The Logos-Structure of the World

The Logos-Structure of the World: Language As Model of Reality

Back in print again in English, this concentrated and profound early work of Georg Kühlewind approaches, with reverence and insight, the mystery pointed to in the opening words of the John Gospel: In the beginning was the Word.

“The aim of this book is to show that the world, including human beings and their consciousness, is not originally a world of thing but a world of words; that fundamentally the world has the structure of a text; and that it is therefore possible to read it like a test.” — Georg Kühlewind

Kühlewind then shows how it is that the world, including human beings and their consciousness, is not originally a world of things but a world of words; that fundamentally the world has the structure of a text; and that it is therefore possible to read it like a text.

In demonstrating this, three different approaches or disciplines are continuously kept in mind: epistemology, psychology, and linguistics. What unites these is the phenomenology or “empiricism of consciousness” employed by the author who always speaks out of, and toward, experience.

Thus, this is no ordinary philosophical text, but a guide to philosophical experience: to the experience of cognition itself.

Contents

Translator’s Foreword
Introduction
Prelude

1. The Question

2. The Given
Reflection on Consciousness
Epistemological Consideration of the Given
Examination of the Given from the Standpoint of Cognitive Psychology
Observation of the Given Functions of Consciousness
Regarding Concepts
The Given and the Activity of the Senses

3. The First Structuring of the Given
Formulating the Question
The Structure of the Found or Given
The Pedagogy of Language
The First Structuring of the Given

4. The Language of Reality
The First Reality—The First Language
The Transition to Questioning
The Second Reality
The Third Reality

5. The Character of Perceptual Reality
The Sensation of Reality—Observations
The Functioning of the Human Senses
The Fate of Higher Ideas
The Wordlike Character of Nature

6. The Development of “I”-Consciousness

7. Self-Sensing

8. Changes in the Given

9. Meditation

10. Perceptual Meditation

Epilogue
Bibliographical References

About the Author

Georg Kühlewind (1924–2006) was a Hungarian philosopher, writer, lecturer, and meditation teacher who worked from the tradition of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science. Setting aside his early interest in music and psychology, he pursued a successful professional career as a physical chemist. Meanwhile, he continued to deepen his spiritual practice and insights. A prolific author (most of whose works are still only in German), Georg Kühlewind spent much time traveling the world, lecturing and leading workshops and seminars in meditation, psychology, epistemology, child development, anthroposophy, and esoteric Christianity. He was the author of numerous books. Kühlewind died January 15, 2006 at the age of 83.

Friedemann Schwarzkopf is a lecturer, translator, and writer, focusing on aspects of Anthroposophy and the work of Rudolf Steiner. He has translated works of Georg Kühlewind and is the author of Metamorphosis of the Given.