The revisions Steiner made over 20 years later reflect his turning to the more spiritualistic German Theosophists and then Anthroposophy after he wrote The Philosophy of Freedom. In the original opening of Chapter 9 he does not use the word "spirit" but explains things in an observable way very well. In the revised version he uses the term "spirit" 8 times and the section becomes more difficult to understand. The "purely ideal interdependence of the members of my systems of concepts" in the original becomes "the self-sustaining spiritual essence" and the "self-supporting, spiritual web of being".
The term "spirit" does not translate well to English from the German. Steiner means spirit more as experienced in "mind". The only people who would listen to him after the completion of his Philosophy of Freedom were the Theosophists who wanted to be wowed by spiritualism revelations. If only the scientific community would have also been interested and asked Steiner questions we would have thousands of lectures relevant for today. Oh well, fortunately we have The Philosophy of Freedom which was written before he became involved with Theosophy. (see revised text inside)
Philosophy of Freedom Chapter 9 Original Version
The concept “tree” is conditioned for our knowledge by the percept “tree.” There is only one determinate concept which I can select from the general system of concepts and apply to a given percept. The connection of concept and percept is mediately and objectively determined by thought in conformity with the percept. The connection between a percept and its concept is recognized after the act of perception, but the relevance of the one to another is determined by the character of each.
In willing the situation is different. The percept is here the content of my existence as an individual, whereas the concept is the universal element in me. What is brought into ideal relation to the external world by means of the concept, is an immediate experience of my own, a percept of my Self. More precisely, it is a percept of my Self as active, as producing effects on the external world. In apprehending my own acts of will, I connect a concept with a corresponding percept, viz., with the particular volition. In other words, by an act of thought I link up my individual faculty (my will) with the universal world-process. The content of a concept corresponding to an external percept appearing within the field of my experience, is given through intuition. Intuition is the source for the content of my whole conceptual system. The percept shows me only which concept I have to apply, in any given instance, out of the aggregate of my intuitions. The content of a concept is, indeed, conditioned by the percept, but it is not produced by it. On the contrary, it is intuitively given and connected with the percept by an act of thought. The same is true of the conceptual content of an act of will which is just as little capable of being deduced from this act. It is got by intuition.
If now the conceptual intuition (ideal content) of my act of will occurs before the corresponding percept, then the content of what I do is determined by my ideas. The reason why I select from the number of possible intuitions just this special one, cannot be sought in an object of perception, but is to be found rather in the purely ideal interdependence of the members of my systems of concepts. In other words, the determining factors for my will are to be found, not in the perceptual, but only in the conceptual world. My will is determined by my idea.
The conceptual system which corresponds to the external world is conditioned by this external world. We must determine from the percept itself what concept corresponds to it; and how, in turn, its concept will fit in with the rest of my system of ideas, depends on its intuitive content. The percept thus conditions directly its concept and, thereby, indirectly also its place in the conceptual system of my world. But the ideal content of an act of will, which precedes the act of will, is determined only by the conceptual system itself.
1918 Steiner Revisions after turning to Theosophy
[1] For our cognition, the concept of the tree is conditioned by the percept of the tree. When faced with a particular percept, I can select only one particular concept from the general system of concepts. The connection of concept and percept is determined by thinking, indirectly and objectively, at the level of the percept. This connection of the percept with its concept is recognized after the act of perceiving; but that they do belong together lies in the very nature of things.
[2] The process looks different when we examine knowledge, or rather the relation of man to the world which arises within knowledge. In the preceding chapters the attempt has been made to show that an unprejudiced observation of this relationship is able to throw light on its nature. A proper understanding of this observation leads to the insight that thinking can be directly discerned as a self-contained entity. Those who find it necessary for the explanation of thinking as such to invoke something else, such as physical brain processes or unconscious spiritual processes lying behind the conscious thinking which they observe, fail to recognize what an unprejudiced observation of thinking yields. When we observe our thinking, we live during this observation directly within a self-supporting, spiritual web of being. Indeed, we can even say that if we would grasp the essential nature of spirit in the form in which it presents itself most immediately to man, we need only look at the self-sustaining activity of thinking.
[3] When we are contemplating thinking itself, two things coincide which otherwise must always appear apart, namely, concept and percept. If we fail to see this, we shall be unable to regard the concepts which we have elaborated with respect to percepts as anything but shadowy copies of these percepts, and we shall take the percepts as presenting to us the true reality. We shall, further, build up for ourselves a metaphysical world after the pattern of the perceived world; we shall call this a world of atoms, a world of will, a world of unconscious spirit, or whatever, each according to his own kind of mental imagery. And we shall fail to notice that all the time we have been doing nothing but building up a metaphysical world hypothetically, after the pattern of our own world of percepts. But if we recognize what is present in thinking, we shall realize that in the percept we have only one part of the reality and that the other part which belongs to it, and which first allows the full reality to appear, is experienced by us in the permeation of the percept by thinking. We shall see in this element that appears in our consciousness as thinking, not a shadowy copy of some reality, but a self-sustaining spiritual essence. And of this we shall be able to say that it is brought into consciousness for us through intuition. Intuition is the conscious experience -- in pure spirit -- of a purely spiritual content. Only through an intuition can the essence of thinking be grasped.
Added this
[4] Only if, by means of unprejudiced observation, one has wrestled through to the recognition of this truth of the intuitive essence of thinking will one succeed in clearing the way for an insight into the psyche-physical organization of man. One will see that this organization can have no effect on the essential nature of thinking. At first sight this seems to be contradicted by patently obvious facts. For ordinary experience, human thinking makes its appearance only in connection with, and by means of, this organization. This form of its appearance comes so much to the fore that its real significance cannot be grasped unless we recognize that in the essence of thinking this organization plays no part whatever. Once we appreciate this, we can no longer fail to notice what a peculiar kind of relationship there is between the human organization and the thinking itself. For this organization contributes nothing to the essential nature of thinking, but recedes whenever the activity of thinking makes its appearance; it suspends its own activity, it yields ground; and on the ground thus left empty, the thinking appears. The essence which is active in thinking has a twofold function: first, it represses the activity of the human organization; secondly, it steps into its place. For even the former, the repression of the physical organization, is a consequence of the activity of thinking, and more particularly of that part of this activity which prepares the manifestation of thinking. From this one can see in what sense thinking finds its counterpart in the physical organization. When we see this, we can no longer misjudge the significance of this counterpart of the activity of thinking. When we walk over soft ground, our feet leave impressions in the soil. We shall not be tempted to say that these footprints have been formed from below by the forces of the ground. We shall not attribute to these forces any share in the production of the footprints. Just as little, if we observe the essential nature of thinking without prejudice, shall we attribute any share in that nature to the traces in the physical organism which arise through the fact that the thinking prepares its manifestation by means of the body.
Added this
[5] An important question, however, emerges here. If the human organization has no part in the essential nature of thinking, what is the significance of this organization within the whole nature of man? Now, what happens in this organization through the thinking has indeed nothing to do with the essence of thinking, but it has a great deal to do with the arising of the ego-consciousness out of this thinking. Thinking, in its own essential nature, certainly contains the real I or ego, but it does not contain the ego-consciousness. To see this we have but to observe thinking with an open mind. The "I" is to be found within the thinking; the "ego-consciousness" arises through the traces which the activity of thinking engraves upon our general consciousness, in the sense explained above. (The ego-consciousness thus arises through the bodily organization. However, this must not be taken to imply that the ego-consciousness, once it has arisen, remains dependent on the bodily organization. Once arisen, it is taken up into thinking and shares henceforth in thinking's spiritual being.)
