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The Science of Knowing
GA 2

XVII. Introduction: Spirit and Nature

[ 1 ] We have now dealt fully with the realm of knowledge of nature. Organic science is the highest form of natural science. It is the humanities that go beyond it. These demand an essentially different approach of the human spirit to its object of study than the natural sciences. In the latter the human spirit had to play a universal role. The task fell to the human spirit to bring the world process itself to a conclusion, so to speak. What existed there without the human spirit was only half of reality, was unfinished, was everywhere patchwork. The task of the human spirit there is to call into manifest existence the innermost mainsprings of reality, which, to be sure, would be operative even without its subjective intervention. If man were a mere sense being, without spiritual comprehension, inorganic nature would certainly be no less dependent upon natural laws, but these, as such, would never come into existence. Beings would indeed then exist that perceived what is brought about (the sense world) but not what is bringing about (the inner lawfulness). It is really the genuine and indeed the truest form of nature that comes to manifestation within the human spirit, whereas for a mere sense being only nature's outer side is present. Science has a role of universal significance here. It is the conclusion of the work of creation. It is nature's coming to terms with itself that plays itself out in man's consciousness. Thinking is the final part in the sequence of processes that compose nature.

[ 2 ] It is not like this with the humanities. Here our consciousness has to do with spiritual content itself: with the individual human spirit, with creations of culture, of literature, with successive scientific convictions, with creations of art. The spiritual is grasped by the spirit. Here, reality already has within itself the ideal element, the lawfulness, that otherwise emerges only in spiritual apprehension. That which in the natural sciences is only the product of reflection about the objects is here innate in them. Science plays a different role here. The essential being would already be in the object even without the work of science. It is human deeds, creations, ideas with which we have to do here. It is man's coming to terms with himself and with his race. Science has a different mission to fulfill here than it does with respect to nature.

[ 3 ] Again this mission arises first of all as a human need. Just as the necessity of finding the idea of nature corresponding to the reality of nature arises first of all as a need of our spirit, so the task of the humanities is there first of all as a human impulse. Again it is only an objective fact manifesting as a subjective need.

[ 4 ] Man should not, like a being of inorganic nature, work upon another being in accordance with outer norms, in accordance with a lawfulness governing him; he should also not be merely the individual form of a general typus; rather he himself should set himself the purpose, the goal of his existence, of his activity. If his actions are the results of laws, then these laws must he such that he gives them to himself. What he is in himself, what he is among his own kind, within the state and in history, this he should not be through external determining factors. He must be this through himself. How he fits himself into the structure of the world depends upon him. He must find the point where he can participate in the workings of the world. Here the humanities receive their task. The human being must know the spiritual world in order to determine his part in it according to this knowledge. The mission that psychology, ethnology, and history have to fulfill springs from this.

[ 5 ] It is in inherent in the being of nature for law and activity to separate from each other, for the latter to manifest as governed by the former; on the other hand, it is inherent in the being of our spiritual activity (Freiheit) 1Rudolf Steiner suggested “spiritual activity” as a translation of the German word Freiheit (literally, “freehood”). For him, Freiheit meant “action, thinking, and feeling from out of the spiritual individuality of man.” –Ed. for law and activity to coincide, for what is acting to present itself directly in what is enacted, and for what is enacted to govern itself.

[ 6 ] The humanities are therefore pre-eminently sciences of our spiritual activity (Freiheitswissenschaften). The idea of spiritual activity must be their centerpoint, the idea that governs them. This is why Schiller's Aesthetic Letters have such stature, because they want to find the essential being of beauty in the idea of spiritual activity, because spiritual activity is the principle that imbues them.

[ 7 ] The human spirit is able to assume only that place in the generality of the world, in the cosmic whole, that it gives itself as an individual spirit. Whereas in organic science the general, the idea of the typus, must always be kept in view, in the humanities the idea of the personality must be maintained. What matters here is not the idea as it presents itself in a general form (typus) but rather the idea as it arises in the single being (individual). Of course the important thing is not the chance, single personality, not this or that personality, but rather personality as such; not personality as it develops out of itself into particular forms and then first comes in this way into sense-perceptible existence, but rather personality sufficient within itself, complete in itself, finding within itself its own determinative elements.

[ 8 ] It is determinative for the typus that it can only first realise itself in the individual being. It is determinative for a person that he attain an existence which, already ideal, is really self-sustaining. It is completely different to speak of a general humanity than of a general lawfulness of nature. With the latter the particular is determined by the general; with the idea of humanity the generality is determined by the particular. If we succeed in discerning general laws in history, these are laws only insofar as historic personalities placed them before themselves as goals, as ideals. This is the inner antithesis of nature and the human spirit. Nature demands a science that ascends from the directly given, as the caused, to what the human spirit can grasp, as that which causes; the human spirit demands a science that progresses from the given, as that which causes, to the caused. What characterizes the humanities is that the particular is what gives the laws; what characterizes the natural sciences is that this role falls to the general.

