Philosophy Unbound: Schopenhauer vs. Steiner (Round One)

[AshvinP]

Could it be that you guys are just trying to push this thread to 50 pages, then try for the century mark?

Yeah... I have to say even I have grown tired of responding to comments which people seem to have posted without reading anything Cleric or I wrote before. It reminds me of social media where people like, retweet, comment, etc. without first Thinking what they are doing or saying. It takes a lot to discourage me from posting and responding to posts, but that's where we are at now. FB is avoiding every point of substance made so as to remain in mechanistic intellectual mode of obscuring Steiner philosophy and SS is carrying on a conversation with himself, not realizing everything he is writing has been written already by Steiner and our quotes of him on this thread. I have no idea what anyone is trying to say anymore other than "I have the secrets to understanding and you do not... but don't ask me why because everyone other than me is on a need to know basis and I say noone needs to know". SS may have actually agreed with me in his last comment but I have no idea if he did or not. If noone manages to write something relevant by page 50, I am unconditionally out of this thread.

[SanteriSatama]

SS may have actually agreed with me in his last comment but I have no idea if he did or not.

I thought it was clear I agreed - and tried to expand from there to less charted waters, think further.

[AshvinP]

SS may have actually agreed with me in his last comment but I have no idea if he did or not.

I thought it was clear I agreed - and tried to expand from there to less charted waters, think further.

Alright then sorry about that, I really could not tell. Yes I generally agree with nouns becoming "slow and stiff" in the modern age, and I suppose that process began much earlier in various ways, yet most language retained a concrete numinous connection until about the 15th century. It has now become very much like melodies of rigid logical thought without any depth of Thinking via pitch-harmony. It is interesting to note that the ancient Hebrew language was very sparse on vowels, intentionally. It was their way of preserving imaginative knowing within the evolving individual, who was forced to supply the soul qualities of vowels to the language-concepts by such imagination from within themselves.

[SanteriSatama]

SS may have actually agreed with me in his last comment but I have no idea if he did or not.

I thought it was clear I agreed - and tried to expand from there to less charted waters, think further.

Alright then sorry about that, I really could not tell. Yes I generally agree with nouns becoming "slow and stiff" in the modern age, and I suppose that process began much earlier in various ways, yet most language retained a concrete numinous connection until about the 15th century. It has now become very much like melodies of rigid logical thought without any depth of Thinking via pitch-harmony. It is interesting to note that the ancient Hebrew language was very sparse on vowels, intentionally. It was their way of preserving imaginative knowing within the evolving individual, who was forced to supply the soul qualities of vowels to the language-concepts by such imagination from within themselves.

What I referred to was meditative introspective observation of how linguistic thinking, writing as the slowest layer, is formed bottom-up from faster and faster layers of pre-linguistic thinking.

This thinking is surprisingly difficult to to try to express in language. That's a common experience when we write and search for expressions to express thinking, and in thinking, a thought. Thinking does not consist of concepts, these expressions are resultants of thinking process. The concept-name "percept" seems to add more confusion than clarity to the discussion.

Formal languages of computation theory are abstract in their own way, concrete in their own way. Abstract-vs-concrete is a difficult concept pair, which would seem to need much more resolution for sense making. Best I can now try to say, that combinators of combinatory logic, as well as relational operators of Relop (as my math hobby is named) act and operate and from complex processes, so we can name them e.g. "operators". But as such, algorithmic operating operates before and independent of naming, the thinking process of forming concepts is preconceptual.

In this level, archetypal thinking and naming (cf. animism) of Jung and Steiner, and naming-free, variable-free operators and operating of formal languages of computation processes, are deeply related.

[AshvinP]

I thought it was clear I agreed - and tried to expand from there to less charted waters, think further.

Alright then sorry about that, I really could not tell. Yes I generally agree with nouns becoming "slow and stiff" in the modern age, and I suppose that process began much earlier in various ways, yet most language retained a concrete numinous connection until about the 15th century. It has now become very much like melodies of rigid logical thought without any depth of Thinking via pitch-harmony. It is interesting to note that the ancient Hebrew language was very sparse on vowels, intentionally. It was their way of preserving imaginative knowing within the evolving individual, who was forced to supply the soul qualities of vowels to the language-concepts by such imagination from within themselves.

What I referred to was meditative introspective observation of how linguistic thinking, writing as the slowest layer, is formed bottom-up from faster and faster layers of pre-linguistic thinking.

