On the Spiritual Essence of the Catch-22 (Part I)

[AshvinP]

You were right, Ashvin, reading the whole article has helped. I recognize that it no longer appears that SM is searching for any external vantage point, and there is more subtlety to the reasoning than it appears from the quote. (This is partly because your quote was not accurate. You patched together two separate paragraphs without notice, so that “This puts us in an interesting situation” points to one thing in the article, and to another one in the quote). Now my impression is, the article is compatible with an understanding of PoF. Nonetheless, I have multiple caveats.

First, since you reiterate the wording, let me say that the expression “Steiner’s epistemology”, for my sense of beauty, is slippery spiritual taste. In the simplest terms, this is because as soon as we utter the word, and think of “epistemology”, we are contemplating a theory. That’s what the -logy does to the reality of episteme. But because this contemplation is poured onto itself - knowledge itself - the conundrum of recursiveness shows up, which can only be appeased if we at the same time invite, not “the given” as a conceptual hero of the tale, coming to liberate human cognition from perpetual relativity, but the experienced consciousness of a process. As the hologrammatic encoding of such process, PoF is stripped of its dimensionality when reduced to an epistemology.

I quoted Steiner himself calling his approach "epistemology" in GA 1. Is speaking of phenomeno-logy also "slippery spiritual taste"?

A person who feels like they can only contemplate an abstract theory when a word is uttered needs to reflect on their own etched pathways of thinking, not criticize the people using the words. No mere utterance of a word should rule over our ability to think concretely 'as soon as we utter the word'.

And so, in an effort to explain “Steiner’s epistemology” along these lines (literally, lines) he ends up making improbable statements such as: “The question is, rather, where within the given do we find something that is not passively given, but is given only to the extent that it is actively being produced in the act of cognition?”. Another one: “it is only through the act of cognition that our ideas and concepts arise and come to us as a part of the given.” Helpful to someone who is attempting to approach PoF?

What is "improbable" or unhelpful about these statements in the context of the whole paper?

And, I would say, PoF is already an extreme summary. To pick an expression you often use, it’s an artistic conceptual expression of a holistic, omnipresent reality. Therefore, any attempt to make an ulterior summary of it (not saying SM had that as a goal) is misled and doomed to fail. One can discuss it, work with it, write *about* it (which is possibly what SM aimed to), further elaborate and/or illustrate related ideas dialogically, analogically, but summarizing it is preposterous. Would anyone ever attempt to summarize a temple, a poem, a concert?
For these reasons I doubt this article is a useful recommendation for someone who is struggling with PoF.

You are again latching onto a single word, "summary", and letting this dictate your thinking. It's simply an elucidation of Steiner's epistemology like the dozens of essays/posts we have produced here. It even includes analogies, illustrations, and exercises.

To Guney, I will reiterate my advice that working through this paper by Miller will be enormously helpful in orienting toward the core of PoF and the essence of living thinking.

[Federica]

You were right, Ashvin, reading the whole article has helped. I recognize that it no longer appears that SM is searching for any external vantage point, and there is more subtlety to the reasoning than it appears from the quote. (This is partly because your quote was not accurate. You patched together two separate paragraphs without notice, so that “This puts us in an interesting situation” points to one thing in the article, and to another one in the quote). Now my impression is, the article is compatible with an understanding of PoF. Nonetheless, I have multiple caveats.

First, since you reiterate the wording, let me say that the expression “Steiner’s epistemology”, for my sense of beauty, is slippery spiritual taste. In the simplest terms, this is because as soon as we utter the word, and think of “epistemology”, we are contemplating a theory. That’s what the -logy does to the reality of episteme. But because this contemplation is poured onto itself - knowledge itself - the conundrum of recursiveness shows up, which can only be appeased if we at the same time invite, not “the given” as a conceptual hero of the tale, coming to liberate human cognition from perpetual relativity, but the experienced consciousness of a process. As the hologrammatic encoding of such process, PoF is stripped of its dimensionality when reduced to an epistemology.

I quoted Steiner himself calling his approach "epistemology" in GA 1. Is speaking of phenomeno-logy also "slippery spiritual taste"?

