398

p Was fur eine Philosophic man wählt,
      hängt davon ab,
was für ein Mensch man ist.
          Johann Gottlieb Fichte  [398•* 

p The reader may remember that Eduard Bernstein has awarded Doctor Conrad Schmidt the easy "though not quite pleasant task" of revealing my contradictions and disproving my false philosophical conclusions. Conrad Schmidt attempted to deal with this task in Issue No. 11 of Neue Zeit (1898). Let us see whether his efforts have been crowned with any success.

p Conrad Schmidt’s article falls into three sections: a fairly ironical introduction, a most wrathful conclusion, and the main part. I shall begin from the beginning, i.e., with the ironical introduction.

p My opponent has assumed a stance of surprise, declaring that he fails to understand why I have taken up his articles, the last of which was published over a year ago. Yet, that is quite easy to understand.

p I read his articles as soon as they appeared, finding them extraordinarily weak, and decided that they could not exert the slightest influence. That was why I had not the least desire at the time to enter into a polemic with their author. After all, so many poor articles do appear, to disprove which is not worth the trouble. But last spring, Herr Eduard Bernstein announced urbi et orbi that Conrad Schmidt’s feeble articles had given him an " immediate impetus”. That made me realise the erroneousness of my former opinion about the possible impact the articles in question could have, and saw that disproving them would not mean any labour lost. To subject Conrad Schmidt to criticism means, at the same time, taking a measure of the moral force of Herr Eduard Bernstein who, as is common knowledge, is out to revise the Marxist theory. Guided by such considerations, I wrote an article entitled "Conrad Schmidt Versus Karl Marx and Frederick Engels”. 399 Consequently, that article is not so much lacking in interest as my opponent asserts.

p And now I shall deal with the main section of the esteemed Doctor’s article.

p The best refutation of Kantianism, Engels said, is provided by our daily practical activities, and especially by industry. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating,"  [399•*  he went on to say. Conrad Schmidt has found, not only that Engels’s reasoning is poor but— what is far worse—that he evades any consideration of the matter. In my article, I came out against that opinion, and showed that Conrad Schmidt had been unable to digest Engels’s pudding. I had not the least intention of pleasing my opponent, so it is not surprising that neither in form nor in content did my article meet with his approval. As for the form, I shall deal with that at the end of the present article, and shall dwell on the content forthwith.

p When Marx and Engels said that people’s practical activities daily provide the best refutation of Kantianism, they were emphasising the strange contradiction that underlies the Kantian doctrine. That contradiction consists, on the one hand, in Kant considering a thing-in-itself the cause of our representations, while, on the other, he finds that the category of cause cannot be applied to it. In revealing that contradiction, I incidentally wrote the following:

p “What is a phenomenon? It is a condition of our consciousness evoked by the effect on us of things-in-themselves. That is what Kant says. From this definition, it follows that anticipating a given phenomenon means anticipating the effect that a thing-in-itself will have on us. It may now be asked whether we can anticipate certain phenomena. The answer is: of course, we can. Thisiis guaranteed by science and technology. This, however, can only mean that we can anticipate some effect that the things-in– themselves may have on us. If we can anticipate some effect of the things named, then that means that we are aware of some of their properties. So if we are aware of some of their properties we have no right to call them unknowable. This ’sophistry’ of Kant’s falls to the ground, shattered by the logic of his own doctrine. That is what Engels meant by his ’pudding’. His proof is as clear and irrefutable as that of a mathematical theorem."^^196^^

p First and foremost, Doctor Conrad Schmidt has attempted to disprove this passage in my article.

p “If that were true,” he states with the delicate irony that pervades his article, "things would be in a bad way with the irrefutability of mathematical proof.” He goes on to rebuke me for an impermissible confusion of notions. "What are those things that 400 act on us, and thereby enable us to learn some of Lheir properties?" he asks. "They are things materially determined in time, and space, that is to say, the fundamental definitions and properties of such things are themselves of a purely phenomenalistic character.” Since that is so, it is perfectly natural for our learned Doctor to regard with contempt both Engels’s pudding and the conclusions I have based on that pudding.

