Truth can be found taking one of two paths. Schiller describes them as outside in life and inside in my heart. However, a truth only based on the outside will never give us certainty. This topic was already touched in the article “Logic and Proof”. We can observe what happens in the outside world. We can describe it, with language and words, with math and numbers. Doing so we create a model of reality, an idea-based representation or a Vorstellung based on our observations and our theories and concepts.
Data analysis is commonly used today to find a truth in the outside world. Based on multiple observations a rule is derived without the necessity to get to the nature of the phenomenon. This way a statement can be made about a system without having a concept of it. The system can remain a mystery, even after a regularity is found. A analytically determined rule should loose its validity as soon as an observation is made that is in conflict with it. However, this often happens only with a delay, especially when investments have already been made in the goals and methods derived from the rule.
We have a different situation when we use our thinking to get to the nature of a phenomena. We then experience the laws of nature within our mind, or, with Schillers words, within our hearts. We find the idea and set up a concept to a phenomenon. This is followed by the insight that a process must occur under specific circumstances. This necessity can be recognized with the observation of just a single phenomenon. The inductive method of data analysis cannot do that. It tries to conclude the nature of a thing from repeated observations.
From one side we get all the impressions given by our senses, from the other side we get the idea, the nature of said observations. We must actively connect those two factors of reality. This dualism, the world of the senses and the world of thought, is united by science. Erkenntnis means to complete the unfinished sensory perception through the revelation of its nature. This nature, or concept, is found by the mind in the form of a thought, an idea. This idea is then integrated into our Weltbild, our network of concepts.
Kant stated that the ideas are just illusions. He considered them to be only regulatory, relevant only for our taxonomy. Ideas are not constitutive for Kant, he considers them to not be a part of the real world. This opinion is still dominating today and it is the main reason for the prevalence of data analysis. If we question or deny human ability to find correct ideas based on observation, or even deny the existence of an idea or concept behind a phenomenon, then all we have left is finding patterns in data. This method does not need ideas, does not need understanding, it is a simple extrapolation of the observed. As a result it does not give us any certainty, but many times the opposite. That is especially problematic for areas where no experiments can be made in simple, isolated systems. Data analysis uses observation to collect data but denies the objective character of thinking. It thereby lacks a fundamental element of science.
The field of thought is the human mind. Despite this, the world of thinking still keeps an objective element. Hegel sees the objective nature of thinking, the modern Zeitgeist sees mainly the subjective element of thinking. Epistemology attends to the relation of perceptions – the world of phenomena – and thoughts – the world of concepts and ideas. Doing so, it can be observed that humans, when they take time to study thoroughly, develop the same concepts, despite their unique perspective and experience. We live in the same world. At the beginning of an examination we may describe the silhouette of a mountain differently, because we see it from different directions. But when we are willing to change our point of view, then we will be able to see the mountain from different perspectives. Only then can we expand our concept enough to talk about it with other people and be able to understand each other.
Scientific investigation of reality requires a specific perception. This gives us at first a mystery. Perception delivers a puzzle, the nature of whatever we perceive is not included in sensory inputs. We feel an urge to figure it out, determine the concept of what we see. We find the idea and develop this concept, and then we know what we are looking at.
Modern science is almost entirely the specification of concepts based on perceivable features. The human intellect is a necessary preliminary stage of all higher science. But the intellect is not capable of moving beyond the analysis. It artificially separates and structures, which is a necessary step for Erkenntnis. But is not its completion. Reason must combine the concepts isolated by intellect, bring them in a harmonic relationship, unify them. This is a desire of our heart. That is why we get a conflict between intellectually dominated science and the human heart. The heart can feel the harmony of the world as a unity, without having to use reason. Every scientifically educated human is capable of reason, and it enables us to comprehend what we could only feel or suspect without it.