[ 9 ] What is of value to us in natural science only as a transitional point—the particular—is alone of interest to us in the humanities. What we seek in natural science—the general—comes into consideration here only insofar as it elucidates the particular for us.

[ 10 ] It would be contrary to the spirit of science if, with respect to nature, one stopped short at the direct experience of the particular. But it would also mean positive death to the spirit if one wanted to encompass Greek history, for example, in a general conceptual schema. In the first case our attention, clinging to the phenomena, would not achieve science; in the second case our spirit, proceeding in accordance with a general stereotype, would lose all sense of what is individual.

17. Einleitung: Geist und Natur

[ 1 ] Das Gebiet des Naturerkennens haben wir erschöpft. Die Organik ist die höchste Form der Naturwissenschaft. Was noch darüber ist, sind die Geisteswissenschaften. Diese fordern ein wesentlich anderes Verhalten des Menschengeistes zum Objekte als die Naturwissenschaften. Bei den letzteren hatte der Geist eine universelle Rolle zu spielen. Es fiel ihm sozusagen die Aufgabe zu, den Weltprozeß selbst zum Abschlusse zu bringen. Was ohne den Geist da war, war nur die Hälfte der Wirklichkeit, war unvollendet, in jedem Punkte Stückwerk. Der Geist hat da die innersten Triebfedern der Wirklichkeit, die zwar auch ohne seine subjektive Einmischung Geltung hätten, zum Erscheinungsdasein zu rufen. Wäre der Mensch ein bloßes Sinnenwesen, ohne geistige Auffassung, so wäre die unorganische Natur wohl nicht minder von Naturgesetzen abhängig, aber sie träten nie als solche ins Dasein ein. Es gäbe zwar Wesen, welche das Bewirkte (die Sinnenwelt), nicht aber das Wirkende (die innere Gesetzlichkeit) wahrnähmen. Es ist wirklich die echte, und zwar die wahrste Gestalt der Natur, welche im Menschengeiste zur Erscheinung kommt, während für ein bloßes Sinnenwesen nur ihre Außenseite da ist. Die Wissenschaft hat hier eine weltbedeutsame Rolle. Sie ist der Abschluß des Schöpfungswerkes. Es ist die Auseinandersetzung der Natur mit sich selbst, die sich im Bewußtsein des Menschen abspielt. Das Denken ist das letzte Glied in der Reihenfolge der Prozesse, die die Natur bilden.

[ 2 ] Nicht so ist es bei der Geisteswissenschaft. Hier hat es unser Bewußtsein mit geistigem Inhalte selbst zu tun: mit dem einzelnen Menschengeist, mit den Schöpfungen der Kultur, der Literatur, mit den aufeinanderfolgenden wissenschaftlichen Überzeugungen, mit den Schöpfungen der Kunst. Geistiges wird durch den Geist erfaßt. Die Wirklichkeit hat hier schon das Ideelle, die Gesetzmäßigkeit in sich, die sonst erst in der geistigen Auffassung hervortritt. Was bei den Naturwissenschaften erst Produkt des Nachdenkens über die Gegenstände ist, das ist hier denselben eingeboren. Die Wissenschaft spielt eine andere Rolle. Das Wesen wäre auch schon im Objekte ohne ihre Arbeit da. Es sind menschliche Taten, Schöpfungen, Ideen, mit denen wir es zu tun haben. Es ist eine Auseinandersetzung des Menschen mit sich selbst und seinem Geschlechte. Die Wissenschaft hat hier eine andere Sendung zu erfüllen als der Natur gegenüber.

[ 3 ] Wieder tritt diese Sendung zuerst als menschliches Bedürfnis auf. So wie die Notwendigkeit, zur Naturwirklichkeit die Naturidee zu finden, zuerst als Bedürfnis unseres Geistes auftritt, so ist auch die Aufgabe der Geisteswissenschaften zuerst als menschlicher Drang da. Wieder ist es nur eine objektive Tatsache, die sich als subjektives Bedürfnis kundgibt.