A person who feels like they can only contemplate an abstract theory when a word is uttered needs to reflect on their own etched pathways of thinking, not criticize the people using the words. No mere utterance of a word should rule over our ability to think concretely 'as soon as we utter the word'.

And so, in an effort to explain “Steiner’s epistemology” along these lines (literally, lines) he ends up making improbable statements such as: “The question is, rather, where within the given do we find something that is not passively given, but is given only to the extent that it is actively being produced in the act of cognition?”. Another one: “it is only through the act of cognition that our ideas and concepts arise and come to us as a part of the given.” Helpful to someone who is attempting to approach PoF?

What is "improbable" or unhelpful about these statements in the context of the whole paper?

And, I would say, PoF is already an extreme summary. To pick an expression you often use, it’s an artistic conceptual expression of a holistic, omnipresent reality. Therefore, any attempt to make an ulterior summary of it (not saying SM had that as a goal) is misled and doomed to fail. One can discuss it, work with it, write *about* it (which is possibly what SM aimed to), further elaborate and/or illustrate related ideas dialogically, analogically, but summarizing it is preposterous. Would anyone ever attempt to summarize a temple, a poem, a concert?
For these reasons I doubt this article is a useful recommendation for someone who is struggling with PoF.

You are again latching onto a single word, "summary", and letting this dictate your thinking. It's simply an elucidation of Steiner's epistemology like the dozens of essays/posts we have produced here. It even includes analogies, illustrations, and exercises.

To Guney, I will reiterate my advice that working through this paper by Miller will be enormously helpful in orienting toward the core of PoF and the essence of living thinking.

Your angry reply is a bit out of place, Ashvin.

Regarding your quote from GA1 - IX "Goethe's Epistemology" - I have hesitated to state that explicitly above, to spare you an obvious remark, but apparently it was not obvious to you, so: In the early philosophical works of the young Steiner, about Goethe and his epistemology, it's expected, appropriate and not distasteful of RS, of course, to use the word "epistemology" abundantly, even to refer to "our epistemology".

As I already wrote (but it's more convenient for you to ignore): In contrast to that, in his one book "on his epistemology" as you would say, (not on the philosophy of someone else) the work that Steiner considered his most important and accomplished, the only one who would stand the test of time, his accomplished epistemological work - in that book, PoF, Steiner constantly avoids characterizing his work as an epistemology. You will not find the word there. Not even once, be it in a title or in the body of text, in reference to what he is doing for the sake of knowledge with that book. Would you call it a "coincidence", in your words? Or how would you explain it?

By the way, regarding your insisting advice to Güney - it seems to me his reply is sufficient. The rest of your comments are such that I don't think it's useful to reply.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

I currently reading steiners dissertation and think about the written.

Steiner try’s to create a artificial given, a aggregate of colors, forms and other sensation, that have nothing in Common with another.
Even the notion of sensation is a product of cognitive activity.

By creating this given, isn’t Steiner doing something akin to Kant, when he speaks of the „thing itself“?
Because this given isn’t something which one can experience.

Steiner demonstrates how our thinking isn’t just a copy of a world outside, but that the world becomes only conscious trough the act of cognition.

This could be end up as an abstract model, but that should not lead us any further than other models of cognition.
How can we become conscious of this process?


Do we look at ideas or at objects (: ?

Guney, I highly recommend this essay by Seth Miller - https://www.academia.edu/545695/Thinkin ... an_Freedom

It is an excellent summary of PoF and Steiner's epistemology. Here is a quote relevant to your question:

Perhaps there is a way out. If an epistemology is to provide the foundation for the whole of knowledge, for an understanding of the nature of knowledge itself, it cannot itself be founded upon any facts already existing within that sphere. The starting point of an epistemology must
itself lie outside of the act of cognition – it must not presuppose it. Instead, the roots of cognition must be found in another soil, in what lies immediately before cognition, so that the very next step leads us to the act of cognition itself.

What is the soil which is not cognition itself but lies just beneath it? It cannot be the “I” or “Self”, as these already depend up on the capacity of cognition for their recognition. We cannot find cognition’s basis in the “I”, but rather can only discover the “I” through cognition. In fact our epistemology cannot rely upon any distinction whatsoever, as every distinction requires cognition. We see then that we must, in a very real sense, actually dismantle the act of cognition, trace it backwards, and by attempting to eliminate it, see where it leads. Admittedly, this can only be done as an act of cognition.

