In making his argument Bortoft utilizes Kuhn’s work on scientific paradigms as well as what he refers to as the influence of organizing ideas in perception. Organizing ideas mean that objects are not simply perceived directly but are influenced by theories and concepts. Another name for this is the theory-dependence of observation. The influence of organizing ideas on perception influences both everyday cognitive perception of the world as well as scientific observation. For instance, Bortoft explains how Copernicus was influenced by Renaissance ideals of symmetry and harmony in architecture and painting, so that the origins of Copernican theory do not ‘lie only in astronomy as such but in the entire cultural-historical situation’.
As an example of the influence of organizing ideas in everyday perception, Bortoft describes the seeing of a chair. People who had never seen chairs or had idea of chairs would not see chairs in the way we see them, or discriminate a chair as something distinct from its surrounding environment in the way that we do. The chair is thus a cognitive perception, not just a sense perception. Hence, Bortoft writes ’ “the chair” is the way of seeing. This applies to everything we see about us’.
Because the way of seeing structures what is seen, Bortoft emphasizes that different scientific paradigms can be incommensurable, because they are based on different organizing ideas and cognitive perceptions. However, Bortoft does not think that this leads to relativism. Hence, in relation to Goethean science and science based on quantification, he writes:
Bortoft grounds this avoidance of relativism in Goethean science itself and the notion of ‘multiplicity in unity’:Bortoft wrote:
The science of quantity and the science of wholeness are incommensurable, but this is no reason for epistemological pessimism. Their incommensurability does not mean that we cannot know ‘what nature is really like.’ The being of nature can be revealed in different ways by different kinds of science, none of which has any claim to be more basic or fundamental. What becomes visible in each case is nature itself, but only one possible aspect of nature. Thus, nature can be quantity, or causal mechanism, or wholeness, for example.’
Bortoft makes several mentions of Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom in his book, speaking highly of it, although he does not discuss Steiner’s later work or how his (Bortoft’s) application of principles from philosophy of science might also be applied to Steiner’s spiritual science. However, Wayne Hudson's chapter in this book (https://www.routledge.com/The-Gnostic-W ... 0367733124) on Gnosticism, suggests that Steiner’s later work can be read with a similar sort of perspective to that of Bortoft:Bortoft wrote:
Each aspect of nature which is revealed is the same One. The difference here is the self-difference within unity. Hence different kinds of science reveal different aspects of nature but not different parts of nature… [W]e can see how truth can be neither singular or plural, but One truth which is multiple… There is no longer a choice between objectivism and relativism , but a new way of understanding which transcends this dichotomy by seeing the one and the many in a new way.. Goethe’s organic perspective of ‘multiplicity within unity’ can itself become the means by which Goethe’s style of science can be seen to be justified..
This suggests that Steiner’s spiritual science can also be seen as a way of seeing/thinking which structures what is seen or thought. Thus, Hudson’s view is that spiritual science is a set of practices which facilitate personal transformation, and is not dependent on a correspondence theory of truth as applied to objective spiritual entities.Hudson wrote:
..Steiner offers his readers projective anthropology and projective cosmosophy, which, allied to appropriate practices, have the capacity to elicit and support significant changes to their physical and psychological organization. It follows, as he explains, that his spiritual teaching cannot be taken as literal information as if it referred to the physical world, even though many of his followers do take it in this way. Steiner insisted in many places that his esoteric teachings are spatial descriptions of spiritual realities. He also emphasized that his readers needed to suspend their natural tendency to regard such statements as ludicrous and fantastic because by doing so their thinking could become more “living” and “inwardly mobile.” Spiritual science, Steiner emphasized:In short, Steiner’s Anthroposophy is a body of material to be worked with, and not an independent mythology or a speculative metaphysics (Kühlewind 1992). The fact that the bodies Steiner describes are objects to be transformed by means of practices alerts the reader to the practical character of his teaching.speaks to the will. Hence it is not understood by anyone who tries to grasp it by faith or as a theory. I have said to you that for anyone who reads my Occult Science as he would read a novel, passively giving himself to it, it is really only a thicket of words – and so are my other books. Only one who knows that in every moment of reading he must, out of the depths of his own soul, and through his most intimate willing, create something for which the books should be only a stimulus – only such a one can regard these books as musical scores out of which he can gain the experience in his own soul of the true piece of music. (Steiner 1949: 14)
This notion that different practices can reveal different aspect of the One, rather than there being a set of practices leading to absolute truth, also seems more in accord with the emphasis in PoF on individual freedom.
To give a concrete example of how the above way of characterising things could be applied to the paranormal - both the hallucinations of a mentally ill person and the vision of a burning bush by a religious prophet or mystic differ from the collective representations which constitute consensus reality. Whilst the mystic may be more spiritually developed than the others, neither the visions of the mystic, consensus reality or the hallucinations of someone who is unwell are more ‘true’ in terms of corresponding with some objectively existing, observer-independent reality. Rather, each perspective reveals a different aspect of the one reality, dependent on the constitution of the perspective from which the seeing occurs (which is not to say that all perspectives are equally useful or beneficial). Another equally developed mystic might see an angel rather than a burning bush.
Anyway, to sum up this ramble and some of what I have learnt from Bortoft:
- Ways of seeing structure what is seen. What is observed is theory-dependent.
- Different ways of seeing mean that different paradigms can be incommensurable with each other, because they are based on different organzing
ideas and observational data.
- This incommensurability does not lead to relativism if different ways of seeing are characterised as revealing different aspects of the one reality.
- The incommensurability but complementarity of different perspectives on reality can potentially be applied to spiritual practices and observations
as well as science.