Philosophy Of Freedom, Chapter 14, Individuality And Type (video)

Submitted by Tom Last on Sun, 05/25/2008 - 4:20am.




The Philosophy Of Freedom by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925)
Chapter 14 Individuality and Genus

The view that people are capable of free individuality seems to be contradicted by the facts.
We appear as a member of a natural whole (race, ethnicity, nationality, family, and gender) and act within a whole(state, church, etc.).
We show the general characteristics of the group to which we belong.
Our actions are determined by the place we occupy within the group.
In view of all this, is individuality still possible?
Can we regard the individual as a self-contained whole if we emerge from one group and join another?

Group Characteristics Of Individual
All who belong to an ethnic group bear the characteristics determined by the nature of the group.
Through this the physiognomy and behavior of the individual person takes on a quality common to the group.
The ethnic group explains why something about the individual appears as it does.

Group Qualities - A Medium For Individual Expression
As members of one human race we free ourselves from typical group qualities.
We develops qualities and activities of our own, whose source can be found only in ourselves.
Common group characteristics serve only as a means or medium through which we express our own individual being.

Individual Capacities And Inclinations
We see too much of the general character of the others gender and too little of what is individual.
A persons position within society should be determined by individual capacities and inclinations, rather than what is generally considered to be a gender's natural tasks and needs.

Individual Decision
What a person is capable of, according to their nature disposition, must be left to the individual to decide.
People must be allowed to decide for themselves what is in accordance with their nature.

Unique Content Of Individual
Racial, ethnic, national, and gender characteristics are the subjects for academic study.
Only people who wish to live merely as examples of a group type could fit the general picture derived from such academic study.
None of these sciences are able to advance to the unique content of the self-determined individual.

Individual Conceptual Content
The conceptual content of ones thinking cannot be fixed once and for all and handed down in finished form to humanity.
Individuals must gain their concepts through their own individual intuition.

Individual Goals
It is not possible to determine from ones group characteristics what concrete aims the individual may choose to set themselves.
To understand the individual we must find our way into their own particular being and not stop short at typical characteristics.
In this sense every single human being is a separate problem.

Knowledge Of An Individual
We can only 'know' an individual when they tell us their way of viewing the world and by the knowledge we get from the wishes and intentions of an individuals acts of will.

Freedom Of Knowing
To understand a free individual we must take in those concepts by which the individuality defines itself.
People who immediately mix their own concepts into every judgment of others, can never understand an individuality.

Freedom From Group Characteristics
Only to the degree that a person gradually frees itself from the common urges of animal life and the controlling decrees of human authorities can it be said they are a free spirit within a community.

Individual Ethical Conduct
That part of our nature unable to achieve freedom lives by copying others or by obeying their commands.
Only that part of our conduct that springs from our 'intuitions' has ethical value in the true sense.

Individual Ethical Intuitions
It is from individual ethical intuitions and their acceptance by human communities that all moral activity of humankind originates.
The moral life of humanity is the sum total of the ethical intuitions of free individuals.

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Submitted by Bryn on Tue, 05/27/2008 - 3:00am.

Thanks again Tom. This one has got to be a taster-as you have said. I simply couldn't follow the thinking at the speed it was going. I may be getting old!Can't express my appreciation enough. Please don't think I am being finnecky but there are still some typos in the text (4?) They cluster around the use of apostrophes and "s" in general.

Love

Bryn

Bryn, Are the slides changing so fast

Submitted by Tom Last on Tue, 05/27/2008 - 8:29am.

Bryn, Are the slides changing so fast you are unable to complete the reading or is it you feel rushed and would like a pause after reading? I finished this one too late at night.

Hi Tom, I definitely need a

Submitted by Bryn on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 6:46am.

Hi Tom,

I definitely need a pause. I showed it to my son of 32 yrs. He said to the effect too many media competing;this isn't the kind of text intended for immediate absobtion.. He's right imo. A steiner sentence hangs in the air and awaits your acceptance or otherwise. I think that as a producer you would have to decide whether to paraphrase and get a little more pushy with the flow of ideas. (most un steinery!) or handle less text. ???? Dunno Tom. Keep up the good stuff.

Love

Bryn

A video viewer has the

Submitted by Tom Last on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 9:56am.

A video viewer has the pause button for use at anytime to pause the video on some text. I am working on a POF chapter 13 video which has tremendous potential for learning and inspiration if I can condense the text well enough, maybe paraphrase more.  This project has shown me how contemporary and incredibly inspiring the Philosophy of Freedom is if you can work through to it's simple structure.  The chapters first cover all our common experience with a theme and then rapidly ascends to spiritual heights that we can recognize within ourselves if we can work through the complexity to it's simplicity. The book is very well suited for one of those fantastic learning films seen on public television such as one they did on string theory or Einstein. If I am successful completing these videos the potential for a more professional project should be apparent.

Yes Yes yes Tom. The

Submitted by Bryn on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 3:56am.

Yes Yes yes Tom. The essence is so beautifully simple. It all pares down to a moment. What is exciting imo is the realisation that knowledge and identity are one! As RS says, intuition is not a "means" to knowledge. God, he was a clever bugger!

These vids are a great presence for anyone who might stumble on it. Also a focus for us oldies when surfing. In some conversations recently I have deliberately hung back to allow "the freedom thing" to exist for the person who I'm talking too. So frustrating to us evangelical types! No need to on video, as you must know.

All the best.

Love

Bryn

the zen potter's point of view about video art

Submitted by Joel on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 7:33am.

there's a story about a zen potter that goes like this...

first, he was well known, and exhibits of his work were well attended, and prices for his work often high...

students came, and for a time he refused them...

eventually a small group agreed to simply watch him work without comment...

for the most part his work was typical of potters, that is he made them, glazed them and fired them...

at the point they came out of the kiln though, matters became very strange, for he frequently destroyed all the pots...

eyeing this destruction caused his students to mutter among themselves, but according to their agreement they made no comment directly to the potter...

one day, he only destroyed 23 of the 24 pots he had fired that day.   the one saved went into the shop window and was soon sold for a great deal of money.

so it went, day after day, week after week, month after month, with maybe only a half dozen pots kept and sold during any year...

one day a pot that survived the winnowing went into the window and a beggar asked to have the pot, for which he only had a penny to pay for it.   the begger was very ugly and dirty, had horrible teeth and smelled bad, but the potter sold him the pot anyway.

the students, forbidden to ask the potter questions, followed the begger and after taking him to a tea house and plying him with sake, they asked him what he thought about the potter.   this is what the beggar said:

"I am the potter's master.   All that he learned he learned from me.   The only pots worth saving are the ones that are imperfect, even though you try as hard as you can to get them all the same.   That pot is truly individual - it resisted your efforts to make it like all the others - it is a true pot, and while my student must now sell these pots in order to afford to keep at his art, it is very painful for him to do so because of his love for their uniqueness.  they are his children, and letting them go off into the world causes considerable distress for he does not know if those who buy them will love them for themselves or only because of the potter's fame."

Hearing this most of the students went immediately insane and ran away never to be seen again.   The one who stayed became a companion of the beggar.

joel