Prospects for a Phenomenological Idealism

[AshvinP]

One way to conceive intuitive thinking is instinctive activity that is influenced by high ideals. The other day I was watching a cat from above, as she was slowly stalking some prey in the bushes. At the same time, I could see the sun setting behind some mountains. Of course the cat couldn't see the sunset : ) and only humans can see and reflect on both at the same time.

I was thinking, if I could consciously experience the meaning of this sunset penetrating and inspiring my cognitive will like the cat experiences the prey in the bushes motivating its (group) will, then I would be thinking intuitively. Of course the latter experience wouldn't be anything similar to how we experience instincts formatted by our normal thinking. The "meaning" of sunset could be conceived as the vast array of ideational activity that went into making it so I would be perceiving-contemplating the sunset at that exact moment. The closest we normally come is when everything feels to make holistic sense for a few moments and there is a deep purpose to our lives.

So I'm not sure if that helps in this context or how to put it in concise philosophical terms.

It helps me. RS does say that intuitive thinking involves feeling, so I think one could define it as "pure, feeling-thinking". The "pure" could also be replaced by "free", that is, free of entanglements with antipathies and sympathies or outside authority. So an unfree/impure feeling-thinking might be resenting how someone has hurt you. Unfortunately, the only example I can think of of free/pure feeling-thinking is experiencing mathematical beauty, Though I suppose that could be extended to any case of satisfaction when realizing the solution to a problem.

Right, it is certainly thinking that reintegrates the forces of feeling and will. We can say it frees from entanglements with personal feelings and will impulses so as to unveil their inner nature. The outer form is sacrificed to let the inner nature shine forth unimpeded. For ex. with a personal resentment due to a deed that has hurt our feeling, we sacrifice the former so that the actual purpose of that deed in our karmic destiny shines forth. It may have been compenasation for a prior wrong we committed, which then helps smooth out the rhythmic oscillations of feelings and events we experience, and/or the seed opportuny to develop certain capacities of soul and spirit, like the all important capacites to steadfastly endure and forgive. Of course intuitive thinking experiences these connections inwardly as flashes of insight with certainty, not as conceptual speculation or hypotheses.

Really anytime the meaning of thoughts, feelings, events or perceptions in our experience is illuminated, it is by virtue of intuitive thinking. To develop this as a conscious capacity, through the stages of imagination and inspiration as well, we need to awaken to how this illumination is happening. That process itself deepens the level of illumination. It should all lead us to the temporally extended flow of intents that structure our destiny. Even the insights we gain into the process are intentionally granted to us by higher beings. The more we cultivate those gifted insights, the more we participate in aiding their progressive activity of augmenting spiritual wisdom.

[Federica]

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."

Scott - to mitigate your statement - it so happens that in the lecture by Scaligero that I have just posted, there is an explicit reference to the insight brought forward by Steiner in that second part of PoF. For my part, I found that angle illuminating, so I thought I would attract your attention to it. You will find that reference towards the middle of the post, starting with the paragraph that begins: "We should remember that in the cerebral organ there are three orders of force....."

As Ashvin said, there is always more to discover in PoF every time we read it again, but I think that the understanding of "moral" here presented by Scaligero is not a nuance. It's absolutely fundamental to the message of The Philosophy of Freedom Part II.

[ScottRoberts]

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."

Scott - to mitigate your statement - it so happens that in the lecture by Scaligero that I have just posted, there is an explicit reference to the insight brought forward by Steiner in that second part of PoF. For my part, I found that angle illuminating, so I thought I would attract your attention to it. You will find that reference towards the middle of the post, starting with the paragraph that begins: "We should remember that in the cerebral organ there are three orders of force....."

As Ashvin said, there is always more to discover in PoF every time we read it again, but I think that the understanding of "moral" here presented by Scaligero is not a nuance. It's absolutely fundamental to the message of The Philosophy of Freedom Part II.

You're right, something like this needs to be included, but here's the catch: MS says (bold added):

Do you know where this is said? In the Philosophy of Freedom, but don’t search it there now. Train your thinking first. Try to do an intense exercise of thinking, then read again PoF, where our Doctor speaks of the moral impulses, that are the current of Will met by thinking once thinking liberates itself from the cerebral organ.

