Topic: Goethe

[Firestarter]

Until one is committed, there is always hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising to one's favor all manner of unforeseen accidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

Goethe.

[Nick]

Ah, one of my favorites!

of course sometimes I feel like this:

When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one's hands full just to be able to remove their trash.
Letter to Johann Kaspar Lavatar (6 March 1780) Goethe

then I have to remember:

"Before Enlightenment chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment chop wood, carry water" Zen Proverb

and:

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
Goethe

[Firestarter]

Della posted this one today:

"None are more enslaved than those who mistakingly think they are free." ~ Goethe

[Michael]

Goethe is not easily available to non German speakers. This is odd considering his fame among Germans is unrivalled - he is the great old man of German culture, yet he is almost unknown by non-Europeans.

I knew about him through my reading of Herman Hesse, but also due to Rudolf Steiner's association. Goethe's family had not wanted to have his works collated and written up, until they came across Steiner. This was one of Steiner's major jobs in the world, and of a huge influence to him. He speaks of Goethe's philosophy of light and the eye. His principle was that it was not the eye which revealed light, but light which created the eye.

Steiner maintains that Western Science had a choice of directions, one being highly reductionist approach promoted by that English guy whose name I forget and is now considered the father of modern science, and the approach of Goethe, which was holistic and included the mystical aspect. Steiner wrote quite a lot about this. I presume he wrote a biography of Goethe but I can't recall.

I did read Faust, but only got through the first book of which I can't recall anything, except that is was not easy. Since I have read more about the theory of Faust, and his bargain.

What amazes me is how someone who wrote so much and had such an influence on European culture, seems to have only those slim volumes of Faust as his ex-German legacy.

[Nichi]

one being highly reductionist approach promoted by that English guy

Probably John Locke.

[Nichi]

I only barely got through Faust myself.   Since then, the occasional poetry, which always astounds me.

The Holy Longing

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.


Johann W. Von Goethe

[Michael]

And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.

That's a good line.

[Jahn]

Nice reading.
I have done some poems myself, and is a critical mind to others, but this one was striking good.

[Firestarter]

Yes Goethe was awesome enjoying these quotes!

[Nick]

He speaks of Goethe's philosophy of light and the eye. His principle was that it was not the eye which revealed light, but light which created the eye.

Steiner maintains that Western Science had a choice of directions, one being highly reductionist approach promoted by that English guy whose name I forget and is now considered the father of modern science, and the approach of Goethe, which was holistic and included the mystical aspect.

In an alternate universe science went down the phenomenological road.

In that universe, in 1666 Isaac Newton, made the same discoveries as in ours, but when he got to his theory of color, he also discovers the assemblage point.

In the same universe, in the year 1637 some philosopher engages in a process of Neti Neti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neti_neti), and simultaneous self-observation. She coins the saying; "I think I am, thought is I, I can observe the I thought, therefor I am awareness".

In this universe all of humanity are, by the year 2014 able to stop the world, and move the assemblage point at will. They learn it by no later than high school, when they learn Spectroscopy. Specifically Time Stretch Spectroscopy.

"Steiner aimed to apply his training in mathematics, science, and philosophy to produce rigorous, verifiable presentations of those experiences.[44] He believed that through freely chosen ethical disciplines and meditative training, anyone could develop the ability to experience the spiritual world, including the higher nature of oneself and others.[26] Steiner believed that such discipline and training would help a person to become a more moral, creative and free individual – free in the sense of being capable of actions motivated solely by love.[45] His philosophical ideas were affected by Franz Brentano,[26] with whom he had studied,[46] as well as by Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and Goethe's phenomenological approach to science.[26][47][48]"


"In his commentaries on Goethe's scientific works, written between 1884 and 1897, Steiner presented Goethe's approach to science as essentially phenomenological in nature, rather than theory- or model-based. He developed this conception further in several books, The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception (1886) and Goethe's Conception of the World (1897), particularly emphasizing the transformation in Goethe's approach from the physical sciences, where experiment played the primary role, to plant biology, where both accurate perception and imagination was required to find the biological archetypes (Urpflanze), and postulated that Goethe had sought but been unable to fully find the further transformation in scientific thinking necessary to properly interpret and understand the animal kingdom.[86] Steiner emphasized the role of evolutionary thinking in Goethe's discovery of the intermaxillary bone in human beings; Goethe expected human anatomy to be an evolutionary transformation of animal anatomy.[86]

Steiner defended Goethe's qualitative description of color as arising synthetically from the polarity of light and darkness, in contrast to Newton's particle-based and analytic conception."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner#Goethean_science