According to the proposition just introduced, however,
what is thought in this caseis supposed to be something objective, an I merely for itself and entirelyindependent of the act of thinking, and yet it is still supposed to be cognized as an I, for it is supposed to be found as an I.
Hence in what is thought, considered as such – i.e., insofar as it can only be something objective and can
never become subjective, that is, insofar as it is what is originally objective – there would have to occur
an identity of the acting subject and that upon which it acts, an identity such that it could be, as I said
above, only an object. The acting in question would therefore have to be a realacting [ ein reelles
Handeln] upon itself; not a mere intuiting of oneself, as is the case with the ideal activity, but a realdetermining of oneself through oneself. But only willing is something of this sort; and, conversely, we
can think of willing only in this way. The expression “to find oneself” is therefore absolutely identical
with the expression “to find oneself willing.” Only insofar as I find myself [engaged in] willing, do I
find myself, and insofar as I find myself, I necessarily find myself willing[IV, 23].
Corollary
One can see that in order to establish anything categorically from the proposition just demonstrated – if I
find myself, I necessarily find myself as willing – another proposition has to precede it, namely,
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I necessarily find myself; I necessarily become conscious of myself. Such self-consciousness is
exhibited in the foundational portion of the entire Wissenschaftslehre6– not, to be sure, as a matter of fact, for as such it is something immediate, but rather, in its connection with all the other types of
consciousness, as reciprocally conditioning and conditioned by the latter. Consequently, the proposition
just demonstrated, along with everything that is still to be derived from it, becomes itself a necessary
consequence as well as a condition of self-consciousness. Regarding this proposition and all of its
consequences, one may assert the following: just as certainly as I am, or am conscious of myself, this
proposition and its consequences are certain for me and are necessarily present in me and for me. And
thus the science of ethics that we are here engaged in establishing stands firmly on common ground with
philosophy as a whole.
(2) WILLING ITSELF, HOWEVER, IS THINKABLE ONLY UNDER THE PRESUPPOSITION OF SOMETHING
DIFFERENT FROM THE I.
In philosophical abstraction one may indeed speak of willing as suchor ingeneral, which is, for
precisely this reason, something indeterminate. All willing that is actually perceivable, however, which
is the kind of the willing that is required here, is necessarily a determinate willing, in which somethingis willed. To will something means to demand that some determinate object – which, in willing, is thought
of only as a possibleobject, since otherwise it would not be willed but perceived – become an actual
object of experience; and through this demand the latter is placed outside of us. Thus all willing contains
within itself the postulate of an object outside of us, and in this concept [of willing] something is thought
that is not ourselves [IV, 24].
Moreover, the very possibility of postulating something outside of ourselves in the act of willing already
presupposes that we possess the concept of an “outside of us” as such, and the latter is possible only
through experience. But such an experience, in turn, involves a relationship of ourselves to something
outside of us. – In other words, what I will is never anything but a modification of an object that is
actually supposed to exist outside of me. All my willing is therefore conditioned by the perception of an
object outside of me. In willing, I am not
6 See SK, p. 216 ( SWI: 244ff.; GAI/2: 383ff.) and FTP, pp. 358 ff. ( GAIV/3:472ff.).
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perceptible for myself as I am in and for myself; instead, I perceive only how I can relate in a certain
way to things existing outside me.
(3) IN ORDER TO FIND MY TRUE ESSENCE I MUST THEREFORE THINK AWAY ALL THAT IS FOREIGN IN
WILLING. WHAT THEN REMAINS IS MY PURE BEING.
This assertion is the immediate consequence of the propositions that preceded it. All that is left to
examine is what might remain after one has made the requisite abstraction from what is foreign in
willing. Willing as such is something primary, grounded absolutely in itself and in nothing outside of
itself.