Science in a Different Key: The Case of Goethean Science
Science in a Different Key: The Case of Goethean Science
Katherine Buchanan interviewed by Richard House
Richard House [RH]: Katherine, can we start by you telling us a bit about yourself, and how your biographical journey has led you to have a deep interest in the Goethean approach to science?
Katherine Buchanan [KB]: I am an independent freelance evolutionary biologist and ecologist, researcher, tutor and mentor. I teach biodynamic horticulture at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh (RBGE) and facilitate courses on ‘Goethean’ Natural Science and Biodynamic gardening at various venues across Scotland and in South Africa. My areas of interest and consultancies include ecological, biodynamic and sustainable farming in partnership with Nature; artistic approaches to scientific research; conservation, biodiversity, herbology and environmental education. I work closely with The European Academy for the Culture of Landscape (PETRARCA); the Proteus Initiative in South Africa and Bellis-Arbeitsgemeinschaft für goetheanistiche Pflanzenerkenntnis (Bellis Working Group for Goethean Plant Knowledge).
I was born in South Africa and my wonderful childhood there has had an enormous influence on my career. I was surrounded by Nature and lived for it! Climbing in the Drakensberg mountains; observing and communicating with birds and other wildlife, both in my garden and in the wider bushveld, were my favourite pastimes for as long as I can remember.
I was also fortunate enough to have an extremely close relationship with a Swazi-Sangoma (a diviner-priest) who lived with my family and practised from our family home until I was twelve years old. She was my first important teacher towards my future as a Goethean scientist.
My artist mother, who created something of a sanctuary for stray animals at our home, taught me empathy; how to observe as an artist; how to tame feral cats and encouraged my love of poetry; music; fine art and fiction. My cardiologist father was wise and intuitive and taught me how to think clearly, carefully and accurately. My horse-whispering farmer maternal grandfather taught me to love farming and to love and respect animals and how to communicate with horses.My medical doctor paternal grandfather taught me to appreciate and respect all cultures and introduced me to ecology,including human ecology.
All these wonderful family members gave me early insights into different ways of seeing and being and connecting with Nature and society and I am deeply grateful to them all.
Other important influences include my first friend and confidant – an enormous old oak tree in my garden, and the story-telling that was such a big part of my childhood.
When I was 14, I attended a wilderness survival course in Timbavati game reserve (bordering on the Kruger National Park) and had extraordinary and important encounters with wildlife, including White Lions (another long story) and a solo encounter with a rhinoceros. This latter event and later encounters with dangerous snakes taught me how to communicate with animals. I also learned much on how to deepen my connection with landscape on this full immersion wilderness trip, which I furthered on several more ventures into the African bush in South Africa and Botswana.
Conserving and encouraging biodiversity and caring for Nature were top priorities for me throughout my childhood, and I decided quite early on to pursue studies in ecology. In my teenage years I became interested in evolution (taught by a rebellious biology teacher – as it was banned from the school curriculum in South Africa). This interest was encouraged by my parents, who gave me Darwin’s Origin of the Species. I was also intrigued by San cave paintings and what they held; African tribal traditions; ancient civilisations; philosophy and English literature!
As a consequence, my first year at university was crammed full, and had me running back and forth from the arts campus to the science campus to make my many lectures in time! These courses gave me at least something of a grounding in the humanities and insights into philosophy and the history and philosophy of science, amongst many other important perspectives and influences.
I completed a B.Sc. in archaeology, botany and zoology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and B.Sc. Honours in marine biology. My interest in evolution deepened and I pursued post-graduate studies in Boulder, Colorado, USA in mathematical ecology, evolutionary biology, speciation and molecular genetics.
While in Colorado I met an ornithologist, Mike Madders from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Scotland, who was managing a follow-up on the reintroduction of white-tailed sea eagles on the Isle of Mull (off the west coast of Scotland) and he invited me to join him, which I was delighted to do. This had a huge influence as I fell in love with both the sea eagles and Mull and decided I should make my way to Scotland.
