of things; and 3) our participating as humans in
the collective concentration of what is common to us.
It is clear, therefore, that to think the act which Descartes, Ias-
cal, Iegel and Kant delegate to an I which thinks and which Kant
calls transcendental apperception has been articially taken out of
context of the entire human being and should be rmly re-installed
where it belongs. Only the entity we call a person can think, and, even
then, only if he is an entity which loves. Moreover, the person cannot
love if it is not capable of loving itself or of arming its very being, by
virtue of which it determines who it is, lights up its being, collects up
what is his, as it were, and holds its head high. Tere is no possibility,
furthermore, of being able to love without co-executing the act of love
emanating from the Supreme Being as a spiritual or mental act within
the human being.
To think, furthermore, is only the segregation or breaking away [Ao-
spo|turg] from the intellectual archetype which the human mind co-
constructs, and is above all the apprehension of the sphere of meaning.
Tinking through reason gives the idea; thinking through intelligence
gives the empirical meanings of the images.
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg aa,
Even consciousness can only be determined through thinking, if
consciousness is deemed to be reective knowledge as a partial con-
sequence of thinking, which then means that there must be a form of
pre-conscious thinking. Vhat do we then understand by the entity
being-thought [cr|crcs Scir].
If we take thinking to cover judgements, conclusions and concepts,
then this sort of thinking is precisely what can only be relative to the
earth-bound human being with its sensory organization. On the other
hand we maintain that his sensory organization also has an opriori es-
sential component which the animal lacks, and that: 1) the dierent
modalities are strands of a more comprehensive perceptual act which
reaches out to achieve objective being; 2) the images are transcendent
to the act which apprehends them; and 3) the human can reect on
both sensations and the dierent modality functions.
It therefore follows that the human sensory organization is less es-
sential to his status as a human being than is his thinking and to
ignore this is an error which pervades all rationalist philosophy, ex-
cluding Kant to some extent, as he partly saw through it. In the nal
analysis the human being only |os a mind because he is a human being,
and can only inhibit the boundless life-force because he is a human
being.
Although mind and the phantasy accruing to the life-force are the
two ultimately essential attributes of what it is to be a human be-
ing, that the human being does have both of them depends solely on
the fact that he is a |umor ocirg and so long as he is a human being,
and not the other way round. Neither the pairings soul and living
body [Lcio] the former being the form and the latter the matter of
the other nor corpse [Korpcr] and thought which in Descartes
scheme are respectively extended substance and thinking substance
is an ultimate human attribute, because living body and soul are
rather founded on life itself, and life is founded on the capacity for
self-movement, and, moreover, corpse and living body are founded
on the life-force. Neither is the pair consciousness-unconsciousness
such an ultimate component as mind and life, because consciousness
is founded on both mind and soul. At root the human being has both
because it is a part-component of the existence and nature-bestowing
property of Being-itself, and because it has the self-determination of,
and is the entity which manifests, the coming-to-be tendencies of this
Being-itself. It is further so that the human being possesses core es-
a,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
sences pertaining to the essence of the world, for the human being is
the very entity it is because it co-determines what everything c|sc is,
which makes it no wonder that it holds itself in such high esteem. Te
fact that the humans special place in the scheme of things is to activate
the coming-to-be of God and to ideate [icicrcr] the life-force i.e.
render it idea and turn it to account [vcrucrtcr], and thereby to be-
come the image of God with the net result, however, of reducing
what Gods essence of mors imogc is all this only emphasizes that
the human being has both mind and life-force.
onrorwzrrrv or ncsrzrrc noxo nnorrcus
zrowosrnn noxo szrrnws
Only the human being has a proportionately higher ability to release
his instincts and disinhibit his drives. Tis allows him despite the
fact that his nature is spiritually constituted, and in fact only because
this is the case to go far beyond the point where he is merely pre-
serving objective goals or allowing his organic nature to grow. By being
able to disinhibit the very drive centre itself means that he can delve
into the eternal life-force more fully than can any other animal.
Te human being can achieve such penetration into, and feeling
for, life, not simply because he is a creature of drives, but because he
can make himself into a |omo croticus ccstoticus and sympathize com-
mensurately as such, and he does this by inhibiting and repressing the
sexual drive system, and in this condition he is at the very summit of
the life-force and of animal life.
Eros is sublimated sexual drive energy which has worked its way up
to control the perceptual system and its various modalities. In humans
this energy component stops serving only the sexual act and reproduc-
tion, and rather illuminates more and more what perception brings
forth. In this way it transforms, albeit in an oscillatory fashion, what
was objective in animals, merely because their particular drives deter-
mined it so, into a subjective viewpoint. Tis then lays out the world
and its images in such a way that their transcendental status comes to
the fore, and, unlike animals, they the world and its images are not
exclusively linked to whatever drive is presently paramount.
In this way, the human being has available to it the energy of the
life-force, but is not in the sway of the particular drives which once
monopolized it.
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a,+
All this happens in such a way that an unencumbered pleasure in
the world as image results, something which acts as the original mo-
tive for art. Iowever, the pleasure, for anyone, then permeates the re-
ection on, and the self-reference to, the world, and is bound up with a
sense of distance to the world. Tere is then a feeling induced towards
the world which is rather one of compassion [Mit|cicr] as opposed to
the intimate pity [Lirs-|ciurg] and intimate joy [Lirs-jrcuurg] which
the animal cannot but experience. Eros sympathy rst makes it
possible for anyone to feel pure pleasure, or any pure emotion, without
its being intrinsically attached to the subjective needs which bias how
an object is looked at, and, hence, there is an entrance into the objec-
tively beautiful, with all self-references to any particular individuals
prejudices being excluded. Vhat is achieved here, above all, is a supra-
organic inltration into, and attunement with, both the demonic and
divine life-force [supra-organic because the view is one level above the
erstwhile immersion in it]. It is ecstatic and yet recognized as such.
Te fact that humans, as opposed to animals, can achieve a disinter-
ested, but nevertheless impassioned, view of the world, free of their
drives, and allowing them to see the world as an image, is exclusively
because of Eros.
Tere is no greater error than that of Schopenhauers, who came
up with the notion of a will-less intuition i.e. free of any life-force
in the context of aesthetics. Kant had already made a similar error
when writing about disinterested intuitions in the same context, for,
although the erotic intuition is disinterested because it is drive-free, it
is further disinterested not because it is passion|css but because it is
impassioned i.e. erotic.
In the grip of a sympathetic-erotic take on the world we experience
something of the original imagistic make-up of the world.
Not only this, but in such a condition we are co-generating the very
images themselves as accidental being-sos of something; we can here
transcend our own make-up of drives and needs and individual nature
to grasp the consciousness transcendent images themselves.
Tis sense of being-at-one with the life-force is only possible be-
cause we orc part of this anyway. Our relationship to the centre of
forces belonging to dead nature is not of this sort, as here we can only
either control or order what is there, as a physicist does, or engage in
pure contemplation, in accord with our erotic intuitions, but without
any actual contact with the force itself.
a,a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
All modes of experience are at root derived from either suering
or joy at being at one with things. But whereas thinking with ideas,
uncovering the original phenomena in the world, or being part of the
essence of what is, all have to do with inhibiting the life-centre in
keeping with the insight that to do philosophy is to be eternally dy-
ing what we are concerned with here, in the notion of sympathetic
intuition, is the complete opposite: it is an ecstasis into the highest
component of life, in fact experiencing life itself, and what is inhibited
or cancelled under t|csc circumstances is only our singular life os sin-
gular.
Because death in real terms is a re-immersion in the well of life, in
the sea of universal life, the sympathetic-ecstatic oneness we are con-
sidering is actually an anticipation or foretaste of death, a celebration
of the harvest of universal life. It must therefore be deemed a fading
away of life [Lrstcrocr], but not an extinction [Aostcrocr] or complete
passing away [\crstcrocr].
As death, from the point of view of nature, is the other side of the
same developmental process as reproduction, so similarly the sympa-
thy of Eros, in its ecstatic demonstration of the images of the life-force,
is the essential entry point to the philosophical revelation of the sort
of entities which a life deals with, whilst at the same time requiring a
fading away of a unique form in order to achieve an intuitive under-
standing of everything that life, death and the life-force component of
Being-itself mean its other side in this case being reason, ideas and
thoughts uit|out which Eros does what it does quite adequately.
Te meaning of all this is precisely contained in the myth of Dio-
nysis, who is both the God of the living organism, as the form of the
latters knowledge and participation, or also the God of death.
Te erotic, ecstatic participation in the life-force component of Be-
ing-itself appears to be proportionately greater, and more dominant,
in matriarchal as opposed to patriarchal communities. Vithout this
assumption we cannot explain the peculiar categorical systems which
obtain in such women as opposed to men. For instance, among such
women, death gives meaning to life not life to death; this can be found
in Iomer too, who celebrates death, not life. Other beliefs and at-
titudes to which they incline include the importance of the cult of the
soul, the weight of the past, the value of retrospection, and the propen-
sity to see in movement continual phases of repose.
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a,,
A re-establishment of this being-at-one was aimed at in a highly
intellectual fashion in patriarchal societies through the technique of
consciously switching o the contribution of mind and spirit. Tis
is essentially what trends such as the romantic movement devoted to
Dionysian worship, the Renaissance, the 19th Century Romantics,
and contemporary Ianromantics, were aiming at.
It is a fair question as to why it is only the sexual sphere and not
the nutritional or power drive systems which can lead, through re-
pression and sublimation, and detachment from their drives, to forms
of feeling and forms of love. Te reason is, rst, because the repro-
ductive system is the oldest, most original and most energized, and,
secondly, because the nutritional drive is essentially a self-preservation
drive, and, thirdly, because the power drive is a mixture of self- and
collective-preservation drives. Te reproductive drive is the only one
of these which is originally teleoclinically [i.e. aim-orientated] direct-
ed towards another creature, and therefore is also the only one of the
three which is objectiable and intentionalizable i.e. provides a res-
ervoir for Eros as a participating act.
It is rst of all in the specically human form of Eros that the energy
of the life-force becomes free, and detached from real objects whose
properties are merely either useful or harmful to life, and therefore
disengaged from the teleoclinical [drive-orientated] situation in force
in the animal. Eros, as a function of the soul, is anyway not exclusive-
ly focused on possible sexual objects, certainly not of a heterosexual
kind. It can generally make itself completely free from sexual matters,
and then direct itself towards all sorts of values. In this way it becomes
the starting point for the sense of the beautiful, and for showing up
qualities in general. Vhere it remains half-bound to the sexually at-
tractive is in the case of male-male or female-female homosexuality,
if there is a favourable disposition for its coming to the surface rather
than heterosexuality.
nnos (rqa;)
vos .s rnv sr.riwc voiwr ro rnv ro.riow
or iwrviiicvwcv, wiiivn cnoicv .wn i.wcu.cv
Among the highest psychic functions that we know about restrict-
ing ourselves to sub-mental ones Eros is more original than either
intelligence or drive-free choice. I am not claiming that intelligence
a, rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
and choice can somehow be derived from Eros. Such an enterprise
would be nonsense. But I do think that the way these two functions
are applied to what is given of the bio-organic closed world which is
our environment or of what is to hand comes under the jurisdic-
tion of Eros. Te reason why mediated thinking and a genuine act of
choice remain so restricted in quality and rudimentary in scope is the
fault of Eros.
Eros is both objectifying and relatively realizing in nature. It draws
our glance out over what is useful and available, even if in the rst
instance it only steers us in the direction of aesthetic values. It con-
verts mere curiosity into a thirst for knowledge. Schillers remark, that
the gate of beauty leads both to a land of knowledge and to what is
good, is, from a developmental psychological point of view, quite justi-
ed. Eros releases actuality and the accidental being-so of anything,
though not the existence or essence of anything, because, in contrast
with drive, it nds its goal in the nature of something os or imogc by
way of its pictorial or musical component. Te existence or real be-
ing of something is discovered through resistance, and, for this, the
sense of touch has a denite primacy. [Te essence of something is
achieved through our mental make-up]. Te release of the nature of
something, and even its reality, is however promotc by Eros, as is the
release of what constitutes form in formed things. Eros brings out the
preference for concise forms, but it is the form itself which carries the
meaning which lies in store for the intelligence. In the transition from
what is merely at hand to what is objective, it is Eros which is the in-
termediary. Eros broadens both the scope of future and past events, is
responsible for hope or fear with respect to the future, and is the gate-
way to reminiscence about the past. Eros is the father of yearning of
detached love and vision is its most rened accomplice, this latter
being no less than love at a distance [Icrr|icoc] itself.
Eros is also the source of the very ability of the past to enliven the
present. Te mare remembers the stallion who rst impregnated her.
Eros, in matriarchies, becomes the source of piety, backward-looking,
and the cult of death. In Eros there is the rst intimation of a pure
happiness, over and above the joy of being in love, and even as a future
possibility a step above the immediacy of erotic feelings. Desire is
then procured in phantasy. I am then love-sick with yearning [Sc|r-
suc|ts|ror|c] what a nice present for mankind [ic sc|cr|crc lu-
gcr cs Mcrsc|cr.]
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a,,
It is, however, also Eros which dierentiates the sphere of choice in
respect to action. Trough it, the value qualities begin to be separated
from real goods. It is the source of preference a function which ani-
mals do not possess. It organizes itself in the form of a world-knowing
function over and above the play of drive impulses. Te freeing of
our momentary survey of anything from the drive impulse is one of
its main accomplishments. Te independence which then accrues to
preference broadens the sphere of choice. Animals sexual selections
are often imaginative, but, where this is the case, it is on the basis of
showiness rather than beauty.
Te source of morality is female sympathy, and Eros is behind ethi-
cal behaviour. Voman, with her natural calm, with her more gradu-
ally ebbing stimulation curve, and with a greater sense of unity and
sympathy with everything, in addition to her greater adherence to the
monogamous instinct, is mans teacher about the entire sphere of what
is and what is valuable.
A man in our era is anyway already a mixture of female-erotic and
male-dominant-intellectual mentality.
Vhatever goes beyond the conventional and humdrum ways in
which a function can be known we owe to Eros.
As for the expressive feelings contained in the sounds of song, for
one thing rhythm is not based on work, as some have suggested.
Dance, song, and individual art works, have a primary erotic function.
Even games human as opposed to animal get their particular value
from Eros, and are precursors of art. True understanding i.e. the
apprehension of the irtcrtior of someone elses utterance originates
with Eros. Even today one learns a language best when one is in love
with the speaker of it.
Te much greater variety in facial expressions than can be explained
in terms of their biological advantages is a consequence of Eros. Iu-
man expressivity is anyway essentially dierent from that of animals:
it lacks purpose, it is a reaction to natural phantasy-objects, and it has
a dierent sort of variety to it. Te undoubted fact that the rst uten-
sils were not specially made to serve a purpose [but as play-things]
testies to the power of purpose-less Eros.
Eros rst of all marks out the activity of phantasy, and then secures
its supremacy over perception, in the life of the human being.
a,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
vos .wn svu.i svivcriow
Eros is the anticipation or presentiment [\orgcju||] of better repro-
duction. It is only through it that a true marriage is possible some-
thing more than just habit, as an animal-like instinct. Eros and the
desire for marriage grow apace simultaneously, denitely so in the case
of woman, where there is also an economic bond in her need of a man
for procreation.
Summing up, I would say that the entire value attaching to the sen-
sually intuited world as opposed to the mere set of signals which it
conveys to an animal i.e. the entire higher pleasure if aords us is
down to Eros.
vos .wn sn.v
Te clash between Eros itself through which there arises a beautiful
image of a love free of biological needs and the sensory desire which
it provokes, becomes the source of a self-concealment, in which saving
oneself for the worthy partner is the name of the game. Tis is aided
and abetted by shameful feelings.
Shame is the conscience of sexual love.
If marriage and the feelings that go with it have their source in a
drive for power or a craving for recognition, then Eros is behind these
too. A disappointment with everything Eros stands for leads to self-
deprecation, and therefore a craving to be recognized, in a forlorn
quest to revive what has been lost of Eros.
Eros the purest assay of life that there is is then carried forward
by means of technical intelligence to serve as the basis for objectively
formed things.
Te suppression of the cut and thrust of life which leads to Eros is
not an innovation of our mind or spirit, but is a biological necessity
in itself, and, if anything, is what draws mind and spirit into the day-
to-day exigencies of life. Eros is above all the means whereby we are
saved from overpopulation, loss of personal identity, and an otherwise
completely disorganized sway of human drive impulses. It is precisely
the cement which binds mind and life-force.
.iwc svwsv .r . nisr.wcv [vrvwsrwwr]
Vhereas sensuality for the drives comes through touch, smell and
taste, and is an active laying hold of booty, Eros works in quite an-
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a,;
other way its mous vivcri being love at a remove, and its tools eyes
and ears. Its objective is detached from actual sensations and bare vital
feelings, and takes place in the sphere of objectivity, along with values
and psychic feelings which the animal lacks. Tenderness is probably
the highest sort of emotion that the animal arrives at, whereas Eros
lies at an entirely dierent level. Te Christian world tried to excise it,
and it was Arabic culture which re-introduced it to the Vest.
vos .wn iwn
Te intrinsically powerless mind does not extract its energy immedi-
ately from the sphere of drives, as Freud maintained. Between drive
energy and mind there is, in humans, an intermediate reservoir of en-
ergy, and this is Eros. Iunger and the striving after power may disturb
the mind, although the actual goals will be sought after extra-mentally
with the help of intelligence. Any involvement of mind in this is any-
way not sublimation. Sublimation is in the rst place energising of
mind itself, and this can only take place through the oces of Eros.
Eros itself, when it is concerned with goals to do with economic and
power values, and when actual work is involved, is a middle-man in
all this.
Te basic act of mind is the Agopc whereby a kindly armation
that a being is a being and has a value takes place, independently of
what this being is and of whether it has a positive or negative value.
Tis act has nothing to do with Eros, not even sublimated sexual en-
ergy. A gift from an animal does not involve Agopc. Agopc is some-
thing for which the animal possesses not the slightest disposition, even
though its tenderness appears to us as if it were. Agopc is an arma-
tion of world and of Being-itself, and indeed of everything, even the
acknowledgement of suering resulting from the resistance to the real.
Neither Buddha nor Christ plumbed the full depth of this, though
Buddha did so better than Christ. Te energy which Agopc can ac-
quire comes only from Eros. Eros therefore is linked to all of the fol-
lowing everything that is over and above me [os Uocr mir], positive
values, image, form, the beautiful, and the concise [progrortc]. Agopc.
activated by Eros, then becomes the source of the illumination into
the very essence of things. Agopc is originally a male characteristic, and
enables that person to take a complete overview of essence, idea and
urphenomenon, irrespective of their content or value.
a,s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
It was a basic mistake of Greek philosophy to make Eros the faculty
which unlocked the essence. Eros does nothing of the sort; it remains
in the sphere of images and its highest achievement is the form [Gc-
sto|t], not essences. Tis mistake is bound up with the Greeks misun-
derstanding of form [Iorm] and whether it was actual or potentially
in the non-being of the life-force.
Mind, and its source Agopc, although founded on our apprehension
of essences and essential values, nourishes this activity with Eros en-
ergy, as the only energy source available to it.
vos .wn iwrviiicvwcv .v norn
rv.ruvs or uwivvs.i iirv
Vhat has been called a renement in lifes drives over the course of
evolution is none other than Eros, which, along with the life-forces
phantasy, and the aid of technical intelligence, has helped bring forth
ever more complex forms.
It is not universal life which positive mutations has brought forth
[- which was there at the beginning -] but universal Eros. Eros grows
with every achievement it eects, and is sited at a level above intel-
ligence and phantasy. It sketches out the ideal possibilities of how life
can take form.
It is the vision [sc|cr] of what the life-force has come-to-be, but at
a sub-mental stage. Eros remains demonic.
vos nvrwvvw nu.w nviwcs
It springs forth in the contact between two human beings and is at the
same time a single independent function of universal life, in which two
humans can merely participate.
So far as I know the phenomenon of Eros is most magnicently
described by Klopstock. Schopenhauer referred to it as the genius of
the species and considered that in it lay Elysium. Jungs remarks on
anima and animus are outstanding, and Kretschmer wrote about it.
Schopenhauer, however, got it wrong when he called it a swindler, and
when he related it only to reproduction.
Bliss and the best of what is biological meet together in Eros.
Lovers behold themselves or the possibility of a beautiful life at
the same instant, and see something more than just two human be-
ings propagating the species. Te sexual drives are bound to a living
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a,,
organism, and remain arrested at the level of an individuals pleasure.
Not so Eros, which is, like language, myth, and mind in this respect
bound essentially to a mutual togetherness [Mitcirorcrscir], yet is
inexplicable purely as an interaction. It shows itself here as the imme-
diate presupposition for language, and, indeed, as the sirc quo ror of
mutual understanding itself.
vos .wn .urnoirv
Eros is the single positive basis for all authority and otherwise unfath-
omable reverence. Everything else is angst.
Te higher forms of the life-force never emerge from lower ones in
a way that their essence, quality and special lawfulness can be directly
traced. Eros is no exception: it is not simply a consequence of drive
suppression. It and other higher manifestations are founded on
this, but not wholly explained through it.
Eros, along with its correlate beautiful forms is eternal. In the
beauty of the forms of nature the mirror of its smiling gracefulness is
unveiled. But in human beings Eros allows the opportunity oered by
an ascetic setting aside of drives for all this to appear as a subjective
experience.
In this way Eros becomes conscious of its own endeavours.
vos .wn qu.iirv
Eros opens up pure images, rst of all life as an image of opposing
sexual phenomena male, female but all other entities as well, and
it does so by uncovering their expression physiognomically as a face.
It gives preference to visible beauty, the noble, and adequate types of
things. It is at odds with the notion of grasping something, an attitude
typical of drive.
Quality is rst activated by Eros, but it quality then organizes
Eros to serve its qualitys own essential valuation, according to
the invisible demands of the mind, to which quality but not Eros
belongs. Together, Eros and quality result in love. Quality arms
according to the way the essential mental and spiritual values are set
up. Eros role in this, with its capacity to emote at a distance from an
entity, is to activate the growth of love, and to be the very source of that
love which is quite specic to humans.
ao rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Eros, not quality, is sublimated sexual energy, and this infuses visual
intuitions which the person has available. Te upshot of this process
is that Eros, guided by phantasy, can create an adequate, concrete ex-
ample of something, whereas an essence is only a mental construct [i.e.
it exemplies, eshes out or individuates essences]. Tis is itself how
artistic conceptions arise.
To try and explain art in terms of a will to power is absolute non-
sense. All art has to do with pathos, not will; it is to do with being
seized [Lrgricr|cit], not with seizing [Lrgrcijcr]. Kants notion of an
interest-free intuition, or Schopenhauers, of a pure contemplation
free of the constraints of the will, are just as false. Vhat neither phi-
losopher saw was that there was something octuccr drive and reason,
and this something is Eros.
Aesthetic joy, however nave, is always a joy in some actual state of
aairs and values Yes, that is how it is; or, Yes, you are just like that.
Tis needs Eros.
Te images are rst set free from their mere status as functional
signs of real being by Eros. Vithout this release they remain simple
lures or repulsions experienced as non-resistance, resistance, or pos-
sible resistance.
Eros has its rudimentary beginnings among animals in the form of:
1) a choice of available sexual partners; 2) tenderness an eroticism
of touch; and 3) gift-giving.
In fact, in the very grasping of something, the beautiful image of it
dwindles away, and melts into nothing. Eros stops desire from getting
too strong, yet at the same time summons it up. It releases kindness,
energizes it, and particularizes it, yet at the same time subsuming it
under an essence. In this way Eros spans the poles of what it is to be a
human being os o urijyirg tcrcrcy.
uwrrrczrrow or rrrn-roncn zwn xrwn rw
rnn nuxzw nnrwo (rqa,-rqao)
In the human being the mentally-creative, original, basic factor raises
itself to a consciousness of its totality. Vhereas the mind is only active
in the way of technical intelligence in the sphere of inorganic matters,
when it comes to organic life it rises up to be a purveyor of particular
forms, and when it comes to the human level there is [for the rst
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a+
time] a being out for itself [jr sic| scir] and a unication with the
life-force and drives, all this despite the inevitable conict.
Te human being is that creature where a unication of the life-
force and mind comes about, where mind gets its own strength, and
drives get their direction; where God becomes an actual entity from its
erstwhile potential in this respect from amongst the original basis of
the world; and where the mental potentials of what lies in the power
of things actually leads to a powerful status of mind.
scnovvwn.uv (+,a,/+,ao)
Vithout doubt, Schopenhauer found an essential truth about the way
everything is. But he encumbered his notion of will with all sorts of
Christian ascetic paraphernalia, and denies it any creative poten-
tial. Ie knew nothing of either the Dionysian armation or of the
relatively negative bringing forth of matters through the oces of the
mind. Te darkest reaches of the immeasurable fertility of the life-force
is certainly blind, in one sense, but this sense is only in respect of the
values entertained by mind; it is not blind in itself . Anyway, it life-
force is not a unied entity. It is multifaceted, and each facet has its
own goal. Its highest level is Eros, which seeks the perfect shape, con-
densing it in the most appropriate way. It is geared to pinpoint what is
beautiful. It has its own principle of phantasy to back it up, and leads
on to what mind eventually does do. From Eros the highest that
the life-force achieves to mind, the following transformations occur:
form idea; noble good; intelligence mind; and Eros quality.
Vhat drives this transposition is not a simple no, but a steering and
a directing through mind and will to a realization of Gods own goal.
Mind gets power and positivity, and the life-force learns ideas and val-
ues. All ideas and values come from divine mind, through love of God,
even though at root they are derived from the life-force itself.
Vhat is irrational is irrational only when measured against reason.
In itself, the irrational is not irrational, and it has its own recognizabil-
ity and its own way of being.
rv.iv .wn .iv (+,a;)
Te human female represents the life-force, insofar as it has evolved
into an idea and can be the subject of a longing for it.
aa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Te male represents mind and spirit, insofar as they have a tendency
to realize what sun, earth, light and darkness mean.
Te two of them, male and female, in their coming together in love,
bring to fruition the disposition for God Iimself to come about, from
the melding of the divine with the life-force.
Tis last is the ultimate reason why both are appropriately paired,
one to the other, and why what is Ioly can only appear as this pairing
of the mother-world and the father-world, and why this is an end-
result of the amalgamation of the two sexual cultures.
You woman daughter of the earth, Is not the moon and its light
sucient for your purposes. Vhat need do you have of the sun.
Te drive towards death and the reproductive drive Are they not
amply sucient for you. You woman were anyway born because
of the latter, and why not serve them, suer for them, put up with
them and even be sacriced to them. You, not we Man hold the
key of life in your hands.
Gentle you should be, and an eternal example for man to turn to as
to what gives shape to life.
If it were only to you that we men ever turned, then we would love
and be tender.
You woman are children of the night of the soul, of life, of fate,
and of what is constant. You are the guardian of what comes round
again, of tradition, of decency, of morals, and of shame. You are the
prey of the hunter, the hunter being the man, and even consciousness
itself is a male preserve capture the booty is its motto. On the other
hand, you woman remain the negative politician, the martyr, and
yet the producer. You are allied to the church and the priest.
In Dionysian times you were at the forefront of humanity.
It is to you that we owe our eternity, but jrom you there arose the
spirit of God.
Vithout you, what would we Men be or do. Ve would y o
into the rareed atmosphere of ideas. Vithout us, you Vomen
would be like worms, trapped in the earth. You are blind without
us men; we men are lame without you. Ve men alone steer us both
through life.
Ve Men make ourselves heroes to please you. You Vomen
make yourselves into courtesans to please us, or did so in the Middle
Ages.
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a,
Asceticism and chivalry, protection of maidens, and all sorts of oth-
er renunciations these are the most beautiful ways in which human
life has taken shape.
Just as the engine which drives world history is not fuelled by ideas
but by the life-force, so is the true activation of human beings in and
by women and not in and by men. Te man has such a great sex drive
that he no longer notices how often and how much he is actually serv-
ing women, and most so at the very moment when he thinks he is
controlling them.
A mind that believes it is becoming powerful is denitely deceived.
Terefore, it is man as opposed to women who is responsible for the
actual sociological determination of mind.
Man thinks; woman directs.
If a creature nds itself in a situation of self-defeating resistance, it
begins to control its impulses. In fact the disequilibrium in aims be-
tween plants and inorganic matter was the direct cause of the creation
of animals. Te plant is seemingly in a state of condence in, and soli-
darity with, its inorganic environment, but what it lacks is catabolic
metabolism.
All progress takes place at the junction of some lack of adaptation
a mal-adaptation to future conditions, a dissatisfaction, a repression, a
resistance. In the ensuing suering there lies the basis for progress.
rnv nu.w .s .w ovvw svsrv .wn
irs rwo vvoiviwc v.rnw.vs
As an open system the human being is equally at liberty to apprehend
ideas and to co-determine which ones will be realized in nature, as
well as to penetrate into the drive-based ecstasis which gives him a
taste of universal life and its imagistic world. Ie can just as well hitch
his horses to a mental and spiritual vehicle which will take him far
beyond the mundane constraints of his needs and purposes, as take
o in another direction altogether with all its technical and moral edi-
ces for promoting the sophisticated animal in us. In one direction,
one is participating in orc of the attributes of the basis of everything,
and one becomes |omo sopicrs, whereas in the other, one participates
in the sccor of the world-grounds attributes, and one becomes Dio-
nysian man. If one of these two paths becomes a prevailing route for
mankind, then the other is deemed sinful. Tis is what all spiritual
a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
religions have done to Dionysian humans. Tey have branded them
impure and awed [urrcir], and demeaned their very way of life, their
culture and their traditions; their moral codes too have been deni-
grated as too emotional, too relaxed, and too close to the raw end of
life. Any tendency to extol the virtues of communism of any sort has
been damned and hounded out. Above all they have taken issue with
the notion that sexuality is the original drive of life, and have sim-
ply condemned the charms of this and charged it with being sinful
and dirty, with the sole motive of channelling all its vast energy into
fuelling mind and spirit through its sublimation. Vhen Ilato called
philosophising an eternal dying he expressed the fundamental prin-
ciple of a pure asceticism. Iistory, however, is replete with rhythmic
movements for or against each human path, towards |omo sopicrs or
towards the Dionysian man orphic cults, the Renaissance, Romanti-
cism, the peasant Bolsheviks against Marxism.
Tis rhythm now one path, now another is, however, tied up
with the respective preponderance of the female psyche or the male
mind and spirit. Tis is an essential truth of all knowledge, according
to Bachofen, and is valid over and above all wrong turnings in history.
All culture is a consequence of the fertilization of these two principles
Apollonian and Dionysian, in Nietzsches account. Te Romantic
spirit is childish and female at root. In Schopenhauers and Kants eth-
ics the Dionysian and classical moral schemes come together in a way
which is reminiscent of more recent marriages Jewish Marxism and
peasant Bolshevism or more ancient Ilato and Buddha. Ihenom-
enologically, the two types of culture in question are aptly described,
by Strich, for example, as romantic and classical. Nadler proposed an
ethnological-biological exposition of the two in the following terms.
Romanticism appears when a foreign folklore interpolates itself at a
time of crisis within an indigenous culture, with the result that the
indigenous folklore takes the form of a receptive mother to the foreign
import.
If female and male are functional and original ways of being of two
sorts of living cells, then it would appear as if Life itself, which fosters
these, is bisexual. Bisexuality would then be a core characteristic of
Life, which would only be partitioned into male and female as an idea.
Te Dionysian human being represents an essentially primitive aspect
of ourselves, the Apollonian that of progress. Te Romantic mental-
ity is essentially backwards-looking, a longing for what has been lost.
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a,
It can be conservative or revolutionary, and is above all a condition of
the soul, which can have any number of actual contents. Te following
dichotomy holds good.
C|ossico| Romortic
1. Space Time
2. Concept Feeling, introverted state
3. Outside Inside
4. Day and light Night
5. Ieaven Earth
6. Law Individual
7. Form Expression
8. Finitude Innitude
9. Tension Relaxation
10. Ilasticity Musicality
11. Stationary/static Coming-to-be
Catholicism is a Iigh-Classical or Roman appearance of things. But
in times when this seems outdated it turns to the Romantic mentality,
which is quite un-Catholic and too subjective. Tese are illusions of
the rst order. German spiritual history is Romantic when compared
with France, but Russian is more Romantic than German. Te future
is denitely taking a turn for the Dionysian mode: consider the victory
for women in Socialism; or the growing clamour of the East which
is collectively motherly and Romantic.
Education has always taught what would lead to human totality.
Te attraction between the opposite sexes is bound up with charac-
ter types which reect the Classical and Romantic modes, so that no
person ends up with too extreme a set of drives.
Te Greek culture was two-faced Apollonian and Dionysian.
Homo sopicrs was a Greek conception, but rst fully realized in Ro-
man times, whereas in Russia the features of the Iellenistic Eros en-
tered more deeply into the national spirit.
As for morality, there are Apollonian or Dionysian versions. Tere
is an asceticism of mind and spirit, just as there is an asceticism of
drives. Te Catholic Churchs forbidding of doubt stems from a delib-
erate attempt to impoverish the role of mind in human aairs. Instead,
ao rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
it celebrates tradition and authority, and gives preference to a commu-
nal life over rational progress. Each moral code is a sort of asceticism
because willing is always a way of saying no. Te move towards physi-
cal education, the culture of the body and sport are a conscious moral-
ity against intellectualisation and against the urge to think too much.
Tis is in complete contrast to the Scholastic era, which encouraged
thinking among a select and closely-knit group. Te medieval sort of
rationalism was anyway not a course of instruction leading to rational
thinking, but rather the conveyance of a pre-set idealistic system. Yet
another reversal of notions is exemplied by modern irrationalism
Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Bergson where it is taken for granted that
thinking has become too instinctive, too overindulged in, and needs
taking down a peg or two, by encouraging sport, for example. Such is
an example of mental asceticism and a consciously worked out relax-
ation technique. Freud and psychoanalysis, and Nietzsches exhorta-
tion Become hard, are in the same general vein. Every morality is a
system of forbiddings a set of Nos aimed at a particular image of
a human being.
rwrnnrnwnrnzrrow (rqa|I,)
In the same way as goodness and Eros emotional armation of the
other as such and the noble forms of the selective Eros become ever
more interpenetrated, so also do Logos and phantasy. Ihantasy be-
comes reasonable and spiritualized, and the world of ideas becomes
realized through constructions pertaining to shape and the life-force.
Ihantasy in ourselves, and metaphysical phantasy belonging to the
life-force, which are the building blocks of the accidental being-so of
something in a consciousness-transcendent realm, are one and the
same. Te psychology of artistic creation and its designs show us this
very process in miniature i.e. how a world can become such. Te
world is anyway just such a work of art, and world history is a tale
or song which the Divinity sings rst. It is a song of melancholy, but
nevertheless of victory.
Ihantasy, beginning with intuitively given images and analogous lev-
els of other sensory givennesses, is much more primary in the scheme
of things than are perception and reproduction, and this applies to
the child and the primitive person. Each representation, which is ever
newly built from reproduction, memory, expectation and phantasy,
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a;
never returns. But what perception and reproduction or memory and
expectation were occomcs phantasy, in the same way as will becomes a
mere wish.
Te animal and the child live in a world of phantasy reproduc-
tions without they themselves recognizing this as such. Caspar took
a speckled ball to be a face with eyes. Animals do not seem to be able
to distinguish the living from the dead. Te stimulus which an image
arouses does not mean that a proportional sensation is thereby given,
let alone that any sensation is a copy of the thing, but only means
that the ever active production of drive-directed phantasy is being cur-
tailed and restricted in terms of what the actual phantasy content can
be, to the point where it even appears [inverting the true situation] as
if it is the starting point for a purposeful attitude in response to some
appropriate occasion. Te stimulus is a narrowing down of phantasy
and the wishful life of the soul. Te same process occurs at higher
levels too in the cases of reproduction and association so that the
images themselves seem ever more proportional to the surroundings.
Te tendency to ll in blank dots, the tendency for conciseness of form
to stand out, or for complementary qualities in a row of qualities to be
seen, cannot be explained in terms of stimuli of the presenting form
nor of any shared stimuli. Te same goes for the production of dark
regions of space, for the stability of the eld in which we experience
a face, the indeterminate sphere of the environment and its intuitively
given space, or the body scheme, or the phantom-limb experience of
amputees. All these, as well as testifying to the dearth of sense in a
stimulus-response explanation for such, also make clear that as in
some of them there is no actual stimulus at all e.g. phantom-limb
then only phantasy, with its objective correlate of the |oc| of any re-
sistant thing, whose subjective side is wish, can go any way to explain-
ing them. Tey conform to the developmental law, which is that what
was once perception, reproduction, memory or expectation becomes
ever more known as phantasy, as what uos will becomes wish. But
if, nevertheless, phantasy activity can transform itself into perception,
memory or expectation, then the reason for this is threefold: 1) the
actual phantasy belonging to the world or any organism are the very
same entity; 2) they both abide by the same laws of shape-formation;
and 3) the drive structures which correspond to what is selected from
the milieu are the same as those which control the activity of phantasy,
as rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
with the consequence that an individuals phantasy gradually adapts to
the world of things in the milieu structure and to what there is there.
Te being-so of the world as image is denitely transcendent to
consciousness, but is made out of the same material as are dreams.
Te objectively ideal qualities are the building-blocks of this imagistic
world. Each organic creature has at its disposal only a certain num-
ber of these, and they are ever produced according to what specic
energy lies in that organisms sensory nerves in respect of their seeing
and hearing, in conjunction with the all-pervasive vital soul of the uni-
verse. Tere are in fact two principles at work here: 1) the principle of
the specic sensory energies alluded to; and 2) the objectivity and
psycho-physical neutrality of the qualities.
Vhat is inside is also outside, and the following correspondences
obtain.
1) Vith regard to phantasy and qualities, the irrcr is the accidental
image of perception and representation, and the outcr is the being-so
of things.
2) Vith regard to mind and Logos, the irrcr is our opriori essences
and ideas, and the outcr is the objective world of ideas.
3) Vith regard to the life-force, the irrcr is drive, and the outcr com-
prises both forces with a variety of goals or our experience of reality.
4) Vith regard to Eros, the irrcr are subjective shape-forming laws,
and the outcr are ontic or actual laws of shape formation.
5) Vith regard to love, the irrcr are value-feelings and preferences,
and the outcr objective value-orderings.
6) Vith regard to life, the irrcr is the mini-organism, the outcr the
world-organism as the life of God.
Te human being is at the same time both part of nature and the
greatest concentration of it. Nature is its object only when the mind
or spirit supervene.
Te superior impulse [Oocrimpu|s] sets the conditions for a sphere
of possible events, but what the inferior forces [Urtcr|rojtc] make of
this depends entirely on the mechanical lawfulness which they bring
to bear on the entire situation. Te superior force has the eect of only
excluding certain consequences.
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a,
iwrvvi.v nvrwvvw iwn .wn iirv-rocv (+,ao)
In a nutshell, the problem of metaphysics is that of metaphysical an-
thropology and human history.
Te divine substance, which is in an eternal state of coming to an end
and setting out, is both mind/life-force and life-force/mind, working
in functional unison as a continual slackening of an original tension.
Te passage from mind to life-force is the will; the passage from
life-force to mind is Eros, which exerts its inuence by creating the
noble, the well-formed, freedom and beauty. Te will is the servant
of mind; Eros is the King of life. Shape is the agency for meaning,
whereby ideas and images are channelled from the life-force and its
intrinsic phantasy
v.wiwc or viicious nisrov (+,a;)
If the nature of God and the nature of humans are partially identical,
then it must follow that the ideas of God and substitute idols and
the forms that religious history take are similar and correspond to the
way humans are and to the forms of their social communities. Teism,
which rejects this essential idea which is so uncontroversial these
days that even secular, constitutional concepts are couched in theo-
logical terms is simply burying its head in the sand on this point.
I see the whole matter as part of an essential relationship between
God and man. I do not, however, consider the views of Feuerbach, or
the sociological thesis of Durkheim that the idea of God is merely
an idealistic human projection, as part of the mainstream of religious
history. Nor do I see any virtue in making religion out to be merely a
group cult or one of many transcendental idols, nor of seriously enter-
taining Marx notion of religion as a way of bamboozling the popula-
tion with ideological froth and as an epiphenomenon of the supposed
economic realities in some epoch.
Gods and the Iereafter are instead true realities and powers, rela-
tively absolute to the human type and its existing social situation, but
in the form of an enveloping divinity, and just as real for any race or na-
tion as the polar sun or the equatorial sun are in such peoples environ-
ment, except that God and the Iereafter concern the absolute sphere.
Tey are facets of God Iimself, perspectives and glimpses of the true
and unique Supreme Being, and, just like the polar sun in being ema-
nations from the Divinity itself, indeed self-projections of God ever
a,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
related to the conditions and nature of a race or nation. Make no mis-
take: It is not simply that a human being comes to believe in, or puts
his faith in, such matters, but that such matters are already stronger
and have a higher reality than the human being anyway, and this latter
state of aairs could never have come about if they were merely wish
and phantasy-structures of humans. As Cassirer wrote: Te human
being takes his image from them, not them from him.
In an objective sense the history of religion is not the history of pi-
ousness, but the way the very idea of God is given down the ages, the
way Being-itself s own Self-consciousness waxes in human beings,
and even the way the Self-actualization of God is taking place, albeit
subject to constraints of the perspectival intuitions of contemporary
human groups and the limits of their understanding.
Te way the philosophical school of positivism formulates all this,
that man creates gods and should not love what he creates, or that he
is merely worshiping himself or his group, is completely false. Iositiv-
ism misunderstands the essential nature of a human being, and takes
it to be a new projection at every moment, and a mature and adynamic
projection at that. In this it misunderstands the nature of life, just as
much as it does the nature of mind. In fact positivism assumes that a
human being is a complete and completed given [circr Mcrsc|cr o|s
vo|| gcgcocr], whereas this can only apply to a dead body, an object,
or an extant real thing, and not to an entity which at each moment is
coming-to-be [ucrcrcs] what, at most, it is truly and genuinely sup-
posed to be, or, at least, struggling to come to terms with what this is.
Te relationship God-man is a reciprocal relationship, in which, of
the two, God predominates in being, fullness and power. Just as it is
true that there can be no polar sun or equatorial sun without the as-
tronomical sun, and no astronomical sun without the group of unied
form-centres and elds of the life-forces impulse which lie at the basis
of such images, it is no less true that without Being-itself there can be
no Apollo, Jehovah or Indra. Tey are all scraps and fragments of God
Iimself, what human beings have prayed to throughout the history
of religion, but in no way at all are they mere projections of a pious
state of mind.
Te only person who initiates this last way of thinking is the theist
who has invented a god as an absolute being and yet denied Iim any
possibility of coming-to-be, and therefore given Iim nothing that can
be deemed eternal. Te same theist presumably regards the history of
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a,+
the uor| as nothing more than a haze, an empty, futile cloud ying
past. Ie, however, who does know that God is a coming-to be and
that Iis fate in this respect is entwined with Iis works, deeds, and
self-manifestations in the world and in history, that person will soon
be disabused of the impulse to think in the way just described.
Of course our theist, in the same way as the believer in Apollo, is
a human being, with his own partial view on God. Ie has, as much
as anyone else now or previously, potential access to the knowledge
of Gods coming-to-be and of the worlds development, but instead
reies [|ypostosicrt] the spirit and life of the Divinity Being-itself
and takes them for real, extant, thing-like objects. But this is precisely
what Being-itself can never be.
Being-itself is that entity which is still undecided in nature, but this
undecidedness is itself a resolve of Beingitself to make Its mode of
existence and nature something that It is driving at, something that
changes in every manifestation of It itself in short, a determined at-
tempt to keep things incomplete [something which is almost a deni-
tion of what Being-itself is].
But this anticipation of a goal of what comes-to-be as an extant be-
ing i.e. God is a person and world as a living entity is an unwar-
ranted imposition on Being-itself, ignoring the very dynamic nature
of Being-itself and the world. It is a rigid will which states that: You
God must be, and be in such a way, that you are jor mc, not, however,
I jor you. Tis is gross impudence on our part to assume that we can
rein in the steed which is God, as it were, and make it do whatever we
want it to do to promote our need for security in our particular era.
One comes up against completely false anthropomorphism here in
the writings of anti-theists, e.g. Feuerbach, Comte and Durkeim, and
theists alike. Both groups place within a category of eternal what in
fact is a self-positing and self-movement of some original being what
is secondarily given to us of all this, i.e. its being extant, its real variet-
ies, whatever can be ascertained of all these goings-on, and whether it
is perfect or complete. All this is a complete accommodation to what
suits the oourgcoisic. Any previous version of God, as the entity which
is superior to man and transcendent to him, is completely forgotten.
Iositivism, which makes out that humans create gods, has been,
since the time of Epicurus, merely the ridiculous antithesis to an
equally ridiculous theism, both mired by the foolish notion of a com-
plete and completed God.
a,a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
It is the paradox of the theist that he is all for supporting the notion
of Gods will and Gods being, and proclaiming that Gods will should
be done, but when it comes to whether God is working for Iis own
realization, and that that is precisely what Iis will being done means,
the theist retreats into his own pragmatic mode of asking a ready-
made God for help.
Te theist claims that he wants Gods will to live, but only so as he
can adapt it for his own purposes. Vhen he parrots, Ty will be done,
he claims to know already what that will is. Tis is a prime example of
supposedly predicting what is going to happen, when all that it really
is, is justication after the event.
rnn nuxzw nnrwo zs oons coxrwo-ro-nn
(rqa|)
I believe that the completion of the world lies in Gods hands, and that
Gods realization and self-redemption depends on Iis acts in bringing
forward the world process. But what is at stake in this are not nite
matters, but innite.
Moreover, what is at issue is not piousness and contemplation of
Gods works, but an active role in what God is doing along with an
informed participation in Iis Idea. I believe that our spiritual and
