In A Philosophical Defense of Culture, Shuchen Xiang draws on the Confucian philosophy of "culture" and Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms to argue for the importance of "culture" as a philosophic paradigm. A defining ideal of Confucian-Chinese civilization, culture (wen) spans everything from natural patterns and the individual units that make up Chinese writing to literature and other refining vocations of the human being. Wen is thus the soul of Confucian-Chinese philosophy. Similarly, as a philosopher who bridged the classical (...) age of German humanism and postwar modernity, Cassirer implored his and future generations to think of humankind in terms of their culture and to think of the human being as a "symbolic animal." The philosophies of culture of these two traditions, very much compatible, are of urgent relevance to our contemporary epoch. Xiang describes the similarity of their projects by way of their conception of the human being, her relationship to nature, the relationship of human culture to nature, the importance of cultural pluralism, and the role of the arts in human life, as well as the metaphysical frameworks that gave rise to such conceptions. Combining textual exegesis in classical Chinese texts and an exposition of Cassirer's most important insights against the backdrop of post-Kantian philosophy, this book is philosophy written in a cosmopolitan mode, arguing for the contemporary philosophical relevance of "culture" by drawing on and bringing together two different but strikingly similar streams in our world tradition. (shrink)

Olaf Müller’s book develops a new case for underdetermination, and, as he is focusing on theories of a ‘limited domain’, this assumes the containability of the theories. First, the paper argues that Müller’s theory of darkness is fundamentally Newtonian, but for Newton’s optical theory the type of theoretical structure Müller adopts is problematic. Second, the paper discusses seventeenth-century challenges to Newton, changes in the proof-structure of Newton’s optical theory, and how these affect Müller’s reconstruction. Müller’s book provides empirically equivalent theories, (...) yet the historical theories were not empirically equivalent, and the same experiments were used to extract different bodies of evidence to rebut the opponent. Third, Goethe’s multi-layered critique of Newton’s experimental proof is investigated, including his developmental account of prismatic colours, the role of experimental series in rejecting Newton’s observations, and his incorporation of the ‘limited domain’ of prismatic colours in a broader framework. Two key elements of Goethe’s method, polarity and strengthening are discussed in contrast to Müller, who only utilises polarity in his account. Finally Neurath’s attempts to come to grips with the optical controversies and the prism-experiments with ‘blurred edges’ are recalled. Müller also discusses in detail some of these experiments and heavily draws on Quine. Neurath developed Duhem’s and Poincaré’s conventionalist insights and had good reasons to be pessimistic about theory-containment. Their differences provide some additions to the history of the Duhem–Quine thesis. (shrink)

The polarity of light and dark in the treatment of the Newtonian spectrum and the inverse spectrum is studied further and the validity of heterogeneity of light and darkness in relation to Goethe’s views is examined. In order to clarify the reality of the “darkness rays”, theexperimentum crucisis re-evaluated. It is shown that the commonly accepted analysis contains assumptions in the choice of the spectrum and background, which mask the inherent dynamic of the spectrum. The relation between colour and wavelength (...) is re-examined with respect to the immutability and specific refrangibility of colour. It is then shown that both these properties are approximations that apply under the specific conditions that have later become standardized in spectroscopy, leading to a consensus regarding the relation of wavelength to colours of one particular spectrum. This consensus has resulted in the study of colour diverging into spectroscopy and colour physiology. As an alternative, the basis of the dichotomy postulated by Müller is studied, leading to the realization that the resolution of this dichotomy was begun by Goethe with the idea of turbidity. A further study shows that turbidity resolves the apparent incompatibility of light and dark. (shrink)

In Representative Men, Ralph Waldo Emerson presented Goethe as the prototype of the writer elected by nature, and he identified Goethe's specific genius as "putting ever a thing for a word." But Goethe's talents as writer and poet have long seemed to scientific readers to undermine his efforts to be a scientist, and to talk of his, or any, poetics of science would involve a category mistake. But putting things to words—that is, filling and structuring what we say about the (...) world with the content of experience—is what Goethe's investigations of nature aimed at. Considered as a philosophy of science, his method gives robust meaning and contemporary relevance to the term "poetics of science.". (shrink)

