Philosophy of the Unconscious

by Eduard Von Hartmann

  Beyond that which is the Substrate of everything Existing no Philosophy can go. Here we stand at the inherently insoluble problem of problems. The earth rests on the elephant, the elephant stands on the tortoise, and the tortoise?? The ability to become rigid before the problem of groundless subsistence, as before a Gorgon’s head, is the true touchstone of metaphysical talent. The contentment with the regress to God-Creator, or a surrogate of the same, is the proper mark of speculative indolence. An attempted dialectic self-generation of the first beginning would be the acme of a reason-killing sophistic. For Conception, Nothing and Something are at least equally warranted, but only for conception, which always presupposes the subsistence of Thought. But whence this subsistence preceding the Concept? If nothing at all were, no World, no Process, and no Substance, as also no one to philosophically marvel, there would be nothing wonderful in that—it would be eminently natural, and there would be no problem to solve; but that there is a self-subsistent, an ultimate, on which everything depends (were this only the Hegelian Concept itself), that is so unfathomably wonderful, so absolutely alogical and senseless, that poor little man, after he has once realised this last of all problems, and has beaten a long time with the arms of his reason impotently at the bars of this prison of the not-non-being, completely ceases to wonder at the details of the world-contrivance, pretty much as an illuminated modern scientist, meeting on an aerial journey beyond the clouds, undertaken for scientific purposes, with a fairy castle of the spirits of the air, might, in measureless astonishment at the mere existence of this castle, hardly find breath enough to wonder at the interior arrangements. It is for this metaphysical problem also absolutely indifferent what we regard as ultimate, whether a self-conscious God or Spinoza’s Substance, the Notion or the Will, the Subjective Dream or Matter—it is all the same; there remains a self-subsisting Somewhat with its peculiar constitution as an ultimate. This Somewhat, with its constitution, however, how comes it to subsist, and to subsist with such characters, since from Nothing nothing can come? A self-conscious God must, in despair at the insolubility of this riddle of his eternal subsistence, go mad, or, if it were possible, turn suicide! The nature of the human mind certainly stands in its obtuseness far too low not soon to grow accustomed even to the highest of the marvels surrounding it, and at last to regard the exact formulating of the problem, not its solution, as its office; and yet it is well as it is that the philosophical pathos only flames up in moments of exaltation, in order, viz., that the subordinate problems may receive their due of wonder.

  5. The Possibility of Metaphysical Knowledge. —Here our course ends; we will, however, in conclusion, pay some attention to the question whether and how, from the standpoint of the Philosophy of the Unconscious, metaphysical cognition is possible.

  This question is not unimportant, for often the most considerable metaphysical systems, that explain the whole world in a coherent and even acceptable fashion, stand puzzled before the problem how, according to their own presuppositions, the cognition of metaphysical connection maintained by them is possible. At this place, of course, a Theory of Knowledge cannot be expected, but only a sketch of the point of view at which we find ourselves as regards that question.

  The Græco-Roman philosophy issued in Scepticism because it did not succeed in finding a criterion of Truth, and consequently despaired of a settlement of the question whether Knowledge is possible. The dogmatism of modern philosophy was in like manner broken by Hume, whose pitiless criticism Kant carried still further and deeper.

  But at the same time Kant was on the other side the genius who initiated the phase of evolution of the most recent philosophy. Whilst Greek philosophy had uselessly tormented itself with the impossible demand to find in knowledge itself a mark that should impress on it the stamp of truth, Kant went hypothetically to work, and asked “Apart from the question, whether there is a true cognition, of what sort must the metaphysical conditions be if such is to be possible?”

  All the most recent philosophy, with the exception of Schelling’s last system, stands with more or less consciousness at this point of view: the conditions of the possibility of knowing form their metaphysic. As first and fundamental condition of the possibility of all knowledge, the homogeneity of thought and its transcendent-objective object may be asserted, since with a heterogeneity of thought and thing absolutely no harmony of the two, i.e., truth, and still less a consciousness of this agreement, i.e., cognition, is possible. Without this assumption only two standpoints are possible: that of naïve Realism and that of Subjective Idealism. The former fails to see that everything that I can express in words and reach with my thoughts can always only be my own thoughts, but never a reality lying beyond the same; that thought can never denude itself of the character of thought, and erroneously confuses thought itself or the thinkable (intelligible) with that which lies beyond thought (trans-intelligible), which as a truly imaginary quantity is believed by thinking when it thinks its thoughts. The second standpoint corrects this error (as regards the things per se still remaining for Kant), but it commits the other fault of denying that which is placed beyond the limit of thinking, because it is unattainable to thinking, and therewith annihilates the possibility of all knowledge, in that thinking is lowered to a dream without object and therewith without truth. This is opposed by the Philosophy of Identity, in that it supposes the transcendent element in cognition to be consubstantial with thinking, and urges with justice “that on no other possible supposition is a knowledge conceivable” (Schelling, i. 6, 138), because on no other supposition is a harmony of thought with its presumed (transcendent) object possible. This identity of Thought and Being thus quite indirectly established (of which the ancients had hardly an inkling) is henceforth the unshakable fundamental proposition of all philosophy, is however variously apprehended. In Schelling’s “System of Identity” it is, as with Leibniz, a species of pre-established harmony, in virtue of which the individual consciousness unfolds its subjective world from its limited point of view according to the same forms, categories, and complete determinations as the world beyond is developed, although this harmony more easily finds a foundation in the Monism of the one absolute intelligence or reason of. Schelling than in the Monadology of Leibniz. Hegel overcomes the difficulty by resolving everything into the one dialectical process of Idea, in which no one thing opposes another as alien or distinct (as with Schelling and Leibniz the “windowless” monads do), but each posits itself with regard to each in all possible kinds of relations (among which are also Causality and Reciprocity). If Hegel thus, on the one hand, makes a great advance beyond Schelling, on the other hand he takes a step backward when, in the great confusion of the general dialectic, he completely obliterates the distinction between thought and its object, the distinction between subjective thought and that which is beyond it, by systematically confounding the point of view of the individual and the absolute thinking, of conscious and unconscious thinking. To render these distinctions perfectly clear, to separate these points of view anew and strictly, I took for my task. To me the Beyond of conscious thinking is unconscious thinking; it is an unattainable Beyond, for consciousness cannot think unconsciously; if it thinks “unconscious thinking,” it thinks its own conscious thought and yet supposes something else, precisely as when it thinks “the thing that has being.” (Cp. “Das Ding an sich und seine Beschaffenheit,” pp. 74–76.) But yet the hither as the further side is thinking, and so far as this consubstantiality reaches, reacts the possibility of an agreement, truth, cognition. It is to be observed here, first, that the Beyond of conscious thinking lies just as much within as without one’s own individuality; secondly, that the concrete agreement of the thing with the conscious thought of the same is effected by a double causality—between the thing and the unconscious part of the individual (to which also the body belongs), and between this and one’s consciousness; and thirdly, that the causal constraint felt by consciousness and referred to a transcendent reality and the distinct
ion made between the same and the logical necessity of purely ideal relations is only intelligible on the supposition, that from both sides a Will enters into the ideal conflict and makes this a real one. This Will is, no matter whether one contemplates an alien will or one’s own, no longer merely beyond consciousness (like unconscious thinking), but it is beyond the ideal altogether, both conscious and unconscious thinking. That it nevertheless gives rise to far fewer difficulties than unconscious thinking is due to this, that it does not at all affect the ideal content, but only impresses on it the meaning of reality, otherwise however leaves the perceived object unchanged.

  According to these considerations it can no longer be doubtful how the Philosophy of the Unconscious is related to those contrasts: Thought and Thing, mens and ens, ratio and res, Spirit and Nature, Ideal and Real, Subjective and Objective. We know that Being is a product of the non-logical and logical, of Will and Representation; that its “That” is posited by volition, its “What,” however, is the ideational content of that volition, thus not merely homogeneous with the Idea, but, because itself Idea, identical in the strictest sense of the term, but that the Real is distinguished from the Ideal by that which lends reality to the Ideal, by the Will. Thus also Spirit and Nature are no longer different, for the original unconscious spirit is that in its independent being which in the actual combination of its moments is Nature, and as result of the natural process conscious spirit, or spirit in the narrower (Hegelian) sense of the term. But as concerns the Subjective or Objective, these are altogether relative conceptions, which first appear with the origin of consciousness, for in the unconscious Volition and the unconscious Presentation these have no place; the Unconscious is exalted above those contrasts, since its thinking is by no means subjective, but for us objective, in truth, however, transcendent-absolute. We can therefore also in strictness not say that the Unconscious is the Absolute Subject, but only that it is what alone can become Subject, just as it is what alone can become Object, simply because there is nothing beside the Unconscious: and thus understood, we may certainly call it the absolute Subject and the absolute Object, notwithstanding that as Unconscious it is exalted above the opposition of the Subjective and Objective.

  We have seen that consciousness only occurs on a collision of different directions of the Will, of these then each is the objective for the other, and each the subjective in opposition to the other objective to it, presupposing that both directions of the Will occupy relations, which do not prevent the possibility of the arising of consciousness by their lying beneath the threshold of consciousness.

  If, e.g., one supposes the atoms above the threshold of consciousness, the atomic force A would become objective to the atomic force B, and conversely; the atomic force A, on the other hand, itself become, in contrast to the objectivity of B, subjective and conversely. Thus would the Unconscious become in two ways conscious in A and B, both objectively and subjectively.

  After having thus seen that the union of all the above-named contrasts results from our principles, we come back to the question as to the possibility of knowledge. It was then proved by the most recent philosophy that a system resting on the sublation of those contrasts is the only true one, in case there be at all a genuine cognition; but whether there be such, of this all proof was wanting after as before. It was in assuming the same as dogmatic, as the pre-Kantian dogmatism, nay, the possibility did not even occur to it, that any one with justice may deny and must deny the possibility of an absolute knowing (Reason) till proof thereof has been obtained (cp. Schelling, ii. 3, P-74).

  Its whole philosophising rested, therefore, on a condition that perfectly hovered in the air, the whole was a hypothetical philosophising from an unproved supposition.

  Accordingly our latest philosophy likewise could consistently only dissolve in Scepticism. That this Scepticism is in the younger philosophically educated world (so far as it has surmounted an immature Dogmatism) the prevailing one, can hardly be disputed; that the same has received no scientifically consistent elaboration (Aenesidemus only attacks Kant) lies only in this, that the palpable results of the exact sciences and the practical interests now absorbing all attention are altogether unfavourable to Philosophy, in that they too much distract theoretical thinking and discourage the pursuit of it to its last consequences. To proceed further, there are manifestly only two ways: either we must, in order to establish the hypothetical result of the Philosophy of Identity, directly prove that a genuine cognition exists,—yet with such an endeavour one would only relapse into the inherently vain efforts of the Greeks (cp. Kant’s Werke v. Roskr, ii. p. 62–63), or we must really avail ourselves of the most recent progress, and approach the problem at the opposite end to the Greeks, i.e., we must by a path altogether different from that hitherto attempted, accessible and evident to all, directly prove the material identity of Thought and Being. This path can only be that traversed by us, the successive inductive ascent from experience.

  Now certainly the proof led by this path must itself be a knowledge, if it is to prove anything; we might therefore think that we have merely only in appearance got a step further, but in reality, just as before, stand with our feet in the air. This is, however, not so; rather the state of the case is as follows:—

  Formerly it was said: “If there is a knowledge, it is material identity of Thought and Being;” go beyond this simple conditional proposition we cannot.

