Scheler - The Human Place in The Cosmos

THE HUMAN PLACE
IN THE COSMOS
Max Scheler
Translated from the German by Manfred S. Frings
Introduction by Eugene Kelly
Northwestern University Press
Evanston, Illinois
Contents
Introduction
Northwestern University Press A Note on the Text XIX
www.nupress.northwestern.edu
Translators Note xxl
Copyright © 2009 by Northwestern University Press. Published 2009. All
rights reserved. The Human Place in the Cosmos is a translation of Die Stellung Preface to the First Edition
des Menschen im Kosmos, in Gesammelte Werke, volume 9, Späte Schriften, edited by The Human Place in the Cosmos
Manfred S. Frings (Bern and Munich: Francke Verlag, 1976).
Notes 67
Printed in the United States of America
Glossary of Key Concepts 69
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 A 1 Current Translations of Works by Scheler into English Fi
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Scheler, Max, 1874-1928.
[Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos. English]
The human place in the cosmos / Max Scheler; translated from the Ger-
man by Manfred S. Frings ; introduction by Eugene Kelly.
p. cm. — (Northwestern University studies in phenomenology and exis-
tential philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8101-2528-5 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8101-2529-2
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Human beings. 2. Soul. 3. Mind and body. I. Frings, Manfred S. IL. Title.
III. Series: Northwestern University studies in phenomenology & existential
philosophy.
BD450.S314513 2009 270232 }-1\0
128-—dc22 ]
2008027952
@ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard forInformation Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Merise ART AGGERINSTITUT
Vat EAA AI AT III
Preface to the First Edition
The present work represents a short and very compact summary of my
views concerning some main issues of a “Philosophical Anthropology”
with which I have for years been occupied. This work will be published
at the beginning of 1929. Ever since the awakening of my philosophical
thinking, the question “what is the human being and whatis his place in
being?” has occupied me more fundamentally than any other question
I have dealt with. My endeavors of ever so many years—during which
time I had been addressing this question from all sides—endedup since
1922 in creating a more comprehensive work coveringit. I was blessed
with the growing good fortuneto see that the vast majority of all prob-
lemsof philosophywhichI had treated earlier coincided in the question
concerned.
Many people have expressed their wish that the lecture I gave in
Darmstadt in April 1927 on occasion of the “Conferenceof the Schoolof
Wisdom”[Tagung der Schule der Weisheit], entitled “The Special Place
of the Human Being”(see the journal Der Leuchter, vol. 8, 1927), should
be madeavailable in a special printing. This wish is herewith met.
If the reader wants to get to know thestages of the development of
my views on the immense subject under discussion, I would recommend
the readings of my work given below in the following sequence:
1. “On the Idea of Man”appeared first in the journal Summa, 1914,
and is contained in my Gesammelte Abhandlungen und Aufsätze, entitled
Vom Umsturz der Werte [On the Turnover of Values]; my treatise on Ressenti-
ment is also contained in said publication.
2. After this I recommendreadingsof specific sections of my work
Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values* and, furthermore, a
study of relevant sections concerningthe specifics of our emotive life pre-
sented in my book The Nature ofSympathy.
3. Concerning the relationship between the human being and the-
* See especially the elaboration therein on the experience of reality and those on percep-
tionin part III. Concerning myrejection of naturalist theories about the humanbeing,see
part V, sections 4 and 5; concerning the stratification of emotionallife, see part V, section
8; and concerning “person,”see part VI, A. Also consult the index under“man,” “physical,”
“psychic,” and so on.
THE HUMAN PLACE IN THE COSMOS
ories about history and society, the essay “Man and History” would have
to be drawn on, as well as my work Die Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft The Human Place in the Cosmos
[of the works in this book, the treatise “Erkenntnis und Arbeit” has not
been translated in English, but Problems of a Sociology ofKnowledge is avail-
able]; and concerning the human being’s relationship to knowledge
and culturation [Bildung], the reader may wish to consult my essay “The
Forms of Knowledge and Culture.”
4. | addressed humanity’s potential for development in mylecture Ask an educated European today whathis thoughts are when one uses
“The Human Beingin the Forthcoming Era of Adjustment,” printed in a the term “human being” [der Mensch], and he will Just aboutalways find
forthcomingcollection, entitled Adjustment as Destiny and Mission, edited three irreconcilable ideas about the term, which are in continuous con-
at the AcademyforPolitical Science in a series called “Political Science,” flict with each other.
Berlin, 1928. [The lecture is now in Philosophical Perspectives as “Man in 1. There is the thought of the Jewish-Christian tradition about
the Era of Adjustment.”] Adam and Eve, and ofcreation.
During my lectures at the University of Cologne between 1922 2. There is the thought stemming from the ancient Greeks when
and 1928, I have repeatedly and in detail presented the results of my the humanbeing’s consciousnessof himself raised him for the first time
researches pertaining to “The Foundations of Biology,” “Philosophical into a special place, realizing that the human beingis whathe is through
Anthropology,” “Theory of Cognition,” and “Metaphysics.” These inves- his possession of whatis variably called “reason,” logos, phronesis, ratio,
tigations went far beyond the foundation offered in the presenttext. mens—"logos” meaning here the possession of speech as well as the abil-
MayI addwith satisfaction that in Germany today the problems of ity to grasp the “what” of each and every entity. Closely connected with
a philosophical anthropology are at the centerof all philosophical prob- this view is the theory that thereis also a reason above the human be-
lematics, and that beyond philosophical experts, there are biologists, ing that underlies the whole universe and with which the human being
medical researchers, psychologists, and sociologists who are working on aloneis in state of participation.
a new understanding of the human being’s essential constitution. 3. There is the thought of natural science and genetic psychology,
Even apart from this, the study of the problem of man’s own nature today already a tradition. According to this theory, the human being rep-
has reached today a maximum scope in all history known to us. As soon resents a late stage in the evolution of our planet. He distinguishes him-
as humans concededthat the amount of precise knowledge about what self only by degrees of complexity of the energies and abilities that he
we are is far less than ever before; and as soon as human beings ceased has inherited from arcestors in the animal world and that are found in
to be daunted by any possible answer to the question at hand,there also subhuman nature.
arose in them a new courage toward truthfulness to bring up the essential These three ideas lack any underlying unity which could provide
question of whothey are, while abandoninghitherto fully or partial links us with a commonfoundation. Thus, we have a theological, philosophi-
that had been maintained with theological, philosophical, and scientific cal, and a scientific anthropology before us but which, as it were, have no
traditions. That is, the human being has gained the courage to develop concerns with each other: yet we do not have one uniform idea of the human
a new form of consciousness and a new view of himself—all of this on being. The ever-growing numberof special disciplines which deal with
the foundation of the immensetreasures lying in the individual which the human being conceal, rather than reveal, his nature, no matter how
diverse human sciences had worked outin the past. valuable these disciplines may be. Furthermore, the said three ideas are
severely shaken today, especially Darwin’s solution of the origin of the
Frankfurt am Main, end of April 1928, Max Scheler human being.’ Hence, one cansay that in nohistorical era has the hu-
man being becomeso muchof a problem to himselfas in ours.
For this reason, I have made a new attempt to submit an outline
of a philosophical anthropology with the widest foundation possible. In
whatfollows, I will touch upon only somepoints that (1) concern the
PLACE IN THE COSMOS THE HUMAN PLACE IN THE COSMOS
THE HUMAN
essence of the human being in his relation to plants and animals and (2) con- humansto a special place that is not comparable to anyotherspecial
cern, metaphysically, his special place in the cosmos. Let, in the following
place any other species may have, is ajustified concept.
pages, a few results of my investigations be indicated.
One musttake a view of the whole bio-psychic structure of the world in!
Already the term and the concept of “human being” contain a tricky order to get clarity on the special place of the humanbeing.In doingso,
ambiguity. This ambiguity has to be first seen through before we can I shall begin with a sequenceof levels of psychic powers andabilities that
address the question of the human being’s special place. On the one have over time been disclosed byvarious disciplines of knowledge. First
hand, the term is supposed to give us specifications which, morpho- of all, the boundary of the psychic coincides with the boundary oflife.”
logically, characterize the human being as a subclass of vertebrates and In addition to objective phenomenal properties of things called “alive”
mammals; no matter what the consequences of this may be, it is quite such as self-motion, self-differentiation, and self-limitation in both tem-
clear that the human being is here not only subordinated to the concept poral and spatial regards (which are not underdiscussion here), there
of “animal” but also occupies a very small corner of the animal realm. is the fact thatliving beings are not only objects for outside observers
This also remains the case if we, with C. v. Linné, refer to humans as a
but are also endowed with the modeofbeing-for-themselves, as well as with!
“peak” of all vertebrates and mammals (which as to the subject matter an inwardness through which they also are aware of themselves [sie sich
and concept concerned here, is highly questionable), because a peak
selber inne werden]. This is an essential property of them—a property of
of something still belongs to that of which it is the peak. Entirely inde- living beings which can be shown to have the closest ties with objective
pendentof such a concept—which establishes the unity of the human phenomenaoflife in terms ofstructure and formsof processes. It is the!
being in termsof his upright posture, a transformation of the vertebral psychic aspect, such as autonomy [Selbständigkeit], self-motion, and so
column,the equilibration of his brainpan, the large increase ofthe rela- on, that represents the primordial phenomenon ofliving beings.
tive size of the brain, and the organic changes ensuing from his upright
posture (such as grasping hands with opposable thumbs, the recession of
jawbone and teeth)—the term “human being” also signifies in everyday The lowestlevel of the psychic world—the steam, as it were, which pushes
language somethingtotally different, especially among civilized peoples. forward and upinto the highest stages of spiritual activities and which
We can hardly find another word that shows an analogous double mean- provides energy to the most tender acts of lucid goodness—is impulsion
ing. In this second sense, the term “human being” signifies a concept [Drang] devoid of consciousness, sensation, and representation. In im-
of something which is completely opposite to the conceptof “animals in pulsion “feeling” and “drives” are not yet separated (drives always have a
general,” including mammals and vertebrates, and is opposed to the lat- direction and tendencies“toward”ends such as nutrition or sexualgrati-
ter to the same degreeas that of the infusorium stentor, although it can fication). A mere “toward”light, for example, and an “away from,” as
hardly be denied that living beings called “humans” are morphologi- well as a vague delight and suffering without objects are the only modes
cally, physiologically, and psychologically incomparably more similar to a of impulsion. There is a sharp difference, however, between impulsion
chimpanzee than humans and chimpanzeesare to an infusorium. on the one hand andforce-centers andfields of forces on the other. The
It is obvious that this second concept of “human being” has an latter are the basis for trans-conscious phantasmic images that we call
entirely different meaning and an entirely different origin than the first “inorganic” bodies. There is no inwardness in inorganic bodies.
one.” I wish to refer to this second conceptas an essential concept in con- This first level of psychic becomingas it appears in impulsion we
trast to the first one, which is a conceptused in the natural sciences. This must assign to plants. The impression onehasthat plants are devoid of
is our theme: to show whetheror notthis essential concept, which links inwardness stems from the slownessof their vital processes. Undertime-
* See my essay “On the Idea of Man” in Vom Umsturtz der Werte. It confirms that the tradi- The theorythattries to show that psychic being would begin with an “associative mem-
tional conceptof the humanbeingis constituted by its resemblance with God. This presup- ory” or with animals—or even with the human being (Descartes)—proved to be false;
moreover,it is arbitrary to assign the psychic to the inorganic world.
8 >, + . : : ,
poses the idea of Godas a centerof reference.
THE HUMAN PLACE IN THE COSMOS THE HUMAN PLACE IN THE COSMOS
lapse photography this impression disappears completely. But one can- to moveto specific places to find nutrition, as all animals do. The fact
not assign any sensation and consciousness to plants as G. Th. Fechner that plants do not have the ability to spontaneously move from oneplace
did. Anyone who declares sensation and consciousness to be the most ele- to the next as animals do;the fact that plants do not have specific sensa-
mentary components of plants—and thereis no justification for this— tions or specific drives, no associations, no conditioned reflexes, and no
would have to deny that plants have a soul. True, the impulsion in plants genuinevital and nerve system, representsa totality of deficiencies which
is coordinated with their medium, toward growth, and takes such basic have to be understood in termsof their entire ontological structure. In-
directions as “above” and “under” and toward light and soil, but this deed, if plants were to possess only one of the qualities just mentioned,
impulsion is coordinated only with the unspecified whole of their medial they would have to have all of them at the sametime. Since there is no
directions and with resistance and real entities—important forthelife sensation without drive impulses and kinetic action, thereis also novital
of the internal organism of plants. Impulsion is not coordinated with system without a system of sensations either. The manifold of sensory
specific environmental parts and stimuli to which specific sense quali- qualities in animal organismsis never larger than that of an animal’s
ties and images would have to correspond.Forinstance, plants react to spontaneous movements—and the former are a function ofthe latter.
specific intensities of light rays but not to colors or to the directions Weare not dealing here with empirical concepts because ofthe va-
which light rays take. According to recent research done by the Dutch riety of transitional forms between plants and animals of which Aristotle
botanist A. H. Blaauw, plants do not have any specific tropism, nor any was already aware. Theessential direction oflife which is designated by
sensations, nor do they have even a most modest beginning of a reflex such wordsas “plantlike” and “vegetative” is a completely outward-directed
arc, of associations or conditioned reflexes. Therefore, they do not have impulsion. I am therefore using the term ecstatic impulsion in plants in
“sensory organs”either, as G. Haberlandt attempted to show. Movements orderto characterize the total absence of the reporting-backof organic
which stem from stimuli and which had previously been related to such states to a center that animals have, the total absence of a reporting-back
things, proved to be the components of general movements in the growth of life to itself, the total absence also of even a primitive re-flex and of
of plants. Concerning the most general conceptof sensation one can say any “conscious” inner state, however faint. For it is the case that con-
this: whereas among higher animals the mostprimitive “sensations” ap- sciousness is becoming in a primitive re-flexion of sensations; that is, it
pearto be stimuli transmitted to the brain by ductless glands which are is becoming on occasion of an occurring resistance—all consciousness
also thebasis for organic sensations and sensations coming from exterior has its foundation in suffering, and all higher levels of consciousness
processes, the most general concept of sensation consists in a reporting- have their foundation in increased suffering—over and against origi-
back of a living being’s momentary organic and kineticstates to a center nal spontaneous movements.” Having neither consciousness nor sen-
plus a modification of movements thatfollow the next moment, again by sation, plants lack any “wakefulness,” which grows out of the guardian
virtue of this reporting-back. According to this general concept of sensa- function [ Wachterfunktion] of sensation. Nevertheless, plants can afford
tion, plants do not have sensations. They have no “memory” that reaches to lack sensations simply because—plants being the greatest chemists
beyond the dependence of their states of life on the whole of their past amongliving beings—they prepare the organic materials for their nutri-
history. They have no ability to learn as we can identify it evenin the case tion from inorganic substances. This way their existence is consumed by
of the most primitive infusoria. Attempts made to show allegedly condi- nutrition, growth, reproduction, and death (without specific life spans
tioned reflexes and a certain trainability in plants must be regarded as amongspecies).
failures. Notwithstanding, we dofind already the primordial phenomenon ofex-
Whatarecalled “drives” in animals appearin plants only as a general pression in plants. There is a certain physiognomyof their internalstates,
impulsion toward growth and reproduction. Thefactthat life is not the “will of the states of their impulsion as the inwardnessoftheir life. The ex-
to power” but impulsion toward reproduction and death is proven best pression of such states may reveal weakness, strength, abundance, or de-
by plants. Plants neither spontaneously choose their nutrition, nor are ficiency. The “expression”is a primordial phenomenonoflife. Expression is
they active in pollination; they are passively fertilized by winds, birds, and by no meanswhat Darwincalled the quintessence of atavistic actions of
insects. Since their needed nourishmentconsists mostly of inorganic ma- intention. Whatis entirely missing in plants are functions of announcing
terial thatis available everywhereto a certain extent, plants do not have themselves [ Kundgabefunktionen] that we find among animals, and which
10
11
determine their intercourse among each other and which make theition underneath whichthere would not be the
dark impulsion that main-
also largely independent of things directly present andvitally importartains them,its flames running through sleep and awareness. Even a most
to them. It is only among humansthatfunctions of expression and of aisimple sensation is never a consequence ofstimuli
but one of attention
nouncing themselves becomethebasis for functions of representatio conditioned by drives. At the sametime, impulsionis the unity of the hu-{
and naming by meansofsigns. In the worldof plants, there is nothing anan being’s complex differentiatio n of drives and affects. According to
what we find among animals, suchasliving in groups, the dual principlrecen t research, it appearsto haveits location in the humanbrain stem,
of pioneership and following, of showing how to do something, and imwhich is probably also the center of the endocrine glands that mediate
tating other animals. between somatic and psychic processes. Moreover, impulsion in human
The absenceof a centralization in plants, especially their lacking beingsis also the subject of the experienceof resistance which is the root
system of nerves, makes the mutual dependency amongorgans and oofall possession of “reality” and, in particular, of the unity of the impres-
ganic functions muchcloser. In contrast to animals also, plants responsion of reality that precedesall representing functions. Representations
to every stimulus by changingtheir entire state of life, precisely because cand discursive thinking (drawing conclusions) cannot indicate anything
their stimulus-conducting system of tissues. For this reason, any mechaielse to us but “what” a thing is and its difference from the “what” of an-
ical clarification of plant life is more difficult and less accessible than other thing. The “reality” of things is given to
us solely in the experience
is in the case with animals (in general). For it is with the increase of thof resistance tied to an experienceofangst.”
centralization of the nerve system among animals that the independenc From an organic viewpoint, it is nutrition regulated by the vegeta-
of partial reactions among animals increases—and with this there is tive nervous system which, as
its name indicates, reveals the affinity hu-
certain approximation of the animal’s body to a mechanical structure.man beingsstill have to plant life. A periodic deprivation of energy from
Furthermore, the individualization of plants, that is, the amourthe animal system, the system which regulates external
power-behavior
of their spatially and temporally unified whole [Geschlossenheit], is by fan favor of the vegetative system,is likely the condition
of the rhythm
smaller than it is with animals. Since plants have no active adaptatiobetw een states of sleep and being awake. Thisis why sleep represents a
to the animate and inanimate environment—despite the purposive relatively plantlike state in the human being. Among women, especially
lations they have with their inorganic milieu structure, with insectthose living in farming tribes in parts of (non-Jewish) Asia, the vegetative
birds, and so on—one maysay that, metaphysically, plants speak ouprinciple appears to be predominant (in contrast
to stockbreedingtribes
they vouch much morefor the unity oflife that stands behind all moand nomads), as G. Th. Fechner had already noticed.
phological shapes than animals do; and plants also express moreofth
unity of life than animals do by the gradual comingto be ofall types(
formsoflife in termsof firm complexes of material and energy. The priiThe second essential form of thestill undifferentia ted ecstatic impul-
ciple of usefulness, which in a teleological sense says that plants are “fosion, within the objective orderof levels of psychiclife, is the “instinct.”
animals and animals are “for” humans, andthusteleologicalstrivings iBoth the meaning and application of the word
“instinct” are contest-
nature—a premise ever so much overestimated beyond recognition lable and dark. Wewill avoid this darkness by refraining fromdefiniti
ons
Darwinists and theists alike—was a complete blunder, even one madprovided by psychological conceptions. We define instinct exclusively in
by Lamarckism. The abundant formsoffoliage of plants point to a prilterms of a so-called behavior of living beings. The “behavior” of living
ciple in the unknownroots oflife, whichis full of fanciful play and aebeingsis always the object of external observation
and possible descrip-
thetic order, much moreso than doesthevariety of forms and colors tions; also, behavior is independentof the physiological
kinetic move-
find in the animal kingdom. ments that carry it out and, as such, its characteristic s are determinable
The first level of life’s inwardness, the impulsion, is present in awithout reference to (physical and chemical) concepts
ofstimuli. We are
animals and also in the Auman being. (The human being—as we wable to determine units of and changesin the behavior ofliving beings
see—comprises all essential levels of existence in general, and, in P
ticular, those of life. As far as at least the essential TESIONS of
being a See mytreatises “Erkenntnis und Arbeit” (1926) in Die
Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft
concerned, all of nature finds the most concentrated unity
of its own bifin Gesammelte Werke, vol. 8, pp. 282-343] and “Idealismus-Realismus”
in Philosophischer
ing in the human.) Thereis no sensation, no perception, no representiLiteratur Anzeiger 2, issue 3, Bonn: 1927.
12 13
in varying features in the environment; and this we can also do prior ing being concerned. Instincts always serve a species, be it the species of
to physiological, psychological, and causal explanations. This being the living beingitself or anotherspecies that has an importantrelation to
case, we can establish lawfulrelations thatare already fulfilled because of the formerspecies (ants and parasites, the growth ofgalls in plants, in-
their total purposive character. Behaviorists made a mistake by including sects and birds thatfertilize plants). This character ofinstinctive behav-
the physiological process in the concept of behavior itself. But the con- ior differs considerably first from self-training by way of “trial and error”
cept of behavioris a valuable one precisely because itis a psycho-physically and from all types of learning. Second,it differs from any use of “com-
indifferent concept. This is to say that every behavior is always also an ex- prehension” [“Verstandes”gebrauch]. Both learning and comprehension
pression of internal states. There are no inward states that do not directly serve individuals; as we shall see, they do notserve the species. Instinctive
or indirectly “express” themselves in behavior. Hence, behavior can and behavior, for this reason, is not a reaction to changingfactors occurring
must always be explained in a dual fashion: psychologically and physio- in the environment amongindividuals. Rather,it is a reaction only toa
logically. It would be a mistake to favor a psychological explanation over specific structureand arrangement of varying constituents in the environ-
a physiological one, or vice versa. One muststart to understand behavior ment which is typical for a species. Whereas particular conditions can be
in termsOf a descriptively “middle”field of observation. | exchangedto a large extent without instincts undergoing aberrations
It is in this sense that we refer to behavior as “instinctive” when it and mistaken activity, the smallest changes in thesestructureswill lead
has the following five characteristics: to aberration. This is what onerefers to as the “rigidity” of instincts in
[1.] Instinctive behavior must have a sense of being purposeful for contrast to pliant types of behavior based on training, self-training, and
the whole of an organism, for its nutrition and reproduction alike; or it intelligence. J. H. Fabre has provided us, with high specificity, with an
must be purposefulfor the whole of another species (that is, it must be overwhelming amount of such instinctive behavior in his monumental
of service eitherto its own organism orto that of another). work, Souvenirs entomologiques. This usefulnessofinstincts for a speciesis
[2.] Instinctive behavior must proceed according to the terms of a in keeping withtheir being inborn and hereditaryin regard to the specific
fixed and unchanging rhythm. All depends here on a firm rhythm. The faculty of behavior, and not only as an acquired faculty of behavioras
organs that are used to this effect are not important because they can also, of course, are habit, trainability, and intelligence. Still, the inborn
change if an organ has been removed; nor are important combinations character of instincts does not mean that they emerge rightafter birth;
of individual movements which, depending on the initial state of the it means only that they are coordinated with certain periods of growth
animal’s body, can change while its tasks and their completion remain and maturity, and perhaps even with different forms of animals (in the
the same. The nonmechanical nature of instincts is secured this way, and case of polymorphism).
the impossibility of instincts constituted by single or chains of reflexes [4.] It is a very important character of instinctive behavior to be
is revealed (as J. Loeb’s “tropisms”). We do not find such rhythms, such independent of the numberoftrials an animal makes when facing a situ-
temporal gestalts whose parts mutually require each other among move- ation. It is in this sense that an instinct is “complete.” Just as we must not
ments that are acquired and then take on meaning through En conceive ofthe origin of the organization proper of an animalin terms
practice, and habit according to H. J. Jennings’s principle, called “trial of small differentiated steps of variation, so also an instinct cannot be
and error.” The meaningof the instinctual need not relate to a present thought to have arisen from additionsof successful partial movements.
situation, and instincts can aim at those at faraway spatial and temporal Nevertheless, instincts are subject to specialization by way of experiences
distances. For instance, an animal may make meaningful preparations and learning. Onecansee this by considering hunting animals born with
for an oncomingwinterorfor laying eggs, although it had demonstrably the instinct of hunting particular animals, but not born withthe art of
never experienceda similar situation before. This also meansthat there hunting successfully. Whatever practice and experience accomplish in
was no instruction [Kundgabe], tradition, and imitation of members of such cases corresponds only to variations of a melody, so to speak, but
the samespecies involved. The animal behaves similar to an electron in not to learning a new melody. Hence, instincts are already built into
quantum mechanics, acting “asif” it foresaw a future situation. | the morphogenesisofliving beings, and they areactive in the very close
[3.] Another characteristic of instinctive behavior is its reaction to relation they have with the developing physiological functions thatfirst
only such typical and recurring situations thatare useful for the relevant formedby the structures of the animal body.
species as such, butnot forthe particular experience of the individual liv- [5.1 A factorof great importanceis the relationship instincts have
14 15
to sensations, to sensory functions and to memory. It is not possible to form of psychic life than certain psychic complexesestablished by asso-
hold that instincts have their origin in sensory experiences (as sensual- ciations. One can showthat the psychic processes following associative
ism holds). Sensations only trigger a rhythmically fixed process of in- (habitual) laws are localized much higher in the nervous system, and that
stinctive activity without determining the kind of process it is. Stimuli of they, for this reason, genetically developed muchlater than instinctive
smells and of sights can trigger the same results of actions—and hence, behavior.It is precisely types of behaviorthat have a unified meaning (e.g.,
this triggering would not necessarily come from even such sensations grasping after a thing, or singing a melody) that canstill take place de-
that have the same modality, and even less from sensations having the spite pathological losses while less structured unified meanings (such
same quality. The opposite proposition, however, is true: whatever an an- as movinga finger, or singing the scale) can no longer be produced by
imal can represent and senseis a priori governed and determined bythe personsso affected. Thefixed, unified meanings oftypes of behaviorare
relation its instincts have to their environment. The same holdstrue for essentially conditioned subcortically. The cerebral cortex is in essence an
the reproduction of memories. They always fall within the scope of an organ of dissociation and not one ofassociation, by comparison to bio-
animal’s predominant instinctive projects, and they follow the primary logically more unified and more deeply localized types of behavior.
level of determination. Only of secondary importance are the frequency We may say rather that[1] the emergence of relatively single sen-
of associative connections with conditioned reflexes and trials. What an sations and representations coming from diffuse complexes and asso-
animal can see and hear is only what is of importance to its instincts. ciative connections between them, and [2] the emergence of a specific
This is also the case whenthere are identical stimuli and sensory condi- “drive” seeking gratification from the complex ofinstinctive behavior,
tions for sensation. Seen in a historical perspective, all afferent nerve and [3] the beginning of “intelligence”that restores the empty sense to
paths andreceptive organs formed only after the formation of efferent an auto-mechanism, originally devoid of sense, to “artificial” meaning-
nerve paths and organs. Even in the human being the drive to see under- fulness, are, genetically seen, equally primitive products of the evolution of
lies factual seeing, andit is based in the general drive to be awake; the instinctive behavior (productsof disintegration—not in a negative sense).
drive to sleep cuts off sensory organs with their functions. Both memory They are generally in lockstep with each otheras they are with the in-
and senses are enclosed and entrenched by instinct. So-called drive- dividualization of a living being. They are in lockstep with each other
conditioned behaviors are absolutely the opposite of instinctive behav- and with the emergence ofthe individualliving being from its species.
ior, because, perceived as a whole, they can be completely senseless (for Theyare also in lockstep with the manifold of individually specific situ-
instance, when there are cravings for drugs). ationsthat a living being mayface. Creative dissociation, not association
It proved to be impossible to derive instinctive behavior from me- or “synthesis” of single elements (W. Wundt), is basic to the process of
chanically conceived tropisms and orientation responses (Loeb), since psychic development. The same holds true physiologically as well: an or-
these were shownto be simply instincts themselves.It is also impossible to ganism is less like a mechanism the more simple and organized the
reduceinstinctive behavior to a combinationofsingle reflexes of kinetic organism is, but it produces phenomenally more mechanism-like struc-
paths to form chain reflexes (H. S. Jennings, Fr. Alverdes). According tures andtypes of behaviorup to its death and upto the cytomorphosis
to the most recent research, combinations of single reflexes of kinetic of its organs. It could also be quite provable thatintelligence is by no
paths do not exist, nor are even the patellar reflex or the blinkingreflex means an addition to ourassociative psychic life on a higherlevel (and
purely mechanical reflexes. It is also impossible to reduce instincts to its physiological analogy, the conditioned reflex), as K. Buhler thinks;
inherited modes of behavior which rest on “habits” and “self-training” rather, intelligence formsitself in a uniform and parallel fashion along
(H. Spencer), which is to say, to finally reduce instincts to laws of asso- with associative psychic life. Furthermore, intelligence can be foundal-
ciation and a conditioned reflex, or to consider them to be a succeed- ready in infusoria—not just among higher mammals—as both Fr. Al-
ing automatic factor of comprehending and of “intelligent” behavior verdes andFr.J. J. Buytendijk showed. It looks as if whateveris meaning-
(W. Wundt). The becoming of instincts of a particular speciesis definitely ful in instincts, yet inflexible, fixed, and bound to a species, becomes
a product in part of the formation of that speciesitself. Its purely struc- mobile and individual in intelligence. However,it also looks like whatis
tured lines [reinen Linien] are totally unchangeable. Neitherinstincts nor automaticin instincts and mechanicalin association and conditionedre-
the organic structure of an animal can be changed by incomplete steps, flexes would [in intelligence] become relatively free in meanings [sinnfret],
as habit and practice are. Beyond doubt, instincts are a more primitive and simultaneously become capable of more extensive combinations [of
16 17
meanings]. The fact that instinctive behavior has not developed into au- trials (including those of playing among young dogsandhorses,for ex-
tomatic intelligent and random behavior makes us also understand that ample) andthatthey tend to reiterate them, whethertheylike to ornot,
arthropoda—having morphologically a much more fixed structure of showsthat these are not behaviors based on memory but on an inborn
their organism than higher animals do—possess the most perfect in- drive (the drive of reiteration), which is the condition of all reproduc-
stincts, yet hardly any sign of intelligent behavior. This is in contrast to tion. But those movements that turned out to be successful by providing
the human being as a flexible mammal in whom intelligence and asso- satisfaction to the drives and thus making an animal repeat them more
ciative memory developed to the highest degrees but who possesses, on oftenso that they “fixate” as successful movementsrather than as the un-
the other hand, only deterioratedinstincts. In any case, the basic psychic successful ones, amount to whatwereferto as the principle of “success”
structure ofinstincts is relegated to the animalspecies andto theatavis- and “error.” Whenever wefind this, we refer to the “practice” of habits or
tic remnants in the human form oflife. the “acquisition” of habits in a qualitative sense, depending on whether
In an attemptto psychically interpret instinctive behavior, one can it is achievedbyself-training or bythe training of others, as when human
say that it represents an indivisible wnity offoreknowledge with actions in the beings are involved.
sense that there is never more knowledgeat hand thanis simultaneously It would be correct to assign these psychic and physiological abili-
given in the next step of an action. True, there are the beginnings of a ties to all organic life (as E. Hering and R. Semon meanttosay) if the
division between sensation and reaction (arc of reflex), but the closest behaviorofliving beings were not only dependent on some immediately
link betweenthe twostill exists in their functions. Furthermore, instinc- previousstates of their organism, butalso on their entire prehistory, so
tive knowledge is neither knowledge of representations, nor of images, that life—in contrast to (phenomenal) death—would, strictly speaking,
nor even of thoughts; rather, instinctive knowledgeis feeling knowledge have no states of identical nature [soseinsidentische Zustände] and there
andis differentiated by values and value impressions, and furthermore, would be no occurrencesof identical causes and effects. But in the case
it is knowledge of attracting or repelling moments of resistance. Hence, mentionedit would beincorrectto hold thatin alllife there is a specific
to speak of “innate ideas” in instincts, as H. S. Reimarus did, makes no influence of sense and motortypes of behavior on a moretrouble-free
sense. sequence of similar types of behavior. Forin that case all plant life is
With regard to impulsion, instincts are directed to environmental bereft of the above facts, and this must also be so because pouringitself
components which frequently recur and are species-orientated but, never- totally outward, plant life does not have the capacity to “report back”its
theless, instincts are directed to environmental components having dif- organicstates to a center (= sensation) or a central motorsystem.
ferences in their contents and, hence, they are given in perception. In- Thebasis of associative memoryis whatI. P. Pavlov called a “con-
stincts are characterized here by increasesof specialization of impulsion ditionedreflex.” For instance, a dog does not secrete gastric juice only
andits qualities. whenfoodenters its stomach. This already happens whenthe dog hears
the steps of someone who regularly gives him food. Gastric juice is se-
creted even when humansdreamofthe food theylike. If one lets a signal
Ofthe two types of behavior which, as we saw, derive from instinctive be- repeatedly soundat the time a stimulusreleases this kind of reaction, the
havior—the “habitual” and the “intelligent” ones—it is habitual behav- reaction can take place even withouta stimulus. These and similar cases
iorthat is the third psychic form wedistinguish, namely the quintessence are “conditioned reflexes.” The “laws ofassociation” are only a psychic
of association, of reproduction, and of the conditioned reflex, thatis, analogy to a conditioned reflex. According to these laws of association,
the ability which we designate as “associative memory” (mneme). This a complex of representations tends to reproduce itself and to comple-
ability can by no means be found amongall living beings. Plants, as Aris- ment missing components whena partof the complex,say a part related
totle already showed, do nothavethis ability. It must be attributedto all to the environment,is relived in a sense or motor function. Ifa complex |
of thoseliving beings whose behavioris slowly but steadily modified through breaks up into several pieces, these pieces can, according to the law of
an earlier behaviorof the sametype, a process directed by its usefulness “contiguity and similarity,” again join up with each other. The so-called
to life and in meaningful ways. Here, the level on which behavior be- laws of association pertinent to reproductions of representation follow
comes more meaningfulis strictly dependent on the numberoftrials or so- from this. To be sure, we have here peculiar laws in psychic life, which
called trial movements. The fact that animals keep making spontaneous among higher animals play an important role, especially among the
18 19
vertebrates and mammals. Yet, research has also shown with certainty associations which, on theirpart, arestill closer to processesof instincts.)
that there are never complete associations of single representations Just as a plain perception offactual affairs without any surplusoffantasy
which would underlie only laws of “contiguity and similarity,” that is, which and mythic lining is a /ate phenomenonin the psychic development of
would underlie the partial identity between initial representations and individuals and whole peoples, so also are all connectionsofassociation
earlier complexes. Just as there is no more of an occurrence in a a late phenomenon. Indeed, the life of peoplesstill living in the early
completely isolated and always identical reflex of an organ situated stages of their mythological period of youth, as well as the psychic life of
in a determinable particular place, so also there is no “pure” sensa- young children, is grown over and covered up with original and spon-
tion strictly proportionate to its stimulus independent of all chang- taneousdrive- and wish-fantasy. The connections of association (physio-
ing and determining drive attitudes and memories. (Every sensation is logically very clearly localized in the brain) are a late phenomenon.”It
always a function of a stimulus and the attention drive [triebhafte Auf- is nothing less than an elementary phenomenonto whichlater on syn-
merksamkeit].) And there is no more a “pure” and isolated sensation, theses would be added bywayofso-called relational thinking, or of an
one strictly proportionate to its stimulus, than there is a “pure” asso- over-soul.
ciation. All associative memory is under the sway of the drives, needs, It is known today that associative memory is never “pure” because
and tasks (or under the compulsion of a trainer) that determine them. there are hardly any associations that contain no intellectual factors.
All associative laws are probably only a matter ofstatistical rules—ex- There is never a transition from associative random reactions to mean-
actly as the laws of physics pertain to wholes of processes—butthey do ingful reactions that grow with the numberoftrials. Curves almost always
not pertain to elementary laws of psychic life (the stance of J. Locke, show instabilities in the sense that the passage from random factors to
D. Hume, and J. S. Mill and of associative psychology). For this reason, meaningfulness is a little earlier than the pure principle of “trial and error,”
all concepts of a “pure” sensation, or of associated reflexes, and so on, as one would expect from probability rules—asif, so to speak, something
have the character of concepts having limits which indicate only the direc- like “insight” had been awakened during the numerous trials.
tion of a certain kind of psychic or physiological change. More or less The principle of associative memory is at work among all animals
pure associations could be found at best in cases of a loss [Ausfallser- in some degree orother. It shows itself to be a direct consequence of the
scheinungen] of the upper levels of mental determinants, as in cases of occurrence of the reflex arc and of a division of sensory and motor sys-
associations of the external sounds of words during an interruption of tems. But there are huge differences to be found in the distribution of
thought [Jdeenflucht]. associative memory. It is very small among typical instinct animals such
Genetically, this type of connectivity is so little an elementary state as the arthropoda, with their chainlike and closed structure. By contrast,
of affairs that it is only during the decline of psychic processes that they associative memory is most present among animals having a flexible and
gradually turn closer and closer to the model of association (i.e., as a less rigid physical structure, with broad combinations of ever-new move-
consequence of the diminution of the strength of the drives and of de- ments stemming from partial movements, like those among vertebrates
creases of their differentiations).* One can see this in phenomena of and mammals. Among humans, the principle of association and repro-
changes that occur during old age: there are changes in handwriting, duction has its widest extension. From the first moment of its inception,
drawing, painting, and changes of speech. All of them have an increas- the principle relates to the imitation of actions and movements coming
ingly additive but less uniform character (which meansthat the increas- from affects and signals from membersof the samespecies. “Imitation”
ing lawfulness of association approximatessenility and a feeble mind). and “copying” are specializations of the drive of repetition applied to
By analogy, during old age sensations get closer to “pure” sensation pro- the behavior and experiences of others in regard to the kinds of behavior
portionate to its relevant stimulus. Just as during the course of ourlives and experiences of the subject itself, and are the vapor, as it were, of
our organism approaches more and more the conditions of a mecha- all reproductive memory.It is the combination of both the phenomena
nism—up to the point when it becomes a whole mechanism entirely, of imitation and of copying that releases the important fact of “tradi-
namely in death—so also our psychic life produces more and more ha- tion.” Tradition is a new dimension which addsto biological “inheritance”
bitual associations of representations and modes of comportment: ag-
ing human beings become more and moreslaves of habits. (Moreover,
associations of single representations genetically follow the complexes of * See mytreatise “Erkenntnis und Arbeit,” section V.
