The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Orientation Regarding the Guidelines of Presentation

[ 1 ] If one follows the spiritual work that has been done by people in order to try to solve the riddles of the world and questions of life, the words that were recorded in Apollo's temple like a maxim always come to mind: "Know thyself". The fact that the human soul can feel a certain effect when imagining these words is the basis for understanding a world view. The nature of a living organism brings with it the necessity of feeling hunger; the nature of the human soul at a certain stage of its development produces a similar necessity. This is expressed in the need to gain a spiritual good from life which, like food, corresponds to hunger and the inner demand of the soul: "Know thyself". This feeling can seize the soul so powerfully that it must think: I am only totally human in the true sense of the word when I develop a relationship to the world within myself that has its basic character in "Know thyself". The soul can go so far as to regard this sensation as an awakening from the dream of life that it dreamed before the experience that it undergoes with this sensation.

[ 2 ] In the first period of his life, man develops in such a way that the power of memory strengthens in him, through which in later life he remembers his experiences up to a certain point in childhood. What lies before this point in time is perceived by him as a dream of life from which he has awakened. The human soul would not be what it should be if this power of memory did not grow out of the dull experience of childhood. In a similar way the human soul can think of the experience of "Know thyself" on a further level of existence. It can feel that all soul life does not correspond to its dispositions that does not awaken from the life dream through this experience.

[ 3 ] Philosophers have often emphasized that they are embarrassed when they have to say what philosophy is in the true sense of the word. What is certain, however, is that it must be seen as a special form of satisfying the human soul's need to "know thyself". And one can know about this demand just as one knows what hunger is, even though one might be embarrassed if one were to give an explanation of hunger that would satisfy everyone.

[ 4 ] A thought of this kind probably lived in J. G. Fichte's soul when he said that the kind of philosophy one chooses depends on what kind of person one is. Animated by this thought, one can approach the consideration of the attempts that have been made in the course of history to find solutions to the riddles of philosophy. In these attempts one will then find revelations of the human essence itself. For, although man seeks to silence his personal interests completely when he wants to speak as a philosopher, what the human personality can make of itself through the development of its innermost powers appears quite directly in a philosophy.

[ 5 ] From this point of view, the contemplation of philosophical achievements about the riddles of the world can arouse certain expectations. It is to be hoped that results can be gained from this consideration about the character of the development of the human soul. And the author of this book believes that such results have presented themselves to him as he has wandered through the philosophical views of the West. Four clearly distinguishable epochs in the development of the philosophical striving of mankind presented themselves to him. He had to find the differences between these epochs expressed as characteristically as one finds the differences between the species of a natural kingdom. This led him to recognize that the history of the philosophical development of mankind was proof of the existence of objective spiritual impulses, quite independent of man, which continue to develop in the course of time. And what men accomplish as philosophers appears as the revelation of the development of these impulses which rule beneath the surface of external history. The conviction suggests itself that such a result follows from the impartial observation of historical facts, like a law of nature from the observation of natural facts. The writer of this book believes that no kind of bias has led him to an arbitrary construction of historical becoming, but that the facts compel him to recognize results of the kind indicated.

[ 6 ] It turns out that the course of development of the philosophical striving of mankind allows us to distinguish epochs, each of which has a length of seven to eight centuries. In each of these epochs, a different spiritual impulse is at work beneath the surface of external history, which, as it were, radiates into human personalities and, with its own further development, brings about that of human philosophizing.

[ 7 ] How the facts support the distinction between these epochs will be shown in this book. The author wishes to let these facts speak for themselves as best he can. Here, only a few guidelines are to be prefaced, from which the consideration did not start, which has led to this book, but which have emerged as a result of this consideration.

[ 8 ] One can take the view that these guidelines are in the right place at the end of the book, since their truth only emerges from the content of what is presented. However, they should precede them as a preliminary communication because they justify the internal structure of the presentation. For although they arose for the author of the book as the result of his reflections, they were naturally before the presentation in his mind and were decisive for it. For the reader, however, it can be significant not only to learn at the end of a book why the author depicts in a certain way, but to be able to form an opinion about this way from the point of view of the depictor while reading. However, only that which is relevant to the internal structure of the explanations shall be communicated here.

