A Theory of Knowledge
GA 2
XVIII. Psychological Cognition
[ 1 ] The first science in which the human spirit deals with itself is psychology. The mind here stands observing itself.
[ 2 ] Fichte assigned an existence to man only to the extent that man ascribes this to himself. In other words, human personality has only those traits, characteristics, capacities which it ascribes to itself through insight into its own being. A human capacity of which a man knew nothing would not be recognized by him as his own but would be attributed to some one alien to him. When Fichte supposed that he could base the whole knowledge of the universe on this truth, he was in error. It is ordained to be the highest principle of psychology. It determines the method of psychology. If the human spirit possesses a characteristic only in so far as it attributes this to itself, then the psychological method consists in the immersion of the mind in its own activity. Here, then, self-apprehension is the method.
[ 3 ] It is obvious that in this discussion we do not restrict psychology to being the science of the fortuitous characteristics of any one human individual (this one or that one). We release the single mind from its fortuitous limitations, from its accessory traits, and seek to raise ourselves to a consideration of the human individual in general.
[ 4 ] Indeed, what is determinative is not that we consider the wholly fortuitous individuality but that we clarify our minds as to the self-determining individual in general. Whoever should say at this point that we should in that case be dealing with nothing more than the type of humanity confuses the type with the generalized concept. It is essential to the type that it, as the general, confronts its single forms. Not so with the concept of the human individual. Here the general is active immediately in the individual being, except that this activity expresses itself in various ways according to the object toward which it is directed. The type exists in single forms and in these comes into reciprocal activity with the external world. The human spirit has only one form. But in one case certain objects move his feelings; in another this ideal inspires him to actions; etc. It is not a specialized form of the human spirit; it is always the entire and complete man with whom we have to deal. He must be released from his surroundings if he is to be comprehended. If we wish to arrive at the type, we must ascend from the single form to the primal form; if we wish to arrive at the human spirit, we must ignore the expressions in which it manifests itself, the special acts which it performs, and observe it in and of itself. We must discover how it behaves in general, not how it has behaved in this or that situation. In the case of the type we must separate the universal form, by comparison, from the single forms; in psychology we must separate the single forms only from their surroundings.
[ 5 ] Here the case is no longer the same as in organics, that in the particular being we recognize the molding of the primal form; but here, in perceiving the single forms, we recognize the primal form itself. The spiritual being of man is not one formation of its Idea, but the formation thereof. When Jacobi believes that, in becoming aware of our inner entity, we at the same time attain to the conviction that a unitary being lies at the basis of this entity (intuitive self-apprehension) his thought is in error, because we really become aware of this unitary being itself. What is otherwise intuition becomes here self-contemplation. In regard to the highest form of being this is also an objective necessity. What the human spirit can read out of phenomena is the highest form of content which it can attain at all. If the spirit then reflects upon itself, it must recognize itself as the direct manifestation of this highest: as, indeed, its very bearer. What the spirit finds as unity in multiform reality, this it must find in its own singleness as immediate existence. What it contrasts with particularization as the general,—this it must attribute to its own individuality as its very nature.
[ 6 ] From all this it becomes clear that a true psychology can be attained only when we enter into the character of the human spirit in its activity. Nowadays in place of this method the effort has been made to set up another in which the subject matter of psychology has been, not the human spirit itself, but the phenomena in which the spirit expresses its existence. It is supposed that the external expressions of the mind can be brought into an external interrelationship, as can be done with the facts of inorganic Nature. In this way the effort is made to found a “theory of the soul without any soul.” From our reflections it becomes evident that, by such a method, we lose sight of the very thing that is important. [ 7 ] What ought to be done is to separate the human spirit from its manifestations and return to the spirit itself as the producer of these. Psychologists restrict themselves to the former and lose sight of the latter. Just here they have allowed themselves to be brought to the false standpoint which would apply to all sciences the methods of mechanics, physics, etc.
[ 8 ] The unitary soul is given to us in experience just as are its single actions. Every man is conscious of the fact that his thinking, feeling, and willing proceed from his ego. Every activity of our personality is bound up with this center of our being. If, in the case of any action, we ignore this union with the personality, it ceases to be a manifestation of the soul. It belongs under the concept either of inorganic or of organic nature. If two balls lie on the table, and I thrust one against another, all that happens is resolved into physical or physiological occurrence, if my purpose and will are ignored. In all manifestations of the human spirit—thinking, feeling, willing—the important thing is to recognize these in their essential nature as expressions of the personality. It is upon this that psychology rests.
