The Case for Anthroposophy
GA 21
IV. Concerning Abstraction
[ 1 ] On page 35 the expression “benumbing” (Herablähmung) is used of representations as they turn into imitations of sensory reality. It is in this “benumbing” that we must locate the positive event that underlies the phase of abstraction in the process of cognition. The mind forms concepts of sensory reality. For any theory of knowledge the question is how that, which it retains within itself as concept of a real being or event, is related to such real being or event. Has the somewhat that I carry around in me as the concept of a wolf any relation at all to a particular reality, or is it simply a schema that I have constructed for myself by withdrawing my attention (abstracting) from anything peculiar to this wolf or that wolf, and to which nothing in the real world corresponds? This question received extensive treatment in the medieval conflict between Nominalism and Realism: for the Nominalists nothing about the world is real except the visible materials extant in it as a single individual, flesh, blood, bones and so forth. The concept “wolf” is “merely” a conceptual aggregate of the properties common to different wolves. To this the Realist objects: any material found in an individual wolf is also to be found in other animals. There must then be something that disposes the materials into the living coherence they exhibit in the wolf. This constituent reality is given by way of the concept. It cannot be denied that Vincent Knauer, the distinguished specialist in Aristotelian and medieval philosophy, has something, when he says in his book, Fundamental Problems of Philosophy (Die Hauptprobleme der Philosophie, Vienna, 1892):
A wolf, for instance, consists of no different material constituents than a lamb; its material corporeality is composed of assimilated lambsflesh; yet the wolf does not become a lamb even if it eats nothing but lambs all its life. Whatever it is that makes it wolf, therefore, must obviously be something other than the “Kyle”, the sensory material, and that something, moreover, cannot possibly be a mere “thought-thing” even though it is accessible to thought alone, and not to the senses. It must be something active, therefore actual, therefore eminently real.
How after all does one get round this objection on a strictly anthropological view of what constitutes reality? It is not what is transmitted through the senses that produces the concept “wolf”. On the other hand that concept, as present in ordinary-level consciousness, is certainly nothing effective. Merely by the energy of that concept the conformation of the “sensory” materials contained in a wolf could certainly not be brought about. The fact is that, with this question, anthropology comes up against one of its frontiers of knowledge.—Anthroposophy demonstrates that, besides the relation of man to wolf, which is there in the sensory field, there is another relation as well. This latter does not, in its immediate specificity, reach into ordinary-level consciousness. But it does subsist as a living continuity between the human mind and the sensuously observed object. The vitality that subsists in the mind by virtue of this continuity is by the systematic understanding subdued, or benumbed, to a “concept”. An abstract idea is a reality defunct, to enable its representation in ordinary-level consciousness, a reality in which the human being does in fact live in the process of sense perception, but which does not become a conscious part of his life. The abstractness of ideas is brought about by an inner necessity of the psyche. Reality furnishes man with a living content. Of this living content he puts to death that part which invades his ordinary consciousness. He does so because he could not achieve self-consciousness as against the outer world if he were compelled to experience, in all its vital flux, his continuity with that world. Without the paralysing of this vital flow, the human being could only know himself as a scion comprised within a unity extending beyond the limits of his humanity; he would be an organ of a larger organism.
The manner in which the mind suffers its cognitive process to peter out into the abstractness of concepts is not determined by a reality external to itself. It is determined by the laws of development of man’s own existence, which laws demand that, in the process of perception, he subdue his vital continuity with the outer world down to those abstract concepts that are the foundation whereon his self-consciousness grows and increases. That this is the case becomes evident to the mind, once it has developed its organs of spirit. By this means that living continuity with a spiritual reality lying outside the individual, which was referred to on pp. 38/9, is reconstituted. But, unless self-consciousness had been purchased in the first place from ordinary level consciousness, it could not be amplified to intuitive consciousness. It follows that a healthy ordinary-level consciousness is a sine qua non of intuitive consciousness. Anyone who supposes that he can develop an intuitive consciousness without a healthy and active ordinary-level consciousness is making a very great mistake. On the contrary, normal and everyday consciousness has to accompany an intuitive consciousness at every single moment. Otherwise self-consciousness will be impaired and disorder introduced into the mind’s relation to reality. It is to this kind of consciousness alone that anthroposophy looks for intuitive cognition; not to any sedating of ordinary-level consciousness.
IV-3. Von der Abstraktheit der Begriffe
[ 1 ] Auf Seite 26 dieser Schrift spreche ich von der «Herablähmung» der Vorstellungen, wenn diese zu Nachbildnern einer sinnenfälligen Wirklichkeit werden.
