Chapter 3 Thinking as the Instrument of Knowledge (author's addition)
Author's addition
1918
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[1]
In the preceding discussion
I have pointed out
the significant difference
between thinking
and all other activities
of the soul,
as a fact
which
presents itself
to genuinely unprejudiced observation.
Anyone
who does not strive
towards this
unprejudiced observation
will be tempted to bring
against my arguments
such objections
as these:
When I
think about a rose,
this
after
all only expresses
a relation
of my "I"
to the rose,
just
as
when
I feel the beauty
of the rose.
There is a relation
between "I"
and object
in the case
of thinking just
as much as
in the case
of feeling
or perceiving.
Such
an objection leaves
out of account the fact
that
only in the thinking activity
does the "I" know itself
to be one
and the same
being
with that
which is active,
right
into all
the ramifications
of this activity.
With no other soul
activity
is
this so completely
the case.
For example,
in a feeling
of pleasure
it is perfectly possible
for a more delicate observation
to discriminate
between the extent
to which
the "I"
knows itself
to be one
and the same
being
with what
is active,
and the extent
to which
there is
something passive
in the "I"
to which
the pleasure
merely presents itself.
The same
applies
to the other soul activities.
Above all
one should not confuse the
"having
of thought-images"
with the elaboration
of thought by thinking.
Thought-images
may appear
in the soul
after the fashion
of dreams,
like vague intimations.
But this
is not thinking.
True,
someone might now say:
If this is
what you
mean
by "thinking",
then
your thinking
involves willing
and
you have
to do not merely
with thinking
but
also with the will
in the thinking.
However,
this would simply justify us
in saying:
Genuine thinking
must always be
willed.
But this
is quite irrelevant
to the characterization
of thinking
as this
has been given
in the preceding discussion.
Granted
that the nature
of thinking necessarily implies
its
being willed,
the point that matters
is that nothing is willed which,
in being carried out,
does not appear
to the "I"
as an activity completely
its own
and
under its own supervision.
Indeed,
we must say that owing
to the very nature
of thinking
as here defined,
it must appear
to the observer
as willed
through and through.
If
we really make the effort
to grasp
everything
that is relevant
to a judgment
about the nature
of thinking,
we cannot fail to see
that this soul activity
does have
the unique character
we have here described.
[2] A person whom
the author of this book
rates very highly
as a thinker
has objected
that it
is impossible
to speak
about thinking
as we are doing here,
because
what
one believes
oneself
to have observed
as active thinking
is nothing
but an illusion.
In reality
one is observing only
the results
of an unconscious activity
which
lies
at the basis
of thinking.
Only
because
this unconscious activity
is not observed
does
the illusion
arise
that the observed thinking
exists
in its own right,
just
as
when
in an illumination
by means
of a rapid succession
of electric sparks
we believe
that we
are seeing a continuous movement.
This objection, too,
rests
only
on an inaccurate view
of the facts.
In making it,
one forgets
that it
is the "I" itself
which,
from its standpoint inside
the thinking,
observes
its own activity.
The "I"
would have
to stand outside
the thinking
in order to
suffer the sort of deception
which
is caused
by an illumination
with a rapid succession
of electric sparks.
It would be much truer
to say
that
precisely in
using
such an analogy one
is forcibly deceiving oneself,
just
as if someone
seeing a moving light
were to insist
that it
is being freshly lit
by an unknown hand
at every point
where it appears.
No,
whoever
is determined
to see
in thinking anything other
than
a clearly surveyable activity
produced
by the "I" itself,
must first shut
his eyes
to the plain facts
that are there
for the seeing,
in order
then
to invent
a hypothetical activity
as the basis
of thinking.
If he
does not thus
blind himself,
he will have
to recognize
that everything
which
he
"thinks up"
in this way
as an addition
to the thinking
only leads him away
from its real nature.
Unprejudiced observation
shows that nothing
is to be counted
as belonging
to the nature
of thinking except
what is found
in thinking itself.
One will never arrive
at something
which is the cause
of thinking
if one steps outside
the realm
of thinking itself. |
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