Riddles of the Soul
GA 21
2. The Appearance of Limits to Knowledge
[ 1 ] Thinkers who strive with all their strength to gain the kind of relation to true reality that is demanded by the inner nature of the human being discuss a great number of the limits to knowledge referred to on page 16ff.; and if one looks at the nature of these discussions, one can see quite clearly that the thrust experienced by genuine thinkers in their encounter with such "limits" is in the direction of that inner soul experience which is the subject of this first essay. Take a look, for example, at the way the gifted thinker Friedrich Theodore Vischer, in the important essay he wrote on Johannes Volkelt's book Dream Fantasy, describes the cognitive experience he had in the encounter with one such limit:
“No spirit where there is no nerve center, where there is no brain,” declare our opponents. “No nerve center, no brain,” we reply, “if not evolved from below upward, through innumerable levels.” It is easy to speak scornfully of mind (spirit) hovering about in granite and limestone, no more difficult than it would be for us to ask scornfully how protein in the brain can wing its way up to ideas. Measuring the different levels defies human knowledge. It will forever remain a secret how it happens that nature—beneath whose surface, after all, the spirit must be slumbering—stands there as so complete a counterstroke of the spirit that we bruise ourselves against it; this separation seems so absolute that Hegel's formulation, as brilliant as it is, of something “other than,” or “outside of,” oneself is as good as meaningless and only hides the extreme nature of this wall of seeming separation. One does find in Fichte's work a true recognition of the cutting edge and blows of this counterstroke, but no explanation for it.
(See Friedrich Theodore Vischer, Views Old and New, 1881.) Friedrich Theodore Vischer points vigorously to one of the places to which anthroposophy must also point. But the fact does not enter his consciousness that at such a borderland of knowledge a different form of knowing activity can enter. He wishes to live at these borderlands in the same kind of knowing activity which sufficed for him before he arrived at them. Anthroposophy attempts to show that science does not end where our ordinary knowing activity gets “bruised,” where these “cuts and blows” occur in the counterstroke of reality; anthroposophy tries to show that the experiences resulting from these “bruises, cuts, and blows” lead to the development of a different kind of knowing activity, which transforms the counterthrust of reality into a spiritual perception that, to begin with, on its first level, is comparable to tactile perception in the sense world.
In the third section of Views Old and New, Friedrich Theodore Vischer states: “Good, there is no soul alongside of the body (Vischer means for the materialist); thus, precisely what we make a point of calling ‘matter’—at the highest level of its formation known to us: in the brain—becomes soul, and the soul evolves into spirit. We are supposed to form a concept [of matter], which to the analyzing intellect is in complete contradiction with itself.” Again anthroposophy must reply to Vischer's presentation: Good, for the intellect that breaks things down into their component parts, there is a contradiction here; but for the soul, this contradiction becomes the point of departure for an activity of knowing at which the analyzing intellect halts because this intellect experiences the “counterstroke” of spiritual reality.
[ 2 ] Gideon Spicker, who, besides a number of other astute books, has also written Philosophical Confessions of a Former Capuchin Monk (1910), points to one of the borderlands of our ordinary knowing activity (using words that are certainly vivid enough):
No matter what one's philosophy is, whether dogmatic or skeptical, empirical or transcendental, critical or eclectic, they all, without exception, take their start from an unproven and improvable premise: the essentiality of thinking. No investigation will ever get behind this essentiality, no matter how deep it may dig. This essentiality must be accepted unconditionally and cannot be substantiated by anything; any attempt to prove its validity only presupposes this essentiality. Under it there gapes a bottomless abyss, a frightful darkness unlit by any ray of light. We do not know, therefore, where it comes from or where it is leading. Whether a merciful God or an evil demon has laid this essentiality into our reason is equally uncertain.
