Philosophy Unbound: Schopenhauer vs. Steiner (Round One)

[findingblanks]

Hi there, you wrote:

"So, if I am reading you correctly, then you are suggesting that not only was Steiner's understanding of Schopenhauer very shallow, so is BK's understanding, so is Cleric's, and so is every other commentator on his philosophy."

You aren't. Far from it. I actually see creative and help aspects in the various takes on Steiner in this thread. I have my partial understanding. Steiner had his own partial understanding of what he experienced. As he said in 1912 when realizing he couldn't yet find the right words to express his epistemology in the phenomenological manner he wanted to (ends up published after his death in the partial Anthroposophy- A Fragment).

You'll probably only hear me speak of 'shallow' interpretations when it is one great thinker claiming they have demolished another great thinker by pointing out a simple error in logic based on a carefully worded summation of that person's thoughts. As I've already said, I think of these two as great thinkers, but I see them being shallow when they make those pronunciations. Take it for whatever it's worth, which probably isn't much in this context.

"You are saying he snuck in an understanding of universal Will that has escaped all of these other brilliant minds and every later philosopher who built their philosophy of Will on his foundation."

No, I didn't say that. The only reason you won't be able to point to me saying that is because I didn't. At all. But this is getting taxing for both of us. When it gets to point where you need to put words in my mouth and I need to keep repeating that I'm not offering A Pristine Understand Of The Wole, I just think we stand back and see what we could say that might actually matter. I've tried to point to why I think a brilliant mind can misunderstand another brilliant mind. I've tried to show other ways things can be taken. And I've tried to demonstrate that I at least have a decent grasp on Steiner and the various ways he makes his arguments. But I'm failing to make anything translate. That is certainly my fault to the degree that I'm not a great writer or very articulate about these things.

Another example, you write:

"Now if you can point me towards another person's writing who takes the same view as you do on Schopenhauer, then I may be able to adjust that understanding of what you are claiming and come to a better one. Is there any such person?"

And I thought I had stated several times that not only was I not speaking as an expert on Schopenhauer, I wasn't even claiming to know exactly what he meant. I thought I made it clear that I was showing how his words can be coherently understood in other ways that you or Steiner framed them. Again, somehow I came across as claiming I had a specific take that nobody else had grasped about Schopenhauer. If, however, we are interested in other philosophers who do incredible jobs sorting out the way various great minds speak past each other, there are many. Eugene Gendlin, McKewon, Dilthey, Oppy, and even some of Wittgetnsein's work can be very helpful in this regard. But that leads us too far afield, again.

But I'll end where I often end: I don't think Bernardo (he would certainly agree) knows enough about Steiner's epistemology to even begin seriously addressing Steiner's commentary on Schopenhauer. But I understand that in the context of the podcast, he wanted to respond to what he had heard read to him. And I think that Steiner begged his own understanding into his own reformulation of one line of argument that Schopenhauer made. I've tried to show that by not dogmatically claiming this is exactly what Steiner meant and this is exactly what Shopenhauer meant, but to simply show that there are other coherent ways to seriously read the various terms that allow for other light to shine in. I know that there are some who stand from a vantage point who don't just read my words as nonsense, but I also know that I'm simply not skilled enough to make sense to a wide range of people. All I can say is that I easily remember what it was like when I held the opinion that Steiner had demolished Schopenhauer and that Schopenhauer was blind to the essential nature of thinking. I don't think I was stupid for holding that opinion and I hope I don't sound like anybody is stupid who believes one of these thinkers is simply right and the other simply wrong. That is a common and understandable way of approaching the logical facet of their works.

[AshvinP]

Hi there, you wrote:

"So, if I am reading you correctly, then you are suggesting that not only was Steiner's understanding of Schopenhauer very shallow, so is BK's understanding, so is Cleric's, and so is every other commentator on his philosophy."

You aren't. Far from it. I actually see creative and help aspects in the various takes on Steiner in this thread. I have my partial understanding. Steiner had his own partial understanding of what he experienced. As he said in 1912 when realizing he couldn't yet find the right words to express his epistemology in the phenomenological manner he wanted to (ends up published after his death in the partial Anthroposophy- A Fragment).

You'll probably only hear me speak of 'shallow' interpretations when it is one great thinker claiming they have demolished another great thinker by pointing out a simple error in logic based on a carefully worded summation of that person's thoughts. As I've already said, I think of these two as great thinkers, but I see them being shallow when they make those pronunciations. Take it for whatever it's worth, which probably isn't much in this context.

"You are saying he snuck in an understanding of universal Will that has escaped all of these other brilliant minds and every later philosopher who built their philosophy of Will on his foundation."

No, I didn't say that. The only reason you won't be able to point to me saying that is because I didn't. At all. But this is getting taxing for both of us. When it gets to point where you need to put words in my mouth and I need to keep repeating that I'm not offering A Pristine Understand Of The Wole, I just think we stand back and see what we could say that might actually matter. I've tried to point to why I think a brilliant mind can misunderstand another brilliant mind. I've tried to show other ways things can be taken. And I've tried to demonstrate that I at least have a decent grasp on Steiner and the various ways he makes his arguments. But I'm failing to make anything translate. That is certainly my fault to the degree that I'm not a great writer or very articulate about these things.

Another example, you write:

"Now if you can point me towards another person's writing who takes the same view as you do on Schopenhauer, then I may be able to adjust that understanding of what you are claiming and come to a better one. Is there any such person?"

And I thought I had stated several times that not only was I not speaking as an expert on Schopenhauer, I wasn't even claiming to know exactly what he meant. I thought I made it clear that I was showing how his words can be coherently understood in other ways that you or Steiner framed them. Again, somehow I came across as claiming I had a specific take that nobody else had grasped about Schopenhauer. If, however, we are interested in other philosophers who do incredible jobs sorting out the way various great minds speak past each other, there are many. Eugene Gendlin, McKewon, Dilthey, Oppy, and even some of Wittgetnsein's work can be very helpful in this regard. But that leads us too far afield, again.

But I'll end where I often end: I don't think Bernardo (he would certainly agree) knows enough about Steiner's epistemology to even begin seriously addressing Steiner's commentary on Schopenhauer. But I understand that in the context of the podcast, he wanted to respond to what he had heard read to him. And I think that Steiner begged his own understanding into his own reformulation of one line of argument that Schopenhauer made. I've tried to show that by not dogmatically claiming this is exactly what Steiner meant and this is exactly what Shopenhauer meant, but to simply show that there are other coherent ways to seriously read the various terms that allow for other light to shine in. I know that there are some who stand from a vantage point who don't just read my words as nonsense, but I also know that I'm simply not skilled enough to make sense to a wide range of people. All I can say is that I easily remember what it was like when I held the opinion that Steiner had demolished Schopenhauer and that Schopenhauer was blind to the essential nature of thinking. I don't think I was stupid for holding that opinion and I hope I don't sound like anybody is stupid who believes one of these thinkers is simply right and the other simply wrong. That is a common and understandable way of approaching the logical facet of their works.

Fair enough. When you said "I don't find anything incompatible between Steiner and Schopenhauer", along with a few other statements, it sounded to me like you determined (or found) a very unique reading of one or both of them. I have not come across anyone who thinks they are compatible on this topic (although I have admittedly not searched much for such people). But if you are just speculating and leaving it as an open question, without wanting to come down on any specific position, I definitely understand that hesitation and inclination. We are dealing with monumental topics and prolific thinkers. I don't expect anyone to take Steiner's position on Schopenhauer or anything else on faith. These things must be carefully tested and, ultimately, it is only our own experience-knowledge which they can tested against to produce fruitful results. I mean "our own" as in only what we ourselves have experienced and come to know by going through the Thinking process which reasons, intuits, and imagines these things from within.

