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Riddles of Philosophy
Written 1914, 1923 (CW 18)Translator and Philosophy Professor Fritz Koelln describes this seminal "Rudolf Steiner's Riddles of Presented in an Outline of Its History is not a history of philosophy in the usual sense of the word. It does not give a history of the philosophical systems, nor does it present a number of philosophical problems historically. Its real concern touches on something deeper than this, on riddles rather than problems. Philosophical concepts, systems and problems are, to be sure, to be dealt with in this book. But it is not their history that is to be described here. Where they are discussed they become symptoms rather than the objects of the search. The search itself wants to reveal a process that is overlooked in the usual history of philosophy. It is the mysterious process in which philosophical thinking appears in human history. Philosophical thinking as it is here meant is known only in Western civilization. Oriental philosophy has its origin in a different kind of consciousness, and it is not to be considered in this book."What is new here is the treatment of the history of philosophic thinking as a manifestation of the evolution of human consciousness. Such a treatment requires a fine sense of observation. Not merely the thoughts must be observed, but behind them the thinking in which they appear."To follow Steiner in his subtle description of the process of the metamorphosis of this thinking in the history of philosophy we should remember he sees the human consciousness in an evolution. It has not always been what it is now, and what it is now it will not be in the future. This is a fundamental conception of Anthroposophy."C O N T E N T SIntroduction by Fritz C. A. KoellnPrefaces by Rudolf SteinerPART ONE1. Guiding Thoughts on the Method of Presentation2. The World conception of the Greek Thinkers3. Thought Life from the Beginning of the Christian Era to John Scotus Erigena4. The World Conceptions of the Middle Ages5. The World Conceptions of the Modern Age of Thought Evolution6. The Age of Kant and Goethe7. The Classics of World and Life Conceptions8. Reactionary world Conceptions9. The Radical World ConceptionsPART TWOIntroductory Remarks to the 1914 Edition1. The Struggle over the Spirit2. Darwinism and World Conception3. The World as Illusion4. Echoes of the Kantian Mode of Conception5. World Conceptions of Scientific Factuality6. Modern Idealistic World Conceptions7. Modern Man and His World Conception8. A Brief Outline of an Approach to AnthroposophyIndex
- GenresPhilosophy
Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
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About the author
Rudolf Steiner
4,339 books1,100 followersAuthor also wrote under the name Rudolph Steiner.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His teachings are influenced by Christian Gnosticism or neognosticism. Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific. He was also prone to pseudohistory.
In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality. His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "spiritual science", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions, differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, dance and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural centre to house all the arts. In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied projects, including Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, and anthroposophical medicine.
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's world view in which "thinking…is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His teachings are influenced by Christian Gnosticism or neognosticism. Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific. He was also prone to pseudohistory.
In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality. His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "spiritual science", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions, differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, dance and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural centre to house all the arts. In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied projects, including Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, and anthroposophical medicine.
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's world view in which "thinking…is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 11, 2024
One must have sympathy for those who suffer from our enormous contemporary social pressures. An individual who, upon hearing mysterious things about this "Rudolf Steiner" might look him up online, see a phrase such as "Old Moon," look nervously over the shoulder to be sure no one witnessed this rueful departure from conventional narratives, quickly clear their search history, close the browser, and swear to offend no more the gods of Wikipedia-acceptability. It is frightening to stray from the pack; and such a pack.
Robert Hammerling, 19th c. Austrian poet, has a statement which is quoted twice in The Riddles of Philosophy. It reads: "Certain stimuli produce the odor within our organ of smell. The rose, therefore, has no fragrance if nobody smells it...If this, dear reader, does not seem plausible to you, if your mind stirs like a shy horse when it is confronted with this fact, do not bother to read another line; leave this book and all others that deal with philosophical things unread, for you lack the ability that is necessary for this purpose, that is, to apprehend a fact without bias and to adhere to it in your thoughts."
