Philosophy of Freedom
Encyclopedia
The Philosophy of Freedom, the fundamental philosophical work of the philosopher and esotericist Rudolf Steiner
, focuses on the concept of free will
. Originally published in 1894 in German
as Die Philosophie der Freiheit, the work has appeared under a number of English titles, including The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path.
Part One of the Philosophy of Freedom examines the conditions for freedom of thought; the second part examines the conditions for freedom of action. Steiner seeks to demonstrate that inner freedom is achieved when we bridge the gap between our perception
, which reflect the outer appearance of the world, and our cognition
, which give us access to the inner structure of the world. He suggests that outer freedom arises when we bridge the gap between our ideals
and the constraints of external reality, letting our deeds be inspired by what he terms moral imagination.
The Philosophy of Freedom is reported to have been an attempt to achieve the university status of habilitation (see Anton Hügli).
and abstract ethical or moral
principles. Freedom, he says, is only possible because these various constraining factors work in contradictory directions. Between the impulses of our two natures, neither of which is individualized, we find the freedom to choose how to think and act. By overcoming the dictates of both our 'lower' and 'higher' sources of experience, by orchestrating a meeting place of objective and subjective elements of experience, we become true and free individuals. Freedom for Steiner thus does not lie in uninhibited expression of our subjective nature, but in the conscious unification of this with the objective constraints of the world.
In chapter three, Steiner critiques Descartes. We posit dualism between mind and body, suggests Steiner, because we perceive the outer nature of the world and its inner nature in radically separate ways. Our sensory perceptions
inform us about the outer appearance of the world, while our thought life penetrates its inner nature. This division is particular to and defines human experience. Steiner suggests that we actually have the capacity to overcome the dualism of experience by reuniting perception
and cognition
. When contemplating our own thinking activity, we are perceiving what we are thinking, and thinking what we are perceiving. Steiner suggests that freedom arises most purely at this moment, when free ideation arises out of ego activity; this is, for Steiner, spiritual activity.
Steiner proposes that once we have brought the two sides of our experience into harmony, we need to forge a new synthesis of these at every moment in a situationally-appropriate, free deed. Steiner coined the term moral imagination for this act of creative synthesis. He suggests that we only achieve free deeds when we find a moral imagination, an ethically impelled but particularized response to the immediacy of a given situation. This response will always be individual; it cannot be predicted or prescribed. This radical ethical individualism
is, for Steiner, characteristic of freedom.
of freedom, focusing on the conditions necessary for freedom of action. This structure parallels Hegel's description of freedom: "Ethical life is the Idea of freedom as the living good which has its knowledge and volition in self-consciousness, and its actuality through self-conscious action."
, in particular of rational thought, for the attainment of freedom. He explores the various compulsions of motives on different levels, and points out that freedom only exists if we overcome the force of the various motives acting within us. In his 1919 lectures on The Study of Man, Steiner further differentiated these motives into seven levels: reflexes, drives, desires, motifs, wishes, intentions, and commitments.
Steiner then takes up Schiller's exploration of the polarity between the moral compulsion of our rationality and the animal compulsion of our bodily nature (see Schiller's essay Letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man) to show that freedom is possible where compulsion from neither of these polar aspects of the human being dominates. He quotes Goethe here:
The polarity in consciousness is between perception through the senses, which gives us access to the outer nature of things, and perception through thinking, which gives us access to the inner nature of things. Steiner treats thinking as an organ of perception as valid as the senses themselves; both are subject to illusion and distortion, but both can reveal true aspects of the world to us. Our consciousness is dualistic in that the two sides of the world (and of every object or element of the world), the inner and the outer, are only available to us split between two modes of perception. It is then the work of the human mind
or spirit
to reconcile these two, to bring our thoughts about a given aspect of the world and our perceptions of this into harmony.
Steiner emphasizes that thinking is unique in its access to the true inner reality of the world. We can be conscious of our thought processes in a way that we cannot be of our feelings, will or perceptions. Because of this, we can be sure that our thoughts are truly objective, while our feelings about a thing (for example) may say more about our subjective reactions or condition than about the phenomena to which they seem to be directed. In addition, we correct our perceptions (for example, when these include perspective distortions) through our conceptual framework. Thinking is thus necessary if we are to properly interpret our perception.
Steiner also emphasizes that modern science depends upon these same two elements of perception and thinking. Perception alone is not science, but is at best the gathering of data. Only when we group and analyze a mass of perceptions can we obtain scientific clarity about it. On the other hand, mathematics
is a kind of thinking in which thought itself forms the perceptions; no sense-perceptions are needed to form a basis for mathematical principles. Mathematics could be said to be a science of the inner side of things, where we need not know anything about their outer appearance.
