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151 pages

English

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Mario Betti strives to make sense of the world through different lenses framed as 12 archetypes; Phenomonalism, Sensualism, Materialism, Mathematism, Rationalism, Idealism, Psychism, Pneumatism, Monadism, Dynamism, Realism and Humanus.Betti draws on the research of Rudolph Steiner and his twelvefold typology of human and cosmic thought to explore and validate each world view from its own unique perspective. In this way he means to transform dogmatism and enable a deeper dialogue. The book includes a study guide, World View by World View, which comprises of templates for lesson structures and questions for discussion put together by the author Mario Betti and Kathelijne Drenth of the Cloverleaf Foundation, The Netherlands.

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Philosophie et théologie

Philosophy

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Publié par	Hawthorn Press
Date de parution	02 décembre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781912480227
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0600€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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TWELVE WAYS OF SEEING THE WORLD
PHILOSOPHIES AND ARCHETYPAL
WORLDVIEWS FOR UNDERSTANDING
HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS
Mario Betti

Translated by Matthew Barton
Zwolf Wege, die Welt zu Verstehen © 2001 Mario Betti
Mario Betti is hereby identified as the author of this work in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988. He asserts and gives notice of his moral right under this Act.
Twelve Ways of Seeing the World was first published as Zwolf Wege, die Welt zu Verstehen , in 2001© Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart, Germany.
Twelve Ways of Seeing the World © 2019 Hawthorn Press.
Published as an English edition by Hawthorn Press, Hawthorn House, 1 Lansdown Lane, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 1BJ, UK info@hawthornpress.com www.hawthornpress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means (electronic or mechanical, through reprography, digital transmission, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by Lucy Guenot
Typesetting in Minion Pro by Mach 3 Solutions Ltd ( www.mach3solutions.co.uk )
Translation by Matthew Barton
Printed by Severnprint Ltd, Gloucestershire
Every effort has been made to trace the ownership of all copyrighted material. If any omission has been made, please bring this to the publisher’s attention so that proper acknowledgement may be given in future editions.
The views expressed in this book are not necessarily those of the publisher.
Acknowledgement: Hawthorn Press acknowledges the generous support of The Cloverleaf Foundation, www.cloverleaffoundation.com , which made the translation of Twelve Ways of Seeing the World possible.
Printed on environmentally friendly chlorine-free paper sourced from renewable forest stock.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data applied for
ISBN 978-1-912480-12-8
eISBN 978-1-912480-22-7
Twelve Ways of Seeing the World
In today’s multicultural society, religious and philosophical outlooks of all kinds often seem to clash irreconcilably. Mario Betti is concerned to see the validity in each worldview, and to seek truth not in one narrow perspective but in the overall context of all the possible different outlooks. In clear, accessible language, he helps readers engage with twelve perspectives on the world, at the same time offering insight into anthroposophy, and new understandings of it.
Mario Betti was born in Lucca, Italy, in 1942. Following studies and work in Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and England, he settled in Germany. He studied Waldorf pedagogy and subsequently worked for many years as a teacher of English, history, history of art and religion. From 1985 to 2001 he was a lecturer in pedagogical anthropology, history of art and anthroposophy at Alanus University, Alfter, near Bonn, and was an art teaching advisor to Waldorf schools. From 2001 to 2006 he was a lecturer at the Waldorf teacher training course in Stuttgart. Mario has published various books on literature and spiritual science.
Four blind men are trying to decide what an elephant is.
They each feel and touch the elephant, clearly a patient creature, and thereupon each gives his view:
‘A pipe’, says the first, touching the trunk.
‘A wall’, says the second, feeling its side.
‘A whip’, says the third, feeling its tail.
‘A tree’, says the fourth, who has got hold of a leg.
Old legend
Contents
Foreword by Robert McDermott and Matthew T. Segall
Introduction by Kathelijne Drenth
Foreword to the 2001 German Edition by Mario Betti
1 Goethe’s ‘The Mysteries’, and Today’s Multicultural Society
2 The Twelve Worldviews: What Is Meant by Them
3 Look at, and Listen to, the World – Phenomenalism
4 Human Carnality – Sensualism
5 ‘Earth Goes on Standing Firm’ – Materialism
6 Measure, Number and Weight – Mathematism
7 ‘And Behold, It Was Very Good’ – Rationalism
8 The Logos that Was at the Beginning – Idealism
9 I Am an I – Psychism
10 I Am the Universe – Pneumatism
11 The Jacob’s Ladder – ‘Spiritualism’
12 Universal Relation – Monadism
13 ‘I Am Dynamite’ – Dynamism
14 The World Scales – Realism
15 Humanus: The New Human Being in the Third Millennium
Epilogue
Notes and References
Study/Discussion Guide, Worldview by Worldview by Mario Betti and Kathelijne Drenth
Foreword
Robert McDermott and Matthew T. Segall
Rudolf Steiner was one of the twentieth century’s few true Renaissance men. While modern science, art, religion, politics and philosophy continued to fall into increasing specialisation, fragmentation, deconstruction and narrow-minded conflict, Steiner laboured tirelessly to create new integral approaches to education, agriculture, medicine, architecture, social reform, banking, visual and performance art, esotericism and more – all inspired by a deep commitment to humanity’s spiritual potential. Mario Betti, a lifelong practitioner of Steiner’s anthroposophical method, has written a book that succeeds not only in its clear interpretation of a sometimes enigmatic thinker’s ideas, but in its brilliant amplifications and applications of these ideas to our present-day circumstances.
Betti offers his book as a stimulus or seed to support the growth of a still-fledgling pluralistic society. Achieving a planetary humanity guided by freedom and love out of the ashes of the modern pathologies of fascism, totalitarianism, nationalism, oligarchism and terrorism (the list goes on…) will require more than a shallow, relativistic multiculturalism that settles for mere tolerance. Betti draws on Goethe to remind us that tolerance can only be a temporary position . Genuine pluralism, Betti demonstrates, requires more than toleration: it requires a willingness to engage the whole of our being in deep communication with, and mutual affirmation of, other worldviews. We must strive to reach across our differences through an inner development that is capable of seeing their holistic interdependence. Betti’s amplification of Steiner’s twelve worldviews is a profound aid in this effort of inner development. Significantly, it shows the dignity and merit of each way of seeing the world at the same time as revealing the danger of exclusivism. Every worldview becomes false, the moment it claims to be the whole of the world .
Albert William Levy’s Philosophy and the Modern World , a particularly expert and readable account of twentieth-century philosophies, summarises our present situation well:

… philosophical movements of the recent past are to be viewed as waves of successive reform beating upon an infinite shore, with each group of partisans committed to a conception of philosophy which assures them a virtual monopoly of its legitimate practice.… And to pragmatists, logical empiricists, and linguistic analysts alike, any alternative conception of what philosophy is rests upon a tragic mistake.
Who would dare an attempt to overcome such differences of opinion, each supported by knowledge and powerful arguments? An ideal candidate would be a teacher whose thinking is lifted by creative pedagogy and artistic imagination. Mario Betti would appear to be such a teacher. Every page of this book reveals an author who teaches thinking as a contribution to individual lives, to relationships and to a sane society. He is invested not in scoring philosophical points but rather in helping his readers cope with intellectual confusion and conflict.
Betti succeeds in his purpose by giving a positive account of twelve worldviews. He takes as his model Goethe, who held in one view both universal harmony and plurality ( here ). We are led to appreciate that each worldview is convincing up to a point. His treatment of Idealism, for example, invites the reader to see that all reality is, or at least emerges from, ideas – from a realm that Plato described so convincingly. But then Betti draws on Aristotle, an equally brilliant and equally influential philosopher, to show the need for a more positive account of particulars, whether moments, thoughts or objects. Betti refers to this combination of Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophy as Realism, the philosophy that occupies the top-most spot on the philosophical compass (more on this below).
In a similar way – the way of showing polarities – Betti makes a case for Rationalism, the philosophy of ethical order and proportion, and then shows how it virtually solicits its polar complement, the philosophy of Dynamism: structure needs process to be effective; and process, in order to avoid chaos, needs structure. As an introvert needs at least a little extroversion to get through the day, and as melancholic and phlegmatic temperaments need at least a touch of choleric and sanguine temperaments, so does Psychism, a philosophy ready-made for psychology, need a little Phenomenalism, a philosophy that emphasizes the reality of external objects and events but is not sufficiently affirmative of the interior depths of the soul. ‘Psychism is the inner version of phenomenalism’ ( here ). These pairs, furthermore, are not only complementary, as in two static halves that make a whole; rather, they need and benefit each other but also oppose each other – like individual and community, inner and outer, and of course, like gender. The twelve views are also like gender in that they exist not only as pairs of clearly demarcated opposites but as a spectrum with fluid boundaries, a perspective that contemporary social justice movements have made increasingly clear ( here ).
In addition to an emphasis on the conflict of worldviews, Betti emphasizes the importance of mutually enhancing polarities: ‘Each worldview is both a genuine opposite and an enhancement of its opposite’ ( here ). By plunging downward into the domain of gravity, the Materialist world-view has produced marvels of human understanding like the periodic table of elements, just as the ‘Spiritualist’ worldview has re