PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
This study of the theory of
knowledge implicit in Goethe's world-conception was written in the
middle of the decade 1880-'90. My mind was then vitally engaged
in two activities of thought. One was directed toward the creative
work of Goethe, and strove to formulate the view of life and of the
world which revealed itself as the impelling force in this creative
work. The completely and purely human seemed to me to be dominant in
everything that Goethe gave to the world in creative work, in
reflection, and in his life. Nowhere in the modern age did that
inner assurance, harmonious completeness, and sense of reality in
relation to the world seem to me to be as fully represented as in
Goethe. From this thought there necessarily arose the
recognition of the fact that the manner, likewise, in which
Goethe comported himself in the act of cognition is that which issues
out of the very nature of man and of the world.
In another direction my thought was
vitally absorbed in the philosophical conceptions prevalent at that
time regarding the essential nature of knowledge. In these
conceptions, knowledge threatened to become sealed up within the
being of man himself. The brilliant philosopher
Otto Liebmann had
asserted that human consciousness cannot pass beyond itself; that it
must remain within itself. Whatever exists, as the true
reality, beyond that world which consciousness forms within itself
— of this it can know nothing. In brilliant writings
Otto Liebmann
elaborated this thought with respect to the most
varied aspects of the realm of human experience. Johannes
Volkelt had written his thoughtful books dealing
with Kant's theory of knowledge and with
Experience and Thought.
He saw in the world as given to man only a combination of representations
[Vorstellungen,
single concepts corresponding to single percepts.]
based upon the relationship of
man to a world in itself unknown. He admitted, to be sure, that an
inevitability manifests itself in our inner experience of thinking
when this lays hold in the realm of representations. When engaged in
the activity of thinking, we have the sense, in a manner, of forcing
our way through the world of representations into the world of
reality. But what is gained thereby? We might for this reason feel
justified, during the process of thinking, in forming judgments
concerning the world of reality; but in such judgments we remain
wholly within man himself; nothing of the nature of the world
penetrates therein.
Eduard von Hartmann, whose philosophy had been of
great service to me, in spite of the fact that I could not admit its
fundamental presuppositions or conclusions, occupied exactly
the same point of view in regard to the theory of knowledge set forth
exhaustively by Volkelt.
There was
everywhere manifest the confession that human knowledge arrives at
certain barriers beyond which it cannot pass into the realm of
genuine reality.
In opposition to
all this stood in my case the fact, inwardly experienced and known in
experience, that human thinking, when it reaches a sufficient depth,
lives within the reality of the world as a spiritual reality. I
believed that I possessed this knowledge in a form which can exist in
consciousness with the same clarity that characterizes mathematical
knowledge.
In the presence of this knowledge, it
is impossible to sustain the opinion that there are such boundaries
of cognition as were supposed to be established by the course of
reasoning to which I have referred.
In reference to
all this, I was somewhat inclined toward the theory of evolution then
in its flower. In Haeckel this theory had assumed forms in which no
consideration whatever could be given to the self-existent being and
action of the spiritual. The later and more perfect was supposed to
arise in the course of time out of the earlier, the undeveloped. This
was evident to me as regards the external reality of the senses, but
I was too well aware of the self-existent spiritual, resting upon its
own foundation, independent of the sensible, to yield the argument to
the external world of the senses. But the problem was how to lay a
bridge from this world to the world of the spirit.
In the time
sequence, as thought out on the basis of the senses, the spiritual in
man appears to have evolved out of the antecedent non-spiritual. But
the sensible, when rightly conceived, manifests itself
everywhere as a revelation of the spiritual. In the light of this
true knowledge of the sensible, I saw clearly that “boundaries
of knowledge,” as then defined, could be admitted only by
one who, when brought into contact with this sensible, deals with it
like a man who should look at a printed page and, fixing his
attention upon the forms of the letters alone without any idea of
reading, should declare that it is impossible to know what lies
behind these forms.
