How to study the Philosophy of Freedom - introduction

C Robert

How to study the Philosophy of Freedom

"There is no one, unique method for studying"  Aristotle

As Aristotle points out, there is no one method for study, yet it is important to be aware that The Philosophy of Freedom isn't meant to be read in an ‘ordinary way’:  with intellectual thought alone, or a with uniquely academic knowledge-based approach.  There is something special in the way we study this book which will render it intelligible and meaningful within our own inner life experience. 

Steiner often wrote about his Philosophy of Freedom, and Otto Palmer presents selections from Steiner's work, arranged and annotated, in his book 'Rudolf Steiner on his book The Philosophy of Freedom' (published by SteinerBooks Anthroposophic Press  www.steinerbooks.org, ISBN 978-0-910142-68-7). Otto Palmer wrote in his introduction ' No other book Rudolf Steiner wrote was as often and exhaustively discussed by him as his Philosophy of Freedom.  He not ony refers to it, as in the case of others of his writings, to call attention to some particularly interesting matter treated in its pages;  he points again and again and yet again, from every imaginable angle, to what he intended this work to accomplish..."

This includes some basic principles and indications about how his book should be studied. 

Here are some of the principle and indications we work with:

  • Content is not so important as ‘how’ the book is studied…
  • Study with the ‘etheric’ and not with the brain…
  • Think actively
  • Be prepared to create the thoughts as they are written, in ourselves. We recreate the thoughts of Steiner and create them in ourselves for the first time.  In this we are encouraged to pay attention to the order in which the ideas unfold, how each idea springs from and relates to the previous to form a ‘whole’.
  • It is a workbook of self-education and self-transformation.
  • It can create certainty within us if we manage to think it out for ourselves.
  • Steiner promises his book is an example of organic, self-sustaining autonomous thought, this means each idea will follow from the previous, we need to philosophise actively to ‘see’ this for ourselves.
  • He presents the 'bare bones' or whole skeleton of a whole thought
  • 'Think with the whole body, right down to the big toe'
  • Live in thinking (-v- make thinking live)
  • RS's 'real concern' is to 'have these writings understood and the impulse in them actually working'.

I will be exploring these indications and how they can be interpreted as exercises and experiences in our study together,  in posts with the tag 'how to study'.  

CR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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