This puts us in an interesting situation: we are looking for what lies immediately before the act of cognition, but cannot rely upon the fruits of cognition – knowledge – to make this realm appear for us. The best we can do is bring into awareness, by taking out of our experience all that is mediated to us through our cognition, the necessity for this realm, which we can call the “given”, or the directly given world-picture. This given can only be pointed to, but not grasped, by cognition. Every picture formed of it, every thought we may have about it, is already of necessity mediated by the act of cognition, yet our goal is to show how this realm, which is free of all predicates and to which nothing can be ascribed is the substrate upon which cognition rests. It admits no distinctions whatsoever, no cause and effect, no substance or essence, no material or spiritual, no reality, knowledge, or self. In this sense, the given is similar to a Zen koan in that it brings us to the limits of our own cognition directly. It is only in the shape of the hole created in cognition, by this very act of cognition itself, that we can be directed towards what is “given”.
...
Imagine that a fully formed, intelligent human being was suddenly created out of nothing and was placed in the world. The very first impressions arising in her through her senses and her thinking would characterize the given. Of course this situation never actually occurs, not even in a new-born child – one never experiences the given itself without the act of cognition already at work. Those familiar with the alchemical tradition in the West may recognize the given in the “prima materia” – a formless substance out of which all forms arise. Similarly in the East we find the Unnamable Tao, which shares many aspects of what is here being described as the given. The point is simply that there is a world available to cognition, which has yet to be
cognized, and in this sense is prior to the activity of cognition, which then takes this world as its object through its own activity.

Ironically, Seth Miller was/is good friends with JF, but the latter simply cannot comprehend this function of exploring the 'given' in PoF. I will try to bring the paper to his attention. These are the sorts of critical realizations we need to make in the process of imaginatively moving through our cognitive-perceptual process to attain the perspective shift that alone carries the Hope of redeeming the abstract intellect so it can serve as the proper bridge between matter and spirit.

Thanks for the recommendation.

I realized that I find clerics writing style the most accessible for myself.

In the case of Seth miller, Steiner and others there is always the danger of getting in the mind container mode.
When I read clerics post it helps me to get conscious of the context in which my thinking moves.

I find the series of essays you have written very hard to access to.

I read PoF but it wasn't as helpful as clerics texts on this forum.

I don’t get how cleric could come to this knowledge trough Steiner.
Of course there are many similarities, but differences too.

But I think it has to do with the background on has.
I don’t have a big knowledge in philosophy or in science.

For people with this background it is maybe easier to read Steiners epistemological books.

Yes, you should stick with whatever tools help you orient the best and cultivate living, sense-free thinking. I also find Cleric's posts to the most intuitively accessible. As I suggest to everyone here, go back through the posts many times.

After some time, you will also start to see how all the different concepts, images, metaphors, illustrations, etc. presented by other thinkers overlap, pointing to the same intuitive realities from other angles. This is part of how we know we are resonating with the underlying movements at a deeper level.

It is important that we always locate the source of difficulties within ourselves, not as reflecting major discrepancies between Steiner, Cleric, Miller, etc. We say this a lot but it should become etched as a moral maxim, a deep feeling that always hovers over our conceptual state. It's hard to convey these things in words over the forum. As I mentioned in the other article, intuitive truth really does die on our lips (or fingers).

Sometimes its possible for those discrepancies to exist (much more rarely than we usually assume upon first impressions), but that's besides the point. We can cultivate much more 'powerful' soul forces through such an inner disposition of taking creative responsibility for our mental obstacles and take our inner understanding to the next level. We can correspondingly be patient with and charitable to others on the spiritual path who are trying to help. As long as these ideas just float around the intellect, we will keep running into the same problems, the same barriers to understanding, and tend to externalize the source of blame.

Anyway, I hope it's a bit more clear what the function of the 'given' is for orienting our living thinking efforts. The alien dwelling example is a great one that utilizes the same function. There are no metaphysical claims about "things themselves", just symbolic pictures and concepts with immanently practical functions for orienting our intuitive activity. We may not always be crystal clear on that function but we can trust it will be made clear in due course if we work diligently through the symbols.