20 21
a new determination of the past animal behavior of the members of a progressof this principle that an individualis able to adjust to new situa-
species. This tradition, however, must be sharply distinguished from free tions, which are no longertypical for the species concerned. Theindivid-
“recollection” of the past (anamnesis) and from all tradition based on ual ceases to be a mere passageway of reproduction. While the principle
signs, sources, and documents (in short, from all knowledge of history). of associationis in relation to practical intelligence (as we shall see) still
Whereas the forms just mentioned are proper only to human beings, tra- a relative principle of rigidity and habit—a “conservative principle”—its
dition does occur already in herds, packs, and other social forms of ani- relation to instincts is already a powerful tool of liberation. It creates an
mals. Herds “learn” what alpha animals show, and they hand it down to entirely new dimension of the enrichmentoflife.
forthcoming generations. The sameholdstrue for drives, feelings, and affects. Drives disen-
A certain “progress,” therefore, is already possible through tradi- gaged from instincts occur, relatively speaking, already amongthe higher
tion. Nevertheless,all real human developmentessentially rests on an in- animals—and along with this disengagement there emerges the hori-
creasing disintegration of said tradition. Only the human being can have zon of excessiveness: Drives becomea possible source of pleasure quite
conscious “memories” of individual events and unique experiences, and independently of the demandsoflife as a whole. As long as the sexual
continuous identifications among a majority of acts of remembering drive, for example, lies within the deep rhythm ofthe changesin nature
toward one regular past event. Conscious memories are always a dissolu- that correspond to the rutting and heat seasons, this drive is an incor-
tion and, indeed, an annihilation of the lived tradition. Meanings that ruptible servant oflife. Disengaged from instinctive rhythms, however,
have come down to us are given as “current” but they are not datable the sexual drive becomes more and more of a self-determining source of
in time. They are effective on our present actions without, however, be- pleasure. Already among the higher animals—especially among domesti-
comingobjectively present. In tradition, the past is more suggested rather cated ones—this drive can obscure the meaning of its existence (onan-
than “known”to us.” The disintegration of the forces of tradition keeps ism among apes and dogs). Drive life is originally gauged to modes of
increasing during humanhistory. Thisis the result of human ratio, which behavior and to the goods in this world; but if it becomes a source of
continues to turn contents that came downto us into objects and thus pleasure—as in hedonism—we have before us a late phase of decadence
throws themback, as it were, into the objective past, making new discover- in the history of humans. Comportmentsolely directed to pleasure is
ies and inventions possible. The very slow disintegration of the effective- decidedly a sign of aging in the lives of individuals and peoples as, for
ness of all those forces, which make habit the foster mother of humans, instance, an old drinker who “savors every drop” and similar phenom-
is an essential part of history. The pressure exercised by tradition on the ena in erotic life would show. A sign of aging is also at hand when higher
foreknowledge of our behavior also decreases with the progress of the and lower functions ofjoy begin to separate from the conditions of the
intellectual discipline of history. pleasures in having drive gratifications, and when there is a state of en-
The effectiveness of the associative principle in the structure of joyment obscuring the vital and spiritual functions ofjoy. The “pleasure
the psychic world correspondsat the sametime to the disintegration of principle,” therefore, is nothing original, as both hedonism and its com-
the instincts with their kind of “sense” and to the process of centraliza- panion sensualism asserted. Rather, it is a consequence of an increased!
tion and simultaneous mechanization of organic life. Furthermore, this associative intelligence. It is only with human beings that the possibility
effectiveness of the associative principle means that an organic individual of separation of the drives from instinctive behavior, and the capacity!
is increasingly detached from theties it has to its species and from theri- to isolate functions and states of pleasure, take on the most incredible
gidity ofinstincts devoid of a capacity for adaptation. It is because of the forms. It has been justifiably said that human beings can be more than!
animals and less than animals but they can never be an animal.
* Suggestion [in its psychological sense], and according to P. Schilder probablyalso hyp-
~ nosis, occurs often in the animal kingdom. It may have originated as a function to aid in Whenever this new psychic form of associative memory emerges from
mating andto put a femaleina state of lethargy. Suggestion is a primary phenomenonby nature, nature had also—as I already indicated—originally supplied a
comparison to “communication,” for example, of a judgment whose meaning is compre-
hended in the modeof “understanding.” The latter type of understanding of whatever
corrective for the dangers hidden in the earliest design ofthis ability.
states of affairs are concerned and being judged bywayof a sentence formulated in a lan- This corrective is nothing else than the fourth form of psychiclife: the
guageis only proper to the humanbeing. organically bound practical intelligence. Closely related to this form are the
22 23
capacities for and the activity of selection which are also organically denness expressesitself, for instance, in the lighting up of an animal’s
bound; and also related to this form are the capacities for making pref- eyes, and in what Wolfgang Kohler very aptly referred to as an “Aha”
erences among goods and of specific members within a relevant species experience. In addition, this new representation containing the solution
during the process of reproduction. This latter capacity goes far beyond toa problem does not come from combinations of simultaneous expe-
a mere sexual drive (the beginnings of eros). riences, or from partially identical or similar ones; noris intelligent be-
“Intelligent behavior” we can define first without regard to psy- havior releasedby fixed and typically recurring gestalt-structures of the
chic processes. A living being behaves “intelligently” whenever it can act environment. Rather,it takes place throughselected relations among subject
meaningfully without trials or new additions of trials—beit in terms of matters—determined by the goals of a drive—of perceived single envi-
a behaviorthatis “sensible” even though it might fall short in its endeav- ronmental parts that are in relation to each other and whichare the result
ors to reach the goal, that is, a behavior that appears to be “foolish” (only of unleashing the new representation, relations such as “equal,” “simi-
intelligent beings can be foolish). Such intelligent behavior must take lar,” “analogous to x, ” cerinstrumental function,” to realize something, the
place over and against new situations, which are neither typical for the “cause” of something.
species nor for the individual living being concerned. It must also hap- Today there are complex and unfinished discussions of whether or
pen suddenly and, above all, it must occur independently of the number not animals, especially the highest apes, such as chimpanzees, have or
of previoustrials as an attemptto solve a task posited by the drives. We have not reached said levels of psychic life. In our context, we can only
are speaking of an “organically bound”intelligence as long as the inner touch uponthis question. Ever since Wolfgang Köhler published the re-
or outer procedurethat a living being executesis in the service of the sults of his experiments with chimpanzees— experiments he made with
stirrings of demandsofits drives or of the satisfactions of its needs. We great patience, precision, and ingenuity on the island of Tenerife“—the
also denote this intelligence as “practical” simply becauseits final mean- discussions amongpsychologists have not stopped. I agree with Kôhler’s
ing always pertains to actions through which the organism reachesits fully justified view of assigning to his experimental animals a simple, in-
drive-goal (or fails to do so). Among humansthis same intelligence can telligent behavior, in the sense described. Other researchers dispute this,
also pertain to the service of spiritual goals. It is only then that it rises and almost everyone seeks to support the old theory with various argu-
above cleverness and cunning [found amonghigheranimals with practi- ments, saying that animals have nothing more than an associative mem-
cal intelligence]. ory and instincts, and that intelligence—even understood as drawing
Let us take a look at the psychicside of intelligence. We can define primitive inferences (without signs) —is the monopoly of the human be-
intelligence as a sudden insight into a context offacts and values within ing. Kôhler’s experiments were conducted in the following way: Between
the environment;thatis, within a context that has neither been directly the drive-goal (for instance, a fruit) and the animal, he set up increas-
perceived nor had been perceived earlier for reproduction. To putthis ingly complicated detours the animal would have to take to reachit, for
into positive terms: intelligence is an insight into state ofaffairs (relat- example, obstacles and objects as possible “tools” (boxes, ropes, sticks,
ing to this state’s existence and the fortuitous “what”it is) on the basis of several sticks to be fitted into each other, an operation that had first
a structure of relations whose foundation is partly given in experience, to be procured and then prepared). Then observations would tell him
and partly complementedin an anticipatory fashion in representation, how and with which kind of psychic functions the animal would reachits
for instance, on a specific level of visual intuition [Anschauung]. Such drive-goal; observations would also tell Köhler where exactly the limits
thinking, which is not reproductive but productive, is characterized by of the possibility of an animal’s accomplishmentwere to be seen. I am
anticipation, thatis, by possessing beforehand a new set of facts which were of the opinion that the experiments clearly show that the animal’s ac-
never experienced earlier (pro-videntia, prudence, cleverness, cunning). complishments did not stem from instincts and an additional associative
The difference between intelligence and associative memory is memory (components of memory, and of combinations of representa-
clear: the situation to be comprehended and accounted for by one’s com- tions); rather, several cases revealed that there was genuine intelligent ac-
portment is not only new and atypical in its specific kind and situation, ton among the animals which took partin the experiments.
but, aboveall, it is “new”to the individual concerned. Such an objectively Let us briefly render a sketch of this practical and organically
meaningful behavior happensall of a sudden and prior to new trials, and
it also happens independently of the numberof all previoustrials. The sud- * Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin (1917-18).
24 25
bound intelligence. While the nutritional drive’s goal of a fruit visually neitherinstinct nor habit. The immensedifferencesin talent amongani-
lights up to the animal, and sets itself sharply off from the environmen- mals for such behavior confirm theintelligent (not instinctive) character
tal field, and becomes an independent drive-goal, everything in the en- of such actions. |
vironment transforms itself in a peculiar manner, especially the visual The same holds true for choices as well as for actions of choice. It
field lying between animal and fruit. In the visual field, the relationships is erroneous to deny that animals have an ability to perform actions of
among objects are so structured that they obtain a relative and “abstract” choosing something and to think that an animal is motivated only by
relief, such that things, which are ordinarily just perceived or appear to the stronger drives given at the moment(principle of resultants). An
the animal as something “indifferent,” or just as something “to bite in,” animal is neither a drive-mechanism nor one ofinstincts, associations,
or as something “to play with,” or as something “to sleep on,” obtain and reflexes. The impulses in drives are highly differentiated among ani-
an abstract dynamic and relational character of “thing to get fruit.” This mals: they have dominant drives; they have performance, subordinate,
novel experience does not only pertain to actual sticks that resemble and auxiliary drives; they have drives gauged to more general as well as
the branchesoftrees from which fruits are hanging for the animals that to more specific achievements. From the center of their drives (which
live in trees (this could still be interpreted as an instinctive behavior); it animals possess, but not plants) which they have because of their unitary
also pertains to a piece of wire or of a straw, to the brim of a straw hat, nervous system, animals can‚ up to a certain extent, also act spontane-
orto a blanket that the animal takes from its sleeping place to reach the ously on the constellation of their drives, which allows them to avoid
fruit, which otherwise would not be accessible because the fruit is out- nearby, more tempting advantages in favor of reaching greater advan-
side the cage; in short, things pertain to anything which fulfills the ab- tages located in remoter distances, despite having to make detours to
stract representation as “moveable” and “oblong.”It is the drive dynam- reach thelatter. But what an animal does not haveis the capacity to pre-
ics themselves of animals that begin to turn into an object and to extend fer among values themselves; for instance, preferring the value of useful-
into elements of the environs. Thespecific object required by the animal ness to that of comfortableness independently of relevant goods and of
obtains the dynamic functional value of a “tool” (albeit only in the occa- the “moral tenor” [Gesinnung] that belongs to such value-preferences.
sionalist sense); a tool, that is, “to get closer to the fruit.” The functional Indeed, in its affects an animal is much closer to man than it is in its in-
value obtains the character of having a meaningful direction to the goal telligence. Gifts, readiness to help, reconciliation, and similar observable
thatis given visually and strongly illuminated. It is the rope itself that ap- facts one can find already among animals. It is at this juncture that a de-
pears to the animal as havinga direction to the goal, evenif not moving cisive question concerning our problem has to be answered. If animals
itself toward it. The much greater pliability of animal optical complexes do already have some intelligence, is there more of a difference between
for desires, drives, and wishes (including childish and humanly primi- humans and animals than there is of a gradual difference, and can there
tive ones) makes it to some extent possible that this displacement of the still be an essential difference at all? Or: is there, beyond the essential stages
drive impulse into thingsof the environment (as if they wanted themselves, we have looked into, something entirely different in humans, something
not just the animal, to be closer to the fruit) also allows of optical ap- which uniquely belongs to them, and which is notat all a part of choice
pearances of the movements ofthe stick toward the directionof the fruit and of intelligence?
(which E. R. Jaensch provedto be the case for optic intuitions of images — The answers given to these questions are most sharply divided.
amongchildren). The origin of the phenomenonofcausality or of effi- There are those who privilege solely the human being as a possessor of
cacy, which is a dynamic phenomenon, and is by no means exhausted by intelligence and the capacity to make choices, and who deny theseabili-
regularsuccessions of appearances as D. Humethought, begins to dawn ties to animals. They recognize, to be sure, more than merely quantita-
before us here as a phenomenonwhichrests in the objectification of the tive difference, an essential difference between animals and humans, but
causality of drive-actions moved into things of the environment. This phenom- they locate that difference elsewhere than I do. There are others who,
enon completely coincides in this case with an “instrumental” function. like all evolutionists who follow the Darwinian and J. de Lamarckian
To be sure, the restructuring described does nottake place in the animal schools, reject an ultimate difference (Ch. Darwin himself, G. Schwalbe,
by way of conscious and reflective activity; rather, it occurs in terms of a and W. Kohler), precisely because they hold that intelligence already
kind of concrete replacement [anschaulicher Umstellung] itself of envi- appears in. animals. They adhere to some form ofan all-encompassing
ronmental things. This is, nevertheless, true intelligence, invention, and uniform idea of humanbeings that I designated earlier as the “homo
DID IATUECEK HOGER INSTITUUT
27
26
COSMOS THE HUMAN PLACE IN THE COSMOS
THE HUMAN PLACE IN THE
ysi-
faber” concept. Of course, they do not recognize either any metaph
no other term has been abusedin the past as muchasthis one has, with
s the result that only a few people can think of something specific when
cal being or a metaphysics of the human being in the sense that human Kad
| the term is used. We can find an ultimate determination of the concept
have an exceptionalrelation to the Ground ofthe World.
my assertion of spirit when wehave in view its culminationin the specific functions of
As far as I am concerned, I reject both theories. It is
one refers to as the knowledge and kinds of knowledge which only spirit can bestow onus:
that the essence of the human being,as well as what
gence and then the ultimate determination of a being with spirit—no matter what
cosmic special place that humans occupy, is far above mere intelli
place its psycho-physical makeup—isits existential detachmentfrom organic being,
the ability to make free choices. One could not reach this special
its freedom and detachability—and the detachmentofits centerof exis-
evenby trying to imagine the capacities of intelligence and free choices
. But
as extending, by whatever measure of quantity, into the infinite
tence from the bondageto, the pressure of, and the organic dependence
h
it would also be a mistake to imagine this novel phenomenon—whic
on “life” and everything which belongsto life, and thus also its detach-
of mentfrom its own drive-related “intelligence.”
makes humans what they are—to be an addition to the psychic levels
the capacity to Hence, a being havingspirit is not tied anymoreto its drives and
impulsion, instinct, associative memory, intelligence, and
make choices; an addition which would belong to functions of the psychic
environment, but is “non-environmental” or, as I wish to putit, “world-
lie within the com- open”: such a being has “world.” Furthermore, a being having spirit is
and vital spheres, the study of which would, of course,
not only ableto rise above its basic given centers of“resistance” and reac-
e of psychology and biology.
mean- tion to its environment—animals have nothing morethan this and are
PEThis a principle is beyond what we call “life” in thewidest
new ecstatically immersed in their environs—butthis being turnsits centers)
ing of the word. What makes the human being a “human is not a
of resistance andreaction into “objects” in order to grasp the “what” of
level of life—andit is certainly not just the only form in which life mani-
all, opposite anything all objects itself. Such a being having spirit does so without the limita-
fests itself: the “psyche.” The newprinciple is, first of
al tions that this world of objects and its givenness are given by thevital
we call life, includinglife in the human being: it is a genuinely new, essenti
If system of drives and functions of organs andsenses.
fact which cannotat all be reduced to the “natural evolution of life.”
back to the one Therefore, spirit is matter-of-factness [Sachlichkeit], it is determinablel
reducible to anything at all, this new principle leads us
lar by “what” things themselves are. Only a living being which “has”spirit is
ultimate Ground ofall entities of whichlife happensto be one particu
| . able to complete such matters-of-factness. More precisely: only a being
manifestation.
can be a “bearer” ofspirit whose principal intercourse with the reality
Already the ancient Greeks asserted the existence of such a prin-
more inside and outside itself must, by comparison to animals and including
ciple. They calledit “reason.”T We wish to suggest another and
of their intelligence, have dynamically reverseditself.
comprehensive term for this X. This term also contains the concept
g of ideas, a spe- But whatis this “reversal”?
“reason,” but it encompasses, in addition to the thinkin
phenomena and Among animals—whetherthey possess a higher or lower organi-
cific type of an “intuition” [Anschauung] of primordial
nal
essential contents, and it encompasses also a specific class of volitio
zational form—every action, reaction, and also all “intelligent” actions
awe, states of won- proceed from a physiological state of their nervous system whichis co-
and emotive acts such as kindness, love, repentance,
comprehensive ordinated psychically to instincts, drive impulses, and sense perceptions.
der, bliss, despair, and free decision-making: this more
ae Whatlies beyondthe aim ofits instincts and drives is notgiven to an ani-
term is “spirit.” The center of acts, however, through which this Spin
te as person mal; and whatis givento it is given only as a centerofresistance to desires
pears within all finite spheres of being, is what we designa
seen
to sharply differentiate it from all functional centersoflife which, as
or repulsions, that is, for the animal understood as a biological center.
