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

[AshvinP]

"I am interested only because it seems the most fruitful path for orienting better to the core of PoF. One of us sees the article as enormously helpful for orienting to PoF and the other as mostly dissonant with PoF, so there must be some discrepancy in our orientation to some aspect of PoF that is probably worth exploring if we can remain as objective as possible about it."

Let's notice, I have not said that Miller's essay is "mostly dissonant" with PoF. If you check back, you'll find I said it's "subtle" and "compatible", not dissonant, with PoF. Kind of like at a 175 degree angle from "mostly dissonant"? More or less.
The title is indeed tasteless, in my view, yes. But, like Miller, you too like the expression Steiner's epistemology, and are still able to write very insightful essays, so one more reason why (on top of all else I wrote!) you are not allowed to conclude that, just because I consider Miller's choice of title tasteless, I also consider his article dissonant with PoF.

Great, so there was no basis whatsoever for your conclusion that the article was unhelpful for someone struggling with PoF, but as usual, you just like to argue with me and be contrarian in some way. This happens practically every time I introduce new ideas or thinkers, like an instinctive reaction. I hope you try to pay attention to this the next time you feel it bubbling up. Why does what you consider 'tasteless' need to be shared with us? Anyway, it doesn't matter.

Speaking of beauty and spiritual art, and trying to redeem this discussion, I would like to draw attention to this fantastic book by Van James. I have been slowly working through the chapters, which retrace the spiritual context of artistic development from modern times, and it has been tremendously helpful. I can feel a concrete influence on the etheric body through the aesthetic, reverential, and devotional approach. As usual, for such works to properly bear fruits, we need to try hard to leave our personal opinions and sensibilities at the door and develop an objective resonance with the intuitive movements expressed through the author and the artistic works.

https://a.co/d/cRjQUAL

“As an art student in the late sixties, I recall how painfully dry and intellectual my art history classes were. I thought to myself, or rather felt to myself, ‘There must be something more’” ―Van James

Artist Van James offers that something more. This is a richly readable and lavishly illustrated text that reveals how, at every stage, human consciousness has evolved through the medium of art. It makes the case for a hidden stream that has put forth art works and art movements throughout history, in an ongoing visible revelation of invisible spiritual currents.

Art, originally a part of the secret Mystery cults of the ancient world, has become an expression of the individual creative intuition. At every stage, Albert Einstein’s comment applies: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”

The only drawback is that the pictures in my paperback copy are not colored, so I have been using my computer, tablet, or phone to look up the referenced works for a better image while working through the book.

[Federica]

"I am interested only because it seems the most fruitful path for orienting better to the core of PoF. One of us sees the article as enormously helpful for orienting to PoF and the other as mostly dissonant with PoF, so there must be some discrepancy in our orientation to some aspect of PoF that is probably worth exploring if we can remain as objective as possible about it."

Let's notice, I have not said that Miller's essay is "mostly dissonant" with PoF. If you check back, you'll find I said it's "subtle" and "compatible", not dissonant, with PoF. Kind of like at a 175 degree angle from "mostly dissonant"? More or less.
The title is indeed tasteless, in my view, yes. But, like Miller, you too like the expression Steiner's epistemology, and are still able to write very insightful essays, so one more reason why (on top of all else I wrote!) you are not allowed to conclude that, just because I consider Miller's choice of title tasteless, I also consider his article dissonant with PoF.

Great, so there was no basis whatsoever for your conclusion that the article was unhelpful for someone struggling with PoF, but as usual, you just like to argue with me and be contrarian in some way. This happens practically every time I introduce new ideas or thinkers, like an instinctive reaction. I hope you try to pay attention to this the next time you feel it bubbling up. Why does what you consider 'tasteless' need to be shared with us? Anyway, it doesn't matter.

Speaking of beauty and spiritual art, and trying to redeem this discussion, I would like to draw attention to this fantastic book by Van James. I have been slowly working through the chapters, which retrace the spiritual context of artistic development from modern times, and it has been tremendously helpful. I can feel a concrete influence on the etheric body through the aesthetic, reverential, and devotional approach. As usual, for such works to properly bear fruits, we need to try hard to leave our personal opinions and sensibilities at the door and develop an objective resonance with the intuitive movements expressed through the author and the artistic works.

https://a.co/d/cRjQUAL

“As an art student in the late sixties, I recall how painfully dry and intellectual my art history classes were. I thought to myself, or rather felt to myself, ‘There must be something more’” ―Van James

Artist Van James offers that something more. This is a richly readable and lavishly illustrated text that reveals how, at every stage, human consciousness has evolved through the medium of art. It makes the case for a hidden stream that has put forth art works and art movements throughout history, in an ongoing visible revelation of invisible spiritual currents.