p “Consequently, if ’Kant’s invention is shattered by the logic of his own doctrine’—and we shall think so at least until we are provided with other proofs—it is evidently because an alien nonlogic is brought into that logic by means of a play on words (’thing’ and ’thirig-in-itself’)."

p What contempt, and what an annihilating conclusion! The materialists (Marx, Engels and the humble mortal who is writing these lines) are playing with words (and are bringing their own non-logic into the logic of Kantianism}. This can be evidently explained by the materialists—in their capacity of dogmatists and “metaphysicians”—failing to possess the faculties necessary for an understanding of Kant’s doctrine. A "critical thinker" would never, never say what we poor “dogmatic” materialists make so bold to state.

p But... but are you quite sure of what you are saying, most esteemed opponent? Let us consider the question we are concerned with, in the light of the history of philosophy.

p As far back as 1787, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi reproached Kant, in the supplement to his dialogue "Idealismus und Realismus”, with the contradiction I am referring to. Here is what he wrote on the score:

p “I ask how one can combine, first, an assumption of objects which produce impressions on our senses and thus give rise to representations, and, second, a postulate which seeks to destroy any foundation for that assumption? If one takes into consideration ... that space and all things in space, according to the Kantian system, exist nowhere except in ourselves; that all changes and even changes in our own internal condition ... are nothing but forms of our representation, and are indicative of no objective actual change or processes; that such changes are not indicative either of the external or internal sequence of phenomena; if one takes into consideration that all the fundamental laws of the mind are merely the subjective conditions which are the laws of our thinking, not of Nature as such ... if one thoroughly weighs all these propositions, then one is bound to ask: is it possible, side by side with these propositions, to assume the existence of objects which produce impressions on our senses, and thus give rise to representations?"  [400•* 

401

p What you see here, Herr Doktor Schmidt, is that very " nonlogic" which has so greatly displeased you in the writings of the materialists. Does that surprise you? Bear with me a little: you will hear things that are even more surprising.

p As I have already remarked the dialogue "Idealismus und Realismus" came out as far back as 1787. In 1792, Gottlob Ernst Schulze, who was then a professor at Helmstedt, proved, in his book Änesidemus, that Kant and his pupil Reinhold did not themselves realise the conclusions that logically stemmed from their doctrine.

p “A thing-in-itself”, he wrote, "is claimed to be a necessary condition of experience, but, at the same time, it is allegedly quite unknown. But if that is so then we cannot know whether thingsin-themselves exist in reality and whether they can be the cause of anything. Therefore, we have no grounds to consider them conditions of experience. Further, if we assume, together with Kant, that the categories of cause and effect are applicable only to objects of experience, then it cannot be maintained that the action of things that exist outside of our representations yields the content of the latter”,etc.  [401•* 

p Again the same "non-logic! The author of Anesidemus thinks— just as I do today—that, according to Kant, a thing-in-itself is the cause of our representations. We both have one and the same point of departure, the difference being that G. E. Schulze makes use of Kant’s inconsistency so as to arrive at sceptical conclusions while my own conclusions are of a materialist character. The distinction is no doubt a great one, but it does not interest us here, where we are speaking only of an understanding of Kant’s doctrine of a thing-in-itself.

p It was not only Schulze and Jacobi who understood Kant in this fashion at the time.

p Five years after the publication of Anesidemus, Fichte wrote that the Konigsberg philosopher was understood in that sense by all the Kantians ... with the exception of Beck. Fichte went on to rebuke the popularisers of Kant for that very contradiction on which Engels based his refutation of critical philosophy. "Your globe rests on an elephant, and the elephant stands on the globe. Your thing-in-itself, which is a mere thought, is supposed to act on the subject."  [401•**  Fichte was firmly convinced that the "Kantianism of the Kantians”, which he considered nothing else but an adventurist blend of the grossest dogmatism and forthright idealism, could 402 not have been the Kantianism of Kant himself. He asserted that the real meaning of the Kantianism was expressed in the Wissenschaftslehre. Do you know what took place after that, Heir Doktor?