En The departure from psycho-physical actions and reactionsis the first act
from theirinside, are also called “psychic” centers.
le? Almost of the drama of animal behavior with regard to its environment. Thestruc-
What, then, is this “spirit,” this novel and decisive princip
ture of the environmentfits exactly to, andis “fixated”in, the physiologi-
cal peculiarity of an animal andindirectly to its morphological structure,
a technician only, there would
* Betweenanintelligent chimpanzee and Edison takenas and so its environmentalso fits the firm function ofits unity of drive
| | Dn na
be only a gradual difference—evenif a very large one. and sense structures. Everything which the animalnotices and grasps in
” (in the journa
+ See Julius Stenzel, “Der Ursprung des Geistbegriffs bei den Griechen
its environmentis securely embedded in the frame and boundary ofits
Die Antike). &
28 29
environment. The second act of the drama of animal behavior is the transform the “resistance” ofits affects and drives into “objects.” Hence,
l the being of objects is the most formalcategory of the logical side of spirit. One
setting-up of a real change in the environment as a response that goes in
the direction of the goals of the drives that guide the animal. The third might say that an animal is stuck too firmly to and in the organic states
act in this drama contains the changesin the animal’s physiological and that correspond to the reality of its life for it to ever grasp this reality
psychical states. These follow from said second act. The course of animal as an “object.” True, the animal does not live ecstatically to a complete
behavior has therefore the following structure [where A stands for ani- degree in its environment (like a plant’s impulsion having no sensation,
mal, and E for environment]: representation, awareness, and no system of reporting-back ofits organic
states to a center). Because of the separation of sensory and motor sys-
ARE tems, and because of its capacity to report back sensory contents to its
center, an animalis, as it were, given backtoitself: it has a “lived body
This is quite different from a being having “spirit.” If such a being makes schema.” Nevertheless, with regard to its environment animal behavior
use ofits spirit, it is capable of a comportment which possesses exactly the remainsecstatic, even whenit behaves“intelligently,” butits intelligence
opposite of the above structure. The first act of this human drama runs remainsattachedto its organism, to practical activity andto its drives.
like this: its comportmentis “motivated” by the pure whatness of a complex In contrast to the simple reporting-back of the contents of an ani-
of intuitions and representationsthat are raised into an object. This hap- mal’s lived body schema, the humanspiritual act is tied essentially to a
pens,in principle, independently of the physiological and psychicstates second dimension or secondlevel ofthe act ofreflection. Let us call this
of the human organism and independentlyalso of drive impulses and of act “ingathering” [Sammlung] and let us call, collectively, its goal, “con-
the sensuous exterior environment which lights up the latter in various centration on one’s ownself,” or the consciousness of the spiritual act-
(optical, auditory, etc.) modes in such impulses. The secondact in the center of itself, “self-consciousness.” True, in contrast to plants, an ani-
humandramaconsists of a free inhibition, or of a de-inhibition, of drive mal has consciousness; but it has no self-consciousness, as G. W. Leibniz
impulses (and relevant reactions) whichstart in the centerof the person. already saw. An animal does not own itself, it has no power over itself—
Thethird act consists of an experienceofa final transformation with an and this is why it is also not aware of itself.
intrinsic value of the objectivity [Gegenstdndlichkeit] of a thing. The form Peculiar to the human being is the one indissoluble structure of con-
of such comportment must be called “world-openness,”thatis, it is tan- centration, self-consciousness, and the ability to objectify original resis-
tamountin principle to sheddingthespell of the environment. [We can tance in drives.
graph this human dramaasfollows, whereby H stands for the human be- With this becoming conscious of itself, and with this new bending
ing, and Wfor world]: back upon and concentration on its existence made possible by spirit, a
second essential property of the human being is given. Because ofspirit,
HW... the being we call human is not only able to broaden his environment
into the dimension of world and to objectify resistances, but this being—
Once such a comportment is constituted and actual, it can by that very most remarkably—isalso able to objectify its very own physiological and psy-
nature be widened withoutlimits and as far as the “world” of entities chic nature and to also objectify its every single vital function. It is for this
extepds, reason that this being can also be free to commit suicide. Animals can
The human being is that X who can comport himself, in unlimited degrees, hear and see—butwithout knowing that they hear and see. An animal’s
as “world-open.” Becoming humanis tantamount to being elevated to psyche functions and lives—butit is no possible psychologist or physi-
world-opennessbyvirtue ofspirit. ologist. If we try to place ourselves into the everyday state of an animal’s
l'An animal has no “objects.” It is ecstatically immersed in its envi- being, we would haveto think of very rare humanecstatic states—as they
ronmentjust as a snail carries its shell [qua environment] with it every- occur, for instance, during the receding stages of hypnosis, or during the
whereit goes. An animal is unable to turn the environment into an ob- intake of certain drugs, and we would also have to think of techniques
ject. An animalis not removed from its environment and does not have a that inactivate spirit, such techniques as are used byorgiastic cults (but
distance from its environment so as to be able to transform its “environ- already with spirit’s assistance). An animal also does not experienceits
ment” into “world” (or a symbol of the world) as humanscan;it cannot drivesas its drives but as dynamicattractions or rejections coming from
30 31
things in its environment. Even primitive humansare, in certain of their ing in the structure of the cosmos’ keeps turning back on itself more
other psychic properties, still close to animal characteristics: they do not and morein order to becomeawareofitself on ever-higher levels and in
say, “I detest this thing,” but they say rather, “This thing is taboo.” Animal ever-new dimensionsso that, in the end, the Ground of Being entirely has
consciousness has only such attractions and rejections which take their and takes hold ofitself in the human being?
origin from the environment. A monkey which suddenly jumps from I wish to briefly mention here a series of specific monopolies of the
one place to another experiences nothing but points of ecstasy (as in the humanbeing. They can be understood in termsofthe structure of the
case of human pathological flights of ideas). An animal also does not humanbeing, thatis, of his givennesd to himself, his ability to objectify
have a “will” that could outlast the changes ofits drive impulses and his environment and his own psychic and physical being with all of their
which could preserve a continuity of the changes of its psycho-physical mutual causal relations.
states. An animalalways arrives, as it were, somewhereelse than at the Only the human being possesses a perfectly developed category of
destination it “wanted”to getto. It is profoundly true when F. Nietzsche thing and substance. Animals do not have it. A spider lying in wait for an
says: “A human being is an animal which can make promises.” insect victim and sitting in the center of its web will run a distance along
There are four essential levels in which all existing things appear the web to catch the insect; probably the insect’s presence is noticed by
with reference to inwardness and self-being. /norganic entities have nei- the spider’s sense of touch that reveals the distant pull in the web. Butif
ther inwardness nor a self. They have no ontic center and, therefore, an insect is madetosit within a spider’s visual field, the spider runs away
they have no medium and environmenteither. Whateverwe call a unity and escapes (H. Volkel’s spider experiment). The spider’s seeing some-
in this world of objects—down to molecules, atoms, and electrons—is thing is quite different from its touching it. The spider can neither iden-
wholly dependent on our own powerofdividing bodies eitherin reality tify the visual field nor the tactile field of action (kinesthetic space), nor
or in our thought! Every inorganic unity of bodies is this unity only as things in thosefields. Even the highest animals do not have a complete
it is relative to the specific laws of the effects they have on other bodies. category of things. A monkey given a bananahalf-peeled runs away from
Nonspatial force-centers which, nevertheless, posit the phenomenon of it, whereas the monkeyeats it both whenit is peeled and whenit is not
an expanse in time are to be conceived as underlying metaphysically peeledatall, so that it has to be peeledfirst to be eaten. The thing “ba-
the imagesof bodies. They are force-centers in which thelines of forces nana” has not “changed,” but it has been “transformed” into something
meet in their field. In contrast to this, a living being is always an ontic different in this case. Obviously the animal does not have a center from
center that forms “its own” spatiotemporal unity and individuality. This which it could relate to one identical, concrete thing as one object, or
-
unity is not in need ofour biologically conditioned synthesis, as is the relate to a real objective core in all the psycho-physical functions of see-
case with inorganic entities. A living being is that Xwhichlimitsitself, and ing, hearing, grasping, and touching in which there are things that can
which hasindividuality. Dividingit is tantamountto destroying its nature be seen, heard, smelled, grasped, and touched. |
and existence. The impulsion of a plant has a center and a medium— Furthermore, a human being possesses, right from the beginning,
being unclosedrelative to its growth—andinto whichit is put without unified space. After recovery from surgery, a person who was born blind
being able to report back its various states to a center. Still, a plant does does not learn that there is a composite to be madeof different spaces—
possess “inwardness” and, because ofthis, it is also ensouled. Animals such as those of touch, of seeing, of hearing, or kinesthetic spaces—into
have sensation, a consciousness as well as a central point with its modi- one phenomenon of space, into one insight of space. Rather, what he
fications to which changing organic states are reported back. By virtue learnsto dois to identify his sense data as symbols and properties for one
of this reporting-back, an animalis givento itself a second time. But by location. Again, an animal does not have such a central function which
virtue of having spirit, the humanbeingis given to himself a third time: generates one uniform spaceas afixedform ahead of individual things and
in terms of his consciousness ofself, in terms of his ability to objectify their perception. Aboveall, an animal does nothave a specific kind of
his own psychic processes, and in terms of his sensory and motorsys- self-centeredness that unifies all sense data with its respective drive im-
tem. In this threefold structure, the “person” of the human being has pulses.and that releases the one “world” ordered by essences. As I showed
to be conceived as the center above the! polarization of organism and elsewhere in more detail, animals do not have a world-space that would
environment. persist as a stable background independently of their own movements.
Doesthis not suggest a stepladder from which the Ground of Be- They also do not have “empty forms”of space and time into which humans
32 33
find themselves placed and where they encounter things and events. no thingsat all! It was only in very recent times that natural science cor-
These empty forms can only occur in a being having spirit and whose rected this immense deception in our natural view of the world by tell-
lack of satisfaction of its drives is always more than its satisfaction. We call ing us that space and time are merely ordered systems and possibilities)
“empty” what remains unsatisfied in the expectations of our drives—the of the locations and successions of things, and that space and time have
primary “emptiness” whichis, as it were, the emptiness in our hearts. no reality beyond them.
| The root of the humanintuition of space and time, which precedes I said earlier that animals have no “world-space.” A dog,for instance,
all external sensations, resides in organic, spontaneouspossibilities of mayhavelived for years in a garden and may have frequently beenatall
moving and doing and following a definite order. The fact is that—as spots in it; but the dog has no complete overview of the garden withits
one was able to prove in certain cases of pathological defects—tactile arrangement of trees and bushes, independentofthe location ofits own
space is not directly coordinated to visual space, but when a coordina- body, no matter howlarge or small the garden may be. Whatthe dog has
tion does take place, it is by way of mediations of kinesthetic sensation; are only changing “environmental spaces” with its movements through
this state of affairs also shows that the empty form ofspace, at least taken the garden. The dog cannot coordinate these spaces with the whole of
to be still unformed “spatiality,” is experienced among humans prior to the garden independently of where the dog happensto bein it. Natu-
becoming aware of any sensationsatall on the basis of the experiences rally, the reason forthis is the dog’s inability to makeits lived body and
of motor impulses and of the capacity [Kénnenserlebnis] to produce the its movements into an object, so that it could incorporate its own loca-
empty form (for it is kinesthetic impulses which effectuate kinesthetic tions in the garden as changingfactorsin its spatial vision; forif it could
sensations). This primitive kinesthetic space—this awareness of nearby do this, the dog would instinctively learn how to reckon with fortuitous
surroundings [| Herumbewusstsein]—even persists when visual space with locations as humans can, and without scientific knowledge. The human
its continuous and simultaneous manifold of “extension” has been taken ability to do this is only the beginningof whatthey doin science. It is the
away. It is for this reason that in the transition from animals to humans magnificent accomplishmentof science that the human being, with his
there is a complete reversal of “empty” space and time and “full” space: accidental place in the cosmos, learns how to reckon with himself and with
and time. Although among higher animals there are spatial manifolds the whole of his physical and psychic constitution as if he was handling
(it is likely that the most primitive animals have only time-impressions), an object placed among other objects in causal interconnections. The
these manifolds are not homogenous; this in the sense that locations human being slowly gains an image of the world where objects and laws
as a pre-given system of places remain fixedin their visual field and are are completely independent of the humanpsycho-physical organization,
sharply separated from the fulfilling qualities and movements of envi- of humansensesandtheirlimits, and independent also of human needs
ronmental objects. It is only the human being with his highest optics andinterests in a world where objects and laws remain constant during
(erect gait!) who possesses this system. He can also lose this system in all the changesin all the humanplaces in the cosmos, in the changes of
pathological cases so that there remains only a “primordial space”orsaid humanstates of being, andin the organization of the human species and
“awareness of nearby surroundings.” Animals cannot separate empty of sense experience.
forms of space and time from the environmental contents of things, just Insofar asheis a “person,” only the human beingis able to soar far
as they cannot separate “number” from a smaller or larger “plurality” abovehis status as a living entity and, from a center beyondthespatio-
[Anzahl] residing in things. They are completely absorbed in the/concrete temporal world, make everything the object of his knowledge, including!
reality of each and any of their present moments. It is only in the hu- himself. It is in this sense that the human being as spirit is superior to
man being, when expectations in the drives, which are transformed into both himself and to the world. Thus he is also open to irony and humor!2
kinetic impulses, outweigh all factual drive-gratification in a perception or which always imply the ability to rise above one’s own existence.
a sensation, that we can find the extraordinary and rare phenomenon of The center, however, from which the human being acts out his acts!
a spatial “void” and, analogously, a temporal void, both antecedent and as and from which he objectifies his lived body, his psyche, and the space
the “foundation,”ofall possible contents of perceptionand of the entire and time of the world, cannotitself be a “part” of the world and can-
world of things as their foundation. Without suspecting it, the human not have any “where” and “when”: this center can only lie in the supreme
being thus looks into the void of his own heart as the “infinite void” of Ground ofBeingitself.
space andtime as thoughthese voids would have existed had there been In his profound theory of transcendental apperception, Kant de-
34 35
/ scribed the essence of the new unity of the cogitare, thatis, “the condition ing spirit. Since Augustine, the prevailing, ancient philosophy of ideas
of all possible experience, and also of all possible objects of experience,” assumed there to be an “ideae ante res,” a providence and a plan of cre-
both of external and internal experience, by which our own internal ation existing already priorto the realization of the world. But ideas are
life becomesaccessible. With this, he was the first philosopherto raise neither “prior”to, nor “in,” nor “after” things; they are only “with” them,
“spirit” above “psyche,” and expressly deny that spirit consists of a group and they are produced in eternal spirit along with the act of continual
of functions of a so-called soul-substance that owed its acceptance to an realization of the world (creatio continua). Hence, our participation in
unjustifiable hypostatization of the genuine unity ofspirit. these acts is not the mere discovery and detection of independententi-
We have now gaineda third significant aay of spirit. Spiritis the ties, but our acting jointly with the supra-individual spirit in genuinely
only being which cannotbe objectified—spiritis(pure it EE only cocreating and coproducing the essences coordinated with the eternal
in freely carrying out its acts. Hence, spirit’s center, the “person,”is not ob- logos, eternal love, and eternal will—andideas, values, and purposes co-
jectifiable, noris the person a thinglike being. The personis a constantly created and coproducedfrom thevery center andthe origin of the things
| selfexecuting ordered structure of acts (and essentially a specific struc- themselves.
ture). The personis only in his acts and exists only through them.® Psy-
chic phenomena do not execute acts “by themselves”: for psychic being
is a series of events “in” time that we are in principle still able to have If we want to obtain more detail concerning the particularity and unique-
a view of from the center of ourspirit, and spirit can objectify them in ness of what wecall “spirit,” it is best to start out with a specific spiri-
our internal perception and observations. Whatever is psychic can be tual act called the act of ideation. This act is completely different from |
objectified—butthis is never the case with any actof spirit, the inientio, those that appear in technical intelligence and all mediate and reduc-
thoughit can look even into psychic processes themselves. Into our per- tive “thinking,” whose rudimentary beginnings we already attributed to
sonal being we can only gather ourselves [wns nur sammeln], we can only animals. With regard to intelligence, for instance, we would havethe fol-
concentrate ourselves up on our personal being—but we cannot make lowing problematic situation. I currently have pain in my arm, but how
it an object. Even other persons are not, as persons, objectifiable. (In did it occur and how can the pain be removed? The answer to this ques-
this sense J. W. v. Goethe said aboutLili that he had loved her so much tion would have to be referred to the positive sciences, to physiology,
that he could not “observe” her.) We can gain somekind of participating psychology, and medicine. But, on the other hand, one canalso take the
awareness in others by executing our acts in the same way as theirs, and same pain to be an “example,” seen from a moredistant, pensive, and
by executing their acts with them [nach- und mitvollziehen], which a poor contemplative standpoint uponit, so that we have a most unusual and
German word refers to as “Gefolgschaft” [“hanging-on” or “following be- astounding essential state of affairs before us: that, in the first place, this
hind”]; or we can gain a possible “understanding” of another person by world is permeated with pain, with ill will, and with suffering. In that
attitudes of spiritual love—the extreme opposite ofany objectification— case, however, we would have to ask a different question, namely: What,
/ andby love, as it is said, we can identify ourselves with another person ’s then, is “pain itself,” apart from the fact that I now happento havethis
will, anotherperson’s love, and thus with that particular person him- particular pain—and what must the Groundof Beingbeliketo allow the
self.” ed possibility of “pain as such”?
