Sun-Clear Statement. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
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of your procedure, and will internally contemplate it. All that can be done to assist you is to guide you in the right direction, and this guidance is indeed all that can be obtained from philosophical teaching. The presupposition must always be that you have within yourself, and contemplate and observe, that towards which the teacher guides you. Otherwise, you will only be listening to the narrative of another's observation, and not of your own; and, moreover, to an incomprehensible narrative, for that upon which all depends cannot be described in words as composed of things already known to you, but is an absolutely unknown, which can become known to you only through your own internal contemplation, and can be characterized by anything sensuously known only in the way of analogy, which characteristic, therefore, receives its full significance only through contemplation.
Remember this, once for all, when similar cases arise in the future, and try to spread it amongst our celebrated writers who do not know it, and who speak very awkwardly concerning the relation of philosophy to language. But to the point:
When you are engaged in the reading of this book, in the observation of this object, or in the conversation with your friend, do you reflect upon your reading, observing, hearing, seeing, or feeling of the object, or your speaking to your friend?
R. By no means. I think not at all upon myself. I forget myself utterly in the book, in the object, in the conversation. Hence, people use the expressions: "I am engaged in it," "immersed in it," "lost in it."
A. And this, by the bye, all the more, the more intense, full, and lively your consciousness of the object is. That half dreamy and listless consciousness, that inattention and thoughtlessness, which is a characteristic of our age, and the most unconquerable obstacle to a thorough philosophy, is precisely the condition wherein men do not utterly abandon themselves to the object, do not bury and forget themselves in it, but always flutter and waver between the object and their own consciousness.
But how is it in the case when you place before you an object not held by you as actual in the present connection of time; for instance, yesterday's conversation with your friend? Is there also something in this case to which you abandon yourself, wherein you forget yourself?
R. Certainly. Precisely this placing the absent object before me is that wherein I forget myself.
A. You stated a short while ago, that in the former condition it is the presence of the object, and in the latter condition the re-presenting of the object to your mind, which constitutes the true reality of your life, and at present you state that you forget yourself in both. Here, then, we have found the looked for ground of your judgment concerning actuality and non-actuality. The self-forgetting is the characteristic of actuality; and in each condition of life, the focus wherein you throw and forget yourself, and the focus of actuality, are one and the same. That which tears you from yourself is the actually occurring, which fills up your life-moment.
R. I do not quite understand you.
A. I was forced to establish this conception so much in advance, and have in the meanwhile characterized it as clearly as possible. But if you will only keep up attentive- conversation with me, I hope it will become very clear to you in a short while. Can you also represent again the representation just now made by you of yesterday's conversation with your friend?
R. Doubtless. Nay, this is the very thing I have done during our reflection on that representation. I did not so much represent that conversation as rather the representing of that conversation.
A. Now, tell me what in this representation of the representing do you hold to be the real factical, or that which fills up the fleeting moments of your life?
R. Precisely this representing of the representing.
A. Now let us retrace our steps. In the representation of yesterday's conversation—please become thoroughly conscious of it, and look into your consciousness—how was that conversation related to your consciousness, and to the real factical which filled your consciousness?
R. The conversation, as I have already stated, was not the actual event, but merely the reconstructing of the conversation. Nevertheless, the event was not a mere reconstructing in general, but the reconstructing of a conversation, and, moreover, of this particular conversation. The reconstructing, as the chief point, was accompanied by the conversation; and the latter was not the actual, but the modification, the general determination of the latter.
A. And in the representing of this representation?
R. In the representing of the representation, that representing was the actual event; the representation the further determination of it, since it was not a representing in general, but the representing of a representation; and the conversation, finally, was the further determination of the (represented) representation, since the representing had for its object not a representation in general, but a determined representation, namely, that of a determined conversation.
A. Hence, each reality, each true and actually occurring event in life is that wherein you forget yourself. This is the beginning and real focus of life, whatever further subordinated determinations this focus may involve, because it happens to be such a particular focus. I wish and hope that I have made myself quite clear to you, and am sure I have been successful, if during this investigation you have only been always within yourself, looking into yourself, and attending to yourself. Tell me, whilst you represented yesterday's conversation, or—since I prefer not to assume a mere fiction, but to place you right into your present condition of mind—whilst you just now argued with me, thereby filling up your life and throwing into it yourself, you doubtless hold that many other things have moved and happened outside of your own self and mind?
R. Doubtless. The hand of the clock, for instance, has moved, so has the sun, &c.
A. Have you seen or experienced this moving of the hand of the clock?
R. How could I, since I was arguing with you, throwing my whole self into it, and filling up my life with it?
A. How, then, do you know concerning the movement of the clock—to stop at this example?
R. I looked at it before, and noticed the place pointed out by the hand. I now look at it again, and find that the hand has moved to another place. I draw the conclusion from the arrangement of the clock, which was previously known to me, likewise through perception, that the hand has gradually moved whilst I was arguing.
A. Do you assume that, if instead of arguing with me, you had occupied the same time in looking at the clock, you would have actually perceived the movement of the hand?
R. Most certainly do I assume it.
A. Hence, both your arguing and the movement of the clock are, according to what you say, true and actual events of the same moment of time; the latter, to be sure, is not an event of your life, since you lived something else during the time, but it might have become an event of your life, and would have become so necessarily, if you had paid attention to the clock?
R. Yes.
A. And the hand of the clock has actually and in fact moved without your knowledge and activity?
R. That is the assumption, certainly.
A. Do you believe that if you had not argued—just as you did not look at the clock—your argument would also have moved on without your knowledge or activity, like the hand of the clock?
R. On no account. My arguing does not move of itself; I must carry it on, if it is to be carried on.
A. How does this apply to the representing of yesterday's conversation? Does that also come to you without any activity of your own, like the movement of the clock, or must you produce it yourself, like