Renewal in Science

The Renewal in Science series offers booksthat seek to enliven and deepen our

understanding of nature and science.

Genetics and the Manipulation of Life:The Forgotten Factor of Context

by Craig Holdrege

The Marriage of Sense and Thought:Imaginative Participation in Science

by Stephen Edelglass, Georg Maier, HansGebert & John Davy

Thinking Beyond Darwin:The Idea of the Type as a Key to Vertebrate

Evolutionby Ernst-Michael Kranich

The Wholeness of Nature:Goethe's Way toward a Science ofConscious Participation in Nature

by Henri Bortoft

Copyright © 1996 by Henri Bortoft

Published in the United States by LindisfarneBooks

www.lindisfarne.org

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bortoft, Henri, 1938—The wholeness of nature : Goethe's waytoward a science of conscious participation innature / Henri Bortoft.p. cm.— (Renewal in science)

Includes bibliographical references.ISBN 0-940262-79-7 (pbk.)1. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749—1832—Knowledge—Natural history. 2.Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749—1832

—Knowledge—Science. 3. Nature inliterature. 4. Nature (Aesthetics) 5. Science inliterature. I. Title. II. Series.PT2213.B67 1996831'.6—dc20

96-9358CIP

An earlier version of part I of this work,“Authentic and Counterfeit Wholes,” was firstpublished in Systematics, vol 9, no. 2 (1971),

and a thoroughly reworked version wassubsequently published in Dwelling Place and

Environment (edited by Seamon andMugerauer) by Martinus Nijhof, 1985.Part II of this work, “Goethe's Scientific

Consciousness,” first appeared as Institute forCultural Research Monograph no. 22,published by The Institute for Cultural

Research, 1986. They are printed here by

permission.

Cover art: Sketch by Goethe, Weinreben(Grapevine), probably August, 1828.

Reproduced by courtesy of Goethe—und—Schiller Archiv, Weimar, Germany. Photograph

by Sigrid Geske.

Cover design: Barbara RicheyTypography & interior design: Watersign

Resources

All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reproduced in any

form without the written permission of thepublisher, except for brief quotations embodied

in critical reviews and articles.

To the memory ofDAVID BOHM

who introduced me to the problem ofwholeness

Contents

PrefaceI. Authentic and Counterfeit Wholes

INTRODUCTION

TWO EXAMPLES OF WHOLENESS:HOLOGRAMS AND THE UNIVERSE OF LIGHTAND MATTER

THE HERMENEUTIC CIRCLE

THE WHOLE AND THE PARTS

ENCOUNTERING THE WHOLE: THE ACTIVEABSENCE

WHOLENESS IN SCIENCE

GOETHE'S WAY OF SCIENCE

THE UR-PHENOMENON

CONCLUSION

II. Goethe's Scientific Consciousness1. Introduction2. Making the Phenomenon VisibleNEWTON'S EXPERIMENTS

THE PRIMAL PHENOMENON OF COLOR

GOETHE'S SCIENTIFIC CONSCIOUSNESS

Knowing the WorldUnity without UnificationModes of ConsciousnessThe Depth of the Phenomenon

3. Goethe's Organic VisionTHE UNITY OF THE PLANT

The One and the ManyTHE UNITY OF ANIMAL ORGANIZATION

The Necessary Connection4. The Scientist's Knowledge

III. Understanding Goethe's Way of Science1. Introduction2. The Organizing Idea in CognitivePerception3. The Organizing Idea in ScientificKnowledgeTHE ORGANIZING IDEA IN OBSERVATIONALDISCOVERIES

THE ORGANIZING IDEA IN THE THEORIES OFSCIENCE

Copernicus and the Moving EarthGalileo and the Moving EarthThe Idea of Inertial MotionTHE ORGANIZING IDEA OF MODERNSCIENCE

The Quantitative Way of Seeing

The Metaphysical Separation4. Understanding the Science of ColorNEWTON AND THE MATHEMATICALPHYSICS OF COLOR

THE PHYSICS OF GOETHEAN STYLE

5. The Goethean OneMODES OF UNITY

SEEING THE DYNAMICAL UNITY OF THEPLANT

The Unity of the Plant KingdomThe Unity of the Organism

6. Seeing ComprehensivelyTHE TWOFOLD

7. The Possibility of a New Science ofNature

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Preface

Why would anyone in the 1990s write a bookon Goethe's way of science? Perhaps becauseof a scholarly interest—wanting to find out thetruth about Goethe's scientific ideas, to discoverwhat he had in mind. No doubt this would be avalid reason, but it is not mine. To begin with Idon't speak German, so writing a scholarlybook on Goethe would be, for me, equivalent totrying to climb a mountain without first havinglearned to walk. But what other reason couldthere be for writing about the scientific work ofsomeone who died in 1832, especially when hisideas were rejected by the scientificestablishment as the work of a muddleddilettante? The widespread judgment ofGoethe's science seems to be just that: Great

poet and dramatist he might have been, but hedidn't know what he was talking about when itcame to science. But times have changed sinceGoethe's day. Modern science had barely begunthen, whereas now it has matured and we havehad a chance to see its implications andconsequences more clearly. Equally important,we now understand science better—therevolution in the history and philosophy ofscience is responsible for that.

My interest in Goethe arose as a result ofworking as a postgraduate research studentunder David Bohm on the problem of wholenessin the quantum theory, back in the 1960s. Tothose of us who had the privilege to participatein his daily discussions, Bohm communicated asense of the way that wholeness is very differentfrom how we have become accustomed tothinking of it in modern science. When I first

came across Goethe's scientific ideas, Iimmediately recognized in them the same kind ofunderstanding of wholeness that I hadencountered with Bohm. But from the beginningI saw Goethe's way of science in practicalterms, as something that was “do-able”—eventhough my own interest was, and is, largelyphilosophical. Because I had been taughtexercises in seeing and visualization by J.G.Bennett in the 1960s, I was able to recognizewhat Goethe was doing instead of being limitedto only what he was saying. So, thanks to this, Iwas not restricted to an intellectual approach.Working with Goethe's practical indicationsbrought me to an understanding of Goethe's wayof science which was not only more lively than,but also somewhat different from, what I couldread in standard academic accounts. Forexample, by practicing Goethe's method of

seeing and visualizing with plants, I came toexperience the way that this turned the one andthe many inside out. I later found that, using thesame means, I could share this perception withstudents, and that we could begin to understandthe whole and the part, the one and the many,the universal and the particular, in a radicallynew way. I would not have experienced thistransformation in the mode of cognition formyself if I had done no more than read Goetheintellectually. What can only seem abstract tothe intellectual mind becomes living experiencewhen Goethe's practice of seeing and visualizingis followed. Doing this gives us a sense of adifferent kind of dimension in nature. It is noexaggeration to say that it turns our habitual wayof thinking inside out, and I have tried to writethis book in a way that will give readers a tasteof this for themselves.

Over the past few decades, we have becomeincreasingly aware of the importance of thecultural context within which modern science hasdeveloped. The new field of history andphilosophy of science has shown us what isreferred to now as the historicity of scientificknowledge, the way that cultural-historicalfactors enter into the very form which scientificknowledge takes. We have, for the most part,given up thinking of science as an autonomousactivity which stands outside of history, orindeed outside of any human social context,pursuing its own absolute, contextless way ofacquiring pure knowledge. In fact, now we havebegun to recognize that this view of science itselffirst arose within a particular cultural-historicalcontext, and that it is an expression of a style ofthinking which has its own validity but does nothave access to “ultimate reality.” We can now

recognize, for example, that the fact that modernphysics is true—which it certainly is—does notmean that it is fundamental. Hence it cannot be afoundation upon which everything else, humanbeings included, depends. Recognizing that thefoundations of science are cultural-historicaldoes not affect the truth of science, but it doesput a different perspective on the fundamentalistclaims made on behalf of science by some of itsself-appointed missionaries today. Looked at inthe light of the new discoveries in the history andphilosophy of science, such claims to have foundthe ultimate basis of reality look like no morethan quaint relics from a bygone age.

It is astonishing to realize just how modernGoethe was in this respect. Almost two hundredyears ago, he discovered the historicity ofscience for himself, expressing it succinctly whenhe said, “We might venture the statement that

the history of science is science itself.” He cameto this understanding as a result of his strugglewith the science which had fundamentalistpretensions in his own day, i.e., the science ofNewton. This understanding makes Goethe ourcontemporary. We realize now that nature canmanifest in more than one way, without needingto argue that one way is more fundamental thananother. So there is the possibility that therecould be a different science of nature, notcontradictory but complementary to mainstreamscience. Both can be true, not because truth isrelative, but because they reveal nature indifferent ways. Thus, whereas mainstreamscience enables us to discover the causal orderin nature, Goethe's way of science enables us todiscover the wholeness. I suggest that thisscience of the wholeness of nature is a visionmuch needed today in view of the limitations in

the perspective of mainstream science whichhave now become so evident.

The three essays which appear here werewritten at different times and under differentcircumstances. “Authentic and CounterfeitWholes” first appeared as “Counterfeit andAuthentic Wholes: Finding a Means for Dwellingin Nature” in Dwelling, Place andEnvironment (1986), a collection of essays onthe phenomenological approach to the humanenvironment, edited by David Seamon andRobert Mugeraur. It is based on an earlierwork, and I am very grateful to David Seamonfor encouraging me to rewrite it in this form. Iwould like to thank the publisher, MartinusNijhoff, for permission to reproduce it here.“Goethe's Scientific Consciousness” is a muchextended version of a paper given at aconference held by the British Society for

Phenomenology in 1979. It was published in1986 in the Institute for Cultural ResearchMonograph Series, and I am grateful to theCouncil of the Institute for Cultural Research forpermission to republish it here.

“Understanding Goethe's Way of Science”was written specifically for this volume.Christopher Bamford at Lindisfarne Press askedme if I had any “further thoughts” which mightbe added as a postscript to an Americanpublication of “Goethe's ScientificConsciousness.” I didn't realize that I had until Istarted to write, and I am as surprised as he is atthe result. I am very grateful to him for his initialsuggestion, and for his help and encouragementin getting the book into its final form. I wouldalso like to thank Rob Baker and Albert Berryof Water-sign Resources for editing the bookinto a style suitable for an American readership,

and for improving its general readability. I amvery grateful to John Barnes, the series editor,for including this book in the Renewal in Scienceseries, for his many helpful suggestions, and fororganizing an extensive lecture tour to coincidewith publication.

Finally, but by no means least, I would like tothank Jackie Bortoft, my wife, for her continuedhelp and support. As well as word-processingmy handwriting, and bringing my attention tounnecessary repetitions, she has helped me onmany occasions to find how to articulate moreclearly something that has been eluding me.Naturally any confusions which remain are myown responsibility.

INTRODUCTION

What is wholeness? To answer this question, itis helpful to present a specific setting. Imaginesomeone not yet recognizing it, asking, “What isroundness?” We might try to answer by giving anumber of instances, such as “The moon isround,” “The plate is round,” “The coin isround,” and so on. Of course “round” is none ofthese things, but by adducing a number of suchinstances we may hope to provoke therecognition of roundness. This happens whenperception of the specific instances isreorganized, so that they now become likemirrors in which roundness is seen reflected. Inspite of what many people might think, thisprocess does not involve empiricalgeneralization—i.e., abstracting what is common

from a number of cases. The belief thatconcepts are derived directly from sensoryexperiences is like believing that conjurors reallydo produce rabbits out of hats. Just as theconjuror puts the rabbit into the hat beforehand,so the attempt to deduce the concept byabstraction in the empiricist manner presupposesthe very concept it pretends to produce.

I attempt the same procedure in this essaywith the aim of understanding wholeness. Iadduce a number of examples of wholeness,with the aim of learning more about wholenessitself by seeing its reflection in these particularcases. I distinguish authentic wholeness fromcounterfeit forms in terms of the relationshipbetween whole and part. The result leads to anunderstanding of how the whole can beencountered through the parts. Finally, I arguethat the way of science developed by the poet

and student of nature Johann Wolfgang vonGoethe (1749—1832) exemplifies the principleof authentic wholeness. Goethe's mode ofunderstanding sees the part in light of the whole,fostering a way of science which dwells innature.

TWO EXAMPLES OFWHOLENESS: HOLOGRAMS ANDTHE UNIVERSE OF LIGHT AND

MATTERThe advent of the laser has made possible thepractical development of a radically differentkind of photography. Hologram is the namegiven to the special kind of photographic plateproduced with the highly coherent light of a laser—i.e., light which holds together and does notdisperse, similar to a pure tone compared withnoise. Whereas the ordinary photographic platerecords and reproduces a flat image of anilluminated object, the hologram does not recordan image of the object photographed butprovides an optical reconstruction of the originalobject. When the hologram plate itself isilluminated with the coherent light from the laser

with which it was produced, the optical effect isexactly as if the original object were beingobserved. What is seen is to all opticalappearances the object itself in full three-dimensional form, being displaced in apparentposition when seen from different perspectives(the parallax effect) in the same way as theoriginal object.

A hologram has several remarkableproperties in addition to those related to thethree-dimensional nature of the opticalreconstruction which it permits. The particularproperty which is of direct concern inunderstanding wholeness is the pervasiveness ofthe whole optical object throughout the plate.1 Ifthe hologram plate is broken into fragments andone fragment is illuminated, it is found that thesame three-dimensional optical reconstruction ofthe original object is produced. There is nothing

missing; the only difference is that thereconstruction is less well defined. The entireoriginal object can be optically reconstructedfrom any fragment of the original hologram, butas the fragments get smaller and smaller theresolution deteriorates until the reconstructionbecomes so blotchy and ill-defined as tobecome unrecognizable. This property of thehologram is in striking contrast to the ordinaryimage-recording photographic plate. If this typeof plate is broken and a fragment illuminated, theimage reproduced will be that recorded on theparticular fragment and no more. With orthodoxphotography the image fragments with the plate;with holography the image remains undividedwhen the plate is fragmented.

What can be seen straightaway aboutwholeness in this example of the hologram is theway in which the whole is present in the parts.

The entire picture is wholly present in each partof the plate, so that it would not be true in thiscase to say that the whole is made up of parts.This point will be explored in detail shortly, butthe advantage of beginning with the hologram isthat it is such an immediately concrete instanceof wholeness.

A second example of wholeness involves theordinary experience of looking up at the sky atnight and seeing the vast number of stars. Wesee this nighttime world by means of the light“carrying” the stars to us, which means that thisvast expanse of sky must all be present in thelight which passes through the small hole of thepupil into the eye. Furthermore, other observersin different locations can see the same expanseof night sky. Hence we can say that the starsseen in the heavens are all present in the lightwhich is at any eye-point. The totality is

contained in each small region of space, andwhen we use optical instruments like atelescope, we simply reclaim more of that light.2If we set off in imagination to find what it wouldbe like to be light, we come to a condition inwhich here is everywhere and everywhere ishere. The night sky is a “space” which is onewhole, enfolded in an infinite number of pointsand yet including all within itself.

Matter also turns out to behave in anunexpectedly holistic way at both themacroscopic and the microscopic level. Wetend to think of the large-scale universe ofmatter as being made up of separate andindependent masses interacting with one anotherthrough the force of gravity. The viewpointwhich emerges from modern physics is verydifferent from this traditional conception. It isnow believed that mass is not an intrinsic

property of a body, but it is in fact a reflection ofthe whole of the rest of the universe in thatbody. Einstein imagined, following Ernst Mach,that a single particle of matter would have nomass if it were not for all the rest of the matter inthe universe.3 Instead of trying to understand theuniverse by extrapolating from the localenvironment here and now to the universe as awhole, it may be useful to reverse therelationship and understand the localenvironment as being the result of the rest of theuniverse.4

Similarly, at the microscopic level, we tend tothink of the world as being made up of separate,independent subatomic particles interacting withone another through fields of force. But the viewwhich emerges from physics today is verydifferent. Particle physicists, as they are called,

have found that subatomic particles cannot beconsidered to be made up of ultimate, simplebuilding blocks which are separate and outsideof each other. Increasingly, it becomes clear thatanalysis in this traditional way is inappropriate atthe microscopic level. Thus, in the “bootstrap”philosophy of Geoffrey Chew, the properties ofany one particle are determined by all the otherparticles, so that every particle is a reflection ofall the others. This structure whereby a particlecontains all other particles, and is also containedin each of them, is expressed succinctly by thephrase “every particle consists of all otherparticles.”5

Just as there are no independently separatemasses on the large scale, then, there are alsono independent elementary particles on the smallscale. At both levels, the whole is reflected inthe parts, which in turn contribute to the whole.

The whole, therefore, cannot simply be the sumof the parts—i.e., the totality—because thereare no parts which are independent of thewhole. For the same reason, we cannotperceive the whole by “standing back to get anoverview.” On the contrary, because the wholeis in some way reflected in the parts, it is to beencountered by going further into the partsinstead of by standing back from them.

THE HERMENEUTIC CIRCLEA third instance of wholeness is externallysomewhat different from the previous two. It isconcerned with what happens when we read awritten text. If reading is to be meaningful, it isnot just a matter of repeating the words verballyas they come up in sequence on the page.Successful reading is not just a matter of sayingthe words. It is an act of interpretation, but notinterpretation in the subjective sense. Trueinterpretation is actively receptive, not assertivein the sense of dominating what is read. Trueinterpretation does not force the text into themold of the reader's personality, or into therequirements of his previous knowledge. Itconveys the meaning of the text—“conveys” inthe sense of “passes through” or “goesbetween.” This is why readers sometimes can

convey to others more of the meaning of a textthan they may understand themselves.

Authentic interpretation, and hence successfulreading, imparts real meaning, but the questionbecomes, what or where is this meaning? Weoften say, “I see,” when we wish to indicate thatwe have grasped something. If we try to look atwhat we imagine is in our grasp, however, wefind ourselves empty-handed. It does not takemuch experimentation here to realize thatmeaning cannot be grasped like an object.

The meaning of a text must have something todo with the whole text. What we come to hereis the fundamental distinction between wholeand totality. The meaning is the whole of thetext, but this whole is not the same as the totalityof the text. That there is a difference betweenthe whole and the totality is clearlydemonstrated by the evident fact that we do not

need the totality of the text in order tounderstand its meaning. We do not have thetotality of the text when we read it, but only onebit after another. But we do not have to store upwhat is read until it is all collected together,whereupon we suddenly see the meaning all atonce in an instant. On the contrary, the meaningof the text is discerned and disclosed withprogressive immanence throughout the readingof the text.We can begin to see how remarkably similar themeaning structure of a text is to the optical formof the hologram. The totality of the text can becompared to the pattern of marks on thehologram plate. But the meaning of the text mustbe compared to the whole picture which can bereconstructed from the hologram plate. This isthe sense in which the meaning of the text is thewhole. The whole is not the totality, but the

whole emerges most fully and completelythrough the totality. Thus, we can say thatmeaning is hologrammatical. The whole ispresent throughout all of the text, so that it ispresent in any part of the text. It is the presenceof the whole in any part of the text whichconstitutes the meaning of that part of the text.Indeed, we can sometimes find that it is just theunderstanding of a single passage whichsuddenly illuminates for us the whole meaning ofthe text.

What we come to here is the idea of thehermeneutic circle, which was first recognizedby Friedrich Ast in the eighteenth century andsubsequently developed by Schleiermacher inhis program for general hermeneutic s as the artof understanding.6 At the level of discourse, thiscircle says that to read an author we have tounderstand him first, and yet we have to read

him first to understand him. It appears we haveto understand the whole meaning of the text “inadvance” to read the parts which are ourpathway towards the meaning of the text as awhole. Clearly, this is a contradiction to logicand the form of reasoning which is basedthereon. Yet it is the experience we go throughto understand the meaning of the text, as it isalso the experience we go through in writing atext. The same paradox for logic can be foundat the level of the single sentence. The meaningof a sentence has the unity of a whole. We reachthe meaning of the sentence through the meaningof the words, yet the meaning of the words inthat sentence is determined by the meaning ofthe sentence as a whole.

The reciprocal relationship of part and wholewhich is revealed here shows us clearly that theact of understanding is not a logical act of

reasoning, because such an act depends on thechoice of either/or. The paradox arises from thetacit assumption of linearity—implicit in the logicof reason—which supposes that we must goeither from part to whole or from whole to part.Logic is analytical, whereas meaning is evidentlyholistic, and hence understanding cannot bereduced to logic. We understand meaning in themoment of coalescence when the whole isreflected in the parts so that together theydisclose the whole. It is because meaning isencountered in this “circle” of the reciprocalrelationship of the whole and the parts that wecall it the hermeneutic circle.

THE WHOLE AND THE PARTSThe hologram helps us to see that the essence ofthe whole is that it is whole. If we had begun ourdiscussion of the whole with the statement thatthe whole is whole, it would have seemed to bevacuous or trivially pedantic. But the opticalinstance of the hologram enables us to see that,far from being a trivial tautology, this statementexpresses the primacy of the whole. No matterhow often we break the hologram plate, thepicture is undivided. It remains whole even whilebecoming many.

This essential irreducibility of the whole is sostrong that it seems inconceivable that there isany way in which the whole could have parts.This is very much opposite to the view weusually have of the relation between parts andwhole, which is a view that effectively denies the

primacy of the whole. We are accustomed tothinking of going from parts to whole in somesort of summative manner. We think ofdeveloping the whole, even of making thewhole, on the practical basis of putting partstogether and making them fit. In thisconventional way of working, we see the wholeas developing by “integration of parts.” Such away of seeing places the whole secondary to theparts, because it necessarily implies that thewhole comes after the parts. It implies a linearsequence: first the parts, then the whole. Theimplication is that the whole always comes laterthan its parts.

Faced with the primacy of the whole, as seenin the hologram, we may want to reverse thedirection of this way of thinking of the whole.This we would do if we thought of the parts asbeing determined by the whole, defined by it,

and so subservient to the whole. But thisapproach is not the true primacy of the wholeeither. It puts the whole in the position of a falsetranscendental which would come earlier thanthe parts, and so would leave them no place.This approach effectively considers the whole asif it were a part, but a “superpart” whichcontrols and dominates the other, lesser parts. Itis not the true whole, and neither can the partsbe true parts when they are dominated by thiscounterfeit whole. Instead, there is only the side-by-sideness of would-be parts and thecounterfeit whole. This is a false dualism.

Inasmuch as the whole is whole, it is neitherearlier nor later. To say that the whole is notlater than the parts is not to say that we do notput parts together. Of course we do—considerthe action of writing, for example. But the factthat we often put parts together does not mean

that in so doing we put the whole together.Similarly, to say that the whole is not earlier thanthe parts is not to deny the primacy of thewhole. But, at the same time, to assert theprimacy of the whole is not to maintain that it isdominant, in the sense of having an externalsuperiority over the parts.

We can see the limitation of these twoextreme approaches to the whole if we look atthe act of writing. We put marks for wordstogether on a page by the movement of the pento try to say something. What is said is not theresultant sum of the marks, nor of the wordswhich they indicate. What is said is notproduced automatically by the words addingtogether as they come. But equally, we do nothave what is said fixed and finished in front of usbefore it is written. We do not simply copy whatis already said. We all know the familiar

experience of having the sense that weunderstand something and then finding that it hasslipped away when we try to say it. We seem tounderstand already before saying, but in themoment of expression we are empty. Whatappears is not ready-made outside theexpression. But neither is expression aninvention from a vacuum.

The art of saying is in finding the “right parts.”The success or failure of saying, and hence ofwriting, turns upon the ability to recognize whatis a part and what is not. But a part is a partonly inasmuch as it serves to let the whole comeforth, which is to let meaning emerge. A part isonly a part according to the emergence of thewhole which it serves; otherwise it is mere noise.At the same time, the whole does not dominate,for the whole cannot emerge without the parts.The hazard of emergence is such that the whole

depends on the parts to be able to come forth,and the parts depend on the coming forth of thewhole to be significant instead of superficial. Therecognition of a part is possible only through the“coming to presence” of the whole. This fact isparticularly evident in authentic writing andreading, where something is either to come toexpression or to come to be understood.

We cannot separate part and whole intodisjointed positions, for they are not two as incommon arithmetic. The arithmetic of the wholeis not numerical.7 We do not have part andwhole, though the number category of ordinarylanguage will always make it seem so.8 If we doseparate part and whole into two, we appear tohave an alternative of moving in a singledirection, either from part to whole or fromwhole to part. If we start from this position, we

must at least insist on moving in both directionsat once, so that we have neither the resultantwhole as a sum nor the transcendental whole asa dominant authority, but the emergent wholewhich comes forth into its parts. The characterof this emergence is the “unfolding of enfolding,”so that the parts are the place of the wholewhere it bodies forth into presence.9 The wholeimparts itself; it is accomplished through theparts it fulfills.

We can perhaps do something more to bringout the relationship between whole and part byconsidering the hologram again. If we break thehologram plate into fractions, we do not breakthe whole. The whole is present in each fraction,but its presence diminishes as the fractioningproceeds. Starting from the other end, withmany fractions, we could put the fractionstogether to build up the totality. As we did so,

the whole would emerge; it would come forthmore fully as we approached the totality. But wewould not be building up the whole. The wholeis already present, present in the fractions,coming fully into presence in the totality. Thesuperficial ordering of the fractional parts maybe a linear series—this next to that, and so on.But the ordering of the parts with respect to theemergent whole, the essential ordering, is nestedand not linear. Thus the whole emergessimultaneously with the accumulation of theparts, not because it is the sum of the parts, butbecause it is immanent within them.

This process tells us something fundamentalabout the whole in a way which shows us thesignificance of the parts. If the whole becomespresent within its parts, then a part is a place forthe “presencing” of the whole.10 If a part is tobe a place in which the whole can be present, it

cannot be “any old thing.” Rather, a part isspecial and not accidental, since it must be suchas to let the whole come into presence. Thisspeciality of the part is particularly importantbecause it shows us the way to the whole. Itclearly indicates that the way to the whole is intoand through the parts. The whole is nowhere tobe encountered except in the midst of the parts.It is not to be encountered by stepping back totake an overview, for it is not over and abovethe parts, as if it were some superior, all-encompassing entity. The whole is to beencountered by stepping right into the parts.This is how we enter into the nesting of thewhole, and thus move into the whole as we passthrough the parts.

This dual movement, into the whole throughthe parts, is demonstrated clearly in theexperience of speaking and reading, listening

and writing. We can see that in each case thereis a dual movement: we move through the partsto enter into the whole which becomes presentwithin the parts. When we understand, bothmovements come together. When we do notunderstand, we merely pass along the parts.Consider, for example, the interpretation of adifficult text, say, Kant's Critique of PureReason. At first encounter, we just pass alongthe parts, reading the sentences withoutunderstanding. To come to understand the text,we have to enter into it, and we do this in thefirst place by experiencing the meaning of thesentences. We enter into the text as the mediumof meaning through the sentences themselves,putting ourselves into the text in a way whichmakes us available to meaning. We do not standback to get an overview of all the sentences, inthe hope that this will give us the meaning of the

text. We do not refer the text to some other,external text which will give us the meaning.There is no superior text which can be anauthority in interpretation because there is noaccess to the meaning of Kant's book other thanthrough the text itself. Even for Kant, there wasno pure “meaning in itself,” present as an objectin his consciousness, which he then representedin language. The original text is already aninterpretation, and every text written aboutKant's book is itself an expression of themeaning which that book was written to makeevident. The hermeneutic approach mustrecognize, as Heidegger said, that “... what isessential in all philosophical discourse is notfound in the specific propositions of which it iscomposed but in that which, although unstatedas such, is made evident through thesepropositions.”11 Authentic interpretation

recognizes the way in which the whole, which isthe meaning of the text, comes to presence inthe parts, which are the sentences.

ENCOUNTERING THE WHOLE:THE ACTIVE ABSENCE

Everything we encounter in the world can besaid to be either one thing or another, either thisor that, either before or after, and so on.Wherever we look, there are different things tobe distinguished from one another: this bookhere, that pen there, the table underneath, andso on. Each thing is outside the other, and allthings are separate from one another. But inrecognizing the things about us in this way we,too, are separate from and outside of each ofthe things we see. We find ourselves side byside, together with and separate from, the thingswe recognize. This is the familiar spectatorawareness. In the moment of recognizing a thing,we stand outside of that thing; and in themoment of so standing outside of that thing, we

turn into an “I” which knows that thing, for therecannot be an “outside” without the distinction ofsomething being outside of some other thing.Thus, the “I” of “I know” arises in the knowingof something in the moment of recognition of thething known. By virtue of its origin, the “I” whichknows is outside of what it knows.

We cannot know the whole in the way inwhich we know things because we cannotrecognize the whole as a thing. If the wholewere available to be recognized in the same wayas we recognize the things which surround us,then the whole would be counted among thosethings as one of them. We could point and say“Here is this,” and “There is that,” and “That'sthe whole over there.” If we had the power ofsuch recognition, we would know the whole inthe same way that we know its parts, for thewhole itself would simply be numbered among

its parts. The whole would be outside its parts inthe same way that each part is outside all theother parts. But the whole comes into presencewithin its parts, and we cannot encounter thewhole in the same way that we encounter theparts. We should not think of the whole as if itwere a thing.

Our everyday awareness is occupied withthings. The whole is absent to this awarenessbecause it is not a thing among things. Toeveryday awareness, the whole is no-thing, andsince this awareness is awareness of something,no-thing is nothing. The whole which is no-thingis taken as mere nothing, in which case itvanishes. When this loss happens, we are leftwith a world of things, and the apparent task ofputting them together to make a whole. Such aneffort disregards the authentic whole.

The other choice is to take the whole to be

no-thing but not nothing. This possibility isdifficult for our everyday awareness, whichcannot distinguish the two. Yet we have anillustration immediately on hand with theexperience of reading. We do not take themeaning of a sentence to be a word. Themeaning of a sentence is no-word. But evidentlythis is not the same as nothing, for if it were wecould never read! The whole becomes presentwithin parts, but from the standpoint of theawareness which grasps the external parts, thewhole is an absence. This absence, however, isnot the same as nothing. Rather, it is an activeabsence inasmuch as we do not try to be awareof the whole, as if we could grasp it like a part,but instead let ourselves be open to be movedby the whole.

A particularly graphic illustration of thedevelopment of a sensitivity to the whole as an

active absence is to be found in the experienceof writing, where we saw earlier that we do nothave the meaning before us like an object.Another illustration of the active absence isprovided by the enacting of a play. Actors donot stand away from a part as if it were anobject. They enter into a part in such a way thatthey enter into the play. If the play is constructedwell, the whole play comes into presence withinthe parts so that an actor encounters the playthrough his or her part. But actors do notencounter the play as an object of knowledgeover which they can stand like the lines theylearn. They encounter the play in their part as anactive absence which can begin to move them.When this happens, an actor starts to be actedby the play, instead of trying to act the play. Theorigin of the acting becomes the play itself,instead of the actor s subjective “I.” The actor

no longer imposes himself or herself on the playas if it were an object to be mastered, but he orshe listens to the play and allows himself orherself to be moved by it. In this way actorsenter into their parts in such a way that the playspeaks through them. This is how, theirawareness being occupied with the lines to bespoken, they encounter the whole which is theplay—not as an object but as an active absence.

Developmental psychology now offersconsiderable support for this notion that thewhole is “nothing” to our ordinary awareness, aswell as for the notion that we can develop asensitivity to the whole as an “active absence.”Psychologists have discovered that there aretwo major modes of organization for a humanbeing: the action mode and the receptivemode.12 In the early infant state, we are in thereceptive mode, but this is gradually dominated

by the development of the action mode oforganization that is formed in us by ourinteraction with the physical environment.Through the manipulation of physical bodies,and especially solid bodies, we develop theability to focus the attention and perceiveboundaries—i.e., to discriminate, analyze, anddivide the world up into objects. Theinternalization of this experience of manipulatingphysical bodies gives us the object-based logicwhich Henri Bergson called “the logic ofsolids.”13 This process has been described indetail by psychologists from Helmholtz down toPiaget. The result is an analytical mode ofconsciousness attuned to our experience withsolid bodies. This kind of consciousness isinstitutionalized by the structure of our language,which favors the active mode of organization.As a result, we are well prepared to perceive

selectively only some of the possible features ofexperience.

The alternative mode of organization, thereceptive mode, is one which allows events tohappen—for example, the play above. Insteadof being verbal, analytical, sequential, andlogical, this mode of consciousness is nonverbal,holistic, nonlinear, and intuitive. It emphasizesthe sensory and perceptual instead of therational categories of the action mode. It isbased on taking in, rather than manipulating, theenvironment.

For reasons of biological survival, the analyticmode has become dominant in humanexperience. This mode of consciousnesscorresponds to the object world, and since weare not aware of our own mode ofconsciousness directly, we inevitably identify thisworld as the only reality. It is because of this

mode of consciousness that the whole is“nothing” to our awareness, and also that whenwe encounter it, we do so as an “activeabsence.” If we were re-educated in thereceptive mode of consciousness, our encounterwith wholeness would be considerably different,and we would see many new things about ourworld.

WHOLENESS IN SCIENCEThere are many hermeneutic illustrations of theactive absence—speaking, reading, playing agame, and so on—which are similar to the actorplaying a part in a play. These examples caneach demonstrate the reversal which comes inturning from awareness of an object into theencounter with the whole. This turning around,from grasping to being receptive, fromawareness of an object to letting an absence beactive, is a reversal which is the practicalconsequence of choosing the path which assentsto the whole as no-thing and not mere nothing.

It is because of this reversal that the authenticwhole must be invisible to the scientificapproach, as currently conceived. The paradigmfor modern scientific method is Kant's“appointed judge who compels the witnesses to

answer questions which he has himselfformulated.”14 Science believes itself to beobjective, but is in essence subjective becausethe witness is compelled to answer questionswhich the scientist himself has formulated.Scientists never notice the circularity in thisbecause they believe they hear the voice of“nature” speaking, not realizing that it is thetransposed echo of their own voice. Modernpositivist science can only approach the wholeas if it were a thing among things. Thus thescientist tries to grasp the whole as an object forinterrogation. So it is that science today, byvirtue of the method which is its hallmark, is leftwith a fragmented world of things which it mustthen try to put together.

The introduction of a quantitative,mathematical method in science led to thedistinction between primary and secondary

qualities.15 The so-called primary qualities—likenumber, magnitude, position, and so on—canbe expressed mathematically. But suchsecondary qualities as color, taste, and soundcannot be expressed mathematically in anydirect way. This distinction has been made intothe basis for a dualism in which only the primaryqualities are considered to be real. Anysecondary quality is supposed to be the result ofthe effect on the senses of the primary qualities,being no more than a subjective experience andnot itself a part of “objective” nature.

The result of this dualistic approach is that thefeatures of nature which we encounter mostimmediately in our experience are judged to beunreal—just illusions of the senses. In contrast,what is real is not evident to the senses and hasto be attained through the use of intellectualreasoning. Thus, one group of qualities is

imagined to be hidden behind the other group,hidden by the appearances, so that a secondaryquality is understood when it is seen how itcould have arisen from the primary qualities. Thereality of nature is not identical to theappearances which our senses give, and a majoraim of positivist science is to replace thephenomenon with a mathematical model whichcan incorporate only the primary qualities. Thisquantitative result is then supposed to be morereal than the phenomenon observed by thesenses, and the task of science becomes a kindof “metaphysical archaeology” which strives toreveal an underlying mathematical reality.

The way this approach works in practice canbe illustrated by Newton's treatment of thecolors produced by a prism. His method was tocorrelate all observations of secondary qualitieswith measurements of primary qualities, so as to

eliminate the secondary qualities from thescientific description of the world.16 Newtoneliminated color by correlating it with the“degree of refrangibility” (what we would nowcall “angle of refraction”) of the different colorswhen the sun's light passes through a prism.Thus refraction can be represented numerically,and the ultimate aim of substituting a series ofnumbers for the sensory experience of differentcolors is achieved (later the wavelength of lightwould replace refrangibility). Hence, somethingwhich can be measured replaced thephenomenon of color, and in this way color ascolor was eliminated from the scientific accountof the world.

GOETHE'S WAY OF SCIENCENewton's approach to light and color illustratesthe extraordinary degree to which modernscience stands outside of the phenomenon, theideal of understanding being reached when thescientist is as far removed as possible from theexperience.17 The physics of color could nowbe understood just as well by a person who iscolor-blind. There is little wonder that thesuccessful development of physics has led to anever-increasing alienation of the universe ofphysics from the world of our everydayexperience.18

Goethe's approach to color was verydifferent from Newton's analytic approach.Goethe attempted to develop a physics of colorwhich was based on everyday experience. Heworked to achieve an authentic wholeness by

dwelling in the phenomenon instead ofreplacing it with a mathematical representation.

Goethe's objection to Newton's procedurewas that he had taken a complicatedphenomenon as his basis and tried to explainwhat was simple by means of something morecomplex.19 To Goethe, Newton's procedurewas upside down. Newton had arranged for thelight from a tiny hole in a window shutter to passthrough a glass prism onto the opposite wall.The spectrum of colors formed in this way wasa well-known phenomenon at the time, butNewton's contribution was to explain it in a newway. He believed that the colors were alreadypresent in the light from the sun coming throughthe hole, and the effect of the prism was toseparate them. It would be quite wrong to say,as is said so often in physics textbooks, that theexperiment showed Newton this, or that he

was led to believe this by the experiment.Rather, it was Newton's way of seeing whichconstituted the experiment's being seen in thisway. He saw the idea (that white light is amixture of colors which are sorted out by theprism) “reflected” in the experiment, as if it werea mirror to his thinking; he did not derive it fromthe experiment in the way that is often believed.

In contrast to Newton, Goethe set out to findthe simplest possible color phenomenon andmake this his basis for understanding color inmore complex situations. He believed Newtonerred in thinking colorless light wascompounded of colored lights because coloredlight is darker than colorless light, and this wouldmean that several darker lights were addedtogether to make a brighter light. Goethe lookedfirst at the colors which are formed when theprism is used with light in the natural

environment, instead of the restricted andartificial environment which he felt Newton hadselected as the experimental basis for hisapproach. By doing this, Goethe recognized thatthe phenomenon of prismatic colors dependedon a boundary between light and dark regions.Far from the colors somehow being alreadycontained in light, for Goethe they came intobeing out of a relationship between light anddarkness.

To Goethe, the prism was a complicatingfactor, and so to understand the arising ofcolors, he looked for the more simple cases,which meant looking for situations where thereare no secondary factors, only light anddarkness. Such a case is what Goethe firstcalled das reine Phänomen (the “purephenomenon”), and for which he later used thet e r m Urphänomen (“primal or archetypal

phenomenon”).20 He found the primalphenomenon of color in the color phenomenawhich are associated with semi-transparentmedia. When light is seen through such amedium, it darkens first to yellow and thenorange and red as the medium thickens.Alternatively, when darkness is seen through anilluminated medium, it lightens to violet and thenblue. Such a phenomenon is particularly evidentwith atmospheric colors, such as the colors ofthe sun and the sky and the way that thesechange with atmospheric conditions. Thus, itwas in the natural environment that Goethe firstrecognized the primal phenomenon of color tobe the lightening of dark to give violet and blue,and the darkening of light to give yellow andred. He expressed this process poetically as“the deeds and sufferings of light.”21

Once Goethe had found this primalphenomenon he was in a position to see how thecolors change from one to another as conditionschange. He could see how these shifts were atthe root of more complex phenomena such asthe prismatic colors. One result is that a dynamicwholeness is perceived in the prismatic colors—a wholeness totally lacking in Newton's account.In other words, Goethe's presentation describesthe origin of colors whereas Newton's does not.The colors of the spectrum are simply notintelligible in Newton's account because there isno inherent reason why there should be red, orblue, or green, as there is no reason why theyshould appear in the order that they do in thespectrum. But with Goethe's account, one canunderstand both the quality of the colors and therelationship between them, so that we canperceive the wholeness of the phenomenon

without going beyond what can be experienced.Goethe's method was to extend and deepen hisexperience of the phenomenon until he reachedthat element of the phenomenon which is notgiven externally to sense experience. This is theconnection or relationship in the phenomenonwhich he called the law (Gesetz), and which hefound by going more deeply into thephenomenon instead of standing back from it ortrying to go beyond it intellectually to somethingwhich could not be experienced.22 In otherwords, Goethe believed that the organization orunity of the phenomenon is real and can beexperienced, but that it is not evident to sensoryexperience. It is perceived by an intuitiveexperience—what Goethe called Anschauung,which “may be held to signify the intuitiveknowledge gained through contemplation of

the visible aspect.”23

In following Goethe's approach to scientificknowledge, one finds that the wholeness of thephenomenon is intensive. The experience is oneof entering into a dimension which is in thephenomenon, not behind or beyond it, but whichis not visible at first. It is perceived through themind, when the mind functions as an organ ofperception instead of the medium of logicalthought. Whereas mathematical science beginsby transforming the contents of sensoryperception into quantitative values andestablishing a relationship between them, Goethelooked for a relationship between theperceptible elements which left the contents ofperception unchanged. He tried to see theseelements themselves holistically instead ofreplacing them by a mathematical relationship.As Cassirer said, “The mathematical formula

strives to make the phenomena calculable, thatof Goethe to make them visible.”24

It seems clear from his way of working thatGoethe could be described correctly as aphenomenologist of nature, since his approachto knowledge was to let the phenomenonbecome fully visible without imposing subjectivemental constructs. He was especially scathingtowards the kind of theory which attempted toexplain the phenomenon by some kind of hiddenmechanism. He saw this style of analysis as anattempt to introduce fanciful sensory-likeelements behind the appearances, to which thehuman mind then had to be denied directaccess. He thought Descartes' attempt toimagine such mechanical models behind theappearances was debasing to the mind, and nodoubt he would have felt the same way aboutEinstein's picture of the impregnable watch as an

analogy for the situation facing the scientificinvestigator.25 Goethe did not examine thephenomenon intellectually, but rather tried tovisualize the phenomenon in his mind in asensory way—by the process which he called“exact sensorial imagination” (exakte sinnlichePhantasie).26 Goethe's way of thinking isconcrete, not abstract, and can be described asone of dwelling in the phenomenon.27

THE UR-PHENOMENONThe notion of the Urphänomen is an invaluableillustration of the concrete nature of Goethe'sway of thinking which dwells in thephenomenon. The primal phenomenon is not tobe thought of as a generalization fromobservations, produced by abstracting fromdifferent instances something that is common tothem. If this were the case, one would arrive atan abstracted unity with the dead quality of alowest common denominator. For Goethe, theprimal phenomenon was a concrete instance—what he called “an instance worth a thousand,bearing all within itself.”28 In a moment ofintuitive perception, the universal is seen withinthe particular, so that the particular instance isseen as a living manifestation of the universal.What is merely particular in one perspective is

simultaneously universal in another way ofseeing. In other words, the particular becomessymbolic of the universal.29

In terms of the category of wholeness, theprimal phenomenon is an example of the wholewhich is present in the part. Goethe himself saidas much when he called it “an instance worth athousand,” and described it as “bearing all withinitself.” It is the authentic whole which is reachedby going into the parts, whereas a generalizationis the counterfeit whole that is obtained bystanding back from the parts to get an overview.Looking for the Urphänomen is an example oflooking for the right part—i.e., the part whichcontains the whole. This way of seeing illustratesthe simultaneous, reciprocal relationshipbetween part and whole, whereby the wholecannot appear until the part is recognized, butthe part cannot be recognized as such without

the whole.For example, Goethe was able to “read” how

colors arise in the way that the colors of the sunand the sky change with the atmosphericconditions throughout the day. Because therewere no secondary, complicating factors, thiswas for him an instance of the primalphenomenon of the arising of colors. Thisphenomenon was perceived as a part whichcontained the whole, and it was, in fact, throughthe observation of this particular phenomenonthat Goethe first learned to see intuitively the lawof the origin of color. Yet, the way that thecolors of the sun and sky change together doesnot stand out as a phenomenon until it is seen asan instance of how colors arise. The search forthe primal phenomenon is like creative writing,where the need is to find the right expression tolet the meaning come forth. By analogy, we can

say that Goethe's way of science is“hermeneutical.” Once the primal phenomenonhas been discovered in a single case, it can berecognized elsewhere in nature and in artificialsituations where superficially it may appear to bevery different. These varying instances can becompared to the fragments of a hologram.

Newton, in contrast, tried to divide light intoparts: the colors of the spectrum from redthrough to blue. But these are not true partsbecause each does not contain the whole, andhence they do not serve to let the whole comeforth. Colorless light, or white light, is imaginedto be a summative totality of these colors.Newton tried to go analytically from whole toparts (white light separated into colors), andfrom parts to whole (colors combined to makewhite light). In contrast, Goethe encountered thewholeness of the phenomenon through the

intuitive mode of consciousness, which isreceptive to the phenomenon instead of dividingit according to external categories.30

CONCLUSIONThe experience of authentic wholeness requiresa new style of learning largely ignored in ourschools and universities today. Typically,modern education is grounded in the intellectualfaculty, whose analytical capacity alone isdeveloped, mostly through verbal reasoning.One notes, for example, that science studentsare often not interested in observing phenomenaof nature; if asked to do so, they become easilybored. Their observations often bear littleresemblance to the phenomenon itself.31 Thesestudents are much happier with textbookdescriptions and explanations, a fact readilyunderstandable once one recognizes that mosteducational experience unfolds in terms of onemode of consciousness—the verbal, rationalmode.

The experience of authentic wholeness isimpossible in this mode of consciousness, and acomplementary style of understanding couldusefully be developed. This can be done, first bylearning to work with mental images in a wayemulating Goethe—i.e., forming images fromsensory experiences. In turn, this processrequires careful observation of the phenomenon.Authentic wholeness means that the whole is inthe part; hence careful attention must be given tothe parts instead of to general principles. Incontrast, an intellectual approach to scientificeducation begins by seeing the phenomenon asan instance of general principles.

Working with mental images activates adifferent mode of consciousness which is holisticand intuitive. One area where this style oflearning is now used practically is intranspersonal education.32 Experiments with

guided imagination indicate that a frequent resultis the extension of feelings, whereby the studentexperiences a deeper, more direct contact withthe phenomenon imagined.33 In this way, a morecomprehensive and complete encounter with thephenomenon results, and aspects of thephenomenon otherwise unnoticed often come tolight. In addition, students feel themselves to bemore in harmony with the phenomenon, as ifthey themselves were participating in it. Thisleads to an attitude toward nature moregrounded in concern, respect, andresponsibility.34

Goethe's way of science is not the onlydirection for a way of learning grounded inauthentic wholeness. In more general terms,such a style of education and science isphenomenological, letting things become

manifest as they show themselves withoutforcing our own categories on them. This kind oflearning and science goes beyond the surface ofthe phenomenon, but not behind it to contrivesome causal mechanism described by a modelborrowed from somewhere else. Acontemporary illustration of such an approach isthe work of biologist Wolfgang Schad in hiszoological study, Man and Mammals.35 Schadshows how all mammals can be understood interms of the way in which the whole is present inthe parts. In addition, he demonstrates howeach mammal can be understood in terms of itsown overall organization.

Schad begins with the direct observation ofthe immediate phenomena, working torediscover the uniqueness of individual animals.According to Schad's approach, every detail ofan animal is a reflection of its basic organization.

Thus, he does not begin by replacing thephenomenon with a stereotype, but rathersearches for the animal's unique qualities. Thisapproach does not lead to fragmentation andmultiplicity. Instead, it leads to the perception ofdiversity within unity, whereby the unique qualityof each mammal is seen holistically within thecontext of other mammals. With a wealth ofdrawings and photographs, Schad demonstrateshow going into the part to encounter the wholeleads to a holistic perspective. He shows thatmultiplicity in unity means seeing uniquenesswithout fragmentation.

The counterfeit approach to wholeness—i.e.,going away from the part to get an overview—leads only to the abstraction of the general case,which has the quality of uniformity rather thanuniqueness. Schad indicates how a biologygrounded in authentic wholeness can recognize

the inner organic order in an animal in such away that its individual features can be explainedby the basic organization of the animal itself. Inshort, the mammal “explains” itself. Forexample, the formation of the hedgehog's hornyquills is explained in terms of the basicorganization of the hedgehog itself. Otherquestions for which Schad provides answersinclude why cattle have horns and deer, antlers;why leopards are spotted and zebras, striped;why otters, beavers, seals, and hippopotami livein water; why giraffes' necks are long; whyrhinoceroses are horned. Schad convincinglydemonstrates that features such as these can beexplained through careful observation of aparticular mammal's organization in the contextof all the other mammals.

Like Goethe's, Schad's way of science isphenomenological and hermeneutical. It is

phenomenological because the animal is capableof disclosing itself in terms of itself.Phenomenology, said Heidegger, is the attempt“to let that which shows itself be seen from itselfin the very way in which it shows itself fromitself.”36 Phenomenology brings to light what ishidden at first. Schad discovers in the animal thequalities which make that animal what it is ratherthan some other creature. In addition, Schad'swork is hermeneutical, since when the point isreached where the animal discloses itself, theanimal becomes its own language. In this sense,Schad's way of seeing echoes the universalsense of Gadamer 's hermeneutics, in which“being that can be understood is language.”37

As Schad's work suggests, Goethe's way ofscience did not end with him. His style oflearning and understanding belongs not to the

past but to the future. It is widely acknowledgedtoday that, through the growth of the science ofmatter, the Western mind has become removedfrom contact with nature. Contemporaryproblems, many arising from modern scientificmethod, confront people with the fact that theyhave become divorced from a realisticappreciation of their place in the larger world.At the same time, there is a growing demand fora renewal of contact with nature. It is notenough to dwell in nature sentimentally andaesthetically, grafting such awareness to ascientific infrastructure which largely deniesnature. The need is for a new science of nature,different from the science of matter and basedon other human faculties besides the analyticmind. A basis for this science is the discovery ofauthentic wholeness.38

1

Introduction

Goethe does not fit easily into our categories.He was a person who was both poet andscientist, who is renowned for his poetical anddramatic work, and yet who considered that hisscience was the most important work he haddone. We could easily accept a scientist whowrote poetry, perhaps even a poet who wroteabout science, but it is difficult to accept a poetwho was simultaneously an original scientist, i.e.,who did science in an original way. We justcannot easily believe that what he did was reallyscience at all.

When faced with this kind of contradiction inour cultural categories, we rationalize. One form

which this takes is the accusation of dilettantism.Master among poets Goethe may have been,but as a scientist he was an amateur—and abungling one at that in his work on color. Wecan compare this view with an impression ofGoethe's home in Weimar as it was kepttowards the end of the last century. RudolfMagnus described how he found in it numerousspecimens from Goethe's work in geology(more than eighteen thousand specimens),botany, and zoology, together with manyinstruments from experiments in electricity andoptics. Magnus was particularly impressed withthe wealth of equipment Goethe used in hisoptical studies, and he said: “I can testify frompersonal experience to the extraordinaryfascination of repeating Goethe's experimentswith his own instruments, of realizing theaccuracy of his observations, the telling

faithfulness with which he described everythinghe saw.”1 From this description we do not getthe impression of a dilettante, nor of a personwho thought of himself first and foremost as apoet. In fact, Goethe spent twenty years ofpainstaking work on his research into thephenomena of color. He said himself: “Notthrough an extraordinary spiritual gift, notthrough momentary inspiration, unexpected andunique, but through consistent work did Ieventually achieve such satisfactory results.”Although Goethe said this specifically about hiswork on the metamorphosis of plants, it appliedequally to all his scientific work.

Another form which the rationalization cantake is the apology for the “Great Man.” Wecan see this illustrated very clearly in the case ofIsaac Newton, to whom Goethe was soopposed in his theory of color. It used to be an

embarrassment that this person, who above allothers set the seal on the future development ofscience in the West, in fact spent more of histime on occult researches and alchemy than heever did on experimental and mathematicalphysics. When Newton's alchemical paperswere auctioned at Sotheby's in 1936, JohnMaynard Keynes read through them anddeclared that Newton was not the first of theage of reason but the last of the magicians. Thestrategy was then either to ignore this“unfortunate” fact, or else to make apologies forNewton on the basis that great geniuses havetheir weaknesses, and we must not pay toomuch attention to them. But during the past twodecades there has been a significant change inattitude among historians of science. It is nowrecognized that we cannot just ignore or dismissapproaches which do not fit in with what has

become fashionable, if we want to understandhow science developed historically. What latergenerations find an embarrassment, or otherwiseobjectionable, may in fact be something whichneeds to be taken seriously. In the case ofGoethe, this means taking seriously a radicallydifferent way of doing science.

It is a superficial habit of mind to invent thepast which fits the present. At the level of theindividual, this takes the form of rewriting his orher own biography. This phenomenon is wellknown to psychologists, who recognize it as avariation of the self-fulfilling prophecy. The samemental habit can be seen operating at a moregeneral historical level, where it takes on theform of an assumption that the purpose of thepast is to prepare the way for the present. Butthe past, in this case, becomes no more than anextrapolation from the present. In other words,

it is our invention. The result of doing this is thathistory can be told as a simple tale, because itseems as if there is a single, continuous lineleading from the past to the present. Thecharacters in this single-line story fall into twosimple categories: forward-looking orbackward-looking, depending on whether theyseem to fit on the line of extrapolation or not.2

Now that this kind of superficial story hasbeen exploded by studies in the history ofscience, it is clear that there never was a singleline of development leading to the kind ofscience we have today. Furthermore, it has alsobecome clear, from these same studies, that thereasons for the success, or otherwise, of aparticular science are not internal to that science.It has been widely believed that scienceadvances by the use of its own internal methodfor attaining the truth, so that scientific

knowledge is legitimated by its own authority.However, it turns out that there is no suchmethod, and science is best understood as aculturally based activity, i.e., as the product of asocial process. Hence, the reasons for theacceptance of a scientific theory often havemore to do with complex cultural factors thanwith the intrinsic merits of the theory in question.This has been borne out, for example, in studiesof the seventeenth-century scientific revolution,where it has been shown that the success of themechanical philosophy was due as much toexternal political and religious reasons as to itshaving been shown to be true by any internalscientific method. There are deeply rootedphilosophical fashions in science, without whichthere would not be any science, but which standoutside the orbit of what can be verifiedscientifically. It is useful to remember this when

looking at Goethe's way of science. Forexample, Goethe's physics of color contradictedNewton's, and if it is believed that Newton'sphysics of color has been shown to be true by“scientific method,” then it must appear thatGoethe's physics was wrong.

It now becomes clearer why Goethe'sscientific work has often been received withdisbelief. This does not necessarily haveanything to do with the intrinsic scientific merit ofhis work. It has more to do with the state ofmind (and what formed it) of those who rejecthis work as “unscientific” or “wrong.” However,it is noticeable that both the rejection and therationalization of Goethe's scientific work oftencome from students of the humanities, and notso much from scientists. It is often those whoare primarily interested in Goethe as a poet whohave the greatest difficulty integrating his

scientific work into their perspective. Amongscientists we often find respect for Goethe'sscientific endeavors, even when there isdisagreement. It is acknowledged, for example,that he was a pioneer in the study of plant andanimal form—for which he coined the term“morphology.” There is also some speculationthat he anticipated the theory of evolution. Thisis a notoriously tricky point, and there have beenmany arguments for and against it. The difficultyis resolved when it is realized that todayevolution is identified with Darwin's mechanismof random variation and natural selection. Thismeans that there can be other ideas of evolutionwhich are not recognized as such. For Goethe,as for his contemporaries in the philosophy ofnature, there certainly was the idea of evolution.Frau von Stein wrote in a letter in 1784 that“Herder's new writing makes it seem likely that

we were plants and animals. Goethe pondersnow with abundant ideas over these things, andwhat has first passed through his mind becomesincreasingly interesting.”3 The idea of evolutionwas certainly in Goethe's mind, but it was notDarwinian evolution.

Goethe's major study in physics wasconcerned with color. His magnum opus,Theory of Colors, was rejected by theestablishment because of the attack on Newtonwhich it contained. Newton had been raised ona pedestal by those who came after him, so thatGoethe's physics of color rebounded on itsoriginator because it did not look like physics. Infact, on account of this work, Goethe is nowlooked upon by experimental psychologists ofcolor as one of the founders of their science.What interests the physicist today aboutGoethe's work on color is not so much the

details, but the kind of scientific theory which hedeveloped. This was very different from the kindof theory which aimed to go behind thephenomenon as it appeared to the senses, inorder to explain it in terms of some hiddenmechanism supposed to be more real. Goethe'sapproach was to avoid reducing thephenomenon to the mere effect of a mechanismhidden behind the scenes. Instead, he tried tofind the unity and wholeness in the phenomenaof color by perceiving the relationships in thesephenomena as they are observed. The resultwas a theory which could be described as aphenomenology of color, rather than anexplanatory model. This will be discussed inmore detail below. In thus renouncing modelsand rooting the theory in the concretephenomenon, Goethe now sounds very much inline with the debates about the nature of physical

theory which have arisen through thedevelopment of quantum physics. His work wasin fact discussed in this context at a conferenceon the quantum theory held in Cambridge in1968.4 This comparison may well be superficial,but it does mean that Goethe's scientific method,and the philosophy of science which it reflects,are taken seriously by modern physicists, whoare faced with an epistemological crisis in theirscience.

But the value of Goethe's science is notrevealed by assimilating him into the mainstream.Unfortunately, historians of science are oftenonly interested in whether Goethe's work is acontribution to biology, or experimentalpsychology, or the method of physics. Thisapproach to Goethe misses what is important,and interesting, in his scientific work. The factorwhich is missing from this academic approach is

simply Goethe's whole way of seeing. In a letterfrom Italy in 1787, Goethe wrote: “After what Ihave seen of plants and fishes in the region ofNaples, in Sicily, I should be sorely tempted, if Iwere ten years younger, to make a journey toIndia—not for the purpose of discoveringsomething new, but in order to view in my waywhat has been discovered.”5 Goethe wasindicating here that the discovery of new factswas of secondary importance to him. Whatmattered was the way of seeing, whichinfluenced all the facts. His scientific work wasfundamentally an expression of this way ofseeing, with the result that it is presentthroughout all of it, immediately yet intangibly.What we recognize as the content of Goethe'sscientific work should really be looked upon asonly the container. The real content is the way ofseeing. So what we have to aim for, if we are to

understand Goethe's scientific consciousness, isinside-out to what we expect, because it is to befound in the way of seeing and not in the factualcontent of what is seen.

The problem for us is that we think of a wayof seeing as something entirely subjective. Asvictims of the Cartesian confinement ofconsciousness to the purely subjective, wecannot believe at first that what Goetheexperienced as a way of seeing could be anobjective feature of the world. The difficultyhere comes from the fact that a way of seeing isnot itself something which is seen. What isexperienced in the way of seeing cannot begrasped like an object, to appear as a content ofperception. What is encountered in the way ofseeing is the organization or unity of the world.Just as the organization of a drawing is not partof the sense-perceptible content of the drawing

(whereabouts on the page is the organization?),so the organization of the world of nature is notpart of the sensory content of that world.6 Butwhat “organization” and “unity” mean turns outto depend on the mode of consciousness—which will be discussed in the second chapterhere.

To understand Goethe's way of seeing wewould have to experience it for ourselves. Wecould only really understand it by participation,which means we would each experienceGoethe's way of seeing as the way in which ourown mind became organized temporarily. Thisbrings us to another problem. If we believe thata way of seeing is only a subjective factor, thenwe must believe Goethe's way of seeing diedwith him. If this is so, then any attempt tounderstand it would entail the absurdrequirement of trying to become Goethe! But

this problem disappears when it is recognizedthat what is experienced as a way of seeing isthe unity of the phenomenon. It followsimmediately that any number of individuals canexperience the same way of seeing without therestriction of time. A way of seeing has thetemporal quality of belonging to “the present”instead of to the past. It is more like an event ofperception in which we can learn to participate,instead of repeating something which oncehappened and has now gone. Goethe himselfhad to learn to see in the way which we now call“Goethe's way of seeing.” We will now explorethis way of seeing, as it is present first in hiswork on color and then in his work on organicnature.

2

Making the Phenomenon Visible

Goethe became interested in color during hisItalian journey (1786-88). When he returnedhome he reminded himself of Newton's theoryabout color, as this was presented in the booksavailable to him, and decided to do the famousexperiment with the prism himself. However,having borrowed a prism, his interest and timewere then taken up with other things. He didnothing about it until the time came when he wasobliged to give the prism back. It was then toolate to repeat Newton's experiments, as he hadintended, and so he just took a rapid glancethrough the prism before handing it back. Whathe saw astonished him, and the energy of his

astonishment was so great that it launched himinto a research program on color which was totake nearly twenty years. This is what Goethesaid about that experience:

But how astonished was I when the whitewall seen through the prism remainedwhite after as before. Only wheresomething dark came against it a more orless decided color was shown, and at lastthe window-bars appeared most vividlycolored, while on the light-grey skyoutside no trace of coloring was to beseen. It did not need any longconsideration for me to recognize that aboundary or edge is necessary to callforth the colors, and I immediately saidaloud, as though by instinct, that theNewtonian doctrine is false.7

What was the Newtonian doctrine, and why didGoethe believe that what he saw—or ratherfailed to see—indicated so strongly that it waswrong? To answer this question it will benecessary to begin with a brief account ofNewton's experiments with a prism.

NEWTON'S EXPERIMENTSNewton's work on color also began with asurprise. He made a small circular hole in thewindow shutter of a darkened room, andpassed the beam of sunlight which it formedthrough a glass prism onto the wall. Heobserved the colors which formed there, butthen he noticed that the image of the aperture onthe wall was oblong and not circular, as hewould have expected it to have been. Otherexperiments were then made to explore thispeculiarity. In one of these experiments he useda second small aperture in a screen, placed afterthe prism, to select light of one color only, whichhe then passed through a second prism. Hefound that no further colors were formed by thesecond prism. But he also found that the anglethrough which the light was deviated by the

second prism depended on the color—violetbeing deviated the most and red the least. Hecalled this the Experimentum Crucis, and onthe basis of what he saw in it he made aninductive leap to propose the cause of theunexpected shape of the image which he hadnoticed at first.8

Newton's theory was that sunlight is nothomogeneous, as had been supposed, but“consists of rays differently refrangible.” Theserays are all refracted through different angleswhen the sunlight is incident on the prism, andthe colors which are experienced correspondwith these different angles of refraction. Thus,the rays which are least refracted produce thesensation of red, whereas the sensation of violetis produced by the rays which are refractedmost. It is, therefore, the separation of theserays by the prism which produces the oblong

colored image of the circular aperture. Thus wasborn the well-known theory that colorless light isa mixture of all the colors of the spectrum, whichare separated out by a prism. As such it isknown to every schoolboy and repeated byevery textbook writer. Yet this is not whatNewton thought. In his major work on light hesaid:

And if at any time I speak of light andrays as colored or endowed with colors,I would be understood to speak notphilosophically and properly, but grossly,and according to such conceptions asvulgar people in seeing all theseexperiments would be apt to frame. Forthe rays to speak properly are notcolored. In them there is nothing else thana certain power and disposition to stir up

a sensation of this or that color.9

The trouble is that Newton did often speak ofsunlight as being composed of rays of differingcolors. Goethe pointed out that this could not beso because every colored light is darker thancolorless light, and if colorless light werecompounded of colored lights then brightnesswould be compounded of darkness, which isimpossible. But Newton's view that color is asensation in the observer, and not a physicalphenomenon, was quickly forgotten by hisfollowers. One result of selecting only a part ofNewton's theory is that what is said about ittoday is often simply nonsense.10

Time and again the myth is repeated thatNewton showed by experiment how colorlesslight contains a mixture of colors, which areseparated by a prism. It is presented as if this

were available to the senses and could beobserved directly. Yet there is no experiment inwhich this separation of the colors can be seendirectly with the senses. Newton attempted toprove that this is what is happening by reasoningbased on experiments. Originally it was aninsight for him, and as such it cannot be reacheddirectly by experiment or by logical reasoningbased thereon. Subsequently he tried to presentit as a consequence of following a definitemethod. This was the mathematical method,based on geometry, but with experimentsreplacing verbal propositions. Newton'spresentation must be followed with care, and inthe spirit in which it was intended; otherwise theunwary reader can easily fall into the trap ofbelieving that Newton had seen with his eyeswhat cannot in fact be seen directly at all.

What Newton did do, by his combination of

experiments and theory, was to replace thephenomenon of color with a set of numbers. Inso doing, he fulfilled the aim of the program forthe scientific investigation of nature developedby Galileo and others. The introduction of thequantitative, mathematical method into scienceled inevitably to the distinction between primaryand secondary qualities. Primary qualities arethose which can be expressed mathematically ina direct way—such as number, magnitude,position, and extension. By contrast, qualitieswhich cannot be expressed mathematically in adirect way—such as color, taste and sound—are said to be secondary. This distinction wassubsequently made into a dualism in which onlythe primary qualities were considered to be real.A secondary quality was supposed to be theresult of the effect on the senses of a primaryquality, being no more than a subjective

experience and not part of nature. The result ofthis step was that some of the features of naturewhich are encountered most immediately inexperience were judged to be unreal, justillusions of the senses. One group of qualities,the primary ones, was imagined to be behind theother group, hidden by the appearances, so thata secondary quality was understood when it wasexplained how it could have arisen from primaryqualities alone. In other words, the secondaryqualities are really primary qualities whichmanifest themselves in perception in a mannerwhich is different from what they really are, sothat the task of science is to reduce all thephenomena of nature ultimately to such primaryqualities as shape, motion, and number.

Newton attempted to fulfill this program intwo ways in his work on color. Firstly, byshowing that different colors are refracted

through different angles, he was able to replacethe colors by a numerical measurement. Thus hecould eliminate color from the scientificdescription of the world by correlating it with the“degree of refrangibility” (which we now call“angle of refraction”). A series of numbers couldthen be substituted for the sensory experience ofdifferent colors. Secondly, Newton tried toimagine a mechanical model for light, wherebythe dispersion of colors by the prism wasexplained in terms of light corpuscles, orglobules, which all moved with the same velocityin a vacuum but different velocities in glass.Thus, according to this model, Newtonconsidered the speed of the imagined lightparticles to be the objective basis of ourexperience of color—although he also seems tohave considered the size to be an importantfactor on another occasion, with the corpuscles

which caused the sensation of red being biggerthan those which caused blue. Whatever theparticulars of the model, the important point isthat the secondary quality of color is replacedcompletely by primary qualities which can berepresented quantitatively. This strategy of tryingto explain a phenomenon by means of amicroscopic model—which is based on imagesborrowed from the sense-perceptible world—became standard practice in mainstreamphysics. Newton's own attempt to provide amechanical model for light was not successful.The model which eventually gained acceptancewas the wave model. According to this, light is awave motion, with different colorscorresponding to waves of different frequencies.Once again the phenomenon is reduced to amathematical magnitude. The model is different,but the result is the same: color is written out of

nature.

THE PRIMAL PHENOMENON OFCOLOR

When Goethe saw that the prismatic colorsappeared only where there was a boundary, herecognized that the theory of the colors beingcontained already in the light must be wrong.There must be light and dark for the colorphenomenon to arise, not just light alone. Heinvestigated this carefully by constructing simpleboundaries from which all secondary,complicating factors were removed. Anyonewho has a prism can repeat Goethe'sobservations. Just make a card with a straightboundary between black and white regions, andlook at the boundary through the prism with thecard in either of the orientations shown in thefigure on the opposite page. Holding the prismso that it is oriented like the roof of a house

turned upside down, with the edges parallel tothe boundary, look through the slanted sidefacing you toward the card. You will see itdisplaced downward. In both cases vivid colorsare seen parallel to the boundary. In orientation(a) the colors appear in the white region justbelow the black, with red nearest to theboundary, then orange, and yellow furthestaway from the boundary. In (b) the colors alsoappear at first to be in the white region, butcareful observation (e.g., by placing the tip of apencil on the boundary for reference) revealsthat they are in fact being seen in the blackregion just below the white. Again, the colorsare parallel to the boundary, but with thisorientation of the card the colors are blues, withlight blue nearest to the boundary and violetfurthest into the black. To begin with, it is bestto concentrate on the central boundary and

ignore the colors at the top and bottom edges ofthe card.

When observing the phenomenon of color inGoethe's way it is necessary to be more activein seeing than we are usually. The term“observation” is in some ways too passive. Wetend to think of an observation as just a matterof opening our eyes in front of the phenomenon,as if it were something that happens to us whenvisual information flows in through the senses

and is registered in consciousness. Observingthe phenomenon in Goethe's way requires us tolook, as if the direction of seeing were reversed,going from ourselves towards the phenomenoninstead of vice versa. This is done by puttingattention into seeing, so that we really do seewhat we are seeing instead of just having avisual impression. It is as if we plunged intoseeing. In this way we can begin to experiencethe quality of the colors.

But Goethe's encounter with the phenomenondid not stop at this stage of observation. Hewould then repeat the observations he hadmade, but this time doing so entirely in hisimagination without using the apparatus. Hecalled this discipline exakte sinnlichePhantasie, which can be translated “exactsensorial imagination.” In this case it wouldmean trying to visualize making the observations

with the prism, and seeing the qualities of thedifferent colors in the right order at a boundaryas if we were producing them. This would thenbe transformed in imagination into an image ofthe colors with the boundary in the oppositeorientation, and then transformed back again.The process can be repeated several times. Theaim is to think the phenomenon concretely inimagination, and not to think about it, trying notto leave anything out or to add anything whichcannot be observed. Goethe referred to thisdiscipline as “recreating in the wake of ever-creating nature.” Combined with active seeing, ithas the effect of giving thinking more the qualityof perception and sensory observation more thequality of thinking. The purpose is to develop anorgan of perception which can deepen ourcontact with the phenomenon in a way that isimpossible by simply having thoughts about it

and working over it with the intellectual mind.For example, through working in this way, arelationship between the qualities of the colorsmay be perceived. Black, violet, and blue beginto be perceived as belonging together, as if therewere a unity in these colors which is notperceived at first. The same can be found withwhite, yellow, orange, and red. Sometimes thisrelationship between the colors is perceived ashaving a dynamical quality, even though there isno movement in a physical sense. Thus, what isperceived by the senses as simply differentcolors which are separate begins to beperceived more holistically. The colors areperceived belonging together in a unity which ispresent in the phenomenon but not visible likethe colors themselves. If there is unity in thecolor phenomenon at a boundary, then it is notlike something which we may have simply

overlooked at first. It is not like a color whichwe may have missed—as if we could say,“There is red, and there is yellow, and there isthe unity over there.” It is in fact not visible tothe senses (though it may seem to be so), andyet it can be perceived—this point will be takenup in some detail later in this chapter.

Although the unity in the color phenomenonmay begin to be intimated by working with theprism in the way described above, it is difficultfor it to emerge clearly in these circumstances.This is because the appearance of the colors inthis case depends on the peculiar shape of thepiece of glass. Goethe believed that this was acomplicating factor, and because of this thephenomenon of prismatic colors was not asuitable basis from which to understand theorigin of colors. He also believed that there mustalways be some instance in nature where a

phenomenon occurs in the simplest waypossible, without any secondary factors todisguise what is essential. He had alreadyrecognized from his first observation with theprism that light and dark were necessary “to callforth the colors.” So if he could find an instancein nature of the “coming into being” of colors outof light and dark alone, then he would have readthe origin of colors directly in nature itself. Hecalled such an instance an Urphänomen, whichcan be translated “primal phenomenon,” and hedescribed it as “an instance worth a thousand,bearing all within itself.” He saw the proper taskof physics as being to find the primalphenomenon for any particular field of study,and to resist the temptation to try to go beyondit by imagining a hidden mechanism as Newtonand others did.

Goethe discovered the primal phenomenon of

color in the colors of the sun and the sky. On aclear day the color of the sky overhead is abrilliant blue, which becomes lighter in shade asthe angle of vision decreases towards thehorizon. But if we were to go up a mountain, thecolor overhead would progressively darken untilit became violet. If we could go higher still, itwould darken further until it became black.When we look at the sky overhead, we areseeing darkness through the atmosphere whichis illuminated by the sun. The quality of the bluewe see depends on the thickness of theatmosphere through which we are seeing thedarkness of outer space. The greater thethickness of the atmosphere, the lighter theshade of blue. Goethe recognized that the roleof the atmosphere here is to be a light-filledmedium because it is illuminated by the sun. Sowhen we look at the sky we are looking at dark

through light, and the effect of this is to lightenthe dark progressively into lighter shades of blueas the proportion of the light-filled mediumincreases. Thus the origin of blue is the lighteningof dark which occurs when dark is seen throughlight. In this way Goethe learned to see the“coming into being” of the various shades ofblue in the phenomenon itself.

The origin of red and yellow can bediscovered in the changing color of the sun.When it is overhead on a clear day the sun isyellow, and it darkens in color towards red as itmoves closer to the horizon at sunset. In thiscase we are looking at light through theatmosphere, and the role of this medium is nowto darken what is seen in proportion as itsthickness increases. If we were to go higher up,the sun would become whiter as theatmospheric thickness decreased. Thus the

origin of yellow, orange, and red is thedarkening of light which occurs when light isseen through dark. Here also Goethe learned tosee the “coming into being” of the colors in thephenomenon itself, so that from this “instanceworth a thousand, bearing all within itself” hecould understand how they arise out of light anddark exclusively.

Now we can read the colors of the sun andthe sky in the prismatic colors. It is wellworthwhile doing this by exact sensorialimagination, instead of just following it in theverbal-intellectual manner. Beginning with thecolor of the sky, we can visualize the change inquality of the color from black through to paleblue as the thickness of the atmosphereincreases. Then we can visualize the colorsformed with the prism when the boundary is inorientation (b). We can see the same order in

the qualities of the prismatic colors as in thecolors of the sky. The sequence from black toviolet to pale blue now corresponds to anincreasing thickness of cross-section of theprism which we are looking through. Since wehave noticed before that these colors are seen inthe black region, we can now recognize thatwhat we are seeing here is different degrees ofthe lightening of dark. Repeating this exercise inimagination with the color of the sun, and theprism with the boundary in orientation (a), wecan again recognize the same order in thequalities of the colors in the two phenomena.This time we are seeing the darkening of light.The colors deepen from yellow to orange andred as the thickness of the atmosphere, or thecross-section of the prism, increases. The prismplays the same dual role of the medium as theatmosphere does, depending on whether it is

light which is seen through dark, or vice versa.We may not know in detail yet how it comesabout that we are seeing dark through light orlight through dark with the prism, and we cannotgo further into this here, but what we have doneis sufficient to illustrate Goethe's way of learningfrom the phenomenon itself in such a way that itbecomes its own explanation.11

Although the practice of thinking thephenomenon concretely by exact sensorialimagination is irksome to the intellectual mind,which is always impatient to rush ahead, itsvalue for developing perception of thephenomenon cannot be overestimated. It hasbeen mentioned already how this discipline canbe instrumental in perceiving a phenomenonholistically. The practice of it, as in the case justdescribed, shows how this comes about fromthe demand which it makes on us to visualize the

phenomenon comprehensively. It also showshow the demand to produce the phenomenonfor ourselves helps thinking to enter into thecoming into being of the phenomenon, instead ofanalyzing what has already become. WhatGoethe discovered in this way was a dynamicalpolarity in the color phenomenon. As well as theunity within the quality of the colors in eachorientation of the boundary, which is a realrelationship between the colors, there is also aunity between the two different colorphenomena. This is the unity of a polarity, likepositive and negative electric charge. Becauseone and the same boundary can be in twodifferent orientations with respect to the prism,these two color phenomena are reallyinseparable. We may think of them separately,and in any particular case we must choose oneand not the other because we cannot have both

simultaneously at the same boundary. But theyare not essentially separate from each otherbecause each one determines the possibility ofthe other, i.e., if one is possible then the othermust be too. So this polarity is essentially holisticand not analytical. We can begin to experience itas such in the colors of the sun and the sky, aswell as with the prism, by working intentionallywith exact sensorial imagination instead of withthe verbal-intellectual mind.

Goethe described this polarity as “the deedsand sufferings of light,” a poetic expressionwhich is as precise in the science of quality asany mathematical expression in the science ofquantity. But “the deeds and sufferings of light”is already a second-degree polarity. Theprimary polarity is the unity of light and dark.When we think of “light and dark” with theverbal-intellectual mind, we interpret it

analytically—we have a mental impression of“light” and “dark,” each on their own, joinedtogether externally by “and.” But this misses thefact that we cannot have the one without theother—it is as if the possibility of each one isdetermined by the other. There is a wholeness inthe boundary itself which we usually do notnotice. It is true of all opposites that theymutually determine each other, and hence thatthere is a unity in their opposition. Aristotle saidthat the knowledge of opposites is one. Thetrouble is that it is not one for the verbal-intellectual mind because of its analyticalcharacter. The wholeness of polarity can only beperceived when the mind works in a moreholistic mode; otherwise it is only an abstraction.The practice of exact sensorial imagination is adoor to this mode. This will be discussed furtherbelow.

It is possible to have both “poles” of the colorphenomenon present simultaneously by makinga card with a broad white band on a blackbackground:

If we now imagine the white space shrinking inthe vertical direction so that the two horizontalboundaries come closer together, a point will bereached where the two polar phenomena meetand overlap. We can find out what happenswhen they do by making a card with a narrow

white band on a black background:

Where they meet we see green, for the firsttime, and there is now something like the“spectrum of light” which Newton described—the pattern of light and dark on this card beingthe same as for a narrow slit in a screenilluminated from behind.12 But this has beenreached in a very different way from New-tons.By following the coming into being of green inthis way, Goethe was able to recognize that the

idea of a spectrum of light was an error ofjudgment, arising from the fact that “acomplicated phenomenon should have beentaken as a basis, and the simpler explained fromthe complex.” This error of judgment is aconsequence of trying to understand the originof the phenomenon in terms of the finishedproduct. The Sufi poet and philosopherJalaluddin Rumi described this approach ingeneral as trying to “reach the milk by way ofthe cheese.”13 Following this analogy, the naiveinterpretation of Newton's theory of theprismatic colors, described above, amounts tothe assertion that cheese comes from milkbecause cheese is already there in milk. Themore sophisticated version, which Newtonhimself advocated, is the equivalent of sayingthat a disposition towards cheese exists in themilk, but it only becomes the cheese I

experience when it enters a human digestivesystem. Goethe's approach, on the other hand,is the equivalent of trying to understand cheeseby following through the process by which it isproduced.

When the prismatic colors are understood inGoethe's holistic way, the quality of each colorbecomes something which is intelligible in itselfand not just an accident. In Newton's account ofthe origin of the colors there is no reason whythe color “red” has the quality of red, or why“blue” has the quality of blue, or why the colorsare in the order observed and not in some otherorder. The intelligibility of the colors inthemselves disappears in the analyticalapproach, and what is left seems to be merelycontingent. It is no answer to be told that theorder the colors appear in is the numerical orderof their wavelengths, and that red has the quality

of red because its wavelength is seven-tenths ofa millionth of a meter, whereas violet has thequality of violet because its wavelength is four-tenths of a millionth of a meter. There is simplyno way in which these qualities can be derivedfrom such quantities. But it is very different whenthe colors are seen comprehensively in Goethe'sway. The order of the colors is now necessaryinstead of contingent, and hence the quality ofeach particular color becomes intelligible in itselfinstead of appearing accidental.

A particularly vivid illustration of thedifference between these two approaches tocolor is given by making a white card with anarrow dark strip. When this is looked atthrough the prism, the order of the colors is seento be inverted compared with the previous case.Now violet and red overlap, instead of yellowand light blue, and where they meet a ruby-

magenta color appears instead of green. So theorder of the colors from the top borderdownwards is blue, violet, ruby-magenta, red,orange, yellow. This is not mentioned byNewton. But that is not surprising, since it wouldhave to be called the “spectrum of dark,” andthis would be impossible if the colors werederived from light alone in the way that Newtonbelieved. Yet this is often the first colorphenomenon a person sees with a prism,because it is the one which is formed by the baracross the middle of a window. When peoplesee this who remember what they learned aboutthe spectrum at school, they are naturallypuzzled by what they see. In some cases, inorder to reduce the cognitive dissonance of thissituation, they assume that what they are seeingmust be wrong! Goethe recognized that “thesenses do not deceive, but the judgment

deceives.” In this case it is the judgment of theNewtonian theory which deceives, and it is onlywhen this particular phenomenon is understoodin terms of the primal phenomenon of color thatit becomes intelligible.

GOETHE'S SCIENTIFICCONSCIOUSNESS

It would be easy to present Goethe's work oncolor as if it had been done in a purely empiricalmanner, i.e., as if he had reached his knowledgeof the origin of colors through his senses alone.It has been mentioned already that this is nottrue, even though it may seem to be so at first.The world which we know is not in fact visibleto the senses in the way that it seems to be. Wedo see the world, of course. But, as the well-known philosopher of science Norwood RussellHanson put it, “There is more to seeing thanmeets the eye.”14 If we want to understand whatscientific knowledge is, we have to learn torecognize the extra, nonsensory factor whichtransforms sensory experience into cognitiveperception. This means learning to recognize the

fundamental incoherence of empiricism as aphilosophy of science. This has to be done first,before we can understand the nature ofGoethe's scientific consciousness.

Knowing the WorldAccording to the philosophy of empiricism, andto common sense, we know the world throughexperience. Nobody would doubt that we do.But empiricism, and common sense, bothinterpret experience to mean sensoryexperience. So what this philosophy asserts isthat knowledge of the world comes through thesenses—we open our eyes and other organs ofsensory perception, and what is transmittedthrough these channels into consciousness isknowledge of the world. Now, although wecould not see the world without the senses, we

also could not see it with the senses alone.Knowledge of the world is based on sensoryexperience, but knowledge is not the same assensory experience. There is always anonsensory factor in cognitive perception,whether it is everyday or scientific cognition.Knowing even the simplest fact goes beyond thepurely sensory.

The fact that there is literally more to seeingthan meets the eye can be appreciated by

looking at the figure on the facing page.15 Manypeople at first see only a random patchwork ofblack and white areas; but on looking further,some people will suddenly see a recognizablefigure emerge from the chaos. They suddenlysee the head and upper neck of a giraffe. Theeffect is just as if the giraffe had been switchedon, like a light. Most people who do not see it atfirst for themselves will do so sooner or laterafter being told that it is a giraffe. But whathappens in this instant of transition? There isevidently no change in the purely sensoryexperience, i.e., in the sensory stimulus to theorganism. The pattern registered on the retina ofthe eye is the same whether the giraffe is seen ornot. There is no change in this pattern at theinstant when the giraffe is seen—the actualmarks on the page are exactly the same after theevent of recognition as they were before. So the

difference cannot be explained as a difference insensory experience.

This conclusion is reinforced by experiencewith the well-known ambiguous figures used bythe gestalt psychologists, such as the reversingcube or the duck/rabbit:

In these cases two different objects can be seenalternately, and yet the sensory experience is thesame in both cases. Hanson suggests that whatchanges in such cases is the organization.16 Hepoints out that the organization is not itself seen

in the same way as the lines or shapes, becauseit is not itself a line or shape. It is not an elementin the visual field, but “rather the way in whichelements are appreciated.” Without thisorganization “we would be left with nothing butan unintelligible configuration of lines,” as indeedwe are left with nothing but an unintelligibleconfiguration of shapes, a random patchwork ofblack and white areas, until this becomesorganized in the act of seeing a giraffe. But justas the plot is not another detail in the story andthe tune is not just another note, so the giraffe isnot another element in the visual field. Although,when it is seen, the shapes now have a particularorganization, the change cannot be shown bymaking an exact copy of the figure.17 Twopeople, one of whom could see the giraffe andthe other not, would both produce the verysame copies of the figure. The difference

between them lies in the nonsensory factor inperception, which is the part of seeing that is“more than meets the eye.”

It is now possible to go further than this, andto understand more completely just what it isthat we see in cognitive perception. Thenonsensory perception of organization which hasbeen discussed above is in fact the perception ofmeaning. The experience of suddenly seeing thegiraffe, for example, is the experience of seeingmeaning where previously there had been only ameaningless patchwork of black and whiteshapes. The nonsensory wholeness or unity,which we see in the instant this patchworkbecomes organized, is the meaning “giraffe.”This is not the meaning o/what is seen, but themeaning which is what is seen. The marks onthe page do not “have” any meaning at all, i.e.,the meaning is not on the page as it would have

to be if it were a sensory element. So what weare seeing is not in fact on the page, even thoughit appears to be there. Similarly, the alternationwith the duck/rabbit, or the reversing cube, is aswitch in the meaning that is seen. In fact, evento see these figures just as “a set of lines,” or “apatchwork of black and white shapes,” isalready to see meaning. There cannot be acognitive perception of meaningless data,because in the act of seeing the world it ismeaning that we see.18

There is no fundamental difference betweenseeing objects and seeing facts. Seeing that abook is on the table is simply a more complexinstance of seeing meaning than seeing a book,or a table, on its own would be. Spatial andtemporal relationships, especially those entailingcausality, which are so readily believed to beperceived through the senses, are always in fact

instances of the nonsensory perception ofmeaning. For example, suppose that someonehears a whirring noise and, at the same time,sees a helicopter. He or she knows immediatelythat the one is the cause of the other, and itseems that this fact is given directly to thesenses. But no such connection could ever beperceived by purely sensory experience.Although we cannot know what such anexperience would be like, it is a useful exerciseto try to catch a glimpse of it by suspendingmeaning. The attempt to do this can bring us tothe point of appreciating that purely sensoryexperience would be a state of differencewithout distinction, diversity withoutdifferentiation. It would be a condition of totalmultiplicity without any trace of unity. In fact, thebest way to describe it would be as a state ofawareness without meaning. What has

previously been referred to as “a meaninglesspatchwork of black and white shapes,” is in factmeaningful compared with this state. Theperception which sees “a meaninglesspatchwork of black and white shapes” alreadyrecognizes some unity in the multiplicity, andhence is not seeing pure “difference withoutdistinction.” Yet we know from pathological andother cases that the state of purely sensoryexperience does exist, and that it is a state whichcorresponds to the complete absence ofmeaning.19 So the philosophy of empiricism,which believes that knowledge of the worldcomes directly through the senses, isfundamentally misleading.

