Talk:Goethean science

Understanding the Urphenomena of Goethe
Aug 2018 I don't disagree with Johnrpenner, author of this note on talk. However having written three books on Goethean science now, I can tell you he has put his finger on the problem. It's not that citations are missing. It's that citations DO NOT EXIST.

Indeed some--not all--the charm of Goethe's science is there are virtually no facts to impede re-mixing of old ideas. Wikipedia experts will know this is as much a problem as a good thing.

Here's the problem. The new, more holistic science coming is based on Goethe's holistic conceptions, the earliest conception of holism in science since Alchemy. The furhter one goes towards describing and explicating this new science, the fewer citations which exist. A paradigm more expanded than "hard" science is coming, which incorporates hard science as valid but only partial. People and Wikipedia will simply have to get used to the lack of citations until more and better literature appears, probably not for 25-50 years.

IN THE MEANTIME the existing article is excellent, better than most Wikipedia articles on new science. It's not more citations which will make it clearer or more comprehensible. These are new ideas. What does work is re-reading them several times over long periods, what was called "living with the idea" in my first Waldorf teacher training.

Johnrpenner's comment which the above responds to: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Healing toolbox (talk • contribs) 17:07, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

The section "Understanding the Urphenomena of Goethe", is a quote-farm, and will be removed. The five gigantic, inexplicable quotations hae a single citation, "(Rudolf Steiner, Light Course, Lecture 1, Stuttgart, 23rd December 1919)". This content is not appropriate to an encyclopedia article. &mdash; goethean &#2384; 15:53, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * it easy to delete -- its hard to supply something better -- if you could supply an adequate synopsis of what you delete - that would be appreciated.. since in the absence of zero explanation from any valid source (at present)... it would be a shame to get rid of something that still needs replacement. zero explanation with a chunk that's quoted from the editor most directly involved in the subject matter vs nothing at all.. its a no-brainer -- its easy to kick a barn down, but to build a good article requires many carpenters, improving step-by-step. Johnrpenner (talk) 23:52, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The influence of Goethean science on Paul Klee
Goethean science was of considerable importance to the work of the great 20th century artist Paul Klee, who engaged deeply with the natural world. Reference: "Klee and Nature" by Richard Verdi, Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 1984, especially the postscript, pp. 211-237. This is in support of the notability of Goethean science as a Wikipedia topic.

118.139.63.25 (talk) 04:29, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

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Pseudoscience
According to the website policy WP:PSCI, this article has to say clearly that Goethean science is in fact pseudoscience.

Dan Dugan was banned as editor, not as author. Dugan has published in works edited by Shermer and Linse, Flynn (and Dawkins), published at ABC-CLIO and Prometheus Books. He has been cited as authoritative upon Anthroposophy in a book published at the University of Chicago Press (Ruse 2013). Ruse has also published at Oxford University Press, so Ruse's reputation counts as established. This fulfills WP:UBO. Also, the guideline WP:PARITY works very much in favor of accepting Dugan's works as WP:RS, and against accepting works by Anthroposophists as WP:RS. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:33, 3 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Every citation provided only speaks to Steiner's appropriation of Goethean science. Those familiar with the contemporary literature on Goethean science (like I am; I'm a doctoral student working on his thought) know that is only one strand of the tradition. To dismiss all Goethean science as pseudoscientific based on anthroposophy is like deeming the theory of evolution pseudoscientific because of Lysenkoism. It's a radical conflation of one species of a methodological framework with the entirety of the methodology. Hence, every citation listed as proof of the pseudoscientific nature only proves (rightly) to strike against Steiner and his followers--not Goethe.
 * If this isn't enough, I'll give a few facts to show the wrongheadedness of this attribution. In 1995, biologist Mark Riegner counted 10,000 published scientific studies that have been influenced by the Goethean tradition (see Goethe's Way of Science by Seamon and Zajonc, pg. 178). Three of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, Walter Heitler (who helped form a quantum theory of radiation), Herbert Hensel, and Mitchell Feigenbaum all either worked directly within the Goethean tradition or have drawn influence from it. I can also list quite a few modern, active, and respected scientists who continue in the tradition. All of these facts should immediately put to bed the idea that Goethean science can, as some undeniable fact, be equated with pseudoscience. Saying otherwise would disqualify many of the greatest minds and works of modern science. 2600:8804:8C03:2600:D19B:3D11:B455:819A (talk) 22:21, 10 March 2022 (UTC)


 * That they have been inspired like Kekulé in a dream: it is quite possible. Though, Goethe's scientific works were broadly considered in Rudolf Steiner's time, as these are now, wrong science and worthless prose (according to my professor Wouter Hanegraaff). tgeorgescu (talk) 00:14, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Reducing the inspiration and the tradition to something analogous to Kekule's dream is rather unfair (to put it mildly). And while I respect Wouter Hanegraaff, he isn't a scientist (being a great philosopher on hermetics). Your points seem more dismissive rather than a real attempt to delve into the truth of the evidence.
 * But just in case, here are some more facts:
 * 1. Physicist Walter Heitler and physiologist Herbert Hensel (mentioned above) have both written directly on the goods of Goethean science to their work.
 * 2. Jochen Bockemühl, Mark Riegner, Henri Bortoft, Arthur Zajonc, Craig Holdrege, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, Adolf Portmann, Christoph Gogelein, Gunter Altner, Klaus Michael Meyer-Abich, and Francis J. Zucker can all be added as names of recent scientists who have written positively of Goethe and his influence. Many of these are highly regarded figures, such as von Wiezsäcker, whose work on nuclear fusion in stars and planetary formation are supreme examples of scientific breakthroughs.
 * 3. Philosopher of Science at Stanford Timothy Lenoir is considered perhaps the predominant expert on the Naturphilosophie. He has argued vigorously that Goethe and like scientists in Germany at the time cannot be identified with a failed scientific project. Utilizing Lakatosian standards, he argues they are part of the mainstream of scientific history and their work fruitful--even if their metaphysical assumptions were different from modern science's. But adding that qualification would equally disqualify figures like Newton and even Darwin as pseudoscientists.
 * 4. Goethe himself is credited with co-discovering the human intermaxillary bone and the invention of the field of morphology.
 * 5. Again, in 1995, Riegner counted 10,000 scientific studies that fall within the Goethean tradition of science. This should certainly put the issue to bed. 2600:8804:8C03:2600:DDCB:BAA5:A337:11AD (talk) 08:44, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
 * As a final note, considering something to be "wrong science" is not the same as pseudoscience. You've conflated the two. Saying there are 10 planets in the solar system is wrong science--not pseudoscience. I'm not sure what your "worthless prose" comment is meant to convey since I've shown the fruitfulness of his approach with legitimate examples, so I'll leave that aside. 2600:8804:8C03:2600:DDCB:BAA5:A337:11AD (talk) 08:47, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Zajonc is an Anthroposophist and I'm too lazy to Google all others.
 * And this article, while it has a lot of highfalutin claims about what Goethean Science does, it never tells what Goethean Science is. Promettre c'est noble, tenir serait bourgeois. WP:RS are severely lacking.
 * And even if those scientists privately practice Goethean Science (in the context of discovery), that cuts no ice in the context of justification: they still have to convince the bulk of scientists, who don't practice Goethean Science. Otherwise they would be confined to an intellectual ghetto (academic ghetto). tgeorgescu (talk) 18:28, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Unless they translate their own findings into the idiom of "materialistic" science, mainstream scientists won't listen to them. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:05, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Rudolf Steiner
Whether you like it or not, Rudolf Steiner was a champion of Goethean science. And his POV has been shown to be bogus rants on so many counts. Both his friends and his enemies will grant that he understood Goethe like no one else, but he peddled crass pseudoscience during all his life. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:53, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Goethe's "Instinctive Logic" as interpreted by Spengler
''The controversial philosopher-historian Oswald Spengler acknowledged Goethe as a principal source of his inspiration and guidance. From that, one might argue that Spengler had a good grasp of Goethe’s approach and technique for understanding the world and its phenomena. Thus, some readers may find it illuminating to see Spengler’s interpretation and explanations. Here below are a few extracts:''

