The Rudolf Steiner Archive

21. Contribution to the Discussion at the Public Conference “Cultural Perspectives of the Anthroposophical Movement”

[ 1 ] Preliminary remark: Dr. Hehnel (?), one of the panelists, cited the striking example of Helen Keller in connection with the importance of the individual senses; despite her multiple disabilities, she underwent an astonishing development.

[ 2 ] Rudolf Steiner: Ladies and gentlemen! Dr. Hehnel has just raised a most important issue of a physiological and epistemological nature, and I hope you will not consider it immodest of me to interject a few words here, since I must leave shortly—otherwise, I would have done so at the end of the discussion. What Dr. Hehnel has set forth is something of profound significance, and until these matters that have been raised here are addressed in a thoroughgoing manner, the problems at hand cannot be resolved.

[ 3 ] Now I would just like to point out that it was precisely this problem—which has now been helpfully brought to my attention—that prompted me, many years ago in Berlin, in a series of lectures I titled “Anthroposophy,” to first present a

[ 4 ] AIR: To teach the theory of the senses. And at that time, I was compelled to abandon the [completion of] the book—which [I wanted to write on the theory of the senses] and which had already been partially printed—because the material simply required further revision. However, I may say that work in precisely this direction is in full swing within the broader anthroposophical endeavors. At that time, the aim was to show the different ways of assessing what exists, on the one hand—I would say at one pole of human sensory life, for which the sense of sight is particularly decisive—and, on the other hand, how something entirely different exists—also in human experience—at the other pole of human sensory life, which now extends fully into the motor sphere.

[ 5 ] Therefore, at that time, I was compelled to set the total number of our senses—which, at first glance, seems paradoxical—at twelve rather than the usual number we otherwise have. If we turn to the motor aspect of sensory life, we are indeed compelled not only to limit this motor aspect to the sense of touch, but also to carefully distinguish and analyze how not only touch but also the sense of balance, the sense of movement, and so on are integrated into this motor aspect of experience. These matters are, after all, still in the stage of—I would say—unestablished research, and they must, in essence, first be clearly defined.

[ 6 ] You see, my esteemed audience, if we adhere to the one pole for which the sense of sight is particularly characteristic, we always enter a world for which, in ordinary consciousness, there is actually no criterion of existence or being at all—concepts are always inadequate when one attempts to define them sharply. On the other hand, when one delves into the other pole, one always encounters certain experiences that simultaneously embody the experience of being in the most eminent sense and, in fact, guarantee being only through certain physiological-psychological foundations—which I have spoken of frequently, indeed very often, in my lectures—and through preconditions inherent in the entirety of human nature.

[ 7 ] Was diejenigen Erlebnisse betrifft, die eigentlich das Sein — wenigstens vor dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein — niemals in sich tragen würden und die am anderen Pole liegen, habe ich einmal darauf aufmerksam gemacht — es ist ja allerdings, ich möchte sagen kompendiös gefaßt worden, was eigentlich Gegenstand eines [umfassenden] Buches sein müßte —, ich habe darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß man erst bei einem gewissen Erleben, das sich dann abspielt auf jenem Gebiet, das ich das imaginative Gebiet genannt habe, berechtigt ist von Seinsbegriffen zu sprechen, daß sich dieses erst von dem Moment an zeigt, wo man in der Lage ist, im subjektiven Erlebnis, also sagen wir zum Beispiel im subjektiven Farberlebnis, den Gleichgewichts- und Bewegungssinn wenigstens in der Andeutung herauf in das Gesichtsfeld zu tragen. Und auf der anderen Seite ist es wiederum im menschlichen Erleben in einer gewissen Weise möglich, die Erlebnisse des Gesichtssinnes hinunterzutragen, wenn auch, ich möchte sagen in schattenhafter Weise, in jene Sinnesgebiete, die man nur noch — wie mit Recht hervorgehoben worden ist — durch eines ergänzen muß: den Tastsinn durch den Bewegungs- und Gleichgewichtssinn. So kommt zum Beispiel bei Helen Keller, wenn man sie psychologisch analysiert, der Gleichgewichtssinn in ganz hervorragender Weise in Betracht.