However, as I had a South African passport this was no easy task. I managed to get a visa for a three-year evolutionary biology research assistant post at University College London, and at the same time worked on my own research project towards a Ph.D. My Ph.D. research involved field work in the French-Italian Alps on the evolution and population genetics of two races of the grasshopper Podisma pedestris and their ecology.
The fieldwork involved camping in the mountains for three to four months every summer (the grasshoppers hatch out in the spring and over-winter as eggs). During these full-immersion field trips, I got to know the landscape, grasshoppers and their associated ecology well, from months of phenomenological observations (which came naturally to me), and as a consequence, I found some aspects of my research questions I was able to intuit.
When I put this into my writing, my mentors and supervisors were alarmed and said on no account should I work in this way but must stick only to the tried-and-tested scientific ecological methods! I realised that it was important to pursue their approach as a discipline and to attain my Ph.D., but I also became more and more aware that this strict numerical and reductionist method missed much. After three years I completed a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology; population genetics and ecology at University College, London.
The grasshoppers were one of my most important teachers. They deepened my observation skills; my understanding of ‘interfluence’; inter-species communication skills and, importantly, what was not acceptable (‘in the name of science’). They also taught me the importance of bringing qualitative and artistic approaches into my research. In short, they went a long way towards helping me to develop what in ‘Goethean Science’ we call ‘imagination, inspiration and intuition’.
Wishing to broaden and deepen my experience and understanding of mainstream science, I held a two-year molecular and population genetics post-doctoral research position at Oxford University. While there I shared an office with Richard Dawkins (the British atheist and evolutionary biologist) for a while and our conversations gave me extra insights into the mind and thinking of a purely materialistic reductionist scientist. I saw the desperate need to expand Natural Science in research and education.
Having completed the research in Oxford I took a year-long post-doctoral position at Edinburgh University, writing programmes for analysing population genetics data. This was a far cry from how I wanted to be working, but it was important because it gave me further experience in this way of thinking and researching, thus broadening my experience… – and at last it brought me to Scotland!
It was in Scotland that I first heard of Rudolf Steiner and Goethe’s approach to science. The important biographical influence here was my four-year-old (first-born) daughter who refused all the kindergartens we tried (and I could see why) until a friend suggested the Edinburgh Steiner School kindergarten.
I was amazed and delighted to find a place (and indeed a whole community) that had a similar attitude and approach to bringing up children as I did. The kindergarten with wooden toys, gnomes and a Nature corner looked very like my daughter’s bedroom at home! She instantly took to the quiet, gentle approach; story-telling and singing and begged to go back the next day. I was quite literally led to Steiner by my daughter!
As I became more interested in the approach and Steiner’s philosophy, I decided to attend the Edinburgh Teacher’s Training Course, and it was on this course that I met Goethe’s approach to science taught by artist Mary Snow and scientist Linda Hepburn. I was thrilled! This was so close to how I had been working in the Alps and to my approach to landscape, plants and wildlife in South Africa. I knew immediately that this was the approach I should deepen in any future research.
Interestingly, I had an earlier encounter with Goethean scientist Margaret Colquhoun. We had moved to a house very close to hers and not far from the so called ‘Pishwanton Wood’ shortly before my first daughter was born, and I met Margaret on a walk in the Humbie Wood, in the Scottish Borders, with my children. She suggested I come and work with her.!
Having been introduced to Goethean Science on the Teacher’s training course I began to understand Margaret’s approach and so joined her for some wonderful years. To begin with as a biodynamic apprentice on the land, but this was soon followed by joint research and co-teaching with Margaret for many years, until I took up a teaching post at the Edinburgh Steiner School (which by this time my three children were attending). Margaret helped me to deepen my Goethean Anthroposophic understanding and approach tremendously.
Towards the end of my Steiner teacher training, Karla Kiniger, the founder of the course, said she would like me to take over teaching the philosophy module after her retirement, and was also keen for me to teach biology at the school. In preparation for these tasks, I met with her on two mornings a week to read Steiner lectures and books. She would sit with her German copy and have me reading the English; and with much discussion we slowly made our way through several texts, with Karla stopping regularly to correct the translation or to add readings from other books for clarification.