mental contributions to God are continuously needed, and that the
same applies to all nite creatures.
Ve are surely mature enough to cope with the notion of an incom-
plete, struggling and suering God. Ve might even love Iim better
if we knew that in these respects Ie is like us. If I seriously took the
world to be the work of an all-wise, all-good and almighty God, then
surely I would scarcely dare to breathe, never mind alter it, in case I
damaged the work of such a high and holy person through some im-
proper act on my behalf.
Ve cannot but sense, in the light of the Japanese earthquake, the
First Vorld Var or the Russian famine, that God struggles and suf-
fers, and that Ie is neither good nor evil. Te world is the coming-
to-be of Iis life, and for us is the simple expression of Iis state of
mind.
All we know is that so far we cannot produce human beings and
cannot control Nature, and that everything attests to the intrinsic
goodness and nobility of human beings.
4 Q louor o Mctop|ysics oj t|c Humor Bcirg a,,
Iuman beings are ever improving on techniques which were origi-
nally the blind drives accorded to living creatures by their Master,
Vhose further contribution is the potential empowerment of their
mind and the making available of bare ideas and rank orderings of val-
ues to the creative life-force. Te human being, as possessor of mind
and spirit, is a positive accomplice and tool of God, not Iis apprentice
or slave. Technology, anyway, has its own metatechnology.
,
anr razvnvsrcs or coowrarow
nrnvzrrow rwro rnn srnnnn or nssnwcns
Te act and the technique through which there is an elevation into the
sphere of essences as a whole which from a subjective point of view
is a participation in the mental network of meanings precedes any
particular knowledge of an essence and the ability to grasp its inter-
connections. It is the Ilatonic impetus a simultaneous love for the
essences or a switching o of the resistance of reality and the ac-
cidental being-so of anything. Tis sphere is in itself continuous and
it possesses its own logic, a logic which is dierent from formal logic
this last being so far only an essential logic of everything that is
inorganic.
It is denitely the case that after the elevation in question a struc-
ture of essences as a whole is in play and this precedes any particular
grasping of an essence or its relationships and structure. I cannot, for
example, grasp the essence of a living organism without also having
a notion of the essence of a dead body or of what mind is. Nor can I
capture the essence of a human being without also knowing what it is
to be an animal, a plant or something divine. Tis integrated structure
breaks down into part-structures, out of which essential forms and
essential relationships arise. Because the pure essences are only a small
number and form a closed system in contrast to the innite number
of accidentally being-sos of anything each negation of an essence has
a knock-on eect on all the remaining ones.
Tis eect only occurs in the sphere of essences. Tere is no such
dialectical principle in the case of the accidentally being-so of any-
thing. In the sphere of essences, however, each essence is related to the
whole and to every other essence.
Because ideas and essences only express directions and ways for-
ward for the empirical formation of concepts tendencies whereby
what is becoming becomes actual any specic negation has a greater
eect than in other realms, especially if polarities are involved. For ex-
a,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
ample, if something is dead then it is not alive as well, if innite then
it is not nite. In the case of a mechanistic network of meanings, such
negation would only cancel out the opposite [not enhance it, as in the
realm of essences].
nnzrr zwn rnn-cowcnrvnn rnnz
1. A draft [Lrtuurj] is, in distinction to a precise blueprint or plan
[\oroi|], a structural scheme, which, for it to be carried out or ful-
lled, needs special materials and forces, allows considerable leeway
for alteration, and will actually be altered. Te same goes for a sketch
[S|izzc]. It therefore lies in the nature of a draft that it neither already
contains within itself the complete set of rules for dealing with all con-
tingencies that may crop up in the execution of the necessary actions
i.e. there is no unequivocal way of proceeding nor that its enactment
should take account of everything written into the draft. Despite these
provisos the draft does determine, in every respect and at each stage,
the overall carrying out of the proposal. It further belongs to the draft
that without any actual enactment of what it is proposing it remains
meaningless, and only in the enactment does it have any truth or not.
Before the proposal is carried out it does not have any inner measure
of anything, and its value cannot be established by means of some in-
ner logic and meaning. It only achieves value as an extant project when
independent forces take up its carrying through.
All essences and ideas are of this nature, whether as entities having
an actual objective existence or whether as part of our knowledge.
Irecisely because nature works like a genius, and, according to Kant,
brings forth exemplary models of things without any available design,
and does not work like a craftsman, who simply reproduces an arbi-
trary form, there are no pre-conceived ideas [icoc ortc rcs]. Anoma-
lies, abortive projects, mistakes, inadequacies, and stupidities in the
organic world, abound, and are neither explicable within a teleologi-
cal view of the world nor within a mechanistic view. A mechanistic
view of the world simply cannot accommodate hiccoughs, stupidities
and mistakes in the course of events, but neither can it take account
of perfection, meaning and direction. But these crop up all the time
in organic or in inorganic nature. In the latter case, for example, no
atom conforms perfectly to a model atom. Even here normality and
abnormality are merely statistical.
5 Q lc Mctop|ysics oj Cogritior a,;
2. Our way of forming ideas is not merely an after-thought, but a
co-draft [Mit-crtuurj]. Te ideas derive their truth at the very door
of the experience which reveals whether the draft presuppositions are
in play or not.
3. Te structural draft even precedes any individual grasping of an
essence. An essence is in fact always even an ideal type of something,
in the sense rst set out by Max Veber. But it is not really a humanly
subjective endeavour or an arbitrary form of something which gives
order to some manifold, but a co-endeavour with the eternal Mind
itself.
4. Te world-draft changes in content over absolute time. God must
become untrue to yesterdays ordering of ideas in order to be true to
those of today. For this reason our job is to keep running after God in
this respect. In philosophy up till now, as well as in historical studies,
mathematics and the natural sciences, there is an unbelievable array of
false proposals as to the relationship between being and knowledge, in
particular emphasizing how human knowledge comes about instead
of considering the burden of being. Tis is originally an elementary
error of the Eleatics. It shows how important it is to take account of
the existential relativity of things.
rnn nssnwcn zs z nnzrr or vnzr rs
coxrwo-ro-nn |wrnnr-rwawtnrj zwn
wovrnnon or nssnwcn
zs z cowsrnucrrow
Ve have already seen that, in relationship to actual empirical things,
the essence is neither pre-thing nor above-thing nor in the thing. It is
only an ideal draft of the goal of what is coming-to-be, for it depends
on the autonomous workings of the life-force itself how far it gets and
to what extent the goal is reached. Te actual world is always already
the product of the co-operation of both principle components of ev-
erything that is the Supreme Mind which drafts the essences; and
the Supreme Life-force which sets forth the actuality of the real and
determines the positive accidental being-so of anything.
In a strictly analogous way to how the relationship stands between
idea, life force and actual thing, the way we participate in the nature of
something and hence know it is not through some single act of
a,s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
ours be it thought or intuition which latches on to an independent
object, but we construct an object through our mind in the coming
together of an ur-phenomenon and idea, albeit under the inuence of
an empirical or phantasized example or image. Tis thesis proposed
here is in complete contrast to Iusserls notion that the species itself
has some ideal being which we can somehow actually perceive. It is
also in even sharper contrast to Iartmanns theory, which proposes
that essences are ideal things in themselves which have a free-oating
existence in the real sphere of things.
Te collective world of mathematical structures has no so-called
ideal being independently of all mental acts. It is a world of freely
constructed structures, but underpinned by what axioms are provided
by pure intuitions material and pre-sensory excursions.
Te same goes for the real empirical existence of anything as for the
realm of essences. Ve draft a version of it, in order to grasp the empiri-
cal world through this very draft. Iow we come by the appropriate
matter or the appropriate being of something is through construct-
ing, or rather co-constructing with the aid of the supra-singular mind
that envelops us, the objective nature of something. Ve do not simply
stumble on the essence of something nor are we let in to some cavern
of truth; we are driven by our life-force and its creative images and ac-
commodate these to our drafts. Our constructions are then objective
and valid only if they are co-produced with the divine Mind, and if
they acknowledge the life forces images which underpin them. Tere
is no objective knowledge before all such events; it is rather that the
nature of something only evolves at the end of the mental process, and
whether this something exists or not is dependent on our achieving
this construction with all the rules that are involved.
1. Our own thinking and the eternal thinking of the Divine Mind
narrow down whatever the real actually is, though our own
thinking does not simply repeat the contents of eternal think-
ing, but rather co-constitutes it by grasping it, thereby making
our knowledge and consciousness additional to our thought.
2. Te transcendental givenness has nothing to do with the notion of a
pervasive supra-individual thinking which I might somehow
incorporate into my judgement. Even eternal thought must
presuppose the givenness that I am referring to here.
3. Te essence is co-constructed by our thought and that of the uni-
versal thinking, and not either picked up by us as it is, nor
5 Q lc Mctop|ysics oj Cogritior a,,
portrayed in some way. Our thought stripped of its purely
social, human dimension is a co-production, admittedly
only in a negative unbounded sense.
4. It is correct to regard universal thinking, like all thinking, as a prod-
uct of a concrete act-centre that has its own individual nature,
and we humans are individual part-centres.
5. Tis thinking is only a part-function of a mind, whose capacity to
know something is preceded by love for that something, a
something, moreover, whose value-correlate determines our
knowledge of it.
6. Furthermore, the actual being which we encounter [ our sense of
reality ] is co-produced from what there is by means of our
urges and our actions, and is not simply there waiting to be
recognized when we happen to feel its resistance.
7. Because our drives or our thoughts are part-elements, respectively,
of the divine life-force and divine thought, then God himself
is not only transcendent but immanent.
o
ow anr razscrrwcrs
xnrz-rnvsrcs
(rocv sv.cv riv .rrv w.ruv con)
rnv vr.scivwcvs .wn nviwc-irsvir
T
hat being, to which the phenomenological reduction opens
a passage, is the most central problem of philosophy, though
not the only one. It concerns what is known as p|i|osop|io
primo, and deals with the essential structure of the world, its objective
Logos, and how it is realized. Te way we come to know this essential
structure, however, is the focus of two entirely dierent standpoints.
Scientists build up their knowledge of how the essential elements go
together by means of thematically dierent axiomatic systems, and
this approach is their most deeply held presupposition. Tis is then
a springboard for them to take a shot at p|i|osop|io primo, by this
route of tapping into metascience. Vhat they then glean of Bcirg-
itsc|j through their incursions into it is denitely valid, but the totality
of it is a closed book. Vhat results is then a series of circumscribed
knowledge forms, depending on the particular approach, and these
include meta-physics, meta-biology, meta-psychology, meta-noetics,
meta-history, and meta-axiology. Each metascience develops from the
particular region of entities that it studies.
But taking the metasciences as a whole, they have their own unied
structure amongst themselves. Tey nd this unity in the metasci-
ence of that entity in whose being all regions of relative being intersect
and have their unity, because this being itself is the quintessence of all
such regions. Tis being is the human being and the core metascience
which underpins all the others is metanthropology. Te question as
to what all essential structures of the world are is reduced to a macro-
anthropology, and this then rests on the fact that the human being
aoa aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
itself is a micro-cosm, that is, a unity of all essential regions of being.
For this reason, human history is the kernel of the entirety of history,
and this is equivalent to what the world is in absolute time.
But in this metanthropology that we have just described, in which
the metasciences as a whole unite and demonstrate what they are ca-
pable of showing, lies the means for a passage from the metasciences
a supercial metaphysics, as it were to the most central problem
of all the metaphysics of Bcirg-itsc|j and its attributes. Te very fact
that there is such Bcirg-itsc|j is in the scheme of things by far the most
obvious truth, and one which immediately follows the most funda-
mental insight that there is, which is: Tere is not nothing. Te meta-
physics of the absolute has to do with its attributes, not with its be-
ing. All being of a relative nature demands that there is a being of an
absolute sort. Any [relative] entity we encounter cannot itself carry
all the paraphernalia of reciprocal being. Because space and time as
objective forms owe their unity to an original unity of the reality
in which they are founded, and any apparent force accruing to them
comes from the interaction of real Bcirg-itsc|j, then what Democritus,
and latterly Newton, maintained about an atomic framework, where
there were any number of worlds without mutual eects, is out of the
question. In fact, the unity of Bcirg-itsc|j guarantees the unity of the
world, and the unity of the world guarantees the unity of the spatio-
temporal system of things and not vice versa. Space and time are im-
manent in the world, and the world is not therefore ir space and time.
Ideal relationships, such as equality or similarity, simply could not
obtain if there were, in the nal analysis, merely a plurality of beings,
chained together. For ideal relationships even if they were transcen-
dent to the humans mental act could only crop up with their par-
ticular sort of being ir a mind, if the mind itself, which grasps them,
had already presupposed them. Te same goes for every sort of being,
even absolute being, and this makes nonsense of any sort of pluralism.
Even the unity of knowledge with cognition is not, as Kant taught,
the precondition of the unity of being, but the rcsu|t of the last. Tis
means that knowledge is itself a relationship between beings. Kants
transcendental apperception, in which admittedly there is a kernel of
awareness of the notion of a suprasingular mind, is itself merely a con-
sequence of the unity of Bcirg-itsc|j, whose simple sort of being does
not yet contain any separation between what something is and extant
specimens of this. Te sort of being which characterizes Bcirg-itsc|j
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ao,
a problem which is central to both the question as to what evidence we
have about Bcirg-itsc|j, and the question about its attributes has to
be considered in such a way that both the sort of being that the human
is and the very being of Bcirg-itsc|j, become understandable.
In the case of the metaphysics of Bcirg-itsc|j, we are talking about
how the quintessence of cognition can get a hold on the highest reach-
es of the attributes of Bcirg-itsc|j, and that means how cognition can
grasp the essential structure of the world, including the microcosm.
Tis sort of issue is completely alien to anything science sets out to
do, or even to its various grounding disciplines, which I refer to as
metasciences. Vhereas the metasciences, whose unifying common
denominator is metanthropology, have to do with the nature of what
exists contingently beyond our possible experience of objects, and col-
lectively lead to the ultimate rco| subject and the rules governing this
in the interplay of real events, the metaphysics of the attributes of the
absolute deals with how this ultimate subject relates to Bcirg-itsc|j
how bodies, living creatures and persons are rooted in Bcirg-itsc|j, and
in which order they have taken root. Vhat is involved here pertain-
ing to typical essences of all matters is no longer explicable in terms
of science, but is of the nature of a window on to the attributes of
Bcirg-itsc|j.
Te essential knowledge aimed at by philosophy thus has a double
function. First, it constructs the ultimate presuppositions for science,
and for the latters ever increasing dependence on the metasciences,
and, secondly, it forms the lowest level at which we can know anything
of the ideal attributes of Bcirg-itsc|j. In order to grasp the accidental
being-so of what is real we have to climb above what is merely experi-
encable, and, on the other hand, we have to treat essential philosophi-
cal knowledge as a springboard which brings into relief the attributes
of Bcirg-itsc|j. Tese attributes are so constituted that the essential
structure of the world, along with all nite entities particularly the
essential structure and sort of entity that we human beings are are
possible only by virtue of their being what they are.
But, because the essential structure of being does not determine in a
clear-cut manner any actual individually extant thing, nor the acciden-
tal being-so of anything, there is a second principle, which is associated
with the rst, to account for all eventualities in the metaphysics of the
absolute, and that is what we call attribute X of Bcirg-itsc|j. If we set
aside time, position in space, mass and number, and further discount
ao aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
the being-so of something here and now which are anyway what
are also discarded in the primary objective of science then what we
have if we further demand that we are considering a non-spiritually,
non-idealistically, and non-essentially determined state of aairs is
a state of aairs where real being and what is accidentally-so allow
themselves to be set out.
Te way in which we are led to this real principle of Bcirg-itsc|j is
also the way we are led to acknowledge that there is a supra-singular
spirit as the other attribute of Bcirg-itsc|j. If real being is only given in
having a sense of resistance to our striving for something in life against
some X, and through an actual action whereas mental willing only
gives a project and the intimation of a worthwhile idea, but not the re-
alization of the project and, if the being of being real is independent
from the being of a human being, and is not existentially relative to a
human being, but existentially absolute, then there must be a unique,
supra-singular, image-creating Noturc as an attribute of Bcirg-itsc|j,
which sets out this real being and accidental being-so of anything os
imogcs. All real being is therefore a coming forth from something that
is a real coming-to-be, and therefore from something that is pre-real
and with an unobjectiable nature, something which is seeking out, or
thirsty for, or pressing forward towards, reality, and something more-
over whose coming-to-be we can get inside and be part of, in order to
know it, but are never able to grasp it as an object, or, which is quite
absurd, as a real object. Bcirg-itsc|j is in fact the purest example of
something unobjectiable, the most perfect version of an un-thing-
like being, and this applies to its attributes too. Tat, within which
we are and live, is self-evidently unobjectiable. Real being cannot be
explained by recourse to reality, as the philosophical school of Critical
Realism would have us believe. Bcirg-itsc|j cannot ever stabilize itself,
come to a rest, or even make itself identical with itself, and therefore
can never be a sort of being that has come to be, but only one whose
identifying feature is its coming-to-be an eternally self-setting-forth
sort of being.
rzsszon ro rnn xnrzrnvsrcs or roncns
In the dynamic metaphysics of inorganic nature, which we shall deal
with here, there are both essential laws and empirical issues to consid-
er. First, there are the theoretical notions and founding laws, whereby
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ao,
space is based on movement, movement on alterations in state, and the
last on forces. Tere are then the ndings of theoretical physics, that
the unity of the electromagnetic eld of forces is the ultimate basis
for all physical matter, from which the electronic mass of positive and
negative electrons and the concept of electromagnetic force can be ar-
rived at. Te mechanics of heavier masses then turns out to be a spe-
cial case of such electrodynamics. In the context of such elementary
particles, there is no place for either space nor time nor our conven-
tional notion of force. Tere is neither an absolutely stationary ether,
in which such changing elds could operate; nor is there an eect over
distance which some central force could maintain, something which
both Leibniz and Kant assumed could be responsible for attraction
and repulsion. Te very changeability in the strength of the eld alone
is the ultimate subject of any enquiry, and this conforms to the laws
of Maxwellian equations. Tis in itself is the nal word on the matter
from the viewpoint of mathematical physics concerning the images
and principles of the world, the whole thrust of which simply relies on
our observation of what surrounds us.
Te metaphysics of nature begins at the very point where the phys-
ics of images and principles leaves o. Te supreme subject as an ab-
solutely real subject, which can exert any real eectiveness, and in a
four-dimensional changing matrix of separate entities, can now be
negatively described as follows.
1. It is not only not in space, but not even in objective time.
2. Te relative spacetimemass-energy determinations of bod-
ies are relative to the state of motion of the observer, and are, as a
whole, only consequences of the alternating dynamics of the situation
in which the unied elds of forces inuence one another, and inter-
penetrate one another and the images.
Te strictly unied lawfulness of these changes in unied elds of
forces which follows the principle of least resistance indicates that
one and the same force is altogether involved, otherwise the separate-
ness would be inconceivable.
3. Te supreme subject is anyway not in a four-dimensional sep-
arateness, but rather this is only the form of its rst manifestation as
changing elds of forces.
4. Nevertheless, there belongs to what is real this four-dimensional
elementary unity, and this comes as a potential.
aoo aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
5. Tis force is at work in the coming-to-be processes of absolute
time, which we cannot measure for the world-image as a whole.
5a Absolute time is something which is set going by Noturc as a
form of its Noturcs eectiveness, Noturc itself being timeless,
and the transition from potentiality to actuality being timeless too.
Tis underlies our subjective time perspectives, and gives us actuality
[now], immediate memory [past] and immediate expectation [future].
It does not underlie the actual images, which wax and wane, but does
underlie the changing drive impulses in three directions, and gives :
1) the past what can no longer be aected by our vital centre; 2)
the present what is being modied; and c) the future what is still
modiable and what the drive is directed at. In this way, the future
span of phenomenal time gets laid out.
Relative, physical time is the shadow which absolute time casts, and,
whereas in absolute time itself there can be no recurrence of the same,
in relative time the manifold of an intuitively graspable space is per-
mitted [in which sameness at least persists].
6. Ihysics restricts itself to the principle that only secondary causes
of anything can be investigated, and recognizes only changing eec-
tiveness and quantitative properties. Metaphysics, on the other hand,
must regard it [absolute time] as a basic constant, and consider even
the images as something that reect its qualitative nature, which, out-
side our consciousness, possess only an ideal nature. Tat means that
it [absolute time] must add a logical, directed fantasy to Noturcs im-
pulses.
7. Te causal nature of this force is formally to be thought of as
one which: a) is neither pull nor push, but in front and behind in
the same act, and that is what Noturc is; and b) is such that it sets
out a four-dimensional spatio-temporal form as its primary job, and
one which has no measurable dimensions; and c) is such that Noturc
acquires a framework for determining what things are.
8. A material substance, which is not simultaneously existentially
relative on knowledge and life, is thereby excluded. But also excluded
is an absolute contrast between material and non-material forces.
Tere are only forces which conform to the specication of Noturc,
in addition to which there are images which manifest the formers in-
ter-dynamic relationships. Both Noturc and images exist beyond
our, and beyond all nite living creatures, consciousness, the latter as
objective manifestations and appearances of an ideal nature, and the
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ao;
former as that which lies at the basis of everything dead, and, in fact,
creates them ever anew, and is the fount of whatever comes-to-be. Te
images and their schematic order, their four-dimensional arrangement
and their lawfulness, constitute the natural and physical existence of
things. Teir quantitative determinations and the relations between
these are what we can call their physical existence. Noturc, which is the
metaphysical reality behind them, produces them ever anew.
It is decisive in all this that a material, absolutely supporting, im-
penetrable, spatial, and persisting substance does not exist. Because all
spatial and temporal magnitudes, forms, masses, befores and afters,
places, and packages of energy, and even the living force, are all relative
to an observer and its state of motion, then an absolute reality can have
no role in all this. Tis is anyway the strict conclusion we nd in the
Teory of Relativity. A block of iron can only be an image; it cannot
be a material substance in absolute reality. An event a and an event b
cannot be simultaneous and non-simultaneous, or long and short in
duration, in any supposed measuring carried out in absolute reality. It
is only when they are images that any conscious view of such matters
makes any sense.
Te true situation is as follows. Any apparent thing is relative to an
observer and their state of motion, and, therefore, from the foregoing,
this must be a changeable image, and, for a human being, a rc|otivc|y
absolute matter. Such apparent things are not relative, however, to his
psychophysical organization, and certainly not relative to him as an
individual or to his sensory experience. But they are not absolutely
real either, in any metaphysical sense. For, only what is not relative to
an observer and his state of motion, and even explains this very ob-
server and his state of motion, can be deemed metaphysically absolute.
One way of looking at it is to imagine that the images relate to the
metaphysical forces, i.e. concentrations of Noturc, as do bodies to their
mirror images. Ve can even describe the images as simulations [\or-
spicgc|urgcr] of a productive, intuitive or, better, examining power,
which belongs to and is guided by, Noturc i.e. the second attribute of
the Godhead. To the nature of something there belongs knowledge;
to the imagistic intuition of something, which is not simply a copy of
this something, but imaging [oi|crcs] knowledge itself, there belongs
productive fantasy. From a metaphysical point of view, the images con-
vey what is real [but are not real themselves], and in one sense we
can describe them as our aiction [Drorgso|c] i.e. manifestations or
aos aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
objective appearances of Noturc. But our perception of them is inade-
quate, because of the limitations of our senses, and, for us, what we do
experience is a copy, but conforming to the same essential lawfulness
with which the actual image is constructed in the rst place.
Vhat we are calling images, simulations or aictions are denitely
consciousness-transcendent, in the sense that their nature is objective,
and that they are in themselves much richer than what we can perceive
of them. Ve can only know that small part of them which our natural
circumstances as inhabitants of the earth allows them to convey.
None of this detracts from the fact that, in themselves, in terms
of the sort of entities which they actually are, they are empty [citc|],
ephemeral, irreal, powerless, and completely insubstantial. Tey are
spun out of the same stu as are our dreams and fantasies. Vhat cre-
ates their illusory reality in the natural worldview is only the at-
traction which they possess for arousing our drive impulses, without
which, in fact, no perception of them would be possible. If we imagine
these impulses as switched o which would also involve switching
o our specic allocation of Noturc or our natural worldview but
ojtcr such perceptions had been given, we would be metaphysically
dis-illusioned [i.e. disabused of the illusion], and would see that noth-
ing of any substantiality or solidity adhered to them, and that they
were indeed images, with no independent status, and merely relative
to universal Noturc which lies behind them and brings them forth as a
coming-to-be of this life-force.
But the images also mean something else, a meaning which adheres
to them over and above their ephemeral existence, and this is by virtue
of their sharing in the ideal content of the rst attribute of the world-
basis and its dependence on this content. Noturc, which brings these
images forth in profusion, is nevertheless limited by what is essentially
possible for, and compatible with, the divine Logos and divine image.
Noturc, and its fantasies, therefore, although underpinning the images,
is still constrained by the negative inuence of what God can do, itself
a consequence of Gods love.
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ao,
onjncrrvn rnnzrrrv or rnn vonrn or
nonrns zwn xzrrnn
Bodies are nothing but images, which are built up according to de-
nite essential laws, but are in themselves as bodies irreal and in-
substantial.
Te most profound and central illusion of human beings is that they
take bodies to be absolutely real, or that they claim to derive everyday
sort of bodies from very small, absolute real bodies such as atoms or
electrons, or from absolute centres of forces with a xed intensity. All
masses are relative with respect to a particular law-governed motion,
and with respect to the particular stage at which substance itself has
reached. If Berkeley and Fichte had or|y said this i.e. that bodies, mat-
ter and material qualities, are of an irreal, ideal nature and they did
say this they would have contributed a profound truth to metaphys-
ics. Teir only false step was to deny that bodies were transcendent to
consciousness, and, instead, to maintain that they owed their objective
ideality to the ideality of conscious representation, and were therefore
subjective percepts. Tis is false. Te images of which bodies are an
example here are transsubjective for all nite individuals and their
group. Nevertheless, they are ideal, and, by nature, an accidental being-
so of something. lcy are not, and no port of them is, metaphysically
real, by which we mean absolutely constant.
Tey are objective appearances of , and manifestations of the power
of, Noturc.
Te new metaphysics of bodies and their ultimate constituents has
simply jettisoned not only the atom of chemistry, but also the electron
with its positive or negative charge, as the smallest thing that there is,
and, with this, any notion of an absolute solidity at the root of mat-
ter. It has also given up the notion of such supposed tiny bodies hav-
ing certain xed properties, which it now realizes should be deemed
functions of inter-dynamic relationships [between elds of forces].
Everything that the terms bodies, matter or material properties, used
to stand for, has simply lost any semblance of what it is metaphysically
to be real.
Recent physics has conrmed the correctness of this philosophy of
dynamism, and has disproved the subjective ideality of bodies, matter
and material qualities, just as it has their absolute reality. All that is left
for them to be is images, and that is what they must be.
a;o aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
As images, one would expect the following: that they were now
one size, the next instant bigger, the next instant smaller; that they
be shaped so or otherwise; that they be now one after another and
the same, and the next instant to vary among themselves in intensity.
Or, one would expect that space, time, and all sorts of forces, could al-
ter them, and ever according to their relationship to other bodies and
with respect to their own state of motion.
One can only expect all this to be possible if they are genuine forces,
but not genuine substances.
Te Teory of Relativity lends no support either to positivism i.e.
that man is the measure of all things nor to Kants idealism of con-
sciousness, although it does support an objective idealism for bodies.
If you dissect a body, however you do it, you expect it to have a core,
a something which you can say makes it what it is. But an image, what
does an image have inside. Nothing; it is nothing but an image. You
nd it has a surface and all you can say is that God alone knows whats
inside. But when you try and divide it up, you still have only a surface
and nothing substantial. And this goes on for ever.
Matter, along with absolute space and absolute time, are the greatest
ctions of human beings. Tey are nothing but gments of imagina-
tion of a weak, frail, bodily creature.
A law whereby there is an ordered construction of qualities a law
which applies to Noturc and its fantasy, and one which is independent
of a particular human subject is hypostatized [reied] as occurring
ir bodies or ir matter.
Images three-dimensional, mirror images are simply confused
for reality, substance and force.
Vhat we call material or matter is brought forth at each instant
anew by divine Noturc. Tis being so, it follows that there is:
1) no creation [i.e. a unique Creation] which can be distinguished
from the everyday, continuous creation happening all the time, the lat-
ter being one where a body is a changing product of the activity of
absolute substance [Bcirg-itsc|j] and its two attributes; and
2) only the essential idea of a body, and its orderly construction, in
the mind of God as an established idea.
For all these reasons, neither materialism, ror any theism which pre-
supposes absolute matter, can be defended.
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs a;+
rrwrrunn zwn rwrrwrrunn or
rnn nnzn vonrn
Tat time has no beginning and no end, or that space has no limits,
are obvious. But this does not help us when it comes to the matters of
nitude and innitude themselves.
Because there is a coming-to-be outside of time, a coming-to-be and
an origin of time can occur in the rst place. If time is the form where-
by coming-to-be takes place [ucrc-jorm), in which Noturc manifests
itself in images, then the images must form a time sequence, but only
insofar as Noturc does manifest itself. Te future is only the sphere
of expectation of a universal vital subject, and the past its memory
content.
Te unlimitedness of time is nothing but the dynamic innitude of
Noturc, whose innitude is however potential, whereas time itself is
nitely realized.
1. Objective physical time is life-relative, but retrograde [ruc||ou-
g].
2. Space is only a component of a four-dimensional spatial mani-
fold, which is actually curved or spherical, but in relatively small parts
has a Euclidean character. Te Euclidean three-dimensional space and
actual space relate to one another as does a small plane on a sphere to
its entire surface.
3. Objective time then combines with the three-dimensional space
to produce a nite manifold of four-dimensional separation.
4. Just as there is no absolute mass, there is no absolute movement
and no absolute energy. Energy is nothing if there are no dierentials.
But because the dierences are always getting less, the law of exchange
of energies of dierent kinds demands that there be a growth in the
overall stock of energy in the universe. From a metaphysical point of
view, therefore, there is no principle of conservation of energy. Tis
also follows from relativity physics, in respect to electrodynamics,
which shows that a progressive exchange between matter and energy
can occur, but that it is material plus energy which remains constant,
not energy on its own.
Te principle of the declining energy dierentials proves that the
world is getting older. It is a metaphysical principle, and is quite coun-
ter to the scientic principle of conservation of energy, which it shows
up as false. Only the principle of the equivalence of dierent forms of
a;a aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
potential energy is valid. Te inorganic world strives towards death
and annihilation, in as much as it is not being renewed from the bo-
som and capital of the innite potential of Noturc.
Te only absolute principles are: a) that substance is energy, i.e. the
principle of Noturc; and 2) that maximal richness of images is achieved
through the least eort.
Te second principle of physical matter, the gradual diminution in
energy over time, is only true if one builds into the equation the utili-
tarian values of work. From a metaphysical point of view, if the dead
world were dissipated and taken up everywhere by life, there would be
a transformation of energy into streams of warmth and light, which
would count as |ig|cr values, because the Godhead would then have
more light available and a greater scope for all visual matters would
ensue [Sc|-Spic|roum].
Space is anyway the free-play of light. Movement of living things
would be in complete disarray if it conformed to mechanic laws.
srzcn zwn rrxn rw rnn
xnrzrnvsrczr znsorurn srnnnn
Noturc exerts its eect in the form of absolute time. Tis is a form of
activity on its part, and not a form of intuition on our part (as Kant
maintained). Te multitude of its impulses and images take place in
an aspatial manifold of simultaneous qualities. Vhatever in this mani-
fold undergoes a reversible change constitutes spatiality; whatever un-
dergoes irreversible change makes up objectively real temporality.
Only objective time the ow of time is based on this change and
its irreversibility; this does not apply to absolute time.
In absolute time the content of every instant is pregnant with the
entire future, whose content lies dormant within it and also contains
the entire past. Te human being only ever approaches eternity in
such moments.
On the other hand, objectively real time is the ouirg present, a con-
tinuous row of present points. In contrast, subjectively ideal time does
contain past, present and future, but this only applies to the individual
experience of an organism, and even this only in respect of a supracon-
scious representation.
In the objectively real sphere, space is only the ordering of homoge-
neously extended bodies, which themselves are only ideally objective,
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs a;,
and only come into contact with the spatial contents of intuition
what one is conscious-of in this homogeneous extension.
Substance and its highest essences are eternal beyond time not
sempiternal [cvcr|ostirg ].
It is only fantasy-time and fantasy-space which are innite. Real
space and time are nite, like things. In actual fact, fantasy-time, which
is given to us as innite, is only a part of the short, objective life-span
of humans.
Objectively real space is not just an unknown three-dimensional or-
der of mysterious qualities. It is at least understandable as something
of an ideally objective nature to which a homogeneous extension ad-
heres, admittedly an extension which is closely dependent on the lows
of Nature, i.e. the causes and eects of the relationships between the
actual reality. But because the extent and form of this extension is not
independent of the states of motion of bodies, the extension itself can-
not be real. Te foundation for both objective time and space in the
objective sphere is denitely the state of motion of all matters.
Ve then need to consider change, movement and alterations in state
in each of the four spheres: 1) relative to humans; 2) relative to life; 3)
relative to nite mind and 4) absolute.
Because space and time are homogeneous extensions, and rst get
separated through the possibilities of change, they are overall four-
dimensional.
Te extension of objectively real space is continuous, a point which
applies to everything real, but not to the nature of what we can know.
Te nature of what we know, as opposed to what is real, is atomistic
[otomistisc|], and this applies to space as well as time. Te centres of
forces, which, metaphysically, lie at the root of all dead being as func-
tions of Noturc, are centres which determine elds of forces in which
it is not possible to construe appearances by merely summating the
eective points. Tey determine a four-dimensional spatio-temporal
form, and, in each form, the summated mechanical happenings have
only a statistical character.
Te intensity of Noturcs impulses and their quality, i.e. combina-
tions of elementary qualities guided by fantasy, determine the extent
and quality of the objectively ideal bodies. Subjective qualities are
merely a sample of the objective ones, and the purer the quality e.g.
basic colours, vocal sounds the closer they are to the objective ones.
a; aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
srzcn r
1. If it is true that objective space owes its real being to nothing that is
independent of the absolutely real, and if it is further true that there
is no absolutely solid material, then it follows that in actual fact there
is no static and absolute space. From a subjective point of view it is a
ctional object, whose reied, supposedly independent status actually
derives from the perceptual law of gure and background. [Vhat ob-
trudes in any situation is deemed gure and what does not is deemed
background space]. From an objective point of view it is, quintessen-
tially, what allows [negatively] the possibility of movement. From a
physicists point of view it must be thought of as something which
allows the laws of movement to rcmoir possible [i.e. again a negative
determination].
2. Te natural ction of space belonging to the natural world-view
is nothing but the reversibility of potential change, i.e. where an es-
sential possibility of movement dominates the actual movement in our
vitally-conditioned intuitions. Te scope for expectation and expec-
tancy-representations on the issue of possible movements occomcs an
independent content of our intuitions.
3. Te irreversibility of potential change leads to alteration or modi-
cation, and time is then the essential possibility of modication,
which in our intuition dominates any actual alteration.
4. From a phenomenological point of view, what is given in our
external intuition is a four-dimensional manifold made up of the
present as a succession of present contents, and a three-dimensional
spatial order of simultaneous items. Vith age, phenomenal time and
phenomenal space themselves alter. Iresent is a neutral term with re-
spect to either time or space.
5. Te ultimately real, objective actuality, to which physicists aspire,
is elds of forces, i.e. eective elds of force which determine the na-
ture of things, and which themselves have their own temporal and
spatial beginning and end in a functional sense. Time and space are in-
extricably bound to these, as they are to phenomenological experience,
although in the former case we can only summate this statistically.
6. Te dynamic origin of the forces giving rise to these elds of forc-
es is neither ir space, as Kant, for example, thought, nor ir objective
time, which is rst set going by the forces themselves, although they
are, in a certain way, ir absolute time.
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs a;,
7. Te forces corresponding to the elds of forces are intensively ar-
ranged, and work in the direction of the four dimensions of possible
alteration.
8. Movement can and must be derived from the attractions in the
state of spatial position, and to our senses it looks continuous but
think of cinematography. A force has a rectilinear trajectory and guar-
antees an identity because of this, for example, ensuring a stone will
not be a qualitatively dierent something during its fall. If this trajec-
tory is even slightly awry one receives the corresponding impression of
a continuous change of place of an identical something.
9. Te form of a forces actuality is taking place in absolute time, in
which an absolute simultaneity of force direction is still possible. Ob-
jective time is then only orc of these directions of force. In it objec-
tive time there is only simultaneity.
10. Objective time has no present, future or past, and therefore no
absolute before and after, only a relative before and after, i.e. one which
is dependent on the observer in the four-dimensional matrix.
11. All bodies are an objective, imagistic appearance, which is based
on the absolute simultaneity of penetrating forces in four directions.
Tey have no absolute impenetrability, their apparent impenetrability
only stemming from the ction of space, which excludes two gures in
space overlapping.
12. Because all mediated establishment of anything is based on an
immediate one, and because immediate ones are only spatiotemporal
coincidences of two appearances, then the rules of coincidence of ap-
pearances are the very ones which mathematical science allows us to
establish.
13. Te objective and phenomenal spatio-temporal matrices only
share extension, succession and being beside one another, along with
the four-dimensional framework for changes in any heterogeneous
qualities. In all other ways they are dierent.
14. Because space and time are, objectively, only relationships be-
tween occupied extension and duration, they can only be unied if the
underlying force which determines the elds of forces is also unied.
If such forces were actually various there would be a variety of spatio-
temporal systems. Tis is impossible; this means that all centres of
forces are parts of orc force.
15. Te intensity of the impulses of Noturc determines the extent
of the spatial and temporal form of bodies. Te direction is only de-
a;o aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
terminable through the nature of the force. Te forms themselves, in
their relationship to one another, are presupposed by the changing
positions and relative places which the bare image takes up. Images
are determined by the qualitative directions of Noturc. Te laws of
how images are formed, and their coincidences, determine the order
in which they appear, along with their spatial distance and temporal
duration and succession. Te movement and alteration of the images
are a consequence of the impulses which lie beneath the images, and
whose objective appearances they are. Impulses have qualitative direc-
tions. Tese dynamic relationships are, at their most elementary, at-
traction and repulsion, which are such that they correspond to the
laws of the images. Vhere an elementary relationship of this sort can
no longer be found, then we are at the level of a force, and its quality
corresponds to the quality of the simplest part in which the images
run their course. Te form in which all this occurs determines the ob-
jective meaning that is available.
Te measurable intuitive extent of this is something that is then or-
ganically subjective.
Space and time as independent forms are organically subjective.
On account of this, anything organic is relative to the pre-given ex-
tension.
Vith all this in place, each bodily thing is now perfectly and un-
equivocally determinable.
Tere is no need of an objectively real and absolute space nor an
objectively real and physical time to explain such things. Instead we
only need to assume a four-dimensional variation in impulses and
their dynamic directions, whereby the resting mass of electrons and
the smallest eective quantum of energy together account for the most
elementary real unity of spatio-temporal form.
Te demand, articulated by von Iartmann, for example, that a
principle of individuation requires that any body occupies a particular
place in space and time, is not needed. Von Iartmann requires ve
dimensions three for space and two for time, i.e. before and after
for his version of matters to hold good. Furthermore, he takes forms to
be mechanistically constructed, which is incorrect, and denies that the
images and qualities are transcendent to consciousness.
For his scheme to work, he has to bring in objectively real time and
objectively real extended space, and at the same time make space part
of the divine substance.
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs a;;
Te objective images are objective appearances of divine Noturc-
phantasy, which is transcendent to our human knowledge and con-
sciousness, even though they are still ideal. Te images appear for us
in the coincidence of our nervous apparatus independently imagined
visual or acoustic or tactile representation of things or the same pre-
existing forms which the images themselves present [in their own
sphere].
Tey are, as Indian philosophers recognized, made out of the
same stu as our dreams, only they are everyday dreams [lroumc
cr Nc|tcrr|cit], or perceptions, or, alternatively, the coincidences
of memories, perceptions and expectations. In the same way as our
drives track down [ou[ogcr] the images of fantasy, and, like wind driv-
ing along leaves in front of it, so does divine Noturc manage to get hold
of them, and, through their value tone, arouse our drives, and then,
through this, our own fantasy, from whom, by dint of the subsequent
removal of their inter-individual image-content, our own perceptions
are derived.
Space and time, as relationships between images, are relative to life,
but because there is a supra-individual life as the stu of Noturc, they
are at the same time objective. Only, they are not part of actual reality.
Tey are relationship products of Noturc itself, and, as such, force-
products of its impulse.
srzcn a
Objective space, along with the imagistic nature of what is given of
real beings and eective causes, is no rco| entity itself, but an objective-
ly ideal entity. For this reason it is completely unnecessary to debate
whether space is a substance or an accident or some real relationship.
As it is not real it does not come under the category of existential
forms. Tis does not mean that phenomenal space, which is a sample
of the objectively ideal space, cannot be considered existentially rela-
tive to a psycho-physical organism, just as sensations of the quality of
something are functional contents of the intuition of a subject, but are
based on a more original fantasy. Again, there is a further relativity to
consider, in that the constellations of images are themselves based on
the objectively ideal space.
Te partial agreement between subjectively and objectively ideal
space is to be understood as follows. Te same fantasy which, as a
a;s aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
function of supra-individual life, creates rst space and then the im-
ages, also produces ir us the phenomenal intuition of space ocjorc the
qualities, because our fantasy is only an organized and meaningful ver-
sion of the overall vital fantasy. Objectively ideal space and subjectively
phenomenal space are then the mutual intuitional forms of the fantasy
of Noturc, and both precede the respective possibility of any form, in
the former case, and movement as a dynamic something, in the latter
case. Te disjunction involving subjective opriori and objective opriori
is false, i.e. they are not mutually exclusive. Both are opriori, one objec-
tive, the other subjective.
Te images are accidental but extension and form are essential. Ob-
jectively ideal space is objective, to be sure, but it is an objectivity of
possibilities for the various sorts of extension and forms. Its ideal ob-
jectivity secures the possibility of the forms of the images, and, equally
so, the elementary qualities red, hard, etc. of the images which
obtain between them.
Te objective space of images [oojcctivc Bi|crroum] is not real either.
It is only a manifestation an objective appearance of real forces,
whose ecacy is played out in absolute time, and which is relative to
Noturc, but not, like objective space, relatively vital to a supraindivid-
ual vitality.
It is the phenomenal unity of form which provides the basis for our
subjective, sensory qualities, and it is physical form which predeter-
mines what can appear in individual, objective points of space. Geom-
etry, therefore, as the science of the dependencies of possible spatial
forms among themselves, applies to all possible, positive knowledge of
nature. In this way Kants problem is solved.
Te movement and action possibilities open to Noturcs fan-
tasy determine shape, and this constitutes the objectively, ideal space.
Tis space, therefore, enables forms to take up an objective appear-
ance. Such space would remain, even if all human and animal subjects
were removed from consideration, although it would disappear if one
struck out in a thought experiment all trace of the vital stu which
constitutes Noturc as a whole, and which is alone responsible for the
world of images.
Tere are two basic facts to consider in all this talk of space, which
itself boils down to phenomenal space and objectively ideal space 1)
form, and 2) movement.
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs a;,
Movement, as a dynamic phenomenon, objectively determines the
forms of spatial events and stationary images, which are longer or
shorter ways in which real events appear. Each form of a body must be
conceived of through the law of alteration of direction of some pro-
duced movement. In this respect, space, which for us, is the possibil-
ity of a variety of forms and the relationships between their bodily
appearances, is the quintessential enablement of possible movement.
Te same goes for touch and kinaesthetic experiences as for visual, but
none is by itself responsible for space, as a homogeneous extension
precedes all of them.
Vhat is shared by both phenomenal and objective space is the iden-
tity of forms wherever they appear in it.
Te essential attributes of the stationary bodies are extension and
form, and they must adhere to the smallest part of the matter in ques-
tion. Te fact that they are not real, but only objectively ideal and de-
pendent on the coming-to-be of the underlying impulses of Noturc,
proves that there is no absolute solidity in anything in space, and that
even matter is objectively ideal. Form is neither a bare quality [poior],
as Aristotle thought, nor an essential relationship [Rc|otiorsirocgri],
as Marty thought. Form precedes both in the order of things. Form is
not some accidental way in which bodies crop up in either objectively
real or ideal spheres, but bodies themselves owe their very core and
spatial conguration to form, which determines what they can possi-
bly be. Forms can only be explained by form itself, never through some
measurable quantity. Te same applies to temporal forms and time.
Schematically the situation is as follows.
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Subjective
phenomenal
space
Objectively ideal
images and space
Forces in the
metaphysical
sphere
Nature

spatial in-
tuitions of
geometricians
space of the natural
world-view of
humans
panvital eect

animal spatial
intuitions
aso aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
xnrzrnvsrczr xnzwrwo or srzcn rw
nnrzrrow ro rnn nzsrs or rnn vonrn
1. Aristotle and the Scholastics viewed space as merely a set of re-
lationships between, and limits of, bodies. Ie made primary matter,
which itself was not extended, into the principle of extension, and into
what allowed something to be the same in dierent points of a spatial
eld, and hence a principle of individuation. All actual bodily exten-
sion was a product of form arising from matter. Tis left the unity of
space completely unexplained, and he merely linked it with his impos-
sible theory of bodies having a natural place. In actual fact, neither
form nor matter can explain extension, and neither can both taken
together. A primary matter, in Aristotles sense, excludes any creation
of the world, and the Scholastics interpretation of Aristotle, whereby
God created the primary matter, is just nonsense, because, from a pure
form which is what the Godhead would be here there can never
be any way of grasping how its most extreme contrary i.e. matter
could come about. Aristotle, moreover, took space to be: 1) something
lled in line with the notion that nature abhors a vacuum; 2) nite;
and 3) limited at the end of the world where the scope of Gods
control through Iis mind [rous] of the movement of the xed stars
ended. Ie believed in a midpoint of worldly space, but, at the same
time, in an innite, Euclidean space, and in a nite, unlimited, curved,
three-dimensional space.
2. Te Judaic-Christian theism holds space, at the most, to be a cre-
ation of Gods, but there is no unied thinking on the subject, as there
is on the subject of the creation of matter. Te only certainty is that
God, as spirit, is not ir space. In addition, space is not an accident of
Gods, but is either an absolute form of emptiness or an accident of
the world.
Gods ecacy, though not his existence, is ubiquitous. God also
ordered the world in terms of extent and number, but space and its
adhering reality are beyond human consciousness. In general, space,
like the world, is to be thought of as nite, not innite. Te thesis of
a temporal world creation means that God was already around ocjorc
the creation in time, or, at least was active in some way, and then creat-
ed the world at a particular point in time. Te notion of St. Augustine
that time itself is a creation of God is half-heretical. Medieval theism
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs as+
places the soul in space, but in each part of an organism it remains
whole.
3. Spinoza held extension to be an attribute of Gods.
4. For Malebranche, space was the place where bodies were; it ex-
isted outside of us as absolute being; and it was brought forth ever
anew by means of the primary agent a moving cause.
5. Newton and Clark took it to be the scrsorium Dci.
6. For Leibniz it was an ideal matrix of relationships of the rep-
resentation of the world, which was unied in the worldly idea of a
universal central monad.
7. In Kants case, it was a human form of intuition.
znsorurn rrxn
1. Space and time, as physical conceptual measures, are coordinated.
Tey are not, however, ontological. Tis is so because time encom-
passes all life processes, along with everything objectiably psychic,
and only excludes the person-centre, as this is outside time. Above all,
time is the form of the coming-to-be of nite entities, even non-spatial
entities. Kants thesis, that it is only a form of inner sense or of what
can be given there, is false. It encompasses oot| givenesses, i.e. of the
sense of what can be given and what can be given itself.
2. If we assume that it is a before and after in a physical, ontological
sense, and that it is relative to the standpoint of an observer and their
state of motion in a four-dimensional separateness, then there must
still be an absolute before and after to take account of growing old
and death, and this has an objective component as well as a psychic.
An observer is a living creature a being with mind and spirit in ab-
solute time.
3. Space cor be a function of temporal events as the way reversible
change would be, i.e. as an ideal possibility for this. In this case space
and time would be collectively the determinants of: a) unity; b) homo-
geneity; c) continuity; d) innity; and e) a way of transforming a tem-
poral sequence into a spatial order. An alternative situation, whereby
time were the fourth dimension of space, is impossible, because it is
incompatible with the nature of life and the psyche.
4. Tere are denitely a variety of dierences in the intensity and
duality of each indivisible point of time, as occurs in the content of a
asa aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
single moment of consciousness. But, in the case of a single element of
space, there is only an intensive shading of reality.
5. In addition, because space, in order to be what it is, must last,
without time, it cannot give a world, although there can be a world
of nite existence without space consider the stream of the psychic
manifold.
6. Ihysics teaches us that there are absolute, atomic constancies in
time as in the form of the smallest, eective quantum of energy;
but there are no absolute constancies in space the resting mass of
electrons [is articial].
7. Tere is certainly an absolute simultaneity as in the content of
conscious experience. But it is not so certain that things and events in
space can be absolutely simultaneous. On the contrary, if space is only
the possibility of movement, any absolute simultaneity is excluded.
8. Te objective time of physics has no: a) ecacy; b) absolute si-
multaneity; c) past, present or future; d) absolute before and after; e)
dierent sorts of lledness at each point of time; f ) irreversibility; or
g) absolute rhythm. Vhereas, absolute time does have all of these.
9. Vhereas there is no absolute simultaneity in the physical world,
there is such in absolute time, which does not include spatial exten-
sion.
10. Te relationship between objective time and the absolute can be
formulated by the following propositions.
a) Te contents of objective time are contained in each absolute
present of the supra-individual life. Only what is identical in all abso-
lute presents occurs in objective time.
b) Only what is in phase in objective time can have been a compo-
nent of absolute time. Any acceleration of any process is not noticed.
11. Absolute time is the living time [Lcocrszcit] and living duration
of the world organism, or, alternatively, the life of God, or, even better,
the form of the coming-to-be of Gods vivication [\cr|ciourg Gottcs].
In all this there is only a owing, whose phasic streams each contain
the complete past and future in potential form. Iartmann and Berg-
son are also of this view. On the other hand, objective time is only a
eeting now, without past, present or future, and without an abso-
lute before and after grounded in what things are. Objective time is
a continuous row of presents, which, only through the memory and
expectation of a living creature, preserve the character of a denitive
passage of time.
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs as,
12. Te standpoint of the observer in the four-dimensional matrix
is not completely accidental and arbitrary, which it would be from a
purely physical point of view, but is rather pre-determined by the stage
in absolute time that he surveys matter from.
13. A creature that ew o from earth at a speed greater than the
speed of light would experience the progress of the inorganic world as
a reverse sequence of events, but it would not experience the organic
or historical processes in this way.
14. Vhereas objective space is relative to life and is, by virtue of this,
more than just the laws of spatial perspective, in the case of supra-
individual life what is vitally relative is only measured time, and this
does not include an overall before and after nor any rhythmic events
[which belong to absolute time].
15. If a creature could travel at the speed of light, it would be keeping
up with the present of generation after generation. If it travelled at less
than the speed of the light it would experience our past. If it travelled
above the speed of light it would see our future. All this is only expli-
cable if objective time lies in the present of an absolute time. Te rst
of these scenarios is possible because light waves always keep visible
the same time contents. It was formerly thought that what someone
would see in this situation would be what had already passed even
light years ago but this is false, because, according to Michelsons
earlier version of relativity theory, only simultaneity can be maintained
in such a journey.
rnnonrns or rrxn zwn srzcn zcconnrwo
ro nnrzrrvrrv rnnonv
If one accepts, as Einstein does, in the Special Teory of Relativity,
that the speed of light is constant between whatever two points of
the material world that one chooses, and that it is independent of all
relative movements going on in a system within which an observer
nds himself, then the consequence is that all spatial and temporal
measurements, as well as all quantitative determinations of any body,
will be relative to the state of motion of that observer. Te distance
between Iaris and London would be actually dierent for an observer
on earth vis--vis an observer on the sun, and their respective clocks
would mark dierent durations of time for the same ray of light travel-
ling between London and Iaris.
as aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
Is philosophy capable of responding to this challenge, and actually
getting to the bottom of it, a challenge which Einstein comes up with
through his pragmatic method.
It appears in fact to be quite possible to do this, if we assume:
1) that space is the possibility of movement; and 2) that real move-
ments, from the standpoint of physical investigations, must be related
to those which have maximum speed.
In this case, simultaneity which is only truly given in conscious-
ness does not actually occur in the dead world. Vhat is then cus-
tomarily taken for such i.e. simultaneity thus turns out to be only
the fastest possible reversible movement.
Te suggestion that simultaneity can be measured by comparing
clocks as well as by observing movement is to beg the question, be-
cause the assumption that the dierent places where the clocks are
sited will not aect what they show is unproven, and, in fact, follows
from the very theory which the objection tries to undermine.
Te situation we are faced with is that we cannot expect there to
be any subjective conditioning of simultaneity when it comes to what
is actually real, but, on the contrary, any such conditioning will be a
consequence of the nature of space itself, which is the very possibility
of there being light.
Te special principle of observation is that because observations
must coincide, and yet such might come from dierent sense modali-
ties, the sense modality which is most appropriate to the task must be
that with the nest dierences in thresholds, and that points to the
visual modality.
Te thesis at stake here, concerning the equivocation about the mea-
sures of space and time, is no longer a paradox, if the following points
are appreciated.
1. Te rst requirement is that the laws about movement, and not
those of absolute time or spatial distance, are to be given priority in the
scheme of things. For then, the measurable determinations of bodies
can freely alter without any loss of identity of their metaphysically dy-
namic origins. Even laws about the dynamic setting out of movement
are absolute vis--vis their temporospatial and relative appearance for-
mations.
2. Next, the perspective on the spatial and temporal extent of things
must be reliant on the perspectival status of a supra-individual spiritu-
ally-endowed living creature X and its repertoire of imagistic contents.
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs as,
If such obtains, then absolute space and the absolute physical time of
Newton will then be merely approximations to this perspective. Te
tiny perspective which our individual senses give then forms part of
objective absolute space and absolute physical time, and this itself is
part of a panoramic perspective which approximates absolute reality.
3. A further condition is that the functionally reciprocal depen-
dencies of the extents of time and space have their common root in a
changing matrix of separateness.
4. Furthermore, the observer and his state of movement have to be
as one in absolute time.
5. Finally, the relativity of dead movement has to be put in the con-
text of the laws of vital movement. Because, if space is the possibility
of movement and physical time the possibility of alteration, then dead
movement is movement in which a change in place or time is opened
up, i.e. simply one form of what happens in vital movement.
oun rnnonv zwn rnn
rnnonv or nnrzrrvrrv
Te concept of separateness is the critical notion here.
1. Ve hold that an amorphous separateness, in which objective time
and objective space are not yet distinguished, is a form of being which
allows all possible objective appearances and images to occur. Te
schematic organization of the dead world is therefore not purely logi-
cal. Te four dimensions are required because of the four directional
variabilities of physical extent. Ve derive this latter set metaphysically
from the ordering of the dynamic ecacy of matters in absolute time.
But this makes the nature of being no separate item.
2. Objective space and objective time are anyway not absolute forms
of being either, but only forms of intuiting its environment on the
part of a living organism. Ve clarify their origin by means of inner
laws of selective drive-based attention, and the latter itself by move-
ment impulses of a living creature. Together, the possibilities of the
oscillation of attention and the changing impulses are traced out in a
scheme of actual acts. Because perception is actually determined by
such a scheme, and the overall scheme is independent of each sense,
all qualities which can be picked up by the sensory modalities must
o|rcoy appear in this scheme. Te intuition of space is therefore no
coincidence of sensations, as Ioincar and Schlick maintained, but
aso aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
space, and objective time, are practical ctions or hypostatizations [re-
ications] of the objective possibilities of the drive-based selections of
gure-background, which are themselves then installed as collective
expectations subjectively.
3. Te objectively logical origin of our ideas of objective space and
objective time presupposes not our experiences but the images, whose
construction follows essential laws which are independent of our sen-
sory organs. Te images are intuitabilities or what intuition focuses
on [Arsc|ou|ic||citcr], and are what are meant when we perceive
something as sensory experience, but possess an existence as mat-
ters of fact outside the threshold of this sensory experience. Tey are
forms, stripped of the qualities of our sensory experiences, but in no
way beholden to these experiences for their existence. Te qualitative
properties of the images never cover themselves with our sensory ex-
periences. In fact the images can contain qualities for which we possess
no means of incorporating into our sensory experience. Nevertheless
they remain [theoretically] intuitable.
If there existed no exchange, alteration or movement, between these
images which our fantasy extracts from the data of sensory experi-
ence, and then construes according to essential laws governing the
foundation of what we take to be a consciousness-transcendent body
then we could never arrive at the natural ideas of time and space
which we do have.
Te origin of both these ideas has to be seen in the light of exchange,
alteration and movement of these objective appearances.
If we think about the images in a resting condition when they
are not transforming themselves one into another or altering in some
way then their mous vivcri in a vital consciousness is a state of
mutual togetherness. In this state their nature is comparable to how
they are in my actual consciousness. Te phenomenon of exchange or
transformation is already contained within this manifold as a potential
to this eect.
If we now allow the images in consciousness to undergo their trans-
formations, what will then detach itself according to the rule where-
by extension is founded before form and form before qualities is a
homogeneous extension as the possible backdrop for all forms, which
is laid down in such a manner that this possibility predominates over
any actuality. Tere then arises, along with this, the potential lay-out
of a punctuate separation [the prerequisite for a matrix of positions in
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs as;
space], and also a four-dimensional lay-out in whose manifold spatial-
ity and temporality are not yet distinguishable. Space is the potential
for movement. Time is the potential for alteration.
To give an example: Suppose I hear a whinnying sound simultane-
ously with the sight of a horse on the move. Tese appearances are
neither successive to, nor alongside, one another, but are both present
in a presence of separated entities.
Ve can further illustrate the transformation of images by consider-
ing the way a magician works. Ie takes out one egg and then another
egg from his apparently empty hand. Ve do not see the movement
whereby he achieves this feat, neither how the egg appears, nor where
it comes from. Or, what about a pond teeming with sh or a mound
of swarming ants. Or, take a kaleidoscope in which coloured shapes
come and go, now this conguration, now that. Vhat all these ap-
pearances have in common is that an identication of the images over
and above their appearance does not occur, neither in the way of es-
tablishing a spatial location for what is going on through any act of
attention, nor, on the other hand, pinning down what is happening
to some qualitative state of aairs of a thing. Transformation of an
image, as I understand the notion, is something beyond [and prior to]
either of these two possible ways of capturing what is going on. Te
very prerequisite of grasping the nature of the states of ux illustrated
above is rot identifying the appearance in either of these two ways.
Vhat is at the root of these appearances is the intuitive sensing that
neither a spatial framework nor a temporal framework is yet in place.
Time is anyway something that occurs to us as a consequence of some
act which we carried out, and is somehow mediated through our in-
ner experience. It is not an integral part of how or why we can grasp
images in external perception. Tat which we later call spatiality and
temporality, or alongside-one-another and after-one-another, which
are special forms of separateness, are derivatives of a more basic undif-
ferentiated entity.
Iow does this dierentiation come about. Tere must undoubt-
edly be an act of identication which determines the spontaneous
establishment of something as an X. Tis act, moreover, must have
something to do with our drives, and cannot be purely arbitrary, al-
though we do not consciously appreciate this, as it appears to be an
arbitrary representation of what there is.
ass aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
In order to tease all this out, we must choose instances of the uc-
tuating phenomenon which are so ambiguous that there are several
options open to us as to what this uctuating state of aairs might
be. Te appearance of the uctuating state in front of us, for example,
might be interpreted as: a) either a modication of the state of a xed,
spatial position, in which case the extent of the variation in the ho-
mogeneous separateness, or the relation between images in this sep-
arateness, takes on the character of a temporal distance [between the
variations or relations]; or b) alternatively, the uctuating state appears
to be more like a homogeneous movement of the images in which
something continuously changes place or else the images, as in the
case of the kaleidoscope, seem to be of one colour moving through
several positions. In the rst case [a) above], the act in question homes
in on a piece of homogeneous extension, which thenceforth becomes
place. In the second case [b) above], it homes in on the qualitative
character of the image being blue or being triangular and therefore
the relationship of this image to some other possible quality. In the
rst case it is the qualitative character which changes; in the second
case it is the location which changes.
It is thus quite clear that any transformation of an image can be
interpreted in two ways: 1) as the alteration of the state of something
occupying a stationary piece of space; or 2) as the movement of some
realized form.
Note that the transformations of the images and the laws govern-
ing them are derived from the possible options that apply, and there is
nothing already there in a spatial matrix.
Ve can now ask the question as to which conditions in the natural
way of seeing the world determine whether we interpret the more fun-
damental ux in one way rather than another.
My answer is as follows.
Te separateness becomes a spatial separateness, and transformation
becomes movement in the same act, if the immediate expectation of
transformation is taken as rcvcrsio|c change. A homogeneous intuition
of movement is therefore the possibility of reversible change. Spatial-
ity is then the possibility of homogeneous movement. All movement
is derived from alteration in a state of aairs, and not the other way
round.
On the other hand, the separateness becomes a temporal separate-
ness, i.e. one-after-another, if the transformation which occurs is taken
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs as,
by the subject as irrcvcrsio|c. Temporality is in the external sphere of
images only the possibility of irreversible change.
Te paradoxes [7enos paradoxes] which result from assuming space
[wrongly] to be an absolute entity are satisfactorily solved through my
formulation. All empty space is only relatively empty i.e. empty of
X, Y and 7. Emptiness and holes are only intuitively grasped relative
nothings a negative state of aairs, mc or.
It is therefore also clear that our spatial and temporal intuitions X
inside the outside world are only alternative arrangements of the
same material of the homogeneous extension in the form of dierent
separatenesses. Tese are not two objective states of aairs indepen-
dent from each other, but two ways of grasping the same material.
Note that in this way we can, for the rst time, properly explain the
opriori nature of principles such as the synthetic opriori which Kant
tackled, which are inextricably linked to the nature of space and time.
Kant overlooked this link, whereas Ialagyi was on the track of it.
Tey can be listed as follows.
1) All points in space each occur at the same point in time. Tis
means that one part of space cannot be in another time than another
part of space. Only bodies move.
2) Ioints in time are never simultaneous, but successive as Kant
did see.
3) All points in time, which we mark out from the ux of absolute
time, are the same for each part of objective space. Time traverses each
point in space, and in the same way.
All the above are valid for ctional entities. Tey show that each
point in a homogeneous separateness can become cit|cr a point in
space or a point in time, and that this depends on the way of looking
at things. Furthermore, because a point in space and a point in time in
the outside world of dead nature are ontically the same, time and space
are necessarily bound together. Kant saw that without a persistence of
space there would be no external determination of time, and this was
how he refuted idealism. But it is also the case that without time there
would be no space, because it is in fact only the possibility of move-
ment in accordance with Einsteins laws.
Our [everyday] separation of space and time in external intuition
as mutually independent, objective states is therefore complete ction,
complete deception. Vhat is in fact two possible ways of grasping the
phenomenal separateness and transformations that can occur is objec-
a,o aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
tied as two independent, objective state of aairs, and then, on top of
this, one even wonders how they come to be so well matched.
Te actual facts that space emerges from the possibility of move-
ment and time from the alterations in states, and both owe their status
to change in general, make us condent that we can further probe their
origins, partly from a phenomenological perspective and partly from
a logical one.
1. Logically, I maintain, it is impossible to reach an uncontradic-
tory idea of movement if one holds to an absolutely empty space and
an absolutely empty time which is independent from this. Bringing
together both ideas will never give us the concept of movement. Te
actual fact of the matter is much simpler. Vhat gives the appearance
of movement is just rot the fact that the same something can crop up
in dierent places at dierent times, for example watching a friction-
less pendulum going to and fro.
2. Ihenomenally-speaking, we rst of all grasp, as a founding event,
the possibility of change before any actual changing. Movement is
grasped before spatial distance or temporal duration, and before any
form is appreciated. Finally, alteration is given before any temporal
magnitude of a durable content.
From all this, we can conclude that the following are valid: a) the
opriori sway of functional theory: b) the opriori sway of pure kinet-
ics; and c) the priority of the principles to do with the growth of the
complexity of things because every time something alters it leaves a
richness behind, and yet becomes richer.
Furthermore, all such principles and theories hold regardless of
whether something is real or not, as they have to do with the layer
upon layer of appearances only.
Movement is in all this a more original concept than space or time,
because the last two are bound together by movement.
Inert mass is identical with energy. It is therefore not possible to
think of any mass in world-space in isolation, as each mass is in a per-
petual, dynamic relationship with other entities. In fact any mass, as
Mach proposed, is really a relationship concept. It is only the extent to
which resistance against a moving force has come to some equilibrium.
Leibnizs notion, that inertness, taking up space and impenetrability
the essential determinations of a mass are all based on forces, is also
proved correct.
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs a,+
Furthermore, what Faraday said about the movement of a body in
space being an alteration in the state of reality along a certain track
is neatly supported by Einsteins discoveries. Taking what Relativity
Teory tells us about spatial determinations of size being dependent
on the state of movement of an observer, along with Faradays idea,
then the only situation where temporal matters come together as si-
multaneous is in the manifestations of consciousness.
Te specic considerations of the Special Teory of Relativity allow
us to propose that there is a four-dimensional arrangement governing
the unity of movement and form.
Te laws governing the images, pertaining to what something is in its
intuitively-derived fullness, and the factors leading to its coincidence,
are only consequences of force, and these obey Einsteins equations, as
long as the forces in question here are not the forces making up a liv-
ing centre nor derived ones which we calculate in objective time. Te
forces in question are those concentrations we call Drorg [Noturc],
which are at work in absolute time, but are themselves outside both
time and space, and, from this position, actually determine the spatial
and temporal frameworks of bodies.
Vhat anything in the dead world is in-itself is purely a four-di-
mensional arrangement of these spatial and temporal frameworks,
which, with all elimination of extension and of the spatial separate-
ness of things and of the dierence between space and time and of
all measurable determinations, is nothing else than an arrangement of
eective force.
rnn wzrunn or rnvsrczr rrxn
1. A pendulum swings to and fro in a frictionless environment in a
state of balanced equilibrium. Objective physical time is under these
circumstances a continuous series of movements, the existence [Do-
scir] of which is entirely constituted by the particular point on the
path traversed by the pendulum. Because only we ourselves, as cog-
nisant Is, see the pendulum and the points it |os traversed and the
points it ui|| traverse on account of our present time [|roscrzzcit]
and our memory and our expectation it makes no sense to ascribe to
this time the extensions present [Gcgcruort], past and future. Ihysi-
cal time then consists of [ocstc|t] a owing series of present points,
which can be lled with anything at all. If we suppose the existence of
a,a aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
a psychophysical creature, whose present time is O, then each point of
its physical time is homologous only to the immediate present point
of the present [Gcgcruortspur|t], and at each moment the time of im-
mediate memory and expectation tower [rogt . |irous] above the
physical, continuous series of points.
2. Does physical time have what we call succession. Vithout doubt.
Otherwise it would not be time.
But before and after, in the case of the pendulum, are only determi-
nations of a relationship, as each point in its trajectory can just as well
be a before as an after. For this reason we must deny physical time any
so-called direction. Direction can only be ascribed to a dynamic event.
Only what alters can have the direction that an event has. In the case
of the pendulum which moves back and forth to the same positions,
there is nothing against saying that the time taken up by its entire
swinging is only a return to the starting point. Te before and after of
physical time is therefore relative.
Vhat it is in these circumstances that ensues, such that there can be
a before and after about it, is relative in a second sense. Tis is because
the whole situation is dependent on the viewpoint and state of move-
ment of the onlooker.
3. Te quantity of physical time which has elapsed is measured by
distance and angular-computations between two comparable move-
ments, whose dynamic growth in speed at each moment of absolute
time is zero, for uniform movement, or equal. As the growth in speed
is equal or zero, the numerical physical measure does not change and
neither does the extent of absolute time. Nor does it change as long as
whatever rhythm a similar event has remains the same.
4. Vhereas in the case of biological time, it is quite possible for a
before and an after to be established in an absolute sense, without
estimating the cause and means whereby A leads to B, this is not pos-
sible in the case of physical time. Iere, as Kant rst clearly saw, the
exact dating of what before and after are is dependent on the laws
of nature, e.g. the speed of sound or light departing an event. Tese
laws of nature determine the before and after of every single state of
movement.
5. Vhereas objective physical time gives a one-sided account of the
measurement of some event, biological time gives its one-sided ac-
count of an events rhythm. It is not just a case of dierent feelings
about the elapse of time, but it is an objective fact that 12 hours of
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs a,,
biological time in the life of a mayy is just as much time passed as 35
years in the life of a human being. Each species, along with earthly life
in general, is rooted in death.
Te incorporation of life into an organic body involves an integra-
tion of this measurable time [with the rhythmic time of life]. Te life
of a human being lasts X days, that of a mayy one. Te two sorts of
time must both be seen in the context of absolute time.
Te coincidence of the phases of evolution in one point of absolute
time is what is at issue here. At each point of absolute time the events
of the world as they pertain to the sub-personal sphere [urtcrpcrsoro|c
Vc|tgcsc|c|cr i.e. non-gcistigc matters] are all happening without the
slightest trace of memory and expectation such as would constitute a
true past or a true future.
God, as spirit, has an intuitive overview of this entire sub-personal
worldly hustle and bustle [Vc|tgctricoc] of Noturc at each point of ab-
solute time. All sub-personal, worldly happenings are pre-destined at
each point of absolute time. Ve can still know that this is so, even if
we do not know the duration of absolute time or the forms it throws
up. Our subjective, experiential time [Lr|coriszcit] is a symbol, an ap-
proximate symbol of absolute time, and, in terms of its measurable
extent, it is encompassed by objective time.
A single person on their own cannot know the divine mind and spir-
it. It is only you and me together, through our joint willing, that can
know it. I deny the possibility of any divine prescience. It is incompat-
ible with personal freedom. It only has any sense if one believes that
God in Iis spiritual form has jurisdiction over every possible entity.
But God in this spiritual form simply cannot do this. Te same applies
to any supposed calculating or intuitive foreseeing. If the latter were
true Ie must be deemed either to have intuitively wanted an event
such as the First Vorld Var to have occurred in which case Ie is
evil or Ie must be considered not to have wanted it but then let it
happen but then the same event can also be laid at Iis door because
letting something happen is an act of freedom as well, and, in fact, the
only way that the will can act. Anway why should Ie create a world
for Iis glorication, if Ie already knew everything down to the last
detail. In fact, Gods special privilege, to know the entire history of or-
ganic life, is in our hands, even though we cannot forecast it. But God
Iimself does not even know what Ie wants or does, and nor does Ie
know what the future brings. God is a timeless coming-to-be. Iis-
a, aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
tory is then the symbol of the expression of the eternal process of Iis
becoming, in which Ie is absolutely intertwined. Ie God only
knows what Ie can make impossible and which therefore becomes
impossible for Ie is true to Iimself but this very [negative] state
of aairs already contains the seeds of what is positively possible. Tis
positivity is achieved through the means of the human being as a per-
son, but the human person itself can only achieve what it does achieve
through the oces of Iis Gods second attribute [Drorg], and
therefore God has to wait for this to run its course in absolute time. In
this way Ie Iimself becomes a concentrated version of Iimself dur-
ing the appropriate course of the process. Tis state of aairs [i.e. the
particular course of Drorg] determines what can crop up in absolute
time as any act of God or humans in respect of their personal being.
Te person is itself a self-concentration of divine spirit itself. Be-
cause God does not know what Ie Iimself wants in the progressive
state of what Drorg is becoming, then nor can Ie know what being
a person entails, in respect to what a person wants, and nor can Ie
know Iis own role is determining in a concentrated fashion what it
is.
If we now then assume that Gcist and Drorg are only two of any
number of attributes of the original substance including others
which we know nothing about there is then no reason to doubt ab-
solute predestination [because all these other attributes are aecting
us and we are completely explained by them, although we know noth-
ing about them]. Even God does not know about this predestination,
because these other attributes can only know their own way of being if
they themselves have their own spiritual and mental aspect [i.e. unless
they too, like Drorg, are paired with their equivalent of Gcist, they too,
like Drorg, will not be aware of what they are doing].
xnrz-nroroov:
roncn, srzcn, rrxn, xzrrnn,
wzrunn, srrnrr
rzsszon rnox rwonozwrc ro onozwrc
1. As the inorganic forces are already centres of Noturc with four-
dimensional, formed, surrounding elds, i.e. spontaneous determina-
tions of movement, then the centres of Life are isomorphically built
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs a,,
up on the same arrangement. Formal mechanical laws do not apply
in the absolutely actual realm we are considering here. Te centres of
Life or bio-centres are distinguished from inorganic in the follow-
ing ways: a) the energy at issue is of a non-material nature; b) the only
forms laid down are temporal in nature, and in absolute time; and c)
image and psychic centre are established at the same time.
2. Te body vanishes into space like a line on the surface of a sphere
vanishes. Space in turn vanishes into absolute time in the aspatiality
of the simultaneous force-impulses of Noturc.
3. Te events in and outside the organism are in themselves identi-
cal but are not ontologically so. For, in the order in which structure is
built up, the living agents do not rst break into the material images
and their parts, but rst assail the atomic parts of Noturc which they
then bring to light through their interaction with Noturc. It is there-
fore not necessary to assume that the appearance of Life on the scene
is tantamount to a transgression of the principles of inorganic matter.
4. Living agency as a whole is the direction and steering of nature,
and a mechanistic viewpoint is only symbolic and practical.
5. Living and dead Noturc are constructed in the same way, although
here and there with dierent empirical rules. Everything is in the end
a lawful arrangement of form-building. But the arrangement of vital
forms cannot be deduced from lower levels of the inorganic, because
the two levels vital and inorganic are both derived from the same
source.
6. In fact one can say that the organic and formal mechanistic world-
views both come under the notion of existential relativity not unlike
the way Leibniz envisaged two simultaneous takes on the same mat-
ter.
7. Te mistake the school of vitalism and that includes psychovi-
talism makes is that it assumes a ready-made physical and chemical
world which is already up and running on mechanistic lines, and then
further assumes that vital forces are somehow tacked on to this, in-
stead of siting life where it actually is in a Noturc roturo roturors
or Drorg still undecided [roc| urcrtsc|iccr] as to whether it will
be matter or life.
8. One should compare the views of Von Iartmann, Otto Viener
and Drken on the laws governing such frameworks.
9. Life is a reciprocally arranged grouping of functional processes,
running their course in absolute time, and with a rhythm itself framed
a,o aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
by birth, maturity and death. An ordered wave-like movement of
functional outpourings is what it is at root, based on a pre-material
[vormotcric||cr] stage of Noturcs impulses.
10. Spirit and mind do not actually belong with the Noturo| side of
a human being.
Iroof of this is: 1) that not until a child is two can it be said to
have spirit and mind; and 2) that primitive people are pre-logical in
outlook. Tat means that spirit and mind are based on a social interac-
tion between the most highly intelligent living creatures and historical
tradition, and the suering of the former from the latter. Society and
language are equally original founts of spirit and mind.
rrrn zwn rnn rwonozwrc
Because there is such a thing as Life, and because it is eternal i.e.
the possibility of organism being laid down in Bcirg-itsc|j is always
there there is an essential link between the existence and nature of
the living and the inorganic. Life and the inorganic are both eternal.
It is not a question of matter and o|so organisms. Te world itself is a
living organism i.e. a spatio-temporal totality with a history and
a passing away.
Vhereas science treats the inorganic world as a separate issue from
life, philosophy must re-unite them.
Te teleoclinical [goal-directed] relationships between life and earth
are rooted in their combined origin as Noturc.
It is only if one averages out matters that inorganic nature takes on
an independent way of being. From both a micro and a macro per-
spective it is organic lawfulness that applies.
A wave movement in a four-dimensional manifold is how the ap-
pearance of continual alterations in the direction of Noturc itself and
its impulses in absolute time strikes us. It is an aspatial, simultaneous
manifold. Appearances themselves can never be simultaneous unless
there is space for this to be grounded in. Tere is always a conict go-
ing on in the inorganic way of being of Noturc itself between dier-
ently directed impulses. Te usual mechanistic formulations of what
is going on should anyway be derived from a more basic mechanism
of wave forms the usual one being an articial summation in terms
of static points of mass. Tis follows because movement and abso-
lute time are the basic concepts, and the appropriate sequence of what
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs a,;
forms what, is: 1) movement before moved matter; 2) movement be-
fore space and time; and 3) constant alteration of dynamic movement
before lineality.
rrvrwo cnnzrunns zwn srzcn
1. Can one say that living creatures hold an analogous position in space
as they certainly do in time. It is obvious that organized bodies the
bearers of life and the visible theatres and bodily things where life goes
on, the melody of life are in space. But taking images as a whole, just
because the piano is in space, does that mean that the melody which
someone plays on it must be in space too. But the organism, in that it
is endowed with life and given as a bearer of life, is anyway not prop-
erly ir space in this way of being, but is only properly ir space insofar
as it is a piece of the world of bodies which can be grasped in a purely
objective manner. But it is neither exhaustively this last way of being,
and certainly not a spatial extension, but rather it is something which
takes up, in its relation to all other bodies, the position of a central
point of a sphere, whereupon all other bodies and entities group them-
selves around this. Tis feature of a living creature is quite remarkable.
In the organic world there is no absolutely central point. Vhat one
regards as the centre of a sphere is merely conventional. Tere is no
centre of the world, but in the case of an organism this centrality [Mit-
tc|pur|t|ojtig|cit] is an absolute fact, and with respect to its part of the
world which stimulates it and to which it reacts, it itself is the centre.
Te localized seat of the I of a human being is between the eyes
and the forehead, according to Claparde. Maybe this seat is variable
within bodily space. A person experiencing angina has their central
point, during the time it is going on, in the heart. But wherever it is,
there is always a central point, and the centre of life in an organism is
the point where life events are centred. As for living organisms other
than myself, they are not like dead bodies either which are ir space,
next to, or outside, one another. Vhen I take another body for a mov-
ing organism I must always transfer on to this body the essence of
centrality which I assume for my own world.
2. Furthermore, the organism has an original directionality, arising
from its activity, towards its surrounding space, something which inor-
ganic bodies know nothing about. Above, not below, near, far, in front
of , behind, nearby and in and in the case of humans right and left
a,s aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
are distinctions which for an inorganic body possess as little sense as
past, present, and future in respect to physical time. Is not this remark-
able. Is it the case that what is behind me stretches beyond my back
in a straight line as an inorganic, geometric account would make out
or is it rather that it is my back which is behind, and my eyes which
are in front. Te latter is the true situation. It is the same for above
and below, and right and left. It has taken a couple of millennia for
human beings to slowly discover that these contrasting positions in
space, where objects can appear, have no sense at all for the objects
themselves. Te notion that simultaneity is relative to the movement
status of an observer took just as long to dawn on us, indeed until
Einstein worked it out. Are these concepts only psychic in status. Not
at all. Aristotle already recognized that plants have no right and left,
but only an above and a below.
Te sense of the word in is peculiar to organic beings alone. A
state of inwardness [Irrcr|ic||cit] is the model for everything that in
stands for, even in the realm of the inorganic, where an in does not
actually occur and therefore where it is an illusion but where there
is only away from one another [Ausscrcirorcr] and near one another
[Ncocrcirorcr].
rrxn zwn rrrn
Just as the living creature is not in space, as dead bodies are, but has
an environment, in which far, near, above, underneath, high, deep, be-
hind and in front of all obtain, neither is it in time, as an event, for
example a movement in the dead world, is in time. Rather the situa-
tion is that time emerges through it itself. Te life-centre not in the
rst place the person-centre or mind and spirit is already capable of
setting in train and putting in place various spatial and material ele-
ments, by an act to this eect, and also setting going a variety of tem-
poral events, and, furthermore, determining the order in which they
are built up, and all without aecting its [the life-centres] nature itself.
Tis means only that it creates its own elbow-room for action and its
own stretch of time.
It further facilitates the spatial and temporal arrangement of the
pairs common precursor in the form of a separateness of the manifold,
whereby it constructs spatial and temporal forms, whose respective
relationship to the underlying separateness is that they are o|tcrrotivc
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs a,,
manifestations [i.e. if the separateness is designated X, then the spatial
symbol is A and the temporal A1]. Admittedly, the temporal order is
the more original, and only under certain conditions is it transposed
into a spatial one.
Because pure life is a pure coming-to-be, time itself is the very form
of this coming-to-be; whereas space is only a piece of work [Vcr|] or
a creation of what has become [Gcuorcr|citcr], not the form of its
very existence. Time is nevertheless existentially relative to mind and
spirit, but not to life itself. Tis is because, although there would be
no time without life, nevertheless time is the form of its [lifes] way of
coming to-be itself.
nnzwcnrwo our |.nwrrcuwcj or rnn
onozwrznn rnox rnn nrsonozwrznn rxzons
1. Te basic form of dynamic causality in organic and inorganic nature
is one and the same. It is neither mechanistic nor teleological.
2. Forces set up four-dimensional spatio-temporal forms, which are
unities of force-elds, whose centre is only the point where the lines of
forces intersect but not a dynamic exit point.
3. Form-bestowing, vital functions set up only process-forms in ab-
solute time, which then attach themselves to arbitrary unities in the
form of spatial Gestalts a process which only takes place in living
creatures. Vhat is represented in this way is a totality, a directional
goal, and something objectively meaningful. Such a unity of form is
a functional eld. A functional eld is capable of being reduced to a
force-eld but is never merely a summation of the latter.
4. Te critical constituents of organic and inorganic entities are not
the same, except when they are treated statistically.
5. Inorganic and organic entities emerge from the same general prin-
ciples of nature.
6. If one studies the organism along biological principles, one then
nds that inorganic unities simply do not apply. If one studies the or-
ganism from a chemical and physical standpoint there simply remains
a host of irrationalities which cannot be incorporated.
7. If one reduces the psychic to ontological categories, however, one
does nd a perfect coordination with the physiological, in which case
one can say that life allows itself to be read according to two alpha-
bets.
,oo aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
8. Because the course of life allows itself to be represented by in-
organic categories and laws, and the psychic in physiological terms,
the psychic itself must allow itself to be represented in purely inor-
ganic terms justifying the behavioural formulations of Vatson, for
example.
9. Te advent of a higher determining factor never occurs onto-
logically through either the transition of inorganic to organic or
physical to psychic or psychic to spiritual and mental.
Te basis for such an advent is the following. a) Te entire gamut of
laws applying to the lower category is not automatically taken up into
the higher category only an extract of these now apply, and these
are anyway made subordinate to the higher category. b) Te higher
determining factor to do with u|ot something is is never a factor
which realizes anything. c) Tis higher factor always determines what
it can determine from a position of standing back or standing outside
the manifold which it determines. So, for example, number overlooks
a crowd, analogies overlook instances, geometry overlooks space, and
the supra-temporal spiritual and mental acts overlook absolute time.
A conict between lower and higher causality can therefore simply not
occur, because a determining factor such as these can never clash with
a realization factor.
rnn onwnnzr vzv or nnrwo or rrrn
Life is an event or a process. It can only be dened functionally and
dynamically. No structural denition is sucient and there is no way
one can grasp its meaning by invoking some spatial arrangement of its
parts which was Kants starting point for an organism. Life is a sort
of being, which can only be properly got to grips with by emphasizing
its coming-to-be.
If one starts out from the separation of Bcirg into being and non-
being, then coming-to-be is the transition from non-being to being. If
one starts from the separation of being into its nature and its existence
this latter meaning being real then coming-to-be is the transition
from the nature of something to its being real. Tere is nothing in
the essential nature of coming-to-be that requires it to be a temporal
way of being, i.e. being is not [necessarily] a being-in-time. Tere is
time-free, coming-to-be for example, mathematics and timely or
temporal coming-to-be. Life is timely or temporal [zcit|ojtcs] coming-
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ,o+
to-be. Tis characteristic process is unique to it, and all the forms be-
longing to it stem from its nature as a being which comes-to-be. In
contrast to life, a dead being is something that has-come-to-be, and
its being is spatial and precludes a future. A temporal or timely pro-
cess does not essentially belong to it. In fact a spatial arrangement is
a prerequisite of the inorganic. Vithin living creatures events are not
arranged along any spatial dimension, but along temporal.
Te organism, in which a living process is active, has to do with
the arising and passing away of ontological matters. In the dead world
there is nothing of this, but only separation and joining together of
spatial unities.
Inside the living world everything ontic actual is based on what
is coming-to-be. Anything that |os become here is derived from what
is coming-to-be. In the dead world what is actually coming-to-be is
based on what has become. From a cognitive, theoretical framework
the being that has come-to-be in living entities is immediately appar-
ent. Te having-come-to-be, which we talk about as coming-to-be in
the dead world, is nothing of the sort, but, on the contrary, precisely a
having-come-to-be, a concluded matter. In the case of living entities,
we see how coming-to-be leads to having-come-to-be, and equally we
see what could have become but did not what was possible and what
is still possible.
Te chief types of temporal processes involving the coming-to-be of
something are as follows. 1) Tere is always something changing, and
the relationship between appearances of this is not yet an assumed
thing. 2) Tere is a self-modication, which does presuppose a modi-
able thing. 3) Tere is a self-movement. 4) Tere is a self-transforma-
tion or metamorphosis, where the relationship between appearances,
in distinction to a simple self-modication when only a few quali-
ties change is one in which all qualities simultaneously undergo a
change. 5) Tere is growth and reproduction, the latter being a pure
and actual increase in the fullness of the entity. 6) Tere is duration
and self-preservation. 7) Tere is ageing.
coxrwo-ro-nn
Vhat pure, phenomenological, essential determinations for the ap-
pearance of life, in any respect, have we so far come up with.
,oa aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
1. First, we have established that there is a spatial and temporal
self-encapsulation [Sc|ostocgrcrzurg], a form of its own [Ligcrjorm]
of something, made up in a typical and organized way from a variety
of qualities, a form, moreover, which does not owe its provenance to
something external to it, but seems to be determined from within.
2. Tere is then a temporal succession of a series of forms, but all
under the inuence of a particular rhythm in absolute time i.e. the
living organism is a continuous coming-to-be of forms and any given
form is only a temporary and transitional point of changes of a form-
altering rhythm, which is relatively independent of outside inuences.
3. Further, life is intrinsically linked with death, the end-point of a
spontaneous inwardness, and the cessation of its ecacy. Tis end-
point does not come about wholly from anything external to the living
process unlike the cessation in movement of something already dead
or never alive but arises: a) from within; b) spontaneously; and c)
as a qualitative end-phase of the regular phases of change themselves.
Death is an absolute passing away of some matter which will never
return. Only individuals die.
4. Te transformations involved constitute an increase in the mani-
fold of parts quantitatively and qualitatively and these parts are
neither something accruing from outside, nor something entirely ex-
plicable by the manifold itself. Tey are rather a living example of the
untruth of the principle that cause and eect are equal. Tis is pre-
cisely what the phenomena of growth are.
5. In complete and essential contrast to any dead process, the living
process is temporally irreversible.
6. It seems that only the entirety of each on-going process, with all
its qualitative and quantitative part-states, determines what is carried
over into the next phase of time. Tere is no one-to-one matching of
every part-state in what was before with what goes after.
7. It also seems that time is itself active in the phases of the process
and is not something that one retrospectively confers on the process
in old age.
8. Life has essentially built into itself two poles the organism or
central entity or the environment. Te latter stands in relation to
the former as the formers ambit of ecacy [Vir|spic|roum], and the
former to the latter as the latters reception area. Te organism and its
environment belong together, and are so mutually harmonized that
they are both inuenced by the same unknown constant. Te value of
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ,o,
the stimulus for the possible reactions of the organism is determined
by the actions that an organism can anyway carry out. Such actions are
aected by the totality of what is going on, and not just by the precise
stimulus.
9. Something seems to us to be alive if its movements are not en-
tirely inuenced by changes in its environment, and appears, as if in
addition, that there is an intrinsic, spontaneous activity arising from
within; it thus appears to move by itself.
10. Te essential feature of vital movement is that there is a change
in place of an identical something by means of an already existent ten-
dency to this eect.
11. All causal relationships between the organism and its environ-
ment break down into determining factors which aect what hap-
pens.
12. Te scope of what can happen gets narrower with every step of
a living creatures development.
nroroorczr rncrunn
I shall start out in this lecture from the most likely precise character-
ization of the problem in the light of the massive strides made in the
last few years in the elds of biological science and philosophy.
In the rst part of the lecture we shall come to know all essential
sorts of attempted solutions to the problem of life, and thereby un-
cover the historical situation and circumstances of these attempts. Ve
shall also subject these to an ongoing critique, in the course of which
we shall see at which points they connect with a philosophy of the
organic. Because the problem of life can be looked at from completely
dierent philosophical angles, we shall have to discuss these espe-
cially those of Driesch and our own.
In the second part of the lecture I shall attempt to give a positive
phenomenology of life and its three chief forms plantness, animal-
ity and humankind starting out from the premise that an empirical
conceptualization of the actual signs which distinguish living organ-
isms from dead things simply corrot be achieved.
In a third part we shall subject these essentially phenomenological
fundamental problems to a philosophical examination, and show that
they are critical for dening the limits of biological science itself. Ihi-
,o aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
losophy, above all, in this case, shows that each issue has its own meth-
odological problematic. I would list the critical problems as follows.
1. Tere is rst of all the problem of what can be known of a living
organism. Tere is no philosophical problem in which the ontological
problem Vhat is the living organism. is so tightly but complexly
bound up with the question Iow do I know what it is. Te nature
of this conundrum is that the knowing human is not only a creature
with reason, but is also a living creature, and that its collective poten-
tial Vc|toi| both of itself as a psycho-physical organism and of its
picture of other organisms is dependent on the constitution and
apparatus of its biological organization. Until now, cognitive theories
and logic pertaining to inorganic science have been far too one-sidedly
applied to biological sciences. A cognitive theory of life [developmen-
tally and historically] actually precedes any inorganic theory. I have
said elsewhere that we are indebted to Bergson as the rst person to
have exposed an entanglement of cognitive and ontological problems,
when he asked: Can one investigate oot| the appearances of life or
those of dead nature with the same sorts of understanding, and the
same principles and basic concepts. Bergsons answer has generally
been rejected. But his question is still highly relevant. It raises issues
concerning the sorts of categories that there are in living nature, con-
cerning the nature of what we mean by psychic, and about expressive
appearances, individuals as [mini-] totalities, space and time.
2. Among critical ontological problems which need tackling I would
give precedence to the following.
a) Tere is the problem of the origin of life.
b) Tere are philosophical problems as to the mechanics of develop-
ment, beginning with Aristotles views, and culminating in Drieschs
notion of Formvitalism.
c) Tere are then philosophical issues to do with whether the living
creature can be systematically dened or otherwise portrayed.
d) Ve then come to the problem of the unity and the variety of life.
e) Next, there is the matter of phylogenesis and the sorts of phylo-
genetic explanations that have been put forward.
f ) Ten one can point out the philosophical contribution to the
problems of reproduction and hereditary transmission, as they have
been formulated since Mendels time. Ihilosophical contributions to
the problem of sex can also be mentioned, as this topic has been trans-
formed in the last few years.
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ,o,
g) Finally, there is the problem of ageing and death, along with the
sense [Sirr] of what it is to be alive and how it changes with ageing.
In a fourth concluding part we shall consider what can be termed
the most profound metaphysical problems concerning our topic.
Tese comprise:
1) the relationship between life and the inorganic or non-living na-
ture;
2) the relationship between life itself and its various stages, particu-
larly the various stages of what the term psychic means;
3) the relationship between life and certain mental acts and their
centre in a person; and
4) the metaphysical place of the human being in the cosmos.
Te ultimate and most profound question one can ask within the
philosophy of the organic is what contribution does the philosophy
of the absolute make to the matter. Must not special attributes be as-
cribed to the original basis of everything that there is in order that
the facts and the apparatus of life could every have been willed. Te
problem of life has anyway in all periods of history been inextricably
bound up with metaphysical and religious systems of thought. Tis
means that dierent sorts of theism e.g. St. Tomas, Descartes led
to very dierent notions of what life was e.g. pantheism, Schopen-
hauers pandemonism, etc.
risr v.r or ivcruv :
cowrvvo.v vniiosovnic.i rnvoivs or
iirv .wn rnvi nisroic.i oiciw
Before we go into the contemporary philosophical theories of nature,
and give a systematic account of these, we need to consider the dierent
ways in which Nature was automatically viewed, and the correspond-
ing Vc|torsc|ouurg which was current, when the actual philosophical
theories of Nature were being proposed. Te scheme of the succession
of these is anything but accidental, but, on the contrary, conforms to a
lawful arrangement. Moreover, the same lawful sequence can be found
in: 1) the general development from primitive human beings through
to our contemporary civilization; 2) the individual development of a
child through to mature adult; and 3) the development of theories
about Nature in any particular cultural setting here I shall consider
Vestern ideas.
,oo aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
In the beginning the human being experiences the appearances
of nature in the manner of changing expressions, in fact as a sort of
language, and derived from more or less individualized spiritual and
demonic centres of force, as I-like centres. In a second major phase
of cultural history the human world-picture is panvitalistic and or-
ganological. Instead of prevailing spirits and demons with their will
to magically inuence events the former mythological phase there
arise categories which stem from the imagistic repertoire of the organ-
ism itself, but are then viewed as objective, and then become ways in
which the entire panoply of nature is grasped. Tis natural world-view
prevails until recent times. It is followed thirdly, but only in the Vest,
by the era ushered in by Galileos discovery of the dead world and its
basic laws, primarily of a mechanical nature. At this stage one no lon-
ger tries, as Ilato and Aristotle did, to derive the arrangement of laws
of the dead world from that of the living, but tries to derive those of the
living from that of the dead i.e. a mechanistic epoch prevails. Tis is
itself then followed nally by a fourth collective state of human mind
and spirit, in which the dogmatic broadening of mechanical categories
over the living world is called into question and put in reverse, and
the two dogmatic positions of panvitalism and panmechanisticism are
both given up. Tis then raises the critical question: which categories
are then applicable to living things and which to dead things. At pres-
ent we are still suspended in this phase and all current theory building
belongs here.
Tese four basic spiritual attitudes are not a consequence of the pre-
vailing status of investigation at any time; they are developmental stag-
es of human spirit itself, and are part and parcel of the development
of society and collective culture. Te categorical characteristics of the
major regions of nature and culture the dead, the living, the psychic
and the noetic have only slowly been uncovered throughout human
history, and from a variety of starting points, but in a strictly organized
fashion. Te peculiarity of death is the last to have been discovered,
and it is therefore nonsense to try and explain the mythical world-
picture [the earliest phase] by means of a retrospective, projective em-
pathy from our own times. Te historical course of knowledge has
essentially been one of de-vivifying [Lrt |cocrigurg] nature, with
a concomitant restriction in the range of applicability of genuine, liv-
ing categories to both dead or spiritual matters. Specically spiritual
categories were uncovered at the same time as those appropriate to the
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ,o;
dead were discovered. For a human being, the world was an organism
before it became a mechanism in innite space. Te biomorphic or
organismic Vc|toi| preceded the physico-chemical one.
owroiocic.i .wn cocwirivv rnvoivs
If we set aside cognitive theories for the moment, we come to the rst
division of theories about life, which take their starting point from the
supposition that the organic appearances of life occupy a central posi-
tion in a totality of everything that is.
1. First of all, one can regard life itself as a completely insoluble basic
concept, but at the same time try and derive the inorganic, the psychic
and the spiritual the other three main categories of everything that is
from life itself. Tis position, a relatively rare one, we shall call pan-
vitalism and is to be distinguished from a similar version which we
call dualistic vitalism. In fact there is only one actual philosopher who
has held this strict position Bergson though there have been sev-
eral scientists of a similar view, e.g. the physiologist Fechner. Not only
is the inorganic world deleted in such a formulation, and regarded as
swallowed up by, or reduced to, life, but a similar fate is meted out to
spirit and reason, which, for Bergson, are a created product of life. Te
starting point for his position is that one can have the experience of
something that is alive then dying, but not the other way round. If one
then adds to this theory concerning the absolute originality of life the
further notion that life is a supraindividually unied agent then one
arrives at a further characterization of Bergsons theory as monistic
vitalism.
Aristotles inuential version of panvitalism is not quite the same
as this. First of all, Aristotle divides up everything real into mind or
spirit [Gcist, Nous] and nature, human beings and God. Vithin na-
ture, however, the inorganic and organic world is constructed along
the same lines : both have the same combination of form and matter,
and both have a goal-directing form Entelechy and passive matter.
Neither a specically chemical or physical or mechanical lawfulness,
nor specically inorganic sorts of matter or force, enter his scheme.
Te same four sorts of causes, discussed in his Mctop|ysics, apply to
both living and non-living entities. Modern vitalism assumes an in-
dependent mechanistic explanation for the dead world, but Aristotle
did not know of such a concept of a formal, mechanistic lawfulness in
,os aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
Nature. Ie recognized what today we regard as probabilistic or sta-
tistical laws, which arise when there is a breakdown in the elementary
goal-directedness of something. Furthermore, Aristotle was a plural-
istic vitalist with respect to sub-human nature, i.e. the various Ent-
elechies were eternal, like the world, and they were dynamically time-
less. Iis primo couso was timeless everything was constant and there
was no evolution. Ie would not even have maintained, as Driesch did,
that the dierence between the dead and the living is a gradual one.
For, what he believed was that the living organism had its principle
of movement within, not outside, itself. Te something that did the
moving of itself, according to Aristotle, was the X which he meant
by the psyche, which was at the same time the living agent. Life was
growth and decline of something, through itself. Te soul was the rst
integrated eectiveness belonging to a nature body, and was denitely
part of any organ too. As well as there being no gradual transition
between plant and animal, or animal and human, the entire natural
world inorganic and organic was constructed in the same way. Ie
knew nothing of what modern vitalists refer to as the binomism of
dead and living nature. Ie neither knew of mechanistic laws nor even
knew of any special lawfulness for inorganic nature. Teleological and
teleoclinical [goal-directed] causes are anyway central to his physics.
In his treatise, the Gcrcrotior oj Arimo|s, he makes all organic coming-
to-be a consequence of sexual procreation. Te female exudate in
humans the menstrual uid gives the matter, and the male semen
the active form, and by a process of transformation they both give rise
to a seed. Te male semen is what determines the form and shape of
the organism. In Aristotles view what constitutes the coming-to-be of
a living creature is a denite, dynamic, logical and ideational, eective
shape-determining factor, analogous to the artists situation, where
from a given material something is constructed. Ie calls the forma-
tion process a soul if it concerns an organic, living creature. A vitalistic
or organological view on nature not a view on being is inseparable
from the way he formulates his views on the psyche. Tis concept of
a soul Aristotle builds up from the object itself, and not from human
conscious experience. As a result of this, the soul itself breaks down
into as many basic sorts as there are realms of living things, and Aris-
totle recognizes as many special parts of the force in question as there
are extant, vital basic functions and ways of behaving uit|ir any or-
ganism. Functions form organs. All organs possess a generative psyche
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ,o,
e.g. male semen, reproductive drive a growth-engendering soul,
and a nutritional soul: three basic drives.
Tese three on their own make up the plants soul. Vith animals
there accrues, in addition, a soul whose principle contribution is sen-
sation and memory, which Aristotle denies to plants. In human beings
there is the additional arrival on the scene of pure theoretical reason.
Te modern mechanistic notion of nature arose in deliberate opposi-
tion to this whole thesis, seen at its sharpest in Descartes philosophy,
where the soul is rcs cogitors and the body rcs cxtcrso, and Aristotles
divisions of the soul, with the exclusion of human rationality, com-
pletely denied.
Currently, Aristotles teachings, transformed by St. Tomas, are
still carried on by the Neothomists. Te constancy of everything is
what has been most abandoned. But there are several other versions in
which every aspect of his philosophy has been reassessed and redraft-
ed. Drieschs and Sterns accounts are of this nature, though Driesch
is an ontic dualist concerning inorganic and organic, but a monist by
virtue of his conating Life and Spirit.
2. Secondly, we can suppose that the living world might be known
and explained through categories and principles which correspond to
those of inorganic nature so far as these categories are clearly what
do belong to this. Again, however, life still occupies a central role in the
scheme. Any such formulation as this is a chemico-physical explana-
tion of life.
Tis way of looking at organic life is also monistic with respect to
the relationship between the living and the dead, no less so than Berg-
sons strong and Aristotles not so strong versions discussed above. In
the present supposition, too, we have laws, matter and force of one
and the same kind throughout Nature, though here they are those of
an inorganic world. It does not exclude elaborations into a dualism
between soul taken as equivalent to spirit and mind in such versions
and body. Descartes, Malebranche, Leibniz, and Lotze in the 19
th

Century, are the strictest mechanistic philosophers, but at the same
time dualists with respect to body and soul. Teir dualism here is any-
way incoherent because they allow the soul to work on the body and
what they end up with is a parallelism [which is an incoherent version
of mechanistic monism].
Tere are eight chief sorts of chemico-physical monism.
,+o aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
a) Tere is a metaphysical materialism, which tries to derive, not
only all physical appearances and life, but soul and mind too, from
the movements of matter. Tis standpoint assumes the presence of an
absolutely real space, absolutely real time, absolute matter and move-
ment. Certain Ancient Greek philosophers Empedocles, Democri-
tus and Leucippus and some modern Iobbes, Lamettrie with his
L|ommc moc|irc held to this view, but today it is dead.
b) Tere is next the standpoint of an absolute mechanistic set of
explanations for everything in Nature. Tis is an ontological stance,
which considers that the sole way anything works is material contact
according to the simple order of before and after. Vherever it oc-
curs in philosophy, and if it is not completely materialistic as a)
above it is combined with a dualism of body and soul. Tis is ex-
plicitly stated by Descartes and Lotze. It crops up in psychology as
association psychology, where events are treated as summated eects
of forces. Iobbes and English association psychology epitomize this
approach. Vhere there is a dualistic element, the soul is considered
the X that does the thinking. Te general standpoint of all theories
in this group is that the reality of the soul and conscious appearance
are one and the same, and there is no subconscious or unconscious life
of the soul. Our natural Vc|torsc|ouurg, it derives from spontaneous
activity of the soul. Despite its limited standpoint it spawned a variety
of dierent versions of the psycho-physical problem. In one version
e.g. Lotzes there is interaction between the psychic and physical. In
another version, there is parallelism between two ontically separate
series of happenings.
Mechanistic philosophies of this nature are commoner today than
materialistic ones, but overall rather rare. In any case the very way
physics formulates the world [which such mechanistic philosophies
aped] has itself discarded motcrio|istic-mcc|oristic explanations, and
at the very most strives for jormo|-mcc|oristic formulae. Assumptions
about an absolute three-dimensional space, absolute time and abso-
lute extended matter, have been consigned to the dustbin by modern
physicists, as indeed they were by some philosophers before them. Te
crucial thesis now is that energy and mass are mutually transformable.
Quantum physics and relativity physics have between them destroyed
materialistic-mechanical explanations of nature. For these reasons the
very notion of a mechanistic set-up in organic or psychic spheres has
been [or should have been] undermined.
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ,++
c) Incidentally, we nd within this out-of-date mechanistic stand-
point two quite dierent subgroups. One is more chemical in nature,
the other more physical. Te chemical versions [obviously] attempt to
explain the dierence between the living and the dead along chemical
lines, but they are nevertheless mechanistic explanations at root.
d) Ihysical versions of a mechanistic explanation are illustrated by
suggestions as to how the colloidal status in an organism might dif-
fer in living and dead entities. For such theorists it is not chemical or
physical dierences in themselves that account for dierences between
the living and the dead, but some essential constitution of the colloidal
status in both these situations.
e) I now turn briey to theories which formulate life in terms of a
particular sort of energy. Ostwald is the main representative here. Ie
rejects the notion of extended matter, and supposes that all appear-
ances of matter are energy complexes. Ie further proposes a special
sort of form-energy [Gcsto|tcrcrgic] and another special sort of psy-
chic energy, both of which maintain some sort of equilibrium with
other mechanistic energies such as heat and light. Attempts such as
Ostwalds have generally been abandoned these days.
f ) One additional version of a chemico-physical mechanistic phi-
losophy of the living and the dead is known as postivism and exem-
plied by Comte, Spencer, Mach and Avenarius. Tis philosophical
position rejects any notion of a vital or psychic ecacy in explaining
organic appearances, and further refuses to accept that physical and
chemical appearances rest on any ontological substrate or force. It
maintains that only the laws governing the appearances themselves,
and only such as are sensorily perceived, are objects for science; ev-
erything else is only a symbolic representational aid. Because, further-
more, the concrete law is never contained in general laws, but is some-
thing contingent, a relatively accidental nature to things and events
supervenes, and organisms and living events can never be derived from
chemical and physical laws. Despite this, what is comprehensible to us
of any organic appearance is precisely what is derived from the lawful-
ness of physical and chemical appearances. A certain autonomy of the
science of life should exist, if all this were so, although nothing of any
essential substance compared with physics, chemistry and mathemat-
ics. Te dierence, then, between the objects of inorganic and biologi-
cal sciences, according to this philosophical position, is only a general
,+a aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
logical one a concrete-abstract dichotomy, not an ontological and
essential one.
g) Tere is then the Gcsto|t-physicalism of Koehler, whereby a phys-
ical Gcsto|t is assumed to be a real conguration in Nature.
h) Finally there is machinism, championed by Lotze, Schultz and
Ienderson, whereby the organism is deemed scientically inexpli-
cable, but has a purposeful constellation of material and energy-based
factors forming a mechanical structure which is ultimately derived
from a world intelligence.
3. Te third main group of vitalist theories, in addition to the porvi-
to|ist and the c|cmico-p|ysico| moristic which we have just covered, are
those with a dualistic orientation. Tey are still monistic in respect of
the living and the dead, but their dualistic orientation is given a new
and dierent emphasis from the ones we have discussed hitherto. No
new substances are admitted than there were in the previous theories
i.e. living, dead and inorganic but a greater variety of eective fac-
tors and forces and a greater number of laws governing events are al-
lowed. Some earlier exponents of vitalism, for example, even believed
in a specic chemical ingredient to life, whereas all modern versions
of vitalism conform to the more complex formula just alluded to. In
deliberate opposition to Ancient and Medieval versions, they eschew
materialistic and formal-mechanistic explanations of life, these being
conned to their formulations of the dead world. But this then be-
comes a problem in its own right, as the modern vitalist is then faced
with what is to be done about mechanical or physico-chemical laws,
not to mention matter and energy. Aristotle and the Scholastics did
not have this problem, whereas the modern vitalist has to ponder an
interaction between a vital agent and the chemico-physical forces and
substances without sacricing the law of conservation of living force
the energy principle.
Tere are three main types of dualistic vitalism, each with dierent
pairings.
a) Tere is objective vitalism, which wishes to show that there is a
unique principle of life, and that certain appearances of life can nei-
ther result from any conceivable mechanism, nor from any chemico-
physical explanation. Te latter, according to this theory, always leaves
a residue to life that dees explanation in these terms, therefore de-
mands its own unique explanation. Nothing of an essentially positive
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ,+,
nature is proposed in this sort of vitalism, and one may well ask why
its proponents assume that dead nature itself is mechanistic.
b) Ten comes psychovitalism. Vhat characterizes this is that the
objective problem of life and the life-soul problem are made one and
the same from the outset, and it holds the psychic to be what steers
and directs the physical and chemical events in the organism and even
underlies the conscious appearances of things.
Te spiritual father of this orientation is Lamarck, and his theories
about the meaning of needs for, and uses of, form building.
c) A third distinction within vitalism is into those proponents of the
notion who consider there to be a single supra-individual life-agent, in
relation to which any individual life is only a part-agent.
Driesch, for example, says little about this, but seems to incline to-
wards some unitary notion of agency. Becher states expressly that there
is a supra-individual psychic agent, and Bergson and Lodge hold this
too. Te older vitalists e.g. Vundt were pluralists on the matter.
4. Tere are then specically noetic theories of life. Unfortunately,
to the detriment of the thorny problems we are tackling, the various
metaphysicians of absolute being have had a strong [but baleful] inu-
ence on theories about life. All metaphysicians who take their stance
from there being a spiritual, and only spiritual, origin of the world
whether theistic, pantheistic or panentheistic [i.e. God is coming-to-
be] have derived the appearances of life either directly or indirectly
from this original source. Te theistic, religious tradition, in particular,
has posed the problem of life in a very one-sided manner, and what
has had the most detrimental eect is its assumption that either life is
teleological or mechanistic. As supposedly exhaustive alternatives this
is a profound error, partly because the harmony and teleology which
they assume simply do not exist, and partly because a whole series of
laws prevail in life which are neither teleological nor mechanistic.
Te theistic sort of noetic explanations of life come in two forms.
Tere is, rst, the Scholastic transformations of Aristotles notions,
according to which the appearances of life derive from the souls ent-
elechy, but the soul itself is a creation of Gods spirit. Te entire life-
world is thereby created on an ideal plane, which has already existed
in the divine spirit. A second form is a machine theory, according to
which the divine spirit purposely constructed this machine on earth
in the rst instance following an intelligent plan, and without any ent-
elechy or soul, and without the need of any matter and force as in the
,+ aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
dead world, which last Ie too then separately created out of nothing :
Descartes and Malebranche believed this. In this latter form it resem-
bles the way in which Aristotle compared an organism to a work of art.
Vhereas psychovitalists and vitalists like Driesch and Becher derive
spirit from soul, theists and pure spiritual pantheists reverse this di-
rection, and derive everything to do with the soul from a creative or
divine spirit : even Iegel went along with this. It was Schopenhauer
who rst tried to break away from this basic way of seeing things, and
instead proposed that there was a Vill a drive-based, obscure, blind
force of Nature which explained the nature of the world, and the
appearances of life were objectivizations of this will, which themselves
had built an organ in the human brain with which the appearances of
the human spirit not divine spirit were connected.
Von Iartmann, who occupies a peculiar place between Iegel and
Schopenhauer, derives the inorganic and the living appearances from
two attributes of the world-base [Vc|tgrur]. One is an alogical energy
and the other is a logical factor, and both are the idea of unconscious,
divine spirit. Together they allow the appearances of life and lifes de-
velopment to be understood. Te process he suggested involved the
rearrangement of the material forces and quanta of energy into supe-
rior forces, without contravening the principle of conservation of en-
ergy, so that the appearances of life could be constituted. Te superior
forces he introduces are at the same time the real, unconscious basis of
the appearances of consciousness i.e. unconscious, soul-based real
factors.
In whatever way these ultimate metaphysical problems are posed,
under no circumstances can an idea of absolute being, which is reached
independently of any deliberations as to the nature of the appearances
of life themselves, be itself a way of deducing anything at all about life.
Te way in which a world-base is constituted when appearances of life
are involved, must be viewed dierently from the way it is constituted
when none is involved. Tis applies at least if appearances of life form
a genuinely essential class of appearances. In fact, what is generally
understood by the teleology of living appearances, is nothing at all to
do with the so-called teleological proof of a supposed all-good and
almighty origin of the world, and is no testimony at all to a world-
master builder, as Kant would have it.
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ,+,
rnv rnvov or cocwiriow .wn
rnv vniiosovnv or rnv oc.wic
Vith the foregoing we have covered all the ontological theories of life
and organisms about 18 in all which are currently around a sad
state of aairs. A critique of these theories, which we can rst of all
mount in terms of the phenomenological basis of biology, will show us
that not one of these ontological theories is satisfactory.
Even taking them altogether, it is quite obvious that they share a
common error, which is that they are all more or less dogmatic, in the
sense that they do not pose or tackle the particular methodological
issues raised by the problem of what it means to be a living cognising
subject. To be sure, what constitutes cognition of, and by, an organism,
is not the only issue facing any would-be philosopher of organic life.
Nevertheless, it is my opinion that it is simply not possible, as Kant
and his Neo-Kantian followers and many others as well assume,
to treat the particular problems inherent in living cognition as if they
did not exist, and lump together the living and the dead within the
same cognitive exercise. On the other hand, it is not possible either to
dismiss the claims of theoretical cognition in general for our project. It
is a basic principle in my representation of philosophy that real, onto-
logical problems and problems concerning cognition both have a com-
mon origin in the objects themselves. Vhat some appearance is, and
what its essence is, are the common starting points for any theory of
how we come to know this appearance and its real object, i.e. ontology
determines appearances. Te real ontology of appearances of natural
things must therefore be constituted in such a way that it conjointly
explains the possibility of our knowledge of these appearances as well
as these appearances themselves, or at least does not make such a ven-
ture impossible. Furthermore, I hold it fundamental that any theory of
cognition of the real basis of appearances must itself be so constituted
that it does not distort or dissolve the essential nature of these appear-
ances.
Ve shall now propose a three-fold division in matters pertaining to
the relationship between ontology and cognitive theory in the eld of
the organic. First, there is a dogmatic ontological method; secondly, a
purely cognitive method; and thirdly a simultaneous sort of investiga-
tion into both.
,+o aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
On the third point, we need to ask what it is among the experiences
we can have of nature that is relative to life in general, and relative to
the particular properties of a cognizing subject; and, further, at what
level of existential relativity. Ve should like then to know what lies at
the root of anythings being ontologically real, both in the case of living
appearances and in the case of dead ones.
On the second point the pure cognitive method the critical is-
sue is how the dierences between dead and living nature are taken
into our knowledge and not how they stand in the Or [Being] of real
objects.
Before we embark on all this, a few further remarks are needed. It
might seem to many of you as if the 18 theories of life that we sketched
out exhausted the logical possibilities that ontological explanations of
living appearances had to oer. I should say straight away that this is
not so, and I shall later give you a version which is not contained in any
of the ones I mentioned.
Te rst remark concerns explanations about nature. Tere is an
ultimate framework of essential laws which only provides a negative
inuence and limit to all appearances of nature chemical, physical
and living. Such a framework has its own logic and ontology, its own
ultimate principles, and its own laws for forms in a temporo-spatial
manifold. All these are neither vital nor chemico-physical, but lie
above these contrasting regions.
Furthermore, they are the same for the ontological existence of na-
ture as for our cognition of nature.
Secondly, there is a phenomenal dualism within an essentially phe-
nomenological rather than empirical sphere, and this applies to living
appearances as well as to dead ones. Tis particular dualism has gone
unnoticed by every single monistic formulation, and that includes Ar-
istotles, Bergsons, and all the rest. In other words there is an axiomat-
ic of dead and living nature, and the relevant categories which go with
this. Tis dualism extends into metaphysics, but only as far as meta-
physics of the rst level, not into the metaphysics of the absolute.
At the level we are talking about the same dynamic and simultane-
ous image-producing principles are at work in dead and living nature,
and are ever being newly brought forth. Ve call this image-creating
Noturc Nature in God [Drorg].
Te special axiomatic we are still considering comes into its own, as
valid for living and dead alike, in the passage from the absolute to the
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ,+;
relative metaphysical spheres of being, in accordance with our own
theory of the levels of existential relativity. Ve now ask: At what level
of existential relativity does the dualism begin.
My third point is that the most signicant dualism concerning nite
being is not the dualism between the living and the dead, but that
between Gcist ideas and values and Nature existence. Tis is in
complete contrast to the views of Driesch, Becher, Bergson, etc. Te
dualism I am referring to reaches into the essential attributes which
are the cognisable attributes of Bcirg-itsc|j.
A functional vitalism, but not a vitalism of form an entelechy is
justied, if the notion of a metaphysical unity of life is integrated with
it.
[Te editor writes here that the text of the lecture breaks o, and he
summarizes some remarks of Schelers. Te editor then nishes the
section on Mctoszicrzicr with four pages on vitalism taken from other
notes written at the time.]
r.isv .wn covcr vir.iis
Any vitalism of a negative sort such as Drieschs, along with any pro-
posal in which the living agent is added on to the inorganic with sepa-
rate lawfulness, is to be unconditionally rejected.
It is only our abstraction from what is really going on that makes us
see the two life and inorganic as separate, whereas the inorganic
and the dead are rather relative to the living, and not the other way
round. Te inorganic laws of nature are anyway statistical. At root
each appearance of nature is metaphysically inorganic and vital simul-
taneously and equally originally so.
Te inorganic coming-to-be of nature and the vital coming-to-be
are originally reciprocally arranged, not because God ordained it this
way, and not because the forces of Noturc are teleologically related,
but because a single Noturc is goal-directed and provides the ultimate
framework for both the inorganic and the organic. Te dead and the
living are only dynamic, chief directions of one Noturc, which in itself
is functionally unied. Te dierent laws applying to the living and
the dead are merely objective phenomena, not metaphysical in origin.
Te fact that the inorganic world ts into life [rather than the other
way round] excludes the notion of vitalism as a metaphysical thesis.
,+s aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
Te dead world is rather carved out of the environment of everything
alive.
Te force of life, therefore, is not something actually added on. Tis
is anyway unthinkable, unless one imagines that a complete break with
the laws of inorganic nature prevails in life. All hypotheses of this sort
are false and empty. Te living part of Noturc itself enables the emer-
gence of the inorganic from this Noturc, long before any such meta-
physical goings-on are at a stage when we can experience them. Tere-
fore we can never know that such goings-on are taking place. But we
can also never prove that they are not going on, and that they do go on
is metaphysically likely, because only if it is so can our world-picture
be free of contradictions. It is certainly false to want to prove that the
laws governing inorganic manifestations of nature can determine
as an entelechy the forms we eventually experience. Chemical and
physical events and laws cannot explain our formed world. Maybe
there is an intrinsic pattern, but we can never know it [Ir urs ric|t:
or sic| uo||.]
ruwcriow.i vir.iis
I call a vitalism functional if it is maintained that any living behaviour
or any function can be derived in a strictly one-to-one fashion from
chemical and physical states of aairs. A functional unity is in fact an
urphenomenon, and we can only explain how the functions take place
and on what material substrates they work. Ve cannot explain why
these and no others are in play. Te temporal form in which the func-
tions run their course is a goal-directed process according to the par-
ticular laws pertaining to an organisms birth-to-death framework.
Life is an event, and only an event, and takes place in absolute time
i.e. is a part-manifestation of universal life itself. All morphology must
be explained in the context of both functions and inorganic lawful-
ness. But in the case of inorganic science the only sort of time involved
is that of successive relationships in absolute time.
Is there then some force, as a dynamic determinant, which is the
common denominator of living functions, and which we could call a
vis vito|is [. a living current]. Not at all. Only the urphenomenon itself
of the function requires a metaphysical explanation for its existence as
something having-come-to-be. Ve especially need an explanation for
how one function comes about through another function [but we have
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ,+,
no need for some added on life-factor which makes anything inorganic
organic and which pervades everything organic].
Tis means that although the functions can be considered within
an inorganic scheme according to their temporal characteristics and
to the material which they work on metaphysics itself is not an ad-
vanced sort of empirical science, and only life itself [the metaphysics of
which underlies empirical science and not vice versa] determines what
functions spring up, and from what source : life itself is part of Noturc
[Drorg]. Again, we stress that life is not something that supervenes
on an already existing ontologically real realm of inorganic things and
forces. Life in fact directs and steers these very inorganic processes, al-
though both living and inorganic are equally metaphysically origi-
nal. Each group of force-centres is assigned [zugcorrct] to a life centre
from the word go. A life centre is a source-point [Quc||pur|t] of living
processes arranged in a certain three-dimensional frame i.e. with
the centre at the apex and the environment and the organismic event
forming the two points of the base.
Tis arrangement itself underlies change.
Drieschs proof proves nothing. It is a mish-mash of unmethodical,
empirical or metaphysical approaches. In any case, an entelechy is an
asylum of ignorance, crying out for the question to be asked : Vhat
can and cannot a machine actually achieve. A machine can perhaps
achieve more than it actually does achieve as Buytendijk said. But
a machine as part of a rigid system is incapable of explaining physical
and chemical processes. Death is not the failure of entelechy. Death
belongs to the phenomenon of life itself. No-one can say why this
supposed entelechy now achieves what it is supposed to achieve, then
achieves this no more, or achieves this and not that, or, for that matter,
why it is now intelligent, now stupid.
Te factor which sets up the temporal forms of things attaches itself
not to matter in space, but to the temporal ingredients of Noturc itself
atoms of energy, positive electromagnetic charges which lie at the
basis of both the inorganic and organic, and which are pre-material
and pre-energizing in the sense that they are not measurable as en-
ergy and matter themselves are.
It is even mistaken to think of the determining factors of living
events as something occurring in the time of something durably real,
as Drieschs notion of entelechy is so formulated. Te factor in ques-
tion has its own way of coming-to-be and its own rhythm, and it is
,ao aur cowsaratarow or aur utmnw nrrwc
therefore also false to represent it as something which exhausts itself
or is overcome by inorganic causality. Life is the quintessence of a force
which resists death.
Vhat is most correct in Drieschs theory is his notion of something
being suspended or not suspended, which is a marked change in direc-
tion from anything Descartes or von Iartmann had to say on the mat-
ter. Drieschs theory supposes the existence of rotating forces, without
any quantitative value or centralizing character i.e. without any place
where there is a starting-point. Furthermore, he recognizes that, what-
ever entelechy means, it can only allow to happen what it itself has
[. not] suspended. Te suspension or non-suspension of something,
however, must in addition be deemed to be occurring in the transition
from a metaphysical to a physical realm and is not something which is
attached to an already completed process in this respect.
Te intrinsic state of inorganic matter and its components are noth-
ing other than the elementary force itself, which, together with other
impulses of force, sets out a four-dimensional spatio-temporal form.
Te centres of the force orient themselves according to their respective
elds.
Te identity of physical and chemical laws, and the relative constan-
cies among these, do not imply the identity of the concrete chemi-
cal and physical events going on inside and outside a living organism.
Tese are dierent.
In the rst place, the identity is a strict consequence of our hypoth-
esis that the rhythmic and goal-determined factor underlying a living
appearance is already at work prior to the coming-to-be of measurable
quanta of energy, and prior to the materialization of such quanta.
All living creatures are structures, but not chemically or physically
so. Te structure is rather derived from a functional agglomeration of
vital elds.
Te branches of mathematics dealing with set theory and the topol-
ogy of four-dimensional manifolds are valid for both inorganic and
living matters; whereas linear, planar and quantitative approaches are
or|y appropriate for inorganic matters.
Te formal logic which applies to both regions must not be equated
with inorganic logic. For example, the principle which states that an
object cannot be identical to another object is only valid for the inor-
ganic, i.e. it assumes something persisting in space and a constancy
over time. Tere must, anyway, only be a constancy of the extent of
6 Q lc Mctoscicrccs ,a+
movement, according to Ilanck, and energy and mass are therefore
subordinate, relative constants. But neither the latter nor the unre-
vised former principle apply in the case of life. Vhat holds sway here is
only an identity of temporal forms in absolute time. Such identity does
rot exclude anything new, nor any creation, nor any transformation. In
fact life is transformation, but not simple alteration [\crorcrurg].
In the case of life the general is contained in the particular, and nom-
inalism is simply false in any application to this realm. For individu-
als, sorts of individuals and families of living agents, are not separate
one from another, but dynamically uit|ir one another. Tis accounts
for intraindividual and interindividual heterogeneity of goals. In dead
nature the essential nature of something is having-come-to-be [Gc-
uorcr|cit], whereas in organic nature it is the logic of coming-to-be
[Vcrcrs|ogi|].
Vhereas Drieschs entelechy assumes rigid forces just like inorganic
versions of force, and supposes that the ux of life can be made un-
derstandable from two such rigidities [i.e. life and inorganic], we re-
quire even the metaphysical origin of living appearances to include life
itself, i.e. even the supraindividual life force itself must be conceived
of as a functional waxing and waning. Tis further means that lifes
dynamism, its tendency to maximise its image potential, its ultimate
leading up to humans and essences, its intermediate appearances as
plant and animal, its de-materialization [Lrt-motcrio|isicrurg] of the
temporal units of Noturc, and the withering away of simple tropisms
[Articrtropismus] along with its promotion of memory and fantasy
must all be considered, not as properties of some living substance,
but as properties of functions or as tendencies for repetition. Further-
more, all these wax and wane, as the concomitants of growth and dy-
ing. To conclude, they are, above all, not the subsequent joining up of
something to the inorganic and its forces.
;
zwuscnrva ow anr anronv or
anr czusrs or rvrnvanrwo
rznr r wzrunn zwn srrnrr
vr.vnvsics or w.ruv
I
f there is a universal matrix of life [A||cocr], and if it is respon-
sible for all acquired functional methods whereby the forces of
the dead world become incorporated into species and organisms,
and if it serves the goal of Eros, which is to bring forth the maximum
amount of entities while at the same time striving for unity and perfect
forms, then the ideal end of this process is the evening out of organism
and bodily material [cr Ausg|cic| vor Orgorismus ur Krpcr] the
coming-to-be jrom the world of inert bodily material of the living body
of the organismic world. Tis organismic world is not an entity, how-
ever, as was thought in the Middle Ages, but a goal. It is a goal in the
same way as the unication of spirit and life is a goal, a goal inherent in
Gods personality and in the coming-to-be of life in the world.
Te basic principles involved here are: 1) that all genuine essences
and essential connections can only be elucidated as to their actual exis-
tence within a metaphysical framework; and 2) that, nevertheless, this
does not exclude a genesis of essences and God.
Te incarnation [\cr|rpcrurg] of the matrix of life comes to an
end when all possible ways of adapting matter and energy have been
achieved, in a manner that allows everything to be penetrated by them.
Te meaning of organic evolution is not just the preservation of the
highest organisms, nor an increase and growth of life itself, but is the
achievement of a maximum degree of spontaneous freedom over the
combined resources of matter and energy. Organisms are only the
means and tools through which the matrix of life elevates itself, as-
cends, and learns in an innite sequence of trial and error. In this way,
,a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
even the dualism of the dead and the living, as indeed the dualism of
life and spirit, are eventually overcome.
Both the organic history of life and the history of the world are of
the greatest signicance for elucidating the coming-to-be of the worlds
origin. Even inorganic nature has layered realms of forms, which are
not absolutely constant. It is also governed in what comes-to-be by
a tendency for order, for ever clearer and concise forms to arise. Te
electromagnetic face of nature gives way to an ever increasing optical
dimension, in conformity with the law of least energy expenditure,
whereby all other forms of energy and all matter tend to adopt the
same [optical] character. Tere is anyway no absolute matter, and
what matter there is is only relatively constant, and is furthermore
only a transitional episode in the course of the world-process.
oozr or wzrunn
Te goal or aim of Noturc is to achieve a maximum amount of reality
and qualitatively various forms, with a minimal expenditure of eort,
in keeping with the law of least eort. In this respect Noturc is strictly
goal-orientated, as are all its interrelated parts. Noturc is therefore
even without spirit goal-directed, though completely alogical, value-
free and purposeless.
wzrunns rzvs
1. Noturc is a multiplicity of unied elements, the number of which
is unquantiable, but whose structuring brings forth absolute time,
which is not measurable either.
2. Noturc is composed such that each of its unities a, , A be-
longs to the same order of goal-directions, but each of the impulses
has a superordinate unity of impulses above it, which determines the
scope of the subordinate impulses. It is only within the latitude that
this aords that each of the subordinate impulses has any relation-
ship to other simultaneous impulses, and that the various inhibitions,
demands, freeing up or closing down, of such, become coordinated.
Each existing unity, which is determined by its superordinate impulse,
contains within itself impulses of various rank orders, and these too
come under the control of their respective superordinate. Te lower
impulses never govern the higher ones.
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,a,
In the overall scheme, vital impulses appear as a new stratum in the
established rank order.
Te distinction between material and non-material forces, however,
is not clear-cut as Driesch, for example, would maintain. Tis is be-
cause energy and a living force are interchangeable with matter, as are
energy and matter.
Vhenever the superordinate force is not actively at work, this leaves
the subordinate forces to their own devices. Tere is no question of
parallelism here, nor even of a chemico-mechanistic parallelism.
Te force-functions of Noturc, which determine organic life, are
themselves constituted in such a way:
a) that they are not materializable;
b) that they control the rhythm of the life-events in absolute time;
and
c) that the mutual adaptation of living and dead nature one to each
other is reciprocal and not one-sided, and is only understandable
through assuming the unifying character of Noturc, which sets forth
both of them.
monts vrvrwnr or wzrunn
Te supreme principles according to which Noturc works are as fol-
lows.
1. It brings forth the maximum possible amount of reality.
2. It produces the maximum amount of variability [So Arcrs],
i.e. fantasy.
3. It accords each eective element a maximum amount of intensity.
Terefore any ecacy of an individual impulse at any point in abso-
lute time is the smallest ecacious unit there is.
4. Noturc is both cause and directional guide at each point in abso-
lute time. It is both a starting point, in that something is being urged
away from something, and an end-point, because something is being
pushed to something. Te smallest quantum of ecacy is the simplest
element of Noturo| unity of an event. If there is set in train a multitude
of such chains of events, then the relationship between these takes the
form of a formal mechanistic and continuous lawfulness.
5. In addition, the chains themselves determine a unied form, which
is itself determined by the superordinate impulse we know as Eros.
,ao rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Teleology [future determining present] and [conventional] causa-
tion [present determining future] are two human sides of the same
coin.
6. Te values which Noturc brings with it are the movement of
masses, heat, diuse energy, light, and the very possibility of there be-
ing a vital agent i.e. a psychophysically unied form.
7. Noturc pervades [sctzt scirc Drorgso|c] matters in such a way that
an absolute time is formed, and the pervasiveness of Noturc then ap-
pears in a four-dimensional extension. It is both intensive and quali-
tatively diverse. Te four dimensions of the separatedness in absolute
time form the basis for objective space and objective time, the extents
of which are linked one to the other. Tey are existentially relative to
a vital creature, but all living organisms take them to be objective and
independent of themselves. Te apparent independence of space and
time is, however, relative to the standpoint, or rather present standing
point, of an observer in the four-dimensional spatio-temporal system.
Objective time is the eeting succession of nows, without past and
without future.
Only phenomenal time has a proper present, past and future, and
has these at any point in such time and this applies to remembered
and expected points too.
Absolute time also contains, within each of its realized parts, the
absolute future and the absolute past.
rnrwcrrrns or wzrunn
1. A maximum amount of reality is aimed for. Because, therefore, No-
turc, by virtue of what it is, is potentially innite as is the Suostorcc
of which it is an attribute reality itself, which Noturc sets out, must
also be innite. But because Noturc cannot set out the force of Gods
will as spirit, which emanates from Iis love and is never innite, but
nite, then Noturc can only strivc for a maximum [which falls far short
of innity].
2. Even its striving for a maximum is constrained by its nite sup-
ply of force, and [to compensate for this] it abides by the principle of
achieving the maximum eect with the least expenditure of energy.
Tat alone is its unconscious, technical intelligence.
3. Te same tendencies apply to the fantasy of Noturc. As the aim is
to get a maximum qualitative fullness with a nite amount of energy,
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,a;
the solution is to set forth good forms, thus making the most of lim-
ited energy. In this respect it comes under the sway of the laws of Eros,
an entity which prefers beautiful to ugly. Altogether, then, good and
beautiful forms are the answer to the problem of maximizing reality
on a limited budget of energy.
4. Noturc is itself a multiplicity of unities; it possesses lots of im-
pulses, so many that they are uncountable. Vhat governs the mutual
inuence of the various unied patterns is absolute time. Vhat deter-
mines the objective space and time which is relative to any organism is
the form of Noturcs fantasy as a four-dimensional manifold. Te order
of the imagistic content in this manifold results from the rules which
go to make up the nite, accidental nature of anything, and which pre-
cede in the order of things, space and time themselves.
5. Te order in which the world is created jrom Noturc and t|roug|
Noturc follows the order in which the intrinsic goals attached to each
set of impulses are realized, the consequences of which being always
accidental and arbitrary, as they do not derive from the goals of the
superordinate stages. In other words, the simplest impulses are com-
pletely random and interact randomly with one another.
6. Each impulse possesses: a) intensity; b) direction in four dimen-
sions; c) image; d) form; e) signicance; f ) position in absolute time;
g) value and h) a real relationship to other impulses.
wzrunns rzwrzsv
All the accidental and imagistic nature of reality is set out by virtue of
the unity of Noturcs fantasy: Noturc itself determining the accidental
existence of anything, and its fantasy component the nature of the re-
sulting entity. Fantasy comes under the same rules which constrain the
urphenomenon, but within these limits it is haphazard and free. Te
accidental meaning of things is a dual consequence of their essence
and Noturcs fantasy
Space is in reality the form whereby this fantasy acquires an inten-
sive, simultaneous and qualitative manifold. It is not a human form
of intuition, but rather the overt form taken by fantasy, which is itself
the second divine attribute. God, in Iis spiritual manifestation, has
no sensorium, as Newton thought, but, on the contrary, space is ex-
istentially relative to a human being as Kant was generally correct
about.
,as rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Te elements of the divine fantasy are the simple qualities, which
are then supplemented by unknown qualities, which are inexperien-
cable for humans but come to be known about through chemistry and
physics.
At root, however, everything is an impulse of Noturc, which pos-
sesses a particular directional form.
Te representations of fantasy are not explicable through the repro-
ductions of their elementary parts. Any reproduction is a special case
of the production which has the same motor eect. All in all, there is
continuous creation.
rnnz zwn wzrunn (r)
Spirit or mind is the passive ability to bring forth ideas, urphenom-
ena, values and purposes. In contrast Noturc is the active ability to
set out reality and images. Both are activities of the attributes of the
original source of everything, whose eternal self-positing is itself what
makes possible the functional unity of both sorts of activity. Te ac-
tualisation of spirit that is needed before any idea springs forth can
only come about through the initiative of Noturc after Noturc itself has
been disinhibited by the spiritual will. In fact this process is the only
way in which Noturc can be actualised, always by its disinhibition, and
by means of the spirit holding up an idea or a value or a urphenom-
enon to Noturc which typies whatever spirit is proposing.
Because we can only grasp the contributions of idea and urphenom-
enon in an actual concrete factual experience, and therefore cannot
think of an idea as something preguring the actual experience, the
entire absolute sphere of essences must be continually re-thought for
each new entity. Ve grasp ideas as simultaneous possibilities of the
nature [of something actually given]; we do not have access to possible
ideas in themselves [in a vacuum, as it were].
Te ideas of the divine spirit form the contents of the world itself.
Tere is no question of only a picture being involved. Because these
ideas are only produced to the extent that they are also realized and
do not pregure or postdate the situation there cannot be any pre-
science or world-plan. Te only ideal contribution to the actual situa-
tion is the eventual realized idea, which arises from the spiritual com-
ponent of the Eternal Suostorcc as the idea it has of itself, and it is this
alone which is continually actual and determines all other ideas. Te
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,a,
same applies to Noturc itself. At each moment of the world-process
the entire past and future is contained as a potential, objective, logical
sense, something which applies alike to both the living creature and
the world itself treated as an organism.
rnnz zwn wzrunn (rr)
1. Spirit is an inactive principle which brings forth essences, but it only
does so in accordance with Noturcs motivational directions, never in-
dependently from it. It is neither purely spontaneous in its ability to
produce ideas, but relies on the other principle [Noturc] to do so, and
nor is it and the ideas and essences it comes up with of any intrinsic
value in themselves. In the rst place, it is set in train by the love of
God, which arms a maximum amount of reality. But, although it
can only be motivated by virtue of this love, it must all the same be
motivated by a simultaneous and co-original direction of Noturc. It is
inherently wise if we consider what the ultimate causal agent had in
mind to have produced ideas which are capable of maximizing the
fullness which lies in Noturcs images. Te ideas themselves are there-
fore an attempt, and exclusively so, to realize these images.
Te principle that ordains that things are realizable, or the further
principle that things can be ideated, can only function together. Each
idea is intrinsically attached to the coming-to-be of what is real, and
reality itself is both force and ideality. An idea itself is never something
that is realized in all its purity, because it is only a limitation, measure,
negation or exclusion criterion of certain possibilities. Anything that
is necessarily so is only the non-actuality [Uruir||ic||cit] of the con-
trary.
Ieidegger understands quite correctly that Iusserls notion of es-
sences is false. But then he is only aware of contingencies, which is also
false.
2. It is obvious that there cannot be an idea without any accidentally
existing thing with some sort of nature i.e. images. Te intercon-
nections of ideas possess a validity for things, but they do so for this
thing, not for some general interplay of Logos. Te idea is there at the
moment of realization. For this reason there are not even any subjec-
tive thoughts without fantasy or representation. Even in God himself
such thoughts cannot occur.
,,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Even though we can achieve a separation of ideas from their corre-
sponding images and reality in the exercise of Rcuctior, in themselves
[in the natural attitude] ideas cannot be so divorced.
3. a) Te same goes for values. Tere are no free-oating values as
ontical [actual] entities, as Iartmann thought; there are only values
for us. Values already appear in a natural setting, even in the inorganic
realm of things, a realm not without goal-determined reference points.
A dualism between values and reality is a false notion of how things
are. Even the ethical values inherent in a spiritual being have a basis in
the reality of God. And the shunting o of values into an ideal realm
is a consequence of making everything else mechanistic. Geometry, for
instance, is full of exceptional structures straight lines, circles, etc.
b) Te height of a value has to do with the existential relativity of
something and the sort of being that this something is. Only some-
thing that has actually come to be something denite [o|tuo|cs Scir]
not real or accidental being has the highest value. Values themselves
are a sort of being value-being. In the case of loving something, its
existence and value are as yet unseparated.
c) Although the unity of value and reality is an accidental fact, the
acts which grasp value and set out reality are closely connected. Mem-
ory and perception presuppose resistance [as sense of reality] and the
evaluation of resistance.
d) Everything contributes to the notion of the worlds being a his-
tory. As this happens, we nd that there has been a growth of values,
and not just an uncovering of pre-existing values for ourselves. Tere
is also a value-led development. All inorganic matter and energy is not
just a quantitative state of aairs, but it is rather the case that what is
inorganic is still life of a sort, and what is life is inorganic of a sort too.
Tis attests to the unity of Noturc as a whole.
e) Te laws underlying power of various kinds have their basis in
nature. Energy self-destructs and in so doing creates matter. Matter is
only a historical fact.
f ) Te highest values are, at one point in the development of things,
the life of drives with the weakest motivation behind them. But the
law which accords the higher categories of anything to be weaker, and
the lower to be stronger, generally reverses itself in the course of the
world-process, with the result that there is a continual sublimation of
forces, whereby the higher categories attract to themselves ever more
force.
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,,+
Te world at one time only an inchoate dream on the part of the
Godhead becomes more and more organized with the interventions
of Noturc, until it is a veritable cosmos, and then, even more, the his-
tory of this cosmos.
g) Although values and accidental reality are dual, this does not ap-
ply to the essences, which are at the same time essences of value and
of being.
Te notion of an idea with its own value, in which value is some-
where beyond any actual entity, is bourgeois, and emanates from the
upper classes wish to hark back to some golden age. Te only love
which is not selective is the love of divine spirit. It treats a grain of
sand and Goethe with equal respect, and, for this reason, it is truly the
ultimate measure of values.
srrnrr zwn wzrunn
It is only through the actualisation disinhibition of Noturc, by dint
of spirits not saying no, that spirit itself can achieve a positive inu-
ence on things. For it is not on spirits say-so alone that it can exert
its blind will and achieve any autonomous potential. Tat is to say
that it does not possess an independent ability to activate anything,
but depends on Noturc. Before spirit forms a coalition with Noturc
its own nature is inert. Before Noturc makes its coalition with spirit,
it Noturc possesses neither reasonable goals nor projects. Spirit
is quite capable of outlining a perfectly harmonious ideal picture of
itself and the world on its own accord i.e. without Noturc. But such
an ideal picture would simply remain dormant and ideal. It can only
enable to happen what it thinks or loves, if it enlists the cooperation
of Noturcs power to realize something. Noturc, for its part, is desirous,
from the word go, to set forth the maximum amount of reality, but it
is only when the do not do not role of spirit enters the equation, and
re-creates the unity of the original Suostorcc, that Noturc is allowed to
actualise anything, and join its own inchoate fantasy-projects to those
of spirits which turn them into genuinely possible and sensible
ones.
Noturc and spirit are therefore essences, of a sort, which are eternally
beholden to one another. Together, they form an essential body of
contrasts, the members of which are themselves held in an intercon-
nected matrix with its own mutual inter-determinations.
,,a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Te upshot of all this is not simply a brake on the reality goal of the
worlds evaluation, but the putting into eect of spirit itself.
Iartmanns metaphysical pessimism has to do with the thought that
it would be better if there ucrc no world, and if there were no uor|.
Iis ideal is that only spirit would be at play. Both his pessimism and
his reliance on spirit alone would be quite in order if the realization
of the world, and indeed the realization of anything at all [through
Noturc], were not necessary for the self-realization of God as a simple,
eternal and perennial part of Suostorcc itself. In order for Gods will to
be done, the world must be thought of as work to be done. Tat alone
guarantees the coming-to-be of the world and explains how anything
at all can exist.
It is certainly true that Suostorcc has an eternal way of being, inde-
pendently from the world. But the eternal love inherent in Gods spirit
arms the realization of Iis Suostortio| nature. Tis armation is a
positive aair, and has as its consequence the option of not saying no
of the spiritual will. Iartmann does not see that there is a spiritual
will nor did Aristotle or Schopenhauer. Teism only errs in that it
takes this will to be a positive operation instead of a negative one, and
further confuses it with a positive love.
God does not take back anything of the world at the end of the
world-process, but reaches the point where Iis idea, set out in in-
creasing measure, becomes perfectly plain as an eternal idea of Iim-
self. Ie is mirrored in the history of the world, while the world at the
same time becomes more and more divine. Vhat is extinguished, as
the world-process goes on, is only the extra-divine [ousscrgott|ojtc] el-
ements of the world as modes of Suostorcc, not the world overall. Te
duality between spirit and Noturc is increasingly eroded, but not the
actualisation of Noturc itself.
Te divine spirit does not arm the evil which Noturc will unavoid-
ably have to bring forth, nor the wickedness which it Noturc is
necessarily associated with. Vhat this spirit, through its love, does af-
rm of Noturc, is the component of Eros inherent in Noturc, indeed
its most profound core element, Eros being that component which is
responsible for preferring values such as noble or beautiful. Te divine
spirit does not arm the inbuilt tendency of Noturc to come up with
the maximum number of forms that is a projection of Noturcs urge
to achieve a maximum amount of reality that is something Noturc
possesses independently of its own erotic core. Nevertheless it con-
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,,,
dones these tendencies because they are dynamically at one with Eros
[i.e. it cant have the latter without the former].
Iartmann fails to see that between and above the components of
Logos and will there is a unifying inuence exerted by the love in
Gods spirit, and that this leads to the intellectual intuition by means
of Gods will. Ie also fails to recognize the Eros component in Noturc,
which is responsible for independent vital values, and which precedes
in the scheme of things the striving for power in Noturc, and which
is rather concerned with a qualitative, fantasy-driven fullness in the
accidental nature of things. Iartmanns duality between spirit and
power is something completely dierent from any dualism of spirit
and Noturc. Anyway, the notion of spirit that I hold by is not merely
a logical faculty, but is primarily an entity exuding love, which holds
within itself the two components of Logos or will the latter to be
understood as having a negative eect only.
Moreover, the notion of Noturc I hold to is one which ascribes to
Noturc not just blind, haphazard desires, but one which has room for
two Eros-led processes what I call the facility of making real [Rco|-
prirzip] and that of making fantasy [||ortosicprirzip]. In addition, I
consider that qualities are entities in themselves, and deserve meta-
physical consideration in their own right; they are not exhausted by
specifying their intensity. Even Noturc is badly portrayed as something
blind, as if it were a mechanical force. It is goal-orientated in itself,
and only blind with respect to spirit [gcist-o|ir]; it would be better
to depict it as indierent to spirit [gcist-iricrcrt], i.e. indierent [or
neutral] as to spiritual values. It even has an overall directional bias,
which is to contribute to the eventual unication of itself and spirit in
the one Suostorcc, which last is superior to them both in the scheme of
things. It is by no means blind desire or foolish bashing on regardless;
on the contrary, it must learn to withdraw itself.
oozr zwn runrosn
1. Iurposefulness only comes into play when the understanding of
an end-state occurs. In goal-directedness there is an original, shared
directionality of agents A, B and C, for example which is in agree-
ment with their nature and possesses some constancy, but where there
is no anticipation. 2. Tere occur no reasoned considerations as to
what ought to happen in the light of any spiritual values. Te end-
,, rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
result of several such concerted goal-directed activities can be stupid
or clever. 3. Beginning, middle and end of such a process come about
by forces acting linearly. 4. Vhat results derives from the unity of
the impulses. 5. Tis [unity] is possible because of the shared spatio-
temporal manifold that they nd themselves in. 6. Goal-directedness
is already subject to the constraints of quantum theory, whereby its
temporal form and rhythm is aected. 7. Te formal-mechanistic for-
mulation of anything is a statistical approximation. 8. Tere is only a
pre-existing divine love, but no foresight, let alone a world plan.
Reaching the goal of some whole entity is dependent on the goal-
directedness of its parts. But the latter are not originally tied up with
the former, in the sense of sharing some teleological principle. In fact,
the particular lawful goings-on of the parts are never extinguished.
Te forces behind them are ever active. Terefore, although the goal
of the entity as a whole can be set out, what comes to pass depends
continually on the goal-directedness of its parts. Moreover Noturcs
impulses are more in conict the lower in the scheme of things that
they are, and the lower they are in this scheme the more powerful
they are. Vhat determines victory in such a situation is the extent to
which these warring impulses are guided by the directing idea. And
the idea itself, given the situation it is faced with, is never perfectly
realized. A [superordinate] goal-directedness can only achieve cor-
respondence with its appropriate, subordinate goal-directedness by
inhibiting and disinhibiting such. It can never completely divert them,
nor create something from scratch in their absence. Te sequence of
inhibitions and disinhibitions has to take account of the extant set-up
of lower goals, and make whatever job it can out of them.
Te basic elements that any such goal-directedness have to deal
with are atoms of energy indivisible centres of force which science
treats as possessing only intensity, direction and form. In fact, they
possess more than this; they possess character and quality besides.
Space itself is in fact already determined by the imagistic matrix of the
dynamic relationships between such atoms.
Te disinhibition of Noturc, whose unity is guaranteed by the unity
of the laws of movement, which itself indicates that there is a unity
of force, results in an order being set up from the lower to the higher,
and therefore also to a realization of the world in time. Autonomous
energy diminishes the higher in the scheme the goal-directed agent is,
until we reach the limit of spirit, where it becomes, as will, nothing at
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,,,
all, except, in a negative sense, as mere inhibition and disinhibition [of
other lower agencies].
For example, if we consider three goal-directed sorts of activity A,
B, C Bs striving for its goal is dependent on its own intrinsic inten-
sity, but it is also constrained by the scope of As or by Cs activity. B
then learns its own position in the hierarchy, from the eects on it of
A and C. Te hierarchy then arranges itself as follows.
Spirit
Consciousness A
Isychology physiology
Morphology B
Colloidal and crystalline status
Inorganic state C
An overall state of aairs which we might call pluralism, which No-
turc conforms to, is not in any way simple. It is a functional structur-
ing of impulses, with each component possessing character and direc-
tion. Force and drive-centres or vital centres are the two classes of
impulses that we know about. Vhether they continually merge with
one another or not, we do not know. Te only sort of unity [or uni-
ed centre] which is more than a functional unication of goals and
cooperation is that [instigated by spirit] which comes about through
inhibited Noturc. If it is in a state of disinhibition, it is a layered realm
of dierent sorts of impulses.
Ve can only make sense of the unity of Noturc in terms of the unity
of the laws of nature, so far as it includes the living and the dead, cou-
pled with its derivation from time. Ve cannot, however, derive from
the unity Noturc the extent and characteristics of its particular im-
pulses, or put these in an order of precedence.
nvsrnrnoroov zwn rnrnoroov
In order that some integrated purpose can fail, there must already be
a goal-directed dysteleological event. But living events certainly do not
give any indication in themselves that there is an intelligent author be-
hind them, who knows the contrasting spiritual values that might ap-
ply. Te huge evidence for dysteleology in nature something which
Darwin overlooked in the form of an over-abundance of forms or
stupid ways of carrying on e.g. non-adaptive instincts speaks vol-
umes against the so-called teleological proof.
,,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Vhat there is of a harmonious or teleological scheme in nature
dysteleological as well has to be considered in the light of the fol-
lowing. First, what we are faced with when we see empirical organisms
or some vital activity going on is the remnant of some previously inte-
grated aair, comparable to a half-obliterated inscription in a fragment
of some ancient cultural relic. Secondly, at its origin, nature strives to-
wards a maximum amount of structural diversity, whereas any logical
appraisal [in retrospect] restricts what is set out, and certainly does
not determine it. Te original setting forth is not attuned to spiritual
values, however much theism would deny this. Tirdly, it nature
cannot be derived from mechanistic sources, which would make it
already a mode of intelligence, or at least bordering on the intelligent,
instead of, as it actually is, to do with something completely dier-
ent from intelligence. To be sure, if it were intelligent, then teleology
would come into it, but as it is not, and as it is certainly not mechanis-
tic, then teleology or dysteleology do not enter the discussion.
Te lower individual levels of some organism are in a state of strife,
war, and mutual repugnance, one from the other the lower they are,
the more marked this is and what serves the higher individual levels
is only the spare capacity freed up from such struggles. Tey are never
simply controlled by the higher levels; rather they are utilized and ex-
ploited.
Te lower impulses electrons, for example must be thought of
as in a state of anarchy, and the picture we build up, of formal, mecha-
nistic laws applying to them, really grows out of completely capricious
and haphazard events concerning them, stretching down to the small-
est elements imaginable.
quzrrrv zwn rnn xzrnrx or rrrn
If there is a living matrix [A||cocr], distributed throughout its higher
and lower unities among what we call nature, then nature itself can
be dened as the game that the living matrix plays with itself. To be
sure, qualities as qualia are necessarily related to seeing, hearing, etc.
But at the same time the qualia are also outside the psychic realm, and
outside of a supposed universal consciousness proposed by Fechner.
Tey are inside the soul of the world or outside it at the same time,
and therefore objective qualia do exist as Duhem believed even
though we cannot but express their presence in the order of things in
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,,;
mathematical and formal mechanistic terms, and thereby substitute
them for something else. All subjective, sensory organizations belong-
ing to a living creature only determine what selection is made from
qualitative systems, and the functions which they serve already belong
to the metaphysical arrangement of life.
But in another way too, seeing and hearing something in the here-
and-now are dependent on the vital energy of Eros within a subject,
which itself is part of the universal seeing and universal hearing of
the Eros of the entire matrix of life. Yet further, objective qualities are
themselves the consequence of constellations of goal-directed forces,
which contain the most primitive sorts of unities.
rnn xzrnrx or rrrn |nrrrnrwj
Te functional unity of breathing or walking, etc. is a denitive achieve-
ment of the entire nervous system, represented as a network. If this or
that organ is damaged or removed, the same function as before will
be carried out in another way. Even species are primarily a functional
classication. Te entire rhythm of life, and not temporary morpho-
logical make-up, is decisive for species becoming what they are.
Expressive appearances precede purposeful actions, and are not
some remnant of these.
It is therefore necessary to give the issue of functions more impor-
tance than that of individual morphology. Te matrix of life works
on the environment by means of its species and individuals, and even
through its constituent cells in their changing states. Environment and
individual living form are both determined by functional groupings.
Seeing, for example, is carried out by quite diverse-looking organs.
vnv rnn xzrnrx or rrrn
czwwor nn cnnzrnn
Because a God is pure spirit, it can only have a will in spirit, with no
power to put its will into practice. Te power in question can only
come about through the intervention of the matrix of life as an at-
tribute of the Basis of the Vorld, and not insofar as it is divine, but
insofar as it is demonic.
Te world, as the life of the living matrix is nite, is only orc liv-
ing exemplication [\cr|cio|ic|urg] of this living matrix, from which
,,s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
an innite number of other exemplars do and can come about, if the
divine spirit allows it. God is not the creator of the world; Ie only lets
it come into being.
Tere is no positive decree that something should be created, but,
instead, there is scope for a living exemplication by virtue of the di-
vine spirits desisting from forbidding it. In other words, the living ma-
trix strives to exemplify itself. A world is given only to the extent that
Gods spirit allows it to come about, and this itself is governed by Iis
own essential ideas. Tis all happens, moreover, at a level of a timeless
coming-to-be, eternally so, and from out of the living matrix. On the
other hand, this world, from beginning to end, is only one of an in-
nite number which the matrix of life cou| allow to come forth.
Te matrix of life itself, when it has handed over its exemplication
in the form of a world, then retires [to await] the death of the world
[Vc|tcrto]. Iending its [re]-entrance [Bis zu scircm Lirtritt] the
world ages, in accordance with the Second Law of Termodynamics.
Te world comes-to-be [crt-uir], in the course of which it develops,
spiritualizes itself and in due course passes away.
Te meaning behind Gods release of the coming-to-be of the world
is as follows. Ie achieves autonomy, and life is spiritualized. Te goal
of all possible world-processes is the unity and interpenetration of
spirit and the living matrix in Bcirg-itsc|j, this last, as the Ur-substance,
being neither divine nor demonic.
Although the matrix of life, with each world-exemplication that it
brings forth each one having a shorter duration than its predeces-
sor withdraws again in disenchantment, God benets every time,
because, as originally powerless and lacking any existential status, Hc,
[with each round of lifes matrix coming and withdrawing] gains ever
more power and ever more existential footholds. Te release of new
world-exemplications ceases when God, as a spiritual entity, has
become, through Iis continually growing power, ever more relaxed
[gcjgigcr]. Te mid-point in Time [Mittc cr Zcit] is the point where
there is the beginning of a predominance of Gods spiritual power over
the power to spiritualise [Moc|tgcist] of the living matrix.
Tis mid-point in Time of this world is now upon us. Te era of
the predominance of the spiritualization of all matters has begun, and
that means that what was coming-to-be has largely come-to-be [cs
Lrtucrcrs icscr Vc|t].
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,,,
Vhen God is a nished entity [jcrtig gcuorcr ist] not just as idea
and essence, which Ie is anyway and eternally so, but as an existen-
tially viable and spiritually powerful entity as well then we are at the
end-point of all world-coming-to-be, and we have reached the end of
spiritualising power [Moc|tgcistcs].
Te original tension in God, between spirit and life goodness and
Eros is then at its most relaxed. God rests content with Iis life
Iis life as spirit. Te Fall of Man now becomes superseded. Te
spiritual will is redeemed in God, and the notion of a blind will as
put forward by Schopenhauer and Iartmann is avoided. For life is
goal-directed and sensible [sirrvo||] not moralistic or intelligent. It
is demonic, in the sense Goethe gave to the word.
Te human being serves several purposes here: through God, in
whom he is eternally safe and sound, he is liberated; and, at the same
time, he contributes to Gods own liberation from Iis inner tension.
It is just as terrible to make God responsible for the existence of
this world, as it would be to deny Iis existence as atheism does
or to deny the existence of the world even as acosmic pantheism
does. God is not responsible for the existence of the world, whereas
Ie would be if Ie were all-good and all-powerful. It is not God in
God, but the living matrix in God, which gave birth to the world. Any
living creature itself cannot be responsible for such matters.
Te existence of the world cannot even be interpreted in a moral
sense, neither as the focus of blame as Schopenhauer thought it
could nor as the focus of praise as theism holds.
In that all profound, contemporary, spiritual thinkers such as Vil-
liam James, Tolstoy, Bernard Shaw, I.G. Vells, von Ehrenfels and
Max Veber deny that God can be all-powerful, this surely indicates
the correct path to take.
Te world is a living organism of the living matrix, and holds sway
as a roturo roturors [living nature] in Gods overall domain, eventually
leading to a more substantial God hence pancrtheism. It comes-to-
be in Gods overall framework and becomes, cr routc, more divine.
Te actual history of religion began with God the master and the
father. It ends with God the servant of love and the son. Iower and
domination is for the sake of love and goodness. Te father is now
there for the sake of the son. Te rst in God becomes the last.
God had to release the exemplication of the living matrix which
led to the coming-to-be and birth of the world if Ie did not want
,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Iis idea and spirit to remain powerless and without existential status.
As a spiritual entity Ie was free to do so. Its the worlds essential
nature was eternally predetermined within Iim, but its the worlds
existence was not; its existence came about by virtue of the living
matrix, this last being its the worlds actual primary cause.
Furthermore God did not create the world for reasons of Self-glo-
rication. Ie allowed its coming-to-be from out of love alone of
Iimself and of all possible existential variants that are potentially in
Iimself too.
In fact, God could have disallowed the coming-to-be of the world.
For without Iis doubly negative say-so i.e. it will not not become
the world would not have come-to-be. If Ie had taken this line
however i.e. opposing its release Ie would have condemned the
fount of all things [Lrs o sc] to an eternal tension and suering. But
God wanted harmony amongst the original Bcirg in which Ie found
Iimself embedded. Ie even wanted to liberate life itself from its eter-
nal thirst to bring about its own existence into being. Ie more or less
said to the matrix of life: pccco jortitcr [sin away as much as you like];
get a move on, get the world on the road [Hirous irs Vc|tucrcr]:
And come back when youve done it:
Te further course of actuality is the coming-to-be of the world in
God, the divinitization of the world not the actualization of God,
as heretofore. Iantheism, as a theory of the world, is false. But it is
the eternal goal of all timeless coming-to-be. A timeless coming-to-be
transformed into an emergence in time [crtstc|cr ir cr Zcit] [thats it
in a nutshell] along with a fading away, also in time.
rnrwcrrrn or sorrnznrrv r
1. Vithout a living agent there would be no evolution.
2. Te adaptation of the living and the dead, one to another, ex-
cludes the dualistic biology of Driesch. Together organic life and
inorganic nature make up Noturc [Drorg] itself.
3. If the goal of Noturc is to produce a maximum amount of forms,
each arranged along with their functions into a totality, and indierent
to the [spiritual values of ] good and bad, and even strife or mutual
support, then there is no reason to accept a spiritual origin for nature.
4. In the same general way in which the Logos realizes its ideas, by
appealing to the directional impulses of Noturc, so does the matrix of
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,+
life bring into the open its functions, through appealing to constella-
tions of forces, thereby seeking to arrange them and adapt to them, in
order to work on them, they, meanwhile, being never completely con-
trolled. Each function remains latent for every new species, or example
of such, to utilize, without its necessarily being handed down directly
from its parents or its generic relatives.
5. Te notion of morphological vitalism is not a necessary correlate
of the above theory, because it is a function not a shape which is
the critical element, and, in fact, each organ and each structure is to be
thought of as a functional eld, analogous to the elds of force in the
inorganic realm.
6. Te concept of purpose should be removed from all biological
considerations. In the rst place, we cannot speak of a separation [in
most, if not all, living organisms] between a representation and an act
of will. Secondly, [the critical spur to any action is] feeling the values,
and [if there is] purpose [it] comes after such an event, and judgement
[if that comes into it] even later. Tirdly, matters proceed by way of
orientation towards a goal and this involves the whole organism.
7. Functional habits as Roux conceived them must be distin-
guished from a functional rhythm. Te former inuence the size of
an organ relative to its neighbours, the latter actually determines the
shape and qualities of a structure. Overall, except for inorganic matter
and energy or the collection of functions, which guarantee a unity
of achievement, t|crc is ro t|ir c|cmcrt: no entelechy, as in Drieschs
works, or Aristotles, is anywhere involved.
rnrwcrrrn or sorrnznrrv rr
1. In the same way as the matrix of life learns as it goes about bringing
forth i.e. it has a sort of pan-organic memory so does the origi-
nally, undierentiated, divine Logos learn from the history of its own
past achievements.
2. In the cosmopolitan and world-historical participation of the hu-
man race, human spirit acquires structures, which thereafter take on a
living and active role. Tese structures are also taken up into the divine
spirit, which then utilizes them to direct and steer Noturc to realize its
[spirits] own projects.
,a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
rnrwcrrrn or sorrnznrrv rrr
Further examples are: 1) the unity of time and space and their interac-
tion; 2) the temporal, reciprocal dependence of events in the realm of
force impulses and those in the sphere of fantasy; 3) the lawfulness of
form-building in space; and 4) the nitude of the world.
Tere are, furthermore, principles of solidarity to be found between
God and world, spirit and Noturc, and across the various social group-
ings in human interaction over history.
rznr a rnn coxrwo-ro-nn or rnn vonrn
cowrrwuous cnnzrrow
Te world, as the love of God, is at each moment newly made corpore-
al from the eternally available raw material of Noturc, according to the
ideas and values imposed on this last by divine spirit. It is not strictly
a continuous creation on the part of this spirit, but rather a [continu-
ous] release and arrangement of what is being produced by divine Eros
out of the material of Noturcs fantasy. Tere is no [unique] temporal
creation of the world, therefore, because any point of absolute time is
identical to any other point of time, in respect of what is happening by
way of divine inuence on the above material. Te world, moreover, is
not co-original with God, although intrinsically connected with the
eternal tension and relaxation of this tension, which is part of Gods
nature. Vhether I say that the world is being produced now, or yester-
day, or tomorrow, or was produced however many thousands of years
ago that you like, amounts to the same thing. It is like asking where
a stream of water starts the water here being [a metaphor for the]
world when the water has but an eternal source in the Godhead.
Te worlds sempereternality is only a symbolic image for the [actual]
eternity of the divine Suostorcc. Time has no beginning, because any
beginning presupposes time itself and its contents. It can, however, be
said to have an origin.
It is only with the complete neutralization of the tension [in the
absolute Suostorcc] that the world becomes wholly immanent in God.
Better put, the world is consumed [vcrzc|rt] by God, in a process
whereby the intrinsic contrasts within God are erased in favour of the
self-realization of God Iimself. Even though the world has no begin-
ning but has an origin it does have an end, or rather a re-turn
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,,
[Rc|sprurg]. Te end is the end of time, as a form of production,
and the origin [Ur-sprurg] stands in direct opposition to the re-turn
[Rc|-sprurg].
Strict theism cannot admit the notion of a continuous creation, be-
cause that would mean that the maintenance and creation of a world
amounted to the same thing which it cannot accept and it would
also mean that any unique temporal creation of the world was wrong.
Furthermore, theisms separation of primary from secondary causes
would collapse. Te theory of continuous creation also requires the re-
jection of any notion of matter, in the form of some purely passive sort
of stu which God created in the beginning. In fact, any theism with-
out such notion of matter is inconceivable, because it is such matter,
which bestows substantiality on the world, in addition to, and outside
of, God. Tis makes Berkeley, for example [who denied there was such
matter], a Gnostic. But if all matter is only an ideal image of force,
then the substantial force must be part of the Godhead too indeed
its second attribute. It is not spiritual-being, to be sure, but it is Noturc
being. Furthermore, if matter is only a variable measure within the
eld of forces, then even the physical world is only the embodiment
of the divine Noturo| elds of forces. And if there is no sustained
absolute material substance in accord with the ndings of recent
physics then there cannot be a separate world-substance distinct
from the divine substance itself which God created at some point.
All existing entities in the world must therefore be potentially in God,
without Gods needing to have ever been in the world nor the worlds
needing to have ever been already actually in God.
In my scheme the supposed secondary causes of things are not con-
ated with primary causes, but that is because the eternally continuous
production is rot a continuous crcotior but only a rc|cosc. Indeed the
notion of secondary causes is quite essential to the scheme of things,
because, without them, even God, in his spiritual capacity, cannot ex-
clusively determine the ecacy of anything, but Ie must still have a
potential ecacy, by which Ie can inuence things by holding up Iis
own idea and value. Te secondary causes in this scheme of mine are
thus the occasional causes for the primary cause of spirit to appeal to
even though they are also part of the Godhead itself in the form of
its Noturo| attribute.
, rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Te principle no more causation, no more eect applies uncon-
ditionally for all spiritual issues, conditionally for all biological mat-
ters, but does not apply to mechanical versions of things.
Te world is not a free creation of divine spirit. From nothing there
ensues only nothing, and God, as spirit, lacks any positive will or uni-
versal power. Moreover, the world is just as little an eect of a blind
declaration of divine will. Divine will is only the potential to inhibit
the second attribute [Noturc]. God is responsible for the cxistcrcc of
the coming-to-be of the world, because Ie let it happen, but Ie is
not responsible for u|ot actually exists. Neither a no-strings-attached
concern on Iis part for what might happen, nor Iis self-glorication,
account for the inner reason for the coming-to-be of the world. Even if
God wanted to realize Iimself or realize Iis own substance which
Ie might want to do to give some embodiment to Iis love of Iis own
image Ie simply could not do this unless Ie also released value-
neutral Noturc, which also involves setting in train all sorts of good
as well as evil events. Ie had to take a big risk about the world [Lr
ris|icrtc ic Vc|t] in order to become what was laid down in the im-
age of Iis love. God did not require that the world would reect any
perfection, all-knowingness or all-goodness in respect of Iimself; Ie
was quite happy that Ie was in some way realized. Te basic reason
for this is that God, in Iis spiritual mode, is oot| essence and idea or
devoid of energy to act.
Te power that Ie has is the power of being able to do something,
and this precedes reality in the scheme of things. It is the possibility to
bring forth reality.
But God, in God, is independent of the world, and this is something
that Ie is eternally: Ie is an ideal entity. Ie is also eternal knowledge
of everything at least outside of anything to do with Iimself, as Ie
does not have any original consciousness. But Iis self-realization as
a historical subjectivity and as absolutely self-independent was not
possible without the coming-to-be of the world. God therefore need-
ed the world and world-history to enable Iis self-development. God,
in short, freely condescended to allow a world to be brought forth in
order that Ie Iimself could come-to-be as an extant entity. Ie could
not avoid there being a world if Ie wanted to come-to-be Iimself.
In God there is a dynamic direction of what is coming-to-be, but
no past, present or future. Tese temporal modes only apply to a -
nite living creature, and not even to the matrix of life, in relation to
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,,
which time is the form whereby living forms are brought forth from it.
Coming-to-be is anyway only the passage from the non-existence of a
certain something to the existence of the same something. Even self-
coming-to-be needs an origin, because cvcry entity needs an origin to
account for its being more in a state of existing than not existing. Even
God, therefore, is no exception to this. And, to sum up, that is why the
world came into being.
Aristotles God, which was in every way perfect, had at least the con-
sequence that it did not need to create a world. It had no will to do
this because it was purely determination and thought [Bcstimmt|cit
ur Gcor|c].
Technology has its meta-technology. If I took the world as the
work of an all-wise, all-good and almighty God, I wouldnt even dare
breathe, never mind try to change it, in case I caused any damage to
the achievement of such a lofty and holy person through my improper
actions.
sunsrzwcn zwn vonrn
All inner properties or attributes of Suostorcc, whose innite nature
results from its eternal self-setting-out, are completely unknowable to
us. It is only because Suostorcc is not only the basis of the world, but a
primary cause, and the supreme good, and nal goal of the world pro-
cess and that such a world process exists that it came to be know-
able. A revelation as to the inner being and life of the Godhead does
not occur. Metaphysical agnosticism, therefore, if it serves to draw the
limit as to what metaphysics is, is quite in order, and, in fact, is de-
manded by the content of our metaphysics.
If the coming-to-be of the world is only possible because of the ten-
sion between the two active attributes, which functionally kick-start
things o, then the Godhead itself must be a coming-to-be, though
[diering from the world in its] eternally self-positing and atemporally
relaxing this tension. It is then clear that the Godhead, as a state of
such tension, must itself be reached in some way. Ve ourselves, how-
ever, know absolutely nothing about the timeless pre-history of God
ocjorc the world-process was set in motion. Nor do we know anything
about its eventual outcome [Noc|gcsc|ic|tc]. Ve are limited to what
has been arranged os a world occorirg to Gods idea of it.
,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
In fact, the entire world-process is only an episode in the eternal life-
process of God Iimself. Te world is a story, and one which is only an
episode in the eternal life and being of God.
Ve only know God as the foundation of the world. But lets be clear:
Ie doesnt exhaust Iis being and life by being the basis of t|is world.
rnn coxrwo-ro-nn or rnn vonrn rs norn
z rnnn zcr zwn
rnrnoroorczrrv wncnssznv
Te world emerges dynamically and necessarily from the workings of
Noturc, if divine spirit has freely waived its prohibitive option [scir
ror ror ot]. Tis option waiving is not at all necessary in any causal
or rational sense, because this act of release is not a required eect of
anything. It is rather tc|co|ogico||y required [i.e. needed for the future]
for the self-realization of God. It is denitely a creation of something,
but in an a-causal though motivated way.
Ve have to admit that the world-process is nite, and so is absolute
time which rst comes into being with the actualisation of Noturc.
But God Iimself is eternal as Suostorcc, and so are the activities of
Iis two attributes, and therefore Gods Suostorcc does not need the
world to be an entity.
Vhy has Ie not then eternally accomplished the teleological neces-
sity of the coming-to-be of the world. If Ie had done so, then the
world would also be eternal in complete contrast to its current tem-
poral nitude and would mean that any entity would be the same at
any point of time, and it would be immaterial whether time were nite
or innite. Our answer is as follows. God must have a way of coming-
to-be which is independent from that of the worlds [coming-to-be],
and Iis attributes innite when considered as a mass are kinds
of acts and [it is this fact] which makes any coming-to-be of anything
possible. Tere must, also, already be a coming-to-be [of something]
ir Go before any coming-to-be of the world. Te teleological neces-
sity which attaches to Gods refraining from saying no [to the release
of world-coming-to-be] is itself something which |os come-to-be, not
something which has applied eternally.
Teism can never make comprehensible how a God, without under-
going change in Iimself and without even a modicum of coming-to-
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,;
be Iimself, can create the world at one moment in time. It must resort
to invoking Gods inscrutable ways. It cannot show by what means an
act of creation Let there be world diers from an absolutely arbi-
trary and random act of the sort that von Iartmann talks about. Te
coming-to-be of the world envisaged in theism lacks any teleological
sense. On the other hand, von Iartmann, who is correct on the mat-
ter of the temporal nitude of the world as a process, has to assume
that the translation of a potential will to do something into an actual
act to this eect is haphazard and arbitrary, and totally devoid of any
teleological or value-charged necessity.
Teism, which teaches that the self-glorication of God has a teleo-
logical sense, but that the world is completely gratuitous [grotuitcr],
and is not created through any need of Gods, can neither appreciate
how undignied is the notion of a completely perfect entity wanting
to glorify itself, nor explain why, if God did want self-glorication,
Ie could not indulge in this ocjorc creating the world. Moreover, if
Ie were only to engage in this ojtcr the Creation, the theist is guilty
of imputing that God has occomc vain, and that any perfection ocjorc
Creation has become tarnished. Alternatively, if Ie is not interested
in self-glorication, then the theist [lacking any other explanation] has
no way of escaping the view that Creation is arbitrary and accidental,
just as von Iartmann said it must be.
Our view is that creation is an on-going historical aair i.e. it is a
creative and continuous development [and not a one-o business]
and that it includes the history of the world or the world os history,
and that it must have some sense for God Iimself. Only this way of
looking at it makes any serious sense anyway, and shows how signi-
cant the matter really is. Otherwise, creation doesnt rise a jot higher in
the scheme of things than as a tragedy or comedy which the heavenly
master puts on for Iimself.
Iantheistic ways of formulating the same matter are equally un-
satisfactory. For example, the world cannot be a logical necessity, in
Spinozas sense. If this were so, how come there is anything at all hap-
hazard, or even reality itself, neither of which pre-existed God, but are
the continuing product of Iis activity, even though they are for us.
Anyway, a notion such as Spinozas on this matter presupposes that
the world is eternal, and has been around for an innite amount of
time, either of which points is contradicted by what we know on this
,s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
score. In fact, any lawfulness of nature is dependent on the nature of
reality [and not the other way round, as Spinoza assumes].
Another senseless notion is Iegels suggestion of emanation, some-
thing he regarded as a dialectical derivation.
God is not responsible for what we nd in the world, even though
Ie does bear responsibility for its bare existence. Vhere should re-
sponsibility then lie. It cannot be laid at the door of a Suostorcc which
is supra-personal [ocrpcrsr|ic|], for the very reason that this is not
a person, and because there is nothing that it could be answerable to
or for before any person appeared on the scene. Noturc in the form of
roturo roturors [self-creating Nature as opposed to roturo roturoto
what is created] is not a suitable candidate for responsibility either. It
simply does what it does by strict necessity.
Furthermore, the spiritual dimension of God is not responsible for
the world either only for itself because it does not create the world,
but merely allows it to be. Te release, thus eected, cannot be con-
strued as making the releasing-agent responsible for u|ot the world
is, only for its being brought into existence. Nevertheless God, and
Iis spiritual dimension, is denitely responsible for the fact t|ot the
world is.
Could Ie not have avoided bringing the world into existence. espe-
cially so, if Ie had anticipated the sorts of events that were to crop up,
e.g. the Great Var of 1914-18. And, even if God as Suostorcc could
only come to Iis essential nature, and only achieve self-realization,
by the very act of releasing the world so that it could come-to-be, but
thereby allowing Noturc free rein, must Ie not have hesitated before
Ie gave the go-ahead, if Ie had anticipated the evil and wickedness
that would follow.
On this point we can make the following remarks.
1. God did not foresee u|ot [os Soscir] world-history would be
like. Ie knew, as master of ideas, that Iis potential had limits, and,
within the connes of Iis spiritual dimension, what was rot possible,
or, in other words, what Ie could stop. In Iis incarnation as Noturc,
Ie knew nothing. Te rst of these [roles], however, gave Iim a cer-
tain faith in carrying out his negative act.
2. God knew only what was impossible, but Ie did know that in
Iis role as Noturc Ie would be blind with respect to spiritual values.
Ie deemed Noturc to be innocent. So Ie must have known the likeli-
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,,
hood that Ie would suer. Ie even knew of the power which Ie had
unleashed in Noturc, and its innite goal.
3. But God did let the world come into being, and, when Ie spoke
out the words Let it not not-be, Ie simply resigned Iimself to en-
dure the possibility of suering, in order to achieve Iis self-realization,
along with a purication and harmonization. Ie loved the prospect of
what Ie could become, i.e. what lay in store for what Ie would come
to be.
4. Ie did not suer on the Cross only for all the accumulated sins to
that date, but had o|rcoy suered them in the hour of creation, even
before they happened. Ie wept from the bottom of Iis heart as Ie
spoke the fateful words, Let it go ahead, but there was profound joy in
Iim too as Ie forced Iimself to take the decision.
5. But God, in Iis spiritual mode, has faith during the world-pro-
cess that Ie will be victorious, i.e. that Iis idea will be victorious, the
idea of Iis love for Iimself. Ie remains true to Iimself in this re-
spect, and believes that everything can be accomplished through Iim.
Ie does not know precisely how things will turn out, but Ie does
know that there will be an acceleration in the good accomplished, and
a slowing down in the evil, although Ie knows that Ie cannot deni-
tively prevent a negative balance of these.
To believe in God means to keep faith with Gods intentions to
believe along with Iim.
nnrwo-rrsnrr |rws n srj zwn rrxn
Being-itself only has an eternal self-positing coming-to-be, and,
through this, has, purely and simply, independent self-existence. Its
innite capacity for being what it is to become is based on this in-
exhaustible self-ness [|crscitot]. Its spiritual dimension is not eternal,
even though it is outside time, but it is able to acquire something from
the absolute time of the world-process to enable it to grow. Spirit is
always outside time, and can only achieve what it wants to in absolute
time, and by letting whatever outline of an idea it has be taken up by
the temporal scheme which is under Noturcs jurisdiction.
It is Noturc then that controls the absolute time which is the only
process available for anything to be realized or for anything to come-
to-be. Absolute time is dynamically innite, but not actual, and that is
why the images it produces spew forth in a never-ending stream.
,,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
In one sense, however, absolute time is nite, as it pertains to the
particular course of events within one world, set against its innite
ability to sustain the course of an innity of world histories in addi-
tion. In each of the worlds that it does sustain there is a relative, objec-
tive time, which is relative to itself absolute time.
Relative time is contained in this absolute time.
Te world-process that runs in any particular version of absolute
time expires in God, whenever the two attributes become one and
completely interpenetrate one another.
Our world is therefore only orc of Gods story-lines, amongst in-
numerable others which could be based on other of Iis attributes,
the only restrictions being that they [the attributes] are in a state of
tension, and that they can pan out historically.
All of Gods ideas have some temporal connections, even though
they are built out of the [supra-temporal] spiritual dimension of God
Iimself. Tis follows because of the nature of the world-process, oc-
jorc which there were no ideas, and nor will there be any when it is
done, and the same goes for Noturc: all that will be left will be a con-
tinuing joy on the part of Bcirg-itsc|j at the harmony achieved.
rnnsows
Te rst attribute spirit is not something that can be called a per-
son. It has a capacity for being realized through its collaboration with
the second attribute [Noturc, Drorg]. Te existential form which then
arises under such conditions of realization is person [|crsoro|itos]. It
is essentially linked with life and a living body. God, in the guise of the
rst attribute, is a coming-to-be-person [|crsor-Vcrcr], and simul-
taneously a coming-to-be-world.
rnox rrxnrnss coxrwo-ro-nn ro rnn
coxrwo-ro-nn or rnn vonrn
Independently of, and before, the worlds gaining its existence there
is no absolute time. For this reason, one cannot ask what there was
before there was world. But, in the case of God, there is a timeless
coming-to-be of eternity. Ve o know that. Vhat we o rot know is
anything independent of the coming-to-be of the world in God. Te
terms beginning and end in relation to the world-process are mean-
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,,+
ingless, because all beginnings and ends rest ir Iim, and are only par-
tial processes. Te totality of the world-process is a consequence of
Iis having given its go-ahead [i.e. not having not given it], coupled
with the oces of creative Noturc, by virtue of its being based on the
eternal Suostorcc. Te world is becoming afresh at every moment, by
virtue of what God does i.e. continually condone its release. Te
world is not eternal but sempiternal. Only God is strictly eternal.
rnn oonnnzn |nrransj
rnn coxrwo-ro-nn or rnn oonnnzn
Te entity Suostorcc is eternal, whereas the existential status of God as
the identity of spirit and idea is only a coming-to-be. Te materializa-
tion of Gods essential nature is impossible without the co-coming-to-
be of the world. At the same time, without spirit, Noturcs o-loading
of its innite riches, in the form of fantasy-images, would be nothing
but ephemeral chaos. Noturc must submit to the ideas and values of
spirit, selected by spirit [with this in mind], for any enduring and in-
deed improved state of aairs to come about. Even the inorganic world
contains neither quantities nor qualities which have any absolute con-
stancy. Te more ancient the level that we consider in the scheme of
things, the more it resembles chaos. Te haphazard array of natural
things is a game played by God through Iis incarnation as Noturc,
eventually through Eros, leading to forms and beauty.
vonrn zwn oon
Te eternal Suostorcc contains a tension within it, which it tries to
resolve. Tis resolution is what comes to be the dual process of both
Gods and the worlds coming-to-be, or, [looked at slightly dierently],
personal coming-to-be [in the former case] and the life of the world
[in the latter].
Neither the coming-to-be of the world, nor the coming-to-be of hu-
mans as the highest creatures, were gratuitous, i.e. done for nothing by
God. Te cost of realizing Iis eternal love in the form of the greatest
good, and Iis needing to translate Iis eternal will into something
ecacious, was Iis having to throw Iimself, by means of Iis other
side Noturc into the absolute adventure of the world-process, with
,,a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
its high point being the coming of the human being, and, all the time,
not knowing precisely what might happen.
Only an absolute trust in Iimself and Iis spirit could sustain
Iim.
To be sure, what God could have done was to persist in keeping go-
ing an eternal tension between a powerless spirit and an all-powerful
Noturc.
But then, not only would no world have come to be, but neither
would Ie Iimself. Te eternal spirit would have had to endure a
continuous encounter, throughout the vast night of eternity, with its
[twin] Noturc in a state of tension, with no expectation that a glimmer
of light would be shed on the matter.
For its part, Noturc [without spirit] would have had to work for ever
for an opportunity to realize what it can do [with spirit] i.e. [trans-
form] God as purely spirit and, with the help of Eros, [incarnate and
elaborate] the world.
rnn coxrwo-ro-nn or rnnsownoon
Te Suostorcc of Bcirg-itsc|j does not become a person. Iersonhood is
something that comes-to-be by virtue of the interpenetration of spirit
and Noturc the only two active attributes of Suostorcc known to us.
In this way the directed acts of spirit acquire power, doing so according
to their intrinsic rank order love, then Logos and intuition, then will.
Te vital directives become spiritualized, according to t|cir rankings
Eros, vital Noturc, then the forces of Noturc. But all this is merely the
tip of the iceberg, as it were, compared to the rest of eternal Suostorcc,
which is capable of setting in train an innite number of attributes.
As far as we are concerned, however, the coming-to-be of a person
is connected to there being a coming alive of the world as part of the
world-process. It is further connected to the requirement that all dead
nature become a fully, working part-mechanism of the matrix of life,
and that this serve the realization of spirits ideas and values, in the
process of which it too becomes spiritualized. Meanwhile Suostorcc,
with its innite attributes, remains in itself, and in a self-positing sta-
tus, for ever behind this curtain. Te coming-to-be of personhood of a
part-subject of eternal Suostorcc is further only a curtain, an interlude,
in the eternal being and coming-to-be of God Iimself.
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,,,
coxrwo-ro-nn or oons rnnsownoon
God, in Iis spiritual guise, is not supra-personal like Suostorcc. God,
as spirit, is independent of Iis coming-to-be, which requires a grow-
ing interpenetration of spirit and Noturc, and is also impersonal, the
way Noturc is originally impersonal and disembodied. But with each
phase of the interpenetration of these two, a process catalysed by the
unifying function of each attribute itself, there is eected the coming-
to-be of pcrsor|oo as the existential form [Doscirs-jorm] of spirit,
and |ijc as the existential form of Noturc. Gods spirit or God as spirit
has indeed no existence, but only [as it were] holds sway [ucsct]; the
same goes for Noturc, which has no original existence of its own, but is
rather in a state of being thirsty for existence [rur Doscirs-urst].
Te totality of Noturc and spirit in their interpenetrations consti-
tutes the person of God; the partial, functional unities [|ortio|jur|-
tiorcir|citcr] of the three functions knowing, loving and willing
constitute relative persons or nite persons.
God as spirit only becomes a person in the course of the worlds
completion, a process which concurrently leads up to the enlivening
of God [zum Lcioc Gottcs, i.e. Gods coming alive]. In such an eventu-
ality Gods person is no longer an attribute of Suostorcc, but, instead,
personhood has become the existential form of the spiritual attribute.
Similarly, the world is no longer an attribute of Suostorcc either, but
has become the embodiment [Lcio|ojtig|cit] of, or the existential form
of, the attribute Noturc. Te divine spirit breaks up or resolves itself
[|st sic| ouj] into personhood, while Noturc [Drorg] undergoes a par-
allel dissolution into the living core of this person.
sunsrzwcn
Suostorcc must occupy a position above bodies, organisms and per-
sons; it cannot be considered to lie on the same level as these. Suo-
storcc can only be deemed something which is eternally self-positing,
and which, in the course of such simple self-positing, co-posits its
attributes. Nevertheless, this self-positing comes about through, and
with the help of, its attributive acts and activities, and that means that
Suostorcc determines and sets out its essential nature through the at-
tribute of its Logos, its value through its love of itself, and its existence
,, rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
through its eternal Noturc. Iersonhood is only something which has
the characteristic of lasting throughout such activities.
Only when Noturc realizes something that by chance falls within the
boundaries of what concerns an idea, and conforms to the direction
taken up by eternal love, is there a meeting of appropriate elements
impulse plus love and the makings of a protable act. Noturc be-
comes spiritualized in such encounters, while spirit becomes empow-
ered. At such moments Noturc relates as a whole with its images to
life, and love relates to the indiscriminate pouring forth of reality by
Noturc. All this is made possible in the rst place by virtue of the self-
positing of Suostorcc, whose background presence is guaranteed by
the eternal positing of the two attributes. Te ow of images [from
Noturc] is achieved by rules emanating from Noturc itself, whereby a
maximum of reality, a maximum of variety, and a maximum of forms
of all sorts, are kept up.
Tere is no question of any teleology or plan here. Noturc does not
have a plan; but it does have an objective direction and goal wrapped
up within it, which it realizes according to the universal law of trino-
miality [. genus, species and subspecies] in four-dimensional separ-
ateness. Iurposes only apply when spirit is involved, and are spirits
goals, or appraisals, conforming to its ideals, which it tries to foster by
inhibiting any goal-directed activities of Noturc which are incompat-
ible with their furtherance, and by channelling Noturcs energy into
activities compatible with them. In fact, human culture proceeds sys-
tematically in such a fashion.
Te reciprocal relationships between Noturcs various goal-directed
activities what is up and what is down in terms of promotions and
inhibitions, what is lively and what is dying do not take their cue
from anything we can call intelligence, but rather from whether an
impulse ts the bill for what serves the whole or not. If you break
something, a pot for example, the shattered fragments can still be put
together, but not because of any intelligent activity on their part, but
because they simply go together as part of a whole.
Even unconscious intelligence is a nonsense in this context. Goal-
directedness and stupidity are quite compatible bedfellows.
Te predominant sort of causality cause then eect which we
nd in the dead world is a fact of our practical interest and way of
looking at things. Te predominant sort of causality at work in the
living world purpose then means to achieve this is no less an illu-
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,,,
sion than the above. Teories such as Neolamarckism are just as false
as those making out God to be a mechanical sort of being or a creator
of a special kind of intelligent life. In the objective sphere, all we ever
have is a beginning, a means, and then a goal with side-eects, all tak-
ing place in an interchangeable, four-dimensional manifest.
Vith all this going on, we can see that our mind is faced with several
choices. In dead nature the predominant choice is: starting point
cause eect. But in the living world it is: starting point eect
cause, or goal then means.
In the second case, above, whenever Noturc appears to be follow-
ing such a law, in keeping with a functional dependence on alterations
along four variables, from which uc then select causal relationships
and purposeful means, this principle of regularity is not logical, but
only economical and technical. It only stems from Noturcs actual mo-
us vivcri, which is to proer maximum reality in shortest time. But
this is not something of which one could say either that it is good or
reasonable. Te ultimate basis on which technical intelligence rests is
the relationship between Noturc as a whole or the idea of God and
the love of God for Iimself.
sunsrzwcn zwn zrrnrnurns
1. Suostorcc is eternal, self-positing being, superior, in the scheme of
things, to coming-to-be and having-come-to-be.
2. Te self-positing happens while, as spirit, it is in a potential state
to love, think, intuit and will, or, as Noturc, it is in a potential state of
striving for existence.
3. Te self-positing can be either self-inhibition or self-disinhibi-
tion.
4. Te self-disinhibition is at the same time an original actualising
of love, Logos, will and nature: in short, it is the starting point of the
world-process.
5. Te result of this self-disinhibition is that God, as spirit and will,
actualizes Noturc. Noturc is thenceforth motivated or lured by Gods
loving image of Iimself, which constitutes Eros. Te concern with
this actualisation and motivation released both attributes from their
potential status. Te actualisation of Noturc as Eros was the eect
of the eternal love of God for Iimself purposefully seeking Iis self-
realization, and, at the same time, was a release of the temporal com-
,,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
ing-to-be of a world i.e. world-coming-to be or world history. Gods
self-enlivening goes hand in hand with the divination of Noturc.
rws n sr nwn rrn sr
|nnrwo-rrsnrr zwn nnrwo-ron-rrsnrrj
Tere is a sort of being or entity whose being is both in-itself or
for-itself. Te pcr [for] in question is the cause of neither what it is
nor that it is. It is rather purely and simply the cause of Being itself
[cs ist Scirsgrur sc||cc|t|ir]. Iowever, by virtue of the rst attribute,
Suostorcc is the positive and essential cause of God and the essential
nature of the world; whereas by virtue of the second attribute, Suo-
storcc is the positive cause of God and the negative primary cause of
the world. Ve can present all this schematically as follows.
One cannot turn our mystical notion of the self-realization of God
into an exercise concerning human history, as this last like the

Substance Being-for-itself
Realization of spirit




Will
condones Whatness -
(doesnt
determining
ordains
ordain)


Being of world based on an entity whose being is to be for itself


Essence &


Existence
whatness of world of world


Spirit Nature
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,,;
world-process itself is only a transition point in the timeless history
of what is absolutely real. Vorld history is rather to be envisaged
along with work as a spin-o of Gods own realization through
Iis person and at the same time as a symbol of this self-realization.
Everyone lives t|roug|, ir and jor God. Our task is to co-release Iim
from the shapelessness of Iis Noturc, to avoid making Iim suer,
and to animate Iim and ourselves in Iim.
sunsrzwcn zwn zrrnrnurns
Suostorcc alone is eternal, and only accessible to us through whatever
the attributes express of the innitude of these attributes, which is
re-mirrored in the world. Tese attributes are spirit and Noturc. Suo-
storcc itself absolute self-sucient being in the absolute sphere is
eternally self-positing in an eternal state of self-coming-to-be.
Attributes are act-attributes [A|tottrioutc] as well as act-Suostorccs.
Te acts can be potential or actual. But their potential being precedes
their actual being in the scheme of things. Suostorcc itself is the only
entity where anything actual precedes anything potential.
Because they form an eternal parallelism in Suostorcc itself, spirit
and Noturc could only have been transposed in an act of Suostorcc
os o poir. Eros, as the most developed attribute of Noturc, i.e. an
attribute of one of t|c attributes itself, motivated spirit to release the
creative potential latent in Noturc. But the impetus responsible for the
principle that a world be created was no-ones will as Iartmann
suggested nor spirit itself a view held by theists and spiritual pan-
theists. Only Suostorcc itself could provide the basis from within itself
for the conversion and change which took place in its own attributes
such that what was potential became actual.
Tis conversion and alteration was determined by means of a rela-
tionship between those attributes that are accessible to us and those
that are not accessible, hence the full cause of what happened is un-
known to us.
nnrwo-rrsnrr rs rnn nnrwo or coxrwo-ro-nn
It is quite possible to think of some entity as becoming something
or other in the course of time, yet rot through its own intrinsic na-
ture, whereas some timeless entity must always newly create itself to
be what it is.
,,s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
1. Bcirg-itsc|j is something that has already come-to-be, because it is
something that eternally posits itself by virtue of what it is. Vhat it is
within itself, that does this, is also eternal.
2. Vhat of it that is at rest, which is the basis for anything changing
that it sets in train, we can never know.
3. If Bcirg-itsc|j were the basis for the world, i.e. the cause of a nite
history taking place in absolute time, it must be construed as coming-
to-be, because otherwise the world would be as eternal as God is as
Aristotle thought or would be without cause. Te cause must itself
have become timeless, in order for any beginning of the world-process
to be explained.
4. Gods attributes are activities. Activity is, however, a coming-to-
be.
Objections to any of the above include the following. It is a contra-
diction in terms to say that something which causes its own self is a
primary cause of anything; surely, a cause must be something which
precedes its eect, or else it must be something which is identical with
its consequence. Against this objection, I would say that: 1)) this ap-
plies only to temporal entities; and 2) the identity A = A is only a lim-
iting case of the usual cause and eect relationship. An organic entity
must preserve itself in order to be what it is. Te idea of absolute in-
dependence contains absolute freedom within this very notion. Only
something which allows its existence and nature to remain as formal
attributes of itself is absolutely free and independent.
Everything looks as if it is at rest at rst glance; but everything even-
tually reveals itself as coming-to-be. Tere is an atemporal coming-
to-be in the case of mathematics. And strict continuity guarantees
coming-to-be.
Under the conditions governing panentheism [the doctrine which
asserts that God is coming-to-be] one has to understand the following
about God: 1) Ie is eternally on a higher plane to that on which the
being of the world lies; 2) there are many worlds in their own time; 3)
the world is a manifestation of some eect, but not something that is
detached from its cause, as it would be if it were transcendent; and 4)
the world is continually created, though, from our point of view, in a
negative way, and as an emanation.
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,,,
rnn snrr-nnzrrzzrrow or oon
Suostorcc is being, purely and simply; furthermore, it is what unies
every other sort of being. It is incontrovertible being, whose non-being
can neither be, nor be contemplated. It is something which any be-
ing has, and is something that just cannot not be. Even if some entity
is no more, Suostorcc does not just disappear, as it is also something
above both being and essences. If one holds that the value of some-
thing is connected with the nature and existence of that something,
then Suostorcc is also something over and above values. It is even above
unity and multiplicity. It is metalogical, metamathematical and meta-
dynamic, and is the place where opposites and the highest categories
of anything co-incide. It can neither be thought, nor seen, nor felt.
Only through two of its attributes, which do have an expression in the
world and for us, can some glimmer of it be indirectly transmitted. It
is, itself, above space and time, and it is transcendent to all nite and
innite things, and even to anything immanent.
As the eternal essence of what spirit is, it is an crs pcr sc [something
for itself ], and, as Noturc, it is its own cause. In relation to the be-
ing of Suostorcc itself, the two attributes have to do with its timeless
coming-to-be. Tey are the two sides of the same act involved in Suo-
storccs self-positing. Suostorcc thus causes itself, and causes all other
subjects [and matters].
Suostorcc posits itself through its eternal armation of its own
values, by virtue of its eternal love, its self-orientated thinking, and
its self-directed willing the triad here constituting it as an entity
for itself. Its self-realization is taken care of through another of its
attributes Noturc. Tis last also has a three-fold role whereby its
component Eros sees to its self-procreation, its dynamism sees to its
self-materialization, and its fantasy sees to its self-qualication. No-
turc and spirit are connected by essential necessity in Suostorcc, and
can only work as a functional unit.
A cause which causes itself would be a logical impossibility if one
considered Suostorcc in isolation from its attributes, and it would also
look the same way if one treated such a cause as the origin of being
rather than as a timeless coming-to-be. Vhereas, as a coming-to-be,
the determinations of the two attributes of Suostorcc and their mutual
relationship are such that t|cir essences do not come-to-be; their es-
sences continue to contain logically the entire Suostorcc, as the objec-
,oo rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
tive concept of its signs. An attribute is not a property or an activity. It
is a peculiar relationship which the attribute has to Suostorcc which is
the key to its nature. Each attribute contains Suostorcc in a state of log-
ical immanence, Suostorcc meanwhile being the bearer of the attribute,
not as an unknown X which has some sort of nature beyond whatever
the attribute has, but as the unier of the multiplicity of attributes.
oons vrrr
All possible causality between spirit and life does not come in the form
of interaction, but as a setting-in-train or not setting-in-train of life.
Te ecacy which the will possesses is therefore only an ecacy of
being able to inhibit something, for, when it allows something to hap-
pen, the will can only approve whatever events are being striven for by
life, without being in any position to alter them, or even to eect them.
Tis applies to any willing which originates with spirit. Teism is
wrong to maintain that the will has primarily a positive nature, and to
believe in its creative power. Schopenhauer confused will with Noturc,
and denied it any separate characteristics. Iartmann also put it at the
origin of things, and made it blind. But will is only the conscious cor-
relate of the ecacy of the entire spirit, which, as such, is only a front
for how a mixture of entities and activities idea, value, inner mean-
ing, approval and negation can have their say. In fact, without this
remonstrating on their behalf, Noturc would anyway remain a mere
potential. Aristotle and Iegel denied that God had any will at all.
rsvcnornvsrczr vnnsus woo-rsvcnrc
Te human spirit is made up of various sorts of participations in
things. It is quintessentially a set of act-intentions, which, if and when
they are ever carried out, are self-regulated, and are independent and
underivable from anything biological whether psychic or physical
and yet whose form and laws do correspond to something that exists.
Each actual carrying out of one of their repertoire of acts is indepen-
dent from any vital-psychic or physiological inuence, although these
have a parallel correspondence with the acts. All activity and energy
which is used up in the execution of one of these acts has to come from
life-energy, ie. drive-energy.
God ceases to have any inuence on the physical body, although is
responsible for its actualisation by activating Noturc itself, without
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,o+
which act even God would never see any of Iis possible thoughts
emerge into the light. Even the pure act itself does not possess any
intrinsic power and force. Te world and world-history are the co-
determinations of divine thinking, loving, intuiting and willing. Tey
are the life of God, which latter is no less realized by the divine, spiri-
tual self-activity, than are the same mental characteristics in a human
being.
In addition, divine spirit gains experiences during the course of the
work it set in train, experiences which it never had originally.
Inside the world, as set going by Gods love, there obtains a strictly
unequivocal parallelism. Te elements of this appear to our conscious
experience to be uit|out any parallel elsewhere, but this is not so. It is
only the diverse selection order which is available at a supra-conscious
and reective level [Oocr-Bcuusstscir o|s Rccxpsyc|isc|cs] which cre-
ates the illusion that there is a physical side to things without a psychic
parallel, or a psychic side alone to anything, and hence the appearance
of an interaction between the two.
Only the formal-mechanistic level of being has no corresponding
psychic parallel, but then it is not real anyway.
Te divine Suostorcc personalizes itself in the course of the inter-
acting activities of its two attributes. It is therefore correct to say that
theism is [at least] one goal of the divine coming-to-be. Divine spirit
is eective only within the unied conditions of a person. But it is not
something emanating from person [Gods or mans] which eventually
turns the world into a perfect organ of divine spirit [but Noturc].
cowsnqunwcns or oun rnnz or oon
1. If divine Suostorcc itself is coming-to-be, then religious history is
merely the culmination of nite spirit and its aberrations and delu-
sions. It is also the end-result of the theogenic process itself the tem-
poral mirroring of the actual process.
Religion must be found wherever its object crops up.
2. Vorship remains, but prayer as supplication withers away. Te
only prayer which remains is the perfect devotion to maintain what-
ever Gods will has decreed. Te empathic allegiance with everything
life throws up, in a Dionysian at-oneness with Noturc, becomes a typi-
cal religious comportment, not unlike a complete surrender to fate.
,oa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
3. To sin is to cause God suering, and if the human being is the
only known place [in the cosmos] where the coming-to-of God from
out of the Godhead and Noturc takes place, then any worry about hu-
man beings that percolates down from above from Suostorcc is
only an indirect way [Umucg] of regulating human historical aairs.
Because the objective sense of all human acts and attitudes is merely
the enablement of the coming-to-be of divine Suostorcc, then the ul-
timate meaning of what it is to be human is an external direction of
human beings.
4. One can only act in any sense e.g. love or know in conjunction
uit| God; we cannot worship God as a thing-like object. Te most
extreme waywardness of all is to take the view that there is an eternal
toou|o roso, a divine nothing, as it were, and throw everything into the
melting-pot.
5. God Iimself is not without internal support [Sttzurg] [i.e. Ie
is not entirely reliant on us]. But this occurs after Ie has become what
Ie becomes, and because Ie has incorporated into Iimself the con-
densed history of human beings in the form of a fourfold principle of
solidarity God, spirit, human spirit and life values. Religion is there-
fore essentially a cult for worshipping the dead and the heroes of the
past, or, put another way, sympathy with the untold masses of humans
whose lives were lived out beyond the zone that the illuminating torch
of history picks out Unknown Soldiers, and the like. Te dead come
alive, as it were, more and more so as the original tension of the origin
of the world dissipates as God becomes eshed out [gcuorcr ist]. An
historical way of thinking is therefore the revival of what has gone be-
fore, and the transformation of all its tensions into a cultural synthesis,
but, at the same time, the greatest service we can pay to God.
6. Serving God is not something to be done for reward or [for us] in
the name of God, but it is purely and simply serving God.
xnrzrnvsrczr cowsnqunwcns
1. If we admit the existence of orc matrix of life [A||cocr], the question
then arises as to how this matrix of life stands vis--vis Bcirg-itsc|j [Lrs
o sc]. Ve have said that the matrix of life cannot have been the latters
creation. Vhat occurred was merely the materialization of an idea, by
virtue of lifes drives. Any notion of creation in this context presup-
poses life, as well as spirit. Something more must have been involved,
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,o,
and that [something more] was Suostorccs attribute and its activity.
Even in the case of Bcirg-itsc|j, its existence does not automatically fol-
low from its having an essence, and there has to be a self-realization of
this Bcirg-itsc|j, brokered outside of anything solely to do with spirit.
All this forces us to conclude that there must be some reality-positing
attribute in addition to the attribute of spirit, in order that the essen-
tial forms ideas and values contained in Bcirg-itsc|j can take root.
In fact, this is a general ontological principle, and one cannot avoid
coming up with some sort of notion such as a thirst [Durst], or urge
[Drorg, Noturc], for reality in this situation. In addition, we have to
invoke something which will explain the undoubted accidental nature
of images, and it is that which I call fantasy. Te matrix of life, there-
fore, is one sort of Noturcs matter [circ Stujc cs Drorgcs], a relatively
higher sort of matter than that out of which the inorganic world is
made, this last being derived from centres of elds of forces.
2. Iere are some general remarks on Noturc. a) Te eternal Bcirg-it-
sc|j, which is eternally self-positing Suostorcc, is both Noturc and spirit
its two attributes which are known to us. b) As attributes, they are
above time above absolute time but they become activated when
disinhibited, and, in that condition, give rise to absolute time. Other-
wise [if not disinhibited] they remain as they were above time; any
act of spirit, for example, can only determine timeless essences.
3. Bcirg-itsc|j [or Suostorcc] is dynamic and all-powerful, because it
is so innite, and that is why it can give rise to reality and the acciden-
tal nature of anything.
4. As for values, at the level of forces, any values are blind to vital
goals, but at the level of the matrix of life there is a maximum of posi-
tive values.
5. Te general rule in nature is that a maximum of forms is achieved
with the smallest amount of means. Tis principle of economy, com-
bined with the principle of least eect [being behind the maximalizing
of forms], applies both to causal or goal-directed situations.
6. Te creation of images, and the determination of all the accidental
natures of things, occurs under the shadow of the essences and their
inter-relationships. Noturcs fantasy takes qualities as its fundamental
raw material. Te psychophysically identical qualities are the material
of Noturc, but, in this case, the qualities involved are unrestricted. Any
theory invoking a subjective nature of qualities is wrong.
,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
7. Temporal forms are functional unities not simple elements
and are set forth by Noturc. Te lawfulness underlying them is ar-
ranged from top down, although a higher function never actually un-
equivocally determines a lower one; it can only restrict it in some way.
8. Any increase in centres takes place from below upwards, starting
with the simplest inorganic centres of forces.
9. Te same goes for the intensity of forces.
10. Vhat spirit takes to be of primary concern its idea of love
and its value-preferences, for example, or the strivings of the eternal
coming-to-be of Suostorcc are actually the last to occur in the order
of temporal coming-to-be. On the other hand, what Noturc sets forth,
in the form of existential but accidental versions of anything, which it
takes for its primary concern, are the simplest elements of bodies. Te-
isms notion, that an almighty spirit comes rst, followed by a perfect
human, followed by everything else, is utterly false. Te world evolves
jrom Suostorcc [not purely from its spiritual attribute, and, although
actually from its Noturc attribute, this latter source is both condoned
at the outset and steered by spirit in every phase.]
11. Te matrix of life obtains the energy to fuel its manifestations
exclusively from the energy of the inorganic.
Spirit obtains its energy or power exclusively from sublimated
vital energy. Otherwise it is only a potential entity; directing, inhibit-
ing and disinhibiting Noturc are its repertoire in this respect.
12. Ve deny that any gratuitous creation of the world takes [or
took] place. Bcirg-itsc|j jSuostorcc], if it wanted to realize the God-
head, had to put up with the world. Te supreme goal of theogeny and
world-process, each reciprocally related to one another, is the complete
transformation of the original Noturc at that time blind to both vital
and spiritual values into an idea-laden, value-laden and purpose-
ful entity, according to the ideas and values pertaining to the spiritual
dimension of Bcirg-itsc|j; or, looked at another way, the realization of
the original Godhead, which at that time was only an essential God
[rur ucscrcr Dcitos]; or, in yet another way, the spiritualization of
the matrix of life and the realization of spirit; or, nally, in yet another
way, the unity and interpenetration of all dead energy with the matrix
of life, and the further pressing into service of all dead energy in the
interests of the matrix of life.
In short, we see in all this an indivisible process but proceeding in a
two-fold manner.
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,o,
13. In addition, Bcirg-itsc|j, by virtue of what is happening to its two
attributes, grows and matures in respect of what it is coming-to-be.
Innite spirit also grows in the course of the world-process, in terms
of the essences, ideas and values it is capable of exhibiting, both with,
and in, the actual historical spirit.
Te matrix of life also grows in its functional manifestations, and
this by dint of the births and deaths that it encompasses. Ve see here
that the meaning of death is precisely to be a part-process in the entire
world-process which is serving the self-realization of God.
14. Until the world achieves a state of completion, Bcirg-itsc|j is also
still incomplete, i.e. it is not yet God. As soon as the world, in the form
of a perfect organism, i.e. life, |os become God, then the Godhead
itself is realized.
15. Te essence of the human being a spiritual living creature and
a microcosm is also to be that creature or entity in whom Bcirg-itsc|j
becomes aware of its two attributes and the tension which character-
izes their relationship, and, in whom, and through whom, the most
immediate sort of coming-to-be of God takes place. Te human being
is therefore neither slave nor child of God, but friend and co-worker.
To be a human is a direction, not a thing [circ Ric|turg |cir
Dirg]. Te direction of life taken up by a human is in fact just as much
a continual humanization of God [Mcrsc|ucrurg Gottcs], as a divine
participation on the part of humans i.e. a self-deication. God is
only a human as a spiritual living creature writ large; a human is
a small God.
16. Te notion that world and Bcirg-itsc|j this latter being the
supreme cause and origin of the world should be made aware of
each other in the human being is common to the writings of Spinoza,
Schelling, Iegel, Schopenhauer and Iartmann. Tis becoming con-
scious of itself on the part of Bcirg-itsc|j in the human being takes the
form, on the part of a human being, of knowing God, and belongs to
the very essence of what a human being is. In short, religion is self-
consciousness in a human being.
17. In every sort of death, the organized functional arrangements of
the matrix of life, which are represented rhythmically in the function
eld of an organic body, return enriched to the matrix of life. Te life
of the Godhead grows with each death, most signicantly with the
death of an entire species.
,oo rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
In the case of a human beings death, there is the additional return
of his or her spirit back to the divine spirit to the extent that this ob-
tained activating energy from sublimation [of Noturc], and therefore
developed in the course of the life of the person so that there will
be a concentrated residue of his or her individual person-act-centre
in God, a point in favour of human immortality. Furthermore, a hu-
mans death will contribute all the more to Gods self-realization if
the human being let drive and spirit interpenetrate in their life-time.
Te immortality at issue here is nite, what Goethe called relative,
aristocratic immortality, as the immortality does not get taken up by
Suostorcc itself.
18. All nite creatures, therefore, orc, |ivc, t|ir| and oct ir, uit|,
t|roug| and jor God.
Ir summory, the Suostorcc, which is the basis of the world, has two
attributes spirit and life. Spirit realizes itself in the form of a person;
life in the form of organisms. Its [Suostorccs] coming-to-be consists
of the spiritualization of life with the critical movement being from
below to above and the enlivening or realization of spirit with the
critical movement here being from above to below. Gods will is only
a not saying no, and is not a commandment. For these reasons, the
spiritual Divinity is not responsible for the world, because its power
was purely of a negative kind. Moreover, the [metaphysical impasse
one comes up against in considering the notion] out of nothing is
avoided, because creative Noturc creates what it creates from out of
itself. Noturc, the principle of realization, is in itself beyond good and
evil, beyond good and bad.
7 Q lcory oj t|c Couscs oj Lvcryt|irg ,o;
67
Schematically, we can portray the situation as follows.

Unknown
attributes

Attribute 1


Love ! being-of-value

Essence

Being-itself

God in
God
Intellectual
intuition


What something is
" Logos Will ! release of
existence
pure intuition or condoning
existence




!
Spirit

Supra-personal
Substance

Attribute 2


Eros





Empirical concept Drive
Fantasy Positive reality factor
Qualities Quantity









Life drive
! Life
Death
drive


s
suvvrrrwaznv nrzns
suznv
C
ontrary to the false theory that there is a complete indepen-
dence between the appropriate mental act that gives us some-
thing or the essence of that something or the fact that this
something exists, a philosophical position that crops up in a variety
of guises, we teach that these three elements are inextricably bound
together [i.e. mental act, essence and existing entity]. Te essence of
something is only in the mental unity of the idea of that something
and its Urp|oromcr [its original manifestation as a living image],
along with the corresponding acts which give these; alternatively, we
can consider the essence as an intellectual intuition of something that
is actually in the mind of the Lrs o sc [the absolute Being]. Further-
more, we hold that to each existing entity there belongs an essence,
which is exemplied through this existing entity, and that for each es-
sence there is [necessarily] some existing entity. Tere are no essences
or values [adrift] in themselves, if in themselves is taken to mean that
any mental act which reveals these is secondary and consequent on
their original independence of this act, i.e. that act and essence are on-
tically independent one from another. Tis formulation of matters is
counter to the views of Bolzano, Iusserl, Linke and Iartmann alike.
It is the bulwark of our philosophy against all Ilatonist views. Te sec-
ond principle [that each essence necessarily entails an existing entity]
is contrary to all forms of philosophical idealism, and therefore against
all theories which proclaim that an existing object is a consequential
being of some thought to this eect: whether this thought be a judge-
ment as to somethings existence or an identication with its supposed
object is immaterial to the thrust of this [false] argument; Rickert and
Iusserl went down this road.
,;o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
If one does not realise that access to reality, on the one hand, and es-
sences, on the other hand, are quite separate, and that for one or other
to be given this requires a radical shift in our mental attitude, then one
simply cannot appreciate that both of these [reality and essences] are
but the same matter seen in a dierent way and at the same time. In
fact, the [blinkered] person we are criticizing would be led to assume
that there must be an absolute and pre-existing duality between the
actual being of anything and the objectively available being of it [for
humans], and that this duality is independent of anything to do with
any mental act which could bring either to light. Furthermore, anyone
who held this view would be forced to maintain that extant things are
in some way attached to a realm of essences which would still exist or
still hold sway even if the actual world we live in were no more, and
would have to maintain that this realm was the repository of truth
before anything actually existed; whether the truth of all this were
God-based, or in-itself , or independent from any communally-based
mental disposition, would be irrelevant to the matter in question. Te
same person [whom we consider on the wrong general path] might
turn to Aristotle and claim that the essence of something was inher-
ently attached to the thing, as a potentiality to this eect, whereby it
somehow caused the form to arise. Such an invocation falls at be-
cause it ignores the fact that there are two sorts of human acts [we
might call them vital and mental] one to do with the drives of the
living, human being, and the other to do with the human being as a
thinker; the former encountering a world of resistance, the latter one
of objectivity and that the human being is that sort of living being
which can shift at will between these two, and, therefore, any notion
of a sensory world and a world of the intellect is merely an articial
consequence of our human apparatus, which cracks open the unity of
the actual world.
But any such solution as the above where the essence of some-
thing is deemed either to be inherently invested in it or to precede it in
some way does not do justice to the actual relationship which holds
between the essential nature of something and an accidental version
of something, nor to the dierent sorts of knowledge which pertain
to drive-based imagistic perception, to grasping the existence of some-
thing, and to completely knowing the essence of something. Let us
begin with the last of these.
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,;+
Attempts to formulate this issue so far are littered with errors. For
example, because the focus of the inquiry is an independent object,
something that remains identical [over time and across space], the in-
quirer feels obliged to assume that there must be an independent sort
of being to essences. Such a conclusion is completely unwarranted.
Te objectivity of an object, and its independence or otherwise from
a knower, tells us nothing about the actual being of an object. If the
existential status of a thing is abolished [e.g. in the thought experi-
ment we call rcuctior], even though the essence remains in this case,
it does not mean that they [the essences] were hovering over the things
all the time.
If it were the case that the realm of essences were made up of such
independent ideal beings, why then is it generally necessary for there
to be a passage through accidental experience in order that an entry to
the realm of essences can be achieved. According to the view we are
criticizing, this would make no sense. For example, can one really form
an idea of the number 3 without bringing in the notion of some set of
numbered things, or the idea of a plant without ever having perceived
one. Each knowledge of the essence of something must derive from
some original knowledge of an accidentally existing version. So, before
there is anything which is an example of an essence, there is simply no
essence of it, and, equally, there will be no essence of something when
that something has ceased to exist. Te critical dierence between es-
sential knowledge of something and inductive experience or observa-
tion is not that the former does not require any actual experience at all
in the form of a perception, etc., whereas the latter does, but is rather
that the former is in principle possible on the basis of orc example
only, whereas the latter depends on there being a number of cases and
the creation of an empirical concept. If the being of an essence were
independent from existing things, it would be open to us to know all
possible essences, not just those which have been brought into play in
the course of the accidental circumstances of our world acquaintance.
Such radical knowledge as in this scenario is impossible. Iow could
I ever know now some essential matter which will only rst come to
light in the future course of absolute historical time.
Te acceptance of the preceding line of argument not only leads to
the establishment of a static, non-developing world of ideas, but also
to the outrageous proposal, suggested by Iusserl, that ideas can be
seen, in the same way as perception lets things be perceived. Te fact
,;a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
is, that essences are only the means of grasping ideas and can never be
anything more than drafts put up by a mental apparatus geared to the
coming-to-be of things, a mental apparatus, moreover, with an inbuilt
tendency to serve this coming-to-be of things.
In that one can consider the essences in isolation from the men-
tal production process and living forces which gave rise to them, one
may well be inclined to talk about things in themselves, and indeed
Iartmann uses these very words in this context. Iowever, if one
does do this, one is then driven to treat these essences as if they were
even responsible for providing the actual sense and aim of all beings
whatsoever. In which case, they seem to be there not for the sake of
the world process whereby the latter is led and controlled but,
on the contrary, the world process itself appears to be serving t|cir
purpose in the form of examples and illustrations of the very ideas
themselves. Beckers remarks on Ilatos conception of mathematics are
germane here. Ideas, however, are far from being the meaning of the
world process; they rather only serve to guide it, and, in doing so, allow
the concrete being of the Lrs o sc to realize itself. Ideas serve a coming-
to-be, in the same way as knowledge of ideas fosters the cultural ac-
complishments of mankind and allows the world and everything in it
to be captured by us.
It goes completely unnoticed in all this that not only we humans,
but every creature capable of knowledge, would remain in the thrall
of such a world of ideas, without having any clue as to its orienta-
tion within it, and this regardless of whether the ideas themselves or
only symbols for them were grasped, and how much of the ideas were
grasped. By itself an all-knowing being could never know the complete
world of ideas fashioned by God that it was complete and that he
was all-knowing if ideas were independent from all possible acts and
existed in a realm of their own. Can one really envisage ideas circulat-
ing in some manner in complete freedom from the essential referential
acts.
It is moreover completely incomprehensible how this dualistic no-
tion of being which sets up ideas and reality [on an equal footing] can
account for the fact that ideas and their collective structure are valid
for, and only rely upon, reality for their very signicance. In this con-
text the so-called panarchy of Logos, which, as a matter of fact, is not
an extant thing, needs explaining. If, on the other hand, one considers
ideas to be an accompaniment of things, and fashioned such that they
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,;,
promote the coming-to-be of the imagistic realization of life and real
being itself as drafts or limitations of what can be, or otherwise con-
ceived as guiding concepts of the very coming to fruition of the world
then the validity inherent in these ideas as negative restrictions,
possessing ambiguous determinations, with partial and incomplete ju-
risdiction, and lacking in intrinsic power becomes all too obvious.
It is also easy to see that the human mind can only bring forth such
ideas if it is part of a collective mind [a suprasingular Gcist], otherwise
it could not give its world that unied structure and form, something
which the givenness of perception alone cannot supply, because this
last could apply in a number of possible worlds. According to the the-
ory we have been criticizing, however, there are only two solutions to
the position a proponent of this theory has found himself in.
1. Either one takes ideas to be the original causes and forces of the
actuality of the world, determining every twist and turn of it. In which
case, one must deny that there is any independent principle whatso-
ever which sets forth reality, or that reality has its own rule-governed
way of being. Vhat this boils down to is that reason has a valid claim
to reect what is going on in the world only because it, reason, has
created it, or is eternally creating it, whether directly so or through the
mediation of a will to this eect. Even matters of fact then become, in
such a formulation, nothing other than matters of reason. Tis entire
scenario is unacceptable to us, because we reject the very possibility
that ideas have a positivity, or a power, or a clear-cut determination,
vis--vis the world, and we further reject the attribution to reason of
any creative power or even any element of a positive will.
2. Alternatively, one has to assume an independent principle of re-
ality along with its own rule-governedness. But, in this case, it then
becomes completely incomprehensible how any such process might
lead to a corresponding idea of something, which leaves the realm of
ideas completely out on a limb to conjure up its own way of being in-
dependently of whatever comprises the reality principle. Tis state of
aairs in which ideas are supro rcm no less than the former case
[alternative 1. above] where ideas are ortc rcm fails to make the
plurality, content and interconnection of everything that is, in any way
explicable. It is a situation, moreover, even though it is supposed to
explain rationality, of a perfectly irrational world.
Te way out of this impasse is to realize that the needs of the life
force make the whole matter in any way understandable why, for ex-
,; rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
ample, this and no other idea appears, and in this or that phase of the
world-process. Tat means that we can understand not only how par-
ticular ideas emerge from the mass of interconnected ideas and from
the totality and dynamics of the world-structure. It also explains how
ideas are in part a product of the coming-to-be of the Supreme Being
and in part the progression of humankind. Further, it explains how
even the content of the ideas comes about, as a selective realization of
those ideas available to an innite mental and spiritual being, which
the life force calls for. Vhat is now virtually agreed these days, in re-
spect of the history of the human race, is that each era devises ideas
which correspond to the real tasks and the constellations of being pre-
vailing at that time, and this is equally true for the era of world-time
measured against the entire history of the world, and that includes the
chemical composition of the world and all its living forms. Te ideas
which a mental and spiritual entity brings forth whether this entity
is human or divine are therefore meaningfully related to its histori-
cal situation, and, in an ontological sense, it is quite easy to explain the
very existence of the entity we call idea. Reason itself is ontically expli-
cable [i.e. in respect of its nature as an existing entity] in terms of the
highest ideal and real principles of being and becoming. From the real
principles on their own, however, ideas are rot explicable, because they
are the very means whereby the becoming of being is schematised and
led. On the other hand, the determination of the content and struc-
ture of the world of essences in no way follows from the inherent logic
alone of a mental entity capable of thinking, but, in addition to this
logic, there is always required the presence of the constellation of the
actual image-producing capacity of the life-force.
From the above, it follows that it is unnecessary to conceive of ideas
as existing before and independently of the coming-to-be of the real
world, and, therefore, for them [idea] to have an existence, or a be-
ing, or a truth value. Tey are ontically explicable [i.e. in respect of
their nature] as occomporimcrts of the coming-to-be of things, not
precursors [or pre-existing entities]. As nite being generally emerges
at each moment of absolute time out of the Supreme entity, so there
also arises at each moment out of the idea-creating mind those idea
structures and, as a consequence of this, those individual ideas also
which are necessary for the guiding of the world at this moment.
Vhat is absolute and eternal is only the prircip|c oj icotior, which
sustains the external mind itself, but not its particular creations, the
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,;,
ideas. Te essence at any moment is only an abstraction of thought
and a potential appearance an entity with intellectual reference only,
and not an intuition. Tere is no separation of the essences from this
creative act.
rnnz zwn rrxn
From the above account it is therefore incorrect to regard the ideas as
standing outside time or as eternal, without rst specifying the notion
of time which one has in mind here.
Ve would like to show that the actual essences are outside time,
if time is taken in this context to be physical or relative time, which
is measurable. In this sort of time, the ideas are absolutely constant
and there is no question of any repetition of dierent examples of the
same idea: there is simply no exchange, no passing away, and no new
creations. All this does not apply, however, when we have in mind the
notion of an ooso|utc timc to which no space corresponds a time
in which the very history of the world takes place, where coming-to-
be and passing away do occur, and which is no longer relative to any
particular life. In absolute time actual ideas are exchangeable, though
not alterable, as ideas do not alter, and they are contents of the idea-
creativity of mind, and are not part of some pre-ordained eternal plan
or prophetic ability.
To give an example: I make a plan to myself in order to realize some
on-going project. I address the issues which are involved in bringing
the plan to a successful outcome before, after, or concurrent with,
the steps and actions I need to take. In actual fact, my plan will alter as
I encounter, and then adapt to, dierent circumstances along the way.
But there may come a time, or may not, when the plan is achieved
down to the last detail. In either case, if I review the plan, along with
what has actually happened, I nd that there is a history of what hap-
pened, or a history of what happened to the plan. Tese two histo-
ries do not run along the same level of temporality, but are on dierent
levels. Te planning of the plan was not itself re-run; the plan simply
came to be in me, like the ripening of a fruit from its seed. It came to be
in my absolute life span, not in my relative temporality. Ten years on,
an objective measure of relative time, on which my absolute life span
is projectable, I can look back on the plan as a historical event which
,;o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
has now become foreign to me, and I might even no longer understand
what it was all about.
Te same sort of process applies to peoples and nations as well. A
nation may have a vision of its future, which underpins its character,
its politics and its mores. Such a vision has its foundation deep in the
absolute time of its history. But what happens if a completely new
vision erupts. Te nation in question can then barely understand its
previous vision. Vhat we have here is a shared set of temporal as-
sumptions aecting what a nation does or strives to do within the
scope of its vision. It involves a certain attitude towards the future,
which a nation now has, but on a dierent plane from that on which
its historical time rests, because the new vision even aects its actual
history, including its traditions and the way its history is represented
academically. In both sets of examples what we have, and these are not
contradictory notions, is: 1) a subjective relativity in relative time; and
2) the relativity of a subject in absolute time. In so far as these sorts of
instances occur, the subjective sort of absolute time is an objective sort
of generally valid time. But this entire way of looking at things no lon-
ger applies if we take into account the relativity of time to the Supreme
Being. In so doing the relativity of a subject be it individual or nation
to the time of its ancestors falls away. In this sort of absolute time
that of the Supreme Being there is no recurrence of the same and no
reversibility of the past without which relative time is unthinkable
and this sort of time is simply not amenable to measurement.
In this absolute time we are talking about here, the very idea-struc-
ture of the world can undergo a transformation, making this sort of
time the crucible, not only for creativity, but for creating anew.
Te relative poverty and limitation of human reason consists, there-
fore, not in the fact that it only allows the construction of historically
successive varieties of an eternal world of ideas, but its poverty lies in
the precise opposite of this. It is that a renewal of the essences of the
world in absolute time is simply not an available option for human
reason, and indeed the critical problem facing us is that we are stuck
with ideas of yesterday and long ago.
If the world itself is a coming-to-be in absolute time, and if there
can be no essence without an existing entity, then even the very set-up
of essential structures must be a coming-to-be, a transformation and
self-unfolding.
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,;;
Once upon a time there was something called truth, but it was only
the manifestation of our clinging to convictions, a soporic for chang-
ing times. Now, however, our knowledge of the world corresponds to
Nietzsches version no-one is going to let themselves be killed for the
sake of their convictions.
Ihilosophy is not a perennial, whereas it uou| be such, according to
the assumptions I have been criticizing. It is not even trying to trap the
vagaries of time in an apposite thought. Rather what is written about
in historical philosophy is at the very most the world of yesterday and
even before that.
Vhen people say that despite the changes in our scientic knowl-
edge over the centuries we are still at root Greeks in our world-view,
that can only mean that, the above fact, the coming-to-be of an essence
in absolute time, has completely passed them by. It was by profound
necessity that Aristotle held scientic matters to have been completed
[bar our understanding of them]. It corresponded to his view that
all forms of things were constant stars, elements, biological forms,
ethical constraints, political arrangements, etc. Ie had no notion of an
absolute time, and even relative time was only the way movement was
counted, which is anyway an instantaneous matter. Ie confounded
relative time with its measurement, and absolute time with relative
time.
Ve, however, take the view that the entire matter under discussion
here should be treated in exactly the opposite manner.
To uncover the truth of anything depends on the stage reached in
absolute time, and the world process; it does not mean that one is
searching for something already there. Te world is merely a history,
and all apparent constancy in the world is relative to the subject caught
up in this historical process. Truth is dependent on the being-true of
the person, their self-gatheredness, and the creative base of things, all
of which vary according to the state the world has reached in its devel-
opment. All truth is therefore historical, but not in the sense given to
this by the school of thought known as rc|otivism, rather it is historical
because, and in so far as, the very being of what is real is itself histori-
cal.
Even the being of mathematical objects does not stand outside time.
Either it is to be deemed within perennial time, and, for example, 2 +
2 = 4 has to be perennially reconstituted. Or, it is rather to be deemed
,;s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
within historical time, where again it is constituted, and where it owes
its existence to the constituting process.
All actual being is not in relative time, but in absolute time. All ac-
tual being whether potential being and coming-to-be, or life and
mental activity is not identical with itself from one moment to the
next in absolute time. A = A is only valid for the sort of being we call
objectivity, which is completely relative to actual being.
Te theory that absolute being is at rest and absolutely constant
the Eleatic notion of the equivalence of thought and being is only a
form of wishful thinking, allied to the human and general biological
need for security, and is itself a manifestation of the need for control.
It was kept alive during the mechanistic phase of modern mathemati-
cal notions of all sciences, which were anyway based on a false view of
mathematics. According to Descartes, being is whatever remains con-
stant, whatever one can be sure of nding in another time and place,
and whatever is explicable from what is already known. Tese days
this way of conceptualising nature has even been abandoned by physi-
cists. Tink of the second law of thermodynamics or Ieisenbergs un-
certainty principle.
Te theory that real being is a coming-to-be is denitely correct, but
the forms which this being takes are not constant ideas, otherwise the
central tenet of [my] philosophy that existence, act, and idea are dif-
ferent but inextricably entwined would be invalidated.
A scientist might reply: Certainly the real being of matter ele-
ments, atoms and stars is time-based. But considering the millions
of years it has taken to produce these, the time scale involved is so great
that, in comparison, human life can be almost regarded as zero-time.
I reply: It is a question of dierent sorts of time, not of magnitudes
of time. All magnitudes of relative time are relative to humans exis-
tentially relative and relative to consciousness. Tey are therefore rela-
tive to historical time. If we were to somehow do away with human
beings, numbers would still remain, but no one would know what they
were enumerating. Tis does not exclude the possibility that within
the sphere of scientic objects they would retain meaning and correct-
ness. In terms of the absolute time of human history, however, they
would lack any orientation. A moment of absolute time would be able
to contain within itself all forms of repeatable relative time.
Te length or shortness of the time relative time that human
beings have been around on earth has no signicance in relation to
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,;,
their participation in the absolute time during which the Supreme Be-
ing realizes itself. All numerical measurements, which count relative
durations of time, are relative not only to a mental apparatus, but are
also relative to an arbitrarily chosen pre-existing similarity, and ex-
press only propositions of parts of absolute time, which whether zero
or innity remain exactly the same. Te panarchic superiority in the
regular retardation or acceleration of all pre-existing matters is only
valid within relative time. Already in the life process everything has
its time, and here it is a question of everything temporalizing itself
according to inherent phasic rules of maturation. Giving the absolute
time of repeatable processes a zero or an innite number has no eect
whatsoever on the absolute time of my existence and life.
Te coming-to-be of the Supreme Being in the course of the world
process is not unlike the way the environment, circumstances, and ac-
tions of a human being, make that human being into what it eventu-
ally becomes.
Te history of human beings is longer and greater than any of our
ideas. Te history of God is longer and greater than any of Iis ideas.
For these reasons, any notion of predicting what is to come goes by
the board. Vhat the human being can predict is anyway only relative
to life. Te sort of thing that life is itself is unpredictable, and only the
rule-bound phases are predictable. Te sort of mental entity that we
are co-determined by historical factors, freedom and the possession
of mind is absolutely unpredictable, and although the acts involved
in trying to predict matters end up as part of an absolute coming-to-
be, this coming-to-be itself cannot be predicted. Te same goes for
the decisions of our leaders. During the Great Var, for example, it
was rightly said that historians, particularly in Germany, were try-
ing to make sense of events, which were actually the consequences of
whirlwind decisions, as if they were the most natural consequences of
centuries of history.
Life and history give no clue as to their future course, but not simply
because our minds are not up to the task, but because of actual inher-
ent reasons to do with the nature of life. Life and history temporal-
ize themselves, and are not therefore in time the relative time of
the dead. Te Supreme Beings superiority in respect of mere mortals,
who can actually predict their existential dependence on this Supreme
Being, consists not in the fact that Ie can see what is coming and they
,so rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
cannot, but that Ie corrot see what is coming, even though Ie Iim-
self becomes everything which does come-to-be.
To give an example: the actual situation is something like the way
a good statesman proceeds without a plan, but carefully and with
intuition, following step by step the minute by minute events. Alterna-
tively, one can commend Napoleons saying to the eect that thought
has to follow the nature of things themselves and has no need of pre-
dictions.
Te category of prediction is the recourse of the weak, of the nar-
row-minded, of the impoverished in spirit, which man inappropriately
and anthropomorphically attributes to God and Iis mind. It is a cat-
egory whose illusory nature stems from pretending that what is in fact
post-|oc is proptcr-|oc. Te priest interprets everything which happens
as a consequence of Gods knowing wish for it to happen, and this ap-
plies also to philosophers like Iegel. All foresight, other than simple
calculation, is merely hindsight dressed up as foresight.
If there were indeed foresight, there would be no freedom and no
genuine possibility of any human beings being able to set goals. Iis-
tory would be the enactment of a puppet theatre, whose participants
thought themselves free, whereas in actual fact the puppeteer already
knew what was going to happen.
Foresight is incompatible with freedom and the independence of
human beings. It takes away the seriousness of the notion of the Su-
preme Being, whose very being history is shaping, and reduces history
itself to a masquerade.
Tere is no foresight because thought and reality are only one in
God himself, even though they are separate attributes of Iim.
nnrwo zwn rrs nzsrc vznrnrrns
1. Being itself is an ultimate entity. It is not only nonsensical to want
to dene it, but also nonsensical to want to derive it from knowledge
or consciousness or thinking of whatever sort, or to regard it as the
copula of the judgement of something. Kant went down this road.
Te above holds true because even the being-known, being-thought
or being-conscious of something are ultimately only varieties of being
again, in contrast to what Kant thought. It is therefore completely
nonsensical, for example, to talk about an opposition between knowing
and being. A correlate of knowing, in other words what all knowing is
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,s+
directed at, is the what-being of something, not its actual being. Tis
what-being is what is known, though so far in undierentiated form.
Another false notion about knowing and being concerns objective be-
ing a knowing through thinking or a knowing through meaning,
and what is known in this way is not being itself. An even falser notion
is that which contrasts being with consciousness. Tis is because con-
sciousness only reexively knows i.e. it is a knowing that knows that
something is known, as opposed to a nave or ecstatic pre-conscious
knowing and other preconscious experiences, such as that which gives
us the experience of reality. Consciousness is a way of knowing that
something is known, and is therefore a sort of being, a sort of ideal
being, i.e. a logical being without real existence. Te bare contents of
consciousness-of are therefore always only sorts of what-being, and
are moreover of something which is not itself made conscious, be it
psychic, physical, ctional or mental in nature.
2. It is completely false to regard all being as objective being or,
for that matter, resistance-being or real-being as the neo-Kantians,
especially Rickert, did. Vhat corresponds to objective being as its
polar opposite is the being of an act, in this case an act of thinking.
Corresponding to resistance-being is the will, and to value-being love
and feelings-of something. In all these three cases, the sort of being of
the act which gives the three sorts of being referred to is never itself
something that can become an object [i.e. it is not even objectiable
being and certainly not an object]. Te being of such acts has at its
basis the carrying out of what the act does. Te substance of the act is
the person, and such acts include thinking, loving and judging. Te I
is an act centre.
3. No less false is to contrast being with any of the following be-
ing-true, having value, being valid or having meaning. For all these are
sorts of being, and even though they stand in stark opposition to sorts
of being such as the existence of anything and to part of the what-
being of anything, among others, they are never in direct opposition to
being itself.
4. Te only thing which being must be opposed to is the ultimate
thought of absolute nothingness, by which we understand a state of
complete non-being, a state which we can further denote as an absence
of being itself i.e. an absence of anything whatsoever and not just an
absence of the existence of something as in the state of Nirvana
nor a mere absence of the what-being of something which would be
,sa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
a state of there not being something. Vhat we are considering here is
absolutely nothing, a state which is quite possible to have a thought
about in which case it is an object in which case such an object
cannot be denied. Tis notion is not to be confused with relatively
nothing, i.e. the not being there of one object in a situation where there
is some other object there. In this situation not being green is an at-
tribute of a swan no less than being white is. In fact for each nite
being-so of an object a host of not-being-sos would equally suit it. To
all ideal objects and all ideal being (ctitious entities derived from real
facts) for example the consciousness of one of its contents there is
a not-being-so that ts the bill. Not-being is in no way a bare predicate
of judgement or a sort of copula in judgement as all those who derive
it from a sort of negation take it to be, whether they regard it as a disil-
lusionment over a future events not occurring or as a false account of
a positive proposition. It is in fact an objective matter of fact.
If, as Mill assumed, a negative judgement were a mere subsequent
judgement correcting the falsity of a positive judgement, then the prin-
ciple of non-contradiction [i.e. X cannot be X and non-X] would not
be a true evidential principle but merely a denition or a convention.
Vhat this principle states is all of the following:
1) A is B and A is not B is false;
2) A is not B means that it is false that AB is:
3) A is B therefore A is not B is false;
4) A is not B therefore A is B is false and A is not B.
[or, in real examples:
1) Te animal is black and not black false;
2) Te animal is not black therefore it is false that there is a black
animal;
3) Te animal is black therefore the animal is not black is false;
4) Te animal is not black therefore to say the animal is black is
false and the animal is not black. ]
But the truth of the fact that A is not B can be derived directly from
the agreement of this judgement with the rcgotivc state of aairs. Te
relative non-being is therefore just as much a non-existence, and this
is an objective determination, and this is an objective determination
of the object. Setting aside the situation with regard to the Supreme
Being, a relative non-being belongs to each object that is. In actual fact,
therefore, the principle of non-contradiction is a relationship between
relative being and relative non-being.
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,s,
Absolute nothingness, on the other hand, though very hard to have
any notion of, is something which one should try to conceive, because
only through a thought such as there is something or, better, there is
not nothing, can one achieve a valuable insight into truth itself, in fact
the most valuable of all.
Iegels conation of the various meanings of nothingness is a gross
error. Admittedly, the being of the absolute nothingness has nothing
to do with whether something exists or not, or whether it has a partic-
ular nature or not. Tis seems to have seduced Iegel into putting so
much emphasis on nothingness. Being itself, however, has a ctitious
being and has its own nature, though no existential status. Even Berg-
son erred when he repudiated the notion of an absolute nothingness
and recognized only the possibility of a relative nothingness.
5. Te being of existence [Do-scir], what something is [So-scir] and
value [Vcrt-scir] the three sorts of being must be strictly distin-
guished. Te Supreme Being does not yet contain this distinction.
6. Furthermore one should not set up an opposition between being
and becoming, but only contrast coming-to-be with having-become.
Even becoming is a sort of being a way of being in which the primar-
ily given ideal whatness of something passes over into existence. If this
passage is eected it is then in a state of having-become. Coming-to-
be [Vcrcscir] is not the same as the becoming of being [Scirsucrcr]
as laid down in the future. Te reason for this is that there is only
a coming-to-be of the existence of anything; there is no coming-to-be
of being itself. Vhat comes to be is determined by what can be. Te
Supreme Being has not yet come to be. God, however, as an extant
entity, |os completely come to be, because each and every extant entity
has come to be. Te coming-to-be of anything therefore precedes the
existence of anything and is itself only subsequent to purc being. Te
existence of the Supreme Being is just as much the consequence of an
eect as any other existing thing, even though in its case this is eected
through itself, as a self-causal event.
7. A completely separate issue has to do with the dierentiation
which the existence and whatness of something undergoes in respect
of time or what sort of being something has in time. Tese ways of be-
ing we know as possibility [Mog|ic|scir] actuality [Vir||ic|scir] and
necessity [Notucrigscir].
Iossibility is what-being which precedes the existence of a concrete
entity in the given order of things. It is not to be confused with an-
,s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
other meaning of possibility which is to do with problematical judge-
ments. Te possibility or possible-being we are primarily considering
here is nothing to do with such judgements, which are concerned with
gaps in our knowledge of what some extant entitys cause or determi-
nation is.
Actuality is being, in whose givenness the existence of something is
pre-ordained [Scir, ir csscr Gcgcocr|cit ic Doscirs vor|crgc|t].
Necessity is being, where the existence and nature of something
both follow and are caused by the existence and nature of something
else.
Tese three ways of being are not equal in their origin. Iossibility
precedes actuality and necessity.
Te ways of being which these three concepts denote are nothing to
do with relationships between objects and our possibilities for knowl-
edge through judgement, as Kant thought. Tey are not even sorts of
knowledge or stages in securing evidence about something. If things
stood as Kant thought, one could sensibly remark: It is possible that a
triangle has sides of equal length or unequal length, or has equal angles,
or is right-angled, or has an obtuse angle, but as for me I dont know
which of these it does have. [Tis is nonsense because] it lies in the es-
sence of what a triangle is that the above predicates are constrained by
one another, whether I judge this so or not. In the case of necessity, if
Kant were right, I would have to review every single instance of some
matter before its reason or cause were to be nally deemed necessary.
As for actuality, we would be similarly forced to consider all present
perceivable instances of some matter to ensure that they were capable
of independent existence from out of the plethora of reasons, causes
and conditions which might combine to prevent somethings being in
an extant form.
[But in fact none of the above occurs.] Te principal division of these
modalities of being is rather exclusively into the threefold variable re-
lationship that an entity, its nature, and whatever sort of existential
form it takes, has as something coming-to-be ir rcspcct oj the order of
givenness which a potential knower possesses. Ve generally refer to an
entitys having the status of possibly coming to be: when its nature 1)
is determined, and 2) has [internally] compatible characteristics i.e.
its concept is not self-contradictory; but when its existential status is
compromised by a complete or partial lack of grounds for its coming-
to-be or else we are conscious of having to leave this open.
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,s,
Tere are instances of something with a known nature achieving
existential status without any grounds for its coming to be. One is the
case of an objectively real possibility becoming an existential possibil-
ity. Te other is the case of objectively ideal possibility becoming the
possible nature of something e.g. the true situation that each triangle
is either right-angled or obtuse-angled.
Ve refer to the being of an entity having actuality if its existential
status has become so, or come-to-be, and it is no longer coming-to-be,
and if it is capable of so founding its nature for a knower to know it. Its
nature is accidental [zujo||igcs Soscir] if the basis for its coming-to-be
is not given to the knower or is open to question.
Ve ascribe an entity the mode of being called necessity if we do
know perfectly the basis for its coming-to-be. If the being is ideal we
talk about the basis or the grounds for its nature, for example the
proposition that 3 + 8 = 11; if the being is real we talk about an ef-
fective cause.
Iossibility is not as subjective as is necessity and actuality.
ronxzr owroroorczr rnrwcrrrns
Te principle of the identity i.e. self-sameness of what anything
is; the principle of the incompatibility of an entity with a particular
essence having such-and-such a nature and at the same time another
sort of nature; and the principle that the nature of something should
have an adequate basis in another instance of the nature of the same
essence, for the sake of which it is so and not otherwise: these are the
formal and highest principles of ontology. Logical principles with an
analogous meaning are founded on them.
Te nature of all nite relative entities forms a system of reciprocally
determined causes and eects, in such a way that each nature of some-
thing can be seen as a cause and each as an eect, which attests to the
relativity of cause and eect. But this entire system itself has its own
ultimate basis in the Supreme Being, which contains the quintessence
of all possible essences, whose givenness in the form of cause-eect
relationship is presupposed.
Te relationship that holds between cause and eect is: 1) synthetic,
and not derivable from identity; 2) given and known prior to any sin-
gle instance of this relationship; and 3) in the case of the pure essences
something that refers to the original essence, whereas the contingent
,so rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
determinations of anythings nature are only based on and result from
the being-so or being-otherwise of entities in the here and now.
An isolated nature of something is never given. It is given only as the
starting-point or end-point of a cause and eect relation. Tis relation
precedes the objective point of time where the nature of something
appears and determines it. Tere is no principle whereby all possible
experience of objectively time-ordered matters is, as Kant thought, the
basis for cause and eect relationships. On the contrary, the ultimate
determination and presupposition of each particular ordering of mat-
ters in absolute time is the way life comes-to-be and, in the nal analy-
sis, the way the life principle itself holds sway. |ost |oc proptcr |oc is
again Kants fundamental mistake.
Te particular temporal order of before and immediately after
the mechanical order is only one of several essential ways in which
lawfulness can occur in absolute time, and is certainly not the only
way, as Kant assumed. Two additional ones are the teleoclinical and
the teleological ways whereby two natures of something can be re-
lated: the former is goal-orientated, where the causal primacy in the
before-after chain is reversed, i.e. after determines before; the latter is
purpose-orientated, where the primacy of cause lies in a supra-tem-
poral idea. Finally, there are orders through which each of two natures
of anything, separated by a time interval, can co-determine two other
natures of something, which can lie inside or outside the time interval.
Such cases are the opposite of the pull and push which applies in
the more general cause and eect relationship.
Because time is only a relationship concept of the contents of such
goings on and is otherwise nothing empty time is not only indis-
tinguishable bit by bit, but does not actually exist. Te unity of time
is dependent on the unity of life and on each temporal eect of the
timeless ordering of these contents.
Te nature of something A is a cause or eect of the nature of some-
thing B, if A and B are examples of two essences V and V1 which
go together in a scheme of essential relationships. Tis relationship is
reciprocal.
Ecacy, goal-orientation and purposeful activity all exemplied in
willed action determine the existence of things and events which can
stand together in causal, teleoclinical or teleological dependencies.
As the cause-eect relationship is formally given before the time
course of matters and the means of the cause are given, then the ef-
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,s;
cacy and the tendency for this must be given before any actual cause
and the eect of any ecacy.
It is on this basis that we can say that all contingent natures can be
causes or eects and that all contingent reality is in a state of continu-
ous interaction.
A real thing that was not part of the universal interconnected in-
teractions, which is underpinned by the very life force itself, which is
moreover a primary cause of anything and also a cause of itself, could
neither be given nor exist. For a thing is: phenomenal only in so far as
it conforms to an ordered construction of its intrinsic factual matter,
which then allows it to appear objectively; and is real only in so far
as it occupies a nodal point in the eld of forces which themselves
penetrate it.
Te unity of the existing world is the only guarantee of primary
causes.
ow vrrzr zwn zroxrc rnrwcrrrns
1. Te insight that there is no clear-cut denitive law in the sphere of
atomic events, and that an energy principle such as the Second Law of
Termodynamics only possesses a statistical character, are also of the
greatest signicance for biological problems. Te way forms take shape
in absolute time owes much to the vital principles tendency to proceed
along the lines of least energy expenditure, a tendency which is alien
to mechanical processes. In fact there is a whole host of principles of
this sort which are unique to neither inorganic nor organic nature, and
because of this we are led to conclude that dead and living nature are
basically the same. Tis does not mean that within the superordinate
dynamic principle which contains such similar sub principles as we
have discussed above there are not further sub principles which or-
ganic and inorganic matters do not share. Under certain conditions,
for example, there is activity at a level of an organism where eects are
produced in accordance with set temporal intervals, and without any
new energy or material being involved, and without any contribution
from lower levels which proceed along the lines of an uncomplicated
driving force. Terefore, even though the overall order of things is the
same for both the living and the dead worlds, nevertheless events per-
taining to the living state can never be analysed in purely physical and
chemical terms.
,ss rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Any such analysis of the relationship between inorganic and organ-
ic nature must be called metaphysical monism and essential dualism,
and underlies any empirical dualism which one comes across.
Te collective picture of extended substances and their lawful in-
terchange in a system of relative space and time would then be both
ico| and at the same time rc|otivc to |ijc. Tis arrangement means that
living bodies are not the same as inorganic bodies, as the latter are
or|y in a relative temporo-spatial system. Te proposed arrangement
also allows one to see that although there is an orientation towards an
ideal formation of things, the forms themselves are only momentarily
solidied structures arising out of absolute time and best understood
as emanating from the dynamics of the life process into whose param-
eters they have now been translated.
On the other hand, the inorganic forms physical, chemical, crys-
talline, gelatinous although not to be explained along mechanistic
lines either, and which must also be ascribed to the form-building po-
tential of the life-force, are distinguished from the actual forms of life
in the following way. First, life-forms are those which are primarily
temporal forms; they are not like inorganic forms, which are spatial
forms, and only a consequence of functions and chemico-physical
causes. Secondly, life-forms are established in absolute time, whereas
inorganic forms take their place in relative time.
rrcrrrrous, rnnzr zwn nnzr nnrwo
Te most recent philosophy e.g. Iusserls, Bolzanos, Iartmanns,
Meinongs readily accepts the categories of ideal being and real be-
ing.
But what is understood by the term ideal being. Tere is, for exam-
ple, a proposed variety of ideal being, championed by Iusserl, which
takes ideal being to be a proposition in itself or a species of meaning,
which is grasped in an individual example of it. Another example is
that of mathematical objects. Tere are then associated types which
have been proposed: the nature of something or u|ot something is
[Soscir]; the images of things [Bi|cr]; the pure essences of something
real; validity; values; qualities; even time and space themselves, by
some philosophers. Moreover proponents of such ideal being tend to
distinguish it from pure and empirical phantasy, from conscious expe-
rience or from objects immanent to consciousness. In fact, they tend
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,s,
to regard conscious experience as having to do with real being, and
ideal being as being just as much transcendent to consciousness as is,
according to them, real being.
It must be said, and bluntly so, that this separation of real and ideal
being is completely without any foundation, is unclear, and, further-
more, is completely arbitrary. Iistorically, it began with Lotze and
Ierbart, was then taken up by Iusserl and Bolzano, was accorded
great signicance by Rickert, but unfortunately then became even
more muddled.
My view is as follows. I deny in particular that there is an ideal being
in the form of an independent region of being. Instead, I maintain that
there is only: 1) a dependent nature and an essence of what something
is, along with the value of what something is and of anything real; 2)
a realm of ctitious objects both pure ones, and meaningfully con-
trived ones as in a fabulous world; and 3) real being.
If one wants to call 1) and 2) above ideal being, so be it. But it must
be made clear that there is no such thing as ideal being in the form of a
special sort of entity that actually exists; there are only an ideal nature
of what something is or an essence of something, and these are objects
of knowledge and cognition, and therefore a type of being relative to
an act [o|trc|otivcs Scir]. Tis sort of being belongs ontologically to a
real sort of being, and in fact cannot be separated from it. It is further-
more only separable in that it may belong to an intellect or a will, but,
overall, it belongs inextricably to a mental act-centre which is not itself
objectiable.
Everything which is not construable as the nature or essence of
something real, is, I maintain, a ctitious entity, i.e. something which
is created from human, representational thinking or phantasy activity
alone, and is not an actual object.
If one sets up a system where the nature of everything is duplicated
one sort in the mind, the other sort outside the mind such that the
intended object of cognition as whatever is transcendent to the mind
relates to the mind only as a picture, a representation or a portrait
would do, as Iartmann, for example, proposes then ontologicizing
ideal being is the only means whereby one can escape nominalism. To
take this philosophical step, however, means that you are no longer
of the view that what you are proposing as the nature of something
is actually part of the nature of the real object; it your proposed
being is instead an independent sort of objectness. In such circum-
,,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
stances neither a concept nor an intuition reaches the nature of the
object itself. In my scheme, on the other hand, it is the congruence of
the meaning and the image which allows the appearance of the other-
wise intrinsically undivided nature of the real object to arise, whereas
the real being of this object cannot in any way enter the sphere of our
cognition. Returning to the way of thinking that I am criticising, be-
cause it takes the separation between the meaningful nature of things
and the imagistic nature of things to be ontological, and not, as in
my scheme, merely relative to the acts and the dierence between the
corresponding acts involved i.e. thinking and intuition then this
makes what is meaningful inhabit its own sphere and anything there
be its own object, and the same goes for what is imagistic, which then
must inhabit its own sphere, but another sphere from the meaningful,
and constitute a world for the senses.
Similarly, Iusserl arrives at his notion of an ideal species through
an erroneous process of abstraction. If I disregard the real being and
the here-and-now status of a sphere, what still remains behind is the
red sphere of this shape and of this material make-up. Furthermore,
three reds of the same shape and same shade of red will stop being
three and dierent from one another if I manage to disregard their
spatio-temporal dierentiation and their status as properties of three
dierent real things. Tey are not still individuated under these condi-
tions, and nor are they opposed in some way to red. Te species red
entity is immorcrt to each concrete red. Vhat would be transcendent
to consciousness in this situation would be the sign of three things
threeness though not the number 3, and that would be an indepen-
dent ideal object. But redness would be immorcrt to the object and
existentially relative to it.
Iusserl fails to see that if the real being of something disappears so
does its nature, and if the nature of something disappears so does the
real being, and that there are not remnants of both in an ontological
sphere.
Mathematical objects are mental constructions. Te mathematician
Kronecker recognized something of this when he said that the Good
Lord made all the natural numbers whereas man made the fractions.
As for values, they must be existentially relative to a nite life, and
vis--vis humans they only have the character of a value relationship,
or of an ordered set of particular qualities, to which some goods or an
action or a person or a willing can belong. For the value, the existence
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,,+
and the nature of something are only separable in and through a men-
tal act, and not in themselves and ontologically. Tere is no realm of
values, nor are there values that no-one has felt or could feel.
As for qualities, the same considerations as the above apply. Tey
are either determinations of objects, or determinations of surfaces of
bodies. Colours only arise if there is sight, and sounds if there is hear-
ing. In the case of the Supreme Being, value, existence and essence are
attributes of a being. Tere must therefore be some ultimate evalua-
tion, if there is a Supreme Being.
Everything is estimable i.e. is potentially valuable, worth taking
notice of, and with some intrinsic dignity. But this does not mean that
everything is good or bad. Te realization i.e. the coming into exis-
tence of a positive value is itself a positive value, and the not coming
into existence of a positive value is a negative value. Te existence of a
negative value is bad, and the non-existing of a negative value is good.
Space and time are not independent sorts of ideal being, but cti-
tious entities.
rovn
Knowledge is being. But what sort of being. Knowledge must be ca-
pable of being expressed through the aforementioned sorts of given-
nesses.
If knowledge is a sort of participation, in which the knowing be-
ing has something, a something which comprises the nature and the
objective status of another being, then two denite conclusions can be
drawn.
1. Something must be given in a being, in so far as it exists, which al-
lows it to pick up what it intends to [uos os crs irtcrtioro|c giot]. Our
rst inclination is to call this an act. But what act can that be. Vhat is
it, that a being can command, that, so to speak, allows it to get outside
the skin of its own nature and existential status and exceed or tran-
scend itself in order to get hold of part of another being. Tis cannot
be another sort of knowledge: It must be whatever makes knowledge
possible, whatever leads to knowledge: Vhat is it that stirs a being to
know. Vhat leads to a situation where there is a participation in and
sharing of some situation going on elsewhere. I have long pondered
what one should call this reective showing of something [rcc|tiv
Sc|ouoorc]. Even if I did not know the empirical ndings showing that
,,a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
all knowledge is driven by interest, attention or love, I should still come
to the conclusion that knowledge is the most formal sort of love. Love
is therefore the very basis of the act of intending something, whereby
some being stretches out to another.
Tis means that love provides the foundation for every sort of
knowing and every operation which leads to knowledge.
Note carefully: Ie, who, like all Cartesian philosophers, starts out
with knowledge, has no meaningful handle on the above question. Te
problem of an act which leads to knowledge, which enables knowl-
edge to occur, is simply not even recognized as a problem. Something
becomes known or I know something or I have something are what
this sort of philosopher starts out with. Ie must bring love and inter-
est in to his account somewhere. But he is forced necessarily to say
that these are secondary sorts of acts which merely direct us to what
is already in the sphere of knowledge. But what if we wish to derive
knowledge from being, the nature of something, its existence, and the
relationship between them. If we deny the correctness of the starting
point of such philosophers i.e. that a thing knows something, and
that is that then the questions arise as to: Vhy something should
know something else anyway. and: what is the purpose of knowledge.
Knowledge can then neither be some original bedrock of givenness
nor an absolute self-evident value and purpose. Knowledge then has
to be deemed to be founded in that act in and through which a being
relinquishes its boundaries, and goes beyond itself transcends its
own very being. To know, furthermore, has then to be seen as resting
on a wish to share and participate in the universal and in a being which
is sucient to itself i.e. God. To share a mental outlook on anything
then does not mean to will in some static fashion whatever things give
to us through our love for them, but to appreciate that everything is
dynamic and that things actually mean what they can mean and that
they become what they can become.
I am not saying that I have single-handedly discovered the principle
of the primacy of love over knowledge. But I am glad that those mat-
ters which I discovered in the course of empirical investigations into
knowledge and the appearances oered to consciousness conrmed
the conclusion which I arrived at through careful logical investigation
as to what knowledge actually was.
2. Te second consequence [of the fact that knowledge is a partici-
pation in the nature of some other being) is this. Vhenever there is
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,,,
a possibility of us knowing what something properly is, and not sim-
ply knowing a selected version of it, as when our drives and needs are
paramount, then the love which leads to such knowledge must be a
love of such a nature that, in its pure form, it is self-referring and self-
interested. It cannot be dependent on whatever it is directed upon.
Tis holds for evident and adequate knowledge, as occurs in human
and animals, and for intellectual acts.
Vhat this means is that pure knowledge or knowledge of actual
matters of fact assumes that the act of love through which we have
such knowledge is not itself determined by the particular sort of or-
ganisation which the carrier of the act has.
Only where there is a setting aside of the needs of an organism,
whose drives would normally give a restricted sort of knowledge of
matters, can there ever be knowledge of actual matters of fact.
cowcnnwrwo rooos
1. Vhat Logos is is demonstrated through the essential coherence
of act and objective correlate, itself accounted for by the conscious-
ness-transcending nature of the pure essences and the unity of subject
and object. Te unity of Logos itself, its subjective-objective tie-ups,
is guaranteed by the partial identity of categories of thought and cat-
egories of existence and the continuous dialectical nature of the world
of essences, added to which is the pre-givenness of its entire structure
and the general validity of rational laws.
2. Te potential is there for Logos to extend its inuence over all pos-
sible ideas and essences, but, in fact, it does so only over those which
are humanly knowable or are already known.
3. Only those ideas which have entered our existence are graspable,
and only those which are available in our world and in the framework
of our experience are exempliable.
4. Te activity of Logos is set in train through love, the life-force and
will. Love also guides our knowledge of values.
5. Logos is simultaneous thinking and intuition, simultaneous act
and object, and this means that it is intellectual intuition and provides
intellectual archetypes.
6. Logos is devoid of creative ability. It provides limits and measures.
,, rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
7. Vhat is irrational is: a) all reality; b) all contingent natures of
anything, including entities in the ideal realm e.g. irrational numbers
in mathematics; and c) all accidental being-so of anything.
8. Iuman beings have immediate access to Logos, and, thereby, are,
above all, human beings in the rst place.
9. Logos precedes will but succeeds love in the order of things. It also
succeeds the impulse of the life-force.
10. Logos is neither force nor life.
11. Vhen applied to forms when the possibilities of alteration,
transformation and movement are involved Logos comes under the
inuence of technical intelligence.
12. Concerning the relationship between Logos and human reason,
Logos: a) lacks any separation between intuition and reason as it is
there in both; b) has no consciousness; c) is not discursive i.e. it is
continuous; and d) it lacks judgement, concept and conclusion. Iure
Logos is not technical intelligence, which is mediated thinking. Logos is
primarily wisdom, not knowledge.
13. It is subject to dialectical movement on the occasions when it is
motivated by the life-force. It rules but does not directly control any-
thing, even though it can indirectly control matters.
14. Te tool of Logos is the technical intelligence, through which
Logos ideas and essential forms are realized, under the ultimate in-
uence of the life-force, which underpins technical intelligence. Tis
means that Logos is subject to the constraints of the life-force and its
principle that the least eort should have the greatest eect.
lcc|rico| irtc||igcrcc. Technical intelligence is the most delicate in-
strument of life, and the summit of what it can do in this respect. Te
maximum of eect with the least eort is its principle and, in terms
of the ordering of values, what it works on is the useful. It exploits the
relevant motivation in order to satisfy the drives.
Logos and absolute time. Because it is Logos that sets out essences,
as limit-setting arrangements for creative possibilities and not as posi-
tive ideas prior to the matter in hand, and because they are continu-
ously developed in a dialectical manner, under the inuence of the life-
force and never without this inuence, its idea-productions do have an
indirect eect on the progress of the historical dimension of the world
over absolute time.
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,,,
ow rnrwrwo
1. In the inorganic world meaning is given in the form of sameness and
similarity. In the living world it is something more: it is immanent to
the individual living creature, and all physiological functions are inde-
pendent of the organisations unied sense. For this reason there can
be a sociological dierence between: 1) a word as a power in itself, as a
property and as the realization of a concept in the living community;
2) the central position of nominalism in human society; and 3) the
objective ideality of essences [in a third stage of human development]
along with the actual continuity of meaning and sense which we sub-
jectively tap into. All empirical concepts are biologically and socially
relative. Te same goes for conclusions and judgements.
2. All sense is understood; everything which meaning stands for is
thought. It is only when a creature has a mind that sense and meaning
can be anything more than the ideal nature of something, namely, can
have an existence. But the objective sense and meaning spheres
cannot be disputed. Tey cannot just be taken for some social prod-
uct. Each sphere is determined in a clear-cut way by the images and es-
sences, respectively. Te interest-perspective of our concept formation
is just as rmly established and is primarily a sociologically-induced
break-up of language and speech.
3. Te moving apart of the ideas even occurs in the Divine, under
the inuence of the life-force, which selects and constructs its own im-
ages according to where its drives take it. Nevertheless it is the Logos,
as a universal capacity for producing ideas, which is pre-supposed in
all this. Ideas do not in reality pre-exist any divine action, even though
the Logos does.
4. Any general concept is born through a combined reection on
the circumstances under which an image is perceived and the circum-
stances which lead to the very image itself.
5. Te Divinity knows neither law nor casebook, neither individual
nor species. Its Logos is intuitive, and the demands of knowledge for
itself and for action are not present.
6. In the same way as the intuitively derived image is the basis for
perception and representation, a concept and an image are at the root
of a relevant living scheme. Tinking and language are also involved
in the coming into existence of a sensory perception according to
the [neuropsychological] work of Gelb. In the course of development
,,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
there is always a reciprocal dierentiation of the perceptual, represent-
ing and meaning realms of a subject one from another. Te way things
run is not from perception, via representation, to a nal meaning.
7. Logic is not a rened crystallization of the various sorts of think-
ing and speaking. It is built up in parallel with the rules whereby act
and object establish themselves, and whose ultimate explanation lies
in the fact that human thinking is part of Gods way of thinking. Te
parallelism is in the end an identity of the two, in the same way as the
life force and the images are one and the same, and drive and percep-
tion are the same.
8. In the same way as the formation of a concept is the reection on
the conditions underlying a drive-determined task and its solution,
so is a single-word proposition the primitive form of a judgement. It
expresses at the same time a feeling and a wish, for example Mummy,
whereby the current unity of the symbolic function between word and
object: 1) is not reexively made conscious, as it is in the case of a con-
cept; but 2) actually gives the meaning of what appears from out of the
matter itself. Te sequence is object word, not word object. In
fact the thing is primarily a sort of meness [Ic|], and so the relation-
ship between subject and activity e.g. I am hungry, milk is trans-
ferred on to the object. Verbs are the most original sort of words.
9. Iositivistic philosophy [the sub-class of realism which assumes
that we can only know sensory qualities] is grossly mistaken on this
point. It does not realize that whatever meaning we derive from an
object originally belongs to that object, and not to our subsumption
or meaning which we put on to it. Te original meaning adhering to
something actually forms the basis of the qualities and any image, and
constitutes the full nature of what some concrete object is. A lump
of lead is of a certain heaviness, greyness, etc. precisely because it is a
lump of lead. A body is of a certain shape, or presents such an image, or
gives out a meaning, or has such and such an eect, precisely because it
exists as such. But none of this is normally appreciated: people simply
take for granted a bodys existence and nature, and they completely
deny this in asserting that it is our language or our concepts which
accord the object any meaning. Vhat is in fact happening is that it is
only our selection of meaning which is ours, not the meaning itself.
10. Empirical concepts are simultaneously dependent on the given
images of something and the variable categorical systematisation of
the same something, and are not derived from the images alone.
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,,;
11. Te individual perceives or represents something in the same
manner as does anyone in his society. Te form of the signs involved,
and their content, are the same for numerous individuals.
12. Te most important insight in this whole area concerns the ef-
fect of the two reductions. Te rst the phenomenological reduction,
whereby essences result from the cancellation of the spatiotemporal
world picture along with its reality and the second whereby any
practical viewpoint on this world picture is enhanced both together
reveal the human condition as one where the human mind moves back
and forth between each of these. Any philosopher who construes these
[options] as a system of two simultaneously extant worlds is on a false
trail.
13. Te world itself is so structured that it can only be known in an
integrated way.
14 Abstraction is presupposed in the process of generalization.
Iositive abstraction is a consequence of an interest-led attention, which
simultaneously points out or brings out or darkens some issue.
If the content which is brought out in this way is to do with an object
which is a function of meaning or naming, then what arises is always
the ideal nature of something, which can be placed in some connection
with another ideal nature. Iusserls thesis, which is that red is an ideal
species and that it is dierent from the above-mentioned nature of
something, is false Ilatonism. If, for example, the element of redness
in a red sphere is brought out from the complexity of orderings of es-
sences in the sphere, everything other than the red fades away to zero,
and what is now given in every sphere of the same colour is identical.
It is no longer an individual sphere, not even a general example of one,
because what we have now is a content in respect of many red spheres
of the same nuance of colour and their various positions in time and
space. Te primary abstraction was carried out ecstatically [i.e. pre-
consciously] on a givenness which was a single object and within
the realm of drive-based operations. A general or an individual object
dierentiate themselves after this original operation, and simultane-
ously so.
15. A factual matter unveils itself and objectivizes itself where-
upon it becomes amenable to intuition during the course of a human
beings individualization. It emerges out of the background chatter
[Gcrcc] of tradition. Te stages of objectivization of the world follow
on the stages of this human individualization.
,,s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
16. Neither mind, thought, will, nor grace [ic Gutc], can ever be
derived from feelings or drives, or from the reproduction, association
or dissociation of some factual element. Only the application of ones
own appropriate mental act can grasp these. It is, for example, always a
question of the content of a subjects concept and not the conceptual-
ity of a content that counts. An idea of truth or goodness can never be
replaced by the usefulness, applicability, consequence or average worth
of some corresponding matter. Te psychology of thinking shows us
how actual thinking proceeds or how it solves some problem. But, as
for the acts and rules governing these acts, by means of which think-
ing does proceed or solve problems, the psychology of thinking tells us
nothing.
17. On the question of pragmatism in the eld of mathematics, a
number is not only a rule governing the activity of addition and sub-
traction. Tere are rules governing numbers which are not themselves
rules governing such activity. A number is a ctional-ideal construct
and is itself construed from out of a pre-given intuitive minimum.
18. As the actual state of aairs is one in which the forces of nature
underpin the laws which regulate the images so it would seem that
the will must itself be subject to the same set of laws. But looked at
ontologically [i.e. what actually constitutes our will] the laws which
determine it, as with all relationships, are subject to the particular dy-
namic make-up of the centre in question [i.e. in this case the mind].
For, there belongs to each of these three centres i.e. force-centre,
life-centre, person a dierent species of cause and eect relationship
respectively, causality, goal and purpose. Te categories which are
available to reection and which have a bearing on these three cause
and eect relationships identity, equality and similarity are actu-
ally only dynamic experiences of the translations of one sort of cause
and eect into another, and only from the standpoint of the third cen-
tre mind.
ow xnrzroorc
1. Just because x equals y excludes the fact that x does not equal y, this
does not mean that the proposition A is B excludes the proposition
that A is not B. [Ve are dealing with equality of dierent categories
and the possibility that equality in one means something dierent
from equality in another].
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ,,,
2. Te A that is B is another A from the A that is C: i.e. there is an
A1 that is B, and an A2 that is C. In the absolute sphere of things there
is no homogenous milieu in which A1 would be equal to A2. In this
sphere there is nothing in existence which is equal to anything else,
even though a conscious being can make such equal [i.e. in one sphere
there is a dierent sort of equality from in another].
3. Concepts, judgements and conclusions are therefore always rela-
tive to this absolute sphere.
4. Formal logic is only valid for objects which are relative to some
living being.
5. Khlers view on logic has to be seen in this light.
6. Ierhaps the struggle between contradictory matters was an early
creation. Ierhaps things were not around before this struggle erupt-
ed.
cnnzrrvn wnozrrow
1. Because the essences each stand in a unied complex, a negation can
actually lead on to the emergence but not a c rovo creation of a
new essence. Tis point does not apply to propositions, because they
do not concern essences.
2. Te negative limiting concepts, such as nitude, can indirectly
provide a positive meaning.
3. Te method whereby negation leads to a denition of the essences
is quite appropriate to the matter and can be taken to the point where
they are so puried that they show themselves for what they are. It is
not simply a method involving negative judgements. Negative theol-
ogy, for example, is the outcome of an attempt to grasp understandable
categories of anything divine p|us the accompanying insight that this is
impossible. Because understanding, by its very nature, is of a negative
ilk, whatever is presented to the understanding, however positive it
actually is, must be put into negative propositions.
4. Te principle of identity, whereby a particular A is set out instead
of X and the two then deemed identical, is not an actual rational truth
and has nothing to do with any transcendental apperception, as Kant
thought. It is rather only the expression of the self-preservation of an
organism in the face of ever-changing stimuli, which objecties what is
happening to it but which then makes it look as if it is a condition of
the other being.
oo rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Te mind sublates the current uctuating state of aairs into a new
stable state of aairs to the eect X = X, i.e. that two actually dis-
parate matters are identical. In other words it transforms the actual
state of aairs as it is in absolute time where all being is really only
coming-to-be into a new state of aairs, incorporating the principle
which obtains here but not there i.e. in absolute time that matters
cor be the same. All in all, Ieraclitus is proved right.
5. [To be explored]: dreaming, magical thinking, childhood think-
ing, primitive thinking in contrast to logical thinking.
6. [To be explored]: the phenomenon of witchcraft as an apparent
power to inict injury.
7. [To be explored]: Lindworskys ideas.
8. [To be explored]: Kokas observations.
9. [To be explored]: historical sorts of thinking in contrast to propo-
sitional thinking e.g. Indian thinking v. German dialectical thought.
10. Iegel overlooked the fact that contradictions can generally be
traced back to the dual originality of mind and life force, and certainly
not to mind alone. Iegels entire thesis about the creative power of
mind rests on his theory of the creative power of negation. But in be-
ing itself the crs o sc there are no contradictions. A contradictory
experience or a contradictory thought involve genuine conicts, but
these conicts are only tendencies which the ideal content of thought
carries. Te conict is ir thinking itself dislike of contradictory ex-
perience, maybe. Tere is no contradiction itself in ideal being. Iegels
logic stems from the dialectic of conict, and political conict at that.
Te struggles of the classes and their conicting interests, as portrayed
by Marx, are the secret basis of a dialectic which is falsely deemed to
dynamise the mind itself. Anyway there are not even only two posi-
tions. By radicalising political struggle into proletariat versus capital
he omits any notion of a mediated position. Furthermore, he comes
up with the impossible suggestion that the whole world is spun from
some idea.
nssnwcn
Vhat an essence is is the congruence of an urphenomenon and an
idea. Te essence, which appears in this very coincidence of both, is
created by our mind, but in conjunction with Gods mind, and, fur-
thermore, determined by the direction taken by the impulse of the
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s o+
life-force. Tis whole process is not a pre-ordained matter; nor is it
achieved after the event as would be the case if the will came before
a thought, and only knew afterwards what it was that it had created.
Te true situation is that essences accompany the matter in question
which they refer to.
rxzon-xzrwo
Image-making is a world event. It is the demarcation of, or goal-direct-
ed drawing of impetus from, the all-fertile life-force. Image-making
out of turmoil and into a world or the realization of God as an idea
these are the same thing.
rnn rnnnn nnnucrrows
i
scivwriric
Iositive science switches o the very possibility of the following:
1) the Lrs o sc [absolute being], a procedure which is counter to
the metaphysical one;
2) the human being, in respect of that part of it which is not objec-
tiable;
3) personal freedom and the spontaneity of life;
4) the realm of essences and the various major divisions of sorts of
being, including anything to do with the mind, and including all stages
of established ontological varieties;
5) the real being of the accidental being-so of anything;
6) all individual and personal versions of truth, along with those
which stem from our communal life, e.g. public opinion [mor sogt oss
] or traditional views; and
7) all empirical, human and relative forms of things of the sort
which we consider generally true by popular opinion.
But science does not dispense with the law that things are so here
and now and dierent there and then in space and time. Moreover, it
preserves somethings: a) practical value; b) its symbolic signicance;
c) its link to our vital needs; and d) its historical relativity with re-
spect to the stage human reason has reached. Science is furthermore
strongly bound to objectiable being and to generally valid truths,
which, despite their truth, are actually only existentially relative to the
oa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
stage the human being has reached in its overall development. Finally
e) science respects the intellect, but under certain mental assumptions
only, namely if these promote a version of truth which [values] things
only in so far as they are controllable by virtue of our vital movements.
In summary, science follows the principle that nothing exists unless it
falls within the range of what we can observe or measure.
ii
niowvsi.w
Te Dionysian reduction, known to Schopenhauer and Bergson, in-
volves the following.
1) Tere is a switching o of mind, intellect and the experienced
sense of the primacy of perception.
2) Tere is a coming to the fore of sympathy, animal sexuality and
the imaginal portrayal of the world drawn from the forces of nature
and lifes drives.
3) Our participation in all this is not objectied [i.e. none of this is
experienced as things or qualities of things].
4) Tere is an enhanced awareness of the historical dimension of
mankind and a heightened sense of being part of nature.
5) Te artistic in the human is at the forefront.
6) Te power of instinct is to the fore.
In respect of the integration of the reductions with the metaphys-
ics of the absolute the following remarks are pertinent. Te following,
however, concern only the Dionysian.
a) All images are expressive.
b) Life is experienced physiognomically [i.e. as if everything were
a face].
c) Te predominant mode of knowledge is through sympathy.
d) Everything here stems from the sexual drive of the human.
e) In place of the now switched o mental apparatus of the hu-
man there is an intuitive sense of participating in everything to do
with the life-force: a co-striving, a co-feeling and a co-urgency.
f ) Tis participation is non-objectied [i.e. not in the form of per-
ceived things or qualities].
g) Animal instinct is already of this Dionysian realm.
h) Te discipline of characterology comes into its own in nature
and history.
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s o,
iii
vnvwovwoiocic.i
Te phenomenological rcuctior gives knowledge, including specic
philosophical knowledge, about only one of the two utterly fundamen-
tal sorts of being; the nature or essence of something. Tis knowledge
penetrates into the Lrs o sc, because all essences are part of God. But
this applies only to that part of God which [I call] the rst of Iis two
attributes, which is the only attribute we have knowledge of. Tis is
achieved by way of our mind and its correlates the essences. Because
these essences are, however, ineective, negative, and only the ideal
impossibilities through which the possibilities of the real are rst cir-
cumscribed, they determine nothing of an unequivocal nature. Tere
is, however, another sort of participation from which we can derive
knowledge, and this is united with that second principle [attribute]
which we must likewise ascribe to the Lrs o sc. Tis participation
concerns itself with the imagistic picturing of the world, a world of
accidental being-so, which is the manifestation of the life-force, and
whose being is given independently from us in an experience of reality,
a being which, moreover, precedes any subjective perceptual or repre-
sentational intentions. Both the accidental being-so of something and
the value of something are what the life-force sets before us from what
is actually happening in the centre of natural forces and the drive cen-
tre. Te interaction between these two centres is only understandable
through an assumption of the unity of the life-force. Vhat this unity
is we can only know through the rules that govern the appearance of
images.
rnn xnrzrnvsrcs or rnncnrrrow
Ierception, insofar as it adequately conveys the accidental being-so of
the images, is none other than a participation in and a sharing of the
activity in which the divine life-force constructs its own images.
Te images are objective appearances manifestations of power, at
work before any living creature is in a position to capture them but
which a living creature can capture, through its vision, hearing, smell,
etc. and which are the same available sort of entity for perception and
phantasy alike, and which allow the images to come into being when
they are stimulated by dead forces. In that we, as drive-led creatures,
o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
succeed in participating in the direction of drive of the universal life-
force i.e. drift along with it and, further, in that we co-produce
what we see and hear along the lines which the universal life-force al-
lows, then an image will be partly conveyed to our knowledge faculty,
adequately so only if the participation is ecstatic and, we so to speak,
co-produce the image with energy from our drive-phantasy.
In general, I only perceive that aspect of a tree or a piece of coal
that I, as the sort of creature and individual that I am, am interested
in. Tis means that I am simply focussing on a few paltry fragments
of the entire image, and I am restricting my version of the latter to
what my bodys image wants of the entire image. Tis means further
that the restriction I impose interrupts the living and mystical ecsta-
sies whereby I cast forth a piece of my life as a psychic unity into the
centre of that image and then from this centre co-construct, with it, its
structure, with the help of reproductive and productive phantasy.
It is, in fact, the same life force that is coursing, both outside me os
imogcs, and inside me and through me os t|cir irocquotc |i|crcsscs,
insofar as I bring them forth by my interest in them through my be-
ing the sort of creature and the individual creature that I am. For my
drives are only partial functions of the universal life force and my sight
and hearing, etc, are only a way of taking up a particular aspect of the
workings of the undierentiated phantasy and intuition and produc-
tive capacity of this universal life force itself.
Furthermore the likenesses or portraits that I draw are not immate-
rial objects and things which approximate but do not touch or enter
the actual images as the philosophical school of Critical Realism
supposes but are the very images themselves, albeit in an attenuated
and fragmentary form, subject to my particular interest in them and
the constraints imposed by the contingencies of the act of perception.
Only the form, order and manner of this dissociation of images is
available to any student of the physiology or psychology of cognitive
processes.
Te laws governing forms and their relationships, which boil down
to the relationships of colours and tones among themselves and the
variations in intensity, quality, brightness and dimness or high and
low in the case of sounds and all the basic and mixed appearances of
these, are exactly the same for the dierent sense modalities. Even the
laws governing continuity and discrete intervals are the same across
the board.
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s o,
rncnwrqun or vrrzr ncsrzsrs
Te switching o of the mind [Gcist] is the rst negative requirement
for vital ecstasis to take place, in the same way as the switching o of
drive indeed the universal life force as a whole is the rst require-
ment for the ecstasis of mind to take place.
Vhereas in the latter case this leads to a maximum amount of en-
ergy being diverted to the spiritual and mental love of things and an
armation of all valuing, in the former case the positive requirement
is a free outpouring of Lros [the highest animal-like sexuality and ten-
derness], which pervades everything and leads to a completely unself-
ish participation in the world.
Vhereas the cerebral cortex, as the dissociation organ of the vital,
sensory excitations, is acting for mind, what promotes the vital ecsta-
sis, on the other hand, are a whole set of states and activities which
eectively produce a narcosis of the cortex. Such states and activities
include alcohol intoxication, self-hypnosis, rhythmic dancing as a way
of losing oneself as opposed to concentrating on an idea of something,
any other way of loosening willed self-control, orgiastic mass events,
Dionysian-type music involving cymbals and drums, and, nally, and
this is the ultimate technique, the act of sexual intercourse in which
one attains a communion with nature.
Te return to an all-embracing mother Mother Earth in fact
and the overpowering urgency of life which this releases are a glimpse
into the very becoming of God, and the workings of Iis rst attribute
before any idea of God is manifest. Te purely dynamic drives at play,
and the demonic nature of such goings-on a turmoil of value-indif-
ference and maximum energy ll out the whole nature of life. Te
obscure forms of mysticism have their origin in all this conveying
the mystic senses of Earth, fertility, night and mother.
Mother here is not an idea, as it is in Iusserls philosophy, but the
complete antithesis.
Tere is indeed a mysticism of ideas about the coming-to-be of
God, [but this is not what we are talking about here.]
Te critical matter in the vital ecstasis is not erotic pleasure, as Aris-
tippius proclaimed, but a total immersion in passionate love, come
what may. Te pursuit of pleasure as an end in itself, following Aris-
tippius recommendations, is actually a form of egocentricism and a
way of maximising sensory feelings. Vhat uc are considering here, in
oo rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
the vital ecstasis, is, in complete contrast, a way of getting rid of the
self, consciousness, and Me these horrid little tyrants as Rickert and
Klages called them.
zozrwsr nussnnr
Te essence is not visible, in the way a thing is perceived. Anything
ideal lacks resistance and for this reason we have no right to assume
that the essence remains in existence when we are not thinking about
it. Tis is nonsense. Iusserls analogy of an essence residing in a solid
block of being is fundamentally wrong. Vhere is the distance between
object and act, if this were so. Vhere is the eective resistance which
would rst indicate that there was something independent from our
mind. Granted, the essence is identiable; but that does not allow us
to assume an independent existence to essences. Te only part of Ius-
serls theory which is correct is that the essence, in distinction to a
mathematical object, is not ctitious or invented. It does have a sort
of being, and that is pure being, and this is independent from human
thought. But although the essence is re-produced or re-created from
the general essences belonging to our cultural realm equally so it is
co-produced through a cooperation between human or divine mind.
Te latter is the means whereby the human mind does what it does
and in fact the human mind is what it is because of the divine mind.
Te divine mind, moreover, does not simply come upon ideas, as Au-
gustine thought, but is forever newly producing them. Any sugges-
tion of spontaneity or receptivity is out of the question, in contrast to
perceiving, which is determined by drive. Te essences do not impose
themselves on mind. Mind, in conjunction with God, must ever newly
produce them.
Te technique of Vcscrsc|ou [showing the essences] is therefore
a productive showing, and the supratemporal essence, which is not
constantly there when it is not being thought about, is carried by this
act of productive showing. A stable and detached heavenly abode of
essences and ideas simply does not exist. Te fact that an essence re-
mains identical to itself does not require that we have to accept its
independent existence. Te identity is a consequence of the fact that
the act itself is identical with itself and when the act is triggered it re-
creates the [same essence]. Te whole situation is like a living mirror,
where we nd [as if already created] what we are creating.
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s o;
Te philosophical proposal by Bolzano and Malebranche that
the essence pre-exists the minds involvement with it is therefore the
complete inverse of the truth.
Te showing in the showing of essences [Vcscrsc|ou] is only a re-
ection on the co-recreated [Mit-Noc|-gcsc|ocrc] in the course of the
recreation [Noc|sc|ocrs]. Iusserl confuses this reection with the
coming to light or invention or arrival itself of the created essence.
[Ie mistakes the reection on the recreation for the actual recreation;
he takes an invention for an encounter].
But how can such essences also have any bearing on accidental and
real events. Any connection between the innite truth of essences and
the time-based accidental happenings seems impossible. Nevertheless,
the essences are only there for the demarcation of the accidental but
real matters which the life force is creating. For this reason the truth
which the realm of essences imposes on casual actuality has the air of a
counter-validity [lrotzgc|turg] and not a consensus [Hirgc|turg]. Tis
is in keeping with the fact that the life force and mind only derive their
sense and indeed their life in the context of one another and in the
nal analysis are attributes of the same substance.
All ideal truths not only insights about values must be main-
tained in opposition to, and with some resistance from, accidental ex-
perience, insofar as these truths as knowledge aect the development
of new types of things. Tis process is necessarily one of contradic-
tions. It is not a case of tting whatever crops up as accidental into
a set of xed truths, but of selecting which available essential truths
are best suited for rendering knowable the images which the life force
produces. Tis insight leads to the further realization that no actual
essential truth is eternally valid, and that the only eternal truth is that
there is an essence of essences [rur os Vcscr cr Vcscr|citcr ist cs],
and it is this which corresponds to the divine mind. Because mind
itself is timeless, there is scope for a changing content to the essential
truths it conveys.
In addition, the interconnections between essences are being contin-
ually created and re-arranged by means of synthesizing and dialectical
activity. Iow can there be an essential relationship between Essence 1
and Essence 2 if neither of these is part of an all-pervasive totality of
essences, which the continual dialectical movement of the Logos rst
isolates. Is the situation one where there is a simultaneous givenness
of two essences joined by a rigid and. In which case, what lies behind
os rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
the necessity of the connection. Or is it a case of identical, analytic
judgements being applied. Or is neither suggestion correct.
rnnzs zs nxrnrwsrc ro rnrwos
Ve grasp ideas at or on [or] things, not in them. Tis notion of ideas
being ir things is one of Aristotles big mistakes. Te entire corpus of
mathematics contradicts the theory. Relative to Aristotle, Ilato was
right here. An idea is opposed to reality; it is ideal a preliminary
draft or sketch of the nature of something which the actual nature
of the something in question never comes up to; it is a skeleton draft
which is bound up with an agents own agenda and its implementa-
tion. Between the two of them [the ideal sketch and the actual nature]
the version of reality involved is a compromise. Te inuence of reality
[os Rco|prirzip] is such, however, that there is a rejection of whatever
in the positive idea is not realizable. Mc or [non-being] and crc||om-
cror [possible being] are simply shadows of the mistaken notion that
an idea has its own power, positivity and absolute objectivity.
rnnzs zs wor rnn-nxrsrrwo rnrwos
An idea as an articulation, realization, portrayal or manageability of
an already determined process, or as the theoretical and methodical
application of perceptual experience, cannot be deemed as in any way
xed prior to the matter articulated, realized, etc. Even God is no Uto-
pian. Ie is the absolute artist of the movable idea, a paragon of reso-
luteness without fanaticism. Resoluteness towards godliness, towards
himself, is his unique resoluteness.
Even though the idea is rst determined and realized as part of
the life force, it is maintained by dint of its serving as a means of un-
derstanding the sense of experience. Alternative formulations would
either be to make experience subordinate to an idea or to make an
idea subordinate to experience, both of which are false. It is in the
congruence of both that the real itself in its totality emerges. Even
God is not party to an unconscious ecstatic foreknowledge of Iis own
coming-to-be. Te situation here [analogous to that of humans] is a
self-design of the Lrs o sc.
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s o,
rnrrosornrczr coowrrrow
Te question is: Vhat would still be around as an appearance if the
life-centre as the subject of the drive-based sensory system were put
out of play [Ausscr|rojtsctzurg]. It is immaterial in this context to
what extent the completeness of the reduction is actually carried out.
It suces that it can be carried out at all.
If the reduction entails a cancellation of the reality element, then
because the spatial and temporal order of matters are dependent on
this element and on causality, the very order in which spatial and tem-
poral issues come about will also be disrupted. All this stems from the
fact that reality itself is the individuating principle. Space and time are
only indices, and, in truth, only singularizing indices of one and the
same essence, whereas the accidental being-so of something must be
dierent if it takes up another spatial and temporal position. It can-
not be sucient, therefore, for any simple disregarding of the position
of something in a spatio-temporal system to lead to the identical na-
ture of many such somethings being discovered. It is in fact possible
to carry out an empirical abstraction without invoking the reduction.
But this presupposes an essentially comparable direction [between the
several items that are the focus of the abstraction], and this is dier-
ent from what occurs in the cognition of essences. Te criteria for a
genuine knowledge of something are: 1) that there are ideas or ur-
phenomena; 2) that things can come into the world or be observed;
and 3) that there are fundamentally dierent ways in which something
can be what it is or there are natural creatures [to appreciate this].
If space and time were absolute forms of being, as Newton thought,
and independent from the mind and the vital centre, there could only
be empirical abstraction of similar things, and this would be so even
if real being were the focus of a reduction. Real being would be, in the
order of givenness, ojtcr space and time. Te multitude of the acciden-
tally being-sos of anything would remain as it is.
Alternatively, if space and time were integral parts of the minds in-
tuitional apparatus, then: 1) the cancellation of real being, in the same
way as in the scenario mentioned above, would also leave the multi-
tude of accidental images intact, and neither would it lead to anything
new, and certainly not to any essence of something; and 2) a situation
in which space and time were mentally-based intuitions would mean
that mind could never rise above its own intuitions, and its fate would
+o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
always be to be trapped by a spatio-temporal matrix of its own making
again, only empirical abstraction would be possible.
If we now incorporate into the above notion our own theory of re-
ality then the only agent which is in a position to be responsible for
space and time is the life force itself, although without any direction
from a living entity as to what it should do. Tis is Schopenhauers
position, in which he ascribes to reason only an empirical abstract-
ing capacity and hands responsibility to the understanding for infer-
ring causal connections according to the principle of sucient reason.
Schopenhauers formulation of ideas is incoherent.
But the whole situation is completely transformed if space and time
stand and fall with life itself relative time and relative space with a
living creature, and absolute time with Life itself, whose way of becom-
ing this is. For in this case an inhibition of the life centre must dissolve
the diversity of appearance along with our access to reality, but not in
such a way that nothing at all remains, but, on the contrary, in a way
that reveals the very essences in front of the mind itself. Te structure
of essences governing the world although actually [ortisc|] only to
be found in conjunction with any thing under the conditions just
described [i.e. a true phenomenological reduction] is uncovered and
remains behind for us, whereas and because the accidental being-so
of anything, reality, and spatio-temporality, have been annulled. Like-
wise there is a disappearance of all connections between things which
allows them to be near or far, because the spatio-temporal determina-
tions of such positioning is biologically conditioned, and this last fac-
tor has been wiped out [in the reduction].
Te cognition of essences is therefore the attempt to grasp how
the world would look independently of space and time, and ocjorc
the world were invested with these two forms. In other words, if one
carved out the structure of Logos in a cross-section of history what
would the world look like. Vhat one would be looking at here is [the
correlate of ] reason.
Vithout the technique of the reduction [i.e. normally] the essences
must appear transcendent to us. Such insight certainly opens up our
dependence on the acts of the Lrs o sc, from Vhom the world cer-
tainly originally proceeds, and from Iis ideas not from any images,
symbols or clues. But the essences are not actually transcendent to
our mind, and can become immanent to it, and this is because our
mind itself is immanent to Gods mind as Spinoza realised. Ocial
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s ++
theological doctrine, following St. Tomas, denies this point. Its core
teaching here is that ideas are present in God before any thing which
they might refer to, whereas in our minds they come after whatever
thing is encountered, and our understanding is only a soul of God, and
not a part of supreme reason itself. Ve deny both points.
Te essences themselves are neither in themselves general nor in
themselves individual.
Te human being is therefore, in relation to its knowledge, in no way
a creature who merely reects or reproduces things. Its way of being
is rather that of taking up a central position amongst all other sorts of
entities. As a spiritual and mental creature, as a concentration of the
forces of nature or as a creature with drives, it is part of the attributes
of the Lrs o sc, and equally so in its ability to participate in ideal and
real principles, and therefore be a co-producer of objective entities. I
have attempted to show in my ||i|osop|y oj |crccptior that the identity
of the contents of perception and the image insofar as they exist
can only be properly claried by recourse to the identity of the drive
impulses, which give rise to the content of subjective perception, in
conjunction with the image-forming functions of the life force itself.
In addition, perception, although appearing to consciousness to be a
passive and reproductive process, is in fact psychic and a spontaneous
product of drive-phantasy, in addition to which it bears a practical re-
lationship to the real. An exactly analogous relationship pertains here
as does between the way our mind grasps essences and the way the
essences themselves are set out by the mind of the Lrs o sc.
But even the mind of the Lrs o sc is not the subject of a static or
eternal world of ideas, which in the progress of the world has always
remained the same and which the human mind has only reproduced.
Tis doctrine a core feature of Ilatos and Aristotelian-Christian
theological philosophy alike is based on all the errors of Ancient
Idealism: e.g. the existence of an ahistorical cosmos, in which only
one history runs its course, which therefore cannot itself be historical;
auto-generation [Sc|ostmoc|t] of an idea; ideas preceding the thing re-
ferred to; foreknowledge; and a plurality of an ordered realm of ideas,
independent from the real. All such philosophies deny any octuo|
movement of ideas, and only acknowledge any such movement in the
history of human consciousness, which itself merely ows past with
an ever xed eternal order. But there orc no such pre-existing ideas,
and no world plan independent from and prior to the coming-to-be of
+a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
the world, or independent of the very history which is what the world
essentially is. In addition, human ideas are produced by human mind,
but ever under the inuence of the combined life force and drive inter-
ests and needs at any given time, and the ideas only serve to direct and
steer the world process, and are not there to be some end in itself or
to dazzle for the sake of dazzling. Te same applies to the production
of ideas by the mind of the Lrs o sc. Tey dierentiate themselves in
their very realization, uit| things, rot ocjorc things. At each moment
of absolute time they are newly available for survey, and, when they
change, the whole system of ideas changes. Te world can be regarded
as having an ideal side [icc|cr Scitc] to it as opposed to a set of simple
comings and goings, but this ideal side is not auto-genetic, as Iegel
thought, but hetero-genetic, because the comings and goings [on the
other side] are the workings of the life force, which is ever soliciting
mind itself.
Tere is no truth independent of the existence of objects and inde-
pendent of the acts which think the ideas, etc. Maier and Ieidegger
appreciated something of this. Tere is certainly an independence
from relative time on the part of cognition of essences, and there is
a growth of our cumulative experience of them. But just as human
reason rearranges itself and advances in terms of the structure of its
principles and laws, so does the divine mind in terms of its eternal es-
sential content, as the world process moves on in absolute time. Te
divine mind forms and dierentiates its world of ideas in the context
of historical life forces. Even Hc grows, and, if you will, even Hc learns.
Ie learns ir and t|roug| human beings. Tis raises the question of
what it is that is re-arranged.
Te only eternal element in all this is a mind itself in God, and es-
sentially a mind which humans make denitive, and not a particular
ideal order, nor an order which is altered intrinsically or otherwise
throughout history. Tere are in the world process no absolutely con-
stant ideas, no absolute principles, and no absolute laws. Not only do
all stars come and go, but so does matter, and the same goes for all
forms of life. Tere are no eternal forms or categories of being. Te
only thing eternal is one essential entity (cir Vcscr), the essence of the
Divinity, which is the idea that the Lrs o sc has of its concrete goal of
becoming in other words, the idea God has of Iimself. It is the only
idea which pre-exists any thing or state of aairs. Te limited capac-
ity of human cognition stems not so much from any subjective con-
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s +,
straints, but from an intrinsic incompleteness in the state of becoming
of being itself. Te metaphysical world process is actually unpredict-
able. Even if we knew the history of mental structures and everything
about hitherto existentially relative living creatures, it would at most
be calculable. To complicate matters the stage cognition has reached is
also a causal factor inuencing the world process. Tis holds for the
value of cognition as well.
Anyone who speaks about ideas antedating their corresponding
states of aairs is simply an igroromus about human thoughts and ac-
tions. Iumans develop no ideas unless they are challenged to solve
some task posed by their drives. Any plan which they might come up
with will have to conform to what is feasible. Foresight is only justi-
cation after the event. Reality is made up of ideal or real principles,
and the coming-to-be of a thought cannot be predicted by a second
thought, and that is why any ontological theory of the nature of things
which accords primacy to thoughts themselves cannot be sustained. In
other words, what becomes predictable, because it recurs, cannot itself
be predictable from a single instance.
It is turning matters on their head to attribute the lawfulness of nat-
ural events which concern us to our life itself, never mind our mind.
Te Lrs o sc becomes what it is to become by rst knowing what is
happening to human beings. Te human mind is the reection of the
divine mind on itself.
Te divine mind is like the mind of a perfect statesman, who has no
basic principles and never knows what tomorrow will bring.
It is no knowledge of a superior sort of being, but rather the debase-
ment of a divinity, that one ends up with if one attributes the mores
and customs of a natural creature to Iis thinking and acting.
rnnsow zwn rrxn, zwn rnouonrs ow rnn
xnrzrnvsrcs or rnn nzsrs or rnn vonrn
Vhereas the notion of space presupposes a non-homogeneous exten-
sion, that of time is free of this presupposition. Everything that comes
under the name of psychic is actually in time. Te acts have a temporal
order, even if they do not have to follow this. Vhat do strictly follow
one another are inner intuition and its respective content, and it is this
content which we take for present time.
+ rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Te person the act centre is above time. It only reveals its nature
ir the time in which the vital drive impulse realizes the content of its
acts intention. Kant was right to set the personal level above time.
Te person rests in the spiritual and mental divinity, as both a concen-
trated centre of God and as mental substance.
Space is always only the way the various images appear the subjec-
tive and objective manifestations of acts involving drive and natural
forces, not mental acts. On the other hand time, as a way for some-
thing to succeed something else, is the very way in which these acts can
render somethings coming-to-be.
Te world in itself is history and progression in absolute time, and
objective time is only a measure of relationships within this. Concrete
causality, both real and absolute, has a lawfulness of such a kind that it
demands that the positioning of the elements involved is independent
of time and events. Te core feature of this lawfulness is that it allows
the same thing to crop up at a dierent time and a dierent thing to
crop up at the same time. In other words, natural lawfulness demands
that there be a notion of space.
It is incorrect to regard the person as lacking the ability to change,
just because one places it a level above time. It is just as wrong to see
it as sempiternal or even as eternal for this reason. In fact the person
forms itself through instantaneous acts and only owes its existence to
the carrying out of these acts. It is self-positing the divine likewise
in this respect but the person is nite in terms of the potential acts
available to it.
One might say that a god who were not perfect or complete, and
who is busy making himself as he goes along, hardly inspires con-
dence that he ever will be perfect. But consider the following.
1) Is it not up to you whether this process is hastened or not.
2) God is eternal as a mind, as well as the content of this, which
Ie alone can bestow to drive and life force, by disinhibiting Iis own
will, thereby releasing the life force.
3) But the fact that God does succeed in bringing harmony to
Iimself, t|ot you have to take on trust. You have to commit yourself
to God on this matter.
4) A God who were incomplete would never have had any mo-
tive to permit an emanation a coming-to-be of a world born in
pain, though might well rejoice at a victory for religious faith despite
adversity. But neither would a completed God have any motive either
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s +,
to sustain the world process as it is. But, in fact, the world simply hap-
pens, and for Iim, as well as for us, it is both experience and fate. Ie
is not indierent to what becomes of being. Vhat makes God great is
the fact that history is now seen as the deliberate fate of God himself.
Iuman beings have hitherto demeaned themselves and have not
given enough thought to the possible candidates as to what the divin-
ity is restricting these maybe to only spectator or judge. I should
be able to weigh up a number of options and resolve these with my
Father, not simply obey Iis will. Tis teacher God also learns
through Iis pupil.
My metaphysics is based on the qualities of a person; it is an ideal
enabling of the divine, coupled with a realization that this itself ema-
nates from Iim. God allows the world to emerge from Iimself, and
through Iimself.
A movement without direction and aim is impossible. Vhat counts
is only the quantity of movement in the same direction. If space is rela-
tive, so must the direction of whatever it envelops. Te moving point
must strive for something.
Te life force, with its original directionality, and the idea, with its
possibilities with respect to essences i.e. the possibilities of there be-
ing essences are co-determined, one by the other. God has no design,
nor plan. Love, and its armation of good or evil, watches eternally
over everyone.
If the human being itself, as a participant in Gods mind, can rise
suciently to the challenge and the fall-out of what the coming-to-be
of God really means, and if by virtue of his drive energy, which now
accrues to his mind, he resolves to loosen his inhibitions concerning
that which he sees as evil, then he will sin against God, and at the same
time deepen his sorrow.
It is not a question of each man for himself and God for all of us,
but all of us for God. But is it not true that one must suer in order
that one deserves this for.
I adhere to the notion of a God who suers and struggles, but who,
by overcoming his sorrow, becomes a perfect God.
I know that an act carried out against our conscience, against every-
thing our person stands for and its metaphysical bonds, hurts every-
one and everything. It even makes our body ill, and sets up an ailing for
which there is no recovery. All that one can do then is show remorse,
repent, and make good.
+o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Could not a perfect God, as Brentano suggests, actually and volun-
tarily make a good, or better or still better world. Oh, choosey, hesi-
tant and imperfect God:
Vhoever lived through the Japanese earthquake and the First Vorld
Var would laugh at any suggestion that your God is all-good and al-
mighty. Iis might is denitely not all-good, and Iis good is denitely
not almighty. Even the devil can hurt Iim.
I know that in those moments when I feel kind-hearted and loving
towards the world, I could not hurt a thing, not even inict pain on a
worm. And God, the innite, who knows thousands of ways to avoid
this, how do you think Ie could do this.
My metaphysics is of a global enhancing of the coming-to-be of God
in the world [|orcrt|cismus cr Vc|t]. Te world as history is only a
phase, a destiny, or an epoch of the divine self-becoming; further, it
is a fashioned piece of work [Vcr|gcsto|turg], in which and through
which the master craftsman grows and achieves Iis true nature in the
course of realizing it. Te world emanates from God, if Ie lets it do
so. God reveals Iis nature in the course of the very history in which
Ie realizes Iimself.
rnn rossrnrrrrv or xnrzrnvsrcs
Te widest grounds for supposing the possibility of a metaphysics
consisting of the knowledge and cognition of absolutely existent ob-
jects and reality entail that the following are true.
1) Tere should be a prior givenness of opriori cognition vis--vis
cognition of the accidental being-so and existence of anything; there
should be a priority of matters of fact vis--vis any form of thinking
about these and that applies to the actual nature of anything, to the
spheres where things can be, to categories, and to connections between
all these.
2) Tere should be a prior givenness of the relationships within a
real and existentially absolute real sphere vis--vis the nature of any-
thing in the world or existentially relative levels.
3) Tere should be a primacy of phantasy vis--vis perception.
4) Tere should be a primacy of the givenness of values vis--vis
the givenness of images and meaning.
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s +;
5) Tere should be a primacy of meaningful connections before
truth or falsehood come into play, and a primacy of the asensual vis--
vis the sensual.
Vhat constitutes one of the principal reasons for supposing that
there is the possibility of metaphysical knowledge is the fact that we
can achieve a varied knowledge of this accidental, empirically existing
world, and in each of its spheres. For despite the fact that this world
aects our psychophysical make-up and is bound to the organization
of our senses and vital psychic nature, we can nevertheless stand back
from this realm and see in it merely examples of the same essence. In
fact whether we are considering the urphenomenon or idea of a body
or of a living creature, or whether we have regard to multiplicity or
unity, or whether we are interested in the human being as a whole or
its social network or its role in historical causality, the very fact that we
can arrive at such notions on the basis of one example only testies to
there being an absolute existence of something which is determining
our ability in this respect. At the very least we can lay out the essential
structure of such notions, whereas if we could not rise above what
we were considering we could not actually consider it at all, and the
realm of the accidentally being-so of anything would be forever locked
away for us. [But this looking down to open up something comes at
a price]. Our cognition of essences, by oering us knowledge of this
sphere, i.e. the knowable accidental existence of anything, narrows by
necessity what is there, which i.e. the actual accidental being is
considerably greater than what can be known about it.
Under what conditions, however, would metaphysics be denitely
excluded.
1) It would be ruled out if there were no essential lawful structure
joining objects and acts, but instead only non-binding summing up, so
to speak, of successive individual matters of fact, taking the form a + b
+ c, etc.
2) It would further be impossible if all our cognitive contents were
derived from the contents of our senses and their associative process-
ing, from which the only meaning allowed is what is precisely given
and nothing over and above that. Tis would only provide knowledge
to the eect that here and now something is red or sour, and the same
would go for sounds, etc.
But none of this actually applies. In fact, the situation is completely
and radically dierent. Te sensory contents and the positive con-
+s rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
scious appearances of inner experience in any situation are only a drop
in the ocean of a vast network of established orderings of being and
forms of being.
But not only this obtains. Tis fundamental fact the only one
which Iusserl recognized would not by itself permit a metaphysics.
For metaphysics is not only the cognition of ideas and their ordered
arrangement; it is also the cognition of reality, indeed the cognition
of the basis and root of all reality. A theoretical formulation of the
essential structure of the world in all its spheres only gives us the es-
sential and objective possio|c world, not a participation in the real or
the absolutely real.
If we are, furthermore, exclusively reliant for our knowledge of the
real on accidental sensory information or on the way we process this,
which only really have an ico| objective nature and are a special case
of this, then metaphysics is likewise impossible. Kants thesis, where
categories and forms of intuition are opriori with respect to sensation,
is a clear case of such a view. But this puts things the wrong way round.
Te correct way matters stand is that it is only because resistance oc-
curs to what we are striving for that any sensation enters our aware-
ness in the rst place and thereby achieves any ontological status for
the rst time. Only then do we begin to know anything about its eect
on other things, and that is because it was called up, as it were, as an
eect of our vital centres prior aspirations.
For all these reasons our experience of what is really going on is
again much broader than the extract of it which is shown to us in
the form of sensory perception. Ve are acquainted with the world
through suering resistance to it, and this is our most direct aware-
ness of its reality, before we know what it is that resists us, and before
it is transformed into an object standing before our mind. Terefore,
the sequence of events is not that causal connections and what they
amount to are what is originally given to us as an extant state of aairs,
as if they were established and repeatable temporo-spatial relation-
ships between sensory images. Te situation is the other way round:
we seek such laws between sensory perceivable manifestations and ob-
jective appearances of eective unities and eective centres occousc we
already know that these centres operate in an analogous way to how
I operate when striving for something and how in the course of such
striving a unied psychic action results. It is not the lot, only the
Hou, of this causally eective exchange that I seek to know in a so-
8 Q Supp|cmcrtory Rcmor|s +,
called lawful formula. I already know opriori that as many lawful
structures as there are, so must there be as many independent sorts of
operative centres to place these in.
Ve must now clearly distinguish between two things: the meta-
physics of the real, or, better, the coming-to-be of the real; and the
metaphysics of what is only real in the sense of its being accidentally
so [zujo||igcs Soscir].
Te metaphysics of real coming-to-be has to do with the immediate
participation by a subject, with respect to their status as a creature of
drives and displaying the life force, in the multiplicity of impulse cen-
tres of various sorts which form the distributed life force of the Lrs o
sc Iimself. Tis involves co-operative strivings, drives and searchings
with the supreme entity, and a production of unity and harmony of
our intact life force with the relevant attribute of this supreme being.
Te obscure mysticism of all eras recognized something of this, and
prescribed one or other Dionysian technique to get close to it. Te life
force is at the same time an image-creating force with a potentially
innite imaginative power in this respect. Tis would be enhanced if
mind were put out of commission, as in the reduction I refer to as the
Dionysian reduction, and anyway mind is blind to the power of the life
force and its phantasy. Te dynamic participation of that part of our
being which owes its nature to our drives with the characteristics of an
outside centre of striving must give the same image as our phantasy-
image, because the same objective life force is involved in both cases.
Te essential element in all artistic production is for the artist to install
himself or herself in the inner ames of a thing, as Rodin, for example,
did, and let the thing arise again at each step of the reproduction.
oun xnrzrnvsrcs
1. Our metaphysics is a metaphysics of a human race which has grown
old and which knows and recognizes the limits of their spiritual and
mental competence.
2. It is at the same time the rst overcoming of the two class ideolo-
gies.
3. It is also a true reconciliation of the male and female outlooks on
the world.
4. It is the rst philosophical corpus which makes any sense of how
we can live for God without merely obeying Iis orders.
ao rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Te appropriation by mind of the energy which lies in our drives
and life force presupposes that even in the life force, at the very least
at the highest level of sophistication it can achieve Lros [animal-like
tender sexuality] there lives a propensity toward the idea of a mind
and toward the essence of essence. Tis further presupposes that even
mind not only takes on the nature of the idea of the eternal substance
the unique, eternal idea, which we rst dimly experience through
history but that there also belongs to mind a way of acting which is
completely free of any nuance of intensity. Moreover, the impotence in
this last respect it shares with the essential ideas.
nrnrroonzvnv
Scheler, M. (1913-1916). Dcr Iormo|ismus ir cr Lt|i| ur ic motcrio|c
Vcrtct|i|. Trans. 1973 as Iormo|ism ir Lt|ics or Nor-jormo| Lt|ics oj \o|-
ucs. Northwestern University Iress, Evanston, I1.
Scheler, M. (1915). Dcr Gcrius cs Kricgcs ur cr Dcutsc|c Kricg. Verlag der
Veissen Bcher, Leipzig.
Scheler, M. (1915). Zum ||oromcr cs lrogisc|cr. Trans. 1954 as Or t|c
trogic, ir lrogcy: \isior or Iorm, ed. R.V. Corrigan. San Francisco.
Scheler, M. (1915). Die Isychologie der sogenannten Rentenhysterie und
der recht Kampf gegen das bel. Trans. 1984 as Te Isychology of so-
called compensation hysteria and the real battle against illness. ]ourro| oj
||cromcro|ogico| |syc|o|ogy, 15, 125-143.
Scheler, M. (1915). \crsuc|c circr ||i|osop|ic cs Lcocrs: Nictzsc|c Di|t|cy
Bcrgsor. Republished 1919 in \om Umsturz cr Vcrtc. Neue Geist Ver-
lag, Leipzig.
Scheler, M. (1915). Die Idole der Selbsterkenntnis. Trans. 1973 as Te
idols of self-knowledge. In Max Scheler; Sc|cctc ||i|osop|ico| Lssoys, ed.
D.R. Lachterman. Northwestern University Iress, Evanston.
Scheler, M. (1916). Vom Sinn des Leides. Trans. 1973 as Te meaning of
suering. In Max Scheler, Ccrtcrrio| Lssoys, ed. M.S. Frings. Martinus
Nijho, Te Iague.
Scheler, M. (1921). \om Luigcr im Mcrsc|cr. Trans. 1960 as lc Ltcrro| ir
Mor. SCM Iress, London. (Includes essay on Nature of Ihilosophy)
Scheler, M. (1923). Vcscr ur Iormcr cr Sympot|ic. Trans. 1954 as lc
Noturc oj Sympot|y. Routledge and Kegan Iaul, London.
Scheler, M. (1926). Erkenntnis und Arbeit. In Dic Visscrsjormcr ur ic
Gcsc||sc|ojt. Der Neue-Geist Verlag, Leipzig. (Includes Metaphysics of
perception.)
Scheler, M. (1926). |roo|cmc circr Sozio|ogic cs Visscrs. Trans. 1980 as
|roo|cms oj o Socio|ogy oj Krou|cgc. Routledge & Kegan Iaul, London.
Scheler, M. (1927). Dic Stc||urg cs Mcrsc|cr im Kosmos. Trans. 1961 as
Mors ||occ ir Noturc. Noonday, New York.
Scheler, M. (1927). Idealismus Realismus. Trans. 1973 as Idealism and
Realism. In Max Scheler, Sc|cctc ||i|osop|ico| Lssoys, ed. D.R. Lachter-
man, Northwestern University Iress, Evanston.
Scheler, M. (1933). lo ur Iort|cocr. In Sc|rijtcr ous cm Noc||oss, Band 1.
Der Neue Geist Verlag, Berlin.
aa rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Scheler, M. (1933). ber Scham und Schamgefhl. Trans. 1987 as Shame.
In Max Scheler, |crsor or Sc|j-vo|uc. lrcc Lssoys, ed. M.S. Frings. Mar-
tinus Nijho, Te Iague.
Scheler, M. (1933). Vorbilder und Fhrer. Trans. 1987 as Exemplars of
Ierson and Leaders. In Max Scheler, |crsor or Sc|j-vo|uc. lrcc Lssoys,
ed. M.S. Frings. Martinus Nijho, Te Iague.
Scheler, M. (1933). Lehre von den drei Tatsachen. Trans. 1973 as Te Te-
ory of the Tree Facts. In Max Scheler, Sc|cctc ||i|osop|ico| Lssoys, ed.
D.R. Lachterman. Northwestern University Iress, Evanston.
Scheler, M. (1933). Ihnomenologie und Erkenntnistheorie. Trans. 1973
as Ihenomenology and the Teory of Cognition. In Max Scheler, Sc|cctc
||i|osop|ico| Lssoys, ed. D.R. Lachterman. Northwestern University Iress,
Evanston.
Scheler, M. (1947). Metaphysik und Kunst. Trans. 1974 as Metaphysics
and Art. In Mox Sc|c|cr, Ccrtcrrio| Lssoys, ed. M.S. Frings. Martinus Nij-
ho, Te Iague.
Scheler, M. (1976). Idealismus und Realismus, V: Das emotionale Real-
ittsproblem. Trans. 1981 as Reality and Resistance: On Bcirg or limc,
Section 43. In Hcicggcr, lc Mor or t|c lir|cr, ed. T. Sheehan. Iresi-
dent Iublishing, Chicago.
rwnrx or rv arns
aim, 6, 13, 18, 22, 41, 45, 48, 59, 60,
103, 107, 112, 119, 192, 219, 324,
326, 372, 415
Being-itself (see also Lrs o se and
Supreme Being), 55, 59, 69, 70,
227, 229, 232, 237, 250, 251, 349,
356, 357, 367
being-so (Soscir), 78, 79, 87, 95, 99,
118-120, 122, 124, 127, 155, 189,
203, 231, 234, 246, 248, 255, 257,
263, 264, 382, 386, 394, 401, 403,
409, 410, 416, 417
cognition, 5, 11, 14, 18-20, 26, 32,
38-41, 44, 55, 66, 68, 77, 95,
124-126, 145, 150, 153, 154, 255,
257, 259, 262, 263, 315, 316, 389,
390, 409, 410, 412, 413, 416-418,
422
concept, 33, 43, 52, 54, 55, 57-59,
81, 87, 89-92, 97, 98, 109, 118,
151, 154, 157, 184, 186, 188, 191,
192, 195, 206, 215, 245, 265, 285,
290, 307, 308, 341, 360, 367, 371,
384, 386, 390, 394-396, 398
consciousness, 11, 12, 14, 19, 20,
23, 41, 43, 69, 78, 83, 87, 97,
100-103, 108-114, 116, 118-122,
125, 127, 138, 139, 141, 143, 146,
148, 149, 156, 160, 165, 166, 173,
174, 176, 182, 183, 185-187, 189,
190, 192, 196-199, 202, 203, 205,
209, 211, 222, 223, 228, 229, 231,
240, 242, 248, 258, 266, 269, 270,
276, 277, 280, 282, 284, 286, 291,
314, 335, 336, 344, 378, 380-382,
388-390, 392, 394, 406, 411
Drorg (see also life-force and Na-
ture), 133, 197, 291, 294, 295,
316, 319, 340, 350, 353, 363
Lrs o sc (see also Being-itself and
Supreme Being), 94, 114, 125,
200, 227, 340, 349, 356, 362, 369,
372, 400, 401, 403, 408, 410-413,
419
Lros, 187, 230-241, 245, 246, 248,
249, 323, 325, 327, 332, 333, 337,
339, 342, 351, 352, 355, 357, 359,
367, 405, 420
essence, 16, 22, 27-29, 33, 36, 37, 51,
55, 74, 78, 80-83, 86, 87, 94-98,
100, 101, 104-109, 113, 122, 124,
125, 129, 133, 134, 142, 145, 164,
167, 184, 186, 201, 213, 215, 218,
230, 232, 234, 237-240, 255, 257,
258, 297, 315, 327, 339, 344,
356, 359, 363, 365, 367, 369-371,
375-377, 384, 385, 389, 391, 399,
400, 403, 406, 407, 409, 412, 417,
420
existential relativity, 17, 47, 50, 109,
115, 118-123, 201, 257, 295, 316,
317, 330
fantasy, 30-32, 36, 42-47, 66, 115,
133, 149, 266, 267, 270, 273, 277,
a rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
278, 286, 321, 325-329, 333, 342,
359, 363, 367
Gcist, 193, 294, 307, 317, 333, 373,
405, 421
Gcsto|t (see also ur-phenomenon and
image), 149, 150, 163, 168, 312
goal (see also teleology), 37, 45, 59,
62, 103, 105, 124, 138, 155, 156,
179, 200, 210, 219, 220, 223, 224,
234, 241, 251, 257, 299, 323, 324,
332-335, 338, 340, 341, 345, 349,
354, 355, 361, 364, 398, 41
idea, 24, 29, 33, 37-41, 49, 53, 56,
59, 62, 69, 80-82, 86, 87, 90-92,
94-99, 101-103, 113, 115, 118,
134, 138, 163, 175, 196, 197, 200,
203, 208, 210, 219, 221, 223, 228,
230, 237, 241, 244, 249, 250, 252,
256-258, 264, 270, 281, 290, 291,
314, 328, 329, 331, 332, 334,
339, 340, 343-345, 349, 351, 354,
355, 358, 360-362, 364, 369, 371,
373-375, 378, 386, 398, 400, 401,
405, 408, 411, 412, 415, 417, 420
image (see also ur-phenomenon and
Gcsto|t), 37, 38, 44, 45, 58, 67,
84-87, 90, 120, 141, 146, 159,
165, 166, 178, 188-191, 213, 223,
226, 230, 231, 234, 236, 237, 239,
240, 246-248, 250, 258, 267, 268,
270, 276, 287, 288, 295, 321, 327,
342-344, 355, 369, 390, 395, 396,
404, 411, 419
intuition, 13, 16, 22-27, 36-38, 44,
45, 47, 48, 73, 84, 85, 88-91, 94,
95, 97, 98, 103, 107, 110, 114,
118, 119, 121, 124, 126-128, 214,
231, 232, 240, 258, 267, 272-274,
277, 278, 281, 285, 286, 288, 289,
327, 333, 352, 367, 369, 375, 380,
390, 393, 394, 397, 404, 413, 418
knowledge, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17-22,
24-33, 35, 39, 40, 42, 44, 45,
47-51, 56, 60, 65-70, 74, 78-83,
87, 88, 90, 92-98, 106, 107,
109-111, 113, 114, 116-125,
127-129, 132, 133, 135, 139, 140,
144, 146, 151, 152, 160, 165, 170,
173, 175, 176, 185, 189, 195,
197, 205, 223, 227, 229, 232,
234, 244, 251, 255-259, 261-263,
266, 267, 277, 278, 306, 315, 316,
344, 370-372, 377, 380, 384, 389,
391-395, 402-404, 407, 409, 411,
413, 416-418, 421
life-force (see also Drorg and
Nature), 71, 97, 135, 221-227,
229-233, 236, 238-243, 246,
248-250, 253, 257-259, 268, 374,
388, 393-395, 401-404
mental, 13, 15, 16, 24, 37, 43, 51,
61, 68, 73, 78, 80, 81, 96, 97, 100,
103, 104, 106, 111, 112, 114,
116, 124, 128, 130-132, 134, 138,
139, 141, 142, 150, 151, 155-157,
159-161, 172-174, 176, 184, 185,
187, 189, 190, 192, 193, 196,
198-201, 204, 211, 213, 214, 216,
217, 221, 228, 234, 239-241, 243,
246, 252, 255, 258, 262, 264, 294,
300, 305, 361, 369, 370, 372, 374,
378, 379, 381, 389-392, 398, 402,
405, 411, 413, 414, 419
mind, 14, 20, 22, 23, 26, 27, 30, 32,
37, 39, 46, 47, 51, 63, 65, 78-80,
89, 95-99, 101-103, 105, 106,
108, 109, 111, 112, 117, 120,
123-127, 129-135, 137-139, 142,
Q Ircx oj Kcy lcrms a,
144, 154-157, 161-163, 174, 184,
187, 189, 190, 192, 193, 195-198,
200, 201, 204-206, 209-217, 219,
221-224, 226, 228-230, 233,
236-245, 248-250, 252, 253, 255,
257-259, 262, 270, 273, 280, 281,
293, 296, 298, 299, 306, 307, 309,
310, 328, 329, 345, 351, 355, 369,
373-375, 379, 380, 389, 395, 397,
398, 400-403, 405-407, 409-415,
418-420
Nature (see also Drorg and life-
force), 11-13, 17, 19, 20, 22-29,
32, 36, 37, 40, 41, 45-52, 55-57,
59-63, 65-71, 77, 81, 83, 86-89,
91-93, 95-97, 103-106, 108, 109,
112, 114, 115, 117, 119, 121, 123,
124, 131, 132, 137, 139, 141, 142,
144, 149, 150, 152-158, 160, 161,
163-168, 170, 172, 175, 180, 181,
183, 185, 187, 194, 200, 201, 203,
204, 207-210, 212, 216, 217, 220,
223, 225-228, 230-232, 234, 239,
243, 248-252, 256-259, 262-281,
284-287, 289, 291-296, 298-301,
304-319, 321, 323-336, 339-346,
348-364, 366, 370, 374, 378-381,
383-393, 395-399, 402, 403, 405,
408, 409, 411, 413, 414, 416-421
person, 12, 15, 16, 51, 56, 73-75, 87,
102, 103, 111-113, 115, 117, 123,
124, 132, 138, 141, 142, 156-158,
160, 161, 172, 174-176, 182, 185,
186, 192, 193, 196-201, 208-210,
212, 216-219, 227, 228, 237, 240,
245, 246, 250-252, 293, 294, 297,
304, 305, 345, 348, 350, 352, 353,
357, 361, 366, 370, 377, 381, 390,
398, 413-415, 422
personhood, 22, 73, 221, 352-354
psyche, 138, 155, 156, 171, 173, 181,
187, 189, 190, 224, 244, 281, 308
psychic, 41, 46, 51, 53, 60, 92, 103,
113, 115, 116, 118, 120, 122, 126,
130, 134, 135, 142, 143, 146,
150, 151, 153, 155, 157-160, 162,
163, 167, 168, 170-191, 193-196,
198-200, 220, 221, 225, 226, 233,
237, 281, 282, 295, 298-300,
304-307, 310, 311, 313, 336, 360,
361, 381, 404, 411, 413, 417, 418
reality, 11-13, 17, 19, 20, 23, 24,
27-29, 32, 35, 36, 41, 46-55, 67,
70, 77-83, 87, 88, 95, 99-103, 106,
108, 111, 113, 115, 118-121, 165,
174, 196, 220, 234, 248, 250, 255,
259, 262, 264, 267-270, 273, 277,
280, 282, 285, 291, 310, 324-332,
344, 347, 348, 354, 355, 363, 367,
370, 372, 373, 380, 381, 387, 394,
395, 397, 403, 408-410, 413, 416,
418, 422
Rcuctior, 36, 37, 61, 67, 79, 80,
82-86, 92, 99-103, 106-113, 261,
330, 371, 397, 402, 403, 409, 410,
419
Soscir (see also being-so and what-
ness), 124, 140, 165, 178, 193,
348, 385, 388, 419
soul, 11, 42, 44-47, 53-55, 67, 68,
114, 117-119, 129-135, 137, 138,
141-146, 148-152, 154, 156, 157,
159, 162, 170, 171, 173, 177,
179-184, 186, 192, 195-199, 216,
225, 229, 232, 233, 242, 245, 247,
248, 281, 308-310, 313, 314, 336,
411
space, 26, 50, 51, 60, 78, 79, 81, 82,
84, 86, 100, 106, 108, 152, 154,
156, 164-166, 177, 183, 191,
ao rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
193, 195, 214, 221, 225, 245,
247, 261-263, 265, 266, 270-291,
294-300, 304, 307, 310, 319, 320,
326, 327, 334, 342, 359, 371, 375,
388, 391, 397, 401, 409, 410,
413-415
spirit, 19, 31, 33, 35, 42, 44-48,
51-56, 63, 65, 67, 70, 72, 217,
219, 221-224, 227, 233, 236, 242,
244, 245, 248, 251, 253, 264, 280,
281, 293, 294, 296, 298, 299, 306,
307, 309, 313, 314, 323, 324, 326,
328, 329, 331-335, 337-344, 346,
349-357, 359-367, 380
Supreme Being (see also Lrs o sc
and Being-itself ), 58, 59, 87, 200,
213, 216, 221, 225, 227, 228, 249,
374, 376, 379, 380, 382, 383, 385,
391, 419
teleoclinical, 156, 159, 178, 192,
233, 296, 308, 386
teleology (see also goal), 313, 314,
326, 335, 336, 354
time, 14, 18, 19, 21, 25, 26, 28-30,
50-55, 60, 65, 66, 68, 69, 72, 75,
78-82, 84, 86, 96, 99-101, 106,
108, 109, 116, 118, 120, 121,
129, 134, 142, 146, 148, 152,
154, 156-158, 160, 161, 163-165,
170, 174, 177, 181-184, 186, 188,
192, 193, 195, 196, 198-200, 207,
211, 213-215, 218-221, 223, 225,
232, 238, 240, 241, 244, 245,
248, 251, 256, 257, 261-263, 265,
266, 270-287, 289-300, 302, 304,
306-310, 314, 317-321, 323-327,
331, 332, 334-336, 338-340,
342, 343, 345-347, 349-352, 355,
357-359, 362-364, 370, 371,
374-379, 383, 385-388, 391, 394,
396, 397, 400, 401, 409, 410,
412-415, 418, 419, 422
ur-phenomenon (see also image and
Gcsto|t), 86, 87, 92, 93, 258
whatness (see also being-so and So-
scir), 43, 80, 82, 83, 95, 100, 101,
106, 108-111, 125, 356, 383
will, 9, 13-15, 20, 21, 23, 25, 28, 34,
36, 41, 46, 47, 50, 54, 63, 64, 67,
69, 75, 78, 80, 81, 83, 99, 100,
102, 103, 105, 106, 113, 123,
124, 132, 138, 139, 148, 151, 158,
161, 163, 173, 178, 186, 188-193,
200, 204, 205, 207, 209, 215, 217,
237, 240, 241, 243, 247, 249, 251,
252, 256, 275, 283-286, 290, 291,
293-295, 302, 306, 314, 315, 326,
328, 331-334, 337, 339-341, 344,
345, 347, 349-352, 355-357, 360,
361, 363, 366, 367, 370, 371, 373,
375, 381, 389, 390, 392-394, 398,
401, 404, 409, 412-415
rwnrx or wzrs
Ach, 151
Adler, 189
Aristotle, 11, 12, 18, 27, 29, 52, 57,
58, 61, 81, 82, 87-89, 98, 127,
129, 131, 133, 143, 164, 279, 280,
298, 304, 306-309, 312-314, 316,
332, 341, 345, 358, 360, 370, 377,
408
Avenarius, 14, 311
Bachofen, 225, 244
Bacon, 14
Becher, 179-181, 313, 314, 317
Bergson, 25, 29, 53, 89, 90, 133,
143, 146, 152-154, 220, 246, 282,
304, 307, 309, 313, 316, 317, 383,
402, 421
Berkeley, 53, 118, 269, 343
Birnbaum, 190
Boas, 131
Bhme, 220
Boltzmann, 214
Bolzano, 369, 388, 389, 407
Brentano, 125, 416
Buddha, 57, 63, 116, 237, 244
Burckhardt, 30
Buytendijk, 319
Carnot, 54
Cassirer, 21, 250
Christ, 23, 237
Claparde, 269
Clark, 281
Clausius, 54
Cohen, 21, 33, 119, 126, 152
Comte, 16, 251, 311
Condillac, 149
Croce, 22, 70
Dante, 33, 34
Darwin, 133, 140, 227, 335
Democritus, 262, 310
Descartes, 18, 22, 34, 52, 64, 118,
133, 146, 148, 150, 169, 171, 181,
215, 227, 228, 305, 309, 310, 314,
320, 378
Dilthey, 14, 16, 146, 421
Dionysius the Areopagite, 23
Driesch, 53, 152, 153, 182, 183, 188,
303, 304, 308, 309, 313, 314, 317,
319-321, 325, 340, 341
Duhem, 152, 336
Duns Scotus, 75
Durkheim, 249
Eckermann, 217
Eckhart, 220
Einstein, 41, 144, 152, 215, 283,
284, 289, 291, 298
Empedocles, 310
Epicurus, 251
Eucken, 7, 145
Euripedes, 34
Faraday, 291
Fechner, 47, 199, 307, 336
Feuerbach, 223, 249, 251
Fichte, 33, 53, 65, 69, 125, 220, 269
Fiedler, 30, 39, 40, 42
Freud, 145, 189, 190, 225, 237, 246
Galileo, 52, 121, 306
as rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Gelb, 395
Germain, 17
Goethe, 19, 31, 33, 34, 94, 154, 212,
217, 331, 339, 366
Goldstein, 179
Gorgias, 116
Iartley, 150
Iartmann, 7, 17, 126, 188, 209,
211, 220, 258, 276, 282, 295, 314,
320, 330, 332, 333, 339, 347, 357,
360, 365, 369, 372, 388, 389
Iegel, 17, 22, 25, 31, 33, 53, 65, 94,
125, 211, 220, 228, 314, 348, 360,
365, 380, 383, 400, 412
Ieidegger, 7, 8, 125, 329, 412, 422
Ieisenberg, 378
Ielmholtz, 54, 86, 87
Ienderson, 312
Ieraclitus, 31, 400
Ierbart, 180, 389
Iering, 83, 182
Iertz, 191
Ieyer, 186
Iillel, 210, 218
Iobbes, 64, 75, 310
Iomer, 232
Iume, 27, 43, 53, 91, 149, 197
Iusserl, 7, 8, 12, 14, 27, 79-82, 87,
89, 90, 99, 102, 103, 108, 109,
111, 112, 119, 125, 258, 329, 369,
371, 388-390, 397, 405-407, 418
Iuygens, 52
Jaensch, 86, 149
James, 126, 180, 339
Jaspers, 16, 17
Joule, 54
Jung, 225, 238
Kant, 14, 18, 20-23, 29, 30, 33, 34,
47, 48, 53, 54, 60, 68, 69, 75, 79,
87-89, 92, 98, 103, 106, 116,
118-121, 126, 149, 154, 166, 175,
196, 214, 227-229, 231, 240, 244,
256, 262, 265, 270, 272, 274, 278,
281, 289, 292, 300, 314, 315, 327,
380, 384, 386, 399, 414, 418
Katz, 83
Kerler, 209
Keynes, 145
Klages, 97, 186, 406
Klopstock, 238
Koehler, 153, 312
Koka, 184, 400
Kretschmer, 238
Kronecker, 390
Kulpe, 148
Lamarck, 133, 134, 313
Lamettrie, 310
Lange, 29, 33
Lask, 89
Leibniz, 17, 58, 59, 63, 64, 104, 109,
126, 133, 160, 195, 221, 222, 265,
281, 290, 295, 309
Leonardo, 52
Le Roy, 152
Leucippus, 310
Linke, 369
Locke, 18, 19
Lodge, 313
Lotze, 19, 83, 140, 149, 181, 184,
185, 309, 310, 312, 389
Mach, 14, 149, 152, 290, 311
Machiavelli, 210
Malebranche, 25, 94, 281, 309, 314,
407
Marty, 279
Marx, 53, 54, 63, 249, 400
Meinong, 182, 388
Mendel, 193, 304
Meyer, 54
Q Ircx oj Nomcs a,
Meyerson, 152
Michelson, 283
Mill, 16, 382
Nadler, 244
Napoleon, 74, 380
Natorp, 21, 87, 126, 152
Newton, 20, 52, 121, 149, 262, 281,
285, 327, 409
Nicholas de Cusa, 25
Nietzsche, 7, 17, 29-31, 53, 146,
208, 209, 244, 246, 377, 421
Novalis, 29
Ostwald, 53, 54, 311
Ialagyi, 289
Iascal, 217, 228
Iavlov, 146
Ifnder, 186
Ilanck, 41, 144, 152, 184, 215, 321
Ilato, 15, 27, 29, 34, 52, 56-58, 62,
67, 68, 81, 82, 87, 89, 98, 129,
143, 244, 306, 372, 408, 411
Ilotinus, 23, 25, 27, 30, 133
Ioincar, 31, 41, 285
Iriestley, 150
Iroclus, 27
Irzywara, 64, 66
Iythagorans, 41, 52
Rathenau, 8, 220
Reichenbach, 152
Rickert, 12, 68, 69, 71, 74, 119, 146,
169, 369, 381, 389, 406
Riehl, 152
Schelling, 20, 25, 29, 31, 33, 34, 220,
225, 365
Schilder, 189, 194
Schiller, 29, 33, 34, 234
Schlick, 119, 126, 152, 182-185,
285
Schneider, 190
Schopenhauer, 13, 23-25, 27, 29, 30,
34, 41, 53, 57, 100, 136, 194, 201,
231, 238, 240, 241, 244, 246, 305,
314, 332, 339, 360, 365, 402, 410
Schultz, 312
Schwarz, 220
Semon, 180
Shaw, 339
Simmel, 16, 17, 21, 53, 145, 146
Sophocles, 34
Spencer, 79, 116, 131, 133, 137, 311
Spengler, 14
Spinoza, 15, 18, 19, 24, 27, 34, 58,
59, 67, 68, 95, 124, 125, 143, 148,
201, 206, 211, 213, 220, 281, 347,
348, 365, 410
St. Augustine, 25, 58, 66, 67, 280
St. Iaul, 72, 206
St. Tomas Aquinas, 18, 34, 62,
143, 164, 227, 305, 309, 411
Stern, 309
Strich, 244
Stumpf, 220
Tomas Kempis, 23
Tolstoy, 339
Vaihinger, 30, 32
Von Ehrenfels, 339
Von Iartmann, 188, 211, 220, 276,
295, 314, 320, 347
Von Iumboldt, 203
Von Kries, 184
Vatson, 300
Veber, 16, 70, 71, 257, 339
Veismann, 131, 134
Vells, 220, 339
Vertheimer, 153, 179, 184
,o rnv cowsriruriow or rnv nu.w nviwc
Viener, 295
Vindelband, 12, 68, 71
Vol, 23, 58, 59
Vundt, 12, 75, 133, 134, 149, 172,
184, 185, 313
7eno, 289
7iegler, 209, 220