Steiner only partially approves of this strong statement out of sympathy for the beleaguered and confused modern; however, he is ruthless with himself in following the sentiment. Here we see Steiner as the extraordinarily learned and balanced mind who curated the work of Goethe and studied philosophy & science for decades. The book is also a valuable description of the shadowy attempt to find a synthesis through the battles of German idealism, British empiricism, and the cultural dominance of the natural sciences. There is none of the Anthroposophic framework or terms of Steiner's lectures until the conclusion. Each step is valuable insofar as it highlights our understanding of the ever-spiraling conflicts of post-medieval thought.
Here one may see Steiner as a culmination of a struggle between Thought and Ego, Spirit and Sense - and can see the many people who contributed to the development of his worldview. This is not a checkmark history of philosophy based solely on the Big Names like Kant - Goethe - Hegel - Schopenhauer; Steiner focuses on the important turning points they stake out, but spends just as much time, if not more, on dozens of names unknown (to me) who did critical work clarifying the points of contention. Franz Brentano, Thomas Reid, Kirchoff, Du Bois-Reymond, Wilhelm Dilthey, Troxler, W.H. Preuss, F. Lange - most of these were unknown or mere names to me, whereas in Riddles they become the vital filling in of a picture that would otherwise be an incomplete sketch of 18th & 19th century philosophy. The details matter.
One thing these summaries bring to mind is just how much Man is willfully reduced by most currents of the 18th & 19th c. philosophers, even when they are in full contradiction to each other. One might think here is the defender of Reason (Man?) and here the defender of Mechanics & Dynamics (Machines? Or Biology?). Yet too often people who represent opposite poles partake in a common coldness, a preference for Ideals/Data, but never Man. In the quest to exalt Thought or the natural sciences, homo sapiens become a pale shadow serving some other object. Hume and Hegel differ immensely, but one keeps seeing the senses or ideals triumphing over the soul of Man. No wonder we have built around us a world increasingly dehumanized.
When you read Catholic philosophy from the same time, you find a much more holistic understanding of Man. However much criticism neo-Thomists or personalists receive, we find the Christian Orthodox religions have found a way of holding fast to a created creature struggling with responsibility and love. Not an automaton; not a self-portrait in a void. Only anthroposophy holds a candle to this full understanding of the Person, and it remains my dearest wish that the self-inflicted knee-capping of many Christians before the golems of the Market-Machine could be healed by an understanding of nature & spirit which does not hesitate to see Steiner as friend not foe. To engage with his work may offer an opportunity for a renewal and deepened understanding that all Christians of goodwill could receive in gratitude.
Robert Hammerling, 19th c. Austrian poet, has a statement which is quoted twice in The Riddles of Philosophy. It reads: "Certain stimuli produce the odor within our organ of smell. The rose, therefore, has no fragrance if nobody smells it...If this, dear reader, does not seem plausible to you, if your mind stirs like a shy horse when it is confronted with this fact, do not bother to read another line; leave this book and all others that deal with philosophical things unread, for you lack the ability that is necessary for this purpose, that is, to apprehend a fact without bias and to adhere to it in your thoughts."
Steiner only partially approves of this strong statement out of sympathy for the beleaguered and confused modern; however, he is ruthless with himself in following the sentiment. Here we see Steiner as the extraordinarily learned and balanced mind who curated the work of Goethe and studied philosophy & science for decades. The book is also a valuable description of the shadowy attempt to find a synthesis through the battles of German idealism, British empiricism, and the cultural dominance of the natural sciences. There is none of the Anthroposophic framework or terms of Steiner's lectures until the conclusion. Each step is valuable insofar as it highlights our understanding of the ever-spiraling conflicts of post-medieval thought.
