{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p033-p042","extent":"range","passage_number":33,"through":42,"paragraph_count":10,"first_locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p033","last_locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p042","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"title":"12. Philosophy and Theosophy","date":"1908-08-17","location":null,"alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Supplements to Member Lectures","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA246/English/SOL2025/19080817s01.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"]},"record":{"record_type":"listeners_notes","scope":"volume","note":"Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word.","evidence":"Nach zum Teil bruchstückhaften Mitschriften","evidence_translation":"From transcripts that are in part fragmentary","evidence_source":"The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 246), which also speaks of \"fragmentarischen Hörernotizen und Vortragszusammenfassungen\". The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one."},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.02,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":7990,"original_word_count":7843,"may_be_abridged":false},"site_heading":null,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17/p033-p042","json_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17/p033-p042.json","lecture_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17#p033","word_count":2090,"quote_safe":true,"passages":[{"passage_number":33,"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p033","text":"We only need to look at some of Aristotle's fundamental concepts to realize this. It is quite in his spirit to say: when we analyze the things around us, we first find what gives us knowledge of these things by perceiving with the sense: Sense provides us with the individual thing. But when we begin to think, things are grouped together, we combine different things into a unit of thought. - And now Aristotle finds the right relationship between this unity of thought and an objective reality, that objective which leads to the thing in itself - by showing that with consistent thinking we must think of the world of experience around us as composed of matter and what he calls form. For Aristotle, matter and form are two concepts that he really separates in the only correct sense in which they must be separated. We could talk for hours if we wanted to exhaust these two concepts and everything that is connected with them. But let us at least bring up a few elementary points in order to understand what Aristotle distinguishes between form and matter. He is clear about the fact that in relation to all things that are initially around us, that form our world of experience, it is important for cognition that we grasp the form, because it is the form that gives things their essence, not the matter. For Aristotle, form is the essence.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":239,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17/p033","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Supplements to Member Lectures","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA246/English/SOL2025/19080817s01.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 246/1908-08-17/p033"],"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."}},{"passage_number":34,"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p034","text":"Even in our time, however, there are still people who have a real understanding of Aristotle. Vinzenz Knauer, who was a university lecturer in Vienna in the eighties of the nineteenth century, usually made the difference between matter and form and what is important clear to his listeners with an illustration that may be mocked. He said that one should think of a wolf that has eaten nothing but lambs for some time in its life, how it is then actually composed of the matter of the lambs - and yet the wolf never becomes a lamb! This is the difference between matter and form, if you follow it correctly. Is the wolf a wolf through matter? No. Its essence is implanted through form - we find it not only in this wolf, but in all wolves. Thus we find the form through a concept which, in contrast to what the senses grasp in detail, is something universal.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":158,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17/p034","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Supplements to Member Lectures","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA246/English/SOL2025/19080817s01.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 246/1908-08-17/p034"],"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."