This was an invaluable gift and had a huge influence on me. We read the core reading requirements for the teachers in training as well as Steiner’s books Philosophy of Freedom, How to Know Higher Worlds and Goethe’sWorld View, amongst others. Over the three years of this intensive work with her, Karla taught me how to ‘read’ Steiner – or rather, how to grow towards an ever-evolving living, interfluent understanding!
I was delighted when in the midst of this mentoring I went to visit my dear Sangoma Margie Pilisoni in South Africa who flung her arms out when she saw me and said, ‘I’m so pleased you’re doing that spiritual work with that old lady in Scotland!’. Yet I had not told her about this!
I taught at Edinburgh Steiner School for two years but then unexpectedly had to move to Austria where my (then) partner, Nicholas Barton, took up a new position as Professor of Evolutionary Genetics at the Institute of Science and Technology, just outside Vienna. I had an interesting year working on painting exercises with an artist in Austria and home-teaching my children in the Vienna Woods (for one semester). On my return, Margaret Colquhoun asked me to co-teach with her and to join her as mentor on the newly founded three-year part-time diploma course ‘Goethean Anthroposophic Natural Science’ based at the Science section at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.
I decided that before becoming a mentor with her I would first like to research towards the diploma myself (as an opportunity to deepen my own Goethean research). My research was on Scottish Sacred sites; landscape and plant-community interfluence. Many of the herbs found at these sites are medicinal and so understanding healing became an important aspect of this research, and I attended the Anthroposophic doctor’s training course and ‘The Mental Health Seminar’ towards this.
From the foregoing, two words come to mind: Interfluence and Ubuntu!
RH: It might be helpful if you could succinctly summarise the core differences between ‘materialist-reductionist science’ and Goethean science – as these are terms that are likely to keep recurring in this conversation.
Also ‘interfluence’ is a term I’ve not come across before. Could you explain that and also Ubuntu?
KB: I will start with ‘Ubuntu’. I grew up with the Zulu idea of Ubuntu, meaning ‘I am because you are’, or ‘because we are’… – or in other words, ‘I would not be who I am if it were not for you’. It holds a recognition of the importance of our encounter; our interdependence; how we influence and change each other in our ‘becoming’; and importantly, it holds a feeling of mutual respect and love, and a recognition of our shared humanity. Or what it is to be truly human. It holds all of these, and uttering it is a reminder.
‘Interfluence’ is a wonderful word akin to Ubuntu but extending the interdependence to all of Nature (including cosmic and geological aspects) and emphasising the fluidity of our becoming as we evolve along with, are influenced by and influence, all of Nature – of which we are, of course, an integral part!
In all encounters, all are changed, and this is taken into the future. Relation and encounter are of prime importance for the evolution of All in their ‘becoming’. One has the feeling of a perpetual dance which the music of life (even possibly from the future) draws us into…. All is process and flow.
The internet gives the following definition of the rarely used word ‘interfluence’: ‘flowing between or among; passing into one another as if by a natural flow: intermingling.’
I was introduced to the word by Philip Kilner, who brought it as an alternative to ‘mechanism’ (used so extensively in the Natural Sciences) for us to explore at a meeting of mathematicians and natural scientists in November 2023. The question we held was, ‘How would replacing “mechanism” with “interfluence” assist the so-needed expansion of Western Scientific research?’ – especially in the Life Sciences .
Holding both Ubuntu and interfluence in our awareness and encounters, not only with each other but with all of Nature, inevitably leads to a sense of respect for ‘the other’; and responsibility for our actions and our attitudes in any encounter.
The attitudes we hold in research are of utmost importance and will influence what we see and what questions we ask. What ‘Ubuntu’ and ‘interfluence’ hold to consciousness can help us approach how so-called ‘Goethean science’ and expand the predominant ‘Western natural science’ of our times. The latter is sometimes called materialist-reductionist science, but I feel some clarification on this is necessary.
Homing in on the particulate and thinking about matter as ‘things’ rather than primarily as relation has been our brain’s left-hemisphere dominated approach to biological research and world-view over the last 250 years. Biologists’ training and mindset have become embedded in and directed by our brain’s left-hemispheric way of attending and viewing of the world1 and has led to the embedding of a materialistic mechanistic model in the Life Sciences that seems difficult to budge or expand upon. This is exacerbated by education in our culture in the so-called ‘Western world’ being steeped (from pre-school onwards) in this way of thinking about Nature. At university level, the approach is further encouraged aiming for by technological successes, financial gain and work opportunities.
