This draft incorporates work on the 1894 source text and Tom's latest draft.
Chapter 2 second draft JR Work-in-Progress 20100418
[This version avoids the use of the word self after concerns were raised about that approach. After reading through Tom’s latest version, I decided to try individual and I as options.]
Colour code: Tom’s commentsTom’s comments on this draft [John’s comments] unresolved options preferred options
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Note about working with world-outlooks: At the bottom of the Human and Cosmic Thought page are word files with the descriptions of the chapter 7 moods and 12 views. They can be printed out for reference.
Chapter 2 is the Goethean "feeling" science chapter -- before clear thinking occurs in Chapter 3.
[All men by nature desire to know. – Aristotle]
[Capitalisation: there were different practices in the early 1900s and many translations of Steiner’s works continued the German capitalization of significant words. This is no longer current acceptable practice. If we add capitalizations to the English text now, it constitutes editorial emphasis, which must be distinguished as such. If the text is clear, a peppering of idiosyncratic capitalization is not justifiable. If editorial emphasis is needed – and I am not convinced of a real need – then it must be done in a manner that distinguishes it as such for the reader.]
Goethe verse: I want to have a clear version and avoid "arty" for the first edition.
[We could include a literal prose version of Goethe. I note that Steiner is on record as considering the artistic element of PoF to be highly significant. I am slowly able to perceive this element in the development of the images in relation to the examples from other authors. I consider that – as far as possible – we must preserve the distinctive stages of the development of Steiner’s argument. This is a critical factor in this chapter, such as moving from the plant to the animal kingdom and not implying that one observation of the tree is dependent on an earlier one. The opening Goethe verse is translated by John. Dust (which does not exist in German) is assumed – in collaboration with several native German speakers – to be a poetic contraction of Duster: adj. dismal, gloomy, cheerless, depressing, sad, dour, dreary, dull, somber, dusky, dim, hostile, frightening, threatening, gruesome, grim]
Chapter 2 Glossary
Science
Similarity (likeness)
Phenomenon/Fact
Dualism
Monism
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[1918 Chapter 2] 1894 Chapter 3: The Desire for Scientific Knowledge
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[Wissentrieb - thirst for knowledge. Wissenshaftlich – scholarly, scientific, learned.
Thus: The Basic Urge to Learn, which manifests as our inner demand for satisfactory scientific explanations.] The Basic Need to Know Why/for Explanations |
Two souls, alas, are in my breast;
They pull apart at every turn.
One clasps with passionate embrace
The world, for which its organs yearn;
The other, from gloom, arises chaste
To a heritage of high concern.
(Goethe, Faust I, 1112-1117)
2.0 Seeking an Explanation of World Phenomena
[1] With these words Goethe characterizes a trait that is deeply established in human nature. [The human being is not inherently a unified [einheitlich] organism.]The organization of the human being is inherently contradictory.We always demand more than the world offers.Nature has given us basic needs, and left us the work of satisfying some of them. Our share of nature's bounty abounds, but our desires are even more abundant. We appear to be born dissatisfied. Our craving for knowledge is only one instance of this dissatisfaction.
We look at a tree twice. At first we see its branches motionless, and the next time they are moving. We are not satisfied with these observations. Why is the tree motionless at one time and in motion at another? We want to know why. Every glance at nature stirs up a number of questions in us. Every phenomenon we encounter presents us with a task. Every experience is an enigma/mysterious. When we observe a creature emerging from an egg, we want to know why it is similar to its mother. When we observe a growing organism develop some degree of perfection, we enquire into the factors that determine this experience. Nowhere are we satisfied with what nature spreads out before our senses. We search everywhere for what we call an explanation of the facts.
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[begründeten: has a complex meaning of establish, found, ground and substantiate, evidence or give reasons ]
He/We always demand/s… What is our policy on gender specific language?
Gender neutral is best but then everything becomes "we" which is very difficult in all cases with a book on individuality. Lipson did a good job but I think we will need to make some exceptions. [agreed] [We should not disrupt the chain of thought with different words alike/similarity/resemblance. One word – similar or likeness – has to be consistent throughout. Similar seems preferable to likeness.
Vollkommenheit: perfection, completion totality
I have not adopted some of Tom’s suggestions for reasons of grammar and ambiguity. E.g. … an egg similar to its mother…
Aufgabe: task - not problem! Problem (in the sense of something to be solved) makes a tautology with riddle. Not what Steiner intended!
Every phenomenon we encounter offers us a task/work to do.