Finally, and unfortunately, I agree with you that BK does not understand Steiner's epistemology or the critique of Schopenhauer's Will-centered ontology-epistemology I offered to him. Although, I see him as exactly the sort of open-minded philosopher who would really appreciate Steiner's thought if it was brought sufficiently to his attention. It gets very difficult to accomplish such things when the person in question has written books endorsing a philosophy that cannot be reconciled with the new one (I know you leave open whether they can be reconciled while I am much more confident they cannot be), but who knows. "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." I will also say in closing, a short year ago, with my very shallow familiarity with Steiner's philosophical and spiritual writings, I would have dismissed his critiques of a Schopenhauer or Nietzsche or any other big shot idealist philosophers with a lot of skepticism.

I started and stopped with Steiner a few different times. It was thanks to Scott, Cleric and my own effort to keep an open mind while taking a disciplined approach, starting with his strict philosophy and holding back from 'jumping ahead' to anything else, that I began to appreciate the deep wisdom in his phenomenological approach. It is one of those things that really cannot be communicated to someone who has not read at least PoF carefully (and I know you have). Now the fact that I have only scratched the surface of his extensive writings and thoughts makes me extremely excited and eager to delve further into them. I understand the inclination to offer "new" perspectives to people who seem to have become too attached to any one philosopher, but ultimately I think we are better served trying to figure out what exactly they claimed and how it makes a difference to our lives. Steiner, more than anyone else, developed a philosophy (and elaborated a "spiritual science") which, if true, makes the most exceptional difference in our lives.

[Cleric]

In the course of evolution our Spiritual core awakens in the innermost sphere. As said, it's not at all difficult to attain to a state of pure thinking without any presence of feelings, desires, bodily sensations, will. But if we drop the innermost sphere we simply lose consciousness. Even if we assume that the other spheres are there, we simply can't know this.

You are right, Cleric, without thinking we can not recognize (discriminate, know) all other aspects of Reality.

Now, the willing part is a bit terminologically confusing. There are two meanings associated with the word "Will": one is an "impulse" or "drive", the other one is "volition". The volition is an action that does not necessarily need any "impulse", "drive" or "desire", it's just a pure free-willing "act" of creative activity. Thinking could not produce any thoughts without volition, each thought is created as an act of volition. Another term for volition is "free will". The "impulsive" Will is not free, it is bound to its instincts. So now we can see that volition is as fundamental as Thinking itself.

Yes, there's volition in thinking. This is what we commented with findingblanks. We can take this from the diagram. The white thinking sphere is not outside the others but they are nested. In certain way the thinking sphere contains the essence of all others - volition, feeling and idea.

As explained, the Will sphere should not be mistaken for the bodily will as we experience it in our ordinary consciousness. We know nothing of this will. We only know our willing intents and the perceptions of the end result - what happens in between, we're completely oblivious of. It is in this sphere that we can speak of the World as being the ideal content of consciousness. There are no sensory perceptions, no intellectual thoughts, no desires. The whole World is like a Cosmic Thought, reflecting the ideal relations of the Spirits, in a way similar to how our own ordinary thoughts reflect or symbolize the meaningful essence of our awareness. It's not a Cosmic Thought within some container. It's only one Thought filling everything (there's nothing else), gradually metamorphing as it reflects the beings' changing ideal relations. This form of consciousness can be called pure Intuition. The Cosmic Thought is not about something (some other perception), neither can we think about it with ordinary intellectual thoughts. It is pure mirror of the ideal essence that we experience.

The inner spheres are like differentiations which leave some of the previous forms of existence behind as they become in a sense outer World. All this I have described in the Deep MAL essay. The physical world is for us outer world because we no longer experience the first person perspective of the ideating activity of which this physical world is reflection. By physical world I don't mean the imagined world-in-itself but the inner world weaved out of sensory perceptions. Here we should guard against the prejudice that in the Will sphere the world is created in the way we see it with our eyes. This is Maya. We, humans, are the only beings that see the world in this way. In the Will sphere the world is entirely inner experience. The ideating activity of the beings is experienced completely from their spiritual perspective. For example, if a Sprit wills the form of a cube, it doesn't experience this as a human sculptor would go about it and shape it from the outside as from clay - that is, take a ball of clay and flatten its sides until it becomes a cube. Instead (this is only a very rough explanation) the being wills its expansion in all directions, like if we want to reach in all directions with thought. At the same time it finds itself in relation with other beings which as it were resist this expansion from six sides. We must imagine how our expanding force to the front is resisted, as if we join palms with another person and push against each other, reaching a kind of equilibrium. The same happens for all six sides, resulting in our outward force being constricted into the shape of a cube. This is a very anthropomorphic example but it can go a long way if it is taken seriously as object for meditation.

So in the highest spheres all existence is of this kind - experience of purely spiritual relations between loci of activity - beings. In our thinking sphere we have lost all of this. The pushing and pulling is still there but the Cosmic Thought that was the whole world for us has become so complex and manifold that it's no longer possible to grasp any holistic meaning. All that we have of this is a small imploding time vortex where our thoughts are the only thing that have something of the character of the Cosmic Thought. Everything else is so veiled that it becomes as outer world to us - color, tone, smell, feelings. To experience something as outer world means to have perceptions which are out-of-sync with the ideal essence that we experience. If everything that we perceive is a mirror image of the ideal essence, it is basically a thought. This is the case in the highest sphere, where all the perceptual elements are the mirrored image of the ideal essence. Now the holistic ideal essence has been reduced only to microcosmic thought- concepts, while the Cosmic Thought's reflection became obscured as the World of perceptions. In the highest worlds color is intuitive image of what we experience as meaning. We don't look for outer world behind that color because it is completely explained by the ideal meaning that we experience, just as our ordinary thought-perceptions are explained by our ideating activity. Our small thoughts now try to find the patterns within the World of perceptions - inner and sensory - such that more and more of the Cosmic Thought's living idea is restored. As long as we approach color with our intellectual concept of color, we cognize only very limited aspect of the Cosmic idea-being of which the color is the thought-reflection. We only understand color in the true sense when we merge in the world of Intuition with the beings' ideal essence of which the color is a reflection.

[findingblanks]

Just an example as to why it was good and necessary for Steiner to clarify himself regarding the essential relation between thinking and will. Sometimes people sound as if there was no reason for him to need to make the distinction, but I say that if PoF did not explicitly make their identity clear (which Steiner acknowledges it did not make explicit), and if we can find dozen of example like the quotatoin from below, it was wise of him to clarify himself two decades later in the 1918 edition. And I don't think it's crazy to even see how there was more clarification that would have helped his students even today.

"Just as the magnet has North and South poles, just as light and darkness are present in the world, so there are two poles in man’s life of soul. These two poles become evident when we observe a person placed in two contrasting situations. Suppose we are watching someone who is entirely absorbed in the contemplation of some strikingly beautiful and impressive natural phenomenon. We see how still he is standing, moving neither hand nor foot, never turning his eyes away from the spectacle presented to him, and we are aware that inwardly he is picturing his environment. That is one situation.

Another is the following: a man is walking along the street and feels that someone has insulted him. Without thinking, he is roused to anger and gives vent to it by striking the person who insulted him. We are there witnessing a manifestation of forces springing from anger, a manifestation of impulses of will, and it is easy to imagine that if the action had been preceded by thought no blow need have been struck.

We have now pictured two contrasting situations: in the one there is only ideation, a process in the life of thought from which all conscious will is absent; in the other there is no thought, no ideation, and immediate expression is given to an impulse of will. Here we have examples of the two extremes of human behaviour. The first pole is complete surrender to contemplation, to thought, in which the will has no part; the second pole is the impelling force of will without thought. These facts are revealed simply by observation of external life."

Rudolf Steiner – GA 130 – The Etherisation of the Blood – Basle, October 1, 1911

It's good that he recognized at least a couple reasons that some of his students can think error in thinking of will not fundamentally intrinsic to pure thinking.

