Goethe – Rethinking the Nature of Substance

Reality, Truth and Revelation

Sep 30, 2024

For whatever reasons, few realists have described themselves as such and most philosophical writing on realism has been against the beliefs of others. Whatever we believe is real, is something that we normally take for granted as true; it lies at the unspoken foundation of our worldview. This is why I believe it is important.…

Today’s Inspiring Reads discovered during my searches for Goethe on matter and spirit

Sep 21, 2024

My favourite – the one that resonated with me the most – a quote from Annie Dillard’s essay: What have we been doing all these centuries but trying to call God back to the mountain, or, failing that, raise a peep out of anything that isn’t us? What is the difference between a cathedral and…

Outline of Book

Aug 9, 2024

In which I introduce the main themes of the book: Biodynamics and Rudolf Steiner’s indications for a hidden alchemy in living processes; The taming of the atom – a sub-natural phenomenon; Biological transmutation of chemical elements and the requirement for a new Goethean scientific worldview.

[Old] Book Two: Goethe, Steiner and the Ancient Greeks – or – Rethinking the Nature of Substance

Apr 20, 2020

This book – if I even manage to write it(!) – will be a big philosophical work. I intend it to be based on a number of ideas and indications I discovered in the course of my researches on the original book…

[Old] Chapter 14: Rudolf Steiner – A Spiritual Scientific World View [New Ch.16 V0.1]

Apr 18, 2020

Rudolf Steiner took the philosophical ideas which were implicit in the works of Goethe and took them further. Significantly further. It has taken me many years to even begin to understand just some of his philosophical and scientific ideas…

[Old] Chapter 13: Goethe’s World View [New Ch.15 V0.1]

Apr 18, 2020

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was an observer of nature and laid the foundations for a phenomenological science. His collected scientific works were edited by Rudolf Steiner. Goethe’s ideas and methodologies inspired Herzeele, Preuss and Holleman. Holleman recommended that the biological transmutation phenomenon might best be studied using a Goethean scientific methodology. Unfortunately he did not…

[Old] Chapter 6: Hauschka, Herzeele and Baumgartner [New Ch.9 V0.4]

Apr 13, 2020

For this chapter I have a lot of homework to do… I need to (re-)read Rudolf Hauschka’s The Nature of Substance (Substanzlehre). Meanwhile an outline of what I recall…

[Old] Chapter 3: Herzeele, Goethe, Preuss [New Ch.9 V0.3]

Apr 10, 2020

By the 1840s mainstream scientists appear to have concluded that living organisms obey the same physical and chemical laws as inorganic nature. During the course of the nineteenth century their experiments increasingly supported this belief. However, some noteworthy exceptions existed. Albrecht von Herzeele was one of the most significant for this book.

[Old] Foreword: The Story So Far!

Mar 29, 2020

The original book concept was big and ambitious. I tried to simplify it. But each of its parts increasingly appeared to form a single coherent whole. So I am now in the challenging process of bringing all of its parts together in such a way that each part illuminates all of the others, enabling their…

Space and Counterspace – by Nick Thomas – Ch.1 – Part 6 – Heisenberg & Goethe

Feb 22, 2020

By way of further support for the importance of qualia in scientific endeavour, Nick Thomas refers us, in his fourteenth paragraph, to the authority of Werner Heisenberg. …

Tag: Goethe