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Goethe and the Sciences: A Reappraisal

  • Book
  • © 1987

Overview

Editors:
  1. Frederick Amrine
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  2. Francis J. Zucker
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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  3. Harvey Wheeler
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Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science (BSPS, volume 97)

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Table of contents (20 chapters)

  1. Contemporary Relevance: A Viable Alternative?

    1. Goethe as a Forerunner of Alternative Science

      • Günter Altner
      Pages 341-350

    2. Self-Knowledge, Freedom, and Irony: The Language of Nature in Goethe

      • Klaus Michael Meyer-Abich
      Pages 351-371

    3. Postscript Goethe’s Science: An Alternative to Modern Science or within It — or No Alternative at All?

      • Frederick Amrine, Francis J. Zucker
      Pages 373-388

    4. Goethe and the Sciences: An Annotated Bibliography

      • Frederick Amrine
      Pages 389-437

  2. Back Matter

    Pages 439-445
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Keywords

About this book

of him in like measure within myself, that is my highest wish. This noble individual was not conscious of the fact that at that very moment the divine within him and the divine of the universe were most intimately united. So, for Goethe, the resonance with a natural rationality seems part of the genius of modern science. Einstein's 'cosmic religion', which reflects Spinoza, also echoes Goethe's remark (Ibid. , Item 575 from 1829): Man must cling to the belief that the incomprehensible is comprehensible. Else he would give up investigating. But how far will Goethe share the devotion of these cosmic rationalists to the beautiful harmonies of mathematics, so distant from any pure and 'direct observation'? Kepler, Spinoza, Einstein need not, and would not, rest with discovery of a pattern within, behind, as a source of, the phenomenal world, and they would not let even the most profound of descriptive generalities satisfy scientific curiosity. For his part, Goethe sought fundamental archetypes, as in his intuition of a Urpjlanze, basic to all plants, infinitely plastic. When such would be found, Goethe would be content, for (as he said to Eckermann, Feb. 18, 1829): . . . to seek something behind (the Urphaenomenon) is futile. Here is the limit. But as a rule men are not satisfied to behold an Urphaenomenon. They think there must be something beyond. They are like children who, having looked into a mirror, turn it around to see what is on the other side.

Reviews

' This book will be of interest to both historians and philosophers of science ...'
M. Riegner, The Quarterly Review of Biology, vol. 63, September 1988

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Goethe and the Sciences: A Reappraisal

  • Editors: Frederick Amrine, Francis J. Zucker, Harvey Wheeler

  • Series Title: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3761-1

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland 1987

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-90-277-2400-7Published: 30 June 1987

  • eBook ISBN: 978-94-009-3761-1Published: 06 December 2012

  • Series ISSN: 0068-0346

  • Series E-ISSN: 2214-7942

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: 464

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Philosophy of Science

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