}},{"passage_number":35,"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p035","text":"Now, in the sense of Aristotle, we can distinguish this universal in a properly epistemological sense in precisely three ways. One can say that this universal is the essential, that which matters. But is that which lives in human thinking the same as that which we address in the true sense as form? No. Man approaches the various wolves and forms the concept, a universal, from the individual wolves. But what he has formed there as a concept that summarizes the same qualities is only a “representative” of the true universal. (All this can only be sketchily indicated.) So that one can distinguish: A universal that is before the details that confront us externally; then, because it is the essence within, a universal that lies within things; and a third form of the universal that man forms in thought afterwards. Thus there are: 1) universalia ante rem, 2) universalia in re, 3) universalia post rem. The latter unfold in the subjective mind and are the inner experiences “representing the objective real universals”.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":172,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17/p035","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Supplements to Member Lectures","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA246/English/SOL2025/19080817s01.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 246/1908-08-17/p035"],"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."}},{"passage_number":36,"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p036","text":"Unless one addresses the threefold distinction, one cannot arrive at a correct understanding of what is important here. For consider what is involved! It is the insight that man, insofar as he lives within the universalia post rem, has a subjective element. But at the same time something essential is pointed out, namely that the concept of man is a “representation” of what has universal existence as real forms (entelechies). And these - the universalia in re, have in turn only flowed into things because they already existed before things as universalia ante rem.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":94,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17/p036","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Supplements to Member Lectures","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA246/English/SOL2025/19080817s01.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 246/1908-08-17/p036"],"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."}},{"passage_number":37,"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p037","text":"There we have as universalia ante rem that which we must assume to exist first in the Godhead, in the wisdom of God. As a Christian theologian, as a scholastic, we understand it in a similar way, except that we do not go right up to the highest divine. As theosophists, we know that the universalia in re, for example when it comes to animals, mean their group soul, and so we do indeed have in Aristotelianism a foundation for what can really support theosophy conceptually. But there is something else to all that we encounter in Aristotle that has become increasingly unpopular in modern times: it is necessary to be comfortable thinking in sharp, finely chiseled concepts, in concepts that one first prepares for oneself; it is necessary to have the patience to proceed from concept to concept; it is necessary, above all, to have a tendency towards conceptual purity and cleanliness, to know what one is talking about when one uses a concept. If, for example, one speaks in the scholastic sense of the relationship of the concept to what it represents, one must first work through long definitions in the scholastic writings. You have to know what it means when you say that the concept is formally grounded in the subject and fundamentally grounded in the object: what the concept has as its actual form comes from the subject, what it has as its content comes from the object - that is just a small sample. Really only a small one. If you go through scholastic works, you have to wade through thick volumes of definitions, and that is very unpleasant for today's scientist; he therefore regards the scholastics as school foxes and dismisses them as such. He does not even know that true scholasticism is nothing other than the thorough elaboration of the art of thought, so that it can form a foundation for the real comprehension of reality.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":323,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17/p037","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Supplements to Member Lectures","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA246/English/SOL2025/19080817s01.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":"discrepancy","checked_against":["GA 246/1908-08-17/p037"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":["Christ"],"bead_confidence":"high","bead_length_ratio":1.07,"likely_cause":"unresolved","note":"NAME MISMATCH between this English passage and its German counterpart. A name the German carries is absent here (or a name appears here that the German does not carry). Two things cause this and they need telling apart: the translation really drops or reassigns what the original distinguishes, OR the paragraph alignment paired the wrong passages. `bead_confidence` does NOT settle which: this corpus's embedding aligner pairs topically-related paragraphs at full confidence, and a sampled high-confidence mismatch proved to be a wrong pairing. Read the German passages listed and confirm they are counterparts BEFORE drawing any conclusion about the translation."