Being on Earth:
Practice In Tending the Appearances

Georg Maier, Ronald Brady, & Stephen Edelglass

Contents

Front Matter [pdf, 33 KB]

Preface. How This Book Came About [pdf, 35 KB]

Chapter 1. Direct Experience (Ronald Brady) [pdf, 126 KB]

Memories of a Wrong-minded Student
Being Serious
Direct Experience Examined
First Doubt: Do the Senses Discover or Manufacture?
Second Doubt: The Power of the Mind to Combine
The Power of the Mind to Attend and to Intend
The Modeled Relation of Subject and Object — The Historical Problem
Our Senses Bear Witness to an Encounter
I “See” by My Understanding as Much as by My Eyes
Experience as an Object of Attention
“Who Hath Measur’d the Ground?”
My Activity Produces the Stable Object

Chapter 2. Sense Perception as Individual Experience (Georg Maier) [pdf, 92 KB]

Berkeley’s Approach to Vision
Optical Appearances Need Not Be Representations of Material Bodies
Critique of the Concept of Rays
We See Images, Not Solid Objects
How We Normally Associate Vision with Physical Depth
Stereoscopic Vision Can Direct Our Movements in Body Space
Combining Perspective and Stereoscopic Vision in Movement
Pure Objects of Sight as a Limiting Case
A World of Light and Color
Objects of Sight as Straightforward Physical Quantities
Outness Proper: Extension into Which We Move Our Bodies
A Set of Exercises in Perceptual Activity, in Attending, in Encountering

Chapter 3. Reflections Upon a Pond (Stephen Edelglass) [pdf, 125 KB]

A Pond as Space Creator
The Spatial Character of Mirror Images Seen in Water
The Law of Reflection

Chapter 4. Intentionality (Ronald Brady) [pdf, 165 KB]

I Believed the Column Was of Solid Granite
Everyone Has Intuitions But They Confuse Them with the Senses
Exercises in Attending: (1) Taking Notice
Exercises in Attending: (2) Attending to the Focal Point
Exercises in Attending: (3) Ignoring and Attending
Recognizing
The Hidden Image
Kanizsa’s Undepicted Forms
Activity and Consciousness: Discovering Meaning
Bring Me Any Worms That Sneer at You
Intentionality

Chapter 5. A Physicist Discovers Aesthetics (Georg Maier) [pdf, 65 KB]

About Playing
Chrystal Set
Electric Bell
Chemistry and Physics
You Are No Good at Chemistry
Diploma Thesis
Alternative Research
Neutron Optics at Nuclear Reactors
Watching Waves: An Exercise in Observation
A Search for a Characteristic Gesture for the Reactor Process
Discovering Aesthetics: The Hidden Aim of a Long Journey

Chapter 6. Aesthetics: Appreciating the Appearances (Georg Maier) [pdf, 102 KB]

Appreciating as a Mode of Cognition
Aesthetics: A Mode of Cognition Complementary to Logic
Skilled Expression of the Truth
Aesthetic Cognition Happens During Perception
Levels of Intentional Activity
First Level: Orientation in the Physical Surroundings
Second Level: Meeting an Expressive Whole
Third Level: Accompanying
Three Senses Mediate Aesthetic Cognition

Chapter 7. The Rite of Spring (Stephen Edelglass) [pdf, 20 KB]

Chapter 8. Manifestation from Inside Out (Ronald Brady) [pdf, 522 KB]

“Yes, Somehow the More Beautiful Object is Always the More Intelligible”
Appreciating Some Examples of Historic Architecture
Brancusi
The Evolution of Phenomena

Chapter 9. The World Inside the Human Being is the Inside of Nature [pdf, 45 KB]

(Text by Rudolf Steiner and commentary by Georg Maier)

Chapter 10. Habitats (Georg Maier) [pdf, 71 KB]

Connectedness: A Summary
The Inseparable Connection to the Surroundings
Physics
Appearances Resulting from Conditions Cooperating in the Present
Rocks and Minerals
Even Organisms Appear as the Environment Calls for Them
Farming
Animals Behave According to “Image Habitats”
Human Detachment from Sense Perception Allows Attachment to Ideals
Nevertheless, We Are Supported by Our Own Singular Biographic Habitats
Outlook: Individual Recognition

Chapter 11. Existence (Georg Maier) [pdf, 54 KB]

Encounters and Their Consequences
Encounters in a Fairy Tale
Existence in Letting the Appearance Appear
Contingent Events
On the Artistic Nature of Tasks
Turning the Inside Out and the Outside In

Chapter 12. Company (Georg Maier) [pdf, 58 KB]

Searching Inside and Outside
Can Habitats Be Recognized as a Reality?
Appreciation: Recognition and Integration
Accompanied and Being Accompanied
Biography as the Work of Company
How the Turn in My Path Came About
Company in a Single Encounter
Company: The Realistic Concept of Society

Chapter 13. Schooling Perception (Stephen Edelglass) [pdf, 39 KB]

Bibliography [pdf, 23 KB]