Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

famous last word

is a thinker who admired nature's moving order and conceived of form as a pattern of relationships within an organized whole—a conception that is at the forefront of contemporary systems thinking.

He admired nature's moving order and conceived of form as a pattern of relationships within an organized whole—a conception that is at the forefront of contemporary systems thinking. "Each creature," wrote Goethe, "is but a patterned gradation of one great harmonious whole.

was an idealist --- he believed that all that is factual is already theory; that is, that mind must first have a way of interpreting experience; next, experience is interpreted by mind. There are no atomistic facts in this perspective, because all experience is interpreted.

Germanic philosophical idealism is also reflected in the work of Johann Goethe, whom Hayek often read as a young man. [...] What Goethe apparently meant is that mind must first have a way of interpreting experience; next, experience is interpreted by mind. Thus, “all that is factual is already theory,” because the way that facts (experience) are interpreted is mentally constructed. There are no atomistic facts in this perspective, because all experience is interpreted.

is a thinker who wondered at what point our instruments might be creating what we think we see out there in the world.

Theodore Roszak, The Gendered Atom: Reflections on the Sexual Psychology of Science (1999)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, n.All

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe