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Introduction

In German-speaking countries Goethe’s reputation as a literary giant resembles that of Shakespeare in

the English-speaking world. Every German high school student has read Faust, at least Part I, some

novels such as The Sufferings of Young Werther, and I distinctly remember my irritation at having to

memorize some of Goethe’s poems. However, few people know of Goethe’s extensive scientific studies.

He would have preferred the reverse, as he considered his scientific work to be more important:

I do not pride myself at all on the things I have done as a poet. There have been excellent poets during my

lifetime, still more excellent ones lived before me, and after me there will be others. But I am proud that I

am the only one in my century who knows the truth about the difficult science of color,

he often told his secretary Eckermann in the last years of his life. For over 50 years, Goethe did

research in botany, comparative anatomy, color and optics, meteorology, geology, and many other areas

of natural history.

The results of his endeavors span three volumes of his Collected Works: Volume I, Writings on the

Formation and Transformation of Organic Nature, includes Goethe’s studies on plant and animal

morphology, comparative anatomy, botany, and zoology. Volume II, Writings on the Principles of

Natural Science and the Scientific Method, contains Goethe’s views about the general truths pertaining

to knowledge of nature, and his studies in geology, mineralogy, and meteorology. In Volume III we find

Goethe’s Contributions to Optics and his Theory of Color.

Goethe’s scientific methodology offers an alternative, complementary viewpoint to conventional science

and its fragmentation of knowledge. His approach was strictly phenomenological and he was highly

critical of scientists attempting to force the phenomena to fit their hypotheses: “The phenomena must be

freed once and for all from their grim torture chamber of empiricism, mechanism, and dogmatism; they

must be brought before the jury of man’s common sense”, he wrote in his Maxims and Reflections.

Although he made a number of interesting discoveries, his achievements have not been given much

consideration by the scientific community at large. The prevailing sentiment among his contemporaries

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was one of condescension and even ridicule; it was felt that he should stick to what he knew how to do

well, namely writing poems, novels, and plays. When he found the intermaxillary bone in the human

jaw, a bone which had been known only in animals, the scientists of his day denied this discovery. They

considered the absence of this bone a sign for the fundamental difference between animals and humans.

Goethe felt that such a notion was completely wrong, that all living beings unfold along a continuum

that doesn’t include boundaries or sudden jumps. And he was absolutely correct: it has since been

confirmed that the bone does exist, although it has grown together with other bones in the human jaw.

That’s why Goethe’s contemporaries couldn’t detect it.

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Methodology

There is a delicate empiricism which makes itself utterly identical with the object, thereby becoming true

theory. But this enhancement of our mental powers belongs to a highly evolved age.

Maxims and Reflections

The basic premise of Goethe’s age (and ours, actually) can be summed up in the words of Francis

Bacon: “Reality only presents itself to us when we look out upon the world of the senses. The senses

alone provide us with realities, the realities of empirical knowledge.” Such a view of nature and the

world around us seemed completely alien and fragmented to Goethe. For him, conscious participation in

the fluid and active processes of the world was absolutely essential to a satisfactory understanding of

reality. While conventional science of his day strictly separated observer and observed, Goethe

recognized the observer as a participant. He even went further and postulated that correct scientific

investigation transforms the enquirer, because nothing – no-thing – is intrinsically separate. He was

convinced that our physical organs of perception developed as a result of our interaction with the world

around us, and that thoughtful contemplation of this world creates inner organs of cognition. Everything

is connected, involved, and participating in the reality that presents itself at any given moment. This path

of scientific investigation is open to everyone.

The process of Goethe’s methodology which he called Delicate Empiricism begins with exact

observation (or exact sensorial perception) of the phenomenon. It requires the withholding of one’s own

conclusions, judgements, and associative thinking to allow the creative ideas inherent in the phenomena

to reveal themselves. This is by no means as easy as it may sound. It is hard for us to refrain from

quickly naming something we think we know (“This is a rose – end of story”) or from judging

something according to our sympathies and antipathies (“I hate spiders – end of story”). In both cases

we simply repeat something within ourselves that actually hinders us from learning anything new about

the object in front of us.

Relying on the trustworthiness and accuracy of our senses, Goethe’s methodology proceeds from exact

observation of the phenomenon in question and in the second stage develops what he calls “exact

sensorial imagination”, also described as “re-creating in the wake of nature”. The first, observational,

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stage is characterized by an active, attentive seeing, rather than our habitual passive reception of sense-

data. The eyes become fingers as it were, exploring the phenomenon – a plant, for example – from the

inside as well as the outside.

The second stage, exact sensorial imagination, involves an almost meditative exercise: with closed eyes,

an exact image of the observed object is brought forth inwardly. It could be described as a thinking

with, rather than about the phenomenon. In a way, our thinking begins to move in accordance with the

formative movement of the plant. Spring is a great time for some exercises which will help to illustrate

this: pick a tree branch near you or an annual plant that’s just beginning to grow in your yard. For a

week or two, every day draw exactly what you see, life size is best. Artistic skill is not necessary, but

care must be given to observe any changes and to record these as faithfully as possible. Once this has

been done for some time it is possible to imagine the plant as it changes through time, similar to a time-

lapse film. But there is one essential difference: through exact sensorial imagination the observer

actively produces a lawful, accurate sequence rather than passively watching a moving picture.