p In his well-known "Erklarung in Beziehung auf Fichtes ’ Wissenschaftslehre”’, Kant did not at all live up to the great idealist’s expectations. He wrote (in 1799) that he considered Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre a totally groundless system, and rejected any solidarity with that philosophy. In the same Erklarung, Kant said that his Critique of Pure Reason should be understood literally (nach dem Buchstaben zu verstehen), and quoted the Italian proverb: "Heaven save us from our friends; we shall cope with our enemies ourselves”. In a letter to Tieftrunk which he wrote at the time, Kant expressed his thought even more clearly. Lack of time had prevented him from reading through Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre, but he was able to read a review of the book " written”, Kant added, "with a great deal of warmth for Herr Fichte”, and he found that the latter’s philosophy resembled a spectre. At the moment you think you have been able to lay your hands on it, you discover you have grabbed nothing but your own self, with that self possessing nothing except the hands stretched out for the capture.  [402•* 

p Thus, the question was settled once and for all and with no ambiguity. Kant showed that the "Kantianism of the Kantians" coincided with his own “Kantianism”. This was clear but it did not rid Kantianism of the contradiction indicated by Jacobi, Schulze and Fichte, and criticised by them. On the contrary, the explanation given by Kant in 1799 bore out the existence of that contradiction.

p Conrad Schmidt thinks that my understanding of Kant’s doctrine does not resemble the way_tit is understood by all the historians of philosophy. Even if that were so, that would not disturb me in the least. The indisputable historical facts I have quoted above fully bear out the correctness of my understanding of Kant. Were the historians of philosophy to disapprove of that understanding, I would have every right to say: so much the worse for the historians of philosophy. But Doctor Schmidt is mistaken in this respect just as badly as he is in everything, throughout his article.

p Indeed, listen to what has been said on this score by Friedrich Ueberweg, for instance. In the opinion of this historian of philosophy, one of Kant’s contradictions is that "things-in-themselves, on the one hand, are supposed to affect us, which involves time and causality; on the other hand, Kant recognises time and 403 causality as a priori forms only within the world of phenomena, but not beyond it".  [403•* 

p Have I not said the same thing?

p Now let us see what Ed.Zeller has to say.|"W^^7^^e must’of course,” he writes, "assume that a reality distinct from our subject corresponds to our sensations. Kant tries to show that in the second edition of his Critique of Pure Reason, in his struggle against Berkeley’s idealism.” Ed. Zeller is not satisfied with Kant’s arguments against Berkeley but that does not prevent him from understanding the real meaning of the Kantian doctrine, and saying: "Kant always asserted that our sensations are not merely a product of the thinking subject but refer to things that exist independently of our representation."  [403•**  In his criticism of Kant’s philosophy Zeller, incidentally, says the following: "If he" (Kant) "accepted the concept of causality as a category of our intellect, a category which, as such, is applicable only to phenomena, he should not have applied it to the thing-in-itself; in other words, he should not have considered the thing-in-itself the cause of our representations."  [403•*** 

p Here we see the same understanding of Kant that Engels held and which I hold. Had Doctor Conrad Schmidt learnt it, he would, of course, never have declared that it was contradicted by all the historians of philosophy.

p Erdmann, too, for whom a thing-in-itself was merely an ultimate concept was obliged to acknowledge that Kant’s thing– in-itself is a “condition” of phenomena that is "independent of us". But if that thing-in-itself is a condition of a phenomenon, then the latter is conditioned by it, and we again have the contradiction that came in for so much discussion by people of understanding throughout the nineteenth century, a contradiction that only the profoundly penetrative mind of our doctor irrefragabilis could have failed to notice.

