ScottRoberts wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 9:48 pm
Well, I seem to be stuck in Part II. On the one hand, I can't put into my own words what Steiner means by "intuitive thinking", at least as something one can distinguish in ordinary consciousness. (Any suggestions on that welcome, In Theosophy he says it is true and good ideas we get from the Spirit Self, but that of course won't do.) On the other, I'm not convinced that the message of Part II is any more than "Base your actions on your own ideals, arrived at by your own thinking." Or as Max Leyf says: "Fundamentally, acting out of freedom means striving to realize ideals that one has set for oneself. Put another way, a free deed is one that is performed for reasons that are one's own."
And on Part I, I think that Barfield's
Rudolf Steiner's Concept of Mind does all I wanted to do. It is the last essay in Barfield's
Romanticism Comes of Age (1966 edition, it's not in earlier editions), but is available on-line
here.
One could give an even shorter summary, but is it worth it? The PDF is only 7 pages.
The way I see it, by intuitive thinking Steiner means living thinking. Thinking that becomes aware of its potential as it seeks to explore the depth of that potential. It's thinking that wants to work on and through itself, towards higher and higher levels of consciousness. In this sense it encompasses feeling just as much as it encompasses the will. I don't think it's definable as feeling-thinking in particular. Rather, all conscious activity is set right, ennobled, when experienced through the light of (intuitive) thinking. "Pure" seems to me like an appropriate adjective, inasmuch as it refers to thinking experienced in its most proper nature. I believe that replacing "pure" with "free" would be less explicative in this context.
In terms of examples, I agree that resenting is impure, unintuitive thinking, (literally) narrow-minded: it's thinking stuck in the short waves of temporal fragments that can hardly provide meaning in isolation. Another easy example would be intellectual thinking, materialistic thinking, modeling. And for the positive examples: any thinking exercise, concentration, meditation, that incorporates the
intent towards the purity of thinking (not necessarily the fully accomplished result); naturally, all sense-free thinking activity also, where thinking seeks expansion within itself, without any sense-perceptible anchor; and, any imperfect conscious
attempt in these directions is pure thinking too, I would say. About the beauty of a mathematical solution, I would think: yes, great example, and also all the thinking leading to that beautiful solution, to the extent that the mathematical solution is lived ‘from within’, to the extent that it becomes the shape of our being, as Cleric would say. On the contrary, if the solution is satisfying from some utilitarian perspective that lies outside thinking, or if it's been pursued as part of an intellectual reasoning, executed from the side, then it's ordinary thinking, that has little to do with the intention of pure thinking.
Regarding Barfield's essay (thank you for sharing it!) I have only read the first of the 7 pages (I've found the word "axiome" alarming
). Still, my impression is that the work you are doing is different, and not at all nullified by this essay. You are writing a contextual reading guide, where you want to refrain from elaborations of any kind. It will surely be highly useful, in a very distinct way with respect to Barfield’s comments.