Rudolf Steiner on Natural Objects

This is one of several posts which are based on my reading of The Philosophy of Freedom by Rudolf Steiner. For other posts, see below.

Ruldolf Steiner seems not only to overvalue thinking, but seems to be stuck in mechanistic thinking? Steiner writes:

I construct a machine purposefully when I bring its parts into a relationship that they do not have by nature. The purposefulness of the arrangement consists in my having set the operation of the machine, as its idea, at its base. In this way, the machine becomes a perceptual object with a corresponding idea. Natural objects are just such entities.

—Rudolf Steiner, Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: The Philosophy of Freedom, Chapter 11

I’d emphatically assert that “natural objects”, i.e., animals,¹ are not “just such entities”, i.e., machines. I find Steiner’s thinking, despite his “portrayal of the process of thinking as purely spiritual”,² suspiciously mechanistic. Rudolf Steiner’s views on human freedom are profound, but maybe not for the reasons he thinks?

Update 2024-11-04:
Related posts updated.

Notes:
1. Rudolf Steiner seems to be using “natural objects” and “natural creatures” interchangeably. See Rudolf Steiner, Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: The Philosophy of Freedom, Chapter 11.
2. Ibid., Chapter 11, Addendum to the new edition (1918).

Related posts:
Rudolf Steiner on Consciousness
Rudof Steiner on Freedom
Rudolf Steiner on Gender
Rudolf Steiner on Thinking, Feeling, and Willin