First I summarize; then I criticize.
The topic is idealism versus naturalism. And the question is: “whether man is entirely determined by nature or whether he can somehow – or indeed essentially – rise above it.” That is, if man is able to rise above nature, there he will find a new reality. Eucken warns though, that if idealism is in fact an illusion, that “we should eradicate all traces of it from human opinions and institutions.” If this is the case, then we should become as purely natural as possible. However, Eucken finds many problems in naturalism and thus defines it (loosely) as “the utilitarian purpose of preserving life.” He also sees naturalism as being only those things external to man. Idealism is the opposite: it “maintains the emancipation of inwardness; according to it the disparate phenomena of life coalesce in an all-embracing inner world.”
Eucken finds naturalism lacking because if man were to become purely natural, Eucken believes that there would be something more than the external. Eucken explains that because man cannot penetrate the center of nature, the external, thoughts of the divine or of things of greater power will arise in man. Eucken however elaborates on the effect of modern science and how it has brought man to have a “closer and more direct experience of nature” and that evolution has proved man’s dependence on nature. Eucken argues that naturalism goes beyond these facts, “for it maintains that man is completely defined by his relationship with the world, that he is only a piece of the natural process.” His “chief argument against such a limitation of human life” is “the result not of subjective reflection but of an analysis of the modern movement itself.” That is to be able to look above or at nature is to be above it. As man comes closer to nature, as he becomes more aware of it “man shows himself superior to it.” Eucken elaborates further, “Man’s tremendous intellectual achievement of a conception of nature in its totality proves his superiority over the natural world and the existence of another level of reality.” Idealism slowly creeps into the argument against naturalism as Eucken argues that technology and social movements also proves man’s superiority over nature. Technology for it “demands and proves imaginative anticipation and planning, the tracing of new possibilities, exact calculations, and bold ventures” and social movement because “we do not aim at an increase in sensual pleasure (i.e., because material things are not valued because of their “sensual characteristics but because they serve us to enhance life and to dominate the world completely”) but at a situation in which any man and all men together can develop their full strength.” As he closes his argument against naturalism, he remains aware that “the mind needs environment as an object to work on, and to that extent it is dependent on it.” In the same paragraph he brings science up again, as a means dependent on nature, but ultimately it is “an external object [that] can never lead to true, complete, and inner knowledge.” And finally, “energy that is not dominated by, and does not return to, a centre, will never constitute the content of life; it leaves us empty in the midst of bustling excitement. This is a common and painful modern experience. But is not such a sensation of emptiness itself proof that there are more profound depths within us which demand satisfaction?”
Eucken says yes. “Intellectual activity” is proof that man’s existence is not merely an external and outwardly one, but that the “external object becomes part of the soul.” “Intellectual activity takes a turn to the effect that the object is taken into the process of life, is incorporated into the soul and excites and moves us as part of our own life.” And Eucken wonders whether the interest man takes in his external objects is merely naturalism or a reflection of the self, proof that man is not separate from nature, but able to work with it in order to perfect himself. This in effect is how life enters a relationship with itself, “begets within itself a new depth” and “gives to the object a new and higher form, and so life is not merely the representation or appropriation of a given reality; it enhances and creates; it does not find a world, but must make a world for itself.”
“Thus life faces not only the outside world, but itself.” And as man works with this and his new inner life, he begins to association that he is not alone in this and that it is a universal characteristic which reveals that self-preservation “becomes increasingly less satisfying.” Eucken believes that the new forms and the new inner lives that are created are not man’s imagination, but real because man “could not even imagine such things.” Eucken makes a broad stunning statement, (to which the paragraph itself should be reproduced, but won’t be) “idealism, unlike naturalism, understands not mind by nature, but nature by mind.” Eucken then begins to talk about the necessity that man is not simply drifting along, but that he must engage and fight with this. Because new complications will arise, man must form a bond, struggle with it, process it, understand it and that this is not given but “has to be discovered and realized by ourselves.” He then goes into a short history of many approaches including the Greeks and Christianity. During his short history, idealism seems to be represented as the Empedocles’ cycle: it fluctuates between positive period and critical period. However, Eucken simply warns of these eventual doubts, and that if man is not prepared, if “life lacks a dominating unity and a centre, while at the same time the transformation of the outside world achieves splendid triumphs,” that life will be unbalance and that “external successes [will] gradually come to dominate the picture.”
Because man has idealism, he can never return to naturalism. To do so would only be harmful to the inner life and others; ”having penetrated to the universe and its infinity, he cannot again return to the limitations of a natural being; once the desire for an inner world relationship to the world has stirred within him, external relationships will no longer satisfy him.” Eucken acknowledges the difficulty of the fight, and proposes that “we must revise our image of man in order to reach the point of intellectual creativity” in order to fight our doubts. He speaks about the influence necessary for literature and then ends with the parting words: “Only such faith can enable us to cope with the enormous obstacles and fill us with the confidence of success.”
Two problems I had were that at first this is somewhat anachronistic because sciences, such as psychology, has attempted to penetrate and relate the inner being with the external being (neurology however is not an “internal” science because it does not deal with the soul; which could be an argument against psychology: it deals with the fluctuations of the mind). Secondly, what isn’t natural about being human? The same desire to have an inner life is the same root desire that defines wanting an external/natural life. However, Eucken is really defining Idealism as ‘how to deal with the soul’ which then becomes a question of spiritual belief. Although he would probably say that it isn’t a spiritual belief because if someone were to simply see life as only natural phenomena, he would eventually get a yearning for something “more”. Eucken defines that urge as the urging of the soul, thus there is a distinction between spiritualism and the soul.
I know Eucken was fearful of modern development and technology as well (although he uses it in his argument against naturalism) and saw that, at the time, the growing consumerism was affecting how people behaved with each other. But my final criticism is what I call “collective delusion”. Although he doesn’t directly say it, but he insinuates that throughout history, man has been disillusioned by the external world and the only way to find fulfillment was to escape into a “invisible world” (he, I believe, makes this reference when speaking about Medieval Christianity); however, to escape into himself, with the external in mind, can also be a means of disillusionment. Say for instance, what we perceive as our true self is sudden revealed, in accordance to an external change (as Eucken suggests), to not be your true self. How long does this process go on? Eucken doesn’t seem to supply an answer. To be honest he sounds a little Socialist (although he had his criticisms about this too) and Solipsist. It is not an entirely bad idea. I actually like it. Perhaps he cannot fully exfoliate his ideas in such a short span. I enjoyed the part on Literature, about how a good work of writing needs this internal conflict and resolution or at the very least the mixing of internal and external worlds. Also that intellectual creativity is synonymous with fighting for the soul. Reminds me a little of Vladimir Sorokin’s Ice.
Link to the lecture
