Philosophy Unbound: Schopenhauer vs. Steiner (Round One)

[findingblanks]

"Whether this activity is really ours or whether we perform it according to an unalterable necessity, is a question we need not decide at present. That it appears in the first instance to be ours is beyond question." - Rudolf Steiner, Chapter 3 of PoF....

It's easy to get lost in these streams of threads.... Can somebody tell me if Cleric ever said at what point in the text Steiner went from describing the appearance of ourselves as engaging in thinking to the reality of it?

I know he said that in the very same Chapter Steiner has established the nature of thinking itself. But did he say where Steiner marked this transition from what appearances obvious to the actual discovery that it is the case?

"But thinking as an object of observation differs essentially from all other objects."

It can be interesting for some people to note that Steiner says 'object' twice in this sentence. Could it be that he wants us to make some kind of equation between the objects of our senses (trees, branches, streams, houses) and thinking as an object?

For some people, thinking as an object refers to the finished thought products of the spiritual activity itself.

"The observation of a table, or a tree, occurs in me as soon as these objects appear upon the horizon of my experience. Yet I do not, at the same time, observe my thinking about these things."

Now, Cleric has noted that Steiner seemed to use 'thinking' as verb in that sentence. He might have, for sure, but I can't read the German. In the English translation we see above, it can be taken as a verb or a noun. If taken as a noun, it more easily fits with what Steiner said just before it about thinking as an object. Notice that I am being very boring by not claiming to know for sure. I know, I know....

"I observe the table, and I carry out the thinking about the table, but I do not at the same moment observe this. I must first take up a standpoint outside my own activity if, in addition to observing the table, I want also to observe my thinking about the table."

What might Steiner mean by a 'standpoint outside of my own activity'" Well, later he gives a concrete example and says that if we can notice that we are thinking about a table, we have taken such a stance.

"Whereas observation of things and events, and thinking about them, are everyday occurrences filling up the continuous current of my life, observation of the thinking itself is a kind of exceptional state."

Do we think that he is still talking about 'thinking as an object' as he said in introducing this entire topic? I do. I know that is boring but it makes perfect sense with everything he has said.

He makes clear that we typically do not stop to think about what we were just thinking. I think he is right. I don't find this a boring suggestion. I think Steiner is correct to say this is the exception to what we typically are doing all day long.

So I claim that Steiner is talking about the experience of noticing our concepts. Others claim he is speaking about the core spiritual experience of The Philosophy of Freedom.

Well, next paragraph he gives yet another example of what he means by making thinking into an object of our observation. He does so by contrasting it with making pleasure the object of our observation.

"Pleasure does not stand at all in the same relation to its object as the concept formed by thinking."

Why does Steiner mention our observing a concept here? Shouldn't he have mentioned that when we observe thinking we are not noticing a concept of it but we are living in the spiritual reality of this self-supporting, warm, and vibrant activity?

No. Steiner was correct to give the example of noticing a concept. He will do it again in just a second. But look again:

"Pleasure does not stand at all in the same relation to its object as the concept formed by thinking."

Steiner is asking the reader to compare the 'object' called 'pleasure' (sweet taste of fruit, back massage...) to a concept. He says that the concept is caused by thinking. Okay, but the comparison -- meaning the thing that we are noticing -- is the concept. Not the cause. Remember, Steiner just told us that he isn't yet at all concerned with having direct knowledge of the cause. But we can notice the concept (door, table, bush, hand...).

Are we sure that Steiner wants us to pay attention to the finished concepts rather than the spiritual experience of grasping thinking itself? He says:

"For observation, a pleasure is given in exactly the same way as the event which causes it. The same is not true of the concept."

Again, Steiner doesn't just talk about the object of thinking (which implies a concept) but he explicitly names it as a concept.

This is going to be boring for some, but notice what Steiner says next:

"I can ask why a particular event arouses in me a feeling of pleasure, but I certainly cannot ask why an event produces in me a particular set of concepts."

Again, he stressed these objects called 'concepts'.

Here is my experience. We don't notice concepts unless we make thinking the object of our observation. Steiner had already said:

""But thinking as an object of observation differs essentially from all other objects."

Objects. Concepts. Yes, this makes sense. When I work on the table, I'm focusing on the shape, color, texture and acting according to my training. When I pause to think about it, I might say to myself, "Why is this wood not cutting smoothly" or "How could I do this more efficiently" but notice something: That is NOT an example of me making my thinking an object of my observation. In those moments, I am not also saying, "I am thinking about a table," because I am simply engaged in the daily act of thinking. Steiner however, wants us to notice concepts.

We can notice concepts rather than simply think them. "How do I fix this table faster" is a thought made of concepts. But I haven't yet turned my attention to the concepts as such.

That would be an exception to what Steiner says is the norm. And, as boring as this sounds, my experience is definitely that Steiner is correct here. It is a major exception of the norm for me to turn from thinking and perceiving to my concepts themselves.

How do we know that Steiner still hopes the reader is focusing on our concepts? Well, the very next thing he does is to show how focusing on all other objects of experiencing is different than concepts.

"The peculiar nature of thinking lies just in this, that it is an activity which is directed solely upon the observed object and not on the thinking personality.:

So I have been percieving the table. Yes? Yes. I have been thinking about the table. Yes? "How can I build this faster? What's wrong with this table? Why are tables so hard to build? Does this table look right?" Yes.

If I feel the texture of the table, my focus has shifted to my hands to some extent. If I focus on the pleasure of its shape, my focus has shifted to my sense of pleasure. But what if I shift to the concepts of my thinking?

It is an exceptional moment to shift to our concepts. Steiner says:

"I do not as a rule say, “I am thinking of a table,” but, “this is a table.”

Do you agree with Steiner? I do. I walk into a room and notice a table. That is thinking. I couldn't notice it as a table without thinking. But that is very different from turning my attention to the object of my thinking and noticing that, "I am thinking of a table."

Has Steiner shifted from wanting the reader to notice the exception that comes with concepts and now wanting the reader to have the fundamental experience of The Philosophy of Freedom. Cleric and many others say that, yes, Steiner is introducing us to the 'exceptional state' in which his philosophy is grasped and understood by the reader.

But notice this!

"This is just the peculiar nature of thinking, that the thinker forgets his thinking while actually engaged in it. What occupies his attention is not his thinking, but the object of his thinking, which he is observing."

Ah, Steiner is about to tell us that the exceptional state is when we wake up in the activity of thinking, right?!!!

"I can never observe my present thinking."

The exceptional state is not when we observe our thinking. It is when we observe the result of our thinking, the concept.

At this stage in the book when Steiner is merely pointing to the essential difference that comes with noticing concepts, he needs to make clear that:

"The thinking to be observed is never that in which I am actually engaged."

It is very important to Steiner that we not think he is yet pointing to whether we are understanding the world correctly:

" It does not matter in the least whether I have the right concepts of lightning and thunder. The connection between those concepts that I do have is clear to me, and this through the very concepts themselves."

It isn't that the concepts are true. It is simply that as we have them they necessarily imply each other. This need not be the case. We could have a concept of 'lightning' that does not imply it causes the 'thunder.' But, the way we have the concepts they do indeed necessitate each other. Again, Steiner says it matters not whether they are the correct concepts.

Cleric and others say that in this next paragraph Steiner shifts away from his earlier claim that he hasn't yet said we know for certain that our "I" is responsible for thinking:

"For everyone, however, who has the ability to observe thinking — and with good will every normal man has this ability — this observation is the most important one he can possibly make. For he observes something of which he himself is the creator; he finds himself confronted, not by an apparently foreign object, but by his own activity. He knows how the thing he is observing comes into being. He sees into its connections and relationships. A firm point has now been reached from which one can, with some hope of success, seek an explanation of all other phenomena of the world."

Sure sounds like it, doesn't it?

How on earth could we agree with Steiner that

1) He hasn't yet actually made an ontological discovery about the nature of the self and thinking
2) Yet this confrontation with our concepts is the most important first step in his philosophy?

Well, I hope it is clear from just holding those two together.

We aren't yet directly grasping the nature of thinking, but we are clearly and directly in touch with the unique nature of its product.

Lighting and Thunder might not really be connected inherently, but it is essential that we can see why our concepts make them so.

Cleric and many others think that this part of the book is about discovering the truth rather than a foothold to the truth.

But Steiner does a heck of a job making clear why he isn't yet speaking about the truth but is indeed asking us to notice what is exceptional about our capacity to notice "I am thinking of a table."

[AshvinP]

"Yes, but it is not my thinking, as in "me" conceived of as an isolated bubble of consciousness..."

Okay, so if I can show you that in PoF Steiner actually believed and was stating that it is your thinking (you as an individuated entity) that divides the percept from the concept, you will be willing to say he was misunderstanding reality? This is a good start, then.

"do you agree that self-reflective thinking divided world content, as the mythologies describe, or disagree?"

No, I believe that prior to the earliest human alpha thinking, the living beings of the Earth encountered trees and bushes and streams without understanding them. Hence, I do not believe that the first thinking (in its rich and vibrant particiapted forms of early humans) is what created the experiences of bushes and streams and fragrances. Yet, I do believe that it caused a new and sudden shock of fear, shame, beauty and the possibility of divine union. So, no, I do not believe that self reflective thinking caused the first environmental objects to appear.

I regretted writing that almost as soon as I posted it. Go ahead and strike it out like I did above, because it only leads to confusion. I see you already seized on it to write a bunch of posts, so sorry for wasting your time.

