study group - Blog - The Philosophy Of Freedom Steiner2024-03-29T06:33:05Zhttps://philosophyoffreedom.com/profiles/blog/feed/tag/study+groupJoin The Philosophy Of Freedom Research & Study Grouphttps://philosophyoffreedom.com/profiles/blog/registration-open-for-philosophy-of-freedom-courses2022-09-30T16:50:00.000Z2022-09-30T16:50:00.000ZTom Lasthttps://philosophyoffreedom.com/members/00yzc179qgdki<div><p><strong>Research And Study Groups </strong><br /> You can join the research and study groups at <a href="https://www.philosophyoffreedom.org/all-courses">https://www.philosophyoffreedom.org/all-courses</a></p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10878764257,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10878764257,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="10878764257?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a></p>
<p> </p></div>Join Us In An Online Rudolf Steiner Study Grouphttps://philosophyoffreedom.com/profiles/blog/join-us-in-an-online-rudolf-steiner-study-group2021-11-29T18:35:37.000Z2021-11-29T18:35:37.000ZTom Lasthttps://philosophyoffreedom.com/members/00yzc179qgdki<div><p><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hQshMckaEGs" width="710" height="400" frameborder="0"></iframe></p></div>Chapter 4 Comparative Study Outlinehttps://philosophyoffreedom.com/profiles/blog/chapter-4-comparative-study-outline2016-09-26T00:30:00.000Z2016-09-26T00:30:00.000ZTom Lasthttps://philosophyoffreedom.com/members/00yzc179qgdki<div><p><span style="color: #000000;"><span style="color: #993300;">9/28/2015 Added the worldview to each topic point.</span> For more on the worldviews <a href="http://philosophyoffreedom.com/world-outlooks" target="_blank">go here.</a></span><br />
9/25/2015 Revised</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-4"><strong><br />
Compare the Experience of Outer Truth with that of Inner Truth<br /></strong> Chapter 4 The World As Perception</span></p>
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<td style="width: 135px; border: 1px solid #000000; text-align: center; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong>Aspect</strong></td>
<td colspan="2" style="text-align: center; border: 1px solid #000000;"><strong>Observed state of things</strong></td>
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<p><strong>The Philosophy Of Freedom<br />
<a href="http://philosophyoffreedom.com/hoernle-translation-1916#c5" target="_blank">Chapter 4<br /></a></strong> <span class="font-size-4" style="color: #ffffff;">Chapter 4 The World As Perception</span></p>
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<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;"><strong> Case 1</strong><br />
<strong> EXPERIENCE OF<br />
<br />
<span class="font-size-5"> <span class="font-size-7" style="color: #ffffff;">OUTER<br />
 TRUTH</span></span></strong></td>
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<p><strong> Case 2</strong><br />
<strong> EXPERIENCE OF<br />
<br />
   <span class="font-size-7" style="color: #ffffff;">INNER</span><br /></strong> <span class="font-size-7" style="color: #ffffff;"><strong style="background-color: transparent;"> TRUTH</strong></span></p>
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<p><strong> 4.0 Empiricism</strong></p>
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<p>Of the 7 world-outlook moods, chapter 4 is Empiricism. Its ideas are based on real experience of whatever shows itself in the external world. The ideas of the previous chapter were an experience of the inner thoughts of thinking. It ended with a question of how to correctly apply these inner thoughts to the world. In this chapter thinking reacts to the world and applies thought in the immediate formation of our perception. In this mood we accept our perception of the world as what experience offers.</p>
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<p><strong> 4.0 Reactive Thinking</strong></p>
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<p><em>The beginning of each chapter begins with a recap of the previous chapter.</em> The products of thinking are concepts and ideas. What a concept is cannot be expressed in words. Words can do no more than draw our attention to the fact that we have concepts.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Comparative study</strong></td>
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<p><strong>Concept of the object</strong><br />
When someone sees a tree, his thinking reacts to his observation and an ideal element is added to the object. He regards the object and its ideal complement as belonging together. When the object disappears from his field of perception, only the ideal counterpart remains. This latter is the concept of the object. The wider the range of our experience, the greater the number of our concepts.</p>
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<p><strong>Concepts combine</strong><br />
Concepts are not found in isolation. They combine to form an ordered and systematic whole. For example, the concept "organism" combines with "lawful development" and "growth". Other concepts formed from single objects merge completely into a whole. All concepts I form about particular lions merge into the universal concept "lion." In this way, all the individual concepts link together to form a closed conceptual system within which each has its particular place. Ideas are not qualitatively different from concepts. They are fuller in content, more saturated, more comprehensive concepts.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Analysis</strong></td>
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<p>I make thinking my starting-point, and not concepts and ideas, which must first be gained by means of thinking. What I have said about the self-sustaining and self-determined nature of thinking cannot simply be transferred to concepts.<br />
Concepts cannot be derived from observation. This is apparent from the fact that the maturing human being only slowly and gradually builds up the concepts that correspond to the objects in his environment. Concepts are added to perception.</p>
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<p><strong> 4.1 Materialism</strong></p>
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<p>Materialism is also called physicalism, the view that all that exists is ultimately physical. The physical world makes a raw impression upon us. 4.1 begins with a walk through fields and then describes the mental process as "generalizing relationships" that remains within the experience of the physical world.</p>
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<p><strong> 4.1 Explaining observed phenomena</strong></p>
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<p>Walking through the fields, you hear a rustling noise a few steps ahead, and on observing the ditch-side where it occurs, see the grass moving, then you will probably turn towards the spot to learn what produced the noise and movement. As you approach there flutters in the ditch a partridge. And with this your curiosity is satisfied: you have what we call an explanation of the phenomena.<br />
<br />
<em>Describe the mental process that we perform in response to observation.</em></p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Comparative study</strong></td>
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<p><strong>Generalized relationship</strong><br />
In life we have countless experiences of disturbance among small stationary bodies, accompanying the movement of other bodies among them, and have generalized the relationships between such disturbances and such movements, we consider this particular disturbance explained as soon as we find that it represents an example of this relationship.</p>
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<p><strong>Conceptual Search</strong><br />
When I hear a noise, I first seek the concept that fits this observation. My thinking makes it clear that the noise is an effect. Only when I combine the concept of effect with the percept of the noise am I led to go beyond the particular observation and seek a cause. The concept of “effect” calls up that of “cause”, and I then seek the causative object, which I find in the partridge.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong><strong> Analysis</strong></strong></td>
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<p>When people demand of a "strictly objective science" that it should take its data from observation alone, then they must demand that it renounce all thinking. For thinking, by its very nature, goes beyond what is observed.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong><strong> 4.2 Spiritism</strong></strong></td>
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<p>Spiritism is interested in what underlies the physical world. The physical world expresses the underlying non-material spiritual. This spiritual (or ideal) is discovered in the spiritual activity of thinking. The spiritual nature of thinking is described as <em>transcending the distinction of subject and object</em> and <em>it is not the subject, but thinking, that makes the reference.</em></p>
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<p><strong> 4.2 The thinker</strong></p>
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<p><em>We now move from thinking to the being who thinks. It is through the thinker that thinking and observation are combined.</em> Human consciousness mediates between thinking and observation. When thought is directed upon the observed world we have consciousness of objects; when it is directed upon ourselves we have self-consciousness. Human consciousness must be at the same time self-consciousness, because it is a consciousness which thinks.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Comparative study</strong></td>
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<p><strong>Thinking transcends subject and object</strong><br />
It is important to note here that it is only by means of thought that I am able to determine myself as subject and contrast myself with objects. Therefore thinking must never be regarded as a merely subjective activity. Thinking transcends the distinction of subject and object. It forms these two concepts just as it does all others.</p>
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<p><strong>Thinking subject</strong><br />
When, I, as thinking subject, refer a concept to an object, we must not regard this reference as something merely subjective. It is not the subject, but thinking, that makes the reference.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong><strong> Analysis</strong></strong></td>
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<p>This is the basis for the dual nature of the human being: we think, and our thinking embraces ourselves along with the rest of the world; but we also, by means of thinking, define ourselves as individuals in contrast with the objective world.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong><strong> 4.3 Realism</strong></strong></td>
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<p>Realism is interested in the real world, the world that is spread out around us. We can see it and think about it. 4.3 removes all thought that we have added to observation to reach the real; <em>pure unthinking perception</em>.</p>
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<p> <strong>4.3 The observed object</strong></p>
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<p>Next, we ask how the other element, which until now we have characterized merely as the object of observation, enters consciousness where it encounters thinking.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Comparative study</strong></td>
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<p><strong>Unthinking perception</strong><br />
If we could eliminate from our field of observation everything that thinking has already brought into it, we would have the content of pure, thought-free observation. The world would appear as a mere chaotic aggregate of sense-data, colors, sounds, sensations of pressure, of warmth, taste, smell, and, lastly, feelings of pleasure and pain.</p>
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<p><strong>Conceptual relationships</strong><br />
Thinking is able to draw threads from one element of observation to another. It joins specific concepts to this data and thus thus establishes relationships between them.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong><strong> Analysis</strong></strong></td>
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<p>If we recall that the activity of thinking should never be considered subjective, we will not be tempted to believe that the relationships established by thinking have merely subjective validity.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong><strong> 4.4 Idealism</strong></strong></td>
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<p>Idealism looks for meaning by finding a progressive tendency in the external world. Empirically in 4.4, this progressive tendency is found in the continuous correcting of our picture of the world. <em>“Every extension of the circle of my percepts compels me to correct my picture of the world.”</em></p>
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<p><strong> 4.4 The observed object and the subject</strong></p>
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<p><em>What is the relationship between the above-mentioned immediately given content of observation—the pure, relationless sense-data —and the conscious subject?</em> The term “percepts” is the conscious apprehension of objects through observation. This includes sense-data, feelings and also thought as it first appears to our consciousness.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Comparative study</strong></td>
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<p><strong>Things exist exactly as perceived</strong><br />
The unreflective person regards his percepts, just as they first appear to him, to be things that have an existence wholly independent of the human being. When he sees a tree he believes that it stands in the form that he sees it, with the colors of all its parts, etc., there on the spot to which his gaze is directed.</p>
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<p><strong>Correction of my picture of world</strong><br />
Every extension of the circle of my percepts makes me correct my picture of the world. The ancient picture of the relation of the earth to the sun, had to be replaced by that of Copernicus, because the ancient picture did not agree with new, previously unknown percepts.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong><strong> Analysis</strong></strong></td>
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<p>Senses will correct each other. For example, a blind man's sense of touch percepts were corrected by visual percepts after gaining sight.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong><strong> 4.5 Mathematism</strong></strong></td>
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<p>Mathematical thinking wants to explain things in a calculated form. In 4.5 the perceptual scene is described from a point of observation as a <em>mathematical percept-picture.</em></p>
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<p> <strong>4.5 Correction of our observations</strong></p>
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<p>Why are we compelled to continually correct our observations?</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Comparative study</strong></td>
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<p><strong>Mathematical Percept-Picture</strong><br />
My perceptual scene depends on my point of observation and changes as I change my position. If I stand at the end of an avenue, the trees at the other end appear to me smaller and closer together than those where I am standing.</p>
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<p><strong>Qualitative Percept-Picture</strong><br />
My perceptual world is dependent on my bodily and mental organization. The perceptual picture of the color blind lacks colors. This qualitative determination depends on the structure of my eye. Others are blind only to one color. Their world lacks this color tone.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong><strong> Analysis</strong></strong></td>
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<p>I should like to call the dependence of my perceptual world on my point of observation "mathematical," and its dependence on my organization "qualitative." The former determines proportions of size and distances of my percepts, the latter their quality. The fact that I see a red surface as red —this qualitative determination— depends on the structure of my eye.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong><strong> 4.6 Rationalism</strong></strong></td>
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<p>The rationalist is interested in the ideas that are active in the world and are read from sense perception. In perception, what is valid is only what is real to my senses. What we know is read only from my subjective "qualitative" sense perception. In 4.6 what is real is the percept-picture produced by my senses. It exists in relation to my conscious<span> mind.</span></p>
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<p> <strong>4.6 Subjective character of percept-picture</strong></p>
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<p>My percepts, then, are in the first instance subjective. The recognition of the subjective character of our percepts may easily lead us to doubt whether there is any objective basis for them at all. The moment we realize the importance of a subject for perception, we are no longer able to believe in the existence of a world apart from a <em>conscious mind</em>.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Comparative study</strong></td>
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<p><strong>Percepts only exist during the act of being perceived<br /></strong> So long as the world is not actually perceived by me, or does not exist in my mind, it must either have no existence at all or else subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit. The objects of my perceptions exist only through me, and that only in as far as, and as long as, I perceive them. They disappear with my perceiving and have no meaning apart from it. If I strip a table of its shape, extension, color, etc. —in short, of all that is merely my percepts— then nothing remains over. Apart from my percepts I know of no objects and cannot know of any.</p>
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<p><strong>Existence of things apart from perception</strong><br />
An objection can be made that, even if figure, color, tone, etc. do not have existence other than within my act of perception, there must still be things that are there without my act of perception, they are there without my consciousness and to which my conscious perceptual pictures are similar. The response to this is that a color can only be similar to a color, a figure similar to a figure. Our perceptions can only be similar to our perceptions, but not to any other things.<strong><br /></strong></p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"> <strong>Analysis</strong></td>
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<p><strong style="background-color: transparent;"><strong>Subjective "character" of percept-picture<br /></strong></strong> There is nothing to object to in this claim, as long as it remains merely a general consideration of how the percept is "partly" determined by the organization of the subject.</p>
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<p> <strong>4.7 Psychism</strong></p>
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<p>Psychism is about how ideas are bound up with a person who is capable of having ideas. In 4.7, perception, the discussion shifts to the subject who is <em>“something stable in contrast with the ever coming and going flux of percepts”.</em></p>
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<p> <strong>4.7 The subject</strong></p>
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<p>With this, our investigation is directed away from the object of perception and toward its subject. I am aware not only of other things but I also perceive myself. In contrast to the perceptual images that continually come and go, I am something stable and remain.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Comparative study</strong></td>
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<p><strong>Personality observes the object</strong><br />
When I am absorbed in the perception of a given object I am aware only of this object. The awareness of myself can be added to this. I am then conscious, not only of the object, but also of my personality observing the object. I do not merely see a tree, I also know that it is I who see it.</p>
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<p><strong>After-effect of observation: idea</strong><br />
When the tree disappears from my field of vision, an after-effect remains: a picture of the tree. My self has become enriched; a new element has been added to its content. This element I call my idea (Vorstellung) of the tree.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong><strong> Analysis</strong></strong></td>
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<p>It is only because I am aware of my self, and notice that with each perception the content of the self is changed, that I am compelled to connect the observation of the object with the changes in the content of my self, and to speak of having an idea.</p>
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<p> <strong>4.8 Pneumatism</strong></p>
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<p>Pneumatism is the doctrine of the Spirit. In 4.8 we move to Berkeley's <span>view that <span>nothing is real except God and human spirits. With Kant, the spirit becomes the unknowable thing-in-itself.</span></span></p>
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<p> <strong>4.8 Relation between idea and object</strong></p>
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<p>Failure to recognize the relation between the idea and the object has led to the greatest misunderstandings in modern philosophy. The perception of an inner change, the modification that my self undergoes, has been thrust into the foreground, and the object causing this modification has been lost sight of altogether. The consequence of this is saying that we do not perceive objects, but only our ideas.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Comparative study</strong></td>
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<p><strong>Berkeley: Limits our knowledge of the world to our ideas because only ideas (spirits) exist</strong><br />
Berkeley limits my knowledge to my ideas because, on his view, there are no objects other than ideas. What I perceive as a table no longer exists, according to Berkeley, when I cease to look at it. This is why Berkeley holds that our percepts are created directly by the omnipotence of God. I see a table because God causes this percept in me. For Berkeley, therefore, nothing is real except God and human spirits. What we call the "world" exists only in spirits. What the naive man calls the outer world, or material nature, is for Berkeley non-existent.</p>
