{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 125/1910-08-26/p014","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"But now we ask ourselves: how is it that, after it was believed that Hegelism had been done away with, 19th-century thinking in all civilized countries could not rise to such a philosophical processing of the thinking in our subject of knowledge – how did that come about? It is not my intention to go into the profound cultural-historical reasons for this — I do so in some places — but today I would like to remain in the realm of purely philosophical characterization. This is because facts have taken place, that anyone who has attentively followed the course of intellectual life in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s cannot fail to notice how, basically, only in one single area of intellectual development in the 19th century has thinking itself remained strong, while everywhere else it has become too dull to draw the conclusions that lie within itself. Only in one single field does the science of the nineteenth and early twentieth century demand the greatest respect even from the strict thinking of the spiritual scientist, and this is none other than mathematics. Everything that has been achieved in the field of mathematics bears the traces of sharp, penetrating thinking. Therefore, even those who, for example, did their scientific theoretical studies in theoretical physics and chemistry towards the end of the 19th century could feel that it was not the mathematicians' fault that complicated formulas were handed down to them, which they had to complete when they approached, for example, the theory of heat, the vibration theory, the Clausius theory, and so on. If you had gone through that, had a philosophical mind, you had the feeling: it's not the mathematicians' fault — mathematics had become a wonderful instrument for working out everything in finely chiseled systems; but the intellectual weapons were blunt. So when you worked with mathematical formulas in the various fields of physics and chemistry, you could have the feeling that as long as you remained purely within the mathematical, you felt secure everywhere, but as soon as you came to the philosophical characteristic of what you were actually calculating, the ground was shaky everywhere. Thus he proved himself to be out of touch with the minds of those who spoke philosophically at the time. There was no sense of anything other than the purest philosophical dilettantism, which was particularly evident when natural scientists began to philosophize, as for example Da Bois-Reymond did in his “Seven World Mysteries” or in his lecture “On the Limits of Knowledge of Nature”. But that has not improved. So we may say: We have experienced the peculiar phenomenon that the thinking, as it must necessarily be demanded of spiritual science, has remained strong and exact only within mathematics. — The strict demands on thinking are not satisfied today in any other field of research — the strict demands that we make from the spiritual-scientific point of view — than in the mathematical field.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"VI. The Present State of Philosophy and Science","site_heading":null,"date":"1910-08-26","location":null,"word_count":492,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/125/1910-08-26/p014","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"Paths and Goals of Spiritual Man","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA125/English/SOL2024/19100826p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. 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Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 125/1910-08-26/p014","passage_number":14,"text":"Nun fragen wir uns aber: Woher kommt es denn, daß, nachdem geglaubt worden ist, das Hegeltum abgetan zu haben, das Denken des 19. Jahrhunderts sich in allen Kulturländern nicht aufschwingen konnte zu einer solchen philosophischen Verarbeitung des Denkerischen in unserem Erkenntnissubjekt - woher kommt das? Es kann nicht meine Aufgabe sein, auf die tiefen kulturhistorischen Gründe einzugehen — an manchen Stellen tue ich das -, ich möchte heute auf dem Gebiet des rein philosophischen Charakterisierens bleiben. Das kommt daher, daß sich Tatsachen vollzogen haben, daß dem, der den Gang des Geisteslebens der fünfziger, sechziger, siebziger, achtziger Jahre aufmerksam verfolgt, nicht entgehen kann, wie im Grunde genommen nur auf einem einzigen Gebiet in der Geistesentwickelung des 19. Jahrhunderts das Denken selber stark geblieben ist, wie es sonst überall zu stumpf geworden ist, um die in ihm selbst gelegenen Konsequenzen jeweilig zu‘ ziehen. Nur auf einem einzigen Gebiet fordert auch dem strengen Denken des Geistesforschers die Wissenschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts und des beginnenden 20. Jahrhunderts die höchste Achtung ab, und dies ist kein anderes als die Mathematik. Alles, was auf dem Umfang des mathematischen Gebietes geleistet worden ist, trägt doch die Spuren eines scharfen, durchdringenden Denkens in sich. Daher konnte auch der, welcher zum Beispiel seine naturwissenschaftlich theoretischen Studien etwa in der theoretischen Physik und Chemie gegen das Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts machte, so sehr das Gefühl haben: an den Mathematikern liegt es nicht, was uns da überliefert wird an komplizierten Formeln, die man hat absolvieren müssen, wenn man beispielsweise an die Wärmelehre herangetreten ist, an die Vibrationstheorie, an die Clausiussche Theorie und so weiter. Wenn man das durchgemacht hatte, es philosophisch in sich hatte, hatte man das Gefühl: an den Mathematikern liegt es nicht — die Mathematik ist ein wunderbares Instrument geworden, um alles in fein ziselierten Systemen auszuarbeiten; stumpf waren aber die denkerischen Waffen. So konnte man das Gefühl haben, wenn man mit den mathematischen Formeln auf den verschiedenen Gebieten der Physik und Chemie arbeitete: soweit man rein innerhalb des Mathematischen bleibt, fühlt man überall Sicherheit, sobald man zur philosophischen Charakteristik dessen kommt, was man eigentlich berechnet, ist der Boden überall schwankend. So erwies er sich aus den Köpfen derer heraus, die dazumal philosophisch sprachen. Da war nichts anderes zu spüren als der reinste philosophische Dilettantismus, der sich besonders dann zeigte, wenn Naturforscher anfingen zu philosophieren, wie etwa Da Bois-Reymond in seinen «Sieben Welträtseln» oder in seinem Vortrag «Über die Grenzen des Naturerkennens». Das ist aber nicht besser geworden. So dürfen wir denn sagen: Wir haben die eigentümliche Erscheinung erlebt, daß das Denkerische, so wie es notwendig von der Geisteswissenschaft verlangt werden muß, stark und exakt nur innerhalb der Mathematik geblieben ist. — Die strengen Anforderungen an das Denken werden heute nicht befriedigt auf irgendeinem anderen Gebiet der Forschung - die strengen Anforderungen, die wir vom geisteswissenschaftlichen Standpunkt aus stellen — als auf dem mathematischen Gebiet.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":476,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/125/1910-08-26/p014"}],"english":["GA 125/1910-08-26/p014"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":476,"en_words":492,"ratio":1.03,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","anchors","audit"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.04,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":7932,"original_word_count":7595,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"Paths and Goals of Spiritual Man","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA125/English/SOL2024/19100826p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. 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