Here one may see Steiner as a culmination of a struggle between Thought and Ego, Spirit and Sense - and can see the many people who contributed to the development of his worldview. This is not a checkmark history of philosophy based solely on the Big Names like Kant - Goethe - Hegel - Schopenhauer; Steiner focuses on the important turning points they stake out, but spends just as much time, if not more, on dozens of names unknown (to me) who did critical work clarifying the points of contention. Franz Brentano, Thomas Reid, Kirchoff, Du Bois-Reymond, Wilhelm Dilthey, Troxler, W.H. Preuss, F. Lange - most of these were unknown or mere names to me, whereas in Riddles they become the vital filling in of a picture that would otherwise be an incomplete sketch of 18th & 19th century philosophy. The details matter.
One thing these summaries bring to mind is just how much Man is willfully reduced by most currents of the 18th & 19th c. philosophers, even when they are in full contradiction to each other. One might think here is the defender of Reason (Man?) and here the defender of Mechanics & Dynamics (Machines? Or Biology?). Yet too often people who represent opposite poles partake in a common coldness, a preference for Ideals/Data, but never Man. In the quest to exalt Thought or the natural sciences, homo sapiens become a pale shadow serving some other object. Hume and Hegel differ immensely, but one keeps seeing the senses or ideals triumphing over the soul of Man. No wonder we have built around us a world increasingly dehumanized.
When you read Catholic philosophy from the same time, you find a much more holistic understanding of Man. However much criticism neo-Thomists or personalists receive, we find the Christian Orthodox religions have found a way of holding fast to a created creature struggling with responsibility and love. Not an automaton; not a self-portrait in a void. Only anthroposophy holds a candle to this full understanding of the Person, and it remains my dearest wish that the self-inflicted knee-capping of many Christians before the golems of the Market-Machine could be healed by an understanding of nature & spirit which does not hesitate to see Steiner as friend not foe. To engage with his work may offer an opportunity for a renewal and deepened understanding that all Christians of goodwill could receive in gratitude.
February 7, 2021
A sentence in Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling's Philosophy of Nature strikes us like a flash of lightning [ an Idea ] illuminating the past and future path of the evolution of philosophy.
“To philosophize about nature means to create [ unfold ] nature.”
With sharp words Schelling turns against those who believe that we “merely project our ideas into nature,” because “they have no inkling of what nature is and must be for us. . . . For we are not satisfied to have nature accidentally (through the intermediary function of a third element, for instance) correspond to the laws of our spirit.
We insist that nature itself necessarily and fundamentally should not only express, but realize, the laws of our spirit and that it should only then be, and be called, nature if it did just this. . . .
Nature is to be the visible spirit: spirit the invisible nature.
He was inspired by the feeling that the ideas that appear in his imagination are also the creative forces of nature's process.
The artist proceeds in the production of a work of art as nature does in its creations.
In the case of the artist, creation and creator are observed at the same time.
Schelling does not feel himself as an individual being at all as he surrenders himself to the contemplation of the world phenomena.
He appears to himself as a “part,“ a member of the creative world forces.
Not “he“ thinks, but the spirit of the world forces thinks in him.
This spirit contemplates his own creative activity in him.
“To philosophize about nature means to create [ unfold ] nature.”
With sharp words Schelling turns against those who believe that we “merely project our ideas into nature,” because “they have no inkling of what nature is and must be for us. . . . For we are not satisfied to have nature accidentally (through the intermediary function of a third element, for instance) correspond to the laws of our spirit.
We insist that nature itself necessarily and fundamentally should not only express, but realize, the laws of our spirit and that it should only then be, and be called, nature if it did just this. . . .
Nature is to be the visible spirit: spirit the invisible nature.
He was inspired by the feeling that the ideas that appear in his imagination are also the creative forces of nature's process.
The artist proceeds in the production of a work of art as nature does in its creations.
In the case of the artist, creation and creator are observed at the same time.
Schelling does not feel himself as an individual being at all as he surrenders himself to the contemplation of the world phenomena.
He appears to himself as a “part,“ a member of the creative world forces.
Not “he“ thinks, but the spirit of the world forces thinks in him.
This spirit contemplates his own creative activity in him.
September 9, 2009
Fantastic, fantastic book, providing the outlook on the historical philosophies and important philosophers as viewed by the greatest philosopher of the modern age.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews