The Science of Knowing
GA 2
XIX. Human Spiritual Activity (Freiheit)
[ 1 ] Our view about the sources of our knowing activity cannot help but affect the way we view our practical conduct. The human being does indeed act in accordance with thought determinants that lie within him. What he does is guided by the intentions and goals he sets himself. But it is entirely obvious that these goals, intentions, ideals, etc., will bear the same character as the rest of man's thought-world. Dogmatic science will therefore offer a truth for human conduct of an essentially different character than that resulting from our epistemology. If the truths the human being attains in science are determined by a factual necessity having its seat outside thinking, then the ideals upon which he bases his actions will also be determined in the same way. The human being then acts in accordance with laws he cannot verify objectively: he imagines some norm that is prescribed for his actions from outside. But this is the nature of any commandment that the human being has to observe. Dogma, as principle of conduct, is moral commandment.
[ 2 ] With our epistemology as a foundation, the matter is quite different. Our epistemology recognizes no other foundation for truths than the thought content lying within them. When a moral ideal comes about, therefore, it is the inner power lying within the content of this ideal that guides our actions. It is not because an ideal is given us as law that we act in accordance with it, but rather because the ideal, by virtue of it s content, is active in us, leads us. The stimulus to action does not lie outside of us; it lies within us. In the case of a commandment of duty we would feel ourselves subject to it; we would have to act in a particular way because it ordered us to do so. There, “should” comes first and then “want to,” which must submit itself to the “should.” According to our view, this is not the case. Man's willing is sovereign. It carries out only what lies as thought-content within the human personality. The human being does not let himself be given laws by any outer power; he is his own lawgiver.
[ 3 ] And, according to our world view, who, in fact, should give them to him? The ground of the world has poured itself completely out into the world; it has not withdrawn from the world in order to guide it from outside; it drives the world from inside; it has not withheld itself from the world. The highest form in which it arises within the reality of ordinary life is thinking and, along with thinking, the human personality. If, therefore, the world ground has goals, they are identical with the goals that the human being sets himself in living and in what he does. It is not by searching out this or that commandment of the guiding power of the world that he acts in accordance with its intentions but rather through acting in accordance with his own insights. For within these insights there lives that guiding power of the world. It does not live as will somewhere outside the human being; it has given up all will of its own in order to make everything dependent upon man's will. In order for the human being to be able to be his own lawgiver, he must give up all thoughts of such things as extra-human determining powers of the world, etc.
[ 4 ] Let us take this opportunity to call attention to the excellent article by Kreyenbuehl in Philosophische Monatshefte, vol. 18, no. 3, 1882.1 Ethical-Spiritual Activity in Kant, Mercury Press, 1986. –Ed. This explains correctly how the maxims for our actions result altogether from the direct determinations of our individuality; how everything that is ethically great is not imposed by the power of moral law but rather is carried out under the direct impulse of an individual idea.
[ 5 ] Only with this view is true spiritual activity possible for the human being. If man does not bear within himself the grounds for his actions, but rather must conduct himself according to commandments, then he acts under compulsion, he stands under necessity, almost like a mere nature being.
[ 6 ] Our philosophy is therefore pre-eminently a philosophy of spiritual activity.a9The ideas of this philosophy have been developed further in my later Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (1894). (Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, Anthroposophic Press, 1986) First it allows theoretically how all forces, etc., that supposedly direct the world from outside must fall away; it then makes the human being into his own master in the very best sense of the word. When a person acts morally, this is not for us the fulfillment of duty but rather the manifestation of his completely free nature. The human being does not act because he ought, but rather be cause he wants to. Goethe had this view in mind when he said: “Lessing, who resentfully felt many a limitation, has one of his characters say, ‘No one has to have to.’ A witty, jovial man said, ‘Whoever wants to, has to.’ A third, admittedly a cultivated person, added, ‘Whoever has insight, also wants to.’” Thus there is no impetus for our actions other than our insight. Without any kind of compulsion entering in, the free human being acts in accordance with his insight, in accordance with commandments that he gives himself.
[ 7 ] The well-known Kant-Schiller controversy revolved around these truths. Kant stood upon the standpoint of duty's commandments. He believed it a degradation of moral law to make it dependent upon human subjectivity. In his view man acts morally only when he renounces all subjective impulses in his actions and bends his neck solely to the majesty of duty. Schiller regarded this view as a degradation of human nature. Is human nature really so evil that it must completely push aside its own impulses in this way when it wants to be moral? The world view of Schiller and Goethe can only be in accord with the view we have put forward. The origin of man's actions is to be sought within himself.
