4
" Only after the concept of knowledge has been based on an ontological relation [*Seinsverhältnis*] can we work out the particular kind of being from which the principle of immanence-to-consciousness (the starting point of Idealism and Critical Realism) mistakenly proceeds as though from a primary insight. This is the being of " being-conscious" [*Bewusst-Seins*]. All being-conscious must first of all be brought under the higher concept of ideal being, or, at all events, that of irreal being. The mental item which presents itself in the experiences of consciousness may be real; being-conscious itself never is. However, the concept of consciousness is derivative in not only this sense. Consciousness also presupposes the concept of knowledge. Nothing is more misleading than to proceed in the opposite direction and define knowledge itself as simply a particular " content of consciousness," as we see if we oppose, to the particular kind of knowing and having-known which we call consciousness, another kind of knowledge which precedes it and includes no form of being-conscious. We will call this knowledge *ecstatic* [*ekstatische*] knowledge. It is found quite clearly in animals, primitive people, children, and, further, in certain pathological and other abnormal and supra-normal states (e.g., in recovering from the effects of a drug). I have said elsewhere that the animal never relates to its environment as to an object but only *lives in it* [*es lebe nur " in sie hinein*" ]. Its conduct with respect to the external world depends upon whether the latter satisfies its instinctive drives or denies them satisfaction. The animal experiences the surrounding world as resistances of various types. Hence, it is absolutely necessary to contest the principle (in Descartes, Franz Brentano, *et al*.) that every mental function and act is accompanied by an immediate knowledge of it. An even more highly contestable principle is that a relation to the self is an essential condition of all processes of knowledge. It is difficult to reproduce purely ecstatic knowledge in mature, civilized men, whether in memory, reverie, perception, thought, or empathetic identification with things, animals, or men; nonetheless, there is no doubt that in every perception and presentation of things and events we think that we grasp *the things-themselves*, not mere " images" of them or representatives of some sort.Knowledge first becomes conscious knowledge [*Bewusst-sein*], that is, comes out of its original ecstatic form of simply " having" things, in which there is no knowledge of the having or of that through which and in which it is had, when the act of being thrown back on the self (probably only possible for men) comes into play. This act grows out of conspicuous resistances, clashes, and oppositions―in sum, out of pronounced suffering. It is the *actus re-flexivus* in which knowledge of the knowledge of things is added to the knowledge of things. Furthermore, in this act we come to know the kind of knowledge we have, for example, memory, ideation, and perception, and finally, beyond even these, we come to have a knowledge of the relation of the act performed to the self, to the knower. With respect to any specific relation to the self, this last knowledge, so-called conscious self-knowledge, comes only after knowledge about the act. Kant's principle that an " I think" must be *able* to accompany all a man's thoughts may be correct. That it in fact always accompanies them is nevertheless undoubtedly false. However, the kind of being (indeed, of ideal being) which contents possess when they are reflexively *had* in their givenness in conscious acts―when, therefore, they become reflexive―is the being of being-consciously-known." from_Idealism and Realism_ "
5
" BERENGER: And you consider all this natural?
DUDARD: What could be more natural than a rhinoceros?
BERENGER: Yes, but for a man to turn into a rhinoceros is abnormal beyond question.
DUDARD: Well, of course, that's a matter of opinion ...
BERENGER: It is beyond question, absolutely beyond question!
DUDARD: You seem very sure of yourself. Who can say where the normal stops and the abnormal begins? Can you personally define these conceptions of normality and abnormality? Nobody has solved this problem yet, either medically or philosophically. You ought to know that.
BERENGER: The problem may not be resolved philosophically -- but in practice it's simple. They may prove there's no such thing as movement ... and then you start walking ... [he starts walking up and down the room] ... and you go on walking, and you say to yourself, like Galileo, 'E pur si muove' ...
DUDARD: You're getting things all mixed up! Don't confuse the issue. In Galileo's case it was the opposite: theoretic and scientific thought proving itself superior to mass opinion and dogmatism.
BERENGER: [quite lost] What does all that mean? Mass opinion, dogmatism -- they're just words! I may be mixing everything up in my head but you're losing yours. You don't know what's normal and what isn't any more. I couldn't care less about Galileo ... I don't give a damn about Galileo.
DUDARD: You brought him up in the first place and raised the whole question, saying that practice always had the last word. Maybe it does, but only when it proceeds from theory! The history of thought and science proves that.
BERENGER: [more and more furious] It doesn't prove anything of the sort! It's all gibberish, utter lunacy!
DUDARD: There again we need to define exactly what we mean by lunacy ...
BERENGER: Lunacy is lunacy and that's all there is to it! Everybody knows what lunacy is. And what about the rhinoceroses -- are they practice or are they theory? "
― Eugène Ionesco , Rhinoceros / The Chairs / The Lesson
9
" Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and many more great minds laid the groundwork for the development of modern science. Over the foundation of philosophy, history witnessed the daring ventures of human excellence by both philosophical and scientific geniuses, such as Leonardo-da-Vinci, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Bacon, Darwin, Newton and so on. And the chain of reaction they triggered with their extraordinarily abnormal thinking, given their surrounding ignorance and fundamentalism, resulted into the evolution of our modern science. "
― Abhijit Naskar
13
" If the history of the last century taught us the dangers of empowering governments to determine genetic “fitness” (i.e., which person fits within the triangle, and who lives outside it), then the question that confronts our current era is what happens when this power devolves to the individual. It is a question that requires us to balance the desires of the individual— to carve out a life of happiness and achievement, without undue suffering— with the desires of a society that, in the short term, may be interested only in driving down the burden of disease and the expense of disability. And operating silently in the background is a third set of actors: our genes themselves, which reproduce and create new variants oblivious of our desires and compulsions— but, either directly or indirectly, acutely or obliquely, influence our desires and compulsions. Speaking at the Sorbonne in 1975, the cultural historian Michel Foucault once proposed that “a technology of abnormal individuals appears precisely when a regular network of knowledge and power has been established.” Foucault was thinking about a “regular network” of humans. But it could just as easily be a network of genes. "
― Siddhartha Mukherjee , The Gene: An Intimate History
18
" A little later, when breakfast was over and I had not yet gone up-stairs to my room, I had my first interview with Doctor Brandon, the famous alienist who was in charge of the case. I had never seen him before, but from the first moment that I looked at him I took his measure, almost by intuition. He was, I suppose, honest enough -- I have always granted him that, bitterly as I have felt toward him. It wasn't his fault that he lacked red blood in his brain, or that he had formed the habit, from long association with abnormal phenomena, of regarding all life as a disease. He was the sort of physician -- every nurse will understand what I mean -- who deals instinctively with groups instead of with individuals. He was long and solemn and very round in the face; and I hadn't talked to him ten minutes before I knew he had been educated in Germany, and that he had learned over there to treat every emotion as a pathological manifestation. I used to wonder what he got out of life -- what any one got out of life who had analyzed away everything except the bare structure. "
― Ellen Glasgow , The Shadowy Third