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<p><strong>Kant: Limits our knowledge of the world to our ideas because we cannot know the thing-in-itself</strong><br />
Berkeley's view has been replaced by Kant. Kant limits our knowledge of the world to our ideas. We are so organized that we can have knowledge only of the changes within our selves, not of the things-in-themselves that cause them. Because I can only know my ideas, the conclusion is drawn that the subject cannot have direct knowledge of reality. The mind can merely "through the medium of its subjective thoughts imagine it, conceive it, know it, or perhaps also fail to know it"</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong><strong> Analysis</strong></strong></td>
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<p>Kantians believe that their principles are absolutely certain, immediately obvious without the need any proof. Any knowledge that goes beyond our mental pictures—I use this expression in its widest sense, so that it includes all psychical events—is not safe from doubt.</p>
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<p><strong> 4.9 Monadism</strong></p>
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<p>The Monadist view is that a being, a monad, can build up existence in itself. Physics, Physiology, and Psychology teach us that our percepts are dependent on our organization. Objects that we perceive are actually changes that occur in our organization, not things-in-themselves. The external object is lost entirely on the way to the brain and through the brain to the soul. The percept is entirely built up by our organization.</p>
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<p> <strong>4.9 Percept is what organization transmits</strong></p>
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<p>Naive common sense believes that things, just as we perceive them, exist outside our minds. Physics, Physiology, and Psychology, however, teach us that our percepts are dependent on our organization, and that consequently we cannot know anything about external objects other than what our organization transmits to us. The objects that we perceive are thus modifications of our organization, not things-in-themselves. This line of thought leads to the conviction that we can have direct knowledge only of our own ideas.</p>
</td>
</tr>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Comparative study</strong></td>
<td>
<p><strong>Physics<br /></strong> Outside our organism we find vibrations of particles and of air, which are perceived by us as sounds. What we call sound is nothing more than a subjective reaction of our organism to these motions in the external world. The same external stimulus applied to different senses gives rise to different sensations. Our sense-organs can give us knowledge only of what occurs in themselves, but not of the external world. They determine our percepts, each according to its own nature.</p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Physiology</strong><br />
The physiologist finds that, even in the sense-organs, the effects of the eternal process are modified in the most diverse ways. The external process undergoes a series of transformations through the nerves to the brain. What we finally have in consciousness are not brain processes at all, but sensations. My sensation of red has absolutely no similarity with the process which occurs in the brain when I sense red. The sensation, again, occurs as an effect in the mind, and the brain process is only its cause. What the subject experiences is therefore only modifications of his own psychical states and nothing else.<br />
<strong style="background-color: transparent;">Psychology<br /></strong> My brain conveys to me separately, and by altogether different pathways, sensations of sight, taste, and hearing that the soul then combines into the idea of a trumpet. This final stage of the process (the idea of the trumpet) is given to my consciousness as the very first.</p>
</td>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong><strong> Analysis</strong></strong></td>
<td colspan="2">
<p>The external object is lost entirely on the way to the brain and through the brain to the soul.</p>
</td>
</tr>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;">
<p><strong> 4.10 Dynamism</strong></p>
</td>
<td style="background-color: #9acd32;" colspan="2">
<p>The Dynamist looks for "forces" that dominate. In 4.10 the dynamic force is the soul where the color is found. This soul quality is transferred by the soul to the percept in the external world.</p>
</td>
</tr>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;">
<p><strong> 4.10 Perceived world is a product of my mind</strong></p>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="background-color: #ffdead;">
<p>It would be hard to find in the history of human speculation another edifice of thought which has been built up with greater ingenuity, and which yet, on closer analysis, collapses into nothing. Let us look more closely at the way it has been constructed.</p>
</td>
</tr>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Comparative study</strong></td>
<td>
<p><strong>The external object is colorless</strong><br />
The theory starts with what is given to naive consciousness of things as perceived. Then it shows that everything found there would be non-existent for us if we had no senses. No eye —no color. So color is not yet present in in the stimulus that affects the eye. The object, then, is colorless. But neither is the color in the eye, for in the eye there is only a chemical, or physical, process which is conducted by the optic nerve to the brain, and there initiates another process.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Color found in soul, transferred to the external object</strong><br />
The color is found in the soul, but not attached to the object. It is transferred outward by the soul onto a body in the external world. There I finally perceive it, as a quality of this body. We have traveled in a complete circle. We are conscious of a colored object.</p>
</td>
</tr>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Analysis</strong></td>
<td colspan="2">
<p>The color is found in the soul, but not attached to the object. We find the color attached to the object only by going to the starting point of this theory which is the initial perception of the thing. <em>This theory leads me to identify what the naive person regards as existing outside of him, as really a product of my soul.</em></p>
</td>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;">
<p> <strong>4.11 Phenomenalism</strong></p>
</td>
<td style="background-color: #9acd32;" colspan="2">
<p>The world is spread out around us. Phenomenalism does not claim this is the real world. It can only say it “appears” to me. In 4.11, what we are experiencing as a percept in the external world is not really a direct experience of world phenomena, it is phenomena produced by the perception process; our idea of the world. If this is true and applied to the perception process itself, then it makes sense that ideas cannot act on one another to produce a percept. This means the theory of critical idealism collapses.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;">
<p> <strong>4.11 External percept is an idea</strong></p>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="background-color: #ffdead;">
