The Relationship of the Human Sciences to the Natural Sciences
The Relationship of the Human Sciences to the Natural Sciences
To a great extent, however, the human sciences do encompass natural facts and are based on knowledge of nature. If one were to imagine purely spiritual beings in a realm of persons which consisted only of such beings, then their coming-to-be, preservation, and development, as well as their extinction - whatever representations we may form of the background from which these beings appear and into which they disappear - would be dependent on purely spiritual conditions. Their well-being would be based on their relation to a world of spirit, their contact with each other and their interactions would be effected through purely mental means, and the lasting effects of their actions would be of a purely spiritual sort. Even their disappearance from the realm of persons would be grounded in the spiritual sphere. The system of such individuals would be known by pure sciences of spirit. In reality, however, an individual comes into being, survives, and develops on the basis of the functions of an animal organism and its connections to his natural environment. His feeling of life is, at least partly, based on these natural functions; his impressions are conditioned by his sense organs and the way they are affected by the external world. We find that the abundance and liveliness of his representations, the strength and direction of his acts of will, are in many ways dependent on changing conditions within his nervous system. His volitional impulses induce contractions in the muscle fibers when effect directed outwards is bound to molecular changes in his body; lasting results of his acts of will exist only in the form of changes in the material world. Thus the mental life of a man is part of the psychophysical life-unit which is the form in which human existence and human life are manifested. Only by means of abstraction is mental life separable from that psychophysical life-unit. The system of these life-units
To a great extent, however, the human sciences do encompass natural facts and are based on knowledge of nature. If one were to imagine purely spiritual beings in a realm of persons which consisted only of such beings, then their coming-to-be, preservation, and development, as well as their extinction - whatever representations we may form of the background from which these beings appear and into which they disappear - would be dependent on purely spiritual conditions. Their well-being would be based on their relation to a world of spirit, their contact with each other and their interactions would be effected through purely mental means, and the lasting effects of their actions would be of a purely spiritual sort. Even their disappearance from the realm of persons would be grounded in the spiritual sphere. The system of such individuals would be known by pure sciences of spirit. In reality, however, an individual comes into being, survives, and develops on the basis of the functions of an animal organism and its connections to his natural environment. His feeling of life is, at least partly, based on these natural functions; his impressions are conditioned by his sense organs and the way they are affected by the external world. We find that the abundance and liveliness of his representations, the strength and direction of his acts of will, are in many ways dependent on changing conditions within his nervous system. His volitional impulses induce contractions in the muscle fibers when effect directed outwards is bound to molecular changes in his body; lasting results of his acts of will exist only in the form of changes in the material world. Thus the mental life of a man is part of the psychophysical life-unit which is the form in which human existence and human life are manifested. Only by means of abstraction is mental life separable from that psychophysical life-unit. The system of these life-units