The error of empiricism rests on the fact thatwhat it takes to be material objects arecondensations of meaning. When we see achair, for example, we are seeing a condensed

meaning and not simply a physical body. Sincemeanings are not objects of sensory perception,seeing a chair is not the sensory experience weimagine it to be. What empiricism, and commonsense, miss through mistaking meaning formatter is the dimension of mind in cognitiveperception. This is usually invisible to us becauseit is transparent in the act of cognitiveperception, and hence we do not suspect that itis there. It is often only in cases where normalcognition is disrupted that the dimension of mindbecomes visible.

What also hides this dimension from us is thepresupposition that cognitive processes can beunderstood in the framework of the Cartesiandivorce of subject from object, the separation ofconsciousness from world. This presuppositionhas to be brought into the light and thoughtthrough carefully, whereupon it becomes evident

that it is inherently incoherent. For much of itshistory over the past few centuries, Westernphilosophy has been concerned with theproblem of epistemology which arises directlyout of this divorce. During this century studies inthe philosophy of language and inphenomenology have both, in their differentways, led to a clearer recognition of theincoherence at the root of the Cartesian positionand all that follows from its assumption. Thework of Edmund Husserl, the founder ofphenomenology, has been particularlyinfluential.20 He identified the mistake ofconceiving consciousness in the manner of anatural object, as described by the physicalsciences, as if it were an object among otherobjects in nature. He recognized that it istherefore a mistake to try to imagine an emptyconsciousness confronting an external world.

The fundamental discovery on whichphenomenology is based is that consciousnesshas the structure of intentionality—it would bebetter to say that consciousness isintentionality.21 This is often expressed by sayingthat consciousness is always “consciousness of.”In other words, consciousness is alwaysdirected towards an object. Hence in cognitiveperception there is an indissoluble unity betweenthe conscious mind and the object of which it isconscious. This is completely overlooked by theepistemological approach, which is based on theattempt to overcome Cartesian dualism.

The discovery of the intentionality ofconsciousness explains the transparency of thedimension of mind in cognitive perception andthe origin of the empiricist fallacy. Because of itsintentionality, consciousness is directed towardsthe object of cognition. It is this object which

occupies attention and not the act of seeingitself. Hence the dimension of mind is invisible inthe normal process of cognition, and the objectwhich is seen appears to have been seen by thesenses alone. The picture of the giraffe illustratesthis clearly. When the giraffe is seen, it appearsthere on the page, and hence it seems to be seenby means of the senses alone. Yet in this case,as described above, we can learn to recognizethat there is no picture of a giraffe on the page.

The discovery of the intentionality ofconsciousness also makes clear the differencebetween the meaning which is what is seen andthe meaning o/what is seen. Because of thetransparency of mind in cognitive perception,arising from the intentionality of consciousness,the meaning that is what is seen becomesinvisible as such and appears as something otherthan it is, namely, a sensory object. Hence we

are left with only a secondary notion of meaning,namely, the meaning o/what is seen. This issecondary because what is seen is meaningalready. It is this primary meaning, which isconstitutive of what things are, that isoverlooked by the Cartesian distinction and thenaturalistic attitude of empiricism. As a result ofthis oversight, there is a temptation on firstencountering the phenomenological approach tomisread the meaning that is what is seen for themeaning of what is seen. But once the primarymeaning is rediscovered, then the secondarynotion of meaning can be recognized asdepending on what is meaning already. Thedifference here is really between the constitutivemind and the reflective mind. But since theformer is transparent in cognitive perception,“mind” is usually identified with the latter alone.However, this is only a secondary function of

the mind, which depends on there being a worldwhich is already constituted and can thereforebe taken for granted.

It is probably still true that most of us think ofscientific knowledge as being somehowfundamentally different from ordinary everydayknowledge. But studies in the philosophy ofscience have converged with cognitivepsychology to show that this is not true. It turnsout that the differences are only superficial.There is no fundamental difference in theprocess of cognition, and scientific cognition canbe understood as an extension of everydaycognition at a more comprehensive level. Bothare concerned with condensations of meaning,and not with sense data directly. The objects ofcognitive perception at the level of everydaycognition become the raw data for the higher-level condensation of meaning which is cognition

at the scientific level. The transparency of mindin the act of cognition now results in theerroneous view that scientific discoveries aremade directly by observations which are entirelysensory. This disappearance of the dimension ofmind results in an understanding of sciencewhich is upside down. It is this distorted imageof scientific knowledge which is presented intextbooks and in the media, and which iscommunicated tacitly by the very way thatscience is taught. For example, it is reported thatGalileo made a telescope, and that when helooked through it he saw mountains and valleyson the moon, as if this knowledge came to himdown the telescope and through his eyes. Theaccount which Galileo himself gave of hisobservations with the telescope makes it quiteclear that to begin with he saw nothing of thekind.22 With regard to the mountains on the

moon, for example, he was at first almostliterally in a position very similar to that oflooking at the black and white blotches beforeseeing a giraffe. The discovery that there are“mountains” on the moon was a perception ofmeaning, and not the purely sensory experienceit is represented as being. This single examplecould be multiplied indefinitely to illustrate thepoint that is being made here. It is particularlynoticeable how the “result” of an experimentmay be described as if it had been discoveredthrough the senses. For instance, Newton'sexperiment with the prism is presented as“showing” that white light consists of a mixtureof colors, as if this had been observed. Theexperiment is first described in terms of thetheory, which is the meaning that Newtonperceived, and then this description is mistakenfor what can be seen with the senses. When

meanings are mistaken for sensory data in thisway, we have what amounts to the conjuringtrick account of science—the rabbit is pulled outof the hat, but only because it was put there inthe first place. The difficulty with this is that the“result” of the experiment is invested with acognitive authority which it does not have.

Discovery in science is always the perceptionof meaning, and it could not be otherwise. Theessence of a discovery is therefore in thenonempirical factor in cognition. The recognitionthat meaning is a primary datum of cognitiveexperience brings a considerable simplificationto the philosophy of science.23 Of course, themeaning in question may be several stagesremoved from the meaning in everydaycognition, and at a much more comprehensivelevel. Such is the case, for example, with themeanings which are the most widely embracing

scientific theories. But enough has now beensaid about the nature of scientific knowledge forus to be able to understand it more adequately.

Unity without UnificationOnce it has been recognized that the unity of thephenomenon is not given in sensory experience,the question arises naturally: Is this unity simplyimposed on the experience of the senses by themind, or is it there in the phenomenon itself, withthe mind functioning as an organ of nonsensoryperception?

There is no doubt that, to a far greater degreethan we usually realize, the mind organizesexperience by imposing an organizationalframework. This may be at a relativelysuperficial level, such as the social-linguisticorganization of our daily lives. Or it may be at a

level that is much less immediately accessible,such as the way in which we impose a temporalframework on our experience, organizing it intoa linear sequence of moments. We impose thisframework intellectually on nature, with theresult that we imagine nature as being organizedin a linear, temporal sequence, whereupon itbecomes possible to describe motion andchange quantitatively. Since the time of Kant'sphilosophy there has been a growing recognitionof this active role of the mind, and of thetendency to mistake our own intellectualconstructs for “the way things are.”

The recognition of the active role of theintellectual mind gave rise to a philosophy ofscience which maintained the view that ascientific theory is only a framework which weconstruct for holding the facts together for ourown convenience—where in this case it is

believed that the facts themselves are perceivedentirely by the senses, independently of thetheory. At the beginning of the century thisphilosophy of science was developedenthusiastically by Mach, Poincaré, and Duhem.Mach, for example, believed that the laws ofnature are really only our intellectual mnemonicsfor reproducing facts in thought, and hence areonly convenient summaries of what has beenexperienced. This philosophy is sometimescalled phenomenalism, and it clearly bears afamily resemblance to empiricism. It wassubsequently developed further in the late 1920sand the 1930s, by combining it with studies inmathematical logic to form the philosophy oflogical empiricism, which is also called logicalpositivism.24 In this form it was imported intoAmerica by Central European intellectuals; thereit exerted a considerable influence on attitudes

towards research, as well as on scienceeducation, during the 1940s and 1950s.25 Buteven before this, several of the major figures inthe development of physics had been stronglyinfluenced by this philosophy. For example,Einstein said: “The object of all sciences is tocoordinate our experiences and to bring theminto a logical system”; and Neils Bohr said: “Thetask of science is both to extend the range ofour experience and to reduce it to order.”Although these may look like the independentjudgments of two individual scientists, they are infact simply reflections of a prevailing philosophyin the culture of the time.

According to the understanding of theintellectual mind, the unity of experience isproduced by unification, i.e., unity is unification.It is the synthetic unity of an organizationalsynthesis. Now this is certainly true for the

intellectual mind. But the unity which Goetheperceived in the color phenomenon is not aunity that is imposed by the mind. What Goethesaw was not an intellectual unification but thewholeness of the phenomenon itself. He came tosee the wholeness of the phenomenon byconsciously experiencing it, and this experiencecannot be reduced to an intellectual constructionin terms of which the phenomenon is organized.It is not reached by a process of intellectualthought, but by a change of consciousness—thiswill be discussed in the next section, “Modes ofConsciousness.” The unity which is perceived inthis way is the phenomenon—but not thephenomenon as it is immediately accessible tothe perception of the senses. The perception ofthis unity is an experience of seeing thephenomenon in depth. But this depth is not anextensive dimension. It can be approximated by

saying that the phenomenon is experienced as“standing in its own depth.” There is in fact noadequate intellectual equivalent to thisexperience of an intensive depth in thephenomenon—as will be discussed further in“The Depth of the Phenomenon.” By contrastwith the intellectual unity which is unification, thisunity of the phenomenon itself can be called“unity without unification.” The experience ofseeing this unity is the theory for Goethe, forwhom the term “theory” was much closer to theoriginal Greek theoria—which simply means“seeing.”

The difference between the two kinds of unitydiscussed here can be expressed in terms of adistinction introduced by Martin Heidegger.26

He considered two different perspectives of thenotion of “belonging together.” These can beseen as being like the two perspectives of the

reversing cube. Just as we see one of thesecubes easily but have to make an effort to seethe other one, so with the two perspectives of“belonging together,” one comes easily to us,but we have to learn how to see the other.

Heidegger's distinction is made according towhether the emphasis is placed on “belonging”or “together.” Thus, in the perspective of“belonging together” he sees the belonging asbeing determined by the together; whereas in theperspective of “belonging together” the reverseis the case, and the together is determined bythe belonging. In the first case, he says that “tobelong” means to be placed in the order of a“together,” i.e., a unity which is the unity of anorganized system. But in the latter case,“belonging together,” there is “the possibility ofno longer representing belonging in terms of theunity of the together, but rather of experiencing

this together in terms of belonging.” Theperspective of “belonging together” clearlycorresponds to the unity which is unification, andthis suggests that the perspective of “belongingtogether” corresponds to unity withoutunification. In terms of this distinction we cansay that Goethe perceived the belongingtogether of the colors, instead of trying to makethem belong together. This is the unity which isperceived in the qualities of the prismatic colorsat a boundary, and in the qualities of the colorsin Goethe's “instance worth a thousand.” Forexample, he saw the yellow sun and the blue skybelonging together. But, although he saw this“unity without unification” in the sensory world,he did not in fact see it by means of the senses—for which there is only the juxtaposition ofthese two color phenomena without anyconnection or relationship. This unity is within

the phenomenon itself, unlike the intellectualunity of unification, but it is not visible to thesenses. When we see the sun and the sky, weusually do so separately. Even if we do noticethem together, we do not experience their colorsbelonging together. We experience the colorsof the sun and sky in the mode of separation andnot in the mode of their unity. It will be shownbelow that the difference between these twoexperiences is a difference in the mode ofconsciousness, from which it will emerge that“unity without unification” is the unity of theintuitive mind instead of the unity of theintellectual mind.

It helps to keep in mind the fact thatconsciousness is always directed toward theobject and not toward itself—as describedabove in “Knowing the World.” Hence this unityis easily experienced as if it were also part of

the phenomenon perceived through the senses,and as if it were observed along with the colorsthemselves. In fact, we can observe the colors,but we see the unity. The unity “lights up” inconsciousness—it is an insight and not an“outsight.” The phenomenon is only partiallyvisible to the senses. The complete phenomenonis visible only when there is a coalescence ofsensory outsight with intuitive insight.

Modes of ConsciousnessWe will now see that the difference betweenthese two perspectives of belonging togetherand belonging together, corresponding to thetwo kinds of unity, can be understood in termsof two different modes of consciousness.

There is now a growing body of evidence tosupport the view that there are two major

modes of human consciousness which arecomplementary.27 In our technical-scientificculture we have specialized in the developmentof only one of these modes, to which oureducational system is geared almost exclusively.This is the analytical mode of consciousness,which develops in conjunction with ourexperience of perceiving and manipulating solidbodies. The internalization of our experience ofthe closed boundaries of such bodies leads to away of thinking which naturally emphasizesdistinction and separation. Since the fundamentalcharacteristic of the world of solid bodies isexternality—i.e., everything is external toeverything else—then this way of thinking isnecessarily analytical. For the same reason it isalso necessarily sequential and linear,proceeding from one element to another in apiecemeal fashion—the principle of mechanical

causality is a typical way of thinking in thisanalytical mode of consciousness. HenriBergson noticed the affinity between logicalrelations with concepts and spatial relations withsolid bodies, and he concluded that “our logichardly does more than express the most generalrelations among solids.”28 The principles of logic—identity (A is A), noncontradiction (not at thesame time A and not-A), and excluded middle(either A or not-A)—are extrapolations fromthese limited circumstances which are assumedto hold universally. For this reason the mode ofconsciousness associated with logical thinking isnecessarily analytical.

The analytical mode of consciousness is alsoassociated with language. A basic structure ofmodern languages is their subject-predicategrammar, which has the effect of dividingexperience into separate elements which are

then treated as if they existed independently ofeach other. For example, “I see the tree” seemsto entail the external union of a disjoint set ofelements comprising subject, object, and the actof seeing which links them together. But theexperience indicated by this sentence can onlyartificially be considered to be put together likethis, because in the case of cognitive perceptionthere is no seeing without somebody there tosee and something to be seen. It has beennoticed often that the effect of such agrammatical structure is to lead to a view of theworld as consisting basically of a collection ofdetached objects, which combine in variousways to produce the different kinds of entitiesthat we encounter.29 In other words, thegrammatical structure of language articulates theworld analytically. It discloses the analyticalworld. But we believe this to be “the way the

world is,” independently of language, becauselanguage itself is transparent in the act ofdisclosing this world.30 It is this analyticalstructure of language which has made itinadequate for describing the domains whichhave been discovered in modern physics.31

Another aspect of the analytical nature oflanguage is seen in its linear, sequentialcharacter. For example, the mechanics ofwriting consists in putting one letter afteranother, and one word after another, in lines.But this linearity of language can beoveremphasized, and there are nonlinear, holisticfeatures of language that can easily be missed.This happens because attention becomes fixedon the level of the word instead of on the levelof meaning. The meaning is not present in thesame linear manner as the words, and the

tension which the writer experiences is betweenthe linearity of the words and the nonlinearmeaning. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that thelinear mechanism of writing, and reading, has theeffect of conditioning us into an analytical modeof consciousness. Often what is called thestream of thought is in fact the stream oflanguage, and the process of thinking is noneother than the flow of linguistic associations. Theanalytical mode of consciousness, therefore,corresponds to the discursive thought of what,for completeness, should be called the verbal—intellectual mind.

The holistic mode of consciousness iscomplementary to this analytical one. Bycontrast, this mode is nonlinear, simultaneous,intuitive instead of verbal-intellectual, andconcerned more with relationships than with thediscrete elements that are related. It is important

to realize that this mode of consciousness is away of seeing, and as such it can only beexperienced in its own terms. In particular, itcannot be understood by the verbal-intellectualmind because this functions in the analyticalmode of consciousness, for which it is notpossible to appreciate adequately what it meansto say that a relationship can be experienced assomething real in itself. In the analytical mode ofconsciousness it is the elements which arerelated that stand out in experience, comparedwith which the relationship is but a shadowyabstraction. The experience of a relationship assuch is only possible through a transformationfrom a piecemeal way of thought to asimultaneous perception of the whole. Such atransformation amounts to a restructuring ofconsciousness itself.32

It will be shown below how Goethe's way of

science leads to just such a restructuring ofconsciousness. But before entering into thedetails of Goethe's scientific consciousness, amore everyday example of what is meant by atransition from an analytical to a holistic mode ofconsciousness may be useful. When this idea isfirst introduced, it is often understood in a ratherstatic way—which is itself a characteristic of theanalytical mode of consciousness. Thus, lackingthe necessary experience, or perhaps just nothaving noticed it, we try to imagine elementswhich are experienced simultaneously as if theywere present together in a static way, as in asnapshot of a changing scene. In fact theexperience of simultaneity and relationship in theholistic mode of consciousness is the opposite ofthis, inasmuch as it is inherently dynamical.Whereas we imagine movement and changeanalytically, as if the process really consisted of

a linear sequence of instantaneously stationarystates (like a sequence of snapshots), whenmovement and change are experiencedholistically, they are experienced dynamically asone whole. The elements which are experiencedsimultaneously in this mode are thus dynamicallyrelated to each other, and this dynamicalsimultaneity replaces the static simultaneity of theanalytical mode.

Imagine cutting an orange, for example. Wesee the knife and orange simply as separateentities which are brought together externally inspace and sequentially in time. But another wayof experiencing this is possible, which is enteredinto by giving attention to the act of cutting theorange, instead of to the separate entities whichare brought together. If this is done, the processof cutting can be experienced simultaneously asone whole, as if it were one present moment

instead of a linear sequence of instants.Similarly, if we watch a bird flying across thesky and put our attention into seeing flying,instead of seeing a bird which flies (implying aseparation between an entity, “bird,” and anaction, “flying,” which it performs), we canexperience this in the mode of dynamicalsimultaneity as one whole event. By plunginginto seeing flying we find that our attentionexpands to experience this movement as onewhole that is its own present moment.

It becomes evident through doing this kind ofexercise that the description of motion andchange as a linear sequence of instantaneousstates is a device of the intellectual mind, i.e., itis a consequence of being in the analytical modeof consciousness. This analytical framework isvery useful for calculating motion and change,i.e., for apprehending them quantitatively, but it

does not take us into the reality of movementand change as a mode of being. This can onlybe experienced holistically, not analytically, andhence only through a change in the mode ofconsciousness.33 It is important to realize thatthis is not a change in the content ofconsciousness, as if there were some elementwhich previously had been overlooked, but achange in the mode of consciousness. Thismeans that the change is in the relationshipbetween the elements, i.e., in their mode oftogetherness.

These examples illustrate very clearly the waythat the holistic mode of consciousness can beentered into by plunging into looking, whichmeans by the redeployment of attention intosense perception and away from the verbal-intellectual mind. In the case of motion, bydirecting our attention into sense perception we

discover an aspect of motion which iscompletely different from the way that motion isunderstood analytically, and which is thereforenot included in the way that we have come tounderstand motion intellectually—which in factdenies the reality of motion. Arthur Deikman hasidentified this investment of attention in thesensory as a major step in the transition toanother mode of consciousness.34 In hisexperimental studies of the psychology ofmeditation, he discovered that “the meditationexercise could be seen as withdrawing attentionfrom thinking and reinvesting it in percepts—areverse of the normal learning sequence. “35 Thenormal learning sequence which is referred tohere is called the process of automatization. Thisis the transference of attention from the sensoryexperience to the mental abstraction. After this

has happened, the sensory occurrence is alwaysexperienced tinged with the mental abstraction,or even “tuned out” altogether—so that what we“experience” is only an abstraction, in whichcase we are completely automatized and in factno longer different from any complex machine.36

It is this process which contemplative meditationreverses by reinvesting attention in the sensoryexperience, and thus withdrawing it from themental abstraction—and from thought ingeneral, this being often no more than a processof associating such abstractions via the mediumof language which encapsulates them. For thisreason, Deikman identifies meditation as anexercise of the attention for producingdeautomatization of the psychologicalstructures organizing experience, especially thelogical organization of consciousness—whichhas been identified here, following Ornstein, as

the analytical mode of consciousness.This is the key to the psychology of Goethe's

way of science. He was doing science and notmeditation. But if we look at the psychologicalprocess, instead of the nominal identification, wecan recognize that Goethe's way of science andmeditation share the common factor ofdeautomatization and the transformation ofconsciousness. In the description of Goethe'swork on color, in “The Primal Phenomenon ofColor,” we distinguished two stages in theencounter with the phenomenon. First there isthe observation stage, which is characterized byactive seeing instead of the passive reception ofvisual impressions. This entails putting attentioninto seeing, plunging into seeing the qualities ofthe colors. Doing this takes us into thephenomenon, but at the same time it takesattention away from the verbal-intellectual mind

and hence promotes deautomatization from theanalytical mode of consciousness. Theintellectual mind is concerned with uniformity.For example, in the case of, say, two leaves, it isconcerned with only what is common to them—that they are both instances of “leaf”—andoverlooks the individual differences betweenthem. In contrast to the intellectual mind, theworld of sensory experience is nonuniform andendlessly varied and rich in diversity. Hence,investing attention in the sensory inevitablypromotes deautomatization from the uniformityof the intellectual mind. The second stage inGoethe's way, the stage he called exactsensorial imagination, takes this process further.It deepens both the encounter with thephenomenon and the process ofdeautomatization. The attempt to think thephenomenon in imagination, and not to think

about it, is sensory and not intellectual, concreteand not abstract. Attention is thereby furtherwithdrawn from verbal associations andintellectual reasoning. This, therefore, is adeautomatization exercise. But at the same timeit is an exercise in trying to see the phenomenonin the simultaneous mode, i.e., all at once.Hence, as well as undoing the usual constructionof consciousness by the redirection of attention—which by itself can be sufficient for the othermode of consciousness to emerge—thisexercise actively promotes the restructuring ofconsciousness into an organ of holisticperception.37

This psychological interpretation of Goethe'sway of access to nature in terms ofdeautomatization is reinforced by consideringthe subjective experience of the procedure.Through trying to direct attention into the act of

looking, we can experience for ourselves thegap which there is between our habitualawareness and the direct experience of what isthere in front of us. It is only when this hiatus inexperience is overcome that we realize how littlewe usually perceive directly of the concretedetail of the particular. We usually classifyverbally and experience just a vague generality.A striking feature of this attempt to give attentionto active looking and exact sensorial imaginationis how much subjective resistance it can set upin a person. This in itself is an indication that theorientation which it calls for is towardsdeautomatization or dishabituation. Thissubjective effect is an instance of thepsychological inertia which has to be matchedby a person's own activity if the state of his orher awareness is to change, just as the inertia ofa material body has to be matched by a force if

its state of motion is to be changed.When consciousness is thus restructured into

an organ of holistic perception, the mindfunctions intuitively instead of intellectually.There is a lot of confusion and misunderstandingabout intuition, as if it were something intangibleand mysterious. But in fact it is a very clear andprecise notion. Ornstein defines intuition as“knowledge without recourse to inference.”38

He links it with a simultaneous perception of thewhole, whereas the logical or rational mode ofknowledge “involves an analysis into discreteelements sequentially (inferentially) linked.”39 Heconnects the intuitive mind with the holistic modeof consciousness—as the intellectual mind islinked with the analytical mode. Thus, intuition isconnected with a change of consciousness, andmoreover in a way which can be made quite

precise and not just left vague. It now followsthat Goethe's procedures are practical exercisesfor educating the mind to function intuitivelyinstead of intellectually, leading to a sciencewhich is intuitive instead of organizedintellectually.40

It can now be seen that “unity withoutunification” is possible in the holistic mode ofconsciousness, whereas unity by means ofunification is the characteristic of the analyticalmode of consciousness. But because the formeris literally a matter of seeing with the mind, i.e.,insight, it can easily be mistaken for the sensory.This is why it was necessary to establish firstthat knowledge is not achieved by the sensesalone. There is always a nonsensory element inknowledge, and this must be so whether thiselement is verbal-intellectual or intuitive. Thedifference is that, whereas the verbal-intellectual

mind withdraws from the sensory aspect of thephenomenon into abstraction and generality, theintuitive mind goes into and through the sensorysurface of the phenomenon to perceive it in itsown depth. It is by first going into the fullrichness and diversity of sensory detail that theintellectual mind is rendered ineffective, so thatwe can escape from its prison into the freedomof intuition.

The Depth of the PhenomenonEtymologically, “intuition” means “seeing into,”which clearly expresses the fact that it is theexperience of seeing the phenomenon in depth.But this depth is peculiar inasmuch as it isentirely within the phenomenon and not behind it—so it should be understood as an intensivedimension, and not in the manner of an extensive

dimension of physical space. It is in fact thedepth of the phenomenon itself. It is as ifsomething which appears to be two-dimensionalsuddenly turns out to be three-dimensional, sothat what had seemed flat is now seen in relief.This is the experience mentioned earlier, ofseeing the phenomenon “standing in its owndepth.” It was said then that there is nointellectual equivalent to this experience, and thereason for this is now clearly because it is anintuitive experience which depends on a changeof consciousness.

When the phenomenon is seen intuitively, ithas a further dimension to it, but this does notchange the particular elements in thephenomenon. It changes the way that theelements are related, and hence theirsignificance, but they remain the same elementsso far as the senses as concerned. For example,

the blue of the sky and yellow of the sun are, ina clearly recognizable way, the same elementswhen they are seen belonging together in theholistic mode, as they are when seen analyticallyas just two separate and contingent facts. In theformer case there is a depth in the phenomenonwhich is entirely absent in the latter. Thisintensive depth which is seen intuitively in theholistic mode of consciousness is the wholenessof the phenomenon. The authentic unity of thephenomenon (i.e., unity without unification) isliterally a further dimension of the phenomenonitself, which is seen as such only when the mindfunctions in the intuitive mode of “seeing into.”

The intellectual mind misses this dimension,because it is not visible in the analytical mode ofconsciousness, and therefore must compensatefor what is missing by adding on its own thoughtconstruction to the phenomenon as it is

presented to sensory experience. This hasusually been done in physics by constructing anexplanatory model. It has already beenmentioned how Newton tried to construct sucha model for light. This method of explanation bymechanical models was the classical way inphysics from Descartes onwards, until its validitywas called into question in this century by thedevelopment of the quantum theory.41 It wasdepicted in a memorable way by Einstein andInfeld. They ask us to imagine a watch that isbeing examined by someone who has neverencountered a watch before, and who thereforedoes not know what it is. They also ask us toimagine that this watch is impregnable, so thatno matter what the person does he or shecannot open it and look inside. This picture isoffered as a parallel to the situation of thescientific investigator with regard to the

phenomena of nature. We can investigate thewatch through our senses and our mind, until wediscover the “law of the watch,” i.e., the patternof the movement of the hands. But aninvestigator of the watch cannot open it up todiscover the mechanism that produces thispattern. “If he is ingenious he may form somepicture of the mechanism which could beresponsible for all the things he observes, but hemay never be quite sure his picture is the onlyone which could explain his observations.”42

Like actual scientific investigators, we candiscover the regularities in the phenomena ofnature, i.e., the so-called laws of nature, but wecannot open nature up to look inside. Wecannot go behind the scenes to discoversomething hidden which produces the observedregularities. So at this point we must try toconstruct a picture of a hidden mechanism that

would give rise to the phenomenon observedwith the senses.

This metaphor for the intellectual step fromobservation to theory is clearly very limited, andin terms of the contemporary philosophy ofscience it is also very naïve. But, in spite of this,it must be taken seriously because of what iscommunicated by its form. This communicatesthe view that there is another world hiddenbehind the world we experience with the senses,and that it is this other world which is thephysical cause of the world that we experiencedirectly. Now this is a very widespreadassumption and, without going into detail, thereare some aspects of it which need to be broughtout explicitly. Firstly, this other world isconceived in a spatial manner, as if it were likethe world of our bodily experience, only hidden.So here too the phenomenon is conceived as

having a depth to it, but this is an extendeddepth behind the phenomenon. Secondly, thisother world hidden behind the scenes is picturedas being like the sensory world that it explains,insofar as the kinds of things which it containsare imagined as sensory-like elements, such aslight waves for example. Thirdly, there is nodirect access to this backstage world, and it canbe approached only by means of the intellectualmind in terms of mental constructions andrepresentations. But, because this world alsocontains sensory-like elements, albeit invisibleones, there is no reason in principle why itshould not be directly visible if we haddeveloped the necessary sense organs. All ofthis can be summarized simply by saying that thisis how the depth of the phenomenon isconceived by the intellectual mind in theanalytical mode of consciousness, and hence

according to the logic of solid bodies. In otherwords, it is a superficial projection of what thedepth of the world is like, because it is literally afanciful projection of the surface into the depth.

This helps, by contrast, to bring out moreclearly the nature of Goethe's discovery. Hewould strenuously deny that there is anotherworld hidden behind the sensory world in thisway. Any such dualism was repugnant to him.What he saw was a depth in the phenomenonwhich is another dimension of the samephenomenon that is experienced with thesenses. There is nothing backstage. There isonly the phenomenon itself, but this has anotherdimension to it, a further aspect which is not asensory element at all. This is the dimension ofwholeness, which is the unity of thephenomenon. For Goethe, the theory is seeingthis intensive dimension of the phenomenon. This

is much closer to the original Greek theoria,which simply means “seeing.” This dimension ofthe phenomenon is not seen by the senses, andnot by the sightless fancies of the verbal—intellectual mind. It is seen intuitively by a changeof consciousness. But it has to be rememberedall the time that, when this dimension of thephenomenon is seen, the elements are the sameas in the sensory phenomenon—the difference isin the way that they are related. It is thetransformation in their mode of togetherness,which is experienced intuitively through a changeof consciousness, that gives the phenomenon itsintensive depth.

Now it is possible to understand better themeaning of some of Goethe's occasionalremarks about the relationship between fact andtheory:

Let the facts themselves speak for theirtheory.

Don't look for anything behind thephenomena; they themselves are thetheory.

The greatest achievement would be tounderstand that everything factual isalready its own theory.

It is easy to misinterpret these remarks byfailing to realize that they refer to thephenomenon as it is experienced by the intuitivemind, and by trying to understand them with theintellectual mind alone. For example, it would bepossible to produce a rational reading of whatGoethe is saying here by making an associationwith the discovery by the contemporary

philosophy of science, which is corroborated bythe psychology of perception, that scientificobservation is always theory-laden.43 It wouldalso be possible to produce another, equallyrational, reading by making an association withthe kind of phenomenalism developed by ErnstMach which was mentioned in “Unity withoutUnification.” In this case these remarks wouldbe interpreted as saying that the theory reducesto the facts, as if it were nothing more thanmerely the facts themselves. But what Goethe issaying goes in the opposite direction to this. Hesays this is something to be achieved. The factsare to be raised to the level of being theory, andnot the other way round. But when this isachieved they are still the same facts. They havebeen transformed, but they have not beenchanged into something different. This canreadily be seen by considering the two separate

facts that the sun is yellow and the sky is blue,and the way that these are transformed whenthey are seen belonging together in the mode ofunity without unification.

Goethe's remarks about the relationshipbetween fact and theory become transparentwhen the phenomenon is experienced intuitivelyin its own depth. They simply describe what thisexperience is like. The theory is the facts whenthese are seen in another dimension. Thisperception is attained by a change ofconsciousness and not by a process of rationalthought. Seen in one mode, the analytical, thefacts are merely the facts; seen in the othermode, the holistic, they are the theory.

This transformation from an analytical to aholistic mode of consciousness brings with it areversal between the container and the content.What is encountered in the theory is, for

Goethe, the real content of the phenomenon, forwhich the sensory facts are now merely thecontainer. This is in contrast to the analyticalmode for which the sensory facts are the contentof the phenomenon. In the case ofphenomenalism and positivism, it has beenmentioned already that the theory is consideredto be only a container for the facts. Now if thetheory, in Goethe's sense, is the real content ofthe phenomenon, then it can be said that in themoment of intuitive insight we are seeing insidethe phenomenon. But this “inside” is verydifferent from that which is imagined by theintellectual mind, and which is depicted byEinstein's watch analogy. The “inside” of thephenomenon which is imagined by rationalthought is a fiction based on our own bodilyexperience in the external world of bodies. Inthis case “inside” is really thought of in an

outside kind of way. Hegel saw that the worldof bodies is essentially the external world.44 Hedid not mean by this that it is external toconsciousness in a Cartesian sense, becauseconsciousness is not in space and therefore nothing can be outside of it. Hegel meant that theexternal world is a world which is characterizedand permeated by externality, so that it is theworld in which everything is outside everythingelse. So in the mode of thought which is basedon our experience of this world it is inevitablethat “inside” is conceived externally. Hence the“inside” of the world which the intellectual mindimagines is really an outside in disguise.Contrary to this, Goethe's intuitive way ofscience goes inside the phenomenon to find thatit is the same phenomenon in another dimension.This is the intensive depth of the phenomenon,and hence the intensive inside instead of the

extensive “inside” which is characteristic of theexternal world. It could therefore be said that inknowing the phenomenon, Goethe dwells withinit consciously instead of replacing it with mentalconstructs—although equally it could be saidthat the phenomenon itself dwells in Goethe'sscientific consciousness.45

The effect of this shift from the intellectual tothe intuitive mind is that the phenomenonbecomes its own explanation. It discloses itselfin terms of itself and thereby becomes self-explanatory. In the terminology of modernphilosophy, Goethe's intuitive way of science isa phenomenology of nature, where this termmust now be understood in the sense in which itis used by Heidegger.46 He returns to the Greekword phainomenon, which he says gives thefundamental meaning of phenomenon as “that

which shows itself in itself.” He emphasizes thatthis is not to be confused with the mereappearance of something. The phenomenon isnot what is immediately visible. Combining thiswith his interpretation of the meaning of theGreek word logos, Heidegger tells us thatphenomenology, as a method of investigation,means “to let that which shows itself be seenfrom itself in the very way in which it shows itselffrom itself.” Clearly such an approach is the veryopposite of an intellectual analysis whichimposes its own categories on the phenomenonto organize it subjectively. This description ofphenomenology seems cumbersome, and it is asource of irritation to those philosophers whoinsist that if something cannot be said simply inEnglish then it must be muddled. Yet it describesthe experience of Goethe's way of scienceprecisely, and thus enables us to identify this

philosophically as a phenomenology of nature.But it is possible to be more specific about

this phenomenology. The effect of this event ofphenomenological disclosure is that thephenomenon becomes its own language. This isthe concrete language which things are. It isimportant to realize that “language” is being usedliterally here and not metaphorically. Thisconfusion can arise because language is usuallyidentified with the verbal language of theintellectual mind, which is a consequence ofbeing restricted to the analytical mode ofconsciousness. In fact this is really only a specialcase of language. As well as the meaning thatbelongs to the intellectual mind, which is verbal,there is the meaning that belongs to the intuitivemind, which is nonverbal and can only beperceived in a holistic mode of consciousness.Nevertheless, both of these are linguistic. While

there can be meaning which is nonverbal, therecannot be meaning which is nonlinguistic, formuch the same kind of reason that there cannotbe a triangle which is not three-sided.Nonverbal meaning can only be perceivedintuitively and not intellectually. We can onlyapproximate this verbally, in an imperfect way,by saying that nonverbal language is theconcrete language which things are when theyare experienced as being their own language. Soit could therefore be said that Goethe learned toread the language of color. It will be shown inthe next section how he learned to read the plantin terms of itself, so that the plant becomes itsown language, and similarly how it is possible tolearn to read the language of animal form so thatthe animal becomes its own explanation. In viewof this, Goethe's intuitive way of science can berecognized as a concrete illustration of

Gadamer's principle of universal hermeneuticsthat “being that can be understood islanguage.”47 The philosophy of Goethe's sciencecan therefore be identified more precisely as thehermeneutic phenomenology of nature.

The difference between Goethe'sphenomenological way and the mainstream ofmathematical physics from Newton onwardswas summarized memorably and concisely byCassirer: “The mathematical formula strives tomake the phenomena calculable, that of Goetheto make them visible.”48 Taken at its face value,this would certainly seem an odd thing to say,because we would usually take it that thephenomena are visible already, and so there isno need to strive to make them visible. But nowwe can appreciate what is being said here.Goethe's way makes the phenomenon visible

intuitively, and not just to the senses. Whereasthe phenomenon is only partly visible to thesenses, it is brought fully into the light by theintuition which perceives the intensive depth andnot just the sensory surface. The key to this isthe transformation of consciousness into theholistic mode. Then the phenomenon is seenwholly, and hence completely, instead of onlypartly. Of course, this does not mean that thecomplete phenomenon is the sum of two parts.It is an original unity which is experienced by uspartly through the senses and partly through theintuitive consciousness. It was a remarkableinsight of Rudolf Steiner to recognize that this isa consequence of the way that the human beingis organized, and not the result of a division inthe phenomenon itself.49 In other words, there isno dualism in nature. It only appears so to usbecause of the way in which we ourselves, as

human beings, are involved in the process ofknowing. What this means is that thephenomenon as it appears to the senses is onlyan abstraction. This is a reversal of our usualway of thinking, for which what is given to thesenses is concrete and what is present to themind is an abstraction—which of course it is tothe intellectual mind.

The difference between the intuitive andintellectual approaches to the science of natureis illustrated metaphorically by Edwin Abbott'sstory Flatland.50 This concerns a society ofcreatures who inhabit a two-dimensionalsurface, and what happens when a sphereappears to one of them. Of course, he is unableto perceive a sphere. All that his sensoryexperience tells him, as the sphere passesthrough the plane of his existence, is that a pointappears, grows into a circle of expanding

diameter until this becomes a maximum size, andthen shrinks back to a point again and vanishes.Evidently, what his senses tell him is anabstraction. The sphere tells him that he must goupward. Not having any experience of“upward,” he tries to interpret it at first in termsof his familiar experience with a compass as“northward.” After struggling for some time withthe paradox, to him, of how to go “upward, yetnot northward,” the sphere casts him out ofFlatland into the three-dimensional world. Nowhe sees directly what he had previously onlybeen able to infer by association based on hisfamiliar experience in the two-dimensionalsurface. This is a transformation of hisconsciousness. With the difference that thefurther dimension in this case is extensive andnot intensive, this can be taken as a metaphorfor the restructuring of consciousness into the

holistic, intuitive mode that is necessary for theGoethean phenomenologist of nature to be ableto make the phenomenon visible.

3

Goethe's Organic Vision

Now that the structure of Goethe's scientificconsciousness has been described, it is notdifficult to begin to understand his way of seeingorganic nature. Patterns of relationships whichseem strange, even unconvincing, to theanalytical mind begin to fall into place whenunderstood in terms of a holistic mode ofconsciousness. When this is followed through, itbrings us to the point of being able to see theessence of Goethe's organic vision for ourselves.

THE UNITY OF THE PLANTGoethe's best-known contribution to biology isundoubtedly his work on the flowering plant, asdescribed in his essay The Metamorphosis ofPlants and in some other fragmentarycomments dispersed throughout his writings.The flowering plant is usually described inelementary botany books as if it were anexternal assemblage of different parts—leaves,sepals, petals, stamens, etc.—which areseparate and independent of each other. Thereis no hint of any necessary relationship betweenthem. This is the analytical plant—the plant as itappears to the intellectual mind in the analyticalmode of consciousness. It is the plant inFlatland. Linnaeus produced his system fororganizing plants into species, genera, etc., onthe basis of comparing these parts of the plant

as they occur in different specimens. In contrastto this, Goethe saw the plant holistically. Hediscovered another dimension in the plant, anintensive depth, in which these different organsare intimately related. In fact, he discovered thatthey are really all one and the same organ.When we can see the way in which he saw this,then we can understand what he meant by theidea of metamorphosis.

What Goethe discovered in the floweringplant could be described simply as continuity ofform. He began The Metamorphosis of Plantswith the statement that “anyone who observeseven a little the growth of plants will easilydiscover that certain of their external partssometimes undergo a change and assume, eitherentirely, or in greater or lesser degree, the formof the parts adjacent to them.”51 He goes on todescribe the anomalous case of a plant which

makes a retrograde step and reverses thenormal order of growth. Thus, in the case of adouble flower, petals develop in the place ofstamens, and in some cases it is possible torecognize in the extra petals traces of their originas stamens in the normal simple flower. It is insuch cases, Goethe believed, that the laws ofgrowth and transformation which are hidden inthe normal course of nature are made morereadily visible to intuition. What we learn in thisway, and can then recognize in normal growth,is that nature “produces one part out of anotherand creates the most varied forms by themodification of one single organ.”52

The question is: What is this single organwhose modifications appear as the differentvisible organs? Paradoxically, it is everywherevisible and nowhere visible. Goethe called it theUrorgan, which has been variously translated

as the archetypal organ, the primal organ, or theorgan type. What it must not be confused with isthe notion of a primitive organ, as if theUrorgan was an especially simple organ out ofwhich other organs develop materially in time.To think of the archetypal organ in this way is tolook at it through Darwinian spectacles, and sofail to recognize that Goethe was seeing theplant in another way.

Cassirer recognized that a unique feature ofGoethe's way of science is to be found in therelationship between the particular and theuniversal which it expresses. He said: “Thereprevails in his writings a relationship of theparticular to the universal such as can hardly befound elsewhere in the history of philosophy orof natural science.”53 We are accustomed tothinking of the universal as if it were ageneralization made inductively from several

particular instances. In this case we imaginegoing from the particular instances to theuniversal, which, because it is now identifiedwith the general, appears to be an abstraction. Itis in fact an abstraction of the intellectual mind.But Goethe worked to awaken the intuitivemind, for which the universal is not the same asthe general, and which is therefore not reachedby abstracting the common denominator fromseveral particular instances. For the intuitivemind there is a reversal of perception here.Instead of a movement of mental abstractionfrom the particular to the general, there is aperception of the universal shining in theparticular. In this moment of reversal theparticular is seen in the light of the universal, andhence it appears as a concrete manifestation ofthe universal. In other words, the particularbecomes symbolic of the universal. So what is

merely particular to the senses, and the mode ofthought which corresponds to them, issimultaneously universal to an intuitive way ofseeing which is associated with a different modeof consciousness.

Goethe's description of the primalphenomenon as “an instance worth a thousand,bearing all within itself” has to be understood interms of this relationship between the universaland the particular. This is also the way that thearchetypal plant organ has to be understood—which is why it can be said to be everywherevisible and nowhere visible. Goethe experiencedthis organ directly with the intuitive perception ofthe holistic mode of consciousness, and so itmust not be confused with a mental abstraction—which is all that it would be for the intellectualmind. Also, as mentioned previously, thearchetypal organ must not be confused with a

primitive organ from which other organs havedeveloped materially in time. The Urorgan isneither internally subjective (a mentalabstraction) nor externally objective (a primitiveorgan). Both of these errors have been madefrom time to time, and it may even be thatGoethe had to work his way through one ofthem himself (the primitive organ error) beforehe recognized that what he was looking forwould never be found where he was looking forit—or rather, in the way that he was looking.

In his botanical notes made on his Italianjourney, Goethe wrote: “Hypothesis: All is leaf.This simplicity makes possible the greatestdiversity.”54 The leaf he refers to here is to beunderstood in the universal sense as anomnipotential form and not as a particularphysical leaf. The different organs of the plantare then perceived as the metamorphic

variations of this form, each of which could bederived from any of the others. There iscontinuity of form, but not of material substance.Thus a petal can be understood as ametamorphosis of a stem leaf, a stamen can beunderstood as a metamorphosis of a petal, andso on until all the organs are understood asmetamorphic variations of one single organ,which nowhere appears as a physical organ butis visible everywhere to the intuition which seesthe universal in the particular. Thus the “leaf” in“All is leaf” should be understood as a concreteuniversal, compared with which any particularplant organ is only an abstraction. Goethe triedto avoid the confusion which follows inevitablyfrom seeing this statement in the wrong way,literally instead of intuitively, by suggesting thatthe organs of the plant should be visualized inmetamorphic sequence backwards as well as

forwards. Thus, for example, a petal should beseen as a metamorphosis of a stamen equallywell as a stamen can be seen as ametamorphosis of a petal. In this way he tried tocompensate for the fact that there is no generalterm with which to designate the diverselymetamorphosed organ which is the floweringplant.

It is an extraordinary experience to look at aflowering plant and see it in Goethe's way.Organs which can be quite different in outerappearance are recognized as beingmanifestations of the same form, so that theplant now appears as the repeated expression ofthe same organ. Seeing the plant intuitively in thisway is to experience it “coming into being,”instead of analyzing the plant as it appears in itsfinished state. In terms of the category ofwholeness, the statement that “all is leaf”

becomes an expression of the principle ofwholeness that the whole is reflected ordisclosed in the part.55 We could therefore alsosay that in the moment of intuitive perception theleaf becomes “an instance worth a thousand,bearing all within itself.” Many of the themeswhich have been discussed already inconnection with color can also now berecognized in Goethe's way of seeing the plant.Thus, he made the plant visible in terms of itself,so that “it shows itself in itself.” So the plant isseen in another dimension, standing in its owndepth. This intensive depth is the wholeness ofthe plant, which is the unity without unification inwhich the various organs of the flowering plantbelong together. Thus the factual plant isdisclosed as being its own theory, so that theplant becomes its own language.

Whereas Linnaeus was concerned with

making the plant manageable, for the purpose oforganizing gardens, Goethe was concerned withmaking the plant visible. Linnaeus thereforeimposed an organization on the plant so thateach specimen had a place in a system, whereasGoethe let the plant speak for itself. This is thedifference between the intellectual mind and theintuitive mind, which in this case can be linkedvery clearly with the difference between theanalytical and holistic modes of consciousness.In the one way the plant which is observed withthe senses is covered over, whereas in the otherway it is made more deeply visible. It is only inthis latter way that the metamorphosis becomesvisible. This is perceived holistically as arelationship within the plant, with the quality ofnecessity. There are some plants where themetamorphosis of the organs is more open,whereas in others it is more hidden. It was

through the pathological cases, such as theretrogressive metamorphosis mentioned earlier,that Goethe finally came to see the growth of theflowering plant in terms of the metamorphosis ofa single organ. But there are also cases ofregular metamorphosis where it is especiallyvisible. A particularly good example is the whitewater lily, where the transformation of petalsinto stamens occurs in stages, so that severaldifferent stages can be seen simultaneously.56

Yet in no case does a petal materially turn into astamen. The metamorphosis, in Goethe's usage,is not a causal relationship in the mechanicalsense. Because our idea of continuity is oftensuperficial—being no more than an extrapolationfrom our sensory experience of material change—metamorphosis can appear at first more like adiscontinuity. It is in fact a deeper continuity, thecontinuity of form, which can only become

visible to intuition.57

The One and the ManyGoethe's intuition of the fundamental unity of theplant, as expressed in the metamorphicvariations of the archetypal organ, was graduallyextended to the plant kingdom as a whole. Hecame to believe that there must be anUrpflanze, a primal or archetypal plant, whosemetamorphic variations are what we see as all

the many different plants. He wrote, after visitingthe Botanical Gardens at Padua, that “thethought becomes more and more living that itmay be possible out of one form to develop allplant forms.” It seems that at first Goethebelieved this would be some kind of primitiveplant which he could hope to encounter if hesearched diligently enough. He imagined it as anespecially simple plant out of which other plantswould develop materially in time. Eventually, aswith the archetypal organ, he understood thatthe Urpflanze would never be found in the waythat he was looking for it. He came closer to itthrough the organ of imagination.58 Hedescribed this experience in his notebooks:

When I closed my eyes and bent myhead representing to myself a flower rightat the center of the organ of sight, new

flowers sprung out of this heart, withcolored petals and green leaves. . . .There was no way of stopping theeffusion, that went on as long as mycontemplation lasted, neither slowing noraccelerating.

He wrote to Herder that with the archetypalplant it would be possible “to invent plants adinfinitum; they would be consistent; that is tosay, though nonexisting, they would be capableof existing, being no shades or semblances ofthe painter or poet, but possessing truth andnecessity.”

It is clear from these descriptions that whenGoethe began to encounter the plant in itsarchetypal mode, this experience is not to beconfused with a mental abstraction, as if it werea sort of lowest common denominator of all

plants. But this error is just as common as theerror of supposing the archetypal plant to be aprimitive organism. Thus, it is supposed thatGoethe started with finished plants as they werepresented to him in the environment, and bycomparing them externally with one another heabstracted what was common to them toproduce a generalization. In this way, it issupposed, he found unity in multiplicity. Tobegin with he would probably have had to dothis with several sets of different plants,producing a generalization for each. Then hewould have produced a generalization of thesegeneralizations until he reached the ultimategeneralization, the ultimate unity in multiplicity,which would be the archetypal plant. Thenperhaps Goethe made the mistake ofhypostatizing this ultimate mental abstraction—inmuch the same sort of way that it is often

believed Plato did—and imagined it standingbehind the world of the physical plants in aseparate world of pure Form.

The process of comparing externalappearances to find what is common to them isthe way that the analytical mode ofconsciousness tries to find unity. But the unity ofthis “unity in multiplicity” has the quality ofuniformity, and hence it is static and inflexible. Inthis mode of consciousness we refer toreducing multiplicity to unity. This is themechanical unity of a pile of bricks, and not theorganic unity of life. But Goethe did not begin bymaking an external comparison of differentplants. His own account shows that he workedwith his mind in a different way from this. As hewas able to see into the individual plant toperceive it holistically, so now he saw into all theplants holistically. He saw into the coming-into-

being of the plants so deeply that he saw allplants as one plant. What he saw could bedescribed as “the possibility of plant.” Aphilosopher of being like Martin Heideggerwould perhaps have said that Goethe reachedthe “to be” of plant. The archetypal plant as anomnipotential form is clearly a differentdimension of the plant than what appears in thespace-time dimension as many plants. To theanalytical mind which is formed aroundexperience with material bodies this must seemunreal, and hence must appear to be only anabstract thought. But phenomenologists ofnature do not argue with the phenomenon theyencounter! Instead, they look into their ownmind to winkle out the prejudgments andpresuppositions which are making them think thephenomenon is unreal. It is not the properbusiness of intellectual thought to prescribe what

is real and what is not, because what seemsunreal in one mode of consciousness may notseem so in another.

The omnipotential form which is thearchetype is one plant which is all possibleplants. As such it is not a blueprint for plants, ageneral plant, or the common factor in all plants.This, as we have seen, would have the quality ofuniformity. But the archetypal plant has thequality of diversity within unity, and fromGoethe's own account it is inherently dynamicaland indefinitely flexible. The intellectual minddoes not understand omnipotentialitydynamically in terms of the coming-into-being ofthe plants, but statically in terms of the plantsthat have already become. It conceives it as if itwere a state which already contained thefinished plants beforehand. This is an analyticalcounterfeit of something which can only be

understood holistically. It is yet another instanceof trying to “reach the milk by way of thecheese.” Another analytical counterfeit of theomnipotential form, which is also an example ofthis habit of mind, is the attempt to conceive it assome kind of synthetic assemblage. A notoriousinstance of this is found in Turpin's attempt todepict Goethe's archetypal plant pictorially. Hedrew a picture of a composite plant in which heplaced, on one main axis, as many differentkinds of leaves as were known, and thenshowed examples of different kinds of flowersas parts of a single flower. Agnes Arberdescribed this as “a botanist's nightmare, inwhich features which could not possibly coexist,are forced into the crudest juxtaposition.”59

The unity of the archetypal plant is inside-outto the unity of “unity in multiplicity.” The unity ofthis “one plant which is many” is better

described as “multiplicity in unity.” This has tobe understood intensively, not extensively, so asto avoid implying the contradiction that unity isdivided.60 What this means is that, whereasextensively there are many plants, intensivelythere is only one plant because each plant is thevery same one—yet without being identical inthe extensive sense, i.e., like a number ofcopies. It is an exercise in active imagination togo from “multiplicity in unity” to “unity inmultiplicity” and back again. This gives a senseof turning inside-out from the intensivedimension of the prenumerical “one which ismany” to the extensive dimension of numericalmultiplicity where there are many single ones.For the sake of clarity, the intensive dimensionof “one which is many” (multiplicity in unity) willbe written with a capital letter as the intensivedimension of One, to distinguish it from the

extensive dimension of many ones (unity inmultiplicity). Thus, “One” is a prenumericalintensive dimension, whereas “one” is anumerically single individual.61

A model for “multiplicity in unity” is providedby the hologram. There are several unusualfeatures of the hologram, but the one which isrelevant here concerns what happens if the filmis divided into, say, two parts. With aconventional photograph the picture would bedivided, with a different part of thephotographed object appearing on each bit ofthe film. But when a hologram film is divided, thewhole object is optically reconstructed througheach part. The division of the hologrammaterially is an extensive operation—each partgetting smaller and smaller. But the division ofthe hologram optically is intensive—it is divisibleand yet remains whole, producing “multiplicity in

unity.” Whereas there are many hologramsmaterially (many ones), there is One hologramoptically (the One which is many) because eachis the very same One. Instead of just followingthis with the verbal-intellectual mind, for whichunderstanding can often be no more thanrecognizing the meaning of the words, it is betterto approach this as an exercise in visualizationso that it becomes more of an adventure inperception.

It is through the use of the power ofvisualization, as in the process of exact sensorialimagination, that the transition can be made fromthe analytical to the holistic mode ofconsciousness. We have seen already how thisexercise leads to deautomatization from theverbal-intellectual mind which is associated withthe analytical mode of consciousness. The unityof the plant kingdom can only appear to this

mode of consciousness as “unity in multiplicity.”This is the extensive perspective of unity. Theintensive perspective of unity, “multiplicity inunity,” can only be seen in the holistic mode ofconsciousness. The common failure toappreciate what Goethe meant by the archetypalplant can be traced to this difference. A lot ofconfusion has arisen generally in the history ofphilosophy through attempting to understandunity in the wrong mode of consciousness.Plato's theory of Forms, for example, is almostinvariably approached analytically in terms of“unity in multiplicity.” It is this which leads to thenotorious difficulties with his theory of “one overmany.”62 The same can be said about themedieval dispute about the nature of universalsand the argument between nominalism andrealism. Plato's theory of Forms, and theproblem of universals, become quite different

when approached holistically in terms of“multiplicity in unity” and the intensive dimensionof One. Philosophers like to proceed by theway of logical argument, but it could be that it isthe mode of consciousness associated with thisway which is responsible for some of theconundrums which they are thereby trying toresolve.

It is now possible to clarify the differencebetween the general and the universal which wasreferred to earlier. It is clear that the general hasthe structure of “unity in multiplicity,” since it iswhat is common to many particular instances.The universal has the structure of “multiplicity inunity,” and is not reached by standing back frommany instances to get an overview but by achange of consciousness. In this case the One isseen reflected in the many, so that the many areseen in the light of One instead of trying to

evaporate one off from the many as a mentalabstraction—which is sometimes referred to asreducing the many to the one. The universal istherefore the unity of the intuitive mind. Thegeneral is the unity of the intellectual mind, andso it is the intellectual mind's counterfeit for theuniversal. The difference can be summarized in adiagram:

Throughout his life Goethe gradually had toemancipate himself from the idol ofempiricism.63 To begin with, he thought of hiswork on color empirically in the manner laiddown by Francis Bacon. But he came to thinksubsequently that Bacon's method of inductivegeneralization from many individual cases waslifeless.64 He pointed out the limitation inBacon's approach: that complicated cases werenecessarily given the same weight at first assimple cases—though, of course, there wouldbe no way beforehand of knowing which waswhich. He believed that it would be impossiblein practice to proceed in the way that Baconadvocated, and instead he gradually developedhis own way of looking for “an instance worth athousand, bearing all within itself.” The methodwhich Bacon advocated clearly has the form of

looking for “unity in multiplicity.” Goethe's wayis effectively inside-out to this because it seesmultiplicity in the light of unity instead of trying toproduce unity from multiplicity. The importantthing to remember here is that whereasextensively we see many in the form of one (i.e.,uniformity), intensively we see One in the formof many. Hence in the intensive perspective eachof the many is the very same One, and yet in away which includes difference instead oferadicating it. This is the difference between agenuinely holistic perspective and the analyticalcounterfeit. With the distinction between “unityin multiplicity” and “multiplicity in unity” it is nowpossible for us to look at a statement such as“All is leaf” and understand it as the expressionof a perception of the universal shining in theparticular, and not as an inductive generalizationreached empirically by external comparisons

and abstraction. In coming to recognize thelimitation of Bacon's method, Goethe wasfeeling his way towards understanding that hewas not working with the intellectual mind. Heeventually realized that he was working with theintuitive mind, but only after he had first freedhimself from the illusion of naive empiricism.65

We can now understand this precisely in termsof the psychology of consciousness, and we canappreciate why it took Goethe himself sometime to begin to clarify the cognitive nature of hisown way of science.

At the beginning of this section it was pointedout that Goethe's organic vision has often beenmisunderstood through failure to realize that hewas seeing organic nature in another dimension.We can now recognize that this dimension is theintensive dimension of One. The dimension ofOne is the intensive depth of the phenomenon

when it is organic, and Goethes notions of thearchetypal organ, the archetypal plant, andmetamorphosis all need to be understood in theperspective of this dimension. He saw the plantholistically as One organ, and he saw the entireplant kingdom holistically as One plant. In thelanguage of the hologram metaphor, the manyplants are the fragments of a hologram for thearchetypal plant, as the plant organs are thefragments of a hologram for the archetypalorgan. Metamorphosis is essentially a“multiplication” in the intensive dimension ofOne, and as such it applies to the plants of thekingdom in the same way as to the organs of theplant. It is therefore an inherently holistic notionwhich cannot be understood adequately in theanalytical mode of consciousness. When theplant kingdom is seen analytically in theextensive perspective of the intellectual mind it

appears numerically as the “unity in multiplicity”of many plants. But if it is seen holistically in theintensive perspective of the intuitive mind itappears nonnumerically as the “multiplicity inunity” of the One plant. The many plants whichare one (unity in multiplicity) and the One plantwhich is many (multiplicity in unity) are reallydifferent dimensions of the same individual.Which way it is seen depends on the mode ofconsciousness.

THE UNITY OF ANIMALORGANIZATION

Goethe coined the term morphology for thestudy of form in the plant and animal kingdoms.Morphe means “shape” in Greek, but the formwhich concerned Goethe was not limited to theexternal spatial outline of the organism.However, with the tendency to approach theorganism through the intellectual mind, the formof the organism as a whole has appeared to beno more than an external aspect of the organism.For this reason, the notion of form has come tobe thought of as something which does not referto an objective feature of the organism in theway that, say, a leg or an eye is an objectivefeature. Compared with such organs, the formof the organism as a whole seems to benebulous and unreal. It seems as if it belongs

more to the mind of the beholder than to theorganism itself. In other words, it seems thatbelieving the “form of the organism as a whole”to be a real feature of the organism is aconfusion based on mistaking a subjectiveexperience of the observer for an objectiveaspect of the phenomenon itself. Of course, theform of the organism as a whole cannot be partof the organism in the same way as an individualorgan. Nevertheless, Goethe was sure that theform of the organism was something real and notjust a figment in the mind of the beholder. Hedescribed the task of morphology as being torecognize living forms as such, and “to masterthem, to a certain extent, in their wholenessthrough a concrete vision.”66 The German termwhich is translated here as “concrete vision” isAnschauung. Agnes Arber, who spent her longlife studying plants, said that in this context it

“may be held to signify the intuitive knowledgegained through contemplation of the visibleaspect.”67 This indicates very clearly thatGoethe's approach to animal form follows thesame pathway that we have discovered in hiswork on color. The method, as describedabove, is active looking followed by exactsensorial imagination, plunging into the visibleaspect to produce dishabituation from theverbal-intellectual mind and the analytical modeof consciousness. This exercise of redirectingattention into seeing, inwardly as well asoutwardly, removes an obstacle to the holisticmode of consciousness. At the same time, theexercise of trying to see the visible aspect as awhole promotes the restructuring ofconsciousness into the holistic mode. Thisprocedure therefore has the result of taking theNaturschauer into the phenomenon intuitively

and not just sensorially, while escaping from theprison of abstractions that is the intellectualmind.68

It seems clear from this that the concretequality that Goethe meant by the form of theorganism as a whole can only be perceivedadequately in the holistic mode ofconsciousness. This quality of the wholeness ofthe organism is another dimension of theorganism itself. Goethe's morphology is thusanother example of a way of science that aimsto make the phenomenon visible.

The reason for doubting the objective realityof form now becomes apparent. The intellectualmind functions in the analytical mode ofconsciousness, and it is in the nature of thismode for the organism to be seen as aconglomerate of individual parts. Hence for thismode of consciousness, the form of the

organism as a whole can only be interpreted as,at best, a mental abstraction or construction.The concrete experience of living form as such,the experience of the wholeness of the organismas a real quality, is only possible in the holisticmode of consciousness. To do morphology inGoethe's sense, therefore, means working withthe mind in a different way from that ofmainstream science today, which is dominatedby the analytical power of the intellectual mind.This is why Goethe's approach to morphologyhas seldom been understood.

The experience of form in Goethe's way leadsto an understanding of organisms that differsfrom seeing them in the light of either finality andpurpose or causality and mechanism. Hedescribed his approach to animal form in aconversation with Eckermann, indicating how itdiffered from the way of understanding common

at the time:

Human beings are inclined to carry theirusual views from life also into scienceand, in observing the various parts of anorganic being, to inquire after theirpurpose and use. This may go on for awhile and they may also make progressin science for the time being, but they willcome across phenomena soon enoughwhere such a narrow view will proveinsufficient and they will be entangled innothing but contradictions if they do notacquire a higher orientation. Suchutilitarian teachers will say that the bullhas horns to defend itself with, but there Iask why the sheep has none. Even whenthey have horns, why are they twistedround the sheep's ears so that they

cannot be any use at all? It is a differentthing to say that the bull defends himselfwith his horns because they are there.The question why is not scientific at all.We fare a little better with the questionhow, for if I ask the question, “Howdoes the bull have horns?” I amimmediately led to the observation of hisorganization, and this shows me at thesame time why the lion has no horns andcannot have any.69

Of course, if Goethe had been writing todayhe would have addressed his remarks moretowards the mechanistic explanation of theanimal's appearance. Darwin got rid of “naturalpurposes,” and so he would have agreed withthe first part of Goethe's statement. Instead, heexplained the features of an organism, such as

the giraffe's long neck, by means of “naturalselection” acting over long periods of time onsmall, random variations in the individuals of abreeding population. The overall appearance ofa species of organism is thus explained as along-term statistical effect of the environmentacting mechanically on the results of chance. Theorganism as a whole is not involved, since inDarwin's theory the small random variations areonly in individual features of the organism, whichare considered separately without anycorrelation between them. Darwin's organism isa thoroughly analytical organism. Goethe's wayof understanding the appearance of an organismin terms of its organization is therefore differentfrom the modern mechanistic explanation, as itwas in his own day different from the purposiveinterpretation.

Goethe himself was only able to go so far

with his approach to animal form. For example,he noticed that no animal had a complete set ofteeth in its upper jaw if it had horns or antlers.Seeing this connection is an example ofsignificant perception, i.e., a perception ofmeaning, and not just a sensory perception as itseems to the naive empiricist.70 It was thiscorrelation that enabled Goethe to understand“why the lion has no horns and cannot haveany.” The fact that he could say the lion cannothave horns because it has a complete set ofteeth in its upper jaw, means that this connectionis perceived to have a quality of necessity—aswill be discussed in more detail in “TheNecessary Connection.” But there were manyquestions which Goethe could only touch on andnot answer fully in terms of the organization ofthe organism itself. In the above illustration, forexample, he was not able to answer why it is

precisely the incisors that are missing from theupper jaws of animals with horns or antlers, andwhy the upper canines are missing as well fromthe jaws of rhinoceroses and cattle. Such detailswill inevitably seem very specialized, andperhaps even trivial. But in the holistic biology ofanimal form each feature of an animal issignificant because the whole is reflected in eachpart. Questions about horns and antlers can onlybe answered by taking into account all themammals, those that do not have these organsas well as those that do. Ultimately this requiresa biology of form which takes into account allthe features of the animal in question, not justhorns and teeth, and perceives intuitively theway that they belong together in a natural unitywithout unification.

The glimpse which Goethe had of such amorphology has now been turned into a much

fuller view by contemporary naturalphilosophers who are following his way. Themost thorough work of this kind has been doneon the mammals by Wolfgang Schad.71 It isdescribed in detail in his book Man andMammals, which it would be difficult to praisetoo highly for its demonstration of what can bedone by following Goethe's way of science farbeyond the point that Goethe himself was ableto reach. It also has the advantage of a clarity ofexposition which makes it available to anyonewho is interested. Schad begins from therecognition that there are three fundamentalfunctional processes, or dynamical organicsystems, in the mammalian organism. Hedesignates these the nerve—sense system, therespiratory—circulatory system, and themetabolic-limb system. These three dynamicalsystems are balanced in the human being, in the

sense that no one of them predominates over theothers through being more specialized. Althougheach system is centered in a particular region ofthe organism, they should not be thought of asbeing separate and external to each other, lyingside-by-side, but as acting simultaneouslythroughout the whole organism. In other words,they have to be understood holistically and notanalytically, as well as dynamically and notstatically. They are three processes which actthroughout the entire organism, and not localizedanatomical features. For example, whereas thenerve-sense system is centered in the headregion, there are some features in this regionwhich have the quality of the respiratory-circulatory system (the air-filled cavities in thecranium) and also some features which have thequality of the metabolic-limb system (the mouthregion). But this relationship whereby the whole

threefold functional process reenters each of itsown parts—so that the whole is present in itsown parts—should not be thought of in acausal-mechanical way. It is not as if therespiratory-circulatory system somehow actedphysically in the head region to produce amaterial modification, and so on. Seeing in theholistic perspective is more a matter of learningto read qualities.

In all the mammals other than the humanbeing these three functional processes occur in aone-sided way which emphasizes one of themover the other two. The difference between thethree major groups of mammals—rodents,carnivores, and ungulates—then becomesintelligible in terms of which particular system isdominant.

The rodents (mice, squirrels, rats, beavers,etc.) emphasize the nerve-sense system. This is

reflected in the small size of these animals andtheir restless activity. The trunk and limbs arerudimentary compared with the development ofthe head, although in many cases the limbs havedefinitely acquired a sensory function (e.g., theforepaws of a squirrel). The ungulates (horses,pigs, cows, deer, etc.) are the opposite pole tothe rodents. These mammals emphasize themetabolic-limb system. This is reflected in thelarge size of these animals and the elongation oftheir limbs. Here the metabolic process is sointensified that even the nerve-sense pole of theorganism shows the influence of the metabolismin the form of the various head protuberances(horns and antlers). They also exhibit a passivetemperament. Finally, the carnivores (cats,weasels, badgers, seals etc.) emphasize therespiratory-circulatory system, which isintermediate between the other two. In their

well-proportioned form, in which no one part ofthe body is accentuated over any other, as wellas in their intermediate size, they represent anactive balance between the two extremes of therodent and the ungulate. Their predatory naturefits this intermediate position. A feel for thedifferences between these groups and therelationships between them can be developedby exact sensorial imagination.

But in any one of these major groups ofmammals one of the nondominant systems canalso be accentuated to a lesser degree, and thisexerts a secondary influence which modifies theinfluence of the dominant system. It has to beremembered always that the activities of thesesystems should be thought of as interpenetratingqualities and not as causal mechanisms. In otherwords, they should not be thought of in termswhich are more appropriate for the world of

inorganic bodies. Thus, for example, the squirrelis a rodent. In this case the nerve—senseprocess dominates the other two, but there is asecondary influence from the respiratory—circulatory process which is absent in the caseof other rodents like mice and rats. The beaver,on the other hand, is a rodent with themetabolic-limb process exerting a secondaryinfluence on the nerve-sense process. Similarly,among the ungulates, where the metabolic-limbprocess is dominant, the horse is an animalwhich is secondarily influenced by the nerve-sense process, whereas the pig is secondarilyinfluenced by the respiratory—circulatoryprocess.

As well as considering specific mammals, it isalso possible to distinguish different groups ofmammals, each of which is differentiated withinitself as a group according to the same three-

foldness that is found in the individual. Forexample, the swine group as a whole isdominated by the metabolic-limb process andhas a secondary influence from the respiratory-circulatory process. The pig is the characteristicmember of this group because, as mentionedabove, it has exactly this pattern of functionalprocesses. But within the swine group as awhole there are other mammals which, whilethey have this pattern of processes, are alsofurther influenced by either the metabolic-limbprocess or the nerve-sense process. The formeris the case with the hippopotamus, and the latterwith the peccary—a slender, belligerent pigfrom South America. This can be seen moreeasily by referring to the diagram below.Similarly, in the same group as the horse (theodd-toed ungulates) we find the tapir, which isinfluenced by the respiratory-circulatory

process, and the rhinoceros, which is influencedby the metabolic—limb process—i.e., in agroup which as a whole is dominated by themetabolic-limb process with a secondaryinfluence from the nerve-sense process. Again,the squirrels form a group as a whole which isdominated by the nerve—sense process and hasa secondary influence from the respiratory-circulatory process. The squirrel itself is thecharacteristic member of this group because, asmentioned above, it has just this pattern offunctional processes. But within this groupconsidered as a whole, the beaver is themammal which is further influenced by themetabolic-limb process, and the dormouse is themammal further influenced by the nerve—senseprocess—and this mammal in turn is furtherdifferentiated into different species according tothe same threefold structure of functional

processes.

The relationships between the few mammalswhich have been mentioned here for thepurpose of illustration can be represented in thediagram on the facing page. The conventionwhich is adopted is that arrows pointing to the

right indicate the influence of the metabolic-limbprocess, arrows pointing to the left indicate theinfluence of the nerve-sense process, andarrows which are vertical indicate the influenceof the respiratory-circulatory process.72

In this way Schad is able to show how thethreefold organization of the mammal gives riseto the entire spectrum of the mammalian form—although it is simply not possible to give any ideahere of the degree of detail which he goes intowith each particular mammal. He shows how thewhole form of any particular mammal—includingshape, size, and coloration—can be understoodin terms of the animals overall organization, sothat the animal becomes intelligible in terms ofitself. The same threefold organization which isfound in any particular mammal is then found tobe present in the various groups of mammals, aswell as in the mammal family as a whole. Thus

the organization of the mammals as a whole isunderstood in terms of the same organization asthe individual mammal, so that the individual canthen be seen as a reflection of the whole in thepart. In this way Schad's holistic biology of formillustrates and extends Goethe's comment toEckermann that he understands a particularfeature of an organism by looking at the overallorganization of the animal. Schad then goes evenfurther, and shows in detail how the environmentin which a particular mammal lives also reflectsthe functional process which is predominantwithin its own organism.73 There is therefore atruly organic relationship between a mammaland the landscape in which it dwells. Theconnection between them has a quality ofnecessity, and is not simply the contingent resultof an external adaptation to circumstances. Eventhe behavior of such anomalies as the tree-

climbing dwarf goat of North Africa can be readas an expression of organic necessity instead ofbeing explained mechanically as a contingentadaptation. Thus the mammal and theenvironment in which it dwells are perceived asbelonging together in an organic unity withoutunification instead of just belonging together byforce of external circumstances. This organicwholeness of the mammal and its environment isa further dimension of the phenomenon. Thisdiscovery is a further illustration of the way thatthe phenomenologist of nature makes thephenomenon visible.

When it is summarized like this, Schad'sprocedure can be mistaken for an intellectualschematization of the mammals, as if it provideda set of pigeonholes into which the mammals canbe conveniently classified. If this were the case,it would be a reductionist procedure. The details

of an organism would be omitted in favor of abroad generalization, resulting in the kind ofuniformity which is characteristic of all attemptsby the analytical intellect to find unity inmultiplicity. But Schad's way of proceeding isthe reverse of this. He does not try to group themammals artificially into an ordered system. Theresult of his discovery, that the order among themammals is the same as the order inherent ineach mammal, is that Schad sees the mammalsin the nonreductionist perspective of “multiplicityin unity” instead of “unity in multiplicity.” In otherwords, he sees the mammals in the light ofGoethe's organic vision, which permits diversitywithin the unity and therefore “in no waycontradicts the abundant variety of nature.”74 Aseach detail is significant because it is anexpression of an organism's overall organization,so for this very reason every difference between

organisms is significant. Thus, on the one hand,Goethe's organic vision allows difference anduniqueness to be included without falling intosheer multiplicity, while on the other hand itavoids the lifeless unity of uniformity. Thedifference here is between the perception ofmultiplicity in a holistic perspective (multiplicityin unity) and the perception of unity in ananalytical perspective (unity in multiplicity). It isin the nature of the latter to exclude diversity,whereas it is in the nature of the former toinclude diversity without fragmentation intounrelated multiplicity. Flexibility is the strength of“multiplicity in unity,” as uniformity is theweakness of “unity in multiplicity.”

It is through this holistic perspective of“multiplicity in unity” that Schad is able tounderstand the organism in terms of itself, sothat it becomes its own explanation. His work is

therefore a vivid contemporary illustration ofwhat Goethe meant when he said, “The greatestachievement would be to understand thateverything factual is already its own theory,” and“Don't look for anything behind the phenomena;they themselves are the theory.” We have seenalready that Goethe's phenomenology isequivalent to what could be called thehermeneutics of nature. The aim of this naturalhermeneutics is to learn to read the phenomenonin terms of itself. The holistic biology of animalform illustrates this clearly. When the mammal isdisclosed in terms of itself, it becomes its ownlanguage. This therefore provides us withanother concrete instance of Gadamer'sprinciple of universal hermeneutics that “beingthat can be understood is language.”75

The Necessary Connection

It was mentioned briefly in “Modes ofConsciousness” that a relationship cannot beexperienced as such in the analytical mode ofconsciousness. Since in this mode it is theelements which are related that stand out inexperience, the relationship itself can only seemto be a shadowy abstraction to the intellectualmind. The perception of a relationship as suchwould require a simultaneous perception of thewhole, and hence the restructuring ofconsciousness into the holistic mode. It has beenmentioned several times in the discussion ofanimal form that the phenomenologist of natureperceives connections which have the quality ofnecessity. Goethe's recognition that an animalwith a full set of teeth in its upper jaw cannothave horns is an illustration. The perception of anecessary connection is the perception of arelationship as a real factor in the phenomenon,

instead of being only a mental abstraction addedon to what is experienced with the senses. Thereality of a relationship, the necessity of aconnection, is not experienced as such either bythe senses alone or by the intellectual mind.Hence any attempt to understand this reality interms of these faculties is bound to find that itvanishes from the phenomenon itself andappears to be only a subjective belief.76

Schad's work abounds with examples ofwhat he calls “the awesome inner logic of theorganism.”77 For example, he describes how thebasic tripartite structure of the teeth (incisors,canines, and molars) is a reflection of thethreefoldness of the functional processes. Hencehe shows, in terms of the animal's organization,why the rodents accentuate the incisors, thecarnivores accentuate the canines, and the

ungulates accentuate the molars. There istherefore a necessary connection between thepredominant functional process in an organismand the structure of its teeth—and this extendsalso to the secondary influence from one of theother functional processes, and so on, in greatdetail. Here Schad is able to go further thanGoethe and understand in terms of the animal'sorganization why it is precisely the upperincisors which are missing from animals withhorns. But he goes even further than this. Heshows how the different layers of skin alsoreflect the three fundamental functionalprocesses, and this enables him to go on todiscover the “inner logic” of the specific formstaken by the various kinds of head appendages.So, for example, he is able to understand interms of the animal's organization why therhinoceros grows a horn on its snout (and why

the canines are missing in its upper jaw as wellas the incisors), why swine grow warts in themiddle of the face along their cheeks, and whyruminants grow horns from the rear part of thefrontal bone near the back of the head. Hesubsequently goes on to understand thedifference between horns and antlers, showingthat, far from being random, the otherwisebewildering variety of antlers can becomecomprehensible when related to the overallorganization of each of the different kinds ofdeer. What this means is that the existence ofeach of these different kinds of head appendageis not a contingent fact. They are not accidentaldevelopments, but real necessities which cannotbe otherwise.

Because every detail in an organism is areflection of its basic organization, there is anintimate correlation among all the features of a

particular mammal. With the ruminant ungulates,such as the cow for example, there is an intimatecorrelation between the horns and hooves andthe specialization of the digestive tract at theanterior end. With rodents, on the other hand,there is an intimate correlation between the tailformation (e.g., squirrel, beaver) and thespecialization of the digestive tract at theposterior end. There is therefore a necessaryconnection between these features. But they arenot connected in a causal-mechanical way, likethe parts of a watch or even a moresophisticated device with feedback, etc. Theybelong together organically:

In life, causes and effects take placesimultaneously and complement oneanother. For this reason the organismalways presents itself as a whole.

Correlations, not causes or aims,determine the order of the life that formsa single whole, because life exists only asa continuing present. The processes oflife, therefore, cannot be understood byeither causal or teleological ways ofthinking; they must be discovered as anactive connection existing necessarilyamong phenomena in the present.78

Furthermore, because Schad sees themammals in the light of “multiplicity in unity,” it isinevitable that he finds correlations betweenmammals in different groups. But he is notconstrained to look at these correlations asbeing accidental, which they would be if thecorrelated features of the organisms in questionhad arisen simply as external adaptations to theenvironment by the mechanism of natural

selection. For example, among the carnivoresthere are some which choose water, eitherwholly or partially, as a habitat. Looking at thesemammals in terms of their organization leads tothe discovery of a relationship of form amongthe mink, the otter, the seal, and the whale. Itemerges that what the mink is to the weasel, andthe otter is to the marten, so the seals are to thecentral carnivores (e.g., dogs) and the whalesare to the carnivores as a whole. Thiscorrelation emerges out of the inner logic of theorganisms in question, and hence it is “dictatedby internal necessity.”79 So the fact that whalesexist, for example, can be seen as an organicallynecessary expression of the fundamentalconstitution of the mammal itself; whereas theusual view today is to see the fact that whalesexist simply as a contingency, resulting from along process of external adaptation of a land

mammal to life in the sea. Darwin himself said: “Ican see no difficulty in a race of bears beingrendered, by natural selection, more and moreaquatic in their habits, with larger and largermouths, till a creature was produced asmonstrous as a whale.”80 In other words, thefact that whales exist is considered an accident,in the philosophical sense of the term. Thismisses the dimension of the animal itself. Thereare many other examples of correlationsbetween mammals in different groups which helpto make visible the quality of necessity in theexistence of a particular mammal. But there is noneed to go into any further examples here.

The assertion that the phenomenologist ofnature can find real necessities, i.e., which are inthe phenomena themselves and not simply in themind of the investigator, will seem strange toanybody who is familiar with the history of

modern philosophy. The idea that science coulddiscover necessary connections in thephenomena of nature was discarded by manyafter David Hume's devastating analysis of theprinciple of causality.81 Hume's influence onsubsequent philosophy has been enormous, andthere are many philosophers today who believethat his denial that there are real necessaryconnections in phenomena which can be knownis essentially correct. He reached this scepticalposition as a result of following a thoroughlyempiricist approach to knowledge. He insistedthat ideas are copied from sense impressionsand that all impressions, and hence all ideas, areatomic—i.e., separate and independent of eachother. For every idea in the mind he asked thequestion “From what impression is this ideaderived?” Applying this to the idea of anecessary connection in matters of fact, he

asked what we can observe which correspondsto the idea of necessity? He could find no senseimpression from which this idea can be derived,and hence concluded that there is no justificationfor believing that the idea of necessitycorresponds to anything real. All that weactually experience, according to Hume, is theconstant conjunction of two events, and it istheir habitual association in the mind which givesus the feeling of necessity. In other words, theorigin of the idea of necessity is psychological,and the belief that the necessity is real is anillusion. All that the scientist can discover arecontingent correlations between phenomena,which therefore might have been otherwise.

By following Goethe's way of science, it ispossible to experience what Hume denied tohuman consciousness when he concluded “thatall our distinct perceptions are distinct existences

and that the mind never perceives any realconnections among distinct existences.”82

Furthermore, through linking Goethe's way withthe discovery of two major modes ofconsciousness, it is possible to see that Hume'ssceptical conclusion is a consequence of anextreme identification with the analytical mode ofconsciousness. What he really did was todescribe what knowledge would be like for apurely analytical mode of consciousness. It hasalready been suggested that such aconsciousness could not experience the realityof relationship, since this would require theexperience of wholeness. Hence for theanalytical mode of consciousness, a relationshipcould only appear as an abstraction comparedwith the elements which it relates. Without theexperience of the wholeness of the relationshipthere cannot be any experience of a necessary

connection. This step is made by a transition tothe holistic mode of consciousness, as a result ofwhich we do have the experience correspondingto the idea of necessity, but as an intuition andnot as a sense impression.

Goethe's science of nature, because it makesthis transition from the analytical to the holisticmode of consciousness, is therefore a practicalway of developing the experience of necessity.Hence it gives the experience which is needed tosee the limitation that is the cause of a majorphilosophical problem. Hume was right, as faras his account went. But he was unaware of themode of consciousness as a determining factorin experience, and so he did not know thatanother mode of consciousness was possible inwhich the very factor that he found to be missingcan be experienced. It has been noted already(see note 49) that the condition of the knower

cannot realistically be separated from what isknown. It is, of course, a consequence of theanalytical mode of consciousness itself toseparate these two and consider them inisolation. Developments in modern physics,especially in the quantum theory, have helped tobring into question the possibility of making thiskind of separation. A more comprehensiveapproach is needed, in which the content ofcognition and the condition of consciousness forthat cognition are considered as a whole.83

It seems to be an unexpected by-product ofGoethe's way of science, when it is allied withthe distinction between modes of consciousness,that it gives an insight into some of thelongstanding problems of philosophy. This istherefore a means of approaching philosophy bythe way of experience instead of the way of

argument.84 It has already been mentionedabove how some of the difficulties over Plato'stheory of Forms have arisen throughapproaching this theory exclusively by the wayof argument, which functions in the analyticalmode of consciousness and therefore in theextensive perspective of “unity in multiplicity.”Yet another example of this experiential way ofapproaching philosophy now follows from theabove discussion of necessity. As well as givingus an insight into the origin of Hume's problem, italso gives us an insight into Aristotle's view ofthe nature of scientific knowledge. For Aristotle,one of the conditions for something to count asbeing known is that what is known must be thecase of necessity; it is not possible for it to beotherwise. Consequently, scientific knowledge isnot knowledge of what happens to be true—since this would not be “knowledge” for

Aristotle—but of what cannot be otherwise andhence must be true. This really does seemstrange to us now that we have been deeplyinfected by the empirical tradition, whether weare aware of it or not. It seems to us a matter ofcommon sense that facts are contingent. Forexample, it seems to be no more than acontingent fact that lions don't have horns—andthis is certainly how it seems to biology in theDarwinian paradigm. We can imagine that itcould have been otherwise, or that there couldbe a lion with horns somewhere yet to bediscovered. But we have learned from Goethe'sapproach to animal form, especially asdeveloped by Schad, that there are many factsabout the mammals which superficially appear tobe contingent and yet turn out to be necessarywhen perceived with the intuitive mind. Aristotlewould have understood exactly what Goethe

meant when, in his remark to Eckermann, heasserted that the fact that the lion has no hornscannot be otherwise.85

Recently there has been a resurgence ofinterest in Aristotle's philosophy of knowledge.This is partly a consequence of the work of theAmerican philosopher Saul Kripke, who hasargued that there can be necessarily truepropositions which describe essential propertiesof things in the world, and hence which are notmerely logically necessary and therefore emptyof factual content.86 Thus he attempts to refuteHume's view that there cannot be propositionswhich are both necessary and give informationabout the world. He maintains, for example, thatthe fact that gold is yellow should not be takento be contingent, as if the color yellow were anaccident, but that it should be taken to be a

necessary property which is true “in all possibleworlds.” There cannot be blue gold—anymorethan there can be a lion with horns or a cowwith a single stomach. So Kripke arrives at theposition taken by Aristotle—and by Goethe.But because he belongs to the school ofanalytical philosophy, which proceeds by theway of argument, his philosophy does not bringus to experience necessity in the world. Thisremains an intellectual abstraction. Goethe'sapproach to science, through the holistic modeof consciousness, could therefore provide theintuitive experience of necessity which wouldcomplement what can be achieved by means ofargument.

Clearly, the understanding of the animal as awhole which emerges from Goethe's organicvision is very different from the way that theanimal is understood in Darwin's theory of

evolution by natural selection. For the organicperspective, the different features of an animalare expressions of the whole animal and not justuseful adaptations. But for Darwinism the animalis a contingency. There is no form of the animalas a whole, with necessary connections whichresult in an intrinsically intelligible structure.Instead, the animal is conceived as a bundle offeatures which are considered to be effectivelyseparate and independent of each other,because any one of them is capable of varyingindependently by chance. Whether such avariation is biologically viable is then determinedby the environment, and not by any factorswhich are intrinsic to the organism. This is theanalytical organism which is implied by themechanism of the Darwinian theory. In otherwords, it is a constraint of the theory that theanimal comes to be seen in this way. In place of

necessary connection and wholeness, there issimply contiguity and constant conjunction—it islittle wonder that the Darwinian animal has beencalled a Humean bundle.87

Darwin approached the animal in theanalytical mode of consciousness. So there is noperception of internal relationships in theorganism—as with Newton there is noperception of relationships between the colors.Yet there is clear evidence of a more holisticapproach to animal form among the breedersDarwin met. In The Origin of Species he refersto breeders who “habitually speak of theanimal's organization as something quiteplastic.”88 He recounts how in one place “thesheep are placed on a table and are studied, likea picture by a connoisseur,” and how it hadbeen said of sheep breeders that “it would seem

as if they had chalked out upon a wall a perfectform itself, and then had given it existence.” It isjust this sense of the organism as a whole whichdisappeared in Darwin's theory, with the resultthat “the organism as a real entity, existing in itsown right, has virtually no place in contemporarybiological theory.”89 However, Darwin himselfwas not quite so dogmatic as his followersbecame. In focusing only on what had survivalvalue for the individual and the species, heoverlooked the purely morphological study ofliving organisms. Eventually he recognized thislimitation in his approach and said that it was“one of the greatest oversights.”90

The holistic biology of form shows inabundant detail how misleading the wholesaleapplication of the theory of natural selection canbe, because it eclipses those relationships which

belong to the organism as a whole. Thus adimension of the organism is lost. Thisdisappearance of the organism as a whole iseven more acute today than it was in Darwin'stime, because of the alliance of Darwin's theorywith genetics. The result is that the organism hasnow been replaced by microscopic entitieshidden behind the scenes, like the mechanism inEinstein's watch. But now that there is a growingfeeling of dissatisfaction with the currentevolutionary paradigm, it is beginning to berecognized that an adequate understandingdepends on “the reinstatement of the organismas the proper object of biological research; as areal object, existing in its own right and to beexplained in its own terms.”91 This is whereGoethe began.

4.

The Scientist's Knowledge

In conclusion we will look briefly at Goethe'sview on the nature of scientific knowledge itself.In doing so we find an understanding ofknowledge which is very different from the waythat we understand it today—although it wouldnot have been so unfamiliar to Goethe'scontemporaries, and especially not to suchphilosophers as Schelling and Hegel. Weconsider knowledge to be a subjective state ofthe knower, a modification of consciousnesswhich in no way affects the phenomenon that isknown, this being the same whether it is knownor not. Goethe, on the other hand, saw theknowledge of a phenomenon as being intimately

related to the phenomenon itself, because forhim the state of “being known” was to beunderstood as a further stage of thephenomenon itself. It is the stage which thephenomenon reaches in human consciousness.Consequently the knower is not an onlooker buta participant in nature's processes, which nowact in consciousness to produce thephenomenon consciously as they act externallyto produce it materially. This is the meaning ofGoethe's remark that the aim of science shouldbe that “through the contemplation of an evercreating nature, we should make ourselvesworthy of spiritual participation in herproductions.”

If “being known” is a higher stage of thephenomenon itself, then the phenomenon shouldnot be imagined as being complete until it isknown. The participatory view of the role of

consciousness in knowledge is therefore anevolutionary view, in the widest sense, becausethe state of “being known” is an evolutionarydevelopment of nature itself. Whenconsciousness is properly prepared, it becomesthe medium in which the phenomenon itselfcomes into presence. We call this “knowing thephenomenon,” and understand it subjectively.But in a more comprehensive view it is thephenomenon itself which appears inconsciousness when it is known. This is theontological significance of intuitive knowledge.The true significance of “theory” now becomesapparent. When the phenomenon becomes itsown theory, this is a higher stage of thephenomenon itself. Evidently this does not applyto the kind of theory which is an intellectualframework imposed on the phenomenon by themind. Thus the phenomenologist of nature

himself becomes the apparatus in which thephenomenon actualizes as a higher stage ofitself. This brings us to a more comprehensiveform of the principle of the wholeness of theapparatus and the phenomenon beinginvestigated (see note 49). In this case thescientist himself becomes the apparatus in whichthe phenomenon appears. Hence, for theintuitive knowledge of nature, when thephenomenon becomes its own theory, we havethe ontological condition that the knower andthe known constitute an indivisible whole.

What makes this particularly difficult for us tounderstand is the extreme separation betweensubject and object, consciousness and theworld, which is characteristic of the onlookerconsciousness. This separation is a consequenceof overreliance on the intellectual mind and theanalytical mode of consciousness with which it is

associated. Although this extreme dependenceon the verbal-intellectual mind developed over aperiod of time throughout Western Europe as awhole, it is demonstrated particularly clearly inthe writings of Descartes. For this reason he canbe taken as representative of the shift inawareness which marks the emergence ofmodern Western consciousness. Although he isfamous for his statement “I think, therefore Iam,” he is best approached through his first twoMeditations.92 Here, in a few pages, he showshow he was led to doubt the existential status ofhis experience. Since he cannot tell whether heis dreaming or not, he cannot be certain that theworld exists, or even that his own body exists.He indicates how he eventually came toexperience a feeling of certainty that “I am, Iexist” in the act of thinking itself. So he is led toidentify himself as a thinking being, and as such

he feels himself to be separate and independentfrom the world, as well as from his own body.Descartes then equated thinking with subjectiveexperience in the widest sense—whichsubsequently came to be identified withconsciousness.93 Thus the famous Cartesiandualism between consciousness and the worldwas born, and it is inherent in this dualism thatconsciousness has the role of onlooker to aworld which is outside itself.

It is well known that as soon as Descartes'philosophy is looked into, it rapidly becomesincoherent—and much of modern philosophyhas been concerned with the attempt to breakaway from the Cartesian framework. Forexample, Descartes identified the world with theproperty of extension; hence consciousnessmust be unextended. But if consciousness isnonspatial, how can the world be “outside” it?

As Gilbert Ryle put it: “What is the ExternalWorld external to?”94 Can we even countconsciousness and world as “two” withoutthereby reifying consciousness in ourimagination, as if it were a ghostly thing, and thuscontradicting its essential nature? Even if weignore these difficulties, as many have, thereremains the problem of how two factors whichare divorced so exclusively can ever be related.Thus it becomes a problem as to howunextended mind and extended body caninteract. Similarly, it becomes a problem as tohow the subject can arrive at knowledge of theexternal world. But any attempt to solve theseproblems must be self-defeating because it restson the very assumption which generated them inthe first place. Heidegger has called thepersistence of the question “How does thesubject arrive at knowledge of the so-called

external world?” the real scandal ofphilosophy.95 In fact, Hume demonstrated overtwo centuries ago that the attempt to takesubjective experience as a starting pointultimately leads to total scepticism about theexistence of a self which has that experience. Inother words, Hume made the incoherence inDescartes' philosophy fully visible.96

Yet the fact remains that this is how we dothink of ourselves in relationship to the world.We do have an impression of ourselves as beingseparate and independent from the world,detached from nature, which puts us in theposition of being onlookers. It is this sense ofseparation that gives us the attitude which isnecessary to be able to treat the world as anobject to be operated on, manipulated, andorganized. In other words, this is the condition

of consciousness which is necessary for us toapproach the world from our moderntechnological standpoint, both instrumentally andconceptually. It has been pointed out oftenenough that it is only by withdrawing ourselvesfrom the world that we can feel sufficientlyseparate to be able to approach it in a detachedway as an object. Subject and object are borntogether, so that a change in the mode of onenecessarily entails a change in the mode of theother. It has also been pointed out equally oftenhow this attitude developed strongly in WesternEurope during the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies. It has been mentioned previously howthe development of science from Galileo onwardwas in the direction of measuring nature, i.e.,concerned with those aspects of nature whichcan be represented quantitatively. In order to dothis it is necessary to organize nature with a

network of concepts. The mathematically basedphysicist then works with these conceptualrepresentations instead of with the perceivedphenomena. We are so accustomed to this thatwe do not realize just how much the physicistinhabits a thought-world of his own making, andhence we identify this thought-world with natureitself. To recognize this needs a shift of attentionto make the activity of the mind visible to itself.The mathematical physicist and the industrialentrepreneur are alike in that they are bothconcerned with the technical-conceptualorganization of what they see as “the externalworld.” Both depend on the onlooker conditionof consciousness for which it is “common sense”that knowing is a subjective state of the knowerand the knower is ontologically separate fromthe known.

This “onlooker” condition of consciousness is

a consequence of emphasizing the thinkingactivity of the intellectual mind. We can see thisquite easily by returning to Descartes. He likedto spend his mornings in bed “meditating” in athinking kind of way. In this situation hisattention was withdrawn from the world, as wellas from his own body, and directed into theactivity of thinking. Thus, whereas his body wasinactive, his thinking activity was by comparisonhyperactive. The psychological effect of doingthis was to produce an awareness of the worldand his body as being outside himself, togetherwith the feeling that he himself existed in thisintensified activity of his mind. Hence heexperienced a strong sense of being separatefrom the world and even his body, whichtherefore seemed unreal compared with hismental activity. Through directing his attentioninto the thinking activity of the intellectual mind

he became an onlooker consciousness. He felthimself to be identified with his thinking activity,and he expressed this feeling that he existed inthinking by “I think, therefore I am,” or bysaying “I am, I exist” as a being whose nature isto think and no more. In fact, as mentionedalready, he then widened this to include all ofwhat today we would call “consciousexperience.” Thus the Cartesian dualism and theonlooker consciousness are psychologicalconsequences of emphasizing the verbal—intellectual activity of the mind. Descartes'philosophy is therefore a projection of thepsychological state which he produced inhimself. In other words, he made himself into apsychological apparatus for producing theCartesian philosophy. Once again we find that amore comprehensive approach is needed, inwhich the content of cognition and the condition

of consciousness for that cognition must beconsidered as a whole. Evidently this is justwhat the onlooker consciousness cannot do.But Descartes' philosophy must be consideredeven more comprehensively. It is also anexpression of a cultural-historical situation,which it simultaneously helped to produce, andnot merely the subjective expression of anisolated individual.

It is inevitable that when Goethe'sunderstanding of scientific knowledge is seenthrough Cartesian spectacles it seems to makeknowledge into something entirely subjective.Goethe's view could be called “organic”because it sees knowledge as a furtherdevelopment of the phenomenon itself. In pointof fact, a more organic understanding ofknowledge preceded the modern period,although this is often missed because of the

inevitable tendency to look back towards earlierperiods with the perspective of the onlookerconsciousness. Owen Barfield, for example,draws a parallel between Goethe and Aristotle.Pointing out that the primal phenomenon ofcolor and the organic archetypes are neitherobjective nor subjective, he says:

They come into existence as types, or aslaws, only as they are intuited by humanbeings. And until they have so come intobeing, the object itself is incomplete.Knowledge in fact, so far from being amental copy of events and processesoutside the human being, inserts thehuman being right into these processes,of whose development it is itself the laststage.97

He sees this as being parallel to Aristotle'sconception in De Anima of the reality (eidos)which only exists potentially (dunamei) until it isknown, and when it is known it has its fullexistence actually (energeia). Aristotle'sunderstanding of knowledge was elaboratedfurther by Aquinas in the Middle Ages.98 Butthis organic understanding of knowledge, whichsees it as a mode of participation in thephenomenon, was not restricted to theAristotelian tradition. Gadamer reminds us that“this involvement of knowledge in being is thepresupposition of all classical and medievalthought.” So the philosophers of these earlierperiods conceived “knowledge as an element ofbeing itself and not primarily as an attitude of thesubject.”99 If we look on this “involvement ofknowledge in being” as a remnant of primitive

animism, this in itself is an indication that we areperceiving it with the Cartesian attitude of theonlooker consciousness.

After the emergence of the onlookerconsciousness as the dominant attitude ofmodern Western culture, the perspective of theknower as a participant in the known became anunderground minority viewpoint. Whenever itcame to the surface, as it did from time to time,it was usually misunderstood because it wasinterpreted in the perspective of the onlookerconsciousness. Goethe's own period inGermany was such a time. The organicunderstanding of knowledge emerged in theRomantic movement, post-Kantian philosophy,and the philosophical approach to nature(Naturphilosophie). It was from his contactwith the philosopher Schelling, for example, thatGoethe learned how his own way of science

exemplified a participatory way of knowingnature. Schelling held the view that in knowingnature the scientist produces nature—whichlooks like an extreme form of subjectiveidealism to the onlooker consciousness. It wasin the light of what he learned from Schelling thatGoethe subsequently expressed the aim of hisscience to be that “through the contemplation ofan ever creating nature, we should makeourselves worthy of spiritual participation in herproductions.”100 As the waves of influence fromthese movements spread outwards in space andtime, they inevitably became more diluted,eventually degenerating into romanticism andsentimentality.101 It is surprising to discover howwidespread the influence of the organicunderstanding of scientific knowledge was—even if it was sometimes only sentimental. For

example, we find the man we usually think of asa hard-headed Victorian materialist, T. H.Huxley, contributing Goethe's prose aphorismson nature as the opening article for the firstnumber of the weekly science journal Nature.Huxley commented: “It seemed to me that nomore fitting preface could be put before ajournal, which aims to mirror the progress ofthat fashioning by Nature of a picture of herself,in the mind of man, which we call the progressof science.”102

As stated in the introduction, the real value ofGoethe's way of science is independent of anycomparison, favorable or otherwise, with themainstream of science. Also, the value ofGoethe's way is not to be found in whateverindividual discoveries he may have made. Thereal value of his original approach to science isthat it is a new way of doing science, and a new

way of seeing nature as a whole. As such itbelongs to the present and not to the past. It isan original event of perception in which we canlearn to participate. By seeing how thephilosophy of Goethe's way of science isilluminated by contemporary Europeanphilosophy, and especially how the psychologyof this science is clarified by recent research intothe psychology of consciousness, we can beginto recognize that this is an authentic way ofscience in its own right. The science whichbelongs to the intuitive mind and the holisticmode of consciousness can reveal aspects of thephenomena of nature which must be invisible tothe verbal-intellectual mind and the analyticalmode of consciousness. No matter howsophisticated today's institutionalized sciencemay become, or how much further it may bedeveloped, it will still be concerned

predominantly with only the quantitative aspectsof phenomena. No matter how beautiful,elegant, and harmonious the equations may beto the mathematical physicist, the fact remainsthat the variables in the equations representquantities. Hence science today is concernedwith only one aspect of the phenomena, andthere are other aspects which cannot be reachedin this way. Goethe's way of science, bycontrast, can be seen as the science of qualityinstead of quantity—but we need to have thecorresponding experience to understand whatthis means.103

At a time when, once again, some physicistsare saying that the key to the universe is in sight,it may be useful to be reminded that the sciencein which they work is only one-dimensional, andthat there are aspects of the phenomena towhich it is blind. To be able to see these other

aspects there would need to be a transformationof science itself. But this needs a transformationof the scientist. The result of such atransformation would be a radical change in ourawareness of the relationship between natureand ourselves. Instead of mastery over nature,the scientist's knowledge would become thesynergy of humanity and nature. The historicalvalue of Goethe's work, in the wider sense, maybe that he provides us with an instance of howthis can be done. If this should turn out to be thehistorical significance of Goethe, then ourpresent science will be only a phase in thedevelopment of science. Goethe will then beseen as a precursor of a whole new way ofscience, for which, to quote Goethe himself, hewill be “an instance worth a thousand, bearingall within himself.”

1

Introduction

The growth of understanding more often comesfrom opposition than from agreement. We feelthat our views, which seem to us so evidentlytrue and complete, meet not with the acceptancewe expect, but with disagreement, rejection,caution, or simply indifference. If we take thisopposition as something to be fought against,argued away, or just shrugged off, then theopportunity which it represents for the growth ofour understanding is lost. We become a fixed,dogmatic kind of person. But if we encounterthis opposition as a resistance to be workedwith, then it becomes our point of application.Taken in a more positive spirit, opposition to

our views becomes the means of developmentwhereby our understanding is enhanced, insteadof, as it seems at first, threatened. We are takenfurther by this opportunity in a direction whichwe would not have found ourselves, instead ofbeing overcome by it. Our previousunderstanding, which we took at first to be theend of the story, is now seen as only abeginning, a stage on the way which is to beincorporated as part of a further, morecomprehensive viewpoint.1

For Goethe, the development of hisunderstanding of his own way of science tookplace through his friendship with Schiller, as wellas through the resistance which hiscontemporaries showed toward his work oncolor. Goethe's friendship with Schiller wasremarkable in that it was a friendship ofopposites—Goethe spoke of them as “spiritual

antipodes, removed from each other by morethan an earth diameter.”2 Yet twelve years afterSchiller's death, Goethe wrote about theoccasion of their first meeting in an essay whichhe entitled “Happy Encounter.” He recognizedand understood that, no matter how irritating thisopposition was to him at first, it was throughSchiller that he began to become aware of hisown “way of seeing” as such.3 Before that time,Goethe had been epistemologically naïve. Hehad believed that what he saw was “just there”as he saw it, so that seeing it was a visualexperience which did no more than reflect whatwas present already in a purely factual way. Inother words, at this stage Goethe's philosophyof science was a very naïve empiricism. WhatGoethe discovered as a result of his encounterwith Schiller, with his Kantian background, was

the active role in all acts of cognitive perceptionof what he called a Vorstellungsart, a way ofconceiving, or a mode of illumination, wherebythe world becomes visible in a particular way.He realized that different Vortstellungsartenwould result in the world being illuminateddifferently, and hence being disclosed in differentmodes.4

As Goethe became more aware of thecontribution which the way of seeing, or modeof illumination, makes to what is seen, he beganto understand more adequately the reason whyhis early “Contributions to Optics” (1791) didnot have the impact on the scientific communityhe had expected. He had believed thatphysicists would simply repeat his experimentsand their truth would be evident. Accordingly,they would replace Newton's color theory witha new understanding grounded in the

phenomena in the way that he showed. Whenthis did not happen, and his work was in facteither ignored or rejected, he eventuallyresponded by undertaking a deeper investigationof the science of color, which meant followingthrough the historical development of thisscience, as well as pursuing his ownexperimental work. It was through his historicalinvestigations that Goethe came to recognize therole of Vorstellungsarten, the ways ofconceiving, in the very constitution of scientificknowledge. This, he realized, was at the basis ofthe scientific community's rejection of his workon color. The Vorstellungsart of thiscommunity he saw as being atomistic,mechanical, and mathematical, whereas his ownway of conceiving was genetic, dynamic, andconcrete. Because of this difference, heconcluded that an atomistic intelligence would

find nothing at all wrong with Newton's theoryof color.5 Thus Goethe came to realize thatscience is not empirically founded in the naïveway he had imagined it to be. He discoveredthat the foundations of science are historicalinstead of empirical, and hence that scientificknowledge is intrinsically historical instead ofmerely factual. Far from being accidental to it,the history of science is science. As Goethehimself said, “We might venture the statementthat the history of science is science itself.” Thisis an astonishing discovery to have made at thattime! It was not until the 1960s that the intrinsichistoricity of science began to be generallyrecognized, although not without considerableopposition from the long-established, ahistoricalphilosophy of science which went under thename of positivism.6 What Goethe came to

realize is that in science, as in art, truth is activeand not passive, as the dogma of factualismimplies. It is not the passive registration by anonlooker of what is there as such, independentof the scientist. The scientist is an activeparticipant in scientific truth, but without thismeaning that truth is thereby reduced to amerely subjective condition.7

What I propose to do in this part is to look atGoethe's way of science in the light of theprocess of cognitive perception and theorganization of scientific knowledge, and then inthe light of the historical development of modernscience. By this means we shall come tounderstand Goethe's own understanding of hispathway in science, and how it differed from theunderstanding of science which had become themajority viewpoint. But we shall be able to gofurther in understanding Goethe's science than

he was able to do himself at the time, because ofthe discoveries in the philosophy and history ofscience which have been made more recently.So we shall attempt to understand Goethe'sscience in a way which parallels his ownunderstanding, but in the context of the newphilosophy and history of science. We will findthat this more comprehensive understandingbrings out the relevance of Goethe's way ofscience for us today. In Gadamer's terms, thispart, like the previous one, is intended as acontribution to the “effective history” ofGoethe's pathway in science. It is not anaccount about what is past, but an attempt toparticipate in the working out of Goethe'sscience today.8

2

The Organizing Idea in CognitivePerception

We begin by looking into the act of knowing theworld. There are two major difficulties here.First, there is the difficulty that the process ofknowing the world happens very quickly, so thatit is over before we can catch it. This problemcan be overcome to some degree by havingrecourse to situations in which the normallysmooth-running process breaks down, so thatthe process of knowing is revealed instead ofjust the result of this process. This is the waythat we shall proceed below. The seconddifficulty is much more awkward to deal withand cannot be done so directly. This arises from

the fact that we ourselves are part of theprocess of cognition. We are participants, andnot onlookers outside of the process. But alsothe way that we are participants in the processof cognition is not quite how we imagine it to be.We are participants in a dynamic and geneticway, not in a static and finished way. The innerdynamic of the process of cognition is also aninner dynamic in the process of the self. Whatthis means is that the “self-entity” itself emergesfrom the process of cognition and is not thereas such beforehand. To our everydayconsciousness it seems evident that we are aself-entity which is present before cognition (toour everyday consciousness it also seemsevident that the Earth is at rest). So, in trying tounderstand cognition, we start from what isreally a result of the process of cognition. Hencewe get it all backwards. Georg Kühlewind has

recognized that since we are not conscious ofthe process of cognition, but conscious only oft h e result of this process, our everydayconsciousness is really “past consciousness.”We are conscious at the level of the past andnot the present, i.e., conscious at the level offinished perceptions and not of the process oftheir coming into being.9 So our ordinarythinking is “too late”: we are already the past ofourselves. Therefore any account of thecognitive perception of the world which beginswith a self-conscious subject, conceived as aself-entity, is an account which begins from thefinal phase of the process of cognition. This iswhat we do when we describe cognition as if ittook the form of a separate, independentsubject confronting an equally separate,independent object, i.e., the Cartesian mode ofsubject–object separation.

The difficulty which this presents is not onewhich can easily be tackled directly—certainlynot without radical innovations in grammar andstyle of expression, which would make theaccount less readable and thereby only obscurethe point which it is intended to make. We shalltherefore begin by simplifying—which inevitablymeans also distorting. Later we shall then try tocorrect for distortions due to simplification. Thiswill involve some degree of circularity in theexposition, as we return to take a new view ofpoints made previously. Cognitive perception isnot a process which maps conveniently into asingle line of development.

With this proviso, we can now look at casesof disrupted cognitive perception, where what isnormally hidden by the smooth running of theprocess is now revealed by a breakdown. Wehave to find cases where the process of

knowing the world is temporarily suspended inmidflow, as it were (in statu agendi).

If we look at the picture on page 50, what wesee at first is just a chaotic assemblage of blackand white blotches.10 But when we are told thatthere is the head of a giraffe to be seen here,then we soon see it. To begin with, we have tomake an effort to see the giraffe, and when wecease the effort the picture reverts to itsprevious random appearance. Quite quickly wecan reach the point where we can switch seeingthe giraffe on and off. After that the stage isreached where it becomes harder to switch itoff, so that we can no longer “not see” thegiraffe.

But what is the difference between the twocases? Whether someone sees or does not seethe giraffe, what is there on the page is exactlythe same set of marks. They do not move about

and reorganize physically on the page at themoment when the giraffe is seen! This meansthat the purely sensory aspect of the experienceof seeing, the stimulus to the organism receivedvia the light, must be the same whether theexperience is of seeing a giraffe or not. What isdifferent in the two cases is the seeingexperience, and not what is on the page. Thereis in fact no giraffe on the page, although thereseems to be one when it is seen there. When it isseen “there,” we can tell the familiar “empiriciststory” about seeing being the the experience ofsensory impressions which are caused in theorganism by stimuli from the “outside world.”According to this widespread viewpoint, seeingthe world is a purely sensory experience. Butwhat happens to this story when the giraffe isn'tthere, and yet the array of visual stimuli is thesame? The answer is that, contrary to

empiricism, the giraffe is in the seeing and notout there on the page. More precisely, thegiraffe is the way of seeing which sees thegiraffe. When we see the giraffe, we are seeingit—think of “seeing” actively, as a mode ofdoing, instead of passively as a state of theorganism. The page is the terminus of seeing,and so this is where we see the giraffe. But thegiraffe which we see is really the way of seeingthe random blotches. The way of seeing andwhat is seen cannot be separated—they aretwo poles of the cognitive experience. When it issaid that the figure which is seen is in the seeing,and not “there” as a sensory object, this doesnot mean that it is present in the seeing in themanner of a mental picture or image which isbeing projected, as if it were a “mentaltransparency.” To think this way is backwards.A mental image or picture is a cognitive after-

image, left behind after the act of seeing. Suchan image is formed by abstraction from concreteexperience in the way that the empiricistsimagine. But this process is not the origin ofideas that they believe it to be—Hume, forexample, believed that ideas were faded copiesof sense impressions. The empiricist starts outfrom the finished product, the end of the processof cognitive perception, and tries to understandthe entire process in terms of its end point. Thisis like “trying to get to the milk by way of thecheese.”11 The dynamic approach, on thecontrary, tries to catch the cognitive process inprocess, so that it flows with the coming-into-being of cognitive perception instead of startingfrom the finished product, i.e., from what isseen. For this approach, seeing is the act ofseeing.

Look at the well-known ambiguous figure on

the right on page 51, and imagine two people,one of whom can see only the duck and theother only the rabbit. Now imagine a thirdperson who can see neither, but only a squigglymark on the page. The duck-seeing person seesthe duck, and the rabbit-seeing person sees therabbit. Neither of them projects a mental pictureof a duck or rabbit, as the case may be, ontothe figure. There is no experience of having amental picture separate from the figure, and thenbringing it together with the squiggle on thepage. All three are looking at the same thing,having the same pattern of sensory stimulus onthe retina, and yet each is seeing differently. Ifasked to draw what they see, they will eachdraw the same shape. They can only draw thevisual appearance, and not what they see eventhough they will each believe they have drawnwhat they see. The duck-seeing person sees a

duck, and so on. The difference between themis in the way of seeing, from which what is seencannot be separated, and they cannot draw thisdifference. We see what we see.

What we have discovered so far is that,literally, there is more to seeing than meets theeye! We usually think of seeing in a passiveway, as something which just happens to uswhen our eyes are open (as if it could bereduced to mechanical causation). But seeingcannot be equated with visual experience. Thereis also an extra, nonsensory factor as well as thesensory stimulus when we see. It is thisnonsensory factor which makes the differencebetween seeing a duck or seeing a rabbit, wherethe sensory stimulus is the same in each case.The difficulty in catching this factor, andrecognizing that it is not provided by the sensoryinput, i.e., not part of the visual experience, is

that when we see the giraffe, for instance, wethink that we do see it entirely by our sense ofsight. It looks to us as if it were a sensoryexperience and no more. Discovering thenonsensory factor in cognitive perception is likediscovering the movement of the Earth: it isdifficult to make it visible and easy to “provewrong” by appealing to immediate experience.But we could go on having the same visualexperience and not see the giraffe.12 The extrafactor, which turns the visual experience ofrandom black and white blotches into seeing agiraffe, will not come (cannot come) from moreand more visual experience. There is aqualitative change, a discontinuity, in theexperience. Something new enters which cannever be derived from sensory experience alone—how could anyone derive the giraffe from thevisual experience of the black and white

blotches?The first thing we can say is that there is a

change in the organization as we go from thevisual experience of black and white blotches toseeing a giraffe. When we can see the giraffe,the blotches are organized in a characteristicway instead of randomly. There is now adistinction between the marks, whereas beforethey were all equivalent. Thus some of themarks are seen as contributing to the giraffe, andothers as not doing so, instead of all being of thesame value. Yet there is evidently no changewhatsoever on the page—the black and whiteblotches do not physically rearrange themselves!The organization is not actually there on thepage, even though we see it there. If it were, ittoo would only be part of the sensorystimulus.13 As we have recognized already,there is no giraffe on the page, even though we

see it there—we see it there.The giraffe is in the seeing—it is the seeing

(we could say that we see “giraffely”). So theorganization of the black and white blotches isin the seeing. But “organization” here must bethought of actively, i.e., as organizing, as anorganizing act (an act which is organizing), andnot as a state of organization, i.e., the conditionof having been organized. Thinking in the modeof coming-into-being, instead of in the mode ofthe finished product, means we have to thinkverbally instead of thinking in terms of the noun.

We have found a nonsensory factor—theorganization—but this now leaves us with thequestion of what it is that organizes the blotchesin the act of seeing. The answer is that it is anidea. It is an idea which organizes the sensorystimulus into seeing instead of just a visualappearance. In the illustrations above, it is the

giraffe idea (not the idea of a giraffe), the rabbitidea, and so on. There is an organizing idea—this is what an idea is: organizing. The ideaorganizes because an idea is active—an idea isits activity, and this activity is organizing.Brentano said, “by ‘idea’ I mean the act ofconceiving, not that which is conceived”—towhich he might have added, for the sake of theempiricist, “and not a mental image abstractedfrom that which is conceived.”14 We couldparaphrase this directly, in terms of thediscussion above, as “by ‘organization’ wemean the act of organizing, not that which isorganized,” to which we should add that there isno separation within the act between theorganizing act and that which is organized. It isclear from Brentano's statement that we shouldnot think of an idea as if it were some kind ofentity, a content of the mind, which is what we

tend to do in the English-speaking tradition. Anidea is active, and the active idea is its activity.The term “active idea” must not mistakenly beread as in any way implying a separationbetween the idea and the action—they are oneand the same. We must not think of the activeidea as if it were an idea-entity which acts. Theidea is the action. An entity cannot act, becausean entity is already too late, being the stage of“solidification” which marks the end of activity.The tendency to think this way is a particularinstance of what can be called the “intellectualillusion,” which imagines that an action is initiatedby an entity, e.g., a self, which existsindependently of, apart from, and prior to theaction. The difficulty which this presents to us isthat where our thinking usually begins it isalready too late. We have to go to the stageprior to our usual awareness, which has the

effect of reversing the direction of our thinkingso that we can recognize that we usually beginfrom what is, in fact, the end. This refers to whatwas said earlier about the difficulty that arisesfrom the fact that we are not conscious in the actbut only conscious of the result: we areconscious at the level of that which is organizedbut not of the organizing act. To be conscious atthe level of the organizing act would need aparticipant mode of consciousness instead of theonlooker mode. This would take us to a stageprior to our usual mode of consciousness.15

What has been said above, about not thinkingof an idea as if it were some kind of entity, alsomeans that we must guard against anothercommon tendency. This is also a consequenceof starting from the wrong end, with the finishedproduct, instead of trying to catch the process“in the act.” This is the error of thinking of the

idea as a mental picture, as if it were a thought inour heads which we add on to the blotches,applying it to them externally, as it were. This isthe error of intellectualism.16 We don't add onthe giraffe intellectually by thinking about it. Thegiraffe is the organizing idea in the seeing. Wecould almost say that it is the seeing idea, toemphasize that it is not the idea of what is seen(i.e., a mental picture). Equally, as mentionedbefore, the idea is not something we seethrough, as if it were some kind of “mentaltransparency.” Here again, if we think this way,we miss the idea “in the act” and try to beginfrom the stage of the finished product, projectingthis back in imagination to the earlier stage. Thisis yet another instance of trying to “reach themilk by way of the cheese.”

Now the point of all this is that suchorganizing ideas are active in our everyday

cognitive perception of the world. So this showsus what the everyday process of seeing theworld is like, which we are usually unaware ofbecause there is no disruption to the process.For example, consider seeing a chair. Weimagine this is just a straightforward case ofsense perception and no more. But the chair weare seeing is not a sense perception any morethan the figures we have discussed above.Imagine people from a society where there wereno chairs—where the very idea was missing.Such people could not see a chair, even thoughthey may be looking at the very same chair weare seeing and their senses are in perfectworking order. They would have a visualexperience, but could in no way see what wesee directly: a chair. The chair is not the sensoryobject we take it to be. The chair is in the seeing—it is the organizing idea. Of course, there is a

material object present which has all kinds ofphysical properties, but these do not include aproperty “chair,” which is experienced by senseperception. Seeing the chair is a cognitiveperception, not just a sense perception, and wesee the chair when we see in a chair way (whenwe see “chairly”). Thus “the chair” is the way ofseeing. This applies to everything that we seeabout us.17

There is a strongly prevailing prejudice,usually associated with the empiricist frame ofmind, in favor of the idea that “directapprehension” of the world would be achievedby “pure sense perception.” This state is takento be one which is achieved by taking away allconceptualization—as if ideas formed a filmbetween us and reality which stops us fromseeing what is really there “in itself.” Then, it isbelieved, we would “see reality directly.” One

reason for this prejudice has already beenindicated above. We tend to think of an idea asa kind of mental entity, like a mental picture orimage (the noun form predisposes us this way),whereas we should really think of an idea as theact of conceiving (cf. Brentano's statementreferred to above). Mental pictures and imagescan come between us and what is there, but theidea is in fact the act of seeing what is there. Farfrom coming between us and some supposedexternal reality, the idea (understood as the actof conceiving) is the direct apprehension of whatis there.18

To illustrate that our perception of reality isnormally direct, David Best considers theexample of looking at a chessboard.19 Thiswould not be seen more directly by someonefrom a society in which the game of chess was

unknown, as the “pure perception” theoristswould have us believe. Such a person could notsee the chessboard more directly than a personfrom a chess-playing society. In fact, peoplefrom a society where chess was unknown couldnot see a chessboard at all! They would seeonly the variously shaped pieces of wood, etc.The chessboard which is seen is in the seeingand not as such an object of sense perception,although it seems to be so at first because we donot experience our participation in the processof cognitive perception and, as explained above,experience ourselves as if we were onlookersconfronting a world which is “out there”separate from ourselves. What appears in theact of seeing is “what it is,” which is thechessboard in the above example. As Best says,“Someone who suffers a total loss of memorydoes not, as a consequence, understand reality

directly. On the contrary, he understandsnothing. For example, he could no longerdirectly see a tree, since he no longer knowswhat a tree is.” Eliminating all concepts wouldnot therefore achieve a direct encounter with theworld. On the contrary, it would only achievethe end of the world.

We have to be careful not to fall into a falsedualism here. We don't experience the sensoryfactor separately as such, nor do we experiencethe organizing idea separately as such. Theexperience which is cognitive perception is thecoalesence of the organizing idea with thesensory factor. We experience neither on itsown—they are inseparable ingredients in thecognitive experience.20 This coalescence is theexperience of meaning. But we must be carefulhere not to think of meaning as if it were addedon to what we see. The coalescence is the

meaning which is what we see—the meaningwhich it is—not the meaning of what we see.What we see is meaning: we see “what it is”directly.21 Meaning, which is the coalescence ofthe organizing idea with the sensory, is thereforealways individualized.22

We take what we see in cognitive perceptionto be simply material objects which weencounter directly through the senses. But whatwe take to be material objects are reallycondensations of meaning. When we see achair, we are seeing meaning and not having apurely visual encounter with a material object.The error of empiricism is that it mistakesmeaning for a sensory object, a mistake whichhas been recognized by Owen Barfield as aninstance of idolatry—it could be called“cognitive idolatry.”23 The world which we

encounter in cognitive perception is really a textand not a set of material objects. They arematerial objects, of course—otherwise howcould somebody sit on a chair! But they aremore than this, and it is this “more” that we see.The material ingredient of the world is only thescript. So the material chair is the script which,in the act of cognitive perception, we read as“chair.” But the meaning is no more there in thematerial chair than the meaning of “chair” isthere in the letters of the word which appear onthe page.

We miss the dimension of mind which isactive in our lives, and it is the job of philosophyto make this dimension visible to us.24 Thedimension of mind in cognitive perception is asinvisible to us to begin with as the movement ofthe Earth. Just as it seems so evident to us thatthe Earth is at rest, so does it seem evident to us

that everything we see about us is “just there,”i.e., object instead of meaning, and thatcognitive perception is just sense perception.We are accustomed to thinking of mind as if itwere inside us—“in our heads.” But it is theother way around. We live within a dimensionof mind which is, for the most part, as invisibleto us as the air we breathe. We usually onlydiscover it when there is a breakdown.25

When we miss the dimension of mind incognitive perception, we inevitably mistake thenature of ideas. Instead of beginning with therole of the organizing idea which is active incognitive perception, we think of an idea as amental picture, an image, drawn off orabstracted from our experience in the world.So, instead of talking about “the ‘table’ idea,”we talk about “the idea of a table.” Whereas theformer refers to the organizing idea, the latter

indicates much more a mental picture of a table.Now there certainly are ideas in this sense, too,but they are secondary, or derivative, and notprimary. They encourage us to get everythingbackwards:(1) We miss the organizing idea “table” which isactive in the cognitive perception of a table;(2) we believe we see the table directly, by thesenses alone;(3) then we form the idea of the table byabstraction (the mental picture);(4) and finally, from many such “ideas,” we findwhat they have in common by a process ofcomparison and further abstraction whicheliminates differences, and this is how we finallyarrive at the concept “table.”

But the concept “table” is, of course, theoriginal organizing idea (which was missed at the

beginning, as noted in point 1 above) that isactively organizing the perception of the table inthe first place. This is therefore the “rabbit in thehat” version of the origin of concepts. We canonly recognize any table in the first place bymeans of the concept, i.e., the “table” idea. Tobe able to see one table is already to be able tosee all tables, i.e., all possible tables. So thenotion that the concept comes, in the first place,from finding what is common to many tables isfar too late. We do not derive concepts fromexperience.26

The concept “table” is constitutive and notabstract. It is the possibility of table. We areaccustomed to thinking of possibility as abstractand less real than actuality. But when we beginto understand what the concept (the organizingidea) is, then we realize that in this case “higher

than actuality stands possibility.”27 However,there is no preformation in the idea. Thepossibility of table—or, better, the tablepossibility—must not be thought of as if it werethe set of all possible tables. This is “finishedproduct” thinking, which proceeds by falselyimagining the total actualization of all tables, andback-projecting this into the idea in the vainattempt to “reach the milk by way of thecheese.” But possibility cannot be derived fromactualizations in this way. The attempt to do sogets it backwards: possibility is higher thanactuality. Perhaps a better approach (thoughalso ultimately inadequate) would be to think ofpossibility like a multivalent figure—like theduck/rabbit, or the reversing cube, butmultivalent instead of bivalent. Such a figure hasthe advantage that each picture is wholly thefigure, and not part of it, and yet no one picture

exhausts the figure. Similarly, each tablepossibility is wholly a table, and not part of one,and yet no one table exhausts the possiblity oftable. The disadvantage is that this, too, cansuffer from the fallacy of preformation, as if eachpicture-possibility were there already formed. Ittries to represent possibility in terms of actuality,and thereby misses the possibility which is higherthan actuality. To avoid this we would have toimagine an indeterminate multivalent figure whichspontaneously produces the different figureswhich it is, which means that it is intrinsicallydynamic and self-productive. The form whichsuch a multivalent figure would have, which isthe same as the form of possibility, is“multiplicity in unity.” This does not mean thatunity is divided into parts in an extensive sense.There is diversity within unity, but not divisionof unity. This has been referred to in part II of

this book as the prenumerical, intensivedimension of One.28 The organizing idea, theconcept, has this form of “multiplicity in unity,”and not the form of “unity in multiplicity” which itwould have if the concept were simply what iscommon to many particular instances. Theconcept is not a generalization, which wouldexclude difference. It is possibility, whichincludes difference in such a way that inbecoming other it remains itself.29

The difference between these twoapproaches to what an idea is can besummarized schematically:

Broadly speaking (although such stereotypescan be misleading), the left-hand column is moretypical of English-speaking philosophers,whereas the right-hand column is more typical ofContinental philosophers. We can recognize theclassical empiricism of Locke and Hume on theone hand and the phenomenology of Husserl onthe other.

Finally in this section, before going on to therole of the organizing idea in scientificknowledge, we must correct a distortion whichmay have arisen as a result of simplifying. Thisconcerns the meaning of “organizing” as thisterm is used in “organizing idea.” The meaninghere is not the same as when we talk aboutorganizing a pile of bricks, say, into an orderedarrangement, or any situation where theorganization is imposed on something. This wayof thinking is too late. What we are concernedwith here is the emergence of organizationrather than its imposition.

The “organizing” of the organizing idea is anact of distinguishing which is simultaneously anact of relating. The one act is both of thesetogether, whereas we usually think of them astwo different acts because we start at the end,with the finished product. The primary act of

distinguishing does not point out somethingwhich is already “there.” It “theres” it! Thus theconcept, or organizing idea, does not apply tosomething which is already present. It“presences” it. The concept delineates ordefines the “something” in the first place—” It isthe concept that tells us where ‘something’ hasits boundary.”30 The concept “boundaries”—itis an act of boundarying. So the act ofdistinguishing is the “presencing” of what isthereby distinguished and does not merelyseparate what has effectively been distinguishedalready. “Distinguishing” and “separating” areoften confused as a result of not following thecoming-into-being of distinction, and beginninginstead with the finished product, i.e., thealready distinguished, in which case distinctioncan only appear as separation. But this is asecondary mode of distinction which

presupposes (usually unnoticed) the primary,original distinction which delineates that whichconsequently can be separated.

When we follow the coming-into-being ofdistinction in this way, we notice thatdistinguishing has the effect of relating. To markout “something,” to give a boundary to “it,” isthereby to relate it to that from which it isdistinguished—i.e., to distinguish “something” isat the same time to distinguish what is “other”by virtue of that very distinction—and to whichit is thereby related. The point here is that therelation is intrinsic to the act of distinguishing,and not an external connection betweenseparate “somethings” which have already beendistinguished. This means that the relation is anecessary relation, and not contingent, as itwould be if it were an external connection.31

What we notice here is that, at this stage, the

act of distinguishing is holistic and not analytical.This is surprising at first, because we areaccustomed to think of distinguishing as aseparating action, and hence as being manifestly“analystical” (lysis: “to separate”; ana: “fromabove”). So we do not expect to find a holisticquality in the act of distinction. But we only findthis if we try to catch distinguishing in the act. Ifwe do not (and we usually don't), but insteadattend to what is distinguished, then we becomeaware of separation. Then we do not notice theintegrating, relating aspect of distinguishing, andso inevitably we think of distinguishinganalytically, i.e., as externally separating onefrom another. But this is really separating thealready distinguished, so that the primary ororiginal act of distinguishing is missed. Onceagain, this is because we are too late.“Separating” is how distinguishing appears in the

plane of the past and not in the living present ofthe act of distinguishing.

There is the one act of “distinguishing which isrelating,” and not two separate acts:distinguishing and relating. This one act takesplace in “opposite” directions simultaneously.This polar movement, intrinsic to the primary actof distinguishing, is before analysis andsynthesis, which come later, at the secondarystage of separating and then unifying. Analysisand synthesis are two separate acts. The original“distinguishing which is relating” falls apart intoanalysis and synthesis as the act of distinguishingfalls into “separating the already distinguished.”This is a fall from the living present of theprocess to the dead past of the product. It isbecause our ordinary consciousness isontologically at the level of the past that we missthis simultaneous polar movement of

“distinguishing which is relating” which is beforeanalysis and synthesis. We are always toolate.32 However, we can experience the primarystage of distinguishing, before it becomesseparating, by learning to free attention fromwhat is seen, so that it shifts into the seeingactivity itself. If this happens, we become awareof the appearance of what appears instead ofwhat appears.33

In this study, “organizing” is used in“organizing idea” to mean the primary act of“distinguishing which is relating,” and not thesecondary operation of ordering what is alreadydistinguished. It is useful to remember this inwhat follows.

3

The Organizing Idea in ScientificKnowledge

Science is also concerned with the cognitiveperception of the world, albeit in a morecomprehensive way than our ordinary, everydaycognitive perception. We could say that scienceis a higher level of cognitive perception. Butthere cannot be any fundamental differencebetween science and its everyday counterpart.The intrinsic features of the process of cognitionmust be the same wherever it occurs. So,contrary to widely held belief, science is not aspecial activity which is uniquely different fromall other kinds of cognitive activity. It isepistemologically no different from the

everyday process of cognitive perception, andtherefore everything which has been said aboutthis must apply equally to science itself.34

All scientific knowledge, then, is a correlationof what is seen with the way it is seen. Whenthe “way of seeing” is invisible—as it is in thenaïveté of what Husserl called “the naturalattitude,” which just takes the world for granted—then we live on the empirical level where itseems to be self-evident that discoveries aremade directly through the senses. In this “naturalattitude” we have no sense of our ownparticipation, and hence we seem to ourselvesto be onlookers to a world which is fixed andfinished. Forgetfulness of the way of seeing isthe origin of empiricism, which is still by far themost popular philosophy of science, in spite ofall the discoveries in the history and philosophyof science which show that it is a philosophy of

cognitive amnesia. This is certainly thephilosophy of science which is usuallycommunicated, often implicitly, by the way thatscience is taught in schools and the way that it ispresented in popular books. What is missingfrom all such accounts is the active role of theorganizing idea.

THE ORGANIZING IDEA INOBSERVATIONAL DISCOVERIES

The difference between the cognitive and theempirical approaches to understanding scientificknowledge can be illustrated in the first place byobservational discoveries. Typical examples arefound in astronomy. An excellent one isprovided by Galileo's telescopic discoveries. Inthis case we can compare the account which isgiven in popular histories of science with the onewhich Galileo himself gives in his book SideriusNuntius.35 We read in modern books thatGalileo pointed his telescope at the heavens andsaw mountains and valleys on the Moon,satellites around Jupiter, and spots on the Sun.We are told that these new phenomena wereobserved by him through his telescope directly,and we are naturally left wondering why there

were so many who were opposed to him initiallyand derided these discoveries. Surely, all theyhad to do was to look through the telescope,and they would see for themselves. WhatGalileo's own account makes clear is that he didnot see any of these features immediately onlooking through the telescope. He only came tosee them subsequently, and in each case doingso entailed a change in the way of seeing as aresult of the action of an organizing idea inperception.

In the case of the Moon, what he actuallysaw was a larger number of spots than could beseen with the naked eye. These were small andnumerous, compared with the much larger oneswith which everyone was already familiar. So“what Galileo actually saw through the telescopewas a collection of spots of two sorts.”36 Thiswas the visual data. It is not, of course, pure

visual data, since to see “spots” is already tohave a nonsensory factor, i.e., the concept, inthe perception. This was the visual data thatanyone at the time could have experienced onlooking through the telescope, not mountainsand valleys. The visual data here is similar to thehidden giraffe before the giraffe appears.Eventually this visual data was transformed byGalileo into the cognitive perception ofmountains and valleys (the interested reader willhave to consult the accounts referred to in notes35 and 36 for details). This is the discovery—which is similar to the experience of seeing thegiraffe. It is evident that the discovery is achange in the way of seeing because of theintrinsic action of an organizing idea inperception. The discovery of mountains andvalleys is in the seeing which sees mountains andvalleys on the Moon, not in the reception of the

visual data—“discovery is not a matter simply ofaccurate sensory perception.”37

Galileo's discovery of the satellites of Jupiteris a case which is similar to the duck/rabbit.What he saw on January 7, 1610, was threestars close to Jupiter:

He believed “them to be among the number offixed stars.”38 The following night, January 8, hefound a different arrangement:

All three stars were now to the west of Jupiter,closer to each other than on the previous night,and separated by equal intervals. He tells us thathe began to wonder whether Jupiter was notmoving eastwards at the time, contrary to the

computations of the astronomers. The next nightwas overcast. But the following two nights,January 10 and 11, he saw a differentarrangement again:

Then his cognitive perception wastransformed into seeing “entirely beyond doubt,that in the heavens there are three starswandering around Jupiter like Venus andMercury around the Sun.” He goes on to say,“This was at length seen clear as day in manysubsequent observations, and also that there arenot only three, but four wandering stars makingtheir revolutions about Jupiter.”39

It is clear from this account that the discoveryis not a purely sensory experience of a visual

appearance. The transformation which Galileodescribes is a change in the way of seeing as aresult of the action of an organizing idea—thechange in the way of seeing is the action of theidea. The visual appearance remains the same,b u t what is seen, the meaning, is entirelydifferent—this is the meaning which is what isseen, not the meaning of what is seen.40

Failure to notice the dimension of mind whichis intrinsic to observation leads us to think wecan pinpoint an observational discovery as if itwere a point-event. Thus, for example, webelieve that the planet Uranus was discoveredby Sir William Herschel at a particular momentin 1791. But compare this with the followingaccount of the discovery:

On at least seventeen different occasionsbetween 1690 and 1781, a number of

astronomers, including several ofEurope's most eminent observers, hadseen a star in positions that we nowsuppose must have been occupied at thetime by Uranus. One of the bestobservers in this group had actually seenthe star on four successive nights in 1769without noting the motion that could havesuggested another identification.Herschel, when he first observed thesame object twelve years later, did sowith a much improved telescope of hisown manufacture. As a result, he wasable to notice an apparent disk-size thatwas at least unusual for the stars.Something was awry, and he thereforepostponed identification pending furtherscrutiny. That scrutiny disclosed Uranus'motion among the stars, and Herschel

therefore announced that he had seen anew comet! Only several months later,after fruitless attempts to fit the observedmotion to a cometary orbit, did Lexellsuggest that the orbit was probablyplanetary.41

So who discovered the planet Uranus,Herschel or Lexell? The textbooks and thepopular history of science tell us it wasHerschel. Yet he saw a comet! Once werecognize that an observational discovery is notmade through the senses alone, in the way thatwe might imagine, then we can see the origin ofthe difficulty here. An observational discovery isa cognitive process, and not an instantaneouspoint-event. As well as the sensory aspect, thereis also a nonsensory factor in cognitiveperception. The discovery is the perception of

meaning which is the coalescence of these twofactors. If we try to catch the coming-into-beingof a discovery, instead of beginning from thefinished product, then we can recognize that thediscovery is a structured process. But when webegin from what has been discovered, theintrinsic dimension of mind is hidden. This resultsin a distortion in our understanding of what adiscovery is—a distortion which affects the waywe read the history of science, as we have seenin the example above.42 When the dimension ofmind which is intrinsic to observation is coveredover, then we get what amounts to the Flatlandstory of discovery.43

The role of the organizing idea in cognitiveperception is of such an active kind that if theidea changes, then what is seen changes. In thiscase what is seen is changed from within the

seeing itself, and not by the addition of a furthersensory factor. The new organizing idea makesit possible to see what was not seen before. Thetransformation can be dramatic. An illustrationof how dramatic this can be is also provided byGalileo, but this time from his work on thekinematics of projectiles. It is well known thathe showed the trajectory of a projectile, such asa cannonball, to be a curve with the form of aparabola. But it is only after he had introducedthe idea of this that people saw the path of aprojectile, such as a cannonball or an arrow, tobe curved. What is seen “lights up” as “what itis” in the light of the idea. The idea is the lightwhich allows what is seen to appear as such.Before Galileo's discovery, pictures of thetrajectory were drawn like the illustration at thetop of the next page. This fits the theory ofmotion which was believed at the time.

But this does not mean that what was seen wasthe (post-Galilean) trajectory we would seetoday, and that the drawing was made to fit thetheory of the time contrary to what peopleactually saw. The organizing idea of theAristotelian theory of motion resulted in thistrajectory being seen. We should also considerthe fact that, for most observers, the trajectorywould look like this because they would bebehind the projectile and in the same line, notfacing it from the side, as in the diagram.44 Butafter Galileo's discovery, the organizing idea in

the observation had changed, and a differenttrajectory was seen and drawn:

As indicated above, it wasn't that before Galileopeople didn't look carefully enough. They sawwhat they saw in the light of an organizing idea.Galileo saw in the light of a different organizingidea, so what he saw was different. A change inthe way of seeing means a change in what isseen.

In fact, whether or not something appears atall depends on the action of an organizing idea inperception. Oliver Sacks describes hisexperience of coming to recognize Tourette's

syndrome. He was surprised, after first seeingone Touretter, to see three the next day indowntown New York within the space of anhour. He was surprised because he knew thatTourette's syndrome was said to be extremelyrare. He recounts that he began to wonder if itwas possible that he had been overlookingTourette's syndrome all the time—perhaps justnot seeing such cases. “Was it possible thateveryone had been overlooking them? Was itpossible that Tourette's was not a rarity, butrather common—a thousand times morecommon, say, than previously supposed?” Thenext day, after seeing two more Touretters in thestreet he supposed to himself “that Tourette's isvery common but fails to be recognized, butonce recognized is easily and constantly seen.”Sacks then mentions the similar case of musculardystrophy:

A very similar situation happened withmuscular dystrophy which was neverseen until Duchenne described it in the1850s. By 1860, after his originaldescription, many hundreds of cases hadbeen recognized and described, so muchso that Charcot said: “How come that adisease so common, so widespread, andso recognizable at a glance—a diseasewhich has doubtless always existed—how come that it is only recognized now?Why did we need M. Duchenne to openour eyes?”45

The answer to this question is to be found inthe process of cognitive perception itself. As wehave seen, there is more to seeing than meetsthe eye, and the extra factor is the action of theorganizing idea. Without this we cannot see

what is there. However, we must not think ofsomething which is seen for the first time as if itwere there already as such, i.e., as if it hadalready become visible but simply was not beingseen. Seeing it for the first time “there's it,” sothat it becomes visible. This means that it comesinto the realm of the visible from the invisible, sothat it appears and thus comes to be as such.46

The failure to notice the dimension of mindwhich is intrinsic to observation leads directly tothe most popular misunderstanding of scientificknowledge, namely, naive empiricism—whichcould also be called “factism.” This is the viewthat there are “facts,” which are independent ofany ideational element and to which we have“direct access” by sense perception. Such facts,it is believed, constitute the basic data (“thegiven”) of science. The scientific procedure,according to this view, is to begin by collecting

such facts by “pure observation” (i.e., idea-lessobservation). Only then, when the facts areknown independently of any ideas, does thinkingbegin. Thinking then organizes the facts andseeks to explain them by means of a theory,which can be tested by means of furtherobservations and experiments. A view ofscientific procedure which is commonlyassociated with this image of science is“inductivism.” This purports to show thatscientific laws are empirical generalizationsreached by abstracting what is common to anumber of observations. David Hume showedlong ago that scientific laws cannot be derivedfrom facts in this way.47 This is not a possiblepathway for science. But to Hume's reason forrejecting induction as a basis for discoveringscientific laws from facts, we must now add thatin any case facts are not what they are assumed

to be by the empiricist philosophy of science.Far from there being direct access to the factsby sense perception alone, there is actually anonsensory factor in every fact. Far from beingidea-less, there is an organizing idea in every actof cognitive perception. In Feyerabend's vividmetaphor, observational terms (and hence facts)are “Trojan horses.”48 For the same reason,there cannot be an independent test of a theory,if by this is meant an idea-less, purely sense-perceptible encounter with nature, which can becompared somehow with the theory to decidewhether it is true or false. The so-calledcorrespondence theory of truth is based on amistaken view which is still “alive and well” inthe teaching of science in schools and colleges,often hiding implicitly in the way that science istaught, in spite of the belief which philosophersof science may have that it has been thoroughly

discredited.

THE ORGANIZING IDEA IN THETHEORIES OF SCIENCE

Science is more than just observationaldiscovery. It involves a much morecomprehensive level than this. But at whateverlevel it is taken, we always find that the keyfactor is an organizing idea. The core ofdiscovery is always the organizing idea and notthe sensory input. At a more comprehensivelevel than we have looked at hitherto, forexample, there are such scientific discoveries asthe moving Earth and inertial motion. These areoften wrongly presented as if they were simplyobservational discoveries (or in the latter case,observation augmented by experiment). But thisis far from being the case, as we will see below.Ideas such as the “moving Earth” idea or the“inertial motion” idea organize scientific

cognition and research in the same way that the“chair” idea organizes cognitive perception of achair. Historically, they function as neworganizing ideas for scientific cognition. Theywere not derived from observations (or fromexperiments) any more than the concepts ineveryday cognition can be derived from senseexperience—or the giraffe could be derivedfrom the black and white patches. These aretheoretical ideas of science, and as such theyfunction at a higher level of organization than theorganizing ideas of everyday cognition, butotherwise they are no different in kind.

Copernicus and the Moving EarthWe will begin by exploring briefly the discoverywhich can be placed at the beginning of modernscience: the discovery that the Earth moves,

rotating on its own axis and revolving around theSun. This discovery is due to Copernicus, whomade it public in his book De RevolutionibusOrbium Caelestium, which was published in1543. The term “discovery” is used here in theconventional way. But this hides an ambiguity inthe use of this term when we extend it beyondthe kind of observational discoveries discussedso far (and even there we found ambiguity—inthe discovery of Uranus, for example). Thepoint here is that, contrary to what is so oftenbelieved, Copernicus's discovery was not basedon observation. In fact, the observationalevidence was not attained until 1838.49 Whenthis “discovery” was announced by thepublication of Copernicus's book, not only wasthere no observational evidence for it, but therewas a considerable body of evidence against it.On top of which, there were other weighty

reasons for rejecting what Copernicus said,which came from physics, philosophy, andtheology (which were by no means separatedfrom each other at the time). But, above all,there was (and is!) the inescapable fact that themovement of the Earth is plainly contradicted bythe immediate experience of the senses. Therewould be very few indeed at the time whowould look at the proposal of a heliocentricuniverse, with its moving Earth, as a discovery.Yet gradually it came to be accepted, so that bythe time the observational evidence becameavailable, it was almost superfluous.50 Ascientific discovery of this kind is a complexcultural-historical process, which cannot bepinpointed at one moment in time. What comesto count as a “discovery” does not begin assuch, but is socially constituted. The recognitionthat something is a discovery constitutes it as a

discovery—it is not a “discovery” before it isrecognized as such. Rather than somethingwhich happens at a particular instant, like anatural event, a discovery is a social event whichseems to have an extended present moment ofits own.51

At the time, there seemed to be very goodreasons for rejecting what Copernicus said. Itshould perhaps be added that many of thesewould still seem to be good reasons today, if wedid not “know” that what Copernicus said istrue. Our belief system effectively renders suchobjections inoperable—not because we knowhow to answer them (unless we have studiedphysics), but because they would no longer beraised. First and foremost there is the evidentfact that our senses inform us unequivocally thatthe Earth is at rest. A little thought should soondiscover what would seem to be inevitable

consequences of a moving Earth, none of whichare to be found. In fact everything is exactly as itwould be if the Earth were at rest. If the Earthmoved, any object not attached to the Earthwould be left behind. An object dropped fromthe top of a tower, or the mast of a ship, wouldnot fall at the foot of the tower or mast. Aperson jumping up and down would land faraway from the point he or she jumped from. Butworse than these inconveniences, everything onthe Earth s surface would be hurled off it by theEarth's rotation like a stone from a sling.Evidently the Earth does not move!

But there are other compelling reasons, aswell as common-sense physics, for believing thatthe Earth is at rest and in the center of theuniverse. There were good astronomicalreasons. The problem of parallax, or rather thelack of it, has been mentioned already (see note

49). But correlated with this, there is the factthat the Earth's central position in the universecan apparently be derived from the observationthat the horizon for any observer on Earthbisects the sphere of the stars.52 The system ofphysics accepted throughout the period beforeCopernicus was the one developed by Aristotle.This physics provided a coherent way of seeingthe phenomenon of change in the various formsthat it takes in nature. Aristotle's physics isanything but speculative (in the derogatorysense). It is much more concrete andexperiential than the mathematical-experimentalphysics which later replaced it, and onceprejudices are put aside it is easy to see why itwas so influential.53 Many modifications weremade to Aristotle's physics during the laterMiddle Ages, but none of them ever suggested

moving the Earth away from the center of theuniverse. This notion was so fundamental to thecosmological scheme based on Aristotle'sphysics, that the attempt to displace the Earthfrom the center would require the rejection ofthe entire system of physics. This, of course, iswhat happened. However, at the time this was avery weighty objection to any proposal whichentailed moving the Earth from the center of theuniverse.

But more than physics and astronomy wereinvolved here. There were also strongtheological reasons for a stationary Earth at thecenter of the universe. Albertus Magnus,followed by his pupil, Thomas Aquinas, hadworked to reconcile Aristotelian physics andcosmology with the Bible. The thoroughnesswith which this was done resulted “in thecreation of a new fabric of coherent Christian

doctrine,” so that “during the last centuries of theMiddle Ages the setting of Christian life, bothterrestrial and celestial, was a full Aristotelianuniverse.”54 The central, stationary Earthbecame a pillar of the new Church theology, andsince everything in this system of thought wasinterconnected in an internally coherent fashion,“Moving the Earth may necessitate movingGod's Throne.”55

When we add together all these objectionsagainst a nonstationary, noncentral Earth, wemay well wonder what advantage Copernicus'sinnovation could have had for it to havesuperseded the existing account of planetarymotion. The fact of the matter is that, to beginwith, it had none! It is an extraordinary historicalfact that a theory which had no immediateadvantage, and many disadvantages, eventually

succeeded in becoming the mainstream,orthodox theory of planetary motion. It is not amatter of some supposed “scientific method”deciding one way or the other; criteria offalsification/verification do not enter into it. Theprogress of this initially most unlikely theory canonly be understood historically and notscientifically—as this term is usually understood,i.e., as referring to an ahistorical method forattaining “truths” which is autonomous andindependent of all cultural factors. To takeCopernicus's innovation beyond the point thathe was able to reach required a commitment tohis idea which went far beyond the lack ofevidence for it at the time. Such commitment hasno place in the standard view of thedevelopment of science.56 The answer to thequestion of how the Copernican theorysucceeded is a historical answer, and not a

scientific one, if by “scientific” is meant theapplication of a self-contained methodology withits own intrinsic logic.

The scheme of astronomical computationwhich Copernicus replaced had enjoyed a longand successful history. The origin of the methodemployed is unclear, but it was at least eighteenhundred years old by the time of Copernicus.Because of the major contribution made byPtolemy (about 150 C.E.), it is often referred toas Ptolemaic astronomy. In this system, thecomplex motion of the planets, as seen againstthe background of the stars, is calculated on thebasis that, no matter how it appears, the motionof a planet is always fundamentally movement ina circle at a constant rate.57 The geometricaltechniques of major and minor epicycles on adeferent, eccentrics and equants, were alldeveloped to show quantitatively how complex

planetary motions could be understood in termsof circular motion. It was very successful: “Forits subtlety, flexibility, complexity, and power theepicycle-deferent technique . . . has no parallelin the history of science until quite recenttimes.”58

But gradually, as time went on, there werethose to whom it seemed the system wasbecoming too subtle, too flexible, and toocomplex. Copernicus's aim was to reduce thecomplexity, and he tried to show how this couldbe done geometrically by inverting the positionof the Sun and the Earth (and moving the Moonaround the latter). On this basis, Copernicuswas able to dispense with the need for majorepicycles, because the retrograde motion of theplanets was now understood as only anapparent motion, when the planets were viewedagainst the background of the stars from a

moving Earth. This was his major achievement.Kuhn points out that “with respect to theapparent motions of the Sun and stars, the twosystems are equivalent, and the Ptolemaic issimpler.”59 But he then goes on to say that withregard to the planets, “this apparent economy ofthe Copernican system, though it is apropaganda victory that the proponents of thenew astronomy rarely failed to emphasize, islargely an illusion.”60 If this comes as a surpriseto us, it is because we view Copernicus'sachievement from the other end of the story,when the difficulties which Copernicus himselfwas unable to resolve had been overcome. Butif we attribute this achievement to Copernicushimself, then we present his work as beingunproblematic, and we obscure the historicalnature of the development of scientific

knowledge (what this means will become clearerbelow). The seven-circle system whichCopernicus presents in the first part of his book,and which is presented in elementary treatmentstoday, is certainly very simple. But it does notpredict the positions of the planets with anaccuracy comparable to Ptolemy's system.Although he got rid of the major epicycles,Copernicus had to introduce minor epicyclesand eccentrics in order to achieve quantitativeresults comparable to Ptolemy. Kuhn draws theconclusion:

His full system was little if any lesscumbersome than Ptolemy's had been.Both employed over thirty circles; therewas little to choose between them ineconomy. Nor could the two systems bedistinguished by their accuracy. When

Copernicus had finished adding circles,his cumbersome Sun-centered systemgave results as accurate as Ptolemy's, butit did not give more accurate results.Copernicus did not solve the problem ofthe planets.61

So there still remains the question of wherethe commitment came from which was neededto develop this system beyond the point whichCopernicus himself was able to reach. At theend of the letter to the Pope which Copernicusprefixed to his book, he mentions the possibilitythat his work might contribute to the reform ofthe calendar, which was a concern of theChurch at the time. He indicates that it was theneed for this which had led him to consider suchradical proposals. In actuality, the Gregoriancalendar, adopted in 1582, was based on

calculations which made use of Copernicus'swork. However, this in itself does not mean thatCopernicus's theory came to be accepted as aphysically true theory—as it stood it couldn'tpossibly be physically true with all thecomplications he had needed to introduce just toachieve results comparable to Ptolemy. It couldhave been adopted simply as a computationaldevice. Such an attitude towards schemes forcalculating the planets was quite common at thetime, and the unsolicited and unsigned extrapreface which Oslander added to Copernicus'sbook said this was how the Copernican schemecould be taken.62 But it wasn't acceptedultimately, or even originally, as just such adevice—though no doubt this is how it was usedin connection with the Gregorian calendar. Itwas accepted as a physically true theory, and tofind the root of the commitment to the

Copernican theory that made this possibleagainst all the difficulties, we have to go a bitdeeper into Copernicus himself.

We can begin by looking further at whatCopernicus says in his prefatory letter abouthow and why he came to make such radicalproposals. Apart from some specific technicaland mathematical-aesthetic objections toPtolemy's scheme, he says of themathematicians:

Nor have they been able thereby todiscern or deduce the principle thing—namely the shape of the Universe and theunchangeable symmetry of its parts. Withthem it is as though an artist were togather the hands, feet, head, and othermembers for his images from diversemodels, each part excellently drawn, but

not related to a single body, and sincethey in no way match each other, theresult would be monster rather thanman.63

Now this is the very thing which Copernicusclaims to be able to do as a result of hisproposal that the Earth moves:

I have discovered that, if the motions ofthe rest of the planets be brought intorelation with the circulation of the Earthand be reckoned in proportion to thecircles of each planet, not only do theirphenomena presently ensue, but theorders and magnitudes of all stars andspheres, nay the heavens themselves,become so bound together that nothing inany part thereof could be moved from its

place without producing confusion of allthe other parts, and of the Universe as awhole.64

Copernicus can discover the harmony and unityof the whole as it had never been shown before,by the expedient of ascribing motions to theEarth. What this tells us is that the harmony andthe unity of the whole mattered very much toCopernicus; it mattered so much in fact that hewas prepared to move the Earth to achieve it.How he came to be able to do this, he tells us,was by returning to the works of earlierastronomers before the establishment of themathematical tradition which culminated inPtolemy. Here he discovered a number ofreferences to the moving Earth. He mentionsHeraclides, amongst others, who consideredthat the Earth rotated on its axis. But he fails to

mention that Heraclides also considered thatMercury and Venus revolve about the Suninstead of the Earth.65 He does not mentionAristarchus, which is very surprising, because ifhe “took pains to read again the works of all thephilosophers on whom I could lay hand” then hecould not have missed Aristarchus.66 It is nowquite customary to refer to Aristarchus as theCopernicus of antiquity because, as well as therotation of the Earth on its axis, he added thefurther movement of the Earth around the Sun—in fact he seems to have had all the planetsmoving round the Sun in the center. But, asMarshall Clagett points out, it would perhaps bepreferable to call Copernicus the Aristarchus ofmodern times.67

The new philosophy and history of sciencewhich have developed over the past thirty years

have come to recognize the way that scientificknowledge is situated in historical traditions. Farfrom beginning with pure observation, anynatural science of the modern period isconstituted within a historical tradition. The newhistory of science makes this context visible,whereas the practice of science often covers itover and thereby distorts our understanding ofscience. What we discover with Copernicus isnot new observations and evidence, but a newway of seeing observations and data which hadthemselves long been familiar. The discovery is anew organizing idea, which sets what is knowninto a new pattern of relationships and therebychanges its meaning. But this transformation ofmeaning is brought about by incorporating intoscience a body of ideas which are drawn from ahistorical school of thought, and not by any ofthe procedures which are today recognized as

being specifically “scientific.” Copernicusbelieved that the problem of planetary motioncould not be solved by any further work withinthe accepted system of ideas because it was thatsystem of ideas itself which needed to bechanged. There is no way that such a changecan be brought about by further observation, nomatter how carefully done, and so whatCopernicus did was to turn to a differenthistorical tradition for the new organizing idea.The new theory emerged from a school ofthought, not from new facts.68

The alternative tradition to which Copernicusturned is one which was inspired in him, andmany Renaissance scientists, by the movementof humanism. The humanists were very muchopposed to the Aristotelian tradition of learningin the universities, and they tended to reject theactivity of natural science as being one which it

was unprofitable for people to pursue while theyare still ignorant of what was for them the mostimportant thing, viz., knowledge of humannature. Yet, although the humanists were againstscience, through their concern with the ancientsources which were newly recovered, theyintroduced many ideas which greatly influencedthe development of modern science. Foremostamong these were the ideas which are clusteredunder the name of Neo-Platonism, whichincludes what is also called Neo-Pythagoreanism.69 Copernicus was introducedto this school of thought by his teacher inBologna, Domenico de Novara, who was aclose associate of the Florentine Neo-Platonists—who were at a later time to influence Galileo(see “Galileo and the Moving Earth,” below).Several of the main ideas of Neo-Platonism arewoven through Copernicus's book. Once we

recognize them, we can begin to see the extentto which the revolution in science was the resultof the influence of a major school of thought,and not the work of a handful of scientistsworking on their own independently of anycultural, social, or historical context.

There are four main ideas of Neo-Platonismwoven together throughout Copernicus's work.For convenience, we will consider themseparately.

(1) The Earth moves—and therefore is aplanet. We have seen already that Copernicusdid not discover this directly himself, “from thefacts,” but that he found it in the ancient sourcesto which he turned. Now we discover that thisidea of a moving Earth belongs to a school ofthought, and hence that it is part of a continuoushistorical tradition. When we know this, it givesus quite a different perspective than when we

believed that it was discovered by Copernicuson his own.

(2) The Sun is of central importance in theuniverse. It is the source of light and life, andthe symbolic representative of God—andtherefore is unique and not a planet. The onlyplace which is compatible with the Sun'screative and symbolic role is in the center of theheavens. This is how Copernicus refers to theSun:

In the middle of all sits Sun enthroned. Inthis most beautiful temple could we placethis luminary in any better position fromwhich he can illuminate the whole atonce? He is rightly called the Lamp, theMind, the Ruler of the Universe; HermesTrismegistus names him the visible God,Sophocles' Electra calls him the All-

seeing. So the Sun sits as upon a royalthrone ruling his children the planetswhich circle round him.70

(3) The true order of the world is found bygoing beyond the senses, even by goingagainst them. Copernicus, as we have seen,does this in the way that he explains the dailyrotation of the heavens (the Earth rotates), andthe gradual motions of the Sun and planetsaround the ecliptic (the Earth moves around theSun). These motions, so evident to commonsense, are but appearances to the senses and assuch are illusory and misleading for Copernicus.The true order contradicts this, and once it isdiscovered, many otherwise disparateobservations fall into place as naturalconsequences of a single cause, viz., the Earthmoves.71 Galileo, who also came under the

influence of the philosophy of Neo-Platonism,said this about the senses:

I cannot sufficiently admire the eminenceof those men's wits, that have receivedand held it to be true, and with thesprightliness of their judgments offeredsuch violence to their senses, as that theyhave been able to prefer that which theirreason dictated to them, to that whichsensible experiments represented mostmanifestly to the contrary. ... I cannotfind any bounds for my admiration, howthat reason was able in Aristarchus andCopernicus, to commit such a rape ontheir senses, as in despite thereof tomake herself mistress of their credulity.72

Such a statement can only come as a

considerable surprise to those of us who haveunwittingly accepted the view that modernscience began when human beings “came totheir senses” and left theoretical speculationbehind in favor of the evidence of the senses.Confusion here arises from realizing that thebeginning of modern science came when peopleexperienced a new awakening of interest in theworld encountered through the senses, aninterest in the natural world instead of religiousmatters, but failing to realize that the science ofthe “sensory world” which was developed wasnot derived from the senses. The modernscience of the natural world is not a sensoryscience. This is in fact what Goethe tried to do.He developed a natural science which is sense-based, and, as such, stays close to the sensory,dwelling within it instead of going beyond it.73

(4) The true order of the world, which is

reached by going beyond the senses, is amathematical harmony consisting of simplearithmetical and geometric relationships. Theunity of the universe is mathematical, and, assuch, it is discovered by the intellectual mind.According to Neo-Platonism, this mathematicalunity is the ultimate reality of the phenomenonitself. The influence of this aspect of Neo-Platonism on Copernicus can be recognized inseveral of the quotations already given above.His complaint against the Ptolemaicastronomers, that they had not “been ablethereby to discern or deduce the principle thing—namely, the shape of the Universe and theunchangeable symmetry of its parts,” is a goodexample. When he says that “the orders andmagnitudes of all stars and spheres, nay theheavens themselves, become so bound togetherthat nothing in any part thereof could be moved

from its place without producing confusion of allthe other parts and of the Universe as a whole,”this is an expression of the attitude of Neo-Platonism towards the unity of the whole. Afterthe statement of the role of the Sun quotedabove, he goes on to say, “So we findunderlying this ordination an admirablesymmetry in the Universe, and a clear bond ofharmony in the motion and magnitude of theSpheres such as can be discovered in no otherwise,”74 which is a clear expression of thePythagorean stream of Neo-Platonism. Thisstatement is followed by the long list ofphenomena (see note 71) which “all . . .proceed from the same cause, namely Earth'smotion,” which we can see clearly expresses theNeo-Platonist emphasis on simplicity. Thenotion that the business of science is to discoversimple mathematical relationships in nature,

which will reduce many phenomena whichwould otherwise be merely a multiplicity to asingle cause, and thereby discover simpleharmony in nature, is a fundamental contributionof Neo-Platonism to the growth of modernscience.

For the Neo-Platonist philosopher, themathematical provides an intermediate realmbetween the imperfect and changing world ofthe senses and the perfect and unchanging worldof pure spirit. Mathematical relations concerningtriangles and circles, for example, are trueindependently of any particular triangle or circle.They are properties of pure triangularity orcircularity and cannot be drawn as such. Yetany triangle or circle that is drawn must reflectthem imperfectly inasmuch as they are triangularand circular. Thus each triangle or circleparticipates simultaneously both in the intelligible

and the visible.75 This is how Copernicusunderstands the mathematical harmony of theSun and attendant planets. As we saw above,he speaks of this system as a “most beautifultemple” with the Sun which is the representativeof God in the center. In 1560, the architectPaladio wrote that the beauty of a temple willresult “from the correspondence of the whole tothe parts, of the parts among themselves, and ofthese again to the whole; so that the structuremay appear an entire and complete body,wherein each member agrees with the other andall members are necessary for theaccomplishment of the building.”76 Howremarkably similar this is to Copernicus'sstatement that if the motions of the planets bebrought into relation with the movement of theEarth, “the orders and magnitudes of all stars

and spheres, nay the heavens themselves,become so bound together that nothing in anypart thereof could be moved from its placewithout producing confusion of all the otherparts and the Universe as a whole.”77

Copernicus meant it to be taken literally whenhe said that the solar system is a beautifultemple. He was not just speakingmetaphorically, as we might at first havesupposed. It is the mathematical harmony thathe discovered which makes this possible.

Copernicus's new system of the planets fitssmoothly into the Renaissance aesthetic, ofwhich it can now be seen as one expression. Indiscovering the distance from Earth to Sun to bethe common measure, the symmetry (sym +metria), in terms of which the whole coalesces,he disclosed the cosmos as a temple for theliving God in the same way that the Renaissance

architect understood a temple and the anatomistand the artist understood the human body as atemple. By recontextualizing Copernicus in thisway, we see him no longer as an isolatedindividual but as being of a piece with his time.Consequently, his revolution in planetaryastronomy no longer appears as an isolatedevent, but as a development which is intelligiblein the cultural–historical context of its time.

Now we can see the source of Copernicus'scommitment to his theory in the face of all theobjections to it, and the evident inadequacy ofhis scheme as far as he had been able todevelop it before publishing. The Copernicanuniverse was really a new overall organizing ideawhich had its roots in a school of thought, andnot in new empirical discoveries. The theory isnot founded on observation, but in a new way ofseeing which is incorporated into science

(literally) from an extrascientific source. So thefoundations of the Copernican revolution arehistorical, and not “scientific” in the sense thatthey are the result of an autonomousmethodology. This does not mean thatCopernicus's theory should not be considered tobe scientific. It means that, so far as its origin isconcerned, it does not conform to what weusually think “scientific” means. We musttherefore change our understanding of whatscience is to be in accord with whatpractitioners of science do, and not expect whatthey do to conform to what we think scienceought to be. This means recognizing theintrinsically historical character of scientificknowledge, and hence coming to recognize withGoethe that “the history of science is scienceitself.”

It was the commitment to this new organizing

idea which made it possible for others todevelop the Copernican scheme further. Kepler,in particular, was able to go forward in anunprecedented way because of this. Hisinsistence that the Sun must be in the center,and must be the guiding power of the system ofplanets, entered so deeply into his work that itguided practical strategies of working rightdown to the details. Far from being a superficialphilosophical decoration added on toCopernican astronomy, and thereforescientifically superfluous, Neo-Platonism was aneffective guiding idea for a whole researchprogram.78

It looks at first as if what Copernicusdiscovered was not new facts, but a new way ofseeing the facts which were known already. Yetit is more subtle than this. Putting it this wayimplies that the facts are like bricks, which are

just rearranged into a different structure.Rearranging a pile of bricks into a new structuredoes not change the bricks. But this does nothold for facts which are reorganized accordingto a new way of seeing. In this case the facts arechanged in a subtle way. Before Copernicus itwas a fact that the Sun is a planet; afterCopernicus the Sun is not a planet but a uniquebody with special powers and significance in theuniverse. Before Copernicus the Earth was aunique body; after Copernicus the Earth is nolonger a unique body but a planet—and henceto be counted in the same category as Mars orVenus. So the new organizing idea does not justtake “astronomical bricks” and change theirarrangement from a Ptolemaic one into aCopernican one. The “astronomical bricks” arechanged in the process, and this is because thenew organizing idea changes the concepts, so

that there is a comprehensive change in meaning.Thus, the concept “planet” itself is changed, sothat there is a change in the meaning of “planet.”It is not simply a matter of redistributingheavenly bodies among categories with invariantmeanings. So if we want to talk aboutreorganizing the data, we have to remember thatthe facts, too, are modified. The factsthemselves are transformed in the new way ofseeing. There is no more elementary level wherewe can find immutable data. As Kuhn says,“What occurs during a scientific revolution is notfully reducible to a reinterpretation of individualand stable data. In the first place, the data arenot univocally stable.”79 So if we are going totalk about the new idea as “reorganizing” thefacts, then we must understand this as acreative reorganization because it does notsimply reorganize already existing elements but

changes their meaning. The failure to notice this,and the consequent tendency to think in terms ofan external rearrangement of already existingelements (the data), is another instance ofbeginning from the finished product instead offollowing through the coming-into-being.

When we do follow the coming-into-being,then we recognize that the new organizing idea isa new beginning—“planet,” “Earth,” “Sun,”“Moon” are new meanings, not the sameelements rearranged. Furthermore, the newmeanings cannot be derived from the oldmeanings, otherwise it would not be a newbeginning.80 Thus we come to recognize that thenew organizing idea is a genuinely creative idea.So, whereas it is true that there are no new factsin Copernicus's discovery, it is also true that thefacts are not the same facts after Copernicusthat they were before. The facts are changed

within themselves as a result of the newmeanings, which are correlative with the newway of seeing. This change is internal to thefacts, unlike the external addition of new facts.When we recognize this transformation of thefacts, we discover for ourselves the primacy ofmeaning, and see that meaning cannot bederived from anything which is other thanmeaning (i.e., from nonmeaning).

Galileo and the Moving EarthGalileo's work on the science of motionprovides a beautiful illustration of a change inmeaning which transforms the facts from within.Here again, there is an organizing idea whichdoes not simply rearrange data which arethemselves invariant with respect to the way ofseeing. There is a new way of seeing—new

meaning, which in the first place entails seeingdifferently, instead of seeing different things.Such a transformation of meaning is a change in“the possibility of experience” instead of anadditional experience.

It has often been pointed out that, to beginwith at least, Galileo is concerned with familiarfacts about motion and not with new, previouslyundiscovered facts. Yet this way of putting it canoften treat the facts of motion as if they werelike bricks which are just rearranged into adifferent pattern, a Galilean pattern instead of anAristotelian one. It hides the way that the factsof motion are transformed as a result of thechange in meaning of “motion” that is at the coreof Galileo's new way of seeing. Because Galileochanged the concept “motion,” his new scienceof motion is a creative rearrangement of thefacts of motion. So it is a new beginning. We

will explore this step of Galileo's briefly, becauseof the way that it illustrates so clearly thedevelopment of scientific knowledge, and howthis is very different from the empiricist's accountof science.

As we have seen previously, the problemwith the Copernican hypothesis is that, in termsof both common sense and the physics of theday, the motion of the Earth ought to be all tooevident by its consequences. Objects which arenot attached to the Earth should be left behind—clouds, birds, and the like. The air left behindby the Earth's rotations should result in a verystrong wind near the surface of the Earth. Totravel to the west the traveler would merelyneed to jump up and down, and the west wouldeventually arrive at his or her feet. Rocks, trees,animals, and people would be hurled from therotating Earth like stones from a sling. Evidently,

none of these supposed consequences of theEarth's movement are observed to happen. Infact, bodies move on the Earth in just the waythat they would do if the Earth was at rest. Butfar from accepting this as empirical evidence thatCopernicus was simply wrong, Galileo turnedthe problem the other way round and saw that“the crucial thing is being able to move the Earthwithout causing a thousand inconveniences.”Contrary to the empirical evidence, the motionof the Earth was simply not in doubt for Galileo.So the problem became that of creating aradically new physics of motion, which wouldshow how bodies move on a moving Earth inexactly the same way that they would move ifthe Earth itself were at rest.

In the way that he did this, Galileoexemplified Goethe's maxim that “the greatestart in theoretical and practical life consists in

changing the problem into a postulate; that wayone succeeds.”81 The problem for Galileo wasthat bodies moving on the Earth are indifferentto the Earth's motion, and he took this as thefundamental postulate of a new science ofmotion. Thus, indifference to motion ceases tobe a “problem” and becomes instead a newway of seeing motion. Far from being anautomatic step to take, when this inversion isfirst made it is an act of creative imagination. It iscertainly not an inference from the phenomena,but once this step of creative imagination hasbeen taken, then it can be re-presentedretrospectively as if it had been deduced fromthe phenomena—in which case the dimension ofmind in cognition is covered over. It seems thisway subsequently because the phenomena arethen being seen in the light of the new idea ofmotion (the conjurer's rabbit is already in the

hat). Once again, we get a false impression if webegin from the finished product of cognitioninstead of trying to catch the process ofcognition before this stage, i.e., in its coming-into-being.

Now in order to see that a body is indifferentto its motion, Galileo had to come to a furtherfundamental change in the way of seeing motionitself. He separated the motion of a body fromthe essential nature of the body, i.e., he saw themotion which a body had as being entirelyextrinsic, instead of intrinsic, to the body. BeforeGalileo, motion entailed the essence of whateverit was that was in motion. Motion itself wasconsidered to be a special case of change, andchange was considered to be whatever it is thatis changing becoming more fully itself. Thus agrowing plant, the education of a child, and abody falling to the ground were all instances of

change in which something comes to be morefully itself. So motion (change of place) wasseen as being a necessary feature of what it is tobe the body which is in motion. For Galileo, onthe other hand (and thence for modern physics),there is no such necessary connection betweenthe kind of motion a body has and its essentialnature. A body's motion is contingent to it, andhence a body can be indifferent to its state ofmotion. “Motion” is now merely a state in whicha body finds itself, and “as Galileo repeatedover and over, a body is indifferent to its state ofmotion or rest.”82

The key point here is that a body's motion isnow seen as a state which the body is in,whereas before Galileo motion was not seen asa state but as the change from one state toanother state. If motion is only a state in which abody can be, and not part of the very nature of

the body, then clearly the body itself must beindifferent to the state of motion which ithappens to (not must) be in. It is this idea ofindifference, dependent as it is upon the newidea of motion as a state, that is the foundationof Galileo's new way of seeing the problem ofhow bodies can move on a moving Earth inexactly the way that they would move if theEarth itself were not in motion—the new way ofseeing which turns the problem into a postulate.Familiar phenomena of motion are now seendifferently. For example, Galileo considered aball dropped from the top of a tower. If theEarth is at rest, the ball should fall straight downto the foot of the tower. It does so. But if theEarth is moving, then according to the physics ofGalileo's day, the ball should fall well to the westof the tower because of the immense speed withwhich the tower is traveling from west to east

(rotational speed about one thousand miles perhour). The fact that it does not fall like this, butfalls straight down, could easily be taken asgood empirical evidence against Copernicus fora stationary earth. Most, if not all of us, wouldhave agreed with this at the time. But Galileoturned it round: “Keeping up with the Earth isthe primordial and eternal motion ineradicablyand inseparably participated in by this ball as aterrestrial object, which it has by its nature andwill possess forever.” So, the ball is moving withthe earth at the top of the tower, and it continuesto do so as it is falling, with the result that itcomes to rest at the bottom of the tower, just asit would have done if the Earth had not beenmoving. It also follows that, because a body isindifferent to its state of motion, it can haveseveral motions simultaneously without thesegetting in each other's way. They will simply add

together to produce a resultant motion withoutany of the constituent motions being modified bythe presence of the others. It was in this manner,following the comprehensive change in the wayof seeing motion which he introduced, thatGalileo was able to reach one of his greatestachievements in the new science of mechanics.He showed that the path of a projectile must bea parabola by adding together a uniformhorizontal velocity and a uniform verticalacceleration, with neither one disturbing theother. From this it followed that the motion ofany body could be analyzed, i.e., separated intoindependent parts which would add together toproduce the original motion. Hence motioncould be investigated mathematically in the wayGalileo had shown, and this provided the modelfor the future development of science.

The Idea of Inertial MotionGalileo's new way of seeing the motion of abody was a key step towards the discovery ofinertial motion. Although Galileo did not makethis discovery (not in the sense in which it isunderstood in physics today), his recognition ofmotion as a state in which a body happens tobe, so that a body's motion is separate from theessential nature of the body, and hence that abody is indifferent to its motion, opens the wayto seeing that it can be just as natural for a bodyto be moving as to be at rest. So the idea dawnsthat there can be a motion which happens“naturally,” i.e., without a cause—in which casethe role of a causal agent (force) now becomesthat of changing motion and not sustaining it.