I want to be clear that mechanism is a perfectly useful way of looking at tiny details in a complex biological picture so as to begin to understand how the details might work, and sometimes so as to be in a position to manipulate them. The problem is that one can get seduced by this metaphor and imagine that this same mechanistic thinking will help one understand on all scales and especially, the whole. It will not. One can also get seduced by the idea that one can manipulate and control. Working exclusively in this way in the sciences has had disastrous consequences.
We must also be clear about what reductionist science is. While a reductionist research programme will try to reduce the problem to its elements and then work up from that, this is different from reducing everything to its ultimate physical cause, which these days is not usually how research is done in my fields of evolutionary genetics or ecology.
It is also important to realise that reducing things to their smaller parts or focusing on the ‘mechanism’ of tiny detail is by no means the only kind of research programme in these biological sciences – not even the most common one. For example, in much of evolutionary biology and ecology we are dealing with organisms as units rather than reducing them to their fundamental particles. There are few evolutionary biologists who still think in terms of ‘selfish genes’ or ‘one gene coding for one trait’.
Nonetheless, many researchers in these fields remain reluctant to give up on the machine metaphor, and organisms are thought of at least as units or ‘things’ (and still by many as machines), despite all evidence to the contrary!
These researchers argue that even though we are now aware that organisms develop and evolve in many different ways and with extra principles that we don’t understand, and so might now admit they are not machines, using the machine metaphor still gives a very rich variety of ways to understand them. As one evolutionary biologist once put it to me:
“You couldn’t usefully understand any machine through the fundamental mechanism… you understand it by thinking about many different levels of explanations. You can think of individual components; or you can think of the systems; or the feedback; or the functioning and purpose. There are different ways of looking at a machine. So it remains useful.”
These days, evolutionary biologists are also happy to talk of ‘emergence’ – the coming-into-being of completely new qualities as a system becomes more complex.
There is a reluctance to drop the metaphor partly because it has been used to build a story that many in the life-sciences culture might find hard to exit, and also partly because it has proved so useful in many ways – e.g. it has led to extraordinary advances in technology and medicine and in making our lives (apparently) more comfortable. Of course, we have realised that some of that ‘comfort’ has long-term disastrous consequences for Nature (of which we are an integral part) and serious detrimental effects on our mental health. It has also had dreadful destructive consequences in agriculture and in the way we treat animals and, indeed, all of the earth. This has come about through artificially separating ourselves and thinking of Nature in terms of things of explicit ‘use’ to us, rather than realising the implicit value of all of Nature’s beings.
The findings of many biologists over several years, and especially recently, have revealed that the picture we have been building no longer makes sense in terms of mechanistic or reductionist thinking, even if these can sometimes be useful for investigating tiny details.
It is clear that the machine as metaphor in biology, is now misleading us. For example, we know that the machines themselves do not evolve in creative ways as living organisms do, and do not have information on their ‘Gestalt’ in such a way that they can organise matter as required.
If we think of genes or gene frequencies or systems or individual organisms as evolving in a mechanistic way, we fail to attend to the interfluence sufficiently, which is the interflow back and forth between organism; systems; protein and DNA from top down, not just bottom up; as well as the role of organisms within organisms; the importance of relation and the in-between.
Flow is a process… and is alive; a machine is a chain… a series of things that are static until one is given a push or pull by the thing next to it. An organism is a flow and is alive, a machine is a chain and is dead.
For a broader understanding of our world and its beings (including human beings) and for one that will lead to less destructive – indeed, healing – actions by human beings, we need a new way of attending in addition to the one-sided left hemisphere’s way: one that focuses on relationship; the in-between; the encounter and the flow. We need to think about our thinking and become more consciously aware of our assumptions and prejudices, and where they come from. Anyone wanting to understand this more fully would do well to read Iain McGilchrist’s magnum opus The Matter with Things
If we could think of relation as preceding matter in the life sciences, what a tremendous difference that would make!
