A Theory of Knowledge
GA 2
XIX. Human Freedom
[ 1 ] Our view as to the sources of our knowledge cannot be with out influence upon our view in regard to practical conduct. Man behaves according to thought characterizations which lie within him. What he performs is directed according to purposes, goals, which he sets up for himself. But it is obvious that these goals, purposes, ideals, etc., will bear the same character as the rest of man's thought world. Thus a dogmatic science must result in a practical truth essentially unlike that which follows from our theory of knowledge. If the truths to which a person attains in knowledge are determined by objective necessity residing outside of thought, such also will be the ideals which he sets up as the bases of his conduct. In that case a person behaves according to laws in whose establishment he has no part in any real sense: he thinks a norm for himself which is fore-ordained for his behavior from without. But this is the character of a commandment which man has to obey. Dogma as a practical truth is moral commandment.
[ 2 ] The case is entirely different when the theory of knowledge here presented is made basic. This recognizes no other basis for truths than the thought content residing within these. When, therefore, a moral ideal comes into existence, it is the inner power lying in its content which governs our conduct. It is not because an ideal is given to us as a law that we conduct ourselves according to it, but because the ideal, by virtue of its content, is active within us, directs us. The impulse toward conduct lies, not without us, but within us. If we felt ourselves subjected to the commandment of duty, we should be compelled to behave in a definite manner, because it was so ordered. Here shall comes first and afterwards will, which must unite itself to the former. This is not true according to our point of view. The will is sovereign. It performs only what lies as thought-content in the human personality. Man does not receive laws from an external Power; he is his own lawgiver.
[ 3 ] Who, indeed, according to our world view, should give these to him? The World-Fundament has poured itself out completely into the world; it has not drawn back from the world in order to control it from without, but impels it from within; it has not withheld itself from the world. The highest form in which it emerges within the reality of ordinary life is that of thought and, with this, human personality. If, then, the World-Fundament has goals, these are identical with the goals which man sets up for himself as he manifests his own being. Man is not behaving in accordance with the purposes of the Guiding Power of the world when he investigates one or another of His commandments, but when he behaves in accordance with his own insight. For in him the Guiding Power of the world manifests Himself. He does not live as Will somewhere outside of man; He has renounced his own will in order that all might depend upon the will of man. If man is to be enabled to become his own lawgiver, all thought about world-determinations outside of man must be abandoned.
[ 4 ] We take this opportunity to call attention to the very excellent treatment of the subject by Kreyenbühl inPhilosophische Monatsheften(Vol. 18, No. 3). This paper correctly explains how the maxims of our conduct result directly from the determination of our individuality; how everything which is ethically great is not given through the power of the moral law but is performed on the basis of the direct impulse of an individual idea.
[ 5 ] Only from such a point of view is a true human freedom possible. If man does not bear within himself the reason for his conduct, but must guide himself in accordance with commandments, he then acts under a compulsion; he stands under a necessity almost like a mere entity of Nature.
[ 6 ] Our philosophy is, therefore, in the highest sense a philosophy of freedom. It shows first theoretically how every force which controls the world from without must fall away in order to make man his own master, in the best of all senses of that word. When man acts morally, this is not, from our point of view, the fulfillment of duty, but the expression of his wholly free nature. Man acts, not because he ought, but because he wills. This point of view Goethe also had in mind when he said: “Lessing, who was reluctantly conscious of many sorts of limitations, causes one of his characters to say, ‘No one must, must.' A brilliant and happy man said: ‘He who wills must.' A third—to be sure, an educated person—added, ‘He who has insight also wills.'” There is no impulse, therefore, for our conduct save our own insight. The free man acts according to his insight, without the intrusion of any sort of compulsion, according to commands which he gives to himself.
[ 7 ] It is about these truths that the well known Kant-Schiller controversy revolves. Kant took the standpoint of the commandment of duty. He thought it degrading to the moral law to make it dependent upon human subjectivity. According to his view, man acts morally only when he banishes all subjective motives in his conduct and simply bows to the majesty of duty. Schiller saw in this point of view a degradation of human nature. Must this be so evil that its own impulses must be thus completely set aside if it is to be moral! Schiller and Goethe's world-conception can recognize only the point of view we have set forth. The point of departure for human action is to be sought in man himself.
