Goethean science

Goethean science refers to a movement in science in the 19th century closely connected to the work and writings of German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe, although primarily known as a literary figure, did research in morphology, anatomy, and optics, and also developed a phenomenological approach to science and to knowledge in general.

His scientific works include his 1790 Metamorphosis of Plants and his 1810 book Theory of Colors. His work in optics, and his polemics against the reigning Newtonian theory of optics, were poorly received by the scientific establishment of his time.

By the middle of the 1700s, Western philosophy had reached an ethical and epistemological cul-de-sac. The Enlightenment or Age of Reason was based on a static view of human nature, an increasingly mechanical view of the universe (based on Copernican astronomy, Galilean mechanics and Newtonian physics) and a linear view of the progress of scientific knowledge (based on a mechano-material, reductionist approach). This rationalist approach, what one commentator has termed the 'one-eyed, color blind' perspective of the world, raised fundamental issues about "God, freedom and immortality" (Kant) of growing concern to a culture undergoing significant economic, political and cultural transformation.

The scientific method that had worked well with inert nature (Bacon's natura naturata), was less successful in seeking to understand vital nature (natura naturans). At the same time, the rational-empirical model based on the predominance of mentative thinking (German: sinnen) via the intellect (German: Sinn), started by Descartes and advanced most notably in France, was leading to confusion and doubt rather than clarity: equally rational arguments could be made for widely divergent propositions or conceptions.

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