The third stage, seeing-in-beholding, requires an inner stillness which may bring forth some previously

unnoticed insight. The plant may reveal something to us that we didn’t know before. This stage demands

that the observer waits patiently and listens to the plant speaking within. The essential nature of the

phenomenon begins to unfold within the observer. For such expressions of an inspirational nature we

need to develop “new organs of perception”, Goethe felt. It should be mentioned that this as well as the

next stage are not so much steps of an actual practice but are the objective, the hoped-for outcome of the

regular practice of the first two steps.

The first three stages of Goethean methodology involve using 1.: sense perception to see the form of

the phenomenon, 2.: imagination to perceive its dynamic movement, and 3.: inspiration to behold its

essence. Intuition informs the fourth stage: being-one-with-the-object. It becomes very difficult to

describe because it can only be reached after persistent practice of the first two stages, just as stage

three. If one can say that at stage three the plant speaks with us, then in the fourth and highest stage the

phenomenon speaks through us.

The result of such steady practice is summarized by Goethe as follows:

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In the process [the progression from empirical observation to intuitive perception] we become familiar

with certain requisite conditions for what is manifesting itself. From this point everything gradually falls

into place under higher principles and laws revealed not to our reason through words and hypotheses, but

to our intuitive perception through phenomena. We call these phenomena ‘archetypal phenomena’

because nothing higher manifests itself in the world; such phenomena, on the other hand, make it possible

for us to descend, just as we ascended, by going step by step from the archetypal phenomena to the most

mundane occurrence in our daily experience.

The archetype is the creative source of all the countless forms found in nature, pushing our perceptual ability to its

limits by merging inner and outer, subjective and objective. Goethe’s discovery of the archetypal plant

(Urpflanze) will be described next.

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Plant Metamorphosis

Obviously, Goethe’s archetypal plant has nothing to do with abstract classification systems, quantitative

analysis, or study of molecular structure. All these methods deal only with one part of the plant, its

physical nature. For this reason, Goethe deliberately chose not to use a microscope; for him, the laws of

the archetypal plant that manifest in infinite varieties would be repeated on the microscopic level, but

are easier to pursue with the bare eye as this deals with the totality of the individual plant. What is the

complex of formative principles which makes us recognize that a plant is a plant? This is something

ideal, the primal image of the plant, manifest in every single individual example. The human being who

has firmly grasped the principles of these formative laws could actually invent plants, Goethe wrote to

Herder on May 17, 1787:

Moreover, I must tell you confidentially that I am very close to the secret of the creation of plants, and

that it is the simplest thing one could imagine. The archetypal plant will be the strangest creature in the

world, which nature herself ought to envy me. With this model and the key to it, one can invent plants

endlessly which must be consistent – that is, if they did not exist, yet they could exist, and not some

artistic or poetic shadows and appearances but possessing inner truth and inevitability. The same law can

be applied to everything living.

Through careful observation, Goethe discovered that the living concept, which structured and united a

particular plant through the different stages of metamorphosis from the first germinating to fruit- and

seed-formation, is that of alternate expansion and contraction. There are altogether six stages of this

process: From the most concentrated, contracted form, the seed, the first unfolding expansion follows

with the growth of leaves. The plant continues its expansive phase until it reaches its flowering stage

which begins with the formation of the calyx. Here, the leaves which had earlier grown from nodes on

the stem, more or less distant from each other, now turn into the sepals which grow in a concentrated

manner around an axial point.

Thus has Nature formed the calyx, by uniting around a common centre, and as a rule in definite number

and order - many leaves and consequently many nodes which she would otherwise have produced one

after the other and at some distance apart. (The Metamorphosis of Plants)

The next expansion produces the corolla, with the petals usually larger than the sepals. The flower’s

scent and the beautiful color of its petals are further aspects of this phase of expansion. With the

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formation of the stamen and pistil, the plant reaches its next stage of contraction; in Goethe’s words:

“Thus a stamen is produced when the organs, which until now we have seen expanding into petals,

reappear in an extremely contracted and at the same time refined state.” The last and greatest expansion

takes place during fruit-formation: “It [the fruit] is often great, even monstrous, both in internal strength

and in external form.” In turn, the highest degree of contraction and inner perfection is reached in the

seed.

Moreover, besides the pattern of alternately contracting and expanding forces, Goethe found out that all

the forms a plant develops during its growth are variations of one single organ, namely the leaf. He

wrote to Herder:

While walking in the Public Gardens of Palermo, it occurred to me that in the organ of the plant which we

ordinarily designate as the leaf, the true Proteus lay hidden, who can conceal himself in all forms.

Forward and backward, the plant is always only leaf, so inseparably united with the future germ that we

cannot imagine one without the other.

Thus, the archetypal plant is in a constant stage of becoming, where the succession of its many

intervening states is determined within the idea of the whole. All the different parts are an expression of

the same idea, each part containing within itself the potential of the whole plant. The succession of

stages from seed to fruit Goethe called “an advancing on a spiritual ladder”. He based his studies on

the observation of annual plants because they show the underlying principle, the archetypal idea, most

distinctly; once he had formulated his theory, he was able to detect the same processes also in trees or in

lower plant-forms, like the ferns.

Similar to the Urpflanze, Goethe postulated an archetype for the many manifestations of animal forms,

which he discovered through studies of vertebral metamorphosis.

Hence we conceive of the individual animal as a small world, existing for its own sake, by its own means.

