Beitrag zur Methodik goetheanistischer Physik am Beispiel des Wasserkreislaufs

Abstract:

A contribution to the methodology of Goethean physics using the example of the water cycle

Wonder at natural phenomena raises questions in us as to their inner circumstances. Rudolf Steiner provided the methodological foundation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe‘s practical science of inorganic nature, but in doing so, presented only very few examples and in philosophical brevity. Therefore, an attempt has been made to apply the search for the prima! phenomenon, the methodology formulated by Steiner, to a realm of phenomena other than those studied by Goethe, in order thereby to discuss the consequences of the method and its results. Ohservational experiments on evaporation and eondensation were studied as examples and formulations suggested for their corresponding prima] phenomena. Primal phenomena contain both qualitative and quantitative aspects. Their didactic significance as sensorial pictures for an understanding of nature that is in accordance with reality is discussed. Steiner goes into the context of a comprehensive idea for the whole and a conceptual understanding of its parts in general form, though not concretely, however, for inorganic nature. The methodology of the search for the idea is tested using the example of the water cycle as a natural context of many phenomena, in order to come closer to the context of being and appearance in both nature and the cognising mind. In doing so, polar phenomena of the water cycle are contrasted with one another, in order to discover the processes that mediate between the polarities.