[ 8 ] For this reason, in history also, the subject of which is man, we must not speak of influences upon man's conduct from without, of ideas which reside in the age, etc. Least of all must we speak of a plan constituting the basis of history. History is nothing but the evolution of human action, points of view, etc. Goethe said: “In all ages it is only the individuals that have been effectual for science, not the age. It was the age that put Socrates to death with poison; the age that burned Huss; the ages have always remained alike.” All a priori constructions of plans which are supposed to form the basis of history are contrary to the historical method as this issues from the nature of history. The goal of history is to learn what men contribute for the advancement of their race; to learn what goal this or that personality has set for himself, what direction he has given to his age. History is to be based entirely on human nature. The will, the tendencies of human nature, are to be grasped. Our science of knowledge excludes all possibility that a purpose should be ascribed to history, as if men were educated from a lower stage of perfection to a higher, etc. In the same way it seems fallacious from our point of view when the effort is made (as Herder does in Ideas for a Philosophy of History of Humanity ) to set historical events in due order like facts of Nature, according to the succession of cause and effect. The laws of history are of a far higher sort. One fact in physics is so determined by another that the law stands above the phenomenon. A historical fact, as something ideal, is determined by the ideal. Here one can speak of cause and effect only when one depends wholly upon the external. Who could believe that he is in keeping with the facts when he calls Luther the cause of the Reformation? History is a science of ideas. Its reality consists of ideas. Therefore devotion to the object is the sole correct method. Every step beyond that is unhistorical.
[ 9 ] Psychology, the science of peoples, and history are the leading forms of spiritual, or cultural, science. Their methods, as we have seen, are based upon the direct grasp of the ideal reality. Their subject is the Idea, the spiritual, as that of inorganic science is the natural law and that of organics is the type.
19. Die menschliche Freiheit
[ 1 ] Unsere Ansicht von den Quellen unseres Erkennens kann nicht ohne Einfluß auf jene von unseren praktischen Handlungen sein. Der Mensch handelt ja nach gedanklichen Bestimmungen, die in ihm liegen. Was er vollbringt, richtet sich nach Absichten, Zielen, die er sich vorsetzt. Es ist aber ganz selbstverständlich, daß diese Ziele, Absichten, Ideale usw. denselben Charakter tragen werden, wie die übrige Gedankenwelt des Menschen. Und so wird es eine praktische Wahrheit der dogmatischen Wissenschaft geben, die einen wesentlich anderen Charakter hat als jene, die sich als die Konsequenz unserer Erkenntnistheorie ergibt. Sind die Wahrheiten, zu denen der Mensch in der Wissenschaft gelangt, von einer sachlichen Notwendigkeit bedingt, die ihren Sitz außer dem Denken hat, so werden es auch die Ideale sein, die er seinem Handeln zugrunde legt. Der Mensch handelt dann nach Gesetzen, deren Begründung in sachlicher Hinsicht ihm fehlt: er denkt sich eine Norm, die von außen seinem Handeln vorgeschrieben ist. Dies aber ist der Charakter des Gebotes, das der Mensch zu beobachten hat. Das Dogma als praktische Wahrheit ist Sittengebot.
[ 2 ] Ganz anders ist es mit Zugrundelegung unserer Erkenntnistheorie. Diese erkennt keinen anderen Grund der Wahrheiten, als den in ihnen liegenden Gedankeninhalt. Wenn daher ein sittliches Ideal zustande kommt, so ist es die innere Kraft, die im Inhalte desselben liegt, die unser Handeln lenkt. Nicht weil uns ein Ideal als Gesetz gegeben ist, handeln wir nach demselben, sondern weil das Ideal vermöge seines Inhaltes in uns tätig ist, uns leitet. Der Antrieb zum Handeln liegt nicht außer, sondern in uns. Dem Pflichtgebot fühlten wir uns untergeben, wir mußten in einer bestimmten Weise handeln, weil es so befiehlt. Da kommt zuerst das Sollen und dann das Wollen, das sich jenem zu fügen hat. Nach unserer Ansicht ist das nicht der Fall. Das Wollen ist souverän. Es vollführt nur, was als Gedankeninhalt in der menschlichen Persönlichkeit liegt. Der Mensch läßt sich nicht von einer äußeren Macht Gesetze geben, er ist sein eigener Gesetzgeber.
[ 3 ] Wer sollte sie ihm, nach unserer Weltansicht, auch geben? Der Weltengrund hat sich in die Welt vollständig ausgegossen; er hat sich nicht von der Welt zurückgezogen, um sie von außen zu lenken, er treibt sie von innen; er hat sich ihr nicht vorenthalten. Die höchste Form, in der er innerhalb der Wirklichkeit des gewöhnlichen Lebens auftritt, ist das Denken und mit demselben die menschliche Persönlichkeit. Hat somit der Weltengrund Ziele, so sind sie identisch mit den Zielen, die sich der Mensch setzt, indem er sich darlebt. Nicht indem der Mensch irgendwelchen Geboten des Weltenlenkers nachforscht˃ handelt er nach dessen Absichten, sondern indem er nach seinen eigenen Einsichten handelt. Denn in ihnen lebt sich jener Weltenlenker dar. Er lebt nicht als Wille irgendwo außerhalb des Menschen; er hat sich jedes Eigenwillens begeben, um alles von des Menschen Willen abhängig zu machen. Auf daß der Mensch sein eigener Gesetzgeber sein könne, müssen alle Gedanken auf außermenschliche Weltbestimmungen u. dgl. aufgegeben werden.
[ 4 ] Wir machen bei dieser Gelegenheit auf die ganz vortreffliche Abhandlung Kreyenbühls in den «Philosophischen Monatsheften», 18. Band, 3. Heft aufmerksam. Dieselbe führt in richtiger Weise aus, wie die Maximen unseres Handelns durchaus aus unmittelbaren Bestimmungen unseres Individuums erfolgen; wie alles ethisch Große nicht durch die Macht des Sittengesetzes eingegeben sondern auf den unmittelbaren Drang einer individuellen Idee hin vollführt werde.
[ 5 ] Nur bei dieser Ansicht ist eine wahre Freiheit des Menschen möglich. Wenn der Mensch nicht in sich die Gründe seines Handeln trägt, sondern sich nach Geboten richten muß, so handelt er unter einem Zwange, er steht unter einer Notwendigkeit, fast wie ein bloßes Naturwesen.
[ 6 ] Unsere Philosophie ist daher im eminenten Sinne Freiheitsphilosophie.a9Die Ideen dieser Philosophie sind später weiter entwickelt worden in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» (1894). Sie zeigt erst theoretisch, wie alle Kräfte usw. wegfallen müssen, die die Welt von außen lenkten, um dann den Menschen zu seinem eigenen Herrn im allerbesten Sinne des Wortes zu machen. Wenn der Mensch sittlich handelt, so ist das für uns nicht Pflichterfüllung, sondern die Äußerung seiner völlig freien Natur. Der Mensch handelt nicht, weil er soll, sondern, weil er will. Diese Ansicht hatte auch Goethe im Auge, als er sagte: «Lessing, der mancherlei Beschränkung unwillig fühlte, läßt eine seiner Personen sagen: Niemand muß müssen. Ein geistreicher, frohgesinnter Mann sagte: Wer will, der muß. Ein dritter, freilich ein Gebildeter, fügte hinzu: Wir einsieht, der will auch.» Es gibt also keinen Antrieb für unser Handeln als unsere Einsicht. Ohne daß irgendwelcher Zwang hinzutrete, handelt der freie Mensch nach seiner Einsicht, nach Geboten, die er sich selbst gibt.
[ 7 ] Um diese Wahrheiten drehte sich die bekannte Kontroverse Kant-Schillers. Kant stand auf dem Standpunkte des Pflichtgebotes. Er glaubte das Sittengesetz herabzuwürdigen, wenn er es von der menschlichen Subjektivität abhängig machte. Nach seiner Ansicht handelt der Mensch nur sittlich, wenn er sich aller subjektiven Antriebe beim Handeln entäußert und sich rein der Majestät der Pflicht beugt. Schiller sah in dieser Ansicht eine Herabwürdigung der Menschennatur. Sollte denn dieselbe wirklich so schlecht sein, daß sie ihre eigenen Antriebe so durchaus beseitigen müsse, wenn sie moralisch sein will! Schillers und Goethes Weltanschauung kann sich nur zu der von uns angegebenen Ansicht bekennen. In dem Menschen selbst ist der Ausgangspunkt seines Handelns zu suchen.
[ 8 ] Deshalb darf auch in der Geschichte, deren Gegenstand ja der Mensch ist, nicht von äußeren Einflüssen seines Handelns, von Ideen, die in der Zeit liegen usw. gesprochen werden; am wenigsten von einem Plane, der ihr zugrunde liege. Die Geschichte ist nichts anderes denn die Entwicklung menschlicher Handlungen, Ansichten usw. «Zu allen Zeiten sind es nur die Individuen, welche für die Wissenschaft gewirkt, nicht das Zeitalter. Das Zeitalter war's, das den Sokrates durch Gift hinrichtete; das Zeitalter, das Muß verbrannte; die Zeitalter sind sich immer gleich geblieben», sagt Goethe. Alles apriorische Konstruieren von Plänen, die der Geschichte zugrunde liegen sollen, ist gegen die historische Methode, wie sie sich aus dem Wesen der Geschichte ergibt. Diese zielt darauf ab, gewahr zu werden, was die Menschen zum Fortschritt ihres Geschlechtes beigetragen; zu erfahren, welche Ziele sich diese oder jene Persönlichkeit gesetzt, welche Richtung sie ihrer Zeit gegeben. Die Geschichte ist durchaus auf die Menschennatur zu begründen. Ihr Wollen, ihre Tendenzen sind zu begreifen. Unsere Erkennmiswissenschaft schließt es völlig aus, daß man der Geschichte einen Zweck unterschiebe, wie etwa, daß die Menschen von einer niederen Stufe der Vollkommenheit zu einer höheren erzogen werden u. dgl. Ebenso erscheint es unserer Ansicht gegenüber als irrtümlich, wenn man, wie dies Herder in den «Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit» tut, die historischen Ereignisse wie die Naturtatsachen nach der Abfolge von Ursache und Wirkung abfassen will. Die Gesetze der Geschichte sind eben viel höherer Natur. Ein Faktum der Physik wird von einem anderen so bestimmt, daß das Gesetz über den Erscheinungen steht. Eine historische Tatsache wird als Ideelles von einem Ideellen bestimmt. Da kann von Ursache und Wirkung doch nur die Rede sein, wenn man ganz an der Äußerlichkeit hängt. Wer könnte glauben, daß er die Sache wiedergibt, wenn er Luther die Ursache der Reformation nennt. Die Geschichte ist wesentlich eine Idealwissenschaft. Ihre Wirklichkeit sind schon Ideen. Daher ist die Hingabe an das Objekt die einzig richtige Methode. Jedes Hinausgehen über dasselbe ist unhistorisch.
[ 9 ] Psychologie, Volkskunde und Geschichte a10Nachdem ich nunmehr die verschiedenen Gebiete dessen, was ich «Anthroposophie» nenne, bearbeitet habe, müßte ich - schriebe ich dies Schriftchen heute - diese «Anthroposophie» hier einfügen. Vor vierzig Jahren, beim Schreiben desselben, stand mir als «Psychologie», in einem allerdings ungebräuchlichen Sinne, etwas vor Augen, das die Anschauung der gesamten «Geistes-Welt» (Pneumatologie) in sich einschloß. Daraus darf aber nicht geschlossen werden, daß ich damals diese «Geistes-Welt» von der Erkenntnis des Menschen ausschließen wollte. sind die hauptsächlichsten Formen der Geisteswissenschaft. Ihre Methoden sind, wie wir gesehen haben, auf die unmittelbare Erfassung der ideellen Wirklichkeit gegründet. Ihr Gegenstand ist die Idee, das Geistige, wie jener der unorganischen Wissenschaft das Naturgesetz, der Organik der Typus war.
19 Human freedom
[ 1 ] Our view of the sources of our cognition cannot be without influence on that of our practical actions. Man acts according to mental determinations that lie within him. What he accomplishes is based on intentions, goals that he sets for himself. But it is quite natural that these aims, intentions, ideals, etc., will have the same character as the rest of man's world of thought. And so there will be a practical truth of dogmatic science which has an essentially different character from that which arises as the consequence of our theory of knowledge. If the truths which man arrives at in science are conditioned by a factual necessity which has its seat outside of thought, so too will be the ideals on which he bases his actions. Man then acts according to laws whose justification he lacks in factual terms: he thinks of a norm that is prescribed for his actions from outside. But this is the character of the commandment that man has to observe. The dogma as practical truth is a moral commandment.
[ 2 ] The situation is completely different when we take our theory of knowledge as a basis. This recognizes no other ground of truths than the content of thought that lies within them. Therefore, when a moral ideal comes into being, it is the inner power that lies in the content of that ideal that guides our actions. It is not because an ideal is given to us as a law that we act according to it, but because the ideal is active in us by virtue of its content and guides us. The drive to act does not lie outside us, but within us. We felt subject to the dictates of duty, we had to act in a certain way because it commands us to do so. First comes the ought and then the will, which has to submit to it. In our view, this is not the case. The will is sovereign. It only carries out what lies within the human personality as thought content. Man does not have laws given to him by an external power, he is his own lawgiver.
