In these concentrated and aphoristic lectures, Rudolf Steiner demonstrates that there are twelve main philosophical perspectives and that fruitful progress in philosophy depends not on defending one and refuting others, but in learning to experience the validity of them all.

Such comprehensive examination not only clarifies our general understanding of life, but makes our own thinking more flexible, helping to limit tendencies toward narrow, one-sided viewpoints and the stridency and conflict this can engender in social relationships.

In contrast to traditional philosophical approaches, Steiner brings the subjects of philosophy into relation to the spiritual background of human existence. By way of insights gained through Spiritual Scientific examination into the fundamental nature of human thought activity, we are led beyond the human to the transcendent, and are thereby given to glimpse something of the nature of cosmic thought, which human thought is an earthly reflection of, though filtered and affected by human agency.

Steiner goes on to show how our own perspective is also coloured by a particular “soul mood,” which influences the way we actively pursue knowledge. Several philosophers and their works are characterized in this way, thus illuminating something of the more personal aspects of their contributions to human knowledge.