The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity: A Modern Philosophy of Life Developed by Scientific MethodsSteiner, Rudolf
Religion
The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity: A Modern Philosophy of Life Developed by Scientific Methods
Steiner, Rudolf
Anthroposophy; Free will and determinism; Knowledge, Theory of; Life
Naïve and Metaphysical Realism, if they are to be consistent, have to
deny freedom for one and the same reason, viz., because, for them,
man does nothing but carry out, or execute, principles necessarily
imposed upon him. Naïve Realism destroys freedom by subjecting man
to authority, whether it be that of a perceptible being, or that of
a being conceived on the analogy of perceptible beings, or, lastly,
that of the abstract voice of conscience. The Metaphysician, content
merely to infer an extra-human reality, is unable to acknowledge
freedom because, for him, man is determined, mechanically or morally,
by a "thing-in-itself."
Monism will have to admit the partial justification of Naïve Realism,
with which it agrees in admitting the part played by the world
of percepts. He who is incapable of producing moral ideas through
intuition must receive them from others. In so far as a man receives
his moral principles from without he is actually unfree. But Monism
ascribes to the idea the same importance as to the percept. The
idea can manifest itself only in human individuals. In so far
as man obeys the impulses coming from this side he is free. But
Monism denies all justification to Metaphysics, and consequently
also to the impulses of action which are derived from so-called
"things-in-themselves." According to the Monistic view, man's action
is unfree when he obeys some perceptible external compulsion; it
is free when he obeys none but himself. There is no room in Monism
for any kind of unconscious compulsion hidden behind percept and
concept. If anybody maintains of the action of a fellow-man that it
has not been freely done, he is bound to produce within the visible
world the thing or the person or the institution which has caused the
agent to act. And if he supports his contention by an appeal to causes
of action lying outside the real world of our percepts and thoughts,
then Monism must decline to take account of such an assertion.
According to the Monistic theory, then, man's action is partly free,
partly unfree. He is conscious of himself as unfree in the world of
percepts, and he realises in himself the spirit which is free.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account