My question is, how to present PoF for those without trained thinking, in such a way that one is inspired to train one's thinking, which seems to be a prerequisite to truly understand it.

[Federica]

My question is, how to present PoF for those without trained thinking, in such a way that one is inspired to train one's thinking, which seems to be a prerequisite to truly understand it.

Thank you for this question!
Below is my attempt to address it visually. Sorry I have to delay comment to the next day, I'm falling asleep.

[ScottRoberts]

Federica,

Those are great diagrams. Now how to put it in words without mentioning Lucifer, Ahriman or Christ, or metabolic force on the brain.

Re-reading MS, I think the following sentence provides a handle on a way forward. "Finally, a right thought has force of action like the instincts have." So now to put in words how thought might acquire that force. I think one will have to go beyond, though not far, what is explicitly stated in PoF. And that is to point out that any concentration exercise, no matter how short, is an example of one's own willed thinking. So the message is "Hey, you wanna be free? Learn to will your own thinking, that is, learn to concentrate."

[Federica]

With the two pictures above I have tried to represent two hypothetical progressions through deeper and deeper layers of understanding of PoF, two approaches to the liberation of thinking, with the help of PoF as a tool. I say ‘hypothetical’ because I haven’t accomplished it for myself and this is only a picture of my intuitions. This being said, I am not sure that anything of this kind should be included in the work you are doing, Scott, unless you decide to make it explicitly pedagogical, rather than an easily intelligible condensation of the book’s essential thread.

In anycase, I believe that nothing can or even should be said as introduction to inspire someone without trained thinking to do exercises parallel to reading PoF. It would be too early. I think that one has to progressively realize that for oneself. As MS pointed out in another lecture, with this book, Steiner comes to meet the inquirer at the level of Ahrimanic entanglement in which almost all of us are in the present evolutionary phase. This starting point is represented by the lower left vertex in the first image. There we have an expectation to diligently apply our intellectual understanding to the philosophy in the book. At that point, we can’t yet realize - neither as understanding, nor as practice - the relevance of doing the exercises, in other words, the unity of understanding, doing and being. Steiner knows that of course, which is why he sends our way this ‘safety belt’ (PoF). So I believe the appropriate thing to do is to accept the help and grab the life belt, not to exhaust oneself trying to swim while we are still fully into strong instinctive currents. As long as we have an indescribable impulse to explore reality, understand it and save our life (as long as we have enough engagement to persist in the effort of reading the book) it’s enough for a start. The book takes our hand and guides us along that logical-philosophical process that matches the space of our expectations in that moment.

As we begin to activate our being (our thinking activity) in this rational, guided approach to reality, the way forward may take different shapes. A few may ‘naturally’ feel an early need to complement reading with thinking exercises. I pictured this case in the first image. The triangle represents our potential thinking space. One has to start by apprehending the book under Ahrimanic dominion, as much as one has to start doing the exercises from within Luciferic currents of enthusiasm, impatience, wishes, variety of subjective feelings… ego boost, powerlessness, whatever they might be. Nevertheless, to the extent that one persists and stays afloat through these currents with certain (even clumsy) resilience, soon enough the horizon begins to clarify. The currents begin to weaken, and a new ability is discovered. It's the ability to differentiate the arbitrary half-thoughts imposed to our consciousness by the physicality of of our rational and emotional instincts, through the mediation of our digesting brain, from the more objective and pure thoughts. I would say, we recognize these thoughts at first by a certain quality of ‘otherness’ and neutrality. In the picture, this is symbolized by the white path of progression soon leaving behind the agitated spheres of Ahriman and Lucifer.

The more we dwell in the center of our thinking activity, freed from the descent of arbitrary thoughts, invaders of our inner space, the more we notice these novel thoughts. In a subtle way, they don’t feel like our usual go-to thoughts, that we tend to cultivate in series, that we (self)lovingly feed with crude thought-fertilizer, that we feel are self-evident, obvious thoughts, with intrinsic right to manifest that we combatively reclaim. The new thoughts appear through the same familiar channels as our gross gut-thoughts, and yet we stare at them wide-eyed for a second, unsure what to do with this quality of thought that strangely doesn’t seem to require that we take side, stance and oath to its reinforcement. These thoughts are not ionized, they are not trading, so to say. Rather, they simply shine their own accomplished energy without triggering any movement of attachment. We don't use them for self-reinforcement.