An approach that gives an excellent starting point to shift our approach and way of attending is the so-called Goethean way (not exclusive to Goethe, though he was without doubt one of the forefathers of this unique way of observing and thinking within our Western scientific culture). Goethe realised how every part of a larger whole is truly a member of that whole and expresses it.
Goethe’s question on the scientific method remains as relevant today as it was in his day: Can a mechanistic, materialistic approach that focuses only on many individual structures (and this can be extended to the observable or detectable proteins, chemicals; hormones etc and corresponding DNA and genes of more recent research – all of which are also material descriptions albeit on different scales), ever explain living organism or the life of Nature as a whole?
Goethe thought not. He realized that – and here I quote from G. Miller’s introduction to Goethe’s Metamorphosis of Plants:
In contrast to an empiricism in which the observer is deliberately separated from Nature, there is a path that leads to a deeper and unifying knowledge of nature.2 He called this a “delicate empiricism which makes itself utterly identical with the object”.
This phenomenological approach, in which we are guided by unbiased open-hearted observations, using our ‘healthy senses’3 through time, is a starting point. We must learn how to empty ourselves of preconceived or cherished ideas and how to be fully present.
Then our thinking must become as alive and fluid as that which we are observing… To increase our awareness and perception we participate in the encounter. This involves developing imagination.
Imagination here is not used in the sense of fantasy but rather as an active inner activity in which we participate in our thinking with the invisible ever coming into being of the other
This way of research is Goethe’s “delicate empiricism, which makes itself utterly identical with the object”.
What is important is that Goethe recognised that science is always participatory. The way the phenomena we are observing appear to us depends on how we look at them. It is important to attend to how the phenomenon relates to the context as a whole.
He recognized that the experiment is the mediator between natural phenomena and the experimenter.4 How we think matters and so thinking about thinking is important. The Goethean way takes us on a journey of self-awareness so that we can become better equipped to ‘meet’ the other. We build relationship.
As a participatory science, it is better to understand it through practising it.. Through close, careful observation and with an attitude of soul that is in awe and that is respectful, one can begin the Goethean journey with an openness that allows our subsequent research to grow towards a heartfelt recognition of the true intrinsic nature of that to which we are attending: its wholeness of Being. The science throughout the research is always held in the light of this wholeness.
Goethe’s approach was truly ecological in that he emphasized the interdependence of organisms with each other and with the environment ‘in which one species is created, or at least sustained by and through another’.5
In his approach to metamorphosis throughout Nature, he introduced the notion of the ideal Proteus, or archetype. A formative inner potential. In Goethe’s opinion, “We can attain a more satisfactory insight into the mysterious architecture of the formative process if we study how nature expresses itself from all quarters and in all directions as it goes about its work of creation.”
For Goethe, the integrity of the inner impulse, the creativity of which often manifests in complexities and beauty of form and colour far beyond the needs of mere survival, gives natural things autonomy and intrinsic value.6
The Darwinian approach seeks to focus attention on and interpret actus adaptus exclusively- ignoring the ideal Proteus with its creative potential and inner law. It is a bottom-up approach that focuses on the parts.
The discovery of DNA and genes and the laws of heredity, along with the developments in molecular and population genetics and neo-Darwinian theories of evolution, have resulted in the majority of evolutionary biologists putting out of mind (and seeing no need to invoke) any such uncomfortable invisible notions as the Ideal Proteus and formative forces. It would be against the dogma of their mainstream modern science.
RH: You mention the importance of thinking about thinking. Thinking is also nearly always taken for granted as the datum point from which we start our scientific investigations, rather than itself needing to be thought about in terms of the effects the nature of our thinking has on what we are able to see, and even what conclusions about reality we are able to reach. In his 2008 book In Search of Thinking, Richard Bunzl shows how thinking about and observing our thinking can lead to a dramatic transformation in our understanding. How often are these key issues questioned and thought about in mainstream science?
