{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 1/l06/p003-p010","extent":"range","passage_number":3,"through":10,"paragraph_count":8,"first_locus":"GA 1/l06/p003","last_locus":"GA 1/l06/p010","lang":"en","edition":"MP1988","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"title":"6. Goethe's Way of Knowledge","date":null,"location":null,"alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":null,"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["MP1988"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.14,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":2523,"original_word_count":2219,"may_be_abridged":false},"site_heading":null,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/1/l06/p003-p010","json_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/1/l06/p003-p010.json","lecture_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/1/l06#p003","word_count":1569,"quote_safe":true,"passages":[{"passage_number":3,"locus":"GA 1/l06/p003","text":"It is indeed true that we must acknowledge progress in all areas of culture. But that this progress is one *into the depths* of things can hardly be asserted. For the content of an epoch, however, only progress into the *depths* of things is decisive, after all. But our epoch might best be characterized by the statement: It rejects, as unattainable for man, any progress at all into the depths of things. We have become faint-hearted in all areas, especially in that of thinking and willing. With respect to thinking: one observes endlessly, stores up the observations, and lacks the courage to develop them into a scientific, whole view of reality. One accuses German idealistic philosophy of being unscientific, however, because it did have this courage. Today one wants only to *look* with one's senses, not *think*. One has lost all trust in thinking. One does not consider it able to penetrate into the mysteries of the world and of life; one altogether renounces any solution to the great riddle questions of existence. The only thing one considers possible is: *to bring what experience tells us, into a system*. But in doing so one forgets that with this view one is approaching a standpoint considered to have been overcome long ago. The rejection of all thinking and the insistence upon sense experience is, grasped more deeply, nothing more, after all, than the blind faith in revelation of the religions. The latter rests, after all, only upon the fact that the church provides finished truths that one has to believe. Thinking may struggle to penetrate into the deeper meaning of these truths; but thinking is deprived of the ability *to test the truth itself*, to penetrate by its own power into the depths of the world. And the science of experience, what does *it* ask of thinking? That it listen to what the facts say, and interpret, order, etc., what is heard. It also denies to thinking the ability to penetrate independently into the core of the world.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":337,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/1/l06/p003","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"l06","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 1/l06/p003","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/1/l06/p003"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":533,"en_words":594,"ratio":1.11,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. 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See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}},{"passage_number":4,"locus":"GA 1/l06/p004","text":"On the one hand, theology demands the blind subjection of thinking to the statements of the church; on the other, science demands blind subjection to the statements of sense observation. Here as there, independent thinking that penetrates into the depths counts as nothing. The science of experience forgets only one thing. Thousands and thousands of people have looked at a sense-perceptible fact and passed it by without noting anything striking about it. Then someone came along who looked at it and became aware of an important law about it. How? This can only stem from the fact that the discoverer knew how to look differently than his predecessors. He saw the fact with different eyes than his fellow men. In looking, he had a definite thought as to *how* one must bring the fact into relationship with other facts, what is significant for it and what is not. And so, thinking, he set the matter in order and saw more than the others. *He saw with the eyes of the spirit*. All scientific discoveries rest on the fact that the observer knows how to observe in a way governed by the right thought. *Thinking* must naturally guide observation. It cannot do so if the researcher has lost his belief in thinking, if he does not know what to make of thinking's significance. The science of experience wanders helplessly about in the world of phenomena; the sense world becomes a confusing manifoldness for it, because it does not have enough energy in thinking to penetrate into the center.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":257,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/1/l06/p004","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"l06","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 1/l06/p003","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/1/l06/p003"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":533,"en_words":594,"ratio":1.11,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. 