Goethe and Modern Science

Abstract

The smallest in a language is the word. In science, the word becomes the concept. We will try to grasp something of the whole that is Goethe’s science by looking at some of its concepts.

“If in the whole you wish to delight, The whole in the smallest you must find.”

(Sprüche, HA 1, p.304)

Originally published as ‘Über einige Begriffe aus der Naturwissenschaft Goethes’, in Robert Boehringer. Eine Freundesgabe (ed. by E. Boehringer and W. Hoffmann), J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen, 1957, pp. 697–711. Rpt. as ‘Nachworf to HA 13, pp. 537–554. It was again reprinted in the author’s volume Tragweite der Wissenschaft. 1. Band. Schöpfung und Weltentstehung. Die Geschichte zweier Begriffe, Stuttgart, S>. Hirzel, 1964, pp. 222–243. Copyright is now with Beck Verlag, München, which publishes current reprintings of the Hamburger Ausgabe and kindly gave permission to publish this original translation by Annelies Fulscher, Ilona Karmel, and F.J. Zucker.