[ 9 ] But man does not belong to himself alone; he belongs also to society. What manifests itself in him is not merely his own individuality, but at the same time that of the folk-group to which he belongs. What he performs proceeds from the folk-force of his people as well as from his own force. In his mission he fulfills a part of that of his folk-kindred. The important thing is that his place among his people shall be such that he may bring to complete effectiveness the power of his individuality. [ 10 ] This is possible only when the folk-organism is of such sort that the single person can find the place where he may plant his lever. It must not be left to chance whether or not he shall find this place.
[ 11 ] The way to inquire how the individual lives within the social group of his people is a matter for the science of peoples and the science of the state. The folk-individuality is the subject of this science. It has to show what form the organism of the state must assume if the folk-individuality is to come to expression within it. The constitution which a people gives to itself must be evolved out of its innermost nature. Here also there are current fallacies of no small importance. The science of the state is held not to be an experiential science. It is held that the constitution of every people can be determined according to a certain stereotyped pattern.14Omitted from the new edition.
[ 12 ] But the constitution of a people is nothing else than its individual character brought into well determined forms of law. Whoever would indicate beforehand the direction in which a definite activity of a people has to move must not impose upon this anything from without: he must simply express what lies unconscious in the character of the people. “It is not the intelligent person who controls, but intelligence; not the rational person, but reason,” says Goethe.
[ 13 ] To grasp the folk-individuality as rational is the method in the science of the peoples. Man belongs to a whole whose nature consists in the organization of the reason. Here also we may cite a significant word of Goethe's: “The rational world is to be conceived as a great Immortal Individuality which unceasingly brings to pass what is necessary and thus makes itself master over the fortuitous.” As psychology investigates the nature of the individual, so the science of the peoples must investigate that “immortal individuality.”
18. Psychologisches Erkennen
[ 1 ] Die erste Wissenschaft, in der es der Geist mit sich selbst zu tun hat, ist die Psychologie. Der Geist steht sich betrachtend selbst gegenüber.
[ 2 ] Fichte sprach dem Menschen nur insofern eine Existenz zu, als er sie selbst in sich setzt. Mit andern Worten: Die menschliche Persönlichkeit hat nur jene Merkmale, Eigenschaften, Fähigkeiten usw., die sie sich vermöge der Einsicht in ihr Wesen selbst zuschreibt. Eine menschliche Fähigkeit, von der der Mensch nichts wüßte, erkennte er nicht als die seinige an, er legte sie einem ihm Fremden bei. Wenn Fichte vermeinte, auf diese Wahrheit die ganze Wissenschaft des Universums begründen zu können, so war das ein Irrtum. Sie ist dazu bestimmt, das oberste Prinzip der Psychologie zu werden. Sie bestimmt die Methode derselben. Wenn der Geist eine Eigenschaft nur insofern besitzt, als er sich sie selbst beilegt, so ist die psychologische Methode das Vertiefen des Geistes in seine eigene Tätigkeit. Selbsterfassung ist also hier die Methode.
[ 3 ] Es ist natürlich, daß wir hiermit die Psychologie nicht darauf beschränken, eine Wissenschaft von den zufälligen Eigenschaften irgend eines (dieses oder jenes˃ menschlichen Individuums zu sein. Wir lösen den Einzelgeist von seinen zufälligen Beschränkungen, von seinen nebensächlichen Merkmalen ab und suchen uns zu der Betrachtung des menschlichen Individuums überhaupt zu erheben.