KB: Not often! The problem is partly that history and philosophy of science are not sufficiently interwoven or discussed in mainstream school or university science topics these days. Indeed, the emphasis of mainstream education of science is on the application of already-existing theories and models (which are often portrayed as truths rather than theories), and not on the innovation, questioning and deep observation which remain the most important aspects of the development of science. Thinking about thinking concerns the latter development of science, in that it strives towards a more general and less biased description of nature.
Students are not usually encouraged to think about where ideas came from and the assumptions, nor to think about how they are thinking; how they are attending and how this might influence what they might find.
RH: I’ve often thought that our very notion and understanding of ‘causality’ is highly problematic – with perhaps the very notion itself needing to be challenged; not least because the notion is itself a human creation that perhaps tells us far more about human consciousness and our pre-existing presumptions about how the world functions, than it does about the nature of the world itself. I wonder whether Goethe, Steiner and you would agree with this.
KB: Absolutely! It would be as well for science and philosophy to re-unite! We should think more about where our ideas come from… both Steiner and Goethe certainly did that…
Interestingly, from a physical perspective our ‘intuitive’ notion of causality is seriously challenged. At the very small scale, for example, the idea that something in the past should cause something in the future simply does not exist. If we want to know why the toast is burnt, then our intuitive idea of causality is very useful, but not if we want a more overarching view of nature.
RH: You mentioned earlier that the machine, as metaphor in biology, is now misleading us. I’m wondering whether this view generalises to science in general? – i.e. whether a similar argument can be made in relation to the particularities of each of the individual sciences.
KB: This is a big question, but yes, I think it certainly does apply to science in general. We would become aware of what we are missing if we focused more, and certainly in the first instance, on phenomenological approaches in all of the sciences. It has become something of a habit to apply mechanistic terminology. It would be extremely interesting to see what would happen in each of the sciences if this metaphor were to be consciously avoided as an exercise… Although in physics there is already something of a redefinition of machine language to mean something different, as new ‘truths’ are discovered… as in quantum ‘mechanics’.
RH: How might the ‘outputs’ of science conducted in a Goethean-phenomenological way differ from ‘normal’ science’s outputs?
KB: The outputs of our ‘Western’ physical sciences that have relied on empirical evidence based on experimentation by the strict scientific method have clearly been productive; given many insights and useful applications as well as expanding aspects of our thinking. However, this way of science has also missed much and often been misleading, and has given rise to erroneous, harmful and destructive applications.
Incorporating a phenomenological, participatory (Goethean) approach that also ‘thinks about thinking’ and deepens an understanding of the human being within science, allows for a more balanced and expanded understanding, and so has a profound effect on attitude, interpretation and application.
The so called ‘Goethean’ participatory way of science woven within science alters the initial research to focus more on questioning than hypothesising; and the results more on description rather than conclusion. Importantly, the approach includes qualitative aspects, which are often ignored.
The approach is both artistic and scientific.7 With reflective practice, we become more self-aware; more aware of our prejudices and assumptions and, through this, more aware of ‘the other’, the focus of our research.
The research journey itself leads to a strong sense of responsibility towards that which we are researching and encourages empathy.
Any scientist can work in a ‘Goethean’ way – and some do more than others… – or some may ‘dip’ into it before reverting again to a more exclusive analytical approach. But whether they call it ‘Goethean’ or are unaware of this ‘movement’, if they have something of this more approach in their research, it will have an important effect on what they find; on their interpretations, and on how they apply their findings.
RH: You are running a six-monthly weekend course in Scotland titled ‘Beholding Our Nature: Self-reflection and re-connection’. Will your course be engaging with some of what we’re discussing here?
KB: Yes! ‘Beholding our Nature’ is an extension of Margaret Colquhoun’s course, ‘Beholding the Heart of Nature’, which I researched with her over many years, and sometimes taught on. ‘Beholding the Heart of Nature’ was a wonderful course that awakened many to this Goethean way of observing and attending. My courses aim to build on that and to bring more emphasis on us as part of Nature (hence the title, ‘Beholding Our Nature’) and the importance of reflective practice towards comprehending Nature. I also aim to bring the ‘Goethean’ approach into the social realm, which feels so important at this time. There is a two-way process here: Nature observation helps us to better understand ourselves and our thinking and that in turn feeds into our comprehending Nature.
