Philosophy Unbound: Schopenhauer vs. Steiner (Round One)

[findingblanks]

"I wish you would spend as much time trying to understand what I am saying and responding to the specific points I am making, as you do trying to psychoanalyze the place from which I am saying it."

One of the best examples of projection I've seen in a while. I don't know what you are emotionally feeling or what your psychodynamics are at all. But amazing that you experience my comments as psychoanalysis.

The good news: I gave you many specific things to respond to. And I gave you my opinion and why. If it makes no sense to you, fair enough. But maybe, just maybe, in a week or two you'll sort of grasp why I don't think I can show quotes from Schopenhauer that will convince you.

More importantly, you might be able to show clearly that PoF claims thinking is already in the percept.

[findingblanks]

"I have plenty of reasons for why I think people take the "linguistic relativistic" approach you are taking..."

Oh wow. So what I've said so far implies the opposite of the relativistic claims that language is inherently ambiguous and can't have a definite meaning. Again, the fact that you could read what I've said and interpret it that way is exactly the wall we are slamming into. I just made absolutely clear that a given thinker needs to give the objectivity of their understanding through how they set up their terms. That is the opposite of being a relativist. Everything I said ahs been said by Steiner himself. My hunch is you wouldn't claim he is part of the 'people' who take that approach. Ironically even in PoF he explains his reasons for respecting and taking that approach. I respect your passion. But clearly I can't make myself make any sense to you.

I really do think you'll benefit from showing clearly how PoF makes clear that a percept already contains thinking. If you can understand why you boldly claimed that Steiner never claimed that, then you'll be a bit closer to understanding why I think Steiner and Schopenhauer work closely together in their understanding of the ultimate nature of reality and how they express it in their philosophies.

[findingblanks]

I don't think I'm being condescending because I'm not saying you are incapable of understanding me. I've already said that I'm clearly not doing a great job making my points. That said, I do think you hold your ideas in ways that make my points very hard to land and that is what causes you to misrepresent me over and over. I know you are being genuine. I know you are smart. That's exactly why I think this as to do with framing and assumptions.

Therefore: it can be useful to understand things like
1) Why a careful reader of Steiner can still claim (as most do) that Steiner doesn't think percepts inherently have 'something' called thinking within them.
2) Why most (but not all) of Steiner's most serious students interpret his use of "exceptional state" to refer to when the activity of thinking is being grasped. This is a massive error. That said, I think Steiner has much to blame for why a vast majority of his students will (at first) state that 'exceptional state" means just that.

There are many other examples. All of them are useful to the extent that they help loosen up overly tight understandings of what Steiner means by his core terms. I don't have a 'theory' about Steiner's PoF. I can talk about it in general, like in this context, and specifically, if a person is working with specific passages. But I resist the parts of me that want to have it boiled down. The practice itself is enough. The texts are like gyms. I think many people treat the text like gym from which they are supposed to take and lug around the exercise equipment.

[AshvinP]

"I wish you would spend as much time trying to understand what I am saying and responding to the specific points I am making, as you do trying to psychoanalyze the place from which I am saying it."

One of the best examples of projection I've seen in a while. I don't know what you are emotionally feeling or what your psychodynamics are at all. But amazing that you experience my comments as psychoanalysis.

The good news: I gave you many specific things to respond to. And I gave you my opinion and why. If it makes no sense to you, fair enough. But maybe, just maybe, in a week or two you'll sort of grasp why I don't think I can show quotes from Schopenhauer that will convince you.

More importantly, you might be able to show clearly that PoF claims thinking is already in the percept.

I feel like we are living in alternate realities right now... because every comment of yours contains a psychoanalytic evaluation of why you think I (or Cleric) am making this or that point in favor of Steiner's approach. Seriously, just take an honest look at most of your comments on this thread, starting from the very beginning. Also you keep avoiding my question about the underlying philosophical issues, regardless of Schopenhauer or Steiner. You gave me the below again which I already responded to:

I really do think you'll benefit from showing clearly how PoF makes clear that a percept already contains thinking. If you can understand why you boldly claimed that Steiner never claimed that, then you'll be a bit closer to understanding why I think Steiner and Schopenhauer work closely together in their understanding of the ultimate nature of reality and how they express it in their philosophies.

