Philosophy of freedom

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Title page of the first edition

The Philosophy of Freedom - Basic Features of a Modern Weltanschauung is a philosophical work by Rudolf Steiner , published in 1893 , the later founder of anthroposophy . The first edition received little attention and was in some cases sharply rejected by experts. A second, revised version appeared in its own anthroposophical publishing house in 1918 and has been reprinted many times since then.

The book consists of two main parts, each with seven chapters. The first main part deals with the conditions under which the human being can be described as spiritually free being in his thinking and acting. The second main part deals with freedom and its relationship to ethical action.

Emergence

Before Steiner wrote The Philosophy of Freedom , he dealt with the following thinkers: Immanuel Kant , Johannes Volkelt , Johann Friedrich Herbart , Johann Gottlieb Fichte , Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , intensively with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (among others as Editor of his scientific writings) and Friedrich Schiller as well as the neo-Kantians such. B. Eduard von Hartmann and Otto Liebmann . He got to know Friedrich Nietzsche's thinking from 1889. In 1891 he received his doctorate under Heinrich von Stein in philosophy, with the grade rite (sufficient). He published his dissertation somewhat expanded in 1892 under the title Truth and Science, Prelude to a Philosophy of Freedom .

Steiner wanted to encourage his readers to observe their own knowledge. The thought motifs of his philosophy of freedom are most strongly rooted in German idealism and the phenomenological nature of Goethe's natural research that it illuminates. They place themselves in opposition to Kant. Furthermore, the first edition already has an occidental-mystical undercurrent, which comes to light in its final chapter. In the Philosophy of Freedom, Steiner did not seek a differentiated, explicit confrontation with other thinkers. Instead, he reduced complex developments in the history of ideas to terms such as B. “dualism”, “monism”, which he sometimes assigned to certain historical thinkers, mostly in order to bring his own trains of thought into a (sometimes polemically pointed) contrast to them.

First edition 1893

Rudolf Steiner while he was preparing the publication of his Philosophy of Freedom; painted by Otto Fröhlich, Weimar 1892

In terms of content, Steiner's book followed on from the dissertation he had submitted two years earlier. The philosophy of freedom. Basics of a modern worldview. - Like most of the volumes of his simultaneous Goethe editions, the results of observation were made under great time pressure. He did not have the time to carefully work through the manuscript, concept and proofreading . Steiner was repeatedly unable to meet the deadlines given to his publisher Emil Felber. Because of his delay, Felber threatened to stop the ongoing printing. Felber already had the first proofs , while Steiner was still writing at the end of the book, which then appeared on November 14, 1893. The title page shows the year 1894. The Philosophy of Freedom is divided into three parts: an epistemology, an ethics and an appendix entitled: The Last Questions . Apart from the last chapter, it follows the outline of his dissertation. In Steiner's view, The Philosophy of Freedom is an epistemological foundation work. According to Helmut Zander , Steiner's final chapter shows himself to be an atheist, nihilist and staunch supporter of Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner .
Of the thousand printed copies of the first edition, four hundred had been sold by 1907.

Second edition 1918

In 1918 Steiner re-published the book in a revised version in the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischen Verlag , headed by his wife Marie Steiner . This second edition had a new foreword and extensive additions. According to Christian Clement, it documents Steiner's development into an esotericist after the turn of the century , who now, in retrospect, interpret his early philosophical writing as the basis and justification of his theosophical and anthroposophical life's work and explicitly redesigned it accordingly. According to the historian of religion Helmut Zander , Steiner viewed The Philosophy of Freedom until the end of his life as his opus magnum, which he retrospectively elevated to the epistemological foundation of anthroposophy. The development of the text between the first and second editions is the subject of controversial interpretations of the relationship between Steiner's early work and his later anthroposophy. Steiner himself emphasizes that on the one hand the book occupies a separate position in relation to his later writings on the humanities, but on the other hand it is also closely related. This is the reason why he published the content “essentially almost completely unchanged” in the 2nd edition. The Steiner biographer Miriam Gebhardt states in the second edition changes and deletions of all passages that identify him as a formerly radical individualist and atheist thinker. Traub, on the other hand, characterizes Steiner consistently as more pantheistic than atheistic.

