Rudolf Hermann Lotze

“ Every act of cognition, he held, takes place by combination of ideas, whose form is that of logical judgment. If now it is sought to discover the different suppositions which we make about possible or necessary combinations of ‘Things,’ then there is only need to collect all the essentially different forms of the logical judgment, and it will thereupon be found that a special model of combination has been followed in each, according to which subject and predicate are thought of as cohering. ”

“ In reference to this point it is common to remark, that the correct form, in which we are able to express those suppositions concerning the nature of actuality that are necessities of our thought, is without exception that of the proposition, not that of the conception. Only a proposition states a truth from which, by application to particular cases, definite determinations can be deduced. Conceptions are only elements which can form truths by composition; of themselves alone they are nothing, until we are told what is to be done with them. ”

“ The necessity of explaining how different spirits construct pictures of the world that fit together so as to make one common world, led to the assumption of a single creative power, which, harmoniously active in all spirits, both images before them the phenomenal world, and also necessitates them to judge of this same world according to certain suppositions. ”

“ The second of the questions adduced above (§ 2) ,—namely, How we can certify ourselves of the truth and validity of our metaphysical suppositions, cannot be decided previous to, but only in and by Metaphysic itself. For the bare question is without meaning so long as it concerns merely the validity in general of these suppositions; it interests us only so far as it touches upon the validity of metaphysical cognition in reference to an actual world, which we think of as an object standing over opposite to us. ”

“ Investigation, on the contrary, whose first business is to discover the truth, must take its departure from the largest possible number of independent, perfectly obvious and well-recognized considerations, with the proviso that the results which the prosecution of one consideration yields, shall be subsequently corrected, so far as is necessary, by the results of the rest. ”

“ And as a rule it will always be found that those who, previous to the application of our cognition to actuality, are pleased first to decide the point whether it is thus applicable at all or not, judge this point in such a way as to assume readymade a crowd of propositions concerning the nature of objective actuality, concerning the nature of the cognitive spirit, and concerning a possible relation of interaction between the two; while, nevertheless, it is only Metaphysic that can in the first instance demonstrate these propositions. ”

“ In this matter, therefore, we esteem Herbart right, who assumes as many independent sections of Metaphysic as there are different distinct questions, problems, or contradictions, that meet us in our common contemplation of the world, and that are the separate causes of our philosophizing in general. For they compel us to attempt the reduction of the problems or contradictions given in perception, to one consistent, actual ‘way of behavior’ on the part of ‘the Existent’ ”

“ Thus in the consideration of human transactions, the new conception of freedom stands opposed to the ‘causal nexus’ previously deemed of universal applicability. Thus on consideration of the soul, the conception of ‘Thing’ seems to be in general inept to designate the permanent subject of its changeable phenomena. ”

“ All these and other suppositions we have become accustomed to in life with the feeling of their necessity, but without availing ourselves of a clear knowledge of their precise meaning and of the grounds and limits of their validity. There are therefore never wanting occasions where doubts at once arise in us concerning their validity. ”

“ In the above-mentioned way Kant had discovered twelve categories, and, on account of the consciousness of necessary and universal validity which accompanied them, had considered them as not derived from experience, but as an originally inborn possession of our spirit.
Fichte took offence at the view that our spirit, which every one inclines to think of as a unity in the strictest sense, be supposed to possess twelve different, isolated, fundamental conceptions ”