In the wisdom of the Upanishads and their inherent Advaita Vedanta philosophy we can find expressed in poetic language some of the deepest mysteries concerning knowledge of the self and knowledge of the world. These are the self same mysteries that German idealism grappled with and which will be the central topic of this article.

This expansive dissolving juxtaposition of words can awaken in more sensitive souls a feeling for that hidden reality which is present between the words. They can feel the tension of having eyes and ears yet at the same marvelling that Nature could produce such amazingly complex wisdom filled organs of perception. However, that sensitive soul also realizes that something far greater, far more discombobulating is also hidden in plain sight, namely the stupendous mystery that it can see and hear at all. Who is that Being? These are the same mysteries that we find J.G. Fichte , F.W.J Schelling and C.G. Jung attempting to clarify and bring to life for the modern mind.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Fichte, like Descartes, was looking for the foundation and guarantor for knowledge and self-existence. The English empiricists (Bacon, Locke) and French sceptics (Montaigne, Charron) had undermined the very notion of being able to attain true knowledge. Descartes, by recognizing that he doubted, ie taking Scepticism to heart, also recognized that something, namely Descartes himself, thought and therefore he existed. This lead to the now widely recognized idea “Cogito ergo sum”, I think therefore I am. Already here we find evidence of the “beating heart of philosophy”, namely the immersion of the soul in a philosophical view which also leads to reveal the inherent contradictions of that view. This is the polarity of perspective.

At last I have discovered it—thought; this alone is inseparable from me. I am, I exist—that is certain. But for how long? For as long as I am thinking. For it could be that were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally cease to exist. At present I am not admitting anything except what is necessarily true. I am, then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks; that is, I am a mind, or intelligence, or intellect, or reason—words whose meaning I have been ignorant of until now. But for all that I am a thing that is real and that truly exists. But what kind of a thing? I have said it already: a thing that thinks.”
Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes

Fichte, however, was driven to go even further, taking to heart Descartes own words “For it could be that were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally cease to exist.” Fichte was looking for something akin to the earlier quoted poets of the Upanishads, namely “that whereby the mind can think”. Trying to imagine our way into Fichte’s soul we might hear him uttering the following doubt. “Descartes finds his certainty of existence in knowing that he thinks, but what if thinking is just an illusion and tells me nothing about objective reality nor the ultimate truth. What if with thinking we are only falling deeper into a subjective abyss. In this abyss lurks the danger of solipsism where thinking becomes self-referential and disconnected from truth. I cannot talk about certainties until I know what thinking itself is.”

“To say that I think, therefore I am, is to remain on the surface of consciousness. The deeper question is: What is this ‘I’ that thinks? What is the act of thinking itself? If we do not understand this, then all certainty is illusory, for we have not grasped the ground of our own being.”
Fichte: Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre (1797)

Fichte sought his way out of that perceived “subjective abyss” by making thinking the object of thinking itself. In normal everyday life we are the thinking subject and objects become either the subject or object of our thinking depending on our philosophical lens. So are the objects the subject or object of our thinking? Let’s use our thinking to consider how both might be considered valid.

• Many of our everyday thoughts refer to objects given to us by the senses and might therefore be considered objects of our thinking.
• Our thinking is an activity that occurs in the subject doing the thinking, so when we turn away from the data of the senses and engage in philosophical thought we are dealing with content that appears to be created by the subject. What was previously object appears to become subject.
• Let us call the former [sense] objects and the latter [spirit] objects or [subject] objects. Thus [spirit] objects are the internal, conceptual entities created by the subject’s own thinking activity, distinct from [sense] objects. Following Fichte, we can distinguish [sense] objects as the external not-I and [spirit] objects as the internal products of the I’s self-positing. This does not exclude the possibility that [sense] objects are manifestations of [spirit] objects which remain unknown to the I. The latter are commonly called concepts in philosophy.

Thus when we think about our thinking we discover in our own experience the non-static nature of the subject-object dichotomy. This insight is in stark contrast to Descartes strict mind-body or self-world duality and creates a tension. Earlier we reflected briefly on the “the polarity of perspective”, tension of opposites, as being the source of energy for philosophical discovery. Here we find ourselves again in a fluid polarity, namely of the subject-object and Fichte wants to find a region of the soul that can live and thrive in those waters.

This is achieved by recognizing another discovery that can be made by thinking about thinking, namely that prior to thinking, eg as a very young child, consciousness of my self did not exist. I existed for others, but not for myself. My concept of I is itself a fruit of thinking. By the grace of thinking my I comes into existence.

Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre

In asserting that the “I” doesn’t exist independently, but that it comes into being through an act of self-positing Fichte is anticipating what will become basic principles of theories of psychological development. The “I” is not a static [spirit] object but a dynamic process or [spirit] activity that creates itself. This self-positing of the I as a creative acts also leads to a new polarity, namely the not-I.

“Das Ich setzt sich als sich selbst bestimmend, und dieses Sich-Bestimmen ist das Wesen des Ich.”
“The I posits itself as self-determining, and this self-determination is the essence of the I.”
…
“Das Ich ist nicht ein Sein, sondern ein Thun; sein Sein besteht darin, dass es sich selbst setzt.”
“The I is not a being, but a doing; its being consists in the fact that it posits itself.”
…
“Ich bin, weil ich mir selbst bewusst bin; und dieses Bewusstsein ist ein Akt, durch welchen ich mich selbst schaffe.”
“I am because I am conscious of myself; and this consciousness is an act through which I create myself.”

As we let Fichte’s words become [spirit] objects for our thinking we also feel the solidity of his experience, its will-like character unencumbered by external factors when he uses the words “self-determining”, “not a being, but a doing” and “through which I create myself”. Yet at the same time we remain aware that it is the activity of the I that implicitly creates the not-I. The division of experience into I and not-I is a result of thinking, but which also points to an absolute-I which was initially infinite and undefined, but limited itself to gain consciousness of self. This is not a conclusion that Fichte comes to directly though he might have considered it due to his familiarity with Jacob Böhme’s thinking and possibly also the concept of the Urgrund (Abyss) an infinite, undefined ground, which itself is akin to ideas found in other traditions, for example the Ein Sof of the Zohar, the Nirguna Brahman of Advaita Vedanta philosophy, as above in the Kena Upanishad, the Para Brahman of the Bhagavad Gita and the initial state described in Genesis in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Nevertheless, as we will see below with Schelling, also deeply familiar with Jacob Böhme, this is a grounded interpretation of where Fichte may have developed his thinking and indeed his son Immanuel Fichte did.

“Die Begrenzung des Ich durch das Nicht-Ich ist die Bedingung seiner Selbstbewusstsein”
“The limitation of the I by the not-I is the condition of its self-consciousness”

A legitimate question arises here. If the I has through it own activity posited itself into existence then we are naturally led to ask out of what substance does this I consciousness produce itself. This action must be performed in a medium. What might this medium be? Returning to the young child that has no concept of I we can see how this precedes the formation of I consciousness. What was this pre-I state? Fichte is unable to provide an answer to this question because he wanted to avoid using metaphysical explanations. It is for this reason that we now turn to Schelling.

Schelling

As we saw in the previous section Fichte’s emphasizes the I’s role in unifying subject and object by integrating the not-I. Schelling perceived the centrality of the so called Absolute-I in Fichte’s epistemology to be problematic as it failed to account for the reality of the object. Schelling succeeds in expanding the notion of the I and frames it as a broader ontological and existential act, not just an epistemological one. Indeed, the depth and scope of what Schelling proposes is so broad that it posits a [spirit) object (idea) that serves as a foundation for all creation. It finds a transcendent point out of which the subject and the object dynamically emerge. The “tension of opposites” yields a new principle which appears capable of bearing the full weight of [sense] objects and [spirit] objects ([subject] objects).

Schelling’s [spirit] object that serves as this p rinciple is the Absolute. As with Böhme’s Urgrund (Abyss, archetypal foundation) Schelling posits a primal unity, a completely undifferentiated state, in which there can be no distinction between subject and object because this is the undifferentiated state (Hegel: sublated) that defines the polarity, but is not that polarity. It is pure and infinite potentiality. This primal identity adopts some form of manifestation, say physical matter. Then this same primal identity out of its infinite being uses that matter to manifest another aspect of itself within the now present physical matter. This matter then serves as a foundation for the a manifestation of its inherent creative activity, an aspect of its identity. As a more concrete example we can use Goethe’s idea of the Urplanze (archetypal plant) to illustrate more clearly. A plant is inconceivable without matter, or at the very least invisible to the senses. However, reducing the plant to mere matter is to completely miss the very real system of complex processes (activity) that must occur in a specific order if a plant is to develop from seed to maturity and then to produce itself again. Dead matter cannot achieve this process, this unfolding process, is the manifestation of other principles implicit in Schelling’s Absolute. Thus Goethe’s Urplanze could be interpreted as a [spirit] object which manifests itself as a [sense] object yet both this and the [sense] object of matter are manifestations of the Primal Identity/Absolute which is the primal [spirit) Object out of which all [spirit] and [sense] objects emerge Schelling gives a rich description this pre-polar state thus:

“Das Absolute ist die ewige, unbewußte Grundlage der Harmonie zwischen dem Subjektiven und Objektivem, und es wird niemals ein Objekt des Bewußtseins, weil es in seiner absoluten Einfachheit keine Dualität zuläßt. Es ist das, was in sich selbst ruht und doch die Quelle aller Bewegung und Entwicklung ist. Das Absolute ist nicht etwas, das wir erfassen können, sondern es ist das, worin wir uns selbst und die Welt begreifen.”
System des transzendentalen Idealismus: Praktische Philosophie

The Absolute is the eternal, unconscious basis of the harmony between the subjective and the objective, and it never becomes an object of consciousness because in its absolute simplicity it does not allow for duality. It is that which rests in itself and yet is the source of all movement and development. The absolute is not something that we can grasp, but it is that in which we understand ourselves and the world

and

“Das Absolute ist die Quelle aller Intelligenzen und vermittelt zwischen dem sich selbst bestimmenden Subjektiven und dem Objektiven oder Intuitiven. Es ist das, was die Einheit von Geist und Natur ermöglicht, indem es die Grundlage für die Wechselwirkung zwischen dem freien Willen und der natürlichen Notwendigkeit bildet. In dieser Vermittlung zeigt sich das Absolute als das, was sowohl das Subjektive als auch das Objektive in sich vereinigt.”

