Critique of the philosophy of Hartmann (1)

1. Introduction

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You begin, Mr. von Hartmann, your work: “The Philosophy of Unconscious” (Berlin 1871, 3th edition) with the words of Kant:

Having representations and not being conscious of them, there seems to lie a contradiction in that; for how could we know, that we have them, if we are not conscious of them? – Nevertheless we can become mediately conscious of it, that we have a representation, although we are not immediately conscious of it.

Kant expresses here a truth which is undeniable. It is however only a truth in relation with the whole § 5 of Anthropology. What kind of unconscious ideas is Kant thinking of?

When I am conscious of seeing a human although I am not conscious of seeing his eyes, nose, mouth etc., then I am actually only concluding, that this thing is a human; for if I would therefore want to assert, because I am not conscious of it, that I do not perceive this part of the head (and therefore also the other parts of this human), then I could also not say, that I see a human, for he (the human or his head) is composed of such partial-representations.

Kant calls such representations unclear, dark representations and says,

that the amount of dark representations in humans (and therefore also in animals) are uncountable, the clear ones on the other hand only infinitely little points of our sensible perception and sensation which lie openly in the consciousness.

Was it, Mr. von Hartmann, philosophical fairness to only superficially touch upon this statement of Kant?

What is an “unconscious representation” at all? In the artificial language of philosophers these words express a contradictio in adjecto ; but normal people would say: an unconscious representation is the same as what gold of silver is. With one word: we stand before an expression which could perhaps be the finishing stone of a pyramid, but may never be its groundwork. But you seem to be very spirited. Supported by this sentence of Kant ripped out of its context you say already on the fourth page of your book:

I designate the united unconscious will and the unconscious representation the expression: “the Unconscious.”

Was this philosophical fairness, Mr. von Hartmann? Please do not misunderstand me. I strictly distinguish philosophical fairness from civic fairness. I am firmly convinced that you are not capable of disadvantaging your fellow men for one mark, or a million mark. I hold you to be good and just in civic matters: already because you are a pessimist, i.e. a disciple of Zoroaster, the ancient Brahmins, Buddha, Christ, Salomon, Schopenhauer, whose ethics rely on pessimism; but in philosophical matters a bandage lies before your eyes and you cannot distinguish sober from what is not. In your defense I want to assume that an “unconscious will” (not “unconscious representation” which I unconditionally have to reject) has produced your manner of action, although it has been hard for me to assume this, for Christ says very rightly:

If I had not come and spoken to you, you wouldn’t be guilty of sin; but now, you have no excuse for your sin. (John 15, 22.)

But what Christ was for the Jews, Kant and Schopenhauer were for you, Mr. von Hartmann. You know the Critique of pure Reason and have also certainly read Schopenhauer’s utterance multiple times that it is unfair, if one does not begin a philosophical system with a research of the cognition. You have been warned through praiseworthy mouths; two great men have preceded you and they shouted to you: “If you begin your work with the world taken to be real, then you are a dishonest philosopher, which we can and will not accept in our sober community.”

You can therefore have no excuse for your sin.

Nevertheless I am ready, as I said, to assume that you have sinned “unconsciously”. –

You know that Herbart’s Psychology (his best work) is in essence the execution of the by you cited remark of Kant. Herbart separated as it were the human mind in a small illuminated cabinet in a great dark vestibule. The illuminated cabinet is the consciousness, the dark vestibule the unconscious. Our representations, thoughts etc. continuously stream from the cabinet into the vestibule and from the vestibule to the cabinet. Tumult and struggle always reign on the doorstep of consciousness (Herbart has beautifully painted this struggle). Whenever a representation steps over the doorstep and flies into the cabinet it becomes a conscious, and in the other case, a dark invisible representation.

I may stop here with this reference to Herbart. But I won’t do this because due Schopenhauer the unconscious will has become a much deeper problem. In the current situation of critical philosophy it is no longer about representations, which are generated in the consciousness and then absorbed in the flood of the mind, where they are sometimes here or there, but mainly about such products of the intellectual activity which suddenly stand in the light of consciousness without knowing how they have emerged: they are for the consciousness completely new representations, thoughts, feelings. I will therefore not make a small psychological excursion with you, and continue with the middle of your book, where you have dealt with the cognition, after you have already put your readers under narcosis with an abundance of scientific results. That too, Mr. von Hartmann, was not fair; but here too, do not reproach me, that I have to accuse you, on the fourth page of your book, already of a third “unconscious” unfairness.

