Goethian Science
Beyond Impartial Observation, Into Developmental Relationship
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was an influential 18th and 19th century German statesman and writer. He is less renown for his work in science.
In recent decades, a few researchers have excavated his vision for a different kind of science—most notably, Amherest College Professor Emeritus, Arthur Zajonc, and Director of the Nature Institute, Craig Holdrege.
I will begin this post with a review of the relevant literature, contrasting the Goethian approach with what has become the conventional scientific process. I will then move into its application in our work at Regen Network.
Literature Review
In 1792, Goethe published an essay titled The Experiment as Mediator of Object and Subject. In 2010, Craig Holdrege translated and republished this essay in In Context #24.
The title itself is striking to a modern reader—contrary to the modern aspiration of “impartial observation,” Goethe’s foundational assumption is that the first step of perception is to step into relationship with that which we are observing.
He goes on to say,
I dare to claim that one experiment, and even several of them, does not prove anything and that nothing is more dangerous than wanting to prove a thesis directly by means of an experiment.
In this statement, Goethe is shifting the place of the experiment in the scientific process. In the translation of experience to theory, something vital is lost.
Rather than a means for abstraction, what if the experiment is a means by which we can bring ourselves more intimately into relationship with a phenomenon?
In spring of 2014, Holdrege publishes another essay, Goethe and the Evolution of Science in In Context #31.
In this essay, Holdrege explores the way in which Goethe was searching for the fluid and dynamic essence of an entity—whether it be a bone in the skull of a mammal, or the leaf of a plant. He goes on to quote K. Goldstein’s 1971 work, Human Nature:
Goethe…has called this procedure of acquiring knowledge Schau [beholding], and the “picture” by which the individual phenomenon becomes understandable (as a modification), the Urbild (the prototype).
Per Goldstein’s analysis, Goethe was interested in the Gestalt or intrinsic structure of an organism. Through the process of beholding, we create our own prototype of the organism under study. This terminology is both poetic and precise.
In an excerpt from Holdrege’s 2005 Janus Head, we get a careful look at the application of Goethian Science—in this instance, for the study of the skunk cabbage.
In it, Holdrege expresses his dissatisfaction with a science obsessed with mechanisms;
How can a phenomenon be explained by something that is supposed to underlie it and that is always less than the phenomenon itself?
Rather than continually pulling away into platitudes, what if we had a science that returned us to the source of a phenomenon?
In 1807, Goethe explores what it feels like to move from a relationship of control to one of reciprocity and wonder.
When in the exercise of his powers of observation man undertakes to confront the world of nature, he will at first experience a tremendous compulsion to bring what he finds there under his control. Before long, however, these objects will thrust themselves upon him with such force that he, in turn, must feel the obligation to acknowledge their power and pay homage to their effects. When this mutual interaction becomes evident he will make a discovery which, in a double sense, is limitless; among the objects he will find many different forms of existence and modes of change, a variety of relationships livingly interwoven; in himself, on the other hand, a potential for infinite growth through constant adaptation of his sensibilities and judgment to new ways of acquiring knowledge and responding with action.
Vienna-born Jewish philosopher Martin Buber built directly on these foundations in his 1923 work, I and Thou, where he explores the contrast between interacting with another as an “it” versus a “thou.” French philosopher Emmanel Levinas continued this distillation in his 1961 essay, Totality and Infinity:
To approach the other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity.
You could say that Goethe lived in a world of infinite depth and wisdom, when conventional science is constantly pushing for a taxonomy of everything, a bounded totality.
Coming back to Holdrege’s essay, he ennumerates a process of science-as-conversation:
- Piqued curiosity
- Dynamic journey/exploration
- Openness
- Respect for the being-ness of the other
- Receptive attentiveness
- Mutual evolution as a result of the engagement
- Responsibility for the impact of engagement
He reminds us of Thoreau’s “sauntering of the eye,” and suggest that all of this leads to exact sensorial imagination, a living image.
