Man or Matter

By Lehrs, Ernst, Ph. D.

Book Id: WPLBN0000021677
Format Type: PDF eBook
File Size: 2.2 MB
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	Man or Matter
Author:	Lehrs, Ernst, Ph. D.
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Literature, Literature & thought, Writing.
Collections:	Classic Literature Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	World Ebook Library


Citation APA MLA Chicago Ph. D, E. L. (n.d.). Man or Matter. Retrieved from http://self.gutenberg.org/

Excerpt
PREFACE: In this book the reader will find expounded a method of investigating nature by means of which scientific understanding can be carried across the boundaries of the physical-material to the supersensible sources of all natural events, and thereby into the realm where is rooted the true being of man. The beginnings of this method were worked out by Goethe more than 150 years ago. The nineteenth century, however, failed to provide any fertile ground for the development of the seeds thus sown. It was left to Rudolf Steiner, shortly before the end of the century, to recognize the significance of 'Goetheanism' for the future development not only of science but of human culture in general. It is to him, also, that we owe the possibility of carrying on Goethe's efforts in the way required by the needs of our own time.

Table of Contents
Contents PREFACE Part I SCIENCE AT THE THRESHOLD I. INTRODUCTORY The author's search for a way of extending the boundaries of scientific understanding. A meeting with Rudolf Steiner, and with the work arising from his teachings. II. WHERE DO WE STAND TO-DAY? The self-restriction of scientific inquiry to one-eyed colourblind observation. Its effect: The lack of a true conception of 'force'. III. THE ONLOOKER'S PHILOSOPHIC MALADY Thought - the sole reality and yet a pure non-entity for the modern spectator. Descartes and Hume. Robert Hooke's 'proof' of the non-reality of conceptual thinking. The modern principle of Indeterminacy - a sign that science is still dominated by the Humean way of thinking. IV. THE COUNTRY THAT IS NOT OURS Electricity, man's competitor in modern civilization. The onlooker in search of the soul of nature. Galvani and Crookes. Paradoxes in the discovery of electricity. 'Something unknown is doing we don't know what.' Part II GOETHEANISM - WHENCE AND WHITHER V. THE ADVENTURE OF REASON Kant and Goethe. Goethe's study of the plant - a path toward seeing with the eye-of-the-spirit. Nature a script that asks to be read. VI. EXCEPT WE BECOME ... Spiritual kinsmen of Goethe in the British sphere of human culture. Thomas Reid's philosophic discovery, its significance for the overcoming of the onlooker-standpoint in science. The picture of man inherent in Reid's philosophy. Man's original gift of remembering his pre-earthly life. The disappearance of this memory in the past, and its re-appearance in modern times. Pelagius versus Augustine. Wordsworth and Traherne. Traherne, a 'Reidean before Reid was born'. VII. 'ALWAYS STAND BY FORM' Ruskin and Howard - two readers in the book of nature. Goethe's meteorological ideas. His conception of the urphenomenon. Goethe and Howard. VIII. DYNAMICS VERSUS KINETICS The onlooker science - by necessity a 'pointer-reading' science. The onlooker's misjudgment of the cognitive value of the impressions conveyed by the senses. The Parallelogram of Forces - its fallacious kinematic and its true dynamic interpretation. The roots in man of his concepts 'mass' and 'force'. The formula F=ma. The origin of man's faculty of mathematical thinking. IX. PRO LEVITATE (a) ALERTNESS CONTRA INERTNESS Limitations of the validity of the concept 'inertia'. Restatement of Newton's first law. Introduction of the term 'magical' as opposed to mechanical. The phenomenon of the rising arm. Introduction of the term 'alertness' as opposed to 'inertness' (inertia). Van Helmont's discovery of the gaseous state of matter. The four Elements. The old concept of 'Chaos'. Young and old matter. The natural facts behind the ancient fire rites. The event on Mount Sinai.