A consciousness, which generates itself, and which yet is not the actual consciousness of which we all have possession? A. Of course: for actual consciousness does not systematically generate itself, its

Hence, the teacher of the Science of Knowledge probably possesses the conception of such a unity, of such a purpose and result of all consciousness, to which he reduces the manifold as conditions of the

Third ConversationR. I believe that I have now fully grasped your opinion concerning the Science of Knowledge, and that, historically, I know quite well what you mean. Moreover, when I accept the mere

The science of knowledge presupposes, for the purpose of gaining an entrance for itself and a definite problem for itself, that there may be a systematic connection in the manifold elements of those

To use the illustration used by you in the first conversation: these other parts are not related to my consciousness like this book which I hold in my hand, but like the representation of yesterday's

Hence, if you only properly understand the mechanism of this work of art, you will not need at all, as we assumed at first, to observe one part of the machinery after the other in actual perception, but

Second ConversationA. Do not forget, my reader, the distinction we have drawn between two fundamental determinations of all possible consciousness, but keep in mind that I shall speak only of the former

Thus there result certain fundamentaland primarydeterminations (the next following opposite will make clear these expressions, which I entreat you to consider maturely,) of our life, as its true roots,

But in the hope that you will, at least during our present investigation, keep these foreign images away from your mind, and resist that blind operation of an association of ideas, I will drop this doubtful

In the representing of the representation, that representing was the actual event; the representation the further determination of it, since it was not a representing in general, but the representing of

Otherwise, you will only be listening to the narrative of another's observation, and not of your own; and, moreover, to an incomprehensiblenarrative, for that upon which all depends cannot be described

First ConversationDon't be alarmed, my reader, if I seem to take a somewhat long route. I am anxious to make very clear to you certain conceptions which will be of importance in future, not for the sake

There did exist a philosophy which claimed that it could increase the above described collection by a mere drawing of conclusions, and which held that thinking was not only what we have just described

IntroductionMy reader, before you proceed to the reading of this work, let us come to a preliminary agreements That which you are going to read in this book has, it is true, been thought by me; but it

He now intends to try whether he can succeed with that public which is not philosophical, as the writer of this understands that term; he intends to show again, in the most comprehensible manner that he

PrefaceCertain friends of transcendental idealism, or of the System of the Science of Knowledge, have attached to this system the name of the newest philosophy. Although this looks somewhat like a satire,