STEINER makes an interesting point about the difference between observation and conceptualisation. If we think of the way in which one billiard ball strikes against a second and thus determines its consequent speed and direction, it is clear that when it comes to the movement of the second ball the player who struck the first is nothing more than a spectator. In the case of pure observation, therefore, nothing can be said about the outcome until the first ball has been set in motion.

Conversely, to actually reflect on the likely outcome of the first ball striking the second involves going a step further by constructing a theoretical process. As Steiner explains, this conceptualisation involves establishing a tangible connection between force, motion, impact and various other contributory factors. Crucially, whilst in the case of observation the passage of cause and effect happens independently, once we begin to advance a conceptualisation of the expected outcome we find ourselves directly involved:

We shall have to consider later whether this activity of mine really proceeds from my own independent being, or whether those modern physiologists are right who say that we cannot think as we will, but that we must think exactly as the thoughts and thought-connections determine, which happen to be in our minds at any given moment. (p.22)

Inevitably, for the materialist one’s involvement in the mental procedure need not imply that one is responsible for the appearance of the thought in the mind. However, although it may be argued that one’s involvement may be purely illusory the ability to witness the fulfilment of a concept undoubtedly involves some kind of active participation. More importantly, Steiner is keen to stress that we often have much to gain by substituting the process with a concept:

Suppose someone obstructs my view of the field where the process is happening, at the moment when the impact occurs, then, as mere spectator, I remain ignorant of what goes on. The situation is very different, if prior to the obstructing of my view I have discovered the concepts corresponding to the nexus of events. In that case I can say what occurs, even when I am no longer able to observe. There is nothing in a merely observed process or object to show its relation to other processes or objects. This relation becomes manifest only when observation is combined with thought. (pp.22-23)

This link between observation and thought precedes all subsequent forms of judgement. In other words, our tendency to divide things into separate categories only happens after we have first observed a cause and then set about forming a conception of its effect. Just as a philosopher needs to think in order to advance his particular theory, so too must activity precede thought:

As regards observation, our need of it is due to our organisation. Our thought about a horse and the object “horse” are two things which for us have separate existences. The object is accessible to us only by means of observation. As little as we can construct a concept of a horse by mere staring at the animal, just as little are we able by mere thought to produce the corresponding object. (p.23)

Clearly, without the experience of observation we would be unable to conceptualise the things that come to us by way of our senses – both real and illusory.

When we observe a particular object, be it a medieval castle or stray dog, we tend to contemplate the object that has captured our attention without thinking directly about the process of thought itself. Steiner believes that to embark upon a study of thought-in-action means adopting a position “outside of my own activity” and therefore moving beyond our more everyday thought-processes.

To those who insist that the same rule can be applied to the feelings we have towards a particular object, such as the notion that when we feel pleasure we continue to focus on the object itself, Steiner retorts that this phenomenon is quite different to that of thought in that pleasure is caused by the object and does not provoke a conceptualisation of why that should be the case:

The question would be simply meaningless. In thinking about an occurrence, I am not concerned with it as an effect on me. I learn nothing about myself from knowing the concepts which correspond to the observed change caused in a pane of glass by a stone thrown against it. But I do learn something about myself when I know the feeling which a certain occurrence arouses in me. When I say of an object which I perceive, “this is a rose,” I say absolutely nothing about myself; but when I say of the same thing that “it causes a feeling of pleasure in me,” I characterise not only the rose, but also myself in my relation to the rose. (p.24)

Unlike thought, it is impossible to present feeling as an object of observation and this is because the former is centred purely on the observed object and not on the thinking subject:

When I see an object and recognise it as a table, I do not as a rule say, “I am thinking of a table,” but, “this is a table.” On the other hand, I do say, “I am pleased with the table.” In the former case, I am not at all interested in stating that I have entered into a relation with the table; whereas, in the second case, it is just this relation which matters. (p.24)

Although this sounds very straightforward, Steiner wishes to emphasise that our tendency to overlook the fact that we are thinking when we are in the process of doing so means that thought itself remains an “unobserved element”. Objects are observed because we consider them to be different to ourselves, but as thought is regarded as a personal action we simply take it for granted.

Steiner believes that it is impossible to observe thought at the precise moment that it is in operation, because this would mean dividing ourselves in two as “thinker” and “observer”. As a result, trying to observe the activity of thinking means either analysing past thoughts, observing the thoughts of another individual or perhaps speculating about a potential future thought-process by way of conceptualisation.