<p>As long as we stay with this, everything seems to fit beautifully. But we must go over the argument once more from the beginning. My starting point has been the external percept. I thought that the percept, just as I perceive it, had objective existence. But now I notice that it disappears with my act of perception, that it is only a modification of my mental state. Do I still have any right to start from it in my arguments? From now on I must treat the table --which I used to believe affected me, and produced an idea of itself within me, as itself an idea. But from this it follows logically that my sense-organs, and the processes in them are also merely subjective, as are the other processes discussed.</p>
</td>
</tr>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Comparative study</strong></td>
<td>
<p><strong>Pass from one percept to another</strong><br />
If, assuming the truth of the first circle of thought, I run through the steps of my cognitive activity once more, then the cognitive act reveals itself as a web of ideas that, as such, cannot act on one another. I cannot say that my idea of the object acts upon my idea of the eye and that out of this interaction emerges my idea of the color. As soon as it is clear to me that my sense organs and their activity, my nerve and soul process, can also only be given me through perception, the argument outlined reveals itself in its full absurdity. I only connect new perceptions within my organism to the first ones which the native person places outside his organism. I only pass from one percept to another.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Gap between external and internal observation</strong><br />
There is a break in the whole argument between external and internal observation. I can follow the processes in my organism up to those in my brain, even though my assumptions become more and more hypothetical the closer I come to the central processes of the brain. The method of external observation ends with what I would perceive if I could study the brain with the help of the instruments and methods of Physics and Chemistry. The method of internal observation, or introspection, begins with the sensations, and includes the construction of things out of the material of sense-data. At the point of transition from brain process to sensation, there is a break in the sequence of observation.</p>
</td>
</tr>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Analysis</strong></td>
<td colspan="2">
<p><strong>Analysis</strong><br />
This theory, called Critical Idealism, --in contrast to the standpoint of naive common sense, called Naive Realism-- makes the error of characterizing one group of percepts as ideas, while naively accepting the percepts connected with one's own body as objectively valid facts. In addition, it fails to see that it confuses two fields of observation –external and internal-- between which it can find no connecting link.</p>
</td>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;">
<p> <strong>4.12 Sensationalism</strong></p>
</td>
<td style="background-color: #9acd32;" colspan="2">
<p>Sensationalism allows validity only to sense-impressions. In 4.12 we move to the real eye and real hand that are the basis of the perception process.</p>
</td>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;">
<p> <strong>4.12 Relation of percept and idea</strong></p>
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<td colspan="2" style="background-color: #ffdead;">
<p>Critical Idealism can only refute Naive Realism by accepting, in naive realistic fashion, that one's own organism has objective existence. As soon as the Idealist realizes the complete similarity between the percepts connected with his own organism and those assumed by naive realism to exist objectively, he can no longer use the first kind of perceptions as a sure foundation for his theory. He would, to be consistent, have to regard his own organism also as a mere complex of ideas. But this removes the possibility of regarding the content of the perceptual world as a product of the mind's organization. <em>This much is certain: Analysis within the world of percepts cannot establish Critical Idealism, and, consequently, cannot strip percepts of their objective character.</em></p>
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</tr>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Comparative study</strong></td>
<td>
<p><strong>The perceptual world is my idea</strong><br />
The principle "the perceptual world is my idea" cannot be presented as obvious in itself and needing no proof. Schopenhauer begins his chief work, with the words: "The world is my idea —this is the truth which is valid with respect to every living and knowing being. It is clear that we know no sun and no earth, but always only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels the earth, the world that surrounds him is there only in idea. If any truth can be asserted a priori, it is this.”</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Real eye and hand have the ideas sun and earth as modifications</strong><br />
This whole theory collapses by the fact that the eye and the hand are no less perceptions than the sun and the earth. For only my real eye and my real hand, --not my ideas "eye" and "hand"-- could have the ideas "sun" and "earth" as their modifications.</p>
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<td style="width: 135px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #9acd32;"><strong> Analysis</strong></td>
<td colspan="2">
<p><em>Critical Idealism is totally unable to gain an insight unto the relation of percept to idea.</em> It cannot make the separation between what happens to the percept in the process of perception and what must be inherent in it prior to perception. We must therefore attempt this problem in another way.</p>
</td>
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</tbody>
</table>
</div>Chapter 1 - The Conscious Human Deedhttps://philosophyoffreedom.com/profiles/blog/chapter-1-the-conscious-human-deed2016-05-13T19:17:49.000Z2016-05-13T19:17:49.000ZTom Lasthttps://philosophyoffreedom.com/members/00yzc179qgdki<div><p>NEW TRANSLATION PROJECT <a href="http://philosophyoffreedom.com/profiles/blog/readable-chapter-1-the-conscious-deed" target="_self">SEE LATEST TRANSLATION HERE.</a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><span class="font-size-5">1. THE CONSCIOUS HUMAN DEED</span></strong></p>
<p><strong>What is the conscious human deed?</strong><br />
1.0 The Question Of Freedom<br />
1.1 Freedom Of Indifferent Choice<br />
1.2 Freedom Of Choice<br />
1.3 Free Necessity Of One's Nature<br />
1.4 Conduct In Accord With Character<br />
1.5 Action Resulting From Knowledge<br />
1.6 Free When Controlled By Rational Decision<br />
1.7 Freedom To Do What One Wishes<br />
1.8 Unconditioned Impulse Of Will<br />
1.9 Knowledge Of The Reason For Action<br />
1.10 Driving Force Of The Heart<br />
1.11 Idealized Love<br />
1.12 Seeing The Good</p>
<p>5/12/16<br />
<span style="color: #993300;"><strong>1.0 The Question Of Freedom</strong></span><br />
[1] Is the human being free in action and thought, or compelled by the unyielding necessity of natural law? Few questions have expended so much ingenuity. The idea of freedom has found enthusiastic supporters and stubborn opponents in large numbers. There are people who, in their moral zeal, declare it to be sheer stupidity to deny so obvious a fact as freedom. Standing against them are others who say it is naively unscientific for anyone to believe that the universality of natural law is suspended in the field of human action and thought. One and the same thing is as often proclaimed to be humanity's most precious possession as it is declared to be our worst illusion. Endless distinctions have been used to explain how human freedom can be compatible with Determinism; that is, a freedom consistent with the laws working in nature, of which man is, after all, a part. No less effort has gone into explaining how this delusion has come about. The importance of the question of freedom for life, religion, conduct and science can be felt by anyone whose character is not totally lacking in depth.</p>
<p>5/13/16<br />
<span style="color: #993300;"><strong>1.1 Freedom Of Indifferent Choice</strong></span><br />
It is one of the sad indications of the superficiality of contemporary thought that a book intending to formulate a 'new faith' from the results of recent scientific research (<em>David Friedrich Strauss: The New and the Old Belief</em>), has nothing more to say on this question than these words:</p>
<p>"We are not concerned with the question of free will. The supposedly 'indifferent' freedom of choice has been recognized as an empty illusion by every reputable philosophy worthy of the name. Determining the moral value of human conduct and character is not affected in any way by an indifferent choice."</p>
<p>I quote this passage, not because I consider the book in which it is found to be of special importance, but because it seems to me to express the only view that the thinking of most of our contemporaries is able to reach on this question. Everyone who claims to have advanced beyond elementary science seems to know nowadays that freedom cannot consist in neutrally choosing, entirely at will, one or the other of two possible courses of action. There is always, so we are told, a quite specific reason that explains why a person carries out one particular action from among several possibilities.</p>
<p>5/14/16<br />
<span style="color: #993300;"><strong>1.2 Freedom Of Choice</strong></span><br />
[2] This seems obvious. And yet, right up to the present day, the main attacks of the opponents of freedom are only directed against the freedom of choice. Even Herbert Spencer, whose doctrines are growing in popularity with each day, says:<br />
 <br />
"That everyone is at liberty to desire or not to desire, as he pleases, which is the real proposition concealed in the dogma of free will, is refuted by everyone's own internal observation as by the contents of the preceding chapter [on psychology]."</p>
<p><span style="color: #993300;"><strong>1.3 Free Necessity Of One's Nature</strong></span><br />
Others also take the same starting point when attacking the concept of free will. The seeds of all the relevant arguments can be found as early as Spinoza. What he presented in clear and simple language against the idea of freedom has since been repeated countless times, but as a rule enclosed in the most complicated theoretical doctrines that make it difficult to recognize the simple line of thought, which is all that matters. Spinoza writes in a letter of October or November 1674,</p>
<p>"I call a thing free that exists and acts out of the pure necessity of its nature; and I call it unfree, if its existence and activity are determined in an exact and fixed way by something else. For example, God is free, although he exists in a necessary way, because he exists solely out of the necessity of his own nature. Similarly, God knows himself and all other things freely, because it follows solely from the necessity of his nature to know all. So you see that I locate freedom, not in free decision, but in free necessity.</p>
<p>[3] "But let us come down to created things which are all determined by external causes to exist and to act in a fixed and exact way. To see this more clearly, let us imagine a very simple case. A stone, for example, receives a certain momentum from an external cause that strikes it, so that afterwards, of necessity, the stone continues to move after the impact of the external cause has ceased. The continued motion of the stone is compelled, for it is due to the external impact, and not to the necessity of the stone's own nature. What is true here for the stone is true also for everything else, no matter how complex and multifaceted it may be, for everything is determined by external causes with the necessity to exist and to act in a fixed and exact way. </p>
<p>5/15/16<br />
[4] "Now please assume that the stone, while in motion, thinks and knows that it is striving to the best of its ability to continue in motion. This stone, which is only conscious of its striving and is not at all indifferent to what it is doing, will be convinced that it is entirely free and that it continues in motion, not because of an external cause, but only because it wants to do so. This is just the human freedom that everyone claims to possess, and the reason it appears to be freedom is because human beings are conscious of their desires, but ignorant of the causes that determine those desires. Thus the child believes it freely desires milk, the angry boy believes he freely demands revenge, and the coward believes he freely chooses to run away. The drunken man believes he says things of his own free will that, when sober again, he will wish he had not said; and since this bias is inborn in everybody, it is difficult to free oneself from it. Even though experience teaches us often enough that people are least able to moderate their own desires, and when torn by conflicting passions they see the better and pursue the worse, yet they still regard themselves as free because they desire some things less intensely, and can easily inhibit some cravings by recalling a familiar memory that often preoccupies one's mind."</p>
<p>[5] Because this view is so clearly and definitely expressed, it is easy to discover the fundamental error within it. A human being is supposedly compelled to carry out an action when driven to it by any reason, with the same necessity as a stone that is put in motion by an impact. It is only because a human being is conscious of his action alone that he believes himself to be the free originator of it. In doing so, however, he overlooks that he is driven by a cause that he must obey unconditionally. The error in this line of thought is soon discovered. Spinoza and all who think like him overlook the fact that a human being can not only be conscious of his action, but may also become conscious of the causes that guide him. Anyone can see that a child is not free when it desires milk, and the drunken man is not free when saying things he later regrets. Neither knows anything of the causes working deep within their organisms that exercise irresistible control over them. But is it right to group such actions together with those of a human being who is not only conscious of his actions, but also of the reasons that motivate him? </p>
<p>Are human actions really all of one kind? Should the deeds of a soldier on the battlefield, of a research scientist in his laboratory, or a statesman involved in complex diplomatic negotiations be ranked in the same scientific category as those of a child craving milk? It is certainly true that the best way of seeking the solution to a problem is where the conditions are simplest. But the inability to see distinctions has often caused endless confusion. There is, after all, a profound difference between knowing and not knowing why I act. This would seem to be an obvious truth. Yet the opponents of freedom never ask whether a motive of action that I recognize and understand, compels me in the same way as the organic process that causes a child to cry for milk.</p>
<p><span style="color: #993300;"><strong>1.4 Conduct In Accord With Character</strong></span><br />
