Book Details

Goethe on Science: An Anthology of Goethe's Scientific Writings

Edited by Jeremy Naydler; Foreword by Henri Bortoft

Price:	£12.99
Publication Date:	01 Oct 1996
Availability:	Available to buy

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is most famous for his work on colour theory, but he was also an accomplished all-round scientist, studying and writing on anatomy, geology, botany, zoology and meteorology. This book draws together, in Goethe's own words, his key ideas on nature, science and scientific method.

Goethe believed that we should study our world and nature as people at home in it, rather than removedly, as if we were aliens from another planet. He adopted a qualitative approach to science at odds with Newton's quantitative methods that were so popular in his day. His is a sensitive science which does not ignore our relationship to nature.

The extracts in this book are fascinating and essential reading for anyone who feels that we've lost our spiritual connection to nature.

About the Author(s)

Jeremy Naydler is a philosopher and cultural historian who lives in Oxford. He is the author of Temple of the Cosmos: Ancient Egyptian Experience of the Sacred and The Reality That Is Not There: Reflections on Non-locational Space.

Henri Bortoft has taught physics and the philosophy of science for most of his career. He now lectures and gives seminars on Goethean science as well as the development of modern scientific consciousness.

Of Further Interest

Also available on Goethe:
The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe's Way of Science by Henri Bortoft
Emerson and Science: Goethe, Monism and the Search for Unity by Peter Obuchowski
Goethe and Palladio: Goethe's study of the relationship between art and nature, leading through architecture to the discovery of the metamorphosis of plants by David Lowe and Simon Sharp