Philosophy Unbound: Schopenhauer vs. Steiner (Round One)

[AshvinP]

OK. Let's use me as example I accept the Oneness of Consciousness. Yet you say that I must "ALSO take into consideration the One Consciousness, so that our consideration will be more complete and encompassing." In other words, I'm puzzled because I take it in full consideration, but since you say that I must take it into consideration, clearly you have something more in mind. If you would have to give me practical and concrete advice, what would you suggest that I work on? What exactly you see missing which needs to be balanced out, in what way the Oneness of Consciousness is neglected?

Cleric, I'm glad you are open to see the missing pieces. As I explained in my previous posts, the Oneness of Consciousness in its fullness can be realized only by embracing the formless aspects of Consciousness in addition to and together with the knowledge of the ideal content (forms). If we only know the forms (ideas, ideal content, ideal relations) with thinking, surely there is Oneness of Consciousness within the ideal content (exactly as you said), but if the formless is left neglected, such realization of Oneness is incomplete, because the full Oneness of Consciousness necessarily includes all aspects of Reality, including formless. It's like a coin with two sides: of course each side is no other than the coin, but that does not mean that if we only know on side then we know the whole coin. To know the whole coin, we need to look at both sides. Likewise, Consciousness has two aspects - forms/ideas and formless, they are both no other than Consciousness and are simply two aspects of it, yet each has unique qualities, and so, knowing only one aspect and neglecting the other would make such knowledge of the Oneness incomplete.

But the problem with the formless side is that, because the formless is not an idea, thinking can only make an approximate idea about the formless, but this knowledge of the formless by thinking is never the same as experiencing the formless. Any ideas of formless are usually quite inadequate when they are not based on the direct experiencing of formless. So, the only way to know the formless as it "actually is" is by direct experiencing it. Such experience also brings realization of the fundamental Oneness of Consciousness in its formless aspect. Because formless is the same in every form and every idea, it is like a "glue" that unites everything into oneness (in addition to the oneness of the ideal content through its inter-relations). Once it is experienced, thinking can "process" this experience and develop more appropriate ideal reflection of it to complement and complete its knowledge of Reality with all knowable aspects embraced. So, to know the formless, thinking alone is not enough, but pure "thoughtless" experience of formless without thinking is also not enough, so for the realization of formless both are necessarily needed.

As I said before, no miracles happen and we do not become omniscient and do not start flying when we experientially realize the formless. It's just that we start experiencing the oneness of everything, not only knowing it by thinking, and such experiencing brings harmony, peace and love and naturally dissolves our selfish/egoic unconscious patterns that are dissonant with the experience of oneness. Psychologically everyone can test it for themselves: if we only have an idea of oneness in our thinking, this knowledge is quite fragile because every time we are caught by egoic emotions, we immediately forget those beautiful ideas and start acting like selfish apes. But when we actually see the oneness as a fact of Reality, we do not get so easily disrupted (even though it still happens, but just less easily). So, such experience facilitates our development and growth from egoic half-monkeys into mature and stable spiritual personalities. But that does not cancel the importance of the development of thinking. Like the Reality has two sides (formless-form), likewise our development has two sides - progression in the knowledge of forms by thinking, and progression in the deepening of the experiential-intellectual knowledge of formless, with both sides complementing and facilitating each other.

I don't know man... I just don't know. Cleric says, "Ignoring the Cosmic structure by expecting that is has influence over us only while in a body is a fully legitimate belief but it doesn't save us from consequences, just as a wall won't make an exception for us just because we believe that we can ignore it and walk through it." You say, "yes exactly!... absolutely agreed!... precisely right!, etc..." and then add something along the lines of, "oh, but, you are still ignoring 'formless' aspect and every detail of spiritual Reality you describe is not any more objectively valid than the NDE accounts I have come across", thereby rejecting the main points of Cleric's entire post. You have called them "fantasies" plenty times before in a manner which makes it seem like they are no more than vivid imaginations combing a bunch of different spiritual elements together to create a nice and interesting story. And somehow, throughout all of that, "formless aspect" never includes Thinking for you, even thought that's exactly what the formless aspect is. It is truly beyond perplexing at this point.