[AshvinP]

Regarding your quote from GA1 - IX "Goethe's Epistemology" - I have hesitated to state that explicitly above, to spare you an obvious remark, but apparently it was not obvious to you, so: In the early philosophical works of the young Steiner, about Goethe and his epistemology, it's expected, appropriate and not distasteful of RS, of course, to use the word "epistemology" abundantly, even to refer to "our epistemology".

As I already wrote (but it's more convenient for you to ignore): In contrast to that, in his one book "on his epistemology" as you would say, (not on the philosophy of someone else) the work that Steiner considered his most important and accomplished, the only one who would stand the test of time, his accomplished epistemological work - in that book, PoF, Steiner constantly avoids characterizing his work as an epistemology. You will not find the word there. Not even once, be it in a title or in the body of text, in reference to what he is doing for the sake of knowledge with that book. Would you call it a "coincidence", in your words? Or how would you explain it?

This is also Jeff's favorite argument, introducing a discontinuity within Steiner, although he at least does it between the early philosophical works and the later spiritual scientific ones, while you are doing it within the early works and within a matter of a few years. He even constantly refers to "young Steiner".

Perhaps you have not read the other epistemological works, like you didn't bother to click the link to Miller's short paper before expressing your opinion on it, which would not surprise me. Either way, this has become an absurd discussion centered around your hang up on the word "epistemology", just like the last one on "improvisation". I really hope you will awaken to this tendency soon by resisting it instead of passively flowing along.

[Federica]

Regarding your quote from GA1 - IX "Goethe's Epistemology" - I have hesitated to state that explicitly above, to spare you an obvious remark, but apparently it was not obvious to you, so: In the early philosophical works of the young Steiner, about Goethe and his epistemology, it's expected, appropriate and not distasteful of RS, of course, to use the word "epistemology" abundantly, even to refer to "our epistemology".

As I already wrote (but it's more convenient for you to ignore): In contrast to that, in his one book "on his epistemology" as you would say, (not on the philosophy of someone else) the work that Steiner considered his most important and accomplished, the only one who would stand the test of time, his accomplished epistemological work - in that book, PoF, Steiner constantly avoids characterizing his work as an epistemology. You will not find the word there. Not even once, be it in a title or in the body of text, in reference to what he is doing for the sake of knowledge with that book. Would you call it a "coincidence", in your words? Or how would you explain it?

This is also Jeff's favorite argument, introducing a discontinuity within Steiner, although he at least does it between the early philosophical works and the later spiritual scientific ones, while you are doing it within the early works and within a matter of a few years. He even constantly refers to "young Steiner".

Perhaps you have not read the other epistemological works, like you didn't bother to click the link to Miller's short paper before expressing your opinion on it, which would not surprise me. Either way, this has become an absurd discussion centered around your hang up on the word "epistemology", just like the last one on "improvisation". I really hope you will awaken to this tendency soon by resisting it instead of passively flowing along.

I am not introducing any discontinuity in Steiner, Ashvin, please be honest and objective with your comments. This point you are trying to make is so weak, that I can only explain it as the result of anger, or some similar feeling. "Young Steiner" goes naturally with the fact that the work you quoted is GA 1 the absolute first in hundreds of items in the collective works, a work arisen in a university environment, written about someone else's philosophy and epistemology, thus, of necessity quite different and less revealing in terms of power of original expression, compared to PoF, though of course in full continuity with the entire body of work. No discontinuity whatsoever was ever stated, suggested or implied in my posts.


I also notice what you are trying to do by associating me with Jeff Falzone, whom I recently criticized as misunderstanding Anthroposophy. What you resort to use here, this trick you accept to use, as argumentative expedient (it's not the first time) not only is regrettable, but also shows how weak your point is. You are pretentious, Ashvin. You are pretentious when you never accept to reconsider an inch of whatever you have previously stated. You are pretentious when you inaccurately quote your new favorite author of the moment, and insistently "highly recommend" them. You are pretentious when you inaccurately read posts and then reply on the side, as well as when you spend paragraphs giving people the user's manual to the user's manual (unless they are your friends) just as you were doing when I first discovered this forum, 2+ years ago. You often speak of the importance of sacrificing things. Time ago, you were sacrificing by immersing yourself in VR. More recently, you have sacrificed your previous aversion to psychedelics. Don't you ever plan on sacrificing your pretentiousness? However your sacrificing bucket list comes together, this is a serious suggestion from me.

