The seven thinkers of Chapter 1 

A developing relationship with the thinkers quoted in Philosophy of Freedom

The first few times I read this Chapter, I looked at 6 of the 7 thinkers as the ones who got it wrong, and naturally I wanted to get to the right answer from the one who got it right, Hegel.

Then I began to notice that the author chose quotations from thinkers who expressed the essence of their thinking clearly and precisely.   I found myself admiring their enthusiasm and interest for thinking about life, aspiring to their ability to think things out clearly and express the essence of their ideas.  I began bringing positivity to them rather than judging, using and avoiding them.  Then, after working with a friend Barbara who expressed warm, accepting delight in the biographical stories of people doing the thinking,  I was inspired to find out more about them as people, and as thinkers.  I  made myself a graphic with their portraits, along with a few notes on the time they lived, anything which struck me from their biography and their essential ideas.

I began to realize that Steiner's work in his Philosophy of Freedom relied on the clearly expressed thinking of other human thinkers, as steps to be able to reach a better understanding, as necessary material for transformation.  Here were people, unusal people, who cared enough, who were driven by something inside them to try to understand themselves and the world, to know themselves and the world with clear thinking.  And I began to see that far from criticising them, or using them as examples of what not to do, Steiner was, in a way, redeeming them from the places in their thinking where they got it wrong or got stuck.  Their clarity enabled Steiner to enter their thinking, explore,  take it to its necessary conclusion,  and see, with his thinking, where things went wrong.

Then I realized that if I went into the thinking of each thinker, including wrestling with ideas which were strange to me, I came out strengthened and changed.  This was a process, and quite different from turning to the page where the answers are revealed.  

Then I realized that I too shared the point of view of every thinker in some time or area of my life - these thinkers were also talking about me.

Then I realized that the ideas these thinkers left behind go towards making up the current thinking of humanity, the thinking I have taken on in the era I live in, that we are talking about our world now.

Then I realized that all these talented and motivated thinkers are in some way 'us', trying to think it all out, to understand ourselves and the world with clear thinking, to know ourselves and the world.

Thank you - and let's keep going!