At the same time, even if we don’t always understand why A must follow B we are aware that one concept is related to another and this demonstrates that we are nonetheless conscious of the thought-process that links the two objects. This is not achieved through a mental process that acts on our behalf, but by our ability to connect what we know about the actual content of each concept. Indeed, to reduce thought to the level of a biological system is to assume – wrongly, as it turns out – that it can be observed like any other object:

Whoever cannot transcend Materialism lacks the ability to throw himself into the exceptional attitude I have described, in which he becomes conscious of what in all other mental activity remains unconscious. It is as useless to discuss thought with one who is not willing to adopt this attitude, as it would be to discuss colour with a blind man. Let him not imagine, however, that we regard physiological processes as thought. He fails to explain thought, because he is not even aware that it is there. (p.26)

Those who approach this issue from a non-materialistic perspective, on the other hand, are able to comprehend that thought exists as the product of the individual and that it cannot be regarded as an object outside of the self.

The realisation of this fact led French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) to develop the idea that all human knowledge rests on the principle “I think, therefore I am.” Steiner fully agrees with Descartes in the sense that the first two words of the latter’s pronouncement attribute thought to the individual rather than a mental process over which we have no control, but the subsequent three words – the meaning of which have been debated over the course of four centuries – are less clear and Steiner only accepts them on the basis that a subject may only determine his or her existence in light of coming into contact with external objects:

My inquiry touches firm ground only when I find an object, the reason of the existence of which I can gather from itself. Such an object I am myself in so far as I think, for I qualify my existence by the determinate and self-contained content of my thought-activity. From here I can go on to ask whether other things exist in the same or in some other sense. (p.27)

Steiner insists that once we consider thought as an object of observation, even if it does ultimately belong to the self, the process involves something quite different to the manner in which we perceive an oak tree or village hall. This relates to the unique circumstance by which the object being observed is identical to that observing it. Unlike in the case of Descartes, therefore, thought requires nothing outside of itself to justify its own existence.

Terms like “subject” and “object” were obliterated by the German Idealists of the early-nineteenth century, who sought to demonstrate that humanity is simply nature looking back at itself. One such philosopher, F.W.J. Schelling (1775-1854), even advanced the idea that “to know nature is to create nature”. Steiner takes issue with this statement, arguing that it rules out any possibility of acquiring knowledge about nature itself:

For Nature after all exists, and if we have to create it over again, we must know the principles according to which it has originated in the first instance. We should have to borrow from Nature as it exists the conditions of existence for the Nature which we are about to create. But this borrowing, which would have to precede the creating, would be a knowing of Nature, and would be this even if after the borrowing no creation at all were attempted. The only kind of Nature which it would be possible to create without previous knowledge, would be a Nature different from the existing one. (pp.27-28)

Schelling, of course, went on to formulate such conditions but Steiner is making the point that in the case of thought it would be inconceivable to imagine that it did not exist prior to our thinking about it as this would be tantamount to excluding the possibility to think at all. Whilst objects come into being independently, we ourselves “create” the thought-processes which we make into objects of observation. Henceforth, Steiner believes that we first require thought in order to regard the processes that lie outside of ourselves.

Although some will contend that our ability to recognise the content of particular concepts and how they relate to one another is very different to that of being able to experience the resultant analysis of such thought-processes, implying that thought cannot be studied in its more pure and unadulterated form, Steiner argues that it is impossible to escape from thought itself:

I cannot get outside thought when I want to observe it. We should never forget that the distinction between thought which goes on unconsciously and thought which is consciously analysed, is a purely external one and irrelevant to our discussion. I do not in any way alter a thing by making it an object of thought. I can well imagine that a being with quite different sense-organs, and with a differently constructed intelligence, would have a very different idea of a horse from mine, but I cannot think that my own thought becomes different because I make it an object of knowledge. (pp.28-29)

He who owns the thought, therefore, is in the best position to judge.

Again, this seems consistent with Steiner’s view that thought is the very foundation of knowledge and yet may philosophers argue that it is consciousness which precedes thought:

In reply I would urge that, in order to clear up the relation between thought and consciousness, I must think about it. Hence I presuppose thought. One might, it is true, retort that, though a philosopher who wishes to understand consciousness, naturally makes use of thought, and so far pre-supposes it, in the ordinary course of life thought arises within consciousness and therefore presupposes that. Were this answer given to the world-creator, when he was about to create thought, it would, without doubt, be to the point. Thought cannot, of course, come into being before consciousness. The philosopher, however, is not concerned with the creation of the world, but with the understanding of it. (p.29)

In other words, Steiner is suggesting that it was up to God alone to find a means for thought to appear within the realms of consciousness and that it is the task of the human philosopher to concern himself with the world as he finds it. After all, he says, to make consciousness an object of thought is to forget that one must first inquire into whether it is possible to gain knowledge by way of thought itself. It is thought, of course, which creates the categories of “subject” and “object” in the first place.

Steiner believes that it is foolish for mankind to concern himself with devising concepts for a time in which he had yet to come into being, i.e. at the initial moment of Creation, and that we should undertake to study the processes of the world and work our way back through conceptualisation. Not begin at a time when thought was a mere twinkle in the eye of the Creator, mark you, but use the subsequent arrival of thought to examine that which precedes it. The final link in the chain must become the basis of all theory.