Editing Anthroposophy (section)

==Place in Western philosophy==
Steiner built upon [[Goethe]]'s conception of an imaginative power capable of synthesizing the sense-perceptible form of a thing (an image of its outer appearance) and the concept we have of that thing (an image of its inner structure or nature). Steiner added to this the conception that a further step in the development of thinking is possible when the thinker observes his or her own thought processes. "The organ of observation and the observed thought process are then identical, so that the condition thus arrived at is simultaneously one of perception through thinking and one of thought through perception."<ref name="Schneider" />

Thus, in Steiner's view, we can overcome the subject-object divide through inner activity, even though all human experience begins by being conditioned by it. In this connection, Steiner examines the step from thinking determined by outer impressions to what he calls sense-free thinking. He characterizes thoughts he considers without sensory content, such as mathematical or logical thoughts, as free deeds. Steiner believed he had thus located the origin of free will in our thinking, and in particular in sense-free thinking.<ref name="Schneider" />

Some of the [[Epistemology|epistemic]] basis for Steiner's later anthroposophical work is contained in the seminal work, [[The Philosophy of Freedom|Philosophy of Freedom]].<ref name="Pifer 1991 p. ">{{Cite book |last=Pifer |first=Ellen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jVP559h--0wC |title=Saul Bellow Against the Grain |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-8122-1369-0 |series=Penn Studies in Contemporary American Fiction |access-date=16 March 2024}} See also Steiner's doctoral thesis, ''Truth and Science''</ref> In his early works, Steiner sought to overcome what he perceived as the dualism of [[Cartesian dualism|Cartesian]] idealism and [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]]ian subjectivism by developing Goethe's conception of the human being as a natural-supernatural entity, that is: natural in that humanity is a product of nature, supernatural in that through our conceptual powers we extend nature's realm, allowing it to achieve a reflective capacity in us as philosophy, art and science.<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}}</ref> Steiner was one of the first European philosophers to overcome the subject-object split in [[Western thought]].<ref name="Tarnas" /> Though not well known among philosophers, his philosophical work was taken up by [[Owen Barfield]] (and through him influenced the [[Inklings]], an [[Oxford]] group of Christian writers that included [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] and [[C. S. Lewis]]).<ref name="Myers 1994 p. ">{{Cite book |last=Myers |first=Doris T. |title=C.S. Lewis in Context |date=1994 |publisher=Kent State University Press |isbn=978-0-87338-617-3 |publication-place=Kent, Ohio}}</ref>

Christian and Jewish mystical thought have also influenced the development of anthroposophy.<ref>Hans-Jürgen Bader, Lorenzo Ravagli, ''Rudolf Steiner als aktiver Gegner des Antisemitismus'', Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen, 2005</ref><ref name="Paddock Spiegler 2003 p. ">{{Cite book |last1=Paddock |first1=Fred |title=Judaism and Anthroposophy |last2=Spiegler |first2=Mado |date=2003 |publisher=SteinerBooks |isbn=978-0-88010-510-1 |publication-place=Great Barrington (Mass.)}}</ref>

===Union of science and spirit===
Steiner believed in the possibility of applying the clarity of scientific thinking to spiritual experience, which he saw as deriving from an objectively existing spiritual world.<ref name="Lindenberg">Christoph Lindenberg, ''Rudolf Steiner'', Rowohlt 1992, {{ISBN|3-499-50500-2}}</ref>{{rp|77ff}} Steiner identified [[mathematics]], which attains certainty through thinking itself, thus through inner experience rather than empirical observation,<ref>Albert Einstein, [http://www.tu-harburg.de/rzt/rzt/it/Geometry.html Geometry and Experience] {{webarchive|url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20011124171015/http%3A//www.tu%2Dharburg.de/rzt/rzt/it/geometry.html |date=2001-11-24 }}</ref> as the basis of his epistemology of spiritual experience.<ref>Rudolf Steiner, ''Anthroposophy and Science'', lecture of March 16, 1921</ref>

