Human, All Too Human, Part 16 summary
Part 16 of 152 · 3 min to read the part
In 16, the argument challenges philosophers who treat experience as a finished picture from which they can infer an ultimate cause. It presents our experienced world as a developing product of inherited human errors and suggests that science can partly expose this history, making the thing-in-itself seem empty of meaning.
What happens
- Philosophers treat experience as a completed picture and infer an ultimate cause, or deny any connection between phenomena and the unconditioned.
- The argument counters that experience develops through human needs, passions, prejudices, and mistaken thought.
- Some responses demand surrender of intellect, while others blame existence itself and advocate its destruction.
- Science offers a possible account of our experienced world as accumulated, inherited errors that also support what humanity values.
- Science cannot remove inherited feelings entirely, but tracing their development may expose the thing-in-itself as meaningless.
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What limit does the argument place on science?
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