You are right in regards to a literal translation, but it is confusing, what is the work we must do? Hoernle clarifies both sentences and gives it clear meaning [IMHO, in this instance Hoernle misses Steiner’s real point. The ‘problem’ is not in itself a question but a feeling of dissatisfaction that generates a question. Tom, the task that nature sets us is to ask questions, not to answer questions we have not asked. Steiner may have oversimplified this nuance himself. He has to show that we cannot become free in our questioning if we do not become conscious of our inner experience of dissatisfaction with phenomena. What Nature inserts in us as dissatisfaction is the basis for asking questions, and we often don’t do this but just accept what we see before us. Too many of us get used to the dripping tap of inner dissatisfaction and stop asking questions. How many of us still wonder at every glance at nature in adulthood? Look how long it took science to discover buckminsterfullerene, which occurs in candle soot. (Nobel Prize in 1996: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullerene) Did you ever ask about candle soot? I assumed as a child that its slipperiness was just candle wax – the wrong assumption as it turns out because I did not properly observe that it is slippery itself. Thus ended my questioning! Questions can only arise in human beings, which form the basis of scientific endeavour. Nature gives us, not the question itself, but the basis of questions. If we do not do the work of asking those questions that lie within our experience then science wilts. All speculative theory is implicitly an unanswered question. Such questions are thoughts that require further thinking to a conclusive standpoint. Even a clever answer can become a dead end, but a good question is always full of life. Note: IMHO phenomena are not facts. Facts have to be established from the presentation of phenomena.]
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2.1 Transcending the World of Phenomena
[2] We seek to add more to what we are given at first glance, and the search for this additional supplement splits our whole being into two; we become conscious of standing oppositethe world. We confront the world as an independent being. The universe appears to be divided into two: I and the world.
[2] We seek to add more to what we are given at first glance, and the search for this additional supplement splits our whole being into two; we become conscious of standing oppositethe world. We confront the world as an independent being. The universe appears to be divided into two: I and the world.
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[We are talking about this: "Thinking connects us with the thought aspect of the world. But at the same time it separates us as the mental process splits the world into two halves: our objective outer perception and our subjective inner thought-world."]
[We seek something more in things that exceeds what is immediately given to us. This addition splits our whole being into two parts;] When a person becomes independent the experience is more one of opposition than exclusivity. [I cannot confirm this from introspection. I don’t oppose the world that I feel I am intrinsically part of, as Chapter ‘1’ describes. I feel excluded and isolated. I face the world that stands opposite me and we are developing a deeper relationship to one another.]
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[3] We set up this dividing wall between ourselves and the world as soon as consciousness dawns within us. But we never lose the certainty of feeling that we belong to the world, and that an enduring bond connects us to it; we are not outsiders, we are within the universe.
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In the preface to Riddles of Philosophy Steiner speaks of that book in terms of the intellectual work of mankind.
Hoernle uses Self, Ego (2.2) and brings in "I' (2.10), drops "I" in 2.5. Others used only "I". There is the "I" of psychology as subject (Self?) and the "I" within thinking ("I"). We won't be sure about the use of Self and "I" until later in book. [The I/world dichotomy is clearly distinct from the mind/matter dichotomy so we are in deep waters here. This is a real test for the integrity of the decision to use mind and not spirit for Geist. I see why we need to preserve Steiner’s own use of selbst and Ich.] [the feeling we belong… Steiner substantiates this feeling later in the chapter with …we will probe the depths of our own being in order to find those elements that we took with us in our flight from nature.
outsiders/inside – one might expect the contradistinction of noun to noun outsiders/members (insiders) rather than the noun/positional relationship distinction in the German. Position/position also possible: outside/inside. Why does Steiner choose noun/positional relationship? Is it because he will later show that this is an illusory position and not a real distinction? ]
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[4] This feeling arouses the desire/makes us strive [distinction of original feeling, desire and action – clearly ‘this feeling’ is the contradictory dissatisfaction just described which is not yet a desire. streben can mean ambition (motive) or the effort. For example, Google gives: This feeling creates the desire….] to bridge the difference/separation/division between us and the world. Ultimately the entire spiritual [mental] striving of humanity is the bridging of this division. The history of intellectual life is a continuing search for this reconciliation. Religion, art and science all pursue a similar goal. [I don’t want to omit this similarity reference. It may be a significant reason for the introduction of the concept of analogy/similarity.] The religious believer searches within the revelation from God for the solution to the mysteries of the world presentedby her individual experience of dissatisfaction with the world of mere phenomena. The artist seeks to express her individual ideas in a physical medium in order to reconcile what lives within her with the outer world. She also feels dissatisfied with the world as it appears, and seeks to imprint into it what lives within her individuality that transcends the world of phenomena. The thinker seeks for the laws of the phenomena, endeavouring to penetrate her observations with thinking.
