12. The Relationships Between Spiritual Science and Individual Academic Subjects II

Distinguished Participants! The spiritual-scientific considerations from which we have to start today can be brought to the fore because they can shed light on what follows. At first it will seem as if today's topic has little to do with the intention of establishing a relationship between spiritual-scientific knowledge and practical life. However, if we do not move on to those things that can lead us to the center of scientific considerations, things would remain unresolved. And this central point of scientific observation stands before us today in such a way that it is actually excluded from conventional science. For one must admit: when man looks at nature, he tries to recognize nature from his own point of view, and in so doing he is involved in all these points of view; the process of knowledge flows under his direct participation, he cannot, as it were, exclude himself. And only when we have become familiar with his involvement will we be able to look at what, in today's approach, we would like to separate from the human being, namely those phenomena from which, as they say, we want to build an 'objective picture of the world'. Today, in order to arrive at a physical world view, one wants to disregard the human being altogether; one wants to achieve the ideal that the human being does not bring anything of himself into the physical world view. But in order to fulfill such an ideal, the question must first be decided to what extent the human being is able to observe phenomena completely separately from himself. And on the other hand, the fact that, precisely when man is observed in the spirit of today's scientific view, one cannot avoid applying to man what has now been gained from this view of nature and what is supposed to be quite independent of man. Today, it has almost become the norm to introduce psychological observations, observations about the human soul life, by sending purely scientifically researched results ahead. Indeed, what can be said about the physiological results of psychology is even considered to be the most important. But in doing so, what was intended to be studied independently of the human being in its own right is itself brought back into the studies on humans. And it is no wonder that psychological studies also reach limits that are highly unsatisfactory. This has become customary in scientific observation. But it can also be said that, as a result of these habits of thought, the human being has basically been completely excluded from the observation of the world. We can say, for example, that the ideal of the astronomical approach is to stick as closely as possible to what can be expressed through measuring, counting and the like. The physical ideal has also been transferred to astronomy, and attempts are being made to arrive at ideas about the relationships between the world bodies, in which the Earth is also included, and in doing so, man is completely excluded. This is quite obvious to anyone who today considers the scientific approach in this field. He is not considered at all in any connection with that which is otherwise examined as a law.