Philosophy Unbound: Schopenhauer vs. Steiner (Round One)

[AshvinP]

This clearly didn't answer your question. No, rather, it gave you even more reason to scratch your head about me. Or not!

Well, at least you said it there so I didn't have to. For someone who criticizes Steiner's lack of clarity on things and perhaps his hypocrisy on other things, I would think you would want to avoid the exact same thing you are accusing him of in certain places. It's as if you are playing a game and you will not let us in on the rules of the game you are playing. Perhaps you find all of this to be little more than good sporting activity for your mind. I don't know... but I would appreciate if you made another attempt to clearly answer my question, since you know perfectly well that nothing you wrote in that last post was relevant to it. Why so much secrecy around your own position on these matters? What is the nature of the Reality we are all involved in and/or the best way to approach it??

[findingblanks]

I was being sarcastic. I knew that you wouldn't be able to see any clarity in my thought. As I've explained before, I never assume that is only the other person's fault. I always know that I play a role in that. I don't see that you share this intuition about communication. At all. In fact, you seem to hold the exact opposite intuition. Fortunately, it somehow brings a smile to my lips each time you scold me for causing the confusion.

Look, my friends here who study with me certainly aren't confused by what I just wrote. But that makes sense, right? When people have more shared assumptions and understandings, they don't have to work so hard to understand each other other. The reason my friends can school me and I keep learning from them is because we have a shared language about Steiner and epistemology.

We all know that some of Steiner lectures are still considered incredibly hard to understand (if at all) today. We all agree that this isn't his fault as much as the simple difficulty in bridging.

This goes for 'normal' human beings a well. At least that is my experience.

So I was being sarcastic because I realized that I had just spilled my soul to show you a wide spectrum of implications and yet it was still clear that we have no bridge. Again, I know that I play a role in that. Know what I mean?

[Cleric K]

I don't agree with him. But I see why he probably experienced it that way and, therefore, thought it was essential. I have a more non-dual overall interpretation of PoF, which is why I object to all the ways people over-spiritualize it's core terms, insinuating that a given phrase responds to a complex and esoteric experience that requires paragraphs of beautiful and intricate descriptions.

Maybe if we only had started the whole thread with the above ....

Now that your position is finally disclosed I can only say that I'm not going to argue a bit about it. I just hope, for other people reading here's sake, that we've shown clearly that your position is in fundamental contradiction with the whole Spirit of PoF.

Let's repeat what Steiner understands by 'intuition':

Thinking, out of man's world of concepts and ideas, brings this content to meet the perception. In contrast to the content of perception, which is given us from outside, the content of thought appears within us. Let us call the form in which it first arises, “intuition.” Intuition is for thinking what observation is for the perception.

There's no surprise here, especially when he explicitly says "Unprejudiced observation shows that nothing can be attributed to the being of thinking that is not found within thinking itself.". I hope it's crystal clear that intuition is the content of our thoughts, it's the meaningful experience of thinking.

Considering that 'certainty' is a quality of thinking (and not of feeling, willing or perceiving), my simple question was this: if you don't find the certainty of bringing forth thoughts, or even the simpler version 'thinking exists', or the one you suggested 'I'm aware', in the intuitions which give the content of thinking, then where and how do you find that certainty? The vague way you continued to answer the question already told me what you now reveal clearly. It's fairly obvious now that you hold PoF to be dealing with 'mere' thinking, with which Steiner hopes to 'trick us' into the mystical state, which is supposed to reveal the certainty to us. You dismiss the possibility that this certainty can be reached through the essential being of thinking observing itself. Instead, the certainty is attributed to an element outside thinking, only reachable through inexplicable transformation allowing us to draw 'knowledge' from a completely different domain, inaccessible to 'mere' thinking.

What you do is making a caricature of PoF. Basically you cherry-pick from PoF the things that you like and for everything else you say that either Steiner overstated things, or he's emotionally biased (like the paragraph on the materialist and his inability to understand the bringing forth of thoughts), or that he's simply wrong and it's our job to correct him, or that he secretly had in mind exactly what you have, but did a horrible job of putting it into words.

My last few posts aimed to show that when things are livingly experienced (not interpreted) in the way Steiner has invited us to, everything clicks into place and not only PoF but the whole body of Anthroposophy and higher cognition become transparently and experientially comprehensible. I don't even bring the question of higher cognition in my discussion with you, because there we'll fall into complete irrationality. It's enough to mention that even the most basic exercises for attainment of Imaginative consciousness begin with the closing of A and B that I mentioned. We summon an image in our consciousness and concentrate on it. Steiner explains on every occasion that it's not so much the image that is important but the focus on how we thoughtfully will the image into existence. I'm mentioning this only in passing. It's simply impossible to even approach the higher stages of cognition if we believe that intuition flows from domain unrelated to thinking.

And this is the key contradiction with everything that Steiner lays down with so much effort. You say "I object to all the ways people over-spiritualize it's core terms" The whole PoF is not about over-spiritualizing but for avoiding under-spiritualizing the place of Thinking. Only because the spiritual process of thinking lies in the blind spot of people, they consider it to be 'mere' thoughts, and go on to search for 'enlightenment' in all the other places.

I'll finish with:

Whoever observes thinking lives during his observation directly within a spiritual, self-sustaining weaving of being. Yes, one can say that whoever wants to grasp the being of the spiritual in the form in which it first presents itself to man, can do this within thinking which is founded upon itself.
...
Whoever does recognize, however, what lies before him with respect to thinking, will know that in the perception only a part of reality is present before him, and that the other part belonging to the perception, which alone first allows it to appear as full reality, will be experienced in his thinking permeation of the perception. He will not see, in what arises as thinking in his consciousness, a shadowy copy of a reality, but rather self-sustaining, spiritual, essential being. And about this essential being he can say that it is present for him in his consciousness through intuition. Intuition is the conscious experience, occurring within the purely spiritual, of a purely spiritual content. Only through an intuition can the being of thinking be grasped.

Only when one has struggled through to the recognition — won through unprejudiced observation — of this truth about the intuitive nature of thinking, will the way be successfully cleared for a view of the human physical and soul organization.

I guess Steiner is to blame for students 'over-spiritualizing' the place of thinking after all?

We can never intuit the essential being of thinking if we only throw casual glances over our past thoughts. We intuit the being of thinking when we observe our thoughts closer and closer. When we begin to realize how we're beholding an image of ourselves in them. If this feels like a chilling and creepy experience, it means we're on the right track. We're about to grasp in intuition what we really are - the living and spiritually breathing essential being behind the movement of thoughts. Not only our past snapshots, which are already at 'safe distance' from us, but the living thinking being that has been hiding in the shadows of the blind spot all that time.

[AshvinP]

I was being sarcastic. I knew that you wouldn't be able to see any clarity in my thought. As I've explained before, I never assume that is only the other person's fault. I always know that I play a role in that. I don't see that you share this intuition about communication. At all. In fact, you seem to hold the exact opposite intuition. Fortunately, it somehow brings a smile to my lips each time you scold me for causing the confusion.

Look, my friends here who study with me certainly aren't confused by what I just wrote. But that makes sense, right? When people have more shared assumptions and understandings, they don't have to work so hard to understand each other other. The reason my friends can school me and I keep learning from them is because we have a shared language about Steiner and epistemology.

We all know that some of Steiner lectures are still considered incredibly hard to understand (if at all) today. We all agree that this isn't his fault as much as the simple difficulty in bridging.

This goes for 'normal' human beings a well. At least that is my experience.

So I was being sarcastic because I realized that I had just spilled my soul to show you a wide spectrum of implications and yet it was still clear that we have no bridge. Again, I know that I play a role in that. Know what I mean?

No, and I still find it supremely ironic that the post above was written by the same person who wrote posts criticizing Steiner for his writing in PoF or for the common readers' understanding of what he said so plainly.

Your "wide spectrum" of implications had to do with the personality of Steiner and specific (mostly irrelevant) claims he may have made, and nothing to do with the question I asked about your position on what exactly is the essential nature of man and his role in the world-evolving process? I have stated and restated this basic question so many times now that I am running out of words to use, so please spare me that effort and just answer it plainly this time. You can put it in Steiner's terms, Barfield's terms, your own terms... it doesn't matter.

[findingblanks]

"My last few posts aimed to show that when things are livingly experienced (not interpreted).."

This isn't my first rodeo, so believe me I know that when people disagree about PoF they immediately make clear that their is no interpretation when they move from their living experience to their choice of words. You've been sneaking up to the point where you finally started making clear that you can't be wrong (or corrected) because you are not doing any interpretation of PoF. You are livingly experiencing it.

I stick my neck out by not playing that trick. I acknowledge that my experience requires an interpretive element. No matter how alive and fluid my experience is, my understanding of it into words can make missteps.

I like you. I know you have good intentions. But please call me out if you ever see me telling another person that their 'interpreting' means they simply don't grasp my living experience. It's disgusting. But it is the most common way these conversations typically come to an end.

Still, there was lots of nutrition in this between the disagreements. And I'm not kidding or being sarcastic when I say that I know you are certain.

[findingblanks]

One sign that you might be standing nearby a cult* (But not in one!)

They will get very nit-picky with your words but allow deep and beautiful interpretations of their leaders.

For instance, if you said, "I believe that there is no experience that is not cognitive." And then you said, "The only way we can begin to understand the nature of cognition is to find the field of observation that precedes cognition," these people would immediately (and rightly) point out how sloppy you are being. And they would probably suggest you meditate more and become clearer.