[ 8 ] If these experiences are downplayed, then it is possible that a case such as that of Helen Keller will arise, and we will not arrive at an exhaustive characterization of the so-called higher senses—I call them the visual senses or perceptual senses—unless we are able, in a certain way, to carry over into this realm the structural elements we derive from the sense of touch. And on the other hand, we must once again gain the ability to introduce into what we call the volitional senses—I have often used this term, and those who have heard my lectures will recall how I attempted to derive these concepts from the human being itself—we must, on the other hand, introduce into these volitional senses certain, I would say, “side effects” from the visual senses. We must be clear that without working through this field—which has been so commendably introduced here—we would in fact gradually come to develop a theory that would single out merely the pictorial aspect from the [entire] scope of what is to be experimented upon, and that we must pay close attention precisely to such matters.

[ 9 ] It is extraordinarily interesting to examine other cultural phenomena from this particular perspective. Consider, for a moment, what we produce in our pictorial art. In this era, when perspective took hold, the pictorial has been projected more or less solely through the sense of sight—this point in time can be quite clearly identified in cultural history; it is not that far in the past. It was around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries that this transition became clearly evident, when painters first began to incorporate perspective—that is, what the eye perceives—into their work. If we go further back, we find that something much more universal—a human experience—underlies [painting], that perspective recedes, and that what a person experiences, so to speak, when they immerse themselves in the world with their bare senses—that is actually what is found in the paintings. This, too, is only a brief hint, and it would take a thick volume to elaborate on this fully.

[ 10 ] It is interesting, however, that someone—whose name escapes me at the moment—has quite rightly said: When one looks at Japanese painting, one gets the feeling that the viewpoint, the vanishing point of perspective, is situated not outside but inside the person. — In a certain sense, when one paints in a “more primitive” style, one does indeed paint from the center. But then, of course, one can produce pure “eye painting,” and this will appear before us in a completely different way [than Japanese painting]. So one can say—and this is the crux of the matter, which I now wish to emphasize very intensely in my lectures—that this object consciousness, which I by no means regard as something mentioned here that would constitute a desecration, but on the contrary, that this object consciousness, to which we have now finally arrived in the course of scientific research, must be taken into account everywhere, so that anthroposophy is in fact founded on the premise of taking into account everything that modern natural science can offer. Otherwise, anthroposophy drifts into the realm of nebulous mysticism, for on the one hand, in the development of human knowledge, we face the danger of losing ourselves in the senses of the will—growing ever deeper into existence, yet losing the ability to derive imagery from that existence. And on the other hand, we face the danger of immersing ourselves [one-sidedly] in the senses of imagery and then ending up with what Dilthey described—what would result if we perceived the world solely through the sense of sight. We would then be forced to live in a [mere] world of images, and we must certainly protect that which is anthroposophy—firmly grounded in reality—from this danger.

[ 11 ] You will have sensed that one point stood out sharply—and rightly so—in the extraordinarily interesting remarks of the previous speaker, namely that Helen Keller was able to undergo a certain intellectual and emotional development even though she lacked the senses of sight and hearing, and her other senses, such as smell and taste, were, I believe, atrophied. Nevertheless, it was possible, with the help of the senses of balance, movement, and touch, to enable her to have a very extensive intellectual and emotional experience. And it was said: just imagine if a person had developed only the senses of sight and hearing, but not the senses of balance, touch, and movement—what would happen then? It was rightly said that what happened to Helen Keller with regard to these volitional senses could not occur: it would not be possible, if those volitional senses were absent, to elevate these experiences to the level of the sense of sight.

[ 12 ] But there is something else to be said on this matter, which strikes me as extraordinarily important and significant. It is precisely at this point—which is, in a sense, a point on the edge of an abyss, where one must cross over from the realm of imagery into being, where one must also, with one’s understanding, cross over from this realm of imagery into being—[it is precisely this that matters], and that is: A person like Helen Keller, who lacks the senses of sight and hearing but possesses the other senses by virtue of her other physical faculties, can exist in this world of air and earth, and even attain a certain level of development; but a person who possessed only the senses of sight and hearing cannot, however, achieve any development on this earth, in the air or on the ground; indeed, such a person cannot even come into being at all—no such person exists within our earthly existence; it is unthinkable. This sharply delineates, from reality itself—albeit initially only conceptually—the relationship between the sensory faculties and the volitional faculties.

[ 13 ] A problem of the utmost importance has thus been raised, and I consider it my duty to point out briefly that this problem is felt within anthroposophy, and that we do not wish to fall into a nebulous mysticism by relying solely on the higher senses, but rather that we wish to work in full harmony with the legitimate scientific spirit of modern times.