Having experienced for outselves the transition from Spiritualism to one-sided Idealism, and having felt its failure to break through the barrier of our own ego's activity, we turn again to Materialistic Monism for an explanation of the world.

All phenomena arise out of purely material processes, including our own thinking, in some as-yet-unexplained way.

But now Idealism, the idea that the whole phenomenal world arises out of our own thinking, is granted equal weight with the materialistic explanation.

When I try to hold these equal and opposite ideas in my mind, I get a feeling that reminds me of what a teacher of mine, back in my university days, used to call "gee-whiz journalism."

This arises when a naive reporter takes up the point of view of whomever he or she is interviewing, with such enthusiasm that critical thinking goes out the window. Instead of breaking through to a deeper understanding of the development he or she is investigating, the gee-whiz journalist becomes a salesman for whatever product or idea the subject of the story is trying to promote.

When I read what Lange writes, and what Steiner says about it, I get that "gee-whiz" feeling. It's as if Lange is saying, "Ain't it amazing, that our senses can only give us the effects of things, while at the same time they're only an effect themselves!"

The sense of wonder at this strange fellowship of opposing ideas would be appropriate at the beginning of an investigation, to stimulate one's efforts, but should never be presented as the investigation's result.

Suppose, then, I take it up as the start of an investigation. As a Materialist in love with the phenomenal world and with materialistic natural science, I encounter what science says about sensory perception. Lange has pretty much laid it out in the two sentences Steiner quotes here. The senses can't give us the things themselves, but only their effects. The senses themselves are also only the effects of something else.

So, as a Materialist, I'm forced into Critical Idealism by what science says about the senses. Materialism itself kicks me out of the monistic one-world view and squarely into the dualistic view again.

If I'm going to get beyond the "gee-whiz" of this predicament, I'm going to have to face the fact that this whole line of thinking about the senses and what they can and can't do, invalidates the law of cause and effect on which my Materialism rests.

I'm struck also by the fact that, later in PoF, Steiner presents thinking very similarly to the way that he presents it here, but with opposite results. In 3.9, we can grasp thinking by means of itself, while here Baron Munchhausen tries to hold himself up in the air by his own pigtail, but really can't.

The difference is that, by the time we get to 3.9, Steiner has gotten rid of the material processes associated with thinking. Like the gravity that the Baron can't overcome, material processes are what seem to be the spoiler here.

How do we see rationalism here?

Isn't atomism more consistent with materialism?

OK - that makes sense to me now - I forgot that we were in the mood of transcendentalism...

thanks

In the sense that there is 'something behind all things' - for the rationalist a likely candidate for this is the atom.

(As a Dualist, I've dispatched my first two opponents:  the Materialistic Monist, who can't explain thinking, and the Spiritualistic one, who won't face up to her responsibilities to the material world.
 
Now my third and most formidable rival appears on the scene:  the Combination Monist, who says that spirit and matter have always been one.  I see by her outfit that she is a lawyer.
 
I desperately want to believe her, because I don't really want to be a Dualist, but she has to prove her case.)
 
As the Combination Monist, I'm a lawyer because I want to defend, with reason, the union of spirit and matter.
 
If spirit and matter are united in the world, they must also be united in the smallest whole unit of the world:  the atom.  Are they so united?  I submit that, if they weren't, the world could not be as we find it.  The atom contains all the material world as a potential, and it also contains the spiritual potential to develop consciousness, desire, intelligence and all the rest.  Otherwise, we couldn't be here asking these questions!
 
Spirit and matter, on the microcosmic level as well as the macrocosmic one, are as inseparable as the top and bottom of a bowl.  If you just look at a bowl's top, you'll think it's one thing, but if you just look  at the bottom you'll think it's another.  If you want to understand the whole bowl, you have to look at it from both sides.
 
Therefore, the whole Dualist dilemma is resolved the moment you recognize that the spiritual world always has a backside, and this backside is the material world.
 
You may ask why, if everything is copacetic between spirit and matter, do we human beings have such a problem with meshing the two?
 
The answer is that we refuse to use our reason!  If we did, we'd see that there's no need to keep spinning our wheels over a duality that doesn't really exist.
 
Does that mean there's no need for religion, art and science, which we all pursue in our various ways to try and heal that imaginary breach?  Not at all!  Just think what religion, art and science will be able to accomplish, now that we have the firm basis to unite all three!
 
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I can't do your thinking for you.  I can give you the rules of jurisprudence and tell you what kind of evidence you should admit.  But the verdict is ultimately up to you.  Only for God's sake, use your reason!
 
(Dualist:  Then my reason tells me that, although you may be right, you still haven't proved your case.

Atoms have no problems because they ask no questions. If these questions can only be asked of and by a human consciousness, then a human consciousness has to work out the answers within that consciousness.  If you want to help me, you're going to have to talk to me where I live, not in some hypothetical Tinyworld of atoms!)