The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Summary: Rosinski - Die Wirklichkeit als Phänomen des Geistes - Part 1
This article is a criticism of Kant's Thing in Itself and of Herbart's Absolute Real. Experience teaches that the change in an object is conditioned not only by the cause but by its own nature also. The subject A occasions in B the reaction b, the subject A' the reaction b'; b and b' are both expressions and states of one and the same object; they must accordingly correspond to its nature. So in our mental world. The sensation with which we react on external impressions cannot be otherwise than conformable to the nature of our Self. The perception must be in conformity with the subjectivity of the sensibility. The subjectivity of the content of perception brings with it that of all knowledge. The latter is conditioned on the one hand by the laws of thought and on the other hand by sensation. The dualism of sense and understanding was the great error which fettered the metaphysics of antiquity. Every form of epistemological dualism must involve the understanding in contradictions. The entire nature of the spirit, the whole field of its productions, forms a unity. As the understanding asserts that the objects of the sensibility do not exist in themselves, so must it also say: All of my products and objects must correspond to my nature and my laws; they would be different if I myself had another character.
The 'thing in itself' preserves its character of a being only through its qualities; if it is posited without determination there is nothing posited; for that which has no determination, as Hegel teaches, is the Nothing. Every quality which we apply to 'the real' can have only a subjective significance; the 'thing in itself' is not to be thought as existing somehow, it must be posited as quite undetermined. As this contradiction is necessitated by our positing 'the absolute real,' so it can be avoided only by its negation. We must conclude, therefore, that because the being is such only through subjective determinations, it itself must be subjective; or because no absolutely real qualities can be ascribed to it, and that which is without qualities is identical with the not-being, so it is, as 'absolute real,' a non-being. All the grounds which compel us to posit things are only in us and are not given to us from without. We have just the same right to say that perception arises from an inner cause as from 'things in themselves.' The phenomenon contains in itself the only true being. It lies in the nature of spirit to posit the phenomenon as real. The real need not, as Herbart says it must, be posited in order that the given may have a point of contact for its validity. The phenomenon must, to be sure, depend upon a Something, but this Something lies within its borders. It lies in the nature of the spirit to posit the phenomenon as real.