In the version of the second edition, the Philosophy of Freedom has seen numerous new editions with around 220,000 copies and has so far been translated into 14 languages.

content

All page numbers refer to the cited online edition of the 2nd edition of the Philosophy of Freedom from 1918.

Preface (to the new edition 1918)

Part 1 asks about a knowledge based on experience and part 2 about human freedom . How one can answer the second question depends on the answer to the first question. Reference should be made to an area of ​​experience of the soul, "in which, through the inner soul activity itself, the question is answered vividly again at every moment in which the human being needs it" (p. II). Rudolf Steiner's spiritual worlds of experience from his later anthroposophical works are not assumed or dealt with here. For their understanding, however, the philosophy of freedom could be the basis. Rudolf Steiner presented his view of the philosophical work of other thinkers of his time primarily in the “Riddles of Philosophy”.

Part 1: Science of Freedom

I. Conscious human action

Decisions made only consciously with the help of thought can possibly lead to free actions; even felt motives are always interspersed with thoughts. So it must first be considered how human thinking affects his actions and what the origin of thinking is.

II. The basic drive to science

The conscious person opposes the world on the one hand as an independent being endowed with a thirst for knowledge and on the other hand he always feels himself to be part of nature. He strives to bridge this contradiction. Steiner wants to try “in the depths of our own being… to find those elements… where we can say to ourselves: Here we are no longer just 'I', here lies something that is more than 'I'” (p . 15).

III. Thinking in the service of the worldview

Every human knowledge presupposes observation and thinking (p. 19 f.). Within this observed, thinking emerges as a fact of experience, because one always thinks about everything observed and thus classifies it in meaningful conceptual contexts . We mostly overlook the thinking that is always present in everyday observation because it is based on our own activity while we turn to the object of our thinking observation. We only noticed it in a mental state of emergency ( self-reflection ).

IV. The world as perception

Thought forms concepts and ideas which are related in themselves and which are added to what is observed on the scene of human consciousness. One cannot (like Hegel ) put ideas as original, because they are only won through thinking.

This is followed by a long (at times polemically pointed) discussion of other epistemological positions , in whose trains of thought Steiner shows unexamined assumptions and describes the consequent logical breaks that ultimately lead to both the perceptions and the thinking about them being viewed as subjective, which is why a fundamental capacity for knowledge of humans is disputed.

V. Knowing the world

In knowing we would reassemble the elements of reality, of which our organization would initially gain knowledge separately: 1.) The incoherent, in and for themselves meaningless, given perceptions and 2.) the meaningful, produced-given, conceptual ones that classify them Connections that we find in thinking.

One would proceed in exactly the same way if one investigated how what is perceived is communicated to our sensory organs and our brain. One can only say something about perceptions themselves with the help of thinking. Therefore, in the final analysis, the generally asked question of what a perception is in and of itself is absurd. (P. 66f.).

VI. The human individuality

When I have connected a perception with a concept while observing and then the perception disappears from my field of vision, a memory image remains (p. 73f). This is the subjective representation of reality that we can remember and that we associate with our feelings.

VII. Are there limits to knowing?

The world is given to us through our organization as a duality (dualistic) and the cognition process it again into a unity. Everything that is assumed outside the area of ​​perception and concept is an unjustified hypothesis, such as B. the ' thing in itself '. (P. 78). Anyone who understands knowledge in this way believes that it does not reach into reality, but can only depict it more or less well. This then inevitably leads to the speaking of fundamental limits of knowledge. (P. 79).

The limits of knowledge within this understanding of knowledge are therefore always only individual and provisional, "which can be overcome with the advancement of perception and thinking." (P. 80) In the further course of this chapter, this comparison of the concept of knowledge will be applied to questions of scientific modeling.

Part 2: The Reality of Freedom

VIII. The factors of life

Man is a thinking, feeling and willing being. Feeling and willing, like perceiving before cognition, also appear as given and would have to be properly connected with the associated concepts in cognition in order to become a recognized reality of our inner world.

IX. The idea of ​​freedom

Actions of will are conditioned by imaginary or conceptual motives and so-called driving forces or characterological predispositions. Through different stages both are more and more taken into free possession by man. Humans only become morally originally productive when pure thinking (practical reason) has become a characterological disposition and can grasp moral intuitions which only afterwards seek the relationship to perception (to life) (p. 112). People are different in their intuition and they are put in different situations (p. 115). A compatible coexistence of people is also possible on this level, because the individual intuitions are based on a common world of ideas and each individual being knows of the other through individual observation: “'Live' in the love of action and 'let live' in the understanding of the foreign will is the basic maxim of 'free people'. ”(p. 119) In the human being lies the primal reason for compatibility. (P. 119)

In reality, human actions are more or less free. Freedom is an ideal to which man can develop. Acting according to norms, objective morality laws and state laws etc. has its justification for still (partially) unfree people. Ethics can only grasp general concepts of morality (norms, laws) as generalizations of individual drives. Such a descriptive ethic would only describe moral action in retrospect, but not originally create it.

X. Philosophy of freedom and monism

The metaphysician of a dualistic world view could “not recognize freedom because he allows a person to be mechanically or morally determined by a 'being in himself'” (p. 128). Steiner seeks and finds the determinants of reality completely in the ideas and ideals of human thought that can be experienced. (P. 128f.)

XI. World purpose and purpose in life (human determination)

With the principle of causation , an earlier event determines a later one. In contrast, the principle of expediency is only real when a later event determines an earlier one. This can only be observed if the person acts purposefully and his later goal determines the earlier action. Steiner's “ monism ” rejects the concept of purpose in all areas with the sole exception of human action. ... Purposes of life that man does not set for himself are unjustified assumptions from the standpoint of monism. Only that which man has made it is useful, because only through the realization of an idea can something useful arise. The idea only becomes effective in a realistic sense in people. ... to the question: what is a human task in life? Monism can only answer: those which it posits for itself ”(p. 134). If, on the other hand, something appears to be appropriately arranged in nature, this is due to the fact that everything perceptible in nature is inserted into the conceivable regularities of reality.

XII. The moral imagination (Darwinism and morality)

The unfree spirit comes to its decisions to act through memories and previous experiences. In addition, the free spirit can simply make first decisions about action from its own intuitions, which it selects thinking from the whole of its world of ideas and turns into concrete ideas for action (p. 139). Furthermore, “moral technology” is needed: because when you act you always change reality. To do this, one must first know how its regularity can be transformed into a new one without z. B. to break natural law connections.

An ethics as a required standard science can not exist, since the moral imagination and their underlying moral ideas can only object of knowledge, after having been produced by individuals and after they already regulate life. Ethics is therefore a "natural doctrine of moral ideas". An ethicist could never explain later moral concepts from earlier ones; he can only see the connection between later moral concepts and earlier ones in retrospect.

It is similar in evolutionary theory : even if the reptile emerged from the primordial amniotes, the natural scientist could not extract that of the reptiles from the concept of the primordial amniotes. The difference between the development in evolution and that of morality is that in evolution we already have the facts to be investigated before our eyes, while in morality we first have to create them. (Pp. 144f.).

XIII. The value of life (pessimism and optimism)

Steiner develops his view of the value of life by asking how we experience pleasure and displeasure in life and how both relate to our desire and want. (P. 170).

XIV. Individuality and genre

On the one hand man is inclined to free individuality , on the other hand he is a member of a natural whole (race, tribe, people, family, gender, state, church), whose characteristics he has. The latter could be the subject of general scientific consideration. Man can free himself from this generic; if you want to explain a person in general only in terms of his generic nature, you just get to the limit beyond which he begins to be a self-determined being. The social position of women in particular suffers from this (p. 175). In order to understand the free individual in human beings, a special level of selflessness is required. (P. 177).

No human being is completely a species and no one is completely individual. Moral and social instincts, which man receives from his generic origin, he takes into his possession through intuition.

The last questions

The consequences of monism

In the final chapter, on the last questions, Steiner proclaims metaphysically : "The world is God" and: "The personal God is only the person who has been placed in a hereafter ", from which he derived in his final sentence: "He is free".

In the first appendix , Steiner deals with Eduard von Hartmann's comments on his thought-monism.

The second appendix contains the preface to the first edition, in which philosophy is referred to as conceptual art: “All real philosophers were 'conceptual artists'. For them, human ideas became art materials and scientific methods became artistic technology ”(p. 198). Furthermore, all science serves to increase the value of the human personality. “This writing therefore does not understand the relationship between science and life in such a way that man has to bow to the idea and dedicate his powers to its service, but in the sense that he takes possession of the world of ideas in order to make it his' human 'To use goals that go beyond the purely scientific. One must be able to face the idea in an experience; 'Otherwise' one comes under their bondage ”(p. 199).

The author about the book

Steiner attached great importance to his philosophy of freedom until the end of his life. During the time the book was being written, he spoke most often with the writer Rosa Mayreder about aspects of personal freedom. He confessed to Eduard von Hartmann that his book was flawed, “that I did not want to succeed in answering the question very clearly, to what extent the individual is only a general thing, the many are one” and confessed “that we actually do not think at all are more individuals, but simply experience a general world experience. ”After the first publication of his book, he felt “ even more than before completely sidelined ” at the Goethe Archive in Weimar .

In Steiner's unfinished autobiography, Mein Lebensgang , the emergence of the philosophy of freedom takes up a great deal of space (chapters 8-23). Looking back, he summarizes his intention as follows: “I wanted to show how someone who rejects sensuality-free thinking as something purely spiritual in man could never come to an understanding of freedom; but how such an understanding occurs immediately when one sees through the reality of sensuality-free thinking. "(p. 166f)

reception

The philosophy of freedom in its second edition from 1918 has served generations of anthroposophists and employees of anthroposophical institutions as an introduction to anthroposophy and was used as an exercise book. There is an immense amount of secondary literature by anthroposophically oriented interpreters. Outside of the anthroposophical movement, Steiner's philosophical writings were largely rejected or ignored by the academic audience and the guild of philosophers.

First reception

When The Philosophy of Freedom appeared in 1893, the first press reviews were praiseworthy, but various philosophers wrote negative and damning reviews: Arthur Drews complained a. a. that Steiner denied the immanent teleology of Hartmann or Hegel , while as a supposed idealist he should actually assert it. Robert von Zimmermann insinuated that Steiner represented a theoretical anarchism that surpassed Nietzsche . The German philosopher Max Heinze also considered Steiner's individualism to be a consequence of his Nietzsche reading. The director of the Goethe Archive , Bernhard Suphan , compared Steiner with a seductive Socrates who destroyed traditional ideals.

Steiner's admiration for the German philosopher Eduard von Hartmann in his dissertation had turned into Hartmann criticism. Still, he sent him a copy. But von Hartmann was not enthusiastic about the book, not only because of the endangered position of the individual in Steiner's philosophy. Steiner's subtitle Observation Results According to the Scientific Method also annoyed him, since it barely concealed a criticism of his subtitle Speculative Results according to the inductive scientific method . He returned the copy left to him within two weeks with marginal notes. During Steiner's lifetime, this remained the most intensive examination of the book by a well-known philosopher. Eduard von Hartmann (the philosophy of freedom never publicly-reviewed) criticized: "In this book, neither Hume in itself absolute phenomenalism with the argument based on God Phenomenalism Berkeley reconciled, nor even the immanent or subjective phenomenalism with the transcendental panlogism Hegel , nor Hegelian panlogism with Goethean individualism. An unbridgeable gap yawns between any two of these components. "And further:" What is overlooked above all is that phenomenalism leads with inevitable consequence to solipsism , absolute illusionism and agnosticism , and nothing has been done to prevent this slide into the abyss of unphilosophy, because the danger is not recognized at all. "

From the very beginning, Steiner's philosophy had little effect in professional philosophical circles. Steiner's individualism was felt to be out of place in the political situation at the time, as various reviews showed.

Inner anthroposophical reception

In the context of the anthroposophical movement, the book was received, for example, by Carl Unger , Walter Johannes Stein , Herbert Witzenmann . Sometimes attempts were made to illuminate the philosophy of freedom from an anthroposophical perspective, or it was argued that the book could only be inferred from the standpoint of anthroposophy. Since this contradicts the claim of the text itself, other authors turned against such efforts.

A new formulation of essential statements of the first part of the Philosophy of Freedom can be found in the structural phenomenology of Herbert Witzenmann . These were related by Johannes Wagemann to the philosophical foundations of current neurobiological research . From an internal anthroposophical perspective, the philosophy of freedom also appears essential for an understanding of the ontological-anthropological foundations of anthroposophical practice, which has been made clear for anthroposophic medicine by Peter Heusser, among others .

In 2011, Hartmut Traub , from the anthroposophical Alanus University for Art and Society , published an extensive, text-critical, analytical book on Steiner's early philosophical works and their reception, which was previously almost exclusively anthroposophical, as well as Steiner's early comments on his texts. In particular, he examined the numerous polemical and critical debates contained in the Philosophy of Freedom with other positions in the philosophical and theological intellectual history for their validity. He showed that Western philosophy (more than traditional esoteric currents) was also the origin of Steiner's discovery of anthroposophy. In particular, it shows how Steiner's philosophy was clearly influenced by Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Immanuel Hermann Fichte - alongside Kant and Goethe. On the other hand, he did not see a significant influence of Nietzsche or Stirner on the philosophy of freedom (in express contrast to Zander ). According to Traub, non-anthroposophical philosophers “sometimes find it difficult when reading secondary literature to relate the text of the Philosophy of Freedom with the interpretations that are forced upon him from the perspective of Steiner's late esoteric writings.” Therefore, “Steiner's own to defend scientific claims against his apologists . "

Outside anthroposophical reception

To this day, recognized philosophers outside the anthroposophical movement have hardly dealt with the philosophy of freedom . In 1995, the Protestant theologian Gerhard Wehr described the fear of contact as follows: “Although the founder of anthroposophy is dealt with in general reference works ... But the less one encounters him in the other non-fiction and specialist literature ... Even today it seems to be risky to find Rudolf Steiner in to be called in a different sense than in an apologetically delimiting sense ”.

The Kant researcher Karl Vorländer noted in his multi-volume history of philosophy in 1927 that Steiner's 'theosophy', which was thirty years earlier a. a. began with an anarchist-tinged 'freedom' philosophy, even draped anthroposophically, and deserved no inclusion in the history of philosophy .

Gerhard Hahn, who critically went through the argumentation of the central contents of Steiner's text in his work Die Freiheit der Philosophie , criticizes the consistency of his “objective idealism”, “that Steiner's spiritual metaphysics is based on monistic intent, like all Platonisms (cf. 93ff ) in a dualistic approach (28f), his conceptual realism is free from social contexts and in particular from linguistic-philosophical reflections (50f). Steiner's 'subjectless thinking' is tantamount to an 'expropriation' of human beings (66), whereby this is again based on a dualism , as it is formulated in the presumably anti-materialist intention of separating the 'body organization' (Steiner) from the spiritual (71ff) . ”Hahn's central points of criticism, the real dualism behind the monism claimed by Steiner and idealism distanced from the real world , are the reason why The Philosophy of Freedom remained as good as without any response outside of Steiner's followers:

“Steiner's 'Philosophy of Freedom' was not received in philosophy and outside of anthroposophy in general: less out of prejudice than because of the conceptual fuzziness and contradictions of this work. Karl Vorländer, for example, had already addressed this in all sharpness long before Steiner became a theosophist. "

According to the historian of religion Helmut Zander , the philosophy of freedom undoubtedly shows the origin between the door and the hinge. Steiner only drew an up-to-date interim balance of his philosophical search movements. In many places his logic is stretched to the point of contradiction, for example in the "ethical individualism" he proclaimed, according to which man can act freely if he only obeys himself, while external moral principles are not valid, since it remains open how the “free man” should then assert himself against general world events.

