THE PSYCHIST
By listing the thinking and acting characteristics of the Psychism worldview found in The Philosophy Of Freedom, a personality type unfolds.
Psychism: Ideas are bound up with a being capable of having ideas. Ideas are connected with beings.
Psychism (mental make-up, psyche, psychology) worldview in Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy Of Freedom
1.7 Psychist action: Strongest Motive Works On Me
“If a motive works on me, and I am compelled to follow it because it proves to be the 'strongest' of its kind, then the thought of freedom ceases to make any sense.”
2.7 Psychist pursuit of knowledge: Polarity Of Consciousness
Desires to resolve polarity of consciousness. “We meet with the fundamental opposition first in our own consciousness. It is we ourselves who break away from the bosom of Nature and contrast ourselves as self with the world.”
3.7 Psychist thinking: My Content Of Thought
“I think, therefore I am. I qualify my existence by the determinate and self-sustaining content of my thinking activity.”
4.7 Psychist perception: My Mental Picture
“When the tree disappears from my field of vision, an after-effect of this process remains within myself, a picture of the tree. My self has become enriched; to its content a new element has been added. This element I call my mental picture of the tree.”
5.7 Psychist knowing: Self Definition Through Thinking
“Self-perception is to be distinguished from self-determination, by thinking. Through thinking, I integrate the percepts of myself into the world process.”
6.7 Psychist individual representation of reality: Two-Fold Nature: Thinking And Feeling
“Thinking and feeling correspond to the twofold nature of our being. It is only because with self-knowledge we experience self-feeling and with the perception of objects pleasure and pain, that we live as individuals who have a special value in themselves.”
7.7 Psychist cognition: Ideal Entities
“The tulip I see is real today; in a year it will have vanished into nothingness. What persists is the species 'tulip'. Naive Realism is compelled to acknowledge the existence of something ideal by the side of percepts. It must include within itself entities which cannot be perceived by the senses.”
8.7 Psychist personality: Philosopher Of Feeling
“The Philosopher Of Feeling makes a universal principle out of something that has significance only within one's own personality.”
9.7 Psychist idea to act: Ethical Individualism
“In some, ideas bubble up like a spring, others acquire them with much labor. The situations in which men live, and which are the scenes of their actions, are no less widely different. The conduct of a man will depend, therefore, on the manner in which his faculty of intuition reacts to a given situation.”
10.7 Psychist moral authority: Realization Of The Free Spirit
“According to the monistic view man acts in part unfreely, in part freely. He finds himself to be unfree in the world of his perceptions, but brings the free spirit to realization in himself.”
11.7 Psychist purpose: My Purpose
“Life has no other purpose or function than the one which man gives to it. If the question be asked: What is man's purpose in life? Monism has but one answer: The purpose which he gives to himself.”
12.7 Psychist moral idea: My Moral Ideas
“While it is quite true that the moral ideas of the individual have perceptibly grown out of those of his ancestors, it is also true that the individual is morally barren, unless he has moral ideas of his own.”
13.7 Psychist value of life: Hopelessness Of Egotism
Pursuit Of Pleasure leads to the hopelessness of egotism. “If the quantity of pain in a person's life became at any time so great that no hope of future pleasure could help him to get over the pain, then the bankruptcy of life's business would inevitably follow.”
14.7 Psychist individuality: My Concrete Aims
“It is not possible to determine from the general characteristics of man what concrete aims the individual may choose to set himself.”