[ 8 ] Therefore in history, whose subject, after all, is man, one should not speak about outer influences upon his actions, about ideas that live in a certain time, etc., and least of all about a plan underlying history. History is nothing but the evolution of human actions, views, etc. “In all ages it is only individuals who have worked for science, not the age itself. It was the age that executed Socrates by poison; the age that burned Hus; ages have always remained the same,” says Goethe. All a priori constructing of plans that supposedly underlie history is in conflict with the historical method as it results from the nature of history. The goal of this method is to become aware of what human beings have contributed to the progress of their race, to experience the goals a certain personality has set himself, the direction he has given to his age. History is to be based entirely upon man's nature. Its willing, its tendencies are to be understood. Our science of knowledge totally excludes the possibility of inserting into history a purpose such as, for example, that human beings are drawn up from a lower to a higher level of perfection, and so on. In the same way, to our view it seems erroneous to present historical events as a succession of causes and effects like facts of nature the way Herder does in his Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind. The laws of history are in fact of a much higher nature. A fact of physics is determined by another fact in such a way that the law stands over the phenomena. A historical fact, as something ideal, is determined by something ideal. There cause and effect, after all, can be spoken of only if one clings entirely to externals. Who could think that he is giving an accurate picture by calling Luther the cause of the Reformation? History is essentially a science of ideals. Its reality is, after all, ideas. Therefore devotion to the object is the only correct method. Any going beyond the object is unhistorical.
[ 9 ] Psychology, ethnology, and history a10After having worked through the different areas of what I call “anthroposophy,” I would now have to add anthroposophy to these were I writing this little book today. Forty years ago, as I was writing it, there stood before my mind's eye as “psychology”—in an unusual sense of the word, to be sure—something that included within itself the contemplation of the whole “spirit world” (pneumatology). But one should not infer from this that I wanted to exclude this “spirit world” from man's knowledge back then. are the major forms of the humanities. Their methods, as we have seen, are based upon the direct apprehension of ideal reality. The object of their study is the idea, the spiritual, just as the law of nature was the object of inorganic science, and the typus of organic science.
19. Die menschliche Freiheit
[ 1 ] Unsere Ansicht von den Quellen unseres Erkennens kann nicht ohne Einfluß auf jene von unseren praktischen Handlungen sein. Der Mensch handelt ja nach gedanklichen Bestimmungen, die in ihm liegen. Was er vollbringt, richtet sich nach Absichten, Zielen, die er sich vorsetzt. Es ist aber ganz selbstverständlich, daß diese Ziele, Absichten, Ideale usw. denselben Charakter tragen werden, wie die übrige Gedankenwelt des Menschen. Und so wird es eine praktische Wahrheit der dogmatischen Wissenschaft geben, die einen wesentlich anderen Charakter hat als jene, die sich als die Konsequenz unserer Erkenntnistheorie ergibt. Sind die Wahrheiten, zu denen der Mensch in der Wissenschaft gelangt, von einer sachlichen Notwendigkeit bedingt, die ihren Sitz außer dem Denken hat, so werden es auch die Ideale sein, die er seinem Handeln zugrunde legt. Der Mensch handelt dann nach Gesetzen, deren Begründung in sachlicher Hinsicht ihm fehlt: er denkt sich eine Norm, die von außen seinem Handeln vorgeschrieben ist. Dies aber ist der Charakter des Gebotes, das der Mensch zu beobachten hat. Das Dogma als praktische Wahrheit ist Sittengebot.
[ 2 ] Ganz anders ist es mit Zugrundelegung unserer Erkenntnistheorie. Diese erkennt keinen anderen Grund der Wahrheiten, als den in ihnen liegenden Gedankeninhalt. Wenn daher ein sittliches Ideal zustande kommt, so ist es die innere Kraft, die im Inhalte desselben liegt, die unser Handeln lenkt. Nicht weil uns ein Ideal als Gesetz gegeben ist, handeln wir nach demselben, sondern weil das Ideal vermöge seines Inhaltes in uns tätig ist, uns leitet. Der Antrieb zum Handeln liegt nicht außer, sondern in uns. Dem Pflichtgebot fühlten wir uns untergeben, wir mußten in einer bestimmten Weise handeln, weil es so befiehlt. Da kommt zuerst das Sollen und dann das Wollen, das sich jenem zu fügen hat. Nach unserer Ansicht ist das nicht der Fall. Das Wollen ist souverän. Es vollführt nur, was als Gedankeninhalt in der menschlichen Persönlichkeit liegt. Der Mensch läßt sich nicht von einer äußeren Macht Gesetze geben, er ist sein eigener Gesetzgeber.
