IV.

In the foregoing chapters we have represented Philosophy as the descendant of Religion and like it, though somewhat more respectable, as a fantastic speculator. To “ solve the riddle of existence” – is the subject-matter of those two madcaps.

The philosophers give their subject-matter various pompous titles. We have already seen that Herr von Kirchmann calls it “the science of the highest conceptions of existence and knowledge.” The famous Kant defines it as “God, Freedom and Immortality.” In more recent times D�hring defined it as “the development of the highest form of consciousness of the world and life” (Kursus der Philosophie von Dr. E. D�hring, Leipzig 1875, p.2). “Highest form of consciousness” is scientific knowledge, and the “evolution” thereof is performed by researches. According to that we ought to define Philosophy as the scientific exploration of the world and life.

But if one speaks in such a common-sense way the faculty of Philosophy loses its halo, moreover it becomes quite superfluous, for such an investigation is carried on successfully by the special branches of science. It seems that D�hring felt the uselessness of his philosophic guild, for he ascribes to it also the function of “practical activity.” Philosophy has thus not only the task to conceive world and life in a scientific manner, but to demonstrate that conception through the character and actions of its adherents. That way leads to Social-Democracy. Having advanced so far, the philosopher may, perhaps, get a deeper insight into things and do away with Philosophy altogether. To be sure no man can do without some conception of world and life, but that of Philosophy is of a kind which is utterly useless. Its wisdom is an intermediate stage between religion and science. The creation story of the Holy Books is too childish for the philosopher, and the airy, fact-removed and purely mind-born philosophical somersaults are too fantastic for science. We said before the method is the distinguishing feature between religion, philosophy and science. All three look for wisdom. The method of religion is to look for wisdom on the Mount Sinai behind clouds or among ghosts. Philosophy applies itself to the human mind, but as long as the mind itself is befogged by religious mists, it asks and functions in a perverted manner, that is, with out real premises, in a speculative way or in hazy generalities. The method of exact science operates with the material of the perceptible world of phenomena. As soon as we learn to know that method as the only rational one of the intellect, all fantasms are at an end.

If this disquisition happens to come under the eye of a professional philosopher he will surely sneer at it, and if he condescends to reply to it he will try to explain that the men of the special sciences are uncritical materialists who accept the perceptible world of experience without further examination into its truth. And as to his operating without any real premises he will refer you to the many pranks and delusions of the senses which lead us often into errors. Therefore he asks: What is truth and how do we arrive at it?

Right he is. Truth is a great question. It is, especially for Social-Democrats, an interesting question. In the domain of natural science all ghost-seeing has been removed by a rational method. But in social life, where we have to deal with masters and servants, with labor and its produce, with right, duty, law, morality and order, there the parson and the professor of Philosophy are still regarded as authorities and each of them has his special method to mask truth. Religion and Philosophy, once harmless errors, have now been turned into crafty tricks to bamboozle the people and to serve the interests of reaction.

From the lesson given in the preceding article by Professor Biedermann we have learned that it is futile to put any question in an indefinite and hazy manner. In this respect Philosophy has put itself in opposition to sound common sense. For it does not seek, like the special branches of science, for definite empirical truths, but it seeks, like religion, for an extraordinary sort of truth, for an absolute, unreal and exaggerated one. What everybody thinks to be true, what we see, hear, feel, taste and smell, in short, our bodily sensations, do not commend themselves to Philosophy as sufficiently true. Natural phenomena are in its eyes only appearances or semblances, and she refuses to have anything to do with them. That Philosophy treats Nature with disdain, it dare not admit, because natural science has gained in the last hundred years a reputation which cannot be gainsaid. It is none the less certain that Philosophy seeks for a truth which is not to be found in Nature. Philosophic truth that can nowhere be traced must surely have an aroma of its own, and belong to a species totally different from the natural. It is just that the philosopher labors under religious delusions and wants to go beyond all natural phenomena and looks behind this world of phenomena for another world of truth by which the first could be explained – because of all that, I say, he has taken refuge in a method without any really given premises, which tries to weave thoughts into definite materials, or, in other words, blunders about in hazy generalities. Descartes is supposed to have discovered a tiny bit of that transcendental truth; it is at least that bit on which Philosophy has been living ever since. The parson’s truth, the passive belief, which was then current, did not satisfy the philosopher. He began to make enquiries with the doubt which he exercised to such a degree that he doubted everything which is visible and audible. But he noticed that one thing was certain to him, viz., the bodily sensation of his own doubt. He, therefore, put forward the proposition: Cogito, ergo sum (I am thinking, therefore do I exist). Since then it has been impossible for his successors to rid themselves of their exaggerated doubtfulness and of their quests after exaggerated truth.

