Subject: Re: The human kingdom
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 17:01:25 -0800
From: Sune Nordwall <Sune.Nordwall@home.se>

[someone] wrote:

[Sune]
You really want and demand very simple answers to complex questions and seem stuck in the view that all and everything people in some way related to anthroposophy think and do, they think and do 'because', and for no other reason than that Steiner said something at some time.

[someone:] 
I think there's a pretty simple answer here - Steiner said humans were not animals. I realize he said a lot more than that, but that's a factual answer, and all of your ontology blah-blah seemed aimed at evading answering that question.

You don't read very carefully. My comment on the respective views of 'elements' and 'atoms', as being the basic constituents out of which the world is built, referred directly to [someone else's] comment that the efforts in science up to the beginning of the 19th century to understand the nature of 'warmth', that I had described in an earlier posting, not was 'scientific', as it should be 'unscientific' to think of the world in terms of 'elements'. 

It isn't. The 'atomist' view gives preponderance to potential static aspects of matter, the 'element' view to the potential dynamic aspects. The first reflects a primarily 'onlooker' perspective of reality, the second a more primarily 'participation' perspective.

It was directly caused by his comment and not introduced by me to evade answering the very simplified question if man 'is' an animal or not, demanding or 'yes' or 'no' and no further expressed thoughts on the question, as you wish to get something to put your teeth in as being what you wish anthroposophy to be; absurd dogmas stopping to bother you. 

[me, Sune:]
'Man of course is related to the animal world and can be described as a being, biologically possible to classify as belonging to the phylum Chordata -> subphylum Vertebrae -> superclass Tetrapoda -> class >Mammalia -> order Primates -> superfamily Hominoidea and family >Hominidae.

[someone] 
But it would be good if the children not hear about that for awhile, yes?

I would not suggest starting getting to know the animal world by children by them studying the classificatory system of the animal world. You 'create' problems that really are no very big problems, I think.

I had planned to answer also the rest of your post, but something came in between and now it't too late. Maybe I'll have the time to do it later.

Sune Nordwall
Stockholm, Sweden

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