I will respond again... PoF does not suggest "that a percept already contains thinking". It suggests the exact opposite - percepts by themselves are incomplete and need the concepts added by Thinking to be completed. Of course, in reality, there is no experience devoid of all conceptual meaning. Maybe we should take this real slow, step by step - do you agree with what I just wrote there or not? I see you also commented:

Therefore: it can be useful to understand things like

1) Why a careful reader of Steiner can still claim (as most do) that Steiner doesn't think percepts inherently have 'something' called thinking within them.

2) Why most (but not all) of Steiner's most serious students interpret his use of "exceptional state" to refer to when the activity of thinking is being grasped. This is a massive error. That said, I think Steiner has much to blame for why a vast majority of his students will (at first) state that 'exceptional state" means just that.

I think you are confusing experience in general, which contains willing, feeling, and thinking (percepts and concepts) for Steiner, with the meaning of "percept" which for him is the bare sense data without any conceptual meaning. In all experience, though, there is actually no percept without concept.

And as I mentioned before, Steiner has spoken about these things in so many different books and lectures. It is very arbitrary to say we can only go off of PoF and not anything else he wrote, even though I think PoF is pretty clear as well.

[findingblanks]

"So, what is your take on the relationship of Will to Thinking?"d

You can use either word to represent the ontological primitive. A religious phrase to do this is speaking of it as "God's will", from another perspective it is, "Not I, but Christ in me lives," Steiner sometimes referred to it as spiritualized love.

If I am speaking to an Anthroposophist, I'll be more likely to point to the way in which they can notice that there is always an aspect of knowing in every experience they have. Once this can be directly noticed, then I'd try to show how this knowing can't be distinguished (except linguistically) from the willing that it is. I'd try to have them play around with taking a dozen different instances of this ever-present knowing and try their best to find any aspect of it that is not fully will.

Then I'd show them that with time this experience can be condensed and intensified, but that it remains fundamentally the same. Most importantly, I'd try to show how we will need to differentiate this experience 'downstream' into polarities and that we will most likely sort them into downstream examples of 'thinking' and 'willing.'

If I was talking to somebody attached to a fixated view of Schopenhauer. I'd need to start in a similar way but before they noticed that the connection they are making between the universal will and their own requires a 'knowing' experience that is never absent from this will. They have to make the opposite move that the Steiner student makes. From there, it becomes all about intensifying and stabilizing the experience through practice. And then we'd look at why it is helpful to make downstream distinctions between the polarity, probably in terms of concepts and instinct or 'thinking' and 'willing.'

[findingblanks]

" It is very arbitrary to say we can only go off of PoF and not anything else he wrote, even though I think PoF is pretty clear as well."

Wow. Okay, I'm done. I never said we could not refer to other texts. In fact I already have done that and you wanted to pull it back to phrases from core texts. So I did that as well. I can't make my point to you. I am happy you have a very specific take on Steiner. I have no doubt it jells with your practice and that it jells with the way you relate it to your deepest experiences of "God's Will".

But I can't even make a jot of a point to you. That's on me!

[AshvinP]

"So, what is your take on the relationship of Will to Thinking?"d

You can use either word to represent the ontological primitive. A religious phrase to do this is speaking of it as "God's will", from another perspective it is, "Not I, but Christ in me lives," Steiner sometimes referred to it as spiritualized love.

Based on that, you are at odds with the position we are arguing for. Only both words with the third "Feeling" can be said to refer to the ontological primitive under our view, because all three have very distinct roles in experience. It is true, the roles and relations between them are not static and metamorphose over time, but that does not change the essential distinct nature of all three in integrating or differentiating our experience as the case may be. In the Christian spiritual terms, there are in fact three distinct personalities in the Trinity.

