Thought

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Wassily Kandinsky: To the Unknown Voice (1916)

The thought initially appears as the more or less solidified, dead product of living thinking, whereby a clear distinction must be made between the subjective form of its appearance in consciousness, for example as an idea, and its objective content. Mentally, thoughts are mostly experienced through image and/or word conceptions. In terms of content, they consist of concepts or ordered conceptual connections. Complex thoughts that are not formed step by step through discursive thinking, but arise intuitively in our consciousness, are called ideas.

It is through thoughts that we become aware of thinking in the first place, because we do not normally observe the living thinking process, at least not in its full depth, but only the products it produces, namely thoughts. However, the observation of thinking is possible for every thinking person with the appropriate training of attention. If this succeeds, the act of thinking itself becomes a component of the experience of thought.

Mere having of thoughts, i.e. the presence of finished thoughts in consciousness, which are called up from memory as the result of earlier thinking without actively experienced insight, or which have been acquired more or less passively as knowledge without one's own deeper insight in reliance on an authority, or which consist only in factually largely unrelated associations of thoughts, is not yet thinking, but a mere perception of the thoughts passing through consciousness. Real thinking must be produced by one's own effort, i.e. by an activity of the will, and must progress self-actively to the immediate clear insight into the present ideal connections.

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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