Truth and Knowledge
GA 3
i. Preliminary Remarks
Epistemology is the scientific study of what all other sciences
presuppose without examining it: cognition itself. It is thus a
philosophical science, fundamental to all other sciences. Only through
epistemology can we learn the value and significance of all insight
gained through the other sciences. Thus it provides the foundation for
all scientific effort. It is obvious that it can fulfill its proper
function only by making no presuppositions itself, as far as this is
possible, about man's faculty of knowledge. This is generally accepted.
Nevertheless, when the better-known systems of epistemology are more
closely examined it becomes apparent that a whole series of
presuppositions are made at the beginning, which cast doubt on the rest
of the argument. It is striking that such hidden assumptions are usually
made at the outset, when the fundamental problems of epistemology are
formulated. But if the essential problems of a science are misstated,
the right solution is unlikely to be forthcoming. The history of science
shows that whole epochs have suffered from innumerable mistakes which
can be traced to the simple fact that certain problems were wrongly
formulated. To illustrate this, we need not go back as far as
Aristotle's physics 73Aristotle (384–322 B.C.): Physica
Auscultatio, On Nature as Cause and Change, and the General
Principles of Natural Science. or Raymond Lull's Ars
Magna 74Raimon Lull (Raymond Lully),
(0.1235–1315) Catalan author, mystic and missionary. Born Majorca.
In 1266 a series of visions led to a marked change in his life and
purpose. Spent 9 years studying Arabic in order to refute the heretical
teachings current in his time. At Ronda he wrote his famous Ars
Major and Ars Generalis. He made many journeys in France,
Italy, North Africa in a burning crusade against the teachings of
Mohammedanism. At Bougie, North Africa he was stoned outside the city
walls and died on June 29, 1315. ; — there are plenty
of more recent examples. For instance, innumerable problems concerning
the purpose of rudimentary organs of certain organisms could only be
rightly formulated when the condition for doing so had first been
created through the discovery of the fundamental law of biogenesis. 75biogenesis, the
teaching that living organisms come from other living organisms, as
opposed to abiogenesis. The author of the modern formulation of
“the fundamental law of biogenesis” was Fritz Müller
(1864). Haeckel (see note 54, above) called
Müller's formulation “the biogenetic fundamental law,”
which can be stated briefly as the teaching that in its development from
the egg to adult stage, the animal tends to pass through a series of
stages which recapitulate the stages through which its ancestry passed
in the development of the species from a primitive form. In other words,
the development of the individual is a condensed expression of the
development of the race. While biology was influenced by
teleological views, the relevant problems could not be formulated in a
way which could lead to a satisfactory answer. For example, what
fantastic ideas were entertained concerning the function of the pineal
gland in the human brain, as long as the emphasis was on its purpose!
Then comparative anatomy threw some light on the matter by asking a
different question; instead of asking what the organ was
“for,” inquiry began as to whether, in man, it might be merely
a remnant from a lower level of evolution. Another example: how many
physical questions had to be modified after the discovery of the laws of
the mechanical equivalent of heat and of conservation of energy! 76The earliest statement
of the law of mechanical theory of heat was formulated by the French
physicist, Sadi Nicholas Lèonhard Carnot (1796–1832) in
notes written about 1830, published by his brother in the latter's
Life of Sadi Carnot, Paris, 1878. Further work in this direction
was done by Ségun, Paris, 1839, by Julius Robert Mayer, c. 1842,
and by J. P. Joule, who (1840–43) placed the mechanical theory of
heat on a sound experimental basis.
Julius Robert Mayer
(1814–1878), German physician and physicist, is the discoverer of
the law of conservation of energy, which — within limits of the
data he obtained from experiments and reasoning — he applied
“with great power and insight to the explanation of numerous
physical phenomena.” In short, success in
scientific research depends essentially on whether the problems can be
formulated rightly. Even though epistemology occupies a very special
place as the basis presupposed by the other sciences, nevertheless,
successful progress can only be expected when its fundamental problems
are correctly formulated.
The discussion which follows aims so to formulate the problem of cognition that in this very formulation it will do full justice to the essential feature of epistemology, namely, the fact that it is a science which must contain no presuppositions. A further aim is to use this philosophical basis for science to throw light on Johann Gottlieb Fichte's philosophy of science. 77On Fichte, see note 13, above. Rudolf Steiner's Inaugural Dissertation for his doctoral degree before the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Rostock (Defense, beginning of May, 1891; Promotion, October 26, 1891) was titled Die Grundfrage der Erkenntnistheorie mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre, usw., The Fundamentals of a Theory of Cognition with Special Reference to Fichte's Scientific Teaching. When the thesis was published in book form, as it appears here in English translation, a Foreword and one chapter were added to the original by Rudolf Steiner. These latter are included in the present translation. Why Fichte's attempt in particular to provide an absolutely certain basis for the sciences is linked to the aims of this essay, will become clear in due course.