The Rudolf Steiner Archive

28. Truth and Science

Introductory lecture by Rudolf Steiner: “Before what forum can a decision be made regarding a ‘unified worldview’? — An Attempt to Answer the Question of ‘Truth and Science’”; followed by a discussion.

[ 1 ] Dr. Rudolf Steiner, as a speaker: I was inspired to address our question, “Before what forum must a unified worldview be decided?” both by the earlier discussions within our association—which, after all, seeks to cultivate a monistic worldview—and by my personal involvement in the controversy surrounding Haeckel’s The Riddle of the World. Here in the Association, the following questions have often been considered: What is the essence of a unified worldview? What is its value? Do we actually have the right to speak of a specifically monistic one? It was once emphasized that, according to the current state of science, we have no right to speak of unity in a material sense, and on another occasion Dr. Penzig argued that in the pursuit of a unified worldview encompassing the entire natural and spiritual world, one has no choice but to distort the picture objectively provided by the individual sciences—that is, to do violence to the facts. I noted even then that such supposed “distortions” have often been the source of the greatest advances. Thus, the Copernican system of the world was, for its time, a “distortion” of the available facts, just as the Lamarckian-Darwinian theory of evolution is nothing more than that. Just as Tycho Brahe provided the only possible worldview for his time, so it is easy for the fanatic of facts—who refuses to let his thinking extend beyond the objectively given facts—to point out the “fabrications” contained in the Lamarck-Haeckel theory of evolution according to the current state of science. Nevertheless, I believe that, like Copernicus, Haeckel will be proven right. At the time, I argued with the utmost conviction in favor of the much-contested “mysteries of the world,” because I admired the consistency and extreme boldness with which a mind, starting from a one-sided standpoint, devises and “fabricates” a worldview. Although my fundamental philosophical views are opposed to his only in what he opposes therein, and I agree with him in what he offers of value. At the same time, however, I was labeled a principal opponent of Haeckel on the basis of earlier writings—an experience that seems symptomatic of our times, insofar as the author’s conceptual world takes on an entirely different form in the mind of another. It is simply that, depending on their usual place in intellectual life, our concepts bring ideas into play that convey something different from what we intend to express.

[ 2 ] During these debates about Haeckel and in the discussions within the Federation, a question I had often asked myself came to the forefront once again: What is the relationship between truth and science? Does science contain truth? Does it contain any elements that could lead to the development of a unified worldview? Do we have the right to seek to construct a unified worldview—or indeed any worldview at all—based on science?

[ 3 ] Regarding this question, which has preoccupied people for centuries—and which was closer to being resolved in earlier times than in the modern era, which has blocked its own path to a solution through so-called epistemology—one must clarify in what forum anything can be determined at all with regard to truth and science, and with regard to the truth content of science.

[ 4 ] Today, after all the developments of the 19th century, we have come to view truth as something that must correspond to objectively existing reality. We find ourselves caught up in an intense fanaticism for facts that does not allow us to take any step beyond mere observation. If truth is merely a conceptual repetition of what exists outside of us, then—in the view of those who today seek a worldview—such a worldview is nothing more than a mirror image of facts existing outside of us, of the reality that is already complete in the world outside of us. If one could take a photograph of the world from some vantage point with the most favorable perspective, the ideal of a worldview would be achieved. However, constructing such a worldview would in fact be superfluous, a mere luxury of the human spirit, if—like science—it were to be nothing more than a mere repetition, a kind of photographic reflection of what is happening in the world, of what already exists in a completed form. The fact that the individual still forms an individual reflection alongside science would be completely dispensable, infinitely irrelevant to the overall context of the world. If nature has taken care of and shaped everything for us right down to the final detail, then what the human spirit dreams and creates does not belong to reality. From this standpoint—which is grotesquely evident in contemporary science, including in Haeckel’s The Riddle of the Universe—humanity is nothing more than a mere speck of dust in the cosmos, differing from a worm only in quantitative terms. If he constructs a worldview for himself, he is living a life of luxury, doing something that contributes not the slightest bit to the development of the world. Rather, it is demanded that he never contribute anything derived from his own mind—anything not found in the rest of nature—but only record, compare, and logically connect.

[ 5 ] We ask: Does this method—simply approaching objective nature logically, without ever adding anything that goes beyond the current state of affairs—correspond to the course of nature’s essences? is there not perhaps something in the direction of nature’s development that compels us to add something to reality? Nature itself provides us with the answer. It should provide it especially to the developmental theorist.

