APPENDIX IV INTRODUCTION TO ORIGINAL EDITION OF “TRUTH AND SCIENCE”

The aim of the following discussions is to reduce the act of cognition, by analysis, to its ultimate elements and thus to discover a correct formulation of the problem of knowledge and a way to its solution. They criticise¹ all theories of knowledge which are based on Kant’s line of thought, in order to show that along this road no solution of the problem of knowledge can ever be found. It is, however, due to the fundamental spade-work which Volkelt has done in his thorough examination of the concept of experience,1 to acknowledge that without his preliminary labours the precise determination, which I have here attempted of the concept of the Given would have been very much more difficult. However, we are cherishing the hope that we have laid the foundations for our emancipation² from the Subjectivism which attaches to all theories of knowledge that [382]start from Kant. We believe ourselves to have achieved this emancipation through showing that the subjective³ form, in which the picture of the world presents itself to the act of cognition, prior to its elaboration by science, is nothing but a necessary stage of transition which is overcome in the very process of knowledge itself. For us, experience, so-called, which Positivism and Neo-Kantianism would like to represent as the only thing which is certain, is precisely⁴ the most subjective of all. In demonstrating this, we also show that Objective Idealism is the inevitable⁵ conclusion of a theory of knowledge which understands itself. It differs from the metaphysical and absolute Idealism of Hegel in this, that it seeks in the subject of knowledge the ground for the diremption of reality into given existence and concept, and that it looks for the reconciliation⁶ of this divorce, not in an objective world-dialectic, but in the subjective process of cognition. The present writer has already once before advocated this point of view in print, viz., in the Outlines of a Theory of Knowledge (Berlin and Stuttgart, 1885). However, that book differs essentially⁷ in method from the present essay, and it also lacks the analytic⁸ reduction of knowledge to its ultimate elements.

The End

1 criticise   

v.批评，评论；非难

参考例句：

• Right and left have much cause to criticise government.左翼和右翼有很多理由批评政府。
• It is not your place to criticise or suggest improvements!提出批评或给予改进建议并不是你的责任！

2 emancipation   

n.（从束缚、支配下）解放

参考例句：

• We must arouse them to fight for their own emancipation. 我们必须唤起他们为其自身的解放而斗争。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They rejoiced over their own emancipation. 他们为自己的解放感到欢欣鼓舞。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 subjective   

a.主观(上)的，个人的

参考例句：

• The way they interpreted their past was highly subjective. 他们解释其过去的方式太主观。
• A literary critic should not be too subjective in his approach. 文学评论家的看法不应太主观。

4 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

5 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

6 reconciliation   

n.和解，和谐，一致

参考例句：

• He was taken up with the reconciliation of husband and wife.他忙于做夫妻间的调解工作。
• Their handshake appeared to be a gesture of reconciliation.他们的握手似乎是和解的表示。

7 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

8 analytic   

adj.分析的，用分析方法的

参考例句：

• The boy has an analytic mind. 这男孩有分析的头脑。
• Latin is a synthetic language,while English is analytic.拉丁文是一种综合性语言，而英语是一种分析性语言。