[From Goethe's Way of
Science: A Phenomenology of Nature, David Seamon & Arthur Zajonc, editors.
Goethe, Nature,
and Phenomenology
David Seamon
Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe (1749-1832) is best known for his poetry and plays, described by many
literary critics as some of the most perceptive and evocative imaginative
literature ever written. Many fewer people realize, however, that Goethe also
produced a sizable body of scientific work that focused on such diverse topics
as plants, color, clouds, weather, morphology, and geology. Goethe believed
that these studies, rather than his literary work, would some day be recognized
as his greatest contribution to humankind.1
In its time,
Goethe's way of science was highly unusual because it moved away from a
quantitative, materialist approach to things in nature and emphasized, instead,
an intimate, firsthand encounter between student and thing studied. Direct
experiential contact became the basis for scientific generalization and
understanding. Goethe's contemporaries and several following generations,
however, largely ignored his writings on nature. These works were seen either
as subjective artistic descriptions written by a scientific dilettante or as a
form of philosophical idealism that arbitrarily imposed intellectual constructs
on the things of nature. Only in the twentieth century, with the philosophical
articulation of phenomenology, do we
have a conceptual language able to describe Goethe's way of science accurately.
Though there are many styles of phenomenology, its central aim, in the words of
phenomenological founder Edmund Husserl, is "to the things
themselves"‑-in other words, how would the thing studied describe
itself if it had the ability to speak?2
In this sense,
phenomenology is the exploration and description of phenomena, where phenomena are the things or experiences
as human beings experience them. Phenomenology is a science of beginnings that
demands a thorough, in-depth study of the phenomenon, which must be seen and
described as clearly as possible. Accurate description is not a
phenomenological end, however, but a means by which the phenomenologist locates
the phenomenon's deeper, more generalizable patterns, structures, and meanings.3
Rephrased in phenomenological language, Goethe's way of science is one early
example of a phenomenology of the natural world. He sought a way to open
himself to the things of nature, to listen to what they said, and to identify their
core aspects and qualities.
The present volume is one contribution toward
making Goethe's style of phenomenological science better known. Co-editor
Arthur Zajonc and I hope the following essays will help to demonstrate the
invaluable assistance that a Goethean science might offer today for better
understanding and caring for the natural environment. In this introduction, I
review the nature of Goethe's way of science and then overview the essays in
the collection. Finally, I briefly discuss the link between Goethean science
and environmental phenomenology.4
DELICATE EMPIRICISM
One phrase that
Goethe used to describe his method was delicate
empiricism (zarte Empirie)‑-the
effort to understand a thing's meaning through prolonged empathetic looking and
seeing grounded in direct experience.5 He sought to use firsthand
encounter directed in a kindly but rigorous way to know the thing in itself. "Natural
objects," he wrote, "should be sought and investigated as they are
and not to suit observers, but respectfully as if they were divine
beings."6 Goethe believed that, too often, the methods and
recording instruments of conventional science separate the student from the
thing studied and lead to an arbitrary or inaccurate understanding:
It is a
calamity that the use of experiment has severed nature from man, so that he is
content to understand nature merely through what artificial instruments reveal
and by so doing even restricts her achievements...Microscopes and telescopes,
in actual fact, confuse man's innate clarity of mind.7
Rather than remove
himself from the thing, Goethe sought to encounter it intimately through the
educable powers of human perception: "The human being himself, to the
extent that he makes sound use of his senses, is the most exact physical
apparatus that can exist."8 Goethe's aim was to bring this
potential perceptual power to bear on a particular phenomenon and thereby
better see and understand it. "One instance, he wrote, "is often
worth a thousand, bearing all within itself."9 His way of
investigation sought to guide actively these special moments of recognition and
thus gradually to gather a more complete understanding of the phenomenon.10
Goethe emphasized
that perhaps the greatest danger in the transition from seeing to interpreting
is the tendency of the mind to impose an intellectual structure that is not
really present in the thing itself: "How difficult it is...to refrain from
replacing the thing with its sign, to keep the object alive before us instead
of killing it with the word."11 The student must proceed carefully
when making the transition from experience and seeing to judgement and
interpretation, guarding against such dangers as "impatience,
precipitancy, self-satisfaction, rigidity, narrow thoughts, presumption,
indolence, indiscretion, instability, and whatever else the entire retinue
might be called."12
Because accurate
looking and seeing are crucial in Goethe's way of study, he stresses the
importance of training and education. He believed that observers are not all
equal in their ability to see. Each person must develop his or her perceptual
powers through effort, practice, and perseverance. "Nature speaks upward
to the known senses of man," he wrote, "downward to unknown senses of
his."13 If we cannot understand a particular phenomenon, we
must learn to make fuller use of our senses and "to bring our intellect
into line with what they tell."14
Yet Goethe argued
that it is not enough to train only the outer senses and the intellect. He
maintained that, as a person's abilities to see outwardly improve, so do his or
her inner recognitions and
perceptions become more sensitive: "Each phenomenon in nature, rightly
observed, wakens in us a new organ of inner understanding."15
As one learns to see more clearly, he or she also learns to see more deeply. One becomes more "at
home" with the phenomenon, understanding it with greater empathy, concern
and respect.
In time, he
believed, this method reveals affective, qualitative meanings as well as
empirical, sensual content. "There may be a difference," he claimed,
"between seeing and seeing...The eyes of the spirit have to work in
perpetual living connexion with those of the body, for one otherwise risks
seeing yet seeing past a thing."16 This kind of understanding
does not come readily, but it can be had, Goethe argued, by anyone who is
immerses himself or herself in systematic training. "Thus, not through an
extraordinary spiritual gift, not through momentary inspiration, unexpected and
unique, but through consistent work, did I eventually achieve such satisfactory
results," he wrote about his own scientific discoveries.17
THE UR-PHENOMENON
Goethe argued that,
in time, out of commitment, practice, and proper efforts, the student would
discover the "ur-phenomenon" (Ur-Phänomen),
the essential pattern or process of a thing. Ur- bears the connotation of primordial, basic, elemental,
archetypal; the ur-phenomenon may be thought of as the "deep-down
phenomenon," the essential core of a thing that makes it what it is and
what it becomes.18 For example, in his botanical work, Goethe saw
the ur-phenomenon of the plant as arising out of the interplay between two
opposing forces: the "vertical tendency" and "horizontal
tendency."19 The former is the plant's inescapable need to grow
upward; the latter, the nourishing, expanding principle that gives solidity to
the plant.20 Only when these two forces are in balance can the plant
grow normally.
Goethe believed
that the powers of human perception and understanding cannot penetrate beyond
the ur-phenomenon. It is "an ultimate which can not itself be explained,
which is in fact not in need of explanation, but from which all that we observe
can be made intelligible."21 The key procedural need in
discovering the ur-phenomenon, Goethe argued, is maintaining continuous
experiential contact with the thing throughout
the course of investigation‑-to intellectualize abstractly as little as
possible. "Pure experience," he wrote, "should lie at the root
of all physical sciences... A theory can be judged worthy only when all
experiences are brought under one roof and assist in their subsequent
application."22
Yet Goethe saw no
inherent conflict between experience and idea or between fact and conception.
