RUDOLF STEINER FOR ALL
Project to produce 14 videos that will summarize each chapter of Rudolf Steiner's primary book The Philosophy of Freedom. Donate here to support production of more videos.
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Second video of series, Chapter 2, Desire For Knowledge.
Video not playing right? Watch on Google. Text of this video here. Download MP3 audio only We should not leave the experiencable and lose ourselves in a construct of fantasy, as the metaphysicians love to do. -Rudolf Steiner GA 1
Without a strong foundation in the science and pure conceptual reasoning described in The Philosophy of Freedom you may be tempted to:
1. submit to some assumed universal will,
2. be drawn to the comforting warmth of yesterdays feeling mysticism, or
3. become lost in the speculative metaphysics usually associated with Steiner today.
Submitted by Tmasthenes on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 4:24pm.
Tom,
Let me introduce you the greatest rising super-star in the anthroposophical firmanent today and demonstrate his commitment to the Philosophy of Freedom. His name is Sebastian Gronbach. He lives in Cologne (Koeln) Germany and his book Missionen: Geist bewegt – alles! (Missions: Spirit Moves --- Everything!) has been published by the prestigious anthroposophical house Verlag Freies Geistesleben.
He is a 40 year old 3rd generation Anthro --- whose grandpappy knew Steiner --- who has taken not only the German anthroposophical world by storm, but more importantly he’s “cracking the cult barrier,” as it were, and driving Steiner’s ideas public and mainstream.
Submitted by Tom Last on Thu, 08/26/2010 - 10:11am.
I am working on the Chapter 3 video and came up with this list of questions answered in Chapter 3.
3-1 How does the observation of thought compare to the observation of other things? 3-2 How does thought compare to feeling? 3-3 How does thinking compare to our thinking personality? 3-4 How does the observation of thought compare to the observation of present thinking? 3-5 How does knowing our thought compare to knowing other things? 3-6 How does a thought process compare to brain activity? 3-7 How certain are we of our thoughts compared to other things? 3-8 How does thinking about thought compare to thinking about other things? 3-9 How does the creation of thought compare to creating other things? 3-10 How does unconscious thought influence the observation of thought compared to its influence when we observe other things? 3-11 How does the study of thought compare to the study of consciousness? 3-12 How can I be certain whether my thought is right or wrong?
Submitted by Tmasthenes on Wed, 08/25/2010 - 2:30pm.
Ladies and gentlemen of the English speaking Steiner Internet Universe.
Through all my 34 years of anthropoposhy, I knew deep down in my cozy Gemuet that it would be my destiny as mild-mannered reporter for a great Akasha Chronicle to break the story of identifying Rudolf Steiner in his long-awaited next incarnation in the 21st century. And here is that story.
Submitted by Tom Last on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 3:55pm.
Goethe writes to Jacobi: “God has punished you with metaphysics and set a thorn in your flesh, but has blessed me, on the other hand, with physics."
What Goethe wants to see is the essential being of things that expresses itself within his world of ideas. The mystic also wants to know the essential being of things by immersing himself in his own inner being; but he rejects precisely that innately clear and transparent world of ideas as unsuitable for attaining higher knowledge.
The mystic believes he must develop, not his capacity for ideas, but rather other powers of his inner being, in order to see the primal ground of things. Usually it is unclear feelings and emotions in which the mystic wants to grasp the essential being of things. But feelings and emotions belong only to the subjective being of man. In them nothing is expressed about the things. Only in ideas do the things themselves speak.
Mysticism is a superficial world view, in spite of the fact that the mystics are very proud of their “profundity” compared to men of reason. The mystics know nothing about the nature of feelings, otherwise they would not consider them to be expressions of the essential being of the world; and they know nothing about the nature of ideas, otherwise they would not consider them shallow and rationalistic.
Mystics have no inkling of what people who really have ideas experience in them. But for many people, ideas are in fact mere words. They cannot acquire for themselves the unending fullness of their content. No wonder they feel their own word husks, which are devoid of ideas, to be empty.
--Rudolf Steiner, Goethean Science, XVIII Goethe's World View in his Aphorisms in Prose
It is with some reluctance that I take up this next task, and were it not for the love I feel for Rudolf Steiner and his legacy, I’d not bother. His work was meant for modern humanity, and the clear fact is that the activities of the General Anthroposophical Society in the 20th Century failed to deliver on that promise. Steiner’s The Philosophy of Freedom is still unknown in the modern University (and among the members and friends as a followed practice). Goethean Science is not recognized even by the Goethe Institute, nor widely studied in the Anthroposophical Society. And, the membership, in terms of numbers, remains tragically small and stagnant.
The problem - such as there can be described a problem - is that the impulse to Anthroposophy is still incarnating. It is “in process”, and we mis-conceive this impulse if we think that with Steiner the whole “process” was brought to a state of finish. Others must participate in this work which from the beginning was to require centuries to unfold (Steiner said something on the order of 400 years).
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