Eugene I wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 2:03 pm
1) From what I 've read, I haven't seen any explicit ontological idealist statements by Steiner, so it looks like the original PoF is not specifically idealism. But you always described it as ideaism, that's why I assumed that it is. So, may be your interpretation of PoF and the original Steiner's formulation of it are actually different. I haven't figure that out yet.
2) Isn't is exactly what Cleric tell us all the time?: "the consciousness or spiritual soul it is the very shapes and dynamics of our spiritual activity that are being (directly) known". And notice that I fully agree with it
2) This is based on your statements that the totality of reality is equivalent to its ideal content, and therefore, in principle all cognizable by thinking activity. But here is the quote from the abridged PoF confirming that:
"There are no universal limits to knowledge, only individual ones"
1) Ok so at least we have cleared up that this assumption is
not made.
PoF is a book, Eugene. We have stated over and over again it is Steiner's phenomenology of Thinking. An idealist can write a book without making idealist assumptions for the arguments in a book. And it is obviously one of many books and many more lectures produced by Steiner. There really exists no personality in the history of humanity more prolific that I can think of.
That being said, Steiner reaches the
conclusion of idealist monism in PoF,
after he conducts the phenomenology. It is pretty useless to engage in such a philosophical endeavor without reaching any firm conclusions, but I recognize that is all too common in the modern age. People want to endlessly speculate for their ego to have a voice, so they reach no firm conclusions and they foreclose on the very possibility of anyone else reaching firm conclusions. Steiner was not like that.
2) I am talking about assumptions in PoF, which is what you initially claimed. Do you see "
the consciousness or spiritual soul it is the very shapes and dynamics of our spiritual activity that are being (directly) known" used as an assumption by Steiner in PoF? Again, it makes no sense to mix up the conclusions we have stated here with the assumptions Steiner made [actually, did not make] in PoF.
3)
"There are no universal limits to knowledge, only individual ones" - Again, this is a conclusion Steiner reaches after
many pages of logical argumentation. I really hope you now understand the difference between simply stating metaphysical conclusions and reasoning them out from the givens of experience.
But, it seems in general you just ignore everything we write here, such as Cleric's endless analogies to explain his arguments to you, so I am not surprised it is the same with Steiner and PoF. That's why I said you need to get back in touch with meaning of "prejudice". When we are simply ignoring things and perceiving whatever we want to perceive in other's writing, no matter what they write or how many times they write it, then clearly there is prejudice at work.
prejudice [ prej-uh-dis ]
1 an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.
2 any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable.