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Goethean Science
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe developed a unique way of approaching science. It was holistic, hermeneutical, and phenomenological. A hermeneutical approach is one in which the whole of something is understood in reference to the individual parts and the individual parts are understood in reference to the whole also, thus creating the “hermeneutic circle”. “Goethe's mode of understanding sees the part in light of the whole, fostering a way of science which dwells in nature.” (p. 4, The Wholeness of Nature, Bortoft) A Goethean, phenomenological approach to science is one where real phenomena in nature are observed first-hand and the whole of the phenomena is attempted to be understood and made visible to the senses. Goethe achieved this through a process he called “exact sensorial imagination”. He would intuit how the phenomena came about in a holistic way that made the whole of the phenomena visible, in which one could see (literally or intuitively) the relationships between what appears to be separate phenomena or parts but is actually only one phenomena. Goethe did not take an overview of a phenomena, see many parts, and assemble the parts into a unity, this would be a generalization arrived at by abstraction and a counterfeit whole. He saw multiplicity in unity rather than unity in multiplicity. He sought to discover what he called the urphanomen, or, the “primal phenomenon” or archetypal phenomenon as he described it. Or, in the case of studying plants, he called it the primal organ or urorgan. This was the original phenomenon or original unit or original organ which presented itself in many different variations of phenomena or organs. This allowed him to describe the whole of a phenomenon and see how the whole was contained in the “parts”.
Modern science, with its analytical and mathematical approach doesn't see wholes. It thinks there are parts and often studies those parts of nature in artificial settings and tries to explain them by removing them from sense experience, quantifying them, and trying to find a mathematical mechanism behind them which caused them, which is, in fact, abstraction. Science turns real phenomena that exist in nature into parts and math, which are abstract. Math is abstract because math does not exist in nature. There are no numbers hanging from trees. Math is not nature, it's a way to measure nature. “The mathematical formula strives to make the phenomena calculable, that of Goethe to make them visible.” (p. 75, The Wholeness of Nature, Bortoft) The scientific method thinks that what it considers as primary qualities – number, magnitude, position, etc. are the only real, objective things. Secondary qualities like color, taste, and sound are not real and are subjective and are only the result of the senses subjectively experiencing the primary qualities. The features of nature that we experience through our senses are just subjective illusions. What is considered real by science is not what is evident to the senses. What is real, therefore, has to be found through intellectual reasoning and logic. Understanding in modern science is considered best reached when as far removed from “subjective” experience as possible. For example, Newton converted color into math by measuring the angle of refraction, in order to explain color. Goethe saw another way. He explained color by observing light from the natural environment as opposed to Newton. He gave an account of color in which one could understand the quality of colors as the lightening of dark and the darkening of light and one could also understand the relationship between the colors. In his account we can perceive the wholeness of the phenomenon without turning experience into math. In Newton's account we cannot perceive any wholeness and the phenomenon doesn't exist. Newton believed that colors were already present in white light and that a prism separated them. Goethe critiqued Newton's color theory and did not agree that colorless light was compounded of colored lights because colored light is darker than colorless light. Several darker lights could not be added together to make a brighter light.
The authentic whole is invisible to the scientific approach because it is not an object! “Science believes itself to be objective, but is in essence subjective because the witness is compelled to answer questions which the scientist himself has formulated. Scientists never notice the circularity in this because they believe they hear the voice of “nature” speaking, not realizing that it is the transposed echo of their own voice. Modern positivist science can only approach the whole as if it were a thing among things. Thus the scientist tries to grasp the whole as an object for interrogation. So it is that science today, by virtue of the method which is its hallmark, is left with a fragmented world of things which it must then try to put together.” (p. 17, The Wholeness of Nature, Bortoft) There is no subject-object Cartesian dualism in nature, to Goethe. Descartes (the founder of Cartesian dualism) was a thinker and saw his existence as a thinker and the rest of the world separate from his thinking, so he separated mind and matter; subject and object. Nature isn't this way according to Goethe. Everything is connected and there are no parts. “A single particle of matter would have no mass if it were not for the rest of the matter in the universe.” “The properties of any one particle are determined by all the other particles, so that every particle is a reflection of all the others.” “Every particle consists of all other particles.” (p. 6, The Wholeness of Nature, Bortoft) The whole, to Goethe, is always reflected in the parts and is present in the parts and we can encounter the whole by going further into the parts rather than by standing back from them and taking an overview.
Goethe's way is a way of seeing and thinking. It's mainly about the mode of consciousness one uses to see and study nature. Goethe's mode of consciousness was nonverbal, nonlinear, holistic, qualitative, and intuitive rather than verbal, sequential, linear, quantitative, analytical, and logical. Modern science rests on the latter list here. Goethe considered himself a Naturschauer or “nature gazer” or “nature looker” as opposed to a Naturphilosoph “nature philosopher” or Naturforscher “nature researcher”. I know this is tough stuff to understand. Again, the genius of Goethe's approach is the way in which nature is seen and studied. The mode of consciousness from which one looks at nature is the important epiphany here and the holistic mode is Goethe's science, the analytical mode is modern science.