[AshvinP]

"Secondly, we should remember (or now take notice) that Steiner discusses Schopenhauer's philosophy in many different books and lectures, not just that short passage from PoF."

I may have a file of all of Steiner's specific comments on Schopenhauer. I'll check.

I hope you do, because you have made the claim Steiner has a "shallow" understanding of Schopenhauer several times now and I am also interested to see in what context you are making that claim. As you said before, it would be very unlikely for Steiner to put forward a shallow understanding of any philosophical topic or thinker. I wonder if you think such a shallow understanding is also revealed in this lecture re: Hegel and Schopenhauer? I tried to shorten the lecture as much as I could to only leave those parts directly relevant to the idealist philosophical arguments between Cosmic Thought and Cosmic Will.

Two other personality also represented polar opposites but with them it is impossible to say some kind of equilibrium was established: Hegel on the one side and Schopenhauer on the other. You only have to consider what I put forward in my “Riddles of Philosophy” to see the deep opposition between Schopenhauer and Hegel. It appears relevant that Schopenhauer really spared no swearwords in what he held as the truth in his characterization of his opponent Hegel. In many of Schopenhauer's work there is the wildest scolding of Hegel, Hegelianism and everything related to it. Hegel had less reason to scold Schopenhauer, because, before Hegel died, Schopenhauer would actually have remained without influence, not being established amongst remarkable philosophers. The contrast between these two personalities can be characterised by indicating how Hegel regarded the foundation of the world and the world development and everything pertaining to it, as consisting of real thought elements. Hegel firmly believed that thoughts were the foundation of everything. Hegel's philosophy fell into three parts: Firstly in logic, not subjective human logic but the system of thought that must form the foundation of the world. Secondly Hegel had his philosophy of nature, but nature for him was nothing other than an idea, not even an idea with a difference, but the idea which implies it exists out-of-itself. So also nature is an idea, but the idea in a different form, in a form which is sense-perceptible to people, ideas by contrast. The idea which reverts back to itself, this was to him the human being's spirit which had developed out of the simplest human-spiritual activities into the world's history and up to the beginning of the human subjective spirit in religion, art and science. When one wants to study Hegel's philosophy thus, you need to allow yourself entry into the development of world thoughts, just like Hegel let these world thoughts explain themselves.

Schopenhauer is the opposite. For Hegel thoughts, world thoughts were creative, actual reality in things; for Schopenhauer every thought was merely subjective, and as a subjective image only something unreal. For him the only real thing was will. Just as Hegel followed with human thought into everything mineral, animal or vegetative, for Schopenhauer it was all about “the will of nature”. So one can say Hegel is the thought philosopher and Schopenhauer the will philosopher.
...
Now let's consider Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer is, I might say, the admirer of the will. That he has cosmic will in mind appears everywhere in Schopenhauer's work, in particular in the delightful treatise “Regarding the Will in Nature” where everything which exists and lives in nature is taken from a basis of will, expressed in the elemental power of nature.

