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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goethean science | 2/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethean_science | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:35:20.813797+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Goethe's approach to vital nature === In relation to Goethe's Colour Theory — Ernst Lehrs writes, "In point of fact, the essential difference between Goethe's theory of colour and the theory which has prevailed in science (despite all modifications) since Newton's day, lies in this: While the theory of Newton and his successors was based on excluding the colour-seeing faculty of the eye, Goethe founded his theory on the eye's experience of colour." "The renouncing of life and immediacy, which was the premise for the progress of natural science since Newton, formed the real basis for the bitter struggle which Goethe waged against the physical optics of Newton. It would be superficial to dismiss this struggle as unimportant: there is much significance in one of the most outstanding men directing all his efforts to fighting against the development of Newtonian optics." (Werner Heisenberg, during a speech celebrating Goethe's birthday) Goethe undertook his 'adventure of reason', starting with the "crisis" in botany, the merely and purely mechanical classification-taxonomy of plant life. In so doing, Goethe also "wagered a sweeping theory about Nature itself." Goethe was concerned with the narrowing specialization in science and emphasis on accumulating data in a merely mechanical manner, devoid of human values and human development. Linnaean botanic taxonomic system represented this in his day, a Systema naturae. Goethe intuited the practice of rational science promoted a narrowing and contracting interplay between humanity and nature. For Goethe, any form of science based only upon physical-material characteristics and then only selected external traits, led to epistemic impoverishment and a reduction of human knowledge. What was needed was increased ability to derive meaning from voluminous external data by looking at it from both external-sensory angles, and from an internal angle where thinking, feeling, intuition, imagination, and inspiration could all contribute to conclusions reached by the experimenter. Linnaean taxonomy was already coming under criticism from Comte de Buffon, who argued the mechanistic classification of the outer forms of nature (natura naturata) needed to be replaced by a study of the interrelation of natural forces and natural historical change. For Goethe, the collection of new knowledge is inseparable from a Geschichte des Denkens und Begreifens, a history of thinking and conceptualization. Knowledge is also about association, not only about separation, as Coleridge also explained in his Essays on Method (see Romantic epistemology). While arranging material phenomena in logical linear sequence is a valid scientific method, it had to be carried out under a correct and humanistic organizing idea (Bacon's lumen siccum), itself grounded in nature, or natural law, often boundaried by multiple, lawful pairs of polarity. Goethe proposed experimenters seek the natural, lawful organizing ideas or archetype behind specific natural phenomena. Phase One was to immerse one's self in a living interaction with the natural phenomena to be studied, with all available senses. Goethe valued "the labor of experimentation". This contrasted greatly with a trend in rational Natural Science to 'abandon' nature itself and formulate an abstract hypothesis; then, experiment to test whether your hypothesis can be verified. Goethe considered this an 'artificial experience' which 'tears' individual manifestations out of the meaningful context of the whole (e.g., Newton's color hypothesis). Instead, Goethe's experimenter must adopt a more living, more humane, approach aspiring to enter into the living essence of nature, as perceived in the phenomenon studied. For Goethe, success meant penetrating to the crucial, underlying, sensorily-invisible archetype-pattern: the Ur-phänomen. The Experimenter aspires to allow the phenomena to reveal its inherent order and lawfulness. While often invisible, this lawfulness is clearly objective, not subjective, and not invented by the experimenter (see Goethe's description of a dandelion, or Steiner's copied version). Ernst Lehrs went further in emphasizing how all objective manifestation comes from the movement of physical-material objects as motion comes to rest (Man or Matter, 3rd ed. preferred). Goethean Science stands apart from Cartesian-Newtonian Science in its alternative value system. Regarding quantification, Goethean Science is nonetheless rigorous as to experimental method and the matter of qualities. The German philosopher and mystic Rudolf Steiner, who was at one point an assistant editor of the standard edition of Goethe's works, applied Goethe's methodology of a living approach to nature to the performing and fine arts. This gives Anthroposophic visual and performing arts their air of going beyond the mere outer form of things (natura naturata) to discern a more inner nature (natura naturans). Steiner hoped to relate the human sphere with all of Nature through the arts; including, the art of Goethean Science. When composing his magnum opus, Oswald Spengler acknowledged his enormous debt to Goethe for providing him with the necessary inspiration and guidance, such that he devoted two chapters to describing and explaining Goethe's 'organic' logic - which demands life-experience (rather than the scientific experience associated with inorganic logic). The former consists of "letting the impressions of the world just work upon your senses, enabling you to absorb those impressions as a whole".