Art, originally a part of the secret Mystery cults of the ancient world, has become an expression of the individual creative intuition. At every stage, Albert Einstein’s comment applies: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”

The only drawback is that the pictures in my paperback copy are not colored, so I have been using my computer, tablet, or phone to look up the referenced works for a better image while working through the book.

I have given the basis with specific passages, but good that you don't insist to "have a discussion" about it anymore.
Each of us knows where goodwill, fairness, and truth lie and where they lack. That's sufficient.
Is the book more like a gallery or is there substantial text elaboration?

[AshvinP]

Is the book more like a gallery or is there substantial text elaboration?

Yes it is completely text elaboration with the relevant artworks referenced off to the side, except for maybe a few bigger ones.

[Federica]

... 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.

To be fair, SM expresses this point very well (but too late in the article, in my opinion) at page 11, when he brings in the hard problem of consciousness and criticizes the materialists' attempt to explain cognition with brain: “cognition is not a result, but rather is the living process out of which all the results fall”.

Unfortunately, in the next passage, the previous pieces are not clearly put into fruition, but rather the reasoning is troubled with the idea that one has to find “the beginning”: ““The brain” – as concept – does not declare itself, out of itself, the necessity for cognition. “The brain” is rather a passive element of the given, equivalent in this way to “a truck” or “the self” – none of these can provide a proper foundation for cognition, no matter how detailed and thorough the concept of “the brain” becomes. The whole point is to not begin in the middle, but at the beginning. In this respect the “brain” – which is only what it is because of how we approach it in and through our cognition – cannot be a proper foundation, as it is ‘in the middle’ as it were.”

Yes, the concept “brain” can’t be a foundation, but the same applies to “epistemology”. And this idea to strive to begin at the beginning seems misleading to me, to the extent that it suggests linearity and sequence, while the ingrained cognitive patterns of linearity should be made flexible, not borrowed as such, since they are right in the middle of our existential struggles. 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?

The way Steiner puts it, in PoF Chapter V, avoids all such conceptual ruggedness and is more conducive to understanding, in my view, as in “if I want to assert anything whatever about it [the percept], I can do so only with the help of thinking. If I assert that the world is my mental picture, I have enunciated the result of an act of thinking. And if my thinking is not applicable to the world, then this result is false. Between a percept and every kind of assertion about it there intervenes thinking” and subsequent sentences, where the question is illustrated: “What right have you to declare the world to be complete without thinking?”

On the contrary, statements like SM’s run a big risk of putting whoever has not already reflected on, and worked through, “Steiner’s epistemology” in a state of frustrating confusion. In my view, the only idea of beginning that is meaningful in relation to “Steiner's epistemology” is the beginning of one’s conscious coexistence with these ideas: the moment one learns about and begins to approach a book such as PoF. Other than that, I don't think there is a useful way to break down what follows that beginning, in smarter cognitive sequences.

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.

In way of corollary to what I have written in the Inner Space Stretching Part 2: Spacetime Flow thread, I would like to add a note relevant to this thread, since I previously said (in the quote above) that I considered the essay title "Steiner's epistemology" tasteless.

Here in the Spacetime Flow thread, I have concluded with the idea that in holistic consciousness, the whole of knowledge - rather than a supposedly specific subpart of it stamped with the label “epistemology” - is recognized as “epistemological” in essence. Based on this premise, I would like to further substantiate my sense that - since word-symbols, like mathematical symbols, are artistic expressions of concrete, experienced reality - using with initiative the word “epistemology” as symbolic pointer (artistic expression) to pedagogical communications within the holistic worldview (such as for example the communications expressed in Cleric's Spacetime Flow essay, or the ones in Steiner's PoF) would be a rather inadequate choice.

Different is the case in which the word “epistemology” is used not to initiate or title an essay, but with the primary intent to facilitate communication and refer to previous specific uses of the word, for practical reasons. This is somewhat similar to what - in Cleric's above linked essay - is said about the distinction between "inner" and "outer" experience. It is signified that there is no hard boundary between the two, however, because of the ‘state of affairs’ of modern cognition, it is said that the use of the two expressions will be maintained. In a similar way, I say that, in reality, there is no hard boundary between “epistemology” and the whole of knowledge. However, because of the current state of affairs of human cognition, the use of the word “epistemology” may still be appropriate for the time being, for the practical purposes of efficacious communication, in certain contexts. It should therefore be maintained. Nonetheless, using this word-symbol independently and with initiative, for example to title a new essay, promotes past-oriented linguistic habits and is, in my opinion, artistically questionable, or tasteless. I believe it is for this reason that neither Steiner or Cleric ever titled or epitomized their writings as "epistemologies" other than for the above-mentioned purposes of practical communication.

