The spirit of modern India;: Writings in philosophy, religion & culture,

History

McDermott, Robert A.

Asia

Crowell

Focus on Buddhism

Reference

Anima Pubns

Few thinkers from outside the United States have touched American culture in as many ways as Rudolf Steiner. Agriculture, education, spirituality, and medicine―or more precisely, alternative practices in these fields―all bear clear marks of his influence, for those with eyes to see. Yet the very breadth of Steiner’s impact has perhaps made him harder, not easier, for observers of American culture to notice. American Philosophy and Rudolf Steiner aspires to raise Steiner’s profile by digging into just one field of inquiry: philosophy. Before he became known to the world as a transmitter of clairvoyant wisdom, Steiner was an academic philosopher, editor of the scientific writings of Goethe and author of a foundational work in philosophy, The Philosophy of Freedom: The Basis for a Modern Worldview, published in 1894. That book expressed in philosophical terms many of the ideas that would later emerge as integral to the spiritual science of Anthroposophy. Though the authors cover a wide range of topics, most share an elegiac tone. They see great potential for dialogue between Rudolf Steiner and the great American philosophers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. American philosophy may have taken a wrong turn in the mid-twentieth century, when pragmatism gave way to a tradition of analytical philosophy that eschewed metaphysics as inherently meaningless and focused on the coherence or incoherence of linguistic structures. Nonetheless, many new sites of potential dialogue exist between Steiner and American philosophy. Five of the articles in this volume were written as part of a seminar on Rudolf Steiner and American Thought as part of a Project for the Renewal of Philosophy, Science, and Education sponsored by Laurance S. Rockefeller. The contributors―David Ray Griffin, Gertrude Reif Hughes, Frank M. Oppenheim, S. J., Douglas Sloan, and Robert McDermott―were originally published in ReVision: A Journal of Consciousness and Transformation (spring and summer 1991). Few thinkers from outside the United States have touched American culture in as many ways as Rudolf Steiner. Agriculture, education, spirituality, and medicine―or more precisely, alternative practices in these fields―all bear clear marks of his influence, for those with eyes to see. Yet the very breadth of Steiner's impact has perhaps made him harder, not easier, for observers of American culture to notice. The terms Waldorf education and biodynamic agriculture are more widely recognized than Rudolf Steiner himself or Anthroposophy. Anthroposophic initiatives are commonly understood in relation to parallel initiatives with different spiritual roots, rather than in relation to the rich fabric of Steiner's worldview. Americans typically imagine biodynamic agriculture as a more intense form of organics and Waldorf schools as 'like Montessori schools only more so.' When I describe the Camphill movement, most interlocutors respond with 'Is that like the L'arche movement?' And thousands of shoppers at health food cooperatives and Whole Foods supermarkets purchase Weleda skin lotion, diaper cream, or homeopathic remedies with little sense of connection to Steiner's vision of spirit active in the world. ―Dan McKanan (from the foreword)

American Philosophy and Rudolf Steiner: Emerson – Thoreau – Peirce – James – Royce – Dewey – Whitehead – Feminism

Politics & Social Sciences

Griffin, David Ray

Sloan, Douglas

McKanan, Dan

Reif Hughes, Gertrude

Kneale Gould, Rebecca

Oppenheim, Frank

Philosophy

Lindisfarne Books

Rudolf Steiner is frequently viewed by those familiar with his teaching as unique and separate from other spiritual teachers of our modern era. While, Steiner is thought by anthroposophists to be a scientist and a philosopher, as well as an interpreter of events depicted in Christian scriptures, he is nevertheless generally ignored by scientists and philosophers, as well as by both liberal and fundamentalist scriptural scholars and theologians. In this book, Robert McDermott―the editor of American Philosophy and Rudolf Steiner, which investigates Steiner's philosophy in the context of American philosophers―places Steiner and his work in the context of a variety of spiritual teachers and teachings, both Western and Eastern. In doing so, the reader is guided to new perspectives that show the similarities and contrasts between Steiner's Spiritual Science and a number of Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and secular spiritual worldviews. The kindred spirits in this book include His Holiness the Dalai Lama, C. G. Jung, Teilhard de Chardin, Martin Buber, Sri Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore, Gandhians, feminists, ecologists, and more. Steiner went as far up the spiritual ladder as any modern individual but, unlike some enthusiasts for Steiner, McDermott is also impressed by other religious thinkers and spiritual practitioners who have been helpful to those of us in need of encouragement and guidance and whose vistas and insights may not have been researched or explained by Steiner.

Steiner and Kindred Spirits

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

SteinerBooks

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Books by McDermott, Robert A.