Anthroposophy and Science: an Introduction

"Anthroposophy and Science" is a remarkable state-of-the-art milestone in exploring the relationship of natural science with spiritual science as originally represented by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). The book reflects the author's high standard of scholarship and reviews the latest concepts in physics, chemistry, biology, genetics, medicine, neurobiology, psychology, philosophy of mind or cognitive science, anthropology and epistemology, all in their relationship to anthroposophy. To write an up to date overview of one of these fields is a significant task, but to provide a comprehensive overview of them all is a magnificent achievement of a very high order.

The reductionist materialistic world view not only characterises conventional natural science, but our current whole world culture and understanding. To penetrate this thinking and really explore alternatives I found exciting and even disturbing! I became aware of how deep this reductionist science sits in my own consciousness, in spite of 50 years' study of anthroposophy.

The fundamental realisation expressed in Steiner's Philosophy of Freedom is that world reality meets us through the combination of sense perception and thought. A modern philosopher Nagel points to the realisation that the world is intelligible and includes human beings with intelligence. (Nagel, T. 2012 Mind and Cosmos. Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False. Oxford University Press, Oxford.) So intelligence has a double part in existence. The realisation that the universe is lawful and potentially understandable is implicit in ordinary science. So thought and the laws of nature are part of the natural world. Thought itself is not a physical object. Steiner equates thought, intelligence and spirit. In which case we can say that spirit is the foundation of the material world and every layer of existence including the phenomena of life, sentient beings (animals) as well as human beings who think about the world.

As the starting point of knowledge (epistemology) is thought and perception, theories of sensory physiology or neuroscience have no primary role in epistemology, as they are themselves the products of thinking and sense perception. Neither can atomic theory be assumed to be a primary reality, (based on non–perceptible atoms) which often used in science as a basis for rejecting the prime reality of perception.

A fundamental and recurring theme of the book is the way Peter Heusser considers the various levels of complexity in the world. He points out that with higher levels of complexity new characteristics and lawfulness emerge, which would not be predictable from the most complete knowledge of the characteristics of the constituent parts. Indeed, many of the characteristics of the parts disappear or are "sublated" in the more complex structure. The simplest physical and chemical example is water H2O a combination of hydrogen and oxygen. Detailed knowledge of hydrogen and oxygen, he says, would never lead to a prediction of the characteristics of water and the laws of hydrodynamics. So the qualities of water cannot be reduced to the qualities of its component parts in spite of the fact that without hydrogen and oxygen water could not exist.

At a more complex level, proteins in living organisms although composed of a series of amino acids, have characteristics which cannot be extrapolated from knowledge of the amino acids and their sequence. For example, their tertiary structure which is critical to their functioning as enzymes cannot be predicted from the amino acids and their sequence alone. So on the one hand, new properties emerge – the concept of emergence and on the other the properties of the components to a significant degree submerge or are sublated in the qualities of the new structure and its functioning.

Historically a Swiss Physician Troxler 1780-1866 (Beethoven's physician) observed that behind the sense perceptible phenomena of life was a real but not directly perceptible something, behind feelings a real not directly perceptible soul (Seele) and behind human self-conscious thought a real not directly perceptible spirit (Geist). He attempted to sketch out a medical anthropology that would understand development, physiological functions and pathological processes as not simply physical interactions but as the expression of a harmonious or disharmonious interaction of material-physical, bodily-living, soul and spiritual forces in an organ or organ system. He went on to predict that in future a new sense was needed to develop, for the reality that stands behind life phenomena and the development of cognition of soul and spirit. He called such cognition anthroposophy as distinct from anthropology. A name with Steiner would subsequently use for his perceptions and researches. Troxler gave an opening address at the opening of the University of Berne where he became the first professor of philosophy. Biographically, I found it interesting that Peter Heusser shared one of the first chairs in Integrative Medicine with responsibility for the subject of Anthroposophic Medicine at this same University of Berne.

The fundamental perspective of anthroposophic medicine is based on asserting the reality alongside the physical material body (Korper), the living body (Lieb), the soul (Seele) and spirit (Geist). These emergent phenomena are described with reference to other western thinkers.

The work is referenced as expected of an academic paper and points to advances in natural science that make sense of many of Steiner's puzzling statements as well as the many way anthroposophy can holistically contextualise and make sense of the findings of natural science. It also provides a rational and philosophical framework that can integrate conventional and complementary approaches to medicine.

Reference

Nagel, T. 2012 Mind and Cosmos. Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False. Oxford University Press, Oxford.