[AshvinP]

"I believe it is for this reason that neither Steiner or Cleric ever titled or epitomized their writings as "epistemologies" other than for the above-mentioned purposes of practical communication."

Just for the sake of accuracy, this isn't necessarily the case. GA 2 is called 'The Science of Knowing', which is practically synonymous with "epistemology". In the preface, he writes:

In the course of this work I pursued Goethe's cognitive life in all the areas in which he was active. It became increasingly clear to me, right down into the details, that my own view brought me into the epistemology implicit in the Goethean world view. And so I wrote this present epistemology during my work on Goethe's natural-scientific writings.

Was his copious use of the word "epistemology" in early writings (and some later lectures like GA 52 Lecture V-VII - The Epistemological Basis of Theosophy) for the purpose of practical communication? Of course, and I don't know what other purpose there could possibly be.

But I won't be commenting further, because discussing what any particular person finds 'tasteless' in the titling of essays 'with initiative', no matter how well-intentioned or rationally justified, seems incapable of stimulating inner development even under the best of circumstances, more likely to reinforce past-oriented etched habits.

[Federica]

I am seeing quite a few last gasps of the decading, old-world concept of "epistemology". Working on it - I will come to that. Man cannot evolve unless a whole range of old-world concepts - "epistemology" in the lead - are actively made to wane, in thought and in language.

[Federica]

Said more simply: because what we know limits our knowing, the greatest danger for epistemology is what we already know. A central task for epistemology today is for it to become more awake to higher-order processes already at work within it. It must reverse (and re-verse) its direction, focusing not primarily on what it is possible to know (a first-order epistemology), but on the process of knowing itself (a second-order epistemology), which strangely means to engage in a process of unknowing.

Hasn't a focus on the process of knowing itself been what "epistemology" has always been about? I don't agree that a process of unknowing has to be engaged. Unknowing what was previously known evoques remaining on the same plane, working through comparable magnitudes, whilst "epistemology" as a concept simply falls away once a higher order perspective is integrated, because it melts continuously into higher knowledge and becomes devoid of meaning.

[AshvinP]

Said more simply: because what we know limits our knowing, the greatest danger for epistemology is what we already know. A central task for epistemology today is for it to become more awake to higher-order processes already at work within it. It must reverse (and re-verse) its direction, focusing not primarily on what it is possible to know (a first-order epistemology), but on the process of knowing itself (a second-order epistemology), which strangely means to engage in a process of unknowing.

Hasn't a focus on the process of knowing itself been what "epistemology" has always been about? I don't agree that a process of unknowing has to be engaged. Unknowing what was previously known evoques remaining on the same plane, working through comparable magnitudes, whilst "epistemology" as a concept simply falls away once a higher order perspective is integrated, because it melts continuously into higher knowledge and becomes devoid of meaning.

Epistemology has traditionally focused on what can be known about the World. Lossky thoroughly explored the various manifestations of this line of inquiry in the modern age. All of it culminates in Kant, who also skipped over the question of what it means 'to know' and simply imported the assumption of the rationalists and empiricists on that question, i.e. that knowledge is a process by which the 'subject' attempts to reproduce the object of its knowing within itself through mental pictures. With this implicit assumption, it was concluded that knowledge of the 'reality itself' was impossible because the subject only knows its own tissue of mental pictures and can never get beyond them. That is all first-order epistemology because it assumes it already knows what "knowledge" is, the process of knowing, and simply asks whether knowledge of the 'real World' is possible. It continues using the tissue of mental pictures to answer this question, and to speculate on all other existential questions, even when it concludes that no 'real knowledge' is possible in that way.

Second-order epistemology, on the other hand, first focuses on what it means 'to know' and seeks to avoid importing assumptions about that knowing process, like the assumption that knowing would be a duplication of the objective 'reality-itself' in the subject's mental pictures, a correspondence between the latter and the former. But if we truly examine the nature of such implicit assumptions, we have to admit they are deeply ingrained in our psyche and simply being aware of them at the conceptual level doesn't guarantee we avoid it (or even make it likely we do). If we pay close attention to our daily experience, the way we think about the objects around us, the way we interact with other people, and so forth, it becomes clear that every interaction with our environment generally conditions us to think through the lens of this assumption. It stems from the fact that we only feel to be intuitively and causally united with our flow of thoughts, while the rest of perceptual experience confronts us as more or less unrelated to our intentional activity. 

