The Philosophy of Freedom Study Group
The Act Of Knowing The World
Topic: In contrast to dreaming there is the waking state.
5-1) MATERIALISM (Cancer)
[8] One of the most important questions for an adherent of transcendental realism would have to be: How does the Ego produce the world of mental pictures out of itself? A world of mental pictures which was given to us, and which disappeared as soon as we shut our senses to the external world, might kindle as earnest desire for knowledge, in so far as it was a means of investigating indirectly the world of the I-in-itself. If the things of our experience were "mental pictures", then our everyday life would be like a dream, and the discovery of the true state of affairs would be like waking. Now our dream images interest us as long as we dream and consequently do not detect their dream character. But as soon as we wake, we no longer look for the inner connections of our dream images among themselves, but rather for the physical, physiological and psychological processes which underlie them. In the same way, a philosopher who holds the world to be his mental picture cannot be interested in the mutual relations of the details within the picture. If he allows for the existence of a real Ego at all, then his question will be, not how one of his mental pictures is linked with another, but what takes place in the independently existing soul while a certain train of mental pictures passes through his consciousness. If I dream that I am drinking wine which makes my throat dry, and then wake up with a cough, I cease, the moment I wake, to be interested in progress of the dream for its own sake. My attention is now concerned only with the physiological and psychological processes by means of which the irritation which causes me to cough comes to be symbolically expressed in the dream picture. Similarly, once the philosopher is convinced that the given world consists of nothing but mental pictures, his interest is bound to switch at once from this world to the real soul which lies behind. The matter is more serious, however, for the adherent of illusionism who denies altogether the existence of an Ego-in-itself behind the mental pictures, or at least holds this Ego to be unknowable. We might very easily be led to such a view by the observation that, in contrast to dreaming, there is indeed the waking state in which we have the opportunity of seeing through our dreams and referring them to the real relations of things, but that there is no state of the self which is related similarly to our waking conscious life. Whoever takes this view fails to see that there is, in fact, something which is related to mere perceiving in the way that our waking experience is related to our dreaming. This something is thinking.
| Topic: World of mental pictures How does the Ego produce the world of mental pictures out of itself? A world of mental pictures which was given to us, and which disappeared as soon as we shut our senses to the external world, might kindle as earnest desire for knowledge, in so far as it was a means of investigating indirectly the world of the I-in-itself. If the things of our experience were "mental pictures", then our everyday life would be like a dream, and the discovery of the true state of affairs would be like waking up. Our dream images interest us as long as we are dreaming and so do not detect their dream character. The moment we waken, we no longer look for the inner connections of our dream images, but rather for the physical, physiological and psychological processes that underlie them.
Match-up Quiz |
In contrast to dreaming there is the waking state in which we relate our dreams to real circumstances.
5-2) SPIRITISM (Capricorn)
[9] The naïve man cannot be charged with the lack of insight referred to here. He accepts life as it is, and regards things as real just as they present themselves to him in experience. The first step, however, which we take beyond this standpoint can be only this, that we ask how thinking is related to perception. It makes no difference whether or no the percept, in the shape given to me, exists continuously before and after my forming a mental picture; if I want to assert anything whatever about it, I can do so only with the help of thinking. If I assert that the world is my mental picture, I have enunciated the result of an act of thinking. and if my thinking is not applicable to the world, then this result is false. Between a percept and every kind of assertion about it there intervenes thinking.
Topic: Assert results of thinking
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| 5-1.mp3 | 1.16 MB |
| 5-2.mp3 | 344.88 KB |
Materialist/Spiritist
In attempting to relate to the materialist section, I come upon the resistance to acknowledge the spirit—thinking. The materialist is looking for the thing that lies behind the percept. It must be something tangible, like a particle, very small, because the spirit is not acknowledged. The “nothingness” of the spirit—thinking, cannot be what upholds the material world, or so think the materialists.
So the spiritist view would be the one who does acknowledge the value of thinking, that which allows us to penetrate ever further, awaken ever more to that reality that our percepts convey only a portion of to us, needing thinking to complete the fullness of reality. The spiritist might become fixated with the objective reality of thinking--”the glue holding it all together” and leave the incomplete percept as insignificant by comparison. This is not the naïve man's view but one that might arise for one who begins to think about this view and the roll thinking itself must play.