Wow. Okay, I'm done. I never said we could not refer to other texts. In fact I already have done that and you wanted to pull it back to phrases from core texts. So I did that as well. I can't make my point to you.

Yes, you referred to a different text which made absolutely clear that Thinking-Willing fulfill distinct essential roles, i.e. that they are not interchangeable in the way you describe them - "We need willing both to lead us to, grasp, and extend those very thoughts. Yeah yeah, Steiner means 'willing' when he speaks of this kind of thinking. He makes that clear 20 years after saying 'nothing but thinking.'" - when I pointed that discrepancy out, you went back to the PoF addendum as if what you just quoted into the discussion from Steiner never existed. You also accused me of attributing things to you allegedly not said, like willing and thinking can be one and the same, even though that's what you just said again, "you can use either word to represent the ontological primitive", and earlier, "Steiner means willing when he speaks of this kind of thinking". And then again:

If I am speaking to an Anthroposophist, I'll be more likely to point to the way in which they can notice that there is always an aspect of knowing in every experience they have. Once this can be directly noticed, then I'd try to show how this knowing can't be distinguished (except linguistically) from the willing that it is

I feel like you have backed yourself into a corner and think its better to accuse me of ignorance and indoctrination than to simply admit you may have misunderstood both Schopenhauer and Steiner re: Will and Thinking. I will also quote one of Cleric's initial responses to you, which I have also asked you multiple times now, but never was addressed until your most recent post, which for reasons stated before, is at odds with Steiner's PoF and all of his other writings on the topic.

I may be speaking here on Ashvin's behalf but I believe that although the name of the thread is Schopenhauer vs. Steiner, the goal is not to confront the historical (and frozen in time) figures of these philosophers. Instead we're surveying what is living in us as stimulation from them but must necessarily go further. I say that in order to make clear that I'm not trying to defend the historical figure of Steiner but the living reality he was pointing to..

[Martin_]

Martin "the Orgasmic Alter"

OMG!

Late to the game. Sorry. but with an epithet like that, who can refuse?

. My aim is to let have everyone have a chance to become familiar with the positions and make a comment before only one or two of us are off to the races and dominating the entire discussion

Ashvin, seems your prediction was correct (somewhat). Maybe you should be the clairvoyant.

I'll just butt in and offer my own view on the matter.

You love despite your thoughts, now because of them.
Sure, thoughts can bring you to places, but it's the places that are real, not what brought you there.

Thoughts are the ripples on the lake of the will.

I could go on, but I won't for now.

[AshvinP]

Martin "the Orgasmic Alter"

OMG!

Late to the game. Sorry. but with an epithet like that, who can refuse?

. My aim is to let have everyone have a chance to become familiar with the positions and make a comment before only one or two of us are off to the races and dominating the entire discussion

Ashvin, seems your prediction was correct (somewhat). Maybe you should be the clairvoyant.

I'll just butt in and offer my own view on the matter.

You love despite your thoughts, now because of them.
Sure, thoughts can bring you to places, but it's the places that are real, not what brought you there.

Thoughts are the ripples on the lake of the will.

I could go on, but I won't for now.

Well, my impatience got the better of me and I relented too quickly, so I will take blame for it going "off to the races". But there may yet be some life left! Thanks for your comment.

I discussed this some in the T-M-T Part 3 essay (re: Heidegger's lectures on "What is Called Thinking?") - to Think is intimately connected to giving thanks, and that conveys the mood of gracious devotional prayer. So that is also intimately tied into Love - remembrance of things past and attraction of things future which converge in the present. That is the deep Biblical sense of "knowing" as well. We should not divorce feeling of Love from spiritual activity of Thinking - rather they should naturally align and flow from one another. That will not make sense under Schopenhauer's view of thoughts merely being "ripples on the lake of the will", rather we need to restore the noble view of Thinking as spiritual essence from the pre-Socratics to Scholastics.

