The Philosophy of Freedom Study Group
Chapter 4 The World As Percept Section 9 & 10
4-9) MONADISM (Sagittarius)
These are the opening sentences of Volkelt's book on Immanuel Kant's Theory of Knowledge. What is here put forward as an immediate and self-evident truth is in reality the result of a thought operation which runs as follows: The naïve man believes that things, just as we perceive them, exist also outside our consciousness. Physics, physiology, and psychology, however, seem to teach us that for our percepts our organization is necessary, and that therefore we cannot know anything about external objects except what our organization transmits to us. Our percepts are thus modifications of our organization, not things-in-themselves. This train of thought has in fact been characterized by Eduard von Hartmann as the one which must lead to the conviction that we can have direct knowledge only of our mental pictures. Because, outside our organism, we find vibrations of physical bodies and of the air which are perceived by us as sound, it is concluded that what we call sound is nothing more than a subjective reaction of our organism to these motions in the external world. Similarly, it is concluded that color and warmth are merely modifications of our organism. And, further, these two kinds of percepts are held to be produced in us through processes in the external world which are utterly different from what we experience as warmth or as color. When these processes stimulate the nerves in my skin, I have the subjective percept of warmth; when they stimulate the optic nerve, I perceive light and color. Light, color, and warmth, then, are the responses of my sensory nerves to external stimuli. Even the sense of touch reveals to me, not the objects of the outer world, but only states of my own body. In the sense of modern physics one could somehow think that bodies consist of infinitely small particles called molecules, and that these molecules are not in direct contact, but are at certain distances from one another. Between them, therefore, is empty space. Across this space they act on one another by forces of attraction and repulsion. If I put my hand on a body, the molecules of my hand by no means touch those of the body directly, but there remains a certain distance between body and hand, and what I experience as the body's resistance is nothing but the effect of the force of repulsion which its molecules exert on my hand. I am absolutely external to the body and perceive only its effects on my organism.
[24] In amplification of this discussion, there is the theory of the so-called Specific Nerve Energies, advanced by J. Müller (1801 - 1858). It asserts that each sense has the peculiarity that it responds to all external stimuli in one particular way only. If the optic nerve is stimulated, perception of light results, irrespective of whether the stimulation is due to what we call light, or whether mechanical pressure or an electric current works upon the nerve. On the other hand, the same external stimulus applied to different senses gives rise to different percepts. The conclusion from these facts seems to be that our senses can transmit only what occurs in themselves, but nothing of the external world. They determine our percepts, each according to its own nature.
[25] Physiology shows that there can be no direct knowledge even of the effects which objects produce on our sense organs. Through following up the processes which occur in our own bodies, the physiologist finds that, even in the sense organs, the effects of the external movement are transformed in the most manifold ways. We can see this most clearly in the case of eye and ear. Both are very complicated organs which modify the external stimulus considerably before they conduct it to the corresponding nerve. From the peripheral end of the nerve the already modified stimulus is then conducted to the brain. Only now can the central organs be stimulated. Therefore it is concluded that the external process undergoes a series of transformations before it reaches consciousness. What goes on in the brain is connected by so many intermediate links with the external process, that any similarity to the latter is out of the question. What the brain ultimately transmits to the soul is neither external processes, nor processes in the sense organs, but only such as occur in the brain. But even these are not perceived directly by the soul. What we finally have in consciousness are not brain processes at all, but sensations. My sensation of red has absolutely no similarity to the process which occurs in the brain when I sense red. The redness, again, only appears as an effect in the soul, and the brain process is merely its cause. This is why Hartmann says, "What the subject perceives, therefore, are always only modifications of his own psychical states and nothing else." When I have the sensations, however, they are as yet very far from being grouped into what I perceive as "things". Only single sensations can be transmitted to me by the brain. The sensations of hardness and softness are transmitted to me by the sense of touch, those of color and light by the sense of sight. Yet all these are to be found united in one and the same object. This unification, therefore, can only be brought about by the soul itself; that is, the soul combines the separate sensations, mediated through the brain, into bodies. My brain conveys to me singly, and by widely different paths, the visual, tactile, and auditory sensations which the soul then combines into the mental picture of a trumpet. It is just this very last link in a process (the mental picture of the trumpet) which for my consciousness is the very first thing that is given. In it nothing can any longer be found of what exists outside me and originally made an impression on my senses. The external object has been entirely lost on the way to the brain and through the brain to the soul.
