4. The Human Organism Through the Incarnations

GA 169/1916-06-27/p045 ·1916-06-27 · English LowLow alignmentMost translators re-paragraphed Steiner substantially. The locus identifies the same chapter or section, but paragraph-N to paragraph-N mapping is loose. For exact-quotation precision, compare with the German.
Record: unknown. 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.

Now, then, ideals have no intrinsic existence, but he still wants to let them stand. Thus, he says they are just fictions, we must accept them as necessary fictions, as necessary assumptions. And this man then developed this idea into a whole philosophy, the philosophy of the As if, we have already talked about it earlier.[^5] According to this philosophy we don't need to assume atoms exist, but we can look at the world as if atoms existed. We don't need to assume the soul exists, but we can look at the world as if it did. You see, it's a complete philosophy of the As if.

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Cite: GA 169/1916-06-27/p045 · edition English