MONISM, SCIENCE & DARWINISM
Philosophically (epistemologically) speaking, the causal ideal of science is ‘monism’ (everything in nature has one and the same source) — because the dualist alternative in which spirit (religion) is seen to have one source and matter (natural law) another, leads immediately to an unscientific causal contradiction.
There are, however, two possible monisms, only one of which can be true. For an epistemological ‘monism of Mind’ all primary causes in nature are spiritual (mental), whereas for a ‘monism of matter’ all primary causes in nature are physical (mechanical?), and needless to say these two world-views are totally incompatible (antithetical). The question that must be answered, in order to determine which of them is true, is: Which came first in the history of the universe, Mind or matter, or alternatively: which one created the other?
The same question restated is: Does nature have a spiritual ‘inside’ or does she not? And by ‘inside’ is meant down to the smallest atom (Bell’s Theorem) but more especially within every living entity, which if it were true would immediately invalidate Darwin’s entire theory.
There is no ‘third monism’ (the law of the excluded middle here applies). Between them only a Cartesian or related kind of dualism is possible (but highly improbable) one in which mind and matter appear simultaneously but without one having created the other. Natural law (science), is then seen to somehow combine itself with miraculous causation (religion). Monadism, for example, sometimes offered by religious thinkers as a neutral monism, is actually only a dualism in disguise. Which, as Owen Barfield would have it, is like: “…two entire strangers that have somehow gotten into bed together…”
A ‘science of origins,’ therefore, whether cosmological or biological, must be based either upon a ‘monism of Mind’ or upon a ‘monism of matter — because science cannot be based upon an openly contradictory dualism. But neither can it be based upon a concealed dualism, which is to say, upon a claimed monism, which upon closer scrutiny reveals itself to be merely a hidden dualism. This means that neither monism can borrow any part of a causal explanation from its opposite, without that it ceases to be monist and becomes a hidden dualism instead.
Which of the two possible monisms then is the true one? This is an epistemological question that should be decided upon a basis of direct experience, and not upon prior assumptions or metaphysical speculation of any kind. Is this even possible? My answer will be yes, but I will leave the details until later, first let us be clear about the logical quagmire into which Darwin’s theory leads us.
Darwinism
Darwinism is the currently dominant science of biological origins. It is grounded upon a material or ‘mechanical’ monism, but immediately here we run into a contradiction. The first to attribute the concept of ‘mechanism’ to nature was Descartes, who used it only in a dualist context with God the Designer as the source of all ‘mechanical’ design in nature.
| BUT FOR DARWINISM, AND FOR A ‘MATERIAL MONISM’ ‘GOD IS AN UNNECESSARY HYPOTHESIS’. | SO WHY DID WE CONTINUE TO USE THE GOD DEPENDENT CONCEPT OF ‘MECHANISM’? |
The answer is that without this concept a material monism is a totally unworkable (unbelievable) world-view, but that by continuing to use it we have ‘borrowed’ an explanatory element from the opposite monism, the one that we should be at pains to avoid at all cost.
| This means, undeniably, that both materialism and Darwinism are merely disguised forms of dualism, and are, therefore, unscientific, because science must always be genuinely monist. |
The fact that it is human creativity that for the most part the concept ‘mechanism’ draws to our attention, when combined with the absurdity of the notion that we created the natural world, means that the inferred mechanistic creativity without which Darwin’s argument is woven, still unconsciously belongs to God, not to man. Which ironically also means that Darwinism itself is actually based upon ‘Intelligent Design,’ but not honestly so — instead it wants to ‘have its cake and eat it too,’ the unacknowledged desire for which is the mother of all errors in logic.
If Darwinism is not a monist theory at all, but is based upon a hidden dualism, then as such it cannot be genuine science. The often-repeated claim that it is based upon empirical observation then counts for nothing at all, because if it did not have the concept ‘mechanism’ to aid it in interpreting these empirical observations they would all become meaningless.
Consequences
That the word ‘mechanism,’ now deprived of its Designer God, has become a dictionary-sanctioned synonym for scientific materialism, and has in its wake has allowed all kinds of intentional and volitional metaphors to be used in supposedly justifying Darwinism, and has, therefore, imbued the theory with what amounts to a vast assortment of mental causes where there should only be physical causes.
In short, Darwin’s theory (not evolution itself) is a logical abomination, possessing no philosophical validity whatsoever, and no scientific validity either, because all of the empirical so-called evidence supporting it is entirely dependent upon the ‘mechanistic’ interpretation that has been and is being placed upon it.
