Editing Rudolf Steiner (section)

=== Knowledge and freedom ===
{{See also|The Philosophy of Freedom}}
Steiner approached the philosophical questions of [[epistemology|knowledge]] and [[Free will|freedom]] in two stages. In his dissertation, published in expanded form in 1892 as ''Truth and Knowledge'', Steiner suggests that there is an inconsistency between Kant's philosophy, which posits that all knowledge is a representation of an essential verity inaccessible to human consciousness, and modern science, which assumes that all influences can be found in the sensory and mental world to which we have access. Steiner considered Kant's philosophy of an inaccessible beyond ("Jenseits-Philosophy") a stumbling block in achieving a satisfying philosophical viewpoint.{{sfn|Storr|1997|p=72|ps=: "If, however, we regard the sum of all percepts as the one part and contrast with this a second part, namely the things-in-themselves, then we are philosophising into the blue. We are merely playing with concepts."}}

Steiner postulates that the world is essentially an indivisible unity, but that our [[consciousness]] divides it into the [[senses|sense]]-perceptible appearance, on the one hand, and the formal nature accessible to our [[thinking]], on the other. He sees in thinking itself an element that can be strengthened and deepened sufficiently to penetrate all that our senses do not reveal to us. Steiner thus considered what appears to human experience as a division between the spiritual and natural worlds to be a conditioned result of the structure of our consciousness, which separates [[perception]] and thinking. These two faculties give us not two worlds, but two complementary views of the same world; neither has primacy and the two together are necessary and sufficient to arrive at a complete understanding of the world. In thinking about [[perception]] (the path of natural science) and perceiving the process of thinking (the path of [[spirituality|spiritual]] training), it is possible to discover a hidden inner unity between the two poles of our experience.<ref name="Schneider" />{{rp|Chapter 4}} [[Truth]], for Steiner, is paradoxically both an objective discovery and yet "a free creation of the human spirit, that never would exist at all if we did not generate it ourselves. The task of understanding is not to replicate in conceptual form something that already exists, but rather to create a wholly new realm, that together with the world given to our senses constitutes the fullness of reality."<ref>Steiner, Rudolf, ''Truth and Science'', Preface.</ref>

In ''[[The Philosophy of Freedom]]'', Steiner further explores potentials within thinking: freedom, he suggests, can only be approached gradually with the aid of the creative activity of thinking. Thinking can be a free deed; in addition, it can liberate our will from its subservience to our [[instinct]]s and [[motivation|drive]]s. Free deeds, he suggests, are those for which we are fully conscious of the motive for our action; freedom is the spiritual activity of penetrating with consciousness our own nature and that of the world,<ref>"To be conscious of the laws underlying one's actions is to be conscious of one's freedom. The process of knowing ... is the process of development towards freedom." Steiner, GA3, pp. 91f, quoted in Rist and Schneider, p. 134</ref> and the real activity of acting in full consciousness.<ref name="Schneider" />{{rp|133–4}} This includes overcoming influences of both heredity and environment: "To be free is to be capable of thinking one's own thoughts – not the thoughts merely of the body, or of society, but thoughts generated by one's deepest, most original, most essential and spiritual self, one's individuality."<ref name=RAMcD/>

Steiner affirms [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]]'s and [[Haeckel]]'s [[evolution]]ary perspectives but extended this beyond its [[materialism|materialistic]] consequences; he sees human [[consciousness]], indeed, all human culture, as a product of natural evolution that transcends itself. For Steiner, nature becomes self-conscious in the human being. Steiner's description of the nature of human consciousness thus closely parallels that of [[Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)|Solovyov]].<ref name="Tarnas">{{Cite book |last=Tarnas |first=Richard |title=The Passion of the Western Mind |date=1996 |publisher=Random House |isbn=0-7126-7332-6 |publication-place=London}} Cf. Solovyov: "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....The subject knows here only its own activity as an objective activity (sub specie object). Thus, the original identity of subject and object is restored in philosophical knowledge." (''The Crisis of Western Philosophy'', Lindisfarne 1996 pp. 42–3)</ref>

"Steiner was a moral individualist".{{efn-lr|Ethical individualism is the opposite of ethical collectivism (meaning a moral code which is good for everyone).}}<ref name="t661">{{Cite book |last=Ryan |first=Alexandra E. |chapter=Anthroposophy |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DouBAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA34 |title=Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-134-49970-0 |editor-last=Clarke |editor-first=Peter |page=34 |access-date=2024-07-19}}</ref>