System des transzendentalen Idealismus: Praktische Philosophie

“The Absolute is the source of all intelligences and mediates between the self-determining subjective and the objective or intuitive. It is that which makes the unity of spirit and nature possible by forming the foundation for the interaction between free will and natural necessity. In this mediation, the absolute reveals itself as that which unites both the subjective and the objective in itself.”

Out of this Absolute the pre-cognitional being (das Unvordenkliche) is born and starts its journey towards consciousness, then self-consciousness and finally absolute-consciousness.

Jung

Let us now move to the final part of this essay and consider how Fichte’s self positing I coupled with Schelling’s philosophical ontology might be mapped to the depth of Jung’s psychological insights. We have Schelling’s trinitarian framework of the Absolute (the primal unity), Nature (its material manifestation), and Spirit (its conscious expression) and Jung’s process of individuation which describes the psychological journey of the Self toward wholeness, integrating the conscious ego with the unconscious.

If we consider Jung’s [spirit] object of the Self which represents the totality of the psyche, uniting conscious and unconscious in a pre-differentiated wholeness. The Self is an identity within collective unconscious that contains archetypes shared across humanity. These archetypes, latent potentials, of thinking and behaviour (activity) exist in an undifferentiated form at the birth of the human being, they exist as [spirit] objects, but manifest successively as [subject] objects, forming psychic strata on or in which other archetypes can establish their activity and become a conscious experience for the soul.

Investigation of the psychology of the unconscious confronted me with facts which required the formulation of new concepts. One of these concepts is the self
……
I have suggested calling the total personality which, though present, cannot be fully known, the self. The ego is, by definition, subordinate to the self and is related to it like a part to the whole. Inside the field of consciousness it has, as we say, free will. By this I do not mean anything philosophical, only the well-known psychological fact of “free choice,” or rather the subjective feeling of freedom.
A I O N, Researches into the phenomenology of the Self, Chapter 1

In Fichte the “tension of opposites”, I and not-I led to the so called Absolute-I. Schelling’s “tension of opposites” of Nature and Spirit allowed him to deduce the Absolute. Finally with Jung we see how the dynamic interplay of the unconscious (Schelling’s Nature) and conscious (Schelling’s Spirit) find their origin and unity in Jung [spirit] object, the Self. Schelling’s Nature as a [sense] object becomes in Jung’s psychology a [subject] object, ie an inner experience of consciousness which is real for the individual. Schelling’s Spirit becomes in Jung phenomenological description of the soul the archetype, [spirit] object, ie the impulse that was the source of the inner experience. This differentiation between [subject] object and [spirit] object in turn maps to the distinction between the personal and the universal, awareness of an aspect of the collective unconscious. Psychological development that all human beings subject themselves to starts in a pre-egoical existence. As the human being develops from baby to child to teenager to young adult to middle age to maturity each successive stage of development is rooted in what preceded it. Yet, whilst these stages are crucial for the process of individuation, self-awakening, they do not fully define the trajectory of that path. The impulse for the future trajectory must be provided from beyond consciousness, from a supra-consciousness, which will then become a conscious and known experience for the ego.

My own experience of commentators on Jung is that there appears to be a certain shyness or timidity in talking about possible examples in history for people who have achieved an exceptionally high degree of individuation or arguably even full individuation, full conscious-realization of the Self. For that reason I would like to consider the role of Christ in Jung’s writings using them as means to summarize this essay. Aion is a rich source for this material as Christ appears over 600 times in the book whereas Jesus appears only 60.

If I speak in the spirit of this time, I must say: no one and nothing can justify what I must proclaim to you. Justification is superfluous to me, since I have no choice, but I must. I have learned that in addition to the spirit of this time there is still another spirit at work, namely that which rules the depths of everything contemporary: The spirit of this time would like to hear of use and value. I also thought this way, and my humanity still thinks this way. But that other spirit forces me nevertheless to speak, beyond justification, use, and meaning. Filled with human pride and blinded by the presumptuous spirit of the times, I long sought to hold that other spirit away from me. But I did not consider that the spirit of the depths from time immemorial and for all the future possesses a greater power than the spirit of this time, who changes with the generations. The spirit of the depths has subjugated all pride and arrogance to the power of judgment. He took away my belief in science, he robbed me of the joy of explaining and ordering things, and he let devotion to the ideals of this time die out in me. He forced me down to the last and simplest things.
…
But the spirit of the depths spoke to me: “You are an image of the unending world, all the last mysteries of becoming and passing away live in you. If you did not possess all this, how could you know?”
Folio 1: The Way of What is to Come, Liber Novus

Introduction

Toward the Forest

Out of the Forest

The Preface

Plato

Alfred North Whitehead

Next time

Introduction

In my first ever reading of the Philosophy of Freedom 30 years ago, one idea struck me with particular vigour. Like all good ideas, it is obvious in retrospect, but reading it for the first time it struck like a thunderbolt, leaving an indelible impression on my soul. The idea was simple and concise: no statement that we can make about ourselves and the world is possible without thinking. Yet, at the same time thinking itself is a faculty of soul that is barely understood. Stating it more radically, we base all the certainties that we hold dear on a poorly understood foundation.

This essay will consider the singularly most important concept in the original preface from 1884 as witnessed by it being referenced more often than any other concept. In a previous essay we looked at life the second most often occurring concept in the preface. We will also use the same methodology.

Before we look at how and where the concept occurs in the text we will need to take some preparatory clarifying steps to ensure that Steiner’s philosophical rigour is also maintained as we read through the text. This is crucial for penetrating deeper into that domain of the soul which knows itself to be connected to spiritual realms.

We need to unpack and clearly distinguish the difference between thinking (denken), cognition (Erkenntnis), to cognize (erkennen), to know (wissen), knowledge (Wissen) and science (Wissenschaft). These words have very specific meaning when Steiner uses them and it is important for a more complete understanding of the text that we clearly delimit what is to be understood by those terms. We need to understand how thinking is radically different from cognition and yet at the same time how they interact. Similarly by strictly delimiting knowledge and cognition we can gain a clearer understanding of what happens when the two interact. If we consider the nature of light and its properties then we can gain use imagery to gain a clearer understanding of thinking-cognition-knowledge. Let’s go for a walk.

Toward the Forest

Let us imagine that we live in northern climes, ca 58:00 N in the middle of winter. It is 7:30 in the morning, which means the sun will not rise above the horizon for another ca. 1 hour and 20 minutes. We leave the house and walk down the path, there is barely enough light to know whether we are walking on the path or the field next to it. In this weak grey light there are no colours only shades of light and darkness. We continue along the path towards the still darker forest and think about the lack of colour and ask ourselves the question: Is grass green? Our memory tells us that the answer is yes, but experience based uniquely on this dark morning walk would have to answer the same question with no. We continue to walk through the forest and there is more light, though still not enough to perceive anything beyond shades of light and darkness. There is, however, a greater distinction between the light and the dark. As our consciousness contemplates this on going change we might be tempted to believe that the grass is only green when light shines on it. However, if we stay with the phenomenon of light for a while longer we can also call to mind the fact that light itself is invisible. We only know of light’s existence because of matter. This is why we see beams of light if it is shone into a dusty room. If, instead of a room, we shone light through a vacuum chamber we would see nothing in the chamber yet we would see light both entering and exiting such a suitably built chamber.

A world awaiting the light

Goethe calls colours the deeds of light. This is a particularly rich maxim that captures the active nature of light and how this activity reveals aspects of the world that would otherwise remain unknown . Meanwhile on the walk still more light is available and as we exit the forest and walk up the grassy path to the little cottage we notice that there is a greenness to the path. It is still a grey-green lacking the full vibrancy that we know it will attain later when bathed in sunlight. We can play this out in our own thinking even though the physical senses currently provide contrary information.

Out of the Forest

Light blessing the world

Returning to the seed question: Is grass green? We can consider how it is similar to the thinking (denken)-cognition (Erkenntnis)-knowledge (Wissen) process. From the observer’s perspective the world was devoid of greenness, yet we are confident that greenness is a quality that belongs to the grass and not merely a personal fiction. Light gave us the possibility of recognizing that greenness is in fact a quality of grass. If we were living in light’s own experience we might express it in the following terms: I am an invisible being that can only know my own colourful nature when I encounter matter. Thinking has the same relationship to knowledge of the world. Thinking is an invisible activity which would not know of its own existence unless it met objects that manifested its own nature. Light reveals the coloured nature of reality. Thinking reveals the ideal, noetic, conceptual nature of reality.

A non-thinking being must remain incapable of seeing the thought structures that determine the motion of a stone being thrown in such a way to skip across the surface of a lake. The thinking being will readily understand that it is the interplay of velocity, resistance, specific density, hardness and gravity that fully explain the observed phenomena. When we, as thinking beings, recognize that our conceptual content also exists or manifests in the world we feel we have arrived at knowledge. When we are cognizing (erkennen) we are recognizing that an inner content created in tandem with our own activity is also to be found in the world not created by our own activity. By means of the light of thinking we know that the grass is green even when appearances seem to contradict this statement. Yet at the same time we are in a position to understand that if phenomena are not permeated by the light of thinking then grass is colourless. This is the position of modern scientific theory, where colour loses its quality to become solely an invisible quantity of wavelength and frequency.

Later that morning

Generalizing this further: Thinking (denken) births concepts and ideas seemingly out of nothingness. Cognition (Erkennen) is the faculty that marries that which is produced by thinking with that which comes from the world of the senses, ie both inner and outer as specifically described in chapter 7 of GA 2. In the language of the Philosophy of Freedom, intuition meets percepts and the latter is recognized as a manifestation of the former. This marriage produces knowledge (Wissen). The human being as a conceptual artist 9/12 stands between these polarities just as the human eye allows light to reveal the colourful world of nature

Pure seeing sees only colour, the deeds of light. Pure thinking sees only concepts, the deeds of spiritual activity. However, those concepts are also the very means by which we can discern distinct objects in the world of light. When we know (wissen) something we can only know it because we have recognized, in cognition, its conceptual aspect. If a concept shines into my soul, I then become capable of recognizing its manifestation in the world of experience. If I had no concept of trees then light would project them onto my retina, but I would not know (wissen) that they are there in my field of vision, in the sea of light. Knowledge (Wissen) of the world of experience is possible because of the concepts that shine into my soul and they only live there to the extent that thinking (denken) birthed those concepts. Science (Wissenschaft) is the focus of deepening knowledge in the many realms of life (9/1-2) It is the conscious choosing of a field of experience, and the scientist directs the telescope or microscope into that realm. In the Michael Wilson translation of The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity this becomes:

Intuition is for thinking what observation is for percept. Intuition and observation are the sources of our knowledge.

Light reveals colours, thinking reveals concepts. No light means no colours, no thinking means no knowledge. Thinking is to knowledge as light is to colour. Lack of light does not mean lack of colour in an absolute sense, but only from the perspective of the unenlightened eye. Lack of thinking does not mean lack of concepts in an absolute sense, but only from the perspective of the unenlightened mind.

If we have fully grasped the above, then the significance of Chapter 5 of The Philosophy of Freedom will not escape us.

The Preface

Let us now turn our attention to the content of the preface and understand better how Steiner weaves with these concepts to create a vision of the human being that is far more exalted than the ape-man of modern science. I will continue to use the same notation as in previous analyses whereby, for example, 9/14 means paragraph 9 and sentence 14 according to the structure in the original German.

First the data. Denken occurs once at 9/14. Cognizing/cognition/cognitive (erkennen/Erkenntnis/Erkenntnis-) occur at 5/2, 6/5 and 9/5. Knowledge, knowing, science and scientific (Wissen/wissen/Wissenschaft/Wissenschaftlich) occurs at 1/3, 4/, 4/4, 5/1, 5/3, 6/1, 6/2, 8/5, 8/6, 9/2, 9/3, 9/4 (twice), 9/5 (twice), 9/6 (twice), 9/13, 9/16 (twice), 10/2, 11/1, 11/2, 11/4,12/1 (twice). Just looking at the data it certainly seems as if knowing and knowledge and its acquisition through science is Steiner’s central concern in the whole preface. I am not spoiling the plot if I say that he wants us to rethink our relationship to knowledge and its source.

One potential synopsis of the first movement of the form 1-7 can be experienced as how truth and knowledge are related. In 4 we learn that we seek knowledge (Wissen) not belief (4/1) and that it is only knowledge (Wissen) from the depth of our personality that will really satisfy us (4/4). In 5/1 we are told that we don’t want a compendium of knowledge (Wissen) that is valid for all eternity, but instead want a field of experience which can ascend to cognition (Erkenntnis) of the whole universe (5/2). We seek a sure knowledge, 5/3. Scientific teachings should not exert any form of compulsion (6/1). Nobody wants a scientific (wissenschaftliche) writing like Fichte’s that tries to compel the reading to understanding something, 6/3.

Thus, in the first movement of the form we see a contemplation of the importance of truth for a healthy soul life and a rejection of imposed external truths, knowledge as well as the problematic nature of beliefs for a soul seeking truth.

Attempting a synopsis of the second movement of the form 7-13, we find described how the sciences of atomized knowledge need to be brought back to the unity out of which they were extracted, namely the unity of life. When this unity has been found it can serve the needs of the individual and humanity. In 8/5 and 8/6 the historical oriental means of attaining knowledge is compared with the modern scientific approach. In 9/2 we are reminded of all the sciences that exist to illuminate the many realms of life. However, this tendency of the sciences, 9/3, to dig deeper into their respective realms runs contrary to the experience of life being a unity. In 9/4 it is proposed that there must be a knowledge that lives in the sciences which can lead the human being back to the unity of life. In 9/5 we are reminded of how the specialized scientist intends to use cognition (Erkenntnis) to acquire knowledge of the world, whereas Steiner has a philosophical objective in mind, namely to make science organic and alive. In this context the individual sciences, 9/6, are preparatory steps for the science, 9/6, that Steiner has in mind. We are then introduced to the notion of composition theory and the work of an artist whereby ideas (fruits of thinking) are likened to the materials to be used in the composition and the scientific method, 9/13, is the technique used to craft those materials. Then, abstract thinking (Denken) acquires concrete individual life, 9/14. Consequently, ideas become life-forces, 9/15, so that we have not merely a passive acquisition of knowledge (Wissen) of things 9/16 but an active knowledge (Wissen) born of self-determining organism that reveals truths. At the inflection point of the thought form we are told that any scientific explanations, 10/2, given in the book have merely an explanatory function in relation to more intimate (am nächsten liegenden) human questions. As we move down the final side of the thought form there is a noticeable transition to distinguishing the value of different kinds of knowledge for the human being. In 11/1 it is stated that all science (Wissenschaft) would be only the satisfaction of idle curiosity if it were not in some way connected to raising the value of existence of the human personality. Further in 11/2, science only attains true value in to the extent that its results are present in the context of human meaning. This idea is further developed in 11/4 by adding that knowledge only has value when it contributes to the multifaceted development of the whole human being. Finally, in 12/1 he makes explicit the relationship between life and science, wherein the human being must gain mastery of the idea-world to achieve human goals that go beyond merely the scientific ones. Failure to consciously experience these ideas means to fall under their dominion.

