Comaskeyk001

A chimpanzee who learns from experience to fish with a stick for a banana gives proof of such intelligent behaviour. Understanding is at work where tools are produced. Animal understanding knows all about means, but ends are set for it in advance by the instincts. Reason, on the other hand, is capable of setting goals for itself. This assumes a self-relatedness that makes it possible to take a step back from ourselves and thus to survey the means–end relationship. Reason comes into play when knowledge not only accompanies but generates the act of willing – in short, when we are able to set long-term goals for which the will must first be mobilized. This requires us to step outside or beyond ourselves. The career of man as a rational being begins with this stepping out, this self-transcendence.