[ 4 ] Das ist ja nicht das Maßgebende, daß wir die ganz zufällige Einzelindividualität betrachten, sondern daß wir uns über das sich aus sich selbst bestimmende Individuum überhaupt klar werden. Wer da sagen wollte, da hätten wir ja auch mit nichts weiter als mit dem Typus der Menschheit zu tun, verwechselt den Typus mit dem generalisierten Begriff. Dem Typus ist es wesentlich, daß er als allgemeiner seinen Einzelformen gegenübersteht. Nicht so dem Begriff des menschlichen Individuums. Hier ist das Allgemeine unmittelbar im Einzelwesen tätig, nur daß sich diese Tätigkeit in verschiedener Weise äußert, je nach den Gegenständen, auf die sie sich richtet. Der Typus lebt sich in einzelnen Formen dar und tritt in diesen mit der Außenwelt in Wechselwirkung. Der Menschengeist hat nur eine Form. Hier aber bewegen jene Gegenstände sein Fühlen, dort begeistert ihn dieses Ideal zu Handlungen usw. Es ist nicht eine besondere Form des Menschengeistes; es ist immer der ganze, volle Mensch, mit dem man es zu tun hat. Diesen muß man aus seiner Umgebung loslösen, wenn man ihn erfassen will. Will man zum Typus gelangen, dann muß man von der Einzelform zur Urform aufsteigen; will man zum Geiste gelangen, muß man von den Äußerungen, durch die er sich kundgibt, von den speziellen Taten, die er vollbringt, absehen und ihn an und für sich betrachten. Man muß ihn belauschen, wie er überhaupt handelt, nicht wie er in dieser oder jener Lage gehandelt hat. Im Typus muß man die allgemeine Form durch Vergleichung von den einzelnen loslösen; in der Psychologie muß man die Einzelform bloß von ihrer Umgebung loslösen.
[ 5 ] Es ist da nicht mehr so wie in der Organik, daß wir in dem besonderen Wesen eine Gestaltung des Allgemeinen, der Urform erkennen, sondern die Wahrnehmung des Besonderen als diese Urform selbst. Nicht eine Ausgestaltung ihrer Idee ist das menschliche Geisteswesen, sondern die Ausgestaltung derselben. Wenn Jacobi glaubt, daß wir mit der Wahrnehmung unseres Innern zugleich die Überzeugung davon gewinnen, daß demselben ein einheitliches Wesen zugrunde liege (intuitive Selbsterfassung˃, so ist der Gedanke deswegen ein verfehlter, weil wir ja dieses einheitliche Wesen selbst wahrnehmen. Was sonst Intuition ist, wird hier eben Selbstbetrachtung. Das ist bei der höchsten Form des Daseins sachlich auch notwendig. Das, was der Geist aus den Erscheinungen herauslesen kann, ist die höchste Form des Inhaltes, den er überhaupt gewinnen kann. Reflektiert er dann auf sich selbst, so muß er sich als die unmittelbare Manifestation dieser höchsten Form, als den Träger derselben selbst erkennen. Was der Geist als Einheit in der vielgestaltigen Wirklichkeit findet, das muß er in seiner Einzelheit als unmittelbares Dasein finden. Was er der Besonderheit als Allgemeines gegenüberstellt, das muß er seinem Individuum als dessen Wesen selbst zuerkennen.
[ 6 ] Man ersieht aus alledem, daß man eine wahrhafte Psychologie nur gewinnen kann, wenn man auf die Beschaffenheit des Geistes als eines Tätigen eingeht. Man hat in unserer Zeit an die Stelle dieser Methode eine andere setzen wollen, welche die Erscheinungen, in denen sich der Geist darlebt, nicht diesen selbst, zum Gegenstande der Psychologie macht. Man glaubt die einzelnen Äußerungen desselben ebenso in einen äußerlichen Zusammenhang bringen zu können, wie das bei den unorganischen Naturtatsachen geschieht. So will man eine «Seelenlehre ohne Seele» begründen. Aus unseren Betrachtungen ergibt sich, daß man bei dieser Methode gerade das aus dem Auge verliert, auf das es ankommt.
[ 7 ] Man sollte den Geist von seinen Äußerungen loslösen und auf ihn als den Produzenten derselben zurückgehen. Man beschränkt sich auf die ersteren und vergißt den letzteren. Man hat sich eben auch hier zu jenem falschen Standpunkt verleiten lassen, der die Methoden der Mechanik, Physik usw. auf alle Wissenschaften anwenden will.
[ 8 ] Die einheitliche Seele ist uns ebenso erfahrungsgemäß gegeben wie ihre einzelnen Handlungen. Jedermann ist sich dessen bewußt, daß sein Denken, Fühlen und Wollen von seinem «Ich» ausgeht. Jede Tätigkeit unserer Persönlichkeit ist mit diesem Zentrum unseres Wesens verbunden. Sieht man bei einer Handlung von dieser Verbindung mit der Persönlichkeit ab, dann hört sie überhaupt auf. eine Seelenerscheinung zu sein. Sie fällt entweder unter den Begriff der unorganischen oder der organischen Natur. Liegen zwei Kugeln auf dem Tische, und ich stoße die eine an die andere, so löst sich alles, wenn man von meiner Absicht und meinem Wollen absieht, in physikalisches oder physiologisches Geschehen auf. Bei allen Manifestationen des Geistes: Denken, Fühlen, Wollen, kommt es darauf an, sie in ihrer Wesenheit als Äußerungen der Persönlichkeit zu erkennen. Darauf beruht die Psychologie.