[ 6 ] To illustrate this point succinctly, allow me to posit the following: suppose nature were at a stage in its development where there were only apes and no humans; suppose the apes had investigated the phenomena of the world, discovered what lay beneath them—and found nothing but more apes. Had they adopted an empirical standpoint, they would have been satisfied with the realization that the world ends with the apes. They might have established an ape ethic based on the general sensibility of apes, so that nothing new would have been added to the world and they would have remained at their current level. Yet from our standpoint of knowledge, we know that within the principle of development there was indeed something that led beyond the monkey species—something that, because it was a productive principle, because it pointed beyond what existed as a closed reality, led to the formation of humanity—something that was not limited to the factual, something that as it were, exists in nature as real imagination, real intuition, guiding it beyond its individual stages and elevating it above the immediate present.

[ 7 ] Human beings, too—as a product of evolution, as beings within nature—exist to live out that evolution, not merely to look back and form a picture of it, nor to regard themselves as the final point in the sequence. A worldview that seeks to summarize the content of all human thought and action must therefore be not merely theoretical and contemplative, but also practical and assertive. Human beings should therefore not merely repeat nature in some way, but should examine whether there are forces within them that lead beyond what is immediately given. They should make evolution spiritually and ideologically alive within themselves; they should seek out the forces that drive the species forward and bring about progress, rather than merely examining their mental faculties to see if they correspond to reality. The question “Can we penetrate to the thing-in-itself, look into the essence of the world?” is a calamity, an obstacle for humankind. But when humans place themselves within the process of development, intervening in nature to advance it a step further, they come to a sense of their sublime task, of their place within the world.

[ 8 ] There are, in fact, attempts to develop this supra-scientific standpoint, which certainly acknowledges science but rises above what science offers it as the laws of logical thought. Maeterlinck, for example, has put forward similar views in one of his more recent books, in which he describes the mating of bees. One asks: Can we speak of truth in the sense of scientific truth—of correspondence with the reality at hand, which is always found in the minutiae of the material world— if it is to be the content of a worldview, or does it, as a worldview truth, transcend purely objective truth in much the same way that poetic truth—according to those who understand it in the Goethean sense—transcends immediate naturalistic truth?

[ 9 ] Such approaches can be found in many places today, to the delight of those who see the truth in living reality, and to the horror of fact fanatics like Tycho de Brahe or Haeckel’s opponents. Yet they do not belong in their forum. The truth that seeks to inspire will always be a quest; it will always have to “distort” the picture presented by the fanatics of facts; yet it stands infinitely above them by developing something intuitive and spiritual within human beings, adding something new to nature that would not exist without the human spirit. Through this, what human beings cherish in their dreams and create in their minds takes on more than the significance of a mere luxury; it acquires cosmic truth in life as something that human beings have newly created. Thus, building upon the foundation of science, they rise to productive work that springs freely from their souls as original intuition. Having reached the highest stage of development, he has a task that no other being in the world has; he adds something that would never exist without him.

[ 10 ] While these views may be an abomination to the pure natural scientist, I consider it a valid insight that human beings have a right to be creative in their worldview—a sentiment that was alive at various times, before fanaticism for facts and epistemology had put blinders on us, times that were convinced from the outset of the cosmic nature of this addition.

[ 11 ] Let me conclude with the words of Angelus Silesius, which express the recognition of the unique significance of the human spirit in the world:

[ 12 ] Without me, God could not create a single little worm; if I were to cease to exist, it would crumble into nothingness.

[ 13 ] Schäfer, former spokesperson for the Free Religious and Humanist Community in Berlin, objects to the use of the term “forgery” to describe Copernicus’s error. If he assumed a circular motion instead of an ellipse, this was a flawed conception that, like many similar ones, has been clarified by the advancing human spirit; for it will always be the lot of humankind to be held back by the imperfections of their conceptions, which are only resolved later.

[ 14 ] The speaker would have preferred the topic to be addressed more concisely: “By what forum, by what court can a worldview, truth, and falsehood—and thus right and wrong—be judged?”

[ 15 ] This forum can only be the individual, in their sovereignty. It is from this position that a sense of responsibility arises.