I believe that one can experience something of this differentiated quality of thought long before any advanced understanding of PoF and explorations across the threshold are attained. In the picture, the white path starts to progress in the calm middle regions of the triangle long before the top vertex of initiation is approached. By the way, the path is drawn as univocally ascending, however in reality it can plateau and also regress, if the fuel of will doesn’t take over at some point. The lifebelt takes us shelter from the currents, but then it’s up to us to power our further progression out of our own intention. The free human being has to do it independently, to be ‘human’ in the full sense. Steiner points to the will as the one activity not mediated by the physical body (we are deeply asleep into it) hence not submitted to instinctive currents, which is why it’s in the middle of the image, as the sole force that can lift thinking and feeling upwards, towards full liberation.

In this context, I think there is a potential misunderstanding in the interpretation of ‘moral’ in PoF if we only say: "Base your actions on your own ideals, arrived at by your own thinking". Maybe it would be worth pointing out for the reader, that it doesn’t mean that any ideal is possible, provided that one really owns it. Rather, what is moral is objective, is discovered. And following one’s own ideals means to recognize them in the fabric of reality first. It is a recognition, not an imposition, and that’s where our freedom operates, not that we are free to establish our morality for ourselves, out of our private considerations.

How to inspire others to engage the path? I think there are several ways, but one of them is to constantly recall that it’s a progression that must be carried out on a very large front, every aspect has to improve in parallel and in connection with each other in cyclical progression. It means to refrain from the blueprint approach, the step by step, the to-do-list approach, that wants to cut everything into digestible small bits. So the understanding of “moral” necessarily requires multiple rounds around the same thinking threads. It’s a rhythmic process, in which we repetedly mobilize and challenge our whole being, not only our displaced thinking and feeling that feed on the spoiled currents of emotional and intellectual instincts. Because, if we only reason through the chapters, we are foreced to consider them through the Ahrimanic lens, that is as familiar to us as our default, naive realist approach to everyday life. This is why we also need to engage our being in some other way that can provide a pivot, to help us shift our drenched thinking habits out of their reality-wide blind spot.

In the second picture, I have imagined an alternative path to improve one’s thinking, to emancipate it from the gross currents, for those who are not immediately inspired to energetically and consistently train their thinking from the start (as it has also happened to me). I can imagine that a majority of readers would find it difficult to engage the will early on to such a big extent. So I imagine that another way to make initial progress without consistent exercise is to practice intellectual openness and good will on one side, reading again and again, investing plenty of energy in an effort towards wise understanding, while on the other side engaging the feeling of gratitude, humility, and connection through prayer. I believe that such intentions can cooperate with each other. They can end up shifting the centers of activity away from the strong instinctual currents, and towards the stiller waters of more neutral, objective thinking. Not as a way to work around meditation and thinking exercises, but only to first release the pull of the lower instincts as much as possible, and attune our whole being to the quality of true thinking in a fluid way, that can be met by the will in a possibly smoother progression.

[Federica]

Federica,

Those are great diagrams. Now how to put it in words without mentioning Lucifer, Ahriman or Christ, or metabolic force on the brain.

Re-reading MS, I think the following sentence provides a handle on a way forward. "Finally, a right thought has force of action like the instincts have." So now to put in words how thought might acquire that force. I think one will have to go beyond, though not far, what is explicitly stated in PoF. And that is to point out that any concentration exercise, no matter how short, is an example of one's own willed thinking. So the message is "Hey, you wanna be free? Learn to will your own thinking, that is, learn to concentrate."