},"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."}},{"passage_number":38,"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p038","text":"As I say this, you will feel that it is a great blessing when efforts emerge within the Theosophical Society that are aimed in the very best (epistemological) sense at an elaboration of epistemological principles. And if we have a worker of extraordinary importance in this field here in Stuttgart (Doctor Unger), then this is to be regarded as a beneficial current within our movement. For this movement in its deepest parts will not achieve its validity in the world through those who only want to hear the facts of the higher world, but through those who have the patience to penetrate into a thought technique that creates a real basis for truly solid work, that creates a skeleton for work in the higher world.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":125,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17/p038","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Supplements to Member Lectures","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA246/English/SOL2025/19080817s01.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 246/1908-08-17/p038"],"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."}},{"passage_number":39,"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p039","text":"[We should not only want to receive interesting and new thoughts from Theosophy, but also, which is admittedly not so convenient, work on the correct foundation of our own conceptual technique]. In this way, it will perhaps only be understood within the Theosophical movement and from within Theosophy itself what scholasticism, which has been turned into a distorted image by its followers and opponents, actually wanted. It is of course more convenient to want to understand everything that confronts us as a higher reality with a few concepts that we bring with us than to create a solid foundation in the conceptual technique - but what are the consequences of this? There is an unfortunate impression when you pick up philosophical books today. People no longer understand each other when they talk about higher things; they are not clear about how they use the terms. This could not have happened in scholastic times, because back then you had to be clear about the contours of a concept.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":167,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17/p039","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Supplements to Member Lectures","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA246/English/SOL2025/19080817s01.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 246/1908-08-17/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. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}},{"passage_number":40,"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p040","text":"[Nowadays, the correct use of concepts has been completely lost, and the concepts themselves only have blurred contours. If one had once proceeded in a straight line along the path that Aristotle had uncovered, one would always have had a correct technique of thought, but in the end one had to become entangled in Kant's web of concepts. Then the gap between knowledge and belief would never have arisen.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":69,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17/p040","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Supplements to Member Lectures","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA246/English/SOL2025/19080817s01.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 246/1908-08-17/p040"],"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."}},{"passage_number":41,"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p041","text":"You see, there was indeed a way to penetrate the depths of the technique of thought. And if this path had been taken further, if we had not allowed ourselves to be caught up in Kant's web of the “thing-in-itself” and the mental image, which is supposed to be subjective, then we would have achieved two things: firstly, we would have arrived at an epistemology that is secure in itself, and secondly - and this is of great importance - we would not have been able to misunderstand so completely those great philosophers in the authoritative circles who worked after Kant. There follows, for example, the trio of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. What are they to people today? They are thought to be philosophers who wanted to spin a world out of purely abstract concepts. That never occurred to them. But they were trapped in Kant's concepts and therefore they could neither philosophically nor objectively understand the world's greatest philosopher. You know, he is the one who spent his youth in the house opposite, as can be seen from the memorial plaque that you can see when you enter the street here: Hegel. Only gradually will you mature to understand what he gave to the world; only then will you be able to understand him, when you come out of the theoretically spun, constricting web of knowledge. And that would be so easy! One would only have to be comfortable with natural, unbiased thinking and free oneself from the habits of thought that have developed in philosophical literature under the influence of the clouded currents of Kantianism. We must be clear about the question: Is it really the case that man starts from the subject, builds his mental image in the subject and then spins this image over the object? Is that really the case? Yes, it is. - But does it necessarily follow that man can never penetrate the thing itself?12. Philosophy and Theosophy","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":325,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17/p041","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Supplements to Member Lectures","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA246/English/SOL2025/19080817s01.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 246/1908-08-17/p041"],"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."}},{"passage_number":42,"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p042","text":"Let me make a simple comparison. Imagine you have a seal with the name Müller on it. Now you press the seal into a sealing wax and take it away. Don't you realize that if this seal is made of, say, brass, none of the brass will pass into the sealing wax? Now if this sealing wax were cognitive in Kant's sense, it would say: “I am all lacquer, nothing comes into me from the brass, so there is no relationship that I could know about the nature of what confronts me.” But this completely forgets the fact that what matters, namely the name Müller, is objectively inside the sealing wax as an imprint, without anything having passed over from the brass. As long as one thinks materialistically and believes that, in order to establish relationships, matter must pass from one to the other, one will also say theoretically: “I am sealing wax, and the other is brass in itself; and since nothing can enter into me from the ”brass in itself\", the name Müller can also be nothing other than a sign. But the thing in itself, which was inside the seal, which has imprinted itself on me so that I can read it: That remains eternally unknown to me.\" There you see the final formula that is used. If you take the comparison further, the result is: Man is all sealing wax (mental image), the thing itself is all petals (that which is outside the mental image). Because I, as the varnish (the imaginer), can only reach the limit of the petshaft (the thing in itself), I remain within myself, nothing of the thing in itself comes over into me. As long as materialism is extended to epistemology, we will not find out what is important. The preliminary proposition applies: we do not get beyond our mental image; but what comes over is to be called spiritual; it does not need material atoms to let it over. Nothing of a material nature enters into the subject - but nevertheless the spiritual comes over into the subject, as true as the name Müller into the sealing wax. A healthy epistemological research must be able to start from this again, then one will see how much modern materialism itself has become naturalized in the epistemological concepts without being noticed. Nothing else follows from an unbiased consideration of the situation than that Kant can only imagine a “thing-in-itself” materially, however grotesque such an assertion may seem at first glance.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":418,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17/p042","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Supplements to Member Lectures","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA246/English/SOL2025/19080817s01.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 246/1908-08-17/p042"],"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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Wenn wir aber anfangen zu denken, da gruppieren sich uns die Dinge, wir fassen verschiedene Dinge in einer Denkeinheit zusammen. - Und nunmehr findet Aristoteles die richtige Beziehung zwischen dieser Gedankeneinheit und einem objektiv Wirklichen, jenem Objektiven, das zu dem Ding an sich führt - indem er zeigt, dass wir bei konsequentem Denken die Erfahrungswelt um uns herum zusammengesetzt denken müssen aus Materie und aus dem, was er die Form nennt. Materie und Form sind für Aristoteles zwei Begriffe, die er in dem einzig richtigen Sinne, wie sie geschieden werden müssen, wirklich scheidet. Wir könnten stundenlang reden, wenn wir diese beiden Begriffe und alles, was damit zusammenhängt, erschöpfen wollten. Aber einiges Elementare wollen wir wenigstens herbeitragen, um zu verstehen, was Aristoteles als Form und Materie unterscheidet. Er ist sich klar darüber, dass es in Bezug auf alle Dinge, die zunächst um uns herum sind, die unsere Erfahrungswelt bilden, dass es bei all dem für das Erkennen darauf ankommt, dass wir die Form ergreifen, denn die Form gibt den Dingen das Wesentliche, nicht die Materie. Die Form ist für Aristoteles das Wesentliche.