Reading Notes: December 13th, 2021

“It is assumed that all illusion arises from the relation of things to us, and that, when we know things in themselves, there can be no illusion. But if there is always illusion in the relation of things to us, then there is no possible way to detect and measure the illusion. For we find out illusion by comparing our conceptions with those of others, or by repeated observations. But we can never contrast the object as related to us with the object apart from all relations to our consciousness….An object apart from all relations to us would be absolutely unknowable. It is non-existent for us. We, then, know things in their relation to us and to one another. And the fact that we so know them is no discredit to our knowledge….Things apart from all relation to us are absolutely unknowable for us, and it is mere dogmatic assumption to say that they exist at all.” (Keirstead, Metaphysical Presuppositions of Ritschl, 686) 

“For if we speak of an object as absolutely unrelated, both to other objects and to our sense and intelligence, we are talking nonsense; for such an object is inaccessible to us….Things are made of such stuff as thoughts are. They are thought-constructs and represent modes of action. Thought itself arises in experience when a habit is broken, to form a new method or habit of action. From the intellectual point of view, the thing is a concept; from the practical, it is a more or less fixed mode of action….There is but one test to the reality of a thing, and that test is its function.” (Keirstead, Metaphysical Presuppositions of Ritschl, 688-718) 

“Ritschl teaches the doctrine of subjective idealism. And this doctrine fails to explain (a) the origin of sensation,(b) why just these qualities and not others are united in the concept of a thing, (c) why others experience the same unities as I, and (d) why I am justified in supposing that other persons beside myself exist at all. Subjective idealism always leads to realism, but seldom in so naïve a manner as in Ritschl. For in the same proposition in which he tells us that a thing is a product of the faculty of presentation, he makes the thing at the same time the cause of sensations. Here we have in one sentence subjective idealism and naive realism, with the contradiction that the thing is at the same time both cause and product.” (Keirstead, Metaphysical Presuppositions of Ritschl, 709) 

“When Pfleiderer, however, asks for the origin of sensations, he is asking for an explanation of consciousness. But this is an impossible demand. We cannot go behind consciousness. The category of causation cannot be carried beyond experience.” (Keirstead, Metaphysical Presuppositions of Ritschl, 711)