Despite the far-reaching influence that Rudolf Steiner's texts, reflections and ideas have had on his contemporaries and cultural-creative persons from various fields up to the present day, academic discussion of his writings and ideas remains limited. His philosophical work is little known outside anthroposophical groups, despite some recent developments. Moreover, the existing controversies rarely seem to be an expression of an open discourse, but rather appear either dogmatically affirmative or dogmatically dismissive. What is decisive for the present project are constructive investigations and discussions of Steiner's ideas which are related to contemporary issues and are part of the field of interest of the persons involved.
In the present project, we want to enter into an open dialogue with Steiner's ideas and discourses and investigate where and whether approaches to the topics described above can be found. As an interdisciplinary research team we do not claim to provide a final interpretation and reading. Rather, we are interested in a multifaceted, individual and creative perspective in order to promote our own academic examination of research questions that seem relevant to us. We will publish and present the results in a loose order.
Erste Ergebnisse dieser Forschung werden voraussichtlich 2022 unter dem Titel „Re-Reading Steiner“ in englischer Sprache publiziert werden.
The project is currently divided into the following sub-projects:
Andrew’s primary research project focuses on the political and social theory of Rudolf Steiner. The project is a critical engagement with Steiner’s ideas of social threefolding: the organization of autonomous but related spheres of society on the basis of politics, economics and culture. Along with an analysis of these ideas in the context of more established political and social theories, Andrew is also interested in the various contemporary expressions of Steiner’s work as responses to dominant forms of societal organization through neoliberal capitalism.
A thread running through Andrew’s various research interests is the everyday theory and practice of resistance to dominant oppressive social forms and so he maintains an active research interests in anarchism, feminism, critical pedagogy and non-hierarchical forms of organization and relationship.
Rosa Mayreder – A fin-de-siècle artist re-visited
Although Rosa Mayreder was one of the most important German-speaking feminists of the turn of the century and adorned the 500-Schilling banknote in Austria, her name is not commonly known in Germany. In this research project, I am on the one hand concerned with Mayreder's philosophical essays, in which she introduces gender as a social category and takes a critical and thorough look at the leading philosophers of her time. Especially her differentiated consideration of gender, nature and culture allows the interpretation that Mayreder is a pioneer of gender studies in the German-speaking world. An interest in literature and cultural studies leads me to Mayreder's play Anda Renata, das als feministische Antwort auf Goethes Faust bezeichnet wird. Durch meine Auseinandersetzung mit dem Faustmythos und dem literarischen sowie kulturellen Phänomen der Doppelgängermotive in meiner Masterarbeit, sowie meine ehrenamtliche Tätigkeit in zwei Theatervereinen, sehe ich hier das Potential, sowohl eine geisteswissenschaftliche Forschungsarbeit zu verfassen, als auch das Stück kreativ neu adaptiert auf die Bühne zu bringen.
The project fits into a general area of research dealing with the significance of emotions and emotionality in moral philosophy, an interest in holistic approaches of philosophical anthropology (especially the concept of corporeality) as well as in intersections between ethics and art (especially ethics - theatre - personality development).
When it comes to the philosophy of the mind, our cognition and intelligence, a lot has been said on the matter by philosophers and neuroscientists alike. However, one of the voices which have been rather neglected in that very critical debate is that of Rudolf Steiner. This research project seeks to rectify this oversight and aims at looking into Steiner’s hypotheses on the cognitive process and to compare these to the notions of contemporary philosopher Markus Gabriel. Special emphasis lies on the duality of perception and thinking, as postulated by Steiner, and its contemporary counterpart of thinking itself being considered an act of perception. These ideas will be discussed in the light of current neuroscientific findings, with a particular focus on the distinction or possible synergies between the default and executive network, as well as the neuronal foundations of cognition and meta-cognitive states. Finally, possible applications of these models of human thinking and cognition to the realm of artificial intelligence (AI) and the potential misapprehensions of such an analogy will be introduced.
©ibugi 2020