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If someone came today and pointed out clearly to us the solution to the riddle of the world, we would gain nothing from it, because we would not know what to make of this solution.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":71,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/1/l06/p005","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"l06","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 1/l06/p004","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/1/l06/p004"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":63,"en_words":71,"ratio":1.13,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. 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One cannot set oneself any definite task in life of which one would be capable. One dreams oneself into indefinite unclear ideals and then complains about the fact that one does not achieve something of which one hardly has a dim, let alone a clear, picture. Just ask one of the pessimists of our day what he actually wants and what it is he despairs of attaining. He does not know. Problematical natures are they all, incapable of meeting any situation and yet satisfied with none. Do not misunderstand me. I do not wish to extol that superficial optimism which, satisfied with the trivial enjoyments of life, demands nothing higher and therefore never suffers want. I do not wish to condemn individuals who painfully feel the deep tragedy that lies in the fact that we are dependent on conditions that have a laming effect on everything we do and that we strive in vain to change. But we should not forget that pain is the woof and happiness the warp. Think of the mother, how her joy in the well-being of her children is increased if it has been achieved by earlier cares, suffering, and effort. Every right-minded person would in fact have to refuse a happiness that some external power might offer him, because he cannot after all experience something as happiness that is just handed him as an unearned gift. If some creator or other had undertaken the creation of man with the thought in mind of bestowing happiness upon his likeness at the same time, as an inheritance, then he would have done better to leave him uncreated. The fact that what man creates is always ruthlessly destroyed again raises his stature; for he must always build and create anew; and it is in activity that our happiness lies; it lies in what we ourselves accomplish. It is the same with bestowed happiness as with revealed truth. Only this is worthy of man: that he seek truth himself, that neither experience nor revelation lead him. When that has been thoroughly recognized once and for all, then the religions based on revelation will be finished. The human being will then no longer want God to reveal Himself or bestow blessings upon him. He will want to know through his own thinking and to establish his happiness through his own strength. Whether some higher power or other guides our fate to the good or to the bad, this does not concern us at all; we ourselves must determine the path we have to travel. The loftiest idea of God is still the one which assumes that God, after His creation of the human being, withdrew completely from the world and gave man completely over to himself.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":467,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/1/l06/p006","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"l06","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 1/l06/p005","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/1/l06/p005"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":418,"en_words":467,"ratio":1.12,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. 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Inasmuch as thinking takes possession of the idea, thinking fuses with the primal ground of world existence; what is at work outside enters into the spirit of man: he becomes one with objective reality in its highest potency. *Becoming aware of the idea within reality is the true communion of man.*","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":86,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/1/l06/p007","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"l06","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 1/l06/p006","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/1/l06/p006"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":82,"en_words":86,"ratio":1.05,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. 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What is *objectively* given by no means coincides with what is *sense-perceptibly* given, as the mechanistic world conception believes. What is sense-perceptibly given is only half of the given. The other half of the given is ideas, which are also objects of experience—of a higher experience, to be sure, whose organ is thinking. Ideas are also accessible to the inductive method.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":200,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/1/l06/p009","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"l06","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 1/l06/p008","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/1/l06/p008"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":170,"en_words":200,"ratio":1.18,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. 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That is idealism, but not of the kind that pursues some nebulous, dreamed-up *unity of things*, but rather of a kind that seeks the concrete ideal content of reality in a way that is just as much in accordance with experience as is the search of modern hyper-exact science for the factual content.