In 2012, the philosopher Roland Kipke criticized the conception of morality and freedom in Steiner's philosophy of freedom. According to Kipke, Steiner's ethical individualism misses the moral dimension and cannot develop a coherent understanding of personal freedom. Ethical individualism collides with fundamental assumptions about action, responsibility and identity. In addition, Steiner rejected his individualistic approach in his later anthroposophy in favor of moral claims with a general claim to validity. This criticism was discussed multifaceted and controversial in many contributions to the discussion in various issues of the publishing journal.

Jaap Sijmons wrote: In each chapter a contrast forms the starting point of the investigation; the analysis then does not get stuck in the “either-or”, but is designed to be complex. “So you can say that Rudolf Steiner uses a 'phenomenological-dialectical method'. Simple definitions of terms and opposites grow beyond themselves through a concept development, sometimes in terminologically contradicting statements. In the overall picture we finally grasp the dynamic concept of human consciousness. "

According to Christian Clement, between 1921 and 2004 there were four dissertations specifically on the philosophy of freedom , with others dealing with it as a sub- topic .

Web links

literature

  • Gerhard Hahn: The freedom of philosophy. A fundamental criticism of anthroposophy. Licet Göttingen 1995, ISBN 3-9804225-0-X .
  • Carl Schneider: The Philosophy of Freedom. Basics of a modern worldview . In: Kindlers Literature Lexicon . Kindler Verlag, Zurich 1970. (Special edition for the Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1970). Volume 8, p. 7469b.

