Filosofía de lo inconsciente

by Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann, Manuel Pérez Cornejo (Translator), Carlos Javier González Serrano (Contributor)

Eduard von Hartmann (1842-1906) fue, junto con Philipp Mainländer, también presente en esta colección, uno de los seguidores más relevantes de la escuela de filosofía pesimista fundada por Arthur Schopenhauer. Sin embargo, aun partiendo de la contundente defensa del pesimismo y sus conclusiones -la de que la existencia humana está sometida irrefutablemente al mal, el dolor y el sufrimiento-, Hartmann llegó en su monumental Filosofía de lo inconsciente (1869, traducida en esta selección por primera vez al castellano) a un "pesimismo humanista" menos implacable que el del maestro de Danzig. En la obra, además de explorar un campo que en breve harían fértil y suyo Freud y Jung, postula -y esta es la originalidad de su planteamiento- una rendija de esperanza encarnada en la acción del hombre. Sujeto a la inevitabilidad del dolor, la desgracia y la muerte, está en su mano, siendo consciente de ello, prepararse para afrontarlas y perseguir la perfección moral individual a fin de conquistar un mundo más habitable, aun sabiendo que nada habrá de redundar en mejora alguna de la doliente condición humana. Prólogo de Carlos Javier González Serrano

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology

728 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1869

About the author

Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann (February 23, 1842 – June 5, 1906) was a German philosopher.

He was born in Berlin, and educated with the intention of a military career. He entered the artillery of the Guards as an officer in 1860, but was forced to leave in 1865 because of a knee problem. After some hesitation between music and philosophy, he decided to make the latter his profession, and in 1867 obtained a Ph. D. from the University of Rostock. He subsequently returned to Berlin. For many years, he lived a retired life of study, doing most of his work in bed, while suffering great pain. He died at Gross-Lichterfelde.

Reviews

[Erick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the combined three volumes of von Hartmann’s Philosophy of the Unconscious, his magnum opus. It is over a thousand pages, and, honestly, not all of it is equally as interesting and equally as relevant to the topic. It took me around four months to read. This is partially due to its size and partially due to me having less time to devote to reading it.

Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann was a German philosopher active in the latter half of the 19th century. It is clear that he was very well read. His references to other philosophers are substantial. Being German himself, it is evident that his main sources of influence are German as well. Schopenhauer is one primary influence, and von Hartmann owes a lot to him—although, he shares some of the same critiques of Schopenhauer I have. He also owes a lot to the German Idealists, which are referred to regularly. It can be said that he was attempting to combine Schopenhauer’s thought with the Idealist thought of Schelling primarily. The primary influence of Schopenhauer is regarding will and idea. This forms the backbone of von Hartmann’s system. He makes will a component of the unconscious. Like Carus, he also makes nature itself an unconscious process. Since his view of the unconscious is so broad, von Hartmann is able to include numerous references to evolutionary theory and scientific discoveries of the day. Some of his evidentiary references include experiments that were performed on animals. These portions are disturbing I must say. It does indicate how very little compassion was extended to animals less than 200 years ago. These are not experiments von Hartmann carried out but were ones documented by others. One experiment involved the removal of a frog’s head to measure its bodily reaction to stimulus without a brain. The fact the frog would move its extremities in response to things like acid being dripped on it, i.e. to wipe off the acid, indicated to von Hartmann that perception did not require a conscious mind. This indicates unconscious perception at the most basic level. Most of von Hartmann’s references that take up a considerable portion of the book are of this kind. Much of this could have been removed and the point still would’ve been made. He came from a time when writers would include anything seemingly of value—no matter how tangential.

Like Schopenhauer, von Hartmann was influenced by evolutionary theory. It is clear that he had read all the notable works of the time on evolution. He accepted evolution as fact. Indeed, he presents evolution as his unconscious process at work. Much of this work is also devoted to debating various theories of evolution. I admit that a lot of this was pedantic and dull. Philosophy had to contend with theories like evolution at the time, so it is a bit understandable that von Hartmann felt the need to address those ideas. It is insightful that there were contending approaches to evolution. Darwin’s was certainly not the only one, but von Hartmann seems to be partial to his theory but not uncritically.

