The Scholarly Steiner

This excerpt of a lengthy review by David W. Wood is of the first volume of a new “critical edition” of the written works of Rudolf Steiner, edited by Dr. Christian Clement, a German national teaching at Brigham Young University. Dr. Christian Clement was a Waldorf student in Germany himself and did his dissertation on Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Dramas for his PhD in German languages and literature.

Little reaction to this edition has been available in English, but the cooperation of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung and of the Rudolf Steiner Verlag was the subject of controversy at the Annual General Meeting of the Society at the Goetheanum last spring. (See Anthroposophy Worldwide 05/14 for a statement by the RSN and RSV.)

Dr. Wood, born 1968 in Australia, is an independent researcher living in Munich. He has a PhD in philosophy jointly from the Sorbonne (Université Paris IV) in France and the Universität München (LMU) in Germany. Those interested in Rudolf Steiner’s recognition in the academic world will wish to read it in full online. We can only present the opening section here (omitting footnotes).

An exciting new development in Steiner research is currently taking place with regard to the publication of his written works in German. The first volume of a critical edition has appeared, edited by Dr. Christian Clement, associate professor of German studies at the Brigham Young University in the United States, and published by the respected frommann-holzboog publisher in Germany. This publishing house is renowned among others for its long tradition of critical editions and collected works of thinkers such as Jacob Böhme, Johann Valentin Andreae (the author of Rosicrucian texts), F.W.J. Schelling, J.G. Fichte, and G.W.F. Hegel. Considering the philosophical, cultural and spiritual roots of Steiner’s thought, it is a perfectly appropriate venue for an edition of his works. Moreover, Dr. David Marc Hoffmann (a leading Nietzsche specialist and head of the Rudolf Steiner Archive) and the executive committee of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung are to be congratulated for their forward-thinking decision in proposing a joint distribution between Rudolf Steiner Verlag and frommann-holzboog. With this editorial undertaking it can now be said that Steiner’s written work has finally arrived in the scholarly world.

Christian Clement’s critical edition is a natural complement to the existing Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe (GA). Whereas the latter was conceived as a reading edition of the final published version of Steiner’s writings, the Kritische Ausgabe (SKA) builds on this by additionally showing all the textual variations, additions, omissions and modifications carried out by Steiner over the duration of his career. In this respect it is directly in line with Steiner’s own intentions. Writing in his autobiography 'Mein Lebensgang' ('The Course of My Life') in an installment published 8th March 1925, i.e. a few weeks before his death, Steiner harboured the hope that future readers might examine the different editions of his writings and see that the various changes were a testimony of his desire to attain greater scientific clarity in his presentations:

The first published volume of the 'Kritische Ausgabe' is actually volume number five of a projected eight-volume edition of Steiner’s main published writings from 1884- 1910. It contains two of his central texts on religion and mystical/scientific thought which originally appeared in 1901 and 1902: 'Die Mystik im Aufgange des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens' (Mysticism at the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life), and 'Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache' (Christianity as Mystical Fact). The contents of volume five (SKA 5; henceforth cited by page number) are as follows: a foreword by the Swiss expert on mysticism Alois Maria Haas that highlights the intellectual climate at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and correctly draws attention to the continuing inspiration of Nietzsche’s 'Zarathustra' for Steiner around this time (pp. VII-XXII). This is followed by Christian Clement’s excellent and lengthy Introduction in which he outlines the principles of the edition, the Goethean and philosophical origins of Steiner’s thought, as well as providing a detailed overview of the structure, content, context, and reception of the two texts under consideration and their various printings (pp. XXV-LXXIX). The core of volume 5 is of course Steiner’s own two texts on 'Mysticism' (pp. 3-101) and 'Christianity' (pp. 103-230). Especially of note is the hundred-page Appendix that includes a commentary on various passages with extensive references to Steiner’s textual sources, citations and his other works (pp. 231-339). The volume concludes with a bibliography, a name index and an index of Bible passages (341-377). The hard-back cover, unobtrusive footnote system, and clear page layout are attractive and of high quality. The appearance of the next volume—containing Steiner’s texts on the paths and methods of spiritual knowledge (edited and commentated by Clement and with a foreword by Gerhard Wehr)—is expected to be in October 2014.

The SKA is evidently a labour of careful, exact and extensive work on Clement’s part—for which one can only be grateful—and a progressive model for modern academic research into the life and work of Rudolf Steiner. Although similar isolated attempts had been made in the past to present the textual evolution for single works of Steiner such as the 'Philosophie der Freiheit' (edited by Kurt Franz David in 1983, and by David Marc Hoffmann and Walter Kugler in 1994 for the 'Gesamtausgabe', volume 4a) and 'Theosophie' (edited by Daniel Hartmann in 2004), Clement’s scholarly apparatus is more sophisticated, yet still easy to follow, and when it is completed his edition will consist of over fifteen of Steiner’s principal writings. The SKA not only greatly facilitates the possibility of examining Steiner’s pronouncements such as the scientific basis of his spiritual views and their confirmation in the sense world, but sheds additional light on the working of the man himself. Steiner considered his written texts to be both his most objective and most personal works (cf. GA 28: 443).—Thanks to this new critical edition one can see Steiner’s ongoing intellectual efforts to find the most accurate formulations, and it will better resolve disputed questions such as Steiner’s originality by putting the reader in a position to more directly compare his ideas with those of his contemporaries.