[ 4 ] Der Mensch soll nicht wie das Wesen der unorganischen Natur auf ein anderes Wesen nach äußeren Normen, nach einer ihn beherrschenden Gesetzlichkeit wirken, er soll auch nicht bloß die Einzelform eines allgemeinen Typus sein, sondern er soll sich den Zweck, das Ziel seines Daseins, seiner Tätigkeit selbst vorsetzen. Wenn seine Handlungen die Ergebnisse von Gesetzen sind, so müssen diese Gesetze solche sein, die er sich selbst gibt. Was er an sich selbst, was er unter seinesgleichen, in Staat und Geschichte ist, das darf er nicht durch äußerliche Bestimmung sein. Er muß es durch sich selbst sein. Wie er sich in das Gefüge der Welt einfügt, hängt von ihm ab. Er muß den Punkt finden, um an dem Getriebe der Welt teilzunehmen. Hier erhalten die Geisteswissenschaften ihre Aufgabe. Der Mensch muß die Geisteswelt kennen, um nach dieser Erkenntnis seinen Anteil an derselben zu bestimmen. Da entspringt die Sendung, die Psychologie, Volkskunde und Geschichtswissenschaft zu erfüllen haben.

[ 5 ] Das ist das Wesen der Natur, daß Gesetz und Tätigkeit auseinanderfallen, diese von jenem beherrscht erscheint; das hingegen ist das Wesen der Freiheit, daß beide zusammenfallen, daß sich das Wirkende in der Wirkung unmittelbar darlebt und daß das Bewirkte sich selbst regelt.

[ 6 ] Die Geisteswissenschaften sind im eminenten Sinne daher Freiheitswissenschaften. Die Idee der Freiheit muß ihr Mittelpunkt, die sie beherrschende Idee sein. Deshalb stehen Schillers ästhetische Briefe so hoch, weil sie das Wesen der Schönheit in der Idee der Freiheit finden wollen, weil die Freiheit das Prinzip ist, das sie durchdringt.

[ 7 ] Der Geist nimmt nur jene Stelle in der Allgemeinheit, im Weltganzen ein, die er sich als individueller gibt. Während in der Organik stets das Allgemeine, die Typusidee im Auge behalten werden muß, ist in den Geisteswissenschaften die Idee der Persönlichkeit festzuhalten. Nicht die Idee, wie sie sich in der Allgemeinheit (Typus) darlebt, sondern wie sie im Einzelwesen (Individuum) auftritt, ist es, worauf es ankommt. Natürlich ist nicht die zufällige Einzelpersönlichkeit, nicht diese oder jene Persönlichkeit maßgebend, sondern die Persönlichkeit überhaupt; aber diese nicht aus sich heraus zu besonderen Gestalten sich entwickelnd und erst so zum sinnenfälligen Dasein kommend, sondern in sich selbst genug, in sich abgeschlossen, in sich ihre Bestimmung findend.

[ 8 ] Der Typus hat die Bestimmung, sich im Individuum erst zu realisieren. Die Person hat diese, bereits als Ideelles wirklich auf sich selbst ruhendes Dasein zu gewinnen. Es ist etwas ganz anderes, wenn man von einer allgemeinen Menschheit spricht, als von einer allgemeinen Naturgesetzlichkeit. Bei letzterer ist das Besondere durch das Allgemeine bedingt; bei der Idee der Menschheit ist es die Allgemeinheit durch das Besondere. Wenn es uns gelingt, der Geschichte allgemeine Gesetze abzulauschen, so sind diese nur insofern solche, als sie sich von den historischen Persönlichkeiten als Ziele, Ideale vorgesetzt wurden. Das ist der innere Gegensatz von Natur und Geist. Die erste fordert eine Wissenschaft, welche von dem unmittelbar Gegebenen, als dem Bedingten, zu dem im Geiste Erfaßbaren, als dem Bedingenden, aufsteigt; der letzte eine solche, welche von dem Gegebenen, als dem Bedingenden, zu dem Bedingten fortschreitet. Daß das Besondere zugleich das Gesetzgebende ist, charakterisiert die Geisteswissenschaften; daß dem Allgemeinen diese Rolle zufällt, die Naturwissenschaften.

[ 9 ] Was uns in der Naturwissenschaft nur als Durchgangspunkt wertvoll ist, das Besondere, das interessiert uns in den Geisteswissenschaften allein. Was wir in jener suchen, das Allgemeine, kommt hier nur insofern in Betracht, als es uns über das Besondere aufklärt.

[ 10 ] Es wäre gegen den Geist der Wissenschaft, wenn man der Natur gegenüber bei der Unmittelbarkeit des Besonderen stehen bliebe. Geradezu geisttötend wäre es aber auch, wenn man zum Beispiel die griechische Geschichte in einem allgemeinen Begriffsschema umfassen wollte. Dort würde der an der Erscheinung haftende Sinn keine Wissenschaft erringen; hier würde der nach einer allgemeinen Schablone vorgehende Geist allen Sinn für das Individuelle verlieren.