[ 9 ] The first epoch in the development of philosophical views begins in ancient Greece. It can be clearly traced back historically to Pherekydes of Syros and Thales of Miletus. It ends with the times in which Christianity was founded. The spiritual striving of mankind in this epoch shows a substantially different character than in earlier times. It is the epoch of the awakening life of thought. Before that, the human soul lived in figurative (symbolic) ideas about the world and existence. No matter how hard one might try to agree with those who would like to see the philosophical life of thought developed in pre-Greek times, one cannot do so if one looks at it impartially. And one must let genuine philosophy, appearing in the form of thought, begin in Greece. What is similar to the element of thought in Oriental and Egyptian views of the world is not a true thought, but an image, a symbol. In Greece the striving is born to recognize the connections of the world through that which at present can be called thought. As long as the human soul imagines world phenomena through the image, it still feels intimately connected with them. It feels itself to be a member of the world organism; it does not think of itself as an independent entity detached from this organism. As thought awakens in her in its imagelessness, she feels the separation of world and soul. Thought becomes its educator to independence. Now, however, the Greek experiences thought in a different way from the contemporary human being. This is a fact that can easily be disregarded. But it does provide a genuine insight into Greek thought. The Greek perceives the thought as one currently perceives a perception, as one perceives "red" or "yellow". Just as one now ascribes a perception of color or sound to a "thing", so the Greek sees the thought in and on the world of things. This is why, at this time, thought still remains the bond that connects the soul with the world. The detachment of the soul from the world is only just beginning; it is not yet complete. Although the soul experiences the thought within itself, it must be of the opinion that it has received it from the world, therefore it can expect the revelation of the riddles of the world from the experience of thought. Philosophical development, which begins with Pherekydes and Thales, reaches a climax in Plato and Aristotle, and then flows away until it comes to an end in the time of the foundation of Christianity, takes place in such an experience of thought. From the depths of spiritual development, the life of thought floods into human souls and generates philosophies in these souls which educate the souls to feel their independence from the external world.

[ 10 ] A new epoch begins in the age of emerging Christianity. The human soul can no longer experience thought as a perception from the external world. It feels it as a product of its own (inner) being. A much more powerful impulse than the life of thought radiates into the soul from the depths of spiritual becoming. Self-consciousness is only now awakening within humanity in a way that corresponds to the actual nature of this self-consciousness. What people experienced before were only the forerunners of what should be called in the deepest sense inwardly experienced self-consciousness. One can indulge in the hope that a future consideration of the development of the spirit will call the time meant here that of the "awakening of self-consciousness". It is only now that man becomes aware, in the true sense of the word, of the full extent of his soul life as "I". The full weight of this fact is more dimly felt than clearly realized by the philosophical minds of this time. Philosophical endeavor retains this character until about the time of Scotus Erigena (d. 877 AD). The philosophers of this time immersed their philosophical thinking completely in religious imagination. Through this imagination, the human soul, which in its awakened self-consciousness sees itself as entirely self-reliant, seeks to gain awareness of its integration into the life of the world organism. Thought becomes a mere means of expressing the view gained from religious sources about the relationship of the human soul to the world. Embedded in this view, the life of thought, nourished by religious imagination, grows like the plant seed in the womb of the earth until it bursts forth from it. In Greek philosophy, the life of thought unfolds its own powers; it leads the human soul to a sense of its independence; then, from the depths of the spiritual life, something of an essentially different nature than the life of thought breaks into humanity. This fills the soul with a new inner experience, which makes it realize that it is a world of its own, resting on its inner center of gravity. Self-consciousness is initially experienced, not yet grasped in thought. The thought continues to develop in secret in the warmth of religious consciousness. This is how the first seven to eight centuries after the foundation of Christianity proceeded.

[ 11 ] The next epoch shows a completely different character. The leading philosophers feel the power of the life of thought awakening again. The human soul has inwardly consolidated the independence it has lived through for centuries. It begins to search: what is actually its very own possession. It finds that this is the life of thought. Everything else is given to it from outside; it generates thought from the subsoil of its own being, so that it is fully consciously involved in this generation. The urge arises in it to gain a knowledge in the thoughts through which it can enlighten itself about its relationship to the world. How can something express itself in the life of thought that is not merely conceived by the soul? This becomes the question of the philosophers of this age. The intellectual currents of nominalism, realism, scholasticism and medieval mysticism reveal this basic character of the philosophy of this age. The human soul attempts to test the life of thought for its character of reality.