Although Galileo opened the door here, hewas too much concerned with the problems

arising from the work of Copernicus to gothrough it himself. He saw everything in thecontext of the universe as it was betrayed byCopernicus—a finite universe bounded by thesphere of the stars, with all motions in concentriccircles around the central point which wasoccupied by the Sun. Furthermore, as we haveseen, Galileo was especially concerned with theproblem of how a body on a moving Earthmoves just as it would do if the Earth was atrest. So a falling body will fall straightdownwards to an observer on the Earthbecause, once released, it continues to rotatewith the Earth. Because of his concern with thiskind of problem, Galileo seemed to think of thekind of motion we now call inertial (i.e., notneeding a cause to sustain it) as being circularmotion. Evidently this would fit in well with auniverse whose basic structure was spherical, as

well as with the fact that any body which rotatedwith the Earth would thereby execute a circle.Furthermore, there is the fact that, inemphasizing movement in a circle, Galileo wasacting in accordance with the special role givento the circle (and sphere) in the philosophies ofPlato and Aristotle, which had dominatedthinking for about two thousand years.83

The person who broke with circularity wasDescartes's. He seems to have been the first toconceive of inertial motion as being constantmotion (i.e., unaccelerated) in a straight line.The question is how did he come to thisconception, especially in view of the fact that itwent against such a long-standing tradition? Itcertainly was not reached as a result ofobservations and experiments, as we mightfalsely be led into thinking from the way thatscience is taught. The prejudice of empiricism is

impotent for understanding the discovery ofinertial motion—as Herbert Butterfieldexpressed it: “In fact, the modern law of inertiais not the thing you would discover by merephotographic methods of observation—itrequired a different kind of thinking-cap, atransposition in the mind of the scientisthimself.”84 This transposition came aboutthrough the influence of another school ofphilosophy—in this case the ancient philosophyof atomism.

The earliest atomists, Leucippus andDemocritus, developed the philosophy ofatomism as a response to a difficulty whichseems to have beset the early Greekphilosophers. It appeared to these thinkers thatthere was a contradiction between what oursenses perceive and what our thinking tells us.As it happened, this led to a mistrust of the

human senses and a belief that the true realitycould only be discovered by the power ofthinking. Atomism was one way which wasproposed to answer the difficulties which thiscaused, and Platonism was another.85 Thisphilosophy was subsequently developed furtherby Epicurus and his later follower Lucretius, aRoman poet whose literary work De RerumNatura had a considerable philosophicalinfluence when it was rediscovered in theRenaissance.86 In the first place, the philosophyof atomism was intended by Epicurus andLucretius as a means of dissolving fear of deathand the consequent attainment of a state oftranquility (ataraxia). The interest which theRenaissance humanists had in atomism hadnothing to do with its possible use as a basis forscientific thought. But once it had been

introduced, the idea of atoms began to influencethe thinking of the new “scientific” philosophers,who took it as the basis of a new and verydifferent (at the time) worldview.

One of the first to use it for this purpose wasGiordano Bruno, who combined in a speculativemanner the ideas of Copernicus on theheliocentric universe, the subtle vision ofNicholas of Cusa concerning the infinity of theuniverse, and the ancient atomistic philosophy ofan infinite void populated with freely movingatoms. It was Bruno who first introduced theidea that the Sun itself is a star, one of an infinitenumber of stars scattered throughout an infinitespace, some of which would have systems ofplanets like the Sun, among some of whichwould be planets like the Earth, where lifewould flourish. With this thought the orderedcosmos of the ancient and medieval world

(including that of Copernicus himself), with itsontological hierarchy that included a well-defined place for humanity, conferringcosmological significance on its existence, wasreplaced by the vast chaos (as it seemed) of themodern universe in which Earth and Sun werenowhere in particular, insignificant specks in anendless uniformity of particles, and humanbeings themselves, having no particular place,came to feel that their existence lacked intrinsicmeaning and was therefore cosmologicallydevalued.87 Contrary to what may be imaginedto have been the case, the understanding that theSun is another star “nowhere in particular” in theimmensity of space, did not come into ourmodern Western culture in the first place fromobservational discoveries in astronomy. It wasintroduced through the rediscovery andadoption of an ancient school of philosophical

thought—it had been proposed by the earliestGreek atomists, Leucippus and Democritus.However, there was a certain timeliness in thevirtual conjunction of the publication of Bruno'swork (1584) and Galileo's publication of histelescope discoveries (1610). Among the latterwas included an account of the discovery thatthe Milky Way, visible to the naked eye as apale glow in the sky, was resolved into a hugenumber of stars. Kuhn comments that “Bruno'smystical vision of a universe whose infinite extentand population proclaimed the infiniteprocreativeness of the Deity was very nearlytransformed into a sense datum.”88

Atomism was introduced explicitly intophysics by Galileo in The Assayer in 1623, aninfluential work in which he proposed an entirelynew language of physics to replace Aristotle's

physics of qualities.89 Thereafter, throughout theseventeenth century, in one form or another, thephilosophy of atomism (often called“corpuscularianism”) became the dominantphilosophy in the development of the newphysics. The program of research became (1) todiscover the laws imposed by God on thecorpuscles at the Creation, which governed theirmotions, interactions, and possiblecombinations; and (2) to apply these laws toexplain sense experience. It was while engagedin pursuing this research program thatDescartes's first came to see what we now callthe law of inertial motion. He considered how asingle corpuscle would move in the infinite spaceof atomistic cosmology—and then how thismotion would be altered by collision withanother corpuscle, and so on.90 When the

motion of a corpuscle is imagined in thiscontext, then, if it is moving freely (i.e., withoutany external influence), it seems “natural” that itcan only move straight ahead—because aninfinite space has no center and no intrinsicdirections. In other words, when the context ofthe motion is changed from a spherical boundedspace to an infinite space, then it seems“evident” to thought that a single corpuscle willmove in a straight line. It follows from thework of Galileo, in particular, that it will alsomove at constant speed. So the natural motionof a body, i.e., the motion which does not needa cause, is motion at constant speed in a straightline and not motion in a circle.

What is important here is the recognition ofthe role played by a philosophical school ofthought in this discovery. Far from beingdiscovered by science, the idea of atoms was

introduced into science. As with Neo-Platonismand Copernicus, this is a cultural–historicalfactor which contributes to the constitution ofscientific knowledge. As we have seenpreviously, this means that science is not a self-grounding activity, i.e., it does not provide itsown foundations by means of some purescientific procedure that makes no references toanything outside of science. The image ofscience as autonomous in this way is not borneout by a study of the coming-into-being ofscience historically. What this shows us insteadis that, as Goethe discovered, “the history ofscience is science itself.” It is by means of thekind of illustrations given herein that we canbegin to understand the meaning of this succinctstatement. What it means above all is thatscientific knowledge is not attained empirically,as the examples we have given show so clearly.

There is always a nonempirical determiningfactor which is of cultural–historical origin. It isby recognizing this historical conditionality ofscientific knowledge that we can be free fromthe enchantment with science which turns it intoan ideology.

Newton took Descartes's formulation of thelaw of inertial motion and made it thecornerstone of his mathematical physics. Itappears in his Principia as the first law ofmotion: “Every body perseveres in its state ofbeing at rest or of moving uniformly straightforward, except insofar as it is compelled tochange its state by forces impressed upon it.”But Newton makes the extraordinary claim thatthis law of motion is based on countlessobservations and experiments done by others,most notably Galileo. He presents it as anempirical generalization reached by induction

from experiments. So we can talk about the“experimental evidence” for the first law ofmotion, as if the law had simply been deriveddirectly from experiments. We have seen thatthis is certainly not true. Yet here we recognizethe standard view of science, the one which isrepeated in so many books, and the one whichis still taught in science education today. Whenwe consider the enormous prestige whichNewton has had, in his own lifetime as well asafterwards, then we cannot help but wonder ifthis statement of Newton is a major historicalsource of the widespread view that science isessentially empirical.91

If the law of inertial motion was notdiscovered empirically as supposed, then neithercan it be confirmed empirically by laboratorymeasurements, because the conceptual elementsentailed in it transcend experiment—for

example, the notion that motion is a state whicha body is in, instead of part of its essentialnature. When we think through the fundamentalideas of the science of motion, we discover thatthey are all intertwined, and therefore that anyexperimental test which is proposed alreadypresupposes the whole system of concepts. Wetherefore cannot have an independent test (i.e.,independent of the very concepts we are testing)in the way that we believe we would like,although what we can do is to constructempirical demonstrations of the ideas.92 Whatare usually passed off as “experiments” inscience education are in fact really“demonstrations.” The student is encouraged tothink that this is how the discovery was firstmade. But this is an inversion which amounts toa sleight of hand (“sleight of mind” would be anappropriate term) which hides the dimension of

mind in the discovery and makes it appear to beempirical. So the student thinks, wrongly, thatinertial motion, for example, is a property of abody which is given in sense experience in thesame way as the color of the body. The pointabout a demonstration is that it embodies theidea. We do not derive the idea from thedemonstration (i.e., when this is mistakenlythought to be an experiment), but we constructthe demonstration according to the idea. So thedemonstration shows the idea, but it does soonly to those who see it—in which case they areseeing the demonstration in the light of the idea,as if the idea is reflected in it. But when we areunaware of the process of cognition, it seems asif this is there in the physical situation in the samekind of way that color is, say, and that we areseeing it entirely by means of sense perception.It is as if someone looking in a mirror thought

that what he or she saw was actually there in themirror. The idea is the way of seeing; the idea ofinertial motion is seeing in the “inertial” way. Thelaboratory demonstration is itself a carrier forthe “inertial motion” idea because it is organizedaccording to this idea. So it is nonsense tosuppose that the idea was discovered in the firstplace from some such “experiment.” It would belike believing that the meaning “dog” wasderived in the first place from the letters d-o-g.

If the fundamental ideas of science are notconfirmable by independent empirical testing,then neither does it seem that they are falsifiedby observations and experiments which seem togive empirical counterinstances, We have seen,for example, that the counterinstance toCopernicus of the lack of any observableparallax was not permitted to falsifyCopernicus's theory. In fact, far from rejecting

his theory on account of this, he used it toextend his picture of the universe and suggestthat it was much larger than had been supposed.In this way he accommodated what wouldotherwise be a counterinstance.93 Similarly, wesaw with Galileo that all the empirical evidenceprovided counterinstances to the proposal thatthe Earth moves. But instead of rejecting thistheory, Galileo set about devising a radicallynew physics which would accommodate theseseemingly falsifying observations.

According to the traditional philosophy ofscience, all propositions which are meaningfulfall into one of two categories. Leibniz calledthese “truths of reason” and “truths of fact”; inmore recent philosophy they are referred to as“analytical propositions” and “empirical (orsynthetic) propositions.” An analyticalproposition is one which is intrinsically true

because the predicate is the definingcharacteristic of the subject—e.g., “all trianglesare three-sided”—so that any counterinstancewould be self-contradictory, which is anotherway of saying that there cannot be acounterinstance. For instance, in the aboveexample, a counterinstance would take the form“There is a particular triangle which isn't three-sided,” which is equivalent to saying “There is athree-sided figure which isn't three-sided,”which is self-contradictory. As well as alldefinitions, the propositions of logic andmathematics are analytical propositions. So thetruth of mathematics is contained within itself,and hence can be ascertained without goingoutside of the system of mathematics. Anempirical (synthetic) proposition, on the otherhand, is one which refers to something beyonditself, to which reference has to be made to

ascertain whether it is true or not. For example,“There is at least one raven in Iceland” requiressomeone to go to Iceland and look.94 Thecounterinstance, that there are no ravens inIceland, is certainly not self-contradictory. Onthe contrary, it is just as possible. Analyticalpropositions must be true, but empiricalpropositions just happen to be true, and couldjust as well be false. So the truth of the former isnecessary, whereas that of the latter iscontingent.

The assertion that every meaningfulproposition must fit into this dichotomy is oftenknown as “Hume's Fork,” because Humeinsisted that this was the criterion for whatconstitutes genuine knowledge. It was a centralfeature of the philosophy of logical positivismearlier in this century—which dominated thephilosophy of science up until the work of Kuhn

and others in the early 1960s. Hume maintainedthat any work which did not contain these twokinds of propositions was not knowledge andshould be consigned to the flames. The irony isthat this would include science! The fundamentallaws, principles, and theories of science areneither analytical nor empirical. Yet Humewould have been the last person to deny thevalidity of science, especially the science ofNewton.

The propositions which express thefundamental principles of science are evidentlynot analytical because a counterinstance is notself-contradictory. For example, a possiblecounterinstance of Newton's first law of motionwould be a body moving in some way otherthan at constant speed in a straight line withoutany resultant force acting on it. There is nothinglogically impossible about this, as there is with

the proposition that there is a triangle which isn'tthree-sided. What the physicist would do insuch a case is to consider this as a researchproblem within the conceptual framework ofNewtonian physics. He would work on thebasis of Newton's first law of motion to try tofind the force(s) which are responsible for thedeviation from inertial motion. But we have seenthat Newton's first law of motion is notempirical. So here is a fundamental principle ofphysics which escapes from Hume's Fork.Harold Brown calls such propositions, whichare neither empirical nor analytical,“paradigmatic propositions.”95 They are theorganizing ideas which organize (the primaryact of “distinguishing which is relating”) scientificcognition. As such they constitute this cognitionin that they determine the form it will take, sothey could also be called “constitutive

propositions.” Such constitutive propositionsfunction in scientific cognition in the same waythat concepts function in everyday cognition.They are “the conditions of the possibility” ofscientific knowledge (using Kant's terminology).A constitutive proposition is an organizing ideawhich creates the possibilities of scientificcognition, as concepts create the possibilities ofeveryday cognition. Such a proposition gives usthe form which scientific cognition must take,but not the specific content of the cognition. So,as with ordinary concepts, the principles andlaws of science are to be understood asorganizing ideas acting at the level of possibility.

THE ORGANIZING IDEA OFMODERN SCIENCE

In fact, the change in the way of seeing whichwe have explored so far rests upon a further,deeper, and more comprehensive change in theway of seeing motion. Galileo was a pioneer inthe quantitative science of motion. This doesnot mean that he simply applied mathematics tothe world. The world is not just sitting there inmathematical form already, waiting to havemathematics applied to it—which is the imagethat “applying mathematics” conveys. The worldhas to be mathematized. It has to be workedover mathematically first, and then it appears asif mathematics were applied to the worldbecause the world has already beenmathematized. Once again, the confusion herecomes from the failure to distinguish between the

way of seeing and what is seen, which is itself aconsequence of starting from the finishedproduct instead of following through the processof its coming-to-be. If we do not follow throughthe process of mathematization by which theworld comes to be mathematical, then we makethe mistake of believing that mathematics is justapplied because the world is mathematical.Once again, the way of seeing is eclipsed, beingfalsely objectified so as to appear as a feature ofthe world which is given directly to senseexperience.

The Quantitative Way of SeeingAristotle defined “quantity” as that which hasparts external to one another. It is an instance ofwhat he calls a category, which is really to beunderstood as a mode of illumination by virtue

of which the world becomes visible in aparticular way. In other words, for Aristotle,“quantity” does not refer to a specific content ofthe world which is given materially, but to a wayof seeing which constitutes the world in the formof “parts external to one another.” As a way ofseeing, quantity is not abstracted from the worldas we usually imagine it to be. If we think so, itis because we have failed to notice that theworld we believe we have abstracted it from isalready seen, “in advance” as it were, in themode of parts external to one another. In otherwords, quantity is present already in the way ofseeing, so it is present as the form which theworld takes and not as part of the content of theworld. Because of this, “quantity” is manifestwherever there are parts external to oneanother, regardless of whether number isexplicitly part of the specific content or not.96

The science of quantity is measurementscience. The process of measurement divideswhatever it is “measuring” into units which areexternal to one another, separate butjuxtaposed. Whatever is “measured” is therebyspatialized in conception into a string of unitsjuxtaposed along an imagined line whicheffectively constitutes a scale. In practice, ameasurement consists in comparing whatever isto be measured with this scale, and counting thenumber of units which correspond. This meansthat wherever science is concerned withmeasurement, the particular aspect of natureinvolved has first to be prepared quantitatively.This entails dividing it into a set of homogeneousparts that are intellectually superimposed onnature like a grid or scaffolding. Nature is thenseen in the perspective of the framework, whichis not part of nature at all, but is really an

intellectual rearrangement of nature that reducesit to the purely quantitative—i.e., to parts whichare external to one another. The system ofmeasurement is in no way intrinsic to nature, butthe reduction of nature that it effects enables usto calculate nature and hence to manipulate it forour own ends. Such calculative thinking (asHeidegger called it), or instrumental reason,becomes possible with the quantitative way ofseeing. It certainly gives us power over nature,but it has the effect of separating us from naturein such a way that we cease to experiencenature directly. We can control and organizenature according to our will, but the price forthis is that we withdraw from nature. We beginto experience ourselves as being separate andessentially different from nature, while nature inturn begins to seem lifeless and empty. Theconsequence was stated concisely by John

Davy:

The thoughts we embody in measurementare only applicable to dead phenomena—for measurement means dividing upinto units which can be counted, and noliving thing can be thus fragmentedwithout dying. It is a form of thoughtentirely appropriate to the inanimateworld, but quite inadequate forapprehending life.97

Thus science becomes rational because it“ratios” everything. Nature then appears in aconceptual framework, which is falselyidentified with nature itself when the activity ofmind ceases to be visible to itself. It is notsurprising that the historical emphasis on quantityin science has led to a situation of crisis in the

world today. But this was present as apossibility from the beginning of the science thatmeasures nature.

It seems clear from Aristotle's definition ofquantity that parts which are external to eachother must appear as independent, autonomousunits, separate existences with their own intrinsicproperties. In other words, the quantitative wayof seeing discloses a world fragmented intoseparate and independent units, and it istherefore not surprising to find that thephilosophy of atomism was readily incorporatedinto the new quantitative science of physics.Atomism fits the form of quantity like a hand fitsa glove. The two are congruent to each other,so that atomism functions as a picture of thequantitative way of seeing. It pictures the modeof conception. So when the physicist speaksabout “the atomic picture,” this should be taken

strictly as referring to the mode of conceptionrather than to a material content of the worldthat is first given and then represented in apicture. There is a reversal of container andcontent here. Atomism is really a container thatcarries the quantitative way of seeing.98

When quantity is taken to be the fundamentalcategory, then nature is reduced to matter andthe general viewpoint that is formedcorresponding to this is materialism. This is whathas happened in the development of physics inthe modern period, when physics becamemathematical physics and “experiment”’ cameto mean “measurement.” In other words, theviewpoint of materialism is a distortion thatresults from a one-sided emphasis on thecategory of quantity. It is only our failure to thinkthrough the inevitable consequences of thedistortion arising from this one-sided emphasis

that enables us to entertain the comfortingthought that physics progresses ever furthertowards an ultimate understanding of nature. Infact, “nature” was replaced by “matter” longago. Although scientists often refer to “nature,”this only hides the fact that nature has beenreduced to matter by modern science, so thatwe now think they are the same thing. Butwhereas there can be an atomic theory ofmatter, there cannot be an atomic theory ofnature. This is born out by the fact that,according to modern science, most of what weattribute to nature, color for instance, is reallynot in nature but in human beings. It isreclassified as only a subjective experience (seethe discussion of primary and secondaryqualities in “Newton and the MathematicalPhysics of Color”). When that which seems tobelong to nature is relocated in human beings,

what is left is matter and not nature at all. Thereis little wonder that the development of modernscience has led to the crisis of nature!

The category of quantity is exemplified mostclearly by the world of solid bodies. In fact, theworld of solid bodies is the category of quantitybecome an object of sense. Hence there is thetemptation, when the “way of seeing” is notrecognized, to think that the category of quantityis derived from the world of solid bodies byabstraction. But this is an inversion. It cannot bestressed sufficiently that the world of solidbodies is not given as such to the senses, butthat a specific way of seeing discloses thisworld. We take it for granted that the world ofsolid bodies is the world, existing as suchindependently, whereas it is in fact the worldthat appears in the light of the “solid world”mode of conception. Indeed, this very image of

a separately existing world, independent as suchof our knowing it (and yet appearing just as it iswhen we do know it), is itself an instance of the“solid world” mode of conception. What is seencannot be separated from the way it is seen: Thesolid world is the cognitive correlate of the“solid world” mode of conception.”99

The solid world could equally well be calledthe external world. When Hegel referred to “theexternal world,” he meant the world for whichexternality, the outsidedness of part to part, isthe fundamental characteristic—not the world“outside” of consciousness, which would bemeaningless because consciousness isn't“anywhere.” So the quantitative world, the solidworld, and the external world, are one and thesame world. Once we understand that thisworld is a way of seeing, then we can becomeaware of this mode of conception as such

wherever it occurs. We cease to think of it onlyin the restricted context of the physical world—which is what we usually identify as the world ofsolid bodies.

To illustrate this, we will consider as anexample the way that “mind” is constituted in themode of this way of seeing by the Britishempiricists, notably Locke and Hume. Thesephilosophers purported to be following throughthe genesis of our knowledge of the world, butthey were really introducing the quantitative,solid world perspective into the description ofmind. They begin at what is in fact the stage ofthe finished product, and back-project this intothe process, so that effectively they are trying“to get to the milk by way of the cheese.” Thedescription that they give could well be calledpsychological atomism. According to this, senseexperience consists of distinct and separate

sensations, each of which gives rise to a distinctand separate idea in the mind. For Hume, theseideas are no more than faded copies of senseimpressions. Ideas are conceived here as self-contained, mutually external mental entities, eachof which exists separately and independently ofthe others. These simple ideas (“simple”because they are each derived from a singleatomic sensation) then combine to form morecomplex ideas. This process of combining is byjuxtaposition and association, in much the samesort of way that atoms were thought to combine.Conversely, any idea which is found in the mindcan be broken apart (analyzed) into itsconstituent simple ideas. This, then, is how itwas thought that new ideas are formed, simplyby making new combinations of already existingideas. Thinking, according to this view, is nomore than this process of associating together

ideas which are already there “in the mind.”Evidently the mind is conceived as a spacecontaining ideas that move about, combiningwith one another, just as the physical universe isthought of as a space containing materialparticles that collide together and combine witheach other to make new arrangements. It is afinished world, in which the only movement isthe external movement of finished products—athought is a finished product. Reading Lockeand Hume, it is not difficult to recognize that theNewtonian picture of the material universe wasa major inspiration to them.100

This “solid world” way of seeing mindattempts to reconstitute thinking out of thoughts,which is equivalent to attempting to produce theliving present out of the past, life out of death.Yet this externalistic way of conceiving mentalactivity is very common, especially the view that

thinking is a process of associating thoughtswhich are there already, like “mental bodies,” sothat a new idea is no more than a newcombination. There is such a process ofassociation, whereby thoughts are connectedexternally, but far from being the basis ofthinking it is precisely when we are not thinkingthat this happens. The associative mind is verysuperficial, and it is only in the light of thequantitative, solid world way of seeing that it canappear to be the basis of creative thinking.

We have seen already how this viewpoint isinadequate for understanding the process ofscientific discovery. We have seen that theprimary factor here is a change in the way ofseeing, and that the effect of this is to transformthe facts. So the facts are not like bricks whichare just rearranged; they are transformed by thenew way of seeing that reorganizes them. There

are no immutable facts. As Kuhn expressed it:“What occurs during a scientific revolution is notfully reducible to a reinterpretation of individualand stable data” because “the data are notunivocally stable.”101 New meanings are not justgenerated by rearranging the elements of asystem into a different pattern, because in the“new arrangement” the elements are no longerthe same but have been transformed. The factsare transformed from within by the new way ofseeing, and therefore this new way of seeingitself cannot be produced by any externalrearrangement of the facts. There is nomechanism for producing meaning. If therewere, then meaning could be produced out ofnonmeaning. But, as we have seen, this is notpossible because of the primacy of meaning. Sowhat we see here is that the authentic process ofscientific discovery itself cannot become visible

in the light of the solid world mode ofconception. What we get instead is the after-the-fact counterfeit of this process.

Finally, we are in the habit of consideringconcepts themselves in an isolated manner. Weconsider each concept as if it were distinct andseparate from every other concept, eachconcept being independent and having its ownself-contained meaning. The quantitative way ofseeing is clearly evident here. David Bohmpoints out that “logically definable concepts playthe same fundamental role in abstract andprecise thinking as do separable objects andphenomena in our customary description of theworld.”102 But in fact it is not possible forconcepts to be separate and external to eachother in this way. Concepts are not self-contained but inherently interdependent. Hegelpointed out that an absolute distinction is

impossible because it is self-contradictory. Thus,A is not distinguished just in terms of itself,because in the act of distinction it is ipso factodistinguished from B. Hence it follows that A isnecessarily related to B by the very act ofdistinction itself, and therefore that B is entailedin A. Thus A is not self-contained, and so A andB cannot be separated in the way that thequantitative way of seeing implies. Far frombeing isolated, concepts are intrinsically relatedand belong together in a more organic way.103

This inevitably leads to a reevaluation of thelaws of traditional logic, namely, the principles ofidentity, noncontradiction, and the excludedmiddle:

(1) A is identically equal to itself, i.e.,self-identical;

(2) not at the same time A and not-A;(3) either A or not-A; there is no thirdpossibility.

These principles evidently emphasize a sharpdivision into self-contained, mutually exclusiveterms. There is no necessary entailment of not-Ain A, and hence A is entirely excluded from not-A. So A and not-A are external to one another.This is clearly the logic that is characteristic ofthe quantitative, solid world perspective. Sowhenever we think “logically,” and especiallywhenever we think in an either/or manner, thevery form of our thinking conforms to the solidworld mode of conception. It is therefore clearhow apt it was when Bergson referred totraditional logic as “the logic of solid bodies.”104

The Metaphysical Separation

The separation we have considered so far is thatof quantity—parts which are external to eachother. We have seen that this is congruent withthe solid world. This could equally well be calledthe plane of separation, or the plane of quantity,inasmuch as the elements which are separate areconsidered to be all on the same level. In theplane of quantity, there is no “above” and“below,” no “higher” and “lower.” There are noontological differences.

There is, however, another kind of separationwhich also functions as a fundamental organizingidea of modern science. This is the metaphysicalseparation. It is so fundamental to modernscience—especially to mathematical physics—that this could well be called metaphysicalscience. It is particularly important to bring outthe metaphysical separation clearly, and the waythat it has been incorporated into modern

science, especially in view of the widespreadbelief that modern science has liberated humanknowledge from metaphysics. The veryopposite is true: “Metaphysics finds its ultimateexpression in modern, mathematical physics.”105

Because metaphysics is in the last place wewould think of looking for it—“Metaphysics isalive and well and lives on in modernphysics”106—it can function unhindered, withoutbeing recognized for what it is, as part of whatwe take for granted. Metaphysics is the “openlysecret” presupposition of much of our thinking.

The basic point of the metaphysicalseparation is that the world which weexperience through the senses is not the fullreality, and that behind this world there isanother, nonsensory world, which is theintelligible origin of what appears as the sensory

world. This is not simply saying that theintelligibility of the world we encounter throughthe senses cannot be encountered by senseexperience. The metaphysical attitude goesmuch further than this to deny that there is anyintelligibility in the world we encounter throughsense experience—not just that it doesn'tappear to the senses, but that it is not there at allin the sensory world. The intelligibility ofwhatever we encounter in the world of senseexperience is in another world that is separatefrom this sensory world. Metaphysics is thetwo-world theory that separates the sensibleand the intelligible into two different worlds ofunequal ontological status. So the sensible worldis subordinated to the higher intelligible worldand is dependent on it for its being. There isone-way ontological traffic in metaphysics: thelower world of the sensory particulars could not

be without the higher world of intelligibleuniversals, but the latter could perfectly well bewithout the former.

Although the roots of the metaphysicalattitude, particularly the mistrust of the senses,are to be found in earlier Greek philosophy, it iswith Plato that this first became a full-fledgedphilosophy embodying this mistrust in a two-world theory. Plato is the father of metaphysics,and it is from Plato that the idea of themetaphysical separation spread throughhistorical time to be a profound influence on theWestern mode of understanding.107 Theincorporation of Platonism into Christianity, toproduce a Platonized Christianity, was aparticularly significant step for deepening thehold which the metaphysical separation has hadon the development of the Western mind.108

In Plato's philosophy, the true object ofknowledge is in the intelligible world. This is theeidos, which is usually translated as Form orIdea—but the latter must not be confused withthe subjective meaning which the term usuallyhas today (to avoid this it is common to write“Idea” instead of “idea”). What we encounter inthe sensible world are imperfect copies orreflections of the Form (Idea) which is in theintelligible world. This means that whatever weencounter in the sensible world does not have itsown reality. In itself it is merely an appearance.Reality (Being) is in the intelligible world. Forexample, we encounter “equality” in manydifferent ways in sense experience, as when wefind one thing equal to another, and so on. Butaccording to Plato, all these experiences ofequality are imperfect because we always findthe opposite of equality mixed in with them, i.e.,

inequality.109 We are only able to recognizethem as instances of equality in the first placebecause they resemble or reflect the Form,“Equality-as-it-is-in-itself,” which is purelyintelligible, and which a person can onlyapproach “with the unaided intellect, withouttaking account of any sense of sight in histhinking, or dragging any other sense into hisreckoning.”110 The Form, or Idea, is free fromany contamination with its opposite and istherefore perfect. Hence it is unchanging andeternally self-identical, in contrast to the ever-changing multifarious realm of appearances. TheForm belongs to the world of “Being-as-it-is-m-itself,” which is pictured as being “behind” or“above” the sensible world, not within it. Thisseparation of the intelligible from the sensiblehas the consequence that, in Plato's

metaphysics, the Form, which is the essence andtherefore the reality of the sensible, is separatedfrom the sensible. Aristotle asked howsomething which is separate from the sensiblecan contain the essence of the sensible. Hisanswer was that this showed the theory to beimpossible.111 Were it not for the fact that wehave lived with this metaphysical, two-worldpicture for so long that it is part of the veryfabric of our thought, we too would surely findthis theory very strange indeed.112

We have already encountered the influencewhich Platonism had on the origin anddevelopment of modern science. We sawsomething of the Platonistic mistrust of thesenses, coupled with the belief that only reasoncould discover the true order of the world. Wesaw also that this order was understood to be

primarily mathematical. All three of these factorscome together in the work of Galileo, resulting ina Platonized mathematical physics.

Mathematics, and especially geometry, seemsto lend itself so readily to Platonism that italmost appears as the paradigm case. A pointand a line do not exist in the visible world. Theycannot be drawn because a point has nomagnitude and a line has no thickness. Yet it iswith the relationship between such entities thatgeometry is concerned. The “point” and “line”we can draw are not the true mathematicalpoint and line. Given the philosophy ofPlatonism, it is easy so see the differencebetween the geometrical point and the drawn“point” as exemplifying the difference betweenthe intelligible, which is invisible and perfect, andthe sensible, which is visible but imperfect—andthen to see the latter as an imperfect copy or

reflection of the former.113 Geometry lends itselfeasily to Platonism, and this was the way Galileotook it. He interpreted his mathematization ofnature Platonistically, giving birth to whatHusserl called “the physics of Galilean style.”114

Now mathematics does not have to be takenin a Platonistic spirit—most mathematicianstoday certainly would not do so.115 But the factis that this is how it was taken by Galileo, andthis has had a decisive influence on theunderstanding of the natural world that hasgrown out of the science of mathematicalphysics. Because of the extraordinary success ofthis science, the Platonistic picture, with itsfundamental dualism, gradually became thephilosophical paradigm for the sciences ofnature. When Sir James Jeans said in the 1930sthat the universe is a thought in the mind of God,

he was simply echoing the Platonism ofmathematical physics, and saying no more thanhad been said before him by Kepler, Galileo,and others.116 Here is Kepler, for example:

Why waste words? Geometry existedbefore the creation, is coeternal with themind of God, is God himself (whatexists in God that is not God himself?);Geometry provided God with a modelfor the creation and was implanted intoman, together with God's own likeness—and not only merely conveyed to his mindthrough the eyes.117

Although at the time when Jeans made hisremark, it was perceived by many as emergingsomehow from the exciting new (twentiethcentury) physics of relativity and quantum

theory, it was in fact simply a repetition of theinevitable confluence of Platonized physics andPlatonized Christianity—although it is unlikelythat this would have been recognized by many atthe time because, except for a few (e.g., E. A.Burtt), the historicity of science had not thenbeen recognized. According to PlatonizedChristianity, the universe is an imperfectreflection or copy of the Ideas which Godthinks; according to Platonized physics, theIdeas are mathematical “laws” which organizenature. So mathematical physics is the physics ofGod's universe. The mathematician andphilosopher A. N. Whitehead is often quoted ashaving said that the development of Westernphilosophy could be regarded as a series offootnotes to Plato. But more than philosophy,the development of the Western way of thinkingin religion and science seems to have been

dependent on Plato and the metaphysicalseparation.

What God thinks in the universe of the newphysics is the mathematical laws of nature. Thetask of the natural philosopher, in coming toknow the laws of nature which are hiddenbehind appearances, is therefore equivalent toknowing God's thinking.118 The mathematicallaws of nature are the intelligibles for the“physics of the Galilean style,” to be found byintellectual reasoning behind the visible world ofthe sensible. So, like the Platonic Forms, theyare immutable and unchanging. It is these lawswhich are the source of order in the world ofsense experience, but they belong to another,separate world from that which they order. Thetraffic is ontologically one-way. In classicalphysics, the mathematical laws act on matter todetermine the order of nature, but the laws

themselves are not determined by matter in anyway. The laws are therefore transcendental.

Galileo's work was evidently not simply arepetition of Plato, or even of earlier Platonists.It was a Platonism which was transformed inaccordance with the new historical context andcircumstances. Gurwitsch says that “Galileo'swork may be said to mark the turning-point inthe historical development of ‘Platonism’. ... Itwas thoroughly transformed and renewed byhim.”119 What Galileo did was a contribution tothe “effective history” of Plato, to useGadamer's term. Of course, the historical linkwith Platonized Christianity has disappearedfrom science, but Platonized physics remains,because the mathematical laws of physics areconceived as being separate from the matterthey organize. Platonized physics is metaphysicsin disguise. This is now just part of the fabric of

scientific thought, so that for the most part weare simply unaware of it.

Galileo attempted to bring about an allianceof two ancient philosophical doctrines,Platonism and atomism, which had been totallyantithetical in the ancient world. He was not ableto get far with the synthesis of these two, butothers developed it further. First and foremostamong them was Descartes, whose entire workcan be seen as an attempt to develop a newmathematical physics that will give a completeaccount of nature, and to give a foundation tothis enterprise which would leave it beyonddoubt.120 It is with this attempt that most ofwhat is now often taken as his purelyphilosophical work was concerned. Although heis widely known as the founder of modernphilosophy (which is certainly justified), his workdoes need to be seen in its context. To abstract

it from this context, and present it as beingpurely philosophical, is artificial. His mostfundamental and influential work, theMeditations, was far from being what itappeared to be on the surface. Descartes wrotein a letter to Mersenne:

. . . and i may tell you, betweenourselves, that these six Meditationscontain all the foundations of my Physics.But please do not tell people, for thatmight make it harder for supporters ofAristotle to approve them. I hope thatreaders will gradually get used to myprinciples and recognize their truth,before they notice that they destroy theprinciples of Aristotle.121

The Meditations were written with the intention

of clearing the ground for Descartes'smathematical physics, so that in it thefoundations needed for the new physics are laidout almost surreptitiously. The title indicates howthe work was intended to be studied:meditatively, dwelling with each meditation untilit had been taken in thoroughly. Descartesbelieved that “if properly taken in, they woulddo no less than break the habit of a lifetime, thehabit of taking one's beliefs about the nature ofthe material world and about one's own naturefrom one's sense experience.”122 The book wasintended to persuade, but to do so by means ofthe reader's own effort. Readers are taken on askeptical journey, whereby they are brought todoubt everything that their senses tell them,including their sense of their own presentationalimmediacy (the famous dream argument).Eventually one is brought through this skepticism

to certainty. One discovers that, by the verythinking activity that one is pursuing, one can becertain that “I am, I exist.”123 Because onearrives at this certainty by means of thinking, aswell as discovering with certainty that one is,one also recognizes what one is: a thinkingbeing, i.e., a being whose essential natureconsists in thinking.

One cannot be certain that there is a world,or even that one has a body, but one can becertain that one is, one exists, as a thinkingbeing.124 Then, having trapped himself in acorner, Descartes provides an argument which,while it does not get him out of the corner,opens a small hole in it for a lifeline to the world“outside of consciousness” to come in to him.125

The aim of this argument is to convince readersthat, as well as being certain of their own

existence as thinking beings, they can also becertain that God exists. Since God isbenevolent, he will not deceive us. Hence, if wehave done our part and thought things throughso that we can come to a clear and distinct idea,then we can be confident that this idea is true.Now we do find that we have the idea that,apart from ourselves, there is a world of naturewhich exists “outside of consciousness.” If wehave thought about this carefully enough, thenwe can be confident that it does exist becauseGod will not deceive us. One is certainly leftwith feeling about Descartes that “he seeks truthin an artificial way.”126

So, having doubted it, Descartes puts theworld back. But the world which he puts back,which he can be certain of, is not the world hebegan to doubt. He switches one world foranother—the world of mathematical physics for

the world of everyday experience. The worldwe can be certain exists is not the world we see,but the mathematical world of corpuscularmatter in motion. A great deal of what commonsense tells us is part of the world is missing fromit so far as mathematical physics is concerned.All that Descartes can admit as part of the realworld is what he can form a clear and distinctidea of, because God has so arranged things (hebelieves he has shown convincingly) that he canbe confident that such an idea is true. What hecan form clear ideas of are the mathematicalproperties, such as size, shape, position, motion,and so on. So these must be part of the realworld. Other qualities—among which he listslight, colors, sounds, smells, taste, warmth,roughness or smoothness—he says “appear inmy mind with such darkness and confusion that Ido not know whether they are true or false, i.e.,

whether the ideas I have of these objects are infact the ideas of any real things or whether theyare mere chimerical entities which cannotexist.”127 So, since he does not have a clear anddistinct idea of these qualities, he cannot admitthem with any degree of certainty as part of thereal world. Following the pathway taken byGalileo, he therefore removes them from theworld and relocates them in subjective humanexperience (see also “Newton and theMathematical Physics of Color”). So, theredness of a body, for example, is not part ofthe body which we perceive, but exists only inhuman experience. It is produced in us by theimpact of particles of matter on our organism—there is no color in nature. Of course this isinevitable. Descartes's criteria for clear anddistinct ideas are the ideas of mathematics. Sowhatever cannot be mathematized cannot

become a clear idea, and hence it cannot bepart of the real world. There is only one otherplace to put these qualities in Descartes'spicture, and so they are pushed into humanexperience.128

Thus the familiar world of sense experience isillusory, just as the appearance of the Sun goingaround the Earth is illusory. There are onlymathematical qualities in nature, and so nature isreduced to matter which is inert, passive,mechanical, and qualitatively neutral.Mathematical physics is the physics of matter,not nature—but, of course, nowadays these arethought to be the same thing just because of thishistorical development. Furthermore, ideas arenow entirely separate from nature (reduced tomatter), belonging entirely to the sphere ofhuman subjectivity. Richard Westfall describesDescartes's place in the historical development

of modern science as follows:

Many of Descartes's explanations ofphenomena differ so widely from thosewe now believe to be correct that we arefrequently tempted to scoff. We mustattempt rather to understand what he wastrying to do and how it fits into the worldof the scientific revolution. Thecornerstone of the entire edifice of hisphilosophy of nature was the assertionthat physical reality is not in any waysimilar to the appearances of sensation.As Copernicus had rejected the view ofan immovable earth, and Galileo thecommon sense view of motion, soDescartes now generalized thereinterpretation of daily experience. Hedid not intend to conduct the sort of

scientific investigation we are familiar withtoday. Rather his purpose wasmetaphysical—he proposed a newpicture of the reality behind experience.However wild and incredible we find hisexplanations, we must remember that thewhole course of modern science hasbeen run, not by returning to the earlierphilosophy of nature, but by following thepath he chose.129

In the process of doing this, Descartessubjectivized metaphysics—it is really for thisreason that he is now called the founder ofmodern philosophy. It has often been pointedout that Descartes is part of the Platonictradition.130 Both mistrust the senses and denythat the senses themselves can give knowledge.Both affirm that certainty can only be found by

the power of reason, which alone can reach trueideas—and both take mathematics as theirmodel for this. But there is a difference betweenthem. For Plato an Idea is an element of beingitself, whereas for Descartes an idea is anactivity of the subject. For Descartes, ideas areconfined to human experience, to what was latercalled “consciousness,” and therefore can neverbe more than true representations. For Plato, onthe other hand, Ideas are the true being of theworld. Descartes subjectivized ideas, and hencehe subjectivized metaphysics. The separation isstill there, but now it is the separation betweenthe (subjective) idea in the mind of the thinkerand whatever it is “outside” of the mind that theidea represents. So long as Descartes has Godto hold these two together, everything is all right—albeit in a very artificial way. But once therole of God is weakened, then the idea in the

mind and that which it purports to represent fallapart into the dichotomy of the so-calledCartesian dualism. This is really the subjectiveversion of the two-world theory. It is from thisthat the famous problem of knowledge arises,i.e., the question: How can we be certain that arepresentation (idea) in consciousnesscorresponds to what is there “outside” ofconsciousness? How can we bridge the gulfbetween representation and reality? This“problem of knowledge” arises automaticallyfrom the Cartesian position once we cease torely on God to guarantee things for us.Heidegger recognized that the problem ofknowledge, i.e., epistemology, is really themetaphysics of knowledge. There is no answerto be found in the direction in which the problemitself encourages us to seek. The only answer isto see how it arises in the first place, out of what

is really a false position. But this false positionhas an alarmingly strong hold on us because itcorresponds so well to the characteristics of themodern “onlooker” mode of consciousness.When contemporary philosophers refer to“metaphysics,” it is usually epistemology and itsconsequences which they have in mind, and notPlato's metaphysics.131

In his discussion of Husserl'sphenomenological investigation into Galileanphysics, Gurwitsch asks, “What logical statusshould be assigned to the thesis that nature ismathematical throughout?” He goes on to say:

Obviously, it is not a formulation ofempirical findings, nor is it arrived at bygeneralization from experience. Onaccount of its generality, it cannot passfor a law of nature; in fact every

determinate law of nature is one of itsparticular specifications. Because of itsgenerality, it cannot be considered as anhypothesis in the usual sense. . . . Onemight speak of it as the ‘hypothesisunderlying hypotheses’. . . as amethodological norm which directs theformulation of scientific hypotheses andguides all scientific activities, theoreticaland experimental alike.132

The idea that nature is mathematical throughoutis an organizing idea which acts at the level ofscience itself, i.e., science as a whole, toconstitute a whole new style of physics—thephysics of Galilean style. It is neither empiricalnor analytical, but constitutive in the sense that itcreates the possibility of this kind of science.Such a science then has to be worked out. In

fact this is the only way that such a constitutiveidea, or “hypothesis underlying hypotheses,” canbe substantiated. No argument or observationcan do this, but only the continuing success ofthe science based on this methodologicalhypothesis. As Gurwitsch says, this meansongoing, never-ending work, because “the thesisthat nature is mathematical throughout can beconfirmed only by the entire historical process ofthe development of science, a steady process inwhich nature comes to be mathematizedprogressively.”133 Goethe's statement that “thehistory of science is science itself” can also beread in this sense, as an expression of the insightthat science is confirmed only by its ownhistorical development.

The organizing idea for a whole new sciencedoes not come from within science itself, as if itwere somehow intrinsic to science. It is

grounded in historical movements of thought,which means that the science in question isbased on choices and decisions which arecultural-historical and not empirical. Because itis not grounded in any intrinsic necessity, thediscoveries of science are not binding in theway they have been thought to be. We arenot compelled to follow the pathway ofmathematical physics, as if it were somehowintrinsic to nature. But we may easily lose sightof this fact. Developing an awareness of thehistorical dimension which is inherent in scientificknowledge helps to counteract this tendency. AsHübner puts it:

Insight into this historical conditioningprevents the progressive degenerationwhich so often accompanies theacceptance of scientific positions—a

degeneration which moves first to thelevel where the position is accepteduncritically, then to a level where it isthought to be somehow self-evident,ending finally in a stage where allquestionability has disappeared. In thisway historical awareness possesses acritical function. Over and over again ittracks down origins that have onlycontingent meanings, and thus lacknecessity or compelling grounds. And it isprecisely for this reason that historicalconsciousness can reject suchpositions.134

When we recognize the irreducible historicaldimension of scientific knowledge, then we canalso begin to understand that the kind of sciencewith which we are familiar may be only one

possibility. This increases our flexibility andhence frees us from the idolatry of science. Wecan become aware that there may be otherpossible kinds of scientific knowledge, otherpossible ways of encountering nature, than thatof mathematical physics. This does not meanthat the science we have is somehow wrong—ofcourse it isn't! In its own way it is complete, butit is not comprehensive—as the figure of theduck is complete in itself, but notcomprehensive, because another completefigure is also possible. Modern science createdone pathway, but it is only one possiblepathway. Becoming aware of the historicity ofscientific knowledge opens the way to therecovery of other possibilities, which werecovered over by the historical decision at theorigin of modern science. Goethe's pathway inscience is such a possibility. To enter it is to

experience another way of seeing, another wayof encountering nature.

4. Understanding the Science ofColor

We will begin by focusing on Goethe's pathwayin the science of color. Goethe's concern withcolor arose out of his interest in art (Newton'sarose out of his technical interest in improvingtelescope images). During his first journey toItaly (1786-88) he found that artists were ableto give rules for all the elements of paintingexcept coloring. This was unsatisfactory to himbecause he believed that the work of art wasNature realizing herself on a higher level throughthe artist. Hence he believed that the same kindof lawfulness that was to be found in nature mustbe present in art—the division between art andscience simply didn't exist for Goethe. So he setout to discover the lawfulness in the phenomena

of color.To begin with, “Like everyone in the world I

was convinced that all the colors were containedin the light; I had never had the slightest reasonfor doubting it since I had taken no furtherinterest in the matter.” But not having seen theexperiments upon which supposedly this theorywas based, “I undertook at least to see thephenomena for myself.”135 The discrepancywhich he experienced between the phenomenaand the accepted theory led him to undertake afurther series of experiments and observations.These, he believed, let the phenomena speak forthemselves so clearly that it would beimmediately apparent to everyone that theaccepted theory was wrong. In actuality, theopposite to what he expected happened:Goethe experienced great resistance to hiswork, and he became isolated from his

contemporaries, standing on his own on thisaccount. So he went more deeply into thequestion, going into the history of earlier ideasabout color and into the history of science. Itwas through this deeper investigation that hediscovered that science is intrinsically historical.

The results of this intensive labor wereeventually published as the Theory of Colors(Farbenlehre). The English translationpublished in 1840 leaves out the polemic againstNewton, and all of the historical part. Perhapsthis is why Goethe's advance beyond inductiveempiricism towards understanding science ashistorically situated knowledge has not beenrecognized. Dennis Sepper describes howGoethe's thinking shifted towards the possibilitythat there are several ways of conceiving things,each of which has its own value. TheseVorsellungsarten (ways of conceiving) were

explored by Goethe through his historicalstudies, and he came to see such exploration,and the historical awareness which it developed,as a necessary part of doing science.

It has been mentioned already (in chapter 1of this part) that Goethe contrasted theatomistic, mechanical, and mathematicalVorstellungsarten with his own way ofconceiving, which he thought of as more inclinedto the genetic, the dynamic, and the concrete.He saw that an atomistic intelligence would seenothing wrong with Newton's theory, but to limitour understanding to this one way of conceivingwould be to make the science of colorunnecessarily one-sided. Goethe's ideal was thatscience should become a many-sided activity,encompassing a plurality of ways of conceiving,in contrast to the reduction to a single way ofconceiving, which had been the ideal of Newton

and others in the development of mathematicalscience in the seventeenth century. We will nowexplore these different Vorstellungsarten in thescience of color.

NEWTON AND THEMATHEMATICAL PHYSICS OF

COLORTo understand what Newton did, we must firstreturn to Galileo. Galileo's method was to findthose elements of a phenomenon which allow itto be translated into mathematical form, whichmeans resolving the phenomenon intoquantitative combinations.136 From thereonward these quantitative combinations are usedin place of the phenomenon. Galileo wasconcerned primarily with motion, and to resolvemotion into quantitative combinations he hadfirst to reduce space and time to somethingwhich could be treated mathematically. In theprocess of doing this he changed the meaning of“space” and “time” in a very fundamentalway.137 Once he had done this, Galileo could

treat motion quantitatively in terms of units ofdistance and units of time which, as parts whichare external to each other, can be counted.Hence motion can be measured.138 Thequantitative perspective which makes thispossible is not intrinsic to the phenomenon, butis imposed upon it as a framework. It is by thismeans that thinking (i.e., quantitative thinking)can calculate the phenomenon, so that it can bemanipulated and controlled in a precise way.This is the primary interest of instrumentalscience: to control nature.

There are many “qualities of nature” whichcannot be directly mathematized because theycannot be described in terms of parts which areexternal to one another. Color cannot bedescribed in this way, for example. In suchcases the procedure that was adopted was tocorrelate the quality with occurrences that could

be described in spatiotemporal terms, and hencecould be mathematized directly. This gives riseto a methodological distinction betweenqualities which can be mathematized directly andthose which cannot and have to bemathematized indirectly by such a correlation.There is nothing wrong with this procedure initself. For example, in Newton's famousexperiment with a prism, color can be correlatedwith “degree of refrangibility” (i.e., angle ofrefraction). Different colors have different anglesof refraction, which can be measured, andthereby color can be mathematized indirectly bycorrelating it with a factor which entails only aspatial relationship. This enables us to calculatecolor so that it can be manipulated precisely—e.g., in a telescopic eyepiece or in theconstruction of an achromatic lens for atelescope objective. But although it is suitable

for such “calculative thinking” this neverthelessremains superficial. It tells us nothing about coloritself as a quality. Color is rationalized by thisprocedure, but it does not become intelligible.We should go no further than this. In particular,we have no warrant for drawing the conclusionthat the colors are already there in the light andthat the prism separates them. This goes beyondthe mathematical correlation of color withdegree of refrangibility, which is solely for thepurpose of making color indirectly quantifiable.We should be very wary of trying to drawconclusions about the phenomenon itself fromthe procedure for quantifying it.

It is customary to refer to qualities which canbe directly mathematized as primary qualities,and those which cannot, and must bemathematized indirectly by correlation with aprimary quality, are called secondary qualities.

This terminology was first introduced by JohnLocke, and it is often thought that he was thefirst to make the distinction. In fact, what he didwas to give a name to this distinction, which hadbeen part of the new scientific thinking for sometime. If we remember that thisprimary/secondary distinction is entirelymethodological, then we will realize that this wayof proceeding tells us nothing about thephenomenon itself when it is of a “secondary”nature. Medieval scientists, with theircontemplative approach to nature, would findthis very strange. While admitting that such acorrelation is certainly possible, they would notsee any point in it because it completely missesthe phenomenon itself. They would think that todraw conclusions about the phenomenon fromsuch a correlation would be very misleading.There is a deep change in interest in going from

the medieval to the modern.139 The new interestis in the manipulation and control of nature, andthe way this is brought about is by mathematics.The quantitative perspective becomes the key tonature, and calculative thinking replacesunderstanding (to such an extent that these arenow thought to be identical). So “quantity,”which had been a minor category, one amongmany, for the medievals, is elevated above theother categories to be made master of them all.

From now on only quantity can be dealt withdirectly in science. But to begin with, this didnot necessarily mean that all qualities other thanthe primary ones had to be reduced to quantity.It simply meant that they stood outside of thescience of quantity which, methodologically,could only handle them by finding an externalcorrelation (e.g., the correlation of the pitch ofsound with the frequency of the corresponding

physical vibration). Kepler had no difficulty withthis. For him the secondary qualities were partof nature just like the primary qualities.However, inasmuch as he gives priority toquantity, the other qualities are not sofundamental for him—but they are still there aspart of nature. We can see how a difference indegree of reality begins to emerge for Kepler asa consequence of his identification ofmathematics as the key to certain knowledge ofnature. However, he does not thereby doubtthat color is a real part of nature, even thoughaccording to him we cannot have as certainknowledge of such qualities as we can ofquantity.

This changed in a decisive way with Galileo,who went a step further than this as aconsequence of his introduction of the ancientphilosophy of atomism into physics. He

maintained that only the primary qualities arepart of nature, and that the secondary qualitiesa r e entirely subjective. This step is soimportant for the subsequent history of modernscience that it is well worth reading Galileos ownaccount in The Assayer (Il Saggiatore), a textwhich is a rhetorical masterpiece.140 Here wecan do no more than indicate Galileo's treatmentby means of a quotation:

Now I say that whenever I conceive anymaterial or corporeal substance, Iimmediately feel the need to think of it asbounded, as having this or that shape; asbeing large or small in relation to otherthings, and in some specific place at anygiven time; as being in motion or at rest;as touching or not touching some otherbody; and as being one in number, or

few, or many. From these conditions Icannot separate such a substance by anystretch of my imagination. But that it mustbe white or red, bitter or sweet, noisy orsilent, and of sweet or foul odor, mymind does not feel compelled to bring inas necessary accompaniments. Withoutthe senses as our guides, reason orimagination unaided would probablynever arrive at qualities like these. HenceI think that tastes, odors, colors, and soon are no more than mere names so faras the object in which we place them isconcerned, and that they reside only inthe consciousness. Hence if the livingcreature were removed, all these qualitieswould be wiped away and annihilated.But since we have imposed upon themspecial names, distinct from those of the

other and real qualities mentionedpreviously, we wish to believe that theyreally exist as actually different fromthose.141

Now we do have the reduction of thesecondary qualities to the primary ones. Theyalone are part of nature, whereas the secondaryqualities have no objective existence. We havenoted before that the quantitative perspectiveand the philosophy of atomism fit like hand inglove. It seems that Galileo's thinking wasprompted to turn a valid methodologicaldistinction into an unwarranted ontologicaldualism by his adoption of atomism. This ancientphilosophy believed that “By convention(nomas) there is sweet, bitter, hot, cold, color,but in reality atoms and void,”142 and that it isthe movement of the atoms impinging on the

human organism which causes theseexperiences, which are mere appearances, toarise therein. Galileo explains how the sensationsof taste, smell, and sound, for example, couldarise in this manner, before going on to give asimilar explanation of heat. It does seem quiteclear from reading Galileo that thesubjectivization of secondary qualities, andhence their removal from nature, is entirely aconsequence of his incorporating this ancientphilosophy of atomism into physics. In otherwords, the origin of this ontological bifurcation(as distinct from the methodological division) ishistorical, and not something which science“discovered” in the way that is usuallysupposed. It is a consequence of a way ofthinking, and not a discovery which wassomehow made empirically. This was Galileo'sdeed, and its effect has been carried through to

the present day. But it is unwarranted. Themathematical method itself does not require thissubjectivization, since this method requires onlythat the so-called secondary qualities becorrelated with occurrences which arethemselves capable of direct mathematization.

This is so important for the subsequentdevelopment of the scientific understanding ofthe relationship between human beings and theworld that it is well worth summarizing it briefly:(1) There is a valid methodological distinction

between primary and secondary qualities. Thisenables secondary qualities to be quantifiedindirectly, so that they can be calculated andthereby manipulated and controlled. This doesnot lead to insight into the nature of thequantities in question. We must be careful aboveall not to attribute causality to what is only acorrelation. Such a correlation may be only

superficial (e.g., the correlation of degree ofrefrangibility with color), or it may be morefundamental (e.g., the correlation of thefrequency of vibration of a string with the pitchof a musical note), but whichever the case it isnot the causal relation it is often mistaken to be.(2) There is no basis on which this

methodological distinction can also be taken asan ontological distinction. The sensory qualitieswhich are mathematizable directly do not haveany kind of priority in themselves over sensequalities which are not directly mathematizable.(3) The pressure to make this error (which

does not invalidate the methodologicaldistinction in any way whatsoever) becomesirresistible when the ancient philosophy ofatomism is incorporated into science. This hasthe effect of bifurcating the senses, giving priorityto the sense of touch. Goethe said of this:

“Democritus and most physiologists who treatthe perception of the senses assert somethingquite inadmissible—they reduce everythingperceptible to something that is felt.”143 Butwhy should touch be so privileged? Whyshouldn't touch also have no direct access toreality and reside only in consciousness? Theanswer is that it is through touch that we gainour sense of solidity, which is the basis for theconceptualization of “body.” Without this, whatwould happen to all the primary qualities thatGalileo lists: boundary, shape, position,contiguity, and number? The sense of touch isthe basis of our experience of the world of solidbodies, i.e., the quantitative world. So thisdistinction between touch and the other senses ismethodological and no more. It fits therequirements of the mathematical method. Thereis no other reason why touch should be granted

an access to reality which is denied to the othersenses.(4) In the hands of Galileo, this developed

into the subjectivization of the secondaryqualities. These were held to exist only in theconscious experience of the subject, and not tobe present as such as part of the object. Thusnature was drastically impoverished. But so,too, was humanity, for these secondary qualitieswere thought to be of no significance comparedwith the primary ones which alone were part ofnature—a nature which was now reduced tomatter.

Burtt observes that the stage is now fully setfor the Cartesian dualism of the mathematicalrealm of matter (denatured nature) and the realmof human nature.144 Inevitably the question nowarises as to how these primary qualities can giverise to the secondary qualities in conscious

experience? This leads to the so-called causaltheory of perception—causality itself now beingreduced to mechanical pushes and pulls, asbefits the sense of touch. But this attempt tounderstand perception in the framework ofmechanical causality is incoherent. This becomesself-evident if we try to think it through, becausethe two sides (matter and consciousness) havenothing in common, and “of two things whichhave nothing in common between them, onecannot be the cause of the other.”145 It's not aquestion of trying to overcome the difficulty, butof recognizing how this way of thinking led usinto a cul-de-sac in the first place.

With this preparation, we are now in aposition to understand Newton's experimentswith a prism and the interpretation which hegave to them. Newton published a first accountof this work in the Philosophical Transactions

of the Royal Society in 1672. The controversywhich this youthful and enthusiastic workproduced, resulted in a lengthy interchange offurther papers and replies over the next fouryears. This response to his “New Theory aboutLight and Colors,” as he called it, was sovexatious to him that he published no furtherwork directly on light and color until hismonumental Opticks in 1704. His OpticalLectures, given at the University of Cambridgein 1669, were not published until 1728, after hisdeath. It is in these lectures that he gives someindication of the background to his famous prismexperiments. Furthermore, historians of sciencehave now researched Newton's earlymanuscripts, written between 1666 and 1672,and have discovered that these containindications of important factors which enteredinto Newton's thinking but which he omitted

from the first account of his work which he gaveto the Royal Society in 1672. This accountpresents his new theory of color as emergingstraightforwardly from his experiments, and thisis how we see it today. We think of it as aclassic of experimental discovery, in which theconclusion follows inevitably from theexperiments themselves. This is certainly whatNewton encouraged his readers to think. Butthe controversy his work aroused (and thosewho objected to his conclusion were not stupidpeople who simply failed to understand him)indicates that there is more to it than this.

Newton began his first letter to the RoyalSociety by telling the reader that in 1666 he was“applying myself to the grinding of Optic glassesof other figures than Spherical.” This verydifficult task was undertaken by Newton in anattempt to solve the problem of spherical

aberration with the objective lens of a telescope,in the manner which had been indicated byDescartes. It was in connection with this attemptto improve the quality of the image in atelescope that Newton “procured me aTriangular glass-Prisme, to try therewith thecelebrated Phenomena of Colors.”146 As aconsequence of his interpretation of thesephenomena, Newton concluded that it wasimpossible to improve the image formed with arefracting telescope, “not so much for want ofglasses truly figured” (as Descartes hadthought), but because of the relationshipbetween color and refraction. So he turned tothe relecting telescope instead, which does notshow chromatic aberration of the image becauserefraction is not involved.147

Newton described the steps by which he

came to this conclusion in such a way that itseemed to follow directly from his experiments.To begin with, he was struck by the observationthat the colored image of a small hole (throughwhich sunlight came) which the prism formed onthe wall was not circular, as he expected it to beaccording to the law of refraction (discoveredby Snell and Descartes). It was oblong, and fivetimes as long as it was broad, “a disproportionso extravagant, that it excited me to a more thanordinary curiosity of examining, from whence itmight proceed.” To this end he proceededthrough the following sequence of questions andexperiments:(1) Does the thickness of the glass influence

the result? To find out, Newton passed thebeam through different parts of the prism. Hediscovered that the result was always the same.(2) Is there an irregularity in the prism which

causes the beam to spread out? To answer thishe placed a second prism upside-down behindthe first, so “that the light passing through themboth, might be refracted in contrary ways.” Bythis means any changes in the light on account ofa flaw in the glass would be increased by thesecond prism. In fact, Newton found that theimage became round again, as it would be if thelight had not been passed through a prism in thefirst place.(3) Is the oblong shape the result of light from

different parts of the Sun meeting the prism atdifferent angles? Careful calculation showed thatit could not be.(4) Does the light move in curved instead of

straight lines after leaving the prism?Measurements showed that the differencebetween the length of the image and thediameter of the hole through which the light was

transmitted to the prism was proportional to thedistance between them. Hence, by putting ascreen at different distances from the prism, hewas able to show that light traveled in straightlines from the prism to the image.(5) After proceeding through this sequence of

measurements and calculations—it is this carefuland detailed quantitative approach whichdistinguished Newton from his contemporaries,such as Boyle and Hooke, who also investigatedcolor—Newton described what he called theExperimentum Crucis.148 He made a smallhole in a second screen which he placed behindthe prism in such a way that a single color fromthe “spectrum” formed by the prism passedthrough it. Then he placed a second prismbehind this screen, so that the light which hadpassed through the hole would pass in turnthrough this prism and onto the wall. By slightly

rotating the first prism, he was able to vary theportion of the spectrum formed by the first prismwhich passed through the second one. Adiagram may be helpful here, although it shouldbe remembered that this is constructed for thepurpose of clarification and does not representwhat can actually be seen.

Newton found that light from the blue part of

the spectrum formed by the first prism wasrefracted more than light from the red part,when it was passed through the second prism.Having described what he observed, he thensays immediately: “And so the true cause of thelength of that Image was detected to be noother, than that Light consists of Raysdifferently refrangible , which, without anyrespect to a difference in their incidence, were,according to their degrees of refrangibility,transmitted towards divers parts of the wall.”149

He then goes on to emphasize that the reasonwhy some rays are refracted more than others is“from a predisposition, which every particularRay hath to suffer a particular degree ofRefraction,” and not “by any virtue of the glass,or other external cause.” Then he makes astrong correlation between the difference in thedegrees of refrangibility of the rays of light (now

considered to be inherent to the raysthemselves) and their “disposition to exhibit thisor that particular color.” So he concludes that

(1) Colors are not Qualifications ofLight derived from Refractions . . . (as'tis generally believed), but Original andconnate properties, which in diversRays are divers.

(2)To the same degree of Refrangibilityever belongs the same colour, and to thesame color ever belongs the same degreeof Refrangibility.

This, then, is Newton's new theory of lightand color which he maintained he had deriveddirectly from experiment. His discovery that thecolors are not produced by the prism, but are

already there in the light and separated out bythe prism, is now admired as the very paradigmof the scientific procedure. However, Newton'snew theory was not well received in his ownday. It seemed to many of his contemporariesthat it contradicted the existing view about theorigin of colors, without it being at all clear justhow it followed directly from experiments withthe certainty Newton believed it to have. Also,the account which he gave did not conform towhat was expected at the time, in that it did notdepend on an underlying hypothesis about thenature of light.

Over the next four years (from 1672 to1676) ten criticisms were published in thePhilosophical Transactions of the RoyalSociety, together with eleven replies fromNewton. During the course of thiscorrespondence Newton further articulated and

clarified his views. It was agreed that Newtonhad shown that differential refraction explainedthe elongation of the image produced by theprism. However, before he pointed it out, notmany seemed to have noticed the significance ofthis elongation, namely, that it appeared tocontradict the newly discovered law ofrefraction, because it was not yet common forinvestigators to make precise measurements inthe way that Newton did. Also, Newton'sdemonstration that a single color was unchangedwhen it passed through the prism seemed torefute a theory, often held at the time (byHooke, for example), which proposed that therewere two major colors, red and blue, and thatall intermediate colors were compositions ofthese two. In which case, the differential colorrefraction produced by a prism would beexpected to result in the separation of a chosen

intermediate color into further components. Butthis does not happen, and Newton proposedinstead that each color was elementary andindivisible and that it was such colors whichwere separated out by the prism. This is whatwas unacceptable to his critics. They did notagree with him that his “experimentum crucis”showed that the different colors were alreadycontained in the light prior to refraction, and theycould see no reason why it should cause them toabandon their view that the colors wereproduced by the prism.

This was not the only objection to Newton'swork by his contemporaries. His account of hisnew theory of light and color was simultaneouslyan account of a new methodology of sciencewhich he was keen to promote.150 This newstyle of science was a fundamental departurefrom the style of science which was familiar at

the time. This consisted of a combination ofsome form of mechanical philosophy (usuallyatomism) with the new experimental philosophy.This was the style of science developed byDescartes, who was the most influential of thenew philosophers. But Newton openly refusedto adopt this approach. His concern was that itcould not lead to knowledge which is certain,but only to knowledge which is probable. Heagreed with his critics that his experiments,together with his interpretation of them, wouldbe readily understandable in terms of acorpuscular hypothesis of the nature of light. Heaffirmed that he thought this hypothesis to bevery probable, but that is as far as it is possibleto go, and that other hypotheses might explainthe observations equally well and hence also beprobable. What he proposed, on the otherhand, was certain because, he maintained, it was

reached directly by experiment. It was notdependent on any hypothesis about the nature oflight, nor did it lead to any certain knowledge ofthe hidden nature of light underlying theobserved phenomena. As he put it in his OpticalLectures in 1669 (not published until 1728): “Itis affirmed that these propositions are to betreated not hypothetically and probably, but byexperiments or demonstratively.” Because, hemaintained, his theory was not dependent onany hypothesis concerning the nature of light,discussion and examination of it must be basedsolely on the experiments in question, or onother experiments which may be suggested. Anydiscussion which depended on the assumptionof a hypothesis about the nature of light wastherefore methodologically unsound and must berejected.151

However, it seemed to others at the time that

Newton did have a hypothesis about the natureof light, and that, contrary to what he claimed,h e did “mingle conjectures with certainties.”Hooke attributed a corpuscular philosophy toNewton in the report which the Royal Societyasked him to write on Newton's work. Onestatement of Newton's in particular seemed toindicate clearly that he was affirming positively acorpuscular hypothesis of light:

These things being so, it can no longer bedisputed, whether there be colors in thedark, nor whether they be the qualities ofthe objects we see, no nor perhaps,whether light be a body.

It seems quite understandable that this passagewould be a source of confusion. What didNewton really mean by the last phrase? Hooke

saw it as an assertion of the corpuscularhypothesis, but Newton, in his reply to Hooke'sreport, denies that he asserted such ahypothesis while agreeing that “as to theprinciple parts [it] is not against me.” Newtongoes on to say about hypotheses:

And therefore I chose to decline them all,and to speak of light in general terms,considering it abstractly, as something orother propagated every way in straightlines from luminous bodies, withoutdetermining, what that Thing is; whether aconfused Mixture of diffami qualities, orModes of bodies, or of Bodiesthemselves, or of any Virtues, Powers, orBeings whatsoever. And for the samereason I chose to speak of Colorsaccording to the information of our

Senses as if they were qualities of Lightwithout us. Whereas by that Hypothesis(i.e., the corpuscular hypothesis] I musthave considered them rather as Modes ofSensation, excited in the mind by variousmotions, figures, or sizes of corpuscles ofLight, making various Mechanicalimpressions on the Organ of Sense.

This view, i.e., that colors can be consideredas qualities of light, is one which Goethevigorously rejected. His argument was thatevery colored light is darker than colorless light(often mistakenly called white light). Of course,we need to remember that all light is invisible initself; light only becomes visible when itilluminates matter. It is only in making somethingvisible that light becomes visible itself. In emptyspace we see neither colored nor colorless light.

Now the point of Goethe's argument against theview which Newton expressed in this passage isthat any colored light on a screen is darker thancolorless light on the screen. So if colorless lightwere to be composed of colored lights (weshould say, to be more precise, color-producinglights), then the brighter light would becompounded of darker lights. Evidently this is acontradiction.

Newton's notebooks reveal a very differentstory than the one which he presented in hispublications. They show that from the startNewton held a corpuscular hypothesis,conceiving light rays as streams of corpuscles.The important point is that this hypothesis is notan additional embellishment, an optional extra,but “formed part of his language to describe hisearliest experiments on color.”152 Thecorpuscular hypothesis played a formative part

in Newton's thinking, and it may well have beenthis which led him to his new theory that theprism did not produce the colors, but separatedcolors which were there already. Far from beingderived from experiments, as indeed it couldnot be, and notwithstanding Newton's claim tothe contrary, his new theory may have been aconsequence of the corpuscular language of hisearly thinking. In other words, the corpuscularhypothesis functioned as an organizing idea inhis interpretation of the prism experiments. Sincethe root of this idea is in a historical(philosophical) school of thought, then it seemsthat we would have to say that Newton'sexperiment, together with its interpretation, has ahistorical dimension as well as an empirical one.We are accustomed to thinking of an experimentas being only empirical, but this is because, asdescribed previously, we miss the action of the

organizing idea. Inasmuch as the organizing ideahas its origin in a historical school of thought,then the historical dimension is incorporated intothe experiment itself. A good part of thecontroversy aroused by Goethe's attack onNewton has come from overlooking theintrinsic historical dimension of scientificknowledge, treating it as if it were a purelynatural or empirical kind of knowledge, as wellas from taking Newton's own account at facevalue.

In terms of corpuscularian thinking, Newton'sdiscovery that each color is differently refractedwhen passed through a prism would require adifference in some quantitative property of thelight corpuscles to be correlated with eachcolor. For example, a difference in size or adifference in velocity of the corpuscles might beassociated with a difference in color. Newton

considered both of these possibilities at differenttimes. With such a correlation in mind, thinkingin terms of mechanical properties of corpusclesinstead of qualities of colors, it would be mucheasier to conclude that the colors were allpresent already in the light (so-called white light,which is really colorless light), since we wouldonly need to think of corpuscles differing insome mechanical magnitude all mixed together.Similarly, it is much easier to think of the actionof the prism as being to order the corpusclesinto sets according to the magnitude of themechanical property in question. Hence it seemsstraightforward to conclude that the prismseparates the light into component colors.

Newton's theory looks much more plausiblewhen it is considered in the context of themechanical, atomistic way of thinking than itdoes when it is presented as if it were derived

directly from experiment. We can see thisparticularly well when we remember that,according to this theory, there is no blue, red, orother color as such outside of the humanorganism. Far from being qualities of light (asNewton maintains in the quotation above), thecolors as such arise only when light corpusclesinteract with the human organism. If atomism isthe organizing idea in the background here, thenit becomes much easier to see how it wouldseem plausible that the different colors arepresent in the light already, and are separated bydifferential refraction as a result of a difference insome mechanical property. Color as a qualitydoesn't come into the physics at all. It is whenwe start to be concerned with this quality thatNewton's account of color begins to appearunconvincing. This is where Goethe began: withcolor as a quality, instead of with the

replacement of color by a measurable quantitywith which it can be correlated.

One of the foremost scholars of Newton, I.Bernard Cohen, concludes that “in view of thecorpuscular and mathematical presuppositionsof Newton's thought... it would be difficult tomaintain that this classic experiment and itsinterpretation can be understood on a simplelevel of experiment and observation.”153 In fact,Newton's account is far from being thestraightforward exposition of his discoveries thathe presents it as being. It is really a carefulexercise in rhetoric, arranged to persuade thereader while at the same time leading him tobelieve that the conclusions come directly fromexperiment.154 We have seen already thatNewton did something similar in his work onmotion, where he maintained that he reached his

first law of motion (the principle of inertia) onthe basis of experimental work done by Galileo,as if this could be discovered directly byinduction from experiment. But in fact he didnothing of the kind. So now, here also in hiswork on light and color, we find the samemisleading picture of how he proceeded. Thishas been a major historical source of the widelyheld view that scientific knowledge is deriveddirectly from experiment (the epistemologicalsource of this view has been dealt with earlier).It is the false belief that this is how scienceproceeds which stands in the way ofunderstanding what Goethe did in his science ofcolor.

Newton held an ideal of how certainknowledge of nature could be achieved. Thisseems to have been derived from theexperimental philosophy inaugurated by Francis

Bacon, as this was advocated in England at thetime by Robert Boyle. This regarded experimentas a method of making empirical discoveriesdirectly from nature, where the experimenterwas unencumbered by any prior assumptions ofa hypothetical nature—such as those of themechanical philosophy proposed by Descartes.The latter could be introduced legitimately onlyafter the experimental discovery had beenmade. Such speculations, although valuable,could not lead to certainty in science. Themechanistic hypothesis was seen by Newton asbeing no more than probable, and, as such,useful for conjecturing about causes once theprimary work of discovery by experiment hadbeen done. This empirical approach went in theopposite direction to Descartes' way, which wasthe dominant style of science at the time. Hesaw the mechanistic world hypothesis as the

starting point, not as something to be added onafterwards as a plausible explanation.155 Therole of experiment for Descartes was either oneof filling in the details of the mechanistic worldpicture or of deciding between possiblealternative mechanical explanations. It was notthe primary route to discovery which Newton,following Bacon, claimed it to be. Descartes'own contribution to this program of themechanical philosophy was so enormouslyinfluential that it was the major reason for theopposition which Newton's work met withinitially.

We have seen considerable cause to doubtthat Newton did in fact make his discoveriespurely from experiment in the way that hemaintained. But, nevertheless, he stuck to hisideal of empirical discovery in all hispublications, always claiming to make his

discoveries purely from experiments, and onlythen going on to consider possible theoreticalexplanations in terms of what were to him, hemaintained, only plausible hypotheses. Thus hestrove to keep separate what he consideredcould be certain in science from what could not.He was always consistent with this ideal in hispublications—although to see this we have toconsider them comprehensively, and notselectively as has often been done. Thus, onlyafter the long correspondence in the pages oft h e Philosophical Transactions, whereNewton answered each criticism by giving moreexperimental details, did he finally send a longpaper to the Royal Society with the title (in part)“A Theory of Light and Colors, containing partlyan hypothesis to explain the properties of lightdiscoursed of by him in his former papers ...”(December 9, 1675). He asked for this to be

read, but not to be published. Before stating thehypothesis, he gives his reason for putting itforward:

Having observed the heads of some greatvirtuosos to run much upon hypotheses,as if my discourses wanted a hypothesisto explain them by, and found that some,when I could not make them take mymeaning, when I spoke of the nature oflight and colors abstractly, have readilyapprehended it when I illustrated mydiscourse with a hypothesis; for thisreason I have here thought fit to sendyou a description of the circumstances ofthis hypothesis, as much tending to theillustrations of the papers I herewithsend you.

He goes on to add, so there really can be nodoubt as to his meaning, that he will not assumethe hypothesis he is about to describe (or anyother), but that to avoid repeating himself andbeing cumbersome he will sometimes “speak ofit as if he had assumed it, and propounded it tobe believed.”

After this introduction, Newton plungesstraight into the details of his hypothesis, whichhe insists is meant to be no more than anillustration to help those who cannot thinkwithout some way of visualizing in terms of thefamiliar sensory world. The details need notconcern us here. Suffice it to mention that hesupposes there to be an all-pervading etherealmedium which can undergo a vibrating motion(i.e., wave motion). Light is not the ether nor thevibrations set up in it, but consists of “multitudesof unimaginable small corpuscles of various

sizes,” and it is these which set up vibrations inthe ether under various circumstances. Color isa subjective experience corresponding to thesize of the light corpuscle—the largest particlesstriking the retina produce the sensation of red,for example. But, whatever the details of hishypothesis, Newton's disclaimer concerning therole it plays for him (or rather, for others, sincehe effectively denies that it played any role forhim!) is completely at odds with what hisnotebooks show: that from the beginning thecorpuscular hypothesis played a formative rolein his thinking and an integral part in his languagefor describing experiments. The ideal ofscientific methodology which he presented inpublic, and believed in, was not in fact the routeby which he made his discovery.

Newton followed the same procedure,reflecting this methodology, in subsequent

publications. In the various editions of hismagnum opus on light, the Optiks (1704onwards), he first presents what he callspropositions, followed by the proof of each suchproposition by experiments. Newton isdeliberately following the method of geometricalexposition here, presenting experimental sciencein a manner which reflects the degree ofcertainty he believes it to be capable ofachieving. Since, he believes, this is the samedegree of certainty as that achieved bymathematics, then it is only fitting that opticsshould be presented in the manner of geometry,for which the Elements of Euclid formed theparadigm (cf. Spinoza's Ethics, which presenteda fundamental ethics in the same geometricalmanner). So, Newton's Opticks gives a“geometrical exposition” of an experimentalscience. But there is a reversal in the order here

which we must notice if we are not to beconfused by this exposition. The experimentswhich Newton believes constitute proof of anexperimental proposition must have come first,i. e . , before the experimental proposition,because, according to Newton's ownmethodology, this must have been reached in thefirst place from the experiments. Such a reversalin the order is typical of this geometrical style ofpresentation, and if we are not careful it onlyadds to the confusion caused already (in the1672 account of his discovery) by themisleading claim that the new theory of colorwas discovered directly and purely fromexperiments.

Only after he has completed this account ofwhat he sees as experimental certainties, doesNewton then go on to the hypothetical part ofhis exposition. This is given separately in the

form of a series of queries containing hypothesesabout light, which give hypothetical (uncertain)causes of the experimental propositions(certain). These queries increase in complexitythrough successive editions. However, althoughhis presentation of them comes after theexperimental propositions, in line with hisgeneral methodology, it is difficult to believe thatthe conjectures which the queries contain wereonly in the nature of auxiliary material for thosewho needed this kind of support in theirthinking. Newton's claim that he did not needthis kind of thing himself has been found to bewanting, although it does express the ideal towhich he aspired.

Newton's style of science challenged theclaim of the mechanistic philosophy to be theway to the truth about nature. But it was nevercompletely accepted—most likely because it is

not possible to separate the purely experimentalfrom the hypothetical in the way that he wished.Eventually a new style of science developed atthe beginning of the nineteenth century,especially in France, which was the reverse ofthat which Newton advocated.156 Instead ofkeeping them apart, the attempt was made tobring together the mathematical, theexperimental, and the theoretical strands ofscience so that they worked together in amutually supporting way toward theachievement of scientific knowledge. This styleof science, in which these three factors workedtogether, was very successful in physics until thedevelopments in atomic physics in the 1920s—when the theoretical component becameproblematic.157 The first major success of thisstyle of science was in optics. It led to the

emergence of what physicists still refer to as“physical optics,” mainly through the work ofFresnel and Arago. This theory was particularlysuccessful in understanding the formation ofimages by optical instruments and the reasonsfor the limit to the resolution which such aninstrument can achieve. The mathematical,experimental, and theoretical components allworked together in a remarkable synthesis, butthe theoretical component was provided by awave theory of light and not by a particletheory.158 In this case color is correlated withthe frequency of the wave (as the pitch of amusical note is correlated with the frequency ofthe sound wave)—a suggestion which had beenmade already by advocates of the wave theoryin Newton's day.159 This clearly makes nofundamental difference to the viewpoint of the

mechanical philosophy. Color is still understoodas a secondary quality, arising from theinteraction of a primary (i.e., quantitative)property with the organism, and not as a qualityof nature. It is this primary, measurable propertywhich is the objective reality according to themechanical philosophy. The quality of color isonly subjective, and is therefore not itself a fittingobject of scientific knowledge. But because ofthe correlation, color can always be replaced bya measurable property. In the wave theory thisis the frequency (or wavelength), instead of thesize or speed as in the corpuscular theory. But,whichever the case, the fact remains that coloritself is not conceived to be a reality of nature inmathematical physics.

THE PHYSICS OF GOETHEANSTYLE

It has been necessary to go into Newton's workin some detail, because the failure to understandthis correctly has necessarily resulted in failure tounderstand the nature of Goethe's achievement.It has resulted in the misunderstanding thatGoethe was a muddleheaded dilettante who didnot understand science. His work on color isthought of as being, at best, a glorious failure.But when we look at this work morecomprehensively, in the light of the historicaldimension of science, then we begin to see bothNewton and Goethe differently.

The origin of Goethe's work on color wasvery different from the origin of Newton's work.Goethe was not interested in instrumental optics—in fact he was not interested in optics at all.

Whereas Newton had wanted to bringchromatics under optics—which was arevolutionary innovation at the time—Goethewanted to develop a science of chromaticswhich was independent and free from optics.His own interest in color was aroused by hisexperience with paintings during his Italianjourney. Far from being concerned with theimprovement of optical images in telescopes,Goethe's interest was primarily in thephenomenality of color. He wanted tounderstand the necessary conditions for color toarise. Such conditions were not to bediscovered by retreating from the concretephenomena into abstractions—such asquantitative measurements or mechanisticexplanations—but by going more fully into thephenomena as encountered in experience. Thismeans, in the first place, directing attention into

sensory experience, instead of away from it, asis the case with the theory-dominated style ofphysics we have discussed so far. This step intothe sensory, and the mode of consciousnesswhich it entails, has been discussed in part II ofthis book.160 What we will do here is to look atthe way that Goethe's approach to thephenomenon of prismatic colors illuminatesNewton's approach. This has the inverse effectof making Goethe's own approach more visibleto us—as the light which illuminates something isthereby itself made visible to us.

What is fundamental to Goethe's approachcan be summed up in one word: attention.Goethe gives attention to the phenomena (“ThePrimal Phenomenon of Color” in part II) so thathe begins to experience their belonging together(“Unity without Unification” in part II) andthereby to see how they mutually explain each

other. Such a holistic explanation is an intrinsicexplanation, in contrast to the extrinsicexplanation whereby phenomena are explainedin terms of something other than themselves—which is conceived to be “beyond” or “behind”the phenomena, i.e., separate from thephenomena in some way. Extrinsic explanationis the mode of explanation typical of theory-based science. But through attention to theconcrete, i.e., to the phenomena as such, webegin to encounter the qualities of thephenomena without any concern for theirsupposed ontological status as dictated by atheory (i.e., whether they are secondaryqualities). Attention to the phenomena brings usinto contact with quality, not quantity. The latteris in fact reached by abstracting from thephenomena, which entails standing back fromthe phenomena to produce a head-orientated

science (to use Goethe's phrase) instead ofparticipating in the phenomena through thesenses. It is when we experience qualities thatthe relationships among the phenomena begin toappear, and the phenomena thereby becomemutually explanatory. It is when we areconcerned with only the quantitative abstractionthat we need to go “beyond” or “behind” thephenomena to find an external explanation. Butwhen the explanation is intrinsic, the phenomenabecome intelligible in themselves. There is asubtle reversal of direction here. Instead offorcing our (quantitative) categories onto thephenomena, we are led into the phenomenathrough a way of access genuinely belonging tothe phenomena themselves. Goethe's way ofattention to the phenomena becomes theexperience of reading the phenomena in terms ofthemselves—it becomes the hermeneutic

phenomenology of nature.161

Such a science is a concrete science ofqualities instead of an abstract science ofquantities. These should be seen as beingcomplementary to each other, not asantagonistic—Goethe saw quantity and qualityas two poles of existence. The reason why thishas been obscured is because of the philosophyof atomism, with its primary/secondarydistinction and the subjectivizing of thesecondary qualities. But a science of quantity assuch does not need the carrier of atomism.When this is recognized, elements which arereally foreign to the science of quantity can beremoved. Since it is these elements which areresponsible for the apparent antagonism, this toodisappears, and the proper relationship ofcomplementarity between a science of quantityand a science of quality can now become

evident. The aim of the physics of Goetheanstyle is to do for the qualities of nature what thephysics of Galilean style, and its subsequentdevelopment, has done for the quantitative poleof nature.

The place to begin is Goethe's early work oncolor, Contribution to Optics (1791), and notwith his later magnum opus, Colour Theory(1810). Much is to be gained by following thisthrough practically. An excellent guide to this isnow available in the work of HeinrichProskauer, The Rediscovery of Color, whichprovides practical means for directing attentioninto the phenomena.162 The first discovery isthat light and dark are needed for colors toarise with the prism. Colors are seen only wherelight and dark come together, i.e., at an edge orboundary.163 Exploration of these “edge

spectra” shows that there are two contrastingcolored bands, red/yellow and blue/violet,depending on the orientation of the boundary tothe prism.164 So a single boundary gives us onlyhalf the color phenomenon on any one occasion.The other half can only be obtained by invertingthe boundary. To obtain the whole phenomenonwe must have both orientations of the boundarytogether. But this can be done in two ways, asshown here:

If the central band in each of these figures is

made progressively narrower, the two poles ofthe color phenomenon (the edge spectra) arebrought closer together to the point where theymeet and overlap. Where this happens, a newcolor arises. In the one case, where yellow andblue overlap, green arises. In the other case,where violet and red overlap, the color whicharises has been called “peach-blossom” or“ruby-magenta.” Now the edge spectra aremerged into a continuous spectrum. But sincethere are two such continuous spectra, with onethe inverse of the other, we should call them“spectrum” and counter spectrum.” In the casewhere green arises, we find the sequence ofcolors which Newton describes, and which heidentifies as being there “in the light” all the whileuntil they are separated by the prism.

