Intuitive Thinking As a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom (Classics in Anthroposophy)

Of all of his works, Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path is the one that Steiner himself believed would have the longest life and the greatest spiritual and cultural consequences. It was written as a phenomenological account of the "results of observing the human soul according to the methods of natural science. This seminal work asserts that free spiritual activity - understood as the human ability to think and act independently of physical nature - is the suitable path for human beings today to gain true knowledge of themselves and of the universe. This is not merely a philosophical volume, but rather a warm, heart-oriented guide to the practice and experience of living thinking. Readers will not find abstract philosophy here, but a step-by-step account of how a person may come to experience living, intuitive thinking - "the conscious experience of a purely spiritual content." During the past hundred years since it was written, many have tried to discover this "new thinking" that could help us understand the various spiritual, ecological, social, political, and philosophical issues facing us. But only Rudolf Steiner laid out a path that leads from ordinary thinking to the level of pure spiritual activity - intuitive thinking - in which we become co-creators and co-redeemers of the world Classics in Anthroposophy INTUITIVE THINKING AS A SPIRITUAL PATH : A PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM 1 Contents 6 Translator's Introduction 8 Introduction 14 Preface (1918) 24 PART I : THEORY - THE KNOWLEDGE OF FREEDOM 28 Conscious Human Action 28 The Fundamental Urge for Knowledge 41 Thinking in the Service of Understanding the World 50 The World As Percept 72 Knowing the World 96 Human Individuality 120 Are there Limits to Cognition? 127 PART II : PRACTICE - THE REALITY OF FREEDOM 150 The Factors of Life 150 The Idea of Freedom 158 Freedom-Philosophy and Monism 186 World Purpose & Life Purpose (human destiny) 196 Moral Imagination (Darwinism & ethics) 203 The Value of Life (Pessimism & Optimism) 217 Individuality & Genus 248 Final Questions: The Consequences of Monism 254 Appendix I (1918) 266 Appendix II (Preface to 1st edition) 276 Bibliography & Further Reading 282 Index 286 Philosophy,of,Freedom

Here Rudolf Steiner provides a path from ordinary thinking to the practice and experience of living thinking. Considered by many to be his most important work.