Goethe and the Present

GA 68c — 10 October 1903, Berlin

VIII. “Faust” as a Problem in the Education of Scientists

Report in “Pädagogische Reform, also the organ of the Hamburg Teaching Materials Exhibition” of August 10, 1904

It is not difficult to see how Goethe's Faust drama is virtually a tragedy of the pursuit of education. And through the student, who receives instruction from Mephistopheles and then, in the second part, shares his own wisdom, the tragedy also becomes a comedy at times. But even more! It is not only education in general that we see here being striven for and even ridiculed. It is also a matter of very special historical institutions of the educational system that are presented to us here. The medieval university comes to life again.

To the extent that our knowledge of all aspects of education advances, it will also become more valuable to us to understand more deeply such images as Goethe has given us here. His work is a late manifestation of a long literary tradition, the many-faceted Faust saga and Faust poetry that has been unfolding since the 16th century. A modern movement, which aims to promote and research the highest levels of all education and training, cannot ignore such deeply characteristic literary representations. The movement, which has set itself this task, and which therefore seeks to cultivate the pedagogy of the sciences and the arts as such, has in fact sought to grasp the significance of the Faust theme for itself.

The somewhat cumbersome and misleading term “science and art education” has been replaced by the simpler term “higher education” by that movement. This indicates the decisive role that the high schools actually play in the education of the sciences and arts. Even in the poems composed for Faust, the various institutions of the higher education system play a role. Nevertheless, for this literature and for this movement, the role of the school system is primarily only an external matter. The main thing here as there is the way in which the discipleship of a science or even of an art develops in terms of the subject matter and the person. And Goethe's Faust gives unique pictures of this. The author of these lines has made a few suggestions in two other places, in the two essays: 'Faustschüler und Genossen' ('Ethische Kultur', 11 April 1903) and 'Ein neuer Faust' ('Neue Freie Presse', 5 July 1903). It seemed urgently necessary, however, to treat the subject more thoroughly than these brief allusions allowed. The Association for University Pedagogy, which seeks to provide an external framework for this modern movement, therefore turned to a researcher who has long been devoted to its tendencies and who has special knowledge of Goethe's work. Dr. Rudolf Steiner took on the task of a lecture on this subject, entitled: 'Faust as a Problem for Pedagogy of Science'. The lecture took place in the above-mentioned association in Berlin and also gave rise to a lively discussion in that circle. We can hardly continue our own treatment of the subject better than by simply leaving the floor to the aforementioned lecturer and the voices of the debate that are added to his lecture. Dr. Steiner explained approximately:

The idea of the theme of Faust as a pedagogical problem in science arose from the founder of the Association for University Pedagogy. A certain shudder – the lecturer continued – initially seized me, as if it were just a continuation of the old habit of linking everything to Goethe. On careful consideration, however, I found an intimate connection to what we represent under the name of university pedagogy. Pedagogy finds its special application at all levels of school institutions: at elementary schools, at secondary schools, and also at universities in the broader sense of the word. The fact that these should also be subject to a kind of pedagogy is precisely the point of our endeavors. If a comprehensive literary account of this is ever undertaken, the last chapter will be dedicated to the topic at hand. After all his other remarks, the author will have to answer the important question: How does a subject dealt with at university relate to the ideal aspects of life? What does our higher education have to offer us in terms of a higher conception of life? Everywhere we have to go through one-sided educational paths. How do we get a free and broad view? To a satisfying conception of life?

The question thus posed also underlies the Faust problem in its historical form, which it has taken on since the 16th century and which was still found in the 19th century in Nikolaus Lenau. In a nutshell, it is the question: What does the university have to offer people?

The historical Faust is said to have become a bachelor in Heidelberg in 1509, later a magister and doctor, and also to have studied in Ingolstadt, etc. There is no question about the historical figure of Dr. Faust and the significant impression he made on his contemporaries. Faust comes across as a highly dangerous person. As early as 1505, Abbot Tritheim wrote about him. According to this, Faust was already a famous personality at that time, who appeared in many places in a dizzying manner. Later he went to Krakow to study magic. Now the question arises for us as to how a doctor of theology and medicine could go to Krakow for the sake of the local odds and ends and then move on as a magician. In addition, his dissolute lifestyle, etc. is also reported. So this was a personality who had done his studies in the best possible way and yet got so little support for his life from them. Did science offer him so little strength? Is it possible to reach the pinnacles of learning and still not be able to cope with life?