We can also take hold of a part of the acts of the higher-than-individual There is a magnificent example for such an actof ideation that in-
spirit only by way of actingjointly with this spirit, which spirit we must pos- volves the well-known account of Buddha’s conversion. The prince sees
tulate on the groundsof the essential connection that exists between act one poorperson, one sick person, and one dead person after having long
andidea, if we are to accepta self-realizing order of ideas in this world in- beensheltered in his father’s palace from all negative impressions. Yet
dependently of human consciousness and assign one of the two attributes he immediately grasps these three accidental facts, “now here as they
to Primordial Being. By acting jointly with the higher-than-individual are,” as plain examplesof the essential makeup of the world, and he com-
spirit, we can take part in an order of essences insofaras it is a question prehendsthe latter through these examples. Descartes tried to clarify
of a knowingspirit; we can gain a part in an objective order of values in- the essence and makeup of a body by meansof a piece of wax—this was
sofar as it is a question of the loving spirit; and we can gain part of an an inquiry different from that of a chemist whoinvestigates a substance
orderof purposes in the world-processinsofarasit is a question ofa will- in terms of its components. The whole of mathematics offers us vivid
36
examples for inquiries of essential nature. Animals have only a vague by reason cannot be reduced to itself, nor can the existence of “some-
representation of pluralities, which are completely attached to their per- thing” of such a genuine essence be reduced to empirical causesofa fi-
ception of things with their gestalt and their combinations. Yetit is only nite kind. Such essencescan be attributed only to higher-than-individual
the human being who can disconnect “threeness” as a “plurality” [An- spirit, which is one attribute of the higher-than-individual ens a se. And
zahl] from three things, and who can also operate with the “number” 3 all existence of such essences can be grasped only asa positing [Setzung]
as an independent object according to the inherent law of the produc- of the secondattributeof the ens a se: eternal impulsion:
tion of the series of such objects. Strangely enough, what mathematics This ability to separate essence from existence constitutes the fundamen-!
investigates and findsin propositions about the relations of non-sensible tal character of the humanspirit, because it is the fowndation of all other
manifolds—if not today, then tomorrow— can be applied most exactly to characters. As Leibniz said,it is not only knowledge that makes up the'
real things which belong to manifolds (defined with axioms). essence of human beings, but the fact that they have, or can have, a
All of this pertains to inquiries that spirit as such poses; not the priori knowledge. There is no such thing as a “constant” structure of '
discursive intelligence, which can only supply the meansto solve these reason, as Kant assumed. Reason’s structure is, in principle, subject to
questions. Animals are not able to do anything of this kind. historical changes. Whatis constantis reason itself as a disposition and
7 The meaning ofideationis, therefore, the following:it is the grasp a capacity to form and shape, by meansof functionalization, new essen-
of the essential qualities and structures of the world in terms of one ex- tial insights [“with” realizable data of experience]—which leading pi-
—
ample of someessential region, independently of the magnitude and num- oneers of humanity found among experiential facts, and which people
ber of observations and inductive reasoning from them. The knowledge, later on reproducedandreplicated after such pioneers—andwhatis also
however, which is thus won—although found in only one example—is constant is reason’s disposition and capacity to form and shape new forms
valid in terms of the infinite class of all possible objects in the particular of intuition, of loving, and of valuing.
region concerned, and is also independent of our human contingent Prying deeper with this viewpoint, one must reflect on the combi-
sense-perception and the kind or amount of the stimuli, and. finally, it is nations of those acts which lead to an act of ideation. In this process, the
valid for all beings having spirit who think about such matters.Therefore, human being uses, consciously or unconsciously, a technique which can
insights that are reached in this way are valid beyond the limits of our sense (tentatively) be called a suspension of the reality of things and the world. In
experiences. These insights are not only valid in the reality of our world, this experiment and the technique of the comprehension of an essence,
but are also valid for any possible world. In technical language, they are the logos of essences is peeled off from the concrete and sensory world
i
a priori. i of things—insofaras they have already become “objects.” We saw earlier
Nevertheless, said insights into essences have two very different func- that an animallives completely in its concrete world [= environment].
tions. For the naturalsciences, whicharestrictly delimited by the provabil- In reality, however, there is a connection between points in space and a
ity of reductive propositions based on observation and measurement, point in time, between a now and a here, as well as a contingent “what” of
insights into essences are the basic condition for axioms, which represent a thing as our sense perception presents it under some “aspect” in each
within the limits of the general logic of objects special groups forall and every case.
their disciplines. These axioms madein the naturalsciences first point But: to be human meansto launch a strong “No” against this kind
out the direction of successful observations, inductions, and deductions of reality. Buddha was aware of this when he said it was “wonderful to
by meansofintelligence and discursive thinking. But for philosophical have a look at a thing, but terrible to be a thing,” while he was develop-
metaphysics, whose goal is the cognition of absolute Being, insights into ing a technique of the de-realization of things and of himself. Plato, too,
an essences are the “windows into the absolute,” as Hegel appropriately was aware of this when he tied the intuiting of an essence to the turn of
used this image. For every genuine essence that is found in the world the soul away from the sensory contents of things, as well as to the turn-
ing of the soul into itself so as to find there the “origins” of entities. And
Edmund Husserl meant nothing else when he connected the cognition
of essences to a “phenomenological reduction,” that is, to a “cancella-
* The humanbeing has indeed such an“intellectus archetypus,” which Kant recognized only
as a limiting concept [Grenzbegriff] but denied manto haveit. Goethe expressly supported
tion” or “bracketing” of the accidental coefficients of existence in order
an intellectus archetypus. to reach their very “essence.” While I do not agree with the details of
39
38
refers to the tirely ineffective) —can be experienced already at points of the temporal
Husserl’s theory of reduction, I do admit that this reduction
process of a becoming-perception where there is no conscious“image”
act that, first of all, defines the human spirit.
however, yet. The experienceofreality, therefore, is pre-given to our representa-
If we want to know how this act of the reduction works,
is no spe- tion of the world. Itis not given afterit.
one has to know in what our experience of reality consists.$ There
reality. What, then, does this “No” to which we referred earlier mean, or
cific sensation (hard, firm, etc.) that gives us the impression of what does it mean to “de-realize” the world or to “ideate” the world? It does
perceptive
Nor do perception, remembrance, thinking, or any possible not mean what Husserl proposed, to suspend an existential judgment
m) state
acts do so. Whatever all of the latter give us is solely a (rando
ce. Rather, exis- (which is already part of the natural view of the world). The judgment
of what things are, but they never give us their existen
ce of an “A is real” requiresalready in its predicate an experience, should “real” not
tence (= being real) is given to us in the experience of resistan
resis- be just an empty word. Rather, this “No” means (for us) to tentatively sus-
already: disclosed [Erschlossenheit] sphere of the world—andthis
life-impulsion. pend the element of reality, to annihilate the whole, undivided, and power-
tance occurs only in our striving and drives, in our central
the reality of ful impressionof the reality along with its affective correlate—and thus
No inferences can be made which could lead us to posit
there is also to annihilate the “angst of earthly existence” which, as Friedrich Schiller
the exterior world (whose sphereis also given in dreams);
s”), no objective- said, goes off “into those regions where pure forms are dwelling.” Forall
no concrete content of perception (as “forms,” “gestalt
within reality, just becauseit is reality and no matter whatreality is, is for every
ness (which occurs also in fantasy), and no fixed spatial point living being first an inhibiting and constraining pressure, and “pure”
impression of real-
the movement of attention, etc., that could give an
against angst (without an object) is its correlate. This act, which is at bottom
ity. What gives us reality is the experienced impression of resistance an ascetic act of de-realizing reality—if reality is “resistance”—can consist!
even in
the lowest and most primitive levels of our psychic life, found only in the cancellation of impulsion in relation to which the world ap-
of ourdrives that
plants, as we saw; it is the impulsion against the center
the deepest levels pears as resistance; and this ascetic act is the condition ofall sensory
actively goes in all directions, even during sleep and
ents perception andall now-here-whatness of something. Becausethe drives
of unconsciousness. It is in thestrictly regulated orderof its compon and senses belong together, Plato thought that philosophizingis “eter-
up
(color, gestalt, extension, etc.) in which any physical thing is built nal dying”—and hence, in the final analysis, every genuine rationalism is
is, in which we
both objectively and in our perception; an order, that
ion. founded on an “ascetic ideal.”
can study, for instance, cases of a pathological decline of percept It must be the case that this act of de-realizing can be carried out
the ex-
In this order there is nothing more original thanthe reality or only by a being having “spirit.” In the form of pure “will” only spirit can,
ls fade
perienced elements ofreality. Let all colors and sensory materia by way of an act of will, that is, by inhibition, effectuate the de-realization
andrelationsfall
away in consciousness, let in consciousness all gestalts
unities of things float of the center ofvital impulsion that we came to know as the access to the
into pieces, and let in consciousness all forms of
im- being of reality.
away: whatfinally remains is the powerful impressionofreality, the The human being is a creature that, by virtue of its spirit, can take
any kind of
pression of the reality of the world—bare and freed from
an ascetic attitude toward its fervent and vibrating life—the human being
specificity. can suppress and repress its own drive impulses, and it can refuse to give
Theoriginal experience ofreality, the experience of the resistance
[Be-wusstsein]; them their sustenance in the form of perceivable images and represen-
of world, precedes, therefore, any and all consciousness
most tations. By comparison to animals, who always say “Yes” to reality—even
resistance ‘precedesall re-presentation and perception. Even the whenthey fear and flee—the humanbeingis the “Nay-sayer,” he is an
_
and
invasive sensory perception is never conditioned through stimuli ascetic of life; he is an eternal protester against all mere reality.The state
in addition, be
ordinary nervous processes alone; in drives there must,
sim- of affairs just described is completely independentof questionsof a welt-
a turning [of attention] toward demands or rejections if even the anschauung and of any question ofvalues. It is independent of whether
the impulsion
plest sensation has a chance to occur. Since an impulse in
e sensations one seeks this surge of spirit toward the unreal sphere of essences as a
of our“life” is the indispensable cocondition for all possibl
ed on our impul- final goal (in Buddha’s sense, in a way, who answered the question ever
and perceptions, the resistances—which are exercis
basis of the so profoundly like no oneelse) becausereality is itself already declared
sion both by force-centers and force-fields and whichare the
ves are en- to be bad [ein Übel] (“omneens est malum”) or whether,as I thinkis right,
phantasmic images of the environs (sensory images themsel
41
40
standing spirit that have played a substantial role in the history of the idea
one seeks to return from the sphere of essences back to the now-here-
of the human being. The first of these theories was the one developed
whatness of reality to make improvements onit (reality in this case is
by the ancient Greeks. It assigned to spirit not only a peculiar,essence
understood to be indifferent to good and bad), and to seek truelife and
and autonomy but also both power and activity (vous routu6c), indeed |
the true destiny of the human being in adjusting the everlasting tension of
| the highest measure of might and power.Let uscall this understanding
the eternal rhythm between idea-reality and spirit-impulsion.
of spirit the classic theory. It is part of an entire weltanschauung, asserting
At any rate, in relation to animals, whose existence is embodied
that the stable Being of the World (cosmos) —from the beginning of ev-
philistinism, the human being is an eternal “Faust” or a bestia cupidis-
erything existing and through the process of its becoming history—has
sima rerum novarum; he is never at peace with his environing world; he is
a structure in which the higher forms ofall thatis, from the Deity down
always eagerto break through the borders of now-here-whatness, always
to the materia bruta, are also the most powerful forms and fundamental
desirousto transcend the reality surrounding him, including the reality of
causes of what is. The culmination of such a world is a spiritual Deity,
his own self. Sigmund Freud also saw the human being as one who cant
who is almighty by virtue ofspirit. The second theory, which we wish to re-
repress his drives [ Triebverdrénger].” It is because of the human being s
fer to as the negative theorylof the humanbeing,takes an opposite stance.
ability to say “No” to his drives, an ability that is not a fortuitous quality
Spirit itself—insofar as we admit this conceptof spirit at all—oratleast
but a part of his very constitution, that the human being is able to build
all “activities of producing culture,”all logical and moral acts, aesthetic
an ideal realm of thoughts above his world of perception and thereby to
views, andartistically creative acts, arise alone by virtue of said “No.”
! divert more and moreof the energy dormantin the repressed drives into
I happentodisagree with both theories. I maintain thatspirit pos-
his spirit. This meansthat the humanbeing can “sublimate” drive-energy
sesses its own essence and lawfulness, butthat, at first, spirit has no en-
into spiritual activity.
ergy of its own; and I maintain further that said negative act(itself al-
& ready spiritual act) of the drive-inhibiting will energizes impotentspirit
which, originally, possesses only a group of pure “intentions,” and that
Ta this point a crucial question has to be answered. Does spirit originale
spirit does not haveits “origin” in all ofthis.
because of asceticism, repression, and sublimation, oris it the case that
Let me mention a few examplesof this negative theory of the human
spirit only receives its energy from them? Is this internal technique—al-
being which are, however, quite different from one another: Buddha’s
thoughitself conditioned bythe “non fiat” of will inhibiting the drives—
theory of redemption, Schopenhauer’s theory of “self-negation of the
only creating a disposition to the manifestation of spirit in man, or is
will to live,” and, furthermore, the interesting book by Paul Alsberg, Das
it the case that the essence, principles, and limits of spirit originate be-
| Menschheitsrätsel |The Riddle ofMankind]. Finally, let me mention Sigmund
cause of the repression and sublimation?
Freud's later theory presented mostly in his Beyond the Pleasure Principle.
I am convinced that the negative activity, the saying “No” to reality,
Buddha, with incomparable profundity, saw that the givenness of!
the shutting down and the deactivation of both reality and the phantas-
reality lies in the suffering of resistance, and saw the meaning of human
mic images coming from the drives’ center, amount in no way to the being
existence as a subjection to desires, in their extinction, or in the effec-
* ofspirit butonly to the provision ofspirit with energy and, therefore, only to
tuation of a view of a merely intuited world of essences; that is, that of
spirit’s ability to manifest itself. As we said earlier, spiritis ultimately an attri-
nothingness or, mythologically expressed, as “nirvana.” Buddha does not
\bute of that which is itself [des Seienden selbst], which becomes manifest
have a positive idea of spirit in the human being or of the World Ground.
in the concentrated unity of the ingathered person. Nevertheless, spirit in
He had an in-depth knowledge only of a technique of cognition and of
{ its “pure” form is without “power,” “force,” and “activity.” In order to gain
the obtaining of a “holy knowledge” of how to overcome suffering. He
power, force, and activity—no matter how small the degree of them—
knew ofthe causal order in which, during the practice of techniques of
there must be an additional factor which wecalled asceticism, the repression
Le de-realization and by means of internal annihilation of the desires of
of drive energy andits simultaneous sublimation.
all that he calls “thirsting,” the reality of the sensory world and of phys-|
At this juncture we get an insight into two possibilities of under-
ical and psychic processes would vanish—a technique through which
sensorydata, gestalts, relations, and spatiality and temporality of being
would disappear, one after the other.
* See Jenseits des Lustprinzips [Beyond the Pleasure Principle).
42 43
Schopenhauer, on the other hand, understands the quintessence of origin of neurosis is well known. But Freud also holds that the same re-
the difference between animals and human beings only in the incapacity pression of drives that, on oneside, is to explain neurosis—where the
of animals to execute a “redeeming” negation of the will to live, a nega- repressed drive energy is “sublimated”—should bring about nothingless
tion that can be carried out amongthe highest of types of humans. This than the capacity for higher cultural activity and, as Freud says, even the
negation was believed to be the source ofall “higher forms” of conscious- specificity of the human constitution itself. For he explicitly states: “The
ness and knowledge in metaphysics, art, and the ethos of compassion, a development of the human being, it seems to me, does not require an
view that was also held by Schopenhauer’s teacher, Fr. Bouterwek. explanation different from the development of animals. What may be
Schopenhauer’s student P. Alsberg correctly saw that an essential observed asa restless striving toward perfection in a minority of individu-
difference between animals and human beings cannotbe justified by als can simply be understood as the consequence of drive repression, on
morphological, physiological, and empirical-psychological qualities or which the most valuable achievements of humanculture are based.”* It
by a general cultural conviction that such an essential difference exists. has hitherto not sufficiently been noted that the dualistic theory of li-
He expanded Schopenhauer’s theory with his thesis that the “principle bido and the death drive, proposed by the later Freud, reveals a strange
of being human”is to be seen exclusively in the fact that, during life’s affinity not only to Schopenhauer but to Buddha, an affinity that may
struggle for the preservation of individuals and species, the human be- here andthere be entirely obvious. According to both of their theories,
ing knew how “to turn off” [auszuschalten] organs in favor of tools, lan- all forms of existence starting with inanimate matter and continuing to
guage, conceptualizations; and Alsberg traced such conceptualizations plants, animals, human beings, and ending at a wise man who possesses
to the act of setting aside the sense organs andtheir functions and to “sacred knowledge”are, fundamentally, groups belongingto a petrified
E. Mach’s principle of a possible “economical”synthesis of sense contents. parade on its way to silent nothingness and eternal death. According
Alsberg expressly refuses to define the humanbeingby spirit and reason. to Freud—who(I believe falsely) attributes to the organism in general
Reason, which he falsely identifies with discursive thinking alone—as a tendencyto preservation as such, a tendencyto take positions of quiet,
did his teacher Schopenhauer—and especially with its special role in repose, and to both the protection and the denial of stimuli—the system
the formation of concepts, is for him only an outcome of language, not a of powers, which among animals (in contrast to plants) is appended to
source of language. Alsberg considers languageitself to be an “immate-_ their systems of nutrition, growth, and reproduction and whichis inter-
rial tool” serving the purpose of turning off the efforts of the sense or- posed between these systems and the environment, representsa relative
gans. He sees the deficient ability of organs to adapt to the environment, accomplishmentof the basically sadistic and destructive death drive as
as well as what he calls the increasing “brainization” [Vergehirnlichung] primordial cravings of life “to return to the inorganic world.”
of the humanbeing, to be the basis of the “principle of being human” Not one of these negative theories of spirit finds my endorsement.
and [the presumed] tendencyoflife to discard the functions of organs All of them are represented by nothing but one-sided “psychics” ad-
and establish “tools” and “signs” that would substitute for the vital or dicted to life-values—if I may apply the old distinction made between
ganic functions. Thisis also the basis for the absence in manofgrasping them and the pneumatics. Buddha himself was distinctively a psychic. I
feet, climbing feet, claws, canine teeth, hairy fur, and so on, for a lack, in believe even that the entire Asian Indian culture was not even aware of
other words, of specific organic adaptations which the human’s closest the specifically Greek and Western categoryof “spirit.” All Indian systems
biological relatives do have: the family of great apes. Hence, for Alsberg, are either positive or negative biologisms, and they arethis in relation to
“spirit” is only a late surrogate for a lack of organic adaptation. In the both the peculiarity of inorganic nature andthatof spirit. But this is of
sense of Alfred Adler, who uses the same argument aboutcertain special minorrelevancehere.
humantalents, one could also say: there is an overcompensationforthe All negative theories aboutspirit suffer from the fundamental absence
organic insufficiency in the constitution of the humanspecies. of answers to the following questions: On what different foundation do
I said that Freud’s later theories also belong to this group of neg- the sublimated drives produce neurosis in one case, and cultural activ-
ative theories about the human being. The expression of “repression ity on the other? Which way does sublimation go? Whydo the principles
of drives and affects” [Trieb und Affektwerdrängung| was already used by
Schopenhauerto explain certain “forms ofdelusional images,” as Freud
put it. His magnificent elaboration on this thought to trace down the * See Jenseits des Lustprinzips (1918), p. 40.
45
44
ergy. Whatspirit can only dois to call upon various drive-gestalts, which
of spirit (at least in part) coincide with the principles of Being? And
let the organism do whatspirit “wills.” But not only such regulation of
finally: what is the purpose of sublimation, of repression, of negating
the drives, which originates from spirit and whichis mediated by a regu-
the will to life—and for the sake of what ultimate values and purposes
lation of images, is something positive—the goal of attaining increases
is all this happening? One would also have to ask Alsberg what exactly is
in the powerandactivity of spirit, its becoming morefree and indepen-!
it that accomplishes this act without organs, and what is it that invents
dent, is also a positive factor; and, put briefly, it is the coming to life of
those material and immaterial tools. Is it really true that organs are set
Spirit.
aside for the sake of the same values and goals which are also proper
This alone deservesto becalledlife’s “sublimation” toward spirit— |
to animals; that is, for the preservation of individual living beings and
and not a mystical process, which would have spirit originate from re-
species living on the earth? “Needs” alone, which J. de Lamarck so ex-
pressions of drives that would, supposedly, also produce new spiritual
cessively overrated when he considered needs to be the ultimate cause
qualities.
for his own satisfaction, offer no sufficient explanation. Moreover, why
We have reached the point where we turn back to the “classical”
did the species of “humans,” organically so poorly adapted, not die out
theory of spirit. As I alreadysaid,it is as false as the one just discussed.
as hundreds of other species did? How was it at all possible that the hu-
Butit is a more dangerous theory becausethe classical theory spans the
man being, almost condemned to death—this sick, retarded, and suf-
whole of the philosophy of the West, its mistakes appear to be much more
fering animalwithits attitude of apprehensively covering and protecting
dangerous. With its origin in ancient Greece, it holds that ideas have their
its badly adaptedandhighly vulnerable organs—how was it possible that
own power and their own activity and effectiveness. The ancient Greeks
this humanbeingwassparedits existence by the “principle of humanity,”
were the first to conceptualize spirit in this fashion, and for this reason
civilization and culture, and implicitly by the principle of objective prog-
their conceptualization becamethebasic outlook held by the larger part
ress and by the growth in the formation of meanings of objective spirit?
of the Occidental bourgeoisie.”