Thus, even the contemplation of thinking itself leads the thinker to the limits of ordinary knowledge. Anthroposophy sets in with its knowing activity at these Emits; it knows that essentiality confronts the abilities (art) of intellectual thinking like an impenetrable wall. For a thinking that the thinker experiences, however, the impenetrability of this wall disappears; this experienced thinking finds a light with which to illuminate and look into the “darkness unlit by any ray of light” of a merely intellectual thinking; and the “bottomless abyss” is so only for the realm of sense perception; anyone who does not halt at this abyss but dares to proceed with thinking even when this thinking must set aside what the sense world has inserted into it, such a person finds a spiritual reality in this “bottomless abyss.”
[ 3 ] We could continue indefinitely like this, presenting the experiences that serious thinkers have at the limits of knowledge.
Such examples would show that anthroposophy is the natural result of the evolution of present-day thought. Many things point to anthroposophy if these many things are seen in the right light.
IV-2. Das Auftreten der «Erkenntnisgrenzen»
[ 1 ] Bei den Denkern, welche mit voller Kraft nach einem Verhältnis zur wahren Wirklichkeit streben, wie ein solches durch die innere Natur des Menschen gefordert wird, findet man in großer Menge die auf Seite 22 ff. dieser Schrift besprochenen Erkenntnisgrenzen besprochen; und man kann, wenn man die Art dieser Besprechungen ins Auge faßt, sehr wohl bemerken, wie der Anstoß, den echte Denker an solchen «Grenzen» erleben, zu der Richtung von innerer Seelenerfahrung drängt, von welcher im ersten Abschnitt dieser Schrift die Rede ist. Man sehe, wie der geistvolle Friedrich Theodor Vischer in dem gehaltvollen Aufsatz, den er über Johannes Volkelts Buch die «Traumphantasie» geschrieben hat, das Erkenntnis-Erlebnis schildert, das er an solch einer Grenze empfand:
«Kein Geist, wo kein Nerven-Zentrum, wo kein Gehirn, sagen die Gegner. Kein Nerven-Zentrum, kein Gehirn, sagen wir, wenn es nicht von unten auf unzähligen Stufen vorbereitet wäre; es ist leicht, spöttlich von einem Umrumoren des Geistes in Granit und Kalk zu reden, - nicht schwerer, als es uns wäre, spottweise zu fragen, wie sich das Eiweiß im Gehirn zu Ideen aufschwinge. Der menschlichen Erkenntnis schwindet die Messung der Stufenunterschiede. Es wird Geheimnis bleiben, wie es kommt und zugeht, daß die Natur, unter welcher doch der Geist schlummern muß, als so vollkommener Gegenschlag des Geistes dasteht, daß wir uns Beulen daran stoßen; es ist eine Diremtion von solchem Schein der Absolutheit, daß mit Hegels Anderssein und Außersichsein, so geistreich die Formel, doch so gut wie nichts gesagt, die Schroffheit der scheinbaren Scheidewand einfach verdeckt ist. Die richtige Anerkennung der Schneide und des Stoßes in diesem Gegenschlag findet man bei Fichte, aber keine Erklärung dafür»
(vergleiche Friedr. Theodor Vischer: «Altes und Neues», 1881, Erste Abteilung Seite 229 f.). Friedrich Theodor Vischer weist scharf auf einen solchen Punkt hin, wie diejenigen sind, auf die auch Anthroposophie verweisen muß. Doch ihm kommt nicht zum Bewußtsein, daß in einem solchen Grenzorte des Erkennens eine andere Form des Erkennens eintreten kann. Er möchte mit derselben Art des Erkennens auch an diesen Grenzen leben, mit der er vor denselben auskommt. Anthroposophie versucht zu zeigen, daß Wissenschaft nicht aufhört, wo sich das gewöhnliche Erkennen «Beulen» schlägt, wo dieses «Schneiden» und «Stöße» im Gegenschlag der Wirklichkeit findet; sondern daß die Erlebnisse infolge dieser «Beulen», «Schneiden und Stöße» zur Entwickelung eines andersartigen Erkennens führen, welches den Gegenstoß der Wirklichkeit zur Geistwahrnehmung umbildet, die sich zunächst, auf ihrer ersten Stufe, mit der Tastwahrnehmung des Sinnengebietes vergleichen läßt.
