Objectivity In Thinking
As concluded in the last article: On the basis of a science of knowledge, every human being receives the scientific confirmation that he is capable of exploring the inner connections and laws in his direct experience.
If, consequently, the principle of experience — the basis of all science — is actually only fulfilled in thinking, then the question naturally arises as to what extent this thinking activity emanating from the human being (subject) should actually be of objective significance?
In order to get to the bottom of this, a clear distinction must be made between the activity of thinking and the content of thinking (thoughts).
Thinking is to be understood exclusively as the thought produced by the self-activity of thinking and not thoughts that arise in consciousness of their own accord, such as associations, spontaneous ideas, memories, mental images, etc.
Thinking therefore refers to the active activity required, for example, to solve a mathematical problem or to understand a logical argument.
This requires complete inner activity, which thinking produces by its own power in each of its fibres.
In other words, thoughts are processed by thinking and it is not a matter of the mere emergence of mental images.
The essential characteristic of thinking activity is that it does not generate thought content (thoughts), but only makes them appear in one’s consciousness.
This can be seen from the fact that when a thought content arises, it is not one’s own subjective organisation that determines which connections the thoughts have to make.
Rather, the connections in one’s own world of thoughts arise because the thoughts within one’s own consciousness are given the opportunity to connect in a natural way.
The resulting interactions unfold of their own accord and enter into their lawful connections accordingly.
Apart from the fact that you can observe the realisation of these laws, you have no influence on them yourself, as the resulting lawful connection depends solely on the content of your thoughts and cannot be determined by yourself (it happens in a flash).
This can be observed most easily in mathematical or geometrical thought content.
These cannot be thought arbitrarily, but their lawful content is the only determining factor for their context.
This is because you also experience an inner, mental resistance when, for example, you try to think of a triangle with four straight lines or to divide a prime number by a number other than itself or by one in such a way that the result is an integer.
The experience of this passive experience of resistance is empirical proof of objectivity, i.e. the real reality of the contents of thought, as they are objectively linked to each other.
The objectivity of the contents of thought thus enables the justified scientific demand for intersubjective verifiability, i.e. comprehensibility for several observers.
This is the reason why, for example, mathematical thought contents are experienced as laws and logical connections are made with necessity according to the thought contents.
The sensory perception of touching a rock face could be used, for example, as a comparison for the experience of thinking in relation to the activity of thinking about the content of thought.
For just as one must perceive all the irregularities on a rock face as they are shaped and merge into one another, so the activity of thinking must move along the thought contents as they are in and of themselves and are objectively related to one another.
What is meant by this is that, in analogy to the passive resistance offered by the rock face in a sensually perceptible way, the content of thought can only be experienced as it is in and of itself, and not as one would like it to be.
Objectivity is therefore possible in thinking insofar as only the activity of thinking is produced, but not how the thought content is composed.
This emerges from itself and depends solely on the laws of the thought content itself, i.e. on the way in which these enter into a relationship and in turn become their own thought content.
If a thought content a behaves or relates to a thought content b in a certain way and not otherwise, then one’s own subjective organisation has no influence on it.
The difference between the thought content and the passive appearance coming from outside (content of experience) is that the thought content does not confront thinking, as is the case with an appearance in relation to the external sense organs.
This is because the content of thought only appears in active union with the activity of thinking, i.e. only then does it enter into the form of the given.
On the other hand, a direct comparison can be made with the way in which an externally passive phenomenon is grasped by observation.
Because thinking fulfils the same function in relation to a thought content.
This is linked to another elementary point: overcoming the almost universal prejudice that every person has their own, very different world of thought, and therefore purely subjective thought content.
After all, it is quite conceivable that the world of thought functions in a similar way to a central computer in information technology.
It owns all the information and the individual computers only access the data, i.e. they are not involved in the generation or storage of the information.
If the world of thought were structured in this way, it could be assumed that people would be able to penetrate or work their way into it bit by bit through their thinking.t.
And of course, because of the uniqueness or singularity of the world of thought, objectivity, which is otherwise absent or not recognised because of prejudice, would also be guaranteed.
The content of thought would therefore exist objectively, independently of the individual person (subject), and it would only be possible to participate in it through one’s own thinking activity.
Thinking thus takes on the role of an organ of experience, so to speak, which experiences the content of thought and makes it manifest.
Just as a sense organ, such as the eye, experiences the colour of an object.
In human consciousness, therefore, not only does the activity of generating and retaining purely subjective thoughts take place, as is commonly assumed, but one’s own thinking activity also enables the experience of objective thought content (concepts/ideas).
Goethe expressed this with the words:
“The idea is eternal and unique; that we also need the plural is not well done. Everything that we become aware of and can speak of are only manifestations of the idea; we express concepts, and in this respect the idea itself is a concept.”¹
Another illustration of the objectivity of thought can be found, for example, in the work of a mechanic.
Knowing the laws of nature, he brings various forces into interaction in order to achieve a desired result for his work.
He is free to choose which forces he allows to interact with each other, so that within the existing laws of nature there is an unlimited number of possibilities for new inventions, although their functionality is of course not guaranteed from the outset.
Thinking and the development of all sciences also function according to this principle, in that the associated thoughts are linked according to their laws.
Even if this provides the basis for objectivity in thinking, it does not automatically mean that only coherent or consistent thoughts are generated in thinking.
For just as a mechanic is only able to produce something ‘functioning’, for example in the form of a machine, by assembling all the individual parts, whereby the underlying laws are brought into interaction and a large whole can be created, so also in thinking.
In other words, in thinking there is only the precondition that if the concepts of a thing are found and processed by appropriate (subjective) mental effort — e.g. by asking questions — there is the possibility that a coherent mental content that is objective for reality will emerge by combining the concepts according to their inherent laws.
So if one adheres to the prejudice that all thinking has only a subjective character, i.e. no objective value, it is as if one were to say from the outset: however the mechanic arranges and assembles his individual parts, nothing functional can ever come of it, insofar as the individual parts do not follow any laws, nor is any lawful interaction between the individual parts possible.
The fact that this is not the case with mechanics is obvious to everyone and should also be obvious to anyone who examines thinking impartially and realises its inherent laws.
In this context, another widespread prejudice needs to be dispelled, namely that humans are subject to a kind of compulsion in their thought processes, in that thoughts follow one another.
The counter-argument to this is that thought connections only arise because they are determined by the objective content of the thoughts and their corresponding laws.
Therefore, one can only speak of a compulsion in so far as the thoughts combine on the basis of the existing laws, but never of a compulsion that they combine at all.
It is the free decision of the individual whether and which thoughts he wants to combine.
Therein lies the unlimited creative activity of man.
And since man is able to reproduce all phenomena in his thinking, he must also be able to grasp the core or essence of things.
For how else could he reproduce the phenomena in his consciousness with the help of his thinking if he did not have access to the essence of things (laws) in the world of thought?
[1] Source: Goethe, Maximen und Reflexionen. Aphorismen und Aufzeichnungen. Nach den Handschriften des Goethe- und Schiller-Archivs hg. von Max Hecker, 1907. Aus: Kunst und Altertum, 5. Bandes 3. Heft. 1826, Einzelnes.
Note: This text was originally written in German and translated into English using Deepl, because I am a native German speaker.
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