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to reason, but dimly, as the other is also dim. Vision, however,
becomes clear in the self, or at least makes an attempt to. The self
wants to see clearly.
The self is created in the self-consciousness. Perception comes
into being when apperception appears in it, or in Schelling’s sense
the intellect. (This is critical thinking, which concentrates not only
on the object, but on the subject. For the dogmatic, the subject is
secondary or is objectified. The dogmatic thinker sees me as an
object, as does everyone else. Maybe they even see me as data, which
can also take the form of everyday experience.) A dogmatic and
schematic person does not like the intellect, because it is remarkably
disturbing. It makes you think, and that is very disturbing. It is
very comfortable not to think. To be undisturbed in not thinking is
heaven itself. Referencing Nietzsche: just let me not stand out! Let
me not stand out from the crowd, because that is an extraordinarily
dangerous situation to be in. “Vengeance will we use, and insult,
against all who are not like us — thus do the tarantula-hearts pledge
themselves.” (KSA IV. pp. 128., TSZ p.81.) If lremain dogmatic,
then I am the ideal subject (sorry: object) for those who want to
use me. And for me, everyone who exists in opposition to this is
other. They can even become enemies, depending on what the one
controlling the dogmatic wants. Because they always need a leader.
“Tt is not the tyrant....” But we have already talked about this.
Schelling defines self-consciousness as where the “perceived”
is the same as the “perceiver” (this is intellectual perception).
Therefore, self-consciousness means a self-reflection within the
thought process, which is to say an act, an unconditional free act.
“The ability to intuit oneself therein, to discriminate oneself as
thinker and as thought, and in so discriminating, again to acknowl¬
edge oneself as identical, will be constantly presupposed in what
”
follows.” (Schelling 1993. p.24., S.W.1.3.) The moment of self-con¬