Lecture I

Now the aforesaid characteristic of philosophy is important,—that it works with knowledge faculties which are bound up with the senses, and that it chooses of these the subtlest and the most refined. For, in so far as it employs means that are connected with the personality, philosophy has inevitably a personal character. When, however, man really succeeds in excercising the very subtlest of his knowledge faculties, it becomes possible for him to throw off something of the personal element; and in the degree that he is able to do this, philosophy becomes universal, all-human. One needs to enter very deeply into philosophy to be able to detect its universal character. Its personal character is unfortunately only too obvious. It requires deep penetration to perceive fundamental principles that are common to such apparently different thinkers, for example, as the ancient Greek philosophers Parmenides and Heraclitus. One can however quickly appreciate the difference between these and an unkindly critic like Schopenhauer who approaching merely the external side of philosophy, sees only what splits it up into many different personal standpoints, and does not see the sequence of these personal human standpoints.