p I am, of course, well aware that some historians of philosophy turn Kantianism into idealism pure and simple. But some does not mean all, in the first place; secondly, if Doctor Schmidt is in agreement with these historians, he should try to prove to us that they are right. He has chosen an easier path by limiting himself to calling the interpretation of Kantianism held by Marx and Engels an absurd invention of ignoramuses.

p We have seen that, according to Conrad Schmidt, it is not things-in-themselves that affect us, but things that are determined in time and space. Iwould’not set about disputing that were my opponent to say that such is the actual meaning of his own 404 philosophy. However, he claims that such is the meaning of Kant’s philosophy, and that is something to which I must object most emphatically.

p I would ask Conrad Schmidt to open Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der Naturwissenschaft and read, in the second main section, the second note to the fourth theorem. In this passage, Kant sets forth the view of a certain geometrician, which he fully shares; it consists in the following: "Space is in no way a property inherent as such in any thing, outside us; it is merely the subjective form of our sensual perception, a form in which the objects of our external senses appear to us; we do not know those objects as they are in themselves, but we call their appearance matter...."  [404•* 

p What is referred to here—things-in-themselves, or things determined in space and in time? Obviously, things-in-themselves. And what does our Kant say about these things? He says that we do not know what they are in themselves, and that they appear to us only in the subjective form of space. What is needed for them to appear? They must affect our senses. "The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are affected by the said object, is sensation."  [404•**  Conrad Schmidt may again try to salvage the position he holds and to convince us that Kant is speaking here of things that are determined in space and time, i.e., phenomena, which, as stated in the Critique of Pure Reason, "exist, not by themselves, but only in us." To preclude all such attempts, I shall cite another passage in the Critique of Pure Reason, which reads: "Because we have to deal only with our representations; what things-in-themselves are (irrespective of the representations through which they affect us) is something quite outside the sphere of our cognition."  [404•*** 

p This, I think, is clear enough: things-in-themselves affect us through the representations they give rise to.

p Conrad Schmidt speaks, in his article, of "comical misunderstandings".He is perfectly right, only he has forgotten to add that all these misunderstandings are of his own making.

p Conrad Schmidt assures us that the passage I quoted from Prolegomena bears out my proposition only at first glance, and only because it has been "torn out of the general context”. That is not true, and I leave it to the reader to judge for himself: "Things are given as existing outside of us, but we do not know what they are in themselves....” What things does this refer to? Things-in-themselves. That is clear, but let us see what comes 405 next: "But we know only their appearances.” Appearances of what? Of things already determined in space, time and so on, or of thingsin-themselves? What a strange question. Who will fail to see that Kant is speaking here of things-in-themselves? But let us proceed: "These are representations which are caused by the effect of things on us.” What things cause representations in us? Things-in– themselves, of which we cannot know anything. But in what way do these things evoke representations in us? "Through their affecting our sensual perception.” The conclusion is: things-in-themselves affect our sensual perceptivity.How many doctoral mortarboards must be worn out to become so incapable of understanding “things” that are so clear "in themselves"?

p As for the “link” between the passage I have quoted and the general context, I would ask the reader to judge for himself after reading the first paragraph of Prolegomena, particularly the second note to that paragraph. Besides, I would draw the reader’s attention to Paragraph 36 in the same book, where we read the following: "In the first place: how is Nature in the material sense, i.e., in contemplation, as the essence of phenomena—how are space, time and what fills them both; how is the object of perception at all possible? The answer is: thanks to our senses which, in keeping with their specific nature, receive impressions from objects which are unknown by themselves and are quite distinct from those phenomena.” Now tell us, Doctor Schmidt, what objects affect our senses?

