Duhring wants to make the mind separate from, being separate from Nature. On that basis, thought exists on a separate plane of existence, a plane in which pure abstraction, and where the attuned mind, therefore, can simply pluck these eternal principles, like plucking fruit, or like a religious mystic talking directly to God. Of course, Mind and Nature are not identical, but that does not mean they are separate or unrelated. The mind, indeed, works in the realm of ideas and, consequently abstractions. Like any other process, it begins with a quantity of raw material, and forms it into something new. But, this new thing cannot be separated from the material which formed the basis of its creation. It does not just pop into existence from nowhere.
“... if we then ask what thought and consciousness are and whence they come, we find that they are products of the human brain and that man himself is a product of nature, which has developed in and along with its environment; whence it is self-evident that the products of the human brain, which in the last analysis are also products of nature, do not contradict the rest of nature's interconnections but correspond to them.” (p 44)
A similar debate exists today, in relation to the existence of a so called “hard problem” of consciousness, as distinct from an “easy problem”, of consciousness. The “easy” problem relates to experience of the material world, which results in a common perception, whereas the hard problem relates to why individuals have their own subjective perception of the real world, or qualia, their own tastes, and preferences, for example, which is important in relation not only to philosophical and psychological studies of the mind, for example in relation to cognition and free will, but, in relation, therefore, to economics, in relation to utility/use-value, and its role in terms of demand.
One solution to that question is provided by Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff, in their theory of Orchestrated Objective Reduction. It proposes that consciousness is a product not of the interaction of neurons, but of a quantum level process within the neurons themselves. However, the idea that there is any such separation between “hard” or “easy” problem of consciousness is also challenged. Minsky, for example has noted that humans can believe false ideas, and so mathematical understanding of the world need not be consistent, meaning that consciousness then has a deterministic basis. The idea was also challenged by Tegmark, who noted that “any quantum coherent system in the brain would undergo effective wave function collapse due to environmental interaction long before it could influence neural processes (the "warm, wet and noisy" argument, as it later came to be known).” (Wikipedia). Subsequent, experimental science has failed to provide any evidence to support a quantum level explanation for consciousness.
Duhring, however, cannot designate thought as “human thought”, because he considers that to be subjectively self-limiting, and thought, the discovery of his absolute truths and principles cannot be so confined. Like Descartes, he seeks, solely on the basis of reason, to reduce all truth down to what must be true everywhere in the universe for all time.
“Hence, in order that no suspicion may arise that twice two make five on some celestial body or other, Herr Dühring dare not designate thought as human, and so he has to cut it off from the only real foundation on which we find it, namely, man and nature; and with that he tumbles hopelessly into an ideology which reveals him as the epigone of the “epigone” Hegel {197}. In passing, we shall often meet Herr Dühring again on other celestial bodies.” (p 44-5)
Of course, the conclusion that 2 + 2 = 4, is itself a function of humans using base 10 for such calculations. If we use binary, then 2 is 10, and 2 + 2 is 10 + 10 = 100. Moreover, in the real world, such conclusions do not necessarily follow. If we take a drop of water, and add a second drop, we do not get two drops, as they combine into one larger single drop.
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