On the Spirit and Letter of Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy: A Critical Reading of Hartmut Traub's 'Philosophie und Anthroposophie'

The following text is a review essay of Fichte scholar Hartmut Traub's 1,000 page monograph on Rudolf Steiner’s early philosophical writings called Philosophie und Anthroposophie: Die philosophische Weltanschauung Rudolf Steiners. Grundlegung und Kritik (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 2011). On the one hand, Traub’s book convincingly demonstrates the fruitfulness of locating Steiner’s philosophy within the tradition of German Idealism. On the other, his judgment of Steiner’s philosophical originality is for the most part negative. My point of departure were the questions: are there any other ways of understanding the Fichtean heritage in the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner than those proposed by Traub? And how can one objectively approach the topic of Steiner’s originality?