[AshvinP]

"Inaccurate quote", that's my favorite dodging of responsibility for careless opinions

Someone is angry, indeed. Its ok to be wrong sometimes, Federica. That comes with the territory of prematurely expressing opinions. You don't need to feel so deeply insulted when the opinion is shown to be in error, or at least you can try to remain conscious of the defensive feelings it stirs in you.

Now that it has been shown Steiner has characterized PoF as "Pauline epistemology", as even a "cognitive theory" and another opinion is shown as error, I would recommend you pay attention to the feelings that are stirred and bubble up and try to view them as objectively as possible, to gain some cognitive distance on them. This we all have to do and its how we make true progress.

[Federica]

"Inaccurate quote", that's my favorite dodging of responsibility for careless opinions

Someone is angry, indeed. Its ok to be wrong sometimes, Federica. That comes with the territory of prematurely expressing opinions. You don't need to feel so deeply insulted when the opinion is shown to be in error, or at least you can try to remain conscious of the defensive feelings it stirs in you.

Now that it has been shown Steiner has characterized PoF as "Pauline epistemology", as even a "cognitive theory" and another opinion is shown as error, I would recommend you pay attention to the feelings that are stirred and bubble up and try to view them as objectively as possible, to gain some cognitive distance on them. This we all have to do and its how we make true progress.

Once again, you have missed a key detail, namely that I have specified "in PoF". I certainly was not as pretentious as to guarantee that RS never ever used the word epistemology when questioned about his work, or when lecturing: that would have been naive and hazardous. This is why I have been careful from the beginning with adding "in PoF". But since you don't read carefully, you haven't noticed (or you now pretend you haven't, I am not sure).

However, even if you have been able to find a match where RS somewhere did use the term with reference to himself, this doesn't do much to my point, let alone showing it is "an error". I repeat, or rather, I quote what I said: "the expression “Steiner’s epistemology”, for my sense of beauty, is slippery spiritual taste. In the simplest terms, this is because..." which I maintain, in full right:

Writing or speaking of "Steiner's epistemology" is bad spiritual taste.

And, not only there is strictly no way you can try to make my sense of beauty look like an "error", but also you should recognize (but I guess you will conveniently ignore it) that if I decide to, say, call BKs works 'masterpieces', that's one thing, however if BK himself goes around calling his own books a collection of masterpieces, that would be a quite different thing. And it goes without saying whom would everyone consider to have bad taste, even though the judgment itself is the same.
(before you spend half a page lecturing me on that, I should be quick at stating that this is an inverted example, only intended to show a principle which you seem to ignore in you mocking attempt, not intended to be an exact copy of the situation with "epistemology".
Not to forget, you still should explain how comes that the term epistemology never appears self-referred throughout PoF, despite that the book illustrates, as you would say, Steiner's epistemology. Again, your whole thing is weak.


Besides, on your attempt to give me a lecture on my own feelings, you may have messed with the user's manuals.

[AshvinP]

"Inaccurate quote", that's my favorite dodging of responsibility for careless opinions

Someone is angry, indeed. Its ok to be wrong sometimes, Federica. That comes with the territory of prematurely expressing opinions. You don't need to feel so deeply insulted when the opinion is shown to be in error, or at least you can try to remain conscious of the defensive feelings it stirs in you.

Now that it has been shown Steiner has characterized PoF as "Pauline epistemology", as even a "cognitive theory" and another opinion is shown as error, I would recommend you pay attention to the feelings that are stirred and bubble up and try to view them as objectively as possible, to gain some cognitive distance on them. This we all have to do and its how we make true progress.

Once again, you have missed a key detail, namely that I have specified "in PoF". I certainly was not as pretentious as to guarantee that RS never ever used the word epistemology when questioned about his work, or when lecturing: that would have been naive and hazardous. This is why I have been careful from the beginning with adding "in PoF". But since you don't read carefully, you haven't noticed (or you now pretend you haven't, I am not sure).