This thinking is surprisingly difficult to to try to express in language. That's a common experience when we write and search for expressions to express thinking, and in thinking, a thought. Thinking does not consist of concepts, these expressions are resultants of thinking process. The concept-name "percept" seems to add more confusion than clarity to the discussion.

Formal languages of computation theory are abstract in their own way, concrete in their own way. Abstract-vs-concrete is a difficult concept pair, which would seem to need much more resolution for sense making. Best I can now try to say, that combinators of combinatory logic, as well as relational operators of Relop (as my math hobby is named) act and operate and from complex processes, so we can name them e.g. "operators". But as such, algorithmic operating operates before and independent of naming, the thinking process of forming concepts is preconceptual.

In this level, archetypal thinking and naming (cf. animism) of Jung and Steiner, and naming-free, variable-free operators and operating of formal languages of computation processes, are deeply related.

It seems to me, as idealists, we are forced to make simple distinctions to speak about these things concretely. So Steiner uses concept and percept in this simple way to hightlight, above all else, that it is our own spiritual activity which brings ever-higher objective meaning to ideal relations. That is the living essence he wants us to discover for ourselves at the very beginning of our journey into spiritual realm. It still blows my mind that he did that successfully 120 years ago and, even blows my mind more, that so many pro philosophers have no idea he did that. I myself didn't really consider this seriously until recently. so I am not trying to pass judgment. Its almost as theoretically implausible that people would not know the physical Sun exists even though they cannot stare at it directly. Anf if pro philosophers do not realize it, then the average person definitely does not, as I recently found out from many twitter users on TOE with Kurt question about metaphysics. That is at the core thing we are trying to point towards here - the shoemaker, student. etc. who reflects on what they were thinking a few minutes ago is still NOT recognizing this reality of their own activity. That is why Steiner calls it "exceptional state". Steiner. Jung, and Barfield also show how this state only became possible relatively recently in human history. It is truly an amazing thing. (I know SD you probably understand this but just wanted to sum this critical point up one more time).

[SanteriSatama]

It seems to me, as idealists, we are forced to make simple distinctions to speak about these things concretely. So Steiner uses concept and percept in this simple way to hightlight, above all else, that it is our own spiritual activity which brings ever-higher objective meaning to ideal relations. That is the living essence he wants us to discover for ourselves at the very beginning of our journey into spiritual realm. It still blows my mind that he did that successfully 120 years ago and, even blows my mind more, that so many pro philosophers have no idea he did that. I myself didn't really consider this seriously until recently. so I am not trying to pass judgment. Its almost as theoretically implausible that people would not know the physical Sun exists even though they cannot stare at it directly. Anf if pro philosophers do not realize it, then the average person definitely does not, as I recently found out from many twitter users on TOE with Kurt question about metaphysics. That is at the core thing we are trying to point towards here - the shoemaker, student. etc. who reflects on what they were thinking a few minutes ago is still NOT recognizing this reality of their own activity. That is why Steiner calls it "exceptional state". Steiner. Jung, and Barfield also show how this state only became possible relatively recently in human history. It is truly an amazing thing. (I know SD you probably understand this but just wanted to sum this critical point up one more time).

Forced by what?

Steiner's "occult" animism (Spiritual being and communication of and with Sun, Earth etc. planetary, elemental and nature spirits etc. etc.) is for me much more interesting than "Steiner, the system philosopher". Description's of Steiner's visits to Finland draw attention to his intent listening, and on the other hand how he "roared, tore and panted" when he spoke, giving a nice demonstration of certain traditional shamanic arts.

In his liminal character and role Steiner and his legacy of course includes both aspects, and in my reading of this thread, those aspects are reflected and re-enacted in the roles taken by participants in the discussion. In that sense, also active resistance or non-commitment towards 'system philosophy' -interpretations is loyalty to the text and texture of Steiner and his legacy, and the spiritual processes he went through and vented in his writing and speeches, in his intent listening.

I thought we already clarified with DS that Steiner does not call "it" (as if there was such an object), "exceptional state", but that translation is just a meaning getting lost in poor translation?

Steiner, as part of the occult, theosophic and anthroposophic spiritual movement of his era, taught and took disciples, and as we know, such relations tend to create both mess and further creativity. In hindsight, and very meaningfully to my own lived experience, the spiritual movement culminated in finding a boy called Jiddu Krishnamurti and elevating/recognizing/worshipping him as a "Universal Master" grade dude, or whatever (I'm not well read in the specific theosophist terminology, or have forgotten).