Im dritten Teil von «Altes und Neues» (Seite 224) sagt Friedrich Theodor Vischer: «Gut, eine Seele neben dem Körper gibt es nicht (Vischer meint für den Materialisten); eben das, was wir Materie nennen, wird also auf der uns bekannten höchsten Stufe seiner Formung, im Gehirn, zu Seele und die Seele entwickelt sich zu Geist. Es gilt, einen Begriff zu vollziehen, der für den trennenden Verstand ein reiner Widerspruch ist.» Gegenüber der Vischerschen Ausführung muß wieder die Anthroposophie sagen: Gut, für den trennenden Verstand liegt ein Widerspruch vor; aber für die Seele wird der Widerspruch zum Ausgangspunkt eines Erkennens, vor dem der trennende Verstand Halt macht, weil er den «Gegenschlag» der geistigen Wirklichkeit erlebt.
[ 2 ] Gideon Spicker, der außer einer Reihe scharfsinniger Schriften auch (1910) das «Philosophische Bekenntnis eines ehemaligen Kapuziners» geschrieben hat, weist mit Worten, die wahrlich eindringlich genug sind, auf einen der Grenzpunkte des gewöhnlichen Erkennens hin (siehe Seite 30 dieses Bekenntnisses):
«Zu welcher Philosophie man sich bekenne: ob zur dogmatischen oder skeptischen, empirischen oder transzendentalen, kritischen oder eklektischen: alle ohne Ausnahme gehen von einem unbewiesenen und unbeweisbaren Satz aus, nämlich von der Notwendigkeit des Denkens. Hinter diese Notwendigkeit kommt keine Untersuchung, so tief sie auch schürfen mag, jemals zurück. Sie muß unbedingt angenommen werden und läßt sich durch nichts begründen; jeder Versuch, ihre Richtigkeit beweisen zu wollen, setzt sie immer schon voraus. Unter ihr gähnt ein bodenloser Abgrund, eine schauerliche, von keinem Lichtstrahl erhellte Finsternis. Wir wissen also nicht, woher sie kommt, noch auch wohin sie führt. Ob ein gnädiger Gott oder ein böser Dämon sie in die Vernunft gelegt, beides ist ungewiß.»
Also auch die Betrachtung des Denkens selbst führt den Denker an einen Grenzort des gewöhnlichen Erkennens. Anthroposophie setzt mit ihrem Erkennen an dem Grenzorte ein; sie weiß, vor der Kunst des verstandesmäßigen Denkens steht die Notwendigkeit wie eine undurchdringliche Wand. Für das erlebte Denken schwindet die Undurchdringlichkeit der Wand; dieses erlebte Denken findet ein Licht, um die «von keinem Lichtstrahl» des nur verstandmäßigen Denkens «erhellte Finsternis» schauend zu erhellen; und der «bodenlose Abgrund» ist ein solcher nur für das Reich des Sinnenseins; wer an diesem Abgrund nicht stehen bleibt, sondern das Wagnis unternimmt, mit dem Denken auch dann weiter zu schreiten, wenn dieses ablegen muß, was ihm die Sinneswelt eingefügt hat, der findet in «dem bodenlosen Abgrund» die geistige Wirklichkeit.
[ 3 ] Und so könnte fortgefahren werden, ohne absehbares Ende, in der Aufzeigung der Erlebnisse, welche ernste Denker an den «Erkenntnisgrenzen» haben. - Man würde aus solcher Aufzeigung ersehen, daß Anthroposophie als sachgemäßes Ergebnis der Gedanken-Entwickelung der neueren Zeit sich einstellt. Vieles weist auf sie hin, wenn dieses Viele in rechtem Lichte gesehen wird.