One positive attribute of this work is that it seems to be one of the primary works that bridged philosophical thought with what would become clinical psychology. Von Hartmann distilled much of the thought of earlier German philosophers, and formulated a system relating to the unconscious, which became influential for later psychologists. He does hold that the unconscious is universal, so here you have an early inkling of the collective unconscious that was later an important element in Jung’s system of psychology. Jung was noted to have read von Hartmann. Von Hartmann very specifically calls the unconscious a collective (Vol. 1 pg. 4-5; vol. 2 pg. 90). Even though he refers to Schelling frequently, it is always to his collected works, which makes it very difficult to determine which work of Schelling’s he is referencing specifically. It seems likely that Schelling’s influence on von Hartmann played a significant role in his views on the universality of the unconscious. Schopenhauer probably was influential here as well. He often compares the thought of both. Even though he utilizes evolutionary theory, von Hartmann wasn’t a materialist. There is an intimation of the transcendent in his system, but he accords to the unconscious a primary role in nature and it isn’t mind as such, it is the source of will and ideation though (vol. 2, pg. 83, 101). It is only with consciousness that mind comes into play. Like Schelling and Schopenhauer, von Hartmann’s unconscious will is mindless (Vol 2, pg. 273). He seems to have concluded that the unconscious will is mindless because for von Hartmann (contra Leibniz cf. vol. 2, pg. 361-362) this world is the worst of possible worlds (cf. also vol. 2, pg 273-274), and a rational creator would have destroyed it upon its creation. What is odd though is that he both maintains that the unconscious is mechanistic necessity (Vol. 2, Pg. 24), but it also is an undifferentiated mass outside of time and manifestation (Vol. 2, Pg. 50-51). Mechanism requires order, but the unconscious as von Hartmann intimates it is a convoluted chaos (cf. Vol. 2 Pg. 338-339). He was inspired most likely by Carus in his view of the unconscious as mechanism (cf. my review) but positing it as chaos is not from Carus. I did note in my reading and review of Carus that the unconscious almost certainly requires some degree of mechanism and freedom. Both Carus and von Hartmann seem to grant freedom only to consciousness itself. Freedom is often indeed chaotic, so the paradox exists for both the unconscious and conscious modes. Von Hartmann accords so much to the unconscious that he actually makes it the coordinator of evolution and the destiny of humanity (Vol. 2, pg. 38-39). How it could coordinate anything without a mind is not clear. It is obvious though that segmenting roles the way that von Hartmann and Carus do leads to contradiction. When it comes to will, a sane person doesn’t receive motivations to do things that are impossible. If the will is primarily unconscious, it at least knows what ideas are practical and what aren’t. The only obvious reconciliation is that the unconscious contains undifferentiated possibility but isn’t devoid of reason; and consciousness also contains freedom and possibility, but also can rationally differentiate between possibilities. It seems likely that the unconscious can offer at least rational suggestions in part. It seems to me that the final decider is the conscious part, but the unconscious isn’t devoid of reason. This does indicate that if the will starts as unconscious impetus, it isn’t removed from mind and rationality because mind is partially unconscious. For the unconscious to even make suggestions that seem feasible to the conscious mind, it requires that there is some rationality involved. To put simply, I cannot subscribe to any system that separates reason from the unconscious or will from consciousness, or freedom from either. While I agree that the will almost certainly is first rooted in the unconscious, consciousness must either decide to manifest its impetus or to deny it. We cannot easily segment roles as Carus and von Hartmann do. It is incredibly difficult to do so. My position is that all facets of being and mind must have roles in the conscious and unconscious person. The unconscious does seem to be the root as Carus and von Hartmann hold, but it cannot work without consciousness. If will was as overpowering as Schopenhauer and von Hartmann believed, the conscious mind would not be able to act as a check to it. It seems far more likely that a checks and balance system is at work between both. I would have a tendency to agree that the unconscious is far more intuitive (cf. Vol. 2 Pg. 338), and the conscious is more logical, but that isn’t to say that they don’t have a share in both to varying degrees. It also begs the question as to whether there are various levels in consciousness and unconsciousness.

