I’m studying
this paper that is basically commentaries on PoF epistemology. Very interesting and revealing. There is a lot there, I will only emphasize the relevant points. I’ll be posing a series of posts on the subject.
Step 1.Thinking and Reality.
Steiner writes:
Only our immediately given world-image (Weltbild) can offer such a starting point, that is, that which lies before us prior to subjecting it to the process of cognition in any way, before we have asserted or decided anything about it by means of thinking. This “directly given” is what passes us by, and what we pass by, disconnected but still not divided into individual entities, in which nothing appears distinguished from, related to, or determined by anything else … Before our conceptual activity begins, the world-picture contains neither substance, quality, nor cause and effect; distinction between matter and spirit, body and soul, do not yet exist. Furthermore any other predicates must be excluded at this stage. The picture can be considered neither as reality nor as appearance, neither subjective nor objective, neither as chance nor as necessity; whether it is a “thing-in-itself” or mere representation cannot be decided at this stage.
... Differentiation of the undifferentiated given into individual entities is already a result of cognitive activity
If a being with a fully developed human intelligence were suddenly created out of nothing
and then confronted with the world, the first impression on his senses and his thinking
would be something like what I have just characterized as the unmediated given. In
practice, we never encounter the given in this form — that is, there is never an experienced
division between a pure, passive turning toward the given and the cognitive grasp of the
given
This directly given content includes everything that enters our experience in the widest
sense: sensations, perceptions, opinions, feelings, deeds, pictures of dreams and
imaginations, representations, concepts and ideas.
We must find the bridge from the world as given to the world-picture that we build up through cognition.
But when we want to know something other than thinking, we can do so only with the help of thinking
Brady (the author) comments
Given an “other than thinking,” how do we come to grasp it by thinking?
Thus cognition can do nothing else but make its start from the field as it is given. Cognition must respond to a content that is, for cognition, totally indeterminate.
The takeaway of it is this:
There is a
GIVEN (experienced world content), and thinking with concepts and ideas is only a
part of it. It is inseparable part, because every outcome of thinking immediately becomes part of the Given. But thinking with ideas is not all there is (Given), but only inseparable part of it. Therefore, inevitably, not all that is in the Given are ideas and thinking activity, there are aspects of the Given that are not ideas and not Thinking.
The activity of thinking is to bridge from the
world as given to the
world-picture that we build up through cognition.
Next, how do we differentiate concepts and ideas from the rest of the Given?
Steiner wrote:
It is a characteristic feature of the rest of the world-content that it must be given if we are to
experience it; the only case in which the opposite occurs is that of concepts and ideas:
these we must bring forth if we are to experience them.
Is est: The intentional "bringing forth" is a quality of thinking activity that distinguishes ideas from the rest of the Given.
My comments:
This is literally what Steiner says, period. And that is what I 've been saying all along: the Reality given to us (i.e. given to us in our 1-st person conscious phenomenal experience) is not an idea, but it does contain ideas as a part of itself. The role of thinking is to manifest ideas that cognize the Given without becoming separate from the Given. This apparent "split" between the ideas and the rest of the given is not a real duality, because the ideas never become apart from the Given, but automatically become inseparable part of the Given the very moment they are brought forth.
Steiner confirms this:
Through a postulate we have separated a particular part from the rest of the given content;
this was done because it lies in the nature of cognition to start with just this part. Thus it
was separated only to allow us to understand the act of cognition. In so doing we must be
clear that we have artificially torn apart the unity of the world-content. We must realize that
what we have separated has a necessary connection to that content irrespective of our
postulate.
So far it makes perfect sense!
Note: this is about the same as I wrote
here (and Ashving criticized
here as dualism), with the exception that Steiner uses the word "thinking" specifically to designate the cognitive activity and as opposed to the rest of the Given, while I used "Thinking" in that post that is synonymous of the "Given" (being confused by Ashvin presentation that thinking is equivalent to consciousness and the Given).
Apparently, Ashvin has been misrepresenting Steiner's phenomenology-epistemology. The whole world as given to us (in our phenomenal 1-st person perspective), according to Steiner, in
not only the universe of thinking activity and ideas that it manifests. There is something in the Given Reality that is "other than thinking" (i.e. not thinking and not ideas) but which is for thinking to attempt to comprehend. Moreover, the thinking cognitive activity that bring forth ideas in order to comprehend the Given never split the unity of the Given into any duality, because, notwithstanding the ideas being "applied" to the Given, they never become really apart from the Given (because they are automatically included in the Given the very moment they are brought forth and experienced by thinking).
My other comment:
Given is how the Reality is presented to us in our 1-st person conscious experience. We do not know if the Given is all that the wholeness of Reality is, or if it is only a part of it and there are other parts of Realty hidden from our sight. Of course, the latter is very reasonable to assume, but it still would only be an assumption.
More to follow