From another perspective it is a four-faceted practice:
- The Riddle
- Into the Phenomena
- Exact Picture Building
- Seeing the Whole
Having reviewed some of the key contributions of Holdrege, we move on to Zajonc. In his essay, Goethe and the Phenomenological Investigation of Consciousness, Zajonc explores the three stages of a phenomenological process:
- Empirical phenomena — observation
- Scientific phenomena — systematic experimentation
- Pure or archetypal phenomena — encounter with consciousness
Whereas Holdrege’s interpretation of Goethe is grounded in close study of nature, Zajonc’s investigation brings in a spiritual element.
Attentive investigation of experience implies the transformation of self.
What if science was the process of honing own sensorial and perceptive capacities? Zajonc warns of moving in the other direction—that of mediation:
If we eliminate experience entirely by replacing it with the output of instruments… we have changed the field of inquiry entirely.
Grounding science in sense experience, Zajonc goes so far as to posit that all science is subjective in nature.
It is in principle impossible to infer an unexperienced objective reality from sense data… Physics describes the properties of things… and the lawful relations between these properties… All science is concerned with “subjective” properties.
To revisit some of the theme’s we’ve already touched upon, Zajonc calls out that theory is from the Greek, “to behold.” And again, that this process never results in a search for the mechanism “behind” a phenomena.
True discovery happens when we form an “amalgam” with a phenomenon.
It is worth noting that all of these thinkers have contributed to a field of philosophy called phenomenology—the study of phenomena, which is acutely interested in sense perception.
Having concluded our literature review, having sketched out the flavor of a different sort of science, I will move into a brief overview of parallel topics of relevance.
Parallels
One thing that Goethian Science is not is instrumentalism. The instrumentalist will use any means to accomplish an end. Unfortunately, this is an outlook deeply engrained in the Western psyche.
In his book, Punished by Rewards, Alfie Kohn sketches out not only the inhumanity of instrumentalism in parenting, education, and business, but its utter failure to achieve its stated aim of improved performance. It is the epitome of dogma, in that instrumentalists practitioners turn a blind eye towards its non-efficacy.
I bring this in as a counterpoint to the Goethian approach, which is attentive to process and the minute variations that cause a shift in process. For more on instrumentalism in our current context, see Shoshona Zuboff’s In the Age of Surveillance Capitalism.
Goethian Science is empathetic, and is attuned to the more-than-human world. In his 2018 book Climate, Charles Eisenstein explores what it might be like to engage with our current environmental crisis as though the earth is a living whole—Gaia. Eisenstein’s approach gives one take on what it is like to adopt a Goethian ethic in our approach to a relationship with the earth as an organism.
One other counterpoint worth mentioning would be Goethe’s relationship with Alexander von Humboldt, an influential Prussian scientist and explorer. They collaborated on Goethe’s research on the metamorphosis of plants. Humboldt also influenced the arc of the field of science, and one might write a similar essay on the ways in which the modern field of science might learn from Humboldt’s holistic approach.
Having touched on some parallels to Goethian Science, I will now move into the implications for our work at Regen Network.
Implications
Regen Network enables economic agreements informed by the synthesis of ecological indicators so that land stewards can be more deeply attuned to the health of their land and compensated for regenerative outcomes in a way that imbues the economy with ecological sentience and vests governance for bioregional commons.
For more on our work, see our whitepaper and economics paper.
There is the hazard within Regen Network that our technology could further mediate land stewards from direct relationship with their land. Simultaneously, there is the potential that the systems we create reverse this trend and bring land stewards more intimately into relationship with their land.
What would this look like? This is currently a design challenge under consideration for us. It is my hope that we can integrate the insights of Goethian Science into our infrastructure.
Special thanks to Zach Wolf (for the reading list that turned into the literature review), David Abram (for putting me on to the work of Buber and Levinas, as well as generally adding to the field of phenomenology), and Gregory Landua (for his reminder on Humboldt).