Anthroposophy regards mainstream science as [[Ahriman]]ic.<ref name="Ahrimanic">Sources for 'Ahrimanic':{{Bulleted list|{{Cite book |last=Steiner |first=Rudolf |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tfOUcjMD-WUC&pg=PT34 |title=Karma of Materialism: 9 Lectures, Berlin, July 31–Sept. 25, 1917 (CW 176) |publisher=SteinerBooks |year=1985 |isbn=978-1-62151-025-3 |page=unpaginated |chapter=1. Forgotten Aspects of Cultural Life |quote=The whole content of natural science is ahrimanic and will only lose its ahrimanic nature when it becomes imbued with life. |access-date=15 March 2024 |chapter-url=https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA176/English/AP1985/19170731p01.html}}|{{cite book | last1=Steiner | first1=Rudolf | last2=Meuss | first2=Anna R. | title=The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness | publisher=Rudolf Steiner Press | year=1993 | isbn=978-1-85584-010-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wgc6fjIeFVUC&pg=PA161 | access-date=16 March 2024 | pages=160–161}}|{{cite book | last1=Steiner | first1=Rudolf | last2=Barton | first2=Matthew | title=The Incarnation of Ahriman: The Embodiment of Evil on Earth | publisher=Rudolf Steiner Press | year=2013 | isbn=978-1-85584-278-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qR9FDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA54 | access-date=16 March 2024 | pages=53–54}}|{{cite book | last1=Wachsmuth | first1=Guenther | last2=Garber | first2=Bernard J. | last3=Wannamaker | first3=Olin D. | last4=Raab | first4=Reginald E. | title=The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner: From the Turn of the Century to His Death | publisher=SteinerBooks | year=1995 | isbn=978-1-62151-053-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UE_Dfrpi4-wC&pg=PT445 | access-date=15 March 2024 | page=unpaginated | quote=and all external science, to the extent that it is not spiritual science, is Ahrimanic.}}|{{cite journal | last=Al-Faruqi | first=Ismail Il Raji | journal=Biosciences Communications | publisher=S. Karger | volume=3 | issue=1 | year=1977 | title=Moral values in medicine and science | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=09hEAAAAYAAJ | access-date=15 March 2024 | pages=56–58 | issn=0302-2781 | quote=Medical science is Ahrimanic in that it treats the body solely as a mechanism, having no knowledge of or concern with the etheric structure, that invisible field of force and energy which all too often is found to be the seat of disease.}}|{{cite book | last=Prokofieff | first=Sergei O. | title=The Case of Valentin Tomberg: Anthroposophy Or Jesuitism? | publisher=Temple Lodge | year=1998 | isbn=978-0-904693-85-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I-9Rq81-xGwC&pg=PA118 | access-date=15 March 2024 | page=118}}|{{cite book | last=Younis | first=Andrei | title=Islam in Relation to the Christ Impulse: A Search for Reconciliation between Christianity and Islam | publisher=SteinerBooks | year=2015 | isbn=978-1-58420-185-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5X95CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT57 | access-date=16 March 2024 | page=unpaginated | quote=Steiner emphasized that, when this deadened wisdom of Gondishapur began to spread in Europe, an ahrimanic, or ahrimanically inspired, natural science began to emerge.}}|{{cite book | last=Selg | first=Peter | title=The Future of Ahriman and the Awakening of Souls: The Spirit-Presence of the Mystery Dramas | publisher=Rudolf Steiner Press | year=2022 | isbn=978-1-912230-92-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ei1qEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA12 | access-date=16 March 2024 | page=12}}|{{cite journal |last1=Beck |first1=John H. |author-link1= |display-authors= |author-mask= |name-list-style= |date=February 2007 |orig-date= |editor1-last=Spiegler |editor1-first=Mado |display-editors= |title=Christ and Sophia: Anthroposophic Meditations on the Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocalypse by Valentin Tomberg SteinerBooks, 2006, 432 pgs. Review by John H. Beck |script-title= |trans-title= |url=https://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/nyrud/id/387/download |format= |department= |journal=Rudolf Steiner Library Newsletter |type= |series= |language= |edition= |volume=41 |issue= |pages=7–12 |no-pp= |arxiv= |asin= |bibcode= |bibcode-access= |biorxiv= |citeseerx= |doi= |doi-access= |issn= |jfm= |jstor= |jstor-access= |lccn= |mr= |oclc= |ol= |ol-access= |osti= |osti-access= |pmc= |pmid= |rfc= |ssrn= |zbl= |id= |via= |url-access= |access-date= |quote=Science is Ahrimanic in so far as it is objective; Christian mysticism is Luciferic in so far as it is subjective. }}}}</ref>