[ 3 ] Wer sollte sie ihm, nach unserer Weltansicht, auch geben? Der Weltengrund hat sich in die Welt vollständig ausgegossen; er hat sich nicht von der Welt zurückgezogen, um sie von außen zu lenken, er treibt sie von innen; er hat sich ihr nicht vorenthalten. Die höchste Form, in der er innerhalb der Wirklichkeit des gewöhnlichen Lebens auftritt, ist das Denken und mit demselben die menschliche Persönlichkeit. Hat somit der Weltengrund Ziele, so sind sie identisch mit den Zielen, die sich der Mensch setzt, indem er sich darlebt. Nicht indem der Mensch irgendwelchen Geboten des Weltenlenkers nachforscht˃ handelt er nach dessen Absichten, sondern indem er nach seinen eigenen Einsichten handelt. Denn in ihnen lebt sich jener Weltenlenker dar. Er lebt nicht als Wille irgendwo außerhalb des Menschen; er hat sich jedes Eigenwillens begeben, um alles von des Menschen Willen abhängig zu machen. Auf daß der Mensch sein eigener Gesetzgeber sein könne, müssen alle Gedanken auf außermenschliche Weltbestimmungen u. dgl. aufgegeben werden.
[ 4 ] Wir machen bei dieser Gelegenheit auf die ganz vortreffliche Abhandlung Kreyenbühls in den «Philosophischen Monatsheften», 18. Band, 3. Heft aufmerksam. Dieselbe führt in richtiger Weise aus, wie die Maximen unseres Handelns durchaus aus unmittelbaren Bestimmungen unseres Individuums erfolgen; wie alles ethisch Große nicht durch die Macht des Sittengesetzes eingegeben sondern auf den unmittelbaren Drang einer individuellen Idee hin vollführt werde.
[ 5 ] Nur bei dieser Ansicht ist eine wahre Freiheit des Menschen möglich. Wenn der Mensch nicht in sich die Gründe seines Handeln trägt, sondern sich nach Geboten richten muß, so handelt er unter einem Zwange, er steht unter einer Notwendigkeit, fast wie ein bloßes Naturwesen.
[ 6 ] Unsere Philosophie ist daher im eminenten Sinne Freiheitsphilosophie.a9Die Ideen dieser Philosophie sind später weiter entwickelt worden in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» (1894). Sie zeigt erst theoretisch, wie alle Kräfte usw. wegfallen müssen, die die Welt von außen lenkten, um dann den Menschen zu seinem eigenen Herrn im allerbesten Sinne des Wortes zu machen. Wenn der Mensch sittlich handelt, so ist das für uns nicht Pflichterfüllung, sondern die Äußerung seiner völlig freien Natur. Der Mensch handelt nicht, weil er soll, sondern, weil er will. Diese Ansicht hatte auch Goethe im Auge, als er sagte: «Lessing, der mancherlei Beschränkung unwillig fühlte, läßt eine seiner Personen sagen: Niemand muß müssen. Ein geistreicher, frohgesinnter Mann sagte: Wer will, der muß. Ein dritter, freilich ein Gebildeter, fügte hinzu: Wir einsieht, der will auch.» Es gibt also keinen Antrieb für unser Handeln als unsere Einsicht. Ohne daß irgendwelcher Zwang hinzutrete, handelt der freie Mensch nach seiner Einsicht, nach Geboten, die er sich selbst gibt.
[ 7 ] Um diese Wahrheiten drehte sich die bekannte Kontroverse Kant-Schillers. Kant stand auf dem Standpunkte des Pflichtgebotes. Er glaubte das Sittengesetz herabzuwürdigen, wenn er es von der menschlichen Subjektivität abhängig machte. Nach seiner Ansicht handelt der Mensch nur sittlich, wenn er sich aller subjektiven Antriebe beim Handeln entäußert und sich rein der Majestät der Pflicht beugt. Schiller sah in dieser Ansicht eine Herabwürdigung der Menschennatur. Sollte denn dieselbe wirklich so schlecht sein, daß sie ihre eigenen Antriebe so durchaus beseitigen müsse, wenn sie moralisch sein will! Schillers und Goethes Weltanschauung kann sich nur zu der von uns angegebenen Ansicht bekennen. In dem Menschen selbst ist der Ausgangspunkt seines Handelns zu suchen.