[ 12 ] With the passing of this third epoch, the character of philosophical striving changes. The self-consciousness of the soul has been strengthened by the centuries of inner work that has been done in the examination of the reality of the life of thought. One has learned to feel the thought life connected with the essence of the soul and to sense an inner security of existence in this connection. Descartes' (1596-1650) words "I think, therefore I am" shine like a mighty star in the spiritual sky as a symbol of this stage of development. One feels the essence of the soul flowing in the life of thought; and in the knowledge of this flow one believes to experience the true being of the soul itself. One feels so secure within this existence seen in the life of thought that one comes to the conviction that true knowledge can only be that which is experienced as the life of thought built upon itself must be experienced in the soul. This becomes the viewpoint of Spinoza (1632-1677). Philosophies now emerge that shape the world view as it must be imagined if the self-conscious human soul grasped through the life of thought is to have the appropriate place in it. How must the world be imagined so that the human soul can be imagined in it in the way it must be imagined in the sense of what one has to imagine about self-consciousness? This is the question that underlies the philosophy of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) when considered impartially; and which clearly emerges as the question for which Leibniz (1646-1716) seeks the answer.

[ 13 ] The fourth epoch in the development of philosophical views of the world begins with ideas of a world view that arise from such a question. Our present day is only about the middle of this age. The remarks in this book are intended to show how far philosophical knowledge has come in grasping a world view within which the self-conscious soul finds such a secure place for itself that it can understand its meaning and significance in existence. When, in the first epoch of philosophical striving, this received its powers from the awakened life of thought, there arose for it the hope of gaining knowledge of a world to which the human soul belongs with its true essence; with that essence which is not exhausted with the life that finds its revelation through the sensory body.

[ 14 ] In the fourth epoch, the flourishing natural sciences set a view of nature alongside the philosophical worldview that gradually established its own independent ground. In this view of nature, as development progresses, there is no longer anything of the world that the self-conscious ego (the human soul experiencing itself as a self-conscious entity) must recognize in itself. In the first epoch the human soul begins to detach itself from the outer world and to develop a cognition that turns towards the soul's own life. This soul's own life finds its strength in the awakening thought element. In the fourth epoch, an image of nature emerges which, for its part, has detached itself from the soul's own life. The endeavor arises to imagine nature in such a way that nothing of what the soul draws from itself and not from nature itself interferes with the ideas of nature. Thus in this epoch the soul with its inner experience finds itself turned back upon itself. It is in danger of having to admit to itself that everything it can recognize about itself has meaning only for itself and contains no reference to a world in which it is rooted with its true nature. For it can find nothing of itself in the image of nature.

[ 15 ] The development of the life of thought has progressed through four epochs. In the first, thought acts as a perception from outside. It places the cognizing human soul upon itself. In the second, it has exhausted its power in this direction. The soul strengthens in the self-awareness of its own being; the thought lives in the underground and merges with self-knowledge. It can no longer be regarded as an external perception. The soul learns to feel it as its own product. It must come to ask itself: what does this inner soul product have to do with an outer world? The third epoch takes place in the light of this question. The philosophers develop a life of cognition that tests thought in terms of its inner power. The philosophical strength of this epoch reveals itself as a living into the thought element, as the power to work through the thought in its own essence. In the course of this epoch, philosophical life increases in its ability to make use of thought. At the beginning of the fourth epoch, the cognizing self-consciousness wants to form a philosophical view of the world from its possession of thought. It is confronted by the image of nature, which does not want to absorb anything from this self-consciousness. And the self-conscious soul stands before this image of nature with the feeling: how do I arrive at a world picture in which the inner world with its true essence and nature are both securely anchored? The impulse that stems from this question has more or less consciously dominated philosophical development since the beginning of the fourth epoch. And it is the decisive impulse in the philosophical life of the present. In this book we shall characterize the individual facts which reveal the workings of this impulse. The first volume of the book will present the philosophical development up to the middle of the nineteenth century; the second will follow this development up to the present and show at the end how the philosophical development to date points the soul towards prospects of a future human cognitive life, through which the soul can unfold a world view from its self-consciousness, in which its own true essence can be presented simultaneously with the image of nature that the more recent development has brought.

[ 16 ] A philosophical outlook corresponding to the present should be unfolded in this book from the historical development of philosophical world views.