[ 3 ] Who should give them to him, according to our world view? The world-ground has poured itself completely into the world; it has not withdrawn from the world in order to direct it from without, it drives it from within; it has not withheld itself from it. The highest form in which it appears within the reality of ordinary life is thought, and with it the human personality. Thus, if the world ground has goals, they are identical with the goals that man sets for himself by living himself. Man does not act according to the intentions of the world ruler by following his commands, but by acting according to his own insights. For in them that world ruler lives himself. He does not live as a will somewhere outside of man; he has given up all self-will in order to make everything dependent on man's will. So that man can be his own lawgiver, all thoughts of extra-human world determinations and the like must be abandoned.
[ 4 ] We take this opportunity to draw attention to Kreyenbühl's excellent treatise in the "Philosophische Monatshefte", Volume 18, Issue 3. This treatise correctly explains how the maxims of our actions are based on direct determinations of our individuality; how everything ethically great is not inspired by the power of the moral law but is carried out in response to the direct urge of an individual idea.
[ 5 ] Only in this view is true human freedom possible. If man does not carry within himself the reasons for his actions, but must be guided by commandments, he acts under compulsion, he is under a necessity, almost like a mere natural being.
[ 6 ] Our philosophy is therefore in an eminent sense a philosophy of freedom.a9The ideas of this philosophy were later developed further in my "Philosophy of Freedom" (1894). It first shows theoretically how all forces, etc., which controlled the world from outside must be removed in order to make man his own master in the very best sense of the word. When man acts morally, this is not for us the fulfillment of duty, but the expression of his completely free nature. Man does not act because he should, but because he wants to. Goethe also had this view in mind when he said: "Lessing, who felt many a restriction unwillingly, has one of his characters say: Nobody has to. A witty, happy-minded man said: Whoever wants to, must. A third, admittedly an educated man, added: We see, he also wants." There is therefore no motivation for our actions other than our insight. Without the addition of any compulsion, the free man acts according to his insight, according to commandments which he gives himself.
[ 7 ] The well-known Kant-Schiller controversy revolved around these truths. Kant took the position of the law of duty. He believed that the moral law was degraded if he made it dependent on human subjectivity. In his view, man only acts morally if he renounces all subjective impulses in his actions and bows purely to the majesty of duty. Schiller saw this view as a degradation of human nature. Should it really be so bad that it has to eliminate its own impulses so completely if it wants to be moral! Schiller's and Goethe's view of the world can only subscribe to the view we have stated. The starting point of his actions is to be sought in man himself.
[ 8 ] This is why history, whose subject is man, must not speak of external influences on his actions, of ideas that lie in time, etc.; least of all of a plan that underlies it. History is nothing other than the development of human actions, views, etc. "At all times it is only the individuals who have worked for science, not the age. It was the age that executed Socrates by poison; the age that burned Muß; the ages have always remained the same," says Goethe. All a priori construction of plans on which history should be based is contrary to the historical method, as it arises from the nature of history. This aims to become aware of what people have contributed to the progress of their race; to find out what goals this or that personality has set for themselves, what direction they have given their time. History can certainly be based on human nature. Their will, their tendencies must be understood. Our epistemology entirely excludes the imputation of a purpose to history, such as that men should be educated from a lower stage of perfection to a higher one, etc. In the same way, it seems erroneous in our view if, as Herder does in his "Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind", historical events are to be understood in the same way as natural facts, according to the sequence of cause and effect. The laws of history are of a much higher nature. One fact of physics is determined by another in such a way that the law is above the phenomena. A historical fact is determined as an ideal by an ideal. There can only be talk of cause and effect if one is completely attached to externality. Who could believe that he reflects the matter when he calls Luther the cause of the Reformation? History is essentially an ideal science. Its reality is already ideas. Therefore, devotion to the object is the only correct method. Any going beyond it is unhistorical.
[ 9 ] Psychology, Folklore and History a10Now that I have worked on the various areas of what I call "anthroposophy", I would have to insert this "anthroposophy" here if I were writing this little book today. Forty years ago, when I was writing it, "psychology", in an admittedly uncommon sense, was something that included the view of the entire "spiritual world" (pneumatology). But it must not be inferred from this that I wanted to exclude this "spiritual world" from the knowledge of man. are the most important forms of spiritual science. Its methods, as we have seen, are based on the direct apprehension of ideal reality. Their object is the idea, the spiritual, just as that of inorganic science was the law of nature, the type of organic science.