But careful attention to the phenomenonshows us that the spectrum which Newton

describes is not the basic phenomenon and thatit does not arise in the way that he imaginesunder the influence of the (theoretical) ideawhich organizes his thinking. The basicphenomenon is an edge spectrum which arisesat a light/dark boundary. The continuousspectrum which Newton and others observed isa compound phenomenon which appears whenthe two opposite edge spectra interact. Thecolors are not derived out of the light by thesupposed separating action of the prism. On thecontrary, Goethe asserts, “Light is the simplest,most elementary, most homogeneous thing weknow. It is not compounded,” and “The colorsare excited in light, not developed out of light. Ifthe conditions cease, the light becomes ascolorless as before, not because the colorsreturn to it but because they cease.”165

We can now understand the origin of the

phenomenon which Newton found so striking,namely, that the image of a small illuminated holeformed by a prism on a screen was not circularbut oblong. When we have rectangular shapes,such as those in the diagrams above, then if theaxis of the prism through which we look isparallel to the horizontal boundaries, we seecolors only on these horizontal boundaries andnone on the vertical edges. If we change theshape of the figure to a triangle, for example, wefind colored bands on all three edges. If the axisof the prism is horizontal, the colored band onthe horizontal edge will be broader than on thesloping edges. If we now change to a circularshape, we find, holding the prism horizontally,that there is a colored border effect all the wayround, except at the points on the circle whichare exactly vertical. The width of the coloredborder varies continuously around the circle,

being widest where the circle becomeshorizontal. Thus the colored figure, as seenthrough the prism, becomes slightly oval.

If we now shrink the size of the circles, asseen on the previous page, the broad horizontal

colored bands will merge, forming green in thewhite circle and ruby-magenta in the black. Butthe vertical points on the side of the circle willnot be colored, and so the width of the coloredfigure seen through the prism will be unchangedhere—i.e., it will be the same as the width of thecircle seen without using the prism. The overallresult is that a very elongated colored oval isseen, with maximum width the same as the circleseen with the eye directly. In other words, wesee something very much like Newton's oblongimage, which he tells us was five times as long asit was broad, this being “a disproportion soextravagant, that it excited me to a more thanordinary curiosity of examining, from whence itmight proceed.”

We can readily verify that this is what we areseeing by making Newton's foramen exiguumfor ourselves. To do this we simply take a piece

of paper and make a small hole in it with a pinor a sharp pencil point. If this is held up to thelight and looked at through a prism, the brighttiny hole is elongated into a continuous line ofcolor: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.This is the phenomenon from which Newtonstarted—at least that is what he tells us. We cannow see for ourselves that, as Goetherecognized, this is not a suitable place to begin.It is really a compound effect, which Newtonmistakenly took to be simple. It is from thiscompound phenomenon that Newton said heeventually came to the conclusion (via his otherexperiments) that the colors were alreadycontained in the light, and the action of the prismwas to separate them. So this phenomenon,which is taken as basic, is now called the“spectrum of light.”

But the basic phenomenon is not the

continuous spectrum. It is the edge spectrawhich arise at the light/dark boundary.Furthermore, there is also the fact of thecounterspectrum. If, instead of making a tinyhole and holding it up to the light, we make atiny dot on the paper and look at this throughthe prism, we again see a continuous line ofcolor, but in this case the colors are: blue, violet,ruby-magenta, red, orange, yellow. If we wereto follow the form of Newton's thinking, wewould have to say this is the “spectrum of dark.”But this is impossible so far as mainstreamphysics is concerned. For this physics considersthat darkness is only the absence of light, so itwould be nonsense to suppose that darknesscould contain colors which can be separated bya prism!

However, we should go into this a littlefurther, because it is not quite so simple as the

above account makes out. Mainstream physicsdoes have a way of explaining how the counter-spectrum arises, and the method which itemploys is the same as the one used to explainwhy a large white surface looked at through aprism will remain white except at the edges. It isthis observation which first led Goethe toproclaim “that the Newtonian doctrine is false.”He believed, wrongly, that the Newtoniandoctrine that the colors are already contained inthe light meant that the entire white surfaceshould appear colored, and not just the edges.Sepper has shown that Goethe's error here wasnot the result of ignorance about Newton'stheory, but was due to misleading presentationsof Newton's theory in the German textbooks ofphysics available to him.166

The quantitative way of seeing requires thatany phenomenon must be represented in terms

of parts which are external to one another. Nowa large white surface presents a singlehomogeneous appearance to the senses anddoes not appear in any way to be made up of anumber of parts which are external to oneanother. So the quantitative method is toconceive of such a surface as if it werecomposed of a very large number (strictly, aninfinity) of point sources. Each point source isseparate from the ones adjacent to it, accordingto this construction, even though they areconceived purely as points of light, and hencenot as having boundaries between them! Thisabstraction is clearly an ideal construction,which is necessary as such to accommodate thephenomenon to the quantitative way ofseeing.167

Each such point source is now imagined togive rise to its own continuous spectrum by

separation of the constituent colors in the light—each point will give rise to a continuous line ofcolor, as described above for the case of a tinyhole. But because of the proximity of thesesupposed sources to each other, the continuousspectra formed by adjacent points will overlap(i.e., in the vertical direction). So the red andyellow from one point source will overlap withthe blue and violet from the adjacent pointsource, and so on. The net effect is that thecolors will recombine to give white again. Thebasis for this comes from a comment whichNewton made in his first letter to the RoyalSociety:

But the most surprising and wonderfulcomposition was that of Whiteness.There is no one sort of Rays which alonecan exhibit this. 'Tis ever compounded,

and to its composition are requisite all theaforesaid primary Colours [N.B.: hedoes not mean here the colors which wecall the primary colors today, but thecolors which he believes are separated inthe spectrum of light] mixed in dueproportion. I have often with Admirationbeheld, that all the Colours of the prismbeing made to converge, and thereby tobe again mixed as they were in the lightbefore it was Incident upon the Prism,reproduced light entirely and perfectlywhite. . . .

But at the edges the recombination must beincomplete. At one edge the red and yellowfrom the next point source will be missingbecause the “next” point source simply isn'tthere. So the result will be unrecombined blue

and violet at the edge. The reverse will happenat the other edge, leaving unrecombined red andyellow. This explains the origin of the edgespectra, as well as explaining the persistence ofthe white. It is all a matter of geometry, and canbe worked out in mathematical detail with animpressive degree of precision. But, even so, itis not really possible to avoid a residual feelingthat there is something very artificial about amethod which fills space with color only tocancel it out again.

The method by which the counterspectrum isexplained in mainstream physics is the same. Inthis case we consider a black band sandwichedbetween two white surfaces. Following the sameprocedure, i.e., imagining the white surfaces tobe made up of a very large number of pointsources, each of which gives its own spectrumwith the prism, we again find incomplete

recombination of the colors at the black/whiteborders. But in this case the unrecombinedcolors will be blue and violet at the top borderand red and yellow at the bottom one. So if theyoverlap in the middle (either because the blackstrip is narrow, or because it is viewed from adistance), the red and the violet will mix to formruby-magenta. This explanation of the counter-spectrum was given by Helmholtz in a lecture,“On Goethe's Natural Scientific Works,” in1853.168

But of course there are no such“boundaryless” sources as this constructionimagines. Point sources must be conceived asbeing without an edge to them becauseotherwise there would be boundaries in thewhite. But there cannot be a source withoutboundaries because it would not be delineatedas a separate entity. These sources are not

physical but only mathematical. Attention to thephenomenon itself reveals that the way thephenomenon is habitually described is wrong:colors do not come out of light, but arise onlywhere there is a boundary. Goethe recognizedthat the mistake had been to miss the basicphenomenon, and to begin with what is really acompound phenomenon—Newton's elongated,colored image of a tiny hole. To start here andtry to explain the elongation can only lead in thewrong direction, because what is fundamental inthe phenomenon has not first been madevisible. This cannot be done by measurement,but only by finding the laws of quality in thephenomenon, i.e., the connections which followof necessity from the qualities of the colorsthemselves. It is when this has not been donethat artificial constructions such as thosediscussed above have to be introduced. Goethe

described the problem succinctly:

The worst that can happen to physicalscience as well as to many other kinds ofknowledge, is that people should treat asecondary phenomenon as a primordialone and (since it is impossible to derivethe original fact from the secondary state)seek to explain what is in reality thecause by an effect that is made to usurpits place.169

Suppose we now use colored figures, insteadof just black and white. Colors again appear atthe edges, but not with the same degree ofintensity as with black and white. The conditionfor the arising of color is simply that there issome distinction between a lighter and a darkerregion. The intensity of the colors depends on

the degree of contrast (observations withdifferent shades of grey, instead of black andwhite, show this clearly). But the color of thefigure itself is now also a factor which has to betaken into account, and this makes thephenomenon more complicated.

Consider this figure:

Because dark blue and bright red are bothlighter than black, the colors formed here are inboth cases the same as those formed with awhite rectangle on a black backround. Thus atthe upper edge the colors will be red, orange,and yellow—with yellow the furthest from theblack. At the lower edge the colors will be blueand violet—with violet the furthest into theblack. Looking at the upper edge of the darkblue rectangle, we find that the red which ariseswith the prism blends with the dark blue, to givea dark band which merges with the blackbackground. The net effect is that the dark bluerectangle appears to be shorter at the top edge(compared with the red rectangle) by an amountequal to the “missing” prismatic red. This iseasily overlooked—and indeed easily mistakenfor something else, as we will see—but carefulobservation makes it visible.170 Looking now at

the upper edge of the bright red rectangle, wefind that the red which arises with the prismadds on to the red of the rectangle to have theeffect of seemingly increasing its length. Theeffect is the opposite of the previous case withthe dark blue rectangle. But the two augmenteach other to increase the shift which appears tohave taken place between the two differentlycolored rectangles at their upper edges. If wenow turn our attention to the colors at the loweredges of the rectangles, we find in each case asimilar effect, but the inverse of the effect at theupper edge. Thus, the violet formed at the lowerboundary between dark blue and black has theeffect of seeming to extend the dark bluerectangle downwards into the black. But, seenagainst the bright red, the blue and violet arehardly visible. So the overall effect of the colorsformed with a prism when seen against dark

blue and bright red backgrounds is that the blueand red rectangles appear to have been shiftedwith respect to each other in the verticaldirection. But this appearance is only superficial.There is no such shift. But acceptance of thesuperficial appearance at its face value can leadto a fundamental error of judgment.

Newton offered this phenomenon as “proofby experiment” of Proposition 1, Theorem 1 inhis Opticks (1704). This proposition states that“Lights which differ in Color, differ also indegrees of Refrangibility.” However, historicalresearch has shown that Newton was aware ofthis phenomenon, and that he failed to observe itcorrectly and hence misinterpreted it long beforehe first mentioned it publicly. He makes nomention of it in the letter to the Royal Society of1672, where he focuses exclusively on the so-called spectrum of light formed with a tiny hole.

But he records it in an earlier notebook:

That the rays which make blue arerefracted more than the rays which makered appears from this experiment. If onehalf of the thread be blue and the otherred and a shade or black body be putbehind it then looking on the threadthrough a prism one half of the threadshall appear higher than the other and notboth in one direct line, by reason ofunequal refractions in the differingcolors.171

Although he does not mention this in his RoyalSociety paper, we can hardly suppose that hewas not influenced by it. Indeed, we have notedearlier (“Newton and the Mathematical Physicsof Color”) that this particular paper, while

appearing to be a direct account of a discoverymade by experiment, is really a cleverlyconstructed rhetorical device. The so-calledexperimentum crucis, from which Newtonclaimed to have discovered differentialrefrangibility, does not seem to be the placewhere he discovered it at all. It seems morelikely that he brought the idea of differentialrefrangibility to the experimentum crucis. Sohe concluded that the colors are there all alongin the light because he already had the idea ofdifferential refraction from his inadequateobservation and error of judgment with thered/blue thread. It has been pointed outelsewhere (see “The Primal Phenomenon! ofColor”) that Newton's way of thinking hereamounts to trying to understand the origin of thephenomenon in terms of the finished product,instead of following through the coming-into-

being of the phenomenon. He back-projects theend product (as he sees it), so that an effect ismistaken for a cause—which, in Rumi's graphicphrase, amounts to trying to “reach the milk byway of the cheese.” Here, once again, acomplex phenomenon is mistaken for a simpleone. Indeed, the phenomenon itself is not evennoticed because Newton considered only thecolors themselves (i.e., the blue and redrectangles) and did not consider them in relationto their surroundings. He was too selective,considering these colors in isolation from theircontext (the black surrounding), instead of beingcomprehensive and seeing the colors and theirbackground together. This seems to be acommon habit of mind: to attend to a specificcontent while ignoring the context in which itoccurs. This means that the content is seenanalytically, as something which exists

independently and can be considered on itsown. But this is false to the phenomenon, whichmust be considered comprehensively if it is to beseen as what it is. If we do not seecomprehensively, the phenomenon weencounter is not the authentic phenomenon but acounterfeit. In fact it is a pseudophenomenonbecause it conceals the phenomenon in a falseappearance. Goethe's physics, on the otherhand, is a phenomenology of nature, and as suchit makes the phenomenon visible because itconsiders the colors in relation to theirsurroundings.

By this means, then, we are able to recognizethat there is no differential refraction here.Newton's statement at the beginning of hisOpticks is false. It cannot be concluded fromsuch an experiment that “... the Light whichcomes from the blue half of the Paper through

the Prism to the Eye, does in like Circumstancessuffer a greater Refraction than the Light whichcomes from the red half, and by consequence ismore refrangible.” In view of the fact that, as hisearly notebook shows, this may well have beenthe experiment which convinced Newton ofdifferential refraction from the very beginning ofhis work on color, it is clearly important torecognize that his conclusion, carried through allhis subsequent work, is an error of judgmentgrounded in a mistaken observation. Proskauerpoints out that if Newton had observed blue andred rectangles on a white background, hewould have found that in this case the redappears to be more refrangible—owing to theway that the prismatic colors at the edges mergewith the colors of the background.172 Also, asGoethe pointed out, according to the theory ofdifferential refrangibility, the difference in

refrangibility between red and violet ought to begreater than between red and dark blue. But ifred and violet are placed against a blackbackground, the violet conceals the prismaticcolors formed at the edges less than dark bluedoes. This means that violet would seem lessrefrangible than dark blue—but, because theprismatic colors are so much more visible in thiscase we would have no reason to think in termsof differential refrangibility. Goethe concludedironically:

How it stands with Newtons powers ofobservation and the “exactness” of hisexperiments will, on the other hand, beperceived with astonishment by everyoneposessed of eyes and common sense.Indeed, I make bold to say that had henot deceived himself, who would have

been able to deceive a man of suchexceptional gifts as Newton by means ofsuch mumbo-jumbo.173

The only colors which Newton was interestedin were red and blue against a dark background.It turns out that these are the only two caseswhere we have to look very carefully indeed tosee the prismatic colors on the edges. If we do amore comprehensive experiment with a cardprepared like this:

we find that the colors other than red and blueshow prismatic colors at the edges clearly.When we have it all in front of us like this, then itis not difficult to see that there are edge colorsthere also with red and blue on the background.Then we can see that there is no differentialrefraction.174

As with the elongated image formed whenlight is passed through a prism after coming froma tiny hole, so here also we have reliance on anisolated case. It is a feature of Newton'sexperimental work, which Goethe criticized, thathe did not attempt to see comprehensively. Justas he did not consider the prismatic colors intheir context, but treated them in isolation, soalso he did not consider each experiment in itsexperimental context—i.e., the context formedfor it by all the other possible experiments withwhich it is related. It is a strong feature of

Goethe's work, on the other hand, that heconsciously tried to see comprehensively.

Goethe discussed his method explicitly in theessay “The Experiment as Mediator betweenSubject and Object.” He wrote this in 1792,shortly after his Contribution to Optics, but didnot publish it until 1823.175 With Newton'sexperimentum crucis in mind, he warns that“nothing is more dangerous than the desire toprove some thesis directly through experiments”and insists that it is only when experiments arecombined that we can begin to see thephenomena according to their nature, and notaccording to our own subjective interpretation.But this must be done in the right way:

As worthwhile as each individualexperiment may be, it receives its realvalue only when united or combined with

other experiments. However to unite orcombine just two somewhat similarexperiments calls for more rigor and carethan even the sharpest observers usuallyexpect of themselves. Two phenomenamay be related, but not nearly so closelyas we think. Although one experimentseems to follow from another, anextensive series of experiments might berequired to put the two into an orderactually conforming to nature.

The question is, how can we find the naturalconnection (i.e., the connection according tonature) between two phenomena, appearing intwo experiments, which is such as to make thephenomena more fully visible, i.e., to let themshow themselves as themselves? This must bedone by “working out every possible aspect and

modification of every bit of empirical evidence,every experiment.” The natural method is not tostudy a phenomenon in isolation, but to see it inthe context of other phenomena with which it isclosely related. If this is done adequately, anexperimental sequence of contiguousphenomena can be arranged, which shows anatural unity in the phenomena. Goethe says thathe tried to set up just such a series of contiguousexperiments in his Contribution to Optics. Theexperiments in this series can all be derived fromone another, so that any one experiment can beseen in the context of all the other experimentswith which it is related. He says that this is thereal task of the researcher into nature: toproceed from a single experiment to the onewhich is immediately adjacent to it, and so on.He refers to this procedure as the manifolding[Vermannigfaltigung] of a single

experiment.176 When an experiment is followedthrough its variations in this way, then theinterrelationships between these variations aresuch that it is as if there were one singleexperiment. Goethe says of such a series ofcontiguous experiments that it “constitutes as itwere just one experiment, presents just oneexperience from the most manifold perspectives.Such an experience, which consists of severalothers is obviously of a higher kind. It representsthe formula under which countless singleexamples are expressed.”177 The Goethean“formula” referred to here is this higherexperience of the One experiment which ismany. We can see here the form of “multiplicityin unity,” which is fundamental to Goethe'sorganic perspective. The series of contiguousexperiments is a metamorphic sequence.

The purpose of experimentation is for thephenomenon to show itself as fully as possible.As Sepper puts it “Goethe studied thephenomenon in its phenomenality,” and for him,“Comprehension does not take the form of atheory abstracted from the phenomena butrather the form of a seeing embedded in thefullness of phenomena.”178 This seeing whichlets the phenomenon show itself fully, lets itappear, is the theory for Goethe. The theory isan experience of insight in which what is seen isthe intrinsic necessity, and hence theintelligibility, of the phenomenon. We are notaccustomed to this radically phenomenologicalapproach. Evidently this is very different fromwhat is meant by “theory” in mainstreamscience, which amounts to a set of propositionsor an abstract mathematical model. Theory inthis latter sense is almost the opposite of seeing

in Goethe's sense, because it has the effect ofcovering up the phenomenon, instead of letting itappear, and of replacing it by something else.Whether this is by replacing the phenomenonwith a set of numbers (i.e., formal identificationof color with differences in refrangibility) or byreplacing it with a mechanical model (e.g.,frequency of a wave), the effect is the same. Thephenomenon is explained in terms of somethingelse, which thereby replaces it. This is anextrinsic explanation, whereas Goethe'sexplanation is intrinsic to the phenomenathemselves.

In a statement which at first sight may seemsurprising, Goethe said, “I have heard myselfcriticized as if I were an opponent, an enemy, ofmathematics in general, which in fact no one canvalue more highly than I.”179 But Goethedistinguished between the content of

mathematics and the method of mathematics.He asked, rhetorically, “What except for itsexactitude is exact about mathematics? And thisexactitude—does it not flow from an innerfeeling for the truth?”180 He saw himself doingthe mathematics of the quality of color byfollowing the mathematical method in the veryform of his experimentation. By producing all themanifold variations of an experiment, so thatthey can be placed next to one another in aseries, he believed he was proceeding in amathematical way:

From the mathematician we must learnthe meticulous care required to connectthings in unbroken succession, or rather,to derive things step by step. Even wherewe do not venture to apply mathematicswe must always work as though we had

to satisfy the strictest of geometricians.181

He said that Newton did not do this. Newtonworked with the content of mathematics—i.e.,quantitatively—but Goethe believed that hismethod was mathematically defective. Thus,although in his Opticks he tried to present hisexperimental work in the style of geometry—offering proof by experiment by arrangingindividual experiments like arguments—forGoethe this is defective because it is used tosupport a hypothesis instead of to make thephenomenon fully visible.

The consensus has always been that Goethe'swork on color was entirely nonmathematical.This has been held against him as showing thathe did not understand science and that he wastherefore only a dilettante. But what is absentfrom his work (intentionally) is only concern with

the quantitative aspects of the phenomena. It isthoroughly mathematical in its procedure fordiscovering relationships between the qualities ofthe colors. A parallel case in the history ofscience is provided by Michael Faraday's workof discovering the phenomena ofelectromagnetism, which gradually led to hisunderstanding of the notion of a field of force. Itis often pointed out that there is no mathematicsin Faraday's work.182 But when James ClerkMaxwell wrote his Treatise on Electricity andMagnetism, he said in the introduction that hehad found Faraday's work to be thoroughlymathematical.183 It was mathematical in terms ofthe form of its experimental procedure, not interms of the content of mathematics. ThusFaraday's experimental procedure ismathematical in precisely the same sense as

Goethe's work on color. Indeed, anyonereading Faraday's notebooks after studyingGoethe's work would not find it difficult toconclude that Faraday was the Goethe ofelectromagnetism (or that Goethe was theFaraday of color).

It is a fundamental feature of the mathematicalprocedure that it does not permit theintroduction of anything which is external toitself. For example, in deducing a theorem aboutthe triangle, it is not permitted to draw a triangleand use measurements made on it in thededuction. Mathematical procedure works onlywith what is intrinsic to it. Goethe did just thesame in investigating phenomena. He looked forrelationships among the qualities of colors whichhave the quality of necessity. In doing this heremained entirely within the phenomena, so thatthe relationships are intrinsic to the phenomena,

and did not introduce any elements which areexternal to the phenomena themselves. Anyintroduction of quantitative measurements,mathematical models (e.g., light rays), ormechanical models (corpuscles or waves) isutterly inadmissible because it is not inaccordance with the mathematical procedure.When we do this, we begin to experience thebelonging together of the colors (the “together”is determined by the belonging), the unitywithout unification, which has been described in“Unity without Unification” in part II.

We have seen that Goethe considered that aseries of contiguous experiments, derived fromone another in a continuous way, could bethought of as a single experiment in manifoldvariations. In an essay, “Mathematics and ItsAbuse,” Goethe gave the following quotationfrom the mathematician D'Alembert:

In examining a succession of geometricpropositions, each derived from the onebefore so that no gap exists between anyadjoining tenets, one becomes aware thattaken all together they constitute no morethan the first proposition, which so tospeak has altered gradually in theconstant succession of transitions fromone result to the next. It has, however,not really become diversified throughthese images but has merely taken onvarious forms.184

We can see that the metamorphic quality of thiswould appeal to Goethe. What is called the“first proposition” here is usually called an axiomin mathematics. The experience of a “higherkind,” which Goethe referred to as a “formula”under which countless examples are expressed,

plays a role in the science of the quality of colorwhich is analogous to the role of an axiom inmathematics. In this case the “axiom” becomesthe simplest phenomenon which can bemanifolded into many closely relatedphenomena. He later called such an axiom of thescience of qualities a “pure phenomenon,” andsubsequently a “primal phenomenon”(Urphänomen).185

We understand thus far that colors arise fromlight and dark, i.e., from their interaction, andnot out of light itself by a mechanical process ofseparation. Goethe developed this insight furtherin his Color Theory to the point where hereached such a pure, or primal, phenomenon.He begins to do this by considering the polaropposite qualities of absolute transparency andabsolute opacity. He sees these as limiting casesof the medium. The slightest restriction on

absolute transparency is the introduction of thefirst degree of opacity. He calls this the semi-opaque or turbid condition, and there aredifferent degrees of turbidity depending on theextent to which the transparency is diminished.Two polar situations can be distinguished:(1) If a colorless turbid medium is placed in

front of a colorless light, the light appearscolored when it is looked at through themedium. The color depends on the degree ofturbidity, going from yellow through orange tored, as the turbidity increases. Here the mediumhas a darkening effect on the light. So what wesee is the darkening of light. Here we have aclear case of the arising of color out of light anddark alone, i.e., out of elements which arecolorless themselves. They interpenetrate eachother dynamically, and do not just modify eachother in the manner of an external mechanical

addition (which would produce gray). It is thisinterpenetration of the one by the other thatGoethe meant to convey by the term dynamic.He said that “light and darkness uniteddynamically by means of turbidity generatecolor.”186 In no way do these colors arise out ofthe light—as if they were in the light already.Something new appears when light and darkinteract dynamically: color.(2) If a colorless turbid medium is placed in

front of a black background, and the medium isilluminated from the side, then the blackbackground will appear colored when it islooked at through the medium (i.e., from thefront). The action of the turbid medium here isthe opposite of what it is in the previous case.Here it holds the light, and so has a lighteningeffect on the dark which is seen through it. Onceagain, the color which appears depends on the

degree of turbidity, going from violet through topale blue as the turbidity increases. What wesee here is the lightening of dark.

This is the pure phenomenon, or the primalphenomenon as he later called it. This is the“axiom” for the concrete science of the qualityof color. As such, it is the “higher experiencewithin experience” which is the “the formula”which makes all the many other possible, morecomplex (i.e., impure) cases intelligible. Whenthese other, more complex color phenomena areseen in the light of the primal phenomenon, theyare seen as particular manifestations of it. ButGoethe understood this in a very concrete way,and it is easy to miss what he meant. To avoiddoing so, we have to see unity (which is not anobject, but the way of seeing) in an unfamiliarway. The primal phenomenon should not betaken as a principle. In other words, it should

not be taken abstractly. If the primalphenomenon were simply an underlyingprinciple, it would have the unity of “unity inmultiplicity.” It would be, in this case, what allthe instances of color phenomena have incommon. But it is much more than this, muchless abstract than such an underlying principlegrounded in what things have in common.Goethe described it beautifully in a letter writtenin 1827:

Moreover a primal phenomenon is not tobe considered as a principle from whichmanifold consequences result, rather it isto be understood as a fundamentalappearance [i.e., phenomenon] withinwhich the manifold is to be seen.187

This expresses clearly the difference between

“unity in multiplicity” and “multiplicity in unity”(see “The One and the Many” in part II and“Modes of Unity” below). The manifold are tobe seen within the fundamental appearance, notbecause they are parts of this appearance (theextensive viewpoint), but because the many areeach concrete manifestations of the one (theintensive viewpoint). This concrete mode ofunity is one and many at the same time. Seeing“multiplicity in unity” is the very opposite ofseeing “unity in multiplicity.” Unfortunately, thisis often not recognized, and the uniqueness ofGoethe's vision is lost. In fact, to the intellectualmind, “multiplicity in unity” and “unity inmultiplicity” may even seem to be no more thantwo ways of saying the same thing.

What is particularly important is that there isno separation between the primal phenomenonand its instances. Goethe's science does not

subscribe to the two-world theory. There is nounderlying reality behind the appearances, butonly the intensive depth of the phenomenonitself. We will refer to this again in connectionwith Goethe's organic work and his notion of thearchetype. Here we will simply note that, in thedomain of color, the primal phenomenon plays arole equivalent to the organic archetype.Goethe's way of understanding color is“organic” in style, instead of inorganic as it is inthe mechanistic approach.

Seeing the primal phenomenon is seeing thecoming-into-being of color, and every case mustbe an instance of the primal phenomenon, nomatter how many secondary complicatingfactors there may be. When colors are seenarchetypally (i.e., the manifold manifestations areseen within the fundamental appearance), theyare seen as being intrinsically necessary. This is

phenomenological seeing. In this way everycolor phenomenon becomes visible as intelligiblein itself, i.e., without the need for anyexplanatory agency which lies outside thephenomenon. Colors in everyday experience—such as the colors of the sun and the sky, thecolor of water and the distant hills, and so on—are now seen to have such an intrinsic necessityand therefore to be understandable inthemselves.

Whenever color arises, it must be amanifestation of the primal phenomenon, andthis must therefore also be the case with theprismatic colors. These colors cannot be causedby refraction. All that matters is that theconditions for the excitation of color are broughtabout. How this is done is not relevant to thecolor phenomenon itself. Thus refraction mustbe a means for doing this, but this does not

mean that refraction is the cause of thephenomenon. Just how the conditions for thecolor phenomenon to arise are produced byrefraction is not easy to describe, either brieflyor simply.188 It requires that we move awayfrom the technique of ray-optics and conceivethe passage of light through the prism holisticallyinstead of analytically. We have to see how theprism produces a differential shifting of thewhole body of light which passes through it. Thisinvolves working concretely in imagination, withwhat Goethe called Exakate sinnlichePhantasie.189 By this practice of exact sensorialimagination we can come to an understanding ofwhat takes place physically (and not justgeometrically) in the body of light as a whole asit passes through the prism. In this way we findthat refraction itself becomes intelligible instead

of just calculable. Then we have the basis forunderstanding how refraction provides theconditions for the primal phenomenon, so thatcolors appear, without mistaking it for the causeof color. But we cannot go further into thedetails of this, which fortunately we do not needto do for the purposes of the present work.

Goethe's insistence that “we are not seekingcauses but the circumstances under which thephenomenon occurs” led some commentators inthe nineteenth century to assert that Goethesimply didn't understand what a scientificexplanation is. They believed that such anexplanation had to be in the form of mechanicalcausality. But as we have noted earlier, althoughthis may be satisfactory for understanding thebehavior of colliding billiard balls, it does notapply in the case of color. Spinoza's perception—that only if two things have something in

common can the one be the cause of the other—is sufficient to show us that mechanicalcausality cannot be applied to the phenomenonof color. Goethe recognized this and thereforerejected causality as the basis for anunderstanding of color. But what he wasrejecting was only mechanical causality, whichwe now recognize as being a particularlyreduced mode of causality. Furthermore, wealso now recognize that the adoption of this asthe fundamental mode of causality had its originin a philosophical school of thought. In otherwords, the idea that causality is mechanicalcausality has no intrinsic scientific foundation.The belief that mechanical causality isfundamental is another instance of a falseontological projection of a methodologicalrequirement of the mechanical philosophy. Inview of this, we must now invert the judgment of

those nineteenth-century commentators whobelieved that Goethe's understanding of sciencewas deficient in this respect. It now seems that itwas their understanding of science which wasdeficient. They did not understand the historicalorigin of the principle of mechanical causality ina school of thought, and so did not realize that itfunctioned as a presupposition of the kind ofscience which they wrongly identified as the onlypossible science. In this respect, Goethe had abetter understanding of causality than his critics.He recognized, in the manner of Spinoza, theneed for qualitative commensurability betweencause and effect, and consequently thatmechanical causality could not provide anexplanation because it failed to satisfy thiscondition in the case of the phenomenon ofcolor.190

The focus of Goethe's science is always the

phenomenon itself, and this means thephenomenality of the phenomenon, not thephenomenon as it appears in the light of atheory. Referring to Goethe and his science,Sepper says, “The key to his perseverance andwhatever success he achieved lies in thephenomenality of his science: nature and nature'sphenomena, not theories about the phenomena,are its center and its center of gravity.”191

Whereas the popular view is still one whichbelieves that modern science began whenpeople turned to the phenomena instead ofspeculation, historical and philosophical studieshave shown that this is not an accurate view—either of the development of modern science orof what went before it. Certainly it is true thatmodern science is concerned with thephenomena, but this concern is often theory-directed. This is clearly the case in mathematical

physics and the quantitative approach to nature,as we have seen.

Goethe plunged into the phenomenality of thephenomena, firstly, by directing attention intosensory experience and, secondly, by practicingexact sensorial imagination. Everything is to besought within the phenomenon. Working in thisway brings us into contact with relationshipsbetween qualities which are intrinsicallynecessary—i.e., relationships which follow fromthe qualities themselves and cannot beotherwise. Newton, on the other hand, missedthe phenomenality of color altogether. Hisinstrumental, quantitative interest in colorinevitably led him away from this. There are nointrinsically necessary connections within thecolor phenomena for him. He says nothing aboutthe specific quality of any color and thereforenothing about necessary relationships between

the qualities of different colors. Any connectionsbetween the colors are purely external forNewton, i.e., they do not follow with necessityfrom the colors themselves.192 Similarly, withthe wave theory of light which was developedlater, no necessary connections between thecolor phenomena are disclosed by this theory—or could be disclosed by it. So everything isarbitrary: a particular color just happens to havethat particular wavelength and not another one.Because there are no necessary connections, nointernal relationships, the wave theory does notdisclose any intrinsic intelligibility in thephenomena. There is no necessary connectionbetween the quality of green and the wavelengthof light which is correlated with green.Consequently there is no necessity in the factthat green lies between yellow and blue. Hencethe order of the colors is without any intrinsic

intelligibility. The order of the colors is thereforeentirely contingent—it could equally well beotherwise so far as this theory is concerned.Necessary relationships, which disclose theintrinsic intelligibility of the phenomena, can onlybe discovered by focusing attention on qualities,i.e., on the phenomenality of the phenomenon.With the wave theory, it is the theory itself whichis the center of attention. Consequently, insteadof understanding the phenomenon, we can onlyexplain it.

It has been customary for the most part inmodern philosophy to confine necessaryconnection and intrinsic intelligibility topropositions, and even to only a narrow rangeof propositions, namely the propositions of logicand mathematics, and tautologies arising fromdefinitions (e.g., all bachelors are unmarried).Such propositions are often referred to as

analytic propositions. In distinction to thesepropositions, which must be true, there arepropositions which happen to be true—butcould be false. Since these entail reference tothe existing world, beyond the internal relationsof ideas, such propositions are often referred toas empirical propositions.193 This bifurcation ofmeaningful propositions is often referred to asHume's Fork, since he expressed the view thatthese and only these two kinds of propositionsare genuinely meaningful. This classical divisionbetween analytic and empirical propositionsbecame the cornerstone of the philosophy ofscience which was dominant in the earlier part ofthis century, i.e., logical empiricism, and its moreextreme form, logical positivism. We have seenpreviously that the fundamental propositions ofmodern physics, such as the principle of inertia,do not in fact fall into either of these categories

(see “The Idea of Inertial Motion”). Suchfoundational propositions function as constitutivepropositions, and they have their roots inschools of thought rather than in any directcontact with nature. Their origin is cultural-historical more than it is empirical. They arecomprehensive organizing ideas which constitutethe possible structure of a science.

However, the necessary relationships andintrinsic intelligibility which are encountered inGoethe's way of science, while undoubtedlythey do not fit onto Hume's Fork, arenevertheless not constitutive of the phenomenain the way that the foundational propositions ofmodern science are now recognized to be. Thereason is that Goethe is concerned withnecessary relationships, and hence intrinsicintelligibility, within the phenomena, and not withpropositions which have the quality of necessity.

In other words, the necessity and intelligibility isexperienced as a reality of the phenomenonitself. It is experienced directly as a dimension ofthe phenomenon, not as something added to thephenomenon by the mind in order to explain it:

His intention is not merely to bring thephenomena into a systematic structure,but to incorporate them into a systemwhich is able to disclose a necessaryconnection between them. It is Goethe'sfundamental assumption that a system ofthis kind is not confined to formal logicor, for instance, the mathematical domainof pure quantities and geometrical figures,but can also be found within the domainof qualities, e.g., color qualities.194

Not only did Newton miss the phenomenality

of color, but, as we have seen, his work wasreally theory-directed. So instead of thephenomenon being at the focus of science, forNewton it was effectively the theory whichoccupied the central place. Newton wasconcerned primarily with measurement, not withthe phenomenality of the phenomenon. Nowmeasurement is possible only where things areto be found in the mode of quantity—i.e., partswhich are external to each other—or wherethings can be rearranged in accordance with thismode. This entails the imposition of aframework upon the phenomenon, like a gridsystem on a map, which makes the operationsof measurement and calculation possible.

Kant saw this as the prime reason for thesuccess of natural science when it adopted theexperimental method. In the preface to thesecond edition of the Critique of Pure Reason

he says:

When Galileo caused balls, the weightsof which he had himself previouslydetermined, to roll down an inclinedplane; when Torricelli made the air carryweight which he had calculatedbeforehand to be equal to that of adefinite volume of water; or in morerecent times, when Stahl changed metalsinto oxides, and oxides into metals, bywithdrawing something and then restoringit, a light broke upon all students ofnature. They learned that reason hasinsight only into that which it producesafter a plan of its own, and that it mustnot allow itself to be kept, as it were, innature's leading-strings, but must itselfshow the way with principles of judgment

based upon fixed laws, constrainingnature to give answer to questions ofreason's own determining. Accidentalobservations, made in obedience to nopreviously thought-out plan, can never bemade to yield a necessary law, whichalone reason is concerned to discover.Reason, holding in one hand itsprinciples, according to which aloneconcordant appearances can be admittedas equivalent to laws, and in the otherhand the experiment which it has devisedin conformity with these principles, mustapproach nature in order to be taught byit. It must not, however, do so in thecharacter of a pupil who listens toeverything that the teacher chooses tosay, but of an appointed judge whocompels the witnesses to answer

questions which he has himselfformulated. Even physics, therefore,owes the beneficent revolution in its pointof view entirely to the happy thought, thatwhile reason must seek in nature, notfictitiously ascribe to it, whatever as notbeing knowable through reason s ownresources has to be learnt, if learnt at all,only from nature, it must adopt as itsguide, in so seeking, that which it hasitself put into nature. It is thus that thestudy of nature has entered on the securepath of a science, after having for somany centuries been nothing but aprocess of merely random groping.195

The “secure path of science” he refers to here isthe one pioneered by the Greeks in geometry,and which physics only took much later when it

was realized that “it must adopt as its guide . . .that which it has itself put into nature.” Thusnature is compelled to provide answers to thequestions we set, which means to beframeworked in our conceptual scheme. Sophysics underwent what Kant saw as aCopernican Revolution, namely the transitionfrom revolving the knower around the known torevolving the known about the knower (whichKant himself aimed to do for philosophy).

The Goethean approach to nature is theantithesis of this. In the essay “Significant HelpGiven by an Ingenious Turn of Phrase,” Goetherefers to a favorable comment which had beenmade on his work by Dr. Heinroth, professor ofpsychiatry at Leipzig. Heinroth said thatGoethe's approach was unique in that histhinking works objectively. Goethe commentsthat:

Here he means that my thinking is notseparate from objects: that the elementsof the object, the perceptions of theobject, flow into my thinking and are fullypermeated by it; that my perception itselfis a thinking, and my thinking aperception.196

There is an epistemological reversal in Goethe'sobjective thinking which is the key to hisphenomenological science of nature. In this casethe organizing idea in cognition comes from thephenomenon itself, instead of from the self-assertive thinking of the investigating scientist. Itis not imposed on nature but received fromnature. The organizing idea in cognition is nolonger an idea which is external to thephenomenon and which frameworks it, but isnow the intrinsic organizing principle of the

phenomenon itself which appears as idea whenit is active in the mind. Goethe called this “highernature within nature.” It does not appear to thesenses, but is discovered within the sensory. Itappears to the sensory imagination, when this isdeveloped into an organ of perception, but notto the intellectual mind which tries to go behindthe sensory. The organizing principle of thephenomenon itself, which is its intrinsicnecessity, comes into expression in the activityof thinking when this consists in trying to thinkthe phenomenon concretely. What isexperienced is not a representation of theorganizing principle, a copy of it “in the mind,”but the organizing principle itself acting inthinking. Referring back to what was said inchapter 2 about the organizing idea as “actingorganizing,” we see that here it is the acting ofthe intrinsic necessity of the phenomenon which

produces the idea in thinking, as it is the actingof this necessity in outer nature which producesthe phenomenon revealed to the senses.

This is a new kind of organizing activity incognition. The important point here is that theorganizing idea no longer comes from theproductive mind to be imposed on nature, but isproduced by the phenomenon in the activity ofthinking when this can be receptive to it (whichis in no way the same as being passive). Whenthis happens, what appears is a manifestation ofthe phenomenon itself, not a representation. Thisis where Goethe's phenomenological sciencediffers so fundamentally from mainstreamscience, which is intellectual rather than sensory,and where the organizing idea so often originatesfrom the subjective thinking of the scientificinvestigator. With Goethe's way also, the natureof the phenomenon can only appear as a result

of the researcher's thinking activity. But thisactivity now coalesces with the organizingactivity of the phenomenon itself, which is itsintrinsic necessity, so that it is this necessity itselfwhich appears in the “container” which isprovided for it by the researcher's own thinkingactivity. An active organizing principle in natureneeds a corresponding organizing activity on thepart of the scientist to be a “container” for it tocome into manifestation. It is the scientist'sthinking activity itself that provides the vessel inwhich the intrinsic, active organizing in naturecan appear.197

However, necessary as this organizing activityis on the part of the researcher, it must bemetamorphosed if it is not to become anobstacle (instead of a vessel) to the activeorganizing which is the intrinsic necessity of thephenomenon itself coming into manifestation.

This is the hazard. What is needed here is asubtle reversal of will. It is the conditions for thisto occur which are provided by emphasizingattention to the phenomenon, first throughplunging into the sensory experience of thephenomenon, and then through making thisinward in exact sensorial imagination. To beginwith, an effort has to be made to keep attentionon the phenomenon, and not to let it stray awayfrom the sensory and allow other factors toenter the imagination. So the will is active here.But the object of attention is solely thephenomenon. So the researcher, in directingattention exclusively to the phenomenon, is infact surrendering to the phenomenon, making aspace for it to appear as itself. This provides thecondition for the reversal of will to happen, fromactive to receptive will, whereupon it is theorganizing principle (which is the necessity) of

the phenomenon itself which can come toexpression in the researcher's thinking.198 This isthe condition for the remarkable coalescence ofthe researcher with the phenomenon, which isobjective thinking.

When the will becomes receptive, thenconsciousness becomes participative. It is whenthe will is assertive that the scientist is separatedthereby from the phenomenon, andconsciousness becomes onlookerconsciousness. Participative consciousnessm e a n s conscious participation in thephenomenon. Goethean scientists do not projecttheir thoughts onto nature, but offer their thinkingto nature so that nature can think in them and thephenomenon disclose itself as idea. In this way itis the being of the phenomenon itself whichappears as idea.199 It is not a question of a

correspondence between an idea produced bythe mind and the phenomenon in nature—whichwould be the way that our modernepistemological dualism would try to understandit.200 On the contrary, it is an ontologicalparticipation of thinking in the phenomenon, sothat the phenomenon can dwell in thinking. It isthe phenomenon itself which appears as idea,just as, in a different way, it is the phenomenonwhich appears to the senses. The difficulty isthat here we encounter the phenomenoninwardly in the act of thinking, and this shattersour “commonsense” materialistic assumptions.Because it is the phenomenon itself whichappears as idea, knowledge for Goethe is anelement of being itself, and so scientific truth isontological and not representational as it mustbe for subjectivism.201

We are now in a position to understand whatGoethe meant when he referred to his way ofscience as a “delicate empiricism which makesitself utterly identical with the object.” Heintended this to be taken literally. This delicateempiricism is a far cry from the assertiveempiricism of Francis Bacon's experimentalphilosophy, which believed that “nature exhibitsherself more clearly under the trials andvexations of art than when left to herself.”202 InBacon's image of science, nature must undergoquestioning and intervention with instruments bythe investigating scientists, who thereby remainentirely external to the phenomenon that theyseek to know. Here we have an indication of aprime source of the separation of humanityfrom nature which characterizes the modernattitude. This is not just a consequence ofcognition (the spectator consciousness), but the

result of an act of will which is assertive towardsnature instead of receptive.

Francis Bacon was at one time LordChancellor of England, and Carolyn Merchanthas noted:

Much of the imagery he used indelineating his new scientific methods andobjectives derives from the courtroom,and because it treats nature as a femaleto be tortured through mechanicalinterventions, strongly suggests theinterrogations of the witch trials and themechanical devices used to torturewitches.203

Nature as female is compelled to answerquestions when under experimentation, as awoman is compelled to answer questions when

under torture with mechanical instruments. Thechilling phrase “the trials and vexations of art”transposes the one situation into the other, sothat they easily appear as parallel situations inwhat Bacon called “the truly masculine birth oftime.” This is the basis of Bacon's advocacy ofscience as power over nature, the meanswhereby humankind can achieve dominationover the natural world.204 Science nowbecomes an instrument, not just for knowing theworld, but for changing it. We live with theoutcome of this today, and we are becomingever more aware that the attitude to naturewhich it embodies is the origin of many of thedifficulties we now face. In view of this, it maywell be timely to consider Goethe's alternative,“delicate empiricism which makes itself utterlyidentical with the object,” and the very differentattitude towards nature which it embodies.

Goethe did not try to find connectionsbetween phenomena by looking at them ascollections of empirical facts from whichgeneralizations could be made by induction, inthe manner advocated by the traditionalempiricism of Bacon (and later by Mill). On theother hand, as we have seen, he did not attemptto provide coherence in the phenomena bymeans of a speculative theory, especially notone which introduced elements which areoutside experience. Goethe's aim was to staywithin experience (he was empirical), butwithout stopping at the sense experience ofparticulars (he was not an empiricist). He aimedto see the intrinsic necessity in thephenomenon by a further encounter with thephenomenon beyond sense experience, butwhich is reached by going more intensively intothe sensory instead of away from it, as in

mathematical physics—or any speculativeexplanation. Goethe's phenomenology of natureseeks to make the intrinsic intelligibility of thephenomena visible, not to explain it.205

Working toward an understanding of naturein Goethe's way requires the furtherdevelopment of the scientist himself or herself.The scientist is required to go through what iseffectively a process of evolution in order tocultivate the mode of consciousness needed forworking in the Goethean way. It is in fact byworking in the Goethean manner that wedevelop the organ of perception needed to doscience in the Goethean way. “Goethe's naturalscience presupposes the training of newcognitive capacities or organs through the veryactivity of research.”206 Goethean science ishighly nonlinear in this respect. It is very different

from our customary view that the organs ofperception are already given as part of ourconstitution.

Far from being onlookers, detached from thephenomenon, or at most manipulating itexternally, Goethean scientists are engaged withit in a way which entails their own development.Here we have the notion of Bildung, which wasso important to Goethe and his contemporaries.Weinsheimer describes this as a genuinedevelopment leading to the acquisition of apotency, instead of the expression of alatency.207 In the language of the parable, it is an“augmenting of the talent” not simply theactivation of a talent one has already. The organof exact sensorial imagination is not sitting therewaiting to be activated. It has to be developed,and this is done by practicing exact sensorialimagination: “... in the present day we must be

active ourselves in the development of newfaculties.”208 Thus, in Goethean science thescientist himself or herself has to become theinstrument, and he or she has to participateactively in his or her own development in orderto become this instrument. This is quite adifferent matter from just using instrumentsexternally, e.g., microscopes and telescopes, toaugment the senses.

It was mentioned in chapter 1 of this parthow Goethe came to recognize the role ofVorstellungsarten (ways of conceiving) inscientific knowledge. He contrasted theatomistic, mechanical, and mathematicalVorstellungsarten with his own way ofconceiving, which he thought of as being genetic,dynamic, and concrete. We could characterizethe difference as being between the quantitativeand analytical, on the one hand, and the

qualitative and holistic on the other. But we cannow see that the change from oneVorstellungsart to another is not to be thoughtof as being just like a gestalt switch. The twodifferent ways of seeing in a gestalt switch, e.g.,duck and rabbit, are the same in kind. So theyare simply alternatives. With Goethe, however,the change to the new Vorstellungsart isachieved through the development of a neworgan of perception. So the new way of seeingis not just an alternative (of the same kind), but an e w kind of seeing. If it were only analternative, then it would be reached with thesame organ of perception (as with duck andrabbit). The gestalt-switching model ismisleading here. Newton and Goethe are oftenpresented as if they were simply alternatives,with the implication that we can switch from oneto the other. But this is not possible because the

qualitative, holistic way of seeing requires thedevelopment of the appropriate organ ofperception. It is not just a matter of switchingout of the quantitative, analytical way of seeinginto this other mode. When Goethe said that anatomistic intelligence would see nothing wrongwith Newton's theory, the reason is not only thatsuch an intelligence is attuned to Newton'stheory, but also that another organ of perceptionwould be needed to see differently.

5. The Goethean One

The key to understanding Goethe's work in thescience of the organic world is to recognize thespecific quality of his way of seeing livingorganisms. It is as if Goethe turned ourcustomary way of seeing inside-out. If we donot understand this by experiencing it forourselves, then we will be trying to understandGoethe from a perspective which looks in thewrong way. Many of the pronouncements aboutGoethe's work on plants and animals do justthat. As a consequence, a “standardinterpretation” of Goethe has emerged which,while seeming plausible, takes us in the wrongdirection. In fact, it totally misses Goethe's wayof seeing, substituting for it a more familiar wayof seeing which is appropriate for the inorganic

world.The factor which matters particularly here is

the way of understanding unity. This is not anobject of sense perception, which can be seenas such. Unity consists of the way that things arerelated, and hence it is experienced as the wayof seeing. It is certainly a real factor of nature,and not something subjective, but it isencountered as the way of seeing and not as aspecific content of perception. For example, wecan show a picture of a particular plant, but wecannot show a picture of the unity of the plant.This is something we see but cannot depict.209

Whereas the customary way of seeing unityeliminates differences and promotescommonality, Goethe's organic unity is a way ofseeing which includes differences. It avoidsreducing multiplicity to uniformity. On the otherhand, it also avoids fragmenting reality into sheer

multiplicity. It allows the uniqueness of theparticular to appear within the light of the unityof the whole. It is when this occurs that weencounter the intrinsic intelligibility of theorganism. So multiplicity is seen in the light ofthe unity, instead of trying to derive unity frommultiplicity. As we saw in part II, the differencehere is between the perception of multiplicity inan holistic perspective (multiplicity in unity) andthe perception of unity in an analyticalperspective (unity in multiplicity). How thesetwo modes of unity are inside-out with respectto each other (and how one corresponds toauthentic wholeness and the other to thecounterfeit) will be considered below. We willconsider this first in a fairly general way beforegoing on to consideration of the living organism.

MODES OF UNITYConsider a set of objects of one kind, e.g.,chairs. The visual appearance of the individualchairs may be very different. There may be anantique chair, a standard utility chair, a moderndesigner chair, and so on. Furthermore, theymay be made from different materials. So theydo not necessarily have anything in common interms of visual appearance or materials ofmanufacture. Yet, in spite of their evidentdifferences, we do recognize each one of themas being a chair. This is what they have incommon, what is the same in each case. Wehave seen in chapter 2 that concepts are notderived by abstraction from sense experience.The concept “chair,” which is the chair idea, isnot some kind of mental picture with allparticular features left out, retaining only what is

the same in all possible chairs, i.e., what isgeneral. In other words, the concept is not ageneralization abstracted from particulars:

In fact, we saw in chapter 2 that there had to bethe chair idea already for even one chair to beseen, and therefore to be able to see one chair isalready to be able to see all possible chairs.

Nevertheless, this process of generalizationby abstraction, to reach what many have incommon, does occur. Although we are mistakenin our belief that the concept is such ageneralization, this does not mean that such aprocess does not take place—it just means thatthis process is not the origin of concepts. We

tend toward generalizing by abstractionwhenever we begin with the finished productinstead of with the process of coming-into-being. In this case we confront the finishedproduct—the set of chairs—as an onlooker:there is a set of different objects, and what theyhave in common is that each one is a chair. Sothe process of generalization takes the form offinding unity in multiplicity, identity in diversity.The unity is abstracted from the multiplicity,drawn off it externally by standing back from themultiplicity as an onlooker to find what iscommon. In seeking for what is common in thisway, all difference is excluded. Hence there canbe no diversity within unity when unity isunderstood this way, and all that remains isuniformity.

Our everyday cognitive perception oftentends toward this condition. In the state of

habituation we notice only generalities and notparticularities, what things have in common andnot how they differ. For example, when we seethe leaves of a plant we just see the generality“leaf” and do not notice the particularity of anyone leaf or the differences between leaves.Attention does not go into sensory experience,but remains on the level of mental abstraction.This is the condition of automatization, in whichthe particular is “tuned out” and only the generalform of what things have in common isregistered. This is our habitual state of passiveawareness, which is reversed by the process ofactive seeing in Goethean science (see “Modesof Consciousness” in part II).

Whenever we think about unity consciously,we usually conceive it in the mode of “unity inmultiplicity.” This is because we begin from amental picture of what has been cognized, i.e.,

from the onlooker stage of the finished product.If we could begin with the concept, theorganizing idea, we could be consciousparticipants in the coming-into-being ofcognition, and this would lead us to conceiveunity in a very different manner (to be discussedbelow). But beginning at the stage of the mentalpicture which is formed from the alreadycognized particulars, the only direction in whichwe can go is to abstract from the mental pictureof the particulars what they have in common.Thus we reach the onlooker perspective of unityas “unity in multiplicity.”

A model for this activity of finding unity inmultiplicity seems to be presented in the earlydialogues of Plato—at least in the way that theseare understood according to what Flew calls“the traditional established interpretation.”210 Inthese dialogues Plato presents Socrates as being

concerned with understanding what moralvirtues are—i.e., temperance, piety, courage,justice, and so on. In each case, the unfortunate“expert” whom Socrates questions brings forthone or more particular instances of the virtue inquestion. But Socrates says that he doesn't wantmany acts of piety or courage or justice. Hewants what all acts of piety, say, have incommon, and which alone makes themspecifically acts of piety. He calls this the eidosof the virtue in question—which in the earlydialogues can be translated as “character” or“characteristic” (“pattern” is also used). Fromthe way in which this is presented (in thetraditional established interpretation), it clearlyhas the form of “unity in multiplicity.” Socrates isshown as looking for the one “pious” which allthe many pious acts have in common with eachother, and evidently this is not a numerically

single “one” because that would make it anotherparticular instance.

This search for what many instances have incommon, which proceeds from the many to theone, is often referred to as looking for the “oneover many.” The notion that there must be sucha one for every many is continued further in theMeno, a dialogue in which Plato (through themouthpiece of Socrates) asks what all thevirtues have in common. “Well now tell me this,Meno, what do you say this is in respect ofwhich there is no difference at all but they are allthe same?”—since “even if they are many andvarious they all have one common characterwhereby they are virtues. . . ,”211 In the waythat it is presented here, the one commoncharacter is understood as having the form of“unity in multiplicity.”

If there is a one for every many, then we can

proceed with this process of looking for whatthings have in common to further levels ofabstraction. So, for example, we can proceed inthis way from chairs to items of furniture, toobjects, to matter, and ultimately to being. Thisconceives the category of being in the mode of“unity in multiplicity” as the ultimatecommonality. This leads to the conclusion thatbeing is the most general, abstract, and emptynotion, the reduction to the final uniformity.

The term “one over many” implies aseparation between the one and the many whichis not implied by “unity in multiplicity.” Aristotleremarked in a famous passage in hisMetaphysics that Socrates did not make thisseparation, but that others who came later did:

But, whereas Socrates made neither theuniversal nor definitions exist separately,

others gave them a separate existenceand this was the sort of thing to whichthey gave the name of Forms.212

The identity of the others is left open here, but itis taken to be a reference to Plato and hisschool. Aristotle says here that when aseparation is conceived between the one and themany, instead of being referred to simply ascharacter, the eidos is given the name of Form.This is Plato's famous theory of Forms. Theimportant point here is that “separation” means aseparate existence (whereas “distinction” doesnot). This step is seen by many contemporaryWestern philosophers (following Heidegger) asthe origin of metaphysics—which is simply takento be another name for the two-world theory.213

The many are now conceived as being in oneworld, and the one as existing separately in a

world of its own. But these two worlds are notof equal status. The world of the one is superiorto, or more fundamental than, the world of themany. This means that the sensory (the many) isdowngraded in metaphysics in favor of theintelligible (the one).

The metaphysical tradition in Westernphilosophy is seen today as the story of theattempts to overcome the problems to which thetwo-world theory gives rise—e.g., What is thenature of the one? How is the separationbridged? How can there be many in the firstplace? We have already noted the formativerole of the two-world theory of metaphysics inthe development of mathematical physics,according to which the (mathematical) laws ofnature are conceived as the unity underlying themultiplicity of phenomena. This sciencecontinues to the present day to reflect the two-

world theory of metaphysics: the intelligible(mathematical laws) is separate from thesensible (observable phenomena). For thescience of physics, what is “really real” is hiddenbehind empirical appearances. What appears tobe real is “merely appearance.” So the sensescannot be trusted (remember Galileo andDescartes): they do not reach the true reality,the unity which lies beyond the sense-perceptible multiplicity. In its inversion of reality,physics shows clearly that “metaphysics is aliveand well and lives on in modern physics.”214

When unity is conceived in the mode of “unityin multiplicity,” sometimes it may be consideredas being no more than an idea in the nominalist'ssense (as for William of Occam or the laterBritish empiricists). As such it may beconsidered to be an ideal pattern, or a commonplan, which is useful for the purpose of

understanding, but which should not behypostasized into a common plan that actuallyexists in the phenomena. In other words, thecommon plan should not be thought of as beingconstitutive of the phenomena in any way. But ofcourse it need not be taken in this nominalistsense. Thus the nineteenth-centurytranscendental anatomists, for example, believedthat the common plan was really part of natureand not just an explanatory idea. Certainly,when “unity in multiplicity” is understoodmetaphysically, as the ultimate ground underlyingappearances, it is thought to be real and not justan explanatory idea in the mind of the personwho thinks it. But whether it is takennominalistically or realistically, since this mode ofunity is reached by the exclusion of difference,it is very difficult to see how such a commonplan, or underlying ultimate ground, could ever

give rise to multiplicity. In fact it is impossible.Having extinguished difference to reachuniformity, it is clearly not possible for differencethen to be produced out of this kind of unity.This mode of unity is sterile. Brady points outhow the notion of an underlying unity in the formof a common plan, or idealized scheme, isunfruitful in morphology because it cannotexplain how difference arises. He shows justhow much Goethe is misunderstood if hismorphological work on plants and thevertebrate skeleton is interpreted in terms of thenotion of a common plan—which is in fact howhis work has usually been interpreted.215 So thecommon plan is both impotent as the constitutiveorigin of diversity and useless as an explanationof how diversity comes about.

Copleston points out that “Speculativemetaphysicians have always tended toward the

reduction of multiplicity to unity.”216 Havingdone this, they then go on to try to explain howthis unity can give rise to multiplicity. There is asimple answer to this: it cannot. The reason iscontained in the term “reduction.” This is animpoverished unity, and as such it cannotpossibly accommodate the richness of diversity.Indeed, as we have said, the unity is formed bythe very process of excluding diversity. Themetaphysical attempt to see how multiplicity cancome from unity, as well as the attempt toexplain difference in terms of a common plan,are foredoomed to failure because they arewrongly conceived. The very movement ofthinking which throws them up renders themimpossible.

There is, however, another mode of unitywhich is very different from “unity inmultiplicity.” This is a mode of unity for which

the existence of multiplicity does not present theproblem which it does when unity is conceivedas what is common. Many of the so-calledfundamental problems of metaphysics simplydisappear when we switch to this alternativemode, because it is the mode of unity that givesrise to these problems in the first place. Thealternative is a mode of unity which, far fromexcluding difference, includes diversity withinitself and yet remains unity. There is multiplicitywithin unity without breaking the unity. There isno longer the apparent need to understand howunity can give rise to multiplicity (which itcannot), because in this mode of unity themultiplicity is already there within the unity.Evidently this mode of unity—which we shallcall “multiplicity in unity”—is very differentindeed from our customary way of seeing unity.But it is the key to Goethe's way of seeing living

organisms.We can approach this by considering again

the case of the hologram, in which the propertyof wholeness can be seen very clearly. As wesaw in part I, if we were to break a hologramplate, say, into two halves, each half would givea full optical reconstruction of the original scene,compared with a photographic plate whichwould give separate fragments of the originalscene if treated similarly. Even if the hologramplate were to be broken into a number of bits,each such bit would give an opticalreconstruction of the entire original scene. Themechanical result of fragmenting the plate is thesame whether it is a photograph or a hologram.But optically the result is totally different in eachcase. If the plate is a photograph, then wesimply have a number of fragments of theoriginal. But if the plate is a hologram, we find

that as we divide it so the original hologrammultiplies. With each division there is anotherfragment of the plate but the same pictureunbroken. So here we can divide without losingthe whole—the plate is fragmented but thepicture is undivided. By dividing we multiply,and yet the whole itself is neither increased nordecreased. Evidently this is a very differentprocess to mechanical repetition, as when weproduce a number of copies of a photograph forexample. Whereas the copying process is therepetition of a unit, producing “unity inmultiplicity,” the process of hologram divisionhas the structure of “multiplicity in unity.”

We tend to overlook this structure of“multiplicity in unity” because it does notcorrespond to the logic of solid bodies. In thecase of repetition we have the multiplication of aunit to produce another one, and another one,

and so on. Each one is another one. But with thedivision of the hologram each different fragmentis optically the original One, the very same Oneand not another one. So the answer to thequestion “How many holograms are there?” canonly be that there is One. Mechanically there aremany, but optically there is One. So what wehave is One in the form of many and manywhich are One. This is “multiplicity in unity,” andthe distinction here is intensive since each of themany is the very same One, the original One,and not another one. This constitutes anintensive dimension of One. Evidently thisdimension does not fulfill the requirements of ourfamiliar logic. Thus, according to the principle ofnoncontradiction, something cannot be both oneand not one (many) at the same time. Theextensive dimension of one—many separate,numerically different ones—fulfills this

requirement, because in this case one is singularand therefore excludes many. This clearly fits theworld of bodies which are external to eachother, and therefore separate, i.e., the worldwhich is the realm of quantity. We can see herethat the mode of “multiplicity in unity” is notlimited to the determining condition of the logicof solid bodies, and hence recognize that thislogic is really only a restricted case.

At this point we shall introduce a simpleterminology—which we have in fact alreadyused in the previous paragraph and in thesection “The One and the Many” in part II.When we refer to One in the form of many,“multiplicty in unity,” we shall use a capital letter.Otherwise, when we refer to the numericallysingle one, we shall use a small letter. Thus wehave nonnumerically One hologram in ourexample, whereas the writer (or reader) is sitting

on numerically one chair. Clearly One is not anumber since it includes many, whereas one is anumber and excludes many. One is anonnumerical, prenumerical dimension.

This dimension of One can be seen veryclearly in the plant world. In fact, the process of“multiplication in unity,” which we obtain onlyartificially with the hologram by breaking theplate into bits, occurs naturally in the life of theplant as the very principle of growth andvegetative reproduction. It is familiar to everygardener when she attempts to grow a newplant by taking a cutting from the plant whichshe wishes to propagate. From such a cutting,which may be only a branch, a twig, or a stalk,an entire new plant will grow in time. Thetendency for the whole plant to grow out ofeach bit is very striking with plants such asgloxinia and begonia, which have the power to

grow a new complete plant from each of theirleaves, so that the whole plant is present in thegrowth of each single leaf into a plant. Thisprocess of vegetative reproduction is clearlysimilar to that of dividing the hologram plate—except that the growth of each plant is like ahologram in time.

If we take a fuchsia plant and divide it into asmany pieces as we can, they will all grow untilthey flower—unless impaired by othercircumstances. We are so accustomed tolooking upon this in an ordinary way, as themultiplication of a unit to produce “unity inmultiplicity,” that we do not realize that here weare witnessing something which is quiteextraordinary. What we are seeing is an actionof a quite different kind, producing the“multiplicity in unity” which is the unity ofwholeness. Thus, no matter how many times we

divide the fuchsia plant, it remains whole. Whenwe divide the hologram plate, it is always theoriginal “picture” but never the same piece ofglass. So when we divide the plant, it is alwaysthe original plant but never the same specimen.We see many plants extensively but they allbelong together as One. Each is the original Onein the organic order of the whole, but not in thenumerical order of material bodies—whereas itis this latter order which is reflected in our ideas.How often we strike a new cutting is of noimportance. The plant is divisible and yetremains whole, so the plant is One even when itis divided and the “parts” have becomeindependent.217 The plant is One and many atthe same time because its individuality isindependent of number. This is “multiplicity inunity.”

Another such illustration of this mode of unity

is provided by John Seymour in his account ofthe growth of potatoes:

The potato is not grown commerciallyfrom seed, but from sets, which are justpotatoes, and so all the potatoes of onevariety in the world are one plant. Theyare one individual that has just beendivided and divided.

To produce a new variety it is necessary tofertilize one plant with the pollen from another.When a satisfactory new variety is produced:

. . . the breeder arranges for their newvariety to be multiplied by setting theactual potatoes from it—and if it provesa popular variety the original half dozenor so potatoes on the first-ever plant of

that variety may turn—by division andsubdivision—into billions and billions ofpotatoes—all actually parts of that firstplant. It would be interesting to knowhow many billion tons that first KingEdward plant has developed into duringits life!218

As in the case of the hologram, the answer tothe question “How many potato plants of asingle variety are there?” can only be that thereis One. Materially there are many (numerically)but organically there is only One plant. We donot recognize the One plant because it is many.We do not see One in the form of manybecause the empirical mind sees the single onewhich is the numerical unit—one plant but notthe One plant. Thus we do not find thenonnumerical One which is the whole plant, and

it is the failure to distinguish clearly betweenthese two kinds of unity which gives rise to theproblem of understanding organic wholeness.This failure to see how the many are One leadsus to try to produce some kind of synthesis ofthe many, i.e., to make One from one. But the“One” which we try to reach from the many canonly be the counterfeit made by an externalsynthesis of many ones or the abstract uniformityof what many ones have in common. The One isthe many—we could say it is “hidden” in themany, hidden by our customary way of seeing.

The creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens)is a plant which propagates vegetatively. Itsends out creeping runners (horizontal stems or“stolons”) along the ground. Where the tip of arunner touches the ground, it grows roots and anew buttercup plant shoots up and flowers. Butit is only numerically (materially) a new plant.

Organically the “new” plant is the very sameOne. This plant, in turn, will send out its ownrunners, and the process of reproduction will berepeated. The spreading network of plantswhich forms in this way is in fact One plant. Sowhere we see two buttercups as two plantswhich are the same, there is really One plantwhich is two. This is the difference between theextensive perspective of “unity in multiplicity”and the intensive perspective of “multiplicity inunity.” The former is the perspective of theonlooker, who begins from the finished productand hence finds only an external mode of unity,whereas the latter perspective is evidently amore participant mode of unity whichcorresponds to the coming-into-being. Wecould equally say the one mode is inorganic,considering the plant simply as a spatial body,whereas the other is genuinely organic,

approaching the plant as a living organism. Wenotice that organic unity cannot be mapped ontothe empirical plane, i.e., the external world ofspatially separated bodies. So if our ideas aretoo bound to this plane, as in the logic of solidbodies, then the organic unity of the plant—inwhich each is the very same One and notanother one—will seem to be impossible.

We can practice going from one perspectiveto the other. Working in imagination, we can tryto form an image (which is not, of course, asensory image in the bodily spatial manner) of“each is the same One.” Then, after making theattempt to do this, we can relax andspontaneously fall back into the familiar image of“they're all the same.” The one image needs aneffort, whereas the other happens automatically.We don't have to be able to succeed for this tobe valuable. The attempt to do it functions as a

practical exercise for developing the organ ofperception for seeing “multiplicity in unity.”When we really catch the difference between“It's the very same buttercup!” and “Thesebuttercups are the same,” then we get a clearsense that it's not just a reversal—in the sameplane, as it were—but a movement of turninginside-out in going from one mode of unity to theother. From “multiplicity in unity” to “unity inmultiplicity” is a movement into outsidedness,i.e., the side-by-sidedness which is the conditionof the bodily world.219

A strawberry plant propagates vegetatively ina similar way to the buttercup. We couldimagine a strawberry bed which contained manystrawberry plants which were in fact organicallyall the very same plant. Such a strawberry bedwould really be One plant in the form of many,“multiplicity in unity,” and not the many separate

plants it appears to be externally. A very strikingillustration of this is provided by bamboo, whichalso propagates vegetatively by producing newshoots from underground rhizomes. It is afascinating experience to stand in a small forestof bamboo, surrounded by what appearsexternally to be many bamboos, and toparticipate imaginatively in the fact that the entireforest is One plant. This is a graphic illustrationof One in the form of many. But the bamboo isremarkable in another way as well. Plants of thesame species flower simultaneously, even whenthey are transplanted far from their originalhabitat. Sometimes the period betweensuccessive flowerings can be very long. For onespecies, Phyllostachys bambusoides, it isabout 120 years. Yet wherever this specieslives, it flowers simultaneously! In the late1960s, plants flowered together in places as far

away as China, Japan, England, Russia, andAmerica.220 “The whole plant species, not asingle plant, is the unity; it is responsible for thelife of the individual plant.”221 The whole plantspecies is One plant which appears in the formof many plants. But the species is not to bethought of as a unity underlying the individualplants, as if it were superordinate to them. Inother words, it is not to be thought ofmetaphysically. Each particular plant is a self-presentation of the species. It is therefore aconcrete manifestation of the species. The unityof the species is concrete and not abstract—it isnot separate from the manifoldness of thephenomena but identical with it.222 In thelanguage of philosophy, organic unity is not anabstract but a concrete universal. Cassirer saysof this universal that it “is not conceived as a

self-contained reality, as the abstract unity of agenus juxtaposed to its individuals, but as a unitywhich exists only in the totality of specificindividuals.”223 Furthermore, this totality isinherently indeterminate because it is ever-unfinished. The important point in reading thisstatement of Cassirer's is to make an effort ofimagination to read it in the perspective of“multiplicity in unity.” If we don't, then its radicalsignificance is lost, and it seems to say little morethan that unity is all the parts taken together (likethe pieces of a jigsaw puzzle). But the whole ispresent within its parts, imparting itself withineach part but never coming into presence totallyand finally in any one part.224

Clearly the plant world does not correspondto the world of bodies. It does not come underthe category of quantity because it is one and

many at the same time. Why should the laws ofthe organic fit the logic of solid bodies? We aresurprised that they do not to the extent that webelieve the realm of spatially separated bodiesto be what is fundamental, and hence that theconcepts appropriate to this realm constitute thebasic framework for all correct understanding.But there is nothing inherent in the bodily spatialworld, and the concepts appropriate to it, whichjustifies taking it as the yardstick of reality towhich everything else, life included, mustconform.225

The nonreductionist perspective is simplyseeing the dimension of One instead of theempirical dimension of many. Here the One andthe many are not exclusive, as they arenumerically, because they are in fact the verysame. Thus we do not attempt to reduce themany to the One, as is so often said, but instead

we see that the many are One. The effect of thisnonreductionist perspective is that of lookinginto a dimension within One itself. Comparedwith this dimension of One, the notion of “unityin multiplicity” appears as the Flatland attempt tounderstand unity. “Flatland” here is the extensiveperspective of the empirical mind, which seesonly the sheer multiplicity of the many. Beginninghere means taking multiplicity as basic. So unitycan only be understood in the light of the many,and consequently it is conceived as if it weredrawn off the many—i.e., as “unity inmultiplicity” But the real unity is anotherdimension—as the sphere is another dimensioncompared with the circle which is its cross-section in Flatland. Seen in this perspective, themany as such is only a cross-section of the One.As it appears on the plane of the empirical mind,the sheer multiplicity of the many is an

abstraction from the One. If we now try to findone in the form of “unity in multiplicity,” byabstracting what is common to the many, thenwhat we achieve is an abstraction of anabstraction. Thinking we are reaching the trueunity in this way, we have in fact gone in theopposite direction, away from the authentic unityof living wholeness to the counterfeit unity ofabstract uniformity.226

SEEING THE DYNAMIC UNITYOF THE PLANT

The key to Goethe's understanding of theorganic is that he saw it in the perspective of“multiplicity in unity,” i.e., the intensivedimension of One, because this is the idea whichis appropriate to the organic. If we cannot makethis step for ourselves, then we can onlymisrepresent Goethe's work by seeing it in themode of “unity in multiplicity.” This is the sourceof the failure of so many accounts of Goethe'swork. The common Plan, the Platonic ideal, orthe explanatory idea all miss this point, andtherefore miss Goethe. The One is not separatefrom the many, and therefore juxtaposed to themany, but actually manifests in each single oneof the many. But it does not manifest in itsentirety in any single one. So its manifestation is

never complete but ever unfinished. The One isnot fixed and static, like one, but is inherentlydynamic.

When the multiplicity of the many is seen inthe light of unity, there is diversity withoutfragmentation into unrelated plurality. The Oneavoids both extremes: the lifeless uniformitywhich excludes difference, on the one hand, andon the other hand the fragmentation into thesheer multiplicity of many separate andindependent entities. We can also consider thisin terms of the category of wholeness (asdiscussed in “Authentic and CounterfeitWholes”), whereby the whole is present in theparts. When the whole is seen within the part,this has the effect that the part is seen in the lightof the whole. So, seeing the whole through thepart has the effect of an inversion whereby thepart is seen as an expression of the whole. If the

whole is in the parts, so that each part is anexpression of the whole, then the parts cannotbe separated, i.e., external to each other as inthe inorganic realm of inert bodies (the realm ofquantity). Furthermore, the parts do not have tobe homogeneous in kind. As a consequence ofthe way that each is seen as a (partial)expression of the whole, parts which appearheterogeneous when seen only in the plane ofmany can be seen in the light of the whole aseach being the same One, and yet different, i.e.,as constituting “multiplicity in unity.” Hitherto wehave illustrated “multiplicity in unity” withhomogeneous examples—e.g., the hologram,the potato, and so forth—but this restriction isnot necessary.

The Unity of the Plant Kingdom

When Goethe left Weimar and traveled in theAlps and Italy, he saw many plants with whichhe was already familiar, but modified inaccordance with the change in externalcircumstances. In the Alps, for example, henoticed that, in general, branches and stemswere more delicate, buds farther apart, andleaves narrower than they were in the samespecies in southern Germany. In Venice hefound a coltsfoot by the sea which had spikes,leatherlike leaves, and a fat stem—very differentin appearance from the coltsfoot he was familiarwith in Weimar.227 But he recognized that insuch cases he was seeing different modificationsof the same plant and not different plants. Whathe encountered empirically was many plants.But the step in perception which took himbeyond this was more than just seeing these asmany plants of one kind. Such a step would be

equivalent to seeing in the mode of “unity inmultiplicity” and no more. The step in perceptionwhich Goethe made by concrete imaginationbrought him to see the modifications of a speciesin the perspective of the intensive dimension ofOne. When the modifications are seen in themode of “multiplicity in unity” then what is seenis One plant which is many, and not manydifferent plants which are basically the same.The One plant is not divided and sharedbetween the many, but actually manifests in eachsingle one—it manifests wholly in each but notcompletely. It is inherently dynamic andconsequently ever unfinished in itsmanifestations. It is only by always becomingother that it can remain itself.228 This is thecondition of livingness—if it manifestedcompletely in any one single organism, then itwould be fixed, i.e., dead. Furthermore, the

plant which is One does not include the many ina preformed manner—which would beequivalent to projecting cheese into milk as anexplanation of how cheese comes from milk.When the plant is seen in this way, in theperspective of the One plant which manifests ineach plant but is ever unfinished, Goethe refersto it as the plant Type.229 He does not mean bythis anything like an average plant, or a commonplant—as the term “type” is often taken tomean. What Goethe means by the Type requiresus to see in the inside-out way of “multiplicity inunity.” It is an organic reality, not a mentalabstraction.

From his observations and contemplation ofthe different appearances of the same species ofplant under different circumstances, Goethewent on to consider the entire plant kingdom asOne plant. When the entire plant kingdom is

seen in the perspective of “multiplicity in unity,”so that it is seen in the intensive dimension ofOne instead of the extensive dimension of many,then there is only One plant. What appears isthe Plant, not a plant, which manifests in each ofall the many different plant Types. The namewhich Goethe gave to the Plant is theArchetype. The precise term he used wasUrpflanze, which is usually translated as“archetypal plant” or sometimes as “primordial”or “primal plant.” All these terms invitemisunderstanding. “Archetypal” is easilyidentified with one-sided Platonism, to mean aplant which is “one over many,” separate fromand superior to the many (two-world theory).“Primordial” or “primal” on the other hand,invites the misunderstanding that it is a primitiveorganism, i.e., a single phenomenal form fromwhich all other phenomenal forms subsequently

developed in a material way. Of course, theother mistake—which is the error ofnominalism/empiricism—is to assume that thearchetypal plant is only a mental abstraction, asif it were no more than a unifying ideaconstructed by the intellectual mind. All of theseinterpretations have been attributed to Goethe.But they all miss Goethe because they do notsee in the Goethean way.

The One is neither abstract nor real andseparate from the many material plantsencountered by the senses. It manifestsconcretely in the many, being present in eachsingle one so that each such single one is thevery same One. In the organic realm of thePlant, the One brings the many out of itself, sothat the One comes into concrete manifestationsimultaneously with the many with which it isidentical. But it is only possible to see this

concrete unity of the organic if we can shift intothe mode of “multiplicity in unity” and see thateach of the many which the One brings out ofitself is the One itself. If we fail to do this,remaining instead in the extensive perspective,we cannot begin to recognize the archetypalplant as the intensive dimension of the plantkingdom, and can only conceive it in terms ofone of the common misunderstandingsmentioned above.

There are two extreme, one-sided caseswhich Goethe avoids:

(1) Nominalism/empiricism, which says thatthere is only the many—the one is no more thana mental abstraction derived from the many, sothe one is less real than and dependent on themany, and(2) One-sided Platonism, which says that the

one is separate from the many—the one has areality independently of the many, and the manyare less real than, and dependent on, the one.

These two views are effectively opposite waysof losing our epistemological balance. Eachrepresents a pathological case which resultsfrom falling too much in one direction, eithertoward the many or toward the one. Goethe'sway of seeing, on the other hand, attempts tokeep an epistemological balance between theone and the many, but without this being only acompromise. So Goethe's way of seeing is thebasis for a science which is nonmetaphysical andyet which avoids the nominalism of classicalempiricism and positivism.

As we have approached it so far, thearchetypal plant may seem to be no more than aspeculative idea reached by thinking

intellectually. We can see how once Goethe hadrecognized the Type, his thinking would be ledby its own logic toward the notion of the Typeof Types, i.e., the Archetype. Goethe's writingsshow the development of his thinking in thisdirection. But they also show that he went muchfurther than this, beyond the intellectual intuitionthat there must be an archetypal plant, toexperience this plant directly in thinking.Goethe's way toward the living experience ofthe archetypal plant illustrates once again theimportance of Bildung, the cultivation ofcapacities. Goethe prepared himself for thisencounter, cultivating the capacity for it, oversome time. We can sense the archetypal modeof being coming to birth in him from the veryway in which he writes. In the summer of 1786,he writes: “It is a growing aware of the Formwith which again and again nature plays, and, in

playing, brings forth manifold life.” Then, in thebotanical garden at Padua, in the early autumnof the same year: “The thought becomes moreand more alive that it may be possible todevelop all plant forms out of one form.” Weshould take it literally when he says that “thethought becomes more and more alive” in him,and avoid the tendency to interpret this vaguely,as being no more than a metaphorical way ofspeaking. On the contrary, it describes preciselythe concrete experience which was developingin him. We can see this when we recall Goethe'sdescription of his imaginal encounter with theplant. He described this as an effusion of flowerswhich sprang out of the organ of sight (whichmeans here the imagination functioning as anorgan of perception), new flowers which wenton “neither slowing nor accelerating” as long ashis attention lasted (see part II, p. 83). Having

worked for so long observing plants and thenrecreating them in the flexible picturing of exactsensorial imagination, Goethe had cultivated inhimself the organ of perception needed forconscious participation in the archetypal plant.Consequently this Urpflanze could come intoappearance in Goethe's imagination not as arepresentation but directly, as an ontologicalmanifestation of itself.

We can understand Goethe's brief descriptionif we can recognize that this manifestation of thearchetypal plant is the dynamic dimension ofOne within itself. It is to be understood in theintensive perspective of a multiplicity in whicheach different plant is yet the very same One. Itmust not be interpreted extensively, as if therewere just many separate plants one after theother. The multiplicity must be seen in the light ofunity if it is not to fall into side-by-sideness. We

could conceive it in the manner of an ambiguousfigure, like the duck/rabbit, but extended into anindeterminate number of perspectives instead ofonly two. In the duck/rabbit each figure is thewhole. One figure does not occupy only part ofthe picture, while the other figure occupies theother part:

There are no lines left over, unused, by eitherfigure—and no extra lines need to be added ineither case. Each figure is complete in itself butnot comprehensive. For any one case, there isanother complete possibility. The duck and therabbit are nested intensively. Either can come

into manifestation explicitly, but not bothtogether, side by side, because they are notcomponent parts which add together to make awhole. Each is a complete butnoncomprehensive expression of the whole—anintensively partial expression instead of anextensive part. Each is the whole, the very sameOne and not another one.

The manifestation of the archetypal plant inconscious experience, as described by Goethe,can be understood to some extent in ananalogous way. What he encountered was not aplant which was composed of many componentplants added together. The mode of beingpresent of the archetypal plant in consciousnessis more in the nature of an indeterminatemultiperspectival figure. Each individual plantwhich “sprung out of this heart”—he is referringto “the centre of the organ of sight”—is the

archetypal plant. Each individual plant whichappears is a one-sided manifestation of thearchetype, which can therefore appear only asone plant after another—but where eachdifferent one is yet the very same One, and notanother one, as each different figure is the sameOne. Each plant which appears is thereforecomplete but not comprehensive. Whatmanifests here is the dynamic metamorphosis ofOne within itself.

It would be wrong to think of each individualform which the archetypal plant takes as if itwere somehow already present beforemanifesting. Each particular development out ofthe archetypal plant comes into being in itsmanifestation and is not preformed beforeappearing. To think in this way is toomechanical. It pictures all the forms whichappear as already present beforehand, waiting

to spring out like seeds from a pod. This is thefinished-product thinking of the onlookerconsciousness, which is more appropriate to thenonliving realm. It is not appropriate to theorganic world, which instead requires a muchmore intrinsically dynamic way of thinking. Wehave noted above that if the archetypal plant isconsidered as analogous to a multiperspectivalfigure (a limited analogy), then it must be anindeterminate figure. This is intended to hint atthe intrinsic dynamic. It is not intended tosuggest, as in the manner of finished-productthinking, that the number is merely unknown, butthat there is no definite number because it isdynamically unending. This is where the analogybreaks down, because we would have toimagine a multiperspectival figure which wasself-productive, i.e., producing newperspectives of itself out of itself.

What we come to here is remarkable.Something which is intrinsically dynamic andindeterminate cannot be other than self-determining. The ever-metamorphosingarchetypal plant gives form to itself, instead ofbeing formed by external influences. This“forming itself according to itself” was called the“entelechy” by Goethe.230 This was hinted at afew paragraphs above when we wrote that “theOne brings the many out of itself”—which goesbeyond what was strictly justified at the placewhere it was said.231 We can recognize nowthat what is implied here is the self-determiningentity which is the entelechy. This can only beunderstood in the perspective of the intensivedimension of One, where it appears as themetamorphosis of One within itself. The self-determination is the factor which takes the

archetypal plant beyond any mechanicalrepresentation. Here we come to the irreducibledifference between living and nonliving. Thelatter can always be understood as beingdetermined by something other than itself. Butthe former can never be understood completelyin this way. There is always something left over,unaccounted for, and this is the self-determiningwhich is livingness. We are so habituated tothinking in an external, mechanistic manner that itis difficult to grasp at first just how extraordinarythis self-determining is, and too easy just to takeit in a vague, abstract kind of way. But this self-determining, i.e., “forming itself out of itself,” isliving. This is life itself. When we do recognizethat this is what the organic is, as such, then weknow that we cannot go from nonliving to living,from other-determined to self-determining. Sowe know that the living could not have emerged

somehow from the nonliving, as much currentthinking supposes it must have done. Also, forthe same reason, we know that the living cannotbe “explained” in terms of concepts which areappropriate to the nonliving.

In the previous paragraph, the entelechy wasreferred to as a self-determining entity, andwhenever we refer to “the archetypal plant,” it isalmost inevitable that we tend to conceive it as ifit were an object. We do so on account of thegrammar of the language. The subject-predicateform of our language emphasizes the noun, andthereby encourages us to think of “objects” asthe basic element, in other words, to see beingsas fundamental—Heidegger has famouslyremarked that the history of Western philosophysince Plato has been the attempt to understandBeing as if it were “the Being of beings.” Wehabitually think in terms of a being, conceived as

a self-enclosed, objectlike bodily entity. Wethink of matter, for example, as consisting ofatoms which we conceive in this way, and weextend this further to the notion of fundamentalparticles (physicists themselves do not reallythink in this way—although they disguise the factwhenever they write popular books). We talk of“society,” or “God,” as if they were beings—e.g., the Supreme Being—and there arecountless other such examples. We talk of “aplant” in the same way, without pausing to thinkthat “the plant” we see in front of us as an objectis in fact a limited, temporal cross-section of adifferentiated process which constitutes a time-whole. It has been emphasized by manyphilosophers and scientists in this century justhow inappropriate it is to conceive entities as thebasic mode of being. But it has also beenrecognized that it is not easy to escape from this

view because it is embodied in the form of ourlanguage. However, as well as this, there is whatseems to be an intrinsic direction in the processof cognition itself. We have seen in chapter 2above, as well as elsewhere in this essay, howdifficult it is to see action as primary instead ofobject, to follow the coming-into-being insteadof beginning from the finished product, to goback upstream from “past consciousness” to“present consciousness,” not to try to reach themilk by way of the cheese, and so on. These areall indications of the inevitable movement ofconsciousness toward “solidification.”

Goethe's way of seeing goes in the oppositedirection to this. The archetypal plant is not anobjectlike entity—it is not a being, in the waythat we usually understand this. Lehrs says thatGoethe studied the doing of the plant by hisprocedure of active seeing followed by exact

sensorial imagination.232 What he means is thatthe plant itself is doing, and not that the plant isan entity which does—i.e., the “doing” of theplant is not the “doing” of an entity. Once again,our habitual thinking is too late, too fardownstream, and has to be reversed. Thisreversal was aptly described by J. G. Bennettwhen he said that we have to give up thinking interms of beings that do, and think instead interms of doings that be.233 Doings that “be” canbe called “formative doing,” as distinct from the“operative doing” of a being, which is theoperation of one already formed being (entity)on another. This is the reversal of thinking whichis needed for understanding the archetypal plant.It is not a being but a doing—a formative doingthat “be's” and not the operative doing of abeing. Being needs to be understood

dynamically, not statically, as being and not as abeing. Linguistically we have to shift theemphasis from the noun to the verb—which isnot easy to do in English.