Von Hartmann sees the whole point of conscious life, and its accompanying rationality, to separate idea from will. This is Schopenhauer’s position precisely. The problem still exists for both as to how such a primary overarching pre-conscious and pre-cosmic power can be subject to secondary processes like consciousness and conscious mind (cf. Vol. 2, pg. 248-249). He also searches for consciousness in cells (Vol. 2, pg. 215-216), but it isn’t clear how cells themselves necessitate consciousness. Certainly not all cells go into organisms with an obvious consciousness. Von Hartmann wouldn’t have been aware of DNA, and even that doesn’t suggest consciousness as such. It does indicate that order, information, and mind are inherit in cells, which really works against Schopenhauer’s and von Hartmann’s systems that utilize evolution. It might be intuited that anything that carries information as DNA does, suggests intelligence and consciousness as a matter of course; but consciousness is poorly understood to this day, and that connection isn’t clearly defined. One could even hypothetically at least draw a parallel between the DNA helix and atomic weight. Undoubtedly, both define the matrix of their organic and inorganic context. Von Hartmann does not remove either the organic or inorganic from the unconscious necessarily (cf. Vol. 2, Pg. 287). Of course, as I said, he couldn’t have been aware of all the developments of atomic theory and genetics, but he seemed to intuit some things appropriately enough. It is certainly up for debate among many whether either one indicates a universal mind. I think it is fairly obvious it does, but I admit that how all of this works is not readily apparent to me. That there is an obvious pattern is certainly not beyond reasonable extrapolation. Whether pattern indicates mind I leave it to the reader to decide.

In contrast to a purely subjective Idealism, von Hartmann posits that space and time must be accepted a priori before plurality can even be manifested. I am in agreement here with him to some extent. I part company only in that I hold that distinction takes place even before the introduction of space and time. Philosophers like von Hartmann have often failed to properly understand nuance when it comes to the difference of distinction and the difference of separation. He is certainly correct though that if the conscious mind accepts an other, it can only presuppose space and time when it comes to the mundane world.

Another element that von Hartmann adopted from Schopenhauer is his extreme pessimism. Indeed, his pessimism becomes incredibly wearisome by the end of the book. Instead of it always coming off as purely philosophical, it often comes across as someone just complaining about life. It’s not even that I reject all of his assertions about suffering in life, I only think he is myopic due to his own experiences. I cannot assert with any degree of certainty that suffering is more pervasive and ubiquitous than pleasure in the world. This would require a wealth of data that I am not privy to. I’m also not the best to even weigh such a subject. If I were to gauge my own life, I would probably agree with von Hartmann that suffering has been more notable than pleasure. Von Hartmann’s views on the world are certainly not based on unbiased readily apparent data. There’s plenty of people that do not view the world that same way. We are often biased by our own experiences and we project those on to others. That’s exactly what von Hartmann does. Apparently, he was well acquainted with suffering personally, so it would be natural for him to project that onto the world. Von Hartmann’s view of the world is so grim that he apparently adopted Schopenhauer’s preference for nihilistic Eastern religions where only escape from the world into the nothingness of nirvana was acceptable. With this, he thought it far more preferrable that the world should not exist at all. His pessimism extends to his appraisal of Christianity and other religions. He sees selfishness in asceticism and in almost anything that could be called Christian ethics (Vol. 3, Pg. 90-92). Of course, nirvana is always a personal goal in Eastern religions, so that is also selfish. And one could reasonably find a selfish reason for almost any action if one chooses to. Von Hartmann simply embraces a nihilistic view because of his pessimistic nature. A disdain for the world like his will only accept the complete annihilation of that world and an annihilation of individual people. Von Hartmann sees all doctrines of personal immortality as egoistic, so the unconscious is also his afterlife where everything is undifferentiated and ego-less (Vol 3, pg. 88-89).