El presente trabajo explora la posible afinidad de método entre las obras de Walter Benjamin y Ludwig Wittgenstein. El intento por parte de Benjamin de desarrollar un nuevo método de representación histórica gravita en torno a la categoría de “origen”, la cual sostiene sus más importantes trabajos de investigación histórica. En paralelo al trabajo de Benjamin, Wittgenstein dedicó una especial atención al problema de una exposición filosófica de los fenómenos, en especial en sus investigaciones sobre el lenguaje, a través de (...) categorías como la “representación perspicua” o la “visión de aspectos”. La filiación común de la reflexión de ambos autores en la morfología de Goethe nos permitirá definir el perfil de un posible enfoque estético para la investigación filosófica, dirigida a captar la generalidad de los fenómenos sin renunciar a salvaguardar su singularidad única. (shrink)

In the seventeenth century, Newton published his famous experimentum crucis, in which he claimed that light is heterogeneous and is composed of rays with different refrangibilities. Experiments, especially the crucial experiment, were important for justifying Newton’s theory of light, and eventually his theory of color. A century later, Goethe conducted a series of experiments on the nature of color, especially in contradistinction to Newton, and he defended his research with a methodological principle formulated in “Der Versuch als Vermittler.” Goethe’s principle (...) included two elements: a series of experiments and resultant higher empirical evidence, which functioned as mediator between the objective and the subjective . Although the notion of experimentum crucis became popular among scientists for reconstructing experimental research and for justifying theories, especially for rhetorical purposes, Newton’s justification of his theory of light and color is best reconstructed in terms of Goethe’s methodological principle. Finally, Goethe’s principle has important consequences for the contemporary philosophical underdetermination thesis. (shrink)

Resumo: A Segunda consideração extemporânea geralmente é tida em conta por filósofos e historiadores, em razão de sua crítica ao que Nietzsche classifica como “doença histórica”,. Isso por uma boa razão: a crítica de Nietzsche tem como alvo não apenas a famosa tríade composta por historiadores monumentais, antiquários e críticos, mas também suas modalidades contemporâneas em historiografia e teleologia científicas. O que frequentes vezes é desconsiderado é que o próprio Nietzsche expõe - ainda que numa retórica altamente estilizada - uma (...) concepção afirmativa da história. Essa concepção, como eu proponho, faz o leitor retornar ao enunciado que inaugura o livro, qual seja, o Ceterum Censeo, de Goethe. A demanda de Nietzsche de que a história serve à vida é uma nova aplicação da teoria de Goethe do crescimento morfológico como consequência de forças polares concorrentes para o reino da história. Uma vez que Goethe tinha os organismos vivos como a crescer por meio de forças em concorrência, também Nietzsche entendia que os indivíduos e culturas cresciam por meio de uma história considerada, acima de tudo, uma espécie de arena competitiva em que se expressam impulsos antagonistas.: The second Untimely Meditation is usually regarded by philosophers and historians for its critique of what Nietzsche labels ‘historische Krankheit’. This is for good reason, as Nietzsche’s critique not only targets the famous triad of Monumental, Antiquarian, and Critical historians, but also his contemporary fashions in scientific historiography and teleology as well. What is too often overlooked is that also Nietzsche exposits -- albeit in highly-stylized rhetoric -- an affirmative vision of history. This vision, I argue, returns the reader to the opening sentence of the book, namely, the Ceterum Censeo from Goethe. Nietzsche’s demand that history serve life is a novel application of Goethe’s theory of morphological growth as a consequence of polar competing forces to the realm of history. As Goethe thought living organisms grow by means of intrinsic competitive forces, so Nietzsche thought individuals and cultures grow by means of a history that is, above all, considered as a sort of competitive arena in which to express antagonistic drives. (shrink)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's approach to natural scientific research has unmistakable parallels to phenomenology. These parallels are clear enough to allow one to say confidently that Goethe's delicate empiricism is indeed a phenomenology of nature. This paper examines how Goethe's criticisms of Newton anticipated Husserl's announcement of the crisis of the modern sciences, and it describes how Goethe, at a critical juncture in cultural history, addressed this emerging crisis through a scientific method that is virtually identical to the method of (...) contemporary empirical-phenomenological research in the human sciences. Goethe's practice of science shares with phenomenology a participatory, morally-responsive, and holistic approach to the description of dynamic life-world phenomena. Delicate empiricism has its own version of the phenomenological epoché, and, like Husserl's technique of imaginative variation, it strives to disclose the essential or archetypal structure of the phenomenon through the endowment of human imagination. However, a close reading of Goethe suggests that the tendency amongst some scholars to distinguish phenomenology as human science from the natural sciences is actually a costly error which unwittingly falls prey to implicit Cartesian assumptions. Goethe, however, manages to avoid these problems by performing from the first a phenomenology of nature's sensibility. (shrink)