I greatly admire anyone with the commitment and courage to present Steiner's The Philosophy Of Freedom to the public. Here is a video that demonstrates the difficulty anthroposophists have with explaining The Philosophy Of Freedom. Its presented as difficult "epistemolgy" needing a philosophy background to understand. He says the great philosophers like Kant reject the idea we can know the world. At the end this is clarified to mean that people don't trust their own thinking, so rely on outside sources. He then summarizes through chapter 4 by reading quotes to give a taste of the book. The book points to a new way of thinking that is some kind of special spiritual thinking that is not explained, but then ties in with spiritual science somehow. Anthroposophists always overuse the term "spiritual" when they don't know what they are talking about. Concerning a main theme of the book, "Are their limits to knowledge" he says that what Steiner concludes is basically we don't know if there are limits to knowledge. This of course undermines the whole book, which says, "It follows from the concept of knowledge, as we have defined it, that one cannot speak of limits to knowledge." 7.2. Steiner is redefining the cognitive process where there are no limits to an individual's knowledge. This just means we can answer our own questions, which is significant in this philosophy that values 'certainty'. Then the anthroposophist's always add that TPOF is merely a bridge to the real goods found in Steiner's later theosophy. Then the talk turns into a lecture on theosophy. Not to pick on this person. Anthroposophist's have so misrepresented the book over the years in an effort to connect it to spiritual science that they can't be expected to get anything out of it. This is why we started a group to discuss ways to present and teach TPOF. This is an urgent issue if the book is to have any social impact. It meets each week here.
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