{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 78/1921-08-30/p014","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Thus, from the effects of agnosticism at the end of the 19th century, one had to ask the fundamental question: What actually happens in human beings when they cognize? — This cognition is obviously an activity that he performs internally; but it is not merely an indifferent activity. It is an activity that is supposed to bring him together with the essence of world phenomena, an activity through which he is supposed to orient himself as to how he stands with his own being within the facts of the world. Is cognition something with which one stands, I might say, like a fifth wheel on a wagon next to the outer world, and is there only something to be found in one's ideas, which form the process of cognition, that is a reflection of outer reality? Or is the process of cognition not merely something formal with which one stands in a corner while the world process takes place outside, through which one allows this world process to be reflected within oneself, so that it would be completely irrelevant to this process whether the human being stands there in the corner and, in addition to everything else that is happening, also forms all kinds of concepts and ideas about this world process through his thinking? In other words: Is cognition merely a formal thing, something that man does for himself, or is cognition something real? Does man stand with cognition as with something real, with a real process in the world as a whole? By recognizing, does one experience something that happens in the world and through the world, and which, only because of the special organization of the world, takes place not outside but within man, so that man himself becomes the scene for important world events that take place on this scene? If the latter is the case, then human beings, with their cognition, are part of a real process in the context of the world. Then they are not a bystander of existence, then they are, in a sense, counted on in the world process; then their organization is such that the world would not be complete if what takes place within them, within their skin, so to speak, did not also happen and did not constitute the pinnacle of world events.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Second Lecture","site_heading":"Thinking as Creative Participation in Reality","site_heading_note":"A heading the site wrote for this unit from a summary of it; not in the edition, and not the words of Rudolf Steiner or of the translator. Cite the unit by its title and locus, never by this heading, and do not quote it.","date":"1921-08-30","location":null,"word_count":385,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/78/1921-08-30/p014","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":"Anthroposophy: Its Roots of Knowledge and Fruits of Life","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA078/English/SOL2025/19210830p01.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/78/1921-08-30/p014"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/78/1921-08-30/p014","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 78/1921-08-30/p014","passage_number":14,"text":"So mußte man aus den Wirkungen des Agnostizismus vom Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts heraus die Grundfrage stellen: Was geschieht denn da eigentlich im Menschen, wenn er erkennt? — Es ist offenbar diese Erkenntnis eine Tätigkeit, die er innerlich ausübt; aber es ist nicht bloß eine gleichgültige Tätigkeit. Es ist eine Tätigkeit, die ihn zusammenbringen soll mit dem Wesen der Welterscheinungen, eine Tätigkeit, durch die er sich orientieren soll, wie er mit seinem eigenen Wesen in den Welttatsachen drinnensteht. Ist Erkennen etwas, mit dem man, ich möchte sagen, nur wie das fünfte Rad am Wagen neben der äußeren Welt steht, und hat man in seinen Vorstellungen, die den Erkenntnisprozeß bilden, lediglich etwas zu finden, was Abbild der äußeren Wirklichkeit ist? Oder ist der Erkenntnisprozeß nicht so etwas bloß Formelles, mit dem man sich in die Ecke stellt, während der Weltprozeß draußen abläuft, durch das man in sich diesen Weltenprozeß spiegeln läßt, so daß es für diesen höchst gleichgültig wäre, ob der Mensch da in der Ecke steht und sich außer allem übrigen, was geschieht, auch noch das zuträgt, daß er durch sein Denken allerlei Begriffe und Ideen bildet über diesen Weltenprozeß? Mit andern Worten: Ist das Erkennen etwas bloß Formelles, etwas, was der Mensch für sich macht, oder ist das Erkennen etwas Reales? Steht der Mensch mit dem Erkennen als mit etwas Realem, mit einem realen Prozeß in dem Weltenganzen drinnen? Erlebt man, indem man erkennt, irgend etwas, was in der Welt und durch die Welt geschieht, und das sich nur wegen der besonderen Organisation der Welt nicht außerhalb, sondern im Menschen abspielt so, daß der Mensch in sich selber der Schauplatz wird für wichtige Weltenereignisse, die sich auf diesem Schauplatz abspielen? Wenn das letztere der Fall ist, dann steht der Mensch mit seiner Erkenntnis als mit einem realen Prozesse im Weltenzusammenhang drinnen. Dann ist er nicht ein Eckensteher des Daseins, dann ist gewissermaßen im Weltenprozesse auf ihn gerechnet; dann ist seine Organisation so, daß die Welt nicht vollständig wäre, wenn dasjenige, was in ihm, gewissermaßen innerhalb seiner Haut sich abspielt, nicht auch geschähe und gerade den Gipfel des Geschehens in der Welt abgäbe.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":353,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/78/1921-08-30/p014"}],"english":["GA 78/1921-08-30/p014"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":353,"en_words":385,"ratio":1.09,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","audit"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.01,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":5464,"original_word_count":5410,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Anthroposophy: Its Roots of Knowledge and Fruits of Life","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA078/English/SOL2025/19210830p01.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 78/1921-08-30/p014"],"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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