Eduard von Hartmann asserts in his <em>Phenomenology of Moral Consciousness</em> that human willing depends on two main factors: motives and character. If we look at human beings as all alike, or at least see their differences as negligible, then their will appears to be determined from outside, that is, by the situations they encounter. But if one bears in mind that people are different and a person will adopt an idea as the motive of their conduct, only if his character is such that this idea arouses a desire in him to act, then his will appears to be determined from within and not from outside. Now, the human being believes he is free—that is, independent of outside motivation—only because the idea imposed on him from outside must first, in accordance with his character, be made into a motive. But the truth is, according to Eduard von Hartmann, that,</p>
<p>"Even though we first adopt an idea as a motive, we do not do this arbitrarily, but rather according to necessity; according to the disposition of our character. That is to say we are anything but free."</p>
<p>Here again, the difference between motives that I allow to influence me only after I have consciously made them my own, and those I follow without any clear knowledge of them, is completely ignored.</p>
<p>5/16/16<br />
<span style="color: #993300;"><strong>1.5 Action Resulting From Knowledge</strong></span><br />
[7] This leads us straight to the standpoint from which the subject will be considered here. Should the question of free will be posed narrowly by itself, in a one-sided way? And if not, with what other question must it necessarily be linked?</p>
<p>[8] If there is a difference between a conscious and an unconscious motive of action, then the conscious motive will result in an action that must be judged differently than one that springs from blind urge. Our first question will concern this difference. The position we must take on freedom itself will depend on the result of this inquiry.</p>
<p>[9] What is the significance of knowing the reasons for one's action? Too little attention has been given to this question because, unfortunately, there is a tendency to tear in two what is an inseparable whole: the human being. The doer is distinguished from the knower, but the one that matters most is lost sight of—the knowing doer, the one who acts out of knowledge.</p>
<p>5/17/16<br />
<span style="color: #993300;"><strong>1.6 Free When Controlled By Reason</strong></span><br />
[10] A view has been expressed that says a man is free when his actions are controlled by reason alone and not by his animal cravings. Or that freedom means being able to determine one’s life and action according to purposes and deliberate decisions.</p>
<p>[11] Nothing is gained by assertions of this kind. For the crucial question is just whether reason, purposes, and decisions work with the same kind of compulsion over a human being as his animal cravings. If, without my active involvement, a rational decision occurs in me with the same necessity as hunger or thirst, then I can only follow it, and my freedom is an illusion.</p>
<p><span style="color: #993300;"><strong>1.7 Freedom To Do What One Wishes</strong></span><br />
[12] Another view is: To be free does not mean being able to will as one wishes, but being able to do what one wishes. The poet-philosopher Robert Hamerling expresses this thought incisively in his <em>Atomistik des Willens</em>.</p>
<p>“The human being can certainly do what he wishes, but he cannot will as he wishes, because his will is determined by motives! — He cannot will as he wishes? Let us look at these words more closely. Do they make any sense? Is free will to mean the ability to will something without reason, without motive? But what else does willing mean, other than having a reason for doing or striving for this rather than that? To will something for no reason and with no motive would mean to will it without wanting it. The concept of willing is inseparably connected with that of motive. Without a determining motive the will is an empty capacity: only through the motive does it become active and real. It is, therefore, correct to say that the human will is 'unfree' to the extent that its direction is always determined by the strongest motive. But it is absurd, in contrast to this 'unfreedom', to speak of a possible 'freedom of will' that amounts to being able to will what one does not want.”</p>
<p>[13] Here again only motives in general are discussed, without taking into account the difference between unconscious and conscious motivations. If a motive affects me, and I am compelled to act on it because it proves to be the "strongest" of several motives, then the idea of freedom ceases to have any meaning. Why should it matter to me whether I can do something or not, if I am forced by the motive to do it? The primary question is not whether I can or cannot do something once the motive has influenced me, but whether all motives work with inescapable necessity. If I am compelled to will something, then I may well be completely indifferent as to whether I can also do it. And if, because of my character and the circumstances prevailing in my environment, a motive is forced on me that I find to be unreasonable, then I would even be glad if I am unable to do what I will.</p>
<p>[14] The question is not whether I can carry out a decision once made, but how the decision comes about within me.</p>
<p>5/18/16<br />
<span style="color: #993300;"><strong>1.8 Unconditioned Impulse Of Will</strong></span><br />
[15] What distinguishes humans from all other organic beings is rational thinking. Activity is something we have in common with other organisms. Seeking analogies for human action in the animal kingdom does not help to clarify the concept of freedom. Modern science loves these analogies. When scientists succeed in finding among animals something similar to human behavior, they believe this has something to do with the most important question of the science of man. An example of what misunderstandings this view leads is seen in the book <em>The Illusion of Freewill</em> by P. Rée, who says the following about freedom:</p>
<p>"It is easy to explain why it appears to us that the movement of a stone is by necessity, while the will impulse of a donkey is not by necessity. The causes that set the stone in motion are external and visible. But the causes that determine the donkey's acts of will are internal and invisible: between us and the place where they occur is the donkey’s skull... We cannot see the causal conditioning, and so believe that it does not exist. They agree that an impulse of will is certainly the cause of the donkey’s turning around, but then they claim that the will itself is not conditioned, it is an absolute beginning.”</p>
<p>Here too, human actions in which there is an awareness of the reasons for the action are simply ignored, because Rée explains that: “between us and the place where they occur is the donkey’s skull.” As these words show it has not dawned on Rée that there are actions, not of the donkey but of the human being, where between us and the deed lies the motive that has become conscious. A few pages later Rée demonstrates the same blindness when he says: “We do not perceive the causes that determine our will and so believe it is not causally determined at all.”</p>
<p>[16] But enough of examples proving that many argue against freedom without knowing at all what freedom really is.</p>
<p>5/19/16<br />
<span style="color: #993300;"><strong>1.9 Knowledge Of The Reason For Action</strong></span><br />
Obviously, an action cannot be free if the doer carries it out without knowing the reason why. But what are we to say of the freedom of an action, if we reflect on the reasons for carrying it out? This leads us to the question: What is the origin of our thoughts and what does it mean to think? For without knowing something about the minds activity of thinking, it is not possible to form a concept of knowledge about anything, including knowledge of the reasons for why we act. When we know the general meaning of what it means to think, it will be easier to see clearly the role that thinking plays in human action. As Hegel rightly says,</p>
