The Gnoseological Transcendence in Nicolai Hartmann’s Metaphysics of Cognition: Part Two

THE GNOSEOLOGICAL TRANSCENDENCE IN NICOLAI HARTMANN'S METAPHYSICS OF COGNITION: PART TWO INTRODUCTION IN PART ONE of this study certain notions preliminary to a consideration of gnoseological transcendence in Nicolai Hartmann's metaphysics of cognition were considered: his notion of metaphysics in general; his concept of the metaphysics of cognition; a general outline of his theory of methodology; and finally, his use of the principle of the maximum of data. Hartmann's approach to the central problem of this study depends upon these basic notions. A summary of them affords a prospectus of the remainder of the study: using the optimal maximum of data as a basis of his orientation, Hartmann will collect the data phenomenologically; he will investigate the phenomenological result critically in his aporetics; and form his own theory regarding the solution of the problems. Part Two of this study will be divided, accordingly, into a study of his phenomenology, his aporetics, and his theory of gnoseological transcendence. At the conclusion of the exposition of Hartmann's thought, a critical evaluation of his position will be presented. 1. THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF GNOSEOLOGICAL TRANSCENDENCE Hartmann starts his collection of characteristics of the phenomenon of cognition with the statement: Cognition is an act, which transcends consciousness. That is fundamental. The subject is confronting the object. The object presents itself in space, is empirical, is something.1 1 Nicolai Hartmann, Einfuehrung ... , p. 68: "Erkenntnis ist-das ist hier grundlegend-ein Akt, welcher das Bewusstsein ueberchreitet. Das Subjekt steht dem Gegenstand, der sich raeumlich, empirisch, dinglich darstellt, gegenueber." 136 NICOLAI HARTMANN'S METAPHYSICS OF COGNITION 137 Thus, cognition is not recognized as simple conscious act, as, for example, thinking, recalling, imagining, dreaming. These acts originate in the subjective realm, function in it, and their orientation is immanent. That means they urge the subject to an expression in the subject or by the subject. In Hartmann's statement cognition is recognized from the very beginning as an act which transcends 2 the subject's consciousness.3 A grouping of cognitions with the immanent conscious acts leads to error. Therefore, it must be understood that the cognitive act transcends. Neither the subject as such, nor the object as such are transcending. The objects remain always "without" (extramental) ; the subject remains always " within" (in itself) in the entire cognitive process. It is the act of cognitionaccomplished by the subject-which transcends the subject's limit. As a rule every transcendent act is connected with the subject from one side only. Its other end transcends the subject. The latter connects with the real which becomes through it the object-4 Actually man is in connection or relation with his environment through numerous such acts. Every action, for example, is a transcendent act. But in contrast to cognition-which leaves the object unchanged, although the effect of the object becomes " registered" in the subject-action seeks to alter the object. The act of willing always nourishes the inclination to seize the 2 Nicholai Hartmann, Einfuehrung . . . , p. 68. 8 Cf. Nicolai Hartmann, Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie, p. 15: " Kant . . . reduced everything to an affection of the senses through the Ding-an-sich (thething -as-such). He failed to trace the aporias which are contained in this position. The transcendental aesthetics, too, touches only on the apriori element of sensuality, Nevertheless, so much is clear that Kant recognized very well the transcendental relation in the sense data and took it seriously.-Younger theories ignore this relation and therewith begins the distortion of the problem of cognition. This decline has led on the one hand to psychologism, on the other hand to logicism. To the latter belong all those interpretations which identify cognition with judgment-regardless of how these theories may differ otherwise. Thinkers such as Natorp, Cassirer, Rickert, Husser!, and Heidegger succumbed in this regard to the same error. They opposed the same psychologism which shared with their logical theories the misjudging of the transcendence in the phenomenon of cognition." • Nicolai Hartmann, " Systematische Selbstdarstellung," in op. cit., I, p. 21. 138 CAROLINE E. SCHUETZINGER extramental world in order to accomplish something in it. The direction of these acts flows from within, that is, from the subject to the world...