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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

Goethean Science
GA 1

cover image

In the collected edition of Rudolf Steiner's works in German, the volume containing the German text is entitled Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften, Einleitungen, (Vol. I in the Bibliographic Survey). It was originally published as introductions to Goethe's Natural-Scientific Works in Kürschner's Deutsche National Literatur, edited by Rudolf Steiner, with introductions, footnotes, and annotations in four volumes, 1883–1897.

This 1988 Mercury Press translation was made by William Lindeman. Cover graphic form by Rudolf Steiner (originally as a study for the book Truth and Science).

  1. Introduction
  2. How Goethe's Theory of Metamorphosis Arose
  3. How Goethe's Thoughts on the Development of the Animals Arose
  4. The Nature and Significance of Goethe's Writings on Organic Development
  5. Concluding Remarks on Goethe's Morphological Views
  6. Goethe's Way of Knowledge
  7. The Arrangement of Goethe's Natural-scientific Writings
  8. From Art to Science
  9. Goethe's Epistemology
  10. Knowing and Human Action in the Light of the Goethean Way of Thinking
  11. Relationship of the Goethean Way of Thinking to Other Views
  12. Goethe and Mathematics
  13. Goethe's Basic Geological Principle
  14. Goethe's Meteorological Conceptions
  15. Goethe and Natural-scientific Illusionism
  16. Goethe as Thinker and Investigator
  17. Goethe Against Atomism
  18. Goethe's World View in his Aphorisms in Prose