Only when we have made the world-content into our own thought content will we rediscover the unity from which we have separated ourselves. We will see later why this goal will only be reached from a more profound understanding of scientific research than usual. ><
We meet all that I have portrayed as the relationship between I and the world in the historical phenomena of the conflict between the[einheitlichen Weltauffassung] undivided world outlook of Monism, and the [Zweiweltentheorie] two-world theory of Dualism. Dualism concentrates exclusively on the separation brought about by human consciousness between I and the world. All its efforts are poured into an ineffectual struggle to reconcile these opposing sides, which it may call mind and matter, or subject and object, or thought and phenomenon. The Dualist feels that there must be a bridge between the two worlds, but is incapable of finding it. The Monist concentrates exclusively on the unity, and tries to deny or obscure the very real disparities. Both points of view are unsatisfactory because neither does justice to the facts. Dualism sees mind (I) and matter (world) as essentially exclusive, so it cannot understand how they interact. How can mind know what is going on in matter if the essential nature of matter is entirely alien to mind? How can mind affect matter in such a way that its intentions manifest as deeds under these mutually exclusive conditions? The most absurd hypotheses have been proposed to resolve these questions.
Monism has not yet achieved a better position. Three different solutions to this problem have been tried: some Monists deny mind and become Materialists; others deny matter and seek for a cure in Spiritualism; yet others declare that mind and matter are essentially indivisible in the world, even within the simplest of substances, so the appearance of both within the human being is not surprising because nowhere are they separated.
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"Material" world or "material" process is not used today and may not even be understood, so I used "physical" whenever the German allowed that option.
[M/F gender issues. The plural path blurs the message of the individual response from self to world. Could believer, artist and thinker all be female?]
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2.2 Materialism
[5] Materialism can never provide a satisfactory explanation of the world. This is because every attempt to explain must begin by forming thoughts about the world’s phenomena. So Materialism starts with thoughts about matter or physical processes.
[5] Materialism can never provide a satisfactory explanation of the world. This is because every attempt to explain must begin by forming thoughts about the world’s phenomena. So Materialism starts with thoughts about matter or physical processes.
But in doing so it is already dealing with two different sets of facts: the physical world and the thoughts about it. A Materialist tries to understand thoughts by regarding them as purely physical processes. He believes that thinking happens in the brain much like the digestive process in an animal’s organs. He credits matter with the capacity to think under certain conditions just as he attributes mechanical, chemical and organic processes to it. He forgets that all he has done is to defer the problem to another place.
A Materialist attributes thinking activity to matter rather than self. This brings him back to his starting point. How is matter able to reflect upon its own nature? Why does it not simply accept its existence with satisfaction? The Materialist has turned his attention away from the clearly defined subject of his own I/individuality, and becomes occupied with vague and complex attributes of matter instead. And the very same problem reappears/is rediscovered there. The materialistic view cannot solve the problem, only shift it elsewhere.
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(ego that we observe through self-perception as subject can be defined --psychology "I"--, different than "I" lifted into pure thinking)
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2.3 Spiritualism
[6] What about Spiritualist theory? Essentially the Spiritualist denies that matter has any independent existence and regards [fasst … auf] the world as merely a product of the ‘I’. He regards the whole phenomenal world as nothing more than a fabric woven by the mind.The problem with this view of the world is foundas soon as it attempts to derive any single concrete phenomenon from the mind. It cannot derive either knowledge or action.
[6] What about Spiritualist theory? Essentially the Spiritualist denies that matter has any independent existence and regards [fasst … auf] the world as merely a product of the ‘I’. He regards the whole phenomenal world as nothing more than a fabric woven by the mind.The problem with this view of the world is foundas soon as it attempts to derive any single concrete phenomenon from the mind. It cannot derive either knowledge or action.
2.4 Realism
If we want to know the reality of the external world, we must look outwards and draw on our store of experience. Without such experiences the mind can derive no content. Similarly, when we go into action, our intentions require the support of physical substances and forces to become realities. Therefore we are dependent on the external world.
If we want to know the reality of the external world, we must look outwards and draw on our store of experience. Without such experiences the mind can derive no content. Similarly, when we go into action, our intentions require the support of physical substances and forces to become realities. Therefore we are dependent on the external world.