KB: I have been enormously influenced by the work of Allan Kaplan and Sue Davidoff of the Proteus Initiative in South Africa. As an ecologist, I have become acutely aware that the distinction between the cultural, scientific, economic, political and technological realms is a false one. These weave into each other constantly; and as Kaplan points out, ‘The social… runs through them all’.
The worldview we have created, and that dominates much of our Western culture, has been hugely influenced by the reductionist materialist aspects of science, perpetuated because of the many successes (albeit with some dire detrimental consequences) in the control and manipulation of matter. This world view and approach has been enormously influential and successful in developing big businesses, e.g. pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, genetic engineering and other technological industries. It is also extremely useful to politicians seeking to persuade society of catch-all solutions through simplification and statistical analysis.
In stressing these aspects of science in our culture, there has been a self-perpetuating feedback and emphasis that has encouraged the kind of training and research required for this reductionist analytical approach.
I would like to share a passage from Kaplan’s book Development Practitioners and Social Progress that points out that this is all quite inappropriate for both the life and social sciences:
“Such reductionism finds great resonance in our work within social situations, when complex ambiguities are rendered as simple linear statements, when profound concepts are reduced to boxes and tables and brief one-line, one-word responses, and when the intricacy of sensitive social intervention is contained and packaged as tools and procedures and instruments mechanically applied… We reduce because doing anything other admits illegitimate assumptions into our observations. Yet such reduction removes the connection between the parts from our consideration. We remove the parts from their context, and in so doing lose the sense of their coherence, their integrity, and the underlying impulses which give them life. As Goethe himself puts it in his monumental work Faust,
To docket living things past any doubt,
You cancel first the living spirit out:
The parts lie in the hollow of your hand,
You only lack the living link you banned.
And so, though we assume this stance to study life, we focus largely on inert matter.”
End of Quote!
Bringing the Goethean approach into the social realm means developing a practice which involves a new way of thinking and being in social situations and, importantly, a new focus of working on ourselves: becoming aware of our assumptions; our thinking; improving our listening skills…
Reflective practice on encounter, as well as the self-observation necessary to perceive the invisible as part of this social practice, can feed back into the approach and research in the life sciences: here too, we are trying to perceive ‘that which lives between’ or ‘the invisible’ or essential process – formative force – or ‘archetypal being’ that manifests in an ever-changing, ‘protean’ – or simply alive! – material form.
As in the life sciences, perceiving in this way in the social sciences develops true empathy and assists us in finding ‘hidden places of the spiritual (non-material) life and potential’.
Participating with our imagination in this way is a stage towards intuition: towards perceiving ‘ideas’ that are grounded in reality yet are revealed to us as archetypes or essences.
Interestingly, many ideas in physics and mathematics have been revealed in a similar process. Close careful observations; clarity of thinking; accuracy and ‘experimentation’ (imaginative thought experiments) are all hallmarks of a process which leads to intuitions – a revealing of extraordinary ideas true to the integrity of that which is being investigated. These ideas can then be translated into the language of mathematics. In mathematical or ‘pure’ thinking as Steiner calls it, and indeed in all good science, intuitions of this nature are not alien, though they are called ‘hypotheses’ and are seldom described as ‘intuitions’, and how they came about is seldom spelt out.
RH: I have a particular admiration of the work of the late philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend, and his book Science in a Free Society (1978) and his iconic 1974 talk at Sussex University on why we need to protect society from science. Is this a body of thinking that you see as having relevance and usefulness in relation to all we’ve been discussing here?
KB: Yes, this is certainly relevant to our discussion, in realising the limitations of a technical reductionist approach to social and ecological issues; and yes, our society needs to become aware of how one-sided this approach is and how it has come to dominate our worldview.
‘Science’ certainly also needs to be put into perspective, as one of many legitimate paradigms and one that should be allowed, indeed encouraged, to evolve. Our society – under the domination science and its economic and technological achievements – needs to become more consciously aware of the limits of science and its inability to answer all questions or to solve all problems.
