Chapter 5 KNOWING THE WORLD
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 5 of The Philosophy Of Freedom describes the conceiving process. The aspect of the conception process that most interests someone depends on their thinking personality type. Here are some notes on the 12 views of the conception process. A free person will be aware of all the 12 world-outlooks and apply them according to need.
5.0 Chapter 5 mood is Volunteerism (intention, character of will of a thing) Introduction: Someone taking this standpoint does not bother himself about the inner connection of his conscious perceptions, but only about their causes, which have an existence independent of him.
5.1 Materialist conception (physical world) If the things of our experience were mental pictures, then our everyday life would be like a dream and knowledge of the true state of affairs would be like waking up.
5.2 Spiritist conception (what underlies world, gained by inner activity) If I want to assert anything at all about the perception, this can happen only with the help of thinking.
5.3 Realist conception (external world) Set the plant before yourself. It connects itself, in your mind, with a definite concept.
5.4 Idealist conception (looks for progressive tendency) A continuous process of becoming. If I watch the rosebud without interruption, I shall see today's state gradually change into tomorrow's through an infinite number of intermediate stages.
5.5 Mathematist conception (calculating, order) Indivisible existence of concept with percept. Mathematics teaches me to distinguish various kinds of lines, one of which is the parabola. If I analyze the conditions under which the stone thrown by me moves, I find that the line of its flight is identical with the line I know as a parabola.
5.6 Rationalist conception It is necessary to isolate certain sections of the world and to consider them by themselves. Our understanding can grasp only single concepts out of a connected conceptual system. This isolation is a subjective act.
5.7 Psychist conception (psychology, ideas are bound up with a being) Self-perception is to be distinguished from self-determination, by thinking. Through thinking, I integrate the percepts of myself into the world process.
5.8 Pneumatist conception (spirit) The concept of the triangle grasped by me is the same as that grasped by my neighbor. The single, unitary concept of the triangle does not become many by being thought by many thinkers.
5.9 Monadist conception (build up existence in itself) All attempts to discover any other principle of unity in the world than this internally coherent ideal content, which we gain for ourselves by the conceptual analysis of our percepts, are bound to fail.
5.10 Dynamist conception (force is present) The form in which thought first appears in consciousness we will call "Intuition." An external object remains unintelligible to us, until the corresponding intuition arises within us which adds to the reality those sides of it which are lacking in the percept.
5.11 Phenomenalist conception (appearance of phenomena and interpretation) Other than what is immediately perceived, we cannot speak of there being anything except what is known through the conceptual connections between the percepts—connections that are accessible to thinking.
5.12 Sensationalist conception (accept sense impression without mixed in thought) A percept always appears as a quite specific, concrete content. The mental picture is a subjective percept in contrast to the objective percept of a thing lying within the field of vision.
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