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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

Search results 181 through 190 of 457

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68a. The Essence of Christianity: The Essence of Man or The Spiritual Chemistry 23 Oct 1903, Weimar

Rudolf Steiner
For a long time now, people have no longer held on to the Kant-Laplacean world theory, according to which life developed from a mere primeval nebula, and it is becoming increasingly clear that this primeval nebula must have been a living organism.
36. Collected Essays from “Das Goetheanum” 1921–1925: Yesterday's Spirit and Today's Spirit 24 Jun 1923,

Rudolf Steiner
Herman Grimm only manages a kind of aesthetic indignation at the scientific way of thinking. He says of the Kant-Laplace hypothesis: “From the rotating nebula - which children already learn about at school - the central drop of gas forms, from which the Earth will later develop, and, as a solidifying sphere, goes through all phases, including the episode of habitation by the human , to finally plunge back into the sun as burnt-out cinders: a long process, but one that is perfectly comprehensible to today's audience, and one that no longer requires any external intervention to come about, except for the effort of some external force to maintain the sun at the same temperature.
80b. The Inner Nature and the Essence of the Human Soul: The Threshold In Nature and In Man 01 Feb 1921, Basel
Translated by Mary Adams

Rudolf Steiner
This conviction it was that kept Goethe from accepting Kant's philosophy. They make a great mistake who assert that at one time of his life Goethe came very near to the philosophy of Kant. In contradistinction to what Kant recognised as the human faculty of cognition, Goethe postulated what he called “perceptive judgment.”
224. The Human Soul in its Connection with Divine-Spiritual Individualities: Mauthner's “Critique of Language” the Inadequacy of Contemporary Thought, as Demonstrated by Rubner and Schweitzer 04 Jul 1923, Stuttgart

Rudolf Steiner
You will remember how often I have pointed out that the decline of our culture has been caused by the fact that we have a one-sided view of nature, which posits the Kant-Laplace theory or something similar at the beginning of our existence on earth, where everything has formed out of a primeval nebula.
He knows, and expresses it in this book, that although Flege and Kant are read by only a few, their ideas dominate the ideas of thousands, because they pass unnoticed through all possible into the broadest masses of humanity, and one does not exaggerate when one says today: If only the most popular books have begun to be read by the simplest mountain farmers, then Kant is already in them.
306. The Child's Changing Consciousness and Waldorf Education: Lecture I 15 Apr 1923, Dornach
Translated by Roland Everett

Rudolf Steiner
Let me indicate what I mean. What led to a theory such as that of Kant-Laplace?3 Using this theory—which has been modified recently, and is known to practically every educated person—scientists attempt to explain the origin of our Earth and planetary system.
Needless to say, this experiment is supposed to prove the accuracy of the Kant-Laplace theory. Well, as far as one's own morality is concerned, it is virtuous enough to be self-effacing, but in a scientific experiment of this sort, the first requirement is certainly not to omit any essential detail—however small—and to include all existing criteria.
Pierre Simon Marquis de Laplace (1749–1827) French astronomer and mathematician. Immanuel Kant (1724–1895) German philosopher.
334. From the Unitary State to the Tripartite Social Organism: Soul Nature And Moral Human Value In The Light Of Spiritual Science 05 May 1920, Basel

Rudolf Steiner
It will be somewhat difficult for a future historiography of humanity to explain the madness of the times that led to this Kant-Laplacean theory. Of course, today such a thing is regarded as laymanship, dilettantism and so on.
This is something that still haunts the souls, but the souls are no longer as consistent as those of the people of that time were, and so today's souls do not admit to the consistency that consists of either either accept the Kant-Laplacean or a similar natural image, then I have to declare the moral ideals to be illusions and lies, or else I have to tear down what is merely a natural scientific world view.
He could only say to himself: This world was once a cosmic mist, a Kant-Laplacean primeval nebula. From this emerged the planetary system, the earth; everything else developed from it, and it will continue in this way.
2. The Science of Knowing: Preface to the New Edition of 1924
Translated by William Lindemann

Rudolf Steiner
Johannes Volkelt had written his thoughtful books Kant's Epistemology and Experience and Thinking. In the world given to man he saw only a complex of mental pictures that arise through man's relationship to a world which in itself is unknown.
31. Collected Essays on Cultural and Contemporary History 1887–1901: Old and New Moral Concepts 14 Jan 1893,

Rudolf Steiner
This basic ethical view has found its harshest expression in Kant's philosophy. Just think of the well-known apostrophe to duty! "Duty! thou sublime great name, who dost not grasp in thyself anything popular that leads to ingratiation, but dost demand submission", who dost "merely set up a law that finds its way into the mind of its own accord and yet acquires reverence for itself against its will, before which all inclinations fall silent, even if they secretly work against it".
130. Esoteric Christianity and the Guiding Spirits of Humanity: The Significance of the Year 1250 29 Jan 1911, Cologne

Rudolf Steiner
This continued to have an effect over the centuries. Kant was one of the last stragglers of that time, his followers were only parrot-like repeaters. Luther, however, still felt the vague influence of the evil spirits of the personality.
Christianity As Mystical Fact (1961): Rudolf Steiner — A Biographical Sketch

Rudolf Steiner
Until then Rudolf Steiner's school life had been fairly uneventful, except that some of his masters were rather disturbed by the fact that this teen-ager was a voracious reader of Kant and other philosophers, and privately was engrossed in advanced mathematics. In his first year at the University Rudolf Steiner studied chemistry and physics, mathematics, geometry, theoretical mechanics, geology, biology, botany, and zoology; and while still an undergraduate two events occurred which were of far-reaching consequence for his further development.
It represents the first really fresh step in philosophic thought and in the philosophic interpretation of the human consciousness since Kant. It is no wonder that in those years Steiner began to be looked upon in Germany as “the coming philosopher” upon whom before long the mantle of the dying Nietzsche would fall.

Results 181 through 190 of 457

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