12. Philosophy and Theosophy

You see, there was indeed a way to penetrate the depths of the technique of thought. And if this path had been taken further, if we had not allowed ourselves to be caught up in Kant's web of the “thing-in-itself” and the mental image, which is supposed to be subjective, then we would have achieved two things: firstly, we would have arrived at an epistemology that is secure in itself, and secondly - and this is of great importance - we would not have been able to misunderstand so completely those great philosophers in the authoritative circles who worked after Kant. There follows, for example, the trio of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. What are they to people today? They are thought to be philosophers who wanted to spin a world out of purely abstract concepts. That never occurred to them. But they were trapped in Kant's concepts and therefore they could neither philosophically nor objectively understand the world's greatest philosopher. You know, he is the one who spent his youth in the house opposite, as can be seen from the memorial plaque that you can see when you enter the street here: Hegel. Only gradually will you mature to understand what he gave to the world; only then will you be able to understand him, when you come out of the theoretically spun, constricting web of knowledge. And that would be so easy! One would only have to be comfortable with natural, unbiased thinking and free oneself from the habits of thought that have developed in philosophical literature under the influence of the clouded currents of Kantianism. We must be clear about the question: Is it really the case that man starts from the subject, builds his mental image in the subject and then spins this image over the object? Is that really the case? Yes, it is. - But does it necessarily follow that man can never penetrate the thing itself?12. Philosophy and Theosophy