Many are well aware that we need new ways of thinking to solve our current problems. Encouraging education towards developing imagination, intuition and courage would certainly help, and more respect for and emphasis on the humanities throughout education would also greatly assist this endeavour.
Of course, we cannot and would not wish to abandon science, nor indeed did Goethe or Steiner wish to do so. They were both scientists (as well as artists). They wished to re-envisage science, or at least to complement it, or to evolve it, not to abandon it.
And importantly, as Kaplan points out: ‘Individuals and social organisms (groups, organisations and communities), endowed with the gift of (self) consciousness, have the possibility of becoming aware of their own processes,8 and thus become responsible for their own evolution, rather than merely subjected to that evolution.’
RH: What books might you recommend to those interested in exploring the ideas discussed here further?
KB: First on my list would be Iain McGilchrist’s The Matter with Things. It is exceedingly well researched and referenced; gives context to all we have discussed; is contemporary, and provides an excellent bridge between the Goethean way and modern scientific thought.
Goethe’s scientific writings are extensive! But to start with I would recommend his Metamorphosis of Plants and especially the wonderful edition with introduction and photography by Gordon L. Miller.
Steiner edited Goethe’s scientific work over a period of ten years. I would recommend his Nature’s Open Secret – Introductions to Goethe’s Scientific Writings by , which includes an excellent essay on participatory science by John Barnes.
I would highly recommend Andrea Wulf’s Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the invention of the Self. This wonderful book gives an account of ‘the Jena set’ – young German intellectuals in the small university town of Jena and nearby Weimar, in Germany, brought together by the presence of Goethe and Schiller at the turn of the 18–19th century. It was from this group that so-called Romanticism and Idealism emerged. Andrea Wulf gives a brilliant account and again, gives important context to what we have discussed here. The word ‘romanticism’ has unfortunate connotations: it is often thought to refer to wishy-washy, unclear thinking carried away by emotion etc. Andrea’s book puts those connotations to rest for the Jena Circle! She portrays these brilliant thinkers in their true light: as among the most serious and insightful thinkers of modern times.
There are so many more books and articles I could recommend! For anyone wanting a more extensive list, I would highly recommend The Nature’ Institute’s Web site,9 which includes an excellent reading list as well as many good articles.
RH: Thank you so much for engaging with my questions The final words are yours.
KB: I thank you for the opportunity to share. My final comment is that the Goethean way described here is just one of many ways of knowing. In my opinion, it happens to be an extremely good way for anyone within our culture. It allows access to another way of knowing, especially accessible for those steeped in the scientific worldview of modern times and for those scientists who have come to see science as their religion – but who are adventurous enough to try this Goethean approach!
Dr Katherine Buchanan lives in Scotland.
Richard House Ph.D. is a freedom activist and a former university senior lecturer and psychotherapist who writes regularly for publications. He lives in Stroud, UK.
Endnotes
- On this, see Iain McGilchrist’s excellent 2021 book The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, Perspectiva Press.
- See G. Miller’s wonderful edition of Goethe’s Metamorphosis of Plants, MIT Press, Sambridge, Mass., 2024.
- As Goethe puts it, by which he means honest; self-aware, accurate and developed.
- See article by Craig Holdrege of the same title in the In Context magazine of the Nature Institute (see www.natureinstitute.org/about/craig-holdrege/publications ).
- Miller’s publication of Goethe’s Metamorphosis of Plants (note 2).
- Ibid.
- ‘Goethe embodied his belief that science and poetry, with their corresponding conceptions of nature, are not incompatible but actually complementary’ – ibid. Of course inspired music and other forms of art are, too – they are the creative implicate response to an intuited recognition.
- Through thinking, feeling and willing… and our freedom.
- See www.natureinstitute.org/.
For anyone interested in short introductory weekend courses; longer more in-depth courses; facilitation or individual mentoring (which can also be online or ‘blended’) to help set you on this wonderful journey, please feel free to contact Katherine Buchanan at ksbuchanan@btinternet.com.
And for those wishing to explore how the Goethean way can be brought into the social sciences, Katherine will also be co-facilitating a ‘Goethean Process’ with Allan Kaplan and Sue Davidoff in Scotland. If you are interested, please contact Katherine for further details.