Scott,

Sorry I took a much larger round in my previous post! But to address the practical question of how to express the point concisely, I think the sentence: "Finally, a right thought has force of action like the instincts have" is certainly true, but I wonder whether it would be interpreted by a new reader as a focus on taking outward action in the world? I would almost be tempted to turn it around and say that "a right action (for ex. an exercise of concentration) has force of thought", it helps us discover the objective thinking fabric of reality.

And how can thought acquire that force (the force of will, rather than the force of instincts): yes, exactly, as you say, by purposefully operating that connection, for example in the exercise of concentration. When we learn to will our thinking, we discover, or recognize, the fabric of reality, and our freedom resides in actively operating that recognition of the objective moral fabric of reality. This is a very difficult idea to convey to a new reader, I think. That objective reality is the same thing as morality, and that discovering it is freedom... it sounds like craziness to the neophyte

So I believe that all in all, your concise expressions are the closest one can get!

[AshvinP]

Federica,

Those are great diagrams. Now how to put it in words without mentioning Lucifer, Ahriman or Christ, or metabolic force on the brain.

Re-reading MS, I think the following sentence provides a handle on a way forward. "Finally, a right thought has force of action like the instincts have." So now to put in words how thought might acquire that force. I think one will have to go beyond, though not far, what is explicitly stated in PoF. And that is to point out that any concentration exercise, no matter how short, is an example of one's own willed thinking. So the message is "Hey, you wanna be free? Learn to will your own thinking, that is, learn to concentrate."

These are interesting thoughts to pursue further. To make it more phenomenological, we could use concrete examples of the gradient of Cosmic Will which finally expresses itself freely at the tip of our capacity for supersensible thinking. These shouldn't be mistaken for hard rules, but simply domains of fluid experience that point to overlapping spheres of influence. 

The physical environment we encounter during our lifetime is clearly based on the most collective factors beyond our normal conscious control. The same thing applies to our family relationships. Our social relationships begin to invite more freely established connections, but still, these are largely rooted in temperament, preferences, sympathies, etc. A similar thing applies to the job we do for a living if it is not driven by mere necessity. The daily routines we engage in, like brushing our teeth, taking a shower, eating certain types of meals at certain times, working for certain hours, etc. are conditioned by our human and cultural socialization that mostly took place in our youngest years. So gradually we find that every aspect of our temporally extended experience is highly conditioned beyond our conscious purview, until we finally arrive at the moral intent to study spiritual science or engage in concentration on a concept-image, where we then find novel degrees of freedom. There is a genuine capacity there for us to steer our stream of becoming free of subconscious influences. 

The other issue, however, is that all of the above remains as floating concepts that the intellect plays with until we practice paying attention to the conditioning of our experience for some time, and simultaneously deepening our attentional capacity via spiritual exercises. We need to feed ourselves a consistent diet of this motivated attention to the various spiritual layers of experience we encounter throughout the days. So how to provide that motivation? I agree with Federica that it cannot be forced and can only be prompted in others to the extent they have already decided to devote some portion of their thinking activity to the pursuit of unprejudiced Truth. There should be some burning desire to pursue the completely unfamiliar and unsuspected ways of thinking through the World. Of course, most people on philosophy forums would say they are doing just that, but we can see that even on an analytic idealist forum many would rather tune out of the discussion. The intellect needs to confront its own self-sabotaging tendency every step of the way.

[Güney27]

Federica,

Those are great diagrams. Now how to put it in words without mentioning Lucifer, Ahriman or Christ, or metabolic force on the brain.

Re-reading MS, I think the following sentence provides a handle on a way forward. "Finally, a right thought has force of action like the instincts have." So now to put in words how thought might acquire that force. I think one will have to go beyond, though not far, what is explicitly stated in PoF. And that is to point out that any concentration exercise, no matter how short, is an example of one's own willed thinking. So the message is "Hey, you wanna be free? Learn to will your own thinking, that is, learn to concentrate."

These are interesting thoughts to pursue further. To make it more phenomenological, we could use concrete examples of the gradient of Cosmic Will which finally expresses itself freely at the tip of our capacity for supersensible thinking. These shouldn't be mistaken for hard rules, but simply domains of fluid experience that point to overlapping spheres of influence. 