Digesting this whole thought movement, we see that Steiner initially presents us as human beings innately desirous of truth and knowledge. However, mankind can no longer be satisfied with received knowledge; instead it must acquire knowledge founded on personal experience. As mankind proceeds along this path, it must gradually wake up to that fact that this knowledge has an atomizing effect on its being. The abundance of knowledge roots the human being firmly and confidently in the world, yet at the same time each individual has a responsibility to try to unite this knowledge into a whole, into a self-determining living organism. Failure to do will result in a loss of self and the ability to act in the world. As was pointed out in the essay on life in relation to this preface 8/3 takes on a central role because we have to raise concepts to the etheric realm. This process is described in paragraph 9 and only then in 11-12 are we led to reflect on the value of dead knowledge, that which satisfies mere curiosity on the one hand and a living knowledge on the other. The latter then becomes the new starting point and foundation for the full development of all the slumbering forces in the human being.

Plato

I have chosen to also look at two other philosophers, Plato and Alfred North Whitehead, to see the type of language and concepts they used when trying to understand the relationship between thinking and knowledge. This may be of interest for those readers who have a more general interest in philosophy, but it will not add anything beyond what has already been described above. If you continue to read will see there are significant convergences.

In Platonic philosophy, nous represents the faculty of the mind that apprehends eternal truths and the intelligible realm. It is the active, organizing principle that allows the human mind to grasp the underlying order and unity of the world. We can see how this concept aligns with Steiner’s view of thinking as the central, objective activity that reveals the inner lawfulness of the world.

This is made especially clear in GA 2, where Steiner delineates the theory of knowledge implicit in Goethe’s worldview. Specifically, we find in Chapter 9 that he emphasizes that the laws of thought are not imposed by the subject but arise from the content of thought itself. This resonates with the Platonic nous, which perceives the inherent structure and truth of the world. Nous is that faculty by which the human mind finds a bridge to the eternal forms in Plato’s philosophy. For Steiner, thinking and the conceptual world (Begriffe) is on one side of the bridge of knowledge and on the other is the perceived world (Wahrnehmung). Cognition is where these two worlds meet, cognition is that bridge.

Noesis, in Platonic terms, refers to the act of intellectual apprehension—the direct, intuitive grasp of truth or the essence of things. This concept is closely related to Steiner’s description of thinking as a higher experience within experience (Chapter 8). Thinking is the activity that allows us to penetrate beyond the surface of sensory perception and grasp the inner essence of phenomena, this self-revealing nature of thinking – that it not only explains the world but also reveals its own nature – parallels the Platonic idea that noesis is a self-sufficient, self-evident act of understanding.

Steiner and Plato overcome the dualism between the subjective and the objective in remarkably similar ways. In Plato, nous and noesis allow the soul to transcend the world of appearances and access the eternal forms, thereby uniting the knower with the known. Steiner argues that thinking is the activity that unites the perceived world with the conceptual world, creating a unified understanding or knowledge of reality.

In both Plato and Steiner, concepts and ideas (or forms) play a central role. For Plato, the forms are the eternal, unchanging realities that are apprehended by nous through noesis. For Steiner, the concept or idea (organism of concepts) is the essence of the world that is revealed through thinking. Thus, in this sense, Steiner’s epistemology can be seen as a modern development of Platonic thought, grounded in the idea that thinking is the organ of truth and the means by which the human being participates in the deeper reality of the world.

Alfred North Whitehead

In Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy, the terms “prehension“ and “concrescence“ can be equated to Steiner’s concepts of thinking (Denken) and cognition (Erkennen) as bridges between perception and conceptual understanding.

Whitehead’s prehension refers to the process by which an entity grasps or integrates aspects of other entities into its own experience. This prehension is the process by which eternal objects come into being. In Steiner’s epistemology, thinking plays a similar role as the active process allows for the birthing or coming into being of concepts. Whitehead’s non-static eternal objects have an aspect of potential which are also very similar to Steiner’s understanding of the word concept, which can also be understood as a living idea. Thinking, like prehension, is not merely passive but an active engagement with the world that reveals its inner lawfulness and meaning.

Whitehead’s concept concrescence describes the process by which multiple prehensions are synthesized into a coherent, unified experience. It is the culmination of the relational process, where diverse elements are brought together into a single reality. This aligns with Steiner’s concept of cognition (Erkennen), which represents the unified act of knowing. Cognition is the result of the integration of perception and thinking, where the fragmented sensory world is brought into harmony with the conceptual world. Just as concrescence is animated and sustained by prehension, so also cognition relies on the oxygen of thinking.

If we seek in Whitehead for something that aligns with knowledge (Wissen) in Steiner’s philosophy we find this reflected in Whitehead’s two types of prehension: Physical Prehension which is the direct, sensory experience of the world and Conceptual Prehension which is the integration of abstract ideas and relationships. This pairing of physical and conceptual prehensions is implicit in Steiner’s concept of knowledge because percept (Wahrnehmung) includes all experience, i.e. both inner soul experiences and outer ones experienced by means of the physical senses. In Steiner’s epistemology the differentiation between inner and outer experience does not exist for the cognizer prior to the onset of thinking.