POF chapt 9
>>>>The only people who would listen to him after the completion of his Philosophy of Freedom were the Theosophists who wanted to be wowed by spiritualism revelations. If only the scientific community would have also been interested and asked Steiner questions we would have thousands of lectures relevant for today. Oh well, fortunately we have The Philosophy of Freedom which was written before he became involved with Theosophy. (see revised text inside)
"This objection is characteristic of a false understanding of moralism. Such a moralist believes that a social community is possible only if all men are united by a communally fixed moral order. What this kind of moralist does not understand is just the unity of the world of ideas. He does not see that the world of ideas working in me is no other than the one working in my fellow man. Admittedly, this unity is but an outcome of practical experience. But in fact it cannot be anything else. " (pof 9)
Chapter 3 of Awakening to Community contains many interesting thoughts regarding the study of Philosophy of Freedom...in speaking to the anthroposophists of those days, it ends with steiner pointing out that "It is time to be absolutely serious about anthroposophical work, and all the single movements must work together to achieve this goal. We cannot rest content to have a separate Waldorf School movement, a separate Movement for Religious Renewal, a separate Movement for Free Spiritual Life. Each will flourish only if all feel that they belong to the Anthroposophical Movement."
Free Spirit, Spirit and Spiritual? Mind and Mental?
Hi Tom,
Thanks for posting this, I had never realised before how different the two passages were in the old and new versions of Chapter 9.
After looking at the two versions of the passage and trying to understand them I did a quick search of Wilson's version of the Philosophy of Freedom.
I found that in the second half of the Philosophy of Freedom (Chapters 8 to 14) the most common/critical usage of the word "spirit" seemed to appear in the phrase "free spirit". This usage of course appeared in the first version of the book and was and is absolutely central to it. I couldn't imagine the book without a realisation of the "free spirit" being in a sense its ultimate aim and outcome. I am not sure how things stand with that phrase in the original German?
Now in the first half of the book (Knowledge of Freedom) we have a focus on "knowledge" or "epistemology". In the second half (The Reality of Freedom) we move from the absolutely certain foundation we have built out of our own knowing to the practical matter of the "free spirit" - what it is, and how it is realised.
This takes us into the realm of practical life and ethics (recall that Immanuel Kant wrote two very influential philosophical works, the "Critique of Pure Reason" on epistemology and the "Critique of Practical Reason" on ethics.) I believe in this part of Chapter 9 Steiner is attempting to reiterate what has been gained in part 1 of the book in such a way that it will lead us in the right way into the path of grasping the free spirit and understanding its relation to ethics.
Now, looking ahead at the context of these two passages, I can see that both of them lead up to the following passage which Steiner left unchanged between the earlier version and the 1918 version:
In any particular act of will we must take into account the motive and the driving force....
From here he follows the well-known (to readers of the Philosophy of Freedom) analysis of motive and driving force, showing that both unite at the highest level within the free spirit - culminating in the below passionate, marvellous passage:
The standpoint of free morality, then, does not declare the free spirit to be the only form in which a man can exist. It sees in the free spirit only the last stage of man's evolution. This is not to deny that conduct according to standards has its justification as one stage in evolution. Only we cannot acknowledge it as the absolute standpoint in morality. For the free spirit overcomes the standards in the sense that he does not just accept commandments as his motives but orders his action according to his own impulses (intuitions).
When Kant says of duty: “Duty! Thou exalted and mighty name, thou that dost comprise nothing lovable, nothing ingratiating, but demandest submission,” thou that “settest up a law ... before which all inclinations are silent, even though they secretly work against it,” (see fn 5) then out of the consciousness of the free spirit, man replies: “Freedom! Thou kindly and human name, thou that dost comprise all that is morally most lovable, all that my manhood most prizes, and that makest me the servant of nobody, thou that settest up no mere law, but awaitest what my moral love itself will recognize as law because in the face of every merely imposed law it feels itself unfree.”
This is the contrast between a morality based on mere law and a morality based on inner freedom.
The question your contrast of the two versions of the passage raises for me are - to what extent does the (to me, almost Nietzschean) glorification of the "free spirit" connect to other uses of the word "spirit" in the book? It is clear that the word "spirit" means many things in different contexts in the book.