The archetypal plant, the entelechy, is the be-ing of the plant. It is the formative doing which“be's” plants—and we must always rememberthat this doing does not have the support of anunderlying being, because this is the stage beforethere is such a thing as “a being.” So whenGoethe encountered the archetypal plantconsciously, in his imagination, it “be'd” plants inimagination because the archetypal plant is theformative doing which “brings into being.” In thisencounter the archetypal plant “be's” plants inthe light of consciousness instead of in outernature. Thus the archetypal plant becomesvisible, i.e., it appears, whereas otherwise itwould have remained invisible—“appearance”

must be read verbally here, i.e., as the event ofappearance.234 This is why Goethe's experienceof the archetypal plant took the dynamic formwhich it did. What occurs in consciousness inthis encounter is the archetypal plant itself andnot a representation of it. Even if it appears, as itdid for Goethe, in pictorial form, this is not acopy of the archetypal plant (which wouldtherefore be separate from the picture), but thearchetypal plant itself be-ing pictorially insteadof naturally. The archetypal plant manifests inconsciousness. The epistemology of thisontological event is evidently non-Cartesian!Here the knowing is ontological instead ofrepresentational because it is a consciousparticipation in nature, instead of the spectatorconsciousness looking at a finished nature fromwhich it feels separated. This is Goethe's“delicate empiricism which makes itself utterly

identical with the object,” which was discussedat the end of “The Physics of Goethean Style.”As we saw there, this does not mean beingabsorbed into the object—in the present casethe “object” is formative doing. The Goetheanscientist does not lose himself or herself innature, but finds nature within himself/herself infully conscious experience. Rather than adimming of consciousness, which absorptionwould imply, the scientist is utterly awake—infact, more awake than in ordinary everydayconsciousness. Conscious participation meansjust that—conscious participation, and thereforenot absorption. It is a synergistic condition inwhich humanity and nature work together insuch a way that each becomes more fully itselfthrough the other. Both are enhanced, but onlywithin their working together, because there isone occurrence which is the mutual

enhancement of both.235

As it occurs in nature, a plant is not purely amanifestation of the self-determining entelechy,but is also subject to the conditioning influencesof its physical environment. So any actual plantwhich we see is the consequence of accidentalfactors which are external to the organic assuch, as well as the self-determining entelechywhich is purely organic . So any actual plant isinfluenced by factors which are not part of theintrinsic dynamic of the plant—Goethe thoughtof the observed form of an individual plant as “aconversation” between the entelechy and theenvironment.236 This means that the archetypalplant cannot manifest naturally in a mannerwhich is fully in accord with its own nature.237

Now this restriction is removed when itmanifests imaginatively instead of naturally. So

the self-determining, formative doing which“be's” plants that Goethe encountered as thearchetypal plant is a higher or purermanifestation of the phenomenon than occurs inouter nature. The archetypal plant as it is thus“participated” consciously is more fully itselfthan it can be as it expresses itself naturally.Hence what manifests in consciousness in suchan encounter is a higher stage of thephenomenon itself. This means that it is onlythrough cognition, and hence through humanity,that the phenomenon can reach the highest stageof itself. Otherwise it would remain incomplete.This is clearly a synergistic activity: thephenomenon depend on our human cognitiveactivity, as we in this activity depend on thephenomenon (c.f. the account of the reversal ofwill at the end of “The Physics of GoetheanStyle”). What a far cry this is from Francis

Bacon's image of putting nature on the rack!When Goethe said there is a delicate

empiricism which makes itself utterly identicalwith the object, he added “thereby becomingtrue theory.” Because the archetypal plant is thehigher stage of the plant kingdom itself, in thesense described above, then it must be true.Here there is no “problem of truth” as there iswith the representational epistemology of theonlooker consciousness, which inevitably hasthe question of how adequately therepresentation corresponds to that which itrepresents. What appears in cognitiveexperience in participative consciousness doesnot represent what appears already as suchoutside of consciousness—which is how itwould seem to the onlooker consciousness. Thearchetypal plant must be true because it is thephenomenon itself—not the phenomenon as it

occurs in the external world, but the climax of itsdevelopment which occurs only in humanity.238

Because it is ontological instead ofrepresentational, the archetypal plant cannot beotherwise than true, for if it were not so then itcould not even be. The self-contradictionentailed in trying to conceive the archetypal plantas being false would be ontological and not justpropositional—i.e., the necessity is not simplylogical.

Since the plant kingdom reaches its higheststage of development in the appearance of thearchetypal plant, which can happen only withconscious participation, we must not make themistake of projecting the archetypal plant intoouter nature as if it were there in the manner inwhich it appears in imagination. What appears inconscious participation is, as it were, the highestand final flowering of the plant kingdom—which

it could not reach without humanity. Theformative doing which is the self-determiningentelechy “be's” plants naturally, subject to therestrictions of the environment, but it only “be's”plants appearingly in the light of consciousparticipation. We could say that it “be's” plantsnonappearingly in nature.239 So we can nowrecognize that the term “archetypal plant” refersstrictly to the self-determining entelechy as itmanifests in consciousness. This does not meanthat the entelechy is separate from or behind thearchetypal plant in some way (the two-worldtheory), because the manifestation of thearchetypal plant is the entelechy (butimaginatively instead of naturally). However, itdoes mean that the archetypal plant as suchcomes last and not first. It is important to bringthis out explicitly because, within the viewpointof the onlooker consciousness, we cannot avoid

projecting the archetypal plant as somethingwhich is real as such separately from humanity,self-contained and complete in itself, and henceboth independent of and prior to the humanunderstanding of it—which understandingconsequently seems to be no more than asubjective experience. When we move fromonlooker consciousness to consciousparticipation in the phenomenon, we find that wehave a very different kind of understanding. Wesee that the phenomenon itself comes into ahigher stage of manifestation in the very act ofknowing, without it becoming, thereby,something which is only subjective.

We can now summarize this section:(1) Beginning from the outside, with the many

plants which already appeared phenomenally,Goethe worked his way into their coming-into-being until he was able to experience the plant

dynamically. This is the intensive dimension ofthe plant, which is now experienced to such adegree that it is stronger in experience than theextensive dimension of many plants. When thishappens, the plant is experienced much moredirectly in the intensive mode of One as adynamic “multiplicity in unity.” But this encounteris a manifestation, not an abstract idea. It is howthe plant manifests in the prepared imagination—we could call this the imaginal–phenomenalform, in contrast to the material–phenomenalform. This is the archetypal plant; it is theentelechy as it manifests imaginally instead ofphysically. As such it is a higher product ofnature which is possible only through a humanbeing's conscious participation in the process ofnature. Here human beings enter intoparticipation with nature consciously in the actof cognition itself. This is the “delicate

empiricism which makes itself utterly identicalwith the object, thereby becoming true theory.”The significance of the final phrase, “becomingtrue theory,” is now clear. Goethe said of thisstage of knowledge, which is beyond dualism,that the enhancement of our mental powerswhich it requires “belongs to a highly evolvedage.” In other words, we have to develop thecapacity for this to take place.

(2) It follows from all that has been saidabove about conscious participation in thephenomenon that we must not make the mistakeof thinking that the archetypal plant is present assuch in the material-phenomenal plant kingdom.To do this would be to project the imaginal-phenomenal manifestation of the entelechy intonature as if this were present outwardly in theplants.

(3) It also follows from all that has been said

above that, with participative consciousness,there is simply no need to postulate anythinghidden behind the phenomenon. What wouldotherwise have been projected behind thephenomenon (as in the two-world theory) isnow experienced as being the intensivedimension of the phenomenon itself. Hence thereis no need for metaphysics, which thereforebecomes redundant. The development ofparticipative consciousness takes us beyond themetaphysical attitude, i.e., one-sided Platonism,and allows us to see that this is simply aconsequence of the onlooker mode ofconsciousness. Conscious participation isnonmetaphysical, and therefore Goethe'sscience of conscious participation in nature is anon-metaphysical science. The way toovercome (dissolve) the illusion of metaphysicsis therefore by the development (Bildung) of a

new mode of consciousness, because thisillusion is a consequence of the restriction ofconsciousness to the onlooker mode. Soparticipative consciousness is the practical waybeyond metaphysics, as onlooker consciousnessis the way into it. Positivism (and prior to that,nominalism), on the other hand, which wants tosay that there is no need for metaphysics, wantsto do so without change in the mode ofconsciousness. Positivism remains in theonlooker mode, and consequently it deniesmetaphysics but does not dissolve the need forit.

The Unity of the OrganismAs with the plant kingdom as a whole, so withthe individual plant. Goethe saw the successiveorgans up the stem of a flowering plant in the

mode of “multiplicity in unity.” He did not seethem in the mode of “unity in multiplicity,” as isimplied when it is said, wrongly, that Goethesaw these organs as being formed according toa common plan. When he said, “All is leaf,” theterm “leaf” was not intended to be taken asreferring to an ideal leaf-schema, or to someorgan intermediate between other organs, as ifsomehow “equidistant” from them, and fromwhich they can all be derived. Brady has shownin some detail the untenability of thisinterpretation. By careful description he hasshown that the observed variation cannot beproduced, either from a common plan or fromsome supposed intermediate organ, because inneither case can a movement be generatedbetween forms. In other words, the commonplan doesn't enable us to go anywhere becausethe unity which excludes diversity is a cul-de-

sac.240

Goethe used the term “leaf” to designate noorgan in particular. He wrote in a letter toHerder that “it had occurred to me that in theorgan of the plant which we ordinarily designatea s leaf, the true Proteus is hidden, who canconceal and reveal himself in all forms. Forwardand backward the plant is always only leaf. . .,”241 As with the type and the archetype, thisorgan which he calls leaf is each organ up thestem—foliage leaf, sepal, petal, stamen—because it is one and many at the same time.The unity is not separate from the manifoldnessbut identical with it. The One manifestsconcretely in the many, so that each organ is thesame One and yet only a partial manifestation.When the manifold of plant organs up the stemis seen in the light of unity, the plant appears in

the mode of “multiplicity in unity” so that there isdiversity within unity. This “brings the diversityback into the unity from which it originally wentforth.”242 So we see the plant in the intensivedimension of One instead of the extensivedimension of many. In this dimension we see thequality of the petal reflected in the stamen, forexample, without thereby supposing that thestamen is derived from the petal in a causal-mechanical way. The petal is not the cause ofthe stamen, nor does a petal turn into a stamenin some way. These outward ways of looking,belonging to the onlooker mode ofconsciousness, are not appropriate for theliving plant.

We can take a plant and detach the variousorgans up the stem and lay them out side byside. If we do so, they appear to us as separateobjects, i.e., as external to one another. But we

do not have to do this in fact; we can just do ittheoretically. We often do so without noticing,when it is the very mode of our thinking. We donot even need to imagine the organs as beingphysically separated, because the possibilitythat they can be manipulated in this manner isincluded in the object-mode of this analyticalthinking to which we are habituated. When wesee an organ of the plant as an object, then weare seeing it purely in the mode of outsidedness(this is what “object” really means). And so it isinevitable that we try to understand the unity ofseveral such perceived organs in terms of whatthey have in common. “Unity in multiplicity,” theonlooker unity, is the unity of outsidedness. Butthis way of seeing is fundamentally inappropriatefor the organic nature of the plant, which istherefore excluded from this point of view,because the organs up the stem of the plant are

intrinsically related—whereas objects can onlybe related externally.

At the beginning of his essay TheMetamorphosis of Plants, Goethe writes aboutthe laws of transformation by means of whichnature “produces one part out of another andcreates the most varied forms by themodification of one single organ.”243 He goes onto say that what he means by the metamorphosisof plants is “the process by which one and thesame organ presents itself to us in manifoldforms.” This gives a clear indication that hisdescription of the plant is to be read in the modeof “multiplicity in unity” so that each differentorgan is seen as being the very same organ, andconsequently the plant is seen as One organ.The metamorphosis to which Goethe refers hasto be seen in the right perspective if it is to beunderstood. The experience of seeing in this

way has the quality of “It's the same organ!”and not “These organs are the same.” The lattersees it externally, as if the organs were objectswhich can be related by external comparison.But evidently the plant organs cannot be“objects” because they are mutually entailed inone another inasmuch as they are all relatedintrinsically through being manifold forms of “oneand the same organ.” If each organ is organicallythe very same One, then the organs of the plantcannot be considered as if they were separate.In the growth of the plant the whole is present ineach part—each organ is an expression of theOne organ—and hence we cannot separate(analyze) the plant into external parts as if itwere an object.

The first paragraph of The Metamorphosisof Plants can easily be misunderstood if it is notread in the right perspective:

Anyone who observes even a little thegrowth of plants will easily discover thatcertain of their external parts sometimesundergo a change and assume, eitherentirely, or in a greater or lesser degree,the form of the parts adjacent to them.

This does not mean that one part changes intoanother one—as if, say, a petal were to changephysically into a stamen. Furthermore, there isno causal determination of the later by the earlier—e.g., the petal is not the cause of the stamen.There is in fact no external sequence from oneorgan to the next one up the stem. Goethemakes it clear in the next few paragraphs that heis referring here to abnormal growth sequences,which have the effect of making visible themetamorphosis which is “the process by whichone and the same organ presents itself to us in

manifold forms.” For example, a flower canform in which petals appear in the place usuallyoccupied by stamens—as in the case of thecultivated rose. In another abnormal case, greenfoliage leaves may appear in the position usuallyoccupied by sepals.244 The fact that differentorgan forms can appear at one and the sameposition on the plant, together with thecorrelative fact that one and the same organform can appear at different positions, is thusseen as the visible expression of the organicunity of the manifest organ forms. The visibleparts of the plant—foliage leaf, sepal, petal,stamen—are seen in the light of “multiplicity inunity” as manifestations of “one and the sameorgan.” This One organ, which ever appearsand never appears, changing into differentmodes of itself, is what Goethe designated “leaf”when he proposed that “all is leaf.” But he was

aware that this is not satisfactory and couldinvite misunderstanding. For example, it invitesthe misunderstanding that what is meant here is acommon plan (“unity in multiplicity”). It can alsobe misunderstood as intending an extensiveprocess of physical change instead of thesubtler, intensive movement of metamorphosis—which seems like a movement in a differentdimension to the process of physical change inwhich one thing materially turns into another. Tocounteract such misunderstandings, Goethecomments toward the end of the essay:

It is self-evident that we ought to have ageneral term with which to designate thisdiversely metamorphosed organ and withwhich to compare all manifestations of itsform. At present we must be content totrain ourselves to bring these

manifestations into relationship inopposing directions, backward andforward. For we might equally well saythat a stamen is a contracted petal, asthat a petal is a stamen in a state ofexpansion. . . . (par. 120)

By practicing such an exercise in imagination,we build for ourselves a sense of thenonphysical, yet real, movement which ismetamorphosis.

There are some instances where themovement of metamorphosis is so evident in thefloral organs that it seems as if we see it directlywith our eyes. The white water lily is such acase. In this plant the transition from petals tostamens takes place in stages, so that betweenthe two there are several intermediate stagesprogressing from organs which are more petal-

like to ones which are more stamen-like. All ofthese stages are present together in the flower,and the effect of this is that we see the passagefrom petals to stamens as one continuousmovement. There is a reversal of perception:individual organs now appear as instantaneoussnapshots of this movement, instead of themovement being made up of a sequence oforgans. The movement itself appears as primary,whereas individual organs now appear assecondary. Instead of the movement beingconstituted out of the individual organs, theseorgans serve as markers which make themovement visible.245

However, we must be careful not to make thenaive empiricist's mistake here, and wronglysuppose that seeing is simply a matter of senseperception. We found in chapter 2 above that“there is more to seeing than meets the eye.”

Seeing is not simply visual experience. There isno pure “what” which is seen by a pure“spectator,” i.e., a detached observer whomerely registers a “what” through the senses.Observation is more than sense experience: it isseeing. This does not make it into somethingpurely subjective unless we insist on putting itinto a Cartesian framework of subject-objectdualism. If we suspend this attitude—whichHusserl called the “natural standpoint”246—thenwe are free to explore seeing without thispresupposition (which is what Husserl meant byhis assertion that phenomenology is“presuppositionless”). When we do so, wediscover that it is a fundamental structure ofexperience that “what” is seen and “how” it isseen are always, necessarily, correlated.Husserl refers to this necessary correlation ofwhat is experienced with the way it is

experienced by the term “intentionality.”247

What is experienced, as experienced, Husserlcalls the noema or noematic correlate, and theway it is experienced he calls the noesis ornoetic correlate. So the correlation of the way itis experienced with what is experienced iscalled the noesis-noema correlation:

This is an internal correlation within experience.It must not be mistaken for a correlation ofexperience with something which is supposedlyoutside of it—as in traditional, i.e.,prephenomenological, philosophy. Thedistinction between “what” is seen and “how” it

is seen is a relational distinction. Don Ihdeexpresses the quality of this relational distinctionas follows:

. . . every experiencing has its referenceor direction towards what is experienced,and, contrarily, every experiencedphenomenon refers to or reflects a modeof experiencing to which it is present.248

The experiential noesis–noema correlationreplaces the subject–object separation ofCartesian dualism. In the latter case it issupposed that subject and object areindependent of each other, each having its ownseparate existence and becoming related in anexternal way only in the act of cognition. But thisleads to the well-known difficulties ofepistemology, which have already been referred

to herein on several occasions. The polarity ofthe noesis-noema correlation, on the other hand,does not entail these difficulties—e.g., thedifficulties of the representational (causal) theoryof perception. In this case the relation is internal:

Acts of consciousness and objects ofconsciousness are essentiallyinterdependent: the relation betweenthem is an “internal” not an “external”one. That is to say one cannot firstidentify the items related and then explorethe relation between them; rather one canidentify each item in the relation only byreference to the other item to which it isrelated. Acts of consciousness aredirected upon objects such that onecannot investigate the acts independentlyof their objects; and the objects are

always objects for consciousness suchthat one cannot investigate objectsindependently of investigating theconscious acts of which they are theobjects.249

What is said here concerning the noesis–noema correlation is hinted at in the remark ofBrentano's referred to in chapter 2 above: “AndI understand here by ‘idea’ not that which isconceived but the act of conceiving.” Whilethere cannot be that which is conceived apartfrom the act of conceiving it, equally therecannot be a conceiving act which does notconceive something. The two sides belongtogether inseparably.250 This statement ofBrentano's contains the germ of the noesis-noema correlation, and it also indicates thepossibility of shifting attention from what is

conceived to the act of conceiving itself—whichdoes not mean turning this act itself into a new“what” which is conceived. There has to be arefocusing of attention from what is conceived tothe act of conceiving, while engaged in the actof conceiving that which is conceived. Theimportant point is that this does not entailconstituting the seeing as a new “seen,” i.e., as ifit could become an object of perception. Whatis entailed is really an intensive step withinconsciousness, so that we are conscious in theseeing of the seen instead of the seeing of theseen.251

We are now in a position to understandbetter the nature of Goethe's discovery ofmetamorphosis. Shifting attention from what isseen into the seeing act enables us to recognizethat this is not an empirical discovery in the naïvesense. As Galileo's fundamental discovery about

motion was not an empirical discovery of somenew fact about motion, but a change in thewhole way of seeing motion, so Goethe'sdiscovery of the movement of metamorphosis inthe plant is not the discovery of a new fact aboutthe plant but a change in the whole way ofseeing the plant. Because of the correlation ofwhat is seen with the way of seeing, therecannot be a change in the way of seeing withoutthere also being a change in what is seen. Butthe important point is that here, as in the case ofGalileo, the change in what is seen comes from achange in the way of seeing. It does not comefrom the addition of some new factual contentwhich previously had not been noticed. Thechange in what is seen is subtler than this. Themovement of metamorphosis is in the way ofseeing, and a change in the way of seeingtransforms what is seen without adding to the

content.This is how Goethe's discovery of

metamorphosis must be understood. It is atransformational discovery, not a factual one.For example, we have mentioned themetamorphosis which can be seen in the whitewater lily. But when we see this there is a sensein which nothing has changed—there is noadditional content in what is seen—and yeteverything is different. There is an overalltransformation of what is seen because the wayof seeing changes. The discovery ofmetamorphosis in the water lily is evidently noton the same level as the discovery of a particularfact about the water lily. But if we think thatdiscovery in science is all of the latter kind, thenwe will not understand the kind of discoveryGoethe made. We look for metamorphosis as afact, when it is to be found in the way of seeing.

In doing so we are like the Mulla Nasrudin, wholost his key in the dark, but was looking for it inthe light because, he said, “there is more lighthere.”252 Scholarly accounts of Goethe'sscience often attempt to understand whatGoethe says about metamorphosis withoutundergoing the change in the way of seeingwhich is necessary. If we want to understandGoethe's way of science, then we must do so inGoethe's way.

It is this movement of metamorphosis whichdistinguishes flowering from nonflowering plants.In flowering plants even the foliage leaves showthe influence of metamorphosis, whereas theleaves of nonflowering plants do not. It seems asif, in the flowering plants, the floral quality sopermeates the plant that it even modifies thatpart of the plant which precedes the flower. It isthe absence of the floral quality, therefore, which

results in the leaves of nonflowering plantsshowing no modification in form up the stem. Inthese plants there is merely repetition withoutchange of form.

The movement of metamorphosis in thefoliage leaves of a flowering plant can be seenby arranging the leaves as they appear up thestem in a series, from the leaf nearest the groundto the one nearest the flower.253 Although doingthis presents each individual leaf as a separateobject, we nevertheless find that we see amovement of transformation from one leaf toanother along the series. This can be seen in thecase of the leaves of delphinium, for example, asshown by the following silhouettes:254

Each leaf form may be repeated several timeson the plant before it transforms into the nextform. This diagram is therefore a simplificationbecause it includes only one instance at eachstage. The sequence begins with the most highlyelaborated leaf, which then simplifies as wemove up the stem, until what is left nearest theflower is the barest indication of what waspresent in the first leaf. The overall impression isof a gradual withdrawal of the form which ispresent fully in the first leaf. Yet we can

nevertheless see a connection (in quality)between the first and the last leaf. (We shouldalso follow Goethe's instruction, mentionedpreviously, to go through a metamorphic seriesbackward as well as forward.) When we do thiswe get the sense that we are seeing one dynamicform here—without falling into the trap ofthinking of this as a unity underlying themultiplicity of visible forms. We see the separateleaves as united by a movement—which is thedynamic form. Indeed, we can see this sostrongly that we begin to see in a reversed way.We have the impression that the movement(which is not a physical movement) is the reality,and that the individual leaves we see with thesenses are no more than single snapshots of thismovement—as if they were transitory markersmaking the movement visible. This movement iscertainly not made out of the visible foliage

leaves, as if it were a material sequence of theseleaves—what is evident to the senses isdiscontinuity, not continuity. Yet it is surprisinghow easy it becomes to see the movement inthis reversed way, with the leaves which arevisible to the senses appearing as abstractionsfrom a movement which is not visible to thesenses as such but which we can see.

The movement of metamorphosis isencountered as the way of seeing and not whatis seen—although what is seen is therebymodified in a subtle way, such that we can saythat “nothing has changed, but everything isdifferent.”255 This is demonstrated in a simpleperceptual experiment described by Brady.256

Given a series of leaves (or silhouettes), thequestion of whether an additional leaf belongs ornot is decided by whether it enhances or

weakens the movement. We see the series ofleaves in the context of the movement. So it isthis movement, which is not visible to the sensesbut which we can see, which is the criterion bywhich we decide whether an additional leaf formis to be accepted or rejected as part of theseries. The individual leaves which we see aretaken out of context when they are consideredseparately. They are really the text for which themovement is the con-text.

What is real is the movement itself, not anysingle form. It is this movement which is theunity. Those who look for the unity in a singleform which all leaves have in common (i.e., as a“unity underlying multiplicity”) are looking in thewrong direction. However, there is a single formwhich is the unity, and this is the movementitself. The single form which is the unity is not tobe found by seeing what is the same in all the

leaves, but by seeing the unity which is themovement of the whole series. So the singleform of the series as a whole is mobile, and notstatic as it would be if it were simply what all theleaves have in common. Instead of themovement being generated from such a singleunderlying form—which would be impossible—the movement itself generates individual forms.Brady concludes: “Thus the movement is notitself a product of the forms from which it isdetected, but rather the unity of those forms,from which unity any form belonging to theseries can be generated.” So to understandGoethe's way of seeing the plant, we must “shiftfrom static to mobile form.”257 This is whatGoethe did when he emphasized the need toshift from Gestalt to Bildung, in his essayFormation and Transformation:

The German has the word Gestalt forthe complex of existence of an actualbeing. He abstracts, with this expression,from the moving, and assumes acongruous whole which is determined,completed, and fixed in its character.

But if we consider Gestalts generally,especially organic ones, we do not findanything permanent, at rest, or complete,but rather everything fluctuating incontinuous motion. Our language istherefore accustomed to use the wordBildung both for what has been broughtforth and for what is in the process ofbeing brought forth.

If we would introduce a morphology, weought not to speak of the Gestalt, or if

we do use the word, should think therebyonly of . . . something held fast inexperience but for an instant.

What has been formed is immediatelytransformed again, and if we wish toarrive at a living perception of Nature,we must remain as mobile and flexible asthe example she sets for us.258

If the single form is the movement—whichgenerates forms—then clearly we must not thinkof the movement as a sequence of forms—which are the traces of the movement! Wecannot produce the mobile from the immobile inthis way. Thinking in this way is reallytransferring the thinking appropriate for bodilymovement—i.e., the movement of solid bodiesas studied in the science of mechanics—to the

organic realm, where it does not apply. Thedifficulty with understanding motion, and thehabit of trying to do so in a way which isbackward, was the subject of much of the workof the philosopher Henri Bergson at the end ofthe last and the beginning of this century.Bergson saw the impossibility which isconcealed in the habitual way of conceivingmotion as a sequence of states—e.g., the waythat the movement of a projectile is conceivedas a sequence of positions x1,x2,x3 . . . . xnoccupied at successive times tx,t2,t3, . . . . tn.This is the impossibility of constituting movementout of the immobile, which we attempt to dowhen we fail to see that the “states” or“positions” are in fact possible stops of themovement. In other words, they are derivedfrom the movement, and therefore themovement cannot be considered as being

constituted out of them. Bergson saw the newlyinvented cinematograph as a mechanicalillustration of our “mechanical” way of thinkingof movement. He emphasized the usefulness ofthis way of thinking—the science of mechanics,for example, enables us to manipulate andcontrol the movement of bodies in amathematically determined way. But it does notenable us to understand movement, change, andbecoming generally: “Instead of attachingourselves to the inner becoming of things, weplace ourselves outside them in order torecompose their becoming artificially.”259 Thecinematographical method may encourage themind to think that “by straining itself to the pointof giddiness, it may end by giving itself theillusion of mobility,” but a different approach isneeded in which we are participant instead ofonlooker:

In order to advance with the movingreality, you must replace yourself withinit. Install yourself within change, and youwill grasp at once both change itself andthe successive states in which it might atany instant be immobilized. But withthese successive states, perceived fromwithout as real and no longer as potentialimmobilities, you will never reconstitutemovement. Call them qualities, forms,positions, or intentions, as the case maybe, multiply the number of them as youwill, let the interval between twoconsecutive states be infinitely small:before the intervening moment you willalways experience the disappointment ofthe child who tries by clapping its handstogether to crush the smoke. Themovement slips through the interval,

because every attempt to reconstitutechange out of states implies the absurdproposition, that movement is made ofimmobilities.260

The attempt to do this is an illustration ofwhat Bergson meant when he said thatphilosophy consists in reversing the habitualdirection of thought.261 This entails thinkingintuitively instead of intellectually:

Intelligence starts ordinarily from theimmobile, and reconstructs movement asbest it can with immobilities injuxtaposition. Intuition starts frommovement, posits it, or rather perceives itas reality itself, and sees in immobilityonly an abstract moment, a snapshottaken by our mind, of a mobility.

Intelligence ordinarily concerns itself withthings, meaning by that with the static,and makes of change an accident whichis supposedly superadded. For intuitionthe essential is change: as for the thing, asintelligence understands it, it is a cuttingwhich has been made out of thebecoming and set up by our mind as asubstitute for the whole.262

What is important here is the perception ofmovement as reality itself. This cannot beperceived as such by the analytical intellect, butonly by a faculty which can experience thewholeness of the movement. Bergson associatesthis faculty, which he calls intuition, particularlywith what is living—and the intellect with what isdead. He makes it quite clear that the intuition ofmovement and change as reality—“All real

change is an indivisible change”—is somethingto be experienced. When we do experience this,we find:

There are changes, but there areunderneath the change no things whichchange: change has no need of support.There are movements, but there is noinert or invariable object which moves:movement does not imply mobile.263

What makes this difficult to understand at first isour identification of change with change ofbodily position. Here it seems that themovement is just added on to the body, as if itwere accidental to it (cf. “Galileo and theMoving Earth”). In the world of solid bodies,movement certainly entails a something whichmoves. But this world is associated with the

senses of touch and sight (in fact only one apectof the sense of sight). Bergson points out thatwe have less difficulty in perceiving movementand change as independent realities if weconsider the sense of hearing instead. Thus, inmusic for example:

... do we not have the clear perception ofa movement which is not attached to amobile, of a change without anythingchanging? This change is enough, it is thething itself.264

Now this is just how it is with the movementof metamorphosis in the plant. This is not aphysical movement—not a change in which, inthe physical sense, one thing turns into another.As we have seen, the movement ofmetamorphosis in the foliage leaves (as well as

in the floral organs) requires us to take themovement itself as primary. The individualorgans appearing to the senses are buttemporary snapshots (possible stops) of thismovement, and the movement itself cannot beconceived as being constituted out of them.There has to be an inversion of our habitualdirection of thinking here. So, Goethe'smovement of metamorphosis evidentlyinstantiates Bergson's change that needs no thingwhich changes. Conversely, Bergson'sphilosophical work helps us to understandGoethe's discovery of metamorphosis in theplant. It helps us to recognize the kind ofmovement that metamorphosis is—the exampleof music is particularly illuminating in helping usto see how there can be another kind ofmovement than the movement of bodies.

The single form is the movement of

metamorphosis when this is seen as a whole. Sothe single form which is the unity is really a time-form.265 What is seen in the foliage leaves isonly a trace of the movement of metamorphosis,which really belongs to the whole floweringplant. Friedemann Schwarzkopf gives a graphicimage of this metamorphosis:

If one could imagine a person walkingthrough the snow, and leaving theimprints of its feet, but with every stepchanging the shape of its feet, and if onewould behold not the trace in the snow,perceptible to the sense-organs of thephysiological eyes, but the living beingthat is undergoing change while it iswalking, one would see with the innereye the organ of the plant that isproducing leaves.266

This is the One organ which is the plant—whichGoethe called “the true Proteus” and designated“leaf.” Because this organ is one and many atthe same time, there is no need to posit anything“more fundamental” behind or underlying theplant. When we see the plant in Goethe's way,we discover that the unity is a dimension of thephenomenon. Hence there is no need topostulate a “one over many” as in the two-worldtheory of metaphysics. We do go beyond thephenomenon as it first appears, but we do notthereby go behind the phenomenon to someunderlying reality. What we discover is that theunity is a depth within the phenomenon, so that“the appearances go all the way down.”267

When we try to think concretely with theplant we participate in the doing of the plant.This doing, which is the plant, is the very beingof the plant, as we can discover for ourselves

when we think with the plant, instead of lookingat it and thinking about it.268 In this way themovement of our thinking participates in theformative movement of the plant, so that theplant “coins itself into thought” instead of intomaterial form as in outer nature.269 This is theway of Goethe's “delicate empiricism whichmakes itself utterly identical with the object.”

6. Seeing Comprehensively

The greatest difficulty in understanding comesfrom our long-established habit of seeing thingsin isolation from each other. This is seeing thingsas objects—the bodily world in whichseparation, and hence material independence, isthe dominant feature. No doubt this viewpoint isone which is encouraged by our own bodilyexperience of manipulating material bodies. Butthings are not only objects which can be taken inisolation from one another. In fact they are notprimarily such “objects” at all. They only seemto be so when their context is forgotten. Whatthis habit of selectivity overlooks is the way inwhich things already belong together. Because itoverlooks this, the analytical mind tries to makethings belong together in a way which

overlooks their belongingness. It tries to puttogether what already belongs together. Thusthe intrinsic relatedness is not seen, and instead,external connections are introduced with a viewto overcoming separation. But the form of suchconnections is that they, too, belong to the levelof separation. What is really needed here is thecultivation of a new habit, a different quality ofattention, which sees things comprehensivelyinstead of selectively.

When things are seen in their context, so thatintrinsic connections are revealed, then theexperience we have is that of understanding.Understanding something is not the same asexplaining it, even though these are oftenconfused. Understanding lies in the oppositedirection to explaining. The latter takes the formof replacing a thing with something else. Thus,for example, gas pressure on the walls of the

vessel containing it is explained by means ofatomic collisions, between gas and wall atoms,and the consequent changes in momenta of thegas atoms. Explanation tends to bereductionistic inasmuch as diverse phenomenaare reduced to (explained in terms of) oneparticular set of phenomena. Thus, for example,in the classical phase of modern physics (i.e.,prequantum physics) all the various sensoryqualities are reduced to (explained in terms of)mechanical interactions of material particles.Such an explanation evidently takes the form ofsaying that something is really an instance ofanother, different thing. Understanding, on theother hand, by seeing something in the context inwhich it belongs, is the experience of seeing itmore fully as itself. Instead of seeing it as aninstance of something else, it becomes more fullyitself through being seen in its context. Thus,

understanding is holistic whereas explanation isanalytical.

The single phenomenon on its own is anabstraction. The aim must be to see thebelongingness of the phenomena, and so toencounter the phenomena in the mode ofwholeness instead of separation. Thiswholeness, which begins to be experiencedthrough seeing comprehensively, is thenrecognized as being a higher dimension of thephenomena. It is only on this morecomprehensive level that we encounter theconcrete phenomenon “... in which the singlephenomena become, as it were, one largephenomenon. . . .”270 The aim is to enhanceseeing so that “by overcoming the isolation ofthe single observation, it accomplishes thetransition to a higher level of experience.” 271 It

is evident that the movement of mind which thisentails is the opposite to that entailed inexplaining something.

We have seen in “The Physics of GoetheanStyle” how Goethe s experiments on colorcultivate a way of attending to phenomena whichsees them comprehensively instead ofselectively. We have also seen how Newton,under the influence of a hypothetical model,approached the phenomena selectively and wasthereby led to his proposal of differentialrefraction as an explanation for the origin ofspectral colors. Goethe, on the other hand, bylooking at all the color phenomenacomprehensively, was able to see just how thiserror of judgment arose as a result of selectingwhat is really only a single case and making thatthe basis for an explanation. In contrast to this,Goethe's comprehensive way of seeing

understands the origin of the colors. We haveseen how Goethe considered all the experimentsas if they were “the manifolding of a singleexperiment.” Seeing a series of contiguousexperiments comprehensively, as a singleexperiment in manifold variations, is evidentlyvery different from selecting one experimentfrom the series as a basis for explaining theothers—which is what Newton did with hisexperimentum crucis.

In “Seeing the Dynamic Unity of the Plant,”we have seen how Goethe cultivated a way ofattending to the plant which sees the individualplant comprehensively and how he extended thisto the plant kingdom as a whole to see thiscomprehensively as One plant. The movementof metamorphosis becomes visible when thesequence of organs up the stem—from the firststem leaves through to the stamens—is seen

comprehensively. In this way a transition ismade from seeing the individual organs to seeingthe formative movement which is the plant. Butas well as seeing the belonging together of theorgans of the plant, we can also see thebelonging together of the different plants withina family if we see them comprehensively and donot try to reduce them to a system.272 In eachcase there is a metamorphosis, whethervertically up the stem of a plant, or “horizontally”between different members of a family, orbetween different families.

Seeing comprehensively is not be confusedwith seeing generally. The essential point aboutthis is that it is the capacity to comprehenddifferences as a unity in a concrete way,whereas seeing generally is abstract and looksfor unity by removing differences. Seeingcomprehensively is a higher cognitive function

than abstracting what is common. It goes in theopposite direction to thinking abstractly. Imagineabstracting what is common to “c,” “a,” and “t”instead of reading “cat.” Seeingcomprehensively is like reading, and this is the“higher level of experience” to which Goetherefers in the quotation above (see note 271).Looking for what things have in common, i.e.,seeing generally, is an attempt to seecomprehensively without going to a higher levelof experience—which is like trying to readwithout going to the higher level which is theexperience of meaning.

A brilliant example of seeing comprehensivelyinstead of selectively is provided by WolfgangSchad's study of the wholeness of themammals.273 This major contribution to aholistic biology has been discussed in part II.Schad sees each kind of mammal

comprehensively, seeing the belonging togetherof its various features (such as size and color) ina natural whole, so that the animal becomesunderstandable in itself without needing to beexplained in terms of something else. But theindividual mammal kinds are not seen in isolationfrom one another, as if they could beunderstood separately. Each kind of mammal isseen in the context of the other mammals in thegroup to which it belongs, while these groups inturn are seen in the context of the larger familiesof mammals, and so on until (with a fewexceptions) all the mammals are seen in thecontext of the larger orders of rodents,carnivores, and ungulates. Each level is nestedwithin a more comprehensive one in theperspective of “multiplicity in unity.” A concreteorganic order emerges—not a system and notan abstract schema—which includes diversity

instead of neutralizing it in favor of what iscommon. The effect of seeing comprehensivelyin this way is that diversity appears as self-difference, so that at each level which isconsidered, the concrete organic order appearsas the manifolding of a single organism. Thus therodents appear in the light of the intensivedimension of One as One rodent. This is not tobe thought of as a rodent which is composed ofmany component rodents added together. It canbe understood intensively in the manner of amultiperspectival figure—like the duck/rabbit,but extended to many perspectives instead ofjust two. Each one is the One rodent, but everyone is only a one-sided manifestation. Similarly,there is One carnivore and One ungulate. Theseare in no way to be confused with a commonplan for carnivores or what all ungulates have incommon. The unity of “multiplicity in unity” is

comprehensive, whereas that of “unity inmultiplicity” is abstract. Ultimately there is Onemammal, with the rodent, carnivore, andungulate as one-sided manifestations.

When the mammals are seencomprehensively in this way, intrinsic relationsbegin to become visible, and we seeconnections between organisms which otherwiseare perceived as being separate from oneanother. The separation is overcome, but not byintroducing a connection externally between theorganisms—such an external connection is likelinking two things with a third, and thereforeitself belongs to the level of separation. Whenwe see the connection, instead of introducingone, then it has more the character of a nonlocalconnection (to borrow a term from quantumphysics). When their belonging together isperceived, the organisms do not have to be

linked together. The separation is overcome,but not on the same level as the separation—which therefore remains as separation on itsown level. The intrinsic belongingness of theorganisms is a more subtle aspect of thephenomena than their separation.

There is a helpful analogy with language here(which will be explored further below). Whenwe read a text, the meaning we perceive isdifferent in kind from the letters which we see onthe page. In the act of reading, the sensory andthe nonsensory are perceived differently and yetsimultaneously. This gives us the impression thatthe marks and the meaning are experienced asbeing on different levels. We could say that theseparation of the letters is overcome in the act ofreading the meaning of the word, but this doesnot mean that the letters on the page havebecome joined together. The overcoming of the

separation is not an external connection, at thelevel of the letters on the page. The meaning weread is a connection of a more subtle kind thanthe connection which belongs at the level ofseparation. The separation is not overcome onits own level, and therefore it does notdisappear when the letters are readcomprehensively as the meaning of the word. Inthe act of reading we have the experience oft w o different levels together. We canunderstand what a mistake it would be in thiscase to try to overcome separation on its ownlevel: a subtler, different kind of connectionwould be lost, and with it the possibility ofreading. The higher cognitive function which isexperienced in seeing comprehensively inGoethe's science is analogous to reading. Thesensory particulars are equivalent to the letters,and the intrinsic connection which is their

belonging together is equivalent to the meaning.We called this a nonlocal connection in theprevious paragraph to emphasize that it isdifferent from the local connection whichintroduces external links on the same level as theseparation to make things belong together, andthereby misses the subtler possibility which is theequivalent of reading. What the experience ofthe Goethean way of science brings us to is therealization that this subtler kind of connection isa dimension of the phenomenon itself, and notsomething which is just added to it by ourminds.

As has been mentioned above, this requiresa n enhancement of seeing and cannot beattained with the kind of seeing which is attunedto the bodily world. Goethe's way of science isitself a practical training for such anenhancement of seeing. Schad's book itself can

be used for this very purpose. If it is read slowlyand thoughtfully, and we work in our imaginationto enter into the connections and relationships hedescribes, then this activity of reading will itselfcontribute to the formation of a new organ ofperception in us. We begin to get the taste of thesubtler kind of connection described above, aswell as to exercise the capacity for seeing in theperspective of “multiplicity in unity.”

Toward the end of his book, Schad indicateshow seeing comprehensively can lead to adifferent idea of evolution from the one whichhas become established in science sinceDarwin.274 He does this by seeing the mammalsin the context of all the other vertebrates,specifically with regard to their relationship tothe environment. To do this he considers thevertebrates from the fishes through to themammals in terms of the three fundamental

functional processes, or dynamic organicsystems, which form the basis of his wholeapproach: the nerve-sense system, therespiratory-circulatory system, and themetabolic-limb system.275

The lowest group of vertebrates—strictly, thechordates—has a primitive hollow nerve chord(the forerunner of the true spinal chord). Theanterior end of this is developed in the fishes toform the brain. It is this possession of a centralnervous system which distinguishes the fishesfrom the invertebrates. The fishes breathethrough gills, whereas the next higher class, theamphibians, transfers breathing to the interior ofthe body by replacing the gills with lungs.However, the amphibians depend on moisturefrom the environment. The next class, thereptiles, becomes free from this particulardependence on the environment by developing a

closed fluid system. Nevertheless, the reptilesremain dependent on the external environmentfor warmth. The birds are the first class tobecome free from this dependence, developingan independent system of warmth which keepstheir body temperature constant. The furtherstep of independence from the environment,which is taken by the placental mammals, iswhen the development of offspring takes placewithin the uterus of the mother—whereas withall the classes of vertebrates before the placentalmammals (i.e., including monotremes andmarsupials), the offspring are developedexternally in the environment.

This sequence, from fish to mammal,discloses an increasing degree of independencefrom the environment by the progressiveinternalization of the different life functions.Schad summarizes this in the following chart at

the top of the next page. He draws attentionparticularly to the sequence in which thisemancipation of the organic systems from theenvironment takes place. It is the nervoussystem, located primarily in the brain, whichdevelops independence first. So we can seefrom the chart that the emancipation of thehigher animals from the environment developsfrom the head downwards.

But the placental mammals as such do notrepresent the end of this process ofemancipation. They are bound to theirenvironment by means of their limb system. Forexample, moles have shovel-like claws, sealshave flippers, horses have hooves, apes havehanging arms, and so on. All these adaptationsmean that they are not independent of theirenvironment in their limb systems. Emancipationfrom this dependency is the step taken by man.

What emerges at the end of the sequence, thehuman being, is the organism which is the leastspecialized biologically, i.e., least adapted to,and therefore dependent on, a specificenvironment. Indeed this is really thecharacteristic difference between the humanbeing and the other mammals, and it puts humanbeings in a class of their own biologically.Human beings are organisms which areunspecialized—as Schad puts it, “Humankind'sperfection is its imperfection.” We can see this inthe case of the human hand, which is notadapted to any particular purpose and istherefore not limited to one particular function.Compared with the highly developed limborgans of the mammals, the human hand isundeveloped biologically. But this very fact freesit to perform an indefinite number of differentfunctions, by the use of tools, without being tied

to any particular use and therefore depending ona particular environment. Any tool can be usedand then put down, another one taken up andused, and so on indefinitely. In contrast, wecould say that the mammal is tied to the toolwhich its limbs have become.

What is also particularly important about thearms and hands is that these limbs take no partin the movement of the body. This is undertakenentirely by the lower limbs, which are

specialized in order to do so. However, Schadshows that this specialization is not anenvironmental adaptation, but one which growsout of the organism itself. In the mammals,specialization takes place in the part of the limbnearest to the surroundings (e.g., thespecialization of the horse's hoof), whereas theupper part of the limb, which is furthest from thesurroundings, remains unaffected. The oppositehappens in the human being. Here the footremains unspecialized and therefore biologicallyunderdeveloped, but the upper part of the leg(the femur) is greatly developed compared withthe other animals. It is by this means that the legsbecome specialized so that human beings canstand erect—but the important point is that thisuprightness can be recognized to be anexpression of the organism itself, and not anexternal adaptation. Not being externally

adapted to the environment, human beings arefree to walk where they choose. So their habitatcovers the Earth.

Such a bare sketch does not do justice tothese facts. We need to approach themdynamically, seeing the development of thelower limbs (legs) in man as a movement in theopposite direction to the development of theselimbs in the mammal. This is itself an exercise inseeing comprehensively. Similarly, we have tosee how this development of the lower limbs,the liberation of the upper limbs (arms) from theneed to participate in the movement of the body,and the consequent withdrawal of limb activityfrom the head, all belong together in producingthe appearance of human beings. We have towork in imagination—but not fancifully—to seethese factors belonging together as a whole. Ifwe only work intellectually, in an analytical way,

then we have one fact next to another, butwithout seeing them together—think of the waybiology textbooks often describe the upper andlower human limbs without seeing them togetherin the context of the organism as a whole.

The chart given above, showing theprogressive liberation of organic systems fromthe environment, can now be extended toinclude humanity. Schad gives it in this extendedform as seen above, which includes theinvertebrates at the opposite end to humanity,these being the animals which were the first todevelop sensory organs. When these classes ofanimals are seen comprehensively in thismanner, and not just separately, or even just oneafter the other, then this “higher fact” ofprogressive emancipation appears. It is withreference to this that John Davy says that “thereis a particular characteristic of “biological

progress’ which has not yet been granted anyfundamental evolutionary significance.”276 Onereason for this may well be that the mechanismof evolution proposed by Darwin seems to leadin the opposite direction to emancipation fromthe environment. Darwin's mechanism (as hethought of it) of random variation and naturalselection means that organisms which arefavored for survival are those that have aspecific adaptation to an environment whichgives them an advantage, in other words, naturalselection leads to an increased dependence ofthe organism on its environment. But theorganism to emerge last in the sequence, thehuman being, is the one which is leastspecialized. Compared with all the other groupsof mammals, the human being is biologicallyunderdeveloped in this sense. So the question is,how can a process which proceeds by

increasing the fit between an organism and theenvironment, thus making it more dependent andspecialized, lead to progressive emancipationfrom the environment and finally to an organismwhich is the least specialized of all? It seems thatDarwin's mechanism must lead in the oppositedirection to that which emerges when we see thesequence comprehensively. It is because theestablished theory requires us to look in theopposite direction that the sequence ofemancipation has not been granted anyfundamental evolutionary significance.277

When this sequence of animals is seen inGoethe's way, it is seen metamorphically in theperspective of “multiplicity in unity.” This meansthat the sequence is One organism, and not asequence of different organisms connected in anexternal way. They are different manifestationsor actualizations of the same organism, notdifferent organisms which have evolved from acommon ancestor as in the standard theory of

evolution. Once again, we have to turn our wayof seeing inside-out. As one leaf does nottransform into another one in the growth of theplant, so one kind of animal does not turn intoanother kind. They are not descended from oneanother, either directly or from a commonancestor, by procreative connection. As with theplant, what we are seeing here is thedevelopment of One organism out of itself,which has the dynamic unity of self-difference.So the sequence is really the progressiveexpression of the whole itself, and not one stageturning into another one.278 This is evolution inthe perspective of the intensive dimension ofOne.

Thus the Goethean approach gives us thepossibility of a different kind of evolution fromthat envisaged in Darwin's theory.279 There is no

procreative descent whereby one kind oforganism gradually turns into another kind oforganism, and the large-scale differencesbetween organisms are considered to be theaccumulated result of very many small-scaledifferences. This different idea of evolution wascurrent in Germany in Goethe's time under theconcept of Entwicklung, which can betranslated as “development.” But because this isvery different indeed from the procreational ideaof evolution embodied in the theory of naturalselection, this alternative view of evolution asdevelopment has been overlooked on accountof the dominance of the former in the scientificestablishment.280

THE TWOFOLDWe have seen that when we experience thebelonging together by seeing connections, theseparation is overcome but not at the level ofseparation. This is the experience of whatWittgenstein called “that understanding whichconsists just in the fact that we ‘see theconnections’.”281 His way of achieving this wasto try to see comprehensively by followingGoethe's procedure of giving a synopticpresentation (what Wittgenstein called anübersichtliche Darstellung), which is the kindof presentation of phenomena we have seen himgive with plants and color. When such apresentation is seen comprehensively, theexperience becomes that of seeing theconnections, i.e., seeing the way that thingsalready stand in connection with one another

without needing to be joined. This experience ofseeing that things connect directly—that toconnect two things, we do not always need athird282—is recognized by Wittgenstein as anew kind of understanding, different from anexplanation or a theory. Because seeing is whatmatters here, and this is attained by means of asynoptic presentation, Wittgenstein also refers tothis as a “perspicuous presentation.”

Arranging things in such a way that theirrelationships with each other can be seen, i.e.,the internal connections, as distinct fromconnections which are added externally (like arope connecting them), is a very different activityfrom looking to see what things have incommon. Wittgenstein says that his approach—which is Goethe's—is the opposite to thetraditional approach in philosophy of looking forsomething that all things subsumed under a

general term have in common. He says, inconnection with Plato's dialogues, that hismethod could be summed up by saying that itwas the exact opposite of that of Socrates.283

He particularly detested “the craving forgenerality” which he saw as the preoccupationof science. Wittgenstein's way of proceeding,and his comments on it, are of interest to us herebecause of the way that they confirm andilluminate the Goethean approach. But hisremarks are particularly interesting because ofthe way that he appreciated just how radicallydifferent Goethe's mode of seeing is from that ofthe mainstream in science and philosophy. Thisis very often not appreciated by those whoapproach Goethe in an intellectual manner, andwho therefore interpret him as searching for acommon plan. Wittgenstein avoided this mistakebecause he was concerned with finding his way

toward a new kind of understanding, whichrequires an enhancement of seeing. As has beennoted in the previous section, seeingcomprehensively is a higher cognitive functionthan abstracting what is general. It is bydeveloping the capacity to do this that the errorabove is avoided.

It is practice in seeing comprehensively whichleads to the direct seeing of connections, so thatthe wholeness is experienced directly as part ofthe phenomenon. By seeing comprehensively wecome to experience the belonging together ofthe phenomena, instead of introducingconnections which make them belong together.This is the difference between Goethe'sapproach to wholeness and the counterfeitapproach of “systems.” In the Goethean waythis experience of wholeness is achieved byattention to concrete detail through working with

the senses, followed by the practice of exactsensorial imagination. By working in this way,the tendency toward generality is avoided and atthe same time the conditions for seeingcomprehensively are promoted. The very natureof attention to sensory detail is that it is an actwhich directs the attention away from generality.But it is the nature of imagination to be holistic,because when we try to imagine something wetry to see it all together, as a whole. When wesee a series of leaves in imagination, forexample, we try to build an image of each leaf inits concrete detail as a whole, and we also try tosee the series as a whole. Attention to thesensory detail and the holistic power ofimagination work together in comprehensiveseeing. The important thing to remember is thatseeing comprehensively is very different fromgeneralization—it is concrete and holistic,

whereas the latter is abstract and analytical. Themode of mentation which “the craving forgenerality” entails, effectively prohibits seeingcomprehensively and hence the seeing ofconnections which is the experience of thewholeness of the phenomenon. These twodifferent modes of cognitive functioning go inopposite directions to each other, so if we havethe one then we cannot have the other. Tobecome free from generality it is necessarytherefore to work in the appropriate way—which is the way that Goethe provides.

When we see the intrinsic connections, thephenomenon is experienced as a whole, and it ispart of this experience that we recognize thewholeness of the phenomenon to be part of thephenomenon itself and not added to it by themind—even though it is experienced through themind instead of the senses. But when the

wholeness is experienced, the separation doesnot disappear—it remains as separation for thesenses.284 We have both together: theseparation and the wholeness. They are not ofthe same kind—if they were, then we could notsee them both simultaneously because they areopposite to each other. It is when we don'texperience the wholeness as a real factor, i.e.,as part of the phenomenon, that we try tounderstand everything at the level of separationand have to introduce external connections.Because these connections are on the level ofseparation, they are of the same kind as theelements they link together. This is the approachtaken by the philosophy of mechanism.

In some of his later work, Wittgenstein isparticularly concerned to try to make clear thenature of this kind of understanding whichconsists in seeing connections, and especially

the way that this is different from the kind ofseeing which consists in seeing a physicalobject.285 He approaches this by focusing onwhat he calls aspect-seeing, i.e., seeingsomething as something, and asks what it wouldmean for someone to be aspect-blind. Forexample, consider someone who is unable tosee a human head, or the giraffe, discussed in“The Organizing Idea in Cognitive Perception.”They can see the random black and whiteblotches, but they cannot see the figure becausethey are aspect-blind. Wittgenstein asks what islacking in this case, and he says.” It is notabsurd to answer: the power of imagination.”286

The point of this for Wittgenstein is that we seea connection in the same sense that we see anaspect or a gestalt. Hence this shows us that thekind of seeing which sees connections is

imagination. Imagination is the kind of seeingwhich is also a kind of understanding (a kind ofthinking). For imagination seeing andunderstanding are one. Hence there is no needfor explanation. Seeing replaces theory—but notthe same kind of seeing as that which seesseparate objects. This is the kind of seeingwhich Goethe referred to when he remarkedabout himself that “my perception itself is athinking, and my thinking a perception.”287

We can now appreciate the differencebetween Goethe and Schiller which becameapparent in their famous encounter, referred toin the introduction to this part. When Goetheremarked about science that “a differentapproach might well be discovered, not byconcentrating on separate and isolated elementsof nature but by portraying it as active and alive,with its efforts directed from the whole to the

parts,” Schiller was doubtful about theepistemology of this approach.288 Doubt turnedinto disagreement when Goethe described themetamorphosis of plants and tried to indicate theUrpflanze to him “with a few characteristicstrokes of the pen.” When Schiller objected,“That is not an observation from experience.That is an idea,” Goethe replied, somewhatannoyed, “Then I may rejoice that I have ideaswithout knowing it, and can even see them withmy own eyes.” For Schiller, the Kantian, seeingcould only mean sensory seeing. This wassupplemented by an idea, which entailedabstract conceptual thinking. The separation ofthe elements of nature was overcome by theaddition of such an idea, and not by seeing. ForGoethe, on the other hand, there is another kindof seeing, which sees connections instead ofseparation. This is the seeing of imagination.

Now this is certainly not the same as having anabstract idea, as in analytical thinking, butneither is it the same kind of seeing as that whichsees physical objects. Imagination seesconnections directly, so there is wholenesswhere for sensory seeing there is separateness.The mode of togetherness is different.Wittgenstein emphasized that what is seen in theseeing of connections must not be thought of asif it were an object—because that belongs tosensory seeing. Because the connectionovercomes the separateness, the connectionitself cannot have the quality of separateness—which means that it cannot be like a physicalobject. Hence, the seeing of connections cannotbe like the seeing of physical objects. So whenthe connection is seen, nothing new is added inthe sense of a new object which can be seen bythe senses. In this respect, everything stays the

same. What is different is the mode oftogetherness, not the addition of an extra objectcalled a “connection.” The way of seeingchanges, and with it the mode of togetherness ofthe elements which are seen.289 Goethe, in hisresponse to Schiller quoted above, tried toindicate that what he was concerned with is anexperience of seeing, but in doing so he tooreadily implied that this is sensory (“. . . with myown eyes”). Schiller, on the other hand, by hisobjection, brings out that this is not a sensoryexperience as such. There is truth in what bothof them say, but each errs in his own way. Asmentioned in the introductory chapter to thispart, it was through the resistance heexperienced in this encounter with Schiller thatGoethe began to become more aware of theepistemological dimension of his approach toscience, instead of being naively empirical in his

attitude.Whereas these two kinds of seeing are

different (it is their difference that Wittgensteinwas concerned to establish), this does not meanthat they are exclusive. We can and do haveboth sensory and imaginative seeing together.Imaginative seeing does not replace sensoryseeing but is present along with it. Instead ofgoing from one kind of seeing to another, wehave what Owen Barfield refers to as a facultyof “double vision.” He considers that imaginationand the faculty of “double vision” areinseparable:

Imagination, in fact, presupposes“double” vision and not simply thesubstitution of one kind of single visionfor another. It requires a sober ability tohave the thing both ways at once.290

Unlike ordinary double vision, which sees thesame thing twice, this extraordinary “doublevision” of imagination sees in two different wayssimultaneously. The sensory vision sees theseparateness of distinct parts, and theimaginative vision simultaneously sees theirconnection and wholeness. So each part of thedouble vision sees differently instead of thesame, and yet when they occur together they arenot separable. This is the kind of vision whichWilliam Blake referred to as “twofold”—a termwhich conveys better than “double vision” thatwhat it refers to is double and yet irreduciblyone, divided and yet integral.291

What Goethe's way of seeing is concernedwith is the development of this twofold vision,not the substitution of one kind of single visionfor another. It is not concerned with providingan alternative explanation of phenomena, but

with an alternative to explanation. Thisalternative is the seeing which is twofold. Thenwe see connections directly. These areconnections of another kind to the mechanical,material connections which are introduced at thesensory level by single vision. The latter are ofnecessity external connections, and so incontrast we call the connections of another kindwhich belong to twofold vision, internal orintrinsic connections. For example, think of thesequence of organs up the plant. We see theindividual organs, which are separate for thesenses, and at the same time we see themetamorphosis which is their connection. Theindividual organs, which are discrete, are visibleto the senses; their intrinsic connection, which isthe wholeness of metamorphosis, is visible to theimagination.292 When we see themetamorphosis, the individual organs don't

vanish—just as the letters of a word do notvanish when we read the meaning of the word.But neither do the individual organs (or theletters of the word) merge into one another, orjoin together in some way, when we see theinner connection. They remain distinct from eachother at the sensory level. So in the seeing whichis twofold, the different parts and the wholenessor unity of these parts are simultaneously presenttogether. We may have the sense that they areon different levels, as it were, and it is oftenconvenient (though it might be misleading) totalk in this way. But this is more likely areflection of the way that we ourselves areinvolved in the act of perception. We areinvolved in a double way, simultaneouslythrough the organ of sensory sight and the organof imagination.

It has been pointed out by Owen Barfield that

this role of imagination in science is specific toGoethe's way of science.293 Whereasimagination certainly enters into all scientificwork, it does so usually in devising hypothesesto explain facts which are known, or inproducing an organizing idea to guide the overallactivity of research. In such cases imagination isused to augment what is encountered by thesenses, whether in advance or afterwards. But itdoes not become an organ of perception in theway that it does in Goethe's approach, whereimagination is involved in the act of observationitself. This results in the experience of the seeingwhich is twofold, instead of the seeing of singlevision supplemented by imagination—in whichcase the imagination is added on, externally, tothe observation. It is because of this that thepractice of Goethean science leads us toexperience the wholeness of the phenomenon,

so that we recognize it as part of thephenomenon itself and not something which isadded on to it by the mind. Furthermore, wealso recognize that there is no longer anytemptation to look for anything beyond thephenomenon, behind the appearances, becausethe appearance itself has now expanded toinclude an intensive depth. There is now afurther dimension to the appearance, which isthe dimension of wholeness. So thephenomenon becomes more fully visible,whereas it is only partially visible to the senses.The twofoldness of the phenomenon as it thusappears removes the temptation to introduce atwo-world theory. There is simply no need nowto postulate something behind the appearancesin order to explain them. Twofoldness is notdualism. We have seen that Goethe's way ofscience is nonmetaphysical (nondualistic). Now

we can begin to see what it is that replacesmetaphysics: the twofold.

We are already familiar with the twofold tosome extent. We encounter it all the time, even ifwe are not aware of it, in the activities oflanguage: reading and writing, speaking andlistening. In fact, we have drawn on thisfamiliarity on more than one occasion above toillustrate the notion of the twofold. The fact thatwe can do this so readily itself illustrates justhow familiar we are with the twofold, eventhough we do not realize it. When we read aword there are several distinct letters but onemeaning. Similarly, when we read a sentencethere are several distinct words but onemeaning. We can go on to consider paragraphs,chapters, and in some cases whole books, in asimilar way. The letters are seen as a word, thewords are seen as a sentence, when the distinct

elements are seen comprehensively. What isseen then, the meaning, is evidently verydifferent in kind from the individual, discreteelements. Yet these two aspects belong togetheras one in the twofold unity which is theexperienced word or sentence—i.e., when it isread, written, spoken, or heard. Although theyare so different in kind, physical manifestation,and meaning, we do nevertheless experiencethem both together, but each in a different way.The physical manifestation is experiencedthrough the senses, whereas clearly the meaningis not. When reading a sentence, for example,we see the meaning and yet we know perfectlywell that what we are seeing with our physicalsense of sight is not the meaning but the physicalmarks on the page in front of us. We certainlyknow that the physical marks which we see withthe sense of sight do not disappear when we

read the meaning. Although the focus of ourattention shifts from the marks to the meaning,the marks on the page are still there for us—otherwise we simply could not read! Yet whenwe read, we are seeing something which is verydifferent in kind from the marks on the page.Nevertheless, we can only come to this, i.e., themeaning, by means of the physical manifestation(marks) through which it is expressed. So, inreading, we see the meaning at the same timethat we see the physical marks, butdifferently.294 Yet it would never occur to us tosuppose that the meaning was behind the lettersof a word or the words of a sentence, as if theletters needed to be explained by reference tosomething behind the word, or the words bysomething behind the sentence.295 It is quiteclear to us that both letters and meaning belong

to the word at the same time, but that each isexperienced in a different way. This is thetwofold of physical manifestation and meaningwith which we are familiar in an everyday way,but which we do not recognize explicitly assuch.

Twofoldness is the fundamental characteristicof language: sensory manifestation andnonsensory meaning present together as one.Language is the primal phenomenon of thetwofold, and as such it can provide us with amodel to replace the dualism of the two-worldtheory (metaphysics) which requires us to lookbehind the phenomena for their explanation. Thisis a fundamental key to understanding Goethe'sway of science: the two-world dualism ofmetaphysics is replaced by the twofold forwhich language is the model. Goethe understoodthis when he spoke of his way of seeing as

reading the phenomena of nature. It may oftenhave been assumed too readily that this is“merely a metaphor,” but from the account givenabove it will now be clear that it is a veryprecise figure of speech, and one which isintended to be taken literally. Furthermore, itencapsulates the key ontological differencebetween Goethe's way of science and that of themainstream. It also gives us a vivid image of thedifference between Goethe's approach and thequantitative science of measurement:

The fundamental difference of hisapproach is his attempt to learn to readin the Book of Nature rather than toanalyze its constitutive parts. “Reading”means to treat the sense-perceptualaspects of Nature like letters of words,or words of a text: as signs for meaning.

The analytic procedure of modernscience has a tendency to dissect naturalsubstances in order to understand them;this would be comparable to measuringthe shape of the letter “B,” analyzing theprinter's ink, paper consistency etc. inorder to understand its role in the word“Book.”296

Continuing this image further, mathematicalphysics would be comparable to producing anequation relating the letters of the word, suchthat the solution of this equation would generatethe sequence of letters “Book.” But this way,while it does have its uses (manipulation andcontrol), misses the possibility of the morecomprehensive understanding, which is reading.

There is, however, a widespread prejudiceabout language which blocks the way to

understanding fully the significance of thetwofold. This is the prejudice of nominalism—orthe representational theory of language—whichhas the effect of introducing dualism into the waythat we understand language. The inevitableconsequence is that the twofoldness is lost. Sowe must now recognize and overcome thisdualism in our attitude to language.

Although this dualism can appear in severalforms, one of the most evident is the notion thata word is a sign which stands for what it means.So a word functions as a token whichrepresents the thing meant (hence the“representational” theory of language), and fromwhich it is therefore separate. Concomitantly,the thing meant is independent of the sign whichrepresents it. A word names something, butnames are just like labels attached to things,according to this view (hence “nominalism”).

For example, the word “table” can be used torepresent a table in conveying information fromone person to another—as in “the book is onthe table.” But this is taken to be the onlyfunction of words. Now whereas words canhave this function, it is not their only function,nor indeed is it their fundamental function. Thedifficulty with this view of language is that itassumes we have direct access to thingsindependently of language. So we alreadyrecognize and know something before we applylanguage to it—this is also called theinstrumental theory of language, because it seeslanguage as a tool to be picked up, applied, andput down again. But we have seen in “TheOrganizing Idea in Cognitive Perception” that allcognitive perception entails not only senseperception but also an organizing idea, aconcept. The problem of the origin of concepts

was noted there, i.e., that a concept cannot beformed by generalization from several instancesbecause it is only by means of the concept thatwe can recognize an instance in the first place.So this empiricist account of the origin ofconcepts presupposes the very concept whoseorigin it seeks to explain! For example, to beable to see a table is to have the capacityalready to be able to see all tables—i.e., allpossible tables, including those that don't looklike tables, such as an upturned box, the surfaceof a rock, a cloth on the ground, and so on. It isrecognized now that it is language which gives usconcepts. The origin of concepts is in thedawning of language, and we would neveracquire concepts if language did not dawn in us.So the commonsense view that we see andknow something before we apply words to it—which are therefore merely labels—clearly does

not take into account the role of language ingiving the concept which enables us to see andknow something as something in the first place.It is only by the grace of language in giving theconcept that we can see a table, for example,and therefore language is intrinsically involved inthe table that we see. Without it no table wouldappear—no table could be. Hence thecommonsense view of language (nominalism),that the thing meant is seen and knownindependently of the word—which is thereforeonly a sign that represents it—is fundamentallyinadequate and misleading.

It is language which teaches us concepts aschildren, and hence it is language which firstgives us the ability to see the world, so that theworld can appear.297 But our first experience oflanguage, the dawning of language, is differentfrom our experience of language as adults. A

vivid illustration of the original disclosive powerof language—as distinct from the secondaryrepresentational function of language, as when itis used for conveying information—is given bythe remarkable story of Helen Keller. As a veryyoung girl, Helen Keller had a severe attack ofmeasles, which left her deaf and blind. Thishappened to her before the dawning oflanguage, and it was only due to theextraordinary work of her dedicated governessthat these extreme difficulties were eventuallyovercome. The moment when this finallyhappened is described in her own words:

We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of thehoneysuckle with which it was covered.Someone was drawing water and myteacher placed my hand under the spout.

As the cool stream gushed over one handshe spelled into the other the word“water” first slowly, then rapidly. i stoodstill, my whole attention fixed upon themotion of her fingers. Suddenly i felt amisty consciousness as of somethingforgotten—a thrill of returning thought;and somehow the mystery of languagewas revealed to me. i knew then that “w-a-t-e-r” meant the wonderful coolsomething that was flowing over myhand. That living word awakened mysoul, gave it light, joy, set it free!. . . i leftthe well-house eager to learn. Everythinghad a name, and each name gave birth toa new thought. As we returned to thehouse each object that i touched seemedto quiver with life. That was because isaw everything with the strange new light

that had come to me.298

She is blind but describes herself as seeingwith a new light. The word “water” does notrepresent or stand for water here; it is not alabel to be attached to water for the purpose ofcommunicating information. Helen Keller doesnot already know water, to which she then addsthe word. No, in this case everything isreversed. The word “water” shows her water; itbrings it to light so that she sees it. Here thename calls water into appearance; it calls waterinto being as water, instead of the indistinctsense percept which there had been before.(N.B.: the first few sentences in the quotationdescribe the situation before the dawn oflanguage as it could only appear to her afterlanguage had dawned in her. This is inevitable,because she is giving an account, but we must

consciously allow for it.) Thus the word here isnot a sign in the sense that it designatessomething already known, because the thingdesignated by it would first have had to be seenindependently of language—and evidently it hadnot been.

She speaks of her soul being awakened,given light, and set free. What awoke in HelenKeller is the light of the world. This is not the(formless) physical light, but the light of meaningwhich is the appearing of what things are.299

Without language no things could be, andtherefore there would be no world. So thedawning of language is the dawn of the world—as we can see so clearly here in the experienceof Helen Keller. This sets her soul free becauseto be human is to live in the world. Only humanbeings have a “world”—which is entirelydifferent from inhabiting an environment in the

way that animals do.300 Until this experience ofthe dawning of language, Helen Keller had beenunable to be in the world, which is proper tohuman beings, and had inhabited a wordlessenvironment. A human being not able to behuman—and now she is freed from the darknessof this condition to enter the light of the humanworld.

Heidegger distinguishes between language asdisclosure and language as representation—theformer being primary, and the latter beingderivative and therefore secondary.301 He saysthat “the essential being of language is Saying asShowing,” and that “saying is in no way thelinguistic expression added to the phenomenaafter they have appeared.” A sign is to beunderstood fundamentally as “showing in thesense of bringing something to light.” Heidegger

emphasizes the transformation which takes placewhen we do not understand the sign in this way(because we do not experience it this way), butthink of it instead as something that designates.When this happens, “The kinship of Showingwith what it shows” is lost and becomes“transformed into a conventional relationbetween a sign and its signification.” WhenHeidegger says that the essence of language isSaying—i.e., Saying which is Showing—hedoes not mean this to be taken in the sense of abeing which says, but more in the sense ofSaying which “be's.” This is the Saying which islanguage—when Heidegger says the essence oflanguage is Saying he means just that and nomore (the trouble is we always add more).Similarly with Showing—since Saying isShowing—this is not the showing of a being(like shining a flashlight on an object in a dark

room), but the showing which is its self-appearance wherein it “be's.” In Helen Keller'sexperience, the word “water” says water in thesense that it shows water (not points to it),whereby water appears. The word does notdesignate water after it has first appeared. Butafter it has appeared we take it that this is whatthe word does. This is the stage of dualism,when word and thing are separated andlanguage becomes representational. Languageas disclosure is saying—showing-seeing. Thismust be read holistically and not analytically, i.e.,each of the three aspects is not a componentpart of the event of disclosure but the whole:saying is showing, and showing is seeing—like athreefold multiperspectival figure. Whenlanguage is representation—which is re-presentation as well as functioning as arepresentative—it merely “stands for.”

Disclosure is primary because representationcan only present again what has already beenpresented. If we try to understand language interms of representation, then we begin too far“downstream,” at the end, and we thereforemiss the primary function of language whichmakes representation possible in the first place—it's another instance of trying to get to the milkby way of the cheese.

Helen Keller's experience illustrates whatWilhelm von Humboldt called the energeticphase of language, and Kühlewind calls themonistic phase:

Children learn their first language, theirmother tongue “monistically.” They donot just impose “names” on objects andmeanings, as nominalistic and naivethinkers imagine. Rather, language—and

the concepts it provides—structuresinner and outer worlds into objects,phenomena, and meanings.302

We do not learn our first language as children inthe way that we subsequently imagine when weare adults. We imagine that we learn our firstlanguage in the way that we may subsequentlyacquire a second language. But what we forgethere is that the second language names meaningscreated in the first language, and does not namethings which are given independently oflanguage:

The first language creates the meaningsthat are then “named” in the secondlanguage. In fact, this process reinforcesthe impression that the world is built upnominalistically because we easily forget

that we perceive a thing only if it has ameaning, only if it is already defined by aconcept. Before the first language ormother tongue, there is nothing that couldbe named.”303

It is this forgetfulness which results in the entryof dualism into our understanding of language,whereby we think the word merely names thething meant, which itself is given independentlyof language. Thus we treat all language as if itwere like our second language—this is themistake of nominalism.304

In the monistic, or energetic, phase oflanguage word and meaning belong togetherindissolubly. The sensory part (sound) and thenonsensory part (meaning) cannot be separated,so that it would be impossible to say that thesensory part “stands for” or represents the

meaning. The experience is that the word is one,whole, and therefore that the word means itselfWhen the word is experienced as self-meaning,then it is evident that it does not stand forsomething other than itself. This is theexperience of the twofoldness of the word,whereby the meaning is encountered as beingintrinsic to the word and not apart from it. Thisis what we all undergo as growing children (andwhich Helen Keller describes), and later lose:

Language is unique in that it is not justperception but meaningful perception.Children must grasp both perception andmeaning at the same time.305

What is encountered in such an experience is aunique mode of being. This is later lost sight ofas the twofoldness which is characteristic of the

monistic phase of language falls apart into thedualism of signifier and signified—whereuponthe word is no longer experienced as self-meaning, but as standing for (representing)something other than itself which is givenindependently.

In the monistic phase the word says the thing,shows it, so that it appears and is seen.306 Theword does not label something seen already,before the word. If we were to experience theword in this living, energetic way—as we didwhen we were young children (and can glimpseagain through our own children)—we wouldencounter saying directly and thereby knowthat the word says itself, and hence that it is self-meaning and does not derive its meaning fromsomething beyond itself. The word “table” givesus the concept “table,” and this enables us tosee any table. In fact it enables us to see “table-

ly,” so that we can see (read actively) a table inany shape or form. This reverses the popularview that words receive their meaning byostensive definition—i.e., that we give meaningto words instead of receiving meaning fromwords. According to this view, for example, wegive meaning to the word “table” by pointing toa table and saying “table.” This attaches thename to the thing (nominalism). Children, it issupposed, learn their first language in some suchway (any observant parent can see that theydon't). Now it is certainly the case that we canand do learn a second language in this manner—but this is because the concept which aloneenables us to see a thing has been given in ourfirst language. Just imagine the attempt to attachmeaning to the word “table” ostensively. Howwould we know what to attach the label to if wecould not already see a table? Without the

concept, which comes in the first place fromlanguage, how would we know what was beingpointed to? It is only the concept “table” whichcreates a boundary in the perceptual field sothat a table is distinguished and can be pointedto. Someone who did not have the conceptwould not know what was being pointed to,because it is the concept which makes thedistinction whereby there is some thing to pointto. This comes from the word in the first place,and therefore pointing to the thing cannot be themeans whereby meaning is given to the word.Although it may appear that ostensive definitionis the way that nouns and verbs get theirmeaning, this clearly would not be possible forother kinds of words, such as “if,” “because,”“and,” “but,” and so on. Added to which thereis the structuring of grammar—how could thisbe arrived at ostensively? However, without

even considering such cases, as we have seen itturns out that even simple nouns cannot be givenmeaning by ostensive definition in the way thatthe popular view supposes. The word is self-meaning at the monistic (energetic) stage oflanguage, and it is this which is presupposed inmaking ostensive definition even seem possible.Thus the popular view of how words get theirmeaning—the view which belongs at the level ofdualism—presupposes language itself. In otherwords, this explanation of language presupposeslanguage!

At the fundamental level of language we areconcerned with here, a word means itself and istherefore the appearance of what it says (e.g.,the word “water” for Helen Keller). Thuslanguage is the medium of the appearance of“the world.” There is therefore no “world”outside language—and especially is there no

world-in-itself hidden behind language which isforever inaccessible.307 Language takes on therole of a veil in such a dualism, whereas it iswithin language that things appear and are. It isonly within the perspective of dualism that thiscan be mistaken for an assertion of relativismand subjectivism—i.e., that all we can know isthe way we ourselves look at the world, whatour picture of it is like.

A word means itself and we cannot refer it tosomething other than itself which bestowsmeaning on it. Thus, at the primary level we areconcerned with here, the word is self-presenting. So the meaning of “table” isunderstanding “table,” the meaning of “if” isunderstanding “if,” and so on.308 If a word issomething that means, then concomitantly it issomething that can be understood—we cannot

talk about “meaning” without thereby entailing“understanding.” Thus language is being that canbe understood—which brings us to Gadamer sfundamental insight that “Being that can beunderstood is Language”309 If it wereotherwise, then understanding would not bepossible. The representational theory oflanguage, which is dualistic, misses the uniquebeing of language and consequently tries toimagine understanding as arising out ofnonunderstanding. This is impossible. It istherefore not surprising that, as we have notedalready, the representational theory dependsupon the prior assumption of language asdisclosure—what Helen Keller (and ourselvesonce) experienced. It is only because languagei s already there in the first place that therepresentational theory even seems to makesense.

We have discussed the philosophy oflanguage in some depth here because of thewidespread prejudice about language whichblocks the way to understanding the significanceof the twofold. The habit of dualism in ourthinking must be dissolved if we are to see theradical significance of the twofold unity ofsensory word and nonsensory meaning, andhence the way that language provides us with analternative to the metaphysical two-world theoryfor understanding the phenomena of nature. Asthere is nothing behind the word, and yet theword is not limited to its sensory aspect, sothere is nothing behind the phenomenon and yetthe phenomenon is not limited to its sensoryappearance. As with the word, so with nature inGoethe's way of science. The twofold replacesboth two-world metaphysics and the singleworld of positivism—which are usually seen as

the only alternatives. Goethe provides us with agenuinely new way of understanding, and onewhich is grounded in something which is veryfamiliar to us all. Language provides the “model”for this alternative to both metaphysical dualismand positivism, but only when we can gobeyond the idea of language as communicatingthe already disclosed, i.e., the level ofinformation, to the disclosure itself. Only thencan we encounter the uniqueness of languageand come to what Heidegger calls theexperience of language:

Instead of explaining language in terms ofone thing or another, and thus runningaway from it, the way to language intendsto let language be experienced aslanguage.310

This is something we have to work toward, sothat we develop the capacity to experience theuniqueness of language for ourselves. This toobecomes an aspect of Bildung, the schooling ofa faculty which is adequate to a higherexperience of language. Such a developmentcannot just be done intellectually, but necessarilyentails a transformative step which shiftsconsciousness from the plane of the past into theliving present—from the said into the sayingwhich is language itself. Otherwise, in ourattempt to understand language, we cannotescape from the habit of trying to get to the milkby way of the cheese.

Goethe's way of seeing goes against thedogma of modern science that the phenomenaof nature are to be interpreted in terms of causeand effect. We are so familiar with this now thatwe take it for granted that this is the only way to

understand nature. It is certainly invaluable formanipulating and controlling nature, but this isnot at all the same as understanding nature—even though, under the influence of the dogma,we now think that it is. Considering natureexclusively in terms of cause and effect leads usto search for a mechanism for everyphenomenon. But when we succeed in finding amechanism it does not mean that we understandthe phenomenon. We can then manipulate andcontrol the phenomenon, but we do not knowwhat it is. Eventually, under the influence of oursuccess with the principle of mechanicalcausality, we begin to think that the question ofwhat the phenomenon is has no meaning—whereas it is we who have lost sight of thepossibility of knowing this. We will come to feelthat if we know the causal mechanism of thephenomenon, then we do know what it is.

The quest for explanations in terms of causalmechanisms eventually leads to the notion of afield of force. This is a subtler notion thanmechanism, but not fundamentally different inkind. The field concept is one which has foundwidespread application, and there is sometimesa tendency to try to explain everything in termsof the notion of a field, without it being noticedthat a field is a physical cause and thereforedoes not introduce anything fundamentally new.Thus, if we are considering the wholeness ofnature, there will be those who want to conceiveof this as if it were some kind of field—which itis not. Goethe commented that we like to thinkmechanistically about things which are of ahigher order because it is easier.311 Thewholeness of nature is not to be understood assome kind of field, which would reduce it to acausal agent, but as being akin to meaning in

language. Thus language becomes the modelinstead of mechanism. This entails afundamentally different ontology of nature: theontology of the twofold. This is the truly radicalstep which Goethe took in science. Heintroduced a fundamentally new ontology ofnature, and we cannot understand Goethe's wayof science unless we recognize this and canbegin to take this step for ourselves.Understanding nature as language forms thefoundation of Goethe's way of science, asmetaphysics forms the basis for the mainstreamscientific enterprise. But whereas the latter isnow well developed, Goethe's way of science isby comparison as yet not much more than apossibility—just as mainstream science itselfwas once.

7. The Possibility of a NewScience of Nature

Until we have discovered the role of theorganizing idea in scientific knowledge, we are ina position similar to a person who believes theEarth is at rest. It seems evident to the sensesthat the Earth does not move, and the difficultyhere is to make the movement “visible”somehow—which, of course, cannot be donedirectly. Similarly, it seems evident to commonsense that knowledge of the world is given to usdirectly, by observation or experiment, throughthe senses. Seeing seems to be a sensoryexperience—as the Earth seems to be at rest.But in both cases it seems this way because wedo no recognize the way in which we ourselvesare involved in the situation. We are part of it,

not outside of it, and have to adjust ourperspective to take this into account. In the caseof cognition, this means discovering the role ofthe organizing idea, whether this be at the levelof the concept in everyday cognitive perceptionor at the level of a comprehensive organizingidea in scientific knowledge. It is only when wehave discovered the role of the organizing ideathat we can begin to understand science.

This is a liberating step. It frees us from ourenthrallment with the science which has beenestablished, by making us aware that suchscience does not have the absolute (i.e., self-standing) foundations that we customarilyassume. Such a step makes us aware that “inour scientific-technological world, or, moreprecisely, in the a priori presuppositions of thisworld, we have opted for one particularpossibility, grounded in one particular

situation.”312 There could, therefore, be otherpossibilities. Historically, the origin of modernscience is to be found in what Hübner calls“spontaneous acts”—because there is nothingwhich compels or determines the choice whichis made. For example, Copernicus's choice of aSun-centered cosmos enabled him to find thesymmetry and harmony of the whole, in a waythat had escaped the Earth-centered scheme.But the motivation for this was principallyaesthetic. In wanting to find symmetry andharmony in the cosmos, Copernicus wasadopting the Renaissance ideal in architectureand painting as a precept for astronomy.313 Sothe foundations of the Copernican theory do notlie only in astronomy as such, but in the entirecultural—historical situation. Another exampleof such “spontaneous acts” in the origin of a

scientific theory is provided by Darwin's theoryof evolution. Darwin transformed the idea ofevolution which was prevalent at the time, andwhich had become associated with social unrest,riots, and revolution in England in the 1830s. Inits place he eventually introduced a new idea ofevolution which was attuned much more to thenew competitive, free-market, entrepreneurial,industrial capitalism than it was to the demandsof the underclass for self-organization. Darwindid not see evolution as life lifting itself up frombelow, as the social revolutionaries wanted tothink, but as arising from competition among agroup of associates. His was an evolution whichwas suitable for the bosses of industry.314 So,as with the Copernican theory, we can say thatthe foundations of the Darwinian theory do notlie only in biology as such, but in the entirecultural-historical situation. If cultural-historical

factors enter into the constitution of scientificknowledge, i.e., into the very form which thisknowledge takes, then evidently science cannotbe understood apart from its cultural-historicalcontext—as if it were self-standing, generatedby its own intrinsic “scientific method.” Scientificknowledge is intrinsically historical. As Goethesaid: “The history of science is science itself.”

The fundamental organizing ideas of scienceact at the level of possibility. They create whatHübner calls, using Kant's terminology, “theconditions of the possibility” of the production ofexperiences.315 In other words, they give us theform that what counts as scientific experiencecan take. But, far from being immutable (as theywould have been for Kant), their origin iscultural-historical and hence they can change.As well as applying to organizing ideas withinspecific domains of science, this applies also to

science as a whole, i.e., to the very idea of whatcounts as “science.” We have noted already, forexample, at the end of “The MetaphysicalSeparation,” that the idea that nature ismathematical is an organizing idea for science asa whole which constitutes a new style ofphysics. When Copernicus incorporated theRenaissance ideal of symmetry and harmonyinto a new theory of the structure of the cosmos,he did more than just this. In so doing he was atthe same time incorporating this ideal intoscience itself as a new precept for how scienceshould be done, and hence for what science is.This is the precept that science is to be done bylooking for mathematical harmonies which arehidden from the senses. When this wastransferred from astronomy to physics byGalileo, it became the precept for mathematicalphysics—and this is the style of physics we

work with to this day. But what we can nowrecognize is that this style of physics does notemerge intrinsically from science itself, but is ofcultural-historical origin. There is thereforenothing absolute about it, and therefore nothingwhich compels us to accept it exclusively. Therecognition that this is true clearly brings with itan awareness that there may be otherpossibilities—not only other possible theories,but also other possible kinds of science.

This is the step that Goethe took. He wentthrough a different doorway to nature than theone which had been taken in the scientificrevolution. He developed a new kind of science,the science of Goethean style, which can becalled the science of the wholeness of nature. Inhis discussion of Husserl's phenomenologicalinvestigation of what he called the science ofGalilean style, Aron Gurwitsch says that “instead

of stating that nature is mathematical, it is moreappropriate to say that nature lends itself tomathematization.” The important point about thisformulation is that it brings out that“mathematization does not necessarily mean thedisclosure of pre-given, though yet hidden,reality” but that “it suggests an accomplishmentyet to be achieved.”316 It is the naturalassumption of the onlooker mode ofconsciousness to believe that science isdiscovering a pregiven reality, which exists as an“object” prior to and independently of anyscientific investigation. Hence the discovery ofthe mathematical structure of the world appearsas the discovery that nature is mathematical assuch. With this understanding, it seems that oncescience has discovered what is taken to be thetruth, then there could not conceivably be anyalternative. This is the view that “true” means

“correct,” i.e., corresponding to the object. Anysuggestion that it could be otherwise leads to theaccusation of relativism and subjectivism, sincethis seems to imply (when seen against thebackground of objectivism) that truth dependson factors which are not part of the objectalone. The result of this is, at best, skepticism—and at worst, nihilism. But there is no need forthis when we recognize that the truth ofmathematical physics, for example, does notmean that nature has been found to be amathematical object corresponding to theassertions of mathematical physics. On thecontrary, the truth of mathematical physics is tobe found in the progressive appearance ofnature in its mathematical aspect, which is aconsequence of the ongoing work of thosecommitted to this particular project. The truth ofmathematical physics is something which has to

be realized, i.e., achieved, not just uncovered,as the term “discovery” is so often taken tomean. The important thing here is that naturecan appear mathematically—and what appearsis the mathematical aspect of nature. But this isnot exclusive, and nature may be capable ofappearing in other aspects if approachedaccordingly. What Husserl recognized is that thetruth of mathematical physics is establishedthrough the ongoing work which is the never-ending fulfillment of the research programinitiated by the proposal that nature ismathematical.317 What this means is that thetruth of science, is realized historically, notactualized by the discovery at some point in timeof a correspondence between theory and reality.Goethe's statement that “the history of science isscience itself” can now also be read in thissense, as an expression of the insight that a

science is confirmed only by the historicalprocess of its development—i.e., that the natureof science is that it is always an accomplishmentto be achieved—as well as in the sense thatcultural—historical factors enter into the formwhich scientific knowledge takes.

