VLADIMIR SOLOVYOV AND RUDOLF STEINER
Deyan Penchev
FOREWORD
The book aims to explore the philosophical ideas of two great thinkers – Vladimir Solovyov (1853–1900) and Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925). It is an adapted version of the doctoral dissertation, which I defended at the Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) in 2016. Some topics from it have been dropped, but those that were not included in the last version have been added, so now it comes out complete and in its original intended form.
The philosophical juxtaposition between Solovyov and Steiner is something new for world literature, and such a book appears for the first time. The Bulgarian philosophical tradition does not know the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner and so far no one has studied it scientifically. He is better known as an esotericist, but not as a philosopher, when in fact he has a doctorate in philosophy and has written a number of philosophical works. With several articles, participation in conferences and this monograph marks the beginning of Steiner's philosophical research in Bulgaria. [...]
INTRODUCTION
The task of this work is to enrich the research on Vladimir Solovyov and Rudolf Steiner and to bring to the fore their basic philosophical ideas that would contribute to the understanding and development of the most important topics that have occupied the minds of mankind from antiquity to the present day.
They will be considered in such a way that they will combine both the individual understandings of each of the two philosophers and the necessary comparison between them. This approach is necessary in order to be able to clearly and concretely explain their basic philosophical views and at the same time to show how they help the advancement of the philosophical idea of man, being and God. Along with this, the practical application of some of these concepts in modern science and culture will be considered.
The philosophical ideas of Solovyov and Steiner have many points of contact with each other and complement, develop and unfold in a peculiar way. This monograph will examine their understandings of such epistemological, ontological, and anthropological categories as knowledge, thinking, reality, Absolute, and others, in order to show their contributions to philosophy as a scientific system. Therefore, their reflections on the main philosophical questions must be illustrated through a comparative analysis and a comprehensive study of the main philosophical moments.
This task is not easy, because of some specific difficulties that stand out in the very work with the primary texts of the authors. The main difficulty is that both philosophers have not left independent works in which to present their complete philosophical understandings of being and the accompanying issues. The main works of Solovyov, from which one can get an idea of his philosophical and ontological conceptions, are his early works: The Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge (1877), The Critique of Abstract Principles (1880) and Lectures on Godmanhood (1881). After writing them, he focused more on religious, socio-political, aesthetic and ethical topics, without going back specifically to his previous concepts, until the last years of his life, when he began to write his Theoretical Philosophy, which remains unfinished. This somewhat facilitates the present task, because the texts are not many in number, but on the other hand it narrows and limits it to certain frameworks and parameters.
The situation is similar with Steiner. In his anthroposophy, we cannot find a separate philosophical work devoted specifically to ontological or anthropological topics, but to epistemological, and in fact there are enough philosophical concepts in his books and lectures that allow us to have a clear idea of his views. In the lectures, which make up the largest amount of his creative legacy, there are numerous speeches of a philosophical nature. Often these are just a few sentences with a strong charge or a public lecture, in which some broader reflections on purely philosophical topics are inserted. All this makes it difficult for a researcher, he has to study a large amount of textual material, to arrange in his mind the philosophical picture that Steiner builds, and thus, gathering these ideas piece by piece, to complete the basic meaning-containing points that build foundations on his philosophy of man and being. However, he is a consequent thinker and the building of his philosophical conceptual framework in his first writings is contain unchanged for the rest of his life. This helps us to orientate ourself more fully in the lectures, especially in his early works. That is why it would be quite accurate to say that anyone who wants to understand Steiner's philosophical ideas must deal with his first works.
There are three main works of Steiner, from his early years, which are devoted to philosophical and ontological topics: The Theory of Knowledge Based on Goethe’s World Conception (1886), Truth and Science (1892) and The Philosophy of Freedom (1894). It can be said that this is the philosophical triptych of Steiner, the philosophical foundation on which he built the next anthroposophical science. Truth and Science is the extended doctoral dissertation in philosophy entitled Aligning Human Consciousness with Oneself, which he defended in 1891. The book is published with the dedication of the philosopher Edward von Hartmann, with whom they were friends, but he is critical of it, as well as of the Philosophy of Freedom afterwards.
Two main themes in the philosophy of Solovyov and Steiner are those of knowledge and reality, so they will be the focus of attention. For both the knowledge is what fundamentally defines man as a being different from other creations, gifted with reason and consciousness. It is the subjective action of man in being and the two philosophers place it at the center of their philosophical systems. Solovyov talks about the so-called free theosophy as for the cognitive part of whole human life, and Steiner constructs his anthroposophy as a human impulse to the knowledge of being. Both philosophical teachings are aimed at understanding and analyzing reality as an existing being. It is this objective totality to which one directs one's cognitive perceptions. The present study will pay attention to clarifying this conceptual parallel in the views of the two thinkers.
It should be noted at the outset that the term free theosophy, which will be used here, was used by Solovyov first in its etymological meaning, namely as divine wisdom, wisdom of God (from the Greek θεοσ – God and σοφία – wisdom), first applied by the Neoplatonists Porphyry and Iamblichus (III–IV c.), but also found in the New Testament – εου σοφιαν (Luke 11:49, 1 Corinthians 1:24, 2:7, etc.) and secondly, as a substantive part in the context of the Western European mystical tradition (Paracelsus, Jacob Böhme, Swedenborg, etc.).
Solovyov's use of the concept of free theosophy has no connection with the theosophy of Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891) and the Theosophical Society founded by her in 1875, because they, first, diverge in goals and meaning; defining the tasks of their society she wrote: "The object of its founders was to experiment practically in the occult powers of Nature, and to collect and disseminate among Christians information about the Oriental religious philosophies" – something very different from the meaning given by Solovyov in the concept of free theosophy, the content and essence of which we will consider in the book, and, secondly, because they both use it at the same time – Blavatsky in 1875, Solovyov in 1877.
The following main contributions can be noted in the monograph.
• For the first time the philosophical views of Vladimir Solovyov and Rudolf Steiner are studied together.
• Rudolf Steiner's philosophy is presented and researched in Bulgarian for the first time.
• For the first time the thesis is expressed that the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner has close similarities and is a continuation and development of the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov (free theosophy).
• For the first time, Rudolf Steiner's statements about Vladimir Solovyov are presented in full and discussed in Bulgarian.
• For the first time in Bulgarian the practical application of the philosophical ideas of Rudolf Steiner, and in particular – those of biodynamic agriculture, is studied.
• For the first time in Bulgarian, the connection of Vladimir Solovyov with the mystical doctrine of Kabbalah is studied and shown in detail.
• For the first time in Bulgarian the first book written about the life and personality of Vladimir Solovyov and Rudolf Steiner is considered and commented (E. Gurvich. Vladimir Solovyov and Rudolf Steiner. "Martis", M. 1993).
• It is researched and argued that the concept of development is fundamental to the philosophies of Vladimir Solovyov and Rudolf Steiner.
• The concepts of knowledge and thinking in Rudolf Steiner's philosophy stand out and are considered in detail, and the view that they are the basis of his entire anthroposophical science is defended.
• The thesis that the principle of self-organization is decisive for the practical application of Rudolf Steiner's ideas is investigated and substantiated.
The book: The Philosophical Ideas of Vladimir Solovyov and Rudolf Steiner.