Hartmann’s thesis seems to be best rendered on page 242 of volume 2. I provide a long quotation:

“The world is only a continuous series of sums of peculiarly combined will-acts of the Unconscious, for it is only so long as it is continuously posited; let the Unconscious cease to will the world, and this play of intersecting activities of the Unconscious ceases to be. It is an illusion disappearing before thorough reflection, an illusion of the senses in the widest sense, when we think we have in the world, the non-ego, something directly real. It is an illusion of the egoistic instinct when we think we have in ourselves, in our ideal ego, something directly real. The world consists only of a sum of activities or will-acts of the Unconscious, and the ego consists of another sum of activities will-acts of the Unconscious. Only so far as the former activities intersect the latter does the world become sensible to me; only so far as the latter intersect the former do I become sensible to myself. In the sphere of the mental representation or pure Idea, the ideally opposed peacefully exist side by side, and for the most part form logical combinations calmly and without storms. Does, however, a will seize these ideal opposites and make them its content, then the will-acts filled with opposite content enter into opposition; they pass into real conflict, in which they mutually resist and threaten to destroy one another, when either the one succeeds entirely or both partially, so that they compel one another to a compromise. Only in this conflict, the mutually offered resistance of the individually parted will-acts of the All-One, arises and consists that which we call reality…”

I didn’t see anything in this incredibly large tome that sums up his position better than this passage.

This was an interesting book to an extent. I give it around three stars. Its sheer size makes it nigh on unapproachable for most. It could use a serious abridgment. A lot could be removed from it and still be left with the salient points. Some other things that detract from it I mentioned above. Its size makes it hard to recommend to anyone one but those who are keenly interested in philosophy and psychology and their intersection in history.

[noblethumos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eduard von Hartmann’s The Philosophy of the Unconscious (originally published in 1869) occupies a pivotal and paradoxical position in the intellectual history of German philosophy. At once a culmination of German Idealism and a precursor to both psychoanalysis and existentialist thought, Hartmann’s magnum opus offers an ambitious metaphysical synthesis that sought to reconcile the speculative tradition of Schelling and Hegel with the empirical advances of 19th-century science. The result is a vast, often contradictory, yet profoundly influential treatise that attempts nothing less than an explanatory framework for all existence grounded in the operations of the unconscious.


At the core of Hartmann’s argument is the positing of the “Unconscious” as the fundamental metaphysical principle that unites Will and Idea—categories derived from Schopenhauer and Plato, respectively. Unlike Schopenhauer, who saw the Will as blind and irrational, Hartmann holds that the Unconscious possesses both a volitional and an intellectual aspect. The Unconscious is not merely a metaphysical substratum; it is also the operative force behind all physical, psychological, and historical phenomena. Hartmann’s system aims to explain not only human cognition and motivation, but also the evolutionary development of the cosmos, artistic creation, religious belief, and even the teleological movement of history.


Structurally, The Philosophy of the Unconscious unfolds in three parts: the first is dedicated to the metaphysical foundations of the unconscious, the second to its physiological and psychological manifestations, and the third to the teleological implications of unconscious activity in history and culture. Hartmann draws on a wide array of sources, including contemporary biology, physiology, and psychology, as well as classical philosophy and Eastern mysticism. This breadth lends the work a formidable intellectual scope, but also contributes to its diffuseness and internal tensions. Hartmann’s style is both systematic and encyclopedic, but it often lacks the rigor of Kantian critique or the dialectical precision of Hegel.


One of Hartmann’s more original contributions lies in his anticipation of the psychological unconscious later theorized by Freud and Jung. His claim that unconscious mental processes underlie conscious thought and action, and his identification of repressed desires, instinctual drives, and unconscious motivations, foreshadowed central elements of psychoanalytic theory. However, where Freud emphasized libidinal economy and individual pathology, Hartmann maintained a metaphysical optimism—or perhaps pessimism—according to which the world process, despite its suffering and irrationality, moves inexorably toward a final state of redemption: the “deliverance from the will-to-live,” a nod to Schopenhauer but now couched in historical and quasi-Hegelian terms.


Philosophically, Hartmann’s position is vulnerable to critique from multiple directions. His metaphysical dual-aspect theory—Unconscious as both Will and Idea—rests on problematic ontological assumptions and occasionally lapses into speculative mysticism. His attempt to reconcile empirical science with transcendental metaphysics, while admirable in intention, often collapses into an eclectic and unwieldy syncretism. Moreover, his determinist view of history and emphasis on the futility of individual striving places him at odds with both liberal humanism and Marxist historical materialism.