"Blessed are the poor in Spirit..." - this is what is meant by 'unknowing'. It is about humbly shining a light on all our inherited philosophical assumptions, especially the one mentioned above, that condition our exploration and expectations of inner realities, i.e. the capacities of sensing, thinking, feeling, and willing. We indeed need to voluntarily forget what we think we know about 'how reality works', 'what knowledge is', 'what my thinking is', 'what perceptions are', and so forth. All of this accumulated 'knowledge' acts as deadwood that obstructs the truthful flow of living spiritual experience. It's not about simply stating that we are free of the deadwood, but gradually cultivating the inner disposition to relax such ingrained habits and assumptions through the cathartic process, by continually living through the intuitive movements that purify our soul of its etched mental pathways. 

In PoF, for example, Steiner leads us through all the archetypal expressions of modern thinking habits - materialism, dualism, critical idealism, utilitarianism, pessimism, etc. He doesn't simply list these philosophies and tell us they are invalid via discursive reasoning, but he adopts their soul perspectives, presents the reasoning that flows from such perspectives, and brings us into contact with the inner psychic constraints that shape these modes of reasoning. We discover these constraints not as perceptual contents of the text but within ourselves and learn to 'unknow' them by cathartically living through those inner movements (probably many times). If we aren't willing to entertain that these constraints already live within our real-time intuitive being, the cathartic process won't work.

That purification is simultaneously a means of higher knowledge, as the intuitive light of the Spirit then flows more freely through our thoughts without these constraints. The thoughts begin to condense more naturally as mirrored expressions of our intuitive context when we investigate the World process, pointing right back at our invisible intuitive be-ing and its inner rhythms, instead of being diverted into all sorts of intellectual overlays, various opinions and externalizations. We become more sensitive in this way to the intuitive forces concealed within our mental images. This 'science of unknowing' can also be linked back to Nicolas of Cusa, as Steiner discussed in various places. It still remains a critical process to engage in modern initiation. 

We can follow this in the case of a single individuality: Nicolaus Cusanus (1401-1464). The mere reading of his works—and one can do much more than read—shows clearly that he combined a most penetrating spiritual vision with knowledge of outer Nature, especially where this knowledge is clothed in mathematical forms. And because he perceived how difficult this was, in an age moving more and more towards external learning, he entitled his work, with epoch-making humility, Docta Ignorantia, “Learned Ignorante.” He did not of course mean to imply that he was himself an utter dunce, but that what he had to say was above the level of what was going to develop as mere external learning. To use a prefix much in vogue nowadays, we may say: this “Learned Ignorance” is a “super”-learnedness. 

As for the verbal symbol of "epistemology", we have already discussed that and you know my position I am fine remaining within Steiner's tradition of using that concept and leveraging it as a bridge from modern philosophical-scientific thinking that most people are familiar with, even simply by living in modern culture, to spiritual scientific thinking. If someone prefers a different concept to anchor the intuition of engaging in a 'science of knowing', like 'phenomenology of spiritual activity' or something else, that's fine as well. It doesn't matter at all what concepts we use as long as we end up swimming in the main channel of shared intuitive movements.

[Federica]

Hasn't a focus on the process of knowing itself been what "epistemology" has always been about? I don't agree that a process of unknowing has to be engaged. Unknowing what was previously known evoques remaining on the same plane, working through comparable magnitudes, whilst "epistemology" as a concept simply falls away once a higher order perspective is integrated, because it melts continuously into higher knowledge and becomes devoid of meaning.

Epistemology has traditionally focused on what can be known about the World. Lossky thoroughly explored the various manifestations of this line of inquiry in the modern age. All of it culminates in Kant, who also skipped over the question of what it means 'to know' and simply imported the assumption of the rationalists and empiricists on that question, i.e. that knowledge is a process by which the 'subject' attempts to reproduce the object of its knowing within itself through mental pictures. With this implicit assumption, it was concluded that knowledge of the 'reality itself' was impossible because the subject only knows its own tissue of mental pictures and can never get beyond them. That is all first-order epistemology because it assumes it already knows what "knowledge" is, the process of knowing, and simply asks whether knowledge of the 'real World' is possible. It continues using the tissue of mental pictures to answer this question, and to speculate on all other existential questions, even when it concludes that no 'real knowledge' is possible in that way.