[AshvinP]

Just an example as to why it was good and necessary for Steiner to clarify himself regarding the essential relation between thinking and will. Sometimes people sound as if there was no reason for him to need to make the distinction, but I say that if PoF did not explicitly make their identity clear (which Steiner acknowledges it did not make explicit), and if we can find dozen of example like the quotatoin from below, it was wise of him to clarify himself two decades later in the 1918 edition. And I don't think it's crazy to even see how there was more clarification that would have helped his students even today.

"Just as the magnet has North and South poles, just as light and darkness are present in the world, so there are two poles in man’s life of soul. These two poles become evident when we observe a person placed in two contrasting situations. Suppose we are watching someone who is entirely absorbed in the contemplation of some strikingly beautiful and impressive natural phenomenon. We see how still he is standing, moving neither hand nor foot, never turning his eyes away from the spectacle presented to him, and we are aware that inwardly he is picturing his environment. That is one situation.

Another is the following: a man is walking along the street and feels that someone has insulted him. Without thinking, he is roused to anger and gives vent to it by striking the person who insulted him. We are there witnessing a manifestation of forces springing from anger, a manifestation of impulses of will, and it is easy to imagine that if the action had been preceded by thought no blow need have been struck.

We have now pictured two contrasting situations: in the one there is only ideation, a process in the life of thought from which all conscious will is absent; in the other there is no thought, no ideation, and immediate expression is given to an impulse of will. Here we have examples of the two extremes of human behaviour. The first pole is complete surrender to contemplation, to thought, in which the will has no part; the second pole is the impelling force of will without thought. These facts are revealed simply by observation of external life."

Rudolf Steiner – GA 130 – The Etherisation of the Blood – Basle, October 1, 1911

It's good that he recognized at least a couple reasons that some of his students can think error in thinking of will not fundamentally intrinsic to pure thinking.

We should remember the point of using the concept of polarity is to provide a relatively easy way of understanding how two opposed forces exist in one experience. Just as the roles of north pole and south pole are opposed yet united in one magnetic field, so are the poles of Thinking and Willing. As we have discussed extensively in this and other threads, and I also discuss in my latest essays on T-M-T and poetry, it is only the role of Thinking to unify percepts and ideal content in a manner which re-members the individual soul's place within the soul of the entire Cosmos. Willing serves an opposed role in maintaining the individual's unique soul-perspective as it reintegrates into the soul of the Cosmos. They forever constitute each other by working against each other. That is the sort of fine resolution of polarity role distinction that philosophers of Will, such as Schopenhauer, miss completely, which is why philosophers of Thinking such as Steiner offer their criticisms.

In this fundamental breath-blood relation, "we see Apollo, the god of light, carried on the billows of air in the breathing-process, and in his lyre the actual functioning of the blood-circulation." [Steiner quote] By taking in the living element of oxygen from the Cosmos and then giving back to it the metamorphosed gas of carbon-dioxide, we are connecting ourselves to the Cosmic form through respiration. Our blood works upon our inner breath to imbue it with our individual soul before it is released back into the inner world at large. It is the ratio between the breath and the pulse-beats of the blood which is expressed in the meter and syllable-quantities of poetic speech. The hexameter of four pulse-beats to one breath, which is the natural ratio for humans, reveals this particular rhythm on rhythm most clearly.
...
The blood rhythm which plays on the breath rhythm moving four times slower expresses the individual crafting of Cosmic experience which is then 'exhaled' back into the world through Art. It is the blood, which circulates the force of human strength and passion, forming and stirring the breath, which respires the force of imaginative and intuitive thought back into the world.

[findingblanks]

Hi, you wrote:

"It is only the role of Thinking to unify percepts and ideal content in a manner which re-members the individual soul's place within the soul of the entire Cosmos. Willing serves an opposed role in maintaining the individual's unique soul-perspective as it reintegrates into the soul of the Cosmos."

I think this is a mischaracterization. Whenever we speak as if there is a fundamental distinction between thinking, feeling, and willing, we are off track. Yes, it is important to be able to see downstream how they differentiate (without dividing, of course) but, even then, an element of will is inherently within the most finished and abstracted thought.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that it makes sense that Steiner saw a need in updating PoF to more explicitly state that thinking and will should not be thought as separate units when we are talking about the essence of 'thinking.'

[SanteriSatama]

Now, the willing part is a bit terminologically confusing. There are two meanings associated with the word "Will": one is an "impulse" or "drive", the other one is "volition". The volition is an action that does not necessarily need any "impulse", "drive" or "desire", it's just a pure free-willing "act" of creative activity. Thinking could not produce any thoughts without volition, each thought is created as an act of volition. Another term for volition is "free will". The "impulsive" Will is not free, it is bound to its instincts. So now we can see that volition is as fundamental as Thinking itself.

Yes, there's volition in thinking. This is what we commented with findingblanks. We can take this from the diagram. The white thinking sphere is not outside the others but they are nested. In certain way the thinking sphere contains the essence of all others - volition, feeling and idea.

As explained, the Will sphere should not be mistaken for the bodily will as we experience it in our ordinary consciousness. We know nothing of this will. We only know our willing intents and the perceptions of the end result - what happens in between, we're completely oblivious of. It is in this sphere that we can speak of the World as being the ideal content of consciousness. There are no sensory perceptions, no intellectual thoughts, no desires. The whole World is like a Cosmic Thought, reflecting the ideal relations of the Spirits, in a way similar to how our own ordinary thoughts reflect or symbolize the meaningful essence of our awareness. It's not a Cosmic Thought within some container. It's only one Thought filling everything (there's nothing else), gradually metamorphing as it reflects the beings' changing ideal relations. This form of consciousness can be called pure Intuition. The Cosmic Thought is not about something (some other perception), neither can we think about it with ordinary intellectual thoughts. It is pure mirror of the ideal essence that we experience.

We can distinguish Will as 1) Will of Want (WW), which starts from Thirst of Experiencing as such. Without Want (aka Mother aka Sophia aka Love) only Void would non-be. An 2) Will of Volition (WV), which as said, corresponds with libertarian free will, and various degrees of that in the forms of freedoms of choice - which in libertarian sense contain also the freedom not to choose.

As Gedanken (aka capitalized Thinking) has been defined here as the conjuction of feel and thougth, Heart and Mind, it-they of WV can only emerge as partial relation in and of WW having Guts to experience and keep on making that choice.

Cleric, as you speak of "only one thought" filling everything and nothing else being, you must be speaking of the Void, the Kenoma. And as you say, it is nothing but a mirror, a reflection of the intellect which exists only as a choice to deny the Guts of WW, the Great Negation.

We have a saying: "Silence is the mark of Affirmation". The very delicate zone of experiencing meditative silence and silent knowing, which is sometimes also called 'staying in prayer', 'the way of the warrior', 'witnessing' etc., is a choice of non-choice. Just Guts remain, and in that sense it is a local-global absence of Gedanken.

Greek for Guts is fronesis. The purely mental and intellectual aspect of Gedanken is called nous, noetic. 'To mean' is a transitive verb enno-o, expressing a nested relation by the prefix en-. Also intellectual thinking is a transitive verb: 'nomizo'. Transitive verbs take and create an object, ie. a mirror reflection, a filter, etc.

The Greek verb that corresponds with Gedanken is 'skefthomai', from same root as skepsis, ie. inquiry. Skefthomai is an intransitive verb in the middle voice, ie. it does not transitively project and create an external object but let's in and digests. The receiving organ is of course heart, so we think first with our hearts.

The heart-mind conjuction is the ouroboros loop of intransitive-transitive. Making that loop alone into an ascending spiral reaches towards the "heights" of the founding question of existential nihilism: why something instead of nothing? The heart-gut conjunction is rooted in Being-Becoming, and the conjunction is active but not in the transitive sense. Without externalizing objectification it enacts, note again the marker for nesting relation. Directly and internally manifestisting creativity in being is and becomes Will of intransitive action without metacognitive thinking and transitive objectifying.