Jiddu played his role as well as he could, by getting of the high horse and teaching the antiguru stuff both in word and deed. And if you followed that strain of antiguru teaching carefully, U.G Krishnamurti as spiritual twin of Jiddu helped to destroy any and all "legacy" attached to Jiddu the adulterer, whom he never stopped ridiculing and badmouthing.

[AshvinP]

It seems to me, as idealists, we are forced to make simple distinctions to speak about these things concretely. So Steiner uses concept and percept in this simple way to hightlight, above all else, that it is our own spiritual activity which brings ever-higher objective meaning to ideal relations. That is the living essence he wants us to discover for ourselves at the very beginning of our journey into spiritual realm. It still blows my mind that he did that successfully 120 years ago and, even blows my mind more, that so many pro philosophers have no idea he did that. I myself didn't really consider this seriously until recently. so I am not trying to pass judgment. Its almost as theoretically implausible that people would not know the physical Sun exists even though they cannot stare at it directly. Anf if pro philosophers do not realize it, then the average person definitely does not, as I recently found out from many twitter users on TOE with Kurt question about metaphysics. That is at the core thing we are trying to point towards here - the shoemaker, student. etc. who reflects on what they were thinking a few minutes ago is still NOT recognizing this reality of their own activity. That is why Steiner calls it "exceptional state". Steiner. Jung, and Barfield also show how this state only became possible relatively recently in human history. It is truly an amazing thing. (I know SD you probably understand this but just wanted to sum this critical point up one more time).

Forced by what?

Steiner's "occult" animism (Spiritual being and communication of and with Sun, Earth etc. planetary, elemental and nature spirits etc. etc.) is for me much more interesting than "Steiner, the system philosopher". Description's of Steiner's visits to Finland draw attention to his intent listening, and on the other hand how he "roared, tore and panted" when he spoke, giving a nice demonstration of certain traditional shamanic arts.

In his liminal character and role Steiner and his legacy of course includes both aspects, and in my reading of this thread, those aspects are reflected and re-enacted in the roles taken by participants in the discussion. In that sense, also active resistance or non-commitment towards 'system philosophy' -interpretations is loyalty to the text and texture of Steiner and his legacy, and the spiritual processes he went through and vented in his writing and speeches, in his intent listening.

I thought we already clarified with DS that Steiner does not call "it" (as if there was such an object), "exceptional state", but that translation is just a meaning getting lost in poor translation?

Steiner, as part of the occult, theosophic and anthroposophic spiritual movement of his era, taught and took disciples, and as we know, such relations tend to create both mess and further creativity. In hindsight, and very meaningfully to my own lived experience, the spiritual movement culminated in finding a boy called Jiddu Krishnamurti and elevating/recognizing/worshipping him as a "Universal Master" grade dude, or whatever (I'm not well read in the specific theosophist terminology, or have forgotten).

Jiddu played his role as well as he could, by getting of the high horse and teaching the antiguru stuff both in word and deed. And if you followed that strain of antiguru teaching carefully, U.G Krishnamurti as spiritual twin of Jiddu helped to destroy any and all "legacy" attached to Jiddu the adulterer, whom he never stopped ridiculing and badmouthing.

As Cleric pointed out earlier on the thread, Steiner remarked that if all of his writings were to be burned and he was forced to choose one to save, it would be The Philosophy of Freedom - what you are calling his "system philosophy". So, for Steiner himself, his 'system philosophy' was of critical importance to everything else including his spiritual science. Why is that? The answer is contained in the title of PoF itself - because he is seeking harmony with the course of planetary evolution towards humanity's spiritual freedom. People who can recall and recite truths of "occult animism" (the term "animism" is not at all indicative of his view on spiritual beings, but I will go with it for now) are not spiritually free, even if the content of what they are saying is 100% correct. Steiner only sees value in teaching each individual the methods by which they can discover for themselves via experience and Thinking these occult conclusions he has reached. And the foundation for that Self-discovery is laid out mostly in PoF.

