Review of Klassische deutsche Philosophie (5): Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Part 5 of a review of Wolfgang Förster, Klassische deutsche Philosophie: Grundlinien ihrer Entwicklung [Classical German Philosophy: The Basic Lines of Its Development] (2008)

Goethe is the most emblematic figure of German culture and is primarily known for his literary works. But he also had considerable influence on German philosophy, both in terms of the thinkers whose work he encouraged and sponsored and also his own philosophical writing. Goethe's best-known scientific work was an argument against Newton's theory of light; Newton got the best of the argument. But Goethe's philosophy was important in helping to focus the attention of other thinkers. He also took there to be a dialectical process in all of nature.

Goethe’s view of nature Förster describes as follows:

Natur wird von Goethe … in dezidiert nichtchristlicher, antitheologischer und antiteleologischen Weise, in einem rein weltimmanten Sinne verstanden, ihr Sein als Werden, Dynamik, Kraftbewegung und –äußerung, in der Einheit von Ordnung und unendlicher Mannifaltigkeit.

[Nature was understood by Goethe in a decidedly non-Christian, anti-theological and anti-teleological way, in a purely world-immanent sense, its being as change, dynamics, movement and manifesting of forces, in the unity of order and endless diversity.]

Goethe emphasized that nature operates according to laws. He even had an evolutionary view of the development of humanity as part of the animal world, though he did not anticipate Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.

One of Goethe's contributions was that he was one major Western scholar who studied the culture and religion of Islam seriously. His West-Östlicher Divan drew in particular from Shi'a and Persian sources and presents Islamic concepts in a positive manner, not a hostile one.

Evolution was being discussed early on in the 19th century or even earlier. There was a dispute in France in 1830 between Geoffrey de Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier over the evolution of plants and animals. Goethe wrote about organic morphology:

Die Gestalt is ein Bewegliches, ein Werdendes, ein Vergehendes. Gestaltenlehre ist Verwandlunslehre. Die Lehre der Metamorphose is der Schlüssel zu allenZeichen der Natur.

[Form is a moving thing, a changing thing, a passing thing. The teaching of forms is a teaching of development. The teaching of metamorphosis is the key to all signs of nature.]

This observation of constant development and change as being a fundamental feature of nature was the basis of seemingly very abstract theories such as the dialectical theories of Kant and the very different one of Hegel.

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