However, even if you have been able to find a match where RS somewhere did use the term with reference to himself, this doesn't do much to my point, let alone showing it is "an error". I repeat, or rather, I quote what I said: "the expression “Steiner’s epistemology”, for my sense of beauty, is slippery spiritual taste. In the simplest terms, this is because..." which I maintain, in full right:

Writing or speaking of "Steiner's epistemology" is bad spiritual taste.

And, not only there is strictly no way you can try to make my sense of beauty look like an "error", but also you should recognize (but I guess you will conveniently ignore it) that if I decide to, say, call BKs works 'masterpieces', that's one thing, however if BK himself goes around calling his own books a collection of masterpieces, that would be a quite different thing. And it goes without saying whom would everyone consider to have bad taste, even though the judgment itself is the same.
(before you spend half a page lecturing me on that, I should be quick at stating that this is an inverted example, only intended to show a principle which you seem to ignore in you mocking attempt, not intended to be an exact copy of the situation with "epistemology".
Not to forget, you still should explain how comes that the term epistemology never appears self-referred throughout PoF, despite that the book illustrates, as you would say, Steiner's epistemology. Again, your whole thing is weak.


Besides, on your attempt to give me a lecture on my own feelings, you may have messed with the user's manuals.

According to your logic, Steiner himself is in bad spiritual taste about his own work because he spoke of PoF as Pauline epistemology. This is undeniable fact and I think you are doing verbal gymnastics to avoid admitting a simple error, pretending you never said or implied what you actually said and implied. If Steiner himself is in bad spiritual taste for referring to PoF (and his other early works which are 100% in the same spirit as PoF, as anyone who has read them fairly can verify) as epistemology, then it must be a good thing to be aligned with what you consider bad spiritual taste. Maybe your sense of beauty and sense of spritual taste isn't so infallible as you imagine, just as your sense of being "coerced" by the use of the word improvisation.

I suppose this was also in bad slippery spiritual taste:

I don't know what else I can say without repeating what Scott and Ashvin already pointed out. The GR image practically illustrates the point of overlap between phenomenology and epistemology, between the raw phenomenon and the meaning. This is at the core of PoF where they are called perception and idea.

Anyway I am done with this pointless bickering. I can tell not a word I write will be understood when you are in this state.

Moving on, and speaking of improvisation, some may be interested in this excellent presentation from Levin's academic content. It points directly to how thinkers in diverse fields have begun seriously investigating how the manner of their thinking influences the observations they can make and the experimental results they can participate in bringing forth. Even the first few minutes will give us a good sense of the current recursive situation in cutting-edge scientific research.

[Federica]

To say it in the simplest way, I think a point eventually comes for all of us when we hit a sort of individual hard problem of consciousness - not of the same sort as the famous hard problem, but an individual struggle, hard but solvable this one, when old moral guidelines have to melt and transform under the warming force of a nascent morality of freedom.

[Güney27]

I found this very helpful.
There is much to meditate about.

In Clerics style of writing, the reader has often the possibility to search for the written in ones own experience.
It’s more a description in someway than an axiom about something.

Thanks to computer graphics we can surprise our cognitive habits. The above video shows how we can experience spatiality of quite different kind. The main point is that ultimately, what we experience is a flow of imagery. This flow is partially shaped by our own thinking, feeling and willing activity. In the above case, we use the willing of our finger movements to press the keys on the keyboard. In real life we will the movement of our feet. In both cases we conduct our spiritual activity and as a result our state metamorphoses, the perceptual world feeds back on us. It is our thinking which grasps the logic of these transformations. For example, in our ordinary space we know that if we go through 1, 2, 3, 4 doors at right angles, we return to the first room. But as we can see in the video this isn't necessarily so in non-Euclidean space.

So what we call space is really the lawfulness of the stream of imagery that we navigate through with our spiritual activity. The reason we seem to agree on the objectiveness of space is simply because our daily life forces our thinking to grasp the same logic about the stream of imagery. Clearly, everyone sees different stream, yet we somehow agree that these streams reflect a common and shared lawfulness.