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Wise ones throughout history have given humanity a picture of the human ideal to strive for, such as religious saints like Jesus in the Gospels or Ayn Rand's selfish individualist. Rudolf Steiner presents to the world a new Human Ideal for our age, the Ethical Individualist. The Ethical Individualist stands at the highest point of human evolution. Part I of the book describes the FREE THINKING while Part II describes the FREE MORALITY of the Ethical Individualist. The human ideal unites these two sides.

I recently posted some videos on YouTube on current social and political topics. It was suggested I get more people involved in this for feedback, topic ideas, and participation such as a co-host and guests. With more participation the YouTube videos could generate more interest. This post is for discussion about this. If needed I can set up a creator group within the website for this purpose.

Maybe I will spend my time taking on Ayn Rand and her influence in politics by offering an alternative philosophy.

Ayn Rand’s philosophy of “selfish individualism” now dominates the thinking of the leadership of the conservative movement and the Republican Party. She claims to know the human being. Maybe I will contrast her selfish individualism with another philosophy of “ethical individualism”. Political platforms are an expression of values. The Republican platform is strongly influenced by Ayn Rand’s values. Are progressive values rooted in a different understanding of the human being?

“Man — every man — is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.”
–Ayn Rand, 1962

“If a man strives towards sublimely great ideals, it is because such ideals are the content of his being, and to realize them brings an enjoyment compared with which the pleasure that is drawn from the satisfaction of commonplace needs is a mere nothing. Idealists delight in translating their ideals into reality.” –Rudolf Steiner, 1894

The Philosophy Of Freedom, Chapter One Conscious Human Action

This video is an introduction to Chapter One of The Philosophy Of Freedom; Conscious Human Action.
It begins with the question, Are we free in our thought and action, or inescapably controlled by necessity?

The common belief among people is that we are free.
Freedom is implied in many of the things we say, and many of the attitudes we take.
Suppose tomorrow is a holiday.
You are considering what to do.
You can hike up a mountain or stay home and read a book.
You can fix your bike or go visit the zoo.
I appears obvious to us that we are free to determine our action, at least some of the time.

You also believe in freedom if you believe in morality.
Morality is based on free choice, the ability to choose between right and wrong.

We cannot hold people morally responsible for their actions if they are not free to make choices.
How can we justify the judgment of others unless we believe in free will.
Without free will we would be automatons who simply did whatever we were pre-programmed by nature or society to do.

Religion teaches that the Divine Creator gave free will to everyone.
Its as simple as that!
The downside of such a belief is that it is not based on knowledge.
It is faith.

Science demands more than belief.
Scientists deny free will by the fact that we are physical creatures in a physical world subject to well established natural laws.
Why would the uniformity of natural law be broken in the field of human action?
Since our action is a part of the world it is subject to the laws of cause and effect just as everything else is.
It is hard to deny that we are directed by laws of conduct when our behavior is caused by motivations, temperament, physiological processes, environmental conditions, and so on.
Religion accepts free will on faith while science rejects free will on the evidence provided by research.

But what exactly do we mean by free will?
The discussion of free will is rich and remarkable with 100's of different meanings given to freedom.
Whether freedom is even possible depends on what you mean by the word ‘free’.
Are we free when we can do whatever we wish or is freedom somehow related to quantum chance?

We can narrow down the question of freedom by asking, What is a freedom worth having?
A freedom worth having would not be vague or questionable but scientifically verifiable.
It would need to be a science of freedom that could be clearly explained and experienced.
It would be a freedom that described the advance of evolution up to the ethical individual without the need of some kind of supernatural intervention.

The purpose of The Philosophy Of Freedom is to establish a science of freedom that guides the unfoldment of free ethical individuals.
A knowledge of freedom can be used to create social and political forms that support human development and well-being.
The Philosophy Of Freedom Study Course will attempt to describe the gradual step by step development toward human freedom.

Question by JW:

I have a concern about the overall argument of the Philosophy of Freedom.

Suppose the argument goes something like this. We are free just when our actions are permeated with thinking. Thinking is what insulates our actions from the causal nexus. For if an action has a cause, then it is not free. But in thinking we can find reasons for acting, concepts. 

What should we say about our thinking itself? It too should be capable of being free or unfree. When is it free? It is free when we understand the reasons for our thoughts, or the connections between them. This happens when we select a thought on the basis of its content. Is this process of selection free? Not necessarily. It depends how it is done. What if it is done untruly? Then we have a thought that is selected as a basis for action, untruly, and this provides the appropriate condition for the action to be free.

How can this be?

Analytics shows that the majority of people who visit this website, philosophyoffreedom.com, are under the age of 35. This is significant as the organization intended to preserve Rudolf Steiner's legacy, the General Anthroposophical Society, is growing more elderly and declining in membership. Steiner's pre-theosophy message of science and Ethical Individualism was ahead of its time and is only now finding a new audience of free spirits that is unreachable by an authoritarian Society. 

philosophyoffreedom.com user age chart

The Philosophy Of Freedom discusses pure concepts without perceptual content (universals) and particular concepts with perceptual content (called ideas in Hoernle or mental pictures in other translations) The beginning of this video describes the difference.