Second-order epistemology, on the other hand, first focuses on what it means 'to know' and seeks to avoid importing assumptions about that knowing process, like the assumption that knowing would be a duplication of the objective 'reality-itself' in the subject's mental pictures, a correspondence between the latter and the former. But if we truly examine the nature of such implicit assumptions, we have to admit they are deeply ingrained in our psyche and simply being aware of them at the conceptual level doesn't guarantee we avoid it (or even make it likely we do). If we pay close attention to our daily experience, the way we think about the objects around us, the way we interact with other people, and so forth, it becomes clear that every interaction with our environment generally conditions us to think through the lens of this assumption. It stems from the fact that we only feel to be intuitively and causally united with our flow of thoughts, while the rest of perceptual experience confronts us as more or less unrelated to our intentional activity. 

"Blessed are the poor in Spirit..." - this is what is meant by 'unknowing'. It is about humbly shining a light on all our inherited philosophical assumptions, especially the one mentioned above, that condition our exploration and expectations of inner realities, i.e. the capacities of sensing, thinking, feeling, and willing. We indeed need to voluntarily forget what we think we know about 'how reality works', 'what knowledge is', 'what my thinking is', 'what perceptions are', and so forth. All of this accumulated 'knowledge' acts as deadwood that obstructs the truthful flow of living spiritual experience. It's not about simply stating that we are free of the deadwood, but gradually cultivating the inner disposition to relax such ingrained habits and assumptions through the cathartic process, by continually living through the intuitive movements that purify our soul of its etched mental pathways. 

In PoF, for example, Steiner leads us through all the archetypal expressions of modern thinking habits - materialism, dualism, critical idealism, utilitarianism, pessimism, etc. He doesn't simply list these philosophies and tell us they are invalid via discursive reasoning, but he adopts their soul perspectives, presents the reasoning that flows from such perspectives, and brings us into contact with the inner psychic constraints that shape these modes of reasoning. We discover these constraints not as perceptual contents of the text but within ourselves and learn to 'unknow' them by cathartically living through those inner movements (probably many times). If we aren't willing to entertain that these constraints already live within our real-time intuitive being, the cathartic process won't work.

That purification is simultaneously a means of higher knowledge, as the intuitive light of the Spirit then flows more freely through our thoughts without these constraints. The thoughts begin to condense more naturally as mirrored expressions of our intuitive context when we investigate the World process, pointing right back at our invisible intuitive be-ing and its inner rhythms, instead of being diverted into all sorts of intellectual overlays, various opinions and externalizations. We become more sensitive in this way to the intuitive forces concealed within our mental images. This 'science of unknowing' can also be linked back to Nicolas of Cusa, as Steiner discussed in various places. It still remains a critical process to engage in modern initiation. 

We can follow this in the case of a single individuality: Nicolaus Cusanus (1401-1464). The mere reading of his works—and one can do much more than read—shows clearly that he combined a most penetrating spiritual vision with knowledge of outer Nature, especially where this knowledge is clothed in mathematical forms. And because he perceived how difficult this was, in an age moving more and more towards external learning, he entitled his work, with epoch-making humility, Docta Ignorantia, “Learned Ignorante.” He did not of course mean to imply that he was himself an utter dunce, but that what he had to say was above the level of what was going to develop as mere external learning. To use a prefix much in vogue nowadays, we may say: this “Learned Ignorance” is a “super”-learnedness. 

As for the verbal symbol of "epistemology", we have already discussed that and you know my position I am fine remaining within Steiner's tradition of using that concept and leveraging it as a bridge from modern philosophical-scientific thinking that most people are familiar with, even simply by living in modern culture, to spiritual scientific thinking. If someone prefers a different concept to anchor the intuition of engaging in a 'science of knowing', like 'phenomenology of spiritual activity' or something else, that's fine as well. It doesn't matter at all what concepts we use as long as we end up swimming in the main channel of shared intuitive movements.

Thanks, Ashvin, for this reformulation of the essence of the intuitive path at the core of your reply. I think this particular reformulation is very effectively condensed and powerfully conveyed, in your classic style at its best. This is for the center of your page. Regarding its two edges, I have some more to add.