However, if the leader says the same thing, they will write you pages and pages of explanation as to why you must understand his meaning and why it really is a very clear way to explain the starting point. They might even remind you that the leader explicitly said that 'only ill-will' could account for somebody not agree with him.

To be clear, I don't consider Steiner or the movement to be a cult. That's why I specified the distinction as I did.

But you can try this yourself. Find people susceptible to cults and find their 'teacher'. They will be smart people. See if you their leader ever was unclear or wrong and then present it. But first dialog enough with them to show that they certainly require clear statemetns and will call you when you contradict yourself. Do that first so that when you present the leader's words, you can really relax into the beautifully spiritual descriptions that will begin to 'explain' what the leader means by those simple little phrases.

However, when it comes to Steiner, if we even had just been left with his lectures to the first Waldorf Schools we couldn't express enough thanks in our lifetime. But he gave us so much more than that. He even more than hinted at what it would look like after his death if his students didn't recognize his blind-spots. At various times he sketched out the deformed shape his movement would take if peopel basically talked about Anthroposophy in 2000 the way they talked about it in 1919.

In terms of that, it can often be very eye opening to ask students what they think the biggest changes have been in how Anthroposophy is understood now as opposed to, say, 1930? Or to ask what has been the biggest re-understanding of Steiner in the last few decades? When I do this I either hear crickets, or sometimes people point to their favorite Anthroposophical Clairvoyant (like Jesiaha Ben-Aharon or one of the others) and share some of their clairvoyant visions of how the spiritual world has changed since Steiner.

But one thing is clear: If I say that experience is intrinsically cognitive and then insist that we must begin with a concept of an unconceptualized 'field of pure chaos' that thinking then weaves threads into....the smartest and most diligent students will take me to task for my unclarity at the very least. Thank God! If I'm lucky they'll share beautiful paragraphs of their own words to explain how I should understand things.

I've gotta go work on a table that I can't get off my mind.

* if any future readers are curious as to why I absolutely do not consider Steiner a cult leader, I'll be happy to email you a long list of reasons. I do think the nature of his work and his self-expression created cult-like conditions and was very attractive to people who sought a certain kind of existential certainty and consolation. But that is not the same thing as a person who's narcissism causes him to intentionally manipulate people for his own gain. And yes, I do think that if you find a philosopher who quite often interjects that only 'ill will' can explain a misunderstanding or a different interpretation, you are dealing with a slightly paranoid person. That doesn't contradict the person also being a generous and brilliant researcher. The world is wonderfully complex and most of it should evoke deep awe and ambiguity, methinks. Steiner certainly should.

[findingblanks]

"If a theory of knowledge is really to explain the whole sphere of knowledge, then it must start from something still quite untouched by the activity of thinking, and what is more, from something which lends to this activity its first impulse. This starting point must lie outside the act of cognition, it must not itself be knowledge. But it must be sought immediately prior to cognition, so that the very next step man takes beyond it is the activity of cognition." - Rudolf Steiner

I agree with Cleric that we can't start outside of cognition because 'cognition exists' is all we find. And yes, some people will feel inclined to redefine 'outside of cognition' to esoterically mean 'inside of cognition.' As I've said, I realize what we do when our leader says certain things as opposed to normal people

We must start with that insight. No need to imagine aliens confronting 'pure chaos' and then transforming the pure chaos into meaning by bringing concepts to it. In fact, if you really believe that we can only get to the starting point by imagining an alien or a 'field of pure experience untouched by any cognition at all,' that means you are starting with unexamined presuppositions. Unless you are my teacher! If you are my teacher than, yes, of course, we must begin by imagining 'pure chaos'. There is no other way.

Steiner himself often said that we need to pay very close attention when philosophers claim that there is only one way to begin. So I'm sure that when he insists we must begin by conceptualizing an artificial experience...of course he was right.

[findingblanks]

What if I said that the only way we can grasp thinking's nature is by starting with a concept about an impossible experience?

I hope you'd continue pointing out my misunderstandings.

[findingblanks]

For future readers...

Quick stupid lesson:

If someone scolds you for acknowledging the unavoidable interpretive elements of a conversation, be wary. Be very wary. If they support this move by pointing out that they, rather than doing any form of interpretation, merely have living experience..... slowly back away.

They mean what they are saying. Trust me.

[findingblanks]

Pretend I say that you must imagine a specific experience.

Then I say, actually that isn't even an experience. It is actually an artificial concept.

Then I say that we must find the bridge between that experience (the artificial concept) and the point where thinking begins.

Would you be stupid for asking me if the artificial concept is already the product of my thinking?

No. But what if it was your leader who said those sentences? Then would it be silly to ask that?

Maybe not silly. But you'd need the leader's best students to explain why that is the only way to begin correctly. And they'd probably hint that they have experienced the truth of this necessity.

This is for those observers who don't think it's just me who is confused. But you are right about that!