Howcould this being save itself from the “dead end” (which I admit in
Whethertheclassical theory appears in Plato or Aristotle, who con-
a purely biological sense) of the direction oflife? Surely not by human
ceived “ideas” or “forms” to be forces arising out of the uù ôv, or from the !
reason,byspirit, for they are supposedto have had their origin in asceti-
“potency” of the prima materia which underlie the entities of the world;
cism, repression, andthe turning-off of organs. As an original quality of
whether it occurs in the theistic form of the Jewish-Christian religion,
its species, the human beingis said to have a surplusof drive energy and,
s where Godis “pure spirit” alone and wherenotonly a directing andsteer-
for that reason, humansare forced to repress drives. But the oppositei
ing (inhibiting and un-inhibiting) function, but also a positive and cre-
the case. The surplus of drives must be the consequence of the already ex-
ative, even an almighty, will are attributed to Him; or whether the nega-
ecuted diversion of drives—notatall its cause.
tive theory occurs in a more pantheistic form as in J. G.Fichte, in G. W. F.
Any form of the negative theories presupposes what it wants to ex-
Hegel’s panlogism, according to which world history is based ontheself-
plain: spirit and reason, an indigenous lawfulness of spirit as well as a par-
explication of the divine idea according tothe lawofdialectics, and where
tial identity of spirit’s principles with those of Being.It is spirit that initi
humans are, in essence, only a becoming self-consciousness, a develop-
ates the repression of drives in that the spiritual will, guided by ideas and
ing consciousness of freedom, whichthe eternal spiritual Deity attains in
values, rejects the impulses of our drive-life that counter the [positive]
them andin their history; there is always and everywhere the same mistake
ideas and values and the necessary images [Vorstellungen] of drive-driven
bait containedin this classical theory, for whose correction humanity had to
actions. And, on the other hand, it lures the lurking drives with the
pay a very high price, namely, the mistake that both spirit and ideas pos-
of appropriate imagesof ideas and values to coordinate drive impulses
sess creative powers by themselves and that they, even without impulsion
(so that they will execute the project of the will, posited by spirit, and make
[= positing reality], are powerful, even almighty, principles. Here, however,
it real. This process of coordination wecall “steering.” It consists in “in-
we find a relative justification of the great opponents ofthe classical the-
hibiting” (non fiat) and “un-inhibiting” (non non fiat) drive impulses by
the spiritualwill, and wecall “directing” the process of holding before the
drives an idea and value that realize themselves by virtue of the move-
ments of drives. But one thing spirit cannot do: it can neither produce nor
* Hence, the classic theory is sociologically a class ideology or an ideologyof the upper
classes of the bourgeoisie. See my Problems of a Sociology ofKnowledge.
withdraw any energy indrives, nor can spirit increase or diminishthis en-
46 47
HUMAN PLACE IN THE COSMOS THE HUMAN PLACE IN THE COSMOS
THE
ory: among them the drive-naturalists, Epicurus, Th. Hobbes, N. Machia- ‘of a “teleological” worldview, asit is called, which has controlled the en-
=,
velli, J. de La Mettrie, and continuing to A. Schopenhauer, K. Marx, and tire theistic philosophy of the West. Nicolai Hartmann very succinctly
S. Freud. However,in all of their reactions to and opposition againstthis formulatesthis state of affairs, which I had already maintained in Formal-
theory, they sacrifice the truth that is containedin it, that is, the autonomy asm in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values: “The higher formsof catego-
of spirit and its essence and its lawfulness—and with this they invalidate ries of being and values are by nature the weaker.”
their own teachings and any others like them. It is the autonomy ofspirit The currents offorces and effects that alone can posit the existence’
which is the basic presupposition for the idea of “truth” and the possibility and the fortuitous “what”of things, run from below upward in the world we
=
of knowingit. . | a live in, and not from the top down. The inorganic world aroundushas,
| The classical theory appears, above all, in two main versions: it el- with its autonomouslaws, a proud independenceofits own—invery few
ther takesthe form of the assumption that human beings possess a spiri- places containing somethinglike “life.” The same independence per-
tual substance, or it appears in the form of one single spirit of which tains to plants and animals as compared to the human being,while ani-
all individual spirits are assumed to be the only modes or centers of mals are much more dependent on plants than the latter on the former.
activity (Averroes, B. Spinoza, I. Kant, J. G. Fichte, G. W. F. Hegel, The direction of animallife is not only a benefit butit is also a loss,
Fr. W. Schelling, E. von Hartmann). The theory of soul-substance [or “men- because animallife has no immediate relation to the inorganic world
tal substance”] is based on the unjustified application of the category that plants have because of their deriving nourishment from the com-
of exterior things or, in its older form, on an organismic division and ponents of the soil. There is an analogy in this independence in human
application of the categories of “matter” and “form” to the relationship history. A case in pointis a mass [of people] with the indigenouslaws of
between body and soul (Thomas Aquinas) . By applying cosmologicalcat- its historically slow mutability, as compared to the higher [sociological]
egories to the core of the humanbeing, both forms of the theory fail to forms of humanexistence. From ourfinite human view, it appears as a
reach their objectives. Fothe spiritual center ofacts of the personis not serendipitous event pleasing to our eyes when ourearth or any other
a substance. Instead,it consists in a monarchicstructure ofacts of which star turns “mature enoughto bearlife,” or when the indigenous course
one act at a timehasits steering and directing function andis aimed at of human mass movementsleads into a direction thatallowsit to tolerate
that value and that idea with which the humanbeing, in any givencase, a genius—let alone when theinterests and passions of the masses allow
“identifies.” | them even to accept his ideas and values and to be inspired by them.
Let us not gointo a critique of the particular details contained in Whata rare case ofluckit is in this world when persons of good will and
this theory. The fundamental error, however, which is at the bottom of all strong mind have success andattain whatis called “historical greatness”
ofit, is a deep and principal one thatis systematically tied to the entire and becomeextraordinary, effective forces in history. The highest points
worldview sustaining it! this is the error of assuming that the world we of a culture are short and rare in humanhistory. Short and rare is whatis
live in has a constant order in which higher forms of Being not only in- beautiful, in its tenderness and vulnerability.
crease in their meaning andvalue but, especially—andherelies the root Whatis bare of all power and effectiveness is precisely spirit, the
of the error—the higher the formsare, the more they have increases of purerit 1s.
power and strength. Andit is for us an equally grave mistake to regard the Thetrue and original orderof the relations existing between higher
higher forms of Being—for instance, the formsoflife higher than those and lower formsof Being, between the categories amongvalues, and be-
of inorganic matter, or consciousness as higher than unconsciousness, tween forces and powers in which these forms realize themselves, is il-
or spirit as higher than subhuman forms of consciousness in man and lustrated by the proposition: “From the beginning, whatis lowly is power-
elsewhere—as having sprung from processesthat belong to lower forms ful, and whatis highest is impotent.” Every higher form of Beingis relatively
of Being (materialism, naturalism). Conversely, it is an equally grave powerless in relation to the form that is lower—and a higher form of
mistake to assume that the higher forms of Being are the foundation of Being doesnotrealizeitself by its own forces but by those forcesthat are
the lower ones; for instance, that there are forces in life, activities in con- lower. All processes oflife, which by themselves are gestalt processes in
sciousness, and that there is essentially an empowered spirit (vitalism, time and which have their ownstructure, are exclusively realized by the
idealism). While the negative theory leads to false mechanical explana- material and the forces of the inorganic world. True, spirit is able to gain
=
tionsof everything, the classical theory leads to the untenable non-sense powerby virtue of the processes of sublimation, andit is also true that
48 49
drive-life can enter (or not enter) under the laws of spirit and into the tween electrons would cometo be at the service of the atomic gestalt
structure ofideas and meanings that spirit holds out before the drives; pattern, or the forces of the organic world would turn to the service of
and it is true that, in the course of such interpenetration between drives the structure of life. If this were so, then the becoming of the human be-
andspirit in individuals andin history, drive-life makes powers available ing andofspirit would also have to be seen as the last process up to now
to spirit— but, initially, spirit has no energy of its own. A higher form of be- of sublimation in nature—manifestingitself at the same time in an always
ing “determines,” so to speak, an essence and the essential regions of the greater application of external energies to the most complicated organic
structure of the world—but a higher form is realized only through an- processes we know of, namely the stimulation of the cortex and, in an
otherprinciplethatis as original as thespiritual principle of primordial analogousprocess of drive-sublimation, manifesting itself as the transfer ,
Being: through what we called “impulsion,” which creates reality and of drive-energy to “spiritual” activity. ]
fortuitous phantasmic images, or the “fantasy in impulsion” that creates The same process of {he conflict betwe:" spirit and life can be found in
the images. another form in human history. To be sure, Hegel’s thesis that the issue
Whatis most powerful in our world are the force-centers [Krafizen- rests on an explication of mere ideas in opposition is not valid; rather,
tren] of the inorganic world as the lowest energy-quantain this impul- Karl Marx’s proposition telling us that ideas have neither interests nor
sion. These force-centers are themselves bare of ideas, forms, and ge- passions behind them—which meansno powersthat stem from human
stalts. Accordingto a view that is gradually gaining broad acceptance in vital and drive spheres—such ideas inevitably make fools of themselves.”
contemporary theoretical physics, it is likely that these force-centers have Nevertheless, history on the whole does show us an increase in the pow-
no ontic laws in their behavior toward and away from each other. They ers of reason; but this is only because of the increase in adaptations of
appear to obey only lawsofa statistical nature. Among living beings, it is ideas and valuesbyvirtue of large drive-driven tendencies of groups and
! first the human being whointroduces “natural laws” into nature which by the dovetailing of interests between them. It is in this regard also
humanreason later on reads and interprets; this happens not because of that we have to become more modestin our evaluations of the impor-
rational but of biological necessity, enabling mento act, and because hu- tance that humanspirit and humanwill have for the course of historical
mansense organsand functions display more regular than irregular pro- events.
cesses in the world. There are no laws behind the chaos of chance and As I said earlier, both spirit and will cannot mean more than “di!
of caprice in an ontological sense; rather, it is chaos that towers up be- recting” and “steering.” And this always means only that spirit as such!
hind all formal-mechanical laws. If a theory could prove that all natural places ideas before the power of drives, and the will places or removes
laws are ultimately only ofstatistical significance and thatall processes in such representations before drive impulses—both impulses and power
nature (including those in the microsphere) are totalities of processes must already be present—which can then makeconcrete the realization
that result from random interactions of units of force, our whole view of of these ideas. Hence, central spiritual willing does not have a determin-
nature would have to undergo a remarkable change: The true ontic laws ing, steering effect on drives themselves, but only on the modifications
4 would prove to be so-called laws ofgestalts, which are laws that prescribe a of representations. A direct struggle of pure will against the powers of
certain temporal rhythm to events and, again dependent on this, also to drives, that is, a struggle without said holding of ideas before them so |
certain static forms of physical existence.” Since laws of gestalts are valid that they may turn to or reject the representations, is impossible. Onthe
within spheres of physiological and psychiclife (i.e., not necessarily only contrary, when such a struggle is attempted intentionally, the drives are
laws of physics), lawfulness in all nature would again be of a strict unifor- even more in their own one-sided direction. Saint Paul had already expe-
mity. But then, this unity would not excludethe possibility of formalizing rienced this when he said that the law was roaming about like a roaring
the concept of “sublimation” in regard to all events of the world. In this lion to attack those humans who have sinned. (William James recently
case, sublimation would occur in every process of the world, such that a made profound remarkson this point.) Willing always produces the op-!
lower sphere of Being would gradually become at the service of a higher posite of whatit wills when, instead of intending a higher value, whose
structure of being and becoming, as, for instance, when the forces be- realization makes us forget what is bad and attracts human energies, it
* See myelaboration of my treatise “Erkenntnis und Arbeit,” section V. * I have shownthis in detail in Problems of a Sociology ofKnowledge, part 1.
50 THE HUMAN PLACE IN THE COSMOS
ion of a drive whose impulsion of world history in and through the humanbeing. This
| directsitself instead to a mere fight against and negat which in itself is timeless but which showsitself in the five of finiteex.
being also has
goal appears to our conscience as “bad.” Thus, the human periences, can get closerto its goal of a self-realization of the Dei
which he recognizes aa
to learn howtotolerate himself, even those inclinations to the degree to which whatis called “world” becomes
directly, but learn to fi oo |
to be bad and pernicious. He should not fight them ment of the eternal substance.
ies toward valuable FL,
overcome them indirectly by mobilizing his energ It is only in the raging of this enormous storm of the “world” th
r and possible for
tasks known by his conscience to be good and prope an adaptation can take place of the order of the forms of being
Ethics that in the doc- and 7
him to achieve. Spinoza said so profoundly in his ues to factually effective powers, and vice versa. Indeed, in thisd . tor
truth dormant.
trine of “nonresistance” against evil there is a deep ment a gradual reversal of the original relationship between the Ee
n becomingis, as we
In termsof this concept of sublimation, huma and higher forme and between the stronger and lower forms of bei 7
nd becoming human is the
said, the highest sublimation known to us—a may take place. To putit differently: a mutualinterpenetration of ori inallÿ
For the human be-
/ most intimate unification of essential regions in the world. Lb Etant spiritand of originally demonic impulsion blind to ideas and
thatof life. This
ing unifies all essential regions in him, and especially eend En ideation-in-becoming and a spiritualization of impulsion’s suf-
not specifically for their ac-
holds at least for the essential regions, but gs. rom resistance [Drangsale] behind the images of entities, as well
for their quantities of distribu-
cidental manifestations, and muchless so as the simultaneous empowerment or vitalization ofspirit; thatis the goal
conflict between a
tion. The view of the world sketched here makes the i :
ity, which prevailed and end of
beginning . finite Bei
eing and of history. Theism falsely puts the goal at the
l “teleological” and a “mechanical” explanation ofreal
over many centuries, disappear.”
the highest Be-
This train of thought cannot stop short before even
too, that which “is through it-
ing, the Ground of the World. For Being, Our analyses have gone little far. Let
andin sofar as “spirit” us return to experiences th
self” and upon whicheverythingelse is dependent, closer to the problem of human nature. " a
utes, can also not as a spiritual
must be assigned to it as one of its attrib Theclassical theory of the human being found in modern ti
other attribute, the
Being have any power and strength. Rather, it is the its most effective form in Descartes’ philosophy, which we have be rs
, the all-powerful “impulsion”
natura naturans in the highest Being, thatis discard only most recently. By holding that all substances are mi ie
for reality, while the
charged with infinite images, which is accountable vided into “thinking” and “extended” ones, and telling us that 7
determined through
contingent whatness of entities is never univocally aloneis constituted by these two substancesthat stand into each other,
spiritualattribute
essential laws and ideas. We cannot assign to this pure Descartes introduced to the Western mind an entire mass of gra or
s” or what we call
in the ultimate Ground of all finite being, the “deita rors about humannature. Thedivision of substances forced him _ se
Ground, any creative power.
“Spirit” or “the Godhead” in this ultimate cept the nonsense of denying the existence of a psychic nature in b oa
said consequence.
The idea of a “creation out of nothing” collapses with plants and animals and of explaining the “appearance” of souls in pl ï
n between spirit and
If in this Being-Through-Itself thereis primordial tensio and animals, which had been taken for granted for ages before Him,via
ugh-Itself and the
impulsion, then the relationship between Being-Thro Feerepopathie “empathy” of our vital feelings that was injected into
also formulate this in the
world has to be another relationship. We can ages of organic nature; and he wasalso forced to explain, in
its world-creating
following way: the Ground of Being had to un-inhibit terms of purely mechanical concepts, everything that was outside hu-
ss of things and of
impulsion whenits deitas willed to realize the fullne man consciousness and thinking. With this he did not only present a most
in it, so that the Ground of Be-
values that were [in potency] residual unreasonable exaggeration of the “special place” of human bein 5
processes—the
ing could realize itself in the temporal course of world tearing the latter away from the maternal arms of nature, but De ad :
its essence in and through
Groundhad to pay price, as it were, to realize also simply erased from the world the fundamental cate or of lifea vd
worthy of divine
this process. Being-Through-Itself could become Being its gemordial phenomena. For Descartes, the world existsonh in ou
eternal Deity in the
existence only to the degree to which it realized the ing” dots and in a huge mechanism thatcan be explored ralenti
But we must also admit thatthereis one valuable pointin his theory: the
novel autonomy and sovereignty of spirit (although reduced to “ratio”and
* See my treatise “Erkenntnis und Arbeit.”
