48.
Goethe's prime phenomenon: *
His method differed radically from the model used today and the one used in his day. This model is objective experimental science, in which the observer records & notes external data & events. He is removed from the object. Only if his “experiment” can be repeated by a 3rd party and the results confirmed are the findings considered objective. Goethe however believed that the observer & the object were in fact linked, that the senses we use to observe external reality are themselves mirrors of that reality. Therefore observing ONLY the external object tells only half the story. The scientist must also be aware of & observe his own inner response & feelings. This deep observation will reveal qualities of the object. It is subjective rather than objective and might be described as a mystical approach as against a purely rational approach.
In 1790 Goethe published Metamorphosis of Plants, his major scientific work in botany.in which he describes the (serially) homologous nature of leaf organs in plants. The plant develops from a general form, it unfolds from this form or pattern: "from top to bottom a plant is all leaf, united so inseparably with the future bud that one cannot be imagined without the other". Goethe’s key contention is that every living being undergoes change according to a compensatory dynamic between the successive stages of its development. In the plant, for example, this determination of each individual member by the whole arises insofar as every organ is built according to the same basic form. With plants Goethe saw the leaf as this general form which the rest of the plant emerges. Finding this general form or archetype-pattern or the prime phenomenon (Ur-phänomen) was the goal of the scientist. His method was observation of movement & activity (life), the scientist entering into the essence of Nature and then allowing Nature to reveal herself. An artificial mechanistic approach (objective science) looking only to material objects, seeking only specific & discrete evidence will take Nature out of context & the results will be warped. Hidden relationships explain how one form can transform into another form, both sharing the prime or Ur-phanomen. Seeking this organizing idea or form should guide the study of the parts. This Ur-phanomen is a virtual image that appears & will re-appear from the integration of experience (sensual perception) and creative imagination. The latter is quite different from the thinking employed in objective science. A science of vital nature will be based on a vital, dynamic, labile approach, a living, direct, interactive experience involving the mind (cognition, perception) but also higher faculties more participatory and imaginative, not dissociative and separative.
Goethe's discovery of an underlying order directly challenged the fixed, static view of nature of the Linnaean taxonomy (artificial types arrived at by choosing certain features while ignoring others), but also the tendency of natural science to study vital nature by means of the methodology used on inert nature. The science of Newton worked to create an artificial barrier between observation & the object. Goethe realized that not only the object of observation changes and moves but also the subject (the scientist). He realized that the observer could NOT be an impartial 3rd party and that the very act of looking, then observing, then thinking led to unconscious associations. Newton did not explain light so much as describe what he saw & introduce the machinery of the theory he wanted to prove. In other words objectivity science was mythological when applied to living nature (botany, zoology) versus inanimate nature (physics, chemistry). Goethe’s principles inform Spengler’s attitudes towards historical objectivity & historical relativity, his disdain for “scientific” objective history.
His Theory of Colours (1810) on the nature of colours and how these are perceived by humans, gives detailed descriptions of phenomena such as coloured shadows, refraction & chromatic aberration. It provides a catalog of how colour is perceived in different circumstances; it considers Newton's observations to be special case (not a universal). Goethe's concern was not so much with the analytic treatment of colour, as with the qualities of how phenomena are perceived. Philosophers have come to understand the distinction between the optical spectrum, as observed by Newton, and the phenomenon of human colour perception as presented by Goethe, the latter being an aspect of psychology rather than physics.
The concept of polarity can be found in Theory of Colours. Colour arises from the polarity of light and darkness; darkness is not the absence of light (as Newton believed), but its essential antipode, and thereby an integral part of colour. The oppositional tension between the creative force and the compensatory limitations within all living things exemplifies the notion of ‘polarity’. Polarity between a freely creative impulse and an objectively structuring law allows the productive restraint of pure creativity and at the same time the playfulness and innovation of formal rules. Spengler’s differentiation between the historical phases of Culture (growth, creativity) and Civilization (fulfillment, become) bears a similarity to Goethe’s classical understanding of art as a tensional polarity between the blindly creative will and the constraint of formal rules
49.
comparative zoology: *
Since the late 18th century comparative anatomical study has been associated with Morphology, a branch of biology which studies the form & structure of organisms & their specific structural features. This includes outward appearance (shape, structure, colour, pattern, size), which is external morphology; it also includes studying the form and structure of the internal parts (bones & organs) which is anatomy. [NB morphology is distinct from physiology, which deals with function] In the UK Huxley (1825-95) was the leading anatomist; his work centred on the morphology of animals, in particular comparative anatomy. Following Huxley zoology developed into other areas, one of which was Zoography, or descriptive zoology, which is the applied science of describing animals & their habitats