The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. Q & A following Carl Unger’s lecture on “Anthroposophy and the Epistemological Foundations of the Natural Sciences”

[ 1 ] Preliminary Note: Carl Unger’s lecture was not transcribed. However, he spoke on the aforementioned topic on several occasions, for example in his lectures “On the Epistemological Foundations of Natural Science” (1916) and “On the Path from Natural Science to the Humanities” (1917), both of which were published in print in Volume I of his “Writings,” Stuttgart 1964.

[ 2 ] Rudolf Steiner: The question here has been raised regarding the relationship between supersensible knowledge and the will. Well, if one wishes to form a clear conception of this, one must first consider the relationship between what is commonly called “will” in everyday life and what is called an “idea,” and then recognize the further path from the idea to supersensible knowledge.

[ 3 ] Dr. Unger spoke to you today about pure thought. Anyone who wanted to distinguish the will from pure thinking in an essential way would probably approach the matter much like someone who might ask: What difference is there, for example, between the boy who was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1749, in the house

[ 4 ] 63 lived in such-and-such a way, and the Privy Councilor who lived in Weimar in 1827? — One and the same person, one and the same being: it was Goethe. Thus, viewed from within, the will, as an essentially active element, is indeed entirely the same as thinking, for that which is active precisely in pure thinking is the will—except that, of course, one gains nothing for epistemological discussions by emphasizing precisely this essential nature of the will in pure thinking.

[ 5 ] To characterize thought from an epistemological perspective, one must proceed exactly as tonight’s speaker has done. In essence, I would say, pure thought is simply at a different stage of development than the will. The will, when it has not yet struggled its way through to pure thought, is simply younger; it is, so to speak, still in its adolescence. As it develops further and further, it reaches a certain age—speaking figuratively, of course—and thus comes to be able to express itself as pure thought, which is, in turn, a further elevation. This has been demonstrated quite well to you this evening: pure thought is meditation. Meditation leads into the life of the supersensible world.

[ 6 ] Now, meditation—indeed, any form of pure thinking, truly pure thinking—is not possible without further developing the will. This pure thinking, as a reality in human beings, is, after all, possible only through a particularly intense effort, a particularly intense exercise of the will. But whatever one engages in, one practices and develops. And it is a very special training of the will when one transitions to pure thinking or moves from pure thinking into meditation. One can certainly say: This entire development of a person—who initially lives amid unclear ideas—toward pure thinking and then toward meditation—this entire effort is essentially the training of the will. Therefore, even what is necessary for truly grasping spiritual scientific insights is essentially an exertion of the will. And the person who makes an effort to engage with spiritual scientific insights is exercising an effort of the will, and in doing so is training their will in general. Therefore, one can say that it would be quite beneficial for humanity today if it would at least begin by engaging with spiritual scientific insights, for in doing so it would truly develop the will; it would strengthen the will.

[ 7 ] It does indeed seem that, in modern humanity, the will has essentially become something about which one can really only harbor illusions—if one is even willing to believe that it exists at all. If, for example, one looks around today to see what impulses of will gave rise to the war events of recent years that have so terribly shaken the world, one arrives at no possible answer, for human will has played the very, very smallest role in them. What has been at work is a kind of being determined by forces that have taken control of human decisions. Almost everywhere where decisive decisions were made in 1914, we see that we cannot possibly hold human beings responsible. It would be a psychological absurdity to hold Berchtold’s diplomatic clumsiness in any way responsible for the Serbian ultimatum or the like. Such things may be part of the campaign of confusion and lies sweeping the world today, but they cannot stand up to serious psychological scrutiny. What must be examined in detail on a small scale is already expressed on a larger scale.

