The Act of Knowing
The two elements of knowledge, experience and thinking, have now been sufficiently characterised in the previous posts so that an understanding of the process of knowing is possible on this basis.
Two forms of the given have crystallised from which humans draw their insights.
On the one hand that which is given directly, i.e. without any action on our part, from observation (not just physically sensory).
In the first instance, this can be characterised as ‘pure’ experience, insofar as no conceptual linking takes place in thinking.¹
And on the other hand that which is given from one’s own thinking activity in the form of (thinking) intuition.²
This can be characterised in the same way as a ‘pure’ concept when it first appears, as long as its content is not yet related to the content of experience.
This is the case, for example, with mathematical concepts before they are related to sensory facts in applied mathematics.
Consequently, the characterisation of ‘pure’ thinking can be derived from this, which consequently only encompasses thinking in terms of concepts or their reciprocal, inherently existing relationships.
For example, the concept of ‘cause’ necessarily refers to the concept of ‘effect’ and vice versa, i.e. they are related in terms of content.
For example, if you hear an unfamiliar sound, you will only be prompted to search for its cause if you associate the concept of ‘effect’ with the experience of the sound.
And since the concepts of ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ cannot possibly be derived from pure observation, this can only be done by thinking.
This is because observation merely serves to spark thinking, whereby the corresponding concept is sought and associated with experience.
It is therefore in the nature of thinking to go beyond what is observed, which is why a science that would only allow its content to be derived from observation — such as in today’s positivism (empiricism) — would, strictly speaking, have to dispense with all thinking.
The opposing view of the influential philosopher David Hume (1711–1776) on the concept of causality can also be refuted on closer examination.
Hume argued that the concepts of cause and effect arise solely from one’s own habits.
In the sense that if one often observes that a certain event is followed by another, one becomes accustomed to thinking of the two events in a causal relationship, i.e. one expects the second event to occur when one notices the first event.
However, this view is based on a false conception of causality.
The mere temporal sequence of events does not justify the assumption of a causal relationship, only a correlation.
For example, if you meet the same person at the same time for several days in a row, no one would think that there is a causal relationship between your appearance and the appearance of the other person.
So before we can speak of causality, there are many other factors that need to be analysed and taken into account.
Specifically, a causal relationship is not determined by temporal sequence, but by the significance of the content of the parts of the observation labelled cause and effect.
Thus, if we want to describe the concept of causality in its essence, we find confirmation that it can only be derived in the context of experience, but not from it, and must therefore be produced solely by the activity of one’s own thought process (act of knowing).
The function of the concept is therefore to bring the otherwise incoherent elements in a given area into a regulated unity.³
This is only possible if the concept exists only once, i.e. it can neither respond to the particularities of experience nor incorporate them into itself.
The particularity that constitutes the experienced phenomenon is therefore never identical with the generality of the concept.
The individual experience is therefore one of an infinite number of possibilities for the extensive realisation of the one concept.
In other words, the unlimited number of special forms in the world of experience always have the quality of the corresponding concept, even if they differ from it in their particularity.
For example, there is only one concept ‘circle’, but an infinite number of different circles (small, large, coloured, etc.).
The concept therefore has its one general content in itself.
Thus, if one wants to determine the causality between two given things, this is only possible by applying the content-related rule or regularity that constitutes the concept of causality.
However, the concept of causality cannot possibly be derived from the observation of the two things, since they can only be determined by means of the rule.
The rule contained in the concept of causality must therefore first be brought to light and recognised through one’s own thinking activity.
The fact that the concept of causality can be grasped by many people is not a sign of its subjectivity but, on the contrary, a confirmation of its objective character and intersubjective verifiability.
The only differences are the form and the experiences that have led to its formation in each individual.
What they all have in common is the lawful content of the concept of causality.
This is precisely why it exists only once, despite the countless different points of view that have led to its formation.
For the infinite variety of experienced phenomena, with all the peculiarities that cause people to associate the concept of causality with them, is only possible because it exists only once.
This is also the reason why one person’s concept derived from the same observation is no different from another person’s.
Despite man’s subjective relationship in experience and his limitation by space and time, it is precisely these factors that are cancelled out in thinking and the superordinate, lawful connection is brought to light.
Thinking therefore proves to be a universal element.
It only acquires its individual character insofar as it relates to or is in connection with the individual emotional life of the individual person.
This is how people differ from one another.
In other words, by feeling or experiencing, a person is individual, and by thinking, he rises to a superordinate ideal level that is present in all people in the same way.
The clearly inherent referential character of the concepts brought to appearance and the objectivity contained in them becomes clear.⁴
Specifically, the reason for the human ability to bring the multiplicity of thoughts into a systematic, logically consistent unity.
When a single thought occurs, there is an immediate need to integrate it with the rest of the world of thought in order to restore harmony.