... Just as we saw how Hegel pointed more to the West, so we see how Schopenhauer pointed towards the East. In the East however we don't find anything which is an element of will and what Schopenhauer really felt as the actual element of the East, was materialised and pressed into thinking and thus intellectualized. The entire form of the representation of cosmic will, which lies at the basis of eastern soul-life, does not appear as originating from the intellect, it is partly a poetic, partly a section derived directly from the observation of the relevant representation. Schopenhauer took what the oriental image form wanted to convey and intellectualized it in the Central European way; however that which he refers to, the cosmic will, this was after all the element at which he was pointing; from this he had formulated his soul orientation. This element is what lived in the world view of the Orient. When the oriental world view is permeated with love in particular, this element of love becomes nothing other than some aspect of cosmic will, and is not just raised from the intellect. So we may say: here the will is spiritualized. Like thoughts are materialised in the West, so in the East will becomes spiritualized.
...
It is quite extraordinary when you allow Schopenhauer's philosophy to work on you, the thought-element appears somewhat flat; Schopenhauer's philosophy is really not deep, but it has at the same time something intoxicating, something wilful which throbs within. Schopenhauer becomes most attractive and charming when shallow thoughts are penetrated with his will element - then traces of the warmth of will are found to some extent in his sentences. As a result he basically has become a shallow salon philosopher of his age. As the thought provoking age, which the first half of the nineteenth century was, passed and people suffered from thought deprivation, the time came for Schopenhauer to become the salon philosopher. Not much effort was needed to think, while the thrill of thought throbbing with will was allowed its influence particularly when something like “Parerga and Paralipomena” (“Appendices and Omissions” — philosophical reflections published 1851) came through, where these thrilling thoughts could work their craftiness.
...
Should you want to schematically draw this Hegelian historical philosophy, here thoughts would rise up (a drawing is made), rise up, distort each other mutually and thus go through the historic development and in this web of thoughts people are spun in and are swept away by the thoughts. Thus actually for Hegel the historical development of these coalescing, corrupt thoughts harness people as automatons, out of these webs of world historic thought this thought system had to develop. For Schopenhauer of course thoughts were nothing more than froth. He directed his gaze to cosmic will, or in other words, to this sea of cosmic will. The human being is actually only a reservoir where merely a little of this cosmic will is collected. The Schopenhauer philosophy contains nothing of this developmental reasoning or progressive thinking, but is the unclear, irrational, the unreasonable element of will which flows from it. Within the human beings rises up, reflects in him as if it was reason but which he or she actually continually develops as foolishness
...
Hegel looked into the cosmos and saw this web of concepts within history, Schopenhauer looked into the cosmos and didn't see this web of concepts — that was only a mirror image for him — but he saw it as a sea of ruling will, to some extent tapped into these vessels in which human beings swam in this irrational, unreasonable sea of will (drawing is made). Human beings were only being fooled by what reflected in their unreasonable will as actual reason, imagination and thought. Yet these two elements are present in the cosmos. What Hegel saw was already in the cosmos. Cosmic thoughts exist. Hegel and the West viewed the cosmos and perceived world thoughts. Schopenhauer and the East looked at the cosmos and saw world will. Both are within. A useful cosmic world view could c0me into existence if the paradox could have been entered, resulting in Schopenhauer's scolding bringing him so far as to him leaving his skin behind, and despite Hegel's soul remaining in Hegel, that Schopenhauer entered Hegel so that Schopenhauer was actually inside Hegel. Then he would have seen the world-thoughts and world-will fusing! This is the deed which is within the world: world thoughts and world will. They exist in very different forms.

[findingblanks]

"I hope you do, because you have made the claim Steiner has a "shallow" understanding of Schopenhauer several times now..."

Oh, I thought you were just curious to see the various ways Steiner distinguishes the Father principle from the Son and all of that. Nothing about those quotes will address his take on Schopy directly. I've pointed to some specific aspects of where I see Steiner speaking past Schopy and I don't expect them to change your mind one bit. I do enjoy the conversation, especially, as I've already said, the way that teams gets entrenched. I do stand a bit on the sidelines as huge fans of both teams and, even odder, I don't think they are in competition here.

[findingblanks]

"I hope you do, because you have made the claim Steiner has a "shallow" understanding of Schopenhauer several times now...I wonder if you think such a shallow understanding is also revealed in this lecture re: Hegel and Schopenhauer? I tried to shorten the lecture as much as I could to only leave those parts directly relevant to the idealist philosophical arguments between Cosmic Thought and Cosmic Will."

To me you sound somewhat triggered by my claim that there is a specific context in which Steiner hasn't accurately grasped somebody's ideas. I know that for some it is simply impossible that Steiner had misimpressions of other thinkers or topics. I also know that I've never been able to communicate effectively with those students. However, my experience with philosophers is that if they don't fully grasp another thinker they will often do exactly what Steiner did and show how they can 'demolish' that thinkers entire edifice by pointing out a simple contradiction in their thinking. If it helps at all, I know extremely bright and deep thinkers who have 'shallow' understandings of Steiner and do the same thing to him. I love Steiner. He was a genius and a very complex personality. He should be taken context by context. Many of his understandings of child development are the most intricate observations I've ever encountered regarding phenomenological insights about learning. And there are other contexts (his claims about bulls, mars, white humanities mission until the year 3,500 and others) where he engages in errors to smaller and greater degrees. Again, I know there are some who immediately 'know' that such a claims can only come from somebody who hasn't taken the time to read Steiner and probably has no meditative practice. Anyway, I love Steiner as a man and thinker and still learn deeply from him.

Side note:

I've learned that there are a few questions you can ask to serious students of PoF that help sort which pathways they go down regarding how they take in the book. If you have time or the inclination let me know what you think Steiner means by 'exceptional state' in PoF, first mentioned in chapter 3 of The Philosophy Of Freedom. It is also translated as 'exceptional condition' and sometimes as 'exceptional situation.' Here is the paragraph it first appears in:

"But thinking as an object of observation differs essentially from all other objects. The observation of a table, or a tree, occurs in me as soon as these objects appear upon the horizon of my experience. Yet I do not, at the same time, observe my thinking about these things. I observe the table, and I carry out the thinking about the table, but I do not at the same moment observe this. I must first take up a standpoint outside my own activity if, in addition to observing the table, I want also to observe my thinking about the table. Whereas observation of things and events, and thinking about them, are everyday occurrences filling up the continuous current of my life, observation of the thinking itself is a kind of exceptional state."

There is a tacit connection between how many of his students understand 'exceptional state' and some aspects of how the supposed debate between Steiner and Schopenhauer is framed and understood. Anyway, thanks for chatting.

[findingblanks]

Regarding the lecture material you presented:

"Schopenhauer is the opposite. For Hegel thoughts, world thoughts were creative, actual reality in things; for Schopenhauer every thought was merely subjective, and as a subjective image only something unreal. For him the only real thing was will. Just as Hegel followed with human thought into everything mineral, animal or vegetative, for Schopenhauer it was all about “the will of nature”. So one can say Hegel is the thought philosopher and Schopenhauer the will philosopher."

Many people would say that Steiner is the philosopher of 'thinking' based on the words he chose and did not choose in the first editions of PoF. Of course, we know that Steiner considered The Philosophy of Freedom to be about a specific type of willing; yes, a willing that is also a feeling and a thinking.

So, yes, people can get lost in words if they haven't penetrated the ideas of the thinker. It is a very adolecent tendency that causes somebody to say, "But LOOK at the words Steiner/Schopenhauer used! he did/didn't USE the word you are talking about so it is obvious!"

This is similar to what happens if we simply say that Schopenhauer is merely talking about the typical understanding (as if that would be possible) of what 'will' tends to mean. Yes, sure, you could then say it was obvious that Schopenhauer is 'the philosopher of the will' and contrast him with a thinker who talks about concepts being at the base. And that might be useful to make some other broad points; but it certainly doesn't indicate on its own a penetration of what Schopenhauer means by 'will'; the same exact thing goes for people who read PoF and point out that Steiner clearly doesn't see the essential role of willing in pure thought. Sure, Steiner never says they are identical at the level. Doe that mean his text doesn't 'mean' it? I don't think so. Same with Schopenhauer.

But, as I've said, I've never a fan of a thinker change their mind in this context...because it is just so obvious to the fan that their person is speaking logically. I would say that most serious students of Steiner's epistemology (but not all, by a long shot) believe that Steiner did indeed demolish Schopenhauer's entire edifice in PoF by pointing to a logical contradiction in how Steiner reframed Schopenhauer's premises and conclusion. You either see these things or you don't. Well, not true. You can eventually notice you have a different response when reading Steiner. I certainly was in the majority clan for most of my early and mid years studying Steiner.

"The entire form of the representation of cosmic will, which lies at the basis of eastern soul-life, does not appear as originating from the intellect.."

This may or may not be Steiner implying that Schopenhauer's ultimate understanding of the "Will" originates in the intellect.

There is no way on Earth anything could change the mind of somebody who thinks Steiner is merely speaking objectively when he says:

"Schopenhauer's philosophy is really not deep, but it has at the same time something intoxicating, something wilful which throbs within. Schopenhauer becomes most attractive and charming when shallow thoughts are penetrated with his will element - then traces of the warmth of will are found to some extent in his sentences. As a result he basically has become a shallow salon philosopher of his age."

As I've said, I think they both are very deep in different ways (in articulating their own philosophy) and we only really find either shallow when they sum up some other philosopher they feel they are demolished. I agree with Steiner that Schopenhauer is not who we should go to in order to grasp Hegel. I wouldn't go to Steiner to find the depths of Schopenhauer's work. But if somebody wanted to read a short paragraph that supposedly shows that Schopenhauer was speaking nonsense, Steiner (and any other critic of Schopy) is your guy.

"Schopenhauer looked into the cosmos and didn't see this web of concepts."

Jim: Steiner looked into the nature of thinking and did NOT see the activity of willing inherently that it itself was.

Burt: What? How can you say that.

Jim: Well, if you read all of his books on epistemology Steiner makes it very clear that thinking is not the will and that he says we must start by a direct
grasping of the nature of thinking.

Burt: Well, first of all, you clearly haven't read what he wrote 20 years later in his update on the book. But, even still, just because he used terms in a specific way in PoF doesn't mean he wasn't showing directly that the thinking he was describing and pointing to WAS 100% willing as well.

Jim: Hmmm...that sounds silly.

Steiner: Schopenhauer looked into the cosmos and didn't see this web of concepts.

These are intellectual games and when played by fans you really never get anywhere.

Fortunately, despite Steiner's claim, Schopenhauer is a very deep thinker and his edifice can't be taken down by equivocating with his words and our own use of the same words. Fortunately, Steiner is a very deep thinker and the same goes for him. And, yes, both mean can be seen as not always doing a great job characterizing other thinker's works. And, yes, that is blasphemy to a certain kind of student of each of those great thinkers. I can't do anything about that. I've tried. But I've never seen anybody get anywhere on that note.

Here's what I know.

1) You see nothing at all wrong with Steiner's characterization of Schopenhauer. You take his demonstration in PoF to be clear and clean.
2) You have plenty of other students of Steiner who agree with you.
3) I sound rather incoherent (or misguided or naïve or...)to you. But not completely

The good news: Being committed to either of these thinkers can take you very far if you really keep digging into where they were pointing.
The 'bad' news: some people really do believe there is a kind of competition between them.

Thanks for the chat.

[AshvinP]

"I hope you do, because you have made the claim Steiner has a "shallow" understanding of Schopenhauer several times now...I wonder if you think such a shallow understanding is also revealed in this lecture re: Hegel and Schopenhauer? I tried to shorten the lecture as much as I could to only leave those parts directly relevant to the idealist philosophical arguments between Cosmic Thought and Cosmic Will."

To me you sound somewhat triggered by my claim that there is a specific context in which Steiner hasn't accurately grasped somebody's ideas. I know that for some it is simply impossible that Steiner had misimpressions of other thinkers or topics. I also know that I've never been able to communicate effectively with those students. However, my experience with philosophers is that if they don't fully grasp another thinker they will often do exactly what Steiner did and show how they can 'demolish' that thinkers entire edifice by pointing out a simple contradiction in their thinking. If it helps at all, I know extremely bright and deep thinkers who have 'shallow' understandings of Steiner and do the same thing to him. I love Steiner. He was a genius and a very complex personality. He should be taken context by context. Many of his understandings of child development are the most intricate observations I've ever encountered regarding phenomenological insights about learning. And there are other contexts (his claims about bulls, mars, white humanities mission until the year 3,500 and others) where he engages in errors to smaller and greater degrees. Again, I know there are some who immediately 'know' that such a claims can only come from somebody who hasn't taken the time to read Steiner and probably has no meditative practice. Anyway, I love Steiner as a man and thinker and still learn deeply from him.

I have no idea why you think I am "triggered" - I am just asking for the evidence that supports your argument (that is what we lawyers do!) Like Cleric, I am genuinely curious about how you arrive to that conclusion, because you seem to be very familiar with Steiner's writings. I only started investigating his philosophical writings seriously 6-9 months ago, so I am sure you are much more familiar with them than me. Although, it is true, the fact that someone could draw my utmost respect and awe with philosophical arguments over such a relatively short amount of time is something I attribute completely to his brilliance combined with the truth of his claims. That being said, I do not rule out the possibility he misrepresented another philosopher... there are many ways in which such misrepresentations could occur within the German idealist tradition without necessarily "downgrading" Steiner's brilliance and the Spirit working through him. So far, though, I still have not seen any argument from you for that conclusion (except what you wrote in comment to Cleric, but I also could not follow what the argument was exactly).

Side note:

I've learned that there are a few questions you can ask to serious students of PoF that help sort which pathways they go down regarding how they take in the book. If you have time or the inclination let me know what you think Steiner means by 'exceptional state' in PoF, first mentioned in chapter 3 of The Philosophy Of Freedom. It is also translated as 'exceptional condition' and sometimes as 'exceptional situation.' Here is the paragraph it first appears in:

"But thinking as an object of observation differs essentially from all other objects. The observation of a table, or a tree, occurs in me as soon as these objects appear upon the horizon of my experience. Yet I do not, at the same time, observe my thinking about these things. I observe the table, and I carry out the thinking about the table, but I do not at the same moment observe this. I must first take up a standpoint outside my own activity if, in addition to observing the table, I want also to observe my thinking about the table. Whereas observation of things and events, and thinking about them, are everyday occurrences filling up the continuous current of my life, observation of the thinking itself is a kind of exceptional state."

There is a tacit connection between how many of his students understand 'exceptional state' and some aspects of how the supposed debate between Steiner and Schopenhauer is framed and understood. Anyway, thanks for chatting.

I take it to mean "a very unusual" state, which is easily verified by our experience. The entire time I was writing my above response to you I did not reflect even once on my thinking activity. And that is how we normally operate during our lives. I am sure quite a few people go an entire lifetime without making their thinking "an object of observation". Only when you brought attention to my thinking via Steiner bringing attention to it, did I slow down and reflect some on that thinking. But, as Steiner also points out, as soon as I start reflecting on my thinking, there is another underlying 'layer' of thinking, which is 'pushed back' so to speak, and I am not reflecting on that layer. That must continue ad infinitum.

[AshvinP]

Of course, we know that Steiner considered The Philosophy of Freedom to be about a specific type of willing; yes, a willing that is also a feeling and a thinking.
...
Sure, Steiner never says they are identical at the level. Doe that mean his text doesn't 'mean' it? I don't think so. Same with Schopenhauer.

I still don't exactly get what you are claiming here. Steiner holds willing, feeling, thinking as Triune aspect of all experience. He does not reduce any of those aspects to any other. But he clearly distinguishes their spiritual roles in our experience. Willing does not have the same spiritual role as Thinking, for him. Are you denying that?

"The entire form of the representation of cosmic will, which lies at the basis of eastern soul-life, does not appear as originating from the intellect.."

This may or may not be Steiner implying that Schopenhauer's ultimate understanding of the "Will" originates in the intellect.

There is no way on Earth anything could change the mind of somebody who thinks Steiner is merely speaking objectively when he says:

"Schopenhauer's philosophy is really not deep, but it has at the same time something intoxicating, something wilful which throbs within. Schopenhauer becomes most attractive and charming when shallow thoughts are penetrated with his will element - then traces of the warmth of will are found to some extent in his sentences. As a result he basically has become a shallow salon philosopher of his age."

As I've said, I think they both are very deep in different ways (in articulating their own philosophy) and we only really find either shallow when they sum up some other philosopher they feel they are demolished. I agree with Steiner that Schopenhauer is not who we should go to in order to grasp Hegel. I wouldn't go to Steiner to find the depths of Schopenhauer's work. But if somebody wanted to read a short paragraph that supposedly shows that Schopenhauer was speaking nonsense, Steiner (and any other critic of Schopy) is your guy.
...
Here's what I know.

1) You see nothing at all wrong with Steiner's characterization of Schopenhauer. You take his demonstration in PoF to be clear and clean.
2) You have plenty of other students of Steiner who agree with you.
3) I sound rather incoherent (or misguided or naïve or...)to you. But not completely

The good news: Being committed to either of these thinkers can take you very far if you really keep digging into where they were pointing.
The 'bad' news: some people really do believe there is a kind of competition between them.

Thanks for the chat.

I think Steiner is definitely speaking objectively in that quote. The "will" in that sense is truly intoxicating when it penetrates mere intellectual concepts. Again, the objective validity of that fact is something we can all very with our own experience (something which makes the PoF so awe-inspiring). Mere intellectual concepts are dead superficial remains of living ideas, and the Will does in fact give them a sort of life which is "most attractive and charming". I suspect most people do not need to even reflect on that claim for more than a few moments before intuiting its truth.

[findingblanks]

"I have no idea why you think I am "triggered" - I am just asking for the evidence that supports your argument (that is what we lawyers do!) Like Cleric, I am genuinely curious about how you arrive to that conclusion.."

The fact that you keep saying you need 'evidence' for my claim and that you are just being objective (rather than reference anything I've said in relation to my criticism of Steiner reducing Schopenhauer's entire edifice to Steiner's own summary of Schopy's premises) speaks to my point that there is no way I can even begin to convince you that Steiner might be wrong. Or, maybe: it would help if you gave me three examples where you think Steiner mispresented another thinker. That way, I could at least see some pattern in what 'counts' as evidence for you. Obviously, nobody here is a Schopenhauer expert and I don't think anybody is pretending to be. Except for Steiner. In a few sentences he 'proved' with conclusive 'evidence' that Schopenhauer was speaking nonsense. I used to take that portion of PoF exactly as most serious students do and I remember it clearly.

My turn to ask a question. You wrote:

"That being said, I do not rule out the possibility he misrepresented another philosopher..."

In the section in The Philosophy of Freedom where Steiner says that he has shown the utterly baselessness of one of Schopenhauer's core points, do you agree 100% with Steiner? in other words, do you have any qualms whatsoever about how Steiner rewords Schopenhauer's argument or any qualms at all about Steiner's claim that this summary proves Schopenhauer is contradicting himself from the beginning? And also, do you realize what I mean when I point out the silliness when people think they have proven Steiner wrong by showing that he dissociated the will and thinking in his first editions of PoF? I have a strong feeling you think I am correct about the latter and, regarding the former, you believe that, yes, Steiner proved that Schopenhauer's core claim was shallow and grounded in a simple contradiction of logic. But I also have a hunch you might surprise me.

[findingblanks]

"I think Steiner is definitely speaking objectively in that quote. The "will" in that sense is truly intoxicating when it penetrates mere intellectual concepts."

Okay, I know when I need to bow out. I won't press this issue anymore with you. All I can tell you is this: just as 'the will is truly intoxicating when...' so is Steiner's concept of 'the nature of pure thinking.' I am NOT claiming that what either thinker REALLY MEANS is 'truly intoxicating.' I'm saying that you don't have to search very hard to find students of either thinker who are truly intoxicated on their every single word and thought. I am not able to penetrate this kind of thing.

That said, other aspects of this conversation feel very open and filled with great questions and insights. Thank you for contributing to those and to this one as well.

To be clear; my claim is not that I am a master of either Steiner or Schopenhauer. I have spent much more time with Steiner and find him to be a brilliant thinker who, like all thinkers ever, had a given perspective that both amplified his findings and revealed blind-spots. That's natural. My little study of Schopenhauer shows me that my initial impressions of him (largley based on my first interpretations of Steiner) were reductive and based on applying what I mean by certain words to Schopenhauer's words themselves.

Again thanks! We can move on, .I know that I can't make my points on this specific matter any clearer. My anthroposophical friends who agree with me say that I'm speaking clearly. My friends who do not, think I'm missing the true brilliance of Steiner's take on Schopenhauer. Life goes on!

[findingblanks]

"Steiner holds willing, feeling, thinking as Triune aspect of all experience. He does not reduce any of those aspects to any other."

Here is one of the quotes in PoF that indicates Steiner was well aware that there is a kind of Willing that is purely ideal, aka, cognitive:

"Whatever there is in willing that is not a purely ideal factor..."

He realizes that nearly all of what we typically recognize as 'will' is mixed with non-ideal elements. And, therefore, he wants to make clear that this does not characterize the fundamental nature of the will. You will find other statements similar to his by Steiner in which he goes out of his way to make sure his reader does not deny the Will that is purely ideal.

And, then, most of Steiner's serious students interpret the following to be the only true interpretation of what Schopenhauer is indicating about the nature of the will:

"The will becomes the principle of the universe just as, in mysticism, feeling becomes the principle of knowledge.
This kind of theory is called the philosophy of will (thelism). It makes something that can be
experienced only individually into a constituent factor of the world."

"The philosophy of will can as little be called scientific as can the mysticism based on feeling. For both assert that the conceptual understanding of the world is inadequate."

Yes, Schopenhauer would have uttered sentences that basically said conceptual understandings of the world are inadequate. Can you guess another thinker who has said over and over and over and over that a conceptual understanding of the world is not enough? Yep,. Rudolf Steiner said it many times in other context. Guess what. That doesn't make Steiner a hypocrite. Guess what else. Schopenhauer made his claims in a different context than the books Steiner wrote. Most of Steiner's serious students will allow that it's fine that Steiner often said conceptual conceptual understandings of the world aren't enough but that if Schopenhauer said it necessarily means he obviously didn't respect the nature of cognition. This game never ends.

Steiner continues:

"In other words, the mysticism of feeling and the philosophy of will are both forms of naïve realism, because they subscribe to the doctrine
that what is directly perceived is real."

Considering that Schopenhauer is the epitome of a so-called 'philosopher of the will,' do we feel comfortable saying simply that Schopenhauer 'subscribed to the doctrine that what is directly perceived is real."? In Bernardo's book on Schopenhauer, Bernardo shows in detail the ways that Schopenhauer showed exactly why our representations are one step removed from that which the reality they represent.

I know there is no convincing you that Steiner's characterizations of Schop are misguided but you can even look at Steiner's comment:

"This penetration is brought about by a power flowing through the activity of thinking itself — the power of love in its spiritual form."

I'm sorry I can't do this for you at the time, but trust me that you can find many many times when Steiner talks about the essence of love in it's spiritual form as "The Will of God," or at other times, "Not I but The Christ in me Wills this" And yes, for Steiner to claim that The Will of God is love spiritualized required Steiner to 'think' which, in its essential form, is love and pure will and united with and as the Will of God.

Finally when Steiner says:

"If we turn towards thinking in its essence, we find in it both feeling and will, and these in the depths of
their reality."

Yes, certainly one way of interpreting this is to think of each of those words as pointing to substances that exist outside of each other as separate entities. That's one way of understand the above sentence.

My experience and understand (and some other's of Steiner's students) is that when Steiner says 'in the depths of their realities' he is trying to show the reader that there is a sphere in which normal thinking, normal feeling, and normal willing (which are highly differentiated in our daily experience) are united AS one substance. Yes, you can 'think' of these as three different things right next to each other. But I think a closer reading of PoF along with paying attention to one's own experiences of 'pure' thinking, feeling, and willing, are better understood as realizing that before we separate these three via our daily consciousness, they are (and actually remain) united as one.

I'll be interested to see if anybody who really has studied Schopenhauer can argue that he thought that his cognitive understanding of the true nature of "Will" was a 'shadowy, chilly picture of the world,' as Steiner claims. Steiner ends that section with:

"they {those who place Will as the ultimate} conclude all too readily that they themselves are rooted in reality, but that the intuitive thinker, devoid of feeling and a stranger to reality, forms out of 'abstract thoughts' a shadowy, chilly picture of the world."

I doubt that Schopenhauer would claim his core understanding wasn't grounded in his activity of thinking. And I doubt that he would claim his core understanding (when being activated, obviously) was shadowy and chilly. I know for a fact that Schopenhauer and Steiner would happily agree that when they merely utter their ideas robotically, they are not actually grasping them as truths.

LIke I said, nothing really matters in these debates. But sometimes seeds get planted. I spent at least 12 years clearly knowing that Steiner had proven Schopenhauer was speaking nonesense. He and Steiner were brilliant and reaching deeply into the nature of reality from different perspectives and using very different terms, often different words to mean the same thing and the same words to mean very different things. Yes, we can shallowly prove they made logical contradictions. I think that says more about us than them. I certainly include myself in that.