Session Introduction
This is the fifth of seven planned sessions (currently scheduled every two weeks, till mid-June) encompassing a collective reading of Bortoft’s book. This session’s reading encompasses roughly the second quarter of Part III “Understanding Goethe’s Way of Science”.
The focus of this third essay thus far has been what Bortoft calls “the organizing idea” as a determiner of perception; and this remains in focus in this reading, even if the emphasis shifts from the historical to the modern, so to speak: the organizing idea of modern science and how this played out in the Newtonian physics of color are given closer attention.
Modern science, as most of us understand it, and as it most often presents itself, is characterized by its quantitative way of seeing. The notion of quantity goes back at least to Aristotle who defined it as “that which has parts external to one another. It is an instance of what he calls a category, which is really to be understood as a mode of illumination by virtue of which the world becomes visible in a particular way” (p. 173). That is to say, there is a focus – almost to the exclusion of all else – on the mathematization of all its statements. What is sought are the mathematical formulas that give expression to realities, whereby the realities themselves fade quickly toward illusion.
This methodological separation took on new force as skepticism arose as to the reliability of the senses. By the time of the British empiricists, the senses had fallen more or less into complete disrepute and were no longer considered the capable basis for acquiring scientific knowledge. Ultimately, Cartesian dualism became the only acceptable way of seeing science and his desire for a unified language of science found its realization in the mathematization so strongly advanced by Galileo and others. What could be measured mattered, and all that mattered was matter.
A prime example of this was, of course, Newton’s mathematical physics of colors, which he asserted in his reports to the Royal Society, as being derived solely from inductive experimentation. As Bortoft points out, however, his public description does not necessarily match his private journal entries. What Goethe noticed, though, and what Bortoft draws our attention to is that this physics may explain the phenomenon of color, but it does little, if anything, to further our understanding of the phenomenon. Quite apparently, different ways of seeing lead to very different ends.
Reading / Watching / Listening
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Bortoft, Henri (1996) The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe’s Way Toward a Science of Conscious Participation in Nature. (Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne Press), III. Understanding Goethe’s Way of Science, the last section of Chapter 3 (The Organizing Idea of Modern Science) and the first section of Chapter 4 (the opening remarks and Newton and the Mathematical Physics of Color) (pp. 172-212).
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(Alternately: Bortoft, Henri (1996) The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe’s Way of Science. Edinburgh: Floris Books, 6th printing 2018.)
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Bortoft Reading Schedule_The Wholeness of Nature, v22.pdf (82.6 KB)
Seed Questions
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The mathematization of reality, as expressed in the domain of scientific investigation still plays a dominant role in our thinking, but in recent years, we have begun to see a loosening of its absolute grip. Do you agree? Why or why not? Do you think approaches like Goethe’s – as described by Bortoft – are becoming more prevalent?
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What do you think we stand to gain as a result of shifting our attention from quantity to quality?
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A good portion of Bortoft’s presentation centers around the metaphysical separation between what is real and what is illusion. What is your own approach to the issue? Do you have your own conception of what constitutes reality and our knowledge of it?
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Have you been able to obtain a prism and conduct any of Newton’s experiments for yourself? If you have a prism, when you simply look through it, how does this affect your understanding of Bortoft’s descriptions of Newton’s theories? Do you think there is any advantage to playing around with a prism for yourself?