17. Introduction: Mind and nature

[ 1 ] We have exhausted the field of knowledge of nature. Organic science is the highest form of natural science. What is still above it are the humanities. These require an essentially different attitude of the human spirit to the object than the natural sciences. In the latter, the spirit has a universal role to play. It had the task, so to speak, of bringing the world process itself to a conclusion. What existed without the spirit was only half of reality, was unfinished, piecemeal in every respect. The spirit has to call to manifestation the innermost driving forces of reality, which would also be valid without its subjective interference. If man were a mere sensory being, without spiritual perception, then inorganic nature would be no less dependent on natural laws, but they would never come into existence as such. There would indeed be beings who perceive the effectual (the sense world), but not the effectual (the inner lawfulness). It is really the real, and indeed the truest form of nature that appears in the human spirit, whereas for a mere sensory being there is only its outer side. Science has a world-significant role here. It is the conclusion of the work of creation. It is the confrontation of nature with itself that takes place in the consciousness of man. Thought is the last link in the sequence of processes that form nature.

[ 2 ] This is not the case with spiritual science. Here our consciousness has to do with spiritual content itself: with the individual human spirit, with the creations of culture, of literature, with the successive scientific convictions, with the creations of art. The spiritual is grasped through the spirit. Here reality already contains the ideal, the lawfulness, which otherwise only emerges in the spiritual conception. What in the natural sciences is only the product of thinking about the objects is inherent in them here. Science plays a different role. The being would already exist in the object without its work. It is human deeds, creations, ideas that we are dealing with. It is a confrontation of man with himself and his gender. Science has a different mission to fulfill here than towards nature.

[ 3 ] Once again, this mission first appears as a human need. Just as the need to find the idea of nature in relation to the reality of nature first arises as a need of our spirit, so too the task of the humanities first arises as a human urge. Again, it is only an objective fact that manifests itself as a subjective need.

[ 4 ] Man should not, like the being of inorganic nature, act on another being according to external norms, according to a lawfulness that dominates him, nor should he be merely the individual form of a general type, but he should set himself the purpose, the goal of his existence, of his activity. If his actions are the results of laws, then these laws must be those that he gives himself. What he is in himself, what he is among his equals, in the state and in history, he must not be by external determination. He must be it through himself. How he fits into the structure of the world depends on him. He must find the point to participate in the gears of the world. This is where the humanities have their task. Man must know the spiritual world in order to determine his part in it according to this knowledge. This is the source of the mission that psychology, ethnology and historiography have to fulfill.

[ 5 ] This is the essence of nature, that law and activity fall apart, that the latter appears to be dominated by the former; this, on the other hand, is the essence of freedom, that both coincide, that the agent lives itself out directly in the effect and that the effectual regulates itself.

[ 6 ] The humanities are therefore sciences of freedom in an eminent sense. The idea of freedom must be their focus, the idea that dominates them. That is why Schiller's aesthetic letters stand so high, because they want to find the essence of beauty in the idea of freedom, because freedom is the principle that permeates them.

[ 7 ] The spirit only occupies that place in the generality, in the world as a whole, which it gives itself as more individual. Whereas in organic science the general, the type idea must always be kept in mind, in the humanities the idea of personality must be held fast. It is not the idea as it presents itself in the generality (type), but how it appears in the individual being (individual) that is important. Of course, it is not the random individual personality, not this or that personality that is decisive, but the personality in general; however, this does not develop out of itself into particular forms and only then come to sensuous existence, but is sufficient in itself, self-contained, finding its destiny in itself.

[ 8 ] The type has the destiny of first realizing itself in the individual. The person has this, to gain an existence that is already truly based on itself as an ideal. It is quite different to speak of a general humanity than of a general law of nature. In the latter, the particular is conditioned by the general; in the idea of humanity, it is the generality through the particular. If we succeed in extracting general laws from history, then these are only such in so far as they have been set as goals, ideals, by the historical personalities. This is the inner opposition of nature and spirit. The former demands a science which ascends from the directly given, as the conditioned, to that which can be grasped in the spirit, as the conditioning, while the latter demands a science which progresses from the given, as the conditioning, to the conditioned. The fact that the specific is at the same time the lawgiver characterizes the humanities; the fact that this role falls to the general characterizes the natural sciences.

[ 9 ] What is valuable to us in the natural sciences only as a point of passage, the particular, is of interest to us in the humanities alone. What we seek in the latter, the general, only comes into consideration here insofar as it enlightens us about the special.

[ 10 ] It would be against the spirit of science to stop at the immediacy of the particular in relation to nature. But it would also be downright mind-numbing if, for example, one wanted to encompass Greek history in a general conceptual scheme. There, the sense clinging to appearances would not achieve any science; here, the mind proceeding according to a general template would lose all sense of the individual.