To quote from "Through the Looking Glass" as I have before:
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
Now in his later book "Theosophy" (note the title! - see http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/English/GA009_index.html) Steiner gives a wonderfully concise "working definition" of the words body, soul and spirit which I think Humpty Dumpty would have been proud of:
By these means man continually links himself in this threefold way with the things of the world. One should not, for the present, read anything into this fact, but merely take it as it stands. From this it can be seen that man has three sides to his nature. This and nothing else will, for the present, be indicated here by the three words, body, soul and spirit. Whoever connects any preconceived opinions or even hypotheses with these three words will necessarily misunderstand the following explanations. By body is here meant that through which the things in the environment of a man reveal themselves to him, as in the above example, the flowers in the meadow. By the word soul is signified that by which he links the things to his own being, through which he experiences pleasure and displeasure, desire and aversion, joy and sorrow in connection with them. By spirit is meant what becomes manifest in him when as Goethe expressed it, he looks at things as a “so to speak divine being.” In this sense man consists of body, soul and spirit.
As a precise, theoretical definition the above passage stinks. But as a practical and even scientific, empirical starting point I find it wonderful because it throws out all of the old presuppositions attached to these terms and allows us to start anew, as it were, from the place where we stand now.
One more Steiner quote is relevant here I think - see the 1918 addition to Chapter 7 of the Philosophy of Freedom:
It is to be remembered, too, that the idea of percept developed in this book is not to be confused with the idea of external sense percept which is but a special instance of it. The reader will gather from what has gone before, but even more from what will follow, that “percept” is here taken to be everything that approaches man through the senses or through the spirit, before it has been grasped by the actively elaborated concept. “Senses”, as we ordinarily understand the term, are not necessary in order to have percepts in soul- or spirit-experience. It might be said that this extension of our ordinary usage is not permissible. But such extension is absolutely necessary if we are not to be prevented by the current sense of a word from enlarging our knowledge in certain fields. Anyone who uses “perception” to mean only “sense perception” will never arrive at a concept fit for the purposes of knowledge — even knowledge of this same sense perception. One must sometimes enlarge a concept in order that it may get its appropriate meaning in a narrower field. Sometimes one must also add to the original content of a concept in order that the original concept may be justified or, perhaps, readjusted. Thus we find it said here in this book (see Chapter 6): “The mental picture is an individualized concept.” It has been objected that this is an unusual use of words. But this use is necessary if we are to find out what a mental picture really is. How can we expect any progress in knowledge if everyone who finds himself compelled to readjust concepts is to be met by the objection, “This is an unusual use of words”?
I find the use of words like "mental" and "Mind" in current philosophical and scientific literature somewhat restricting because it is hard for me personally to find the correct connection from there to ideas like "body", "matter" etc. I have found that reading Steiner's work imparts to me a new and living meaning for words like "spiritual" and "spirit" because he is free of some of the presuppositions that others have.
I for one have not found many other contemporary thinkers who have grasped as thoroughly as Steiner the errors underlying much of contemporary thought (the shining example for me being Chapter 4 of the Philosophy of Freedom).
For the above and many other reasons I find the 1918 version of this passage far superior to the earlier version - it leaves me free but gives me a better idea of what Steiner means by the "free spirit".
My own summary of this is, experience of the free spirit (which involves beginning/continuing/participating in its realisation) leads to experience of spirit, however experience of so-called "spirit" does not always lead to experience of the free spirit. Humpty Dumpty as I imagine him chooses the "free spirit" over "spirit" or "spirituality" or "spiritual science" because the question is "which is to be master - that's all".
Regards,
Tim
Tim, someone with your
Tim, someone with your considerable experience with Steiner's writings can move more freely between the terms "spirit" and "mind". My concern is with presenting The Philosophy of Freedom to those with less and perhaps no interest in Steiner's later work with Theosophy. As Wilson points out, "The English word “spirit” gives the sense of something more universal, less personal, than 'mind”. The error that overuse of the word "spirit" leads to is confusing the mystical "feeling" experience, the less personal "one" spirit, or the spirit of God's will rather the grasping of things through thinking and the clarity of concepts which is the POF path (which leads to an experience of spirit in thinking). Steiner gave other paths. I don't think all paths are the same but are very different. Of course they are all good if it works for you. I don't think Steiner gave one path but I think many people think he did so they confuse other paths with POF. I think you can find all paths within POF as various stages of development but that is another topic.
Your "out of the consciousness of the free spirit" quote was added during the 1918 revisions. The original says "the free spirit replys". I like the use of "free spirit" in the second part of the book but if the book has been read well by Part 2 or by Chapter 9-5 you know that by achieving conceptual thinking and the experience of conceptual intuition you have freed yourself of the restraints of the psyche-physical organization through "reason". After you experience the spirit within thinking yourself through pure thinking then you won't get confused with how Steiner means "spirit". I think most anyone will have this realization with enough reading of the book.
Another problem is the later translators. The first English translator Hoernle used mind and spirit both where the later translators like Wilson always used the term spirit everywhere. This shows up in Chapter 2 and makes a mess of it using spirit where mind is appropriate. Someone with enough Steiner experience can work with this but how can a new person be expected too?
The motive and driving force issue in chapter 9 is resolved with "pure thinking or practical reason". This description will better guide a person to the right observation. The free spirit is realized through pure thinking or reason, not mystical feeling or whatever other prior belief one might have about what the "spirit" is on this path. The development of the conceptual intuition experience will lead to recognizing the spirit in thinking which I think is the point of the book. Now a person will recognize this experience if they study POF so they will then not get confused by terms or discussions about spirit. So I like the POF terms of pure thinking, conceptual thinking, reason, and conceptual intuition which will lead them more directly to this experience than the broader variety of meanings one might have for the term "spirit". After this experience Steiner uses the term "free spirit" later on in the book which better describes the experience of free will. Other paths will bring you to many experiences but POF has a clear path using the intellect and reason to achieve the clarity of intuitive thinking which is appropriate for our modern day of scientific thinking. I would say the scientists are very intuitive, much more so than the so called "intuitives" of today, but their self imposed limitations have blocked them from moral intuition. It is a nightmare to do an internet search of "intuition". POF is really just the entry point. After you understand and are conscious of the process it becomes your source of guidance with it continueing to develop in your daily life. I have been on other paths but I do find a certain distinctiveness about the POF path. I am not advanced enough to say much here but I think it is the intuitive thinking clarity and intimate experience of spirit founded upon itself rather than the need of some additional support, be it external or internal. (I don't know how well I addressed your points as I don't have time to read your nice post again but thanks for posting)
Mind and Spirit and Meaning
Thanks Tom - I think your quote from the Wilson introduction has encapsulated the problem well. A problem that is embodied in the English language itself, perhaps!
I agree of course you are right to mention the idea of "intuition" as relating to the problem at hand - as usual, Steiner gives a very clear definition of his meaning of "intuition" in the Philosophy of Freedom Chapter 5:
Thinking offers this content to the percept, from man's world of concepts and ideas. In contrast to the content of percept which is given to us from without, the content of thinking appears inwardly. The form in which this first makes its appearance we will call intuition. Intuition is for thinking what observation is for percept. Intuition and observation are the sources of our knowledge. An observed object of the world remains unintelligible to us until we have within ourselves the corresponding intuition which adds that part of reality which is lacking in the percept. To anyone who is incapable of finding intuitions corresponding to the things, the full reality remains inaccessible. Just as the color-blind person sees only differences of brightness without any color qualities, so can the person without intuition observe only unconnected perceptual fragments.
There is an activity required in reading the Philosophy of Freedom which I believe is strongly related to how we work in science and mathematics.
To take an extreme example, many people will have come across the idea from particle physics that there are particles called "quarks" which possess properties including "colour".
But particle physicists certainly do not intend to imply that "red" or "green" quarks bear any relationship to what we experience when we perceive these colours - they are really only borrowing (in a somewhat lighthearted way) the property that colour has in the everyday world as something with a discrete range of values (e.g. red, green, blue) rather than a continuous range of values (as for example distance).
In the same way Steiner makes us work to understand what he means by certain things - intuition, spirit etc. He certainly doesn't select words arbitrarily but I agree there are problems relating to the German original, the cultural background, the history of the text (with the pre-Anthroposophy and post-Anthroposophy versions), the associations we bring to the words he uses, the mindset of the translater and so on and so on.
All this is sounding very post-modern isn't it?...;-) I find it interesting that from what I have seen postmodernism is very good at understanding language and meaning but struggles to understand what is going on at the core of mathematics and science. Perhaps it lacks exactly an understanding or experience of "intuition" in Steiner's sense of the word? I don't know.