Once we recognize the historical nature of ascience—mathematical physics, for example—then we can detach from it because we can seethat it has no absolute claim on us. The sciencein question is temporarily “suspended.” It is inthis moment of freedom that we can recognizethat there could be other possible kinds ofscience, which would also be accomplishmentsto be achieved. Thus, the Goethean proposal ofthe science of the wholeness of nature can beconfirmed only by the historical process of thedevelopment of the science of the wholeness ofnature. As it was once with the then new science

of mathematical physics, so it is now with thenew science of the wholeness of nature: it is anaccomplishment waiting to be achieved.

This new science of the wholeness of natureis not in any way in competition with mainstreamscience. It does not seek to show thatmainstream science is wrong or to replace it inany way. It is evident to anyone but a fool thatmainstream science is correct—who couldrealistically doubt that mathematical physics, forexample, is true? There is no way that thescience of quantity and the science of wholenesscould be compared to see which one is“correct.” This is not for the reason that,regrettably, no way can be found in principleby which such a comparison could be made, sothat we cannot find out what nature is “reallylike.” Even to think that such a comparisoncannot be made is, nevertheless, to think of a

comparison, and this is already the wrong wayto think. The science of quantity and the scienceo f wholeness are incommensurable, but this isno reason for epistemological pessimism. Theirincommensurability does not mean that wecannot know “what nature is really like.” Thebeing of nature can be revealed in different waysby different kinds of science, none of which hasany claim to be more basic or fundamental.What becomes visible in each case is natureitself, but only one possible aspect of nature.Thus, nature can be quantity, or causalmechanism, or wholeness, for example. Each ofthese perspectives reveals nature as it is in itself(i.e., nature itself is not “hidden” behind theseperspectives), but not exclusively. So thescience of quantity and the science of wholenessare both true, but nature is revealed differently ineach of them. Each is complete in itself, but

neither is comprehensive. We can think hereagain of the duck/rabbit. Each one is the figureitself, but not exclusively. The important point isthat each one is the whole figure and not part ofit. Similarly, the science of quantity, for example,reveals one aspect of nature and not part ofnature. The same can be said about the scienceof wholeness. However, in making this analogywith the duck/rabbit we must be careful not tofall into the error of thinking of different kinds ofscience as no more than different ways ofilluminating nature, as if they were only differentworldviews. The difference is that different kindsof science can reveal different aspects of natureitself—different ways that nature can be—sothat each can be true even though they areincommensurable.

What we need here is the perspective of“multiplicity in unity,” the intensive dimension of

One which is the dimension of self-difference.Each different aspect of nature which is revealedis the same One. The difference here is the self-difference which is within unity. Hence differentkinds of science reveal different aspects ofnature, but not different parts of nature. So boththe science of quantity and the science ofwholeness can be true, and yetincommensurable, and therefore cannot be incompetition with one another. Again, the scienceof physical cause and effect and the science ofthe wordlike quality of nature can both be truebecause each reveals a different aspect ofnature. What is revealed in each of thesesciences is an aspect of nature itself. When weunderstand this we can see that we have nogrounds for accepting one and rejecting theother, or even for thinking that one is morefundamental than the other—let alone that one

could be reduced to the other. The truth ofscience is not single, in the external objectivesense, but neither is it plural. The fact that thereis not only one truth does not mean that thereare many separate truths. There is anotherpossibility beyond the alternative of one andmany. These appear as alternatives when takenin the numerical, quantitative sense, whichcorresponds to the world of solid bodies. But ifwe can leave this restricted case behind, wediscover the higher possibility of the diversitywhich is within unity itself. Then we can see howtruth can be neither singular nor plural, but Onetruth which is multiple. This is a higherperspective which has the effect of turning theone and the many inside out There is no longer achoice between objectivism and relativism, but anew way of understanding which transcends thisdichotomy by seeing the one and the many in a

new way. But this is a transformation of seeing,not just a strategy of the intellectual mind. Fromthis transformed perspective, we can recognizehow the so-called problem of objectivism andrelativism arises from the way that the externalperspective, corresponding to the logic of solidbodies, influences the form of our thinking.When we become free from this constraint, wecan recognize that Goethe's organic perspectiveof “multiplicity within unity” can itself becomethe means by which Goethe's style of sciencecan be seen to be justified in its claim to bescientifically true. Furthermore, it does so in away which expands our understanding of thenature of scientific truth.

The quantitative aspect of nature revealsnature as quantity; the causal aspect of naturereveals nature as cause. But if we stop at thequantitative, or the causal, aspects of nature we

have limited science and our understanding ofnature unnecessarily. There is also thewholeness of nature, and the science of thewholeness of nature complements these otherkinds of science in the manner indicated above.Recognizing this opens the doorway to makingscience more comprehensive, so thatexaggerations and distortions in ourunderstanding of nature resulting from the one-sided development of science can now be seenas such. This makes a more balancedunderstanding possible. Hitherto the science ofthe wholeness of nature has not been developedto anywhere near the same extent as thesciences of other aspects of nature. As we haveseen, Goethe was a founder of such a newscience. But we have also seen how Goethe hasoften been misunderstood, so that the realnature of his contribution has not been

recognized. We can read in many places thatGoethe was looking for an underlying unitybehind the diversity of nature. No doubt whenGoethe is approached only by means of theintellectual mind it does seem that he is lookingfor unity underlying diversity. But to understandGoethe we have to enter into his way of seeing,so that we go beyond the intellectual mind intothe realm of experience. This means that weexperience the way of seeing from within,instead of trying to approach it from the outside—which is the way of the abstract intellect. Webecome participants in the way of seeing insteadof being onlookers. Goethe's science of thewholeness of nature can only be understood byparticipation in the way of seeing because thisscience can only be understood in its own terms.It cannot be understood by comparing it withsomething else. So, for example, we have had

Goethe the Baconian empiricist, Goethe theNeo-Platonist, even Goethe the German idealist.But Goethe is none of these—and certainly nota mixture of them. As in the story of the elephantand the blind individuals, Goethe cannot beunderstood by this superficial habit of makingcomparisons.318 Indulging the associative habitof the mind can only stop us from entering intothe perception, so that we cannot experiencethe way of seeing and come to know it bymeans of itself.

The distinguishing characteristic of modernscience is that it is analytical. The movement ofthinking is one which separates into mutuallyexternal elements—the unit is the idealexpression, or embodiment, of this way ofthinking. The countermovement to this, then, isto connect and combine externally to produce asynthesis. We see this clearly in the

incorporation of the philosophy of atomism intoscience, and the way that this developed inphysics, chemistry, and biology to become thedominant approach. Because modern scienceembodies the analytical way of seeing, itfunctions at the cultural level as a “carrier wave”for this way of seeing (as a radio wave carriesan audio signal). The specific content is notimportant; what matters is the way of seeingwhich is carried by it. For example, atomismtakes the form of separately existent elementswhich are external to each other, and it is thiswhich gets communicated by sciences whichembody atomism, regardless of what thespecific content may be. In fact, there is areversal of container and content here which wehave encountered before. What we think of asthe content is really only the container for thehigher-level content which is the way of seeing.

The message that we get is that everything ismade up of parts which are independent andoutside of each other, and which therefore canbe connected by external relationships. But weare not aware of this because our attention isfocused on whatever happens to be the specificcontent, and not upon the way of seeing which itembodies. Thus the analytical way of seeing istransmitted through the agency of modernscience, especially through the emphasis onquantity, far beyond the domain in which it firstarose and for which it is appropriate. The wider,cultural function of modern science is in the waythat it has been instrumental in the cultivation ofan analytical mode of consciousness.

Now it is usually supposed that this is the onlykind of science which is possible, and hence thatany alternative to the analytical perspective canonly come from outside science. But another

possibility is that there could be a transformationof science itself, which would be thedevelopment of a different kind of science whichis not analytical. We have seen how Goetheshowed the way toward such a science, and thatthis is not an alternative, in the sense of seekingto replace analytical science, but a way of beingcomplementary to it. The point is that analyticalscience is really a one-sided development, and itis this one-sidedness which needs to beremoved. So the aim is not to replace onescience with another, but to overcome aonesided development that is historicallyfounded and not intrinsic to nature in the waythat it is imagined to be. This new kind ofscience, which is holistic instead of analytical, isthe science of the wholeness of nature. Such ascience clearly could perform the same culturalfunction as analytical science, which would mean

in this case being instrumental in the cultivationof a holistic mode of consciousness. No matterwhat the specific content may be, the higher-level content that this science carries will be theholistic way of seeing. Hence this way of seeingcould be transmitted culturally by the science ofthe wholeness of nature, as the analytical way ofseeing has been transmitted by the science ofquantity. This could be the cultural significanceof the way of science pioneered by Goethe.

Notes

Part I: Authentic and Counterfeit Wholes1. T. Leith and H. Upatnieks, “Photographyby Laser” Scientific American 212 (1965):24-35. Note that the process of fragmentationdescribed does not work with the kind ofhologram that can be seen when illuminatedwith ordinary light, instead of with a laser. So ifa holographic film gives an image with ordinaryillumination, cutting it in half will only result intwo different halves, as with an ordinaryphotographic film.2. David Bohm, Wholeness and theImplicate Order (London: Rout-ledge andKegan Paul, 1980), 149.3. C.W. Kilmister, The Environment inModern Physics (London: English University

Press, 1965), 36.4. Jayant Narlikar, The Structure of theUniverse (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1977), 250.5. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics(London: Wildwood House, 1975), 313.6. Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics(Evanston: Northwestern University Press,1969), chap. 7.7. PH. Bortoft, “A Non-reductionistPerspective for the Quantum Theory,”Department of Theoretical Physics, BirkbeckCollege, London University, 1982, chap. 5.8. The difficulty with talking about part andwhole is that a distinction is made which isextensive, and this leads to dualism. Thedifficulty disappears with the recognition thatthere can be an intensive distinction; seeBortoft, “Non-reductionist Perspective.”

9. See the notion of unfolding (explicatio) andenfolding (complicatio) in the work ofNicholas of Cusa, discussed in Karl Jaspers,The Great Philosophers, vol. 2 (London:Rupert Hart-Davis, 1966), 129; see also,Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order,chap. 7.10. The terminology of “presence” and“presencing” is adopted from Heidegger as anattempt to escape dualism. See G.J. Seidel,Martin Heidegger and the Pre-Socratics(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,1964), chap. 3.11. Martin Heidegger, Kant and the Problemof Metaphysics (Blooming-ton: IndianaUniversity Press, 1962), 206.12. Arthur J. Deikman, “BimodalConsciousness,” in The Nature of HumanConsciousness, ed. Robert E. Ornstein (San

Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1973).13. Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution(London: Macmillan, 1911), ix; see also, MilicCapek, Bergson and Modern Physics(Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Reidel, 1971),56, 69, 72-74.14. Immanuel Kant, Critique of PureReason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (London:Macmillan, 1964), 20.15. E.A. Burtt, The MetaphysicalFoundations of Modem Science (London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), 83.16. Michael Roberts and E.R. Thomas,Newton and the Origin of Colours (London:Bell, 1934), 60, 110.17. Idries Shah, The Sufis (New York:Doubleday, 1964), xvi.18. Aron Gurwitsch, “Galilean Physics in the

Light of Husserl's Phenomenology,” inPhenomenology and Sociology, ed. ThomasLuck-mann (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,1978); see also, Aron Gurwitsch,Phenomenology and the Theory of Science(Evanston: Northwestern University Press,1974), chap. 2.19. Ernst Lehrs, Man or Matter, 3d ed.,revised and enlarged (London: Rudolf SteinerPress, 1985), 314.20. H.B. Nisbet, Goethe and the ScientificTradition (University of London: Institute ofGermanic Studies, 1972), 39.21. Lehrs, 317.22. Nisbet, 36, n. 149.23. Agnes Arber, The Natural Philosophy ofPlant Form (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1959) 209 (italics in theoriginal).

24. Quoted in A.G.F. Gode von Aesch,Natural Science in German Romanticism(New York: Columbia University GermanStudies, 1941), 74.25. Nisbet, 54; Albert Einstein and LeopoldInfeld, The Evolution of Physics (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1947), 33.26. Lehrs, 94,109.27. The difference between these two kinds ofscientific thinking illustrates, and is illustratedby, the distinction which Heidegger makesbetween “belonging together” and“belonging together” (Martin Heidegger,Identity and Difference (New York: Harperand Row, 1969], 29). In the first case,“belonging” is determined by “together,” sothat “to belong” means to have a place in theorder of a “together”—i.e., in the unity of aframework. But in the case of “belonging

together,” “together” is determined by“belonging,” so that there is “the possibility ofno longer representing belonging in terms ofthe unity of the together, but rather ofexperiencing this together in terms ofbelonging” (ibid). Thus, we could say thatGoethe experienced the belonging together ofthe yellow sun and the blue sky, and that hedid not try to make them belong together.This experience of belonging together isreached by dwelling in the phenomenoninstead of replacing it with conceptualrepresentatives.28. Lehrs, 123.29. Ernst Cassirer, The Problem ofKnowledge (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1974), 146.30. Goethe followed the same approach instudying living things in nature. His insight into

the growing plant, which he expressed as “allis leaf,” is an instance of an encounter with thewholeness of the plant whereby he saw thewhole coming into presence in the parts.Goethe did not mean by this that the variousorgans of the flower—sepals, petals, stamens—grew out of the stem leaves in a materialsequence. His perception that all is leaf is aninstance of the intuitive perception whereby theuniversal is seen in the particular, so that theparticular appears as a living manifestation ofthe universal—and hence, in the moment ofseeing, is symbolic of the universal. See Lehrs,chap. 5. Goethe's essay The Metamorphosisof Plants appears in Douglas Miller, ed.,Goethe: Scientific Studies (New York:Suhrkamp, 1988).31. R.G. Stansfield, “The New Theology? TheCase of the Dripping Tap,” paper presented to

the British Association for the Advancement ofScience, September 1975.32. Gay Hendricks and James Fadiman,Transpersonal Education (Engle-woodCliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1976).33. Ibid.34. See David Seamon, “Goethe's Approachto the Natural World: Implications forEnvironmental Theory and Education,” inHumanistic Geography: Prospects andProblems, ed. D. Ley and M. Samuels(Chicago: Maaroufa, 1978), 238-250.35. Wolfgang Schad, Man and Mammals(New York: Waldorf Press, 1977); see also,Mark Riegner, “Horns, Hooves, Spots andStripes: Form and Pattern in Mammals,”Orion Nature Quarterly 4, no. 4 (1985).36. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (NewYork: Harper and Row, 1962), 58.

37. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth andMethod, 2d rev. ed. (London: Sheed andWard, 1989), 474.38. See Henri Bortoft, Goethe's ScientificConsciousness (Tunbridge Wells: Institute forCultural Research Monograph, 1986). Thismonograph is incorporated as part II of thisedition.

Part II: Goethe' Scientific Consciousness1. Rudolf Magnus, Goethe as a Scientist(New York: Collier Books, 1961), 22.2. English-speaking historians often refer tothis as the Whig interpretation of history, usinga particular instance to designate a generalhistorical outlook. See Hugh Kearney,Science and Change 1500-1700 (London:Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1971), 17-22.3. Rudolf Steiner, Goethe the Scientist (New

York: Anthroposophie Press, 1950), 15, 314. Ted Bastin, ed. Quantum Theory andBeyond (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1971), 321-34.5. Steiner, 1.6. Norwood Russell Hanson, Patterns ofDiscovery (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1958), 13.7. Ernst Lehrs, Man or Matter (3d ed., rev.and enlarged, London: Rudolf Steiner Press,1985), 131.8. Isaac Newton, “The Origin of Colours,” inMichael Roberts and E.R. Thomas, Newtonand the Origin of Colours (London: Bell,1934), 71-91.9. Isaac Newton, Opticks (New York:Dover, 1952), 124.10. For example, a science report in The

Times (London, December 4, 1984,16),begins: “In much the way that beams ofordinary light comprise a mixture of colors ofthe rainbow, ...”11. A much more detailed treatment is given inLehrs.12. The spectrum described by Newton, andrepeated in physics books, contains sevencolors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue,indigo, and violet. But most observers findthey can only distinguish six colors—indigo ismissing. Newton's choice of seven colors hasbeen traced to his interest in musical theoryand the Pythagorean division of the octave intoseven intervals. See I. Bernard Cohen, TheNewtonian Revolution (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1980), 205.13. Idries Shah, A Perfumed Scorpion(London: Octagon Press, 1978), 25.

14. Norwood Russell Hanson, Perceptionand Discovery (San Francisco: W. H.Freeman, 1969), 61.15. Designed by Jackie Bortoft.16. See note 6.17. Ludwig Wittgenstein, PhilosophicalInvestigations (Oxford: Black-well, 1968),169.18. The view that the proper objects ofperception are meanings has been presentedwith considerable clarity and cogency by thephilosopher of science Harold. I. Brown, inPerception, Theory and Commitment(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977),chap. 6.19. Merleau-Ponty, for example, considers thecase of someone whose perception isabnormal, because of an injury, as a means ofunderstanding normal perception. This is

discussed in detail in M. Merleau-Ponty,Phenomenology of Perception (London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962). Becausethe proper objects of perception are meanings,Merleau-Ponty is led to say: “Because we arein the world, we are condemned to meaning”(xix), which expresses dramatically in thelanguage of existentialism what has now beensaid more soberly in the philosophy of science.Other cases are provided by the experience ofpersons who, having been blind from birthbecause of cataracts, eventually receive theirsight as a result of an operation. Theirexperiences are described in M. von Senden,Space and Sight (London: 1960). Aparticularly clear discussion of the state ofpurely sensory experience is given by RudolfSteiner in A Theory of Knowledge Based onGoethe's World Conception (New York:

Anthroposophie Press, 1968), chap. 5.20. A fairly straightforward account ofHusserl's phenomenology is given in DavidStuart and Aigis Mickunas, ExploringPhenomenology (Chicago: American LibraryAssociation, 1974), chaps. 1 and 2. See alsothe introductory essay by Peter Koestenbaumin Edmund Husserl, The Paris Lectures (TheHague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975).21. The notion of intentionality was introducedby Husserl's teacher, Franz Brentano, whoincorporated it into modern philosophy fromthe pre-Cartesian philosophy of the MiddleAges.22. Galileo described his observations inSiderius Nuncius (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1989). See also the discussionin Cohen, section 4.7.23. The priority of meaning in scientific

discovery is shown clearly by BernardCohen's discovery that the celebratedNewtonian synthesis was not a synthesis ofelements which already existed beforehand.They did not fly together like fragments in areversed explosion, in the way that Koestlermaintained in The Sleepwalkers(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1964,517), because the elements were transformedin their meaning in the so-called synthesis.Newton's discovery is a whole way of seeing,and as such it influenced all the elements whichit incorporated. An original perception ofmeaning transforms the meaning of theindividual elements which it uses, so that theyreflect the new meaning. Cohen hasresearched this transformation of ideas in detailin The Newtonian Revolution.

Recognition of the priority of meaning in

scientific discovery was made earlier by PaulFeyerabend in his essay “Explanation,Reduction and Empiricism,” which is nowrepublished in Paul K. Feyerabend, Realism,Rationalism and Scientific Method(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1981). He realized that meaning is not aninvariant in scientific knowledge and that thereare no “established facts” because a fact can bealtered by a change of meaning. The facts ofscience are inherently mutable. This is notbecause there are more yet to be discovered,but because the facts which have beendiscovered already can change in themselves.This is illustrated beautifully by Galileo'sdiscovery that a body is indifferent to its state ofmotion. He did not discover this empirically, asif it were a fact which hitherto had beenoverlooked. The discovery was a change of the

meaning in the facts of motion, whichtransformed these facts themselves so that theybecame coherent with a Copernican universeinstead of with an Aristotelian one. To take acinemato-graphical analogy, we can changewhat is on the screen by changing the film in theprojector, but somebody who was unfamiliarwith the cinema—an “empiricist”—might thinkthat the change had happened on the screen.Galileo's cognitive procedure is also discussedby Paul Feyerabend in Against Method(London: Verso, 1978) in a way whichillustrates the priority of meaning in scientificknowledge—although Feyerabend uses thisvaluable study to support his own colorfulinterpretation of science in terms of ananarchistic epistemology.Thomas Kuhns seminal essay The Structure ofScientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 2d ed., 1970) can also be seenretrospectively as disclosing the priority ofmeaning in science. See, for example, hisdiscussion in chap. 6 of the difference betweenPriestley and Lavoisier over the discovery ofoxygen. Here again is a study which shows thatthere are no “established facts” in the way theempiricist imagines and that what the facts aredepends on the perception of meaning.In view of these developments in thecontemporary philosophy of science, it nowseems somewhat strange that the priority ofmeaning in scientific discovery was notrecognized explicity for so long. It seems as ifthe meaning of “meaning” was not recognized.This could simply be because philosophers ofscience have traditionally worked in a differentphilosophical paradigm from one in which“meaning” was recognized as a primary element

of experience.24. Phenomenalism is described in R. Harré,The Philosophies of Science (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1972). Positivism, inall its various forms, is discussed in LeszekK o la k o ws k i, Positivist Philosophy(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972).25. The impact of positivism on scienceeducation is clearly reflected in the textbooks.A typical example is provided by a well-known textbook in physics: Gerald Holton andDuane H.D. Roller, Foundations of ModernPhysical Science (Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley, 1958), especially chap. 13.26. Martin Heidegger, Identity andDifference (New York: Harper and Row,1969), 29.27. Robert E. Ornstein, The Psychology ofConsciousness (New York: Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich, 1977).28. Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution(London: Macmillan, 1911), 169.29. For example in Benjamin Lee Whorf,Language, Thought, and Reality(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1964). Alsoin David Bohm, Wholeness and the ImplicateOrder (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,1980), chap. 2.30. It is because of this transparency oflanguage that we think the function of languageis representational—to represent what isalready present—whereas the primary functionof language is to disclose. Language, in thisfundamental sense, is the event of theappearance of what becomes present—“appearance” is used here in the verbalsense of “coming forth into view.” Thisdisclosive function of language is encapsulated

in the well-known question: “How do I knowwhat I think until I see what I say?” Thecommonsense view of language misses this,and imagines instead that language is simply atool which is applied to what we already know(i.e., in advance of language) for the purposeof communication. The difference between therepresentational and the disclosive functions oflanguage is fundamental to the modernphilosophy of language, especially as it hasbeen developed by Hans-Georg Gadamer outof the work of Martin Heidegger. A lucidgeneral introduction is given in Richard E.P a l m e r , Hermeneutics (Evanston:Northwestern University Press, 1969). Theway in which language itself disappears in itsliving operation is discussed in Hans-GeorgGa d a me r, Philosophical Hermeneutics(Berkeley: University of California Press,

1976), 64 ff. It should be noted that Whorf'saccount, referred to in note 29, is in one waytoo analytical itself. He refers, for example, todissecting nature, cutting it up, and organizing italong lines laid down by our native language(213). This presupposes that the primaryfunction of language is instrumental, i.e., thatlanguage is imposed externally on a preexistingworld. Although this is an advance on thenaïveté of common sense, which reduceslanguage to a triviality, it nevertheless leads toa form of subjectivism which is ultimately acul-de-sac. It is this cul-de-sac which themodern philosophy of language aims to avoid.31. See Bohm, in note 29. See also, DavidBohm, Quantum Theory (Engle-wood Cliffs,N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1951), chap. 8. Theproblem of wholeness in quantum physics isalso considered in connection with the

structure of language in PH. Bortoft, “A Non-reductionist Perspective for the QuantumTheory” Birkbeck College, LondonUniversity, 1982.32. Robert E. Ornstein, The Mind Field(London: Octagon Press, 1983), chaps. 2 and3.33. The discovery was made early on inGreek philosophy that motion and changeappear as something paradoxical when theattempt is made to understand the worldthrough the rational mind. Although they werenot originally intended for the purpose, Zeno'sfamous paradoxes of motion can be taken asindicating the kind of self-contradiction we getinto if we try to grasp motion by rationalthought, i.e., with the analytical approach ofthe intellectual mind. In the paradox of theflying arrow, for example, it seems that the

arrow must be stationary at any instant of itsflight, because at any instant it must be at adefinite location, and hence the moving arrowcannot be moving because it is everywhereinstantaneously at rest. Thus the attempt toanalyze motion has the effect of stoppingmotion and reconstituting it in the mind as asuccession of states of rest. The inherentabsurdity of this procedure, whereby motion isproduced out of rest, as if it were some kindof optical illusion, has been discussed very fullyin more recent philosophy by Henri Bergson inCreative Evolution and other works. Herecognized that this reflected an intrinsiclimitation of the rational mind itself, and heconsidered the possibility of a transformationof the mind into an intuitive mode whereby thereality of change itself can be experienceddirectly. What this amounts to is a

transformation in the mode of consciousness,It will be mentioned subsequently that,whereas the analytical mode is the mode ofconsciousness for the intellectual mind, themode of consciousness corresponding to theintuitive mind is the holistic mode. The peculiardifficulty which motion and change present tothe understanding was considered verythoroughly in antiquity by Aristotle. Thefoundation of his physics was the reality ofchange as a mode of being. Etienne Gilsonsaid that “no one has ever better discerned themystery that the very familiarity of movementhides from our eyes” (The Spirit ofMediaeval Philosophy (London: Sheed andWard, 1950], 66). But Aristotle's philosophyof change often seems to be enigmatic. Hisstatement that “change is the actuality of thepotential qua such” (Physics, book III) seems

particularly obscure. It is usually possible toperform an intellectual sleight of hand onAristotle's philosophy of change and present itas being either platitudinous or just goodcommon sense. But these intellectualreductions miss the point. For example, thestatement above is not a definition of change,as is often supposed, but the expression of aninsight into the reality of change as a way ofbeing. The intellectual mind itself cannot graspthis because of the analytical mode ofconsciousness. It may be the case thatAristotle's philosophy of change can only beappreciated adequately in the holistic mode ofconsciousness, when it will be seen that, farfrom being just good common sense, Aristotleis trying to indicate something extraordinary. Inother words, the so-called obscurity inAristotle's philosophy of change may be a

consequence of the mode of consciousness inwhich we try to understand it, in which casethe difficulty could be removed by extendingour experience instead of relying on verbalarguments.

It is also worth noticing that the perception ofmotion and change in the holistic mode ofconsciousness leads to a new understanding ofcausality. In the state of dynamic simultaneity,cause and effect are simultaneous. But in theanalytical mode of consciousness, cause andeffect are considered sequentially in a linearway: the cause precedes its effect, as the effectfollows the cause. This will be discussed furtherin “The Necessary Connection,” where DavidHume's investigation of causality in terms ofjuxtaposition and succession will be examined inthe light of the difference between analytical andholistic modes of consciousness. For the

moment we will simply note that what Goethesaid about causality fits in very well withdynamic simultaneity and the holistic mode ofconsciousness: “Who strives after cause andeffect makes a great mistake. They are togetherthe indivisible phenomenon.”34. Arthur J. Deikman, “BimodalConsciousness” and “Deautomatization andthe Mystic Experience” in The Nature ofHuman Consciousness, ed. Robert E.Ornstein (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman,1973).35. Ibid., 76.36. Ornstein, The Mind Field, 52 ff.37. Ornstein, The Psychology ofConsciousness, 184.38. Ornstein, The Mind Field, 24.39. Ibid., 26.

40. It is interesting in this connection thatGoethe described himself as a Naturschauer(nature looker) instead of the more usualNaturforscher (nature investigator).41. Niels Bohr, Atomic Theory and theDescription of Nature (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1961).42. Albert Einstein and Leopold Infield, TheEvolution of Physics (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1947), 33.43. Hanson, Patterns of Discovery, chap. 1.44. See R.G. Collingwood, The Idea ofNature (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1960), 126.45. This will be discussed further in “TheScientist's Knowledge.”46. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (NewYork: Harper and Row, 1962), 51, 58.

47. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth andMethod, 2d rev. ed. (London: Sheed andWard, 1989), 474.48. A.G.F. Gode von Aesch, NaturalScience in German Romanticism (NewYork: Columbia University German Studies,1941), 74.49. Rudolf Steiner, The Philosophy ofFreedom (London: Rudolf Steiner Press,1964), especially chap. 7. Philosophically, thisleads to a non-reductionist monism in whichmany of the traditional problems associatedwith the philosophy of knowledge simply donot arise. It is interesting that modern physicshas made a significant step towards thisviewpoint, but it has not yet gone as far asSteiner. Thus, in the quantum theory, NielsBohr proposed the new fundamental principlethat the physical system being investigated by

an experiment could not be separated from theapparatus being used to investigate it. Heproposed that, because of the indivisibility ofthe quantum, the system and the apparatusconstitute an indivisible whole and must beconsidered as such. David Bohm suggestedthat this should be extended to include thetheory as well, since the apparatus in questionis a concrete expression of the theory. Weshall see in “The Necessary Connection” and“The Scientist's Knowledge” how Bohr'sprinciple needs to be extended further still toinclude the state of consciousness of theknowing observer, so that it now becomes thewholeness of the content of cognition and thecondition of consciousness for that cognition.Each of these steps represents a movementaway from the subject—object dualism, whichselects only a portion of the whole for attention

and imagines that the other portion is merely aspectator. This movement towards a morecomprehensive viewpoint was taken furtherstill by Steiner. He considered that the humanbeing is part of the total situation by virtue ofhis or her organization as a human being. Farfrom being merely a spectator who looks on,the human being is now understood to be anintegral factor within the process of cognition,which is seen to be a nonsubjective expressionof the process of actualization of the universeat a higher stage than the material level. Thiswill be discussed briefly in connection withGoethe in “The Scientist's Knowledge.”50. Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland (New York:Dover, 1952).51. J.W. von Goethe, “The Metamorphosis ofPlants,” in Goethe: Scientific Studies, ed.Douglas Miller (New York: Suhrkamp, 1988).

52. Ibid.53. Ernst Cassirer, The Problem ofKnowledge (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1974), 145.54. Magnus, Goethe as a Scientist, 45.55. Henri Bortoft, “Counterfeit and AuthenticWholes” in Dwelling, Place andEnvironment: Essays Toward aPhenomenology of Person and World, eds.,David Seamon and Robert Mugerauer, (TheHague: Mar-tinus Nijhoff, 1986). (This essay,retitled “Authentic and Counterfeit Wholes,”constitutes part I of this edition.)56. The diagram is taken from GerbertGrohmann, The Plant, vol. 1 (Kimberton, Pa.:Bio-Dynamic Literature, 1989), 43.57. For an account of how metamorphosis canbe described in terms of Bohm's distinctionbetween implicate and explicate orders, see P.

H. Bortoft (note 31).58. The role of imagination in this context isreferred to in Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Scienceand Civilization in Islam (Cambridge,Mass.:Harvard University Press, 1968), 257. Seealso Lehrs for a discussion of the faculty ofimagination as an organ or perception. Seealso Elémire Zolla, The Uses of Imaginationand the Decline of the West (Ipswich:Golgonooza Press, 1978), 29. Goethedescribed his experience of dynamicimagination in the case of the unfolding flowersin his review of Purkinjes Sight from aSubjective Standpoint (1824); see DouglasMiller, ed., Goethe: Scientific Studies (NewYork: Suhrkamp, 1988), xix.

We can also understand this dynamic vision interms of the hologram metaphor. It is possible toform several different images on one and the

same hologram without them becomingconfused—as would happen with a photographif it had been multiply exposed. If each exposureis taken at a slightly different angle, then if thehead is moved slightly, when the hologram islooked at, a series of images unfold, one afterthe other, in such a way that it seems as if eachone turns into the next one. The similarity withGoethe's imaginal experience as described hereis very striking. But, of course, we must notoverlook the equally important difference that, inthe case of the hologram, we can see only asmany images unfold as were stored initially.Stanislav Grof has used the hologram as ametaphor or model for some aspects ofvisionary experiences. Although he does notmention Goethe in this connection, referring tothe multiple images which can be stored on oneand the same hologram, and then retrieved

sequentially, he says, “This illustrates anotheraspect of visionary experiences, namely, thatcountless images tend to unfold in a rapidsequence from the same area of the experientialfield, appearing and disappearing, as if bymagic.” See Stanislav Grof, Beyond the Brain(Albany, New York: State University of NewYork Press, 1985), 79.Understanding Goethe's organic vision“holographically” helps us to recognize afundamental feature of the organic which will bediscussed in some detail below and again in partIII. Each different image in the hologram is thewhole hologram, and not part of it in theextensive sense. The dimension of wholenesscan contain many within it in such a way thateach one is the whole, but differently. This is anintensive dimension. It is the same with Goethe'svision of unfolding plants. Each plant which he

saw in his imagination should be understood asbeing the very same plant, but differently, andnot “another plant” in the familiar extensivesense. Holographically, difference is includedwithin unity, without the unity thereby beingbroken—this will be referred to below as“multiplicity in unity” and the “the intensivedimension of One.” This extraordinary feature ofwholeness, that it allows something to bedifferent from itself (self-difference instead ofself-sameness), is a necessary condition forsomething to be “living.” It opens the door to anextraordinarily rich vision which transforms ourunderstanding of “the one and the many” in afundamental way.59. Agnes Arber, The Natural Philosophy ofPlant Form (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1959), 209. Arber is quotingWilhelm Troll, Professor of Botany at the

University of Mainz, who developed a newplant typology working from Goetheanfoundations earlier this century. A picture ofTurpin's ideal plant is given in JochenBockemühl, In Partnership with Nature(Wyoming: Bio-Dynamic Literature, 1981), 4.60. The dictionary gives the meaning of“intensive” in terms of intensity, but themeaning in mathematics (which comes frommedieval philosophy) is not the same as this. Itcan be illustrated most easily by way ofexamples. In logic, for example, “the king isdead” and “le roi est mort” are two differentstatements but a single proposition. Theproposition is the intension of the statements,and the statements are the extensions of theproposition. The mathematical notion of a setis closely related to this. For example, a set oftables is defined by the concept “table.” The

extension of the set is the tables, and theintension is the meaning “table.” It has beenrecognized in modern philosophy andmathematics, as it was in medieval philosophy,that the intension cannot be reduced to theextension. See Ernst Cassirer, Substance andFunction (New York: Dover, 1953), chap. 1.61. The difference between “unity inmultiplicity” and “multiplicity in unity” can beapproached in a more mathematical manner.Clearly, One is not a number in the quantitativesense because it includes many, whereas oneis such a number and therefore it must excludemany. The arithmetic of quantity is thearithmetic of one. It is the calculus of theextensive dimension of unity in multiplicity. Isthere an arithmetic of One, which wouldtherefore be the calculus of the intensivedimension of multiplicity in unity? At first sight

it seems that this question is based on acontradiction. We identify arithmetic with thequantitative calculus of numbers. This is whatwe mean by arithmetic. So it would appearthat it is impossible to have a nonnumericalarithmetic. Nevertheless, such an arithmeticwas discovered by Spencer Brown in the1960s, in the context of an investigation intothe design of switching circuits in electronicengineering. It has been described in his bookLaws of Form (London: Allen and Unwin,1969), where he provides an interpretation ofthe basic operation in this arithmetic in terms ofthe act of making a distinction. Thus, thenonnumerical arithmetic which Spencer Browndiscovered is seen by him as the calculus ofdistinction, analogously to the way thatordinary arithmetic is the calculus of number. Itcalculates with the form of distinction instead

of with the form of quantity. Since the act ofdistinguishing is prior to counting, the calculusof distinction is a prenumerical arithmetic.

The kind of distinction which Spencer Brownconsiders is the extensive distinction wherebyone region is distinguished from another, oneobject from another, and so on. It has beenshown by the writer that Spencer Brown'snonnumerical arithmetic can also be interpretedas the calculus of the intensive distinction ofmultiplicity in unity. See P.H. Bortoft, chap. 5.Thus it becomes the nonnumerical arithmetic ofthe intensive dimension of One. It is thereforethe arithmetic of wholeness. It can also be seenas the arithmetic of the quality of One instead ofthe quantity of one.There are two primitive “equations” of thisarithmetic:

The right-hand side of the second equation isblank intentionally— zero is counted as anumber in mathematics, and therefore cannotappear as an element in a nonnumericalarithmetic. When it is interpreted in terms of theintensive form of distinction, the first equation isthe arithmetic of the whole which can be dividedand yet remain whole. Thus, for example, whena hologram is divided there are two pieces offilm numerically, but One hologramnonnumerically. So the arithmetic of hologramdivision is:

This is also the arithmetic of plant division whenplants are propagated by vegetativereproduction. For example, if a fuchsia plant isdivided into many pieces, they will all grow untilthey flower, unless they are impaired by othercircumstances. But each of these new plants are“parts” of the first plant. They are really oneplant which has been divided and divided, andyet which remains whole even when the “parts”have become independent. The plant is One andmany at the same time—like the fragments of ahologram. We do not recognize the One plant inthis case because it is in the form of many. Theanalytical mode of consciousness is tunedtowards seeing many ones, and not to seeingOne in the form of many. It requires atransformation of consciousness to the holisticmode to be able to see the One that is the many—we could say that it is “hidden” in the many,

hidden by our customary mode ofconsciousness. Similarly, this equation is also thearithmetic of the growth of the individual plant—vegetative reproduction is only a special case ofgrowth, i.e., growth accompanied by separation.This enables us to see the growing plantorganically as a hologram in time, with the wholeemerging within the whole instead of unit addingto unit as if the plant were like a pile of bricks orthe accretion of a crystal. By actively looking atplants, plunging into the plant visually, followedby exact sensorial imagination, it is possible tolearn to see the plant world in this way. Thisdevelops an organ of perception which is tunedtowards the organic, and does not represent itconceptually in terms of the logic of solidbodies. Goethe said that “every process innature, rightly observed, wakens in us a neworgan of perception.”

The second equation is the arithmetic of therelationship between the whole and the part.This relation can be expressed approximately bysaying that the whole is “within” the part. Thiscan be seen in the hologram, as well as in therelation between the archetypal organ and theorgans of the plant, and between the archetypalplant and the different members of the plantkingdom. But the whole cannot be within thepart extensively, because then either there wouldonly be a single part or else the whole would bedivided into pieces. This also means that therelationship between whole and parts cannot benumerical. The whole is within the partintensively. There is an intensive distinctionbetween the whole and the part, but without anyextensive difference between them. Thenonnumerical arithmetic of this distinction is:

where the blank space represents the fact thatthere is no difference between the whole and thepart in the intensive dimension of One. Thisrelationship between the whole and the part isinside-out to how it appears in the extensiveperspective—where we would say that the partis within the whole. The phenomenon ofvegetative reproduction from cuttings can alsobe seen in the light of this intensive relationshipbetween whole and part. Goethe recognizedthat this shows not only that the plant can bedivided and yet remain whole but also that thewhole plant is potentially present in each part ofits organism. He was particularly impressedwhen he saw a proliferated rose, i.e., a rosefrom the center of which an entirely new plant

had grown in place of the seed pod and organsof fertilization. He recognized in thisphenomenon a vivid expression of the way thatin the organic world the whole is within the part.These two equations of the nonnumericalarithmetic of wholeness are really two differentaspects of the same thing, and they cantherefore be combined. Thus, the nonnumericalarithmetic of the process of dividing a hologram,or growing a plant from a cutting of itself, isgiven by combining:

This is the arithmetic of the process in theintensive dimension of One, instead of in the

extensive dimension of many ones. In thisprenumerical dimension the whole is within eachpart because the whole can be divided and yetremain whole.It helps if these equations are themselves lookedat in an intensive perspective, as if there is onlyone in each equation because each isthe very same . This is a suggestive notationwhich can function as a symbolism, i.e., as amirror in which the idea can be seen—althoughthe “idea” here is not an image but a way ofseeing. Although Spencer Brown gives a nameto the sign , there is no need to do so, and itcan be approached in a purely visual way. Suchan approach in itself helps to stimulate thetransition to a holistic mode of consciousness. Itis interesting that sometimes people become

uneasy and annoyed if asked to do this. Theydemand to be told what it is called, so that theycan read it verbally, and they show signs of reliefif they are told. Since the analytical mode ofconsciousness is associated strongly with verbalbehavior, this could be an indication that theanalytical mode is being inhibited by this simpledevice.62. Plato called a Form “one over many” andmaintained that such a Form was more realthan the many particulars in which it isreflected. It has often been supposed thatPlato made the mistake of hypostatizing amental abstraction and then separating it fromthe things from which it had been abstracted.For example, according to this view, the Formwhich is Beauty is the result of abstractingwhat is common to many particular instancesof beauty, and then imagining that Beauty itself

is somehow supposed to exist apart fromthese instances. In other words, it seems as ifPlato had made the mistake of duplicating theworld unnecessarily—the resulting dualism isoften called the two-world theory. However,careful reading of Plato soon makes it clearthat this confusion exists in the minds of thosewho attribute it to Plato, and not in that ofPlato himself. Nevertheless, there does remainthe problem of how the Forms are to beunderstood. In various places Plato brings outmany of the difficulties himself. It may be thatin so doing his aim was to show that the Formscannot be understood by means of a way ofthinking that is ultimately based on ourexperience in the world of bodies, i.e., on thelogic of solid bodies. In other words, there isan ironic intention in Plato's “self-criticism.”The major difficulty is with understanding how

something can be simultaneously one andmany. It is this difficulty which arises throughimagining the Form in an extensiveperspective, and which disappears in theperspective of multiplicity in unity which is theintensive dimension of One. Similarly, it is theextensive perspective which is the source ofthe two-world theory which separates theForm from the particulars, and appears simplyto duplicate the familiar world. It seemsevident that Plato cannot be understood byverbal reasoning alone, because of theanalytical mode of consiousness that isassociated with the discursive intellectual mind.63. See Owen Barfield, Saving theAppearances (New York: Harcourt, Braceand World, 1965), for an investigation into theattitude of empiricism as a form of idolatory .64. Lehrs, 125. Also H.B. Nisbet, Goethe

and the Scientific Tradition (University ofLondon: Institute of Germanic Studies, 1972),39.65. In an essay written towards the end of hislife, Goethe said that he had achieved inpractice the power of intuitive reason whichKant had declared to be beyond the scope ofthe human mind. Kant believed that, althoughintuitive knowledge was possible in principle, itwas not possible in practice for human beings,who were restricted to the power of discursiveintellectual reason. See Lehrs, 73-76.66. Erich Heller, The Disinherited Mind(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1961), 12.67. Arber, 209.68. See note 40.69. Rudolf Steiner, Riddles of Philosophy(New York: Anthroposophie Press, 1973),183.

70. See “Knowing the World”; also Harold I.Brown, chap. 6.71. Wolfgang Schad, Man and Mammals:Toward a Biology of Form (New York:Waldorf Press, 1977).72. Schad s book abounds with suchdiagrams, which help to make it readablewithout getting lost in all the details that have tobe taken into account.73. Ibid., chap. 11.74. Ibid., 30.75. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 474. Therecognition that the objects of cognitiveperception are meanings and not sense datashows us that “the world” is not an object, orset of objects, but a text. Cognitive perceptionis not simply sense perception, in whichmaterial objects are encountered through “thewindows of the senses.” It is literally, and not

metaphorically, reading the text of the world.Brown (88) compares the perception ofmeaning in observation with the more familiarcase of the perception of meaning in reading atext. In the cognitive perception of, say, theobjects in a room, the aspect of the objectswhich we encounter through the senses isequivalent to the material script of a textwithout the meaning. For sense perceptionalone, the material objects would be just likethe meaningless squiggles of a script which wehad not learned to read. Cognitive perceptionis the equivalent of reading the text directly, inwhich there is the immediate perception ofmeaning without focusing on the script itself.

The reader can use his or her own experience ofreading to explore this. It is also a usefulexercise to read a text in English and then tolook immediately at a text written in a script with

which one is unfamiliar—say Arabic or Chinese.This makes the point quite clearly. Thenonfamiliar script is an approximation to whatour experience of the world would be likewithout the perception of meaning—what werecognize as the various objects in the worldwould be just like the elements of this script.The error of empiricism is now particularly clear:what it takes to be material objects are really atext, and what it believes to be sense perceptionis really an experience of reading.This discovery that the world we perceive is notan object, but a text which we read, can beapplied to scientific cognition in a way whichmakes the hermeneutic nature of Goethe's wayof science particularly clear. Scientific cognitionis one level up from everyday perception, in thesense that the individual meanings of objects atthe everyday level now themselves become like

a script which we cannot read at first. Thus, inthe case of the mammals, we recognizeindividual mammal types, and thus perceivemeaning on this level, but we do not at firstperceive the overall organization of the differentmammals. This organization, which is revealedthrough the discovery of relationships of form, isthe perception of meaning at the level ofscientific cognition. The relationships of formwhich Schad discovers are the meanings forwhich the observed mammals are the script.Before these relationships are perceived, we arein the position of a person who is in front of ascript which is totally unfamiliar. The temptationis to sidestep the contemplation of thephenomena at this point, and instead rely on theverbal-intellectual mind. The result of doing so isthat we read meanings into the phenomena byour own intellectual activity, instead of learning

to read the phenomena directly. Thephenomenologist of nature really is thehermeneutic phenomenologist, and Goethe'sway of science is therefore quite properlydescribed as the hermeneutics of nature. Goethemeant it literally when he said that nature is atext which he was learning to read.76. This is precisely what happened to DavidHume in his attempt to understand therelationship of causality. Hume's philosophywill be discussed further below.77. Schad, 118.78. Ibid., 11. If “life exists only as a continuingpresent,” it clearly cannot be described in theframework of analytical time, i.e., thesequential instantaneous snapshot idea of timewhich belongs to the analytical mode ofconsciousness. The kind of temporality whichis characteristic of life itself, i.e., a continuing

present, is hinted at in the perception ofchange and motion in the holistic mode ofconsciousness. Compare also Goethe scomment on causality (note 33) with theassertion here that “in life, causes and effectstake place simultaneously and complement oneanother.”79. Ibid., 153.80. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968). Thesentence appears only in the first edition.Darwin dropped it in the subsequent editions.81. David Hume, A Treatise on HumanNature, book 1 (Glasgow: Fontana/ Collins,1962).82. Ibid., 331.83. Cf. the story of Mulla Nasrudin and thedonkeys, which encapsulates the problem heresuccinctly, in Idries Shah, The Sufis (New

York: Doubleday, 1964), 59.84. Roger Bacon distinguished these two waysin the thirteenth century. Idries Shah points outthat the way of experience became interpretednarrowly in the sense of experiment, and this“has prevented the scientific researcher fromapproaching knowledge by means of itself”(ibid; xxvi).85. Aristotle is usually thought of as an arch-rationalist who proceeded by deductivereasoning from first principles. In fact, he wasa master observer of nature. He was anexperientialist but not an empiricist, because hedid not limit experience to the senses. On theother hand, he was not an analytical rationalistwho limited the mind to logical thought anddenied it the possibility of experience throughperceptive insight. His scientific work involveddetailed sensory observation and insight into

what is not visible to the senses as such bywhat he called intuitive induction. It has nowbeen suggested that the ideal of deductivereasoning, with which Aristotle has beenidentified, may have been meant to apply tothe way in which scientific knowledge shouldbe presented and taught, and not to how suchknowledge is discovered in the first place. SeeBarnes, Schofield and Sarabji, eds., Articleson Aristotle, Vol. 1: Science (London:Duckworth, 1975), 77. Because Goetheworked by observation and intuition, it maywell be that his way of science can provide thekind of experience which is needed tounderstand this philosopher, who has usuallybeen interpreted exclusively in terms of theanalytical mode of consciousness, which isassociated with the logical mind.86. Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity

(Oxford: Blackwell, 1980). See also JohnCottingham, Rationalism (London: Granada,1984), 115-20, for a simplified account. Sincethe time of Leibniz, philosophers havedistinguished between “truths of reason” and“truths of fact.” The former are necessarily truebecause they do not depend on anythingoutside their own meaning. For example, it isimpossible for the proposition “all triangles arethree-sided” to be wrong, and we can knowthis with certainty without ever needing to referto anything beyond our own minds. But thiskind of proposition does not tell us anythingabout the world. The proposition “it is raining,”on the other hand, does tell us somethingabout the world. But such a proposition canbe false, and therefore, if true, it is onlycontingently true and not true of necessity. Thisdivision became a dogma of modern

empiricism. Kripke's suggestion, that there canbe propositions which are about the world andyet necessarily true, needs to be seen againstthis background to be appreciated. This is notthe only way in which the traditional divisioninto truths of reason and truths of fact has beencalled into question. For reasons which aredifferent from Kripkes, the contemporaryphilosophy of science also rejects this dogma.See Brown, chap. 7, especially 105.87. See G. Webster and B.C. Goodwin, “TheOrigin of Species: A Structuralist Approach,”J. Social. Biol. Struct. 5 (1982), 29.88. Darwin, 90.89. Webster and Goodwin, 16.90. Cassirer, The Problem of Knowledge,167.91. Webster and Goodwin, 42. This theme isdeveloped further in Brian Goodwin, How the

Leopard Changed Its Spots (London:Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1994). Goodwinrecognizes the contribution which Goethemade toward what he calls “organocentric”biology, and draws attention to the way thatGoethes understanding of organisms asdynamic forms in transformation is inagreement with new approaches being taken inbiology today (122-23).92. Descartes, “Discourse on Method” andthe “Meditations” (Harmondsworth: PenguinBooks, 1968).93. Ibid., 107, for example. In letters tovarious correspondents, Descartes showedjust how widely he intended “thinking” and“thought” to be taken. Although at thebeginning of the Meditations he is clearlyconcerned with the act of thinking, he soonincludes many other functions under the

heading of thought, which we would notusually describe in this way. Even a toothachebecomes a thought for Descartes, from whichit is evident that he eventually came to mean by“thought” nothing more than subjectiveexperience.94. See Antony Flew, An Introduction toWestern Philosophy (London: Thames andHudson, 1971), 300.95. See Gadamer, PhilosophicalHermeneutics, 119.96. See Roger Scruton, A Short History ofModern Philosophy (London: Routledge andKegan Paul, 1984), 132. Hume was not ableto recognize the significance of his achievementat the time; consequently he was only able toexperience it in its negative aspect.97. Owen Barfield, Romanticism Comes ofAge (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1966),

36.98. According to Aquinas, the speciesintelligibilis is the mode of being of theperceived object in the observer, so that whenthis is created by the intellectus agens theobject is, in a sense, within us and we are theobject. See E.J. Dijksterhuis, TheMechanization of the World Picture(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969),148; see also Barfield, Saving theAppearances, chap. 13.99. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 416. Thequotation as given here is from the secondedition (1979). The edition which is referred tothroughout this work is usually the second,revised edition (1989). The wording differsslightly in this edition (456).100. Steiner, Goethe the Scientist, 179.Now we can reverse the direction of influence

here and use Goethe's way of science toprovide the experience which is needed tounderstand the philosophy of Schelling.101. Historians of science now recognize thatNaturphilosophie influenced the developmentof mainstream physics in a number of ways.For example, the idea of a single unifying forcefor all natural phenomena, which hasinfluenced physics in a profound way, camefrom Naturphilosophie initially. The discoveryof the conservation of energy inthermodynamics, and the discovery ofelectromagnetism, were both influenceddirectly by this philosophical guiding idea. SeeThomas S. Kuhn, “Energy Conservation as anExample of Simultaneous Discovery,” in TheEssential Tension (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1977), 97-100. See also L.Pearce Williams, The Origins of Field

Theory (New York: Random House, 1966).The influence of Naturphilosophie on thegrowth of biology (in the areas of embryology,evolution, and the cell theory) is described inStephen F. Mason, A History of Science(New York: Collier Books, 1962). The role ofsuch a priori guiding ideas in scientificdiscovery is discussed widely in the literatureof the history and philosophy of science. Seeparticularly Kurt Hübner, Critique ofScientific Reason (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1983).102. Nature 1, no. 1 (Nov. 4, 1869): 10.103. See Jeremy Naydler, “The Regenerationof Realism and the Recovery of a Science ofQualities,” International PhilosophicalQuarterly 23 (1983): 155-72.

Part III: Understanding Goethe' Way of

Science1. In Goethe s day, this movement ofunderstanding was part of the cultural conceptof Bildung. This is the specifically human wayof coming into one s own by finding oneself inwhat is experienced, at first, as other thanoneself. In seeking to understand somethingwhich is alien to us, we become more fullyourselves in the process. See Hans-GeorgGadamer, Truth and Method, 2d rev. ed.(London: Sheed and Ward, 1989), pt 1,section l.l.B.(i), for an account of the dynamicso f Bildung, See also Joel C. Weinsheimer,Gadamer s Hermeneutics (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1985), 67-72.2. Ernst Lehrs, Man or Matter, 3d ed., rev.and enlarged (London: Rudolf Steiner Press,1985), 100.3. Rudolf Steiner, Goethe the Scientist (New

York: Anthroposophie Press, 1950), 48.4. We could say that the whole world ismultiperspectival, where each perspective iswholly the world, as each perspective of theduck/rabbit figure is wholly the figure, and notonly part of it. Yet, just as any one perspectivedoes not exhaust the figure, so no one mode ofdisclosure exhausts the world. This will bediscussed in several places below in somedetail.5. Dennis L. Sepper, Goethe Contra Newton(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1988), 94. Sepper has done a thoroughinvestigation of Goethe's recognition of the roleo f Vorstellungsarten in the constitution ofscientific knowledge, and the way that hisunderstanding of this changed. Sepper saysthat “the evolution of Goethe's understandingof the Vorstellungsarten apparently has

escaped notice” (96).6. The emergence of historical consciousnessin the philosophy of science can be datedconveniently from the publication of ThomasS. Kuhn's The Structure of ScientificRevolutions, 2d ed., enlarged, (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1970). Athoroughly historicist philosophy of science hasbeen given in Kurt Hübner, Critique ofScientific Reason (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1983).7. Kuhn realized that the discovery of thehistoricity of scientific knowledge wouldrequire our very conception of truth and realityto change. He remarks that the philosophicalparadigm initiated by Descartes has been veryfruitful in the development of modern science(especially mathematical physics, which it fitslike a glove to a hand because it was tailored

to fit). However, “Today research in parts ofphilosophy, psychology, linguistics, and evenart history, all converge to suggest that thetraditional paradigm is somehow askew. Thatfailure to fit is made increasingly apparent bythe historical study of science. ...” (Kuhn,121). He goes on to say that “none of thesecrisis-promoting subjects has yet produced aviable alternative to the traditionalepistemological paradigm. . . .” Nevertheless,Kuhn was also unable to extricate himself fromthis paradigm.8. For the notion of “effective history,”Wirkungsgeschichte, see Gadamer, 300 ff;see also Weinsheimer, 181.9. Georg Kühlewind, Stages ofConsciousness (Hudson, NY: LindisfarnePress, 1984).10. Designed by Jackie Bortoft.

11. A saying of Jalaluddin Rumi discussed onp. 47 of this book. See Idries Shah, APerfumed Scorpion (London: Octagon Press,1978), 25.12. Although it is difficult to imagine thishappening with the figure of the giraffe, thereare other “hidden figures” which it is notalways so easy to see.13. A similar point can be made about theorganization of notes in a tune. The tune is theorganization—it is not another note. SeeNorwood Russell Hanson, Patterns ofDiscovery (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1958), chap. 1, for a thoroughdiscussion of the role of organization incognitive perception.14. Franz Brentano (1838-1917) had a majorinfluence on the development of philosophy inthis century. He returned to the Aristotelian

sense of empirical as experiential, and revivedthe notion from medieval philosophy of“intentional inexistence,” which he called“immanent objectivity.” This notion becamefundamental for Husserl, who studied withBrentano, and it appears in a modified form asthe key idea of “intentionality” inphenomenology.15. The term “prior” here should not be readin the usual temporal sense of “before” and“after.” It should be understood ontological-lyinstead of just temporally in this way.16. Philosophers of very different persuasions,from Heidegger to Wittgenstein, have beenconcerned with understanding and pointing theway beyond the fallacy of intellectualism. Thisis a major theme of twentieth-centuryphilosophy.17. There is a distortion in this account which

arises from the power of attention to partitionfocus and periphery. When we attend tosomething, such as a chair, we focus on this insuch a way that it appears as an independentand separate entity—a chair-by-itself. But thisis not actually what we see. What we describeas “seeing a chair” is really much more thanthat. We see something more like a chair-by-a-table-in-a-room-in-a-house . . . in-the-human life-world. There is a halo of meaningof decreasing intensity of presence as we gofurther away from the physical chair. But thishalo, which is peripheral because of thespecific act of attention, forms the context forwhatever is the focus of attention. Ultimately,an object such as a chair is seen within acontextual totality (which Heidegger refers toas a referential totality). It is really only withinthis context that it has its meaning, and hence

the meaning is not intrinsic but relational. Thereis no chair-by-itself in our experience, but weforget this whenever we think of the world as ifit were a totality of separate objects.18. One of the difficulties here, whichencourages us to be mistaken, is the tendencyto understand the cognitive perception of theworld in the context of subject-object dualism,in which subject and object are conceived asseparate entities, existing as such prior to, andindependently of, cognitive perception. This ishow it seems when we start at the end andback-project the final state into the beginning.It is inevitable that the idea of a direct,conceptless pure perception of what is “reallythere” should arise in this context. But if whatwe are concerned with is seeing the world,then it can be recognized that this is mistaken.

Consider the description “I see a tree.” We read

and understand this in an analytical manner.Thus, there is an I-entity and a tree-entity whichfirst exist by themselves, separate from andindependent of each other, which are thensubsequently joined together (albeit in anexternal way) by the intermediate link “see.”What is mistaken here is the assumption thatthere is such an I-entity preceding cognition.Such an “entity” is in fact the self-consciousness,or I-consciousness, which arises as a result ofthe process of cognitive perception. Thederivative nature of the I-consciousness isdiscussed very thoroughly in Rudolf Steiner, ThePhilosophy of Freedom, trans, by RitaStebbing (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1988).Once this is understood, then it becomes clearthat the descriptive statement “I see a tree”should be read in a quite different, more holisticway. The act of seeing is primary, not secondary

as the analytical reading supposes. The seeing-subject and the seen-object condensesimultaneously and co-relatively out of thisprimary act. Hence it is “subject” and “object”which are secondary, and by virtue of theirorigin they are necessarily correlated withincognitive perception. They are therefore apolarity—like north and south poles of amagnet; there cannot be one without the other.We usually do not notice this, and think ofsubject and object as being separate andindependent of each other. Thus we havedualism instead of polarity.Husserl recognized clearly that the “how” ofappearing is correlated with “what” appears,and he held that such a correlation is an invariantstructure of experience (without which it wouldnot be “experience”). In Husserl'sphenomenology, this correlation (for which he

uses the technical terms noesis and noema ornoetic and noematic correlates) replaces thesubject—object separation which has been thebasis of epistemology since Descartes. Thiscorrelation is a necessary correlation forHusserl, and there is no equivalent to thisnecessity in Cartesian-based epistemology.19. David Best, Feeling and Reason in theArts (London: George Allen and Unwin,1985), 23-24.20. There are well-documented cases ofbreakdown, because of organic disorder,where this coalescence is no longermaintained. In such cases the condition of thepurely sensory without an organizing idea isevident. A good example of this is provided bythe experience of people suffering fromcongenital cataracts. Eventually this could betreated by operation, since the “blindness”

resulted from physical occlusion and was notphysiological in origin. The results of some ofthe earliest such operations to be performedare described in M. von Senden, Space andSight (London: Methuen, 1960). The resultswere very startling to all those involved. It wasassumed that, when the bandages were takenoff, a person whose sight was restored wouldsimply see the world which we all see. But, inthe event, the patients could see nothing of thekind. What they experienced instead wassomething like the chaotic black and whiteblotches before the giraffe is seen, onlyeverything was like this, as well as beingbrightly colored and mobile. The experiencewas far from the immediate liberation fromblindness which had been hoped for. Manypatients asked to have the bandages put backagain! It was only after some time, and a lot of

effort, that they were able to see the worldwhich we take for granted. This is a very cleardemonstration that seeing the world is not thepurely sensory experience we usually imagineit to be. Merleau-Ponty refers to several casesof breakdown as a result of organic disorder,in connection with their relevance tounderstanding perception. See M. Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception(London: Rout-ledge and Kegan Paul, 1962).However, the most accessible account of suchcases is given in part 1 of Oliver Sacks, TheMan Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat(London: Pan Books, 1986).

Yet further evidence that purely sensoryexperience is something very different from theexperience of seeing the world is given by theexperiences which people have sometimes withanesthetics. Aldous Huxley describes such an

experience in The Art of Seeing (Seattle:Montana Books, 1975), 20.A particularly clear discussion of the state ofpurely sensory experience is given in RudolfSteiner, A Theory of Knowledge Based onGoethe's World Conception (New York:Anthroposophie Press, 1968), chap. 5.Kühlewind emphasizes the importance ofattempting to remove all concepts artificially, asan exercise, if we want to understand ournormal cognitive experience—see GeorgKühlewind, The Logos-Structure of the World(Hudson, N.Y.: Lindisfarne Press, 1991), 15.21. It has been familiar for a long time fromphenomenology that the objects of cognitiveperception are meanings. This goes back toHusserl's Logical Investigations, which werepublished at the turn of the century. The viewthat the objects of cognitive perception are

meanings has been presented in the context ofthe philosophy of science in Harold I. Brown,Perception, Theory and Commitment(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977),chap. 6.22. To revert to an earlier philosophicallanguage, the sensory is raised to the universal,and the universal is particularized. Gadamer(90) refers to Aristotle in this connection:

It is worthwhile to recall Aristotle here.He showed that all aisthesis tendstowards a universal, even if every sensehas its own specific field and thus what isimmediately given in it is not universal.But the specific sensory perception ofsomething as such is an abstraction. Thefact is that we see sensory particulars inrelation to something universal. For

example, we recognize a whitephenomenon as a human. (Aristotle, Deanima, 425 a 25.)

23. Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances(New York: Harcourt, Brace and World,1965). It could also be called cognitiveenchantment.24. Philosophy is a movement of thinkingwhich takes us nowhere except into where weare already but do not yet recognize. Such amovement of thinking could be described asan intensive movement, as distinct from anextensive movement, which would take ussomewhere other than where we are already.An intensive movement of this kind is amovement in the dimension of mind itself. Seealso Gadamer's remarks on Bildung andcoming into one's own referred to in note 1.

25. But this need not be the only way. It isalso possible by means of exercises whichconcentrate thinking. See Georg Kühlewind,Stages of Consciousness, chap. 3, and thesame author's From Normal to Healthy(Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press, 1989), 166-170.26. There remains the question of what is theorigin of concepts, if it is not experience? Theanswer is that it is language. That this is so isobscured by that inverted philosophy oflanguage which is called nominalism.According to this philosophy, language issimply a matter of labeling things. a word is alabel, and when a child learns to speak it issimply learning which labels go with whichthings. Thus, according to nominalism,language is representational. It has, therefore,an entirely secondary function, as the means

by which “something which is known” can becommunicated from one person to another,who will thus know it in turn (this is the “passthe parcel” view of communication). Thiscould also be described as the commonsenseview of language inasmuch as it is the onewhich is very commonly held. Indeed, it seemsobvious that it is true. Our everydayexperience seems to confirm it so readily—asit does the fact that the Earth is at rest.

Language does have a representational function,but this is a secondary, derivative function andby no means primary. The primary function oflanguage is disclosure: to show things forth aswhat they are, to let things appear. Thenominalist philosophy of language assumes thatthings have already appeared as what they are,that they are already there, delineated andcircumscribed as such. Language then applies

labels to these entities which are alreadydistinguished as themselves. But, contrary to thisview, it is only through the primary function oflanguage as disclosure that there are entitiesdistinguished in the first place. Thus therepresentational theory of language depends onthe disclosive function of language, which it doesnot recognize. In effect it tries to explainlanguage by presupposing language! Nominalismmakes the same mistake in the philosophy oflanguage that empiricism makes in thephilosophy of science. It begins at the wrongend, with the finished product, instead of tryingto follow (participate in) the coming-into-being.Instead of trying to catch language in the act(i.e., “language-ing”) it begins with the “already-languaged.” This is another instance of trying to“reach the milk by way of the cheese,” whichresults in what amounts to the conjuring-trick

philosophy of language. The philosophy oflanguage and the origin of concepts will bediscussed in detail in “The Twofold” in chap. 6.27. Heidegger, Being and Time (New York:Harper and Row, 1962), 63.28. See “The One and the Many” in part II fordiscussion of “multiplicity in unity” and howthis differs from “unity in multiplicity.” See alsochap. 5.29. The dynamic form of “multiplicity in unity,”which we find to be characteristic of theorganizing idea, is very much the mode of unitywhich is characteristic of life—and also of art.It is organic. Brady refers to “this peculiarpotency of organic form” that “it is becomingother in order to remain itself.” He says,“ T h e becoming that belongs to thisconstitution is not a process that finishes whenit reaches a certain goal but a condition of

existence—a necessity to change in order toremain the same” (italics in original). SeeRonald H. Brady, “Form and Cause inGoethe's Morphology'” in Goethe and theSciences: A Reappraisal, ed. FrederickAmrine, Francis J. Zucker, and HarveyWheeler (Dordrecht, the Netherlands: ReidelPublishing Company, 1987), 282, 286, 287.

This “reappearance of the same in difference” isalso fundamental to Gadamer's philosophicalhermeneutics. In Truth and Method, Gadamerpresents what Weinsheimer describes as “a wayof thinking about art, truth and interpretation thatwill explain, first, the fact of multipleinterpretations; second, that multipleinterpretations can all be true to the work; andthird, that the work can be multiply interpreted,multiply true, without disintegrating intofragments or degenerating into an empty form.”

Understanding an artwork is not reproductivebut productive. But the interpretations, if true,belong to the possibilities of the work—“Trueinterpretations are interpretations of the workitself”—and are not merely subjective, i.e.,imposed on the work by the interpreter. Thus“The work is the multiple possibilities of itsinterpretation.” This “means—despite themultiplicity of its true interpretations— it isnevertheless one work which is many,” and “...the continuing life of the artwork . . . embodiesitself, its own possibilities, in the variety of itsinterpretations.” The work is wholly there ineach interpretation, and yet no interpretation isthe whole work. The unity of the work is“multiplicity in unity,” and not “unity inmultiplicity” as it would be if there were a single,correct interpretation. There is no “meaning initself” behind the work. Instead the work lives in

its interpretations, which are its own possibilities,so that “an artwork's way of being is: to bedifferent; and only thus does it remain itself.”Comparing this with Brady's description oforganic form— “it is becoming other in orderto remain itself”—it becomes clear thatGadamer's philosophical hermeneutics is trulyorganic. See Weinsheimer, Gadamer'sHermaneutics, 100, 111, 112, 114 for theabove quotations.30. Kühlewind, The Logos-Structure of theWorld, 37.31. This is fundamental to Hegel's philosophy.Hegel recognized that, because thinking isdistinction and relation at the same time, theso-called laws of logic would have to be seenas relative. Thus, the principle ofnoncontradiction (not at the same time A andnot-A), the principle of identity (A is A), and

the principle of the excluded middle (either Aor not-A) could not be upheld in an absolutesense. He did not deny these laws (which arereally three aspects of one law, since eachentails the other two), but simply asserted theirrelative nature. Thus, since A is intrinsicallyrelated to not-A, we cannot maintain the rigidseparation of A and not-A, which thesestatements of the laws imply. These wouldamount to a “logic of solid bodies,” as HenriBergson discerningly called it, since it is in theworld of such bodies that separation is thepredominant feature. Eastern thinking seems tobe more familiar with the intrinsicinterdependence of everything, whereasWestern thinking has often tended toemphasize independence (but see note 17).32. See also Kühlewind, The Logos-Structure of the World , 36. In a workshop

on this theme (held on June 2, 1990, at theRudolf Steiner House, London), Dr.Kühlewind said that this simultaneousmovement of distinguishing which is relating isthe power of the logos. Examples of theprimary distinction in the act of discoveryenable us to catch the holistic quality. Anillustration is readily provided by LukeHowards act of distinguishing and naming theclouds (stratus, nimbus, cumulus, cirrus),which Goethe responded to with suchenthusiasm—see Lehrs, Man or Matter, 113-23. What at first looks like an analyticalclassification system, imposed on observationsof the clouds, in fact has the effect oforganizing the clouds in this sense of the“distinguishing which is relating” which comesbefore separating. The holistic quality of theprimary act of distinguishing can be recognized

quite easily in this case.33. Kühlewind indicates such a possibility inThe Logos-Structure of the World , 93. Insuch an experience we would find ourselves ina monistic state of consciousness, prior to thesubject-object separation, in which theappearance of what is seen and the seeingare the same. To catch this, “appearance”must be read verbally as the act of appearing.Heidegger was particularly concerned with thissubtle experience, which defies descriptionbecause it is so simple— the difficulty arisesfrom the fact that the categories of languageintroduce separations which are just not therein the experience.34. This does not mean that science is justcommon sense, far from it. There is nothingcommonsensical about Newton's first law ofmotion, for example. In fact, often science

could be described as being anti-commonsense—which is especially true in the case ofphysics. The point which is being made here isthat epistemological-ly there is no differencein kind between cognitive perception inscience and everyday cognitive perception. Inboth cases there must be an organizing idea.Whether or not this idea is in agreement withcommon sense is irrelevant.35. Galileo Galilei, Siderius Nuncius, trans,by Albert Van Helden (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1989).36. I. Bernard Cohen, The Birth of a NewPhysics, rev. and updated ed. (New York:Norton, 1985), 188. See also Cohen, TheNewtonian Revolution (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1980), 212.37. Best, Feeling and Reason in the Arts,25.

38. Galileo, 64.39. Ibid., 66. The term “planet” is derivedfrom a Greek word meaning “wanderer.”40. The perception of cave paintings illustratesin a graphic way that meaning is the object ofcognitive perception. Two very differentinterpretations of cave paintings have been putforward. The most well-known one, by theAbbé Breuil, is that the artists painted thepictures in the caves from memory andimagination. According to this view, thepaintings depict animals in action, andaccordingly such titles as “the bellowing bison”and “the trotting boar” are given to thepictures. But an alternative view was offeredby Lea-son. He had made drawings of a catwhich had been recently killed, and he hadbeen struck by how vigorous the cat stilllooked. So, when he first saw pictures of cave

art it struck him as being remarkable thatpeople so long ago had made pictures of deadanimals! He did not, at the time, know thatanother interpretation of the pictures had beenmade, and so this did not interfere with hisperception. He just saw pictures of deadanimals lying on the ground. He saw thisdirectly. The meaning was part of theperception, not added on to the perceptionafterwards to try to make sense of it—“Perception always includes meaning,”(Gadamer, 92). In fact, it is clear that in thisexample the object of perception is themeaning. See M. L. Johnson Abercrombie,The Anatomy of Judgment (London:Hutchinson, 1960), 35-38.41. Kuhn, 115.42. Kuhn gives several other excellentexamples in The Structure of Scientific

Revolutions. See, for example, the discussionof the discovery of oxygen, 53-56.Concerning the question of whether it wasdiscovered by Priestley or Lavoisier, Kuhnsays:

Though undoubtedly correct, thesentence “Oxygen was discovered”misleads by suggesting that discoveringsomething is a single simple actassimilable to our usual (and alsoquestionable) concept of seeing. That iswhy we so readily assume that discovery,like seeing or touching, should beunequivocally attributable to an individualand to a moment in time.

43. Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland (New York:Dover, 1952). See the final paragraph of “The

Depth of the Phenomenon” in part II.44. Morris Berman, The Reenchantment ofthe World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,1981), 62. Berman also makes the point thatcannons were not fired at long range until theend of the sixteenth century, and the shortrange would make it easier to see theAristotelian trajectory.45. Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wifefor a Hat, 89.46. The tendency to think of the invisible as ifit were visible but just not seen, is anotherconsequence of beginning from the finishedproduct instead of following through thecoming-into-being. When we encounter theappearance (i.e., the appearing itself), thenwe realize the difference between the invisibleas such and what is not visible simply becauseit is not being seen at the particular moment in

question. Perhaps we need to distinguish thelatter from the former by using a term such as“nonvisible,” instead of using the one word,“invisible,” to cover both (ontologically verydifferent) cases.47. Hume's discovery of the failure ofinductive generalization to provide the basis forscientific laws is described at length in ATreatise of Human Nature , first published in1739/40 (Glasgow: Fontana/ Collins, 1962).A simplified version appeared later in AnInquiry Concerning Human Understanding.It is discussed in every introductory book onthe philosophy of science.48. Paul Feyerabend, Against Method(London: Verso, 1978), 75. Hume was notaware of this. He thought that ideas werederived from sense impressions.49. This is when the parallax of the stars, due

to the Earth's motion about the Sun, was finallyobserved by Bessel. Because of this motion,every star should appear to change itsposition, relative to an observer on Earth,during the course of a year. The effect is verysmall because of the huge distances of thestars (0.3 arc seconds for 61 Cygni, the starwhich Bessel used), and is very easily maskedby other, much larger, changes in position dueto the proper motion of the stars (5.2 arcseconds per year for 61 Cygni). Thepossibility that there were such parallax effectsassociated with the Earth's motion around theSun had been raised right from the start—infact the Greeks also raised it. So observationalconfirmation of Copernicus's theory came tobe identified with detecting parallax—so muchso that it often passes unnoticed that evidenceof the Earth's motion was available a century

before parallax was finally detected. In 1725,Bradley discovered small shifts in stellarpositions during the course of a year. Thesewere too big to be due to parallactic shift, andthe changes in position did not fit what wouldbe expected for such a shift. By 1728, Bradleyhad recognized that the phenomenon he hadseen was the effect of the velocity of the lightfrom a star combining vectorially with theorbital velocity of the Earth. This phenomenonis called the aberration of light. The point isthat there would be no aberration of light if theEarth were at rest, so this does constituteevidence for the movement of the Eartharound the Sun. It may seem more indirectthan the detection of parallax, because itdepends on a new act of cognitive perception,entailing a new organizing idea.50. But this is because the observational

evidence did confirm the Copernican view. Itwould have been a different matter altogetherif, after diligent searching with ever-improvinginstrumentation, the expected parallax had notbeen revealed. The search for parallax wasimportant, therefore, not because it confirmedthe Copernican view, but because failing tofind it would, at some point, have called theCopernican view into question.51. See Augustine Brannigan, The SocialBasis of Scientific Discovery (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1981), for athorough discussion of “discovery” as a socialcategory and the significance of this forunderstanding science. The assertion thatsomething is not a discovery before it isrecognized as a discovery, so that the act ofrecognizing it as a discovery constitutes it as adiscovery, could be compared with Tauler's

maxim that a man who was a king and did notknow it would not be a king (quoted by GeorgKühlewind, From Normal to Healthy, 62).52. Thomas S. Kuhn, The CopernicanRevolution (Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1957), 157.53. See, for example, Kuhns account of howhe came to appreciate the naturalness ofAristotle s physics in Thomas S. Kuhn, TheEssential Tension (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1977), xi-xiii.54. Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution, 109.55. Ibid., 114.56. See Brown, Perception, Theory andCommitment, for a discussion of the role ofcommitment in the development of science.57. Details will be found in chap. 2 of Kuhn,The Copernican Revolution.

58. Ibid., 73.59. Ibid., 163.60. Ibid., 169.61. Ibid., 169. See also Arthur Koestler, TheSleepwalkers (Harmondsworth: PenguinBooks, 1964), 195.62. Koestler, 170.63. Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution, 139.64. Ibid., 142.65. Marshall Clagett, Greek Science inAntiquity (London: Abelard-Schuman, 1957),90.66. Arthur Koestler maintains:

There can be no doubt that Copernicuswas acquainted with Aristarchus's idea,and that he was following in his footsteps.The proof of this is to be found inCopernicus's own manuscript of the

Revolutions, where he refers toAristarchus—but, characteristically, thisreference is crossed out in ink. (TheSleepwalkers, 208).

67. Clagett, Greek Science in Antiquity, 91-92.68. The role of schools of thought in thedevelopment of scientific knowledge has beenemphasized by Joseph Agassi in Towards aHistoriography of Science ('S-Gravenhage:Mouton, 1963). Agassi maintains, with awealth of examples, that the inductivephilosophy of science (according to whichscientific theories emerge from facts) “blindshistorians of science to the chief factors in thehistory of science—contending schools ofscientific thought” (23).69. Details of this school of thought insofar as

it affects the development of Copernicanastronomy are given in Kuhn, TheCopernican Revolution, upon which thefollowing account is based.70. Ibid., 131 and 179.71. This is what Copernicus says:

So we find underlying this ordination anadmirable symmetry in the Universe, anda clear bond of harmony in the motionand magnitude of the Spheres such ascan be discovered in no other wise. Forhere we may observe why theprogression and retrogression appeargreater for Jupiter than Saturn, and lessthan for Mars, but again greater forVenus than for Mercury; and why suchoscillation appears more frequently inSaturn than in Jupiter, but less frequently

in Mars and Venus than in Mercury;moreover why Saturn, Jupiter and Marsare nearer to the Earth at opposition tothe Sun than when they are lost in oremerge from the Sun's rays. ParticularlyMars, when he shines all night, appearsto rival Jupiter in magnitude, being onlydistinguishable by his ruddy color;otherwise he is scarce equal to a star ofthe second magnitude, and can berecognized only when his movements arecarefully followed. All these phenomenaproceeded from the same cause, namelyEarth's motion. (Quoted in TheCopernican Revolution, 180)

72. E.A. Burtt, The MetaphysicalFoundations of Modern Science (London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), 79.

73. “The Physics of Goethean Style” below;see also parts I and II of this book.74. Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution, 180.75. Plato, The Republic, pt. VII, sec. 6; pt.VIII, sec. 2, in Penguin edition.76. Brian Easlea, Witch Hunting, Magic andthe New Philosophy (Sussex: HarvesterPress, 1980), 59.77. See note 64.78. See Hübner, Critique of ScientificReason, chap. 5; see also Arthur Koestler,The Sleepwalkers, pt. 4, chap. 6. Kepler setout to treat the Earth fully as a planet governedby the Sun. Copernicus had attributed severalspecial functions to the Earth—e.g., hepreserved the Ptolemaic feature that the planesof all planetary orbits intersected at the centerof the Earth by drawing them so that theyintersected at the center of the Earth's orbit,

which was not in the same place as the Sun inCopernicus's scheme (which was therefore notstrictly heliocentric). Kepler said that the Earthhad no special status, and that the Sungoverned all planets, so that the planes of theplanetary orbits must intersect in the Sun. Hisdetermination to do this was an expression ofhis Neo-Platonic belief that the Sun is thevisible representative of God, and must be inthe center and nowhere else. Only by stickingstrictly to this demand derived from hisphilosophical standpoint did Kepler eventuallydiscover that the orbit of a planet is notcircular, as had always been assumed, but is infact slightly elliptical. This is why Copernicushad needed to use so many minor epicycles—trying to make the orbit fit a circle—for whichthere was no longer any necessity.

Kepler was so convinced of the primary role of

the Sun that he came to think of it as the sourceof all movement as well as the source of lightand heat. His philosophical viewpoint led himtowards the notion of a physical cause forplanetary movement originating in the centralbody. This acted as a guiding idea in his searchfor the form of the planetary orbit, which finallyresulted in what we now know as Kepler's firstand second laws. Details can be found in theworks referred to above (see especiallyKoestler), showing how Kepler madehypotheses and decisions, grounded in hisphilosophical viewpoint, which guided histhinking towards the discovery of the laws ofplanetary motion. This is very different from thestory which is usually told of how Keplerdiscovered these laws empirically by searchingthe observational measurements until he foundthe right mathematical relationships. This “story”

is a reconstruction according to the empiricists'myth of how science ought to proceed ratherthan how it actually does.79. Kuhn, The Structure of ScientificRevolutions, 121. Harold Brown points outthat “the thesis that the meaning of scientificconcepts changes as a result of a scientificrevolution has been regarded ... as one of themost outrageous claims of the new philosophyof science” (Perception, Theory andCommitment, 116). At the same time thatKuhns major work was first published (1962),another philosopher of science, PaulFeyerabend, also published an essay in whichhe denied the fundamental assumption of thetraditional philosophy of science that meaningsare invariant with respect to the process ofexplanation. Feyerabend suggests in this essaythat, instead of a theory explaining facts which

are established independently, adopting a newtheory alters the concepts, and hence alters thefacts. So, as he puts it elsewhere, the facts aremutable. See P.A. Feyerabend, “Explanation,Reduction and Empiricism” in MinnesotaStudies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 3(1962). See also I. Bernard Cohen, TheNewtonian Revolution, pt. 2.80. It is not a formal replacement of the Earthby the Sun which is of concern here, but achange of meaning. A computer could makethe formal change, but not the change inmeaning. The primacy of meaning enables usto avoid several common misunderstandingsabout science. For example, every student ofphysics learns that Einstein's mechanics(relativity) reduces to Newton's mechanicswhen the velocity of a body is very smallcompared with the speed of light. Formally this

is true, as is evident from the mathematicalequations, but otherwise it is not true becausethe meanings of the key terms in the twotheories are very different. The theory ofrelativity does not reduce to Newton's theoryfor small-enough velocities because themeanings of “mass,” “energy,” “time,” and soforth, are different in the two theories. Themeaning in one theory is not reducible to themeaning in the other theory, because meaningis not a formal element and only formalelements can be transposed in this way. Oneconsequence of this is that science cannot bedeveloped by a computer—a “syntacticengine” cannot make changes in meaning, andtherefore cannot make scientific discoveries.A corrollary of this is that the computer cannotprovide a model of human thinking, as somany today wish to believe. No doubt it may

provide a model for those aspects of thoughtwhich have been reduced to the formal,mechanical level. But this excludes thoseaspects which have to do with meaning, andhence with creativity. So, the very fact thathuman beings do science is sufficient to showthat a human being is not reducible to acomputer.81. Quoted in Ernst Cassirer, “Einstein'sTheory of Relativity Considered from theEpistemological Standpoint,” supplement toSubstance and Function (New York: DoverPublications, 1953), 371.82. Richard S. Westfall, The Construction ofModern Science (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1977), 19.83. See Cohen, The Birth of a New Physics,117-25, and supplement 8 (210), for a moredetailed discussion of Galileo's difficulties and

achievements with regard to the law of inertialmotion.84. H. Butterfield, The Origins of ModernScience (London: Bell, 1957), 4.85. For a very good account of atomism, inboth its earlier and later phases (and also for adiscussion of Platonism in connection with thisproblem), see Terence Irwin, ClassicalThought (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1989). See also Rudolf Steiner, Goethe'sWorld View (Spring Valley, New York:Mercury Press, 1985), chap. 1, for adiscussion of the effect which this mistrust ofsense experience has had on the developmentof Western science to this day. We havealready mentioned the distrust of the senses, infavor of reason, when discussing Copernicusand Galileo.86. The manuscript of De Rerum Natura was

discovered in 1417. See Alexandre Koyré,From the Closed World to the InfiniteUniverse (Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 1968), 278, n. 5. Thecomplete text is given in The EpicureanPhilosophers, ed. John Gaskin (London:Everyman, 1994).87. Here we have the beginning of the modernview that humans find themselves in ameaningless universe, which eventually worksitself through historically to becomephilosophical nihilism. But there is another,positive side to this, which often goesunnoticed. Faced with a meaningless universe,as it seems to us, we can create meaning, andin so doing we takes a step of freedom, whichis a developmental step for us. We have to dothis for ourselves—otherwise it would not befreedom—and herein lies the difficulty, which

necessarily accompanies any developmentalopportunity.88. Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution, 220.89. It has been suggested by Pietro Redondi,i n Galileo: Heretic (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1987), that the introductionof the philosophy of atomism into physics wasthe real basis of the disagreement betweenGalileo and the Church, because this posed anextreme difficulty for understanding thetransubstantiation of the Host in the Mass.90. Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution, 238.91. Errol Harris, Hypothesis and Perception(London: Allen and Un win, 1970), 120. Wemay also find here the historical root of one ofthe most famous problems in Anglo-Saxonphilosophy, namely, the problem of inductionas this was encountered by David Hume. Hewished to apply the style of the Newtonian

science of matter to the science of humanbeings. But considering the origin of scientificknowledge to be empirical, he found to hisdismay that he could not justify the principle ofinduction. So it seemed to him that he couldnot find a justification for scientific knowledge,and he was led into a reluctant skepticism as aresult. Much has been written about the“problem of induction,” but, in fact, it is notreally a problem at all because scientific lawsare not the empirical generalizations reachedby induction that Hume believed them to be.But it never occurred to him that they could beotherwise, and here we can see the influenceof Newton. If Newton had said that this iswhat scientific laws are, then it would haveseemed to Hume that this is indeed what theymust be. It is perhaps for the same reason thatHume's “failure” has seemed to many to

present such a monumental problem to thephilosophy of science. It is, in fact, not aproblem because science isn't what the“problem” supposes it to be.