Every creature is its own reason to be. All its parts have a direct effect on one another, a relationship to

one another, thereby constantly renewing the circle of life; thus we are justified in considering every

animal physiologically perfect,

he wrote in his Introduction to Comparative Anatomy.

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Contributions to Optics and Color Theory

Goethe’s long and involved preoccupation with the laws of light and color grew out of his interest in the

arts. He was convinced that “men’s great works of art are brought forth according to true and natural

laws” (Steiner, Goethe’s World View). His journey to Italy provided him with the opportunity to visit

some of the greatest Italian masterpieces. As usual, his mind was not satisfied with mere esthetical

enjoyment but raised questions about the nature of color combination, the use of light and dark, the

reason for the inner experience of harmony when certain colors were put together. Neither artists nor

scientists, however, could provide him with satisfactory answers. Artists could tell him much concerning

composition, but when it came to color, the use of it seemed arbitrary. After his return to Weimar,

Goethe studied several scientific works on color, based on Newton’s theory of white light being a

composite of colored rays which become visible through refraction. This mechanical view which

considered light only as a physical substance was of no value to Goethe’s inquiries. He finally decided

to conduct his own observations and experiments, in order to uncover the truth about color. For this

purpose, he borrowed some optical equipment, including prisms, from privy councilor Büttner of Jena,

but was delayed with other work for several months. When a messenger from Büttner finally demanded

the return of the instruments, Goethe was ready to give them back, but pulled out one prism in order to

see Newton’s colors at least once. He looked through the prism at the white walls, expecting to see the

colors of the rainbow, but, to his surprise, the walls remained white. Only when he directed the prism to

the window, with its dark frame in sharp contrast to the in-streaming light, the liveliest colors appeared.

Right away, Goethe realized the important role of darkness in the formation of color, and he exclaimed:

“Newton is wrong!” The messenger had to return empty-handed, while Goethe embarked upon his

exploration of the realm of light and color, which occupied him for over forty years.

Before describing his experiments with prisms and plates with black and white, we need to keep

Goethe’s understanding of light in mind. It is not a “thing” consisting of particles but a living entity. He

calls it “the simplest, most undivided, most homogenous being that we know” (from a correspondence

with his contemporary Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi). Similarly, darkness is not simply the absence of light

but something active in its own right. The interplay between light and darkness brings forth the colors:

“Colors are the deeds of light, what it does and what it endures”, Goethe writes in his Preface to Theory

of Color.

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In the first paragraphs of his Contributions to Optics, Goethe encourages his reader to look through a

prism at various objects, and gradually become accustomed to the arising colors. (He warns his reader

that the experience can initially be painful to some people’s eyes. I wonder if our eyes, so used to

artificial light and glare, have become less sensitive…) After the initial wonder and amazement at seeing

the colors, which creates a warm soul-mood, we develop an interest, a “desire to discover their laws and

to find [our] way out of this brilliant labyrinth.” (Contributions to Optics). What began as entertainment

and pleasure now moves into the realm of serious occupation with scientific phenomena which will lead

us toward insight, the sight of the ideal.

Several black-and-white plates help us to perform a set of experiments, all based on Goethe’s

observation that color arises from the meeting of light and darkness. We examine the conditions under

which certain colors arise, the relationship of light to darkness necessary for the appearance of particular

colors. With Goethe’s guidance, we discover two basic conditions or archetypal phenomena

(Urphaenomene, as he called them), beyond which nothing more can be found out: when a black

surface is above a white surface, red, orange, and yellow appear at the edge; when white is placed above

black, we see blue and violet. Thus, we perceive two opposing sets of colors: the warm colors of yellow,

orange, and red when darkness is above light, and the cool colors, blue and violet, when light is above

darkness. The same archetypal phenomena can be perceived in nature: in the middle of the day, the light

of the sun radiates into the dark cosmos behind it, (or, one could equally say, darkness shines through

the light-filled air), and the cool colors arise. In the morning and in the evening, the sun’s rays are

darkened by the dense atmosphere surrounding the earth (Goethe calls this turbidity), and we see

striking oranges and reds.

When we look through the prism at a narrow band of white on a black background, both sets of colors

appear: red and yellow on the upper edge, blue and violet on the lower, with a thin strip of white in-

between. Moving the prism farther away from the paper, we see the bands of color widen until the

yellow and blue overlap to form green, and white totally disappears. We now have the Newtonian color

spectrum in front of us, which Goethe called “Spectrum of Light”. His “Spectrum of Darkness”, not

included with Newton’s colors, appears when we place a thin strip of black on white paper. When we

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look at this through the prism, we see blue and violet on top, red and yellow at the bottom; instead of

black, we see a delicate magenta appear in the middle.

Again, it is important to remember that Goethe’s concept of light differed greatly from Newton’s.

Whereas Newton was concerned with the physical aspect of light, which can be measured and

quantified, Goethe was strongly aware of the spiritual essence of light:

Light, as conceived by Goethe, and as he contrasted it with darkness as its opposite, is a purely spiritual

entity, simply that which is common to all color sensations... Only the mind can analyze this sense-

perceptible fact [color] into two spiritual entities: light and not-light. (Steiner, Goethe the Scientist)

This archetypal polarity finds expression within the colors as well. Goethe states that only yellow and

blue are absolutely pure colors; they are opposite, without contradicting each other. When intensified,

for example. painted with many layers of transparent watercolors, both of these colors take on a reddish

shimmer: yellow gradually turns into orange, and blue becomes more purple. Yellow and blue, from

their opposite poles, strive towards union. Red is the active mediator between the two poles, the highest

of all colors which “contains partly actu, partly potentia all the other colours.” (Contributions to

Optics). Green, on the other hand, results from mixing, rather than uniting, blue and yellow. It therefore

has a more passive and calming quality. With great precision, Goethe explains the characteristics of the

various intermediate colors, and the laws according to which some colors appear harmonious when put

together. When he describes the moral qualities of colors, it becomes clear that he is not talking about

mere pigments, but about living, spiritual entities who have an archetypal character of their own.