As we are built, out guts closest to the core of being, beneath heart and mind, the language of "higher and higher" is as nous reflects and projects its transitive aspect, and in its partiality such language of projection can be deceiving and neglectful of the whole organic order, which very much includes also guts and fronesis.

So, when we project our organic-spiritual form to "higher realms", we do so by scaling up our form of guts, hearts and minds. Transitive scaling is a form of creation and becoming, nesting what becomes in being. The fact that we create our gods and higher selves and what not, does not make them any less real, rather the contrary.

If Gedanken projects only heart-mind conjunction into deity, and amputates Guts from the organic whole and pushes that into its Shadow, the god created becomes very easily an authoritarian tyrant without genuine empathy. And such idea of One becames nothing but the Game of Thrones of Monotheism, which feeds hearts with prejudice and judgement and jealousy. From its fruits you shall know a Tree...

Thus is the Theodikea of Father. The Mother of the heat-guts conjunction is not without her theodikea either. But as she is pure Love and Will without thoughtful comparison, there can be no judgement of her Curiosity. This theodikea is our responsibility of our own evolution in intransitive creation, as only by improving ourselves and our relations we can improve Her. And we must not imagine Her as one-and-only, for She is many, she is the Pantheon of each Mother-Will to procreate and incarnate and manifest Experiencing, Love in all its forms including the hurtful forms.

If we from our masculine perspective are lucky and do our job well, we can help Mother-Wills to form a better community and communities both in heaven and eart, a better Matriarchy, by impartially loving and caring for all children of all mothers. This aspect of integration can happen by our transformation into medium of non-judgemental love of Pleroma in which Mothers can communicate and share also their metacognitive valuations of their interrelations. To fill from Heart and Gut the void of Kenoma, which our Minds projected and created in our inquiry into the meaning of all. We can transform to Pleroma ether in deep meditation, without losing our ability to stay also these charmingly fat and lazy and stupid men-children who excell in the art of imperfect by constantly failing as fathers, lovers and children. Because to be truly perfect, we must also be imperfect.

[AshvinP]

Hi, you wrote:

"It is only the role of Thinking to unify percepts and ideal content in a manner which re-members the individual soul's place within the soul of the entire Cosmos. Willing serves an opposed role in maintaining the individual's unique soul-perspective as it reintegrates into the soul of the Cosmos."

I think this is a mischaracterization. Whenever we speak as if there is a fundamental distinction between thinking, feeling, and willing, we are off track. Yes, it is important to be able to see downstream how they differentiate (without dividing, of course) but, even then, an element of will is inherently within the most finished and abstracted thought.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that it makes sense that Steiner saw a need in updating PoF to more explicitly state that thinking and will should not be thought as separate units when we are talking about the essence of 'thinking.'

I am not sure what is meant by "fundamental distinction". If you mean there cannot be Thinking without Willing in any experience, then yes I agree. They are both fundamental aspects of all experience. But the key point here is that the Willing element in all experience does not serve to integrate perspectives of the Unified experience with increasingly more meaningful ideal content. That is simply not its role - rather it is the role of Thinking. And Steiner is relating the polarity of Thinking-Willing to highlight these oppositional forces of our experience - forces which integrate and differentiate respectively. Thinking and Willing are not "separate units" in experience, but the essence of Thinking is not Willing. Otherwise we would not need these two different words to point towards the essence of experience.

I think we should try hard not to lose sight of why any of that is brought up by Steiner - because Schopenhauer's philosophy of Will, as a response to Kant's philosophy of transcendental ideals, ends up taking us to the other extreme and engaging in the idolatry of presuming Will to be the only common element between Being as such and beings in their particular expressions. It is by far more influential in the Western world than Steiner's philosophy of Thinking, so there is a need to push back against such incomplete and misleading philosophies which leave Thinking in their blind spots. That is still the case today as it was at the end of the 19th century when Steiner was writing about it. Perhaps even more so, because Schopenhauer's philosophy of Will has had more time to percolate.

I quote the following from Barfield often because it is so true in wake of modernity - "the obvious is the hardest of all to point out to someone who has genuinely lost sight of it." It is obvious that Thinking is how we connect all data points of the world together to form ever-increasingly coherent wholes out of fragmented experience. That is basically presupposed in all modern institutions and fields of inquiry, but the presupposition is often (unknowingly) used by philosophers and scientists to undermine its own Truth. They say "Will is universal to man" without considering the simple fact that the only warrant for saying such a thing is their Thinking activity which brings a vast network of interrelated meaning to the assertion. Steiner felt a need to update PoF to make these things more clear, but the need which made PoF necessary in the first place has only grown stronger in our current age.

[findingblanks]

You say,

"But the key point here is that the Willing element in all experience does not serve to integrate perspectives of the Unified experience with increasingly more meaningful ideal content. That is simply not its role - rather it is the role of Thinking."

We read Steiner very differently. Which is perfectly fine.

And I think you interpret Schopenhauer through a filter that ensures he is not overlapping with you much much more. One way this shines through is that you continually take the fact that he uses the word "will" as almost direct evidence that he is talking about what you mean when you use "will." Again, that hardly matters.

"...presuming Will to be the only common element between Being as such and beings in their particular expressions."

I'm curious what you would say the most essentially common element is between a human and, say, a bird or a tiger.

Cheers!

[AshvinP]

You say,

"But the key point here is that the Willing element in all experience does not serve to integrate perspectives of the Unified experience with increasingly more meaningful ideal content. That is simply not its role - rather it is the role of Thinking."

We read Steiner very differently. Which is perfectly fine.

And I think you interpret Schopenhauer through a filter that ensures he is not overlapping with you much much more. One way this shines through is that you continually take the fact that he uses the word "will" as almost direct evidence that he is talking about what you mean when you use "will." Again, that hardly matters.

Well then I must ask again, what is your interpretation of Schopenhauer's philosophy of "will"? What does "will" mean to you in that philosophy?

I am going off the standard philosophical interpretation as also expressed in BK's book and many of his discussions and in that answer to my question. And as also expressed in the below quote from Stanford philosophical encyclopedia. You seem to have an interpretation of both Schopenhauer and Steiner which I have never heard anyone else express before, so I think the burden is on you to explain why that is.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/#4

As much as he opposes the traditional German Idealists in their metaphysical elevation of self-consciousness (which he regards as too intellectualistic), Schopenhauer philosophizes within the spirit of this tradition, for he believes that the supreme principle of the universe is likewise apprehensible through introspection, and that we can understand the world as various manifestations of this general principle. For Schopenhauer, this is not the principle of self-consciousness and rationally-infused will, but is rather what he simply calls “Will” — a mindless, aimless, non-rational impulse at the foundation of our instinctual drives, and at the foundational being of everything. Schopenhauer’s originality does not reside in his characterization of the world as Will, or as act — for we encounter this position in Fichte’s philosophy — but in the conception of Will as being devoid of rationality or intellect.

"...presuming Will to be the only common element between Being as such and beings in their particular expressions."

I'm curious what you would say the most essentially common element is between a human and, say, a bird or a tiger.

Cheers!

I can't say, because I have never experienced the inner phenomenal perspective of a bird or a tiger. I think Steiner makes very clear in PoF that he is philosophizing about Thinking from the human perspective and also why everyone who attempts to do otherwise is not doing philosophy at all. A bird or a tiger's mode of perception-thinking and their approach to integration of the two will depend on their specific non-human organizations. The most essentially common element between a human and another human, however, is best and most obviously expressed in our shared ideal content which allows us to meaningfully interact, communicate, empathize, etc. as social beings. The mere will or feelings of an individual do no such thing.