As well as its historical root in the influentialpronouncements of Newton, there is also anepistemological source for the view that scienceis essentially empirical. This is a consequence ofbeginning from the finished product, instead offollowing through the coming-into-being ofcognition. In this case the active dimension ofmind in the constitution of knowledge is missed,i.e., the organizing idea, and instead it seems thatideas are mental copies and abstractions foridea-less sense perceptions. But, as we haveseen, cognitive perception is not idea-less.92. See A. Rupert Hall, The Revolution inScience, 1500-1750 (London: Longman,1983), 183 ff. for further discussion of this

point.93. The failure to observe parallax could havebeen taken as a falsifying counterinstance toCopernicus's proposal. In fact it was taken thisway when the same proposal was made inancient times by Aristarchus. Sir Karl Poppertakes falsifiability as the hallmark of scientificpropositions. What he means by this is simplythat to be scientific a proposition must befalsifiable in principle. He does not mean thata scientific theory is falsified by acounterinstance, only that it could be.Popper's emphasis on falsifiability arose out ofhis concern to distinguish science fromnonscience. For example, he was concernedabout the claim which was often made at thetime (earlier this century) that psychoanalysisand Marxism were scientific. His principle offalsifiability is therefore to be understood as a

criterion of demarcation, and not as aprescription for how science ought to proceed.94. We must not fall into the trap of thinkingthat in doing so we are comparing a verbalmeaning, “there is at least one raven inIceland,” with an actual situation to which wesomehow have access apart from meaning, asif meaning could be checked against somepurely sensory, meaningless “given.” This is thepicture which the so-called correspondencetheory of truth encourages. We have seen indetail in “The Organizing Idea in CognitivePerception” how this is absurd. If we see araven in Iceland, then what we experience ismeaning and not anything else. If what weexperienced was without meaning then wecould not see it, and therefore could notascertain that there is a raven in Iceland. Whenit is said that an empirical proposition refers to

something beyond itself, this does not meansomething which is outside of meaning, but thatthe truth of the proposition can only beascertained by comparing the meaning of theproposition with the meaning in an actualsituation. It is meaning which is compared withmeaning (“Like is known only by like”—Goethe), and not meaning with something thatis outside of meaning to which we have directaccess, as naive versions of thecorrespondence theory of truth imply. See thevery good discussion of this in David Mitchell,An Introduction to Logic (London:Hutchinson, 1964), 113-15.95. Brown, Perception, Theory andCommitment, 105. He acknowledgesborrowing the term “paradigm” from Kuhn.The entire chapter 7 of Brown's book is anexcellent account of the topic being discussed

here.96. Some illustrations of the quantitative wayof seeing will help to make this clearer. As afirst example, consider the way that letters arecomposed by computer in the modern office.The manager has a manual of separateparagraphs from which he or she can puttogether a letter simply by selecting theparagraphs which he or she wants, and theseare printed out by the computer from the diskon which they are stored. The letter is thus anexternal assemblage of parts. This operation isentirely within the category of quantity, butwithout quantity appearing specifically in thecontent. The quantity here is the form: it is themode of conception and not the content. It isnot difficult to go on from this kind of exampleto the realization that the world of Westernindustrialized society in which we live is

structured throughout in the quantitative mode.We live quantitatively today, as anyone canverify for themselves by becoming aware ofthe “way of seeing.” We live in this world, notbecause it is already there, waiting for us, butbecause we live it and thus it is realized. Wedo not find the quantitative world; we mean it.

When we do not give attention to the way ofseeing, focusing instead on what is seen, we failto notice the form of cognitive perception. Theresult is that we are easily misled. An illustrationof how this happens is found in the often-madeclaim that “systems theory” is the science ofwholeness, which is made on the basis thatsystems thinking takes into accountrelationships. Well, it does do this, but only byfirst separating the elements which it theninterrelates. A typical description of systemsthinking refers to “breaking down reality into

elements and identifying linkages betweenthem.” Such a “system” of elements and theirlinkages is clearly entirely external, because it isin the form of separation into parts which areoutside of each other. Both the elements andtheir linkages are conceived in such an externalway—each element is external to the otherelements, and the linkages between them areexternal to the elements they link. In otherwords, a “system” is conceived in the form ofquantity. Hence systems theory cannot be thebasis of a science of wholeness, as is oftenclaimed.When this kind of thinking is applied to life itresults in an absurdity. The notion of a livingsystem, as opposed to one which is nonliving, isa contradiction in terms. It may look likesomething has been said, but in fact “livingsystem” has about as much meaning as “black

white.” If it is a system, as defined above, then itcannot be living because what is living cannotconsist of parts which are external to oneanother, i.e., which are separate. If we treatwhat is living in this way we kill it. Systemstheory is no more than systems analysis (lysis:to separate). a living organism cannot beanalyzed, whereas what is nonliving can be,since the possibility of analysis is the verycharacteristic of the inorganic—cf. Galileo sdiscovery that the motion of a projectile can beanalyzed into horizontal and vertical componentsand conversely can be synthesized from suchcomponents. a mechanism, such as a clock, isan excellent illustration of the form of quantity.There is little wonder that the development ofthe science of quantity came together with theadoption of the machine as a basic metaphor fornature. We can now see that, far from being a

new way of thinking, systems theory has itsroots in the mechanical philosophy of theseventeenth century. Thus we are able to avoidthe mistake of believing that systems thinking isthe way to understanding the organic.A further illustration of the quantitative way ofseeing is provided by Darwins theory ofbiological evolution by chance variation andnatural selection. By its very form, this theoryimplicitly conceives the organism quantitativelybecause it considers it as if it were composed ofseparate parts, each of which is capable ofundergoing variation independently of all theother parts. Darwin's organism is a quantitativeorganism, notwithstanding the fact that number isnot explicitly involved. The whole organismloses its meaning as such, being effectivelyreduced to a collection of separate characters.Graham Cannon pointed out that this “regarded

the characters of an organism like so manymarbles in a box and, just as individual marblesmay be changed at random and substituted, somight the characters undergo isolatedindependent random change”—H. GrahamCannon, The Evolution of Living Things(Manchester: Manchester University Press,1958), 116. It is worth emphasizing that Darwinmay not have deliberately conceived of anorganism as composed of characters which areeffectively separate, but this is the way that theorganism is constituted by the very form of thetheory.We can compare this with the very differentdescription of an organism given by Kant in hisCritique of Judgment. Kant saw an organismas a self-organizing whole of mutuallyconstitutive parts. Each such part enters into theconstitution of every other part, so the parts are

certainly not external and separate, and henceKant's organism is not a quantitative organism. Itis a machine, not an organism, which exemplifiesthe form of quantity, for with a machine the partsare clearly external to one another. In amachine, such as a clock, the parts exist foreach other, and so a machine is a functionalunity. In an organism, however, the parts existnot only for each other but also by means ofeach other. We can see now that Darwin'stheory conceives the organism as if it were amachine. So Darwin's organism is effectivelynonliving!As a final example of seeing in the mode ofquantity, we will consider briefly the way thatwe understand time. We commonly conceivetime as a linear series of separate instants, astring of “nows” placed next to each other in anindefinitely long line. Some of these instants we

imagine to have gone, some not to have arrivedyet, and only one to be actually present. In thisway we try to make a distinction between past,present, and future. But we imagine the instantswhich are “past” as if they were present, andsimilarly with the instants we imagine to be“future.” In other words, this is a peculiarlytimeless way of conceiving time! We can look atit the other way around. It is a consequence ofthe quantitative mode of cognition that time isseparated into parts which are external to oneanother. Hence, in this mode of cognition, thepast and the future are withdrawn from thepresent, so that this becomes merely thepresent, i.e., “now.” So we have a string of“nows,” all of which are identical, like units, andtherefore time appears to be homogeneous. Wecan easily recognize this as the time of the clock,by which we organize our lives in the world

today. We can also recognize it as the abstracttime of mathematical physics, which is theframework in which we imagine the physicaluniverse. It is, in fact, the way that we constitute“time” by our concern to measure it. Buthomogeneous time—time in the mode ofquantity—is timeless. So the irony is that thetime of physics is timeless! Physics, therefore,makes no contribution to our understanding oftime. What physicists discover about theuniverse does not show us anything about thenature of time—it simply presupposes “time” inthe quantitative sense. It follows that books suchas Stephen Hawking's best-selling A BriefHistory of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988J,admirable though it is in its own way, does nottell us anything about time. To approach adeeper understanding of time, we could begin,not with the pronouncements of physicists, but

with the work of philosophers such as Bergson,Husserl, and Heidegger on this subject. At leastthis would help us to recognize the limitation ofwhat we ordinarily understand by “time.”97. John Davy, Hope, Evolution andChange (Stroud: Hawthorn Press, 1985), 8.98. The failure to realize this eventually gaverise to the difficulties in understanding whichcame in this century with the development ofthe quantum theory. Only then did it begin tobecome clear that atoms should not beinvested with sensory qualities. But by thistime it seemed that this was a failure of scienceitself, indicating an inherent limitation ofscientific knowledge. In fact, it was a releasefrom a misunderstanding which confused thecontainer with the content. So what seemed atthe time to be a failure was really a releasefrom imprisonment in a restricted viewpoint.

99. See “The Organizing Idea in CognitivePerception.” It is because cognition itself isseen in the light of the “solid world” way ofseeing, i.e., in the form of quantity, that thiscorrelation is missed, and instead we find thefamiliar picture of Cartesian dualism: separateand independent subject and object and therepresentational theory of knowledge whichmakes knowledge a property of the subject. Itis helpful to remember that there can bedistinction without separation. Of course,there cannot be in the quantitative mode, ascan be recognized from Aristotle's definition. Itis because this mode of illumination is thedominant one for us that we automaticallyassume that distinction and separation are thesame. To put it another way, we think of“distinction” as being separation. In fact, thecondition of distinction without separation is

prior to separation, into which it subsequentlyfalls. See Owen Barfield, The Rediscovery ofMeaning (Middletown, Conn.: WeslyanUniversity Press, 1977), 162. See also the endof the chapter just mentioned.100. Isaiah Berlin, The Age ofEnlightenment (New York: New AmericanLibrary, 1956), 18.101. Kuhn, The Structure of ScientificRevolutions, 121.102. David Bohm, Quantum Theory(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1951),170.103. See HegeVs Logic (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1975), section 119. This isthe first volume of Hegel's Encyclopedia ofthe Philosophical Sciences. A very clearaccount of this aspect of Hegel's philosophy isgiven in chapter 7 of Hegel by Edward Caird.

This work, first published in 1883, wasrepublished in a facsimile edition in 1972 byAMS Press, New York. I am indebted to Dr.Andros Loizou for drawing my attention to thiswork.104. Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution(London: Macmillan, 1960), ix. Yet it isinteresting to note that the three laws of logicare not really three laws at all, i.e., not in thesense that each is self-contained and separatefrom the others. Each one of these statementsentails the other two, so that in an implicitsense each one contains or includes the othertwo. Hence there is really only “one” lawwhich can be seen in three partialperspectives. In other words, there is here aconceptual whole, which appears in thequantitative way of seeing as three separatelaws of logic. So these statements comprising

the logic of solid bodies themselves seem toconform to the solid world perspective—i.e.,three separate, independent statements. Yetwe see that something escapes from thesestatements—or, to put it the other way,something is excluded from them. This is thevery thing which is excluded by the solid worldperspective: intrinsic interdependence andtherefore nonseparability.105. G.B. Madison, The Hermeneutics ofPostmodernity (Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1990), 129.106. Ibid., 130.107. The term “metaphysics” was coined byAristotle, who nevertheless did not use ithimself in the specific way that it is used here— which is in accordance with the way thatthe term is used in European philosophy today.108. Nietzsche referred to institutionalized

Christianity as “Platonism for the people.” SeeMartin Heidegger, Introduction toMetaphysics (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1959), 106.109. Phaedo, 74c ff. For a discussion of Platos theory of Forms, see, for example, David J.Meiling, Understanding Plato (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1987), chaps. 10and 11; Terence Irwin, Classical Thought,chap. 6; Frederick Copleston, A History ofPhilosophy, vol. 1, pt. 1 (New York:Doubleday, 1962), chap. 20.110. Phaedo, 66a (Penguin edition). This is akey passage, which is often misunderstood. Itrefers to the possibility of sense-freethinking. Yet it has often been taken to meanno more than thought which takes placewithout the senses for the simple reason that itis all taking place “in our heads.” This is not

sense-free thinking, because the kind ofimages entailed in this activity are thoroughlysense-dependent. Thinking is not sense-freebecause it takes place without the senses, butonly if there is no trace of the sensory inthinking itself, so that it is “pure andunadulterated.” (Phaedo, 66a).111. Metaphysics, 991 b 1-3. Aristotle'sobjections to Plato's theory are discussed inFrederick Copleston, A History ofPhilosophy, vol. 1, pt. 2 (New York:Doubleday, 1962), 35 ff. See also TerenceIrwin, Classical Thought, 124.112. There does, however, remain a questionover whether, and to what extent, Platohimself separated the sensible and theintelligible into two worlds so that a chasm (chrismos) was created between appearance

(now downgraded to mere appearance) and

idea. In other words, to what extent was Platoa Platonist? For the most part, philosophersand others have taken it that Plato didintroduce a chasm, and hence held a two-world theory. Aristotle said that he did, butwhat Aristotle himself was trying to do bymeans of his criticism may not necessarily beas obvious as it is usually taken to be (cf.Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. 1,pt. 1, 195). Certainly today it is believedalmost universally (but not quite) that Platowas the source of the metaphysical separation—a view which was strongly emphasized byHeidegger. However, Gadamer has pointedout that, in his treatment of the beautiful, Platoshows how the two realms of the sensible andthe supersensible are reconciled in a waywhich does not admit separation. He takes thisto be crucial for understanding Plato himself,

as distinct from the later development ofPlatonism—see Gadamer, Truth andMethod, 48182. Elsewhere Gadameremphasized that the view commonly attributedto Plato is really pseudo-Platonism, and addedthat Hegel understood this (in a seminar on“Heidegger, Hermeneutics and Interpretation”held at the Goethe Institute, London, in April1986). Steiner attributed the origin of what hecalled “one-sided Platonism” to the way inwhich Plato presented the fact that “in humanperception the sense world becomes a meresemblance if the light of the world of ideas isnot shone upon it.” Through the way hepresented this fact, Plato “furthered the beliefthat the sense world, in and for itself,irrespective of human beings, is a world ofsemblance, and that true reality is only to befound in ideas.” (Steiner, Goethe's World

View, 17). He goes on to say that it is againstthis that Aristotle protested (22). It is this one-sided Platonism, or pseudo-Platonism, whichis a major historical-philosophical root ofmathematical physics.113. Speaking about mathematicians, Platosays:

. . . they make use of and argue aboutvisible figures, though they are not reallythinking about them, but about theoriginals which they resemble; it is notabout the square or diagonal which theyhave drawn that they are arguing, butabout the square itself or diagonal itself,or whatever the figure might be. Theactual figures they draw or model, whichthemselves cast their shadows andreflections in water—these they treat as

images only, the real objects of theirinvestigation being invisible except to theeye of reason. (Republic, 510d, Penguinedition).

114. Edmund Husserl, The Crisis ofEuropean Sciences and TranscendentalPhenomenology (Evanston, Illinois:Northwestern University Press, 1970), 23-59.Aron Gurwitsch, Phenomenology and theTheory of Science (Evanston: NorthwesternUniversity Press, 1974), chap. 2; see alsoAron Gurwitsch, “Galilean Physics in the Lighto f Husserl's Phenomenology” inPhenomenology and Sociology, ed. ThomasLuckmann (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,1978).115. There are exceptions. See, for example,Roger Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).116. Sir James Jeans, The MysteriousUniverse (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1930), chap. 5. The same can be saidabout the remarks made more recently byStephen Hawking. In A Brief History ofTime, Hawking says that “the eventual goal ofscience is to provide a single theory thatdescribes the whole universe” (12). Such atheory of everything, as it is called, will be thefinal triumph of mathematical physics—afterwhich physics will come to an end becausethere will be no further need for it. This will bethe ultimate triumph of human reason,Hawking tells us, “for then we would know themind of God” (193). We can now recognizethis as just another instance of the Platonismunderlying mathematical physics. In fact, wecould easily imagine remarks such as this being

made by Galileo or Kepler. The content of thephysics notwithstanding, there is nothingfundamentally new in the views of StephenHawking.117. Koestler, The Sleepwalkers, 264.118. Certainly Galileo thought so: see Burtt,82.119. Gurwitsch, Phenomenology and theTheory of Science, 51; “Galilean Physics inthe Light of Husserl's Phenomenology,” 84.120. Strictly speaking, Descartes was not anatomist, but he was a corpus-cularian. Hebelieved that matter was indefinitely divisible,so there was no ultimate unit. But matter wascorpuscular, and everything in nature was tobe understood in terms of particles in motion.Gassendi, a contemporary of Descartes,adopted atomism. Robert Boyle treatedatomism and Cartesianism as two expressions

of the same corpuscular conception of nature,which he called the “mechanical philosophy” ofnature. As he put it, the mechanical philosophytraces all the phenomena of nature to the “twocatholic principles” of matter and motion—seeRichard Westfall, The Construction ofModern Science, 41.121. Tom Sorell, Descartes (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1987), 57.122. Ibid., 61.123. Descartes, Meditations, SecondMeditation.124. What Descartes is really doing here isbuilding in the division of man into mortal bodyand immortal soul, which was the doctrine ofthe Church at this time—the spirit having beendenied to man by the Council of Constance in8 6 9 A.D. This is one of the roots ofDescartes's famous dualism—another, equally

important, is his espousal of mathematics asthe model for certainty in human knowledge.What Descartes did was to reduce the soul toa purely thinking capacity. This, of course, isjust the capacity needed for doingmathematical physics. This is all part ofDescartes's hidden strategy to demonstratethat human beings, as understood by theChurch, are ontologically constituted to beperfectly fitted to do mathematical physics. Itis as if human beings had been designed byGod for the very purpose of doingmathematical physics, so that, in doing it, theyare fulfilling their nature and thereby doingGod's will. The subtext to Descartes's text isreally the key to the whole thing. His aim wasto make it seem natural and right to replaceAristotelian physics with his new mathematicalphysics. As was mentioned in “Copernicus

and the Moving Earth,” in the later MiddleAges the Church had adopted Aristotelianphilosophy in a thoroughgoing way, to result inAristotelianized Christianity. Descartes wasencouraged to think, by Mersenne and others,that his mathematical physics could replacethat of Aristotle in a new synthesis of scienceand religion. So the Meditations was writtenfor the purpose of laying the philosophicalfoundations for the new physics in a waywhich would be acceptable and attractive tothe Church.125. Descartes did not use the term“consciousness.” It was introduced by Locke,but it has been used in connection withDescartes ever since. It is really nonsense totalk about “outside of consciousness,” becauseconsciousness is not spatial in Descartes'sphilosophy (or even apart from Descartes's

philosophy!). This is just one example of thekind of insoluble difficulty Descartes gets into.Yet we find it very difficult to let go of thispicture.126. Steiner, Goethe's World View, 25.127. Quoted in Heinrich O. Proskauer, TheRediscovery of Color (Spring Valley, NewYork: Anthroposophie Press, 1986), 106. Seealso Descartes, Meditations, ThirdMeditation.128. Burtt points out that the effect of placingthe secondary qualities within human beings isthe “banishing of man” from nature— “Hencethe real world must be the world outside ofman” (89).129. Westfall, 38.130. See, for example, Antony Flew, AnIntroduction to Western Philosophy , rev.ed. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1989),

282.131. See, for example, G.B. Madison, TheHermeneutics of Postmodernity; also theintroduction to After Philosophy, ed. KennethBaynes, James Bohman, and ThomasMcCarthy (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,1987).132. Gurwitsch, Phenomenology and theTheory of Science, 55; Gurwitsch, “GalileanPhysics in the Light of Husserl'sPhenomenology,” 87.133. Ibid. This means that mathematicalphysics is to be understood as what is nowcalled a research program.134. Hübner, Critique of Scientific Reason,48.135. Quoted in Sepper, Goethe ContraNewton, 24.

136. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundationsof Modern Science, 81.137. Ibid., 91, 98.138. It is often said that time is “spatialized” inthis process. But it should be noticed thatspace itself has been reduced to the form ofquantitative space, and that it is really the formof quantity which is fundamental here.139. On the very different approach of themedieval scientist to the qualities of nature, seeJeremy Naydler, “The Regeneration ofRealism and the Recovery of a Science ofQualities,” International PhilosophicalQuarterly 23 (1983): 155-72.140. The complete text appears in StillmanDrake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo(New York: Doubleday, 1957).141. Ibid., 274.

142. Democritus; quoted in Irwin, 49.143. Quoted in Proskauer, The Rediscoveryof Color, 140. Chaps. 6-9 of this book givean excellent account of the problems arisingfrom the way that the senses are conceived inmodern physics. Proskauer goes further thanmost treatments of this topic by indicating howthe senses might be understood differentlyfrom this, and the influence which this couldhave on the science of color.144. Burtt, 90.145. Spinoza, Ethics, pt. 1, prop. Ill;Proskauer, 113.146. The text of Newtons letter of 1672 to theRoyal Society is given in Michael Roberts andE.R. Thomas, Newton and the Origin ofColours (London: Bell, 1934), 71-91. Allquotations from this letter, as well asquotations from subsequent letters defending

his new theory of colors, are taken fromRoberts and Thomas. Ronchi points out thatNewton began his experiments in the yearfollowing the publication of De Luminae byGrimaldi, and that “probably the mention ofthe ‘celebrated phenomenon of colours' in theletter quoted above, was a reference to theinvestigation that Grimaldi made, and recordedin his book, into the behaviour of prisms andthe nature of colours”—see Vasco Ronchi,The Nature of Light (London: Heinemann,1970), 162.147. Newton was wrong. The problem can besolved practically by making an achromaticdoublet out of two lenses of different glass.This method was discovered by Chester MoorHall, a London barrister whose hobby wasmaking optical instruments.148. The expression experimentum crucis is

a misquotation of Francis Bacons instantiacrucies. See Alexandre Koyré, NewtonianStudies (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1965), 42, n. 3.149. All quotations from Newton's letter to theRoyal Society in 1672 have been taken fromthe text of this letter as it appears in Robertsand Thomas.150. Casper Hakfoort, “Newtons Optics: TheChanging Spectrum of Science,” in LetNewton Bel, ed. John Fauvel, RaymondFlood, Michael Shortland, and Robin Wilson(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 84-89.151. Newton discussed his distrust ofhypotheses, and his insistence on experiment,in a further letter to Oldenburg (July 8, 1672):

You know, the proper method for

inquiring after the properties of things, isto deduce them, from Experiments. And itold you that the Theory which ipropounded, was evinced to me, not byinferring 'tis this because not otherwise,that is, not by deducing it only from aconfutation of contrary suppositions, butby deriving it from Experimentsconcluding positively and directly. Theway therefore to examine it is, byconsidering, whether the Experimentswhich i propound do prove those partsof the Theory, to which they are applied;or by prosecuting other Experimentswhich the Theory may suggest for itsexamination.

152. Hakfoort, 85.153. Cohen, The Newtonian Revolution,

138.154. There is an interesting parallel in the caseof Charles Darwin. In his autobiography hewrote “I worked on true Baconian principles,and without any theory collected facts on awholesale scale . . . .” He also said, in theintroduction to The Origin of Species, that“after five years' work I allowed myself tospeculate on the subject and drew up someshort notes.” But his early notebooks, begunshortly after the voyage of the Beagle, tell adifferent story (cf. Newton's early notebooks).They indicate that Darwin became committedto an evolutionary viewpoint much sooner—“transformism,” as it was then called, wasall the rage in one form or another in themedical schools in London when he returned.Furthermore, in a private letter he expressedthe non-Baconian view that “no one could be

a good observer unless that individual was anactive theorizer,” and that “... all observationmust be for or against some view if it is to beof any service.”

As with Newton's publication of his new theoryabout light and colors, Darwin's account ofevolution by natural selection, The Origin ofSpecies, is really a careful exercise in rhetoric,arranged to persuade the reader while at thesame time leading him or her to believe that theconclusions come directly from observations.What Darwin presented was not a new factualdiscovery, or even a multitude of suchdiscoveries, but a new organizing idea. Thefactual content is presented in the mode of thisorganizing idea, and hence it can easily seemthat evolution by natural selection is a fact. Onceagain, we need to be aware of the distinctionbetween the way of seeing and what is seen,

while realizing that whereas these can bedistinguished, they cannot be separated. Wecannot have the content without the container,but we can stop confusing the two.155. Goethe particularly disliked Descartes'smechanical philosophy:

He employs the crudest analogies fromthe world of the senses to explain thatwhich is intangible or evenincomprehensible. Hence his variouskinds of matter, his vortices, his screws,hooks and prongs are debasing to themind.

Quoted in H. B. Nisbet, Goethe and theScientific Tradition (London: University ofLondon, Institute of Germanic Studies, 1972),54, n.221.

156. Hakfoort, 98.157. This happened with the development ofquantum mechanics, when the threefoldsynthesis broke down because of difficultywith the theoretical component arising from theinapplicability of what Goethe called“analogies from the world of the senses” (note155). Bohr referred to this as “the wish forsensuous presentation,” which he and others(often as a result of Bohr's persuasion)believed it was impossible to achievecompletely in any understanding of the atomicworld. Bohr attempted to restore thetheoretical component in a limited way bymeans of his principle of complementarity.Much has been written about this, especially inthe last decade, but the fact remains that thereis no consensus to this day.158. For a history of the fundamental changes

in optical science at the beginning of thenineteenth century, see J. Buchwald, The Riseof the Wave Theory of Light (Chicago:Chicago University Press, 1989).159. Hakfoort, 81.160. See all parts of “Making thePhenomenon Visible” in part II of this book.161. See Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics(Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern UniversityPress, 1969), 128. See also “The Depth of thePhenomenon.”162. Proskauer, The Rediscovery of Color,includes a prism and cards especially preparedfor practical work.163. This is described in detail in “The PrimalPhenomenon of Color” in part II of this book.164. The term “edge spectra” is appropriatebecause “spectrum” simply means “something

to look at.” However, an effort has to bemade to disengage from the way that this termis now used in physics, following Newton, tomean the so-called spectrum of light. In thisusage it is taken to mean the separation ofcolors which are already present in the light.We have explored this in some detail in theprevious section, and should therefore now beable to recognize that this is an interpretationof the phenomenon derived from a theoreticalperspective, and not a description of thephenomenon as such.165. Quoted in Proskauer, 32. What follows,with reference to understanding Newton sobservations, is based on the excellentpractical account in chapter 1 of this work.166. Sepper, Goethe Contra Newton, 27-38.167. This procedure of dividing a visible

object into point-like elements seems to havebeen introduced by the Arabian scientist whois known in the West as Alhazen (9657-1039). His work became known in WesternEurope by a number of routes and eventuallyformed the conceptual basis of Kepler s book,Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena (1604), whichitself formed the basis for the subsequentdevelopment of instrumental optics. Thesuccess of this science, in making the locationof images calculable, for example, depends onthe procedure of replacing a continuous sourceof light with a very large (infinite) number ofpoint sources. For the contribution of Alhazento the development of optics, see VascoRonchi, The Nature of Light. We have seenthat Newton s interest in color was motivatedby the wish to improve the quality of the imageformed by the lenses in the refracting

telescope.168. See Proskauer, 14. It is interesting tonotice that in this case the overlap color, ruby-magenta, is conceived as the mixing of red andviolet, whereas in the case of the spectrum thecolor which occupies the equivalent position,green, is conceived as an elementary color(within the light) and not as the mixing ofyellow and blue.169. Ibid., 15.170. It helps in this case also to use anotherfigure, similar to the one considered here,except that the bright red rectangle is replacedby one which is white. The discussion givenhere is very compressed, and there are reallymany intermediate observations which shouldbe carefully considered to bring out thephenomenon clearly. Space does not permitthese to be described here, but full details will

be found in Proskauer, The Rediscovery ofColor, from which the account given here istaken.171. Quoted in G. Daniel Goehring, “NewtonsFirst Observation of Differential Refraction,”The School Science Review, 59/207(December 1977). The passage is cited in A.R.Hall, “Sir Isaac Newton's Notebook, 1661–5,” Cambridge Historical Journal 9 (1948):247-48.172. Proskauer, 25.173. Ibid.174. Ibid., 25–26, for a description of thisexperiment.175. The complete text of this essay appearsin Goethe: Scientific Studies ed. D. Miller(New York: Suhrkamp, 1988).176. Sepper, 70.

177. Ibid.178. Ibid., 71.179. Steiner, Goethe the Scientist, 189.180. Miller, 310.181. Taken from “The Experiment asMediator between Subject and Object.” SeeMiller, 16.182. Indeed, this has been mythologized intoan image of Faraday as some kind ofempirically minded simpleton—a myth whichhas been used recently for political purposes inconnection with the funding of scientificresearch in Britain. Fortunately, some excellenthistorical work has been done which showsthat this myth is unfounded.183. In the preface to the first edition of ATreatise on Electricity and Magnetism ,Maxwell said:

... before I began the study of electricity Iresolved to read no mathematics on thesubject till I had first read throughFaraday's Experimental Researches onElectricity. I was aware that there wassupposed to be a difference betweenFaraday's way of conceiving phenomenaand that of the mathematicians, so thatneither he nor they were satisfied witheach other's language. I had also theconviction that this discrepancy did notarise from either party being wrong.

Maxwell then went on to say:

As I proceeded with the study ofFaraday, I perceived that his method ofconceiving the phenomena was also amathematical one, though not exhibited in

the conventional form of mathematicalsymbols.

184. Proskauer, 38.185. Goethe did not use the termUrphänomen in Contribution to Optics or inthe essay “The Experiment as Mediatorbetween Subject and Object,” which waswritten shortly afterwards. He introduced thenotion under this name in his Colour Theory(1810), but seems to have made use of thenotion as early as 1793—see Sepper, 149.This is discussed in “The Primal Phenomenonof Color” in part II of this book.186. Quoted in Proskauer, 43.187. Ibid., 84.188. The way that refraction provides anoccasion for the appearance of color is treatedin detail by Proskauer in chapter 4 of The

Rediscovery of Color. Although he maintainsthat “an exact work on the precise manner inwhich the processes in the prism take placehas yet to be written” (85), Proskauer himselfgives a very clear indication of the directionsuch a work would take.189. See Lehrs, Man or Matter, 109. In “ThePrimal Phenomenon of Color,” this wasrendered as “exact sensorial imagination,”whereas Lehrs translates it as “exact sensorialfantasy.”190. Hjalmar Hegge, “Goethe s Science ofNature,” in Goethe and the Sciences: AReappraisal, ed. Frederick Amrine, Frank J.Zucker and Harvey Wheeler, 196-99.191. Dennis L. Sepper, “Goethe AgainstNewton: Towards Saving the Phenomena,” inGoethe and the Sciences: A Reappraisal,187.

192. Cf. Hegge, 205.193. The distinction between analytic andempirical propositions is discussed at the endof “The Idea of Inertial Motion.”194. Hegge, 206. Hegge emphasizes that theway Goethe combines empirical observationwith the discovery of apodeictic necessity (i.e.,that which cannot be otherwise) in thephenomena, is the pattern for all his work innatural science. Goethe does not maintain thatthese connections can be derived from senseexperience—“He is empirical, but not anempiricist.” In fact an organ of perception,which he calls exact sensory imagination, hasto be developed to perceive these necessaryconnections. These inner connections, whichovercome the mutual separation of phenomenaas they are first encountered, appear as thereal nature of the phenomena. (External

connections, on the other hand, try toovercome separation in an external way,which, paradoxically, has the effect ofconfirming it). It is important that this necessityis within the phenomena, and not behind thephenomena as in the two-world theory. Heggeemphasizes how much closer Goethe is here tothe Aristotelian tradition in science than to theGalilean-Newtonian tradition (213).195. Immanuel Kant, Critique of PureReason, translated by Norman Kemp Smith(London: Macmillan, 1964), Bxii-Bxiv, 20.196. Miller, 39.197. See “The Organizing Idea in CognitivePerception” for a discussion of the activesense of organizing. The organizing act is anact which is “organizing,” so we refer to it hereas “active-organizing.” It was also pointed outat the end of that chapter that “organizing” is

used to mean the primary act of “distinguishingwhich is relating,” and not the secondaryoperation of ordering what is alreadydistinguished. The difficulty is always to “goupstream,” to catch things in their coming-into-being instead of “downstream” at the finishedproduct stage. But this is crucial tounderstanding the difference between thinkingand thought. What is said here about theontological manifestation of the active—organizing principle in the researcher's thinkingactivity depends on understanding thisdifference. There is a kinship between thethinking activity of the researcher and theintrinsic organizing activity in nature. We arereminded here of Parmenides' statement that“thinking and being are one, the same.” Thisdoes not mean that the active-organizingprinciple is in nature in the same way that it

manifests in human thinking. The failure tounderstand this results in the error of animism.198. The key notion of the receptive will wasdiscussed by Georg Kühlewind in a course ofpublic lectures on “The Creative Power of theHuman Being,” given at Emerson College inMay 1991. The difficulty we have inunderstanding this notion is that we think interms of either/or, which in this case meanseither “active” or “not active,” i.e., passive.But the receptive will is not passive. One wayof looking at receptivity is to see it as thereconciliation of two opposites: activity andpassivity. It is a third state, which is neitheractive nor passive, yet which includes both ofthese in such a way that each is transformedby the presence of the other. But this is a newcondition, a third state, not a compromise orsome kind of “average” of active and passive.

199. Cf. Goethe's views on the relationshipbetween science and art, as he expressedthem in his Sprüche in Prosa. See Steiner,Goethe the Scientist, chap. 18.200. That is, the so-called Cartesian dualism.The problem here is that there is no possibleway that the supposed correspondence of anidea in the mind with the outer world could bechecked. Hence “knowledge” becomesproblematic. No such difficulty arose forAristotle, who would have found the Goetheancognitive participation in the phenomenon veryfamiliar. Aristotle's theory of knowledge hasby no means always been described correctlyby modern writers. An exception is the brilliantbook by Jonathan Lear, Aristotle: The Desireto Understand (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1988). See chap. 4,especially section 4.3. See also Nay-dler,155-

72.201. In this respect, Goethe is in tune withpremodern thought, i.e., prior to the dualistictheory of knowledge. Gadamer points out“that knowledge incorporated in being is thepresupposition of all classical and medievalthought” (Truth and Method, 458). But whatthis means for us now is that knowledge is notjust a subjective state, but a state of the objectwhich occurs in the subject. Goethe providesus with a practical way towards the experienceof this involvement of being in knowledge,referred to by Gadamer, but in a mannerwhich is appropriate for us today—i.e., aftermodern thought instead of before it.202. Quoted in Easlea, 128.203. Carolyn Merchant, The Death ofNature (London: Wildwood House, 1982),168.

204. As well as describing the means wherebythis could be done, Bacon was also concernedto show that (and under what circumstances)domination over nature is a legitimate aim forscience to have. In the passage from theCritique of Pure Reason quoted earlier (seenote 195), Kant says that Reason must deviseexperiments with which to “approach nature inorder to be taught by it,” but that it must do soin the manner “of an appointed judge whocompels the witnesses to answer questionswhich he or she have themselves formulated.”It seems likely that this very well-knownstatement of Kant s directly reflects Bacon scourtroom image of the experimentalphilosophy—especially in view of the fact thatKant extols Bacon, in the paragraph previousto the one quoted, for “his ingeniousproposals.”

205. In this respect Goethe was like Aristotle,who believed that, as well as the familiarenumerative induction from sensoryparticulars, there was a further kind ofinduction which entailed a direct insight intowhat is essential in the phenomenon (i.e., intowhat cannot be otherwise). It is interestingthat this is not discussed in most books on thephilosophy of science, which limit themselvesto the enumerative induction favored byclassical empiricism—and shown by Hume tobe incapable of providing a basis for scientificknowledge.206. Hegge, 215. See the discussion of exactsensory imagination, 20915. See also ArthurG. Zajonc, “Fact as Theory: Aspects ofGoethes Philosophy of Science,” in Goetheand the Sciences: A Reappraisal, 238-42.207. Weinsheimer, Gadamer's

Hermeneutics, 69.208. Zajonc, 240.209. This leaves aside the question of whetherthe genius of the artist could do this. Thecharacteristic of this genius is that it canembody the nonsensible in the sensible, so thatthe nonsensible manifests directly asappearance. The magic of the artistictransformation of matter is that it does theimpossible—think of Cézanne painting theexistence of apples! So we cannot precludethe possibility that a work of art could embodythe unity of a plant, but we can say that thiscannot be depicted by sensory representation,e.g., by a color slide.210. Flew, 46.211. Meno, 72 c and d (Penguin edition).212. Metaphysics, 1078 b 13-35.

213. This refers mainly to philosophers in thecontinental tradition, whether they are inEurope or in America. There may well beother philosophers who disagree with this onthe grounds that the two-world theory, as itdeveloped in Western philosophy, is really acounterfeit form of metaphysics (and shouldtherefore be thought of as pseudometaphysics)which obscures authentic metaphysics.Whether this is the case or not, the factremains that this is what “metaphysics” hascome to mean in the mainstream of Westernthought, and this is what many contemporaryphilosophers now see as a deeply influentialformative influence on Western thought.Western studies of Asian philosophy havebegun to recognize that often this has not beenunderstood because it has been seen throughmetaphysical spectacles by Western

interpreters—this is particularly exemplified inWestern studies of Taoism, for example. [SeeRoger T. Ames, “Putting the Te Back intoTaoism,” in Nature in Asian Traditions ofThought, ed. J. Baird Callicott and Roger T.Ames (Albany, New York: State University ofNew York Press, 1989)]. Whether we saythat metaphysics is the two-world theory, andthat what other traditions are doing is notmetaphysics (as Heidegger does) or we saythat what is called metaphysics in the Westerntradition is only pseudometaphysics, and thereis the possibility of a genuine metaphysicsdifferent from this—may well come down tosimply two different ways of saying the samething. However, those who adopt one or theother of these viewpoints may not feel stronglyinclined to agree with this. The problem heremay be, once again, a consequence of not

seeing things sufficiently comprehensively.214. Madison, The Hermeneutics ofPostmodernity, 130. There remains thequestion of whether, and to what extent, Platohimself made the metaphysical separation.Certainly modern translations of the Phaedoand the Republic (two major texts for thetheory of Forms) make it seem that he did. Butthen these are modern translations, andtherefore inevitably read Plato through thespectacles of a long historical tradition, namelythe metaphysical tradition. Heidegger stronglyemphasized that the separation was present inPlato, and he saw the history of Westernphilosophy as the history of the attempt tounderstand Being as “the Being of beings”beginning with Plato. Gadamer, on the otherhand, who is a lifelong student of Plato, thinksthe two-world interpretation of Plato is

mistaken. He referred to this view as pseudo-Platonism, in a talk on “Unity in Heidegger'sThinking” given at the conference onHeiddegger, Hermeneutics andInterpretation, organized jointly by theGoethe Institute, London, and the BritishSociety for Phenomenology (April 7-8, 1986).

Steiner referred to the two-world theory as one-sided Platonism. He saw it as a fundamentalinfluence in the historical development ofWestern thought, and scientific thought inparticular. He indicates in Goethe's World Viewthat the two-world theory, with its ontologicalhierarchy (one over many) and distrust of thesensory, did not originate from a failure inPlato's understanding but from the way that hepresented it, especially the way that hepresented the relation between idea and senseexperience. Heidegger also seems to have

thought that the difficulty arose from the waythat Plato presented his insight. Whatever thecase may be, the fact is that it is one-sidedPlatonism, with its hierarchical two-worldtheory, which forms the basis of the Westernmetaphysical tradition according to which thesensory and the intelligible are conceived asexisting separately. Aristotle's concern may havebeen not to reject Plato, but to correct theimbalance between the sensory and theintelligible, the many and the one, which arose inthe way in which Plato presented theirrelationship. Steiner describes Plato'sfundamental insight as being the recognition thatreality cannot be attributed to the sense world ifthis is regarded only by itself but only when itis “shone through by the light of ideas.” If it isnot shone through by the light of ideas, then andonly then is it “a world of semblance.” He

describes Plato's error as follows:

Plato did not stop short at emphasizingthe knowledge that, in humanperception the sense world becomes amere semblance if the light of the worldof ideas is not shone upon it, but rather,through the way he presented this fact, hefurthered the belief that the sense world,in and for itself, irrespective of humanity,is a world of semblance, and that truereality is to be found only in ideas. (17)

This is what Aristotle tried to correct. Whatneeds to be taken into account is the way thathumanity itself is involved in the process ofcognition. This is what we always forget: theway in which we ourselves are part of things.But Aristotle's attempt to correct Plato's

distortion did not succeed. One-sided Platonismwas carried forward historically through analliance with Western (Roman) Christianity. Thisbecame the vehicle which carried it into themainstream of Western thought. Aristotle himselfwas later misunderstood within this historicaltradition, and often presented as if he had beenin fundamental opposition to Plato. ApproachingAristotle in this way produces its own distortion—what could be called one-sidedAristotelianism.215. H. Brady, “ 257-300.216. Copleston, vol. 4, 220.217. Gerbert Grohmann, The Plant, vol. 1(Kimberton, Pa.: Bio-Dynamic Literature,1989), 26.218. John Seymour, The CountrysideExplained (London: Faber and Faber, 1977),116.

219. By “external world” is meant the world inwhich externality is the primary feature, i.e.,the bodily spatial world. It does not have themeaning which it usually has for ourcommonsense understanding, i.e., the worldoutside of ourselves.220. Stephen J. Gould, Ever Since Darwin(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1980),chap. 11.221. Grohmann, The Plant, vol. 1, 25.222. Steiner, Goethe the Scientist, 62: “Theunity attains to reality in that which is perceivedsimultaneously with the manifoldness, as beingidentical with it.”223. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy ofSymbolic Forms, vol. 1 (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1953), 155. Cassirer isconcerned with the impact which the idea ofthe organic had on the understanding of

language which was developed in Goethe'sday by Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt.He says further:

For the philosophy of language this newconception of the universal meantabandonment of the quest for a basic,original language behind the diversity andhistorical contingency of the individuallanguages: it also meant that the trueuniversal “essence” of language was nolonger sought in abstraction fromdifferentiation, but in the totality ofdifferentiations.

It is interesting that the category of the organicwas found to be so illuminating for the study oflanguage and meaning at that time. Thephilosophy of language and meaning developed

by Gadamer today also exemplifies the organicas a fundamental principle. An account of this isin preparation.224. See part I of this book.225. Stephen Edelglass, Georg Maier, HansGerbert, and John Davy, Mind and Matter:Imaginative Participation in Science(Hudson, N.Y: Lindisfarne Press, 1992),show that this “choice” is grounded in theselection of one group of human senses asbeing more fundamental than others, namely,the senses of the body, such as touch.226. The question which arises naturally at thispoint is whether it is in this perspective of“multiplicity in unity,” the intensive dimensionof One, that Plato's theory of Forms should beunderstood. If we look at what Steiner saidabout Plato, in note 214 above (see also note112), we see that the emphasis is on the sense

world being shone through by the light ofideas. Now it seems that if the sense worldappears in the light of ideas, then this wouldbe seeing multiplicity in the light of unity.Hence the perspective in which Plato can beunderstood correctly is inside-out with respectto the way that he is usually understood—”multiplicity in unity” instead of “unity inmultiplicity.” The theory of Forms takes on anew light when it is seen in the intensivedimension of One. If this is so, then it hassome significance for the contemporary debateabout the metaphysical tradition. It wouldmean that a distinction would have to be madebetween “counterfeit” and “authentic”metaphysics (cf. note 213). What has beencalled metaphysics hitherto in the Westernphilosophical tradition would now appear tobe only a counterfeit form of metaphysics

arising from an impoverished mode of unity. Itseems possible that “authentic” metaphysics,grounded in the intensive dimension of One,may have been understood in the earlyChurch, before the separation into Western(Roman) and Eastern (Greek) Christianity.Philip Sherrard has indicated how the EasternChurch was much more organic in itsconstitution and theology, whereas theWestern Church became much moreauthoritarian—reflecting the (counterfeit)metaphysical separation of one-sidedPlatonism. See Philip Sherrard, Church,Papacy and Schism (London: SPCK, 1978).See also the same author's The Eclipse ofMan and Nature (Hudson, NY: LindisfarnePress, 1987)—but it should be noted that theviews of Aristotle to which the author refers inthis book belong more to the distortion and

misunderstanding of Aristotle in the MiddleAges (fifteen hundred years after his death)than they do to Aristotle himself. RudolfSteiner refers to the new interpretation given toAristotle by the Christian philosophers andtheologians of the Middle Ages in Goethe'sWorld View, 22 . Fortunately, a lot of workhas now been done toward the rehabilitationof Aristotle—see, for example, JonathanLear's Aristotle, referred to in note 200.

The question of the universal and the particularwhich became central in medieval philosophy,and the associated argument between realismand nominalism, is also illuminated by seeing it inthe perspective of “multiplicity in unity” insteadof “unity in multiplicity.” Many of the difficultieswhich arose concerning the universal and theparticular disappear in the inside-out perspectiveof the intensive dimension of One, because they

originate from the mode of unity associated withthe extensive perspective. Referring to what issaid about concepts in “The Organizing Idea inCognitive Perception,” one can ascertain that aconcept itself has the form of “multiplicity inunity” and not “unity in multiplicity.” Meaning isakin to life, not to solid bodies.227. Steiner, Goethe the Scientist, 17.228. Brady, 286.229. Steiner, A Theory of Knowledge Basedon Goethe's World Conception, 88. See alsothe same author s Goethe the Scientist, chap.4, for an extended discussion of Goethe'snotion of organic Type.230. See Steiner, Goethe the Scientist, 60.Steiner gives a thorough account of this aspectof Goethe's scientific work in his essay “TheNature and Significance of Goethe's Writingson Organic Morphology,” which appears in

Goethe the Scientist, 50-86.See also Steiner, A Theory of KnowledgeBased on Goethe's World Conception, chap.16. The term “entelechy” was used by Aristotle,and it has often been taken in a teleologicalsense to imply the presence of purpose in livingnature analogous to human purpose. Goetherejected any such notion of goal-directedactivity in nature, and it is important that we donot unwittingly read it into his work. See Brady,288-89.231. This is equivalent to suddenly introducinga statement about the dynamics of motion in adiscussion in physics which, up to that point,had been restricted to the kinematics ofmotion. Something like such a jump from thedescriptive level to the causal is made herewhen, instead of describing the mode of unitywhich pertains to the archetypal plant, a

reference is made to the dynamics, i.e., theOne brings the many out of itself. It is thisjump from the descriptive to the causal whichmakes this statement jarring at the place whereit occurs in the text above (264). But this wasthe step which Goethe was able to make inexperience, i.e., he encountered the intrinsicdynamic of the archetypal plant.232. Lehrs, 82.233. In talks given at the InternationalAcademy for Continuous Education,Sherborne, Gloucestershire, in 1974.234. Finished product thinking imagines that“invisible” means the same as “not visible” inwhich case we would imagine, for example,that the furniture in a dark room is invisible—whereas it is in fact merely not visible. Theevent of appearance, whereby somethingbecomes visible, i.e., manifests, requires us to

think in the dynamic mode of coming-into-being.235. This is possible with participativeconsciousness but not with onlookerconsciousness. Aristotle's philosophy ofknowledge allows this to be described. This isnot intended to suggest that Goethes way ofscience must be described in terms ofAristotle's epistemology. On the contrary, thesuggestion is more that Goethe's way ofscience can provide a practical approach tounderstanding Aristotle's epistemology. Acommon mistake in describing Aristotle'sphilosophy seems to be to see it in theperspective of onlooker consciousness, as ifhe were a modern man. Careful accounts, onthe other hand, which endeavour to be true toAristotle, bring out the fact that he describesknowledge as it is for participative

consciousness—see, for example, Lear (note200). Lear does not use the term “participativeconsciousness,” but it is clear from his accountthat this is what he is describing.236. See Erich Heller, The Disinherited Mind(Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1961), 9.237. Steiner, Goethe the Scientist, 61.238. Steiner, Riddles of Philosophy (NewYork: The Anthroposophie Press, 1973), 144.239. This is always a source of difficultybecause we do not take into account the factthat we ourselves, i.e., as human beings, are anintegral part of the process of the world. Whatappears in the light of consciousness manifestsappearingly—in fact, it manifests. This is thenits mode of being. But we believe thatconsciousness is separated from an alreadyformed world, i.e., a world that is finished

independently of humanity and is “just there,”as it appears when seen, regardless of whetherit is seen or not. Furthermore, we believe thatconsciousness is subjective, and hence that ifsomething appears only in the light ofconsciousness, this would mean that it is onlysubjective. So it seems that the view beingexpressed here makes the appearance of theworld subjective—which we would rightlyreject. If we can just suspend the perspectiveof the onlooker consciousness, then we maycatch a glimpse of just what an extraordinarything the appearance of the world really is, andat the same time realize that we ourselves, i.e.,as human beings, are intrinsically involved inthe coming-into-appearance of the world.Without humanity the world could only benonappearing.240. Brady shows that it is the formative

movement which generates forms, so that wemust begin from this movement itself and notfrom a single form or some commonunderlying schema. Any single form is really anabstraction (a “snapshot”) from this formativemovement. The unity of the plant is thismovement, not some underlying commonform.241. Steiner, Goethe the Scientist, 21.242. Steiner, Goethe's World View, 81.243. Cesalpino in the sixteenth centuryproposed that the various organs of the plantwere modifications of the leaf—see AgnesArber, The Natural Philosophy of PlantForm (Cambridge, Mass.: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1950). Steiner mentions thatthe work of the English botanist Hill on thetransformation of individual flower organs intoone another, was well known in Goethe's time

— see Goethe the Scientist, 23.244. Grohmann, The Plant, vol. 1, 63, gives aphotograph of a dandelion showing thisabnormality.245. See Brady, 272. Grohmann, The Plant,vol. 1, 43, gives diagrams of the transitionfrom petal to stamen in the white water lily.See diagram in part II of this volume (82). Seealso Daniel McAlpine, The Botanical Atlas(Edinburgh, 1883; London: Bracken Books,1989), 101.246. Natürliche Einstellung—which wouldprobably be better translated as “habitualstandpoint.” See Erazim Kohák, Idea andExperience (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1978), 31-32. Husserl is a difficultphilosopher to understand in his originallanguage, and even more so in Englishtranslation. This book is an outstandingly

successful guide to Husserl's Ideas towards aPure Phenomenology andPhenomenological Philosophy, Book 1(usually known as Ideas 1). Kohák's ability topresent Husserl's fundamental insight in termsof examples taken from ordinary experience isparticularly helpful for anyone who wishes tounderstand that insight for themselves.247. The definition of “intentionality” which isoften given is unhelpful at best, and at worstmisleading, on account of the fact that it is tooeasily interpreted within the framework of thenatural standpoint, which defeats Husserl'spurpose. This is the definition of intentionalityas the characteristic of experience that it is,and must be, experience of something—in thewell-known formula “experience is alwaysexperience of —.” The definition ofintentionality in terms of the correlation of what

is experienced with the way it is experienced ismore comprehensive and informative.248. Don Ihde, ExperimentalPhenomenology (Albany, New York: StateUniversity of New York Press, 1986), 42-43.See also Richard Kearney, ModernMovements in European Philosophy(Manchester: Manchester University Press,1986), 13 ff.249. Michael Hammond, Jane Howarth, andRussel Keat, UnderstandingPhenomenology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991),48. The unitary condition of the noesis-noemacorrelation comes before the separation intosubject and object. This separation occurssubsequently due to the focusing of attentionon the object of consciousness instead of theact of consciousness. The subject-objectseparation occurs as a result of “falling” from

the correlation into separation. But this is thelevel at which we are awake in the onlookermode of consciousness. When the polarity isnot recognized, the act of conceiving and whatis conceived fall apart. The act is thenimagined as the act of an entity—the subject—because this is how it must seem in the light of“separation.” So we have the notion of aseparate, independent entity, the subject (nowconceived as an object), to perform the act.Similarly, what is conceived is now consideredas being separate from the act of conceiving,and therefore as an independent entity, theobject.

A widely held, but mistaken view ofphenomenology sees it as a variety ofsubjectivism. According to this viewpoint, thecorrelation of the act of consciousness with theobject of consciousness means that a structure is

imposed on the world by consciousness. Itshould be clear that this presupposes aseparation between world and consciousnesswhich belongs to the stage of subject-objectseparation, and not to the stage of the noesis-noema correlation which is prior to this. In otherwords, talking about consciousness imposingstructures on the world belongs to the veryCartesian dualism which phenomenology seeksto overcome. Phenomenology cannot bereduced to a variety of subjectivism.It is well known that Heiddegger was critical ofHusserl on the ground, that the latter sphenomenology did not succeed in overcomingCartesian dualism. The basis of his criticismseems to have been that Husserl's mode ofexpression reinforced the very Cartesian dualismwhich it was supposed to overcome. HenceHeiddegger believed that Husserl's work was

internally self-defeating, and he proposed themuch more radical approach which he took inBeing and Time. But Husserl should not beseen too readily through Heidegger's eyes.Gadamer has said that successful interpretationdepends on goodwill, and that goodwill ininterpretation is to take the other in his or herintention and not in his or her expression. If weapproach Husserl in this way, then we do find itbecoming quite clear that what he is concernedwith is the nondualistic condition of cognitionprior to the stage of separation into subject andobject. In other words, we can encounter thisthrough Husserl's work, notwithstanding anydifficulties in the way of doing so arising fromHusserl's mode of expression. An example of aninterpretation which is grounded in goodwill, andwhich succeeds in taking the reader beyond thelimitation of dualism, is the excellent work on

Husserl by Erazim Kohák mentioned in note246.250. Edmund Husserl, CartesianMeditations (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,1960), 39: “Inquiry into consciousnessconcerns two sides ... ; they can becharacterized descriptively as belongingtogether inseparably”—quoted inHammond, Howarth, and Keat,Understanding Phenomenology, 49. Thus,in the phenomenological perspective, “noeticdescription describes acts of consciousness,but in so doing will make reference to objectsof consciousness; noematic descriptiondescribes the objects of consciousness, but inso doing will make reference to acts ofconsciousness” (ibid., 49).

Aristotle also described perception andcognition as acts, and in this philosopher, too,

we find an inseparable “belonging together” ofthe two sides which Husserl refers to above.Thus, for Aristotle, perception is a single eventwith both a subjective and an objective aspect,which can be distinguished but not separated. InAristotle's terminology, the actualizing of theagent and the actualizing of the patient are oneand the same event. There is a singleactualization in perception and cognition whichhas two sides, as it were, which we (notAristotle) wrongly divorce into two separateentities, namely, subject and object, which wethen imagine as independent existences whichhave, somehow, to be brought together inperception and cognition (hence the problem ofepistemology). Aristotle's account of perceptionand cognition is lucidly described in Lear'sAristotle.Looking back to “The Quantitative Way of

Seeing,” we can now recognize that the world ofsolid bodies is a noesis-noema correlation. It isnot an object, i.e., the world external to andtherefore separate from consciousness, existingindependently in a bodily spatial manner. Whatwe mean by the solid world is what appears inthe light of the quantitative way of seeing—which could equally well be called the “solid”mode of cognition. What appears and how itappears, the way of seeing, are necessarilycorrelated. So the world of bodies, in all itsaspects (separation, externality, quantity,fragmentation, identity, fixity, solidification, andmechanical causality) is a noesis-noemacorrelation, and not a realm of entities which isindependent of the mode of cognition to which itappears (which does not mean the world ofbodies is subjective). To think of the world ofbodies as if it were independent of cognition is in

fact a consequence of seeing cognition itself inthe perspective of the world of solid bodies.When we think of the subject separate from theobject, each what it is independently of theother, and the subject knowing the object in themanner of the causal theory of perception, thenthis very way of conceiving cognition is how itappears to be in the light of the “solid body”mode of cognition. There is no escape: wecannot stand outside the way of seeing. Butwhat we can do is to become aware of the wayof seeing as such, and thereby recognize thepossibility of a change within the noesis-noemacorrelation, by means of a change in the way ofseeing251. It is a shift of attention within the originalnoesis-noema correlation itself. Gadamer hascommented on what he calls the naïveté ofreflection. This is the view that reflection is a

new act of cognition, effectively constituting anew object of cognition, which in this case isthe original act of cognition itself. Heemphasizes that it is a feature of twentieth-century philosophy, especiallyphenomenology, to overcome this naïveté ofreflection, which he sees as characteristic ofearlier modern philosophy. Referring to thephenomenological perspective, Gadamer says:

The kind of knowledge in question hereimplies that not all reflection performs anobjectifying function, that is, not allreflection makes what it is directed at intoan object. Rather, there is an act ofreflecting that, in fulfillment of an“intention,” bends back, as it were, onthe process itself [Hans-Georg Gadamer,Philosophical Hermeneutics (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1976),123].

There is in this nonobjectifying kind of reflectiona consciousness of the perceiving as well as theperceived, which accompanies theconsciousness of the perceived, “and by nomeans only as the object of a subsequentreflection” (ibid.). Whereas such a subsequentreflection is certainly possible—it is indeed whatwe usually mean by reflection—it is not the onlypossibility. There is also the possibility of aconcomitant reflection accompanyingperception, which is a simultaneous awarenessof the perceiving along with the perceived.Gadamer points out that, as well as beingfundamental to phenomenology, this perceptionwhich is “perception of the perceiving and of theperceived in one, and in no way contains

‘reflection’ in the modern sense” is describedcorrectly by Aristotle.The same redirection of attention is really themajor characteristic of the new philosophy ofscience. This refocuses attention into the act ofcognition instead of onto what is cognized. Inother words, the new philosophy of science ischaracterized by a shift from the known to theknowing of the known. The recognition that thenoesis-noema correlation is the invariantstructure of all cognitive perception enables usto understand what the philosophy of sciencegives us that is different from science itself. It isthe fact that it enables us to understanddiscoveries in science in terms of the way ofseeing, instead of only in terms of what is seen,which makes the philosophy of science adifferent kind of cognitive activity from scienceitself.

252. Idries Shah, The Exploits of theIncomparable Mulla Nasrudin (London:Octagon Press, 1983), 26.253. Illustrations of metamorphic series offoliage leaves appear in a number of works.See, for example, Grohmann, The Plant, vol.1 chap. 3; Lehrs, chap. 5.254. Lehrs, 81.255. This expression was used by J. G.Bennett in seminars on modes of togetherness,at the Institute for the Comparative Study ofHistory, Philosophy and the Sciences,Kingston-on-Thames, in 1964. Wittgensteinexpressed this as “nothing, and yet everything,has changed”—quoted in Ray Monk, LudwigWittgenstein (London: Vintage, 1991), 533.256. Brady, 276.257. Ibid., 279.

258. Ibid., 274, translated by John Barnes, thecomplete text of this essay appears in Miller,63-66. This essay forms the introduction toGoethe s journal On Morphology (1817-1824), which contains a collection of essays,one of which, The Metamorphosis of Plants,had appeared previously in 1790. Theintroduction consists of three parts, the secondof which, entitled “The Purpose Set Forth,” isthe one quoted from here. This essay, togetherwith the one which forms the first part of theintroduction, was originally written by Goethein 1807. He decided to use it as part of theintroduction to his later writings onmorphology because he had becomeconcerned by the tendency of biologists andothers to think in a direction which wasopposite to the direction of his own thinking.Hence he felt, quite rightly, that his views on

morphology would be misunderstood, becausethose who thought they understood what hewas saying would not in fact have theappropriate way of seeing. This, it has turnedout, is just what has happened. For the mostpart, Goethe's morphological work seems tohave been interpreted as being in the Platonictradition—no doubt the use of the term“archetype” encourages this misreading. Inother words, those who interpreted Goethe inthis way have read Goethe metaphysically.What we discover now is that this is far frombeing appropriate—in fact such aninterpretation marches in the opposite directionto Goethe, instead of alongside him. As withhis work on color, Goethe has beeninterpreted in a light which is not his own, andthe potentiality of his way of seeing has beeneclipsed. An exception to this is the

philosopher Ernst Cassirer, who wrote ofGoethe that “he did not think geometrically orstatically, but dynamically throughout”—quoted in Brady, 274; see Cassirer, TheProblem of Knowledge (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1974), 138.259. Bergson, Creative Evolution, 322.260. Ibid., 324.261. Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind(New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1946), 190.262. Ibid., 34.263. Ibid., 147.264. Ibid.265. The discovery that there can be a unity oftime, as well as a unity of space (Gestalt), is afundamental discovery of Goethes way ofscience. See Brady, 285.266. Friedemann-Eckart Schwarzkopf, “The

Metamorphosis of the Given,” Dissertation forDoctor of Philosophy, San Diego, California,1992, 480.267. This apt phrase is used by MarthaNussbaum in connection with Aristotle'sphenomenology. See Martha C. Nussbaum,The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1986), 251.268. Davy, Hope, Evolution and Change,23-25. Davy emphasizes that “the plant worldasks for a schooling of the imagination nottowards ‘objectivity’ (the grasping of objects),but towards participatory movement (thinkingwith processes).” In this connection, he writesabout “possibilities of conscious participationin nature . . . without demanding special statesof awareness,” and how “Nature herself offersus the schooling for those faculties which areavailable, still mainly undisciplined, as fantasy

and imagination, but which are the germs ofnew, entirely ‘scientific’ (i.e., knowledge-bringing) faculties for the future.”269. This apt phrase is used by John EGardner in his foreword to Wolfgang Schad,Man and Mammals (New York: WaldorfPress, 1977), 2.270. Goethe, quoted in Fritz Heinemann,“Goethe's Phenomenological Method,”Philosophy 9 (1934): 73.271. Heinemann, 73. The notion ofenhancement (Steigerung) was introduced byGoethe in his account of the growth of theflowering plant. Here it is aptly applied toseeing. It is typical of Goethe's approach thatwhat is found in nature will also be found inhumanity. The difference is that what is doneby nature, humanity must do for itself. So thereis here the important notion that this very way

of working to understand nature issimultaneously a process of self-formation(Bildung). This emphasis on thetransformation of the scientist himself throughhis own scientific activity is central to Goethe'sway.272. See, for example, Margaret Colquhoun,“Meeting the Buttercup Family,” ScienceForum 8 (Spring 1989). Grohmann, ThePlant, vol. 2, also contains many examples.See also Margaret Colquhoun and AxelEwald, New Eyes for Plants (Stroud:Hawthorn Press, 1996), chap. 7.

We have referred to the movement ofmetamorphosis in the organs up the stem, fromthe first stem leaves through to the stamens. Butthis can be extended to other organs of theplant. Goethe describes how style, stigma, andthe carpel (seed vessels) can all be understood

in terms of the metamorphosis of the “leaf” (TheMetamorphosis of Plants, par. 67-81). Seealso Grohmann, vol. 1, 46-9; Colquhoun andEwald, 151. Andreas Suchantke has shownhow the roots can be understood as a furthermetamorphosis of the “leaf,” in his essay “TheLeaf: “The True Proteus,” which is in JochenBochemühl and Andreas Suchantke, TheMetamorphosis of Plants (Cape Town, SouthAfrica: Novalis Press, 1995).273. Schad (note 269).274. Ibid., 218-19, 257-65. The accountwhich follows is taken directly from Schad.275. Ibid., chap. 2. See also “The Unity ofAnimal Organization,” in part II of this book.In his discussion, Schad describes the way thatthese systems can be supplemented tobecome:

Nerve, speech and sense system.Respiratory-circulatory system.

Metabolic, reproductive and limb system.

Although there is no need to go into this here,mention of it will be useful in the discussionwhich follows.276. Davy, 88.277. It would be very naive to suppose thatthis constituted “evidence” against Darwin'stheory. Biologists have shown how this theorycan accommodate the most unlikely facts, andeven turn them to its advantage. Anyone whois familiar with the Darwinian style of thinkingwill know how skillful they can be inconstructing arguments to do this. In thepresent case, it is not difficult to imagine thatthey would be able to show to their ownsatisfaction how this fact of progressive

emancipation, far from contradictingDarwinism, cannot only be explained by it butin doing so also provides even better evidencefor what a good theory it is. This is the way therhetoric of science works. The point which isbeing made is simply that it has not beennoticed that progressive emancipation has anevolutionary significance in itself because theestablished theory of evolution focuses ourattention in the opposite direction. But ofcourse, if we do take progressiveemancipation as being of fundamentalsignificance in itself, then we may begin toconsider the possibility of a different kind oftheory of evolution.278. Of course, Darwin did not propose thatone animal transmutes into another one in alarge-scale way. What he proposed is theeventual emergence of a different species as a

result of many small-scale modifications. Sothe origin of a new species is really a statisticaleffect arising as a gradual shift in a population,and is not specific to individual organisms. Inthis respect Darwin's theory resembles thenew statistical approach to the phenomena ofheat (thermodynamics) later taken byBoltzmann.279. The difference between these twoapproaches to evolution can be expressed alsoin terms of David Bohms distinction betweenimplicate and explicate orders. The Darwinianapproach to evolution sees it in terms of theexplicate order, whereas the Goetheanapproach sees it in terms of the implicateorder. See David Bohm, Wholeness and theImplicate Order (London: Routledge andKegan Paul, 1980) for an introduction to thesetwo different kinds of order. See also PH.

Bortoft, “A Non-reductionist Perspectivefor the Quantum Theory,” BirkbeckCollege, University of London, 1982, sections6 and 7, where the relationship between theimplicate order and the intensive dimension ofthe One is discussed, and it is shown howGoethe's holistic mode of perception of theorganic world provides an instance of anintrinsic implicate order.280. One of the few contemporarycommentators on the theory of evolution torecognize the interest of this alternative to theroute taken by mainstream evolutionary theoryis the philosopher of science D.R. Oldroyd inDarwinian Impacts (Milton Keynes: TheOpen University Press, 1980), chap. 4. Herecognizes that the process of Entwicklung,or progressive development, “though by nomeans the same as the doctrine of evolution by

natural selection, entailed an evolutionism of akind.” Specifically with regard to thecomparison between Goethe and Darwin, hesays “thus can two utterly different approachesproduce explanations of the samephenomenon.”

Much light has now been thrown on Darwin as aresult of the approach taken by what is oftenreferred to as the new history of science. This isthe view of science which sees it as beingembedded within a social, political, cultural, andhistorical context. It recognizes that thefundamental ideas of science have a cultural-historical basis, and furthermore thatsociopolitical factors can enter into the veryconstitution of scientific knowledge. It does notconsider scientific ideas as if they wereintellectual ghosts, existing in the pure realm ofsome “disworlded” intellect. In this respect, the

new history of science is very much in tune withthe continental tradition of hermeneuticphilosophy. We have seen previously how boththe move to Sun-centered planetary astronomyand the introduction of atomism into physicsdepended on the incorporation of ideas fromschools of thought which were outside ofscience as such. We saw that the foundations ofscience are cultural-historical, and that sciencedoes not have intrinsic scientific foundations, i.e.,it is not self-grounding. It has been shown byHübner in The Critique of Scientific Reasonthat such ideas enter into the very form whichthe detailed results of science take, and do notjust remain influential at a more overall but alsomore superficial level. In the case of Darwin, ithas been shown by Adrian Desmond and JamesMoore in their magnificent biography Darwin(London: Michael Joseph, 1991), how the

sociopolitical factor of the free market economyin early Victorian, Whig England entered into thevery form of Darwin s theory of naturalselection. The same point was made earlier,though without the same historical detail, in J.C.Greene, Science, Ideology and World View(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981).Greene comments on the fact that several otherswho also came up with a theory of naturalselection (Darwin acknowledged them in the“Historical Sketch” which he included in latereditions of The Origin of Species) were alsoBritish, and he sees the style of thinking whichthis theory involves as fitting very well with thefree market economics of the industrial capitalistsociety which was developing in Britain at thetime. A key factor here is the way that the ideasof Malthus on population and competition wereincorporated directly into Darwins theory,

influencing the very form of the mechanism (ashe thought of it) for evolution which heproposed. Nature and free-trade society wereboth driven by competition and selection:organic and social evolution were fundamentallysimilar in Darwins view. So Whig society andWhig-interpreted nature could be seen as beingmutually supportive, the one appearing toconfirm the Tightness of the other. For example,the Whig reform of the Poor Law, wherebyhandouts to the poor were stopped, was nowseen to be right because it was in accordancewith the natures own “Whig” procedure. Seealso Adrian Desmond, The Politics ofEvolution (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1989) for a detailed account of all thepolitical aspects of the idea of evolution inBritain in the decades before the publication ofDarwins book. The idea that the order of nature

and the order of society can be twin aspects ofa single whole—a “Cosmopolis” (i.e., cosmos+ polis)—is developed in detail in the brilliantbook by Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).See 67—69 for the definition of “cosmopolis,”which Toulmin uses to bring to light what hecalls “the hidden agenda of modernity.”The very idea of evolution itself, regardless ofany specific interpretation or suggestedmechanism, was introduced into science (likeSun-centered astronomy and atomism) and notdiscovered by science. It was certainly notdiscovered by Darwin—he never claimed that itwas, of course, but this misconception is stillsurprisingly common. Darwin embraced the ideaof evolution, which was already underdiscussion in the world to which he belonged,and proposed a mechanism for it. His approach

to this was based on a particular interpretationof evolution, namely, that it proceeds byprocreational connections (what he calledtransmutation and descent), and not by theprogressive development (Entwicklung) of anarchetypal animal (Urtier) in the mannerenvisaged by Goethe. It was in constructing thisidea of what the mechanism could be thatpolitical and economic factors entered into theform which his theory took. The claim whichDarwin later made, in his autobiographicalaccount, that he had reached the principle ofnatural selection by induction in the Baconianmanner from countless observations, can onlybe looked upon as part of a scientific “publicrelations” exercise.When we see the understanding of sciencewhich has emerged from the new philosophyand the new history of science, it is difficult to

escape the conclusion that it is this kind ofapproach to science which needs to be taught inschools. If we are to have people who areeducated to understand what science is, it surelymakes more sense to introduce them to scienceas a cultural-historical enterprise than it does tosubject them to the present approach of facts,experiments, and calculations torn out of theirreal context. On its own, the current approachto science education gives a distorted image ofscience which results in a pseudo-understanding.This distortion could now be corrected bycomplementing it with the approach taken by thenew history and philosophy of science. Withoutthe historical perspective, science is too easilyreduced to scientism, and knowledge ceases tobe such and becomes an idol. When thishappens, science education becomes a pseudo-education in idolatory.

281. Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein, 311 andpassim. In this exceptional biography, Monkshows that Wittgenstein was profoundlyinfluenced by Goethe. It is well known thatWittgenstein underwent a radical change in hisapproach to philosophy, resulting in whatmany have seen as a very different philosophyin his later period— although there are nowsome commentators who stress the continuitybetween Wittgensteins earlier and later work,instead of the discontinuity. What has nowbecome clear is that Wittgenstein's transition toa new approach was a result of his encounterwith Goethe. At first this was Goethe asmediated by Spengler in Decline of the West,but from that first encounter Wittgenstein wenton enthusiastically to embrace Goethe'smorphological approach as this is exemplifiedin The Metmorphosis of Plants. He followed

this in his own investigation of language, and hegrasped the key point that this did not providean alternative theory, but the means to escapefrom any need for a theory. The“understanding that consists in seeingconnections” replaces theory and explanation,and this is why many (Bertrand Russell, forexample) who had been filled with admirationfor his earlier work could not follow his laterphilosophy and thought it to be trivial. WhatWittgenstein was doing was developing anentirely new method in philosophy which had“no precedent in the entire tradition ofWestern Philosophy” (Monk, 216). Now thistradition, as Heidegger has made so clear, isthe Greek one which derives ultimately fromPlato, i.e., what is now referred to as themetaphysical tradition. So, at the same time asHeidegger, Wittgenstein was working in his

own way to overcome the metaphysicaltradition. What is important about his way isthat it introduced a new method intophilosophy based explicitly on Goethes way ofseeing, and it is this way of seeing thatreplaces metaphysics. This is furtherconfirmation that Goethe's way of seeing is notrestricted to observations in natural science,but is a radical alternative to the kind ofthinking we have become familiar with inmodern science and the Western traditiongenerally. What is particularly remarkable isthat this is not just a matter of an alternative inan intellectual sense, but entails the concreteexperience of a new kind of seeing.

One of the reasons why Wittgenstein became soopposed to mainstream science is because hesaw it as the embodiment of metaphysics (one-sided Platonism). However, he did not really

grasp the fact that Goethe's way showed thepossibility of a new, different kind of sciencefrom the mainstream, and he seems to haveconsidered that Goethe was really offering analternative to science. It is one of the aims of thepresent work to show that Goethe offers analternative to metaphysics, but that this is notnecessarily the same as an alternative to sciencebecause it is possible for there to be anonmetaphysical science—which is whatGoethean science is, in fact.282. Ibid., 308.283. Ibid., 338. He also said that instead ofwanting to say that things which look differentare really the same, as he believed Hegel did,“My interest is in showing that things whichlook the same are really different” (537).284. It needs to be remembered that “thesenses” means what Kühlewind refers to as

“the conceptually-instructed senses”—see TheLogos-Structure of the World , 39-46. Thepoint here is that if we see a chair, say, thenthis is not the purely sense-perceptibleexperience it seems to be, because it alsoentails the concept “chair.” So what we usuallythink of as sense perception alone is really asensory-conceptual coalescence.285. Monk, 537.286. Ibid., 531. Wittgenstein considersaspect-seeing in a wider context than visualfigures which are puzzling or ambiguous insome way. He considers the ability to see ajoke, to understand music, poetry, painting,and so forth. However, we can also consider itin the more restricted case of the gestalt figuresdiscussed here—I came across someone whocould not see the hidden human figure forseveral months!

287. “Significant Help Given by an IngeniousTurn of Phrase,” in Miller, 39.288. This and the three following quotationsare taken from Goethes account of his meetingwith Schiller, “Fortunate Encounter,” in Miller,20. Monk refers to this meeting in connectionwith Wittgenstein (511-12).289. We have seen previously that cognitiveperception has the structure of what Husserlcalls the noesis-noema correlation: what isseen and the way that it is seen are necessarilycorrelated. Wittgenstein s approach brings usto a very similar position, even though themanner in which it does so is very different.There is more fundamental agreement betweenWittgenstein and the phenomenologicaltradition than has sometimes been recognizedon either side. Wittgenstein is particularlyconcerned to dispel any notion that there is

some kind of private mental object, as if whenwe see internal connections we are seeing suchan object. This confusion effectively reducesall seeing to one kind: that kind of seeing whichconsists in seeing physical objects, i.e.,sensory seeing. This is what Wittgensteindenies, and he sees the confusion as arisingfrom our habit of carrying over the languagewhich is appropriate to one kind of seeing intothe way that we talk about another kind ofseeing. Thus “object” means “physical object”in whatever context the term is used—e.g.,mental object—even though superficially itmay seem to be otherwise. So we carry overthis way of thinking into other areas for whichit is not appropriate. Hence we mistakenlyintroduce the concept “object” where what wehave to do with is a way of seeing. Asmentioned already, phenomenology leads to

the same conclusion by a different route.290. Barfield, The Rediscovery of Meaning,123.291. In a letter to Thomas Butts (1802), Blakewrote:

Twofold always. May God us keep.From single vision, and Newton's sleep!

Quoted in Barfield, ibid., 113. See WilliamBlake, Letters, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (NewYork: Macmillan, 1956), 79. For Blake, thenotion of the twofold went beyond the orbit ofthe present essay. Nevertheless, although whatwe are concerned with here is only a restrictedcase compared with the vision of William Blake,the twofold structure of the experience is thesame.292. It is important to remember that the use

of the term “imagination” here is very differentfrom the way that it is commonly used. Fromall that has been said about the practice ofexact sensorial imagination, it should be clearthat the kind of imagination discussed here is afaculty which has to be developed bydisciplined work. What we commonly callimagination—in daydreaming, for example—isthe “material” out of which an organ ofperception can be built, but which has notbeen organized. Hence it “runs wild,” and theresult is fantasy instead of perception.293. Barfield, The Rediscovery of Meaning,20.294. As mentioned previously, there is atendency to talk of the sensory aspect and themeaning aspect of the word as being ondifferent levels. Although this can be a usefulway of talking at times, it may be that it is

really a consequence of the way that weexperience language. In other words, the factthat two different kinds of perception areinvolved at the same time gets projected ontothe phenomenon, where it appears as twodifferent levels. Another way of looking at it,instead of in terms of levels, is in terms ofcoarser and finer aspects of the samephenomenon.

The claim that we see meaning directly, in thesense that it is meaning which is the focus ofcognitive perception, is made very strongly byBrown in Perception, Theory andCommitment, chap. 6. Brown maintains thatthis is just what happens in our ordinarycognitive perception. For example, if we see atable or a chair, then what we are seeing in eachcase is meaning, for which the physical objectitself (perceived through the senses) is the script.

Consequently, our cognitive perception of theworld about us is really an act of reading ascript. Thus the world we know is a text, andnot a set of objects as commonsense and naiveempiricism take it to be. This is a verypersuasive view in the light of the account ofcognitive perception given above in chapter 2.295. Friedemann-Eckart Schwarzkopf, “TheMetamorphosis of the Given,” Dissertation forDoctor of Philosophy, San Diego, California,1992, 454. I am greatly indebted toFriedemann Schwarzkopf for making his thesisavailable to me. My understanding of Goethehas been considerably improved by AppendixVIII, “Goethe—The ArchetypalPhenomenon.” Schwarzkopf bases hisapproach on the philosophy of the worddeveloped by Georg Kühlewind in severalbooks (which Schwarzkopf has translated),

the one which is most relevant in the presentcontext being The Logos-Structure of theWorld. I first encountered Kühlewind'sfundamental insight into the twofold nature ofthe word in a workshop which he gave on thistheme in London (June, 1990). But I had notgrasped just how exactly this fitted theGoethean way of seeing in science until I readthe appendix in Schwarzkopf's thesis referredto above. I am considerably indebted to this,as well as to the particular work of Kühlewinds referred to above, in writing this section ofthe present essay—although it should beadded that both these works go well beyondthe confines of this essay.296. Friedemann Schwarzkopf, 439. Goetherefers to reading the phenomena of nature in aletter written in 1785—see Lehrs, 95. Goethealso refers to this in Wilhelm Meister as

follows (quoted in Friedemann Schwarzkopf,75):

But if I would treat those cracks andfissures as letters, and try to decipher andassemble them to words, and learn toread them, would you object?

297. Kühlewind, The Logos-Structure of theWorld, 30-31, 52-53, 64-65.298. Helen Keller, The Story of My Life(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1959), 23.299. Kühlewind heads The Logos-Structureof the World with a quotation from ThomasAquinas: “The reality of things is their light”(Commentary to Liber de causis 1,6).300. See, for example, the discussion of this inGadamer, Truth and Method, section 3.3.A.301. Martin Heidegger, On the Way to

Language (New York: Harper and Row,1971). The quotations from Heidegger whichfollow are taken from “The Way toLanguage,” which is included in the above.302. Kühlewind, The Logos-Structure of theWorld, 30.303. Ibid., 31.304. Kühlewind describes nominalism asfollows:

Immature reflection may draw thedistinction between concept and wordfalsely—not between concept and wordbut between thing and word—notrealizing that only its concept makes athing this thing. Then nominalism arises. Athing is pictured without its concept, andthe word is regarded as identical with theconcept. Therefore, nominalism assumes

that the concept is only a name, a way ofnaming an object. It is not noticed thatwe can only name something we havegrasped conceptually. Nominalismintroduced into the realm of humanthought the idea that things could existwithout concepts, (ibid., 34)

Nominalism is to language as empiricism is toknowledge. Both are instances of starting“downstream” with what is the end result of aprocess and trying to understand the process interms of this by projecting the result back intothe very process which produced it—trying toget to the milk by way of the cheese.305. Ibid., 52. It is tempting to try to conveythis by saying that it is the experience oflanguage as magical, but this is so easily opento misunderstanding. Adults see the primal

experience of language when it happens withtheir own children, but do not recognize it forwhat it is. Because the experience of languagehas become mundane for the adult (we cannotreally say the adult consciousness experienceslanguage), we miss what is happening with thechild, and can even think the child is confusedand mistaken when it seems as if he or she isattributing a property of concreteness towords. What we do not realize is that aconsciousness is awakened here which is verydifferent from the adult consciousness. In thisstate of consciousness it would be appropriateto refer to the self-referral of meaning (self-meaning) as the self-saying of the word (it saysitself).306. Notice here again how difficult it is toavoid dualism. We say that it appears and isseen. But the appearing is the seeing; it does

not appear and then is seen. It is only by aneffort of attention that we can become awareof the dualism which is there already in theway we automatically conceive things.307. The recognition that this is so has givenrise to much discussion in recent years, oftenarising specifically from widespread (ifsuperficial) interest in the work of Derrida. Wehave heard talk about postmodernism,subjectivism, relativism, nihilism, and the endof philosophy. But it has to be said that muchof this discussion rests on (1) failure to go intothe question of language without becomingsufficiently aware of the way that we alreadyset language in a dualistic context and (2)failure to understand the monistic stage oflanguage in human development and howradically different this primary phase is fromthe secondary stage, where language is used

for the purpose of communicating information.Some of Derrida s seemingly outrageousremarks take on a different aspect when thesetwo factors are taken into account. Considerremarks such as “the thing itself is a sign,” and“il n'y a pas de hors texte”—often weaklytranslated as “ there is nothing outside of thetext,” whereas what is really being asserted isthat there is no hors texte, i.e., there is no“outside.” The failure to recognize the dualismin the way that we are accustomed tounderstand language, as well as the failure torecognize the monistic stage of language whichis prior to dualism, has the consequence thatwe see these remarks of Derrida s as assertingthat either (a) there is no reality or (b) there isa reality but it is forever hidden from us by theveil of language. In this case language appearsas a prison in which we must spend a life

sentence. But such a dualistic picture is itselfcontrary to what Derrida is trying to say.There is an hors prison, but not an horstexte. So no matter how it may seem when weare pushed along by the dualism in our habitualthinking, it simply makes no sense in Derrida sterms to talk about being imprisoned inlanguage. This itself is an instance of the verydualism which a less superficial understandingof language dissolves. The point is that, asGadamer says, “reality does not happen‘behind the back’ of language. . . . realityhappens precisely within language”(Philosophical Hermeneutics, 35). Thisfollows necessarily from the nature of languageitself as saying-showing-seeing. When werecognize this, it transforms our understandingof language, and we can see immediately thatthe claim that there is no reality, or that if there

is then it is hidden behind language andinaccessible, is fundamentally mistaken andunwarranted.

We also realize that the traditional categories ofobjectivism and relativism are confusing andneed to be replaced by an organic perspectivein which the world can be one and many at thesame time. Such a perspective is provided bythe notion of “multiplicity in unity,” whichenables us to understand how the world can beOne without being one world. As with theambiguous figure which can be a duck or arabbit, each complete in itself but notcomprehensive, so there can be many worldswhich are One—which is not the same as manydifferent views of one world. Many of theproblems discussed in philosophy today, whicharise out of the limitation of the traditionalcategories in which the discussion is conducted,

can be transformed by Goethe s organic way ofseeing. In particular, it can help us to understandthat what is fundamental is not differentperspectives of a single reality—different waysof looking at the world (i.e., the attitude ofdualism)—but different worlds which are notextensively many (pluralism) but intensively One.[It is not my intention above to suggest thatGadamer is in agreement with Derrida, but onlythat there is some ground which they do share incommon over the fundamental question oflanguage. It is certainly more usual to giveattention to the way that they differ radicallyfrom one another, which they certainly do. SeeGadamer's Truth and Method, part 3, section3(A), especially 447, for a succinct expressionof his thinking on language and world. See alsoJoel Weinsheimer, PhilosophicalHermeneutics and Literary Theory (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 121-23,on the way in which Gadamer differs fromDerrida].308. This does not mean that words areatomic meanings. Words are not separate intheir meanings, but mean themselves only inrelation to other words. Language is holistic.309. Gadamer, 474 (italics in the original).310. Heidegger, On the Way to Language,118.311. Miller, 309.312. Kurt Hübner, Critique of ScientificReason, 124. What Hübner means by “apriori” here is to be understood as beinghistorical and not transcendental. Thus, theSun-centered cosmos, for instance, is notnecessary in any other sense than the one wehave discussed earlier (in chapter 3), in that itarose in a particular historical situation within

which it functioned as an a priori element thatguided research in advance of any empiricaljustification. Such historical a prioripropositions constitute “the conditions of thepossibility” of scientific experience (to adoptKant's terminology), but they are in no senseabsolute. The history of science shows us “thatnothing is necessarily true, but rather that everyposition is dependent upon the particularconditions of its origin” (ibid., 89).313. See Fernand Hallyn, The PoeticStructure of the World (New York: ZoneBooks, 1993), pt. 1, for a detailed account ofthe relation between Copernican astronomyand the Renaissance ideal in architecture andpainting. Copernicus refers explicitly tosymmetry and harmony as key features of hisapproach in his letter to the Pope, which heprefixed to De Revolutionibus Orbium

Caelestium, and in the tenth chapter of theintroductory First Book. See also Kuhn, 137-39, 141-43, 177-80.314. This is described brilliantly by AdrianDesmond and James Moore in theirbiography, Darwin. They describe howDarwin considered that the mechanism ofnatural selection—which he referred to asnature s “manufactory of species”—had theeffect of increasing the “physiological divisionof labour” among species in a way which hesaw as analogous to the new production linefactories. Darwin married a member of theWedgewood family—one of his grandfatherswas Josiah Wedgewood—who were amongthe first to introduce the production line in theorganization of their pottery factories. Darwinhimself was a heavy investor in industry, andso in the form which his theory took “Darwin

put his mouth where his money was”(Desmond and Moore, 421). The result was,in effect, the ideological industrialization ofnature. Here we can see quite clearly the waythat cultural-historical factors enter into thevery form which scientific knowledge takes.315. Hübner, 114. See also the end of “TheMetaphysics of Separation.”316. Gurwitsch, “Galilean Physics in the Lightof Husserl's Phenomenology,” 88;Phenomenology and the Theory of Science,56.317. “The thesis that nature is mathematicalthroughout can be confirmed only by the entirehistorical process of the development ofscience, a steady process in which naturecomes to be mathematized progressively”(ibid., 55 and 87).318. The story of “The Blind Ones and the

Matter of the Elephant” appears in IdriesShah, Tales of the Dervishes (London:Octagon Press, 1982), 25.

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