He believed that genuine understanding entailed a mutual interplay of both fact
and theory. Their resolution is to be found in the ur-phenomenon, which marks
out the things in the foreground and brings all other phenomena into relation
with it.23 If study is conducted properly, facts and theory can
arise smoothly together because each is part and parcel of the other:
The highest is to understand that
all fact is really theory. The blue of the sky reveals to us the basic law of
color. Search nothing beyond the phenomena, they themselves are the theory.24
THEORY OF COLOR
One of the clearest
illustrations of Goethe's way of study is his work on color and light as they
are experienced in the everyday world. Skeptical of Newton's theory of color,
Goethe began his own studies in the late 1780s and published Theory of Color (Zur Farbenlehre) in 1810.25
The crux of his color theory is its experiential source: rather than impose
theoretical statements (as he felt Newton had), Goethe sought to allow light
and color to be displayed in an ordered series of experiments that readers could
experience for themselves. Goethe claimed that if one carefully conducts these
experiments with "constant and rigorous effort," he or she will
discover from his or her own experiences the underlying processes through which
all color appears.26
Theory of Color begins with an examination of
physiological colors; i.e., colors contingent upon the state and activity of
the eye, as for example, the orange after-image we see after looking at a blue
flame. Goethe first requests the reader to explore the effect of darkness and
light in general terms. He asks the student to consider experiences such as the
following, to conduct them carefully as experiments: (1) to keep one's eyes
open in a totally dark place for a time; (2) to look at a white, strongly
illuminated surface, then turn to objects moderately lighted.27
Goethe explains that, in the first experiment, the eye is "in the utmost
relaxation and susceptibility"; it feels "a sense of privation"
and strives to perceive outwardly into the darkness.28 The results
of the second experiment are the reverse of the first: the eye, "in an
overstrained state and scarcely susceptible at all," is dazzled and for a
time cannot see the moderately lighted objects.29
For Goethe, simple
experiments like these intimate an essential aspect of human seeing: darkness
in the world instantaneously produces in the eye an inclination to light;
light, an inclination to darkness. The working of the eye indicates an active
dialectic between darkness and light: The eye "shows its vital energy, its
fitness to receive the impression of the object, precisely by spontaneously
tending to an opposite state."30
Goethe concluded
that this reciprocity between darkness and light points to the ur-phenomenon of
color: Color is the resolution of the tension between darkness and light. Thus
darkness weakened by light leads to the darker colors of blue, indigo, and
violet, while light dimmed by darkness creates the lighter colors of yellow,
orange, and red. Unlike Newton, who theorized that colors are entities that
have merely arisen out of light (as, for example, through refraction in a
prism), Goethe came to believe that colors are new formations that develop through the dialectical action
between darkness and light.31 Darkness is not a total, passive absence
of light as Newton had suggested but, rather, an active presence, opposing
itself to light and interacting with it. Theory
of Color presents a way to demonstrate firsthand this dialectical
relationship and color as its result.32
For Goethe, tension
and its reconciliation are prime forces in nature and can be discovered in
countless ways. Light and darkness, colors and their complements, colored
objects seen and the resulting after-images, seeing and thing seen, person and
world‑-all point toward an instantaneous, living dialectic that joins the
parts in a dynamic, interpenetrating whole. This relationship, says the
philosopher Eric Heller, is a "a creative conservation between within and
without, a kind of dialectical education through which the individual form
becomes in actuality what from the very beginning it had been potentially. For
what is within and what is without are...merely poles of one and the same
thing."33
THE ESSAYS
The above
introduction to Goethe's way of science is only a sketch, and the essays of
this collection demonstrate in a much more rounded way the nature of Goethean
science and its great potential for understanding the natural world. Physicist
Arthur Zajonc's introductory essay reviews Goethe's scientific studies and
their historical context, particularly Goethe's relationship with Enlightenment
science and Romanticism. In turn, the four essays of Part I discuss the
philosophical foundations of Goethean science and clarify its epistemology and
methodology. In his essay, German scholar Frederick Amrine demonstrates that
Goethe's effort to foster a way of knowledge grounded in qualitative
description anticipates several developments in the contemporary philosophy of
science. In the next two essays of part I, physicist Walter Heitler and
physiologist Herbert Hensel examine the goals of Goethean science and
illustrate how its method and discoveries compare and contrast with
conventional scientific work. Last, philosopher Ron Brady draws on the
phenomenological notion of intentionality to clarify Goethe's understanding of
growth and metamorphosis in nature.
Though the essays
in Part I by Heitler and Hensel were written in the 1960s, Zajonc and I have
chosen to include them because they establish an important conceptual base
without which more recent Goethean research would not be possible. Heitler was
a major physicist of the twentieth century and helped to develop the quantum
theory of radiation. Similarly, Hensel was an expert on sensory physiology and
eventually became interested in developing what would be called today a
phenomenology of sense experience. During the 1960s, both men gave attention to
the relationship between science and the humanities; they envisioned a Goethean
science as figuring prominently in the argument. In this sense, both men's
essays set the framework from the standpoint of a 1960s' science for a more
contemporary engagement with the issues as illustrated by Amrine and Brady in
this part of the volume and by the other contributors in Parts II and III.