52 53
confused with intelligence) and the superiority ofspirit above organic nature if one ignores with Descartes and his followers, the independence of the
andlife, which superiority spirit did not possess in the medieval identifi- psychic and the (proven) priority of the entire drivelife and affects before
cation ofthe forma corporeitatis with thespiritual soul. All else in Descartes all “conscious” images of representation; furthermore, if one restricts
remains imbued with blunders. psychic life to only a wakeful consciousness and splits huge interrelated
The fact that there is no such thing as a specifically fixed soul- functions of the psychic from the conscious ego and from the unitary
substance as Descartes held (the pineal gland) is obvious because there whole of the ego, and also overlooks the well-known schizoid phenom-
is no central location eitherin the brain or in the body whereall sensitive enain the conscious ego; and, finally, if one denies the repression ofaf-
nerve filaments meet. Another basic mistake of Descartes is his assump- fects and overlooks the amnesiathatis possible in entire phasesoflife:
tion that whatis psychic consists only of “consciousness” and thatit is then one must cometo the assumption of a false dualism between an
exclusively tied to the cortex. Thorough psychiatric research has shown original unity and simplicity and a secondary plurality of physical parts
that the psychic functions that are accountable for the basis of human and all the processes based on them. In other words: on the one hand,
“character”—especially everythingthat belongs to drivelife and affects, the assumption of one soul-substance; on the other hand, the assump-
which, we saw, are primordial forms of the psychic—do not have their tion of infinite body substances. This view of an exaggerated centrality
corresponding physiological processes in the cerebrum butin the area of the soulis as erroneousas the exaggerated mechanistic idea of physi-
of the brain stem, that is, partly in the gray opening of the third ventricle ological processes maintainedby the old physiology.
and partly in the thalamus which, being a central switchboard, mediates In extreme contrast to all the theories mentioned, we are now ina
between sensations and drive life. Moreover, the system of functions of position to makethe following statement: physiological and psychic pro, 7
the ductless glands (thyroid, gonads, pituitary, hypophysis, adrenal) that cesses are ontologically strictly identical (as Kant already expected they
determine drive life, affects, human growth of height and size, giant- are). They are different only in a phenomenalsense. Nevertheless, they are
and dwarf-growth, and possibly even racial qualities proved, on the one also phenomenally strictly identical in terms of their structural laws and
hand, to be the area of mediation proper between the whole of the organ- rhythm of processes. Both physiological and psychic processes are non}
ism with its form of gestalts and, on the other, the small part of soullife, mechanical; and both are purposeful and aim at wholeness. Physiologi-
called “waking consciousness,” appended to the organism. Today itis the cal processesare all the moreso, the lower the nerve system segments are
whole of the organism that has been recognized asthe physiological field (and notthe higher they are) in which they run off. Also, psychic pro-
of correspondence to psychic experiences; it is by no means only the cesses are more holistic and goal-directed, the more primitive they are.
brain. Descartes’ suggestion of merely external connections between the Both processesare twosides of one processoflife, both in their structure
substance of a soul andthe substance of the body is, today, beyond any and functionalinterplay. |
serious discussion. | What we call “physiological” and “psychological” are but two sides
Philosophers, physicians, and scientists who deal today with the from which we observel one and the same process of life. Hence, there is
problem of body and soul are increasingly in agreement on.a unitary a biology “from inside” and one “from outside.” The biology from the
view of one and the samelife which, in its inwardness, is psychic and, in its outside proceeds from knowledge of a structural form and onward to the
being-for-others, possesses bodily form. One should not argue against genuine life processes; but one must always be aware here that anyliving
this unity by saying that the “I” has, on the one hand, no parts which form, from the ultimate distinguishable elements ofcells, to cells them-
composeit, and yet, on the other hand, the bodyis a multiple organiza- selves, then to tissues, to organs, and up to the whole of an organism, is
tion of cells. Present-day psychology has done dway with the latter con- borne and formed at any moment by the process of life. One must also be
cept, much asit has also done away with the ideathat the functions of aware in this way of looking at life that during development itis the “ge-
the nervous system are to be understood only in termsof a summation; stalt functions,” to be sharply distinguished from operational functions,
that is, not meetingholistically, and determined locally and morphologi- which produce the statistical (anatomic) forms of organic material con-
cally in their point of origin. Of course, if one conceives the body with comitant with the physico-chemical “situation.” The Heidelberg anato-
Descartes as a type of machine in the oldrigid sense of the mechanis- mist H. Braus, from the standpoint of psychology, and the physiologist
tic theories held during the Galilean-Newtonian age, which has today A. v. Tschermakhave, justifiably, placed this conceptionat the center of
been overcome anddiscarded by theoretical physics and chemistry; and their research. Onecan say that today this conception has gained recog-
54 55
nition inall disciplinesof science dealing with this well-known problem. the organism can reach the same goals underextensive exchanges of the
The old “psycho-mechanical parallelism” of body and soul is as much an corporeal structure of substrates it works with, even in the case of a distrac-
old saw asis the renovated “theory of reciprocal effects” and asis also the tion by a new cause. Phenomenologically, the physiological procedures of
Scholastic theory of the soul as a forma corporeitatis. | an organism are as “meaningful” as psychic, thatis, conscious devolving
The gap which Descartes opened up with his dualism of the sub- processes [Abläufe], and they are exactly as “dull” as organic devolving
stances of extension and thought has now been closed almost to the processes. For example, if an organism’s wound produces two headsin-
point neededto grasp the unity of life. À dog eats meatand its stomach stead of one during a regenerative process, we find the samein cases of
forms certain gastric juices: this would have to be an absolute miracle restorations of psychic complexes correspondingto the given part in the
for Descartes, who extinguished our entire drive and affect life and de- blinddrive of repetition; to always repeat, for example, analogous scenes
manded at the same time a purely physico-chemical explanation of life (the one whoalways “cheated,” or the perpetual “victim”).
andits structural laws. Why? Because, on the psychic side oflife, he shut It is my opinion that precisely a methodic goal must be given to rel
down the drive impulse of appetite, which is the condition of the ani- search today, to test on the largest possible scale how far the same types
mal’s optic perception of its feed in the same sense as is the outer stimu- of behavior can be produced or changed, on the one hand, by physico-
lation of it (which is not, as Descartes believed, a condition of the con- chemical stimulation from the outside and, on the other hand, by psychic
[ tent of perception, but only a condition ofthe now-here-perception of this stimulations such as suggestion, hypnosis, and all types of psychothera-
content, which exists as part of a corporeal “image” entirely indepen- pies and changesin social environment (by which morediseases are con-
dently ofall “consciousness”). And secondly, on the physiological side, ditioned than one would think). One must be very careful aboutfalsely
Descartes did not consider the flow of gastric juices, which correspond exaggeratingthe role of exclusively physiological explanations. Based on
to appetite, to be a genuine process oflife, providing physiological and our present-day research, a gastric ulcer may have been caused psychi-
functional unity. He thoughtthat this processis independent of a cen- cally or by physico-chemical processes; and notonlyillnesses of the nerves
tral nerve-system, and that the flow of gastric juices is a purely chemi- but also organic diseases have definite psychic elementsthat correspond
cal process that begins as soon as food enters the stomach. What would to them. We canalso weigh both kinds of our influence on the proper
Descartes have to say when confronted nowadays with Heyder’s finding unitary life-process quantitatively—either through the channelof con-
that even the suggestion of eating somethinghasthe same effect as actu- sciousness or through the channelof exterior stimulation (P. Schilder),
ally eating something?” Descartes’ basic mistake (despite his treatise on such that we can economize to the same degree with one stimulation
passions”) is his complete neglectof the fact that in both human beings while making more useof the other. Sexual arousal can be enhanced by
* fand in animalsit is the system of drives which is the unit of the mediation certain preparations,as it can be enhanced by pornographicliterature
between any genuine movementoflife and the contents of conscious- and pictures. Even the fundamentalprocessin life called “death” can
ness. Descartes and the older philosophy maintain that the unity of phys- happen through a sudden shockorby a pistol’s bullet. All of these fac-
è
iological functionsis at bottom an entirely mechanical process that arises tors are only different kinds ofaccess we have via our experiences while we
from a mechanical formalprinciple of proximate causality of some kind are steering toward one and the same ontically uniform process of life. Even
of fixed parts of the organic body, entirely determined morphologically, the highest psychic functionsas so-called relational thinking have physi-
and thus in this sense it is determined at each instant. Butthis is, pre- ologicalparallels. Finally, accordingto our theory the spiritual acts, which
cisely, not the case. The basic concept of a physiological “function”is of draw their entire energyfor their activity from thevital sphere ofdrives,
a self-regulating rhythmic gestalt of a devolving process [Ablaufsgestalt] ; and which cannot manifest themselves in our experience, even that
of
it is a dynamic temporal gestalt which is by no means locally bound. ourselves, without somekind of “energy,” must also possess physiological
This function singles out its own functional field from given substrates and psychic parallels. Since Western natural and medical sciences have
of cells and, indeed,it can only makea gestalt of itself: There is no addi- mostly been occupied with the human being’s body, in their tendencyto
tive organic reaction of any certain and fixed kind, even among those seek effects on life processes throughexternal channels, we can see man-
physiological functions that have no corresponding role in conscious- ifestly the one-sided interest which characterizes Western technology.If
ness. As has recently been shown, there is no additive organic reaction in it is the case for us that life processes appear to be more accessible when
such simple reflexes as the patellar reflex (in the knee). Physiologically, Investigated from the outside, rather than through channels of conscious-
ness, this does not affect the question of what the factual relation really even duringsleep, andsince their structural elements keep rebuilding
is between the psychic and the physical body. This kind of direction of themselves every moment, a very strong surplus offantasy keeps stream-
thought may well haveits basis in an age-old, one-sided, and tendentious ing even without exteriorstimulation and coming up immediately when
attitude. Asian Indian medicine shows moreorless the opposite of the our waking consciousness and its censor (Freud) slow down and, as I
West’s interest in termsofits psychic orientation to the attitude. showed,”this surplus offantasy is to be regarded as an original phenom-
Psycho-physicallife is one and the same.” This unity is a fact which enon whichis increasingly restricted by sensory perception but not pro-
holds for every living being and, hence, for the human being also. There duced by it—anditalso has to be expected psychologically. The psychic
is not the slightest reason to separate in more than a degree humanpsy- stream keeps on runningwithout interruption (andis not interruptedas
chic life from that of animals, or to ascribe to it a special sort of origin or waking consciousnessis) in the samesense as the physiological chain of
future destiny as theistic creationism andtraditional theories of immor- excitations keeps on running through the rhythm of sleep and awaken-
tality would have it. G. Mendel’s laws hold for the constitution of the psy- ing. The humanbrain, it appears, is an actual organ of death, more so
chic character as muchasthey dofor any type of properties for the body. thanit is the case with animals. This must be expected because of the
Yet the differences in the processesof psychic functions between humans strongercentralization and attachmentofall life processes in and to the
and animals are considerable and, indeed, far more so than the morpho- humanbrain. We know from seriesof investigations thatif the brains
logical differences between them; and also far more considerable are of dogs or horses are removed, these animals canstill perform many ac-
physiological differences. By comparison to animals, human beings use tivities which human beings could notin such a case. These and other
up a disproportionately large part of the entire material of assimilation phenomenahave been explainedsufficiently in terms ofthe strong unity
for building their nervous system. But the use of the material for the of human psychic life in comparison to animals’ psychic life, and this
arrangement of forms andstructures of anatomically perceptible units without the assumption of a human soul-substance.
is surprisingly small and, in comparison to animals, a large part of the Thusit is not the pairs of human lived body [Leb] and soul, or the
material changes into purely functional brain energy. But this process objective body and a soul, or that of brains and soul in humans, that rep-
is nothing but the physiological correlate for the human being, and which resent somesort of ontological dualism.t The antithesis that we find in
process wereferto in the language of psychology as “repression” or “sub- man, and subjectively experience as such, is one of a much higher and
limation.” Whereas human sensory and motor functions are not much of a much more fundamental order: the antithesis of spirit and life. This
superior to those of animals, the human being’s distribution of energy antithesis reaches deeperinto the GroundofAll Things than the dualism
between his cerebrum andall other organic systemsis entirely different. of life and of the inorganic world, a dualism which notably H. Driesch
The humanbrain enjoys the unconditional advantage of much greater has recently falsely overemphasized.
degrees of nutrition than animal brains do, becauseit possesses the most Whenwetake the “psychic” and the “physiological” to be two sides
intensive and multiple gradients of energy, as well as forms of brain pro- of one andthe sameprocessoflife, to which correspond two ways of look-
cesses that are locally demarcatedto be farless inflexible (K. Goldstein). ing at the same process, the X whichis acting out the two ways of looking
In cases of general assimilative inhibitions, brains are inhibited last and, at one and the same thing must be superior to the antithesis of body and
compared to other organs, to a minimum amount. Thecerebralcortex soul. This X is nothing else but spirit which, as we saw, never becomes an
preserves and concentratesall of the human organism's history and its object—butwhich, nevertheless, makes everything an object. Life is non-
prehistory. Since every specific process of brain excitation changes the spatial, butit is in time—H. S. Jennings’s statement, “An organism is a
wholestructure of excitations, there can, physiologically, never occur “the process”is to the point, and the apparentstatic state of the body is borne
same” process. This fact corresponds exactly to the basic law of psychic and maintained by this processall the time—andwhatwecall “spirit” is
causality, saying thatit is only the whole chain of past experiences, never not only ¢trans-spatial but also trans-temporal. Spirit’s intentionality inter-
a temporally antecedent individual experience, which explains a later sects, as it were, with the temporal course oflife. Insofar as spirit needs
psychic event. Since the excitations in the cortex do not come to a stop
* In “Erkenntnis und Arbeit,” section V, B.
+ We can say that today the problem of body and soul, which kept people thinking for cen-
* T cannot furnish here final in-depth elaborations on this theory. turies, has lost its metaphysical relevance. |
58
59
activity, it is only indirectly dependent on temporal life processes and is, to the formal-mechanical theory,it takes the category oflife to be a pri-|
so to speak, embedded in them. mordial category of the entire understanding of the human being,spirit in-
No matter how “life” and “spirit” are different in essence from each cluded. The scope ofthe principle oflife is overestimated here. Forthis
other, in the human being both of them need each other [aufeinander theory holds that the human spirit is to be fully explainable as an out-
angewiesen]: spirit ideates lifebut it is life alonethat can stir spirit to activ- come of human drive-life andas a “late product of development.”British
ity and realize it from the simplest acts and up to accomplishments of a and American pragmatism (first C. S. Peirce, then William James, F. C.
great work replete with spiritual meaning and content. Schiller, and J. Dewey) intends to derive the forms and laws of thought
from human forms of working (“homo faber”). Furthermore, in his “will
to power,” Nietzsche wanted to explain forms of thought as necessary
The relationship between spirit and life that we have portrayed here has in vital functions, on the basis of the power drive, and H. Vaihinger recently
the past been wrongly interpreted and left unnoticed in large numbers followed Nietzsche with somewhat different argumentation.” From an
of philosophical theories that dealt with the basics of the nature of the overview of all relevant theories, one can distinguish three sub-versions
human being. of the naturalist-vitalist idea of the human being, depending on whether
In this regard, we wish to first sketch the characteristics of some [1] the system of the drive of nutrition, [2] the drive of propagation and
theories of the past that one can refer to as “naturalistic” ones. There the sexual drive, or [3] the drive for power is taken to be the original and
are two kinds of them:oneis a formal-mechanical understanding of hu- steering drive-system in humans. “You are what you eat” [Der Mensch ist,
man activities, and the otheris a one-sided vitalist understanding of the was er ift], K. Vogt said crudely. In an incomparably more profoundway,
humanbeing. one penetrating deeplyinto Hegel’s theory of history, K. Marx repre-
The formal-mechanical understanding of the relationship between sents an analogous concept, according to which the human being does
spirit and life takes no notice of the peculiarity of the category of life not so much makehistory, but that at any period of time, history makes
and, consequently, also reveals a misunderstanding of the spirit. And the humanbeingdifferently; andit is especially, and firstly, the history of
here we again find two ways of missing the peculiarity of the category of economics or the history of the “material relations of production” which
life: One kind we find in antiquity represented by Democritus, Epicurus, do so. Accordingly, there is no inner logic and continuity in the history
and by Lucretius Carus. Later on, this kind of failure to see the pecu- of spiritual worksofart, science, philosophy, law, or any other relevant
liarity of life found its perfect example in La Mettrie’s L'homme machine. areas. The continuity and actual causality of the latter areas are placed
As the title of this book already suggests, an attempt is made by him entirely within the economic forms, of which every complete historical
to reduce psychic phenomena—without separating them from spiritual manifestation possesses a peculiar spiritual world, the well-known “su-
phenomena—to concomitants of physico-chemical laws governing the perstructure.”t The conceptof the humanbeing asprimarily controlled
organism. The other kind is most markedly exemplified by British sen- by the drive for power and the drive for self-assertion [Geltungstrieb] was
sualism in D. Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature. In more recent times historically initiated by N. Machiavelli, Th. Hobbes, and by the renowned
E. Mach appreciated such an understanding of the human being. He politicians of the absolute state. Recently this concept was taken up by
considered the human egoto be a juncture wherein sensual elements Nietzsche’s theory of power, and with regard to medicine and psychol-
of the world are clustered in extreme density. In both theories men- ogy it was taken up by A. Adler’s theory of the primacy of the drive for
tioned, the formal-mechanical principle is pushed to extremes, except public recognition. A third possible naturalistic concept of the human
that at one time sensations are supposed to be understood in terms of being insists on conceivingspiritual life as a form of sublimated libido,
processes proceeding from the principles of physical mechanics, while andspirit to be libido’s symbolic and airy superstructure. In this view,all
at the other time basic concepts of inorganic science are derived from cultural achievements are also supposedto be the productof a repressed
ultimate givens in sensation and from lawsof association of representa- and sublimatedlibido. When Schopenhauercalled sexual love the core
tions (including the concepts of substance and causality). The mistake
of both mechanistic theories lies, however, in that the essence of life,
with its peculiarity and its indigenous laws, has been overlooked.
* Concerning the above, see mytreatise “Erkenntnis und Arbeit.”
The second type of naturalistic theory is that of vitalism. In contrast + A critique of historical materialism is contained in my Problems of a Sociology ofKnowledge.
of the “will to life” without succumbing, however, to a complete natu- uniqueness of their thinking cannot be dealt with here in detail, but for
ralism—because his negative theory about the human being prevented us it is characterized by two points: true, spirit is taken as primordial
him from doing so—the early Freud, still denying an autonomous death originality here, but it is identified totally with intelligence andthe abil-
drive, worked out instead the extreme consequences of this concept for ity to make choices, as is the case with the positivists and pragmatists.
the human being.” Klages does not. admit that, primarily, spirit not only objectifies but is
We have to reject all of these naturalistic theories, whether they also a vision of ideas and essencesthat is based onits ability to de-realize
are of a mechanist or vitalist type, although the vitalist type has the great reality. Thus Klages deprives spirit of its genuine nature and quintes-
merit of letting us understand that what is creative in the human being sence andtotally devalues it. According to Klages, spirit is in the state of
is not “spirit” (or higher forms of consciousness) but rather the dark and an original and principal struggle against all life, and whatever belongs
subconscious powerof the soul’s drives; and of letting us understand to life; it is struggling against the psychic with its simple, automatic “ex-
that the formation of the humandestiny of both individuals and groups pression,” and yet spirit is not in a state of complementary exchange
depends on the continuity of drives and subconscious powerswith their [Ergdnzung] with it. In this state of warfare, spirit appears historically as a
symbolic correlates of images. The vitalist theory also makes us realize principal destroyer of life and of psychic being. Thus, humanhistory is seen
that all dark myth is not a productof history but rather that mythis a far- as a process of decadence, and even as a process of disease in the lives of
reaching determiningfactor of the course of history. Nevertheless, all of humanbeings. If Klages would have been thoroughly consistent—which
the above theories madethe overall mistake of deriving not only the ac- he was not because, strangely enough, helet spirit “break in” only at a
tivity of spirit and the meansby whichit obtains power, but also of deriv- specific period of history, after the beginnings of humanity (similar to
| ing spirit’s ideas themselves, with their contents and values, and even the J.J. Bachofen), so that Homo sapiens had already been preceded by long
laws of spirit and its inner growth, from said powersof drives. While it was stretches of history—he would then have had to put the beginning of
the error of Western idealism’s “classical” theory, which had widely over- the “tragedy”oflife, which, he says, is humanity itself, at the very origin
rated spirit, to have overlooked Spinoza’s deep truth that reason is un- of humanity itself.