I would also add that the above two sections are referring to the Transcendental Realist and the Naïve Realist's view—as we may recall the TR is dependent upon NR—at least as far as their argument is concerned--taking naively the eye when speaking of the mental image nature of the sun. The basic point is that thinking is not acknowledged as the meaningful component to any given percept. “What is that? What can be realized about what I'm experiencing?” etc. Both the NR and the TR want reality in a tangible, material form. The NR is satisfied because he does not think about his conclusions. The TR is trapped because he does think about his, and then drops the significance that thinking must have after he's used it to form his world view. Even if we acknowledged the TR view as being entirely correct, we'd have to do so by means of thinking. How can I form a world view rejecting the significance of thinking as being objectively real and yet use it to form my personal view of reality?
Thanks, Gerald and Tim
I've been glad of your comments because they shed some light on these two sections which for some reason I struggle with but don't feel as if I'm getting anywhere.
I get the idea that the person who's looking to find out how the Ego-in-itself transforms the percept that comes from the real world into the mental picture that it then experiences, is hoping to somehow sidestep that process so that he can experience Life-in-itself.
I can see how the only legitimate step away from Naive Realism, which is presumably where we all start, at least as children, is to resolve the question about how thinking relates to percepts. We have to separate the activity of thinking from its products, such as assertions. So we're really taking that question up again where we left it off at the end of Chapter Three.
I really like what George O'Neil said about Chapter Five as a whole, about how the experience of self-sustaining thinking in Chapter Three becomes the deed in this chapter.
Waking Up
The analogy with waking up here is interesting... I can also see how Materialism might be a very necessary world view for someone who has fallen excessively under the influence of some form of idealism as outlined here. Even more practically, perhaps we need to be in our most materialistic frame of mind when we are physically waking up. After all, it is very necessary that we re-orient ourselves to our environment when we first wake up.
It reminds me of the well-known story about Samuel Johnson, who, when asked by James Boswell what he thought of Berkeley's theory that matter may not exist, kicked a stone and cried "I refute him thus!"
But the most important point for me here is that:
there is, in fact, something which is related to mere perceiving in the way that our waking experience is related to our dreaming. This something is thinking.
Working Out with Chapter Five
I like what O'Neil says about the overall theme of Chapter Five, in the page from his workbook that Tom has put out for us to look at (http://philosophyoffreedom.com/node/1888).
"Voluntaristic in very theme: the act of cognition, an expression of deliberate union of thought and experience. Spirit-Self level: Man participates in the Universal, unites himself through thinking with the Cosmos; an absolute, universal force rises within us...(T)he experience of 'self-sustaining thinking {in Chapter III} now in V becomes the deed. Man reaches reality by rejoining Concept and Percept, separated by his organism.
The deed of cognition, the uniquely human power! And today, so little understood. We are absorbed either in the multitudinous array of sensuous data, or else in the complex products of thinking itself, but neglect and ignore the very thing that brings forth the thoughts and makes intelligible the chaos of perceptions."
It helps me, when struggling through some of the more convoluted abstract passages at the beginning of this chapter, to remember that we're taking up where we left off in Chapter Three. At the end of that chapter, having proven that thinking is a self-sustaining activity (like Archimedes' imaginary lever that could lift the world) Steiner writes: "To show how far the application of thinking to the world is right or wrong, is precisely the task of this book." After we descend into the world of percepts in the intervening chapter, Chapter Five is where we take up this more daunting task, the precise task of PoF.
It also helps inestimably to keep referring to the Additions at the end of this chapter (and others.) Sometimes I struggle so hard to arrive at an understanding of some convoluted point, only to look at the Addition afterwards and find the understanding I've sweated for, written right there in perfectly straightforward language! Or some point may be repeated in such a way that by comparing it with the earlier phrasing it becomes like the second eye in binocular vision that brings things into focus. I feel foolish then for not having looked up the answer and sidestepped all that effort. But, on the other hand, lifting the weights of Chapter Five will give me big spiritual muscles! Or so I hope...