What do you think?
Rate this book
LA NATURALEZA COMO TOTALIDAD
Cuando en los años sesenta David Bohm le mostró el problema de la totalidad en la teoría cuántica, Henri Bortoft encontró su origen nada menos que en la obra científica de un celebrado poeta y dramaturgo que vivió a caballo de los siglos XVIII y XIX: J. W. Goethe. Sin embargo, cuando éste presentó sus teorías sobre el color tras veinte laboriosos años de trabajo, la comunidad científica reaccionó con desdén. El tiempo ha acabado dando la razón a las intuiciones goethianas, mientras que las teorías científicas de su época se ven hoy como pintorescas reliquias del pasado.
Con sutil penetración y gran claridad expositiva, Bortoft nos va introduciendo a través de la fenomenología hermenéutica de Goethe en las complejidades de la ciencia actual, a la vez que nos inicia en una ciencia de la naturaleza que no contradice sino que complementa a la corriente científica establecida. Ambas pueden ser ciertas, no porque la verdad sea relativa, sino porque revelan dos formas de ver diferentes. Mientras que la ciencia imperante nos descubre el orden causal de la naturaleza, el enfoque inaugurado por Goethe pone de manifiesto la totalidad en el fenómeno mediante una nueva consciencia holística, cada vez más necesaria.
Con sutil penetración y gran claridad expositiva, Bortoft nos va introduciendo a través de la fenomenología hermenéutica de Goethe en las complejidades de la ciencia actual, a la vez que nos inicia en una ciencia de la naturaleza que no contradice sino que complementa a la corriente científica establecida. Ambas pueden ser ciertas, no porque la verdad sea relativa, sino porque revelan dos formas de ver diferentes. Mientras que la ciencia imperante nos descubre el orden causal de la naturaleza, el enfoque inaugurado por Goethe pone de manifiesto la totalidad en el fenómeno mediante una nueva consciencia holística, cada vez más necesaria.
544 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1996
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 26, 2012
An astonishing book. No words can express what this book does. It is written by a philosopher who studied the concept of "wholeness" with David Bohm, the famous physicist who wrote "Wholeness and the Implicate Order". A great deal lies hidden here, with enormous life experience and background research. It remains the book to read when trying to understand what wholeness means, how is it different from mechanism, reductionism, materialism etc. Then how do you express it without making use of mechanistci ideas? How do you treat it when the language you are speaking is itself full of the symbolism which hides wholeness from you. A very difficult task but Henri Bortoft does it.
December 8, 2018
Great thesis, but the covers of this book are too far apart. The distinction between Goethe's science of wholeness and mainstream reductive science is made brilliantly albeit redundantly. The 'unity in multiplicity' vs. 'multiplicity in unity' dichotomy, which is initially fascinating, gets beaten like a dead horse. Just when you think the idea has been exhausted, the author comes back to repeat it for another 100 pages. Also I could have done with less Martin Heidegger quotes and More Ludwig Wittgenstein, but that is a personal preference. It is unfortunate that Goethean science remains largely undeveloped and I wish the author had provided more specific examples scientific research conducted within this 'mode of consciousness'. I guess I will have to explore Wolfgang Schad's books for that.
December 20, 2018
Rethink scientific knowledge and the role of perception and organizing ideas vs experiment and theory, in light of Goethe's universalizing approach to seeing unity/wholeness in the diversity of nature and phenomena. Somewhere between Feyerabend's Against Method and Manzotti's Spread Mind.
April 7, 2025
Goethe developed and practiced a phenomenological science parallel to the objective/quantitative science of Newton. Like William Blake, Goethe saw deeply, and saw embodiment and the senses as the gateway to understanding nature and being, in opposition to figures like Newton who preferred to obscure the world behind intellectually focused mathematical descriptions.
This book discloses Goethe's way of science in a revelatory way, showing how so many of today's problems, and philosophical problems, are simply side effects of the dominant science in play. Goethe's science sidesteps so many of them! And has its own problems… but to add a second science seems akin to becoming bilingual in Nature… the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (or aspects…)
This book is poetry, drawing together sociology, history, politics, linguistics among other things. There's a lot about light/colour, and biological morphology, the two main case studies for the core epistemological and phenomenological explorations.
A perfect companion to David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order (Bortoft was a student of Bohm's).