Another concept from Whitehead philosophy is the notion of Knowledge as Process. For Whitehead, knowledge is not a static possession but a dynamic process. It is always in the making, as entities continuously interact with and incorporate aspects of the world. This process-oriented view of knowledge aligns with Steiner’s emphasis on thinking with its concept birthing nature as a component that feeds into the process of cognition on one side and perception (all experience) on the other.

Next time

In the next essay I would like to look at how the words true-truth (wahr-Wahrheit) are used and developed in this preface. This word pair is used far more sparingly than thinking-cognition-knowledge and life-organism. Nevertheless, a hunch, a feeling tells me that an investigation of this will lead us deeper into the thought form that inspired Steiner to write the Philosophy of Freedom.

Introduction

Mankind’s fascination with what life is and how death can be overcome are questions that seem central to the riddle of man. This eternal question acquires an interesting and invigorating expression in Steiner’s original preface to The Philosophy of Freedom. This essay is an attempt to communicate how life is hiding in plain sight in that text

Lovers of literature will recall that Gilgamesh sought immortality and had it in his grasp until the snake caused him to drop it at the bottom of the ocean. Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ also endows the central character Dorian Gray with immortality within a portrait. Here to we find tragedy. Elsewhere, The Monkey King stole the peaches of immortality from the Queen Mother of the West giving him immunity to death from natural causes and aging. He then augments this immortality by convincing the Judges of Hell to remove his name from the ledgers of life and death. Finally at the end of his journey with Buddha he is granted the title of Victorious Fighting Buddha assuring him complete transcendence beyond all previous forms of immortality. Saint Paul, on the other hand, tells us that when “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20) then those individuals will know each other after death when they are raised again with new glorified bodies, (1 Corinthians 15). Steiner’s promise is that by giving life to knowledge we can experience a resolution to another eternal human question. Namely, Can the human being know freedom?

Method

Let me start with a few words about the methodology used in this essay. George O’Neil, Florin Lowndes and more recently Mark Riccio have developed some textual analysis tools that, when applied to the original preface, lead us into the deeper currents of this text. By applying their methods and integrating a few of my own idiosyncrasies I would like to present one example of how this text can be deepened for the reader. I have used the notation common to the method, whereby, for example, 10/3 signifies paragraph 10 of the preface and 3 is the third sentence. All the numberings given by me here are related to the German text, so there might be some discrepancies depending on the English translation that you read. One of Mark’s achievements is to have written translations into English that remain faithful to the original structure of the text in German.

Of leaves and lives

In 10/3 we are told that a Philosophy of Freedom is given on these sheets of paper. The German word used is “in diesen Blättern” which carries a double meaning as it can mean “on these sheets of paper”, but in other contexts can mean “in these leaves”. Whilst sheets of paper are made by mechanical processes, leaves most certainly are not. Leaves are the creation of invisible forces. We cannot point to the intelligence in the forces that gives the oak leaf its identifiable, yet never identical form. The forces that grow the leaf bud through every intermediate stage of becoming to its identifiable non-identical form also remain hidden, yet we know those forces must be there for to think otherwise would be a mockery of our own experience and reason. We reject the idea of randomness and instead, using reason, seek for causes and this hidden force, life-force, which also determines the colouring, chlorophyll composition and clustering of every leaf will present itself to our consciousness.

First some observations about the distribution of the Leben (life) in the text and its conceptual twin Organ (organ).

The first use occurs in 4/3 with durchleben (live through/experience), where we are told that we as human beings want to live through truth in our deepest inner sanctum. This Innenleben (inner life) of the personality is only satisfied by knowledge 4/4

In 7/3 it is used in the context of a direction for life and as such is less related to the theme to be developed here.

In 8/2, 8/3, 8/4 and 8/5  it is used to direct the attention of the reader to being lead from dry concepts to concrete life; wanting to live through (durchleben) being in all directions; missing out on the tasty morsels of life; the ascetic life and withdrawal from life as a pre-requisite for entering into the realm of pure thought.

In 9/1, 9/3 (twice), 9/4, 9/5,9/10, 9/14, 9/16 the use of the word becomes even more forceful. We are reminded that life has many realms; life is a unity and that focusing on the individual sciences distance us from the living whole (lebendigen Weltganzen); there must a knowing that can take the elements and guide them back to full life; science must again become organically-living; compositional theory serves life; abstract thinking gains concrete life; ideas become life forces …. we have made a self-determining organism.

One of the first observation that we can make from this overview is the preponderance of life in paragraphs 8 and 9. Using the seed-bud-leaf-flower-pistil/stamen-fruit-seed process as a guiding principle we can identify a significant transformation that begins to make its presence noticeable in the text specifically at 8/2 where Steiner makes clear that he is expressing an opinion when he says “I am thoroughly of the opinion that concepts must be raised to the etheric realm if one wishes to live through (experience) the manifold realms of existence. This overt opinion is curious because other statements that may initially also appear to be mere opinions (2/1,2/3, 6/3, 6/4,11/1,2,3,4) are not flagged with the word “opinion” (Ansicht).