The primal phenomenon of two opposite polar forces which manifest as light and dark is for Goethe the

very foundation of the whole universe. In addition to Newton’s gravity, Goethe imagined the earth to be

surrounded by a field of force in every aspect opposite to the earth’s gravitational field, which he called

levity. This was the only possible explanation for the miraculous fact that every plant and tree grows up,

toward the light. To explain natural phenomena only through mechanistic formulae was never enough

for Goethe. With imaginative thinking, he was able to grasp the living Idea, the archetypal phenomenon

not as something transcendent, “above” or “beyond” the sense-perceptible world, but as the creative

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impulse within it, inseparable from its outward manifestation. This view does not oppose the laws of

physical science, it is rather an integral extension to it.

I will mention only one of the many scientists who worked directly with Goethe’s scientific

methodology, often in connection with Steiner’s Anthroposophy. Theodor Schwenk was an engineer

with a diploma in hydro technology. His investigations into the flow and nature of water have led to

some interesting and practical applications. In the foreword to his book Sensitive Chaos, Schwenk

writes: “Through watching water and air with unprejudiced eyes, our way of thinking becomes changed

and more suited to what is alive. This transformation of our way of thinking is, in the opinion of the

author, a decisive step that must be taken in the present day.” (My Italics). He invites the reader to

participate in his meticulous observations of rivers, streams, vortices; forms characteristic of water,

imprinted on the many creatures who inhabit this element as well as on rocks and earth; its rhythmical

qualities visible in waves and tides, “...in the rise and fall of the sap in plants and in the pulsation of the

bodily fluids in man and animal”. He concludes with these words:

By proceeding consistently in natural scientific thinking to the living reality, our modern consciousness

may be widened and extended to compass the mysteries of the world. Proceeding along such a path we

may attain a new conception of the nature of man which will open up new sources of inspiration... It is the

path leading to a spiritual contemplation of the creative archetypal world, which brings forth man and

nature out of the harmony of the universal alphabet”. (Sensitive Chaos)

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Steiner’s Epistemology

As a student of mathematics, natural history, and chemistry at the University of Vienna, Steiner’s

clairvoyant faculties provided him with an insight into the spiritual reality of the sense-perceptible world

which was completely missing from the purely materialistic approach to science at his time.

When his studies of optics brought him to the conclusion that light, although making objects visible to

the physical eye, was itself invisible, a “sensible-supersensible” substance, he shared his thoughts

(which were at variance with recognized science) with one of his professors, Karl Schröer. This man,

himself an ardent Goethe scholar, recognized the similarities between Steiner’s thoughts and Goethe’s

theory of color, and suggested that Steiner study these texts. Following his professor’s advice, Steiner

began his life-long study of Goethe’s writings on natural science. After he had completed his degree

courses in Vienna, he continued with his thorough examination of Goethe’s scientific writings, with the

result that in 1884 he was asked to edit and write an introduction to Goethe’s scientific work, for a new

edition of the German Classics. Four years later, Steiner was included in a group of the most

distinguished Goethe-scholars of Germany and Austria, chosen by the Grand Duchess of Saxony, to

prepare a new edition of Goethe’s complete works, with the addition of many as yet unpublished

manuscripts.

In 1890 Steiner moved to Weimar, in order to take up his work at the Goethe Archives. More and more,

Steiner found in Goethe’s scientific writings a confirmation of his own thoughts about the secrets of

nature; he found Goethe’s method of contemplative, intuitive cognition to be identical with his own. For

orthodox science, a deep split existed between the world of ideas and the sense-perceptible, between the

investigating human mind and the objectified world of matter. For Goethe as for Steiner, this split was

deeply unnatural, limiting and fragmenting human knowledge, denying the spirit-reality of creative,

archetypal forces which manifest as and are one with the living, ever-changing phenomena of the natural

world.

Steiner wrote three major books which complement Goethe’s legacy in that they provide the

epistemological groundwork for the great poet’s worldview:

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1. A Theory of Knowledge, first published in 1886 when Steiner was 25 years old and still a

student at the university in Vienna. Almost 40 years later, upon the occasion of the second

edition, he wrote:

Now that I again turn my attention to it [the book], it seems to me to be also the foundation and

justification, as a theory of knowledge, for all that I have since asserted orally or in print. It

speaks of an essential nature of knowledge which opens the way from the sense world to a world

of spirit.

2. Truth and Knowledge. Introduction to A Philosophy of Freedom, Steiner’s dissertation, which

appeared in book form in 1892. The German title calls it a prelude to Philosophy of Freedom, as

it contains all the main subjects of the later work in germinal form.

3. Philosophy of Freedom, also translated as Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, and Intuitive

Thinking as a Spiritual Path. First published in 1894, this is Steiner’s major philosophical work,

being at the same time the foundation of Anthroposophical spiritual science.

