88. Dr. Heinrich V. Schoeler - Critique of Scientific Knowledge

An unprejudiced view of the world. Leipzig 1898

In 1865, Otto Liebmann demanded in his essay "Kant and the Epigones" that we must return to Kant in philosophy. He saw the salvation of his science in the fulfillment of this demand. In doing so, he was merely expressing the view of the vast majority of philosophers of our time. And many natural scientists, insofar as they are still concerned with philosophical concepts, also see Kant's doctrine as the only possible form of central science. Starting with philosophers and naturalists, this opinion has also penetrated the wider circles of educated people with an interest in philosophy. Kant's view has thus become a driving force in our scientific thinking. Without ever having read a line from Kant or heard a sentence from his teachings, many of our contemporaries view world events in his way. For a century, the proud-sounding word has been uttered again and again: Kant had liberated thinking humanity from the shackles of philosophical dogmatism, which made empty assertions about the essence of things without undertaking a critical investigation into whether the human mind was also capable of making out something absolutely valid about this essence. For many who utter this word, however, the old dogma has been replaced by a new one, namely that of the irrefutable truth of Kant's fundamental views. These can be summarized in the following sentences: A thing can only be perceived by us if it makes an impression on us, exerts an effect. But then it is always only this effect that we perceive, never the thing itself. We cannot form any concept of the latter. The effects of things on us are our perceptions. What we know of the world is therefore not the things, but our ideas of the things. The world given to us is not a world of being, but a world of imagination or appearance. The laws according to which the details of this imaginary world are linked can of course not be the laws of the "things in themselves", but those of our subjective organism. What is to become an appearance for us must obey the laws of our subject. Things can only appear to us in a way that corresponds to our nature. We ourselves prescribe the laws of the world that appears to us - and this alone we know.

What Kant thought he had gained for philosophy with these views becomes clear if we take a look at the scientific currents from which he grew and which he confronted. Before the Kantian reform, the teachings of the Leibniz-Wolff school were the only dominant ones in Germany. The followers of this school wanted to arrive at the fundamental truths about the nature of things by means of purely conceptual thinking. The knowledge gained in this way was regarded as clear and necessary as opposed to that gained through sensory experience, which was seen as confused and random. Only pure concepts were believed to lead to scientific insights into the deeper context of world events, the nature of the soul and God, i.e. to the so-called absolute truths. Kant was also a follower of this school in his pre-critical period. His first writings are entirely in its spirit.

A change in his views occurred when he became acquainted with the explanations of the English philosopher Hume. The latter sought to prove that there was no evidence other than experience. We perceive the sunbeam, and then we notice that the stone on which it falls has warmed up. We perceive this again and again and get used to it. We therefore assume that the connection between the ray of sunlight and the warming of the stone will also manifest itself in the same way in the future. However, this is by no means a certain and necessary realization. Nothing guarantees us that an event which we are accustomed to seeing in a certain way will not take a completely different course at the next opportunity. All propositions in our sciences are only expressions established by habit for frequently noticed connections between things. Therefore, there can be no knowledge about those objects which philosophers strive for. Here we lack experience, which is the only source of our knowledge. About these things man must be content with mere belief. If science wants to deal with them, it degenerates into an empty game of concepts without content. These propositions apply, in the sense of Hume, not only to the last psychological and theological insights, but also to the simplest laws of nature, for example, to the proposition that every effect must have a cause. This judgment, too, is derived only from experience and established by habit. Hume only accepts as absolutely valid and necessary those propositions in which the predicate is basically already included in the subject, as is the case, in his view, with mathematical judgments.

Kant seeks to save absolute knowledge by making it a component of the human mind. Man is organized in such a way that he sees processes in necessary contexts, for example of cause and effect. If they are to appear to man, all things must appear in these contexts. For this reason, however, the whole world of experience is only an appearance, that is, a world that may be as it wishes in itself; for us it appears according to the organization of our mind. We cannot know how it is in itself. Kant sought to save human knowledge from its necessity, its unconditional validity; therefore he gave up its applicability to "things in themselves". H. v. Schoeler stands on Kantian ground. He seeks to prove, with the expenditure of a wealth of knowledge, with a commendable knowledge of the details of the individual sciences, that our knowledge does not reach to the sources of being. Like Kant, he does not seek in knowledge the highest content of man's existence. Kant destroyed knowledge in order to make room for the world that he conjures up from the categorical imperative with the help of faith. Schoeler seeks to show that, independently of all knowledge, goals of existence arise in our souls that make life seem much more worth living than the contemplation of the "crude mechanism of nature" and the "physiological automatism of the body in which our desires are rooted". "The ideality of the emotional life is the saving remedy which preserves our bodily organs from degeneration and keeps our soul healthy and puts it in a position to develop all its powers harmoniously, in the lively activity of which alone, no matter in what field of charitable work, is the purpose of a humane existence. He who has lived the ideals of reason and the cultural aims of humanity has lived for all time; for ability is more important than knowledge - action is the highest." No supporter of the modern scientific world view need contradict this conclusion. For those who understand the modern theory of development, it is a necessary consequence of it. H. v. Schoeler would have found proof of this if he had added to the wealth of knowledge he has acquired the knowledge of my "Philosophy of Freedom" published five years ago. I do not resent him because he has not done so, but I also do not feel obliged to tell him here what he can better read in context in my book.