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The Wholeness of Nature

Goethe’s Way toward a Science of Conscious Participation in Nature

Henri Bortoft

424 pp.

Lindisfarne Books

Paperback
$35.00
Published: October 1996
978-0-940262-79-9

Whereas most readers are familiar with Goethe as a poet and dramatist, few are familiar with his scientific work. In this brilliant book, Henri Bortoft (who began his studies of Goethean science with J. G. Bennett and David Bohm) introduces the fascinating scientific theories of Goethe. He succeeds in showing that Goethe’s way of doing science was not a poet’s folly but a genuine alternative to the dominant scientific paradigm.

Bortoft shows that a different, "gentler" kind of empiricism is possible than that demanded by the dualizing mind of modern technological science and demonstrates that Goethe’s participatory phenomenology of a new way of seeing—while far from being a historical curiosity—in fact proposes a practical solution to the dilemmas of contemporary, postmodern science.

If you read only one book on Goethan science, this should be the one!

"If I were asked to recommend one book on Goethe’s contributions to natural science and philosophy, it would be this book." —Evan Thompson, coauthor, The Embodied Mind

"This is a gem of a book. Bortoft has made Goethe’s thinking available in a particularly clear way. He has brought Goethe up-to-date, showing how relevant his thinking is for a post-quantum world. Goethe’s method, in fact, could well point toward a new direction in science—to the science of the 21st century." —David Peat, author, Synchronicity:The Bridge between Matter and Mind

"Henri Bortoft offers us, here, a precise and much-needed guide to Goethe’s scientific imagination." —David Abram, author, Spell of the Sensuous

"Bortoft shows how the contemporary impulse for a participatory science can be realized. What’s more, the book is beautifully written." —Brian Goodwin, author of How the Leopard Changed Its Spots

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Authentic and Counterfeit Wholes
Introduction
Two Examples of Wholeness: Holograms and the Universe of Light and Matter
The Hermeneutic Circle
The Whole and the Parts
Encountering the Whole: the Active Absence
Wholeness in Science
Goethe’s Way of Science
The Ur-Phenomenon
Conclusion

Goethe’s Scientific Consciousness
Introduction
Making the Phenomenon Visible
Newton’s Experiments
The Primal Phenomenon of Color
Goethe’s Scientific Consciousness
Knowing the World
Unity without Unification
Modes of Consciousness
The Depth of the Phenomenon
Goethe’s Organic Vision
The Unity of the Plant
The One and the Many
The Unity of Animal Organization
The Necessary Connection
The Scientist’s Knowledge

Understanding Goethe’s Way of Science
Introduction
The Organizing Idea in Cognitive Perception
The Organizing Idea in Scientific Knowledge
The Organizing Idea in Observational Discoveries
The Organizing Idea in Theories of Science
Copernicus and the Moving Earth
Galileo and the Moving Earth
The Idea of Inertial Motion
The Organizing Idea of Modern Science
The Quantitative Way of Seeing
The Metaphysical Separation
Understanding the Science of Color
Newton and the Mathematical Physics of Color
The Physics of Goethean Style
The Goethean One
Modes of Unity
Seeing the Dynamical Unity of the Plant
The Unity of the Plant Kingdom
The Unity of the Organism
Seeing Comprehensively
The Twofold
The Possibility of a New Science of Nature

Notes

Why the World around You Isn’t as It Appears : A Study of Owen Barfield

Taking Appearance Seriously : The Dynamic Way of Seeing in Goethe and European Thought

Related Titles by Subject:

Science & Nature and Science & Nature: Goethean Studies