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Christian Clement : Introduction. In: Rudolf Steiner: Writings. Critical Edition / Volume 2: Philosophical Writings: Truth and Science. The philosophy of freedom. Edited and commented on by Christian Clement. With a foreword by Eckart Förster . Frommann-Holzboog Verlag, Stuttgart Bad-Cannstatt, 2016. ISBN 978-3-7728-2632-0 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e Hartmut Traub: Philosophy and Anthroposophy: The philosophical world view of Rudolf Steiner. Foundation and criticism. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-17-022019-5 .
  3. ^ Helmut Zander : Anthroposophy in Germany. Theosophical worldview and social practice 1884–1945 . 2 volumes. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, p. 526 ff .; Helmut Zander: Rudolf Steiner. The biography. Piper, Munich 2011. Helmut Zander: Rudolf Steiner. The biography. Piper, Munich 2011. p. 89. Retrieved from Google Books on November 11, 2018.
  4. ^ Helmut Zander: Anthroposophy in Germany. Theosophical worldview and social practice 1884–1945. 2 volumes. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, p. 535.
  5. ^ Documents on the "Philosophy of Freedom" . Supplementary volume of the Rudolf Steiner Complete Edition, bibliography number GA 4a, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach 1994; ISBN 978-3-7274-0045-2 . P. 30.
    The remaining six hundred copies were bought in 1907 by Marie von Sivers and Rudolf Steiner from the publisher, who had got into financial difficulties, as were the publishing rights. The book was marketed under its own management without a publisher until the 2nd edition in 1918. S. Rudolf Steiner My course of life . (= Rudolf Steiner paperback editions, vol. 13). 2nd Edition. Free Spiritual Life Publishing House. Stuttgart 1975. ISBN 3-7725-0013-7 . P. 306.
  6. ↑ Helmut Zander: Rudolf Steiner. The biography. Piper, Munich 2011. Retrieved from Google Books on November 10, 2018.
  7. ↑ The Philosophy of Freedom. Basics of a modern worldview. (= Paperbacks from the complete works of Rudolf Steiner). Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach 1977, ISBN 3-7274-6270-1 . P. 9.
  8. ↑ Miriam Gebhardt : Rudolf Steiner. A modern prophet. DVA, Munich 2011, p. 127.
  9. ↑ a b Jaap Sijmons: Phenomenology and Idealism. Structure and method of Rudolf Steiner's philosophy . (Utrecht University 2004, as a book by Schwabe, Basel 2008), ISBN 978-3-7965-2263-5 .
  10. ↑ anthroposophie.byu.edu
  11. ↑ Jaap Sijmons: Phenomenology and Idealism. Structure and method of Rudolf Steiner's philosophy. Schwabe, Basel 2008, ISBN 978-3-7965-2263-5 , comments on page 30 as follows: “The book contains a monistic epistemology as a condition for a theory of freedom. The epistemological monism, which seeks to overcome every objective dualism (of I and world, spirit and matter, etc.) and the resulting transcendentalism , is a necessary prerequisite for human freedom , because if we cannot cognitively penetrate the causes of world events We are also denied access to the causes of our actions. But if we do not know the causes of our actions, then we cannot be free, because the starting point was missing to somehow influence the causes or to take control. "
  12. ↑ Rudolf Steiner (1900, 1914): The riddles of philosophy - shown in their history as an outline. Dornach, Complete Edition Bibliography No. 18, ISBN 3-7274-0180-X ( anthroposophie.byu.edu PDF; full text).
  13. ↑ This kind of understanding of reality, in contrast to remembered imagination, was also clearly worked out by Herbert Witzenmann , among other things in his structural phenomenology . Herbert Witzenmann: structural phenomenology. Preconscious shaping in the cognitive unveiling of reality. A new epistemological concept following on from Rudolf Steiner's epistemology. Gideon Spicker Verlag, Dornach 1983. ISBN 3-85704-172-2 .
  14. ↑ This also throws light on fundamental philosophical questions in theoretical physics. In 1882, at the age of 21, Steiner developed his basic philosophical positions on these: the only possible criticism of atomistic terms . (1882). In: Contributions to the Rudolf Steiner Complete Edition. Issue 63, Dornach 1978, ISBN 3-7274-8063-7 .
  15. ↑ Helmut Zander: Rudolf Steiner. The biography. Piper, Munich 2011. p. 91.
  16. ↑ Otto Palmer: Rudolf Steiner on his philosophy of freedom. Free Spiritual Life Publishing House, Stuttgart 1966, ISBN 3-7725-0665-8 .
  17. ↑ Helmut Zander: Rudolf Steiner. The biography. Piper, Munich 2011. pp. 87, p. 90.
  18. ^ A b Jaap Gerhard Sijmons: Phenomenology and Idealism: Structure and Method of Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy. Schwabe, 2008. p. 34.