In dieser «Herablähmung» ist die wirkliche Tatsache zu suchen, die dem Verfahren der Abstraktion im Erkenntnisprozeß zugrunde liegt. Der Mensch bildet sich über die sinnenfällige Wirklichkeit Begriffe. Für die Erkenntnistheorie entsteht die Frage, wie sich dasjenige, das der Mensch als Begriff von einem wirklichen Wesen oder Vorgang in seiner Seele zurückbehält, zu diesem wirklichen Wesen oder Vorgang verhält. Hat dasjenige, was ich in mir als den Begriff eines Wolfes herumtrage, irgend eine Beziehung zu einer Wirklichkeit, oder ist es bloß ein von meiner Seele geformtes Schema, das ich mir gebildet habe, indem ich von demjenigen absehe (abstrahiere), was diesem oder jenem Wolfe eigentümlich ist, dem aber in der Welt des Wirklichen nichts entspricht. Eine ausgedehnte Betrachtung erfuhr diese Frage in dem mittelalterlichen Streite zwischen Nominalisten und Realisten. Für den Nominalisten ist an dem Wolf nur wirklich die an diesem als einzelnem Individuum vorhandenen sichtbaren Stoffe, Fleisch, Blut, Knochen usw. Der Begriff «Wolf» ist «bloß» eine gedankliche Zusammenfassung der verschiedenen Wölfen gemeinsamen Merkmale. Der Realist erwidert darauf: irgend ein Stoff, den man am einzelnen Wolf findet, den trifft man auch bei andern Tieren an. Es muß etwas geben, das den Stoff in den lebendigen Zusammenhang hineinordnet, in dem er sich im Wolfe findet. Dieses ordnende Wirkliche ist durch den Begriff gegeben.
Man wird nun zugeben müssen, daß Vincenz Knauer, der hervorragende Kenner des Aristoteles und der mittelalterlichen Philosophie, in seinem Buche «Die Hauptprobleme der Philosophie» (Wien 1892) bei Besprechung der aristotelischen Erkenntnistheorie (Seite 137) etwas Vortreffliches sagt mit den Worten:
«Der Wolf zum Beispiel besteht aus keinen andern materiellen Bestandteilen als das Lamm; seine materielle Leiblichkeit baut sich aus assimiliertem Lammfleisch auf; aber der Wolf wird doch kein Lamm, auch wenn er zeitlebens nichts als Lämmer frißt. Was ihn also zum Wolf macht, das muß selbstverständlich etwas anderes sein als die Hyle, die sinnfällige Materie, und zwar kein bloßes Gedankending muß und kann es sein, obwohl es nur dem Denken, nicht dem Sinne zugängig ist, sondern ein Wirkendes, also Wirkliches, ein sehr Reales.»
Doch wie will man im Sinne einer bloß anthropologischen Betrachtung der Wirklichkeit beikommen, auf die hiemit gedeutet wird? Was durch die Sinne der Seele vermittelt wird, das ergibt nicht den Begriff «Wolf». Was aber im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein als dieser Begriff vorliegt, das ist sicher kein «Wirkendes». Aus der Kraft dieses Begriffes konnte doch gewiß nicht die Zusammenordnung der im Wolfe vereinigten «sinnfälligen» Materien entstehen. Die Wahrheit ist, daß Anthropologie mit dieser Frage an einem der Grenzorte ihres Erkennens ist. Anthroposophie zeigt, daß außer der Beziehung des Menschen zum Wolfe, die im «Sinnfälligen» vorhanden ist, noch eine andere besteht. Diese tritt in ihrer unmittelbaren Eigenart nicht in das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein ein. Aber sie besteht als ein lebendiger übersinnlicher Zusammenhang zwischen dem Menschen und dem sinnlich angeschauten Objekte. Das Lebendige, das im Menschen durch diesen Zusammenhang besteht, wird durch seine Verstandesorgarisation herabgelähmt zum «Begriff».
Die abstrakte Vorstellung ist das zur Vergegenwärtigung im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein erstorbene Wirkliche, in dem der Mensch zwar lebt bei der Sinneswahrnehmung, das aber in seinem Leben nicht bewußt wird. Die Abstraktheit von Vorstellungen wird bewirkt durch eine innere Notwendigkeit der Seele. Die Wirklichkeit gibt dem Menschen ein Lebendiges. Er ertötet von diesem Lebendigen denjenigen Teil, der in sein gewöhnliches Bewußtsein fällt. Er vollbringt dieses, weil er an der Außenwelt nicht zum Selbstbewußtsein kommen könnte, wenn er den entsprechenden Zusammenhang mit dieser Außenwelt in seiner vollen Lebendigkeit erfahren müßte. Ohne die Ablähmung dieser vollen Lebendigkeit müßte sich der Mensch als Glied innerhalb einer über seine menschlichen Grenzen hinausreichenden Einheit erkennen; er würde Organ eines größeren Organismus sein. Die Art, wie der Mensch seinen Erkenntnisvorgang nach innen in die Abstraktheit der Begriffe auslaufen läßt, ist nicht bedingt durch ein außer ihm liegendes Wirkliches, sondern durch die Entwickelungsbedingungen seines eigenen Wesens, welche erfordern, daß er im Wahrnehmungsprozeß den lebendigen Zusammenhang mit der Außenwelt abdämpft zu diesen abstrakten Begriffen, welche die Grundlage bilden, auf der das Selbstbewußtsein erwächst. Daß dieses so ist, das zeigt sich der Seele nach der Entwickelung ihrer Geistorgane. Durch diese wird der lebendige Zusammenhang (in dem Sinne, wie das Seite 26 dieser Schrift dargestellt ist) mit einer außer dem Menschen liegenden Geist-Wirklichkeit wieder hergestellt; wenn aber das Selbstbewußtsein nicht bereits ein Erworbenes wäre vom gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein her: es könnte im schauenden Bewußtsein nicht ausgebildet werden. Man kann hieraus begreifen, daß das gesunde gewöhnliche Bewußtsein die notwendige Voraussetzung für das schauende Bewußtsein ist. Wer glaubt, ein schauendes Bewußtsein ohne das tätige gesunde gewöhnliche Bewußtsein entwickeln zu können, der irrt gar sehr. Es muß sogar das gewöhnliche normale Bewußtsein in jedem Augenblicke das schauende Bewußtsein begleiten, weil sonst dies letztere Unordnung in die menschliche Selbstbewußtheit und damit in das Verhältnis des Menschen zur Wirklichkeit brächte. Anthroposophie kann es bei ihrer schauenden Erkenntnis nur mit einem solchen Bewußtsein, nicht aber mit irgend einer Herabstimmung des gewöhnlichen Bewußtseins zu tun haben.
IV-3 On the abstractness of concepts
[ 1 ] On page 26 of this paper, I speak of the "paralysis" of concepts when they become imitators of a sensuous reality.
This "paralysis" is the real fact underlying the process of abstraction in the process of cognition. Humans form concepts about sensory reality. For epistemology, the question arises as to how that which man retains in his soul as a concept of a real being or process relates to this real being or process. Does that which I carry around in me as the concept of a wolf have any relation to a reality, or is it merely a schema formed by my soul, which I have formed for myself by abstracting from that which is peculiar to this or that wolf, but to which nothing corresponds in the world of reality. This question was considered at length in the medieval dispute between nominalists and realists. For the nominalists, the only real things about the wolf are the visible substances, flesh, blood, bones, etc. that are present in it as a single individual. The term "wolf" is "merely" a mental summary of the characteristics common to various wolves. The realist replies: any substance found in the individual wolf is also found in other animals. There must be something that organizes the material into the living context in which it is found in the wolf. This ordering reality is given by the concept.
You will now have to admit that Vincenz Knauer, the outstanding expert on Aristotle and medieval philosophy, says something excellent in his book "Die Hauptprobleme der Philosophie" (Vienna 1892) when discussing Aristotelian epistemology (page 137) with the words:
"The wolf, for example, consists of no other material constituents than the lamb; its material corporeality is built up from assimilated lamb meat; but the wolf does not become a lamb, even if it eats nothing but lambs throughout its life. What therefore makes him a wolf must of course be something other than the hyle, the sensuous matter, and indeed it must not and cannot be a mere thought-thing, although it is only accessible to thought, not to the senses, but an actual, therefore real, a very real thing.".
How, however, is one to approach the reality that is being pointed to in the sense of a merely anthropological view? What is conveyed through the senses of the soul does not result in the concept of "wolf". But what is present in ordinary consciousness as this concept is certainly not an "active agent". The power of this concept could certainly not give rise to the arrangement of the "sensible" substances united in the wolf. The truth is that with this question anthropology is at one of the limits of its knowledge. Anthroposophy shows that apart from the relationship of the human being to Wolfe, which is present in the "conspicuousness of meaning", there is another. This does not enter ordinary consciousness in its immediate nature. But it exists as a living supersensible connection between the human being and the sensually perceived object. The living, which exists in man through this connection, is paralysed down to a "concept" through his rationalization.
The abstract concept is the real that has died to visualization in ordinary consciousness, in which the human being lives in sense perception, but which does not become conscious in his life. The abstractness of ideas is brought about by an inner necessity of the soul. Reality gives man a living thing. He kills that part of this living thing which falls into his ordinary consciousness. He accomplishes this because he could not attain self-consciousness in the external world if he had to experience the corresponding connection with this external world in its full vitality. Without the paralysis of this full vitality, man would have to recognize himself as a member within a unity extending beyond his human limits; he would be an organ of a larger organism. The way in which man allows his process of cognition to flow inwards into the abstractness of concepts is not conditioned by something real lying outside him, but by the conditions of development of his own being, which require that in the process of perception he dampens the living connection with the outer world to these abstract concepts, which form the basis on which self-consciousness grows. That this is so is shown to the soul after the development of its mental organs. Through these the living connection (in the sense described on page 26 of this book) with a spirit-reality lying outside the human being is re-established; but if self-consciousness were not already an acquired thing from ordinary consciousness, it could not be formed in the seeing consciousness. One can understand from this that healthy ordinary consciousness is the necessary precondition for the seeing consciousness. Whoever believes that he can develop a seeing consciousness without the active healthy ordinary consciousness is very much mistaken. The ordinary normal consciousness must even accompany the looking consciousness at every moment, because otherwise the latter would bring disorder into human self-consciousness and thus into man's relationship to reality. Anthroposophy can only have to do with such a consciousness in its looking knowledge, but not with any downgrading of the ordinary consciousness.