2.5 Idealism
The most extreme Spiritualist, who might rather be called an Idealist, is Johann Gottlieb Fichte. He attempts to derive the whole world structure from the ‘I’. What he has accomplished is actually a magnificent thought-picture of the world without empirical content. Idealists can no more discard the outer physical world than Materialists can argue away the mind.
The most extreme Spiritualist, who might rather be called an Idealist, is Johann Gottlieb Fichte. He attempts to derive the whole world structure from the ‘I’. What he has accomplished is actually a magnificent thought-picture of the world without empirical content. Idealists can no more discard the outer physical world than Materialists can argue away the mind.
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p.130 of Riddles Steiner talks of Fichte moving from ego to experience of "I", essence of ego.
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2.6 Materialistic Idealism
[7] A special variant of Idealism is presented by Friedrich Albert Lange in his widely read History of Materialism. In his view Materialists are right to declare that all phenomena, including our thoughts, are the product of purely material processes, yet conversely, matter and its processes are themselves merely a product of our thinking.
“The senses only present to us… the effects of things, not even proper//accuratecopies, let alone the things themselves. But these mere effects include the senses themselves, along with the brain and the molecules that are assumed to oscillate within it.”
In other words, our thinking is produced by the physical processes that we produce ourselves by thinking. Lange's philosophy conveys nothing more than the concepts found in/ is nothing more than a conceptual elaboration of the tale of bold Baron von Münchhausen, who holds himself up freely into the air by his own pigtail.
[7] A special variant of Idealism is presented by Friedrich Albert Lange in his widely read History of Materialism. In his view Materialists are right to declare that all phenomena, including our thoughts, are the product of purely material processes, yet conversely, matter and its processes are themselves merely a product of our thinking.
“The senses only present to us… the effects of things, not even proper//accuratecopies, let alone the things themselves. But these mere effects include the senses themselves, along with the brain and the molecules that are assumed to oscillate within it.”
In other words, our thinking is produced by the physical processes that we produce ourselves by thinking. Lange's philosophy conveys nothing more than the concepts found in/ is nothing more than a conceptual elaboration of the tale of bold Baron von Münchhausen, who holds himself up freely into the air by his own pigtail.
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The thinking of 2.5 would be the unconscious thinking that produces our first appearance of things. (not ego or "I") Hoernle has either removed "I" from here or it was not in the original POF. Too bad we don't have a German language copy of the 1894 original POF to be sure about what was revised in 1918.
[When we get the original German this can all be resolved.]
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2.7 Indivisible Unity
[8] The third form of Monism sees the indivisible unity of matter and mind in even the simplest physical atom/thing (the atom). But nothing is achieved here, for the question that actually originates in our consciousness is once more shifted elsewhere. How can a simple substance manifest itself in two different ways if it is indivisible?
2.8 Contrast of Self with the World
[9] In considering all these points of view, we must emphasize the fundamental fact that we first encounter the original division in our own consciousness. We are the ones who detach/separate ourselves from the mother soil of nature and face the world as ‘I’. Goethe’s classic expression of this is in his essay ‘Nature’:
“Living in the midst of her (Nature) we are strangers to her. She speaks to us ceaselessly, yet tells us none of her secrets.”
But Goethe also knew the other side:
“Human beings are all within her and she is within all [human beings].”
[8] The third form of Monism sees the indivisible unity of matter and mind in even the simplest physical atom/thing (the atom). But nothing is achieved here, for the question that actually originates in our consciousness is once more shifted elsewhere. How can a simple substance manifest itself in two different ways if it is indivisible?
2.8 Contrast of Self with the World
[9] In considering all these points of view, we must emphasize the fundamental fact that we first encounter the original division in our own consciousness. We are the ones who detach/separate ourselves from the mother soil of nature and face the world as ‘I’. Goethe’s classic expression of this is in his essay ‘Nature’:
“Living in the midst of her (Nature) we are strangers to her. She speaks to us ceaselessly, yet tells us none of her secrets.”
But Goethe also knew the other side:
“Human beings are all within her and she is within all [human beings].”
2.9 Nature's Influence
[10] It is true that we have estranged/exiled ourselves from nature, but it is equally true that we feel we are within and belong to nature. This can only be due to nature's own influence that also lives within us.
2.10 Knowing Nature Within
[11] We must find the way back to nature again. A simple reflection can show us how. The truth is that we have torn ourselves away from nature, but we must have retained something of it in our own being. We must look for nature inside ourselves, and then we will also discover our connection with it.
[10] It is true that we have estranged/exiled ourselves from nature, but it is equally true that we feel we are within and belong to nature. This can only be due to nature's own influence that also lives within us.
2.10 Knowing Nature Within
[11] We must find the way back to nature again. A simple reflection can show us how. The truth is that we have torn ourselves away from nature, but we must have retained something of it in our own being. We must look for nature inside ourselves, and then we will also discover our connection with it.
Dualism fails to do this. Starting from the conviction that the human mind is entirely spiritual and incompatible with nature, Dualism then tries to hitch it up to nature. No wonder that a connecting link cannot be found. We can only find nature outside us after we know it within us.
Our guide will be the correspondence to nature within us. This defines our path of inquiry. We will not speculate here about the interaction between mind and matter. Instead we will probe the depths of our own being in order to find those elements that we have retained in our flight from nature.
2.11 Something More than ‘I’
[12] The investigation of our own being must bring us the solution to the mystery. We must reach a point where we can say: Here we are no longer merely ‘I’; here is something more than ‘I’.
2.12 The Experience of Consciousness
[13] I am aware that some readers will find that my remarks do not conform to ‘the current scientific view’. I can only reply that so far I have not been concerned with any kind of scientific conclusions, but rather with a straightforward description of what we all experience in our own consciousness. Even the above attempts to reconcile mind with the world have only been included to clarify the actual facts. This is why I have attached no value to using terms like ‘self’, ‘mind’, ‘world’ or ‘nature’ with the customary precision of psychology and philosophy.
2.13 Facts without Interpretation
Ordinary consciousness is unaware of the sharp distinctions made by the sciences and up to this point it has only been a matter of recording the facts of everyday experience. Any objection that the discussions above have been unscientific would be like criticizing someone who recites a poem for failing to follow every line immediately with aesthetic analysis. My concern here is not how far science has managed to interpret consciousness, but rather how we experience it hour by hour.
[12] The investigation of our own being must bring us the solution to the mystery. We must reach a point where we can say: Here we are no longer merely ‘I’; here is something more than ‘I’.
2.12 The Experience of Consciousness
[13] I am aware that some readers will find that my remarks do not conform to ‘the current scientific view’. I can only reply that so far I have not been concerned with any kind of scientific conclusions, but rather with a straightforward description of what we all experience in our own consciousness. Even the above attempts to reconcile mind with the world have only been included to clarify the actual facts. This is why I have attached no value to using terms like ‘self’, ‘mind’, ‘world’ or ‘nature’ with the customary precision of psychology and philosophy.
2.13 Facts without Interpretation
Ordinary consciousness is unaware of the sharp distinctions made by the sciences and up to this point it has only been a matter of recording the facts of everyday experience. Any objection that the discussions above have been unscientific would be like criticizing someone who recites a poem for failing to follow every line immediately with aesthetic analysis. My concern here is not how far science has managed to interpret consciousness, but rather how we experience it hour by hour.
======== end of Chapter 2 =========
Is there some missing/changed text?
Tom, please let me know what has happened to the text in 2.2 and 2.3.
Original 1894 version
This is the original 1894 version of The Philosophy of Freedom which I got from owning an old copy of the 1916 Hoernle English translation of it. I explain it here on this old translation of mine (do not use), show what Steiner added later, and show the original before Steiner added new parts in 1918.
German text?
Does that mean you don't have the original German, Tom?
How shall we get hold of it? I could try libraries in UK.
We don't have the original
We don't have the original German 1894 Die Philosophie der Freiheit.
Rudolf Steiner's Die Philosophie der Freiheit was first published by the Emil Felber Verlag, Berlin. 1894 in a first edition of 1,000 copies.
The second edition, revised and enlarged by the author, appeared under the imprint of the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, Berlin, 1918, and was followed by a third edition later that same year.
The same publisher issued a fourth edition in 1921.
The fifth, sixth and seventh editions were published in Dornach, Switzerland by the Philosophisch Anthroposophischer Verlag am Goetheanum in 1929, 1936 and 1939 respectively.
The eighth edition was published in Dresden in 1940.
The ninth, tenth and eleventh editions were published by the Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart in 1947, 1949 and 1955. The present translation has been made from the eleventh edition of 1955
In all, the eleven editions of Die Philosophie der Freiheit issued between 1894 and 1955 totaled some 48,000 copies.
A twelfth edition was issued in Dornach in 1962 by the Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung.
The first English translation of the book appeared in London in 1916, translated by Prof. and Mrs. R. F. Alfred Hoernle and edited by Harry Collison. This was based on the first German edition of 1894.
