Troy Vine

Dieser Aufsatz rekonstruiert die Form der Newton-Kritik Goethes im didaktischen Teil der Farbenlehre als interne Kritik. Goethes Prismenexperimente stellen eine interne Kritik an Newtons Farbtheorie dar, weil Newtons Intention und Methodologie übernommen werden. Goethes Kritik basiert auf Newtons Unterscheidung zwischen Theorie und Hypothese und dessen Definition einer Theorie als Grundprinzipien, die durch Analyse bestimmt werden. Indem Goethe diese Definition übernimmt, um eine Analyse prismatischer Phänomene durchzuführen, will er zeigen, dass bei Newton eine Spannung zwischen expliziter Intention und tatsächlicher Ausführung bestehe, und selbst eine alternative Theorie aufstellen, die ohne diese Spannung auskommt.

In this paper I offer a critique of Henri Bortoft's Taking Appearance Seriously. Bortoft’s focus on the twofold method in experimental science, which proceeds from experience to theory and from theory back to experience, brings out not a difference, but a methodological similarity between Goethe’s approach to science and experimental science. Using the example of colour, I show that the difference is best captured by the distinction between relations that are necessary and those that are contingent, which Bortoft calls “internal relations” and “external relations” respectively.

The Polemical Part of Goethe's Farbenlehre has finally been published in English. However, I do not think that Michael Duck’s introduction—taken verbatim from an article written 20 years earlier with a few minor additions —helps in understanding the debate between Newton and Goethe.  I therefore decided to take the opportunity of its reprint to offer a critique of Duck's introduction. However, my contribution is not only negative; I will also argue for an interpretational framework which I believe can provide a satisfactory understanding of Goethe’s polemics.

I review Olaf Müller's recent book Mehr Licht. In this book Müller reappraises Goethe's Newton-Critic using the tools of analytic philosophy and shows that instead of misunderstanding Netwon, as is often supposed, Goethe demonstrated the possibility of an alternative theory that fitted the data just as well (or as badly) as Newton's theory, and showed that there was no experiment that could decide between them. As such, Goethe anticipated Quine's underdeterminacy thesis, and provided the much needed concrete example Quine never gave.