"I"
can point my finger and wiggle it.
But WHAT is "I"?
WHAT is "WHAT?" for that matter.

When I close my eyes and recite
the words of a poem in my mind,
there is a sound to these words
that cannot be heard by anyone
except myself.
Unless I CHOOSE
to speak them out loud.

And make them real.

So,
do I know something?
Or do I know nothing?
The answer is both yes
and no.
But what does it mean
to KNOW something?

Thinking about the 
THING that thinks.

Thoughts.

I can say YES to them

Or I can say No to them.

It is my choice.

But why do we choose - what we choose?

What is choice?
A chemical release of good or bad hormones?
Is choice biological?
Is it possible that all we really need to change the world,

is a change in diet?

Maybe terror-ISM is related to constipation,

and bad diet.

In addition to

bad thoughts,

leading to bad choices.

This post is what happens when you read

Rudolf  Steiner right before bed.

SEE THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM STUDY GUIDE AND YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Philosophy Of Freedom Study Course
I am putting together a new Philosophy Of freedom study course. Some features include:

• Watch Videos: I will be producing 200 short videos of under 5 minutes that cover each of the main topics in the book. They will be posted at the rate of 1 or 2 per week.
• Take Quiz: A short quiz of 5-10 questions will accompany each video. The quiz results will be sent in and recorded in each one's file.
• Work at own pace
• Cost: Course is free, but participants are encouraged to share what they learn with a study project or by starting a study group.

Tom Last
November 12, 2015

The third view of the discussion of thinking in Chapter 3 is Realism, so the Realist is interested in "thinking observation" as the way to know the external world.

From understanding the structure of The Philosophy Of Freedom I think I can create a series of personal growth lessons that describe a certain state of life and then describes a higher state. For example, living life as a passive unknowing spectator or as an active doing thinker. I am working on a new test study course video. I have made many but not many that capture interest. The famous Ted Talks are an art in presenting material in a way that interests people. This begins with an interesting title. So I found these study course titles for the first 7 chapters.

1. Where Is Free Will Located? (Conscious Human Action)
2. Owning Your Duality (Why The Desire For Knowledge Is Fundamental)
3. How To Think, Not What To Think (Thought As The Instrument Of Knowledge)
4. Seeing The World As It Isn't (The World As Percept)
5. Knowing The World As It Is (Our Knowledge Of The World)
6. The Importance Of Individuality (Human Individuality)
7. Are There Limits To Knowledge? (Are There Any Limits To Knowledge?)

THE MONADIST

By listing the thinking and acting characteristics of the Monadism worldview found in The Philosophy Of Freedom, a personality type unfolds.

Monadism: I am a self-conscious and completely self-dependent ego. Truth is not revealed to outer observation so I do not accept anything as truth from the outside world. A being can build up existence in itself, and force concepts outward (Monads are will entities). Reflects on the spiritual element in the world.

Monadism worldview in Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy Of Freedom
1.9 Monadist action: Know The Reason For Action
Freedom is an action of which the reasons are known by reflecting on the motive before we act.

2.9 Monadist pursuit of knowledge: Know Element Of Nature Within
“Desires to know the element of nature within that corresponds to nature without. We can find Nature outside of us only if we have first learnt to know her within us. The Natural within us must be our guide to her.”

3.9 Monadist thinking: Create Before Knowing
“We must resolutely proceed with thinking, in order afterward, by means of observation of what we ourselves have done, gain knowledge of it.”

4.9 Monadist perception: Only Perceive What My Organization Transmits
“Nothing can any longer be found of what exists outside of me and originally stimulated my sense-organs. The external object, on its way to the brain, and through the brain to the soul, has been entirely lost. What we perceive is something we produce.”

5.9 Monadist knowing: Principle Of Unity Is Ideal Element
“All attempts to discover any other principle of unity in the world than this internally coherent ideal content, which we gain for ourselves by the conceptual analysis of our percepts, are bound to fail.”

6.9 Monadist individual representation of reality: Individual Point Of View
“Each one of us has his special standpoint from which he looks out on the world. His concepts link themselves to his percepts. He has his own special way of forming general concepts.”

7.9 Monadist cognition: Monism
Reality is sum of perceptions and laws of nature. “Monism replaces forces by ideal relations which are supplied by thinking. These relations are the laws of nature. A law of nature is nothing but the conceptual expression for the connection of certain percepts.”

8.9 Monadist personality: Personality Expressed In Will
“Willing Personality: The individual relation of our self to what is objective.”

9.9 monadist idea to act: Individual Element
Expression of ideals in individual way. “The individual element in me is not my organism with its instincts and feelings, but rather the unified world of ideas which reveals itself through this organism. An act the grounds for which lie in the ideal part of my individual nature is free.”