Each one of these three books in a somewhat different way, deals with the basic questions of the

process of human knowing and cognition. Steiner unfolds a theory of knowledge which convincingly

explains the validity of Goethe’s intuitively felt methodology. Step by step, he guides his reader through

a process of discovering the underlying wholeness of the universe. Rather than accepting his words like

an act of faith, he encourages his reader to practice intuitive thinking. As with Goethe’s methodology,

Steiner’s work as well relies on active participation, and in both cases this results in inner

transformation.

My Experience of the World Content

On a regular morning after waking up, I first notice the light in the room; upon opening my eyes, I see a

lamp, a dresser, pictures on the wall; I hear birds singing outside; I feel the weight of the comforter; with

some attention, I become aware of a host of other sense-impressions. I can quickly identify every one of

them; the room, in fact, is exactly as I remember it from the evening before. Nothing has changed

noticeably. Since this has been my experience for as long as I can remember, I tacitly assume without

really thinking about it, that the room I am in, the house, the whole world actually, exists objectively.

That it does not matter one bit whether I or any other human being perceive it or not.

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Philosophers have traditionally concerned themselves with questioning such assumptions, examining

whether they are valid or not. The history of philosophy shows that with increasing awareness of self, of

individuality, doubt spread over the trustworthiness of subjective perception. Modern philosophers use

the term “naïve realist” to identify a person who simply believes in the objective reality of the sense

world. “The view which accepts the reality of our directly given picture of the world as certain and

beyond doubt, is usually called naïve realism… [It] is the viewpoint from which we all start” Steiner

writes (Truth and Knowledge), and he adds in Philosophy of Freedom: “In contrast with this real world

of his, the naïve realist regards everything else, especially the world of ideas, as unreal or ‘merely ideal’.

What we add to objects by thinking is nothing more than thoughts about things. Thought adds nothing

real to the percept”.

One might ask at this point, why is it at all necessary to question reality. When I hit my toe on a rock, it

hurts. This is proof enough for the rock’s reality. Why should I entertain the notion that something is

wrong with my conclusions? The little ambiguous pictures one finds in books about optical illusions

might answer this question. A duck turns into a rabbit, an old woman suddenly turns into a young girl. If

I insist that there is only one picture because I cannot see the other, I am obviously in error. My view of

the picture is not wrong, but to base my conviction that there is no other view on the fact that I perceive

only this one view is a logical mistake. It will forever hinder me to see the full picture, like a self-

fulfilling prophecy. Both views make up the full reality of the picture. To exclude one view not only

renders the picture incomplete, but also takes away its meaning and purpose. In a similar manner, my

view of the world around me is not wrong, but if I assume that it is objectively real I miss something of

utmost importance, namely my participation in the creation of this reality. This was such a mind-

boggling revelation for me that I couldn’t leave it out!

However, it is a slippery endeavor when one begins to think about cognition. How can I be certain that

my perceptions coincide with objective reality? My knowledge about the world can always only be my

knowledge; in other words, whatever of the world enters my consciousness does so mediated by my

senses and may not be identical with what is really there. It seems like the real object must be forever

hidden from my view, since I simply cannot step outside of myself.

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In chapter I of Philosophy of Freedom Steiner identifies the firm foothold that we need as a starting

point for our investigations as thinking: “…without the recognition of the thinking activity of the soul, it

is impossible to form a concept of knowledge about anything”.

One could argue that the correct starting point should be consciousness: does not everything, whether

thought or sense impression, have to arise in my consciousness before I can even talk about it? To this

Steiner would answer that one needs to have the concept “consciousness” before one can talk about it.

Our consciousness is like a mirror, reflecting everything before it. To observe the mechanism of

reflection, we have to use thinking. “Cognition is not to be defined in terms of consciousness, but vice

versa: both consciousness and the relation between subject and object in terms of cognition” we read in

Truth and Knowledge . In Philosophy of Freedom, Steiner admonishes: “How does it help us to start

with consciousness and subject it to the scrutiny of thinking, if we do not first know whether thinking is

in fact able to give us insight into things at all?”

Returning to the moment of waking up in the morning, it is Steiner’s claim that the essential but hidden

element which allowed me to identify and recognize the things around me, is my activity of thinking.

Without thinking, my perceptions are incomplete and literally meaningless. The objective world does

not exist.

However, the belief in an objective reality is so firmly embedded that it is extraordinarily hard to

change. Moreover, thoughts seem to have a purely ephemeral character, ineffective and bloodless.

Endless arguments can be put forth that appear to uphold objective reality: I simply see the tree there, I

don’t have to think about it. The tree is there, whether I see it or not. I cannot eat the apples from a tree I

merely think about.

In A Theory of Knowledge, Steiner undertakes a thought-experiment that greatly helps to highlight how

essential thinking is for cognition. He asks us to mentally discount all concepts and ideas and simply

imagine nothing but sense perception. Do I still see a tree? Well, I notice that my eyes cannot see “a

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tree”, they only see something green. Or do they? “Green” is a concept, as is “seeing”, “eyes”, and even

“I”! I make a surprising discovery: The senses perceive an undistinguished, chaotic jumble of shapes,

colors, sounds and other impressions which are, Steiner points out, like a flat surface: nothing stands out

for being more important, everything has the same significance. The senses meet something given, there

really is something there, it is not illusion, but what the senses meet is incomplete. The essence of things

is not given to the senses but to thinking. “The whole difficulty in understanding cognition comes from

the fact that we ourselves do not create the content of the world”, and “This directly given world-content

includes everything that enters our experience in the widest sense: sensations, perceptions, opinions,

feelings, deeds, pictures of dreams and imaginations, representations, concepts and ideas. – Illusions and

hallucinations too, at this stage are equal to the rest of the world-content” (Truth and Knowledge).

