Philosophy of Freedom

The Philosophy of Freedom is the fundamental philosophical work of the philosopher and esotericist Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). It addresses the question of whether and in what sense man or his will can be said to be free. Originally published in 1894 in German as Die Philosophie der Freiheit, the work has appeared under a number of English titles, including "The Philosophy of Freedom" (1916), The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (1921), and more recently Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path (1995).

Part One of the Philosophy of Freedom examines the conditions for freedom in thinking, and includes accounts of knowledge and perception; Part Two examines the conditions for freedom in action.

Historical context

Before writing The Philosophy of Freedom, Steiner had presented his doctoral dissertation at the University of Rostock in 1891, an epistemological study that includes discussions of Kant's and Fichte's theories of knowledge. A revised version of the thesis was published a year later in book form as Truth and Knowledge: Introduction to The Philosophy of Freedom. Steiner had had the idea of writing a philosophy of freedom in mind since at least 1880. The Philosophy of Freedom was also the culmination of work that Steiner had published on Goethe, whose main emphasis was epistemology and the philosophy of science: Goethe the Scientist, 1883, The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception, 1886, and then, after the appearance of the The Philosophy of Freedom, Goethe's Conception of the World, 1897.

Overview

Steiner observes that the key question concerning the existence of freedom of the will is how the will to action arises in the first place. Steiner describes two sources for human motivation: our natural being, our instincts, feelings, and thoughts insofar as these are determined by our character - and the dictates of conscience or abstract ethical or moral principles. In this way, both nature and culture determine motivations that play into our will and soul life. Overcoming these two elements, neither of which is individualized, we can achieve genuinely individualized intuitions that speak to the particular situation at hand. By overcoming the dictates of both our 'lower' and 'higher' sources of experience, by orchestrating a meeting place of objective and subjective elements of experience, we find the freedom to choose how to think and act. Freedom for Steiner thus does not lie in uninhibited expression of our subjective nature, but in the conscious unification of this with the objective constraints of the world.

Steiner coined the term moral imagination for the inner act which results in free action. He suggests that we only achieve free deeds when we find a moral imagination, an ethically impelled but particularized response to the immediacy of a given situation. This response will always be individual; it cannot be predicted or prescribed. This radical ethical individualism is, for Steiner, characteristic of freedom.

We become aware of the outer nature of the world and its inner nature in radically different ways: our sensory perceptions inform us about the outer appearance of the world, while our thought life penetrates its inner nature. This division is particular to and defines human experience. Steiner suggests that we actually have the capacity to overcome the dualism of experience by reuniting perception and cognition. When contemplating our own thinking activity, we are perceiving that which we are thinking, and thinking that which we are perceiving. Steiner suggests that freedom arises most purely at this moment, when free ideation arises out of ego activity; this is, for Steiner, spiritual activity.

In Ch. III, Steiner interprets Descartes' famous dictum, I think, therefore I am of the "Meditations" and the "Discourse on the Method", and takes it further:

My searching first comes onto firm ground when I find an object from which I can derive the sense of its existence out of it itself. This I am myself, however, in that I think, for I give to my existence the definite, self-sustaining content of thinking activity. Now I can take my start from there and ask whether the other things exist in the same or in a different sense.

A detailed look at Steiner's philosophy

In the first part of the Philosophy of Freedom, Steiner discusses the epistemology of freedom, focusing on the conditions necessary for freedom in thinking. In the second part he examines the metaphysics of freedom, focusing on the conditions necessary for freedom of action. This structure parallels Hegel's description of freedom: "Ethical life is the Idea of freedom as the living good which has its knowledge and volition in self-consciousness, and its actuality through self-conscious action."

Steiner seeks to demonstrate that inner freedom is achieved when we bridge the gap between our perception, which reflects the outer appearance of the world, and our cognition, which gives us access to the inner structure of the world. He suggests that outer freedom arises when we bridge the gap between our ideals and the constraints of external reality, letting our deeds be inspired by the moral imagination.

Understanding freedom

Steiner begins by saying, in Ch. I, that we must look for freedom in conscious action. He doesn't say that we will necessarily find it! He explores the various compulsions of motives at different levels, and points out that freedom does not exist if we are still within the grip of the various forces acting within us. He quotes Goethe here:

Two souls dwell, alas, in my breast

Each would from the other split;

One clutches, in its dullish lust

Tight to the world with its organs' grip;

The other raises itself forcibly from dust:

High ancestral fields are its quest.