I wish there was an exercise book for Goethe's science. Learning to see in his way seems worthwhile, but this book describes it, gives tantalising glimpses, makes the sale, but does not attempt to guide the way towards developing this capacity in oneself…
This book discloses Goethe's way of science in a revelatory way, showing how so many of today's problems, and philosophical problems, are simply side effects of the dominant science in play. Goethe's science sidesteps so many of them! And has its own problems… but to add a second science seems akin to becoming bilingual in Nature… the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (or aspects…)
This book is poetry, drawing together sociology, history, politics, linguistics among other things. There's a lot about light/colour, and biological morphology, the two main case studies for the core epistemological and phenomenological explorations.
A perfect companion to David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order (Bortoft was a student of Bohm's).
I wish there was an exercise book for Goethe's science. Learning to see in his way seems worthwhile, but this book describes it, gives tantalising glimpses, makes the sale, but does not attempt to guide the way towards developing this capacity in oneself…
December 29, 2021
Twice read and will be returning to this book in the future. Strikes to the heart of some fundamental changes needed for a sustainable future.
October 23, 2022
Libro un poco lento para leer pero fundamental para comenzar a ver las cosas de otra manera
March 24, 2023
Este libro pudo haber sido un gran ensayo de algunas cuantas páginas, condensando la mirada sistémica y experiencial de Goethe y la crítica a una mirada cuantitativa y fragmentada de la vida.
August 13, 2026
Henri Bortoft’s The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe’s Way of Science (1996) is one of the most substantial modern philosophical interpretations of Goethean science. If you are looking for insights into Goethe’s “delicate empiricism” this book is very helpful. Bortoft studied the problem of wholeness in connection with physicist David Bohm, and the book develops from that background.
Bortoft makes a subtle distinction between “Multiplicty in unity” and “unity in multiplicity”. Our habitual intellect tends toward multiplicity in unity: we subsume many different things under one concept. We see oak, rose, grass and pine and place them all under the conceptual heading “plant.” Goethe's way moves toward unity in multiplicity. The unity isn't imposed upon the phenomena by classification. It becomes perceptible within their differences. This distinction has been important. his helps explain Goethe's Urpflanze or archetypal plant. It should not be imagined as a hypothetical ancestral plant but it is something closer to a generative principle perceived through transformations. He gives an unusually rigorous account of what it could actually mean to perceive a whole. “Holistic” is often used rather loosely to mean taking lots of factors into consideration. Bortoft means something considerably more radical: the whole is a mode of organization that becomes present through the parts.
The book is philosophically dense and requires very active participation. Bortoft draws heavily on phenomenology, hermeneutics and different “modes of consciousness.” Nearly thirty years after publication, I would still regard The Wholeness of Nature as one of the best books for understanding the epistemological foundations of Goethean science.
Bortoft makes a subtle distinction between “Multiplicty in unity” and “unity in multiplicity”. Our habitual intellect tends toward multiplicity in unity: we subsume many different things under one concept. We see oak, rose, grass and pine and place them all under the conceptual heading “plant.” Goethe's way moves toward unity in multiplicity. The unity isn't imposed upon the phenomena by classification. It becomes perceptible within their differences. This distinction has been important. his helps explain Goethe's Urpflanze or archetypal plant. It should not be imagined as a hypothetical ancestral plant but it is something closer to a generative principle perceived through transformations. He gives an unusually rigorous account of what it could actually mean to perceive a whole. “Holistic” is often used rather loosely to mean taking lots of factors into consideration. Bortoft means something considerably more radical: the whole is a mode of organization that becomes present through the parts.
The book is philosophically dense and requires very active participation. Bortoft draws heavily on phenomenology, hermeneutics and different “modes of consciousness.” Nearly thirty years after publication, I would still regard The Wholeness of Nature as one of the best books for understanding the epistemological foundations of Goethean science.
December 10, 2015
This is a great book for explaining the background of Owen Barfield's work. The reason is that Barfield was a follower of Rudolf Stiener. Stiener edited the scientific papers of Goethe and developed his own philosophy influenced by Goethe's work. Barfield often made unsubstantiated claims. It is helpful to read Stiener or a book like this one on Goethe to help understand what Barfield only telegraphed.
I do have to say that I have been reading this book on and off since around January or February. That does say something about the it.
I do have to say that I have been reading this book on and off since around January or February. That does say something about the it.
Read
November 7, 2007besides matthei [sic?] which is out of print, where to begin with goethe's scientific studies? maybe this. in any event, goethe as scientist is not to be (dis)missed without first regarding the mountain he left us.
October 30, 2012
simply WOW. COnsidering it is written by a physicist and that its a new conception that can provide you with a thrilling lens to view reality through.
December 6, 2016
Great book. Not quite enough on Goethe himself as focus was more on the context of his thinking. We need to know more about the great man.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews