The method of complete transcendental Idealism, which the Science of Knowledge pursues, I have explained once before in my Essay, On the conception of the Science of Knowledge. I cannot understand why that Essay has not been understood; but suffice it to say, that I am assured it has not been understood. I am therefore compelled to repeat what I have said, and to recall to mind that everything depends upon the correct understanding thereof.
This Idealism proceeds from a single fundamental Law of Reason, which is immediately shown as contained in consciousness. This is done in the following manner: The teacher of that Science requests his reader or hearer to think freely a certain conception. If he does so, he will find himself forced to proceed in a particular manner. Two things are to be distinguished here: the act of Thinking, which is required—the realization of which depends upon each individual’s freedom,—and unless he realizes it thus, he will not understand anything which the Science of Knowledge teaches; and the necessary manner in which it alone can be realized, which manner is grounded in the Essence of the Intelligence, and does not depend upon freedom; it is something necessary, but which is only discovered in and together with a free action; it is something discovered, but the discovery of which depends upon an act of freedom.
So far as this goes, the teacher of Idealism shows his assertion to be contained in immediate consciousness. But that this necessary manner is the fundamental law of all reason, that from it the whole system of our necessary representations, not only of a world and the determinedness and relations of objects, but also of ourselves, as free and practical beings acting under laws, can be deduced. All this is a mere presupposition, which can only be proven by the actual deduction, which deduction is therefore the real business of the teacher.
In realizing this deduction, he proceeds as follows: He shows that the first fundamental law which was discovered in immediate consciousness, is not possible, unless a second action is combined with it, which again is not possible without a third action; and so on, until the conditions of the First are completely exhausted, and itself is now made perfectly comprehensible in its possibility. The teacher’s method is a continual progression from the conditioned to the condition. The condition becomes again conditioned, and its condition is next to be discovered.
If the presupposition of Idealism is correct, and if no errors have been made in the deduction, the last result, as containing all the conditions of the first act, must contain the system of all necessary representations, or the total experience;—a comparison, however, which is not instituted in Philosophy itself, but only after that science has finished its work.
For Idealism has not kept this experience in sight, as the preknown object and result, which it should arrive at; in its course of proceeding it knows nothing at all of experience, and does not look upon it; it proceeds from its starting point according to its rules, careless as to what the result of its investigations might turn out to be. The right angle, from which it has to draw its straight line, is given to it; is there any need of another point to which the line should be drawn? Surely not; for all the points of its line are already given to it with the angle. A certain number is given to you. You suppose that it is the product of certain factors. All you have to do is to search for the product of these factors according to the well-known rules. Whether that product will agree with the given number, you will find out, without any difficulty, as soon as you have obtained it. The given number is the total experience; those factors are: the part of immediate consciousness which was discovered, and the laws of Thinking; the multiplication is the Philosophizing. Those who advise you, while philosophizing, also to keep an eye upon experience, advise you to change the factors a little, and to multiply falsely, so as to obtain by all means corresponding numbers; a course of proceeding as dishonest as it is shallow. In so far as those final results of Idealism are viewed as such, as consequences of our reasoning, they are what is called the a priori of the human mind; and in so far as they are viewed, also—if they should agree with experience—as given in experience, they are called a posteriori. Hence the a priori and the a posteriori are, in a true Philosophy, not two, but one and the same, only viewed in two different ways, and distinguished only by the manner in which they are obtained. Philosophy anticipates the whole experience, thinks it only as necessary; and, in so far, Philosophy is, in comparison with real experience, a priori. The number is a posteriori, if regarded as given; the same number is a priori, if regarded as product of the factors. Whosoever says otherwise knows not what he talks about.
If the results of a Philosophy do not agree with experience, that Philosophy is surely wrong; for it has not fulfilled its promise of deducing the whole experience from the necessary action of the intelligence. In that case, either the presupposition of transcendental Idealism is altogether incorrect, or it has merely been incorrectly treated in the particular representation of that science. Now, since the problem, to explain experience from its ground, is a problem contained in human reason, and as no rational man will admit that human reason contains any problem the solution of which is altogether impossible; and since, moreover, there are only two ways of solving it, the dogmatic system (which, as we have shown, cannot accomplish what it promises) and the Idealistic system, every resolute Thinker will always declare that the latter has been the case; that the presupposition in itself is correct enough, and that no failure in attempts to represent it should deter men from attempting it again until finally it must succeed. The course of this Idealism proceeds, as we have seen, from a fact of consciousness—but which is only obtained by a free act of Thinking—to the total experience. Its peculiar ground is between these two. It is not a fact of consciousness and does not belong within the sphere of experience; and, indeed, how could it be called Philosophy if it did, since Philosophy has to discover the ground of experience, and since the ground lies, of course, beyond the sequence. It is the production of free Thinking, but proceeding according to laws. This will be at once clear, if we look a little closer at the fundamental assertion of Idealism. It proves that the Postulated is not possible without a second, this not without a third, &c., &c.; hence none of all its conditions is possible alone and by itself, but each one is only possible in its union with all the rest. Hence, according to its own assertion, only the Whole is found in consciousness, and this Whole is the experience. You want to obtain a better knowledge of it; hence you must analyze it, not by blindly groping about, but according to the fixed rule of composition, so that it arises under your eyes as a Whole. You are enabled to do this because you have the power of abstraction; because in free Thinking you can certainly take hold of each single condition. For consciousness contains not only necessity of Representations, but also freedom thereof; and this freedom again may proceed according to rules. The Whole is given to you from the point of view of necessary consciousness; you find it just as you find yourself. But the composition of this Whole, the order of its arrangement, is produced by freedom. Whosoever undertakes this act of freedom, becomes conscious of freedom, and thus establishes, as it were, a new field within his consciousness; whosoever does not undertake it, for him this new field, dependent thereupon, does not exist. The chemist composes a body, a metal for instance, from its elements. The common beholder sees the metal well known to him; the chemist beholds, moreover, the composition thereof and the elements which it comprises. Do both now see different objects? I should think not! Both see the same, only in a different manner. The chemist’s sight is a priori; he sees the separates; the ordinary beholder’s sight is a posteriori; he sees the Whole. The only distinction is this: the chemist must first analyze the Whole before he can compose it, because he works upon an object of which he cannot know the rule of composition before he has analyzed it; while the philosopher can compose without a foregoing analysis, because he knows already the rule of his object, of reason.
Hence the content of Philosophy can claim no other reality than that of necessary Thinking, on the condition that you desire to think of the ground of Experience. The Intelligence can only be thought as active, and can only be thought active in this particular manner! Such is the assertion of Philosophy. And this reality is perfectly sufficient for Philosophy, since it is evident from the development of that science that there is no other reality.
This now described complete critical Idealism, the Science of Knowledge intends to establish. What I have said just now contains the conception of that science, and I shall listen to no objections which may touch this conception, since no one can know better than myself what I intend to accomplish, and to demonstrate the impossibility of a thing which is already realized, is ridiculous.
Objections, to be legitimate, should only be raised against the elaboration of that conception, and should only consider whether it has fulfilled what it promised to accomplish or not.