Nevertheless, The Philosophy of the Unconscious remains a work of considerable historical and philosophical significance. It marks a transitional moment in 19th-century thought, one in which the exhaustion of German Idealism opened new avenues for understanding the mind, nature, and culture. Hartmann’s influence extended well beyond philosophy: Wagner and Nietzsche engaged critically with his ideas, and early psychoanalysts drew inspiration from his conception of unconscious mental life. In the broader landscape of metaphysical speculation, Hartmann stands as one of the last great system-builders of the German tradition.


The Philosophy of the Unconscious is a fascinating if flawed work that embodies the ambitions and anxieties of its intellectual milieu. It challenges the reader with its speculative daring, rewards with occasional insight, and frustrates with its inconsistencies. Yet its enduring legacy lies in its bold attempt to bring unconscious forces into the center of philosophical inquiry—a task that would shape the trajectory of thought well into the 20th century.

GPT

[J.D. Steens · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is Volume II of a three volume exposition of von Hartmann’s theories of the unconscious. The virtue of this book is that it constructs a narrative of who humans are based on Darwinian theory. In telling this story, von Hartmann weaves together an impressive amount of Darwinian scientific evidence and speculation. His story is comprehensive as it goes back to the basics of life itself, much as Hegel and Schopenhauer did with their philosophies that preceded Darwin. But in doing so, von Hartmann ends up in a very wrong space. His is a preferred narrative. He has a vision humankind’s exceptionalism, and all the evidence he cites is conducive to that paradigm.

Von Hartmann takes Schopenhauer’s Will - the basic life force, the energy of life - and Idea - the mental representation of reality, and reformulates both to meet his more Hegelian-like aspirations (the historical movement toward the Absolute and its perfections). For von Hartmann, there is a unity between life force (as Will, as impulse) and its surrounding mental apparatus, the unconscious. The Will and its mental component, the unconscious, is focused on one thing only: survival.

But, whereas Schopenhauer sees this primal unity, von Hartmann uses Darwinian theory to separate them. In the so-called “survival-of-the-fittest” terminology, he pulls in some Lamarckian theory to say that the conscious mind emerged from its unconscious origins to become emancipated from Schopenhauer’s Will and all of its id impulses. The mechanism for this emergence was the inheritance of acquired characteristics: Those with the knowledge achieved during one’s lifetime passed it along to their children and, after several generations of this, the stronger individuals and “races” survived and dominated the weaker individuals and the inferior races. Given the volume of von Hartman’s work, it’s easy to miss this central point of his but it is powerfully pointed. To quote it in full:

"Thus all spiritual progress causes an enhancement of the executive capacity of the material organ of the intellect and this becomes through inheritance…the enduring possession of humanity….[T]he progress in the spiritual possession of humanity goes hand in hand with the anthropological development of the race, and stands in reciprocal relation with it; all progress on the one side stands on the other side in good stead. There must, accordingly, be also an anthropological ennoblement of the race, which springs from other causes than that mental progress, which further the intellectual evolution. Of the later kind, is, e.g., the improvement of the race by sexual selection…-which ceaselessly exerts its unnoticed but powerful effects - or the competition of races and nations in the struggle for existence, which is waged among mankind under natural laws just, as pitilessly as among animals and plants. No power on earth is able to arrest the eradication of the inferior races of mankind, which, as relics of earlier stages of development once also passed through by ourselves, have gone on vegetating down to the present day….little is there humanity in artificially prolonging the death-struggle of savages who are on the verge of extinction….The quicker this eradication of the peoples living in a state of nature incapable of competition with the white race is proceeded with, and the quicker the whole earth is exclusively occupied by races hitherto the highest, the more quickly will the struggle of different stocks within the highest race burst forth into immense proportions, the sooner will the spectacle of the absorption of the lower race by the higher be repeated among stocks and peoples….the struggle for existence is in general the more bitter and the more merciless, but at the same time also the more advantageous for the progressive evolution of the race, the nearer are the species or varieties that compete with one another….the earth becomes more and more the exclusive possession of the most highly-developed peoples."