When the revised and enlarged German edition appeared in 1918, the same translators and editor brought out a second English translation of the work. This was published in London in 1921.
A revised and amended edition of the 1921 version with preface by Hermann Poppelbaum, Ph.D. appeared in London, 1939 and again in 1949.
Fingers crossed
There are certainly advantages to have a native German in the house.
It looks like we have tracked down a currently available print-on-demand print of the first edition in German. I will not be sure until I have it in my hands.
8 chapters in Part 1 of original edition
You have the Kessinger Publishing reprint of the Hoernle 1921 POF (with 1918 revisions) right? You can tell if it is the 1894 original POF because it will have 8 chapters in Part 1. Here is a link to the table of contents of the original edition.
Also in the post
A copy of Hoernle disappeared in the post, so I am still waiting for another copy to arrive.
Thanks for the tip, Tom.
Having the Hoernle will
Having the Hoernle will help you understand my drafts better. He was active in the philosophical debates of Steiner's time and even wrote on them so he knew the issues Steiner was writing about which makes a big difference in his translation. His reference point was the same as Steiner's in meeting the issues of that day while later translators worked off a reference to post POF anthroposophy which really makes it almost impossible to grasp POF because the reader is looking for spiritual perception rather than scientific thinking.
Steiner's path was the development of scientific thinking which he then applied to the clairvoyance he was born with making him different than past spiritualists.
Debate
I realise how thinking is often marginalised by those who naturally develop a sense of 'the other side'. It is not easy to point out - in a way that can be appreciated - that this 'other side' is connected with the separation Steiner describes in Chapter 2.
BTW I will wait until I clap eyes on the first edition German before venturing into the text that was omitted in the second edition. I guess I will need to double check Chapter 1 to see if any adjustments were made there. I had not expected that Steiner made cuts. I should have seen it coming...
modest goals
I would say that the goals Steiner sets to accomplish in POF are very modest, such as appreciating the value of conceptual thinking, yet they are profound enough to set us on the right course for our age. That's why the reader or translator of POF who seeks too deep may miss the obvious which is what can really change peoples everyday lives.
I don't know how far the book goes beyond explaining moral intuition, imagination, and technique yet look how those three things can change a person's life.
modest goals - a response
Tom,
The reason I wrote my essay: Saving Anthroposophy: from the anthroposophical Society and Movement*, is that Steiner's PoF is an extraordinary feature of the ongoing development of human understanding. I am not sure that even the idea of Steiner's goals has much meaning here, for to me there existed a crisis of civilization, in which the future course of human evolution was at stake, and at the heart of this crisis was materialism (the Ahrimanic Deception), and the belief fostered by Natural Science that thinking had limits. Steiner was born to stand at the cusp of this problem (near the end of the 19th Century) and point the way past this limit and forward into a moral-spiritual future.
Steiner's genius was to discover, in himself, a new capacity of spirit and soul that had not previously existed before our time. He was not the first, but he was the principle one to place this discovery within the stream of Science.
We live in a time in which people believe that their thinking has limits, and that the I must bow down to the thinking of others. One off the first places, as you noted above Tom, that this problem manifests is in the question of moral freedom. But moral freedom is not the end of the questions that need to be faced, for which PoF is the key. The deeper questions of freedom have to do with the problem of desire - is the human being a captive of his appetites - and the problem of our tendency to become in bondage to an Idea. Presently natural science remains filled with more and more a tendency to a materialist determinism (e.g. evolutionary psychology and the Idea that all that we are is hardwired into our brains and our DNA by random chance evolution).
Thinkers who want to move human understanding past this prison of determinism need PoF, as an experience, in order to find the thoughts and other soul forces needed to turn humanity away from the trap of the sense world, and toward the truths of the inner spiritual world.
This website contains a major flaw in its focus. This flaw results from people not understanding the significance of ATheory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception, and Truth and Knowledge, both of which pre-dated PoF**.
If we first develop organic thinking, before taking up the task of pure thinking via PoF, we are then able to appreciate that PoF cannot be understood by separating it from its social-historical context. PoF does not exist in isolation, but rather its higher meanings are all best appreciated when we see it in relationship to the ongoing vital aspects of the evolution of consciousness.
In fact, now that I thinik about it, I would guess that the translation problem is directly related to the fact that words change their meaning overtime (see Owen Barfield's works) and that by trying to fix PoF to certain meanings that are no longer related to the present, we kill the very spirit of that document.