<p>"It is thinking that turns the soul, common to us and animals, into spirit."</p>
<p>And this is why it is thinking that gives to human action its characteristic stamp.</p>
<p>5/20/16<br />
<span style="color: #993300;"><strong>1.10 Driving Force Of The Heart</strong></span><br />
[18] This is not meant to imply that all our actions proceed only from the calm deliberations of our reason. I am not suggesting that only actions that result from abstract judgment alone are, in the highest sense, “human”. But the moment our conduct rises above the satisfying of purely animal desires, our motives are always shaped by thoughts. Love, compassion, and patriotism are driving forces for deeds that refuse to be reduced to cold intellectual understanding. It is said that this is where heart-felt sensibility prevails. No doubt. But the heart and its sensibility do not create the motives of action, which are given, and then received into the hearts domain. Compassion appears in my heart after the thought of a person who arouses compassion occurs in my mind. The way to the heart is through the head.</p>
<p><span style="color: #993300;"><strong>1.11 Idealized Love</strong></span><br />
Love is no exception. Whenever it is not merely the expression of the sexual drive, it depends on the thoughts we form of the loved one. The more idealistic these thoughts are, the more blissful is our love. Here, too, thought is the father of feeling.</p>
<p><span style="color: #993300;"><strong>1.12 Seeing The Good</strong></span><br />
It is said that love makes us blind to the failings of the loved one. But we can turn this around and say that love opens our eyes to the good qualities of the loved one. Many pass by these good qualities without noticing them. One, however, sees them, and just because he does, love inwardly awakens. He has done nothing other than perceive what hundreds have failed to see. They have no love because they lack the perception.</p>
<p>End</p>
</div>The Ethical Individualists Right To Studyhttps://philosophyoffreedom.com/profiles/blog/the-ethical-individualists-right-to-study2015-08-02T04:52:34.000Z2015-08-02T04:52:34.000ZEthical Individualisthttps://philosophyoffreedom.com/members/theethicalindividualist<div><table border="0" style="width: 750px;">
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3293847238?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3293847238?profile=original" width="500" class="align-full" /></a>Ethical Individualists have no ethical obligation to obey the laws of the State, though they usually do. <a href="http://philosophyoffreedom.com/hoernle-translation-1916#10c" target="_blank">POF 9.12</a>  If they were to end up in prison, to pass the time they would likely want to start a Philosophy Of Freedom study group. Would they have that right?</p>
<p><strong>Religious right to study</strong><br />
Inmates of a prison approved “religion” have special rights such as the right to have weekly classroom/study time, access to study materials and the right to congregate with other members of their group. Simply put, if you said you were religious, you got a number of perks not afforded to non-religious groups.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3293846882?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3293846882?profile=original" width="500" class="align-full" /></a></strong></p>
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<p><strong>Humanist denied right to study</strong><br />
Prisoner Jason Holden was prohibited from starting a Humanist study group because Humanism was not on the list of accepted religions, so he sued the Federal Bureau of Prisons.</p>
<p><strong>Ruling favors rights of Humanist</strong><br />
The Federal Bureau of Prisons agreed to give inmates who identify as Humanists the same type of accommodations it provides to those who practice a religion. A settlement was reached and Humanism was added to the prison manual broadening the meaning of religion to include other inmate beliefs and practices.</p>
<p>In his 2014 ruling the judge wrote, “the Supreme Court said that the government must not aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs…Therefore, the court finds that Secular Humanism is a religion for Establishment Clause purposes.”</p>
<p>While it is unfortunate that the only manner in which these rights can be protected is under the umbrella of “religion,” this is nonetheless a significant victory for science, reason, and non-religious ethics.</p>
<p><strong>Ethical Individualism is a humanist philosophy of life</strong><br />
The ruling was a victory for Ethical Individualism since it is a philosophy of life that fits in the Humanist designation. The source of its ethics is human thought, not the supernatural or God,</p>
<p><span style="color: #000080;">“A moral act is never explained by tracing it back to some continuous supernatural influence (a divine government), or to historical revelation (the giving of the ten commandments) or to the appearance of God (Christ) on earth. Moral causes must be looked for in the human being, who is the bearer of morality.”</span> <a href="http://philosophyoffreedom.com/hoernle-translation-1916#c13" target="_blank">POF 12.8</a></p>
<p><span style="color: #000080;">"The ethical laws which the Metaphysician regards as issuing from a higher power are human thoughts; the ethical world order is the free creation of human beings.”</span> <a href="http://philosophyoffreedom.com/hoernle-translation-1916#c11" target="_blank">POF 10.8</a></p>
<p><strong>Christians Decline Sharply as Share of Population</strong><br />
An extensive 2015 survey by the Pew Research Center shows the Christian share of the US population is sharply declining while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing. As theistic religion is replaced by an ethics whose source is the free human being, society will need to recognize the rights of a broader range of worldviews and philosophies.</p>
<p>Reference: Rachel Ford</p>
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</div>Philosophy Of Freedom Study Group Arthttps://philosophyoffreedom.com/profiles/blog/anthroposophical-art2015-07-19T18:57:38.000Z2015-07-19T18:57:38.000Zwatsup?https://philosophyoffreedom.com/members/watsup<div><p>We are studying the Philosophy of Freedom by Rudolf Steiner.<br />
Each week we do artistic exercises in relation to the text.<br />
Here are a few samples from our first session on the <a href="http://philosophyoffreedom.com/two-prefaces" target="_self">prefaces</a>.<br />
Hillsdale, New York<br />
see <a href="http://philosophyoffreedom.com/start-a-study-group" target="_self">Start A Study Group</a><br />
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click on image</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3293858722?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="450" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3293858722?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="450" class="align-full" /></a></p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3293860768?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="450" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3293860768?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="450" class="align-full" /></a></p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3293858263?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="600" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3293858263?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="600" class="align-full" /></a></p>
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