{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 246/1908-08-17/p042","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"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,"title":"12. Philosophy and Theosophy","site_heading":null,"date":"1908-08-17","location":null,"word_count":418,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17/p042","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"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/246/1908-08-17/p042"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/246/1908-08-17/p042","paragraph_aligned":true}],"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."},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"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"}],"english":["GA 246/1908-08-17/p042"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":417,"en_words":418,"ratio":1.0,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.02,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":7990,"original_word_count":7843,"may_be_abridged":false},"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. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}