It is an eminently pedagogical question that asks about the value of academic study in life. We also see it in Goethe. Faust was not a pathological personality, however, but rather a phenomenon of his time. And Goethe put his most personal experiences into Faust. Remember the way he speaks of himself on the occasion of his leaving the University of Strasbourg. The higher education issues are swirling around us.

Goethe's personality certainly has a lot to say to us here, despite the fact that his studies were disrupted. He was in a similar situation to Faust. He studied in Leipzig and in Strasbourg in a scientific way that was close to us moderns, and in doing so he also sought enlightenment about the riddles of life. He confronts us with a harsh doubt, but this was also a fundamental mood in Goethe's personality. With the necessary distinctions, we find Goethe similar to Faust, only without his lack of grounding. So in Goethe's case, too, university education seems to be powerless to provide the ideal goods of life. How does the student come to such a state of helplessness? Goethe reflected on this throughout his life. However, he sought redemption for his Faust from outside. If he had been an older man still in the Age of Enlightenment, he would (according to his own statement) have concluded Faust with the words:

A good man in his dark urges
is well aware of the right path.

Now, however, in his old age, he had to close with mysticism. Goethe was unable to say how the scholar as such could relate to life.

We are therefore confronted with a depressing thought; and this raises two further questions. Firstly, how do such personalities in particular arrive at such questions? The naive person will indeed be easily satisfied; but how do these questions arise in the scientific person in particular? One thinks of Lenau's “Faust at the Corpse”, from which no answer ever comes! But then, secondly, the question arises: does such doubt arise from the necessary limits of science itself or rather from our inadequate university education? In the former case, we understand it epistemologically; in the latter, in terms of university pedagogy. The lecturer said that he would like to show that the latter is correct.

We see a much-studied personality who is powerless in the face of life's mysteries. The point is that something takes the place of science. Through science, questions arise in the student that would otherwise not come to him. That is not the purpose, but it is a necessary side effect of scientific endeavor. Jurisprudence may teach us this and that; but in addition, questions arise with it, such as that of human responsibility, which the naive do not ask. National economics awakens questions in us about the social context. The natural sciences have a similar effect: think of biology, especially the question of the gradual development of organic life. And the study of ancient classical art leads us to question the psychology of the Greek people and the development of humanity as a whole. Thus, our studies present us with scrupulous questions precisely about the highest enigmas of human life. We cannot become proficient lawyers, etc. without those side effects.

It is natural that our studies, whatever else they may offer, initially make us uncertain; and all the more so because every study must be one-sided. Dilthey's “Introduction to the Spiritual Sciences” shows that we can only ever see the whole from individual perspectives. How do we go about overcoming these unavoidable limitations? How do we move from one-sidedness to all-sidedness? It is only natural that someone who has gone through one-sidedness becomes unstable. However, Goethe could not solve the question in a professional, university-like manner. And I, too, said the lecturer, must proceed one-sidedly here and not also, for example, become aesthetic.

Goethe could not find what he was looking for in the knowledge of the universities of his time. During his studies in Leipzig, he sought a world view. Later, his association with Fräulein von Klettenberg and his study of Paracelsus came.

What then follows from this necessary relationship? The sciences burden us with questions, but cannot free us from them in the first instance. The challenge is to give people what they have the right to demand here. Goethe sought to show this in his own way. Our question is: How can we organize university teaching with regard to the side effects described? That final chapter of a complete work on university pedagogy will go from branch to branch and ask about the doubts about life that arise there. Furthermore, how are these doubts to be dealt with at the university itself, so that the student is equipped to face life? In a sense, if we may speak in extremes, the university sins by burdening us. The task of its pedagogy will be to answer the question of what demands are to be made on university pedagogy in this regard. Even in primary school pedagogy, it is similar. The goal of true university pedagogy must be to not dispel those doubts, but to equip us to fight them. But that is precisely what is usually neglected.