[ 16 ] Dr. Stern: “A fundamental question of importance to our discussion is this: Is a worldview—that is, a general philosophical conception of the true nature of the world and of all that exists—even possible? This question has been answered in very different ways. While, on the one hand, it is considered unobjectionable to form a dogmatic worldview based on experience, another view—to which I subscribe—is critical positivism, which, while proceeding from scientific knowledge and not stopping at individual facts, nevertheless does not consider it possible to arrive at a picture of the ultimate reality, a true picture of the cosmos.

[ 17 ] To justify the dogmatic method, reference is made to the metaphysical impulse that undoubtedly exists in human beings—even in a child who breaks a toy to get to the heart of the matter.

[ 18 ] However, two psychological errors have crept into the formation of metaphysical systems designed to satisfy this impulse: Greek philosophy singled out one of the various parts of the universe in a one-sided manner and made it the subject, the true essence of nature. Thus, Thales chose water. In more recent times, people have fallen into the habit of focusing individually on various psychological faculties of human nature and, after fantastically exaggerating them, attributing them to nature as an entity. Thus, Hegel makes reason the principle of the world, and Schopenhauer makes it the blind will. Lotze posits a comprehensive consciousness that mediates all interactions. Thus, philosophy has happily returned to where it began: hylozoism.

[ 19 ] I consider it utterly impossible to find a universal, true, and correct worldview, firstly because of the subjective nature of the human mind, which views everything through a subjective lens and, according to Kant, can never perceive the thing-in-itself, and second, for the objective reason that all our research encompasses only such a small part of the universe, and it is simply impossible that such a large portion of what occurs will ever fall within the scope of our experience that we could draw universally valid conclusions about the world as a whole from it.”

[ 20 ] Benedikt Lachmann: “Dr. Steiner seems to me to posit a contrast between humanity and nature. The essence of the human being, like that of any other form of existence, can be reduced to an interplay of forces—of movement and resistance—that struggle against one another without purpose. For the human being, the goal cannot be to rise above these forces; rather, he must seek to engage with them as best he can.”

[ 21 ] Wolfgang Kirchbach: “Dr. Steiner said that it is a danger—indeed, a necessity—for the human spirit to arrive at a falsification if it is not content to provide a mere image, a copy, of reality. In contrast, Bacon of Verulam believed he could construct a correct worldview based solely on the perceptionibus sensuum, and he rejected the Copernican system because it contradicted his conception of the perceptiones.

[ 22 ] After all, determining the truth depends on the knowledge a person has of the powers and abilities with which they are endowed to assess reality. This includes, for example, mathematical reasoning, which corrects perceptions. One can probably speak of a “falsification” only in the sense that a person unilaterally renounces one ability or another. After all, there have also been minds that thought while in full possession of all their intellectual faculties, at a certain level of maturity that we call reason. When Mr. Schäfer says that the forum of a worldview is the “sovereignty of my personality,” he certainly meant that this forum is the total possession of the intellectual powers of my personality, and we can agree on the term “reason.”

[ 23 ] The rational concept of truth requires, for all thinking—whether in science or worldview—a reconciliation of judgment with reality; it demands observation, perception, correction of perception, and the discovery of the concept and expression that best encapsulate the sum of known facts according to the current state of knowledge, and that best express the greatest harmony between our judgments and reality.

[ 24 ] This path alone makes research and imagination productive, and protects against error—error that is refuted by reality and is meaningless and unproductive. Only in this way is it possible to make a productive contribution to nature. Even if the poet presents us with a worldview, we consider it better for him to create realistic characters and to allow a social or other general law to be observed in his work. His work is also merely a reflection of reality, but the very act of discovering the true inner symbol is an eminently productive activity—just as in science, the discovery of a unifying, conceptually fruitful general concept from the sum of conflicting and limiting data.

[ 25 ] However, a productive imagination is necessary, but this, in turn, requires a regulatory force of reason—a restraint on the imagination imposed by reality.

[ 26 ] This method has added something to the world by creating new faculties. Through methodical and rational reflection, Kant has added, in the moral realm, a completely new element to what we commonly call nature—the world of sensation and pleasurable feelings—an element that extends far beyond empirical nature: the categorical imperative.”