It was an inspired choice to begin the critical edition with these two texts of 1901-1902. As Clement himself remarks, it is exactly Steiner’s writings on the history of mystical and religious thought that directly concern many of the current disputes in the scholarship, especially the controversial relation between Steiner’s earlier and later thought and the place of Christianity in it (p. XXIX). Clement’s overall methodological approach is a balanced one: using the texts themselves he sensibly draws attention to earlier ideas—such as the importance of the Goethean principle of morphology for Steiner—and then points out how certain conceptions reappear in later presentations, as well as signaling other elements which do not (cf. pp. XXIX-XXX, XXXV-XLV). Alternately, in line with this Goethean image of plant morphology Clement sees the “seeds” of some of Steiner’s later works prefigured in these same two texts: e.g. that Steiner’s interest in Paracelsus’s tripartite conception of the human being and employment of terms like ‘astral’ in the 1901 book 'Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age' had an influence on his spiritual-scientific expositions in later books like Geheimwissenschaft (cf. Clement’s commentary, p. 275). Or the perceptive observation that one can already perceive in certain passages of the book 'Christianity as Mystical Fact' the seeds for Steiner’s later 1913/14 lectures on the Fifth Gospel (p. 323). Naturally, one has to be careful here of projecting continuity and unity into aspects of Steiner’s work in which there is none, but Clement seems to avoid many of the dangers here by noting the differences and changes as well. For example, on the one hand he shows how certain compositional motifs and key concepts in Steiner’s 1894 'Philosophie der Freiheit' ('Philosophy of Freedom') are carried over into the 'Mysticism' book of 1901, yet on the other hand we find a radical modification in the language of the later volume. Clement remarks: “Already the Introduction to the ['Mysticism'] book conceptually corresponds to 'The Philosophy of Freedom' of 1894. […] The terminology is obviously new: What was called ‘intuitive thinking’ or ‘moral phantasy’ in 1894, is now termed ‘rebirth’ or ‘resurrection’ of the ground of existence in human self-knowledge.” (p. XLIII). In other words, there is conceptual and compositional continuity between the two works, but a rupture or change in their terminology.

Naturally, like in any other domain of scholarly research, it should not be expected that one is in agreement with all of an editor’s judgments, principles and sources, and this reviewer too has a few reservations and differing opinions. For instance, while agreeing with Clement regarding the fascinating nature and occasional helpfulness of the stenographic notes of a listener (Franz Seiler) to Steiner’s 1901/02 lecture-cycle on Christianity, notes which do not seem to substantially conflict with Steiner’s other pronouncements, I would still not give them as much weight as Clement occasionally does (among others, cf. pp. XXXIV, XLIX-LI, LIV, and in commentary, pp. 296-303). For on account of their fragmentary nature and late publication history by a third party they obviously retain a serious potential for error and misrepresentation of Steiner’s views. To understand the worldview of an author I am of the conviction that one is on the surest interpretative ground when priority is given to, and one immanently begins with, the writings and artistic works that were published or made publicly available by the author during their own lifetime.

Clement also expresses the following opinion concerning Steiner’s transition from a scholar of philosophic/ natural-scientific works to mystical/religious writings: “[Steiner] now moved in the fields of classical, Hellenistic, medieval, and early modern literature, without being able to read the relevant Greek and Latin texts in the original.” (p. XXXI; cf. p. XLVII). This statement concerning Steiner’s inability to read the original languages is, if not incorrect, then surely open to debate, as Steiner’s 1897 work on Goethe’s 'Farbenlehre' (Theory of Color) shows. Steiner’s commentary contains direct citations and references, suggested alternate translations and meanings for selected words, from the original texts of a variety of philosophers and thinkers writing in ancient Greek and Latin.

Just before this statement Clement had written: “In addition, with his book on the nature of the ancient mysteries Steiner approached a field of ancient science for which at that time there hardly existed any reliable sources, and for which he did not possess the necessary philological armory to carry out an examination. In 1883 he had left the Technical College in Vienna without completing his degree, and in the following years until the turn of the century he had essentially published on Goethe and philosophy and natural science of the late 18th and 19th centuries.” (p. XXXI). To me, here and in the above first example Clement appears to be making the point that not only was it a radical move of Steiner to join the Theosophical Society in October 1902, but already beforehand in 1901 and early 1902 he had surprised many of his intellectual contemporaries by speaking and writing on subjects like medieval mysticism and contemporary Bible scholarship without having traversed the orthodox academic paths. Some readers have interpreted the above words of Clement to be a dismissive rejection of Steiner as a serious scientist. I do not share this opinion. Clement certainly considers Steiner’s manner of referencing and citing as unconventional or unacceptable at times according to modern academic practices (cf. p. XXXI); and though it may be said he strikes the occasional false note in his judgments, I find Clement’s overall tone to be balanced and respectful, and sufficiently critical in the positive sense of the word.