12. Philosophy and Theosophy

GA 246/1908-08-17/p039 ·1908-08-17 · English High

Record: listeners' notes. 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» (From transcripts that are in part fragmentary). 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.

[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.

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Cite: GA 246/1908-08-17/p039 · edition English