[ 8 ] Deshalb darf auch in der Geschichte, deren Gegenstand ja der Mensch ist, nicht von äußeren Einflüssen seines Handelns, von Ideen, die in der Zeit liegen usw. gesprochen werden; am wenigsten von einem Plane, der ihr zugrunde liege. Die Geschichte ist nichts anderes denn die Entwicklung menschlicher Handlungen, Ansichten usw. «Zu allen Zeiten sind es nur die Individuen, welche für die Wissenschaft gewirkt, nicht das Zeitalter. Das Zeitalter war's, das den Sokrates durch Gift hinrichtete; das Zeitalter, das Muß verbrannte; die Zeitalter sind sich immer gleich geblieben», sagt Goethe. Alles apriorische Konstruieren von Plänen, die der Geschichte zugrunde liegen sollen, ist gegen die historische Methode, wie sie sich aus dem Wesen der Geschichte ergibt. Diese zielt darauf ab, gewahr zu werden, was die Menschen zum Fortschritt ihres Geschlechtes beigetragen; zu erfahren, welche Ziele sich diese oder jene Persönlichkeit gesetzt, welche Richtung sie ihrer Zeit gegeben. Die Geschichte ist durchaus auf die Menschennatur zu begründen. Ihr Wollen, ihre Tendenzen sind zu begreifen. Unsere Erkennmiswissenschaft schließt es völlig aus, daß man der Geschichte einen Zweck unterschiebe, wie etwa, daß die Menschen von einer niederen Stufe der Vollkommenheit zu einer höheren erzogen werden u. dgl. Ebenso erscheint es unserer Ansicht gegenüber als irrtümlich, wenn man, wie dies Herder in den «Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit» tut, die historischen Ereignisse wie die Naturtatsachen nach der Abfolge von Ursache und Wirkung abfassen will. Die Gesetze der Geschichte sind eben viel höherer Natur. Ein Faktum der Physik wird von einem anderen so bestimmt, daß das Gesetz über den Erscheinungen steht. Eine historische Tatsache wird als Ideelles von einem Ideellen bestimmt. Da kann von Ursache und Wirkung doch nur die Rede sein, wenn man ganz an der Äußerlichkeit hängt. Wer könnte glauben, daß er die Sache wiedergibt, wenn er Luther die Ursache der Reformation nennt. Die Geschichte ist wesentlich eine Idealwissenschaft. Ihre Wirklichkeit sind schon Ideen. Daher ist die Hingabe an das Objekt die einzig richtige Methode. Jedes Hinausgehen über dasselbe ist unhistorisch.
[ 9 ] Psychologie, Volkskunde und Geschichte a10Nachdem ich nunmehr die verschiedenen Gebiete dessen, was ich «Anthroposophie» nenne, bearbeitet habe, müßte ich - schriebe ich dies Schriftchen heute - diese «Anthroposophie» hier einfügen. Vor vierzig Jahren, beim Schreiben desselben, stand mir als «Psychologie», in einem allerdings ungebräuchlichen Sinne, etwas vor Augen, das die Anschauung der gesamten «Geistes-Welt» (Pneumatologie) in sich einschloß. Daraus darf aber nicht geschlossen werden, daß ich damals diese «Geistes-Welt» von der Erkenntnis des Menschen ausschließen wollte. sind die hauptsächlichsten Formen der Geisteswissenschaft. Ihre Methoden sind, wie wir gesehen haben, auf die unmittelbare Erfassung der ideellen Wirklichkeit gegründet. Ihr Gegenstand ist die Idee, das Geistige, wie jener der unorganischen Wissenschaft das Naturgesetz, der Organik der Typus war.
19 Human freedom
[ 1 ] Our view of the sources of our cognition cannot be without influence on that of our practical actions. Man acts according to mental determinations that lie within him. What he accomplishes is based on intentions, goals that he sets for himself. But it is quite natural that these aims, intentions, ideals, etc., will have the same character as the rest of man's world of thought. And so there will be a practical truth of dogmatic science which has an essentially different character from that which arises as the consequence of our theory of knowledge. If the truths which man arrives at in science are conditioned by a factual necessity which has its seat outside of thought, so too will be the ideals on which he bases his actions. Man then acts according to laws whose justification he lacks in factual terms: he thinks of a norm that is prescribed for his actions from outside. But this is the character of the commandment that man has to observe. The dogma as practical truth is a moral commandment.
[ 2 ] The situation is completely different when we take our theory of knowledge as a basis. This recognizes no other ground of truths than the content of thought that lies within them. Therefore, when a moral ideal comes into being, it is the inner power that lies in the content of that ideal that guides our actions. It is not because an ideal is given to us as a law that we act according to it, but because the ideal is active in us by virtue of its content and guides us. The drive to act does not lie outside us, but within us. We felt subject to the dictates of duty, we had to act in a certain way because it commands us to do so. First comes the ought and then the will, which has to submit to it. In our view, this is not the case. The will is sovereign. It only carries out what lies within the human personality as thought content. Man does not have laws given to him by an external power, he is his own lawgiver.