There is more, but that is for another time ...
joel
* http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/Saving.html
** http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/lrsew.html
reaching tech people
Joel says in regards to RS: He was not the first, but he was the principle one to place this discovery within the stream of Science.
Rudolf Steiner has described The Philosophy of Freedom as being "particularly suited to anyone immersed in the scientific life of the West."
That is a question I have been pondering. What can this website do to interest engineers, scientists, and computer programmers? They are the leaders who are shaping our modern world that have the thought training of mathematics and scientific thinking to be able to benefit from TPOF. Steiner wrote it for them. He provided other training for the theosophists, artists, spiritualists, and religious.
I would like to figure out what articles would be of interest to this group and post them on the front page. I plan to do some research to look at some philosophy courses designed for science students to find out the questions that interest the technology field. I am also going to revise my chapter 3 translation work closer to Hoernle as he seems to be speaking closer to this audience. I also recognize in the German POF Steiner's own difficulty to speak to who he wanted to reach.
Online Course
Hi Tom - hope you are not getting distracted from Chapter 3. ;-)
One of your best ideas was the online course. I still think you would do well to promote it to those folk who are familiar and comfortable with online learning.
Maybe some of the questionnaires could be directed at the application of intuitive thinking in life and the world situation. We wouldn't want this site to seem like a place to hang out and play at being clever rather than getting down to the important work.
paid mentors needed?
An online POF course could be a solution and has been put up under several versions without anybody completing it, even though many have sought such a course. Why?
The main missing element may be communication with others. No mentor has been involved. Maybe this is a key missing element. You can't ask them to write anything unless someone will read it. They have been too passive to post on their own.
A solution could be with paid mentors. If we assembled a group of mentors, had them contribute to the design of a course, and then charged for the course with the mentors splitting the fees, this may energize it enough for success.
Then mentors could work privately with participants and also get an online course discussion going which would bring in more participants. The mentors could make some money and you would have a staff of people doing what it takes to make it happen.
Marketing
Not sure about the mentoring, Tom, although it is good have someone on hand to haul folk out of a pit of confusion or despair.
Could the course be completed in shorter sections? Could there be clear outcomes that are promised up front? After Chapter 3 you will be able to fly with pigs... kind of thing? Actually it is the practical outcomes that will be the most telling ones. After Chapter 7 your worth on NASDAQ will jump 5 points... How will you feel when you know what is really going on in your head?
Marketing is a craft with its own genius. Presentation is half the game. What about a pre-course where some of the nuggets from Truth and Knowledge set a mouth-watering scene?
I have no taste for or in these things, so take these frivolous thoughts with a pinch of snuff.
How will the folk that you feel would benefit from your course come to recognise that themselves? How will they need encouraging so that they will stick it through to the end? You are hard put to get to the end of Chapter 3! Only joking - I can guess what you are going though.
empirical freedom
Steiner made this astounding statement: “What I was really trying to do in The Philosophy of Freedom was to locate freedom empirically and thus put it on a solidly scientific basis.”
empirical: Verifiable or provable by means of observation, Guided by practical experience and not theory.
You should be able to put together a study course with the purpose of leading a person to the recognition of an experience of freedom. The critical element in freedom is the experience of conceptual intuition. This is something that some people don't have, others have them but do not consciously recognize them, and others consciously have them and would like to have more.
This could be cultivated in a study course if a participant read TPOF and then kept a journal and recorded the "flint on steel" experience Steiner described.
"The least honest are those who read The Philosophy of Freedom as they would any other book and then flatter themselves that they have really taken in the thoughts it contains. They’ve kept on reading strings of words without anything coming out of it that might be likened to the striking of steel on flint.”
updating hoernle from 1916
I found chapter 3 to be a real tangle of confusion so it has taken a lot of time. The experience of revising it again has increased Hoernle's status further. After working with his version more deeply I am beginning to realize he is smarter than me, could this be true? His translation is helping Steiner reach his audience rather than duplicating Steiner, which is what I believe Steiner would prefer, not to imply he is altering the text.
It shouldn't take long to do another review to bring my version closer to Hoernle and away from my own hodge podge of reasoning, not to say that my confidence is in any way diminished. Hoernle needs to be updated from 1916. Then I will go back to chapter 2.
