{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 168/1916-02-18/p039","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"It is a comfortable philosophy, but also a terribly thoughtless one. However, anyone who tries to apply this philosophy in concrete life sees that this “as-if philosophy” is of little use, even as a method. And a person like Fritz Mauthner, who has written a philosophy of language and who traces everything back to language, should actually be viewed from the point of view of this “as-if philosophy”: as if such a person could also have spirit. But if you make this attempt, then this method is not good. You cannot show that he can be viewed as if he had spirit; it cannot be applied. Where there is no mind, it cannot be applied. You know, of course, what I mean. But I only cite this Fritz Mauthner because he is one of those who deny the whole meaning of history altogether and who have most clearly stated, from the standpoint of present-day materialism, that history can never be a science. He says: When a raindrop falls on the earth, we can find the laws of the raindrop scientifically, because many raindrops fall according to the same laws. Then you can compare the individual cases with each other, and you can find the laws. That is what philosophers today believe: that observing many cases and always finding the same thing leads to the individual laws. But in history, things only happen once, the Thirty Years War only once and so on; and therefore the whole of history is only a succession of coincidences for Fritz Mauthner. People in the present day must come to such assertions if they deny the spirit in reality; for history would also be only a sequence of coincidences if that which we have now shown, which works out of the spiritual world and in which people work between death and a new birth, did not have the very effect of what we have now shown, which works out of the spiritual world and in which people work between death and a new birth. We are weaving, so to speak, on what happens here on earth between death and a new birth. We weave only according to those impulses that then come to us from the spiritual world.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"II. The Elements of the Human Being in Life Between Death and Rebirth","site_heading":null,"date":"1916-02-18","location":null,"word_count":373,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/168/1916-02-18/p039","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":"The Connection Between the Living and the Dead","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA168/English/SOL2024/19160218p01.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. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/168/1916-02-18/p039"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/168/1916-02-18/p039","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. 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 168/1916-02-18/p039","passage_number":39,"text":"Es ist eine bequeme, aber auch eine furchtbar gedankenlose Philosophie. Derjenige allerdings, welcher versucht, diese Philosophie einmal im konkreten Leben anzuwenden, der sieht, daß diese «Als-obPhilosophie» wenig taugt, selbst als Methode. Und solch einen Menschen, wie Fritz Mauthner, der eine Sprachphilosophie geschrieben hat und der alles auf Sprache zurückführt, den müßte man eigentlich unter dem Gesichtspunkt dieser «Als-ob-Philosophie» betrachten: als ob solch ein Mensch auch Geist haben könnte. Wenn man aber diesen Versuch macht, so taugt diese Methode nicht. Man bringt nicht heraus, daß er so betrachtet werden kann, als ob er Geist gehabt hätte; es läßt sich nicht anwenden. Wo kein Geist vorhanden ist, da läßt es sich nicht anwenden. - Sie wissen selbstverständlich, wie ich dies meine. Aber ich führe diesen Fritz Mauthner nur deshalb an, weil er zu denjenigen gehört, welche den ganzen Sinn der Geschichte überhaupt ableugnen und welcher es am evidentesten ausgesprochen hat vom Standpunkte des gegenwärtigen Materialismus, daß die Geschichte nie eine Wissenschaft sein kann. Er sagt: Wenn ein Regentropfen auf die Erde fällt, so kann man die Gesetze des Regentropfens finden naturwissenschaftlich, denn es fallen viele Regentropfen nach denselben Gesetzen. Da kann man die einzelnen Fälle miteinander vergleichen, und da kann man die Gesetze finden. - Das ist dasjenige, was gegenwärtig Philosophen glauben, daß es zu den einzelnen Gesetzen führt, wenn man viele Fälle beobachtet und sich immer dasselbe zeigt. Aber in der Geschichte geschehen die Dinge alle nur einmal, der Dreißigjährige Krieg nur einmal und so weiter; und daher ist die ganze Geschichte nur eine Folge von Zufällen für Fritz Mauthner. Zu solchen Behauptungen müssen die Menschen in der Gegenwart kommen, wenn sie den Geist in Wirklichkeit ableugnen; denn Geschichte wäre auch nur eine Folge von Zufälligkeiten, wenn nicht das gerade als Reales in der Geschichte wirkte, was wir jetzt aufgezeigt haben, was aus der geistigen Welt heraus wirkt und woran mitarbeiten die Menschen zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Wir weben gewissermaßen an dem, was hier auf der Erde geschieht zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Wir weben nur nach denjenigen Impulsen, die uns dann aus der geistigen Welt zukommen.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":351,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/168/1916-02-18/p039"}],"english":["GA 168/1916-02-18/p039"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":351,"en_words":373,"ratio":1.06,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","anchors","audit"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.04,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":10099,"original_word_count":9681,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"The Connection Between the Living and the Dead","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA168/English/SOL2024/19160218p01.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. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 168/1916-02-18/p039"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. 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