Florian Znaniecki

Cultural Reality Florian Znaniecki

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1919. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V THE THEORETIC ORDERS OF REALITY THE GENERAL FEATURES OF THEORETIC RATIONALIZATION The imperfect and multiform organization of reality super-constructed by practical activity upon the world of concrete historical objects serves in turn as a foundation for a new superstructure, the rational order which knowledge imposes upon its object-matter. We cannot, of course, give here a complete theory of knowledge which presupposes a general theory of activity and constitutes the most arduous task of philosophy. We shall limit ourselves to the minimum of indications necessary to understand the connection between knowledge and reality in so far as it affects the latter. The fundamental points which must be kept in mind are that, on the one hand, knowledge constitutes itself a part of cultural reality, the domain of ideas, each of which has a content drawn from some other reality and a meaning due to its connection with other ideas; and that, on the other hand, each idea is objectified and stabilized thought, which at any moment can be actualized again as thought, as an activity of which reality is the object-matter, sjijrealityj the domain of ideas has a-rational organization of its own, whose character is formally practical,.. JJhat is, which manifests itself in situations, schemes, and dogmas, just as the rational organization of technical or political realityjVahd there is a special activity, which might be called theoretically practical, if such a term did not seem stranger still than that of ideal reality, which we have used to distinguish the domain of ideas from all other reality. The task of this activity is to create new ideas, both on the ground of real data and on 230 the ground of pre-existing ideas. The instruments of this creation, with the help of wh...