p My opponent asserts that, in my articles, I treat him almost as though he were a schoolboy; speaking for myself, I have not the least desire to act the schoolmaster towards him, yet I cannot refrain from offering him some good advice. Mein theurer Freund, ich rath’ euch drum zuerst Collegium logicum.  [405•* 

p But let us hark back to Kant. "His assumption of the existence of the thing-in-itself—though he hedged it about with various reservations—is based on a deduction from the law of causality, i.e., on empirical contemplation, or, more precisely, the sensation in our organs of sense which it derives from, having to possess an external cause. But, according to his own and quite correct discovery, the law of causality is known to us a priori, i.e., it is a function of our intellect, and consequently is subjective in origin”. The “non-logic” in these lines belongs to Arthur Schopenhauer;  [405•**  that “non-logic” is so strong that our Doctor’s feeble 406 “logic” smashes against it like a bottle against a stone. Whatever Doctor Conrad Schmidt and his ilk may say, there can be no doubt that a strange contradiction underlies the Kantian system. But a contradiction cannot serve as a foundation; it is indicative only of groundlessness. Consequently, the contradiction must be eliminated. How is that to be done?

p For that, there are two roads: one of them consists in development towards subjective idealism, the other in development towards materialism. Which road is the right one? That is the gist of the matter.

p According to subjective idealism—for example, that of Fichte— a thing-in-itself is located within the / (das im ich gesetzte).

p Consequently, we have to deal only with consciousness. That is what Fichte says frequently and unambiguously: any being, that of the /, just as that of the not-I, is merely a certain modification of consciousness. But if that is so, if "genuine and real being is that of the spirit" as is asserted by the same Fichte, then we arrive at strange and unexpected conclusions. Indeed, I shall be obliged to acknowledge, in that case, that all the people who seem to me existent outside of my / are only modifications of my consciousness. Heine once wrote of several Berlin ladies who indignantly asked whether the author of Wissenschaftslehre recognised at least the existence of his own wife. This jest, which contains a true thought, reveals the Achilles’ heel of subjective idealism. At any rate, Fichte himself sensed this and endeavoured, as much as he could, to eliminate this weak point in his system. He explained that his / was not an individual but a World /, an Absolute /. "It is clear that my Absolute / is not an individual,” he wrote to Jacobi, "in the sense that I have been interpreted by offended courtiers and importunate philosophers, so as to impute to me the shameful doctrine of practical egoism. But the individual must be deduced from the Absolute /. My Wissenschaftslehre will deal with that in the doctrine of natural law.” However, we meet, in his natural law, arguments only such as the following: "A rational being cannot posit itself to possess consciousness of self as such, without considering itself an individual among other rational beings existing outside of him.” This is a very feeble " deduction". The entire force of the proof rests on the emphasis placed on the word individual.  A rational being cannot see itself as such without being aware at the same time of the not-I in general, i.e., of people and things.  Is this proof of the existence of things outside the consciousness of this rational being? It is not. Consequently, neither is it proof of the existence of other individuals.

p Instead of “deducing” (deduzieren) the existence of people, Fichte makes their being a moral postulate. But that means bypassing the obstacle, not surmounting it.Until we have surmounted it, 407 we have not got rid of the absurdities to which any philosophical system must lead, which denies the existence of things outside of us and their effect on our external senses. If the existence of other individuals is only in the spirit, then my mother is merely a phenomenon, and, as a phenomenon, she exists only in me.  [407•*  Consequently, to say that I am born of woman is absurd. It is with just as little confidence that I can say that I shall die sooner or later. I know only that other people die, but since they are nothing but representations, I have no right to assert that I am just as mortal as they are; in this case, a logical conclusion on the basis of analogy is not valid.

p One can easily realise the bewildering maze of absurdities we shall enter should we begin to consider and study the history of mankind and our Universe from the viewpoint of idealism.

Thus, the development from Kantianism towards idealism, though it does eliminate the contradiction underlying the Kantian system, leads to most patent and ridiculous absurdities.