10.9 Monadist moral authority: Stage Of The Free Spirit
“Monism looks upon man as a developing being, and asks whether, in the course of this development, he can reach the stage of the free spirit.”

11.9 Monadist purpose: Formative Principle In Nature
“The structure of every natural object, be it plant, animal, or man, is not determined and conditioned by an idea of it floating in midair, but by the formative principle of the more inclusive whole of Nature which unfolds and organizes itself in a purposive manner.”

12.9 Monadist moral idea: Moral Self-determination
“The life of moral self-determination is the continuation of organic life. The characterizing of an action, whether it is a free one, he must leave to the immediate observation of the action.”

13.9 Monadist value of life: Strength Of Will
Will For Pleasure (intensity of desire) “The question is not at all whether there is a surplus of pleasure or of pain, but whether the will is strong enough to overcome the pain.”

14.9 Monadist individuality: Emancipation Of Knowing
“If we are to understand a free individuality we must take over into our own spirit those concepts by which he determines himself, in their pure form (without mixing our own conceptual content with them).”

THE SPIRITIST (World Of Mind)

By listing the thinking and acting characteristics of the Spiritism worldview found in The Philosophy Of Freedom, a personality type unfolds.

Spiritism: The material world is only a manifestation of the underlying spiritual. By developing our powers, the truth that we seek is revealed through our own inner activity. The way we directly experience the spirit is in the act of thinking. The human spirit is that part of us that thinks.

Spiritism worldview in Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy Of Freedom
1.2 Spiritist action: Freedom Of Choice
Freedom is to make a free choice according to our own wants and preferences.

2.2 Spiritist pursuit of knowledge: Spiritualistic Theory
“The Spiritualist denies Matter (the World) and regards it merely as a product of Mind (the Self). He supposes the whole phenomenal word to be nothing more than a fabric woven by Mind out of itself.”

3.2 Spiritist thinking: Concept Formed Through My Activity
“I am conscious, in the most positive way, that the concept of a thing is formed through my activity.”

4.2 Spiritist perception: Thinking Refers Concept
“When, I, as thinking subject, refer a concept to an object, we must not regard this reference as something purely subjective. It is not the subject, but thinking, that makes the reference.”

5.2 Spiritist knowing: Thinking Assertion
“If I want to assert anything at all about the perception, this can happen only with the help of thinking. If my thought is not applicable to the world, then my result is false.”

6.2 Spiritist individual representation of reality: Thinking Connects An Intuition With The Percept
“The moment a percept appears in my field of consciousness, thought, too, becomes active in me. A member of my thought-system, a definite intuition connects itself with the percept. An idea is nothing but an intuition, a concept, related to a particular percept; it retains this reference to the percept.”

7.2 Spiritist cognition: Cognitive Power Of The Self
“Within ourselves we find the power to discover also the other part of reality. Only when the Self has combined for itself the two elements of reality which are indivisibly bound up with one another in the world, is our thirst for knowledge stilled.”

8.2 Spiritist personality: Perception of Feeling
“Feeling plays on the subjective side exactly the part which percepts play on the objective side. Feeling is the guarantee of the reality of one's own personality.”

9.2 Spiritist idea to act: The Motive Is The Conceptual Factor
“The conceptual factor, or motive, is the momentary determining cause of an act of will. The motive of an act of will can be only a pure concept, or else a concept with a definite relation to perception, i.e., an idea. Motives of will influence the individual make up (characterological disposition) and determine him to action in a particular direction.”

10.2 Spiritist moral authority: Spiritual Force
“Man may picture the extra-human Absolute that lies behind the world of appearances as a spiritual being. In this case he will also seek the impulse for his actions in a corresponding spiritual force. To this kind of dualist the moral laws appear to be dictated by the Absolute, and all that man has to do is to use his intelligence to find out the decisions of the absolute being and then carry them out.”

11.2 Spiritist purpose: Conceptual Factor Of Purpose
“If the effect is to have a real influence upon the cause, it can do so only by means of the conceptual factor.”

12.2 Spiritist moral idea: Moral Imagination
“The human being produces concrete mental pictures from the sum of his ideas chiefly by means of the imagination. Therefore what the free spirit needs in order to realize his ideas, in order to be effective, is moral imagination.”

13.2 Spiritist value of life: Pain Of Striving
Pain Of Striving (universal idleness) “Eternal striving, ceaseless craving for satisfaction which is ever beyond reach, this is the fundamental characteristic of all active will. For no sooner is one goal attained, than a fresh need springs up, and soon. Schopenhauer's pessimism leads to complete inactivity; his moral aim is universal idleness.”

14.2 Spiritist individuality: Generic Medium For Individual Expression
“A man develops qualities and activities of his own, and the basis for these we can seek only in the man himself. What is generic in him serves only as a medium in which to express his own individual being.”