Notes on Goethe’s Aphorisms

Daniel Christian Wahl has translated Goethe’s collected aphorisms in ‘The Tip of the Iceberg’ Goethe’s Aphorisms on the theory of Nature and Science. I appreciate that Wahl has attempted to stay as close as possible to the literal meaning of Goethe’s writings in order to avoid unnecessary interpretations.

Here are my own brief notes, which are based on Goethe’s aphorisms and Wahl’s helpful comments:

• We have a capacity for meaningful intuitive insight in addition to purely analytical reason. (Aphorism 1)
• It is a mistake to generalize what specific phenomena have in common and thereby exclude differences. (Aphorism 2)
• Our senses are attuned towards an intermediate level of scale, between the microscopic and the macroscopic. (Aphorism 3)
• Each specific phenomenon is an expression of the general under certain circumstances. (Aphorism 4)
• The individual phenomenon contains the general. The multitude of phenomena is the specific. (Aphorism 5)
• The universal is in the particular. The particular is a living manifestation of the universal. (Aphorism 6)
• Life is profoundly interconnected. Nature is simultaneosly multitude and singularity. Time is the eternal now. (Aphorism 7)
• Dynamic phenomena manifest in the self-organizing whole. (Aphorism 8)
• Agree on the approach to the phenomena and how to make sense of the observed. (Aphorism 9)
• Let the phenomena become visible without imposing mental constructs. This requires participation. (Aphorism 10)
• Exceptions are particularly important in understanding phenomena. (Aphorism 11)
• Everything living is a field being. (Aphorism 12)
• Nature abhors vacuum. Everything arising needs space. (Aphorism 13)
• Everything arising wants continued existence. (Aphorism 14)
• Abstracting things from their place and context can lead to a whole chain of errors. (Aphorism 22)
• A non-rationalizable, subjective approach can allow for deep insight. (Aphorism 35)
• The phenomenon can be obscured by the way make sense of what we are seeing. (Aphorism 38)
• Our behaviour is based on how we are making sense of the world. (Aphorism 40)
• Moving too quickly from the phenomenon to its explanation leads to premature conclusions via inductive interferences. (Aphorism 44)
• Experiencing phenomena is primary. Making inductive interferences interferes with the experiencing. (Aphorism 45)
• Thinking that fits to one context ends up being used for another. Finally the no longer fitting continues to be used. (Aphorism 47)
• Nature is fundamentally incomprehensible to (traditional) logic. (Aphorism 57)
• Traditional logic is useful but does not the same as wisdom. (Aphorism 58)
• Participation unites the observer with the observed, making itself identical with it and becomes its theory. (Aphorism 59)
• Explore the explorable. Revere the inexplorable. (Aphorism 61)

This is work in progress…

Related post:
Norm Hirst’s Propositions on Life