Thus my look was guided along the
path from sense-observation to the spiritual, which was firmly
established in my inner experiential knowledge. Behind the sensible
phenomena, I sought, not for a non-spiritual world of atoms, but for
the spiritual, which appears to reveal itself within man himself, but
which in reality inheres in the objects and processes of the
sense-world itself. Because of man's attitude in the act of knowing,
it appears as if the thoughts of things were within man, whereas in
reality they hold sway within the things themselves. It is
necessary for man, in experiencing the apparent,
[in einem Schein-Erleben]
to separate thoughts from things; but, in a true experience of
knowledge, he restores them again to things.
The evolution of
the world is thus to be understood in such fashion that the
antecedent non-spiritual, out of which the succeeding
spirituality of man unfolds, possesses also a spiritual beside itself
and outside itself. The later spirit-permeated sensible, amid
which man appears, comes to pass by reason of the fact that the
spiritual progenitor of man unites with imperfect, non-spiritual
forms, and, having transformed these, then appears in sensible
forms.
This course of
thought led me beyond the contemporary theorists of knowledge, even
though I fully recognized their acumen and their sense of scientific
responsibility. It led me to Goethe.
I am impelled to
look back from the present to my inner struggle at that time.
It was no easy matter for me to advance beyond the course of
reasoning characterizing contemporary philosophies. But my
guiding star was always the self-substantiating recognition of the
fact that it is possible for man to behold himself inwardly as
spirit, independent of the body and dwelling in a world of
spirit.
Prior to my work dealing with
Goethe's scientific writings and before the preparation of this
theory of knowledge, I had written a brief paper on atomism, which
was never printed. This was conceived in the direction here
indicated. I cannot but recall what pleasure I experienced
when Friedrich Theodor Vischer, to whom I sent that
paper, wrote me some words of approval.
But in my Goethe
studies it became clear to me that my way of thinking led to a
perception of the character of the knowledge which is manifest
everywhere in Goethe's creative work and in his attitude toward the
world. I perceived that my point of view afforded me a theory of
knowledge which was that belonging to Goethe's world-conception.
During the 'eighties of the last
century I was invited through the influence of Karl Julius
Schröer,
my teacher and fatherly friend, to whom I am deeply
indebted, to prepare the introductions to Goethe's scientific
writings for the Kürschner
National-Literatur, and to edit these
writings. During the progress of this work, I traced the course of
Goethe's intellectual life in all the fields with which he was
occupied. It became constantly clearer to me in detail that my own
perception placed me within that theory of knowledge belonging to
Goethe's world-conception. Thus it was that I wrote this theory of
knowledge in the course of the work I have mentioned.
Now that I again
turn my attention to it, it seems to me to be also the foundation and
justification, as a theory of knowledge, for all that I have
since asserted orally or in print. It speaks of an essential nature
of knowledge which opens the way from the sense world to a world of
spirit.
It may seem strange that this
youthful production, written nearly forty years ago, should now be
published again, unaltered and expanded only by means of notes.
In the manner of its presentation, it bears the marks of a kind of
thinking which had entered vitally into the philosophy of that time,
forty years ago. Were I writing the book now, I should express many
things differently. But the essential nature of knowledge I could not
set forth in any different light. Moreover, what I might write now
could not convey so truly within itself the germ of the spiritual
world-conception for which I stand. In such germinal fashion one can
write only at the beginning of one's intellectual life. For this
reason, it may be well that this youthful production should again
appear in unaltered form. The theories of knowledge existing at
the time of its composition have found their sequel in later theories
of knowledge. What I have to say in regard to these I have said in my
book
Die Rätsel der Philosophie.
[The Riddles of Philosophy
— not yet translated into English]
This also will be issued in a new edition at the same time by the
same publishers. That which I outlined many years ago as the theory
of knowledge implicit in Goethe's world-conception seems to me
just as necessary to be said now as it was forty years ago.
Rudolf Steiner
The Goetheanum, Dornach bei Basel,
Switzerland, November 1923
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