Chapter 2 THE DESIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE
Why do people hold a certain view? What is it that convinces someone of something? It depends on their thinking personality. Each Philosophy Of Freedom chapter describes 12 thinking personality types.
Chapter 2 of The Philosophy Of freedom describes the desiring process. The aspect of the desire for knowledge process that most interests someone depends on their thinking personality type. Here are some notes on the 12 views of the desire process. A free person will be aware of all the 12 world-outlooks and apply them according to need.
2.0 Chapter 2 mood is Transcendentalism (The essence of a thing is transcendent, but I only feel it must be there, outside) Introduction: Nowhere are we satisfied with the facts which nature spreads out before our senses. Everywhere we “seek” what we call the explanation of these facts.
2.1 Materialist desire (physical world) Desires an explanation of the physical world. It is confronted by two different sets of facts, the material world and the thoughts about it. To reconcile this, thoughts are understood as purely physical processes.
2.2 Spiritist desire (what underlies world, gained by inner activity) Desires spiritualistic theory. The Spiritist denies Matter (the World) and regards it merely as a product of Mind (the self). Is is unable to deduce from Mind any single concrete phenomenon.
2.3 Realist desire (external world) Desires experience of the external world. If one would really know the external world, one must turn one's eye outwards and draw on the fund of experience. Without experience Mind can have no content.
2.4 Idealist desire (looks for progressive tendency) Desires a magnificent elaboration of the world of ideas; without any experience. The Idealist Fichte attempts to deduce the whole edifice of the world from the "Ego." What he has actually accomplished is a magnificent thought-picture of the world, without any empirical content.
2.5 Mathematist desire (calculating, order) (Mathematical paradox between physical and ideal) The Materialists are quite right in declaring all phenomena, including our thought, to be the product of purely material processes, but, in turn, Matter and its processes are for him themselves the product of our thinking.
2.6 Rationalist desire Desires unity between the real world and ideas. Indivisible unity of both Matter and Mind.
2.7 Psychist desire (psychology, ideas are bound up with a being) Desires to resolve polarity of consciousness. We meet with the fundamental opposition first in our own consciousness. It is we ourselves who break away from the bosom of Nature and contrast ourselves as self with the world.
2.8 Pneumatist desire (spirit) Desires to feel we belong to nature. We feel we are in her and belong to her. It can be only her own life which pulses also in us.
2.9 Monadist desire (build up existence in itself) Desires to know the element of nature within that corresponds to nature without. We can find Nature outside of us only if we have first learnt to know her within us. The Natural within us must be our guide to her.
2.10 Dynamist desire (force is present) Desires something more than 'I'. We must reach a point where we can say, This is no longer merely ' I,' this is something more than ' I.'
2.11 Phenomenalist desire (appearance of phenomena and interpretation) Desires a description of consciousness. I have so far not been concerned with any scientific results, but simply with the description of what every one of us experiences in his own consciousness.
2.12 Sensationalist desire (accept sense impression without mixed in thought) Desires the facts of everyday experience. I am concerned, not with the way in which science has interpreted consciousness, but with the way in which we experience it every moment of our lives.
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