Faust I, lines 1112-7

The polarity in consciousness is between perception through the senses, which gives us access to the outer nature of things, and perception through thinking, which gives us access to the inner nature of things. Steiner treats thinking as an organ of perception as valid as the senses themselves; both are subject to illusion and distortion, but both can reveal true aspects of the world to us. Our consciousness is "dualistic" in that the two sides of the world (and of every object or element of the world), the inner and the outer, are only available to us split between the two modes of perception. It is then the work of the human mind or spirit to reconcile these two, to bring our thoughts about a given aspect of the world and our perceptions of this into harmony.

Steiner emphasizes that thinking is unique in our access in it to the true inner reality of the world at least in one corner. We can be conscious of our thought processes in a way that we cannot be of our feelings, will or perceptions. Because of this, we can be sure that our thoughts are truly what they seem. Naive realism could be said to be true of them. Our feelings appear still as percepts whose interpretation is not a matter of perception. Furthermore, we correct our perceptions (for example, when these include perspective distortions) through our conceptual framework. Thinking is thus necessary if we are to properly interpret our perception.

Steiner also emphasizes that modern science depends upon these same two elements of perception and thinking. Perception alone is not science, but is at best the gathering of data. Only when we group and analyze a mass of perceptions can we obtain scientific clarity about it. On the other hand, mathematics is a kind of thinking in which thought itself forms the perceptions; no sense-perceptions are needed to form a basis for mathematical principles. Mathematics could be said to be a science of the inner side of things, in which we need not know anything about their outer appearance.

Though our experience leads us to the illusion of dualism, in reality we are experiencing two sides of a single phenomenon when we perceive it and think about it: two sides of a single, unified world. There are limits beyond which our understanding does not presently go, but both our perception and our thinking can be extended beyond their present abilities. The telescope and microscope offer us radical extensions of the range of our perceptions; we can look to extend our powers of thought as vigorously as we have extended our powers of perception. Steiner thus challenges the philosophy of his (and our) time: it is not enough simply to define the limits of possible knowledge; it is necessary to work to extend these as well.

Steiner's defines freedom as, 'The unique character of the idea, by means of which I distinguish myself [from others] as "I" makes me an individual.' And then, 'An act the grounds for which lie in the ideal part of my nature is free....The action is therefore neither stereotyped, carried out according to set rules, nor is it performed automatically in response to an external impetus; the action is determined solely through its ideal content.' What is individual in us is to be distinguished from what is generic by its ideal character. If an act proceeds out of genuine thinking, or practical reason, then it is free.

Exercising freedom

Steiner begins the second section of this work by emphasizing the role of self-awareness in objective thinking. Here he modifies the usual description of inner and outer experience by pointing out that our feelings, for example, are given to us as naively as outer perceptions. Both of these, feelings and perceptions, tell about objects we are interested in: the one about ourselves, the other about the world. Both require the help of thinking to penetrate the reasons why they arise, to comprehend their inner message. The same is true of our will. Whereas our feelings tell how the world affects us, our will tells how we would affect the world. Neither attains to true objectivity, for both mix the world's existence and our inner life in an unclear way. Steiner emphasizes that we experience our feelings and will - and our perceptions as well - as being more essentially part of us than our thinking; the former are more basic, more natural. He celebrates this gift of natural, direct experience, but points out that this experience is still dualistic in the sense that it only encompasses one side of the world.

This all is by way of introduction and recapitulation. Steiner then introduces the principle that we can act out of the compulsions of our natural being (reflexes, drives, desires) or out of the compulsion of ethical principles, and that neither of these leaves us free. Between them, however, is an individual insight, a situational ethic, that arises neither from abstract principles nor from our bodily impulses. A deed that arises in this way can be said to be truly free; it is also both unpredictable and wholly individual. Here Steiner articulates his fundamental maxim of social life:

Live through deeds of love, and let others live with understanding for each person's unique intentions.

Here he describes a polarity of influences on human nature, stating that morality transcends both the determining factors of bodily influences and those of convention:

A moral misunderstanding, a clash, is out of the question between people who are morally free. Only one who is morally unfree, who obeys bodily instincts or conventional demands of duty, turns away from a fellow human being if the latter does not obey the same instincts and demands as himself.