[Cleric K]

If I am speaking to an Anthroposophist, I'll be more likely to point to the way in which they can notice that there is always an aspect of knowing in every experience they have. Once this can be directly noticed, then I'd try to show how this knowing can't be distinguished (except linguistically) from the willing that it is. I'd try to have them play around with taking a dozen different instances of this ever-present knowing and try their best to find any aspect of it that is not fully will.

Then I'd show them that with time this experience can be condensed and intensified, but that it remains fundamentally the same. Most importantly, I'd try to show how we will need to differentiate this experience 'downstream' into polarities and that we will most likely sort them into downstream examples of 'thinking' and 'willing.'

If I was talking to somebody attached to a fixated view of Schopenhauer. I'd need to start in a similar way but before they noticed that the connection they are making between the universal will and their own requires a 'knowing' experience that is never absent from this will. They have to make the opposite move that the Steiner student makes. From there, it becomes all about intensifying and stabilizing the experience through practice. And then we'd look at why it is helpful to make downstream distinctions between the polarity, probably in terms of concepts and instinct or 'thinking' and 'willing.'

I'm not sure what we're arguing here. I don't know what anthroposophists you've been talking to but what you say in the first part above is what anyone should naturally know even if they've read only one book, like Outline of Esoteric Science. I tried to portray all this here. All this is implicitly contained in PoF. Of course it couldn't be made explicit there because we can't speak of the Ruling Will of the Spirit without some resort to the knowledge of Cosmic evolution. The task of PoF is through nothing but clear and perceptive thinking, to lead the human being to its spiritual core. Once we know ourselves as a Spirit weaving integratively between the World of Phenomena and the World of Meaning, we're in secure position to also understand everything else that can be found further down this path of integration, even if we ourselves are not there yet.

What you say in the second part is precisely the topic of this whole thread. Again, I'm not expert on Schopenhauer but from what I've seen so far I don't see how anyone can imagine that Sch. wrote everything that he had, while secretly implying that the Ruling Will is actually the fully conscious World Spirit. Everything around Schopenhauer is permeated with this soul mood of the mysterious and blind World Will, which ultimately reflects in his pessimistic outlook. How could he had expressed all this if he was secretly implying that man has a long evolutionary road in front of him, on which more and more of this blind World Will will become fully conscious Spiritual Activity within him, allowing him to transform himself and participate in the meaningful transformation of the World?

As stated numerous times, we're not here to mock personalities but to recognize and understand the evolutionary process that humanity is going through. We need inner mobility to recognize whole inner stances and not simply try to comprehend intellectual fragments. One such inner stance is the spiritual perspective which only looks downwards. This is best exemplified in materialistic Darwinism. Man feels as if he rises from the darkness of mechanical nature and awakens in his ego, looking upon everything below him - the kingdoms of nature and the mechanical forces. In Schopenhauer we have something quite similar in terms of spiritual stance, except that what the ego has been rising from is considered to be of spiritual nature - the blind World Will. Nevertheless, the thinking ego again feels utterly alien, as a mere side-effect, of this surging ocean of will, just as the materialist's ego feels as side-effect of the world of mechanical forces. This pessimistic picture that Schopenhauer draws, of a thinking being realizing itself as an accident of World existence, and floating helplessly on the surging waves, can only be momentarily alleviated through aesthetic experience, where the ego can belong to its own element, as if imagining "How beautiful life would be if I could exist in this element of mine, without being subject to the surging waves of the World Will from which I proceed, to which I'm nothing but a floating leaf on a stream!" Alas, the ego can experience only glimpses of this imaginary freedom, before it returns to the reality of the surging waves.

Compare this with the perspective that the Spiritual element of the ego is not at all a freak accident of the World Will 'somehow' becoming self-reflective, but that the knowing element, as you call it, is truly inherent in the Ocean. In that case our thinking core is nothing but the seed point from which this knowing expands and illuminates everything. Everything that has been pressing as World Will, seemingly from the outside, now gradually becomes inner Will illuminated and propelled by fully conscious meaning (Idea), in other words - Spirit.