Every higher language possesses a number of words such as luck, doom, conjuncture, vocation, about which there is, as it were, a veil. No hypothesis, no science, can ever get into touch with that which we feel when we let ourselves sink into the meaning and sound of these words. They are symbols, not notions. In them is the centre of gravity of that world-picture that I have called the World-as-history as opposed to the World-as-nature. The Destiny idea demands life-experience and not scientific experience, the power of seeing and not that of calculating, depth and not intellect. There is an organic logic, an instinctive, dream-sure logic of all existence as opposed to the logic of the inorganic. ... There is a logic of direction as against a logic of extension — and no systematist, no Aristotle or Kant, has known how to deal with it. They are on their own ground when they tell us about "judgment," "perception," "awareness," and "recollection," but as to what is in the words "hope," "happiness," "despair," "repentance," "devotion," and "consolation" they are silent. He who expects here, in the domain of the living, to find reasons and consequences, or imagines that an inward certainty as to the meaning of life is the same thing as "Fatalism" or "Predestination," simply knows nothing of the matters in question, confusing experience lived with experience acquired or acquirable. Causality is the reasonable, the law-bound, the describable, the badge of our whole waking and reasoning existence. But destiny is the word for an inner certainty that is not describable. We bring out that which is in the causal by means of a physical or an epistemological system, through numbers, by reasoned classification; but the idea of destiny can be imparted only by the artist working through media like portraiture, tragedy and music. The one requires us to distinguish and in distinguishing to dissect and destroy, whereas the other is creative through and through, and thus destiny is related to life and causality to death. ...../

He who comprehends the light-world that is before his eyes not physiognomically but systematically, and makes it intellectually his own by the methods of causal experience, must necessarily in the end come to believe that every living thing can be understood by reference to cause and effect — that there is no secret and no inner directedness. He, on the other hand, who as Goethe did — and for that matter as everyone does in nine out of ten of his waking moments — lets the impressions of the world about him work merely upon his senses, absorbs these impressions as a whole, feels the become in its becoming. The stiff mask of causality is lifted by mere ceasing to think. Suddenly, Time is no more a riddle, a notion, a "form" or "dimension" but becomes an inner certainty, destiny itself; and in its directedness, its irreversibility, its livingness, is disclosed the very meaning of the historical world-picture. ...../

The more deeply a man lives History, the more rarely will he receive "causal" impressions and the more surely will he be sensible of their utter insignificance. If the reader examines Goethe's writings in natural science, he will be astounded to find how "living nature" can be set forth without formulae, without laws, almost without a trace of the causal. For him, Time is not a distance but a feeling. But the experience of last and deepest things is practically denied to the ordinary savant who dissects and arranges purely critically and allows himself neither to contemplate nor to feel. In the case of History, on the contrary, this power of experience is the requisite. And thus is justified the paradox that the less a historical researcher has to do with real science, the better it is for his history.

To elucidate by a diagram:

Soul ………………………………………………………………………………… World

Life, Direction …………………………………………………………………… Extension

Destiny-Experience ………………………………………………… Causal Knowledge

The uniquely occurring and …………………………… The constantly-possible "Truth"

[and] irrevocable "Fact" ……………………………………………………

Physiognomic tact (instinct) ………………………………… Systematic criticism (reason)

Consciousness as servant of Being ………………… Consciousness as master of Being

The world-image of "History" ………………………………… The world-image of "Nature"

Life-experience ……………………………………………………… Scientific methods

Image of the Past ………………………………………………… Religion. Natural Science

Constructive Contemplation to ……………… Theoretical: Myth and Dogma. Hypothesis

[to] investigate Destiny >

(> Historian, Tragic Dramatist) …………………………………… Practical: Cult. Technique

Direction into the Future

Constructive Action to be Destiny >

(> Statesman)

From: Oswald Spengler, 1918: "The Decline of the West" – Vol. I, Chapter IV: The Destiny-idea and the Causality-principle, pp. 117-119, 154. DLMcN (talk) 11:35, 22 November 2023 (UTC)