Goethe's Science of Living Form: The Artistic Stages

by Nigel Hoffmann, Pamela Dalton (Illustrator)

“I put my hopes for the future in such practice because it plants seeds of a life-attuned thinking into the world that can help us to act in more life-engendering ways.” ― Craig Holdrege (from the foreword) In this groundbreaking book, Nigel Hoffmann shows that understanding the dynamic, living qualities of nature requires artistic capacities. He distinguishes four stages of scientific inquiry that correspond to the four classical elements of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. Modern analytical science with its causal thinking can be characterized as an Earth mode of cognition. A dynamic approach that follows transformation over time requires a sculptural sense of form and corresponds to the element of Water. The stages of Air and Fire engage yet more vital aspects of nature through musical and poetic capacities. Combining scholarly-scientific acuity with artistic insight, Hoffmann first characterizes these four different ways of knowing. He then applies them, leading us ever more deeply into the dynamic qualities of specific plants, animals, and the landscape they live in. In doing so, he demonstrates how this four-step methodology provides a comprehensive framework for the life sciences. This beautifully illustrated book will appeal to all who are interested in gaining deeper insights into nature.

174 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2007

Reviews

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

A paraphrase from an early chapter: when you cut open the surface of something to peer at what is inside, you don't actually see the inside; you just see another surface.

The materialistic worldview keeps cutting things open, misleading themselves into thinking that this is the way to see into the heart or the essence of life. This book proceeds from that central premise. Hoffman makes the case that other types of thinking than the linear-empirical are needing to really understand the nature of reality.