Concept

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Concepts (from Latin: conceptus "thought, idea", actually "that which is grasped, grasped", but also "container, pit" or conception "conception, womb"; Greek: λόγος logos "word, speech, sense"; German: Begriff, literally "to grasp, to embrace") are, viewed abstractly, meaningful, meaning-bearing (semantic) mental unities which - to the exclusion of all accidental, changeable, merely external features - are directed towards the essence of a thing, towards the suchness of a being, and are brought to appearance by active thought. Concepts are more than mere designations or words. Furthermore, Rudolf Steiner states: „What is a concept cannot be said with words. Words can only draw man's attention to the fact that he has concepts.“ (Lit.:GA 4, p. 57)

The conceptual content, the intension, ideally comprises the totality of all properties, characteristics[1] and regular systematic relationships that are common to all things encompassed by the concept, i.e. that make up its conceptual scope, its extension (→ extensional and intensional definitions). In practice, however, only individual characteristic properties, features and regularities can be singled out, which often results in very different definitions for one and the same concept. Applied to different areas of existence, terms can also take on different meanings and require a corresponding clarification of terms. Real concepts can never be adequately grasped by a rigid, one-sided definition, but only by a comprehensive, lively and flexible characterisation appropriate to the respective matter.

„Whoever - to use Goethe's words - uses a concept to limit a rich content of life, has no sense of the fact that life is formed in relationships that have different effects in different directions. It is, however, more convenient to substitute a schematic concept for a view of full life; it is easy to judge schematically with such concepts. But through such a process one lives in abstractions without essence. Human concepts become such abstractions precisely because one thinks that one can treat them in the mind as things treat each other. But these concepts are rather like pictures that one takes of a thing from different sides. The thing is one; the images are many. And it is not the attitude to one image, but the looking together of several images that leads to a view of the thing.“ (Lit.:GA 6, p. 215)

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. ↑ Properties and characteristics not in the sense of perceptions or qualia, but in the form of the concepts corresponding to them, e.g. not the perceived red, but redness per se as a concept that distinguishes all red hues from other colours.
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