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":236,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/246/1908-08-17/p033"},{"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p034","passage_number":34,"text":"Es gibt auch in unserer Zeit allerdings noch Persönlichkeiten, die ein richtiges Verständnis haben für Aristoteles. Vinzenz Knauer, der in den Achtzigerjahren des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts in Wien Universitätsdozent war, hat seinen Hörern den Unterschied zwischen Materie und Form und auf was es dabei ankommt, gewöhnlich durch eine Illustration klargemacht, über die man vielleicht spotten mag. Er sagte, man solle sich einmal denken, wie ein Wolf, der einige Zeit seines Lebens lauter Lämmer gefressen hat, wie der sich dann eigentlich aus der Materie der Lämmer zusammensetzt - und doch wird der Wolf niemals ein Lamm! Das gibt, wenn man es nur richtig verfolgt, den Unterschied zwischen Materie und Form. Ist der Wolf ein Wolf durch Materie? Nein! Seine Wesenheit hat er eingeimpft durch die Form - wir finden sie nicht nur bei diesem Wolf, sondern bei allen Wölfen. So finden wir die Form durch einen Begriff, der, im Gegensatz zu dem, was die Sinne im Einzelnen erfassen, etwas Universelles ist.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":159,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/246/1908-08-17/p034"},{"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p035","passage_number":35,"text":"Nun kann man im Sinne des Aristoteles in einem richtig erkenntnistheoretischen Sinne dies Universelle ganz genau in dreifacher Weise unterscheiden. Man kann sagen, dieses Universelle ist das Wesentliche, das, worauf es ankommt. Aber ist dasjenige, was im menschlichen Denken lebt, dasselbe wie das, was wir im wahren Sinne als Form ansprechen? Nein. Der Mensch geht an die verschiedenen Wölfe heran und bildet sich den Begriff, ein Universelles, aus den einzelnen Wölfen. Aber das, was er da als einen Begriff sich gebildet hat, der die gleichen Eigenschaften zusammenfasst, das ist nur ein «Repräsentierende» des wahren Universellen. (Es kann das alles nur skizzenhaft angedeutet werden.) Sodass man also unterscheiden kann: Ein Universelles, das vor den Einzelheiten ist, die uns äußerlich entgegentreten; dann, weil es ja das Wesentliche darinnen ist, ein Universelles, das in den Dingen liegt; und eine dritte Form des Universellen, das sich der Mensch in Gedanken hinterher bildet. Es gibt somit: 1) universalia ante rem, 2) universalia in re, 3) universalia post rem. Die letzteren entrollen sich dem subjektiven Geiste und sind die «die objektiven realen Universalien repräsentierenden» inneren Erlebnisse.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":180,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/246/1908-08-17/p035"},{"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p036","passage_number":36,"text":"Bevor man nicht auf die dreifache Unterscheidung eingeht, kann man auf diesem Grunde zu keiner richtigen Einsicht in Bezug auf dasjenige kommen, was hier wichtig ist. Denn bedenken Sie, um was es sich handelt! Es handelt sich um die Einsicht, dass der Mensch, insofern er in den universalia post rem drinnen lebt, dass er da ein Subjektives hat. Aber es wird zugleich auf etwas Wesentliches hingewiesen, nämlich darauf, dass der Begriff des Menschen eine «Repräsentation» dessen ist, was als reale Formen (Entelechien) universalen Bestand hat. Und diese - die universalia in re, sind wiederum nur in die Dinge hineingeflossen, weil sie schon vor den Dingen existiert haben als universalia ante rem.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":111,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/246/1908-08-17/p036"},{"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p037","passage_number":37,"text":"Da haben wir als universalia ante rem dasjenige, was wir als zuerst in der Gottheit, in der Weisheit Gottes existierend annehmen müssen. Als christlicher Theologe, als Scholastiker, fasst man es auf ähnliche Weise auf, nur dass man nicht gleich bis zum höchsten Göttlichen hinaufgeht. Als Theosophen wissen wir, dass die universalia in re, wenn es sich zum Beispiel um Tiere handelt, deren Gruppenseele bedeuten, und so haben wir in der Tat im Aristotelismus eine Fundamentierung dessen, was wirklich die Theosophie begrifflich stützen kann. Nur gehört zu all dem, was uns bei Aristoteles entgegentritt, noch etwas anderes, was in der Neuzeit immer unbeliebter geworden ist: Es ist nötig, dass man sich dazu bequemß, in scharfen, fein ziselierten Begriffen zu denken, in Begriffen, die man sich erst zubereitet, es gehört dazu, dass man die