  19. ↑ Rudolf Steiner: My course of life. GA 28, Dornach 1925, ISBN 3-7274-0280-6 , ( fvn-archiv.net PDF; full text).
  20. ↑ Helmut Zander: Rudolf Steiner. The biography. Piper, Munich 2011. P. 90 f.
  21. ↑ Jaap Sijmons: Phenomenology and Idealism. Structure and method of Rudolf Steiner's philosophy. (University of Utrecht 2004, as a book by Schwabe, Basel 2008) p. 7.
  22. ↑ Documents on the "Philosophy of Freedom" with facsimiles of parts of the editions from 1894 and 1918, with the marginal notes of the philosopher Eduard von Hartmann, the published reviews from 1984-1918, a small chronicle of their publication history, a list of Steiner's statements about them, and one Bibliography and a bibliography. Supplementary volume of the Rudolf Steiner Complete Edition, bibliography number GA 4a, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach 1994; ISBN 978-3-7274-0045-2 ( fvn-rs.net PDF; full text).
  23. ↑ On the accusation of the “slide into unphilosophy”, Steiner said: “Of course, the slide into the abyss is not prevented by unphilosophy, but also not by a hypothesis that wants to be philosophy, but rather by the fact that living life in the other existence is carried over so that the subconscious is made alive and conscious, so that what is experienced independently and objectively by the soul can in turn be fed back into consciousness. "Rudolf Steiner: The human riddles in philosophy and in spiritual research (Anthroposophy ). Public lecture in Zurich on October 9, 1916 ( steiner-klartext.net PDF; full text)
  24. ^ Jaap Gerhard Sijmons: Phenomenology and Idealism: Structure and Method of the Philosophy of Rudolf Steiner. Schwabe, 2008. p. 62.
  25. ↑ Michael Muschalle: About the connection between the question of freedom and the question of knowledge. A contribution to the understanding of intuitive thinking in Steiner's philosophy of freedom. Studies on anthroposophy 2002.
  26. ^ Herbert Witzenmann: Structural phenomenology. Preconscious shaping in the cognitive unveiling of reality. A new philosophy of science concept. Gideon Spicker Verlag Dornach, 1983, ISBN 3-85704-172-2 .
  27. ↑ Johannes Wagemann: Brain and human consciousness. Neuromythos and structural phenomenology . Shaker Verlag, Aachen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8322-9772-5 .
  28. ↑ P. Heusser: Anthroposophic Medicine and Science. Contributions to an integrative medical anthropology. Schattauer Verlag, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-7945-2807-3 (habilitation thesis). Book review here: H. Kiene: Anthroposophic Medicine - Thinking outside the box. In: Dtsch Arztebl. 2011; Volume 108, No. 48: A-2612 / B-2183 / C-2155 ( aerzteblatt.de ).
  29. ↑ Hartmut Traub: Philosophy and Anthroposophy , Kohlhammer 2011, ISBN 978-3-17-022019-5 , p. 33.
  30. ^ Gerhard Wehr: Rudolf Steiner. Life, knowledge, cultural impulse. Diogenes, 1995, ISBN 3-257-22615-2 .
  31. ↑ Jaap Sijmons: Phenomenology and Idealism. Structure and method of Rudolf Steiner's philosophy. Schwabe, Basel 2008. p. 62.
  32. ↑ Gerhard Hahn: The freedom of philosophy. A fundamental criticism of anthroposophy. Licet Göttingen 1995. ISBN 3-9804225-0-X .
  33. ↑ Theologische Revue 92nd Volume No. 5, Aschendorff Verlag 1996. P. 366 f.
  34. ↑ Helmut Zander: Rudolf Steiner. The biography. Piper, Munich 2011. pp. 89, p. 91.
  35. ↑ Roland Kipke: Ethics - A blind spot of anthroposophy. In: Anthroposophy - quarterly publication on anthroposophical work in Germany. 2012, No. 261, 205-214. Roland Kipke: Freedom, Morals and Ethics - a reply. In: Anthroposophy - quarterly publication on anthroposophical work in Germany. 2013, No. 263, pp. 31–43.
  36. ↑ Jaap Sijmons: Rudolf Steiner's philosophy and the question of freedom. In: Peter Heusser and Johannes Weinzierl (eds.): Rudolf Steiner - Its importance for science and life today. Schattauer-Verlag, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-7945-2947-6 , p. 84 f.
  37. ↑ Walter Johannes Stein : The modern scientific way of thinking and Goethe's worldview as represented by Rudolf Steiner. (University of Vienna 1921). Annotated new edition in Thomas Meyer (ed.): WJ Stein and Rudolf Steiner: Documentation of a groundbreaking cooperation . Verlag am Goetheanum (Pioneers of Anthroposophy 2), Dornach 1985, ISBN 3-7235-0384-5 .
  38. ^ Bernhard Kallert: The epistemology of Rudolf Steiner. The concept of knowledge of objective idealism . (University of Erlangen 1943, published in book form by Verlag frei Geistesleben, Stuttgart 1960, ISBN 978-3-7725-0612-3 ).
  39. ↑ Michael Muschalle: Thinking and its observation. Investigations between epistemology and methology in the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner (Bielefeld University 1988). ( studienzuranthroposophie.de PDF; full text).