[ 27 ] Dr. Steiner: “I must admit that the attacks did not address what I spoke about today at all. I did not speak of a contrast between human beings and nature. Rather, I adopted the most consistent standpoint of evolutionary theory, viewing all stages of naturalness—from the deepest to the highest stirrings of the spirit—as a unified whole that manifests itself only in different forms. But an amoeba is, after all, not a human being, and the point is not to blur all distinctions. Yet when I say that in nature everything is merely force, resistance, and movement, this is too reminiscent of the saying: ‘All cats are gray in the dark.’ One cannot come to terms with the world in the blink of an eye. Only after I have distinguished between things can I seek a unified, unifying principle. In the sense of the unifying principle of development, I have spoken of humanity’s task as one that lies within nature and is determined by the facts of development.

[ 28 ] I completely agree that we must stick to reality if we want to be productive, and use it to correct our imagination. I merely pointed out that efforts to present a worldview that is merely a pale imitation of reality—as Büchner advocates—have so far failed to meet these requirements, and that even he, for example, is forced to distort the facts. One must look not at the intention here, but at the result. One acts as if one wanted to present an image of what actually exists, but is unable to do so. My principle, therefore, is not a theoretical one, but a practical transcendence of reality in the sense that I see it in the principle of development, where creatures transcend their own species. This formulation of the problem was not addressed at all in the discussion.

[ 29 ] I did not use the word “falsification” in the sense of the imperfection of a concept that is only clarified later, but rather meant that researchers are always forced, for the sake of the system, to present a deliberately false representation when they seek a comprehensive unity, and I therefore asked whether what we are justified in calling “reality” in the highest sense even corresponds to what the natural scientist understands by “reality.” When Haeckel prints three stages of embryonic development using the same plate, he is forced to commit a falsification in order to provide proof according to the scientific method. I mean, with a touch of irony, that such falsifiers are nevertheless proven right—as Haeckel was against his opponents, who cling to the purely factual nature of the scientific method—because they intuitively look beyond individual facts, not in a fanciful way.

[ 30 ] But when Dr. Stern rejects in principle the possibility of a worldview, of a comprehensive perspective, and in doing so cites the diversity of philosophical systems to support his view, this is a cliché based on incomplete understandings of the individual systems. The most significant attempts at truth that have been made—from Vedanta philosophy through Greek philosophy to German philosophy—are approximations of the truth to varying degrees.

[ 31 ] The forum in which the validity of one view or another is decided can only be the forum of the individual, his sovereign personality, as I believe, in agreement with Dr. Schäfer. This statement strikes me as a truly genuine one, arising not from theoretical speculations but from the experience of men who have acted in practical ways. But just as it is true that the individual is the ultimate forum, so it is equally true that the individual must always feel the responsibility of this position and the duty to continually develop and cultivate the depths of the individual. A child cannot be a forum in the same way as one who stands at the pinnacle of knowledge. This raises the question: Where within us humans lies that which is to be developed, that which is productive? What within us corresponds to that which drives nature forward—that which led apes to transcend their species and become human?

[ 32 ] If I regard human beings as the product of evolution, I can indeed view them as the highest existing forum. But I also have an obligation to constantly summon the highest human qualities within myself, and at no moment in my life do I have the right to recognize myself as the ultimate and final authority; rather, as one who is still developing, I can devote myself to the expectation that at every moment of my existence, a higher level of understanding than I currently possess may dawn upon me. The further development of the personality must be based on science, but it must also go beyond it, as art and poetry do; and just as art and poetry do not stray into blind fantasies, so too, when people guide their personalities according to the principle of development—even if they venture far beyond objective nature—harmony will arise among the most diverse individuals, as demonstrated by the harmony of philosophical systems throughout the ages.

[ 33 ] The solution to the question—“To what extent does science contain truth? Can it alone lead to the truth?”—lies in this sovereign significance of the human personality.

[ 34 ] The world, especially from a scientific perspective, is structured in a dualistic way in many respects. Development is only possible because nature has, in a contradictory manner, laid the groundwork for the future within itself. Nature presents itself to humanity as an apparent contradiction—one that science cannot initially resolve—in the form of force, matter, and so on.

[ 35 ] This is where the significance of the human personality comes into play. Only human life activity can be unifying and monistic. It consists in resolving these apparent opposites into a higher perspective—one productively generated by human beings—in the life of development, in the unification of opposites, and in living action.

[ 36 ] “Therefore, the question of the validity of a worldview must be decided in the context of life, not in the context of knowledge.”