Geduld hat, von Begriff zu Begriff vorzuschreiten, dass man vor allen Dingen Neigung zu begrifflicher Reinheit und Sauberkeit habe, dass man weiß, wovon man redet, wenn man einen Begriff anschlägt. Wenn man im scholastischen Sinne zum Beispiel von der Beziehung des Begriffs zu dem, was er repräsentiert, spricht, so muss man erst lange Definitionen in den scholastischen Schriften durcharbeiten. Man muss wissen, was es heißt, wenn man sagt, der Begriff ist formaliter begründet im Subjekt und fundamentaliter im Objekt: Was der Begriff als eigentliche Gestalt hat, kommt vom Subjekt, was er als Inhalt hat vom Objekt her - das ist nur eine kleine Probe. Wirklich nur eine kleine. Wenn Sie scholastische Werke durchnehmen, müssen Sie sich durch dicke Bände von Definitionen durchwinden, und das ist dem heutigen Wissenschafter sehr unangenchm; daher betrachtet er die Scholastiker als Schulfüchse und tut sie damit ab. Er weiß gar nicht, dass wahre Scholastik nichts anderes ist als die gründliche Ausarbeitung der Gedankenkunst, sodass diese ein Fundament für das wirkliche Begreifen der Wirklichkeit bilden kann.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":302,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/246/1908-08-17/p037"},{"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p038","passage_number":38,"text":"Indem ich dies spreche, werden Sie empfinden, dass es eine große Wohltat ist, wenn gerade innerhalb der Theosophischen Gesellschaft Bestrebungen auftauchen, die in allerbestem (erkenntnistheoretischem) Sinne auf eine Ausarbeitung der erkenntnistheoretischen Prinzipien hinzielen. Und wenn wir gerade hier in Stuttgart einen Arbeiter auf diesem Gebiete von außerordentlicher Bedeutung haben (Doktor Unger), so ist das als eine wohltätige Strömung innerhalb unserer Bewegung zu betrachten. Denn diese Bewegung wird in ihren tiefsten Teilen nicht durch diejenigen ihre Geltung in der Welt erlangen, die nur die Tatsachen der höheren Welt hören wollen, sondern durch solche, welche die Geduld besitzen, in eine Gedankentechnik einzudringen, die einen realen Grund für ein wirklich gediegenes Arbeiten schafft, die ein Skelett schafft für das Arbeiten in der höheren Welt.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":121,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/246/1908-08-17/p038"},{"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p039","passage_number":39,"text":"[Nicht nur interessante und neue Gedanken sollen wir von der Theosophie erhalten wollen, sondern auch, was freilich nicht so bequem ist, an der richtigen Fundierung unserer eigenen Begriffstechnik arbeiten.] So wird vielleicht gerade innerhalb der theosophischen Bewegung und aus der Theosophie selbst heraus erst wiederum verstanden werden, was die von Anhängern und Gegnern zum Zerrbild gemachte Scholastik eigentlich wollte. Es ist natürlich bequemer, mit ein paar mitgebrachten Begriffen alles, was uns als höhere Wirklichkeit entgegentritt, begreifen zu wollen, als eine gediegene Fundamentierung in der Begriffstechnik zu schaffen - aber was sind die Folgen davon? Es gibt einen misslichen Eindruck, wenn man heute philosophische Bücher in die Hand nimmt. Die Menschen verstehen einander gar nicht mehr, wenn sie über höhere Dinge sprechen; sie sind sich nicht klar darüber, wie sie die Begriffe gebrauchen. Das hätte in der scholastischen Zeit nicht vorkommen können, denn damals musste man sich klar über die Konturen eines Begriffs sein.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":153,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/246/1908-08-17/p039"},{"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p040","passage_number":40,"text":"[Heutzutage ist einem eben der richtige Gebrauch der Begriffe ganz abhandengekommen, und die Begriffe selber haben bloß noch verschwommene Konturen. Wäre man also dereinst in gerader Richtung auf dem Wege weitergeschritten, der von Aristoteles aufgedeckt worden ist, so hätte man immer eine richtige Gedankentechnik gehabt, so aber musste man sich schließlich in dem Kant’sehen Begriffsgespinst verfangen. Dann wäre auch niemals jene Kluft entstanden zwischen Wissen und Glauben.]","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":67,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/246/1908-08-17/p040"},{"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p041","passage_number":41,"text":"Sie sehen, es hat in der Tat einen Weg gegeben, um in die Tiefen der Denktechnik einzudringen. Und wäre dieser Weg weiter beschritten worden, hätte man sich nicht einfangen lassen in das Kant’sche Gespinst vom «Ding an sich» und der Vorstellung, die subjektiv sein soll, dann hätte man zweierlei erreicht: Erstens wäre man zu einer in sich selbst sicheren Erkenntnistheorie gelangt, und zweitens - und das ist von großer Bedeutung — hätte man nicht in den maßgebenden Kreisen diejenigen großen Philosophen so gänzlich missverstehen können, die nach Kant gearbeitet haben. Es folgt zum Beispiel das Trifolium Fichte, Schelling, Hegel. Was sind sie dem heutigen Menschen? Man hält sie für Philosophen, die