  Now we say: “(1) If there is a knowledge, it must rest on material identity of Thought and Being, therefore also be to be found in immediate experience (affection of thought by being) and the logically correct inferences from the same; (2) the inferences from experience establish the material identity of Thought and Being; (3) from this identity follows the possibility of knowledge.”

  Herewith we have entered into a closed circle, where each term conditions the others, no matter with which we begin, whilst before we had only a conditional proposition without back- and breast-work as it were. There accordingly undoubtedly remains still the possibility that this whole circle of psychological and metaphysical conditions is a merely subjective appearance, which consciousness is compelled to form for itself by an inexplicable necessity; that there is therefore in fact still no knowledge and no identity of Thought and Being, and the circle of mutually supporting relations built thereon a mere chimera. For certainly the transcendent and not merely subjective existence of that circle cannot in all strictness prove to be absolute truth, just because consciousness is condemned to this circle, and can never assume a standpoint outside the same, from which the nature of that circle could be judged, for the single reason that the possibility of cognition cannot be known without knowledge.

  Although then the absolute impossibility of the contrary cannot be proved, yet by that circle the probability that there is both knowledge as well as identity of Thought and Being has become very much greater than it was before in that simple conditional proposition, devoid of all support both in front and behind; it has become so great that the possibility of the contrary is no longer practically of account. Scepticism is, therefore, not annihilated, but acknowledged to be theoretically warranted, as it is also in fact the preservative against all relapse into the dogmatic narrowness of belief in absolute knowledge, i.e., in the attainableness of an absolute truth as the only worthy office of the science of sciences, philosophy. But whilst we must thus acknowledge absolute scepticism to have for all time and notwithstanding any possible advance of science to a justifiable existence, we have at the same time reduced its range to such a degree that its importance disappears, for the practice not only of life, but also of science.

  If we contemplate this result concerning the possibility of knowledge in general, it agrees remarkably with that which must by degrees be on all sides granted for the knowledge of every special truth (so far as it is not of a formal logical kind), that there is for us no truth, i.e., probability of the value 1, but only more or less considerable probability, which never reaches 1, an
d that we must be perfectly content when in our cognition we reach a degree of probability which robs the possibility of the contrary of practical importance (cp. also Introductory, I. b.)

  1 Compare my memoir serving as a necessary complement and elucidation of this whole chapter, “Schellings positive Philosophie als Einheit von Hegel und Schopenhauer,” Berlin, Otto Löwenstein, 1869.

  1 “To a certain extent it is a priori obvious, in common language self-understood, that that which now produces the phenomenon of the world must also be capable of not doing this, consequently of remaining at rest, or, in other words, that there must also be a συστολή to the present διαστολή. If, now, the former is the phenomenon of the willing of life, the other will be the phenomenon of the non-willing of the same.—In reply to certain silly objections I remark, that the negation of the will to live by no means imports the annihilation of a substance, but the mere act of not-willing” (i.e., the negation of the act of volition); “the same that has hitherto willed wills no longer. Since we know Substantial Being, the Will as Thing per se, merely in and through the act of willing, we are incompetent to say or conceive what it can further be or do” (this addition “or do” is very inapt), “after it has renounced this acting; therefore negation is for us, who are the phenomenon of willing, a passage into nothing” (Schopenhauer, “Parerga,” §162). The inactive Substantial Being “remaining in repose” is undoubtedly for us, who are at the point of view of actual reality, equal to nothing; yet we may well try and conceive what it intrinsically is, namely, the being able to will and not will. This Schopenhauer overlooked, although properly in the above word “capable” (of producing or not producing the world) he has himself enounced it. The quoted passage shows that those adherents of Schopenhauer who conceive the Will as Essential Being obliged to will, and not capable of abstaining from willing, cannot here appeal to their master, but have only modified for the worse his deeper views.