Intuitive Thinking As a Spiritual Path

248 Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path

think of other human beings as also existing only in the
content of our own consciousness.
Only the third position of von Hartmann’s is supposed
to be tenable: transcendental realism. This view assumes
that there are “things-in-themselves,” but that they cannot
become immediate experiences of consciousness.
Things-in-themselves cause the objects of consciousness
to appear from beyond human consciousness, but in a
way that does not enter consciousness. We can arrive at
“things-in-themselves” only by inference from the con-
tent of our consciousness, which, though only mental pic-
tures, is our only kind of experience.
Von Hartmann claims that an “epistemological mo-
nism”—which is how he describes my position—would
really have to embrace one of his own three positions. He
claims that such a monism fails to do so only because it
does not draw the proper conclusions from its premises.
He goes on to say:
If one wants to find out to which epistemologi-
cal position a supposed epistemological monist
belongs, one need only present him with certain
questions and compel him to answer them. For, on
his own, he will not be inclined to express himself
on these points, and he will also try in every way to
evade answering direct questions, because every
answer nullifies epistemological monism’s claim to
be a standpoint distinct from the three others.
These questions are as follows: 1. Are things
continuous orintermittent in their existence? If the
answer is “continuous,” then we are dealing with