For Steiner, morality is completely situational and individual; true morality depends upon our achieving freedom from both our inner drives and outer pressures. To achieve such free deeds, we must cultivate our moral imagination, our ability to imaginatively create ethically sound and practical solutions to new situations, in fact, to forge our own ethical principles and to transform these flexibly as needed - not in the service of our own egotistical purposes, but in the face of new demands and situations. This is only possible through moral intuitions, immediate experiences of spiritual realities that underlie moral judgments. Moral imagination and intuition allow us to realize our subjective impulses in objective reality, thus creating bridges between the spiritual influence of our subjectivity and the natural influence of the objective world in deeds whereby "that which is natural is spiritual, that which is spiritual is natural".

Steiner concludes by pointing out that to achieve this level of freedom, we must lift ourselves out of our group-existence: out of the prejudices we receive from our family, nation, ethnic group and religion, and all that we inherit from the past that limits our creative and imaginative capacity to meet the world directly. Only when we realize our potential to be a unique individual are we free. Thus, it lies in our freedom to achieve freedom; only when we actively strive towards freedom do we have some chance of attaining it.

Philosophical antecedents

Philosophers referred to in the book include Kant, Spinoza, Fichte, Schelling, Schiller, Schopenhauer, and Eduard von Hartmann, though Schopenhauer and von Hartmann receive far more attention than any of the earlier figures. While in Vienna, Steiner had attended lectures on moral philosophy given by Franz Brentano, at the time a Privatdozent at the University of Vienna. Steiner's ideas of freedom were in part a response to those contained in Schiller's On the Aesthetic Education of Man and the works of Goethe. Steiner believed that both of these philosophers had neglected the role of cognition in developing inner freedom. Fichte's distinction between formal and material freedom might be viewed as parallel to Steiner's division of his subject into the knowledge of freedom and the reality of freedom. Steiner is at times critical of Fichte's philosophy, however, including a critique in chapter six of a "fundamental mistake" in Fichte's Science of Knowledge

In his later lectures, Steiner also mentions Vladimir Solovyov. Solovyov's description of the fundamental dichotomy in human consciousness corresponds precisely to Steiner's:

In human beings, the absolute subject-object appears as such, i.e., as pure spiritual activity, containing all of its own objectivity, the whole process of its natural manifestation, but containing it totally ideally - in consciousness.

Steiner's philosophy neither evaluates the moral value of an action according to its consequences (utilitarianism), nor does it allow any categorical imperative, whether Kantian or otherwise, to be the moral arbiter of human actions. For Steiner, the highest morality exists when a deed actively connects a person's inner life with the external world through deeds of love by means of individually developed moral imaginations, a view that has affinities with the "dilige et quod vis fac" ("Love and that which you will, do") of St. Augustine.

Quotations

To live in love towards our actions, and to let live in the understanding of the other person's will, is the fundamental maxim of free men.

Only to the extent that a man has emancipated himself in this way from all that is generic, does he count as a free spirit within a human community. No man is all genus, none is all individuality.

Translations and editions

The first edition of Die Philosophie der Freiheit was published in 1894. A second revised edition appeared in 1918. Further German editions reprinted the 1918 text until 1973, when a revised edition was produced based on Steiner's corrections of the galley proofs of the 1918 edition. Minor changes, particularly corrections of Steiner's often inaccurate citations, were made in the 1987 German edition.

English translations

English translations include:

• 1916: The Philosophy of Freedom. trans. Hoernlé and Hoernlé, ed. Harry Collison. This is the only English translation of the first German edition.
• 1922: Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. Based on 2nd German edition, trans. Hoernlé and Hoernlé.
• 1939: Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, trans. Hermann Poppelbaum, based on Hoernlé and Hoernlé translation
• 1963: Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, trans. Rita Stebbing
• 1964: The Philosophy of Freedom: The Basis for a Modern World Conception, trans. Michael Wilson
• 1986: The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity: Basic Features of a Modern World View, trans. William Lindeman
• 1995: Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom, trans. Michael Lipson, based on Wilson translation

There is a comparison tool to compare the above translations.

Note: There are use two different chapter numberings used in the extant English translations. The first Hoernlé translation (1916) began the chapter numbering with the preface to the German original; all later translations follow the German chapter numbering.

External links

• The Philosophy of Freedom, complete text in English, various versions
• The Philosophy of Freedom, PDF Downloads of complete text in English and German, various versions
• The Philosophy of Freedom, complete original German text
• Die Philosophie der Freiheit, original German text
• Intuitive Thinking As A Spiritual Path, Audiobook, read by Dale Brunsvold

See also

• Anthroposophy
• Franz Brentano
• Fichte
• Free Will
• Hegel
• Husserl
• Kant
• Rudolf Steiner
• Schiller
• Schopenhauer
• Situational ethics