Goethe on Science

Johann Wolfgang yon Goethe ranks with Shakespeare as a European man of letters, playwright, and poet. But he himself considered that his scientific work was far more important than all his other achievements. In the twentieth century his ideas have been given special attention by scientists such as Adolf Portmann and Werner Heisenberg.

Jeremy Naydler provides for the first time a systematic arrangement of extracts from Goethe's major scientific works to provide a dear picture of Goethe's fundamentally different approach to scientific study of the natural world. According to Goethe, our deepest knowledge of phenomena can arise only from a contemplative relationship with nature, in which our feelings of awe and wonder are intrinsic. As conceived by him, science is as much a path of inner development as it is a way to accumulating knowledge. It therefore involves a rigorous training of our faculties of observation and thinking.

From a Goethean standpoint, our modern ecological crisis is a crisis of relationship to nature. Goethe shows us a path of sensitive science that holds the potential for healing both nature and ourselves.