Doing Goethean Science

Janus Head 8 (1):27-52 (2005)
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Abstract

Practicing the Goethean approach to science involves heightened methodological awareness and sensitivity to the way we engage in the phenomenal worlds. We need to overcome our habit of viewing the world in terms of objects and leave behind the scientific propensity to explain via reification and reductive models. I describe science as a conversation with nature and how this perspective can inform a new scientific frame of mind. I then present the Goethean approach via a practical example (a study of a plant, skunk cabbage) and discuss some of the essential features of Goethean methodology and insight: the riddle; into the phenomenon; exact picture building; and seeing the whole.

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Citations of this work

Goethe and the study of life: a comparison with Husserl and Simmel.Elke Weik - 2016 - Continental Philosophy Review 50 (3):335-357.
Ancestor of the new archetypal biology: Goethe’s dynamic typology as a model for contemporary evolutionary developmental biology.Mark F. Riegner - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (4b):735-744.

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