The five essays of
Part II move beyond conceptual discussions of Goethe's science to the question
of how it is practiced in the real world of nature. Biologist Jochen Bockemühl
considers plant growth from a Goethean standpoint, tracing the changes in leaf
form as a plant matures. Drawing on Bockemühl's approach, ecologist Nigel
Hoffmann explores the qualitative nature of two specific Australian plants and
strikingly demonstrates, through the use of poetry and painting, the importance
of an intuitive dimension in Goethe's way of seeing.
The next two essays
of Part II illustrate the value of Goethe's approach for understanding animal
forms. Drawing on the work of zoologist Wolfgang Schad, biologist Mark Riegner
uses a Goethean approach to explore the form of mammals. By observing such
qualities as body shape, tooth formation, coloration, and habitat preference,
Riegner presents an innovative way of reading the natures of rodents,
ungulates, and carnivores. Biologist Craig Holdrege takes a similar approach in
his perceptive effort to present a Goethean phenomenology of the horse and the
lion. Both his and Riegner's interpretations demonstrate that, through a
Goethean approach, each animal reveals its unique manner of presence in the
world. This presence, Holdrege emphasizes, is what the animal is, and any
efforts to alter this presence‑-as with the piecemeal manipulations of
genetic engineering‑-can radically change the whole animal and its
relationship with the environment. His example is the rat-sized transgenic
mouse made so heavy that it can no longer climb a plant stem to gather the
seeds it needs for food.
In the last essay
of Part II, Mark Riegner and sculptor John Wilkes present Wilkes' efforts to
design what he calls Flowforms‑-fountainlike
vessels through which water flows in rhythmic motion. In creating Flowforms,
Wilkes was greatly affected by the Goethean studies of water done by German
hydrologist Theodor Schwenk, who concluded that the essence of water's movement
is found in the tension between the linear tug of gravity and water's inherent
tendency to draw itself into a sphere. Schwenk demonstrated that water
reconciles this tension in three characteristic ways: the meander, the wave,
and the vortex.34
In his Flowform
research, Wilkes asks how these essential patterns of water can be incorporated
in built form so that humanmade channels and vessels can support and enhance
the basic movements of water rather than force them into unnatural surroundings
as, for example, in channelized rivers with straight banks that interfere with
the need of water to meander. Instead of forcing water to do what we human
beings want, why not help it to maintain its own natural patterns and move the
best it can? Riegner and Wilkes demonstrate that this kind of thinking leads to
designed environments that work better both ecologically and aesthetically.
The three essays in
Part III of the volume discuss the future of Goethean science. German scholar
Alan Cottrell demonstrates how Goethe's approach moves away from the
reductionist thinking of positivist science and facilitates an increasing
freedom and self-determination both for the researcher and the thing he or she
studies. In turn, physicist Henri Bortoft links Goethean science with the
search for authentic wholes and a way to study nature in a deeper, more
heartfelt way. Bortoft argues that one of the most important values of Goethe's
way of science is to foster understanding.
To understand, suggests Bortoft, is to see the way things belong together and
to see why they are together as they are.34
The last essay of
the collection, by Arthur Zajonc, sees Goethe's way of understanding as the
basis for a science of the future. Zajonc examines how recent experiments in
quantum physics call into question the one-track mechanistic model of nature
and many of the strictures of classical forms of thought on which that model is
based. He believes that we must look toward a new science of nature freed from
a mechanistic model that emphasizes measurement and exactitude. As do other
contributors to this collection, Zajonc offers, as a prototype, the artist's
way of seeing and shows how Goethe's method provides a way to combine intuitive
insight and procedural rigor.
GOETHE,
PHENOMENOLOGY, AND NATURE
As Editor of the
SUNY series in Environmental and Architectural Phenomenology, I have sought
volumes that offer perceptive interpretations of the natural and built worlds,
particularly as they contribute to human well-being. At the same time, I believe
that qualitative, descriptive research, because it stimulates a more intimate
relationship between student and thing studied, has the power to strengthen
individual responsibility and concern toward natural and built environments.
In selecting a book
on Goethean science to be included in a series on phenomenology, I am aware
that many mainstream scholars, especially philosophers, may be critical or
ambivalent for a number of reasons. First, it may be argued that, historically,
Goethe's efforts preceded Husserl's work by over a century and, therefore,
cannot be associated with a tradition that came later.36 A second,
more difficult, issue is the question of method: Goethe's emphasis on remaining
with the experience of the thing throughout the course of study is a crucial
point of contrast with Husserl's style of phenomenology, in which the student
begins with experience but then, drawing back, examines it cerebrally through
reflection, epoché, and other
tools of intellect.37
On the other hand,
some thinkers within the phenomenological movement itself‑-e.g.,
philosophers Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty‑-came to dispute
much of Husserl's method and many of his conclusions. These phenomenological
thinkers argued that the invariant, transcendental structures that Husserl
sought in the realm of consciousness were questionable because he based their
reality on speculative, cerebral reflection rather than on actual human
experience taking place within the world of everyday life.38 Over
time, these thinkers' critical emphasis on real-world existence led to a
phenomenological style most commonly called today existential phenomenology (in contrast to Husserl's pure or transcendental phenomenology). Clearly, Goethe's method is
much closer to this form of phenomenology, since his aim was to begin from and stay with experience, which
becomes the descriptive basis for generalization and interpretation.39
In this sense,
existential phenomenologists can find many points of methodological similarity
with Goethean science. On the other hand, some existential phenomenologists may
feel much less comfortable with Goethe's ontological and metaphysical
conclusions, which suggest an interlinkage and harmony among all things of
nature, including humankind. As philosopher L. L. Whyte writes, Goethe's
central ambition "...was nothing less than to see all nature as one, to
discover an objective principle of continuity running through the whole, from
the geological rocks to the processes of aesthetic creation. Moreover, this discovery
of the unity of nature implies the simultaneous self-discovery of man, since
man could thereby come to understand himself better."40
As an existential
phenomenologist, my view about Goethe's holistic vision of nature is that each
reader must make up his or her mind as to its truth or error by studying
Goethe's scientific works and conducting personally
the exercises and experiments that he claims brought him to this understanding
of nature. For my own part, I have found my encounter with Goethe's work,
especially his Theory of Colors,
a rewarding and sometimes revelatory pathway for seeing more sensitively and
for feeling a stronger kinship with the natural world.41
In our postmodern time of fragmentation and relativity, we must somehow find ways to bring our thoughts, feelings, and actions in harmony both with ourselves and with the world in which we live. I believe strongly that Goethean science provides a rich, intuitive approach to meeting nature and discovering patterns and relationships that are not only stimulating intellectually but also satisfying emotionally and spiritually.42 Goethe's method teaches a mode of interaction between people and environment that involves reciprocity, wonderment, and gratitude. He wished us to encounter nature respectfully and to discover how all its parts, including ourselves, belong. In this way, perhaps, we come to feel more care for the natural world, which answers back with meaning. May the essays of this volume help the reader to know this experience.
NOTES
1.The most complete set of Goethe's
scientific writings in English is J. W. von Goethe, Goethe: Scientific Studies, D. Miller, ed. and trans.(New
York: Suhrkamp, 1988; reprinted by Princeton University Press, 1994); this work
includes a selection of Goethe's writings on morphology, botany, zoology,
geology, meteorology, and physics as well as several of his writings on
"Methodology and General Scientific Topics." Also useful is J. W. von
Goethe, Goethe's Botanical Writings,
B. Mueller, trans. (Woodbridge, CT: Ox Bow Press, 1989; originally 1952); this
volume includes selections "On General Theory."
Some
of the most helpful commentaries on Goethe's science include: F. Amrine, F.
Zucker, and H. Wheeler, eds. Goethe
and the Sciences: A Reappraisal (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1987); H.
