1 Which, as discussed in section 5.2.1, would perhaps have been more accurately translated as ‘The philosophy of freehood’!
2 Constructivism is a philosophical position which maintains that we construct our own worlds ourselves, therefore there is no objective truth, but only our subjective experience. In education, constructivism means approaches whereby children are more actively engaged in learning. Because knowledge is constructed, children need to be active in constructing this, and not sitting in front of a teacher just memorizing, for example.
3 Depending on how one divides up the various systems, it is possible to derive four or seven, because none of the qualities is completely separate; rather, they permeate one another. For the sake of completion, the fourth principle, the ‘I’, is intimately connected with the blood, including its circulation.
4 Steiner actually suggested actively making small changes to habits as a way to strengthen the will (e.g. changing one’s handwriting).
5 We are grateful to Michael Errenst, who compiled Steiner’s quotations on the various senses in his manuscript ‘Die zwölf Sinne im Werk Rudolf Steiners und die Anthroposophie’.
6 Il est droit, parce que Taxe de son corps en longueur, prolongement d’un rayon de notre globe, est perpendiculaire au plan d’horizon. Il est tourné vers le ciel, parce que la direction de cet axe lui indique le Zénith précisément au dessus du sommet de la tête: deux caractères contenu simplicitement l’un dans l’autre, et rigoureusement distinctifs. C’est donc, comme du centre de la terre que l’Homme semble s’élever jusqu’à la voûte des cieux, et remplir tout l’entre-deux de ces extrêmes. Sa force et sa dignité physiques, résultantes de sa marche droite, deviennent comme les garants de sa force et de sa dignité morales, et voilà tout l’Homme compris dans l’expression de son propre Axe, seule et unique direction verticale primitive et absolue.
7 Retrieved 20 March 2019 from: poetry in translation.com/PITBR/German/Heine.php.
8 Just for the sake of clarity, our position is not exactly this one, but that only when specific thoughts are being perceived are they, in a sense, part of the mind.
9 In the words of Steiner: ‘When you confront another person something like the following happens. You perceive a person for a short time and he or she makes an impression on you. This impression disturbs you inwardly; you feel that the person, who is really a similar being to yourself, and this makes an impression on you, like an attack. The result is that you “defend” yourself in your inner being, that you oppose yourself to this attack, that you become inwardly aggressive towards him or her. This feeling then abates, and your aggression ceases; hence he or she can now make another impression upon you. Then your aggressive force has time to rise again, and again you have an aggressive feeling. Once more it abates, and the other makes a fresh impression upon you – and so on. That is the relationship which exists when one person meets another and perceives his or her ego: giving yourself up to the other human being – inwardly warding him off; giving yourself up again – warding him off; sympathy – antipathy; sympathy – antipathy. I am not now speaking of the feeling life, but of what takes place in perception when you confront a man. The soul vibrates: sympathy – antipathy; sympathy – antipathy.’ (Steiner 1919/1993, translation adapted from wn.rsarchive.org)
10 In Steiner’s literature, ‘intellectual’ often refers to abstract cold thinking, devoid of reality. The word ‘intellectual’ is here meant as that which refers to ideas and entities that can be thought or perceived and investigated with the mind (thoughts such as mathematical concepts, laws, categories, archetypes), but need not be abstract and cold.
11 To our knowledge, Michael Wilson first made this distinction in his translation of Steiner’s book The Philosophy of Freedom.
12 Although a bit clichéd, there is a nice joke that gets at the difference between freedom and freehood, as understood in the German and English cultures. In the United States in particular, freedom means doing whatever you want to do; in Germany, freedom means doing whatever you are allowed to do!
13 Steiner used the word ‘authority’. The word ‘authority’ creates misunderstanding today because it is associated with authoritarianism; however, in our view Steiner’s concept of ‘authority’ is better approximated in this context by the word ‘relationship’.
14 ‘The Rubicon’ refers to an important milestone in Steiner’s developmental psychology. The Rubicon is a river north of Rome from which, once attacking armies had crossed, there was no going back. Similarly, children who cross the Rubicon reach a point in their individual development from which there is also no going back. Specifically, this developmental step occurs in middle childhood around age 9, and is associated with a greater degree of independence from the parents because a greater degree of ‘I’ consciousness has been attained.
15 This is called the ‘binding problem’.
16 Steiner used the term ‘percept’, not sensation, to refer to the elementary sense perception ‘something is there’. Today, the term sensation is more commonly used to express the idea for which Steiner used the term ‘percept’.
17 For example, Steiner was a vocal opponent of Woodrow Wilson’s ideas on national self-determination, because he thought this would lead to further and endless division based on a false principle. Instead, he argued for something that would be seen today as universal human rights which, when upheld, allow peoples of all races, religions and cultures to exist within nation states.
18 This criticism applies to this book! However, in our experience, it is a mistake trying to re-create Steiner’s style, for several reasons. First, when authors do this, as in much anthroposophical literature, the result is often not the effect that Steiner created with his writing, but rather one of dogmatism. Secondly, modern consciousness is different: there is a need amongst many for this precise and clear style of writing, particularly in the English-speaking world. Finally, we have to write in a way that is to us authentic.
19 Eurythmy is a form of moving art that seeks to embody forms, archetypes, speech, moods and inner gestures through visible, holistic movement. Not only is it practised as an art form, it has educative and even curative applications too, as it helps shape the human body to become a tool of the individual human, thereby working against the often-prevalent mechanizing and disembodying influences today. Some have likened it to a European Thai-Chi. Eurythmy was invented by Rudolf Steiner and his wife, Marie Steiner.
20 Not many Montessori teachers today would adhere to this idea that imaginative play is harmful.
21 Any proponent of evolutionary theory is actually, strictly speaking, racist, seeing all human faculties as being anchored in genes. For Steiner, genes (and hence race) constitute just one influence amongst many.