After 8/2 we get a stream of sentences 8/3, 8/4, 8/5, 9/1, 9/3, 9/4, 9/5,9/10, 9/14, 9/16 in rapid succession. Looking at the data we might like to imagine, if such a thing were possible, that the author is injecting a life force into the dead and dry concepts of science. The idea of being able to inject life with a syringe requires, of course, a highly materialistic conception of what life is. When we looked at the oak leaf above, we saw that the living forces reveal themselves to us by reconfiguring matter, but in themselves these forces are masters of matter and not merely a substance to be added to other material substances and even less subject to material processes. Life is not dependent on matter, but our sense bound consciousness is totally dependent on these life forces taking hold of matter to form the natural world. When we begin to work imaginatively with how life makes use of dead matter to reveal aspects of its inner nature we can begin to feel how those forces surge, create and recede in our inner life.

Working with 8-13

Now that the groundwork has been accomplished in the text, the philosophical goal of the text, to make science (Wissenschaft) organically living (9/5) becomes the focus of attention.

Goethe’s archetypal plant and its phases of development was the fruit of Goethe repeatedly subjecting himself to his own individual observations of plants. [1] This was detailed in his studies. When we work with the O’Neil/Lowndes/Riccio method we are, in a similar fashion, repeatedly subjecting ourselves to a thought form. Despite initially being abstract concepts (8/1) as we continually remember them, we begin to experience[2] a flow, a natural progression from one idea to the next. The glue that holds together all the parts of the text begins to reveal itself to be more akin to a living force that has taken the ideas and worked with them in a scientific way in the same way that an artist works with materials and techniques (9/13). The concepts deepen in meaning, they become richer and capable of creative acts. Previously invisible polarities, syntheses, evolutions and parallels present themselves to this new active consciousness (tätiges Bewusstsein). We begin to experience the thought mood (Gedankenstimmung) that Steiner tells us lived in him whilst he was writing the Philosophy of Freedom 25 years prior.

As we deepen into the method we begin to experience how a new faculty is developing in us, a new organ[3] which is capable of receiving inspirations which take us into a deeper level of insight  of both the text and ourselves as thinking human beings.

An example of working with paragraphs 1-7

Later in life Steiner made several references to the idea that the sentences of the book could not have been put in any other order than the order given in the book. A significant example of this was in the final lecture of the Gospel of John series from 1908.[4][5]  Just like the fruit cannot precede the leaf. In the above we see how this also is true in relation to 10/3. The statement “A Philosophy of Freedom is given on these sheets of paper” was not possible in the text until the living forces had been identified and then shown to be the living thought mood out of which the book was written.

Also invisibly weaving in this thought form is a notion of substance that is tangential to Spinoza’s concept of one substance, the theological idea that hope is a substance, Dante Paradiso canto 24 and that joy is a substance that can live in me (first meditation in Road to Self-Knowledge). I hope to develop this more thoroughly when I look at how Wissen(knowledge), Wissenschaft (science / method of knowing)  and Erkenntnis (cognition) evolve in the structure of both the preface and the book.

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[1] This Goethean methodology as a reversal of will activity is developed in detail in the final chapter of GA 20 The Riddle of Man.

[2] late 14c., “observation as the source of knowledge; actual observation; an event which has affected one,” from Old French esperience “experiment, proof, experience” (13c.), from Latin experientia “a trial, proof, experiment; knowledge gained by repeated trials,” from experientem (nominative experiens) “experienced, enterprising, active, industrious,” present participle of experiri “to try, test,” from ex “out of” (see ex-) + peritus “experienced, tested,” from PIE *per-yo-, suffixed form of root *per- (3) “to try, risk.” Meaning “state of having done something and gotten handy at it” is from late 15c.

[3] fusion of late Old English organe, and Old French orgene (12c.), both meaning “musical instrument,” both from Latin organa, plural of organum “a musical instrument,” from Greek organon “implement, tool for making or doing; musical instrument; organ of sense, organ of the body,” literally “that with which one works,” from PIE *werg-ano-, from root *werg- “to do.”

[4] The re-fashioning of the astral body indirectly through Meditation and Concentration, is called by an ancient name, “katharsis,” or purification. Katharsis or purification has as its purpose the discarding from the astral body all that hinders it from becoming harmoniously and regularly organized, thus enabling it to acquire higher organs. It is endowed with the germ of these higher organs; it is only necessary to bring forth the forces which are present in it. We have said that the most varied methods can be employed for bringing about this katharsis. A person can go very far in this matter of katharsis if, for example, he has gone through and inwardly experienced all that is in my book, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, and feels that this book was for him a stimulation and that now he has reached the point where he can himself actually reproduce the thoughts just as they are there presented. If a person holds the same relationship to this book that a virtuoso, in playing a selection on the piano, holds to the composer of the piece, that is, he reproduces the whole thing within himself—naturally according to his ability to do so—then through the strictly built up sequence of thought of this book—for it is written in this manner—katharsis will be developed to a high degree.

[5] For the important point in such things as this book is that the thoughts are all placed in such a way that they become active. In many other books of the present, just by changing the system a little, what has been said earlier in the book can just as well be said later. In The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity this is not possible. Page 150 can as little be placed fifty pages earlier in the subject matter as the hind legs of a dog can be exchanged with the forelegs, for the book is a logically arranged organism and the working out of the thoughts in it has an effect similar to an inner schooling. Hence there are various methods of bringing about katharsis. If a person has not been successful in doing this after having gone through this book, he should not think that what has been said is untrue, but rather that he has not studied it properly or with sufficient energy or thoroughness.