To clarify, my position is that each individual does have experience divided in their mere reflective thinking and can heal that divide through their Thinking activity of reason, inspiration, imagination, intuition. As I stated awhile ago, and went ignored, this is evident in the simple fact that we sense perceptions coming from outside inward and concepts coming from within us outward. What is your explanation for that and how it relates to this whole issue?

(I am bolding these questions just so that they are harder to miss, because a lot of previous ones were "missed")

[AshvinP]

"do you agree that self-reflective thinking divided world content, as the mythologies describe, or disagree?"

No, I believe that prior to the earliest human alpha thinking, the living beings of the Earth encountered trees and bushes and streams without understanding them. Hence, I do not believe that the first thinking (in its rich and vibrant particiapted forms of early humans) is what created the experiences of bushes and streams and fragrances. Yet, I do believe that it caused a new and sudden shock of fear, shame, beauty and the possibility of divine union. So, no, I do not believe that self reflective thinking caused the first environmental objects to appear.

OK, so you hold to modern era position that there existed a world of "environmental objects" before any "subjects" who could perceive them in some reflective manner? I am glad we cleared that up, because it highlights how you are, in fact, relying on unexamined Cartesian-Kantian dualisms. There is no point discussing anything else until that underlying assumption is explored - what we are saying can only be understood once such things are dispelled.

[AshvinP]

"do you agree that self-reflective thinking divided world content, as the mythologies describe, or disagree?"

No, I believe that prior to the earliest human alpha thinking, the living beings of the Earth encountered trees and bushes and streams without understanding them. Hence, I do not believe that the first thinking (in its rich and vibrant participated forms of early humans) is what created the experiences of bushes and streams and fragrances. Yet, I do believe that it caused a new and sudden shock of fear, shame, beauty and the possibility of divine union. So, no, I do not believe that self reflective thinking caused the first environmental objects to appear.

OK, so you hold to modern era position that there existed a world of "environmental objects" before any "subjects" who could perceive them in some reflective manner? I am glad we cleared that up, because it highlights how you are, in fact, relying on unexamined Cartesian-Kantian dualisms. There is no point discussing anything else until that underlying assumption is explored - what we are saying can only be understood once such things are dispelled.

I am going to try and morph my posting pattern into less frequent posts with more details. Many times when I post quickly now, I am just presenting various conclusions, hoping we can agree, without giving any arguments for them. I try to do the latter in my essays, but those are pretty massive, so I am trying to find a happy middle ground in these posts. I am sure the brevity contributes to your sense that I am just saying these things are 100% certain and obvious without any reasoning. That is quite opposite of what I believe - they may be as close to certain as we can get, but "the simple and obvious" have become the least simple and obvious things to point out in the modern age. We need to reason it through, not just once or twice, but constantly, pretty much every time we are evaluating a philosophical argument or making one, until it becomes second nature.

I think Cleric may have given a similar illustration earlier - let's think of Cartesian-Kantian dualisms as a rubber band... when we come across various philosophies and comments which adequately challenge them, we pull the rubber band further and further out, increasing the tension. What happens most of the time, though, is when the tension becomes uncomfortable for us, we just let those dualisms snap right back in place unconsciously, and they proceed to influence all of our worldviews in the background. Instead, we need to keep stretching them out until they completely snap. It will be uncomfortable and painful for a little while, but eventually we find the pain is more than worth it for the clarify of vision we gain.

In this situation, the ontological confusion is simple - you are reifying the "bushes, streams, and fragrances" into objects-processes independent of thinking activity. Without the Cartesian dualism, and assuming idealist ontology, we are forced to conclude that any apparent separation between our bodies and the 'boundaries' of 'things' around us is an illusion. The unified Spirit actually permeates everything in existence, at this very moment and at all moments. The most we could ever say is that there is a formless aspect of Spirit-Soul and a formative aspect which are interpenetrating and inseparable - any divisions or reified distinctions beyond that One is Maya. Once we internalize that fact, we could not possibly be warranted in claiming the phenomenal world can exist if we are not perceiving-cognizing it (and there is no such activity as non-reflective thinking, fundamentally, but only "non-reflective" perspectives in relation to the reflective Whole).

You may be tempted to try and turn this on Steiner and say, "then he is wrong to speak about concepts and percepts in the beginning of PoF". That is simply confusing distinctions with divisions. He is engaged in phenomenology, so he must start with how the world actually present to us - as divided into percepts from without and concepts from within. Yet the entire purpose of this phenomenology is to show that, if we follow along with good will and sound reasoning, we come to realize that percepts and concepts are two poles of the same unified spiritual activity. There is truly only Thinking-Thoughts, Ideating-Ideas, and "percept" is just a way of saying those thoughts-ideas which approach us from without. And, as you know, there is only one exception - our thought-percepts which we will into existence.