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":124,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/1/l06/p010","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"l06","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 1/l06/p009","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/1/l06/p009"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":85,"en_words":124,"ratio":1.46,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. 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Unsere Zeit möchte man aber am besten damit bezeichnen, daß man sagt: Sie weist überhaupt Fortschritte in die Tiefe als für den Menschen unerreichbar zurück. Wir sind mutlos auf allen Gebieten geworden, besonders aber auf jenem des Denkens und des Wollens. Was das Denken betrifft: Man beobachtet endlos, speichert die Beobachtungen auf und hat nicht den Mut, sie zu einer wissenschaftlichen Gesamtauffassung der Wirklichkeit zu gestalten. Die deutsche idealistische Philosophie aber zeiht man der Unwissenschaftlichkeit, weil sie diesen Mut hatte. Man will heute nur sinnlich *schauen,* nicht *denken.* Man hat alles Vertrauen in das Denken verloren. Man hält es nicht für ausreichend, in die Geheimnisse der Welt und des Lebens einzudringen; man verzichtet überhaupt auf jegliche Lösung der großen Rätselfragen des Daseins. Das einzige, was man für möglich hält, ist: *die Aussagen der Erfahrung in ein System zu bringen.* Dabei vergißt man nur, daß man sich mit dieser Ansicht einem Standpunkt nähert, den man längst für überwunden hält. Die Abweisung alles Denkens und das Pochen auf die sinnliche Erfahrung ist, tiefer erfaßt, doch nichts als der blinde Offenbarungsglaube der Religionen. Der letztere beruht doch nur darauf, daß die Kirche fertige Wahrheiten überliefert, an die man zu glauben hat. Das Denken mag sich abmühen, in ihren tieferen Sinn einzudringen; benommen aber ist es ihm, die *Wahrheit selbst zu prüfen,* aus eigener Kraft in die Tiefen der Welt zu dringen. Und die Erfahrungswissenschaft: was fordert *sie* vom Denken? Daß es lausche, was die Tatsachen sagen, und diese Aussagen auslege, ordne usw. Selbständig in den Kern der Welt einzudringen, versagt auch sie dem Denken. Dort fordert die Theologie blinde Unterwerfung des Denkens unter die Aussprüche der Kirche, hier die Wissenschaft blinde Unterwerfung unter die Aussprüche der Sinnenbeobachtung. Da wie dort gilt das selbständige, in die Tiefen dringende Denken nichts. Die Erfahrungswissenschaft vergißt nur eins. Tausende und aber Tausende schauten eine sinnenfällige Tatsache und gingen an ihr vorüber, ohne etwas Auffälliges an ihr zu merken. Dann kam einer, der sie anblickte und ein wichtiges Gesetz an ihr gewahr wurde. Woher kommt das? Doch nur davon, weil der Entdecker anders zu schauen verstand als seine Vorgänger. Er sah die Tatsache mit andern Augen an als seine Mitmenschen. Er hatte bei dem Schauen einen bestimmten Gedanken, *wie* man die Tatsache mit andern in Zusammenhang bringen müsse, was für sie bedeutsam sei, was nicht. Und so legte er sich *denkend* die Sache zurecht und er sah mehr als die andern. *Er sah mit den Augen des Geistes.* Alle wissenschaftlichen Entdeckungen beruhen darauf, daß der Beobachter in der durch den richtigen Gedanken geregelten Weise zu beobachten versteht. Das *Denken* muß die Beobachtung naturgemäß leiten. Das kann es nicht, wenn der Forscher den Glauben an das Denken verloren hat, wenn er nicht weiß, was er von dessen Tragweite zu halten hat. Die Erfahrungswissenschaft irrt ratlos in der Welt der Erscheinungen umher; die Sinnenwelt wird ihr eine verwirrende Mannigfaltigkeit, weil sie nicht die Energie im Denken hat, in das Zentrum zu dringen.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":533,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/1/l06/p003"},{"locus":"GA 1/l06/p004","passage_number":4,"text":"Man spricht heute von Erkenntnisgrenzen, weil man nicht weiß, wo das Ziel des Denkens liegt. Man hat keine klare Ansicht, *was* man erreichen will und zweifelt daran, *daß* man es erreichen wird. Wenn heute irgend jemand käme und uns mit Fingern auf die Lösung des Welträtsels zeigte, wir hätten nichts davon, weil wir nicht wüßten, was wir von der Lösung zu halten haben.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":63,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/1/l06/p004"},{"locus":"GA 1/l06/p005","passage_number":5,"text":"Und mit dem Wollen und Handeln ist es ja geradeso. Man weiß sich keine bestimmten Lebensaufgaben zu stellen, denen man gewachsen wäre. Man träumt sich in unbestimmte, unklare Ideale hinein und klagt dann, wenn man das nicht erreicht, wovon man kaum eine dunkle, viel weniger eine klare Vorstellung hat. Man frage einen der Pessimisten unserer Zeit, was er denn eigentlich will, und was er zu erreichen verzweifelt? Er weiß es nicht. Problematische Naturen sind sie alle, die keiner Lage gewachsen sind, und denen doch keine genügt. Man mißverstehe mich nicht. Ich will dem flachen Optimismus keine Lobrede halten, der, mit den trivialen Genüssen des Lebens zufrieden, nach nichts Höherem verlangt und deshalb nie etwas entbehrt. Ich will nicht den Stab brechen über Individuen, die die tiefe Tragik schmerzlich empfinden, die darinnen liegt, daß wir von Verhältnissen abhängig sind, die lähmend auf all unser Tun wirken, und die zu ändern, wir uns vergebens bestreben. Vergessen wir aber nur nicht, daß der Schmerz der Einschlag des Glückes ist. Man denke an die Mutter: wie wird ihr die Freude an dem Gedeihen ihrer Kinder versüßt, wenn sie es mit Sorgen, Leiden und Mühen dereinst errungen hat. Jeder besser denkende Mensch müßte ja ein Glück, das ihm irgendeine äußere Macht böte, zurückweisen, weil er doch nicht als Glück empfinden kann, was ihm als unverdientes Geschenk verabreicht wird. Wäre irgendein Schöpfer mit dem Gedanken an die Erschaffung des Menschen gegangen, daß er seinem Ebenbilde zugleich das Glück mit als Erbstück gäbe, so hätte er besser getan, ihn ungeschaffen zu lassen. Es erhöht die Würde des Menschen, daß grausam immer zerstört wird, was er schafft; denn er muß immer aufs neue bilden und schaffen; und im Tun liegt unser Glück, in dem, was wir selbst vollbringen. Mit dem geschenkten Glück ist es wie mit der geoffenbarten Wahrheit. Es ist allein des Menschen würdig, daß er selbst die Wahrheit suche, daß ihn weder Erfahrung noch Offenbarung leite. Wenn das einmal durchgreifend erkannt sein wird, dann haben die Offenbarungsreligionen abgewirtschaftet. Der Mensch wird dann gar nicht mehr wollen, daß sich Gott ihm offenbare oder Segen spende. Er wird durch eigenes Denken erkennen, durch eigene Kraft sein Glück begründen wollen. Ob irgendeine höhere Macht unsere Geschicke zum Guten oder Bösen lenkt, das geht uns nichts an; wir haben uns selbst die Bahn vorzuzeichnen, die wir zu wandeln haben. Die erhabenste Gottesidee bleibt doch immer die, welche annimmt, daß Gott sich nach Schöpfung des Menschen ganz von der Welt zurückgezogen und den letzteren ganz sich selbst überlassen habe.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":418,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/1/l06/p005"},{"locus":"GA 1/l06/p006","passage_number":6,"text":"Wer dem Denken seine über die Sinnesauffassung hinausgehende Wahrnehmungsfähigkeit zuerkennt, der muß ihm notgedrungen auch Objekte zuerkennen, die über die bloße sinnenfällige Wirklichkeit hinaus liegen. Die Objekte des Denkens sind aber die *Ideen.* Indem sich das Denken der Idee bemächtigt, verschmilzt es mit dem Urgrunde des Weltendaseins; das, was außen wirkt, tritt in den Geist des Menschen ein: er wird mit der objektiven Wirklichkeit auf ihrer höchsten Potenz *eins. Das Gewahrwerden der Idee in der Wirklichkeit ist die wahre Kommunion des Menschen.*","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":82,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/1/l06/p006"},{"locus":"GA 1/l06/p007","passage_number":7,"text":"Das Denken hat den Ideen gegenüber dieselbe Bedeutung wie das Auge dem Lichte, das Ohr dem Ton gegenüber. *Es ist Organ der Auffassung.*","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":23,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/1/l06/p007"},{"locus":"GA 1/l06/p008","passage_number":8,"text":"Diese Ansicht ist in der Lage, zwei Dinge zu vereinigen, die man heute für völlig unvereinbar hält: empirische Methode und Idealismus als wissenschaftliche Weltansicht. Man glaubt, die Anerkennung der ersteren habe die Abweisung des letzteren im Gefolge. Das ist durchaus nicht richtig. Wenn man freilich die Sinne für die einzigen Auffassungsorgane einer objektiven Wirklichkeit hält, so muß man zu dieser Ansicht kommen. Denn die Sinne liefern bloß solche Zusammenhänge der Dinge, die sich auf mechanische Gesetze zurückführen lassen. Und damit wäre die mechanische Weltansicht als die einzig wahre Gestalt einer solchen gegeben. Dabei begeht man den Fehler, daß man die andern ebenso objektiven Bestandteile der Wirklichkeit, die sich auf mechanische Gesetze *nicht* zurückführen lassen, einfach übersieht. Das *objektiv* Gegebene deckt sich durchaus nicht mit dem *sinnlich* Gegebenen, wie die mechanische Weltauffassung glaubt. Das letztere ist nur die Hälfte des Gegebenen. Die andere Hälfte desselben sind die Ideen, die ebenso Gegenstand der Erfahrung sind, freilich einer höheren, deren Organ das Denken ist. Auch die Ideen sind für eine induktive Methode erreichbar.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":170,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/1/l06/p008"},{"locus":"GA 1/l06/p009","passage_number":9,"text":"Die heutige Erfahrungswissenschaft befolgt die ganz richtige Methode: am Gegebenen festzuhalten; aber sie fügt die unstatthafte Behauptung hinzu, daß diese Methode nur SinnenfälligTatsächliches liefern kann. Statt bei dem, *wie* wir zu unseren Ansichten kommen, stehenzubleiben, bestimmt sie von vornherein das *Was* derselben. Die einzig befriedigende Wirklichkeitsauffassung ist empirische Methode mit idealistischem Forschungsresultate. Das ist Idealismus, aber kein solcher, der einer nebelhaften, geträumten *Einheit der Dinge* nachgeht, sondern ein solcher, der den konkreten Ideengehalt der Wirklichkeit ebenso erfahrungsgemäß sucht wie die heutige hyperexakte Forschung den Tatsachengehalt.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":85,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/1/l06/p009"}],"beads":[{"from":[3,4],"to":[3],"confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[5],"to":[4],"confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[6],"to":[5],"confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[7],"to":[6],"confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[8],"to":[7],"confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[9],"to":[8],"confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[10],"to":[9],"confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed"}],"note":"Paired by the paragraph aligner; each language numbers its own paragraphs. A bead at either end of the span can carry text beyond it (the `from` numbers show what each bead covers)."}}