Free will Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ====Free will as "moral imagination"==== [[Rudolf Steiner]], who collaborated in a complete edition of Arthur Schopenhauer's work,<ref>{{cite web|title=Arthur Schopenhauers sämtliche Werke in zwölf Bänden. Mit Einleitung von Dr. Rudolf Steiner, Stuttgart: Verlag der J.G. Cotta'schen Buchhandlung Nachfolger, o.J. (1894–96)|first=Rudolf|last=Steiner|url=http://www.pitt.edu/~kafka/k_s_bibII.html|language=de|access-date=2007-08-02|archive-date=2018-10-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181006113213/http://www.pitt.edu/~kafka/k_s_bibII.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> wrote [[The Philosophy of Freedom]], which focuses on the problem of free will. Steiner (1861–1925) initially divides this into the two aspects of freedom: ''freedom of thought'' and ''freedom of action''. The controllable and uncontrollable aspects of decision making thereby are made logically separable, as pointed out in the introduction. This separation of ''will'' from ''action'' has a very long history, going back at least as far as [[Stoicism]] and the teachings of [[Chrysippus]] (279–206 BCE), who separated external ''antecedent'' causes from the internal disposition receiving this cause.<ref name=Chrysippus>{{cite book |title=The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy |publisher=Cambridge University Press |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9lRD6feR3hEC&pg=PA529 |page=529 |chapter=Chapter VI: The Chyrsippean notion of fate: soft determinism |author=Keimpe Algra |isbn=978-0-521-25028-3 |year=1999}}</ref> Steiner then argues that inner freedom is achieved when we integrate our sensory impressions, which reflect the outer appearance of the world, with our thoughts, which lend coherence to these impressions and thereby disclose to us an understandable world. Acknowledging the many influences on our choices, he nevertheless points out that they do not preclude freedom unless we fail to recognise them. Steiner argues that outer freedom is attained by permeating our deeds with ''moral imagination.'' "Moral" in this case refers to action that is willed, while "imagination" refers to the mental capacity to envision conditions that do not already hold. Both of these functions are necessarily conditions for freedom. Steiner aims to show that these two aspects of inner and outer freedom are integral to one another, and that true freedom is only achieved when they are united.<ref>Steiner, R. (1964). Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1964, 1970, 1972, 1979, 230 pp., translated from the 12th German edition of 1962 by Michael Wilson. [http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004/ ((online))]</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page