A critical analysis of various philosophical directions' relation to the dialectic of our experience, to this polarity of our outer and inner worlds, concludes with the appeal for a higher monism
. Though our experience leads us to an illusion of dualism, in reality we are experiencing two sides of a single phenomenon when we perceive it and think about it: two sides of a single, unified world. All the conclusions of dualistic philosophies - in particular Kant
's assertion that there are limits beyond which our understanding can never go - are thus mistaken. There are limits beyond which our understanding does not presently go, but both our perception and our thinking can be extended far beyond their momentary abilities. The telescope
and microscope
offer us radical extensions of the range of our perceptions; we can look to extend our powers of thought as vigorously as we have extended our powers of perception. Steiner thus throws down a gauntlet to the philosophy of his (and our) time: it is not enough simply to define the limits of possible knowledge, it is necessary to work to extend these as well.
, of the awakening of the ego, in objective thinking. Here he modifies the usual description of inner and outer experience by pointing out that our feelings, for example, are given to us as naively as outer perceptions. Both of these, feelings and perceptions, tell about objects we are interested in: the one about ourselves, the other about the world. Both require the help of thinking to penetrate the reasons why they arise, to comprehend their inner message. The same is true of our will. Whereas our feelings tell how the world affects us, our will tells how we would affect the world. Neither attains to true objectivity, for both mix together the world's existence and our inner life in an unclear way. Steiner emphasizes that we experience our feelings and will - and our perceptions as well - as being more essentially part of us than our thinking; the former are more basic, more natural. He celebrates this gift of natural, direct experience, but points out that this experience is still dualistic in the sense that it only encompasses one side of the world.
This all is by way of introduction and recapitulation. Steiner then introduces the principle that we can act out of the compulsions of our natural being (reflexes, drives, desires) or out of the compulsion of ethical principles, and that neither of these leaves us free. Between them, however, is an individual insight, a situational ethic, that arises neither from abstract principles nor from our bodily impulses. A deed that arises in this way can be said to be truly free; it is also both unpredictable and wholly individual. Here Steiner articulates his fundamental maxim of social life:
Here he describes a polarity of influences on human nature, stating that morality transcends both the determining factors of bodily influences and those of convention:
For Steiner, morality is completely situational and individual; true morality depends upon our achieving freedom from both our inner drives and outer pressures. To achieve such free deeds, we must cultivate our moral imagination, our ability to imaginatively create ethically sound and practical solutions to new situations, in fact, to forge our own ethical principles and to transform these flexibly as needed - not in the service of our own egotistical purposes, but in the face of new demands and situations. This is only possible through moral intuitions, immediate experiences of spiritual realities that underlie moral judgments. Moral imagination and intuition allow us to realize our subjective impulses in objective reality, thus creating bridges between the spiritual influence of our subjectivity and the natural influence of the objective world in deeds whereby "that which is natural is spiritual, that which is spiritual is natural".
Steiner concludes by pointing out that to achieve this level of freedom, we must lift ourselves out of our group-existence: out of the prejudices we receive from our family
, nation
, ethnic group
and religion
, and all that we inherit from the past that limits our creative and imaginative capacity to meet the world directly. Only when we realize our potential to be a unique individual are we free. Thus, it lies in our freedom to achieve freedom; put another way, only when we actively strive towards freedom do we have some chance of attaining it.
, Spinoza, Fichte, Schelling
, Schiller, Schopenhauer, and Eduard von Hartmann, whereby Schopenhauer and von Hartmann receive far more attention than any of the earlier figures. While in Vienna, Steiner had attended lectures on moral philosophy given by Franz Brentano
, at the time a Privatdozent
at the University of Vienna
. Steiner's ideas of freedom were in part a response to those contained in Schiller's On the Aesthetic Education of Man
and the works of Goethe, whereby Steiner believed that both of these philosophers had neglected the role of cognition in developing inner freedom. Fichte's distinction between formal and material freedom might be viewed as parallel to Steiner's division of his subject into the knowledge of freedom and the reality of freedom.
In his later lectures, Steiner mentions Vladimir Solovyov
. Solovyov's description of the fundamental dichotomy in human consciousness corresponds precisely to Steiner's:
Steiner's philosophy neither evaluates the moral value of an action according to its consequences (utilitarianism
), nor does it allow any categorical imperative
, whether Kant
ian or otherwise, to be the moral arbiter of human actions. For Steiner, the highest morality exists when a deed actively connects a person's inner life with the external world through deeds of love by means of individually developed moral imaginations.