If nature does have a spiritual ‘inside’ then it is this that accounts for all of her vast creativity, not the verbal folly that the theory has used from the outset as a totally invalid substitute for that same spiritual inside.
So while it may have had historical justification, in helping to emancipate science from dogmatic religion, it has now ceased to serve that purpose and instead opposes the development of a science based upon a true monism, i.e. upon “a monism of thought”.
Which Came First?
This then brings me back to my starting question. Did Mind or matter come first in the history of the universe? And how are we to answer this question experientially, and without resorting to metaphysical speculation?
It has long been held that a science based only upon sense perception would allow us to answer it, but this can now be seen to have failed miserably (see John Horgan’s The Undiscovered Mind, and numerous other recent works, together with Noam Chomsky’s clear admission to that effect). The reason for this being simply that where knowledge is concerned thinking comes before sense perception.
Steiner’s contention that “I think, but the world also thinks in me.” Is the key observation here, together with the two logically undeniable facts cited by him, and which may be paraphrased as follows:
- “Thinking can be explained by nothing other than itself, because it is always thinking that does the explaining” (Bo Dahlin).
- Thinking creates the concepts ‘subject’ and ‘object’ just as it does all other concepts (i.e. it exists prior to these concepts).
These two points critically establish what may be termed the ‘self-sufficiency of thought’ and if carefully followed through, as Steiner does in the first five chapters of his work The Philosophy of Freedom, they tell us that Mind came first in the history of the universe, and that all of matter is the creative by-product of Mind — and not the other way around.
Darwinism was and is science’s attempt to deny this in the organic realm, and the reason that the theory does not and cannot work, is that its underlying premises are quite simply untrue. When asked why he placed such a strong reliance on Steiner, Owen Barfield answered: “If I am wandering in a parched desert, do I complain that water only flows from one spring?”
The parched desert, of course, is modern scientific materialism, and now that quantum physics has undermined material determinism, it is Darwinism, not physics, that has become materialism’s principal source of support.
Within the anthroposophical movement itself, however, there is still great confusion over this entire issue, in part at least because of Steiner’s seeming support for the thought of Ernst Haeckel, which is especially evident in his essay ‘Haeckel and his Opponents.’
It would seem ironic indeed that Steiner, in his brilliant epistemology, should so roundly defeat materialism only to have come back to life again through his friendship with Ernst Haeckel, who was without doubt a ‘mechanical’ monist.
What karmic mysteries lie behind this friendship it is difficult to know, perhaps in Steiner’s day it was simply too early for Darwinism to be directly challenged as to the validity of its internal logic, even though that challenge is everywhere implicit in anthroposophy itself, but I must openly and clearly suggest that this is no longer the case today.
Don
even there
Hi Don,
Love your essays. I agree that Steiner's epistemology defeated materialism, but I think it did so only as a phenomenology. As explicated, I think it leaves room open for these materialistic snags and can be easily taken in by a hidden dualistic mindset; by starting with the logical "imagination" of a realm of pure-percepts, Steiner is doing exactly what he and, later, Barfield repudiate so soundly: projecting idolatrized space as if it is real. Only a modernly shaped mind can imagine an unparticipated space as if it is reality. Yet in each of his early core epistemological works, Steiner speaks of an uncongnized realm that is in relationship (...?...) to cognition. In fact, he uses this idolatrized imagination to ground his next logical steps. We can see quite clearly that he later tried to say this very differently; although he was disatisfied with the saying.
As you say:
The reason for this being simply that where knowledge is concerned thinking comes before sense perception.
And Steiner's epistemology demonstrates that where perception is concerned thinking comes before perception.
You pose:
"This then brings me back to my starting question. Did Mind or matter come first in the history of the universe? And how are we to answer this question experientially, and without resorting to metaphysical speculation?"
If our goal is really to avoid resorting to metaphysical speculation in locating our starting point, I think the only option is to resort immediately to the actual nature of our ongoing experiencing, not to bring a construct of "experience" into the starting point. Until this is explicated within anthroposophical philosophy, I expect to see continual snags like the ones you so cogently point to....
Jeff
Give us a hand here please Jeffrey. Thanks
I'm just about to embark on discussions with a co-parent at the Steiner School about Steiner. He is a professional philosopher, lecturer at the nearby University, Harvard PhD, lectures at Oxford, etc. Me, as a long term Steinerite, I find it hard to frame any major lines of counter-argument to RS. Would you be kind enough to expand a bit on the alternatives you have outlined above in response to Don's good essay? It would help me anticipate pprobable lines of thought that I will be presented with when my pro philosopher friend returns the Steiner books he asked me to lend him!