I am not sure what you mean by "clarifying with DS [exceptional state] is meaning getting lost in poor translation"? I don't think so at all - he is using "exceptional state" because observation of one's own thinking is truly an unusual state for modern humans to engage in. There was a little bit of confusion over whether it is the "firm point" or leads to the "firm point", but that is mostly irrelevant distinction. The common thread I see in most "criticisms" or even "support" of Steiner is some manner in which to deny that he was elevating Thinking to pre-modern role of bearing the world's Unity in the most objective manner we can conceive, i.e. he was not presenting a smorgasbord of spiritual options for people to explore and play around with - in fact that was the exact opposite of his approach and related to the reason he parted from theosophy and started Anthroposophy (Anthro + Philo-Sophia = "wisdom of the human being").

His critics deny that to make him a nutcase speculating "subjectively" on the most fantastic spiritual realities, and his "supporters" deny that to make it easier to keep the "good stuff" in his philosophy while throwing out the rest of his spiritual science or, at least, tucking it away deep in a closet of their minds somewhere so they never really feel the need to deal with it and what it means. A common theme of all my essays here has been that what we call "subjective", "mental", "ideal", "meaningful", etc. in the modern age is not merely personal and optional like my preference for colors or tastes. That, more than anything else, is the metaphysical and spiritual illness of the modern age that we are constantly criticizing on this forum. Yet when it comes to essential matters of the soul and spirit, we lapse right back into that same illness so that we may declare them lacking any "objective" reality which can be systematically explored and illuminated within us.

[SanteriSatama]

As Cleric pointed out earlier on the thread, Steiner remarked that if all of his writings were to be burned and he was forced to choose one to save, it would be The Philosophy of Freedom - what you are calling his "system philosophy". So, for Steiner himself, his 'system philosophy' was of critical importance to everything else including his spiritual science. Why is that? The answer is contained in the title of PoF itself - because he is seeking harmony with the course of planetary evolution towards humanity's spiritual freedom. People who can recall and recite truths of "occult animism" (the term "animism" is not at all indicative of his view on spiritual beings, but I will go with it for now) are not spiritually free, even if the content of what they are saying is 100% correct. Steiner only sees value in teaching each individual the methods by which they can discover for themselves via experience and Thinking these occult conclusions he has reached. And the foundation for that Self-discovery is laid out mostly in PoF.

Self-Discovery of "I did it my way" and "only self-learned have learned, others have been only taught" is what we could call anti-system system philosophy.

I am not sure what you mean by "clarifying with DS [exceptional state] is meaning getting lost in poor translation"? I don't think so at all - he is using "exceptional state" because observation of one's own thinking is truly an unusual state for modern humans to engage in.

Simply, Steiner does not use "exceptional state", he writes and speaks in German. What was the original German phrase, I already forgot, maybe DS can remind us again.

that was the exact opposite of his approach and related to the reason he parted from theosophy and started Anthroposophy (Anthro + Philo-Sophia = "wisdom of the human being").

Very generally speaking from common empirism, system philosophy leads to dogmatism and dogmatic interpretations and quarrels of the most orthodox system philosophy interpretation, and most heretic, yada yada yada. Theosophism had it's own rigic system philosophy orthodoxies and quarrels, in which you Steiner's departure is located.

His critics deny that to make him a nutcase speculating "subjectively" on the most fantastic spiritual realities, and his "supporters" deny that to make it easier to keep the "good stuff" in his philosophy while throwing out the rest of his spiritual science or, at least, tucking it away deep in a closet of their minds somewhere so they never really feel the need to deal with it and what it means. A common theme of all my essays here has been that what we call "subjective", "mental", "ideal", "meaningful", etc. in the modern age is not merely personal and optional like my preference for colors or tastes. That, more than anything else, is the metaphysical and spiritual illness of the modern age that we are constantly criticizing on this forum. Yet when it comes to essential matters of the soul and spirit, we lapse right back into that same illness so that we may declare them lacking any "objective" reality which can be systematically explored and illuminated within us.

If you mean the fluffy identitarian spiritual eclectism that plagues most superficial layers of new age, neopagan etc. phenomena, I agree.

On the other hand, putting "objective" in scary quotes does not help to escape that with objective comes subjective, as those are codependent relations. To speak asubjective commons in English seems quite a challenge, that needs to start from very intent listening of language and the modes of expressions that can be found beyond and before the SO-metaphysics. Poetry and music start from listening.