Let's try to give some examples of what an authentic whole would look like to Goethe. The hologram is one example. “No matter how often we break the hologram plate the picture is undivided, it remains whole even while becoming many.” (p. 282, The Wholeness of Nature, Bortoft) The whole is present in every fraction of the hologram. Another example of a true whole is looking up at the night sky. “This vast expanse of sky must all be present in the light which passes through the small hole of the pupil into the eye.” “The stars seen in the heavens are all present in the light which is at any eye-point.” (p. 5, The Wholeness of Nature, Bortoft) Other examples of a whole are reading a book, a play, speaking, or writing. When reading a book the whole is the meaning of the text. The meaning of the individual words in a sentence are determined by the meaning of the sentence as a whole. The whole of the sentence is not the sum of its parts (words) because there are no parts independent from the whole. Random words without the structure of the sentence don't have the same meaning. “The meaning of a sentence has the unity of a whole. We reach the meaning of the sentence through the meaning of the words, yet the meaning of the words in that sentence is determined by the meaning of the sentence as a whole.” (p. 8, The Wholeness of Nature, Bortoft) “The whole, which is the meaning of the text, comes to presence in the parts, which are the sentences.” (p. 13, The Wholeness of Nature, Bortoft) In our analytical thinking we usually go from parts to whole in a summation. We think we can make a whole by putting parts together in a linear fashion. This would place the whole as secondary to the parts. However, to Goethe, the whole is primary. The primacy of the whole however, does not mean that the whole comes before the parts nor is it some superior superpart above the lesser parts and dominating them. “Inasmuch as the whole is whole, it is neither earlier nor later.” (p. 10, The Wholeness of Nature, Bortoft) “The arithmetic of the whole is not numerical.” (p. 11, The Wholeness of Nature, Bortoft) There is no such thing as a part. “A part is a place for the “presencing” of the whole.” (p. 12, The Wholeness of Nature, Bortoft) We must step into or enter into the parts to intuit the whole. The whole is primary. Thus the whole can have no parts. The different “parts” of a plant for instance – the roots, stem, leaves, petals, stamen, etc. are all one whole. All living things are wholes. Logic, analysis, math, science as it exists today examines and creates dead things. Goethe's way is about entering into living things. The reason this stuff is so complicated or counter-intuitive to us westerners is because wholes are not presented easily to our senses or western mode of consciousness. That doesn't mean they don't exist. We must intuit them from the Goethean mode to see them. The whole is not a thing but it's also not nothing. The meaning of a sentence is not a word. The meaning of a sentence is not nothing either. The whole is an active absence.
A play is another whole. “Actors do not stand away from a part as if it were an object. They enter into a part in such a way that they enter into the play. If the play is constructed well, the whole play comes into presence within the parts so that an actor encounters the play through his or her part. But actors do not encounter the play as an object of knowledge over which they can stand like the lines they learn. They encounter the play in their part as an active absence which can begin to move them. When this happens, an actor starts to be acted by the play, instead of trying to act the play. The origin of the acting becomes the play itself, instead of the actor's subjective “I”. The actor no longer imposes himself or herself on the play as if it were an object to be mastered, but he or she listens to the play and allows himself or herself to be moved by it. In this way actors enter into their parts in such a way that the play speaks through them. This is how, their awareness being occupied with the lines to be spoken, they encounter the whole which is the play – not as an object but as an active absence.” (p. 15, The Wholeness of Nature, Bortoft)
There are other more concrete examples of authentic wholes in nature presented by Wolfgang Schad in his book Man and Mammals and by natureinstitute.org, which may make all of this more intelligible. Be sure to check those resources out for more information.
There is another way to describe the different modes of consciousness I have been talking about and there are a few reasons why one or another mode has become dominant in western culture. Psychology knows that there are two major modes of organization for a human being: the action mode and the receptive mode. We are in the receptive mode as a neonate, then the action mode of organization develops and dominates us. We start manipulating solid, physical bodies and we begin to perceive boundaries and divide the world up into objects. We internalize this experience which becomes object-based logic. What results is the analytical mode of consciousness. The receptive mode of organization, on the other hand, allows events to happen. This mode senses, perceives, and takes in rather than manipulates the environment. This is similar to the holistic mode of consciousness. The analytical mode of consciousness has become dominant in human experience for reasons of biological survival, among others.
Goethe's way of science, though it is older, “belongs to the future”. In many ways, we have not even reached Goethe yet. We need a new science of understanding the whole, one that more accurately reflects nature, and Goethe's approach may hold the key and prove vital to our happiness and survival as a species. Naturotheologists are proud to call themselves Naturschauers as Goethe did. We look to nature and consider it of primary importance to our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.