Topic: Mental Picture - Only what our organization transmits to us of external object. Physics, physiology, and psychology seem to teach us that for our percepts our organization is necessary, and that therefore we cannot know anything about external objects except what our organization transmits to us. Our perceptions are thus modifications of our organization, not things-in-themselves. This train of thought has been characterized by Eduard von Hartmann as the one which must convince us that we can have direct knowledge only of our mental pictures. Physics
 Match-up Quiz |
4-10) DYNAMISM (Scorpio)
[26] It would be hard to find in the history of human culture another edifice of thought which has been built up with greater ingenuity, and which yet, on closer analysis, collapses into nothing. Let us look a little closer at the way it has been constructed. One starts with what is given in naïve consciousness, with the thing as perceived. Then one shows that none of the qualities which we find in this thing would exist for us had we no sense organs. No eye -- no color. Therefore the color is not yet present in that which affects the eye. It arises first through the interaction of the eye and the object. The latter is, therefore, colorless. But neither is the color in the eye, for in the eye there is only a chemical or physical process which is first conducted by the optic nerve to the brain, and there initiates another process. Even this is not yet the color. That is only produced in the soul by means of the brain process. Even then it does not yet enter my consciousness, but is first transferred by the soul to a body in the external world. There, upon this body, I finally believe myself to perceive it. We have traveled in a complete circle. We became conscious of a colored body. That is the first thing. Here the thought operation starts. If I had no eye, the body would be, for me, colorless. I cannot therefore attribute the color to the body. I start on the search for it. I look for it in the eye -- in vain; in the nerve -- in vain; in the brain -- in vain once more; in the soul -- here I find it indeed, but not attached to the body. I find the colored body again only on returning to my starting point. The circle is completed. I believe that I am cognizing as a product of my soul that which the naïve man regards as existing outside him, in space.
Topic: Product of soul transferred to external world
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Going to Pieces
Monadists see everything as separate entities that can't get together, which really fits this next part of Chapter 4. It's as though Kant's view blocks all possibility of connecting with the spiritual world until we deal with the disconnection it engenders.
Here my separation from the world, my hypnotized fascination with my own mental pictures, gets even stranger. Beginning with physics, not only is my hand unable even to touch an object, but the object itself has no real unity. It consists of sub-atomic particles spinning alone in vast realms of space.
Physiologically, my percepts are carried to receptors as nerve impulses, which have nothing to do with the world of sub-atomic particles. How the nerve impulses manifest as percepts depends entirely on what receptor they wind up in. Then they change into some kind of chemical or energy impulse in the brain, which bears no resemblance to nerve impulses either.
Psychologically, my experience is completely divorced from these physiological impulses. The red color I see in the rose has nothing to do with nerve, brain, light wave or sub-atomic particles. No part of me has anything to do with any other part; they're all just doing their own thing.
In short, following scientific logic, both the world and I are falling apart into tiny pieces that have nothing to do with one another. How do I hold this somewhat fearsome thought in my mind, and at the same time feel that I can look with confidence at the world around me and know that a rose really is a rose and a trumpet is a trumpet? Steiner starts to answer this question here, but only in the broadest terms: "This unification, therefore, can only be brought about by the soul itself; that is, the soul combines the separate sensations, mediated through the brain, into bodies."
This One Wonders
I'm beginning to wonder if the idea that we only see our own mental picture may have a kind of validity when it comes to other human beings, especially when trying to judge their actions. As Kristina Kaine writes in Right Judgment-- One: Don't Judge, it's really impossible to judge another person, because we can never have all the facts of their present circumstances, much less the past and the future, even if only this one life is taken into account. To add to that, we see from the perspective of our own point of view, and through the distortions of our own powerful emotions and other soul forces.
I wonder if it's even impossible to see ourselves as we are in the world, but only our mental pictures of ourselves. The self-images we carry around with us are so very powerful and full of wishes. guilt and fears. We experience our own intentions directly, but can't see all the effects of our actions on others. We can't even look at our own faces in a mirror and get an accurate view, because everything's reversed.
The disunity even within the individual, shown in Section 4.9, reminds me of something that was told me when, many years ago, I looked into joining a spiritual group based on the teachings of Gurdjieff. The group leader said, you really aren't unified within; you have to earn the right to say that you're an "I" by hard spiritual work. Until you've done the work and really unified yourself, you must refer to yourself as "this one" when expressing an idea or an opinion in the context of the group. "This one thinks this," "this one believes that," and so on. It was too weird for me, so I drifted off without finding out more about it. But now as I see the way the soul diverges from its own bodily processes, according to modern physiology, I wonder if there isn't something in acknowledging that we don't often experience our real self but rather various facets of the soul that take turns facing forward.
I wonder if this very fragmentation isn't an opportunity, in a way. I can realize that whatever facet is now facing forward might not be the one I need to look to for my motives, or even for an accurate mental picture of what I'm trying to see, especially in another person.
I think you are on to
I think you are on to something. Our own behaviour tells us all sorts of things about the people and world around us. Because of the way different facets present themselves. I think this is how the soul training in KOHW works. By watching your feelings they become a sense system which produces percepts that can be linked in to concepts and in Consciousness become knowledge.
It really is hard to be Human.
S.
really hard to be Human
Hi Sebastian and Lori,
Yes, really hard to be Human, but also a good sense of humor helps. Nothing like a good laugh at ourselves and our individual foibles. I'm laughing right now.
Cheers,
patri
Monadism and Spacesuits
This section illustrates the concept of Monadism beautifully.
Imagine that you are wearing a space suit. Not just an ordinary space suit, but one that transmits data to your sense organs so accurately that you don't even know that you are wearing it.
Imagine there is a supercomputer that feeds information to the space suit that makes you think that you are surrounded by the phenomenal world of flowers, the sky, trees, etc.
There actually is no such thing as 'flowers', 'sky', 'trees', etc. All that exists is just the supercomputer, the suit, you (inside your suit), and other people (inside their suits, also being fed sense data by the supercomputer).
Now take away the supercomputer - you are now wearing a suit that generates its own sense data and transmits them to you (sort of like a comsupercomputer/space suit combination)
Then the world is populated by a bunch of bodies floating around, having their own truly independent sensations.
Now imagine that your own skin and sense organs (your interface with the 'external' world) is the space suit.
Congratulations!
You are now a monadist.
Great Analogy, Jay!
Talk about lonesome!
There's a Hole in My Thinking
Section 4.10 reminds me of nothing so much as the children's song, "The Hole in the Bucket," which is an infinite loop about a leaky bucket that can't be fixed for lack of the water that plays an essential role in its repair. Here we've stepped out of our space suit and have climbed onto a carousel that takes us round and round with the gold ring -- the object -- perpetually out of our reach. The carousel is made up of one process after another! A dynamistic world where nouns dissolve into verbs before our very eyes.
Here too we begin to analyze the construction of the edifice of Critical Idealism, which only meets its final demolition in the introductory paragraphs of Chapter Five: "If one builds a house, and the ground floor collapses while the first floor is being built, then the first floor collapses also." For the moment we're just becoming conscious of the circularity of the whole argument. We go twice around it (these are the second and third times if we count the in-depth exposition of the whole sequence presented in 4.9) and will go around it one more time in 4.11. Why does Steiner makes us keep doing this?
John Barnes writes, in Nature's Open Secret, of Steiner in his youth: "As Steiner immersed himself in the study of physics and physiology, he was met everywhere by the assumption that the qualities perceived by the senses are only subjective sensations triggered by objective material processes.... This caused (his) thinking inconceivable difficulties. It drove all spirit from the objective external world." (Nature's Open Secret: Introductions to Goethe's Scientific Writings, translated by John Barnes and Mado Spiegler, Editor's Introduction.) The part about the inconceivable difficulties Critical Idealism caused to his thinking, its driving of all spirit from the objective external world, is a direct quote from Steiner's Autobiography: Chapters in the Course of My Life. So if Critical Idealism caused Steiner's thinking inconceivable difficulties, imagine what havoc it wreaks on the rest of us, even without our realizing it. Or perhaps, especially without our realizing it.
