Theory of science in the light of Goethe's science of nature

Hjalmar Hegge

pp. 195-218

in: Frederick Amrine, Francis J. Zucker, Harvey Wheeler (eds), Goethe and the sciences, Berlin, Springer, 1987

Abstract

The topic of this essay will perhaps invite a certain scepticism. What light can Goethe's early nineteenth-century science of nature possibly throw on modern conceptions of science? The question will seem an especially apt one to methodologists and also to Goetheans themselves. Goethe's own utterances on matters of epistemology are relatively unsystematic as well as often very fragmentary. Not only that, what he has said in this field seems to betray a lack of sympathy with the subject. Of the most important epistemological work of his time, for example, he says: "Kant's Critique of Pure Reason had been out for a long time, but it lay altogether outside my circles. I couldn't venture into the labyrinth itself..." (LA, I.9, pp. 90–91).

Cited authors

Kant Immanuel

Goethe Johann Wolfgang