[ 3 ] Who should give them to him, according to our world view? The world-ground has poured itself completely into the world; it has not withdrawn from the world in order to direct it from without, it drives it from within; it has not withheld itself from it. The highest form in which it appears within the reality of ordinary life is thought, and with it the human personality. Thus, if the world ground has goals, they are identical with the goals that man sets for himself by living himself. Man does not act according to the intentions of the world ruler by following his commands, but by acting according to his own insights. For in them that world ruler lives himself. He does not live as a will somewhere outside of man; he has given up all self-will in order to make everything dependent on man's will. So that man can be his own lawgiver, all thoughts of extra-human world determinations and the like must be abandoned.
[ 4 ] We take this opportunity to draw attention to Kreyenbühl's excellent treatise in the "Philosophische Monatshefte", Volume 18, Issue 3. This treatise correctly explains how the maxims of our actions are based on direct determinations of our individuality; how everything ethically great is not inspired by the power of the moral law but is carried out in response to the direct urge of an individual idea.
[ 5 ] Only in this view is true human freedom possible. If man does not carry within himself the reasons for his actions, but must be guided by commandments, he acts under compulsion, he is under a necessity, almost like a mere natural being.
[ 6 ] Our philosophy is therefore in an eminent sense a philosophy of freedom.a9The ideas of this philosophy were later developed further in my "Philosophy of Freedom" (1894). It first shows theoretically how all forces, etc., which controlled the world from outside must be removed in order to make man his own master in the very best sense of the word. When man acts morally, this is not for us the fulfillment of duty, but the expression of his completely free nature. Man does not act because he should, but because he wants to. Goethe also had this view in mind when he said: "Lessing, who felt many a restriction unwillingly, has one of his characters say: Nobody has to. A witty, happy-minded man said: Whoever wants to, must. A third, admittedly an educated man, added: We see, he also wants." There is therefore no motivation for our actions other than our insight. Without the addition of any compulsion, the free man acts according to his insight, according to commandments which he gives himself.
[ 7 ] The well-known Kant-Schiller controversy revolved around these truths. Kant took the position of the law of duty. He believed that the moral law was degraded if he made it dependent on human subjectivity. In his view, man only acts morally if he renounces all subjective impulses in his actions and bows purely to the majesty of duty. Schiller saw this view as a degradation of human nature. Should it really be so bad that it has to eliminate its own impulses so completely if it wants to be moral! Schiller's and Goethe's view of the world can only subscribe to the view we have stated. The starting point of his actions is to be sought in man himself.
[ 8 ] This is why history, whose subject is man, must not speak of external influences on his actions, of ideas that lie in time, etc.; least of all of a plan that underlies it. History is nothing other than the development of human actions, views, etc. "At all times it is only the individuals who have worked for science, not the age. It was the age that executed Socrates by poison; the age that burned Muß; the ages have always remained the same," says Goethe. All a priori construction of plans on which history should be based is contrary to the historical method, as it arises from the nature of history. This aims to become aware of what people have contributed to the progress of their race; to find out what goals this or that personality has set for themselves, what direction they have given their time. History can certainly be based on human nature. Their will, their tendencies must be understood. Our epistemology entirely excludes the imputation of a purpose to history, such as that men should be educated from a lower stage of perfection to a higher one, etc. In the same way, it seems erroneous in our view if, as Herder does in his "Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind", historical events are to be understood in the same way as natural facts, according to the sequence of cause and effect. The laws of history are of a much higher nature. One fact of physics is determined by another in such a way that the law is above the phenomena. A historical fact is determined as an ideal by an ideal. There can only be talk of cause and effect if one is completely attached to externality. Who could believe that he reflects the matter when he calls Luther the cause of the Reformation? History is essentially an ideal science. Its reality is already ideas. Therefore, devotion to the object is the only correct method. Any going beyond it is unhistorical.
[ 9 ] Psychology, Folklore and History a10Now that I have worked on the various areas of what I call "anthroposophy", I would have to insert this "anthroposophy" here if I were writing this little book today. Forty years ago, when I was writing it, "psychology", in an admittedly uncommon sense, was something that included the view of the entire "spiritual world" (pneumatology). But it must not be inferred from this that I wanted to exclude this "spiritual world" from the knowledge of man. are the most important forms of spiritual science. Its methods, as we have seen, are based on the direct apprehension of ideal reality. Their object is the idea, the spiritual, just as that of inorganic science was the law of nature, the type of organic science.