[AshvinP]

As Cleric pointed out earlier on the thread, Steiner remarked that if all of his writings were to be burned and he was forced to choose one to save, it would be The Philosophy of Freedom - what you are calling his "system philosophy". So, for Steiner himself, his 'system philosophy' was of critical importance to everything else including his spiritual science. Why is that? The answer is contained in the title of PoF itself - because he is seeking harmony with the course of planetary evolution towards humanity's spiritual freedom. People who can recall and recite truths of "occult animism" (the term "animism" is not at all indicative of his view on spiritual beings, but I will go with it for now) are not spiritually free, even if the content of what they are saying is 100% correct. Steiner only sees value in teaching each individual the methods by which they can discover for themselves via experience and Thinking these occult conclusions he has reached. And the foundation for that Self-discovery is laid out mostly in PoF.

Self-Discovery of "I did it my way" and "only self-learned have learned, others have been only taught" is what we could call anti-system system philosophy.

I call merely being "taught", mechanization. It is not real pedagogy because the person being "taught" is not developing the inner freedom necessary for moral imagination or ethical action.

“Our highest endeavor must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives. The need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility—these three forces are the very nerve of education.” - Steiner

I am not sure what you mean by "clarifying with DS [exceptional state] is meaning getting lost in poor translation"? I don't think so at all - he is using "exceptional state" because observation of one's own thinking is truly an unusual state for modern humans to engage in.

Simply, Steiner does not use "exceptional state", he writes and speaks in German. What was the original German phrase, I already forgot, maybe DS can remind us again.

I guess that's possible. I cannot tell what the original German so translated was because I don't understand any of the other German surrounding it

I translated from English "exceptional state" to German and got "Ausnahmezustand". That word is used 4x in Chapter 3. Here is the link to German version so maybe you can solve this mystery for us - https://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004/GA004/ga4c03.html

that was the exact opposite of his approach and related to the reason he parted from theosophy and started Anthroposophy (Anthro + Philo-Sophia = "wisdom of the human being").

Very generally speaking from common empirism, system philosophy leads to dogmatism and dogmatic interpretations and quarrels of the most orthodox system philosophy interpretation, and most heretic, yada yada yada. Theosophism had it's own rigic system philosophy orthodoxies and quarrels, in which you Steiner's departure is located.

His critics deny that to make him a nutcase speculating "subjectively" on the most fantastic spiritual realities, and his "supporters" deny that to make it easier to keep the "good stuff" in his philosophy while throwing out the rest of his spiritual science or, at least, tucking it away deep in a closet of their minds somewhere so they never really feel the need to deal with it and what it means. A common theme of all my essays here has been that what we call "subjective", "mental", "ideal", "meaningful", etc. in the modern age is not merely personal and optional like my preference for colors or tastes. That, more than anything else, is the metaphysical and spiritual illness of the modern age that we are constantly criticizing on this forum. Yet when it comes to essential matters of the soul and spirit, we lapse right back into that same illness so that we may declare them lacking any "objective" reality which can be systematically explored and illuminated within us.

If you mean the fluffy identitarian spiritual eclectism that plagues most superficial layers of new age, neopagan etc. phenomena, I agree.

On the other hand, putting "objective" in scary quotes does not help to escape that with objective comes subjective, as those are codependent relations. To speak asubjective commons in English seems quite a challenge, that needs to start from very intent listening of language and the modes of expressions that can be found beyond and before the SO-metaphysics. Poetry and music start from listening.

Yes, objective and subjective both have their uses in discussing these matters, but of course neither Steiner nor I say they are fundamentally separated. The real transition to "asubjective commons" occurs when we are initiated, transfigured, reborn, etc. into much higher perception-cognition of the Spirit. That is what allows true "listening" to poetry and music in Steiner's view. It will not come from simply listening and adjusting our language, although I agree we must practice the art of carefully using language when writing about all such matters, or carefully listening to music/language, which will be extremely helpful groundwork for our journey into higher realms of knowledge.

[SanteriSatama]

The real transition to "asubjective commons" occurs when we are initiated, transfigured, reborn, etc. into much higher perception-cognition of the Spirit. That is what allows true "listening" to poetry and music in Steiner's view. It will not come from simply listening and adjusting our language, although I agree we must practice the art of carefully using language when writing about all such matters, or carefully listening to music/language, which will be extremely helpful groundwork for our journey into higher realms of knowledge.

Initiations and transformations are also a continuous process of many events which can come in many forms and shapes. Not a single switch, and I don't think Steiner has been arguing for such.

The core dilemma of teaching is, how to teach healthy self-confidence?
Steiner pedagogy, I assume, originates from that question, which is also an art without end, not something that can be build into a rigid system.