According to the Schopenhaurian teaching human a composition of a metaphysical unconscious will with a secondary conscious intellect. I have already emphasized that the separation of the mind, resp. the consciousness of the will from the primary, the primordial principle, has been an immortal deed of Schopenhauer, which you, Mr. von Hartmann can certainly not banish from the world with your sophisms and confusions. The will is since Schopenhauer no longer a physical principle, and for every reasonable one the issue, whether the will is a function of the mind or not, is solved for all times. You have nevertheless had the courage to assert:

Will and representation are the sole psychical fundamental functions.

Like how the critical philosophy has made for once and for all the world into appearance, which is not identical with the ground of appearance, so has the by Schopenhauer founded true thing-in-itself-philosophy made the will the sole principle in the world, and indeed a not-physical principle. You and a whole legion of similar will never succeed in snatching this invaluable achievement on the domain of thing-in-itself of us, true disciples of the great master.

The human brain is an organ of this will, which is in blood alone, in this “very special liquid”, purely objectified.

The blood galvanizes the brain this galvanization brings forth consciousness. Consciousness is merely an appearance, which accompanies the functions of the brain: representing, thinking and feeling, and indeed only one action of it occurs in a single moment in the center of the consciousness. The consciousness is as little separable from these activities of the brain as scent from an aromatic flower, heat from fire, and Locke was absolutely right, when he said:

Having representations and being conscious of something, is one and the same thing.

If they say the man thinks always, but is not always conscious of it, they may as well say his body is extended without having parts. For it is altogether as intelligible to say that a body is extended without parts, as that anything thinks without being conscious of it, or perceiving that it does so. They who talk thus may, with as much reason, if it be necessary to their hypothesis, say that a man is always hungry, but that he does not always feel it ;

(On human Understanding II. Cap. I. §. 9 & 19)

which are completely right assertions of the great thinker which you criticize in the most shallow manner.

So how do you, Mr. von Hartmann, let consciousness arise?

In order to answer this question I have to move a few fundaments of your system in the spotlights.

As I showed above, you initially distinguish:

1. an unconscious will;
2. an unconscious representation.

Naturally, they are joined by

3. a conscious will (will-power);

4. a conscious representation.

These principles are joined by

5. the human body, i.e. matter.

Matter is also dissolved in unconscious will and unconscious representation by you; meanwhile matter appears completely independent juxtaposed towards the psyche. It is not for you, Mr. von Hartmann, that Kant has lived, it is not for that that Schopenhauer has studied. You bold romantic want to bring us back to the infertile ground of the pre-Kantian rational psychology. We thank you for your “stagnant cabbage”. (David Strauß.)

After having accomplished in an unbelievable blindness this masterwork, making matter again the opposite of mind, thinking substance, psyche, you make the consciousness in humans arise on the following spirited manner:

We hold onto “will and representation” as the unconsciously and consciously common, place the form of unconscious as the original, and the consciousness however as a product of the unconscious mind and the material impact on it. (402)

We have found, that consciousness must be a predicate, which the will grants the representation; now we can also state the content of this predicate: it is the stupefaction of the will about the not be him wanted and nevertheless existence of the sensible representation. (404)

Then suddenly the organized matter disturbs this peace with itself and grants the astonished individualist a representation, which falls for him out of heaven, for he finds no will in himself for this representation: for the first time the “content of the perception is given from outside”. The great revolution has happened, the first (??) step to world salvation has been made, the representation has been torn (!!) from the will, in order to oppose it in the future as independent might (!!), in order to submit it (!!) whose slave he was until now. This nozzle of the will for the rebellion against his until now accepted domination, this sensation which the intruder of representation makes in the unconsciousness, is the consciousness. (405)

It has been assured to me from reliable sources, that you, just like Schiller with his “The Robbers”, consider to be a great sin of the youth. You would perhaps give you right hand, yes both hands for it, if your work had not yet appeared. Obviously, if you would still have to write your work, you would use a lot of what can be found in your book: these three passages however would certainly not be part of it.

A very great merit of Schopenhauer is that he made the body identical with the will. The body is only the will gone through the subjective forms of perception. Schopenhauer nevertheless does not establish this in a sufficient manner, because he did not made matter completely ideal (lying in the human head only). His explanation: the body is appearance of the will, is therefore a veritably true judgement without stating grounds. I have established the pure ideality of matter in my main work, and thereby nullified the dichotomy between thinking and expanded substance, which had tormented philosophy before Kant so much.

Although I have follow the correct path of Kant and Schopenhauer thus far, I nevertheless absolutely have to reject the other path of Schopenhauer, where he made intellect the opposite of the will. I have proven that the intellect can never come in an antagonistic relation towards the individual will, which is lord and master and the sole principle of the world. The intellect is the function of an out of the will forward coming organ. Like how the stomach cannot become hostile towards the will, the brain cannot rebel against the will. If the will struggles with the intellect, then the intellect which reproaches the will etc., it is always the will which struggles with itself, reproaches itself. On the other hand you continue forward on the false path of Schopenhauer, because you, as romantic, have a sympathie de cœur (sympathy of the heart) with everything metaphysical, hyperphysical, transcendent, extrasensory and nonsensical, so also with the errors of Schopenhauer, whereas only a sympathie d’épiderme (sympathy of the epidermis) exists between you with everything immanent, rational, natural, so the achievements of the Schopenhauerian philosophy. On this false course you came to the abyss, have fallen into it, and have broken your spine and talent. You have become an intellectual invalid. Do not think, that I experience malicious joy. This devilish feeling is unknown to me at all. I say this much more with melancholy; for nature has put a good pound in your cradle, with which you could have achieved great things. You have however followed the cockiness of the youth.

And now I will specially explain for you, how the consciousness arises and will show you, what is to be understood under unconscious representation, and indeed in a manner, which a child can understand.

The human individual will to live (so not the [conscious] will-choice), the demon, or expressed in objectified manner: the blood, is unconscious. The mind, the psyche, or expressed in objectified manner: the brain, is conscious. The brain is like the stomach, the genitals, the hands, the feet etc. organ of this unconscious demon. Just like how the gastric juice has a completely determined nature, like how the grabbing of an object with the hand has a completely determined manner, a way and manner which are inseparable as hardness is from granite, so intimately is consciousness connected with the activities of the brain, which we call thinking, feeling, representing. Consciousness arises at the same time as thinking, representing, feeling, due the contact of blood with the brain, just like how digesting arises through the secretion of the gastric juices due contact of the blood with the stomach.

The brain is galvanized by the blood and simultaneously with this contact consciousness is given. Like how sparks arise, if one hits steel on flint, consciousness arises when the demons galvanizes the mind. And if the blood falls more or less backwards, then the consciousness becomes fainter, weaker.

Not against an intruder, as you say, against matter does the unconsciousness stand up, the demon wants to recognize, think, represent, feel, and therefore it has “sent his only-begotten Son”, the mind, and therefore it thinks, represents, feels in his organ. Of an antagonism, a struggle, a liberation of the intellect from the will, of the intellect as an independent might can only be spoken in a madhouse, not among reasonable people.

The function of the brain is not unitary but manifold. The mind thinks, visualizes [perceives], feels, and the brain does as such indeed not rest: also in sleep, blackouts and anesthesia it is active. But the center of consciousness is always one, and man can only be only clearly conscious of that, which stands in the light of this one center. I still want to specify this relation more sharply. Consciousness simply arises due to contact of the blood with the brain. We may however not represent it to ourselves as the image of a point, but must think of it as having expansion, and it is indeed best comparable to the retina. Like how the retina, as expanded organ, sees a the whole figure of a before me standing tree, but nevertheless sees only those parts of the tree clearly, which fall in its center, I can simultaneously represent, think and feel, but can exercise only of these functions clearly in a given moment. In the case: you look at the street, prick at the same time a needle in your hand, and simultaneously think of a friend. The people, buildings, horses etc. which you see, the pain you feel, what you think about, these are products of three completely different functions of the brain and you have them in your consciousness simultaneously. But do you have all these products in clear consciousness? Certainly not. If you make an attempt to do so, you will find that your mind always drives these products as it were through the center of your consciousness and is only clearly conscious of that which stands now in the bright center. This relation presents itself clearly, when a thought or a feeling or a representation is very powerful: then a feeling continues to stand in this point, and we cannot clearly think nor clearly represent.

This center of the consciousness is now the I, which is in animals the felt I, in humans the thought I or self-consciousness. Its forms is the present, an aprioric form. The self-consciousness stands and falls with thinking, the self-feeling of animals with feeling and the I is always necessarily contained in these function even though sometimes shrouded. Therefore feeling and thinking are immediately given with the consciousness, whereas this is not the case with representing. The representation in itself is an unconscious work of the mind and we become only mediately conscious of it, namely when we connect it with the I. But since we do in this connection actually what we call representing, these functions of the mind stand nevertheless on the same height.

The unconscious function of our mind is fundamentally different from clearly representing and representing unclearly etc.

For example, if we are sunk in the deepest aesthetic contemplation, then in this moment, only the percepted image, the statue, the landscape, the point of consciousness. The other activities of the mind, which we call in the light of consciousness thinking and feeling, are meanwhile not in rest, but we may not call them: unconsciously feeling and thinking, because thinking, feeling and representing are inseparably connected with the consciousness, like heat with fire. What these functions are in themselves, independent from consciousness, that I leave undiscussed for now. I only note that this is not about a word game, not about the separation of identical concepts. The problem is exactly the same as the difference between object and thing-in-itself, appearance and ground of appearance: both problems cover each other. For now I merely note that there’s only a conscious thinking, feeling and representing, but that the mind also functions without consciousness. If we wake up, if the contemplation stops due a disturbance, then suddenly thoughts which did not have at that moment can suddenly fill the point of consciousness, i.e. we suddenly become conscious of the product of an unconscious function of the brain, since our thinking power was not partying at that moment, but their products could not be pushed to the point of consciousness, where they would become thoughts, because the point was occupied by a mightier representation. Already Schopenhauer mixed the unconscious functions of the brain with the conscious functions (thinking, feeling, representing) and the unconscious products with the conscious products (thoughts, feelings, representations), which must most strictly be separated, if we don’t want hopeless confusion, as his whole philosophy aptly proves. Schopenhauer says:

Let us compare our consciousness to a sheet of water of some depth. Then the distinctly conscious thoughts are merely the surface ; while, on the other hand, the indistinct thoughts, the feelings, the after sensation of perceptions and of experience generally, mingled with the special disposition of our own will, which is the kernel of our being, is the mass of the water. The whole process of our thought and purpose seldom lies on the surface, that is, consists in a combination of distinctly thought judgments ; although we strive against this in order that we may be able to explain our thought to ourselves and others. But ordinarily it is in the obscure depths of the mind that the rumination of the materials received from without takes place, through which they are worked up into thoughts (?) ; and it goes on almost as unconsciously as the conversion of nourishment into the humours and substance of the body. (WWV 2, On the association of thoughts)

During sleep, sleep, blackouts, intoxication, anesthesia, ecstasy, consciousness is always present, for blood can leave the brain only with the death of the individual. The blood galvanizes the brain as long as the human lives in general, but the way and manner of galvanizing are differences and consciousness has therefore grades.

In all mentioned states of man the sensory activity is more or less completely hamstrung. The outer world does therefore not occupy the point of consciousness, and now the self-consciousness mirrors the inner state with exceeding clarity (this is the case with anesthesia) or it is filled with wandering dream-images. Human always dreams during sleep, because no organ of the body can ever be absolutely inactive (the outer motion, changing places, is a total side-matter; for example when the arms are motionless during sleep; then they are not motionless internally). The consciousness can never dissolve during life, only in death. But when we are awake we are only seldom conscious of the activity of the brain. That we also have consciousness in numbed states follows already from the fact that we can remember ourselves of many dreams. Can we remember a moment in us, where we were during its course not conscious of something?

You see, Mr. von Hartmann, the demon is and remains always lord and master, a rebellion of the organs cannot take place. During cramps or diseases the demon merely wants to maintain power in his own house against strange disturbances: in his state there are only absolutely obedient slaves in which the mere thought or insurgency is a pure impossibility.