Bortoft, Goethe's Scientific
Consciousness (Nottingham, United Kingdom: Russell Press, 1986); H.
Bortoft, The Wholeness of Nature:
Goethe's Science of Conscious Participation in Nature (Hudson, NY:
Lindesfarne Press, 1996); E. Heller, Goethe and the Idea of Scientific Truth,
in The Disinherited Mind (New
York: Meridian Books, 1959); R. Magnus, Goethe
as Scientist, H. Norden, trans. (New York: Henry Schuman, 1949); T.
Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends
(New York: Harper & Row, 1973), pp. 302-17; and L. L. Whyte, Goethe's
Single Vision of Nature and Man, German
Life and Letters 2 (1949).
Also
important to Goethean science is the valuable contribution made by the Austrian
philosopher and spiritual teacher Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), who developed a
method of spiritual development called "Anthroposophy." Goethe's
ideas played a major role in Steiner's philosophy, and both he and others
touched by his work have written extensively on Goethean science. Works by
Steiner on Goethean science include: Goethe
the Scientist, O. D. Wannamaker, trans. (New York: Anthroposophic
Press, 1950); Goethe's World View,
W. Lindeman, trans. (Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press, 1985);and Goethean Science, W. Lindeman,
trans. (Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press, 1988). For an introduction to
Steiner's thinking and the nature of Anthroposophy, see R. A. McDermott, ed., The Essential Steiner (New York:
Harper and Row, 1984).
Perceptive
Goethean studies that draw on Steiner's interpretation of Goethe in various
ways include: J. Bockemühl, ed., Toward
a Phenomenology of the Etheric World (Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic
Press, 1985); J. Bockemühl, ed., Awakening
to Landscape, (Dornach, Switzerland: Goetheanum Research Laboratory,
1992); J. Bockemühl and A. Suchantke, The
Metamorphosis of Plants, N. Skillen, trans. (Cape Town, South Africa:
Novalis Press, 1995); E. Lehrs, Man or
Matter: Introduction to a Spiritual Understanding of Matter Based on Goethe's
Method of Training, Observation and Thought (London: Faber & Faber,
1958); W. Schad, Man and Mammals:
Toward a Biology of Form (Garden City, New York: Waldorf Press, 1977);
T. Schwenk, Sensitive Chaos: The
Creation of Flowing Forms in Water and Air (London: Rudolf Steiner
Press, 1965).
Perhaps
the single most accessible introduction to Goethean science is Bortoft's The Wholeness of Nature. For a
comprehensive picture of research on Goethean science, see Frederick Amrine's
invaluable multi-volume study, Goethe
in the History of Science (New York: Peter Lang, vols. 1 and 2, 1996).
Also see Amrine's helpful annotated biblography in Goethe and the Sciences, pp. 389-437. For one recent
discussion of contemporary Goethean science in practice, see H. I. Brook, Goethean Science in Britain, doctoral
dissertation, School of Independent Studies, Lancaster University, Lancaster,
United Kingdom, 1994.
2.H. Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement: An Historical Introduction,
3rd ed. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982) pp. 78-80; p. 109.
3.The nature of phenomenology is
complicated and not easy to master. As phenomenologist Herbert Spiegelberg
argues, there are as many phenomenologies as phenomenologists; see H.
Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological
Movement, p. 2. Part Five of Spiegelberg's book, "The Essentials
of the Phenomenological Method," is a helpful introduction to doing
phenomenology. Perhaps the single most accessible introduction, especially for
non-philosophers, is D. Stewart and A. Mickunas, Exploring Phenomenology: A Guide to the Field and Its Literature,
2nd edition (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1990).
4.Portions of the following discussion
on Goethe's method are based on D. Seamon, Goethe's Approach to the Natural
World: Implications for Environmental Theory and Education, D. Ley and M.
Samuels, eds., Humanistic Geography:
Inventory and Prospect (Chicago: Maaroufa Press, 1978), pp. 238-50.
5."There is a delicate empiricism
which makes itself utterly identical with the object, thereby becoming true
theory" (Goethe: Scientific
Studies, p. 307).