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
, focuses on the concept of free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
. Originally published in 1894 in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
as Die Philosophie der Freiheit, the work has appeared under a number of English titles, including The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path.
Part One of the Philosophy of Freedom examines the conditions for freedom of thought; the second part examines the conditions for freedom of action. Steiner seeks to demonstrate that inner freedom is achieved when we bridge the gap between our perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
, which reflect the outer appearance of the world, and our cognition
Cognition
In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
, which give us access to the inner structure of the world. He suggests that outer freedom arises when we bridge the gap between our ideals
Ideal (ethics)
An ideal is a principle or value that one actively pursues as a goal. Ideals are particularly important in ethics, as the order in which one places them tends to determine the degree to which one reveals them as real and sincere. It is the application, in ethics, of a universal...
and the constraints of external reality, letting our deeds be inspired by what he terms moral imagination.
Historical context
Steiner presented his doctoral dissertation, an epistemological study founded on Fichte's philosophy, at the University of Rostock in 1891. A revised version was published one year later in book form as Truth and Knowledge: Introduction to The Philosophy of Freedom. Steiner had had the idea in mind to write a philosophy of freedom since at least 1880, thirteen years before its appearance; a more immediate stimulus was the suggestion of a literary agent befriended with Steiner that he write a book about the fundamental problems of philosophy.The Philosophy of Freedom is reported to have been an attempt to achieve the university status of habilitation (see Anton Hügli).
Overview
Steiner describes two sides of our existence. We can easily recognize that our natural being, that part of us we share with the animal world - our physical body, drives and desires, prejudices and habits - tends to determine our deeds and soul life. Just as constraining, however, are the dictates of conscienceConscience
Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms...
and abstract ethical or moral
Moral
A moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...
principles. Freedom, he says, is only possible because these various constraining factors work in contradictory directions. Between the impulses of our two natures, neither of which is individualized, we find the freedom to choose how to think and act. By overcoming the dictates of both our 'lower' and 'higher' sources of experience, by orchestrating a meeting place of objective and subjective elements of experience, we become true and free individuals. Freedom for Steiner thus does not lie in uninhibited expression of our subjective nature, but in the conscious unification of this with the objective constraints of the world.
In chapter three, Steiner critiques Descartes. We posit dualism between mind and body, suggests Steiner, because we perceive the outer nature of the world and its inner nature in radically separate ways. Our sensory perceptions
Sense
Senses are physiological capacities of organisms that provide inputs for perception. The senses and their operation, classification, and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields, most notably neuroscience, cognitive psychology , and philosophy of perception...
inform us about the outer appearance of the world, while our thought life penetrates its inner nature. This division is particular to and defines human experience. Steiner suggests that we actually have the capacity to overcome the dualism of experience by reuniting perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
and cognition
Cognition
In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
. When contemplating our own thinking activity, we are perceiving what we are thinking, and thinking what we are perceiving. Steiner suggests that freedom arises most purely at this moment, when free ideation arises out of ego activity; this is, for Steiner, spiritual activity.
Steiner proposes that once we have brought the two sides of our experience into harmony, we need to forge a new synthesis of these at every moment in a situationally-appropriate, free deed. Steiner coined the term moral imagination for this act of creative synthesis. He suggests that we only achieve free deeds when we find a moral imagination, an ethically impelled but particularized response to the immediacy of a given situation. This response will always be individual; it cannot be predicted or prescribed. This radical ethical individualism
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
is, for Steiner, characteristic of freedom.
A detailed look at the philosophy
In the first part of the Philosophy of Freedom, Steiner discusses the epistemology of freedom, focusing on the conditions necessary for freedom in thinking. In the second part he examines the metaphysicsMetaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
of freedom, focusing on the conditions necessary for freedom of action. This structure parallels Hegel's description of freedom: "Ethical life is the Idea of freedom as the living good which has its knowledge and volition in self-consciousness, and its actuality through self-conscious action."
Understanding freedom
Steiner begins by defining the importance of consciousnessConsciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
, in particular of rational thought, for the attainment of freedom. He explores the various compulsions of motives on different levels, and points out that freedom only exists if we overcome the force of the various motives acting within us. In his 1919 lectures on The Study of Man, Steiner further differentiated these motives into seven levels: reflexes, drives, desires, motifs, wishes, intentions, and commitments.
Steiner then takes up Schiller's exploration of the polarity between the moral compulsion of our rationality and the animal compulsion of our bodily nature (see Schiller's essay Letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man) to show that freedom is possible where compulsion from neither of these polar aspects of the human being dominates. He quotes Goethe here:
- Two souls dwell, alas, in my breast
- Each would from the other split;
- One clutches, in its dullish lust
- Tight to the world with its organs' grip;
- The other raises itself forcibly from dust:
- High ancestral fields are its quest.
- FaustFaustFaust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
I, lines 1112-7
The polarity in consciousness is between perception through the senses, which gives us access to the outer nature of things, and perception through thinking, which gives us access to the inner nature of things. Steiner treats thinking as an organ of perception as valid as the senses themselves; both are subject to illusion and distortion, but both can reveal true aspects of the world to us. Our consciousness is dualistic in that the two sides of the world (and of every object or element of the world), the inner and the outer, are only available to us split between two modes of perception. It is then the work of the human mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
or spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
to reconcile these two, to bring our thoughts about a given aspect of the world and our perceptions of this into harmony.
Steiner emphasizes that thinking is unique in its access to the true inner reality of the world. We can be conscious of our thought processes in a way that we cannot be of our feelings, will or perceptions. Because of this, we can be sure that our thoughts are truly objective, while our feelings about a thing (for example) may say more about our subjective reactions or condition than about the phenomena to which they seem to be directed. In addition, we correct our perceptions (for example, when these include perspective distortions) through our conceptual framework. Thinking is thus necessary if we are to properly interpret our perception.
Steiner also emphasizes that modern science depends upon these same two elements of perception and thinking. Perception alone is not science, but is at best the gathering of data. Only when we group and analyze a mass of perceptions can we obtain scientific clarity about it. On the other hand, mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
is a kind of thinking in which thought itself forms the perceptions; no sense-perceptions are needed to form a basis for mathematical principles. Mathematics could be said to be a science of the inner side of things, where we need not know anything about their outer appearance.
A critical analysis of various philosophical directions' relation to the dialectic of our experience, to this polarity of our outer and inner worlds, concludes with the appeal for a higher monism
Monism
Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...
. Though our experience leads us to an illusion of dualism, in reality we are experiencing two sides of a single phenomenon when we perceive it and think about it: two sides of a single, unified world. All the conclusions of dualistic philosophies - in particular Kant
KANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
's assertion that there are limits beyond which our understanding can never go - are thus mistaken. There are limits beyond which our understanding does not presently go, but both our perception and our thinking can be extended far beyond their momentary abilities. The telescope
Telescope
A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...
and microscope
Microscope
A microscope is an instrument used to see objects that are too small for the naked eye. The science of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called microscopy...
offer us radical extensions of the range of our perceptions; we can look to extend our powers of thought as vigorously as we have extended our powers of perception. Steiner thus throws down a gauntlet to the philosophy of his (and our) time: it is not enough simply to define the limits of possible knowledge, it is necessary to work to extend these as well.
Exercising freedom
Steiner begins the second section of this work by emphasizing the role of self-awarenessSelf-awareness
Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals...
, of the awakening of the ego, in objective thinking. Here he modifies the usual description of inner and outer experience by pointing out that our feelings, for example, are given to us as naively as outer perceptions. Both of these, feelings and perceptions, tell about objects we are interested in: the one about ourselves, the other about the world. Both require the help of thinking to penetrate the reasons why they arise, to comprehend their inner message. The same is true of our will. Whereas our feelings tell how the world affects us, our will tells how we would affect the world. Neither attains to true objectivity, for both mix together the world's existence and our inner life in an unclear way. Steiner emphasizes that we experience our feelings and will - and our perceptions as well - as being more essentially part of us than our thinking; the former are more basic, more natural. He celebrates this gift of natural, direct experience, but points out that this experience is still dualistic in the sense that it only encompasses one side of the world.
This all is by way of introduction and recapitulation. Steiner then introduces the principle that we can act out of the compulsions of our natural being (reflexes, drives, desires) or out of the compulsion of ethical principles, and that neither of these leaves us free. Between them, however, is an individual insight, a situational ethic, that arises neither from abstract principles nor from our bodily impulses. A deed that arises in this way can be said to be truly free; it is also both unpredictable and wholly individual. Here Steiner articulates his fundamental maxim of social life:
- Live through deeds of love, and let others live with understanding for each person's unique intentions.
Here he describes a polarity of influences on human nature, stating that morality transcends both the determining factors of bodily influences and those of convention:
- A moral misunderstanding, a clash, is out of the question between people who are morally free. Only one who is morally unfree, who obeys bodily instincts or conventional demands of duty, turns away from a fellow human being if the latter does not obey the same instincts and demands as himself.
For Steiner, morality is completely situational and individual; true morality depends upon our achieving freedom from both our inner drives and outer pressures. To achieve such free deeds, we must cultivate our moral imagination, our ability to imaginatively create ethically sound and practical solutions to new situations, in fact, to forge our own ethical principles and to transform these flexibly as needed - not in the service of our own egotistical purposes, but in the face of new demands and situations. This is only possible through moral intuitions, immediate experiences of spiritual realities that underlie moral judgments. Moral imagination and intuition allow us to realize our subjective impulses in objective reality, thus creating bridges between the spiritual influence of our subjectivity and the natural influence of the objective world in deeds whereby "that which is natural is spiritual, that which is spiritual is natural".
Steiner concludes by pointing out that to achieve this level of freedom, we must lift ourselves out of our group-existence: out of the prejudices we receive from our family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
, nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
, ethnic group
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
and religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, and all that we inherit from the past that limits our creative and imaginative capacity to meet the world directly. Only when we realize our potential to be a unique individual are we free. Thus, it lies in our freedom to achieve freedom; put another way, only when we actively strive towards freedom do we have some chance of attaining it.
Philosophical antecedents
Philosophers referred to in the book include KantKANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
, Spinoza, Fichte, Schelling
Schelling
Notable people with the last name of Schelling include:* Ernest Schelling, American composer* Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, German philosopher* Thomas Schelling, American economist and Nobel laureate...
, Schiller, Schopenhauer, and Eduard von Hartmann, whereby Schopenhauer and von Hartmann receive far more attention than any of the earlier figures. While in Vienna, Steiner had attended lectures on moral philosophy given by Franz Brentano
Franz Brentano
Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano was an influential German philosopher and psychologist whose influence was felt by other such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, Edmund Husserl, Kazimierz Twardowski and Alexius Meinong, who followed and adapted his views.-Life:Brentano was born at Marienberg am...
, at the time a Privatdozent
Privatdozent
Privatdozent or Private lecturer is a title conferred in some European university systems, especially in German-speaking countries, for someone who pursues an academic career and holds all formal qualifications to become a tenured university professor...
at the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
. Steiner's ideas of freedom were in part a response to those contained in Schiller's On the Aesthetic Education of Man
On the Aesthetic Education of Man
On the Aesthetic Education of Man is a treatise by the German author Friedrich Schiller in the form of a collection of letters. It deals with Immanuel Kant's transcendental aesthetics and the events of the French Revolution....
and the works of Goethe, whereby Steiner believed that both of these philosophers had neglected the role of cognition in developing inner freedom. Fichte's distinction between formal and material freedom might be viewed as parallel to Steiner's division of his subject into the knowledge of freedom and the reality of freedom.
In his later lectures, Steiner mentions Vladimir Solovyov
Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)
Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov was a Russian philosopher, poet, pamphleteer, literary critic, who played a significant role in the development of Russian philosophy and poetry at the end of the 19th century...
. Solovyov's description of the fundamental dichotomy in human consciousness corresponds precisely to Steiner's:
- In human beings, the absolute subject-object appears as such, i.e., as pure spiritual activity, containing all of its own objectivity, the whole process of its natural manifestation, but containing it totally ideally - in consciousness.
Steiner's philosophy neither evaluates the moral value of an action according to its consequences (utilitarianism
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...
), nor does it allow any categorical imperative
Categorical imperative
The Categorical Imperative is the central philosophical concept in the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, as well as modern deontological ethics...
, whether Kant
KANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
ian or otherwise, to be the moral arbiter of human actions. For Steiner, the highest morality exists when a deed actively connects a person's inner life with the external world through deeds of love by means of individually developed moral imaginations.
Quotations
- To live in love towards our actions, and to let live in the understanding of the other person's will, is the fundamental maxim of free men.
- Only to the extent that a man has emancipated himself in this way from all that is generic, does he count as a free spirit within a human community. No man is all genus, none is all individuality.
External links
- The Philosophy of Freedom, complete online text (in English), various versions
- The Philosophy of Freedom, complete original German text
- Die Philosophie der Freiheit, original German text
- Intuitive Thinking As A Spiritual Path, Audiobook, read by Dale Brunsvold
See also
- AnthroposophyAnthroposophyAnthroposophy, a philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner, postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development...
- Franz BrentanoFranz BrentanoFranz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano was an influential German philosopher and psychologist whose influence was felt by other such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, Edmund Husserl, Kazimierz Twardowski and Alexius Meinong, who followed and adapted his views.-Life:Brentano was born at Marienberg am...
- Fichte
- Free WillFree will"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
- HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
- Husserl
- KantImmanuel KantImmanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
- Rudolf SteinerRudolf SteinerRudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
- Schiller
- SchopenhauerArthur SchopenhauerArthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
- Situational ethics