Top edge - what epistemology is. Definitely, I am largely ignorant of philosophical works - I never read anything by Kant, for example, other than short school excerpts, and it's more or less the same for all original foundational works of philosophy. I know you are much more knowledgeable in philosophy than I will ever be. However, it seems to me that even from fragmentary grasp of what modern consciousness has done and is doing with epistemology - its own creation, this is a modern concept - from the grasp I get reading theoria press, for example, or the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, it is clear that epistemology has had, and still has, the ambition to examine the nature and origin of knowledge, and not only its limits. But here you are reducing what epistemology has meant and means today in modern philosophy to Kantian dualism? Now, it seems to me that the nature and origin of knowledge clearly tie into the process of knowledge - how we know, not only what we can know (limits of knowledge and the Kantian dualism). Naturally the point is - and has always been - how we approach the “how we know”, how this examination is endeavored. This is the sense in which my initial question should be intended. And in this sense, I think that the SM quote suggests (I say "suggest" because I am not aware of the larger context of that quote) either a fallacy of linear approach to what the process of epistemology is, or should be, or second-order epistemology - fallacy that I have attempted to describe in this post - or, if not that, it suggests at least a sort of linguistic steamrolling, or lack of linguistic sensitivity (again).


Bottom edge - first about Nicolas of Cusa and Steiner’s related comment, which is the only thing I am relying on, since I haven’t read this author at all. Steiner says Nicolas of Cusa meant “that what he had to say was above the level of what was going to develop as mere external learning”. That’s precisely what I've said, that the spiritual scientist doesn’t work on the "same plane", and across the "same magnitudes" as in standard cognition. Therefore, he doesn't have to un-learn, or un-know anything. By the way, “docta ignorantia” means quite the opposite to “unknowing”. Un-knowing means going backward along a previously engaged thread. We can think of my grandma undoing her knitted piece of fabric and rolling up the yarn again. Contrast that to "docta ignorantia". This is the Socratic mindset of knowing to not know. It means being aware (docta) that external learning by itself doesn’t lead to deep understanding of reality. And so the starting point from not knowing (ignorantia) is made conscious. As you can see, there is nothing at all to unknow here. Ignorantia is very different from unknowing. Language sensitivity needs to be put at work here. The mystic wants to unknow. The spiritual scientist doesn’t.

And now about that: “I am fine remaining within Steiner's tradition of using that concept and leveraging it as a bridge from modern philosophical-scientific thinking that most people are familiar with, even simply by living in modern culture, to spiritual scientific thinking.” Of course, I am not letting you get away with such a statement When you state that there is a tradition in Steiner of using the concept of epistemology - which is strikingly not true - you are succumbing to something that you should have resisted instead. And I don't thnk we have “already discussed that” thoroughly. Rather, you have regularly reaffirmed your preference for this concept-symbol, while consistently omitting to respond to, or comment on, the FACT I have multiple times brought forth, that, in the work that you would call (correct me if I'm wrong) Steiner’s main epistemological work (PoF) the word “epistemology”(Erkenntnistheorie) is strictly avoided - apart when he cited Kant's and von Hartmann's works, of course. It is my strong belief that Steiner did that not by chance, but with a very particular intent. This should be obvious enough, but apparently not for you at this point. Let’s see if, this time again, you will un-see this note.

For my part, while I admit some antipathy for certain linguistic habits and hollowed-out linguistic intentions, I don’t have any antipathy for the word “epistemology”. In its short history, it has played quite a cardinal, intense role. However - as I said before - using it today with reference to Steiner and with reference to the future demonstrates a lack of linguistic sensitivity, which I do find cues of in Seth Miller's linguistic choices, based on the little I have read. As we have seen, you have clearly disliked these observations I made, thus attaching yourself more tightly to “epistemology”. That there is a share of parti pris in that, is clear when we notice that you have been insisting that my intuition was due to “etched soul pathways”, only to later renamed it "a great journey through our modern epistemic movements", after Cleric said it made perfect sense to him. And here you've been pulled back again towards your initial antipathy, so that you couldn't help making up a "Steiner tradition" of using the concept of epistemology. Still, I don't think this is too serious (and I am glad your email address is not spiritself-at-gmail.com). It's only that you strongly dislike my approach. And I admit that part of that is due to me not being very good (to say the least) at rounding the edges of my posts. Of course, there are some elastic movements at work there as well.

Anyway, I think this discussion is only at its beginning. As I said, I am thinking about not only epistemology, but language in general, and will post more about all that. Unless you unfollow it of course, I hope we'll have a positive discussion on the process of spiritualization of language. I think the crux of the question is that we need to pay much more focused attention to language and develop an accrued sensitivity to it. I remember you also recently noticed that in another context, and I think you were right.

[AshvinP]

Thanks, Ashvin, for this reformulation of the essence of the intuitive path at the core of your reply. I think this particular reformulation is very effectively condensed and powerfully conveyed, in your classic style at its best. This is for the center of your page. Regarding its two edges, I have some more to add.


