120 Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path
Inductive inference is the methodological foundation
of modern metaphysical realism. Once people believed
that, from concepts, they could evolve something that
was no longer a concept. They believed that, through
concepts, they could know the metaphysically real enti-
ties that metaphysical realism necessarily requires. To-
day, this kind of philosophy belongs to a vanquished
past. Instead, we believe that from a sufficient number of
perceptual facts we can infer the character of the thing-
in-itself underlying those facts. Just as earlier people
sought to develop the metaphysical from concepts, they
seek today to develop it from percepts. Since concepts
were present to people in transparent clarity, they be-
lieved that they could deduce the metaphysical from
them, too, with absolute certainty. But percepts are not so
transparent to us. Each successive percept appears some-
what different from those of the same kind that preceded
it. What is inferred from the earlier ones is consequently
somewhat modified by each successive percept. There-
fore, the form that we thus give to the metaphysical can
be called only relatively correct. It is subject to correc-
tion by future cases. Eduard von Hartmann’s metaphys-
ics is characterized by this methodological principle.
Hence, on the title page of his first major work, he placed
the motto: “Speculative results following the inductive
method of natural science.”
The form that metaphysical realists give to things-in-
themselves today is arrived at through inductive
inferences. By reflecting on the process of cognition
they have convinced themselves of the existence of an
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