Yet, as brutal as this might seem, von Hartmann’s emphasis was on the ennoblement of humanity, much as it was for Hegel. The emancipation of mind allows for the control of and escape from the id-like forces of the unconscious. He also seems to be saying that by the elimination of the inferior, supplanted by the superior, a fundamental equality is reached among all civilized peoples that ensures that competition occurs on equal terms (“these peoples are far more equal, thus far more capable of competition”). Order, harmony and generalized human betterment arise as a result.

In his reformation of Schopenhauer, von Hartmann sees the Will and the Unconscious dualistically: Will is impulse (aimless desire) and the Unconscious provides purpose and direction (survival, well-being) to what otherwise would be blind impulse. In his reformulation of Hegel, which is less clear, through tension (problems in the environment), consciousness (problem-solving knowledge) emerges and, Tao-like, furthers evolution’s cosmic purposes: to eliminate the weak and to augment the strong, thereby arriving at the “greatest possible sum of happiness in life,” which, in the context of von Hartmann’s overall theory, means the prevalence of the strong over the weak (a possible precursor to Nazi ideology?).

And along that path, the task of consciousness involves some hard-nosed discipline. Among other rules for “the application of acquired conscious knowledge for mankind is this one: Stoic-like, it is to suppress “useless feelings of pain….Only consider how much the life of humanity would gain if one could eradicate every one of these foes of the mind’s peace - the advantage would be incalculable; and yet it is open to every one to purify his life from these disturbers of his freedom by the application of conscious reason….”

Von Hartmann is highlighting what is the dominant paradigm of today - conscious mind’s executive, regulatory function: “Man, through his more highly-developed consciousness, enjoys the privilege of being able to oppose to the passions of the sensuous moment desires, which are voluntarily produced by representations of the future, and has therein a means of securing for the Ego of the future an ideal equality with the Ego of the present.” Conscious mind, he goes on to say, “is subject to the conscious will at every moment, and can entirely emancipate itself from interest and the emotions and passions. Action in conformity with the inspirations of the Unconscious consequently exclusively depends on the innate and acquired character and is good or bad accordingly, - action from consciousness may be regulated according to principles which reason dictates.” And, again, what reason dictates is embedded in evolution’s purpose: eliminate the weak by the strong. From here, von Hartmann soars into his evolutionary vision for humanity. In “the emancipation of the intellect from the will,” humanity conjoins “the whole world-process” that “is tending towards this goal.*

The flip side of von Hartman’s argument is that Schopenhauer was never in denial about what humanity was about. While we might think we’re in control, we are anything but. The Will is this Darwinian homunculus thing in the depths of humanity’s soul, driving it to survival, well-being and reproduction. Mind’s role is not ennoblement at all. Mind’s role is as Hume so nonchalantly (almost buried among the rest of what he said) suggested is to serve the passions and the passions are Schopenhauer’s Will and Freud’s id. That the “survival of the fittest” is thought to be a myth is itself a myth, in spite of our hope for a fundamental equality among humans. The “strong” (the most capable) use others and the weak for their own advantage. This is our elan vital in all its merciless glory.

But there is hope in both von Hartmann and Darwin’s theory. The former noted that cooperation and peaceful competition are just as prevalent as “physical struggle with weapons.” This matches up with Darwin’s views on our tribal nature. In a group, we survive. Alone, we die. So we are bred to form groups where cooperation is the norm (though it does seem again there is a fundamental tension between id and superego). But of course, that doesn’t apply to those outside our group. There, the survival of the fittest remains as the norm and we see that in international relations today.

This is my tentative take on von Hartmann’s long book. Most of it comes from the beginning chapter and the rest of the book is a detailed justification for his theory, which I found overwhelming and ended up skimming through.

*The “ideal of wisdom” is for wise men to “keep their judgment always free from disturbance by passion, and, in a word, to make conscious reason the motive of their life. Therefore a man knows the less what he wills the more he abandons himself to the Unconscious, the inspiration of feeling,” adding that, “Children and women rarely know it, and only in the simplest cases; animals probably still more rarely.”

[Marisuck Kirisilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Koishi

[Daniel]

well, that's a solution I guess

video.