Fully respecting your points of view, may I ask you, for my benefit, to clarify/enlarge around the following points you make. In no particular order.:
!. Please speak around your point: defeated materialism "only as a phenomenology". Is that not philosophy?
2. "Projecting idolised space as if its real" Could you say a bit more about this charge. IIn A Theory of K Implicit in Gthes World Cncptn, RS goes to some length to clear the ground of a priori clutter re pure percept, and gives reasons. Also in Truth and Science the same; he describes his thinking about the given as "postulate" and characterises his writing as mere stylistic method to draw the reader"s attention to the facts of their own experience. Is this not good enough.
3. Where did "he later try to say this very differently" I don't quite follow.?
3. Can you enlarge on the charge that "idolatized space" and metaphysical speculation are the starting point of this epistemology. Compareed to eg.Heidegger's starting point of "Dasein", surely Steiner's point of departure is fairly substantial.
Thanks Jeffref. I would be grateful for any input whatsoever on ths. My questioning is not intended as aggressive.
Ps Anyone else got any ideas what a sophisticated rebuttal of Steiner's epistemology would lead with?
Loive to all, and thanks to Don for the essay.
Bryn
here's my hand
Hi Bryn,
Ok, let me start with an agreement I know we share: Steiner has done so much! This is why I stress a difference between the experience from which Steiner was talking and the implications of the concepts he used to explicate his experience. I think Steiner’s achievement can’t be over stated. My comments come only in the context of trying to formulate his work here and now and in a wide variety of contexts.
When you look at what Steiner was trying to say in the context of the philosophic terminology he was needing to say it in, I’m blown away by what he accomplished. I am distinguishing the phenomenology of Steiner’s epistemology from it’s formulation for the same reasons he was willing to label spiritualist philosophies as materialistic; the content might be one thing and the structure of the concepts quite another. Steiner’s phenomenology clothed itself in the very specific lexicon of a particular time.
It would be so much fun to know your friend’s theoretical orientation. He will find his way into Steiner’s ideas only from inside his own. I would start by wanting to know how he compares and contrasts his ideas with Steiner’s. The most important thing would be to know how he uses his own terms because that’s the only way to begin sharing meaning. The worst is to assume that we are using the same terms to mean the same thing or to assume that our different words are must be referring to different ideas. So many philosophic arguments become unnecessary simply by being careful how the words are working.
I hope some of that helps. Feel free to ask for more clarification. Please please please report back on how it goes….!
Jeff
In the beginning was...
Hello Bryn - I wish you very well with your up and coming conversation.
May I offer some general tips? I am sure you already have a few clues, especially for my first point, so please forgive me for stating the obvious.
I am sure that you are a generous and interesting conversationalist, Bryn, from reading your posts here. I state the above for the benefit of those who may inadvertantly be made suspicious that we want to 'convert' children in Waldorf Education. Nothing could be further from reality!
Good and lucky karma will be yours when a person comes asking about anthroposophy because they are principally there to teach you about it.
Thanks to Jeffrey and John from Bryn
I shall absorb your posts over the next few days.
There is a definite "cat and mouse element" about my interaction with my above mentioned philosopher acquaintance! Its been two years since our first connection. At the risk of sounding outrageously off-the-wall, its very much like a flirtation!,nay even a seduction! (For the record,I am a male heterosexual in my sixtieth year with some life experience in this area as an old baby-boomer, so folks, don't be shocked at my description).
The crunch came when last week I mentioned over lunch that Steiner was a fan of Brenano's. He turns out to lecture on brentano, and asked for Steiner's insights into him. I fortunately had the details at my fingertips ( by sheer "luck"). I had to convey that Steiner claims that Brentano's descriptions of the soul concept are unconscious descriptions of anthroposophical clairvoyance; that Brentano was an unwitting anthroposophist.! His immediate and barely concealed passionate reaction was to ask to borrow the books! He was very enthusiastic to learn more about Steiner's relation to Brentano. Exactly why remains to be seen. I expect to be treated to some very subtle stuff when he comes to describe his reactions. Prior to this it was evident that he disdained Steiner as a philosopher.
Forgive the confusion of pronouns in the above. Must dash.
Thanks for your effortts Jeffrey
Love
Bryn
Ok, this guy would at the
Ok, this guy would at the very least appreciate Barfield's work. I'd go there.
Jeff