In A Theory of Knowledge, Steiner calls what first meets the senses “pure experience”. It is described as

“…merely juxtaposition in space and succession in time; an aggregate of nothing but unrelated single

entities”. “…[W]e must eliminate from our field of observation everything that has been imported by

thinking” Steiner writes in Philosophy of Freedom. If this would be possible for the consciousness of a

normal human being, he or she would perceive

…the pure content of observation. The world would then appear to this being as nothing but a mere

disconnected aggregate of objects of sensation: colours, sounds, sensations of pressure, of warmth, of

taste and smell; also feelings of pleasure and pain. This aggregate is the content of pure, unthinking

observation …Thinking too, in its first appearance for our consciousness, may be called a percept .

While Steiner explains in Truth and Knowledge that “to remove from this [knowledge] all that has been

contributed by cognition, and to establish a pre-cognitive starting point, can only be done conceptually” ,

I did have a small taste of “pure experience” when I traveled in Asia. The markets of the towns and

villages in India for example were brimming with peculiar smells, colors, shapes, and textures, but what

were the objects these sensations belonged to? I didn’t understand the language and I saw nothing but

“things” which were by and large meaningless to me. Only after I had been there for a while did it

become possible to discriminate and identify what was what. I had to find the matching concepts, which

the sense perceptions did not provide.

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2. Thinking: the Solid Stepping Stone

The activity that provides the missing part to the merely given is thinking. In the first instance it is also

given; in the hypothetical realm of pure experience it is a perception like everything else. However, it is

distinct from all other perceptions in that we ourselves produce it. As in the moment of waking up, the

world of phenomena is already there. It meets our senses, as Steiner explains, in an as yet empty manner,

like an outer shell so to speak. This is so because the essential character of a thing is hidden to the

senses, as we have seen. In the case of thinking, this is fundamentally different: when a thought arises in

consciousness, we know the complete thought right away. There is no outer shell. We create a train of

thought, and it is given to us in its entirety. The unique characteristic of thinking – that its essence is

known to us immediately because we are its creators – makes it the firm foundation on which to safely

base knowledge of ourselves and knowledge of the cosmos. “A firm point has now been reached from

which one can, with some hope of success, seek an explanation of all other phenomena of the world”,

Steiner writes (Philosophy of Freedom), and he continues:

And this is just the point upon which everything else turns. The very reason why things confront me in

such a puzzling way is just that I play no part in their production. They are simply given to me, whereas

in the case of thinking I know how it is done. Hence for the study of all that happens in the world there

can be no more fundamental starting point than thinking itself .

Thinking establishes relationships and connections without which there would be no meaning. The

essence of a thing is not its name, neither is it its “thingness” in isolation. In fact, once we look with

attention, there is “no-thing” separate, all by itself. The confusion of disconnected, unrelated sense

perceptions has become the intelligible, systematically ordered world we are used to see, all through the

power of thinking. In Steiner’s words: “…thinking approaches the given world-content as an organizing

principle” (Truth and Knowledge), and: “The unity of the conceptual world, which contains all objective

percepts, also embraces the content of our subjective personality. Thinking gives us reality in its true

form as a self-contained unity… To recognize true reality, as against the illusion due to perceiving, has

at all times been the goal of human thinking” (Philosophy of Freedom).

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How thinking creates meaning by discovering “invisible” relationships can be demonstrated with

numbers, for example. They have no obvious relationship. The concepts of half or double can only

manifest through thinking. One might object that such concepts are indeed in plain sight; can I not cut an

apple apart and see right away that I now have two halves, equal to the one apple? It bears repeating: the

concepts are gained through thinking only. We do not notice this process, and Steiner’s claims seem

preposterous unless one makes some effort. I personally found it immensely helpful to imagine looking

through the eyes of my dog. Would she be able to see the precise difference, were I to add three apples

to a heap of five? Could she divide the eight apples into two equal halves? Put this way, the answer is

obvious. I can go further and say that she cannot see apples at all. “If the world were populated by mere

sentient creatures, its essential nature (its ideal content) would remain forever hidden; laws would, of

course, control the world processes, but these laws would never become manifest” (A Theory of

Knowledge).

It is extremely hard for us to see the world in any other but our habitual manner. Steiner describes what

one observes when water is being brought to boil, and he adds: “No matter how I may twist and turn the

thing, if I am limited to that which the senses afford me, I discover no interrelationship among these

facts” (A Theory of Knowledge). At first, I did not get this at all. The pot of water sits on top of the

flame; the water gets hot; bubbles form, and it is boiling. What is he talking about; the relationship is

obvious! Again, my dog had to come to the rescue. Looking through her eyes, I must admit that the

different observations fall apart. They become single isolated events and have nothing to do with each

other. I begin to grasp the immensity of what Steiner is talking about. I produce the world I see! It is for

this reason that Steiner calls thinking an organ of perception. Just as the eye perceives colors and light,

so does our mind perceive thoughts, concepts, and ideas.

