How to develop clear and discrete thinking

When we are convinced that thinking has to be spiritualised in modern European culture and we know that without this spiritualised thinking becoming a true cultural factor we will not be able to become aware what angels weave in our souls, the question arises: How can we develop such a kind of thinking? Our modern intellectual thinking is far from being spiritualised, it has lost all spiritual being and has become a material thinking, a 'thinking of matter'.

It is not possible to transform scientific intellectual thinking into a spiritual thinking, with no step in between. There is a kind of abyss between our ‘normal’ scientific thinking and the thinking that we call 'pure thinking', which is the basis for spiritualisation. Normal scientific thinking follows the senses and holds itself awake by leaning on them. It relies on evidence and it has a material, logical no-nonsense form. No sidestepping to thoughts that stand on themselves, without sense-evidence!

Spiritualisation lies 'behind' pure thinking, which needs no sense-contents at all. So if we decide that we want to develop this spiritualised thinking, we will have to 'fill up' the abyss, or build a bridge over it, or grow wings to fly over it. Even if we developed thoughts that are sense-free, we still would not have this pure thinking that can be spiritualised.

If we go back to our roots of intelligent thinking, we find in the history of philosophy a racy figure, who seems to be the first human being who tried to make the people think by themselves: it is Socrates. But when we study the contents of his dialogues, noted down by Plato, we still find themes that are far removed from our rational thinking.

After Plato came Aristotle, who laid the basis of knowledge of logical thinking. But he also had a vast knowledge of nature, of physics. Of course modern physics laughs mildly about the mistakes in this work of Aristotle, but with the means that the scientists had at that time, he progressed very far.

As a philosopher not only did he write his logical works. He also wrote a work that is a science, but not a physical science. And yet, Aristotle found that the science of physics is impossible without this other science that is not physical. It is a science that walks along with science, the scientist needs it to do his work properly.  Therefore he needs a science that is more than a science, that is beyond all science. When we want to give a term to this science, we would have to say that it is beyond physics: metaphysics. In this work of Aristotle, where a picture of the newly born rational, logical thinking was developed, we still find it possible to conceive what intelligent thinking actually is. We have to become internally active, and that is a bit difficult for our lazy souls that are used to a thinking that goes along on its own.  And of course we can superficially read these texts and take nothing special from them. But someone who has a deep love for this highest human faculty, for true intelligence, will experience true bliss and mercy when reading and experiencing what happens in the soul through thinking with the metaphysics of Aristotle.

He starts his Metaphysics with a preface. I quote the first paragraph.
'The task of science, which is exploring the truth, may be called difficult in a way; in another way it may also be called easy. A sign for this is that no thinker has the truth in its full extent; but also ,no thinker has no truth at all. Everyone can come with something that corresponds with the being of a thing and although one single being could possibly not find the truth or only find a little bit of it, from the cooperation of everyone comes a certain quantum of science.  If it means something when we say : ‘a good shot can still miss a barn door!’, then the task would always be easy. However, we could also find that one can solve a part and miss the whole.

It could be that the cause of the difficulty that shows itself in a double way doesn't lie in the objects, but lies in ourselves. For just as the bat's eye relates to daylight, the thinking faculty of our mind relates to the objects that naturally and for themselves are, of all that exists, the ones that are most full of light.'

One can read such a little text-piece in several ways. The meaning is not too difficult to grasp. But when we want to develop independent, clear and pure thinking, we should try to find the movement in this meaning, the musical part of it, the thesis, antithesis and synthesis, the dialectic form, the images that are put into words.  That would be a step in the direction of pure thought that can be spiritualised.

How to develop clear and discrete thinking by Mieke Mosmuller