Steiner was determined to overcome Critical Idealism in his thinking life, and wrote the Philosophy of Freedom to help us overcome it. But I know that, even though I sometimes imagine that I've already overcome it, it's still firmly fixed in place below the threshold of my conscious, intellectual thinking. It's everywhere in our society, so no wonder. And we think through our cultural version of Critical Idealism, as through a distorting lens that gives us the wrong picture of everything we see. So our work is far from done if we just understand PoF with our intellects.
Summarizing Thoughts regarding Chapter 4
By means of thinking and observing do all things become known to me. Without thinking, all observation would be a chaos of meaningless perceptions. With thinking, the ideal element in all things is revealed to me and remains with me, united with the percept, as a representation after I am no longer directly perceiving the given thing. Critical Idealism is unable to refute the objective character of percepts in that it uses Naïve Realism to accept the objective perception of a given sense organ—say the eye—while refuting the objective character of everything else, in order to declare that all that we can know are our own representations. Steiner declares that he has more than proven that the arguments used to support CI are fallacious, but whether percepts are themselves objectively real, or not, still remains a question to be addressed.
Thanks, Gerald, for your
Thanks, Gerald, for your wonderfully succinct summaries of the chapters. I'll be referring to them often, because as we go through the chapter sections it's helpful to step back sometimes and have an overview of what the previous chapters were about.
Giving It A Go
Ok...I think I'm ready to jump in and join the study in the way you've been approaching this work. I'm still not certain about each section actually expressing the given perspective (monadism & dynamism) but I'll give it a go.
The monadistic view strikes me as focused superficially, and therefore only the many particulars from their semi-conscious perspective are considered. There's a certain truth in this. It's like when we're attempting to communicate with one another in this computer generated fashion. The monadist is focused upon how my message (spirit) is transformed through electrical impulses, fingers, soft ware, hard ware, cable lines for transmitting dots and dashes, downloading into each other's computer, monitor, and through all of those transformations, the reality of the "thing," myself, message, is nowhere to be found. Certainly that is the case. Never the less, assuming that I'm presenting myself clearly, my message--idea--is actually, really conveyed to you. Myself is experienced in yourself. There's a leap from the particular tranformation process through the computer system and one reality, I, meets another reality, you. These real "things" get lost in the monadistic view. As far as I can tell, it is lost in itself. The reality being only these superficial "things" and the greater reality attempting to express through them is overlooked, because it is not superficial enough to be noticed?
The dynamistic section above seems incomplete. It starts off suggesting that it would be hard to find another equally ingenious thought construct which collapses into nothingness when closely analysed. But the above doesn't collapse yet. Perhaps that's the point. The dynamist adores the continuous motion of its perspective, trapped in the circle of, there's the thing, as in my above computer version, there's myself, but I'm not in the hardware, software, transmission lines, but I do appear in your soul, and your soul then shifts me back to my origin point, you can start reading the message over again, that's the starting point. Boy, that was fun, let's do it again, etc.
These are my thoughts for the moment. I want to thank you for including me in the study and hopefully my jumping in as I'm doing meets with your approval. I'd appreciate any further guidelines about how to work with the H & CT material, if you find me drifting from how you've been working with it. I have greatly appreciated reading everyone's comments.
It's great to have you here
It's great to have you here :-)
Sebastian
Fun with PoF
Hi, Gerald
You've given such clear, eye-opening ideas about monadists and dynamists here and how they relate to the text. I find this system of looking at the text to be so useful in my study of PoF, because it points me toward an underlying form. Then, in looking to see if there's actually any evidence of the form, if anything about the point of view is expressed, I discover all kinds of new connections that bring the text to life. That makes studying PoF fun and exciting, and full of imaginative life.
Now that you're here, it's going to be even more fun!