[ 9 ] Der Mensch gehört aber nicht nur sich, er gehört auch der Gesellschaft an. Was sich in ihm darlebt, ist nicht bloß seine Individualität, sondern zugleich jene des Volksverbandes, dem er angehört. Was er vollbringt, geht ebenso wie aus der seinen, zugleich aus der Vollkraft seines Volkes hervor. Er erfüllt mit seiner Sendung einen Teil von der seiner Volksgenossenschaft. Es kommt darauf an, daß sein Platz innerhalb seines Volkes ein solcher ist, daß er die Macht seiner Individualität voll zur Geltung bringen kann.
[ 10 ] Das ist nur möglich, wenn der Volksorganismus ein derartiger ist, daß der einzelne den Ort finden kann, wo er seinen Hebel anzusetzen vermag. Es darf nicht dem Zufall überlassen bleiben, ob er diesen Platz findet.
[ 11 ] Die Weise zu erforschen, wie sich die Individualität innerhalb der Volksgemeinde darlebt, ist Sache der Volkskunde und der Staatswissenschaft. Die Volksindividualität ist der Gegenstand dieser Wissenschaft. Diese hat zu zeigen, welche Form der staatliche Organismus anzunehmen hat, wenn die Volksindividualität in demselben zum Ausdrucke kommen soll. Die Verfassung, die sich ein Volk gibt, muß aus seinem innersten Wesen heraus entwickelt werden. Auch hier sind nicht geringe Irrtümer im Umlauf. Man hält die Staatswissenschaft nicht für eine Erfahrungswissenschaft. Man glaubt die Verfassung aller Völker nach einer gewissen Schablone einrichten zu können.
[ 12 ] Die Verfassung eines Volkes ist aber nichts anderes, als sein individueller Charakter in festbestimmte Gesetzesformen gebracht. Wer die Richtung vorzeichnen will, in der sich eine bestimmte Tätigkeit eines Volkes zu bewegen hat, darf diesem nichts Äußerliches aufdrängen: er muß einfach aussprechen, was im Volkscharakter unbewußt liegt. «Der Verständige regiert nicht, aber der Verstand: nicht der Vernünftige, sondern die Vernunft», sagt Goethe.
[ 13 ] Die Volksindividualität als vernünftige zu begreifen, ist die Methode der Volkskunde. Der Mensch gehört einem Ganzen an, dessen Natur die Vernunftorganisation ist. Wir können auch hier wieder ein bedeutsames Wort Goethes anführen: «Die vernünftige Welt ist als ein großes unsterbliches Individuum zu betrachten, das unaufhaltsam das Notwendige bewirkt und dadurch sich sogar über das Zufällige zum Herrn macht.» - Wie die Psychologie das Wesen des Einzelindividuums, so hat die Volkskunde (Völkerpsychologie) jenes «unsterbliche Individuum» zu erforschen.
18. Psychological Cognition
[ 1 ] The first science in which the mind deals with itself is psychology. The mind faces itself in contemplation.
[ 2 ] Fichte only attributed an existence to man insofar as he places it in himself. In other words, the human personality has only those characteristics, qualities, abilities, etc. that it ascribes to itself by virtue of the insight into its essence. A human ability of which man would know nothing, he would not recognize as his own; he would attribute it to a stranger. If Fichte thought he could base the entire science of the universe on this truth, he was mistaken. It is destined to become the supreme principle of psychology. It determines its method. If the mind possesses a quality only in so far as it attributes it to itself, then the psychological method is the immersion of the mind in its own activity. Self-perception is therefore the method here.
[ 3 ] It is natural that we do not limit psychology to being a science of the accidental properties of any (this or that˃ human individual. We detach the individual mind from its accidental limitations, from its incidental characteristics, and seek to elevate ourselves to the consideration of the human individual in general.