6.Cautions for the Observer, in R.
Matthaei, ed., Goethe's Color Theory
(New York: van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971), p. 57.
7.Lehrs, Man or Matter, p. 111, p. 106.
8.Goethe:
Scientific Studies, p. 311.
9.Lehrs, Man or Matter, p. 125.
10.See Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends, p. 125.
11.Goethe:
Scientific Studies, p. 275.
12.Matthaei, Goethe's Color Theory, p. 60.
13.Lehrs, Man or Matter, p. 85.
14.Ibid., pp. 84-85.
15.Goethe's
Botanical Writings, p. 235.
16.Ibid., p. 106.
17.Ibid., p. 111.
18.Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends, p. 306. The Romantic poet Schiller
complained to Goethe that his "ur-phenomenon" was synonymous with the
Platonic ideal, but Goethe refused to accept that characterization. See Brady's
chapter 5 in this volume.
19.Lehrs, Man or Matter, p. 125.
20.P. Salm, The Poem as Plant (Cleveland: Press of Case Western Reserve
University, 1971), p. 27.
21.George A. Wells, "Goethe's
Scientific Method in the Light of His Studies in Physical Optics," Publications of the English Goethe
Society, E. M. Wilkinson et al., eds. (Leeds: W. S. Maney and Son,
1968), p. 102.
22.Matthaei, Goethe's Color Theory, p. 16. In practice, Goethe's method
of seeing and understanding is much more complex and multi-dimensioned that I
suggest in my description here. For a clear, extended picture of the method see
Nigel Hoffmann's chapter 7 in this volume.
23.Lehrs, Man or Matter, p. 125.
24.Matthaei, Goethe's Color Theory, p. 76.
25.Zur
Farbenlehre, in Goethes Werke,
Hamburger Ausgabe, E. Trunz, ed., vol. 13 (Hamburg: Christian Wegner,
1948--); English editions of this work are: Theory
of Colours, C. L. Eastlake, trans. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970;
originally published in English in 1840); R. Matthaei, ed. Goethe's Color Theory (see note 6; this edition uses
Eastlake's translation and also includes selections from Goethe's writings on
method); and Theory of Color,
included in Goethe: Scientific Studies
(see note 1) and translated anew by Douglas Miller.
26.Goethe:
Scientific Studies, p. 163.
27.Goethe, Theory of Color, pars. 5-14.
28.Ibid., pars. 8, 6.
29.Ibid., par.8.
30.Ibid., par. 38.
31.See N. M. Ribe, Goethe's Critique
of Newton: A Reconsideration, in Studies
in History and Philosophy of Science 16 (1985): 315-35; Dennis L.
Sepper, Goethe contra Newton: Polemics
and the Project for a New Science of Color (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988). A useful discussion of the history of light, including
Goethe's contribution, is A. Zajonc, Catching
the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind (NY: Bantam, 1993).
32.Of all Goethe's scientific studies,
Theory of Color (see note 25)
is the work that most directly introduces students to his way of looking and
seeing. Particularly valuable as phenomenological exercises are the many prism
experiments that involve the appearance of color when one looks through a prism
(see Theory of Color, pars.
205 and following). One aim of the experiments is to observe carefully how
color appears in the prism and, in time, to arrive at a set of statements that
describe the appearance accurately. For a lucid discussion of these prism
experiments, see Bortoft, Goethe's
Scientific Consciousness, pp. 13-20 (see note 1).
33.E. Heller, Goethe and the Idea of
Scientific Truth, p. 11 (see note 1).
34.Schwenk, Sensitive Chaos (see note 1).
35.Also see H. Bortoft, The Wholeness of Nature (note 1).
Other useful discussions of understanding the whole, all similiar in spirit to
Goethe, though different in their methods, include: C. Alexander, S. Ishikawa
and M. Silverstein, A Pattern Language
(NY: Oxford University Press, 1977); J. G. Bennett, Elementary Systematics: A Tool for Understanding Wholes
(Santa Fe, NM: Bennett Books, 1993); and I. L. Stefanovic, Evolving
Sustainability: A Rethinking of Ontological Foundations, Trumpeter, 8
(1991): 194-200.
36.In fact, few academic thinkers have
expressed interest in Goethe's work as it may be representative of
"proto-phenomenological" efforts. In his comprehensive historical
study of phenomenology, Spiegelberg recognizes parallels between Goethe's
method and phenomenology, particularly in regard to the approach of Theory of Color. Apparently
unaware, however, that Goethe's discoveries in that work have major bearing on
such philosophical concerns as perception, epistemology, and conceptualization,
Spiegelberg erroneously concludes that "Nevertheless Goethe's primary
concern was not philosophy, but merely a natural science of the color phenomena
different from Newton's" (Spiegelberg, The
Phenomenological Movement, p. 23). One of the few mainstream
philosophers to recognize the many commonalities between Goethe's way of
science and phenomenology was Fritz Heinemann, who concludes that:
"Goethe's phenomenology...may have some real value for the present situation,
for an age whose watchword is `the return to the concrete,' for the transition
from Husserl's abstract phenomenology to the concrete phenomenology which will
be needed to prepare the ground for the reformation of the philosophical
problems" (see F. Heinemann, Goethe's Phenomenological Method, Philosophy, 8 [1934]: 81).
37.On the perspective and methods of
Husserlian phenomenology, see Spiegelberg, The
Phenomenological Movement, chap. 3. Intentionality
is one concept in Husserl's phenomenological thinking that can be used to
clarify Goethe's approach to understanding, though Goethe never used the
concept explicitly himself. See Ron Brady's discussion of phenomenology and
intentionality in chapter 5 of this volume.
38.See J. Schmidt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Between
Phenomenology and Structuralism (New York: St. Martin's, 1985), chap.
2.
39.For one useful overview of
existential phenomenology, see R. S. Valle and S. Halling, eds., Existential-Phenomenological Perspectives
in Psychology (New York: Plenum, 1989). On the methods of existential
phenomenology, see M. van Manen, Researching
Lived Experience (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1990). An important effort to
conduct "empirical" research in existential phenomenology is the work
of the Duquesne School of Phenomenological Psychology; for an introduction, see
A. Giorgi, A. Barton, and C. Maes, eds., Duquesne
Studies in Phenomenological Psychology, vol. 4. Pittsburgh: Duquesne
University Press, 1983).
For
a review of research in environmental phenomenology (which largely draws on the
approach of existential phenomenology), see R. Mugerauer, Interpretations on Behalf of Place (Albany, NY: SUNY Press,
1994); D. Seamon, Phenomenology and Environment-Behavior Research, In G. T.
Moore and E. H. Zube (eds.), Advances
in Environment, Behavior, and Design, vol. 1 (New York: Plenum), pp.
3-27; and D. Seamon, ed., Dwelling,
Seeing, and Designing: Toward a Phenomenological Ecology (Albany, NY:
SUNY Press, 1993). For helpful examples of how the Goethean approach can be
used to understand natural landscapes and built environments, see G. J. Coates,
Erik Asmussen: Toward a Living
Architecture (Stockholm: Byggförlaget, 1997); M. Riegner, Toward a
Holistic Understanding of Place: Reading a Landscape Through Its Flora and
Fauna, in D. Seamon, Dwelling, Seeing,
and Designing, pp. 181-215; and G. Trevelyan, The Active Eye in Architecture (Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire:
The Wrenkin Trust, 1977).
40.L. L. Whyte, Goethe's Single Vision
of Nature and Man, p. 290.
41.I have explored this possibility in
D. Seamon, A Geography of the
Lifeworld: Movement, Rest, and Encounter (NY: St. Martin's, 1979),
especially in Part III.
42.Bortoft argues that, in his way of working, Goethe sets the foundation for a science of intuition: "...intuition is connected with a change of consciousness, and moreover in a way which can be made quite precise and not just left vague. It...follows that Goethe's procedures are practical exercises for educating the mind to function intuitively instead of intellectually, leading to a science which is intuitive instead of organized intellectually" (Bortoft, Goethe's Scientific Consciousness, p. 34).