Feelings, wo-o-o feelings... 

In Chapter 6 of the Philosophy of Freedom, Steiner says:

However, we are not satisfied merely to refer the percept, by means of thinking, to the concept, but we relate them also to our particular subjectivity, our individual Ego. The expression of this individual relationship is feeling, which manifests itself as pleasure or displeasure.

This important point in the book is not something I can just gloss over or nod sagely saying "yes, of course that's right".  In other journals on this site we've spoken of the "drama of knowledge" and how some of us experience reading PoF as a kind of a dramatic piece, like a play, a musical symphony or something similar.  As such, I think it should move us and engage us, motivate us to seek within our own experience, within our own being to see if what Steiner says rings true.

1.  The Abstract Bit

With that said, here are some earlier comments I posted on this topic:

What the... ?  What is Steiner talking about here?  Not satisfied?  Where did that come from?  How can a feeling (which arises as a percept) be related directly to another percept and also to my own particular subjectivity (which is a percept also)?  Isn't that relationship still knowable only through thinking?  Is he sneaking something logically inconsistent in through the back door here?

The answer I think must be, most definitely no, Steiner is still playing by his own rules.  However I think he is now venturing to characterise (through thinking) typical relationships between certain kinds of percepts as these can be discovered through thinking - here he characterises feeling (crudely, pleasure or displeasure) as an "expression" of "individual" relationships between certain percepts and our own individual subject.  That is actually quite a long and abstract chain of ideas that we are then left to try and verify (or not) from our own experience.  Whether this characterisation is accurate or not is for us to decide ultimately based on what we find, for example by observing the nature of our own feelings.

What feelings are still can only be known through the route of thinking as established earlier in the book, there is no magic "ding an sich" or "thing in itself" of feeling being snuck in here as some more direct relationship between percept and percept that bypasses the concept and hence thinking, however I might attempt to formulate what Steiner is pointing to here like this:

Inasmuch as I think, I am the All-One Being
Inasmuch as I feel, I am my own invididual Ego

2.  The Experiencing Bit

Now, how can I test out what Steiner claims about feelings?  So, I feel happy because it's a nice day.  There are percepts relating to the sunny spring day, and to my feelings.  So far so good, but how does Steiner describe feelings again?

However, we are not satisfied merely to refer the percept, by means of thinking, to the concept, but we relate them also to our particular subjectivity, our individual Ego. The expression of this individual relationship is feeling, which manifests itself as pleasure or displeasure.

So, I am not satisfied merely to refer the percept by means of thinking to the concept ("it is daytime") but I also relate this percept to my particular subjectivity (the little "me", this person  here and now, not the "big" me of whom Steiner says "Inasmuch as I think, I am the All-One Being").  So I say "it's a nice day" or "I like the weather today" or even just "I'm feeling good" without acknowledging any connection to the spring day.

Or another example - say I open an envelope and read "you have just won ten thousand dollars".  I think "I have just won ten thousand dollars"... whoa... "I have just won ten thousand dollars".  The feelings, as Steiner says, definitely connect my particular subjectivity, my individual Ego, with the percept (the letter in this case more or less and the experiences I have as I read it). 

Now to the important point... how do I find this experience of feeling relates to the experience of observing thinking which Steiner has led us to earlier in the book?  I personally find that it is not completely knowable and transparent in the same way that thinking is, there seems to be an element acting within it which is hidden from me, foreign to me, in a sense even influencing or controlling me from outside.  I do not find this in the pure experience of thinking itself.

But don't I experience feelings within the experience of observing thinking?  Yes I do, and there are certainly degrees, but in general I find the purer the experience of observing thinking the purer and higher the feelings are.  The feelings seem to participate in and gain more and more of the spiritual clarity weaving within thinking the further I take this experience.

In this sense my own experience certainly agrees with what Jeff has been implying - that in a sense feeling is contained within this experience of living thinking.  Steiner also explicitly stated this in a 1918 Addition to Chapter 8:

If we turn towards thinking in its essence, we find in it both feeling and will, and these in the depths of their reality; if we turn away from thinking towards “mere” feeling and will, we lose from these their true reality.

This of course is worked out in more detail in the rest of Chapters 6, 7 and 8 - stay tuned!