Top edge - what epistemology is. Definitely, I am largely ignorant of philosophical works - I never read anything by Kant, for example, other than short school excerpts, and it's more or less the same for all original foundational works of philosophy. I know you are much more knowledgeable in philosophy than I will ever be. However, it seems to me that even from fragmentary grasp of what modern consciousness has done and is doing with epistemology - its own creation, this is a modern concept - from the grasp I get reading theoria press, for example, or the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, it is clear that epistemology has had, and still has, the ambition to examine the nature and origin of knowledge, and not only its limits. But here you are reducing what epistemology has meant and means today in modern philosophy to Kantian dualism? Now, it seems to me that the nature and origin of knowledge clearly tie into the process of knowledge - how we know, not only what we can know (limits of knowledge and the Kantian dualism). Naturally the point is - and has always been - how we approach the “how we know”, how this examination is endeavored. This is the sense in which my initial question should be intended. And in this sense, I think that the SM quote suggests (I say "suggest" because I am not aware of the larger context of that quote) either a fallacy of linear approach to what the process of epistemology is, or should be, or second-order epistemology - fallacy that I have attempted to describe in this post - or, if not that, it suggests at least a sort of linguistic steamrolling, or lack of linguistic sensitivity (again).

Yes, as usual, history is weaved of remarkable individualities who provide an overarching ideal context in which others work out their ideas. Kant was one such individuality in the field of epistemology who set the standard for all who came after. Your original question, according to what you say above, simply lacks the context to evaluate SM's distinction of first- and second-order epistemology (both the philosophical context and the context of SM's thesis). By the way, this exact same distinction is made in Steiner's early works (GA 1-4), which, despite what you may wish, still exist as historical documents and were explicitly rooted by him in the tradition of "epistemology"

Kant believed that philosophy before him had taken wrong paths because it strove for knowledge of the being of things without first asking itself how such a knowledge might be possible. He saw what was fundamentally wrong with all philosophizing before him to lie in the fact that one reflected upon the nature of the object to be known before one had examined the activity of knowing itself, with regard to what it could do. He therefore took this latter examination as his basic philosophical problem and inaugurated thereby a new direction in thought. Since then the philosophy that has based itself on Kant has expended untold scientific force in answering this question; and today more than ever, one is seeking in philosophical circles to come closer to accomplishing this task. But epistemology, which at the present time has become nothing less than the question of the day, is supposedly nothing other than the detailed answer to the question: How is knowledge possible? Applied to Goethe the question would read: How did Goethe conceive of the possibility of knowledge?

Upon closer examination, however, the fact emerges that the answering of this question may absolutely not be placed at the forefront of epistemology. If I ask about the possibility of a thing, then I must first have examined this thing beforehand. But what if the concept of knowledge that Kant and his followers have, and about which they ask if it is possible or not, proved to be totally untenable; what if this con cognitive process were something entirely different from that defined by Kant? Then all that work would have been for nothing. Kant accepted the customary concept of what knowing is and asked if it were possible. According to this concept, knowing is supposed to consist in making a copy of the real conditions that stand outside our consciousness and exist in-themselves. But one will be able to make nothing out of the possibility of knowledge until one has answered the question as to the what of knowing itself. The question: What is knowing? thereby becomes the primary one for epistemology. With respect to Goethe, therefore, it will be our task to show what Goethe pictured knowing to be.

Bottom edge - first about Nicolas of Cusa and Steiner’s related comment, which is the only thing I am relying on, since I haven’t read this author at all. Steiner says Nicolas of Cusa meant “that what he had to say was above the level of what was going to develop as mere external learning”. That’s precisely what I've said, that the spiritual scientist doesn’t work on the "same plane", and across the "same magnitudes" as in standard cognition. Therefore, he doesn't have to un-learn, or un-know anything. By the way, “docta ignorantia” means quite the opposite to “unknowing”. Un-knowing means going backward along a previously engaged thread. We can think of my grandma undoing her knitted piece of fabric and rolling up the yarn again. Contrast that to "docta ignorantia". This is the Socratic mindset of knowing to not know. It means being aware (docta) that external learning by itself doesn’t lead to deep understanding of reality. And so the starting point from not knowing (ignorantia) is made conscious. As you can see, there is nothing at all to unknow here. Ignorantia is very different from unknowing. Language sensitivity needs to be put at work here. The mystic wants to unknow. The spiritual scientist doesn’t.

