Not really about Goethe

Henri Bortoft is a former student of renown quantum physicist David Bohm. He may also be an Anthroposophist. At the very least, he is some kind of "fellow traveller", since his book is published by an Anthroposophical press. Anthroposophy is a spiritual or religious movement, founded about a century ago by Rudolf Steiner. While Bortoft's mentor Bohm wasn't a follower of Steiner, it's nevertheless interesting to note that he did have spiritual interests. Bohm had contacts with Jiddu Krishnamurti. On a funnier note, I suspect that the character Kenneth Flume in Owen Barfield's "Unancestral voice" might be based on Bortoft. Barfield, of course, was an Anthroposophist of long standing.

"The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe's Way of Science" is a difficult book dealing with epistemology, ontology and the philosophy of science. It contains few direct references to Rudolf Steiner. Instead, Bortoft attempts to prove his case by way of Gadamer, Heidegger, Husserl, Cassirer and Bergson. However, many of the lesser known authors quoted are probably Anthroposophists. And yes, he mentions both Bohm and Barfield.

Nominally, the book is an analysis of Goethe's view of science. However, I'm not sure if Bortoft's exegesis of the famous German polymath stand up to closer scrutiny. Indeed, Bortoft admits at several points that his interpretation is unusual. My guess is that the author sees Goethe through the interpretive lens of Steiner, in effect turning the poet into a kind of early Anthroposophist. For instance, it seems that "Goethean science" is really a meditation technique which makes it possible to see the One in the many, something Bortoft dubs "multiplicity in unity". This entirely new way of seeing phenomena is possible only if a special organ of perception is developed within our minds, which once again suggests meditation or even mysticism of some kind.

I admit that I found the book hard to follow. It's not hard to read, quite the contrary. However, the ideas are so unusual and strange that "The Wholeness of Nature" becomes difficult anyway. A large part of the book sounds like a defence of quasi-sollipsist postmodernism, where no objective truths "out there" exists and everything is a matter of perspective. I admit that I find this kind of philosophy extremely annoying! Despite the "pomo" angle, the author does seem to regard a ever-changing, dynamic pantheist world-soul as an objective reality, independent of our perceptions. However, the phenomena of the objective world need to be perceived by a human consciousness to become fully themselves. The phenomena of the natural world are in some sense incomplete without a human participatory consciousness which blends subject and object in the act of perceiving them.

This does sound weirdly anthropocentric. While its true that colours or sounds need a consciousness to be perceived, which raises all kinds of intriguing questions if you believe in God or the World-Soul, why do phenomena need a specifically *human* consciousness to be fulfilled? Why not a bat? Or an angel or elemental, since Steiner believed in such? Of course, this question would be meaningless to orthodox Anthroposophists, who apparently regard a kind of spiritualized human as the progenitor of all living organisms.

"The Wholeness of Nature" also discusses archetypes, Platonic forms and universals. There is an extensive footnote criticizing Darwinian evolution. The author rejects Platonizing or proto-Darwinist interpretations of Goethe's ideas about archetypal plants or leafs. His own interpretation is difficult to follow, but apparently there is no reality "behind" the phenomena. Rather, the world-soul necessarily appears as a multiplicity. Only with the aid of participatory consciousness can we realize that every single phenomenon is wholly an expression of the One, in the same way as every single piece of a hologram contains the entire hologram.

Bortoft discusses the plant archetype at some length, claiming that every species of plant is an expression of a primordial plant, which is "its own explanation" and "cannot be otherwise". This suggests some kind of immutability (at least on the spiritual level). It obviously goes against the grain of Darwinian evolution, which explains all plants "mechanically", by way of mutation and natural selection. The Anthroposophical explanations are bound to be much more esoteric and nebulous, and one sometimes get the impression that there really isn't an explanation at all. The spirit bloweth where it listeth...and creates buttercups and water lilies as it goes along. There seems to be a tension in Bortoft's reasoning between a creative evolution of the spirit, and a more static perspective where preordained organisms simply pop up into existence according to never-changing archetypal patterns. (He does admit that "mechanical" causes enter as secondary causes once the plants have manifested themselves.)

It's not clear to me how many archetypes there really are. Goethe's Urpflänze is the One in relation to all plants. There are also mammalian, reptilian or human archetypes. Finally, there seems to be a One that is universal. Is there a hierarchical pattern within the One? If so, how static is the hierarchy? How can it be creative evolution if there is a cosmic pattern into which all organisms on our little planet fall rather neatly?

Somehow, I never understood the *real*point of "The Wholeness of Nature". It obviously isn't a simple discussion about some forgotten aspect of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Weltanschauung (or herbarium). Perhaps it could be seen as a preparatio evangelica Anthroposophica? Although its quasi-pomo perspectivism really irritated me (not to mention the constant references to Gadamer's hermeneutics - how I hate that little word!), I admit that this is a strangely interesting tome, after a fashion.

For that reason, I give it four stars. I can only hope that you may understand it better than I did...