Now we know why the historical Faust could become unstable. It was precisely in his time that it was possible for the student to find no summary consolidation of his studies. In the Middle Ages, it was theology that provided this crowning. From the fifteenth to the sixteenth century, a major turnaround took place in the scientific community; its expression is precisely the Faust saga. How do you cope with life without the Bible and theology? These had, of course, resolved doubts in their own way. In the eighteenth century, university studies had not yet progressed that far.

Kant's question: How is science possible? It also has a university pedagogical side. We recognize it in Kant's two writings, the first from 1796: “On a newly raised, noble tone in philosophy,” and the second from 1798: “The dispute between the faculties.” And well into the nineteenth century, this instability can be found as a psychological basis for scientific personalities. Our poet also took on this fundamental question of the time before Goethe. Thus he became the poet of the university pedagogical problem.

We put forward the thesis: Our task with regard to university pedagogy will only be complete when we solve these scruples. If we do not do this, if we let the student go without what we mean, then there is an ethical-university pedagogical breach of duty. Each individual specialized course of study must be accompanied by a careful deepening of the life questions that arise from that study. If the university educator does not carelessly pass by the human soul, he must come to terms with this question. We will not advance in our profession, but we will promote the life questions in the spirit of what has been studied. We can make the Faust-like natures, even the small ones, disappear in this way.

It is impossible here to go into detail about Goethe. We must not mistake Mephistopheles's mockery, the expression of the banal life, for Goethe's words. It is from these contexts that the sultry atmosphere arises, that peculiar milieu that characterizes the first part of the tragedy. Opposite the narrow-minded Famulus Wagner stands the helpless Faust; and then again the student, who is longing for the problems, but does not find the solution in the unpedagogical treatment of science! Goethe has Mephistopheles express this false scientific approach. In the second part of the tragedy, we then see how Goethe, in his poetic way, thinks about it. In the meantime, he had also undergone practical university pedagogical studies – at the institutions of the University of Jena, which he headed as minister. The scenes of the first part had been written by longing and demand. The scenes of the second part were different. Goethe had gained intimate experience as the supervisor of the university. Anyone who has even slightly examined the files of the Weimar Ministry recognizes Goethe as the most ideal university administrator, who on the one hand pays attention to the most immediate practical demands of life and on the other hand to scientific demands, but strives to harmoniously unite the two. Goethe knew very well how to get out of the university. With the help of these experiences and his own efforts, he wrote the second part of his tragedy, especially the second act. The character of Homunculus has been the subject of a wide range of commentaries, all of which are valid, since figures like this have endless layers of meaning. In any case, one thing is symbolically expressed here: the connection between scientific knowledge and the highest goals in life. Goethe also incorporated his knowledge of science education into the second part. There he shows symbolically how science is developed step by step; the observation of living nature is important, the progression from the dry conceptual to the human. But the homunculus has a second task: it leads to antiquity. From Goethe's Italian Journey, we see how the poet seeks knowledge of nature step by step, but also transforms this knowledge into skill and leads it to the summit of human existence. What is the goal of art? “There is necessity, there is God” and so on. He now shows us this psychological development of his own mind in the second part. In this way, knowledge should never become dry, nor should it ever stand alone; it should always lead to life. The homunculus had a longing for reality, a longing to step out of one-sidedness. May people only ever be led to dry study: this must also have the power to lead beyond itself.

Thus, in a final chapter on university pedagogy, we have to show what great life puzzles the individual scientific endeavors pose, and how the puzzles are to be solved. This is not an insurmountable task. The individual branches of science today make great demands; but it must nevertheless be possible to satisfy those demands of science.

My intention was — the lecturer concluded — to gain a result from Goethe, and indeed only one demand. How this demand is to be fulfilled will be the subject of many further pedagogical considerations at the School of Spiritual Science. I have endeavored to prove that thesis to be necessary.

So much for Dr. Steiner's lecture. It may now be of interest to report on the impression that the lecture made on his circle, and thus to reflect the discussion that followed it. It began with the following statement from the philosophical side.