Truth and Science
If you don't already know it I would recommend a little book called "What is this Thing called Science" by Dr A. Chalmers available from Amazon and a bestseller. This little book gives succinctly the problems in thinking in philosophy of science on which every scientist should be trained philosophically (but isn't) Steiner's doctoral thesis was in Philosophy of Science before this discipline had formally separated as a distinct and extremely focused branch of the tree of Academic Philosophy. In fact his doctoral thesis Truth and Science contains the whole content of this discipline. That is to say, the sole content of this academic discipline today is the relation of Science to Truth and vice versa. For science, the epistemological problem is not Freedom, (even during the Cold War scientific exchange between Russia and USA went on) but Truth, thus the later title given by Steiner, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, is the one which speaks to scientists who are all the time engaged in spiritual activity but do not know it. These two books read in conjunction, POF and "What is this thing Called Science" shed an enormous amount of light on each other and those familiar with POF will see, for example, the contribution of David Hume's philosophy which is underlying Chap 3 though not explicitly cited by Steiner - philosophers of Steiner's time familiar with Kant would recognise the thinking in Chapt 3 that owes its source to Hume and to Hume's effect on Kant. Hume. the empiricist, is a key thinker in Philosophy of Science as is Kant as is Steiner. These 3 thinkers comprise a triad in Theory of Knowledge at the level of Logic and it is the problem outlined by Hume that all 3 are addressing. Those who enter the battle for Truth and Science at level of ethics, the moral philosophers, enter at a lower epistemological level. That is to say, it is the advance in Epistemology, Theory of Knowledge, that produces the possibility of the advance in Moral Philosophy as Steiner points out in the preface. So, I am saying that the way to attract scientists and technologists etc is through TWO books read in conjunction - What is this Thing Called Science and Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, each can be applied to the other to shed an enormous amount of light on each other and thence onto the practical world situation of today. But this demands a move away from the old anthroposophical missionary zeal which wrenches Steiner out of his true philosophic position and makes him unreachable to unprejudiced thinkers. This work is not a work of capturing souls and converts for the anthroposophical society but a work of Truth in Science and in Thinking. And a work that could come under the heading of restoring philosophic justice; restoring the integrity of thought to Steiner's work that has been so damaged by his follower's neglect of his THINKING in favour of its results. Results produced BY HIM and sadly not at all by the majority of his followers. The obstructions to world progress are not caused by the world being resistant to change but by a lack of true thinkers in all walks of life and this lack can be firmly laid at the door of the AS.
Thanks, I will read it
I ordered "What is this Thing called Science" and will see if I can work with it. Part of it is online at Google books.
Unempirical Google Books
Many thanks BB for the tip-off.
Unfortunately, the Google Books link shows no preview. Perhaps that is a UK perspective. Ah well - off to Amazon...
That's odd, the online book
That's odd, the online book link works for me. I wonder if google is having a copywrite issue in the UK and is cutting you off. Its an Australian book.
dear bishop berkeley
Dear person of unknown gender and background (unless I am mistaken, the name Bishop Berkeley is meant to be a pseudonym),
In your 12/04 post I found a large number of words, but had a hard time finding the central idea or theme ... perhaps there were several and I am just a poor reader - in which case I apologize. You seem to be recommending a book, which Tom says he will seek. Myself I dont' have the time for buying more books - too many unread ones on my reading table already. Anyway ...
I seemed to follow you until you got to "For science, the epistemological problem is not Freedom... but Truth." I have apparenlty been mistakenly thinking of "inner freedom" (a condition or state of consciousness) as being a necessary means to finding the truth, not something one sought instead of the truth. After this problem with this sentence I didn't quite follow you, being confused as to what you were saying and where you were going ...
However, if I haven't offended you, I would like to have you take a go again at this message, and maybe in less words make a point such a simpleton as myself an understand.
joel
Ph.D.
For what did Poppelbaum get his Ph.D.?
I am close to finishing my
I am close to finishing my draft of chapter 3 and want to complete that before I comment on this draft of chapter 2 to find out why it is so heavily edited.
Layers of meaning
There are complex layers of meaning and self-reference in Chapter 2, Tom. Particularly in the first paragraph. Establishing the experience of instinctive human dissatisfaction as general fact underpins Steiner's later rebuttal of spritualism, so I am suggesting that it needs an extra heading to itself.
Also the approach to Ich needs the greatest of creativity. My first approach is really a only a test.
This WIP so far is much less worked through than what I posted of Chapter 1. I still have lot to review in the above. Judging by my current workload, Tom, you will still get to this before I have completed my first combing of the chapter.
Mr. Ralph's jargon
What do you mean: "dissatisfaction underpins spiritualism rebuttal"? Why don't you try writing in English and not your jargon so readers on this website understand? One gets the impression your use of language is deliberately obscure because you know what you think is confused. So you hide it in your jargon.