All thoughts thus appear as parts of a larger whole, namely the world of concepts/ideas that we have developed ourselves.
Thinking thus corresponds to an inner experience which, like an organism, is built up of clear, lawful connections of concepts which determine each other and always strive to form a holistic structure.
Thinking therefore reveals a self-sustaining principle in that it produces its own content from within itself in the form of concepts and ideas and adds them to the experienced phenomena.
However, the fact that thinking is a subjective activity usually raises doubts about its objectivity.
Subjective in the sense that, for example, one is able to think more or less intensively.
But the crucial question is whether it is also the content that is produced by thinking.
The contents of thought would be subjective if they were combined with each other at one’s own discretion or under the compulsion of one’s own organisation and determined their interrelationship.
According to this view, which is widely held today (nominalism), thinking itself would therefore have no content at all, i.e. without experienced content it would remain just empty fantasy.
However, my previous writing about the “Biggest Prejudice About Thinking” have shown that this view is untenable.
For how are we supposed to be able to comprehend the laws and connections in the world if we have not recognised them in our thinking?
Since they are not contained in pure experiences⁵, they must be recognised independently in thinking.
But if the laws could already be taken directly from the experiences, it would be pointless to reproduce them ourselves.
Seeing through this fallacy makes it possible to realise that the way in which the individual elements of experience relate to each other is determined solely by their content.
In other words, one does not have the slightest influence on how one particular perceptual element relates to another.
Only the concepts added to the experience by subjective thinking are given the opportunity to show themselves in their own lawful context.
Thinking thus only carries out the composition of the individual thoughts according to their content.
The actual content of the experiences is therefore not given to us by the senses, only to be ‘photographed’ by thinking, but is itself already substantially present in thinking.
In this way, the scientifically necessary or required principle of experience is fulfilled in its strictest form in thinking.
The contents of the concepts and ideas developed in thinking are therefore not subjective products within one’s own organisation, but prove to be objective research results.
The common prejudice today that thinking is purely subjective in nature is therefore, on closer examination, far from the truth or even contradictory.
If only because the results of such thinking must claim objective validity in order to be taken seriously at all.
For what value or meaning would such a statement otherwise have if it did not claim to be objective, i.e. true?
If it did not do this, it would have to withdraw again at the same moment and would be meaningless.
Questioning thinking in and of itself is therefore an impossibility, since it can only be done through thinking.
For the terms ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ are also only formed through thinking and can in turn only be applied to the objects within thinking or be of significance.
Thus, thinking alone makes it possible to determine oneself (subject) in relation to an object of experience (object) as a counterpart.
In other words, thinking consciousness also makes it possible to turn oneself (subject) into an object.
The reason why we are able to think is not because we exist as a ‘subject’, but because we appear to be a subject because we are able to think.
This does not mean, however, that thinking is purely subjective.
In reality, the thinking activity of which human beings are capable is neither subjective nor objective, but transcends these concepts.
In other words: To speak of oneself as an individual subject capable of thinking is an error in the sense that this subject exists solely on the basis of thinking.
Thinking is therefore beyond subject and object.
Not man (subject) establishes the relationship between concept and experience (object), but thinking, which is active in the organism of thought (ideal world of concepts).
It realises this relationship of its own accord on the basis of the lawful connection between the contents of thought.
As a result — to put it simply — it begins to think in you and a stepping out of the self takes place, a supra-personal experience, so to speak.
Therein lies the dual nature of man, insofar as he is able to become aware of things through thinking (connection with the object), but at the same time always remains separate from the world because he possesses self-awareness (confrontation as subject).
Even if every effort is made today to seek any attempt at ‘certainty of knowledge’ elsewhere than in human thought, it will always be doomed to failure.
For it is always (even now) only thinking that thinks about itself.
Even if it wanted to question itself, it could not do so without already presupposing itself.
This gives rise to the certainty that an element appears in thinking that one cannot help but make absolute.
In other words, it exists through itself.
[1] Read “Experience — First Element of Knowledge” for a detailed explanation: https://medium.com/@HeimatloserM/experience-first-element-of-knowledge-4b5305d55905
[2] Read “Criticism of Objectivity in Thinking” for a detailed explanation: https://medium.com/@HeimatloserM/criticism-of-objectivity-in-thinking-3adb2b0b9615
[3] Read “How Do We Create Concepts?” for a detailed explanation: https://medium.com/@HeimatloserM/how-do-we-create-concepts-8fcdcedf6609
[4] Read “Objectivity In Thinking” for a detailed explanation: https://medium.com/@HeimatloserM/objectivity-in-thinking-a413a422b06b
[5] Read “Experience — First Element of Knowledge” for a detailed explanation: https://medium.com/@HeimatloserM/experience-first-element-of-knowledge-4b5305d55905
Note: This text was originally written in German and translated into English using Deepl, because I’m a native German speaker.
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