III. Thinking as the Instrument of Knowledge

Observation and Thinking are the two points of departure for all the spiritual striving of man, in so far as he is conscious of such striving. The workings of common sense, as well as the most complicated scientific researches, rest on these two fundamental pillars of our Spirit. Philosophers have started from various primary antitheses, Idea and Reality, Subject and Object, Appearance and Thing-in-itself, Ego and Non-Ego, Idea and Will, Concept and Matter, Force and Substance, the Conscious and the Unconscious. It is, however, easy to show that the antithesis of Observation and Thinking must precede all other antitheses, the former being for man the most important.