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Whereas most readers are familiar with Goethe as a poet and dramatist, few are familiar with his scientific work. In this brilliant book, Henri Bortoft (who began his studies of Goethean science with J. G. Bennett and David Bohm) introduces the fascinating scientific theories of Goethe. He succeeds in showing that Goethe’s way of doing science was not a poet’s folly but a genuine alternative to the dominant scientific paradigm. Bortoft shows that a different, "gentler" kind of empiricism is possible than that demanded by the dualizing mind of modern technological science and demonstrates that Goethe’s participatory phenomenology of a new way of seeing―while far from being a historical curiosity―in fact proposes a practical solution to the dilemmas of contemporary, postmodern science. If you read only one book on Goethan science, this should be the one!
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WHOLENESS OF NATURE Goethe's Way toward a Science of Conscious Participation in Nature
HENRI BORTOFT
gym Renewal in Science The Renewal in Science series offers books that seek to enliven and deepen our understanding of nature and science.
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Wholeness
Genetics and the Manipulation of Life: The Forgotten Factor of Context
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by Craig Holdrege The Marriage of Sense and Thought: Imaginative Participation in Science by Stephen Edelglass, Georg Maier, Hans Gebert & John Davy Thinking Beyond Darwin: The Idea of the Type as a Key to Vertebrate Evolution by Ernst-Michael Kranich The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe's Way toward a Science of Conscious Participation in Nature by Henri Bortoft
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Copyright (L) 1996 by Henri Bortoft Published in the United States by Lindisfarne Books www.lindisfarne.org Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bortoft, Henri, 1938– The wholeness of nature : Goethe's way toward a science of conscious participation in nature / 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 in literature. 4. Nature (Aesthetics) 5. Science in literature. I. Title. II. Series. PT2213.B67 1996 96-9358 831'.6 dc20 CIP An earlier version of part I of this work, 'Authentic and Counterfeit Wholes," was first published in Systematics, vol 9, no. 2 (1971), and a thoroughly reworked version was subsequently published in Dwelling Place and Environment (edited by Seamon and Mugerauer) by Martinus Nijhof, 1985. Part II of this work, "Goethe's Scientific Consciousness," first appeared as Institute for Cultural 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 Richey Typography & interior design• Watersign Resources
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and articles.
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.. Contents Preface
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Men fic and- Coun
11.1
INTRODUCTION
3
Two EXAMPLES OF WHOLENESS: HOLOGRAMS AND 4 THE UNIVERSE OF LIGHT AND MATTER