The example of cause and effect points out two things: first, thinking adds the necessary concept to a

sense perception, and second, our thoughts are inherently connected and related. The thought “cause”

leads to the thought “effect”, as “half” leads to “double”. I do not have to introduce a foreign element

into thinking as is the case with sense perceptions. This is an important fact because it shows the self-

contained nature of thinking. It is self-sufficient, resting within itself.

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Here is also the reason why, time and again, Steiner admonished his audience and readers not to take his

words for granted. Not because he was humble as is generally assumed, although he certainly was that.

Not even because he wants us to judge for ourselves; this is only the second step. The first step requires

that we produce the concepts for ourselves. Philosophy of Freedom with all its talk about concepts is

only a percept unless we ourselves recreate its thoughts actively. Otherwise we cannot experience and

perceive how indeed one thought leads to the next.

Once we accept that thinking weaves concepts and ideas into the world to make it intelligible, it

becomes clear why the world of objects is not really objective, why the view of the naïve realist is based

on a grave misconception. To use an analogy: such a person looks at the letters of a book without being

able to read. The words and sentences may tell the most wonderful story, but it is hidden as long as one

does not know how to read. If humanity would lose the ability to read all of a sudden, we would still

find many uses for books. We could use them to sit on; we could insulate walls with them, or put them

in a museum. We could also classify and categorize the letters, measure the amount of ink, weigh the

paper, and so on. But if a person would come along and tell us that the books contain incredible stories,

that they contain pyramids and distant planets, we would not believe it. How can all this be in a little

book.

The ability to read reveals the meaning of a book. It is this meaning that gives it its true value. Similarly,

our ability to think gives meaning to the phenomena. I find this simply amazing. The world is not all

ready-made, out there, independent from me, a mere observer; instead, it is a work in progress. What it

reveals depends entirely on me; I am an inextricable part of it, and the world is part of me. Steiner put it

tersely in 1924:

Viewed thus, a theory of knowledge becomes a part of life… All these [various philosophical

world conceptions] presuppose that reality exists somewhere outside of cognition, and that a

human representation reproducing this reality comes about in cognition – or cannot come about.

That this reality cannot be found by means of cognition because it is first created as reality in

cognition – this is almost nowhere realized (A Theory of Knowledge).

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3. The Self-Contained Unity of the Objective Thought Realm

For my ordinary consciousness, the rose that I see right in front of me, the rose that I can smell and

touch and cut off, appears much more real than my concept or idea “rose”. And yet, according to

Steiner, the concept is the essential part. In the physical world, no two roses look ever exactly the same,

and every rose is separate in space and time. Without the “golden thread” of the concept I could never

identify the manifold multiplicities of physical sensations. I can do so because there is only one concept

“rose”. There is only one concept for “lion” or “animal”, only one concept for “evaporation”, “rain”,

“weather”. All these concepts connect in ever-larger groups to form the one unified thought realm. This

thought realm is real, Steiner says, because it contains the essential part of reality, that which gives

meaning.

We are so used to considering our thoughts as insubstantial and ineffective, that this statement again

causes disbelief and questioning. Are my thoughts not subjective, hence unreliable? What difference

does it make what I think? Once more, Steiner makes us turn around and look from an unaccustomed

perspective. Thinking, he asserts, is neither objective nor subjective, it is beyond this distinction, which

actually was created through thinking in the first place, just like mind/matter for example. The concept

or idea of a thing is objective and shared by all of humanity. Every ordinary human being can grasp the

concept “lion”. Even a blind person can take hold of this concept. Of course, Steiner does not deny the

subjective element in cognition. However, he distinguishes the objective concept from the subjective

mental image, the memory picture I form of a particular thing or event. While a blind person is capable

of grasping the concept “lion”, he or she may not be able to form a vivid mental image of one.

To summarize: where, as naïve realists, we saw only an object – a rose or a table for example – we now

begin to distinguish different facets of this object, and our active participation in bringing these facets

together. Out of the singular, objective concept or idea, and the objective, that is given, aggregate of

percepts, we form the mental image which Steiner also calls the subjective concept. We all share the one

idea of beauty. The reason why there are endless arguments about what constitutes beauty is the

subjective element of the mental image. The idea is not fixed but totally fluid and mobile. This idea is

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the same for all of us. We can only disagree about a particular instance, a certain manifestation of

beauty, because we all understand the idea.

The objection could be made that the dualism between objective and subjective has not been avoided, or

even that a new dividing line has been created: one between an ideal thought realm, and sense

perceptions. Steiner answers that it is the human organization, and this organization only, which makes

the world appear as percept and concept in the first place.

The way I am organized for apprehending the things has nothing to do with the nature of the

things themselves. The gap between perceiving and thinking arises only from the moment that I

as spectator confront the things. Which elements do, and which do not, belong to the things

cannot depend at all on the manner in which I obtain my knowledge of these elements

he writes (Philosophy of Freedom), and further: “Our mental organization tears the reality apart into

these two factors. One factor presents itself to perception, the other to intuition. Only the union of the

two, that is, the percept fitting systematically into the universe, constitutes the full reality”.

Once we understand this, we can grasp what Steiner means when he says: “I really am the things; not,

however, ‘I’ in so far as I am a percept of myself as subject, but ‘I’ in so far as I am a part of the

universal world process” (Philosophy of Freedom). Such a statement is truly amazing. We wake up as

individual ego-beings, we wake up as self-conscious subjects to find ourselves the very center of a world

of objects. We ourselves become objects for our consciousness. What I have; what I can do; what I

know; how I look; how I feel: my ego fashions a questionable identity out of a multitude of

identifications, a fact well exploited by the advertising industry. In reality, “I am a part of the universal

world process”. My personal idiosyncrasies and habits should pale in the light of this truth.

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Once we accept that the universal world process is a unity that appears as two parts – the concept and

the percept – for human consciousness only, we seem to have reached a dead end. What good does it do

to know that the world appears like that “only” to me, when I cannot step beyond my consciousness? Is

there any way to jump this gap? The answer is actually right in front of us, hidden in plain sight. We

have to examine the tool we use to interpret all perceptions, and this tool, as we have seen, is thinking.

By investigating that which investigates, one turns back to the self, since it is the self, “I”, who utilizes

the faculty of thinking. There is no question or doubt that it is I who thinks. No mediation is necessary

for this realization.

What happens when we start to think about thinking? As we noticed, everything else which enters our

consciousness, every perception, phenomenon, feeling, or sensation is given; we did not create it. We

live in an already existing world, and the argument that humanity did indeed create much is not valid

here, since we deal with questions of epistemology, not ontology. The only phenomenon which we bring

forth ourselves, which we find when we look at ourselves, and which gives meaning and coherence to

the rest of the world, is thinking. By turning our attention to thinking, this activity becomes self-

referential and self-reliant, sense-free and independent.

Living, active thinking is, according to Steiner, “warm, luminous, and penetrating deeply into the

phenomena of the world. This penetration is brought about by a power flowing through the activity of

thinking itself – the power of love in its spiritual form” (Philosophy of Freedom).

The warmth and enthusiasm in the thinking Steiner talks about needs to be kindled, and one initial step

we can take is to be interested in the phenomena of the world. When I have fully realized that I am the

world, I am no longer limited by the prison of personal likes and dislikes, and I can turn my attention to

what goes on all around me. Goethe’s methodology offers the tools to practice this, and one doesn’t

even have to be a scientist.

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It is possible to be interested in something even when one does not like it very much. This requires that I

give up my most favorite activity: the constant preoccupation with myself, expressed through an endless

inner dialogue (which often is mistaken for thinking). Here is how Goethe describes the necessary

attitude:

A … difficult task arises when a person’s thirst for knowledge kindles in him a desire to view nature’s

objects in their own right and in relation to one another. On the one hand he loses the yardstick which

came to his aid when he looked at things from the human standpoint: i.e., in relation to himself. This

yardstick of pleasure and displeasure, attraction and repulsion, help and harm, he must now renounce

absolutely; as a neutral, seemingly godlike being he must seek out and examine what is, not what pleases

(The Experiment As Mediator Between Object and Subject; my italics).

Practicing such an attitude empties the mind of personal thoughts and allows living thinking to enter. It

develops new, inner organs of perception and is the prerequisite for intuitive thinking. In A Theory of

Knowledge, Steiner unfolds how only this intuitive, living thinking can come to an adequate

understanding of organic nature. This brings us back to Goethe’s way of scientific enquiry which has

exactly the same goal.

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Conclusion

Putting together the material for this presentation has reminded me how much I love Goethe. He (and by

extension, Steiner) helped me to perceive meaning – the intricate web of percepts and concepts, the vast

number of sensations, ideas, feelings, and memories which combine so that the sense input has meaning

for me. It weaves the tapestry of our seemingly objective world.

“[T]he existence of a creature we call ‘fish is only possible under the conditions of an element we call

‘water’. So that the creature not only exists in that element, but may also evolve there” (Toward a General

Comparative Theory).

While Goethe wrote this quote in connection with thoughts about evolution, proposing that all creatures

are shaped from without, by their environment, but also from within – by the being’s inner assertion -, it

means to me also, that all creatures and things are connected. Goethe’s worldview as expressed in his

scientific work offers an example for a consciousness that experiences itself as a partner of and

collaborator with the natural world. Instead of regarding the environment as something at humanity’s

disposal and largely disposable, Goethe had a deep sense of connection with everything alive, whether

large or small. A feeling such as this expands and enhances the awareness of the self so that it does not

stop with the physical boundaries of the individual person. I may look at my little finger as an object that

I can name and examine; nevertheless, it is an intricate part of me, and I immediately experience any

pain inflicted on it. Likewise, a human consciousness which perceives meaningful relationships within

a network of interrelated beings and things rather than isolated static items can no longer view the earth

as a commodity to be abused. This is so crucial presently when immeasurable harm is being done to the

earth and countless creatures. The pain I inflict on another creature I ultimately inflict on myself.

Goethe’s methodology clearly adds an ethical element to science and to the decisions each of us makes

as an individual.

I want to share one other quote, something he wrote about a butterfly:

“The poor creature trembles in the net, rubs off its most beautiful colors; and even if one captures it

unharmed, it lies there finally stiff and lifeless; the corpse is not the whole creature; something else still

belongs to it, a main part still, and in this case as in every other a most major main part: its life.” (From a

letter dated July 14, 1770).

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When I moved to the United States I learned that high school students routinely had to dissect frogs. I

feel fortunate that I never had to participate in such an activity. I wonder whether this goes back to

Goethe. For him, life clearly belongs to the organism and is not something that can be taken – certainly,

not as lightly as it is commonly accepted nowadays. Considering the alarming rate by which species go

extinct – the last male Northern White Rhino just died – one can only hope that views like Goethe’s

view of the world, which includes and relies on love and empathy, will gain more traction soon.