{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 20/l03/p013","lang":"en","edition":"MP1990","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"One can absolutely perceive in Planck's soul a similar kind of feeling for the riddle of knowledge as that revealed in the other thinker personalities characterized in this book. This riddle in its original form becomes for Planck the point of departure for his investigations. Within the circumference of the human thought-world can the strength be found by which man can apprehend true reality, *the* reality that gives his existence sense and meaning within world existence? Man sees himself placed into and over against nature. He can certainly form thoughts about what rules in nature's depths as powers of true being; but where is his guarantee that his thoughts have any significance at all other than that they are creations of his own soul, without kinship to those depths? If his thoughts were like this, then it would in fact remain unknown to man what he himself is and how he is rooted in the true world. Planck was just as far as Hegel from wanting to approach the world depths through any soul force other than thinking. He could hold no other view than that genuine reality must yield itself somehow to thinking. But no matter how far one reaches out with thinking, no matter how one seeks to strengthen its inner power: one still remains always only in thinking; in all the widths and depths of thinking one does not encounter *being (Sein)*. By virtue of its own nature, thinking seems to exclude itself from any communion with being. Nevertheless, this insight into thinking's alienation from being now becomes for Planck precisely the ray of light that falls upon the world riddle and solves it. If thinking makes absolutely no claim of bearing within itself anything at all in the way of reality, if it actually is true that thinking reveals itself to be something unreal, then precisely through this fact it proves itself to be an instrument for expressing reality. If it were itself something real, then the soul could weave only in *its* reality, and could not leave it again; if thinking itself is unreal, then it will not disturb the soul through any reality of its own; by thinking, man is absolutely not within any thought-reality; he is within a thought-unreality that precisely therefore does not force itself upon him with its own reality but rather expresses that reality of which it speaks. Whoever sees in thinking itself something real must, in Planck's view, give up hope of arriving at reality; since, for him, thinking must place itself between the soul and reality. If thinking itself is *nothing*, it can therefore also not conceal reality from our activity of knowing; then reality must be able to reveal itself in thinking.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"A Forgotten Stream in German Spiritual Life","site_heading":null,"date":null,"location":null,"word_count":455,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/20/l03/p013","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":null,"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["MP1990"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/20/l03/p013"},{"lang":"en","edition":"MP1990","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/20/l03/p013","paragraph_aligned":true}],"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"l03","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 20/l03/p010","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/20/l03/p010"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":422,"en_words":455,"ratio":1.08,"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."},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 20/l03/p010","passage_number":10,"text":"Es ist durchaus eine ähnliche Art von Empfindung des Erkenntnisrätsels in Plancks Seele wahrzunehmen, wie sie bei den andern in dieser Schrift charakterisierten Denkerpersönlichkeiten sich offenbart. Dies Erkenntnisrätsel in seiner ursprünglichen Gestalt wird für Planck Ausgangspunkt seines Forschens. Ist im Umkreis der menschlichen Gedankenwelt die Kraft zu finden, durch die der Mensch die wahre Wirklichkeit erfassen kann, *die* Wirklichkeit, die seinem Dasein Sinn und Bedeutung im Weltendasein gibt? In die Natur sieht sich der Mensch hinein- und ihr gegenübergestellt. Er kann sich über das, was in deren Tiefen als wahre Wesenkräfte waltet, wohl Gedanken machen; allein wo ist, was ihm dafür bürgt, daß seine Gedanken irgend eine andere Bedeutung haben, als daß sie Geschöpfe seiner eigenen Seele, ohne Verwandtschaft mit jenen Tiefen sind? Wären sie dieses, so müßte dem Menschen ja unbekannt bleiben, was er selbst ist und wie er in der wahren Welt wurzelt. Durch irgendeine andre Seelenkraft als durch das Denken sich den Weltentiefen nahen zu wollen, lag Planck so fern wie Hegel. Er konnte keine andere Ansicht haben als die, dem Denken müsse sich die echte Wirklichkeit irgendwie ergeben. Aber wie weit man auch ausgreift mit dem Denken, wie man auch die innere Kraft desselben zu erstarken sucht: man bleibt ja doch immer nur im Denken; man stößt in den Weiten und Tiefen des Denkens auf kein *Sein*. Durch seine eigene Wesenheit scheint sich das Denken von jeder Gemeinschaft mit dem Sein auszuschließen. Doch der Einblick in diese Seinsfremdheit des Denkens wird für Planck nun eben der Lichtstrahl, der ihm lösend auf das Welträtsel fällt. Wenn das Denken gar nicht Anspruch darauf macht, selbst irgendwie etwas von der Wirklichkeit in sich zu tragen, wenn es wahrheitsgemäß sich als das Unwirkliche offenbart, dann erweist es sich doch gerade dadurch als das Werkzeug, um die Wirklichkeit auszudrücken. Wäre es selbst ein Wirkliches, dann könnte die Seele nur in *seiner* Wirklichkeit weben, und käme aus ihr nicht heraus; ist es selbst unwirklich, dann stört es die Seele durch seine eigene Wirklichkeit nicht; der Mensch ist, indem er denkt, gar nicht in einer Gedankenwirklichkeit, sondern in der Gedankenunwirklichkeit, die eben deshalb dem Menschen sich nicht aufdrängt mit ihrer eigenen Wirklichkeit, sondern *die* Wirklichkeit ausdrückt, von der sie spricht. Wer im Denken selbst etwas Wirkliches sieht, der muß, nach Plancks Ansicht, auf ein Herankommen an die Wirklichkeit verzichten; denn ihm muß sich das Denken zwischen die Seele und die Wirklichkeit stellen. Ist das Denken selbst *nichts*, kann es also auch dem Erkennen die Wirklichkeit nicht verbergen, so muß diese im Denken sich offenbaren können.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":422,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/20/l03/p010"}],"english":["GA 20/l03/p013"],"method":"length","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":422,"en_words":455,"ratio":1.08,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.16,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":8529,"original_word_count":7362,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 20/l03/p010"],"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. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}