In humans there are thus

1. unconscious functions of the brain, which one may not call unconscious thinking, unconscious feeling, unconscious representing;
2. unconscious products of these activities, which one may not call unconscious thoughts, unconscious feelings, unconscious representations,
3. conscious functions of the brain, called simply: representing, feeling, thinking;
4. conscious products of these conscious functions, called simply: representations, feelings, thoughts.

Furthermore: the conscious functions and their products stand and fall with the brain, because it’s with them that consciously is inseparably tied. But also the unconscious activities of the mind and its products stand and fall with the brain. If one assumes, as you have recklessly and thoughtlessly done, that the ganglia, the plants, yes even the inorganic bodies have representations, then one may just as well teach: the ganglia, the hands, the brain, the eyes etc. digest. Only the brain showed you the activity of representing. You generalized however the activity of a single organ. i.e. you detached representing from the brain and passed it not only onto all organs of the body, but also on everything in nature, also on trees and bricks. Such a treatment certainly demands no characterization: it judges itself.

Self-consciousness – I repeat it – is the spark of the demon with the mind, the blood with the brain, the heart with the head, as Buddha already taught rightly: He says:

The heart is the seat of thought. The heart may be said to feel the thought, to bear or support it, and to throw it out and cast it off. It is the cause of mano-winyána, or mind-consciousness. M. o. B. page 402

So already 2500 years ago it was taught, what you experience now through me. But Buddha was Buddha and you are – Mr. von Hartmann.

You have not recognized the unconsciousness better than the immortal genius master, Schopenhauer, who was the first to take a scientific and earnest close look at the unconsciousness, but have made it into something, upon which the Truth will not stamp its seal. You have watered down everything what Schopenhauer has said about it, and have dumped the dull foam of your thoughtlessness on it. Before I will closely investigate this dull foam, I want to show in what manner I have established the unconsciousness, which Schopenhauer bequeathed his successors, further.

I have proven, that not consciousness, but motion alone, is essential to the individual will, the single principle in the world. This is its sole true predicate. The first blind unconscious motion, which the individual had, happened with the decomposition of an unfathomable, pre-worldly basic unity. In its motion urge to goal and goal lied connected inseparably. There can be no talk of a representation of the goal in the first individuals. Its first impulse was everything. This impulse lives forth today (albeit modified by everything, which has flown into individual since the beginning of the world until this moment) in the unconscious demon of every human. Therefore the infallibility, the certainty of the pure demon, resp. the pure instinct in animal, the plant urges and the urge towards an ideal center of towards all sides in the inorganic regnum. Everything in the consciousness of man works together with this infallible blind urge. The demon has merely created itself a brain, a thinking, feeling or perceiving organ, has born it from himself, because he wanted a faster, better movement to the goal, which he wants without that a representation lies in him. The human movement is always and always, from the standpoint of single moments and the whole life course, a resulting one and always the best one for the individual as well as for the universe, even if a human must wander because of her/his deeds in prison. There is, Mr. von Hartmann – please note this – no antagonism but always only cooperation, even if a deed is preceded by a conflict of motives in the mind.

In the Metaphysics I eventually revealed this demon as will to die. Will to die is in the light of the unconscious, and indeed of the individual unconscious, not your dreamed, imaginary All-Unitary unconscious. The unconscious individual demon and the conscious mind strive after absolute death, they cooperate in this striving, support and help each other, and will also reach in every human, quickly or slowly, their goal. I furthermore showed, why man is on the surface will to live, by showing that the will wants life as method to die (continuous weakening of the force).

This is the true unconscious, the veritable harmony in the universe, despite the noise of battle, the complaining and whimpering, despite the conflicts one and the same breast, despite the hungriness and thirst after life, from which the struggle for existence arises. In the world there are only individuals. Their origin from a basic unity encompasses them however like a bond (dynamical interrelation of the things). This unity wanted non-existence this is why everything in the world and the individual colludes after non-existence. In the world antagonism reigns with the general goal because it can only be reached by struggle, weakening of force and attrition; in the individual reigns however no antagonism, but harmonic cooperation.