Jable to regulate passions exceptby reasonitself becoming a “passion’— Such a dynamic and hostile polarity of spirit and life is not accept-
by virtue of “sublimation,” as we would say today—it was naturalism that able because of the fact that spirit does not have any force and energy-
ignored the originality and independenceofspirit altogether. providing poweritself to bring about such a “destruction.” What in
Klages’s writings, which are otherwise full of many fine observations,is
thought to be a deplorable phenomenonoflater history is not to be
In contrast to all these theories, a recent author, with a mind of his own blamedonspirit, but in actuality is to be traced to a processI call “over-
but not without in-depth argumentation, tried to conceive the human sublimation,” which is a state of excessive cerebration that, on the basis
being (similarly as we did) in terms of both the basic and irreducible of this state and as a reactiontoit, initiates a conscious romantic escape
categories of “life and spirit.” His name is Ludwig Klages. Heis the one to a state of existence (mostly, supposedly, found in history) when over-
whoprovided a philosophical foundation in Germany for a pan-romantic sublimation with its excess of discursive intellectual activity did not yet
—
way of thinking about the nature of the humanbeing,representatives of exist. Such a phenomenon of escape we can find already in the Diony-
which we can find today among manyresearchersin different disciplines, sian movement of ancient Greece and in Hellenistic dogmatism, which
for example, Edgar Dacqué, Leo Frobenius, C. G. Jung, Hans Prinzhorn, looked uponclassical Greece in a way similar to German romanticism’s
and Theodor Lessing,+ and also in certain respects Oswald Spengler. The view of the Middle Ages. Klages does not seem to appreciate the fact that
such historical imagery has its basis in a longing for “youth and primi-
tivism” that stems from people’s own over-intellectualization, and which
* My book The Nature of Sympathy offers a critique of Freud’s theory of love.
+ The separation between “spirit” and “life” is already contained in myearly work Die trans-
zendentale und die psychologische Methode (1899); the separation also belongs to the founda- confirmed more and morein that the worldofspirit andits norm is only an indispensable
tion of my Formalism in Ethics. Thelatter does not coincide with Klages’s identification of substitute world for the diseased life in man. Spirit’s world is only a means for the rescue
“spirit” with “intelligence” and of the “ego” with “willing.” of a now-questionable species which, after a short period of wakefulness, is completely lost
{ His book Geschichte als Sinngebung des Sinnlosen [History as the Provider of the Meaning of without a trace and which, because of the sciences, a species which has become a megalo-
maniacal predator ape” (4th ed.. Leipzig. 1927. p. 28).
longing never coincides with historical realities. Klages is also remiss in the human being became aware of the world, of himself, and obtained
seeing that whenever the Dionysian forms of human existence are origi- his ability to objectify things, including his psycho-physical nature—the
nal and naive, the Dionysian state of being itself rests on a complicated specific marks of spirit—he became a “humanbeing,” and by necessity
also had to grasp the most formalidea of a trans-worldly and infinite and
—
but conscious technique of the will or, in other words, works with the
same “spirit” as that which is supposed to be excluded. Dionysian forms absolute Being. When the human being placed himself outside the entire |
of human existence are never completely original and naive because, as cosmos—thatact belongsto his essence, it is the act of becoming man
we saw, the express un-inhibition of drives is introduced byspirit in the itsel{—and when the cosmos became an object of his comprehension,
same sense as rational drive-asceticism (animals do not have an uninhib- he had to turn and see around himself while shuddering,as it were, and
ited state of being). ask himself, “Where am I?” “Whatis my place?”!® Having become human,
Another group of phenomena which Klages considers to be a con- he could notreally say anymore, “I am a part of the world and enclosed
sequence of the destructive nature of spirit consists, in his opinion, in by it”—for the act-being of his spirit and person is superior even to the!
that wheneveran activity of the spirit occurs over and against automatic forms of the being of the “world” in space and time." ‘
processes of the vital soul’s activities, the activity of the vital soul would During this reorientation, the human beingrealized that he was |
be considerably disturbed. Simple symptomsof this kind, for instance, looking into nothingness and discovered the possibility of “absolute noth-
are disturbances of the heartbeat, or of breathing, or of other wholly or ingness,” which prompted him to ask yet another question: “Whyis there
partly automatic activities, when attention is paid to them; furthermore, a world at all, and whyis it that ‘I’ exist in the first place?”
—
there are similar disturbances whenourwill is directed to drive impulses One must grasp thestringentessential necessity of the context existing
instead of directing itself to new value contents. Yet, what in such cases between a formal consciousness of the human being’s world, of him-
Klagesrefers to here as “spirit” is not spirit at all, but only a complicated self, and of God—“God” meaning here only a “Being-Through-Itself”
“technical intelligence” (which we discussed earlier). Himself one of the comprehended with the predicate “holy,” which may have thousands of
strongest opponents of the positivist concept of the human being as a colorful manifestations. It is the very sphere of absolute Being, however,
“homofaber,” Klages at this point turns into an uncritical disciple of a con- whetherit is accessible or not, that is as constitutive of the essence of hu-
ception of the human being which he has been so strongly struggling mans as is their self-consciousness and their consciousness of the world.
against. W. v. Humboldt’s observation that the human being could not have “in-
Spirit andlife are dovetailed—it is a fundamental mistake to think they vented” language because he is through language! pertains with the same
have since their beginnings been against each otherin hostility and struggle. stringency to the formal independent sphere of Being, possessing awe-
“He who has ponderedthe deepest depths loves what is mostalive” commanding holiness, a sphere that towers far above all finite content of
[Hölderlin]. experience and even above the center of the human person. If one takes
the meaning of expressions like the “source of religion”or the “source
of metaphysics” not only as filling out this sphere with certain assump-
=m
It is. the task of a philosophical anthropology to show exactly how certain tions and thoughtsof belief but as the origin of this sphere itself, this origin
specific human monopolies, achievements, and workshave arisen from would coincide completely with becoming human.
the basic structure of the human being, which we havebriefly discussed: The human being had to discover the peculiar accident and con-
such monopolies, among others, as language, conscience, tools, arms, tingency of the facts “that there is world rather than nothing” and “that
ideas of right and wrong,the state, leadership, representative functions he himself is, rather than is not” at the same moment and with intuitive
of the arts, myth, religion, sciences, historicity, and communality. We necessity as soon as he became conscious ofworld and of himself. For this
cannot take this subject up here. But we do wish to cast somelight on reason, it amounts to a total mistake to let Descartes’ “I am” and Saint
the consequencesthat result from what has been said with regard to the Thomas Aquinas’s “The world is” precede the proposition of “Thereis
metaphysical relationship of the human being to the Ground ofAll Things. absolute Being,” and to deduce the sphere of the absolute from such
[One of the mostfruitful results of the gradual levels of the struc- modesof being. Consciousness ofworld, ofself, and of God form an unbreak-
ture of human nature based, as we tried to show, upon the levels of ex- able structural unity in the same sense that the transcendence of objects
istence subordinated to that nature, is the inner necessity that just when and the consciousness of self have their origin in the sameact: the “third
64 65
reflexio.” At the same moment whenthis “No, No” [= yes to reality] en- especially to the truth of any kind of metaphysics (or attempts made to
tered into the concrete reality of the environs in which the actual spiri- achieve this end).
tual being andits ideal objects constituted themselves; and at the very Let us take a brief look at a few main types of religious ideas con-
same moment when world-open comportment and the never-ending cerning the relationship between the human being and the supreme
thirst had begunto penetrate limitedly into the newly discovered sphere Ground of things. We restrict ourselves here to monotheisms of the West
of the world and never came to rest before anything given; and at the and Asia Minor. Here wefind, for instance, the idea of a “covenant” be-
very same moment whenthe human-in-becomingbroke all routinesto get tween God and the human being in the sense that God has chosen a
adjusted to animal life that had arisen before him, to the environment people to be “His” (ancient Judaism). Another type shows the human
and the environment to him; and at exactly the same moment when this being to be “God’s slave,” depending onthe structure of a society where
“human being” placed himself outside nature to makeit an object to be humans prostrate themselves before Him with cunning andservility
dominated and an object of novelprinciples of arts and signs— atexactly in order to move God to someaction by prayer, menace, and magic. A
the same moment he had to anchorhis very own center of being somehow somewhathigher form of this appears in the idea of the “faithful servant”
outside and away from the cosmos." He could not anymore conceive him- to the high sovereign Lord. The highest possible form of monotheism
self simply as a “part” or as a simple “member”in the world after having is the idea of human beingsas “children” of God the “Father,” mediated
placed himself so bravely aboveit. through God’s “Son,” both of coequalspirit. God’s son reveals the inner
—
After the discovery of the contingency of the world and of the curi- nature of God andprescribes, with divine authority, doctrines of faith and
ous accident of his place outside the world [or cosmos], the human being commandments. We mustreject all these ideas for the sake of our phi-
was faced with two more possible types of action. First, he could pause in losophy of the relationship between the human being and the supreme
wonder (Òovuólerv) and start directing his spirit to “grasp” the Absolute Ground, and because we deny their theist presupposition: in a Godal-
and become a part of it. The latter is the origin of a kind of metaphys- be »
mighty and personal and Hisspirituality. For me, the fundamentalrelation f/
ics that appeared only late in history, and is found only among a few the human being has to the Ground ofBeing consists in this Ground grasping \
\
peoples. Secondly, with his huge surplus of fantasy, not found among itself and realizing itself in the human being whois, because he has both
A
\
animals, and with his irresistible wrge for protection for himself and even spirit andlife, a part of the Ground’s own spirit and impulsion.
for his whole group, the human being could fill out this sphere with |
There is the old thought of Spinoza, Hegel, and of manyothers:
[forms and] any imaginary figures, thinking they could make him feel Primordial Being becomes aware ofitself in the human beingby virtue
comfortable undertheir powers, safeguarded by cults andrites and given of the sameact in which the humanbeing looksinto his own foundation.
some “backing” by their help and protection. This second action began Still, we must alter this thought, which has been one-sidedly intellectu-
with alienation from nature and the objectification of nature and with alized in the past. The knowledge of having a foundation is only the con-\ 2
simultaneously becoming his own self and self-conscious, because the sequence of our active dedication |Einsetzung] of the center of our being to the )
4
human being seemed to be on the brink of falling into pure nothing- ideal call of the Deity and to the attempt to execute this call, and to co- |
ness. Overcoming this nihilism by means of such protection and backed create Godin this execution Whoarises out of the primordial Ground as )
by such support is what we call “religion.” Religion is practiced primar- becoming “God”as the increasing interpenetration of spirit and impulsion.
ily by groups and folk religion. It was only later that religion was based
)|
The place of this self-realization or, let us say, the place of self-
on the teaching of “founders” at the time of the origins of the state. It ! deification, which Being-Through-Itself is seeking, and for which the
is certain that the world is given primarily through resistance against con- becoming of Being-Through-Itself had to pay the price of “history,” this
crete experiences of ours, and thus resistance was experienced earlier place is, precisely, the human being, the humanself, and the humanheart.
than the making of the world into an object; it is equally certain that all
—
It is the only place of the becoming of God accessible to us, butit is a true
those ideas and thoughts about the newly discovered sphere of the Abso- part of this transcendent process itself. Although all entities spring forth, in
lute bestowed on the human being a vigor that enabled him to maintain a continuouscreation at every moment, from the Being-Through-Itself,
himself in his world. Help came primarily from “myth,” and only later and within the functional unity of the interpenetration ofits spirit and
nnn,
wasit provided by religion after religion had divested itself of myth. But impulsion, it is only in the humanbeing and in his selfhood that these
both myth and religion preceded all knowledge and cognition directed two attributes of the “ens a se”—that are known to us—are inliving rela-
tion to each other. The human being is the meeting-place of spirit and
impulsion, and it is in the human beingthat the logos, “after” which
Oot oe
the world is made, becomesan act that is acted out with the human be-
ing. Our point is, therefore, that right from the very beginning, the hu- Notes
man being and God-in-becomingare reciprocally related to each other.
Thereis as little possibility for humansto attain their destiny without
realizing their membership in the dwelling place of those attributes of
ultimate Being or Being-in-itself as there is for the ens a se to reach its
destiny without the cooperation of the human being.
It needs to be added that the two attributes ofspirit and impulsion, 1. Scheler’s theory of evolution remained unfinished. Thetextis contained
apart from their becoming the reciprocal interpenetration that is their in the Germancollected edition of his works, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 12, Schriften
goal, are still incomplete: Spirit and impulsion are growing by themselves pre- aus dem Nachlass: Philosophische Anthropologie, ed. Manfred S. Frings, Bonn: Bou-
cisely in spirit’s historical manifestation and in the evolution of Pe:in the vier, 1987, pp. 83-117. He presented a “polyphyletic” evolution, according to
world." whichliving entities have more than one ancestral type. He rejects theories like
Darwin’s, holding that there are only single sourcesoflife. Recent findings of
One might tell meat this point, and, indeed, I was oncetold, that it
the “Toumai” in northern Chad, Africa, seem to support Scheler’s conceptof the
is impossible to bear the idea of an unfinished and God-in-becoming. My
“polygenesisoflife.”
answeris that metaphysics is not an insurance company for weak people
2. The word “becoming” has two meanings with Scheler. (1) It refers to
in need of protection. Metaphysics requires and presupposes human be- whatwill be in the future, which happens in measurable clock time (Seinwerden).
ings with strong and courageous minds. It is quite understandable that (2) It also refers to inward self-becoming (Werdesein) in a process in absolute
it was only during the course of his development and with knowledge time. Absolute time is not measurable. Consciousness is a process of an inward
of his essential nature that the human being becameawarethat he was and continuous self-becoming in absolute time. The distinction is essential in
struggling and creating along with the Deity. The need for protection! Scheler’s philosophical anthropology and metaphysics because world, humanity,
and support by a nonhuman,trans-worldly almighty power, identified and Deity are one process of becomingin the second sense.
with goodness and wisdom,wastoo great not to have broken the barriers 3. Max Scheler’s posthumous manuscripts on “Altern und Tod” (“Aging
of sense and contemplation at the time of human beings’ immaturity. and Death”) are contained in Gesammelte Werke, 12:253-341.
Instead of such childlike and effete self-distancing from God as we see 4. The German wordingretained inthe translation of the last sentenceis
ambiguous. Following what had been said before, its meaning could or should
it in the objectifying and henceevasive relation to God in contemplation,
be that association is a late phenomenon, not an elementary one.
worship, and prayers of supplication, we posit in contrast a basic act of
5. The Germantext reads “Welt” (= world), whichI translate here by “cos-
—
personal readiness to act for the Deity, as well as our selfidentification with mos”to point to “the humanplace in the cosmos.”
its directionsofspiritual acts in any sense of this term.'Theultimate “Be- 6. Concerning “person,” see Max Scheler, Formalismin Ethics and Non-Formal
ing” of whatis through-itself ii s not an object—exactly in the same sense Ethics of Values, trans. ManfredS. Frings and RogerL. Funk (Evanston, IIl.: North-
as a person is not an object! Onecan partake of ultimate Being’s life and western University Press, 1973), section A 3. See also Gesammelte Werke, vol. 11, Bern
spiritualactivity only by co-execution, by the act of our readiness to act and and Munich: Francke Verlag, 1979, and vol. 12, Bonn: Bouvier, 1987, indexes.
by active identification. Absolute Beingis not there to support and com- 7. Concerning “Other Minds,” see Max Scheler, The Nature of Sympathy,
plementus on our weaknesses and needs, all of which acts would require trans. Peter Heath, intro. W. Stark (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1970), part
absolute Being to become an “object.” 3; and Gesammelte Werke, vol. 7, Wesen und Formen der Sympathie, ed. Manfred S.
Still, there is also “support” for us. It is the support offered by the Frings (Bern and Munich: Francke Verlag), 1973, part C.
8. The difference between Scheler’s and Husserl’s “reduction”is that for
entire achievement of the realization of values of past history, insofar as
Scheler the de-realization of the world (“bracketing”) is reached by a psychic
it furthered the becoming of the “Deity” to “God.” We must not demand
technique eliminating “resistance” through which the world is given, whereasit is
that theoretical certainties precede ourreadinessto act. It is this readiness supposedly accomplished by Husserl (according to Scheler) by meansof insuffi-
=
to act on the part of the human being himself that opens up the possibilityfor us to cient “judgmental” procedures or methods. See “Phenomenology” in the “Glos-
also “know” Being of What-Is-Through-Itself. sary of Key Concepts.”
68
NOTES
9. The name “Heyder” could notbe identified.
10. I translate the word “nature” in this sentence as “cosmos.”
11. For details on the forms of being of the “world,” see Max Scheler, “Das
Sein und seine Grundarten,” in Gesammelte Werke, vol. 11, Schriften aus dem Nach- Glossary of Key Concepts
lass: Erkenntnislehre und Metaphysik, ed. Manfred S. Frings (Bern and Munich:
Francke Verlag, 1979), pp. 234-39.
12. The original reads “Welt.” I translate this again as “cosmos” to render
the text consistent withits title.
13. For an elucidation of the points made here, consult p. 161, fn. 1 of Max
Scheler, “The Idea of Eternal Peace and Pacifism,” trans. Manfred Frings, Journal
of the British Society for Phenomenology 7, no. 3 (October 1976). Directing and Steering
“Directing is the primary, steering is the secondary function of the mind.
Directing holds out a value-idea, while steering is the repression orrelease [in-
hibition or de-inhibition] of instinctive impulses whose movements can bring
the idea to a realization” (Gesammelte Werke, vol. 8, Die Wissenformen und die
Gesellschaft, 197).
As an example, we take a windsurfer braving high waves. The section
of the shore to be reached stands for the value-idea, or the goal toward
which the surfer “directs” himself. However, without the waves he cannot
realize his goal, and they are not underhis control. He can succeedorfail to
reach the intended section of the shore, for he can only “steer” himself over
the uncontrollable waves by “reckoning” with them. He could also partially
succeedif he fell into the waves close to the shore. The Coast Guard might
then pick him up and take him to a Red Crossstation far away from his goal.
(See “Functionalization” below.)
Drives
In addition to what Schelersaid in his treatise on the differences between
human and animal drives, two more points should be made.
First, drives have their origin in pure impulsion, where theyare still
undifferentiated from each otherin the pure fluctuation (Wechsel) of impul-
sion’s vital energy. But when they separate, they become “antagonistic” in
that each drive has its unique, subliminal drive-object.
Second, the order of the three main drives, namely, the drives of re-
production, of power, and of nutrition, correspondsin that sequence to the
predominance they have during the three stages of life: youth, middle age,
and old age. In Problems of a Sociology of Knowledge, Scheler states that acts
of humanconsciousnessare, in variable degrees, related to drives that cor-
respond also to three long-lasting eras of history. Hence, thereis a relation
between the three stages of humanlife and threeeras of history:
(1) From the beginning of known history, the predominance of the
reproductive drive in the “life-community” (family units, tribes, clans, races)
was conjoined with its drive-object of seeking “power over other humans.”
(2) Since the thirteenth century, the rise of “society” with its predominant
powerdrive has been conjoined with the drive-object of power over humans
and “powerover things” (beginnings of technology). (3) The third future

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THE HUMAN PLACE

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