[ 4 ] The decisive point is not that we consider the completely random individuality, but that we become clear about the self-determining individual in general. Anyone who would say that we are dealing with nothing more than the type of humanity is confusing the type with the generalized concept. It is essential to the type that it stands opposite its individual forms in a generalized way. Not so the concept of the human individual. Here the general is directly active in the individual, only that this activity expresses itself in different ways, depending on the objects to which it is directed. The type lives itself out in individual forms and interacts in these with the outside world. The human spirit has only one form. Here, however, those objects move his feelings, there this ideal inspires him to action, etc. It is not a particular form of the human spirit; it is always the whole, complete human being with whom one is dealing. You have to detach it from its surroundings if you want to grasp it. If we want to reach the type, we must ascend from the individual form to the archetypal form; if we want to reach the spirit, we must disregard the expressions through which it manifests itself, the particular deeds it performs, and look at it in and of itself. One must listen to him as he acts in general, not as he has acted in this or that situation. In type one must detach the general form from the individual by comparison; in psychology one must merely detach the individual form from its environment.
[ 5 ] It is no longer the case, as in organics, that we recognize in the particular being a shaping of the general, the archetypal form, but the perception of the particular as this archetypal form itself. The human spiritual being is not a figuration of its idea, but the figuration of it. If Jacobi believes that with the perception of our inner being we simultaneously gain the conviction that it is based on a unified being (intuitive self-perception), then the idea is misguided because we perceive this unified being ourselves. What is otherwise intuition here becomes self-observation. This is also objectively necessary in the highest form of existence. What the spirit can read out of the phenomena is the highest form of content that it can gain at all. If it then reflects on itself, it must recognize itself as the direct manifestation of this highest form, as the bearer of it. What the spirit finds as unity in the multiform reality, it must find in its particularity as immediate existence. What it contrasts with particularity as generality, it must recognize in its individual as its essence itself.
[ 6 ] It can be seen from all this that a true psychology can only be gained if one deals with the nature of the mind as an active being. In our time, this method has been replaced by another, which makes the phenomena in which the mind lives, not the mind itself, the object of psychology. It is believed that the individual manifestations of the mind can be brought into an external context in the same way as is done with the inorganic facts of nature. Thus one wants to establish a "theory of the soul without a soul". It follows from our considerations that this method loses sight of the very thing that matters.
[ 7 ] We should detach the spirit from its manifestations and go back to it as the producer of them. One limits oneself to the former and forgets the latter. Here, too, one has allowed oneself to be misled into that false point of view which wants to apply the methods of mechanics, physics, etc. to all sciences.
[ 8 ] The unified soul is just as experientially given to us as its individual actions. Everyone is aware that their thinking, feeling and willing emanate from their "I". Every activity of our personality is connected to this center of our being. If one disregards this connection with the personality in the case of an action, then it ceases to be a soul phenomenon at all. It falls either under the concept of inorganic or organic nature. If there are two balls on the table and I bump one against the other, everything dissolves into physical or physiological events, if one disregards my intention and my will. With all manifestations of the spirit: thinking, feeling, willing, it is important to recognize them in their essence as expressions of the personality. Psychology is based on this.
[ 9 ] Humans not only belong to themselves, they also belong to society. What lives in him is not only his individuality, but also that of the national association to which he belongs. What he accomplishes emerges from the full power of his people as well as from his own. With his mission he fulfills a part of that of his national community. It is important that his place within his people is such that he can fully bring the power of his individuality to bear.
[ 10 ] This is only possible if the national organism is such that the individual can find the place where he can apply his leverage. It must not be left to chance whether he finds this place.
[ 11 ] It is a matter for folklore and political science to investigate the way in which individuality manifests itself within the national community. Folk individuality is the subject of this science. It has to show what form the state organism must take if the individuality of the people is to be expressed in it. The constitution that a people gives itself must be developed from its innermost essence. Here, too, there are not a few errors in circulation. Political science is not regarded as a science of experience. It is believed that the constitution of all peoples can be established according to a certain template.
[ 12 ] The constitution of a people, however, is nothing other than its individual character brought into fixed legal forms. Whoever wants to outline the direction in which a certain activity of a people must move must not impose anything external on it: he must simply express what lies unconsciously in the character of the people. "Understanding does not rule, but reason does: not the reasonable, but reason," says Goethe.
[ 13 ] The method of folklore is to understand the individuality of the people as a rational one. Man belongs to a whole whose nature is the organization of reason. Here again we can cite a significant quote from Goethe: "The rational world is to be regarded as a great immortal individual that inexorably brings about what is necessary and thereby makes itself master even over the accidental." - Just as psychology has to investigate the nature of the individual, so folklore (folk psychology) has to investigate that "immortal individual".