If you can see how 'unknowing' can be intended to mean the same thing as what I elucidated in the "center of my page", what Steiner/Cusa meant by docta ignorantia, and what you mean by "knowing to not know", that's good enough. That is exactly how SM intended it. (we can also see how what is below aligns exactly with what Cleric illustrated in his fictional dialogue post and his last post re: expectations about how we imagine the unexpected will arrive)

A second-order epistemology meets its boundary also by virtue of what is not known, but in addition it values the unknowing as an active and potentially transformative process. What for the first-order epistemology is only a potential new content is for the second-order epistemology a potential new way of being. This is a higher-order content, and is not simply “out there” to be discovered but must be enacted to exist; it must be brought into being. The unknowing is thus taken to be an invitation, a doorway, and instead of taking the unknown and making it known through the same epistemological patterns, it opens the door to more unknowing.





Enacting a second-order epistemology is to allow one’s way of knowing to change, not just the content of what is known. Unknowing is thus valued as a transformative agent, as a source of not only new knowledge but new ways of living forward. For a second-order epistemology, unknowing is a feature to be actively worked with, even developed, rather than a bug to be squashed. Said another way, a linear epistemology does not know that it does not know, while a recursive epistemology does, and makes of this something new of itself.

And now about that: “I am fine remaining within Steiner's tradition of using that concept and leveraging it as a bridge from modern philosophical-scientific thinking that most people are familiar with, even simply by living in modern culture, to spiritual scientific thinking.” Of course, I am not letting you get away with such a statement When you state that there is a tradition in Steiner of using the concept of epistemology - which is strikingly not true - you are succumbing to something that you should have resisted instead. And I don't thnk we have “already discussed that” thoroughly. Rather, you have regularly reaffirmed your preference for this concept-symbol, while consistently omitting to respond to, or comment on, the FACT I have multiple times brought forth, that, in the work that you would call (correct me if I'm wrong) Steiner’s main epistemological work (PoF) the word “epistemology”(Erkenntnistheorie) is strictly avoided - apart when he cited Kant's and von Hartmann's works, of course. It is my strong belief that Steiner did that not by chance, but with a very particular intent. This should be obvious enough, but apparently not for you at this point. Let’s see if, this time again, you will un-see this note.

His main epistemological works are GA 1-4 combined. I also referenced a series of lectures GA 52 called "The Epistemological Basis of Theosophy". It is no coincidence that so many later Anthroposophists also characterize Steiner's early work as epistemology. Were they all linguistically insensitive? Perhaps, but who cares? The question is always whether we can fruitfully engage with their intuitive movements and thereby become sensitive to our own inner Logos structure.

It is not the purpose of epistemology to make us conscious of what we are doing in any case, regardless of whether we are aware of it or not. To the extent epistemology does this, it is an a posteriori descriptive science, just as logic and linguistics are. Such description can at most serve as a preparation. The purpose of epistemology, rather, is to show that cognition is of a supersensible nature, that its nature is I-like. Moreover, epistemology leads us back to the sources of the given mode of cognition: from there, we can consciously continue our cognitive path for ourselves. In addition, epistemology also indicates where and how we can begin this continuation.

The kind of cognition that is given to us may be enhanced by conscious work. This is a new element in the evolution of humanity, particularly since such conscious development is not reserved for a few chosen people but is available for everybody.

Every stage of cognitive life has its own epistemology.73 This must be given from a higher level through “insight” into the phase that is to be described—otherwise epistemology will end up as fruitless speculation. With insight from above, the description can be formed in such a way that we can understand it through thought-intuition, through the intuitive formation of new concepts. This can be done even without first having to raise our consciousness to a new level. The intuitions needed for this prepare the conscious work needed to raise our cognitive life to a higher level.

Epistemology then serves as “study” for the cognitive path.74 That is why this book ends with chapters on meditation. These chapters were intended to show how a cognitive path, in the sense of spiritual science, can heal our unhealthy cognizing and develop it organically. This path, given to us as a possibility, is a heightening of cognition.

Kühlewind, Georg. The Logos-Structure of the World . Lindisfarne Books. Kindle Edition.

I hope we'll have a positive discussion on the process of spiritualization of language. I think the crux of the question is that we need to pay much more focused attention to language and develop an accrued sensitivity to it. I remember you also recently noticed that in another context, and I think you were right.

The spiritualization of language comes precisely through our imaginative ability to work with widely differing concepts, across many different fields of inquiry, to triangulate shared spiritual intuitions and thereby transform our cognitive organization. Every word-symbol becomes a portal for us into deeper intuitive movements and thereby becomes beautiful for and through us. Language is naturally redeemed through our inner development, not artificially legislated away by our personal opinions and sensitivities.