IV-2 The appearance of the “limits of knowledge”
[ 1 ] Among the thinkers who strive with full vigor for a relation to true reality, such as is demanded by the inner nature of man, one finds in great abundance the limits of knowledge discussed on page 22 ff. of this paper; and if we consider the nature of these discussions, we may well notice how the impulse which genuine thinkers experience at such "limits" urges them in the direction of inner soul-experience, of which the first section of this paper speaks. See how the intellectual Friedrich Theodor Vischer, in the substantial essay he wrote on Johannes Volkelt's book "Dream Fantasy", describes the cognitive experience he had at such a boundary:
"No mind where no nerve center, where no brain, say the opponents. No nerve-center, no brain, we say, if it were not prepared from below in innumerable stages; it is easy to speak mockingly of a remodeling of the mind in granite and lime, - no harder than it would be for us to ask mockingly how the protein in the brain rises to ideas. Human cognition loses the ability to measure the differences in levels. It will remain a mystery how it happens that nature, under which the spirit must slumber, stands there as such a perfect counterblow to the spirit that we bump into it; it is a direction of such apparent absoluteness that with Hegel's otherness and extra-selfhood, as ingenious as the formula is, it says as good as nothing, the abruptness of the apparent dividing wall is simply concealed. The correct recognition of the cutting edge and the thrust in this counterblow is found in Fichte, but no explanation for it"
(compare Friedr. Theodor Vischer: "Altes und Neues", 1881, First Section page 229 f.). Friedrich Theodor Vischer points sharply to such a point as those to which anthroposophy must also refer. But he does not realize that in such a borderline place of cognition another form of cognition can occur. He would like to live with the same kind of cognition at these boundaries with which he gets along before them. Anthroposophy tries to show that science does not stop where ordinary cognition makes "dents", where it finds "cuts" and "jolts" in the counterblow of reality; but that the experiences as a result of these "dents", "cuts and jolts" lead to the development of a different kind of cognition, which transforms the counterblow of reality into spirit perception, which can initially, at its first stage, be compared with the tactile perception of the sensory realm.
In the third part of "Old and New" (page 224), Friedrich Theodor Vischer says: "Well, there is no soul apart from the body (Vischer means for the materialist); precisely what we call matter thus becomes soul at the highest stage of its formation known to us, in the brain, and the soul develops into spirit. It is necessary to realize a concept that is a pure contradiction for the separating mind." In contrast to Vischer's explanation, anthroposophy must again say: Well, for the separating mind there is a contradiction; but for the soul the contradiction becomes the starting point of a cognition before which the separating mind stops because it experiences the "counterblow" of spiritual reality.
[ 2 ] Gideon Spicker, who in addition to a series of perceptive writings also wrote (1910) the "Philosophical Confession of a Former Capuchin", points to one of the limit points of ordinary cognition with words that are truly forceful enough (see page 30 of this confession):
"Whatever philosophy one professes: whether dogmatic or skeptical, empirical or transcendental, critical or eclectic: all without exception proceed from an unproven and unprovable proposition, namely the necessity of thought. No investigation, however deep it may dig, can ever fall short of this necessity. It must be assumed unconditionally and cannot be justified by anything; any attempt to prove its correctness always presupposes it. Beneath it yawns a bottomless abyss, an eerie darkness that is not illuminated by any ray of light. We therefore do not know where it comes from, nor where it leads. Whether a merciful God or an evil demon has placed it in reason, both are uncertain."
So the contemplation of thought itself also leads the thinker to a borderline place of ordinary cognition. Anthroposophy begins with its cognition at the borderline place; it knows that necessity stands before the art of intellectual thinking like an impenetrable wall. For experienced thinking, the impenetrability of the wall disappears; this experienced thinking finds a light to illuminate the "darkness not illuminated by any ray of light" of merely intellectual thinking; and the "bottomless abyss" is such only for the realm of the senses; whoever does not stop at this abyss, but takes the risk of moving forward with thinking even when it has to discard what the sensory world has inserted into it, will find spiritual reality in "the bottomless abyss".
[ 3 ] And so we could continue, without foreseeable end, in the demonstration of the experiences that serious thinkers have at the "limits of knowledge". - One would see from such a demonstration that anthroposophy is the appropriate result of the development of thought in recent times. Many things point to it, if these many things are seen in the right light.