The lecturer — this voice stated — showed how the positive sciences stimulate us to pose questions, but do not solve the ultimate 'metaphysical' questions. What is true, at any rate, is that science does not want to and cannot give more. However, the reason why science is nevertheless capable of more than just the specific lies in the fact that the naive mind passes by the deeper questions, since it lacks experience and the work of previous generations. To put a problem right is as much as to solve it halfway. The sciences rise above superficial observation, delve deeper, show things better than those and ask new questions. With knowledge comes doubt. The deeper we penetrate, the more we ask. But how can this misfortune be eliminated? Uncertainty can be depressing for us. Ms. Beneke has used the motif of this insurmountable burden to support the assumption of immortality. In any case, it is one of the healthiest motives for her. However, those questions cannot be answered by Goethe. I don't know, said the interpellant, what can be done for university education there. Only the individual teacher can give the individual student something beyond philistinism. Antiquity also offers something here, but far too little.

Another voice, this time from the field of medicine, put it as follows: It would be asking too much to review everything. Given that there is so much agreement, it would be ungrateful not to fulfill the necessary obligations. We have been led to a pseudo-university level, so to speak. One could even cite the preacher Salomonis and Friedrich Schiller to prove that all knowledge leads to doubt. But it seems that the individual sciences have to show that these puzzles raised by them are insoluble, and every single teacher could ensure that. But this goes beyond our previous knowledge. The lecturer was clever in not saying how to do it. Perhaps it means that we should go back to our philosophical college as we once did. But does philosophy have an answer to everything? Rather, it seems to us that it is necessary to point out that the search for truth is paramount. Today, due to the natural sciences, the circumstances are different than they used to be.

The author of these lines emphasized that the topic is eminently pedagogical and will actually be treated in a chapter of a comprehensive work.

Another speaker then said that we cannot do justice to the wealth of material presented in the lecture, and that he intends to emphasize only a single point. Goethe was so universal that it is impossible to pin down any single thing as the poet's personal opinion. With him, everything is in a state of becoming. According to Hegel, this corresponds to the dialectical development in things. What science is it then that gives a comprehensive picture and thus a concentrated effect on the personality? First of all, philosophy comes into play, especially metaphysics, which Goethe himself despised. The fact that one no longer wants to deal with it is a modern fear product. For a long time now, it has been practiced at his university for the first time. The problems in question are well known, mainly those concerning the relationship between our world of ideas and the real world. But one can arrive at this problem from every science. Just as the natural sciences can be referred to, for example, jurisprudence can be referred to. It has to establish the i8&i0oxpayia tüs vvxig; with that we become master of the problem of life. The most despised science, dogmatics, takes intensive account of those problems. In this way, all the individual sciences could be cited. The division of labor makes this understandable. Metaphysics cannot solve the problem of life without the other sciences. The great change that has taken place in the course of the last few decades has led us to see as the actual knowable only that which lies within consciousness. W. Jerusalem (Vienna), in his essay on the judgment function, takes refuge in a realism that the “you problem” compels. So we are referred to the practical purpose and to the police! I cannot go along with this sacrilege against the absoluteness of the cognitive drive. We say: if you want to teach, you have to have something (Goethe). There is a need to create knowledge in others. So we move from science to the “you problem”. However, we still need a science for the connection between science and life. And this is probably pedagogy. In it, all sciences come into their own. Furthermore, one of the purposes of higher education is also to educate university educators. We also need a university education seminar. The question that has been raised several times as to who should train its teachers is easily answered by the fact that the older ones train the younger ones.

In a final word, the lecturer added the following: My task was strictly pedagogical. Therefore, I could not get involved with the capabilities of the individual sciences. The student must become resilient. And that includes resilience to resignation. It was necessary for me to remain strictly pedagogical here. I only wanted to discuss the psychological fact of those longings. Something must be done about them. Goethe, however, only grasped our higher education problem intuitively and exemplified it for us in the same way that he can exemplify nature for us. He did not have to think about higher education at all. As for the “how”, a course in philosophy is not enough. Rather, we have to explore pedagogically how the individual teacher has to come to terms with the tasks of life. We cannot offer detailed solutions, but we can point the way. This “how” is a major philosophical study. Therefore, the question of epistemological standpoints cannot be discussed here any further, despite the good suggestion of a seminar. The main thing is: we want to become fit for life. So it is not about dogmatic solutions, but rather about finding ways.