The physical environment we encounter during our lifetime is clearly based on the most collective factors beyond our normal conscious control. The same thing applies to our family relationships. Our social relationships begin to invite more freely established connections, but still, these are largely rooted in temperament, preferences, sympathies, etc. A similar thing applies to the job we do for a living if it is not driven by mere necessity. The daily routines we engage in, like brushing our teeth, taking a shower, eating certain types of meals at certain times, working for certain hours, etc. are conditioned by our human and cultural socialization that mostly took place in our youngest years. So gradually we find that every aspect of our temporally extended experience is highly conditioned beyond our conscious purview, until we finally arrive at the moral intent to study spiritual science or engage in concentration on a concept-image, where we then find novel degrees of freedom. There is a genuine capacity there for us to steer our stream of becoming free of subconscious influences. 

The other issue, however, is that all of the above remains as floating concepts that the intellect plays with until we practice paying attention to the conditioning of our experience for some time, and simultaneously deepening our attentional capacity via spiritual exercises. We need to feed ourselves a consistent diet of this motivated attention to the various spiritual layers of experience we encounter throughout the days. So how to provide that motivation? I agree with Federica that it cannot be forced and can only be prompted in others to the extent they have already decided to devote some portion of their thinking activity to the pursuit of unprejudiced Truth. There should be some burning desire to pursue the completely unfamiliar and unsuspected ways of thinking through the World. Of course, most people on philosophy forums would say they are doing just that, but we can see that even on an analytic idealist forum many would rather tune out of the discussion. The intellect needs to confront its own self-sabotaging tendency every step of the way.

Ashvin,
Is there a chance to talk to you privately?

[AshvinP]

Federica,

Those are great diagrams. Now how to put it in words without mentioning Lucifer, Ahriman or Christ, or metabolic force on the brain.

Re-reading MS, I think the following sentence provides a handle on a way forward. "Finally, a right thought has force of action like the instincts have." So now to put in words how thought might acquire that force. I think one will have to go beyond, though not far, what is explicitly stated in PoF. And that is to point out that any concentration exercise, no matter how short, is an example of one's own willed thinking. So the message is "Hey, you wanna be free? Learn to will your own thinking, that is, learn to concentrate."

These are interesting thoughts to pursue further. To make it more phenomenological, we could use concrete examples of the gradient of Cosmic Will which finally expresses itself freely at the tip of our capacity for supersensible thinking. These shouldn't be mistaken for hard rules, but simply domains of fluid experience that point to overlapping spheres of influence. 

The physical environment we encounter during our lifetime is clearly based on the most collective factors beyond our normal conscious control. The same thing applies to our family relationships. Our social relationships begin to invite more freely established connections, but still, these are largely rooted in temperament, preferences, sympathies, etc. A similar thing applies to the job we do for a living if it is not driven by mere necessity. The daily routines we engage in, like brushing our teeth, taking a shower, eating certain types of meals at certain times, working for certain hours, etc. are conditioned by our human and cultural socialization that mostly took place in our youngest years. So gradually we find that every aspect of our temporally extended experience is highly conditioned beyond our conscious purview, until we finally arrive at the moral intent to study spiritual science or engage in concentration on a concept-image, where we then find novel degrees of freedom. There is a genuine capacity there for us to steer our stream of becoming free of subconscious influences. 

The other issue, however, is that all of the above remains as floating concepts that the intellect plays with until we practice paying attention to the conditioning of our experience for some time, and simultaneously deepening our attentional capacity via spiritual exercises. We need to feed ourselves a consistent diet of this motivated attention to the various spiritual layers of experience we encounter throughout the days. So how to provide that motivation? I agree with Federica that it cannot be forced and can only be prompted in others to the extent they have already decided to devote some portion of their thinking activity to the pursuit of unprejudiced Truth. There should be some burning desire to pursue the completely unfamiliar and unsuspected ways of thinking through the World. Of course, most people on philosophy forums would say they are doing just that, but we can see that even on an analytic idealist forum many would rather tune out of the discussion. The intellect needs to confront its own self-sabotaging tendency every step of the way.

Ashvin,
Is there a chance to talk to you privately?

Guney,

Do you want to send me a PM?