Idea

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The word idea (Greek: εἶδος eidos / ἰδέα idea "conception, image, pattern, model or archetype, idea") was first used by Plato in philosophical contexts to designate the "what" of things, their essence, their "in itself", and is derived from the Greek word for "to see, to behold, to recognise" (idein)[1][2] and thus means: that which is seen. The idea refers first of all to a mental imagination, a thought or concept.

„Ideas are not qualitatively different from concepts. They are only more substantial, more saturated and more extensive concepts.“ (Lit.:GA 4, p. 57)

Ideas grasp the general, the universals, in contrast to the sensually appearing individual. In the sense of the Platonic doctrine of ideas, one could therefore say: Whenever we see, we idealise - and only through this do we recognise things for what they are, i.e. we lift in our consciousness, through idealisation, out of the given reality its actual essence. In the mind, we give the chaotic sensory data an ideal form, through which their true, spiritual reality is revealed, compared to which the mere world of the senses appears only shadowy. Plato spoke about this in detail in his "Politeia" in the famous allegory of the cave. Philosophising is based on a spiritual "seeing", a supersensible "vision" of pure ideas, a vision of ideas. The archetypal ideas exist independently of sensually tangible things, which owe their being and essence only to the participation (Greek: μέθεξις methexis) in the unchanging eternal ideas; they are only a transient imitation (Greek: μίμησις mimesis) of their imperishable spiritual archetypes. According to Aristotle, however, the human faculty of cognition is so limited that by far the most ideas can only be experienced in or on the manifold sensual things and can be lifted out of them by abstraction. Only the highest and most general ideas, such as those of mathematics, can be grasped purely intellectually. Thomas Aquinas later distinguished the universalia ante rem, which live before all individual things in divine reason, from the universalia in re, which work in things, and the universalia post rem, which are formed as concepts in the mind of man.

„What is called idea: that which always comes to appearance and therefore confronts us as the law of all appearances.“ (Lit.: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Maxims and Reflections[3])

Will is the idea that acts as a force

→ Main article: Will

Will is, one can also say, the idea that becomes really active, i.e. that acts as a force, as Rudolf Steiner already expressed it in his "Introductions to Goethe's Natural Scientific Writings". In this sense it is not a blind, i.e. lawlessly chaotically active, but spirit-filled will:

„Will is therefore the idea itself conceived as force. To speak of an independent will is completely inadmissible. When man accomplishes something, one cannot say that the will is added to the idea. If one speaks in this way, one has not grasped the concepts clearly, for what is the human personality, if one disregards the world of ideas that fills it? But an active existence. Whoever conceived it otherwise, as a dead, inactive product of nature, equated it with the stone in the street. But this active existence is an abstraction, it is nothing real. It cannot be grasped, it is without content. If one wants to grasp it, if one wants a content, then one obtains the world of ideas conceived in action. E. v. Hartmann makes this abstract a second world-constituting principle alongside the idea. But it is nothing other than the idea itself, only in a form of appearance. Will without idea would be nothing. The same cannot be said of the Idea, for activity is an element of it, while it is the self-supporting entity.“ (Lit.:GA 1, p. 197f)

The world of ideas

Ideas, like concepts, are formed through thinking, whereby Rudolf Steiner refers to more extensive concepts as ideas. The total of all ideas forms the world of ideas or world of thoughts.

„Through thinking, concepts and ideas come into being. What is a concept cannot be said with words. Words can only make a person aware that he has concepts. When someone sees a tree, his thinking reacts to his observation; an ideal counterpart is added to the object, and he regards the object and the ideal counterpart as belonging together. If the object disappears from his field of observation, only the ideal counterpart of it remains. The latter is the concept of the object. The more our experience expands, the greater the sum of our concepts becomes. The concepts, however, do not stand there in isolation. They join together to form a lawful whole. The term "organism", for example, joins the others: "lawful development, growth". Other concepts formed on individual things merge completely into one. All the concepts I form of lions merge into the overall concept of "lion". In this way, the individual concepts combine into a closed system of concepts in which each has its own special place. Ideas are not qualitatively different from concepts. They are only more substantial, more saturated and more extensive concepts....

The concept cannot be obtained from observation. This is already evident from the fact that the growing human being only slowly and gradually forms the concepts of the objects that surround him. The concepts are added to the observation.“ (Lit.:GA 4, p. 57)

In the highest sense, the idea is eternal and unique, as Goethe already expressed it. It incorporates the multitude of individual concepts into the indivisible wholeness of the cosmic order.

„The idea is eternal and unique; that we also need the plural is not well done. All that we become aware of and can speak of are only manifestations of the idea; concepts we utter, and in this respect the idea itself is a concept.“

– Goethe: Maxims and Reflections[4]

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.

References

  1. ↑ vgl. z.B. Pierre Chantraine: Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Histoire des mots, Paris 2009, S. 438;
  2. ↑ Hjalmar Frisk: Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Band 1, Heidelberg 1960, S. 708.
  3. ↑ Goethe-BA Bd. 18, S. 642
  4. ↑ Goethe-BA Bd. 18, S. 528
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