aus rein abstrakten Begriffen eine Welt haben herausspinnen wollen. Das ist ihnen niemals eingefallen. Aber man war eingezwängt in Kant’sche Begriffe und deshalb konnte man den größten Philosophen der Welt weder philosophisch noch sachlich begreifen. Sie wissen, es ist derjenige, der im Hause vis-A-vis, wie aus der Gedenktafel hervorgeht, die Sie sehen können, wenn Sie hier die Straße betreten, seine Jugendzeit verbracht hat: Hegel. Erst allmählich wird man dazu heranreifen, das zu verstehen, was er der Welt gegeben hat; erst dann wird man ihn begreifen können, wenn man wieder herauskommt aus dem theoretisch gesponnenen, beengenden Erkenntnisgespinst. Und das wäre so einfach! Man brauchte sich nur zu einem natürlichen, unbefangenen Denken zu bequemen und sich frei zu machen von dem, was in der philosophischen Literatur unter dem Einfluss der getrübten Strömungen des Kantianismus sich zu Denkgewohnheiten entwickelt hat. Man muss sich klar sein über die Frage: Verhält es sich denn wirklich so, dass der Mensch vom Subjekt ausgeht, sich im Subjekt seine Vorstellung baut und diese Vorstellung dann hinüberspinnt über das Objekt? Ist das wirklich so? Ja, es ist so. - Aber folgt daraus notwendigerweise, dass der Mensch niemals in das Ding an sich eindringen kann?","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":306,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/246/1908-08-17/p041"},{"locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p042","passage_number":42,"text":"Ich will einen einfachen Vergleich machen. Denken Sie sich, Sie haben ein Petschaft, darauf stehe der Name Müller. Nun drücken Sie das Petschaft in einen Siegellack und nehmen es fort. Nicht wahr, darüber sind Sie sich doch klar, dass, wenn dies Petschaft, sagen wir, aus Messing besteht, dass nichts von dem Messing in den Siegellack übergehen wird. Wenn nun dieser Siegellack erkennend im Kant’sehen Sinne wäre, so würde er sagen: «Ich bin ganz Lack, nichts kommt vom Messing in mich herein, also gibt es keine Beziehung, die ich über die Natur dessen, was mir da entgegentritt, wissen könnte.» Dabei aber ist ganz vergessen, dass das, worauf es ankommt, nämlich der Name Müller, ganz objektiv als Abdruck im Siegellack drinnen ist, ohne dass vom Messing etwas hinübergegangen ist. So lange man materialistisch denkt und glaubt, dass, um Beziehungen herzustellen, Materie von dem einen zum andern hinüberließen müsse, so lange wird man auch theoretisch sagen: «Ich bin Siegellack, und das andere ist Messing an sich; und da von dem «Messing an sich» nichts hereinkommen kann in mich, kann auch der Name Müller nichts anderes sein als ein Zeichen. Das Ding an sich aber, das im Petschaft drinnen war, das sich mir abgedrückt hat, sodass ich es lesen kann: Das bleibt mir ewig unbekannt.» Da sehen Sie die Schlussformel, der man sich da bedient. Spinnt man in dem Vergleiche weiter, so ergibt sich: Der Mensch ist ganz Siegellack (Vorstellung), das Ding an sich ist ganz Petschaft (das außerhalb der Vorstellung Befindliche). Weil ich nun als Lack (Vorstellender) nur an die Grenze des Petschafts (das Ding an sich) herankommen kann, so bleibe ich in mir selbst, es kommt nichts vom Ding an sich in mich herüber. So lange man den Materialismus auf die Erkenntnistheorie ausdehnen wird, so lange wird man nicht herausfinden, worauf es ankommt. Der Vordersatz gilt: Wir kommen nicht über unsere Vorstellung hinaus; aber was herüberkommt, ist als Geistiges zu bezeichnen; das hat nicht nötig, dass materielle Atome herüberließen. Nichts von einem Materiellen kommt in das Subjekt herein - trotzdem aber kommt das Geistige herüber in das Subjekt, so wahr wie der Name Müller in den Siegellack. Davon muss eine gesunde erkenntnistheoretische Forschung wieder ausgehen können, dann wird man sehen, wie sehr sich der neuzeitliche Materialismus selbst unvermerkt in die erkenntnistheoretischen Begriffe eingebürgert hat. Es folgt nichts anderes aus einem unbefangenen Betrachten der Sachlage, als dass Kant sich ein «Ding an sich» nur materiell vorstellen kann, so grotesk eine solche Behauptung sich auch für den ersten Blick ausnchmen mag.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":417,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/246/1908-08-17/p042"}],"beads":[{"from":[33],"to":[33],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[34],"to":[34],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[35],"to":[35],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[36],"to":[36],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[37],"to":[37],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[38],"to":[38],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[39],"to":[39],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[40],"to":[40],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[41],"to":[41],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[42],"to":[42],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"}],"note":"Paired by the paragraph aligner; each language numbers its own paragraphs. 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