Far be it from me to refuse to recognize the historic importance and the keenness of mind of that famous sceptic. He was right; the bodily sensation of existence, my consciousness, my thinking, feeling, in short, “my soul” is, as the parson says, beyond doubt. Yet I must add, that I am ascribing to Descartes much more than he really achieved. It is like this, the philosopher had two souls, a traditionally religious and a scientific one. His philosophy has a mixture of both. Religion deluded him into believing that the perceptible world was unreal, whilst his scientific cross-current tried to imbue him with the conviction that the opposite was true. With the unreality, with the doubt he started out and with the statement of his bodily sensation of existence he proved the opposite. Yet the scientific cross-current did not succeed in gaining a full and final victory. It is only the impartial enquirer who, when repeating the experiment of Descartes, finds out that it is the bodily sensation which gives us certainty of the existence of the process of thought when ideas and doubts are moving about in the head. The philosopher turned the thing upside down, he wanted to prove the bodily existence of the abstract thought – he assumed to be able to prove scientifically the exaggerated truth of a religious or philosophic soul, while in reality he has only confirmed the common truth that bodily sensation exists. The sensation of profane existence Descartes mistook for a proof of the existence of a higher being. His misfortune is the general misfortune of all philosophy: to be purely idealistic and spellbound.

I am introducing the readers of the Volksstaat to a subject-matter which they might consider too subtle. But we must make proselytes also among the scholars. So we must prove that we are well informed about “the last causes” of all things, and that our cause has its foundations laid in the deepest depths. We must make short work also of the philosophic bombast. Pure idealists! A clear-headed workingman, when coming to know them, will hardly think it possible that there are such foolish fellows. Idealists in the proper sense of the word are all aspiring men. All the more so the Social-Democrats. Our aim is a grand ideal. But the idealists in the philosophic sense are an irresponsible lot. They assert that everything we see, hear, feel, etc., that the whole world around us does not exist, but are simply flashes of our mind. They assert that our intellect is the only truth, everything else is an idea, a phantasmagory, a mirage, an appearance in the purely ideological sense of the word. Everything which we perceive of the external world, they say, is not an objective truth, not a real thing, but only a subjective drift of our intellect. And when common sense refuses to accept such an assumption they will in a plausible manner demonstrate and tell you that although you see every day the sun rising in the East and setting in the West, yet science teaches quite differently and you must have recourse to science in order that you may be able to use your senses intelligently.

Also a blind hen, says the proverb, finds sometimes a good grain. Such a blind hen is philosophic idealism. That the things which we see, hear or feel are not objects pure and simple, is its good grain. Also scientific physiology comes more and more to the conclusion that the various-colored objects which our eyes see, are sensations of our optic nerve, that all the crude, fine and heavy which we feel, are sensations of heavy, fine and crude. Between our subjective sensations and the objective things no absolute line can be drawn. The world is our perceptible world, that is, as perceived by our senses. Without eyes the objects would have no aspect whatsoever, and without a nose they would have nothing of an odor. “There is no noise without ears to hear it, and no heat and cold without a skin to feel it,” said Professor W. Preyer in Jena in one of his latest articles on the Limits of sense perception. The things of the world do not exist “in themselves,” but they possess their properties only by their relation to each other. It is in relation with sunlight and our optic nerve that the forest appears green. With another light and with a different optic nerve they might appear blue or red. Water is only liquid in relation to a certain temperature, in a low temperature water becomes hard and solid, in a high temperature it turns into gas; it generally runs downhill, but when in touch with a loaf of sugar it runs upwards. It has no properties or existence in itself, but gets them by relation to other things. As with the water so it is with all other things. Everything is but the quality or predicate of Nature which is nowhere to be found in a transcendental objectivity or Truth, but is always round us in fleeting and form-changing appearances.

The questions as to how the world would look if there were no eyes, no sun, no space, no temperature or intellect or sensation, are idle, and fools may investigate them. No doubt, in science as well as in life we are allowed to differentiate, to distinguish and to classify ad infinitum, but in doing that we must never forget that all things form a single unity and a connected whole. The world is a world of senses, and our senses and our intellect are worldly. This is by no means a “limitation” to man, but to those distracted ideologists who want to go beyond Nature. When we demonstrate that the immortal soul of the parson or the undoubted intellect of the philosopher are of the same common Nature as are all the other phenomena of the world, then we have proved that the other phenomena are as real and true as the undoubted intellect of Descartes. We not only believe, assume, think that our sensation has existence, but we feel it truly and really. And conversely: The whole truth and reality is based on feeling, on bodily sensation. Soul and body, or subject and object as the old joke is called by its modern name, are of the same earthly, perceptible, empirical stuff.

“Life is a dream,” said the ancients. Now the philosophers come with the latest: “The world is our Idea.” Yes, but this Idea is not an absolute or transcendental Truth. It is quite sufficient when we distinguish the great, general and true dream in daylight from the more or less unconscious dreaming over night and in the dark, since in so doing we finish with pure Idealism which is the weakest and most shortcoming part of Philosophy.

To base truth not on the word of God and not on traditional principles, but our principles on bodily sensations – that is the cardinal point of social-democratic philosophy.