Thinking in the Service of Understanding the World 39But when I observe my thinking, no such unconsidered
element is present. For what now hovers in the back-
ground is itself only, once again, thinking. The observed
object is qualitatively the same as the activity that directs
itself toward it. And this is again a special characteristic
of thinking. When we make thinking into an object of ob-
servation, we are not compelled to do so with the aid of
something that is qualitatively different to it; we can re-
main within the same element.
If I weave into my thinking an object that is given with-
out my participation, I go beyond my observation, and the
question will arise: What gives me the right to do so?
Why don’ t I simply allow the object to work upon me?
How is it possible for my thinking to have a relation to the
object? These are questions that all who think about their
own thought processes must ask themselves. But they fall
away when we think about thinking itself. We add noth-
ing foreign to thinking, and thus need not excuse our-
selves for such an addition.
Schelling says, “To know nature is to create na-
ture.”^4 Anyone who takes these words of the bold na-
- Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775–1855). German ide-
alist philosopher. After being a fellow student with Hegel and Hölder-
lin at the Tübingen Stift or Seminary, Schelling was Professor at Jena
(1798), Würzburg (1803), Münich (1827) and Berlin (1841–46).
Breaking free first from Fichtean (1801), then from Hegelian (c. 1807)
idealism, Schelling, much influenced by the theosophy of Jakob Boe-
hme, finally created a unique dynamical philosophy of nature, myth,
creativity, and freedom. The phrase is fromErster Entwurf eines Sys-
tems der Naturphilosophie (1799).