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Goethe As a Path to Connection You who let yourselves feel: enter the breathing that is more than your own. Let it brush your cheeks as it divides and rejoins behind you. Blessed ones, whole ones, you where the heart begins: You are the bow that shoots the arrows and you are the target. Fear not the pain. Let its weight fall back into the earth; for heavy are the mountains, heavy the seas. The trees you planted in childhood have grown too heavy. You cannot bring them along. Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold. by Rainer Maria Rilke (Rilke, 2012) 2 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 4 Preamble ........................................................................................................................................... 6 Background: A Search for Connection and Meaning .......................................................... 9 A Personal Journey ....................................................................................................................................... 9 Schumacher College ................................................................................................................................... 11 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 13 Original Question ........................................................................................................................................ 13 Goethe as a Pathway to Connection and Meaning ............................................................................ 14 Approaching Goethe .................................................................................................................................. 14 Don’t forget to read Goethe ..................................................................................................................... 16 Goethean Epistemology ............................................................................................................. 18 Who was Goethe? ........................................................................................................................................ 18 Goethe and Spinoza .................................................................................................................................... 19 The Difference between Goethe and Kant .......................................................................................... 20 Goethe’s Understanding of Language and Symbols ......................................................................... 21 Goethe’s Science .......................................................................................................................................... 23 Goethe’s Views on the Scientific Method ............................................................................................. 24 Goethe’s ‘Delicate Empiricism’: Establishing a Goethean Practice ............................. 27 Steps and Stages in the Goethean Process .......................................................................................... 30 Step 1: Preparation, Meeting the Phenomenon, and First Impression ..................................... 32 Step 2: Exact Sensorial Perception (perception) ............................................................................. 38 Step 3: Exact Sensorial Imagination (imagination) ......................................................................... 51 Stage 4: Seeing in Beholding (inspiration) ......................................................................................... 55 Stage 5: Being One with the Object (intuition) .................................................................................. 58 Discussion ....................................................................................................................................... 60 The Difference Between Organic and Inorganic Phenomena ...................................................... 60 Hurdles for Goethean Science ................................................................................................................. 61 Logos vs Mythos ........................................................................................................................................... 62 Finding Joy in Uncertainty ....................................................................................................................... 63 The Role of Intuition .................................................................................................................................. 64 Conclusion: Goethe as a Pathway to Connection and Meaning ..................................... 66 References ...................................................................................................................................... 68 3 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my course tutors, Stephan Harding, Philip Frances and Patricia Shaw for their support and guidance throughout what has been without a doubt, one of the most transformative years of my life. And beyond this focused support, I would also like to thank all of the staff and volunteers at Schumacher College who, combined, create the unique and wonderfully supportive environment that facilitates such deep and meaningful personal exploration. I would like to thank my classmates on the Holistic Science MSc program for their amazingly diverse and fascinating perspectives and, most importantly, their willingness to hold the space so carefully and consciously, always with such beautifully open hearts. As well as the other Masters students and all of the shorter term participants in my journey without whom it could not possibly have been the same. In regard to this dissertation specifically I would like to thank my supervisor, Jane Pickard for always being there. This has been an intensely personal journey that in many ways must have been difficult to supervise, but Jane has always provided the help and support that I needed, exactly when I needed it. Additionally, I would like to thank Philip Frances for all of the quite chats and the willingness and enthusiasm with which he has reviewed and helped to guide me in writing this dissertation. As well as Margaret Colquhoun and Craig Holdrege for their personal and professional support in my journey towards developing a deeper understanding of Goethe. I would like to thank my friend and colleague Joana Formosinho for sharing so much of this early journey into the world of Goethe with me. Our trip to Scotland, our meditations and our orchid have all become core and essential aspects of this journey. I would like to thank Stephanie O’Donnell for putting up with me for the past two months as I engaged in this deepest of explorations. It was our time in France and Belgium together that gave me the space and time I needed to allow this journey to fully unfold. Thanks for your unquestioning love and support. 4 And last but not least, I would like to thank Kerry Cochrane whose spontaneous decision to contact me out of the blue, after reading an article on my blog, provided the catalyst for this entire journey. A more appropriate beginning I could not possibly imagine. 5 Preamble "Into the core of Nature"— O Philistine— "No earthly mind can enter." The maxim is fine; But have the grace To spare the dissenter. Me and my kind. We think: in every place We're at the center. "Happy the mortal creature To whom she shows no more Than the outer rind," For sixty years I've heard your sort announce. It makes me swear, though quietly; To myself a thousand times I say: All things she grants, gladly and lavishly; Nature has neither core Nor outer rind. Being all things at once. It's yourself you should scrutinize to see Whether you're center or periphery. Poem ‘A Spontaneous Outburst’ by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Goethe, in Miller, 1998, pg. 37) Henri Bortoft, in his classic book on Goethean Science - ‘The Wholeness of Nature’, suggests that “...the way to the whole is into and through the parts” (Bortoft, 1996). And thus, it is with this central Goethean notion in mind that I begin with this short poem by Goethe. For within these few lines, I believe, we can catch a glimpse, a brief insight into Goethe’s soul, the foundation upon which all of his science and philosophy was based. 6 Possibly above all else, Goethe was a man in search of deep, truthful and meaningful connection with the world. Essentially and in simplistic terms, although he never perhaps stated it as such, I have come believe that Goethe saw our tendency to view the world through a dualistic, Cartesian informed epistemology, an epistemology where we perceive ourselves as fundamentally separate from the world around us, as the greatest barrier to human connection with the world. As such, Goethe spent his life exploring the fields of science, philosophy, and the arts, always with the view to breaking down these perceived barriers to connection. This same dualistic epistemology still forms the basis our current and accepted mainstream understanding today, however, science is beginning to question this reality in a big way. Areas such as quantum physics and the study of mind-matter interaction are now showing, without doubt, that there is a connection between mind and matter that we cannot continue to ignore. While the implications of this reality are relatively unstudied and unknown, is it any wonder the views
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