[ 8 ] Why don’t you analyze what we commonly call “will” in everyday life? I’d like to draw your attention to a fact that most people lie to themselves about—that they want it. Namely: they get up every morning at a certain time. Do you believe they want to do that—in the true sense of the word? If you analyze the entire set of facts expressed by this act of getting up in the morning, you’ll arrive at the concept of “will” just as well—or just as poorly—as if you were to say that the clock strikes 8 o’clock in the morning. That is a complex of facts when the clock strikes 8 o’clock. When a person’s legs move out of bed and their hands reach for this or that, that is a different set of facts. And the fact that we speak of automatism in one case and of will in the other—that, my esteemed audience, is based solely on an illusion or, rather, on a confused understanding of psychology. In truth, a person is only enabled to speak of volition when he is approaching pure thinking and then, through pure thinking, rises to the comprehension of supersensible truths. Then true volition—the volition that can truly be called volition—takes shape or, I would say, pours itself into his organism. And all the impulses that exist in the traditions for true will do not at all spring from the automaton-like activity that has today become almost a habit for all people, but rather from earlier times, when there still existed—albeit in an atavistic, more instinctive way—a will independent of the ordinary automatism of life.

[ 9 ] You can best see that it is not always the thought itself that guides the will from the fact that people, when they are sufficiently emotional—especially when they have dreamlike thoughts or vague, hazy thoughts—have the greatest influence on those around them. As a rule, clear-thinking individuals who tend toward the abstract have less influence on those around them than those who, with a certain inner brutality, are attuned to emotional thoughts.

[ 10 ] When all of this is fully explained and its consequences properly traced, it will show you that the very path of development the human soul takes toward pure thought, toward supersensory understanding, is the path along which the will is simultaneously brought forth from the depths of the human being as a revelation, so that one can already say: The will, which is the true object of ethics, the true object of moral philosophy—this will is cultivated as a reality precisely by the method of spiritual science.

[ 11 ] It is precisely this will that has been all but lost under materialism. Modern humanity has been gripped by a robotic, mechanical mindset. I would like—though it would be a rather extensive undertaking—to analyze the factor of will, let’s say in the case of a current run-of-the-mill philosophy professor or, more generally, a university professor. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, if one sets aside what he does as part of the ongoing automation that has permeated him during his education, what actually remains for his will? What remains for his will is that which is directed toward the employment law, the appointment decree; he does this because he is driven by his integration into some state context or professorial context or the like. Analyze what, as an element of will in such an activity, that is, in the activity of a truly leading personality, and then try to compare how differently this element of will must be grasped in relation to what spiritual-scientific development is in a human being; then you will form an idea of how this spiritual science is called upon to lead the human being out of the stage of the automaton and truly make him an individual.

[ 12 ] The fact that today we do not even have the slightest idea of how to arrive at a conception of the will is proven by the fact that even a strange notion has now found its way into modern scientific thinking: the strange notion that plants, too, possess something like an animated will, because there are some among them that, when insects or the like come near them, fold their leaves together and devour these insects. This means precisely summarizing a mere external fact, a mere external “complex of actions,” a complex of external phenomena, under the concept of will—which, in this case, is nothing but an illusion. As I have often said in lectures: I know of another creature that, when small animals come near, takes the opportunity to lure them into its trap and kill them there, just as the [carnivorous] plant does to the insect: namely, a mousetrap. And with exactly the same justification that one might consider the Venus flytrap to be animate, one can consider a mousetrap to be animate.

[ 13 ] These phenomena, as they appear today in scientific thinking, prove all the more that there can be no question of a view of the will free from illusion in contemporary thought. One will only regain a true conception of the will—of the experience of the will—when, in spiritual science as understood here—in anthroposophy—the will itself is cultivated. Indeed, one might even say, on the other hand, that people do not draw closer to this spiritual science precisely because it requires a genuine inner exertion of the will, a training of the will, and because the human souls of the present day are, in fact, sleeping souls who are quite content to surrender to the automatism of thought and also of volition.

[ 14 ] Thus, the question of whether supersensible knowledge has a relationship to the will must be answered with a resounding “yes.” For this supersensible knowledge will redeem the slumbering will of present-day humanity; it will awaken the souls, and that is what matters today. The slumbering souls of today will not solve the great tasks of the present. The will will solve them—a will that can be awakened precisely through devotion to supersensible knowledge.