For the Conference:
Nature, Thinking
From Romanticism and Idealism to Ecological Philosophy
July 9-11, 2024
Paper Presentation: The Poetics of Knowing: The Goethian Ideal and Other Alternatives to Technological Science
Abstract
What relevance does Romanticism continue to have for understanding and managing nature? This paper focuses on the complex relationships between place, embodiment, knowledge, and ethics, particularly the tension between the detached stance of objective science and the intimate, transformative encounters with place and landscape so integral to some other forms of science and varieties of knowing, such as indigenous knowledge or those following in the romantic tradition and founded on narrative or lyric.
This paper presents alternatives to modern science, and thus modern thought, by taking a historical look at the development of forms of poetic inquiry, particularly those that emerged as deliberate responses to the emergence of modern science, by considering the work and lives of hybrid-scientists like Alexander von Humboldt, H.D. Thoreau, and Goethe on the way toward an ethic of encounter and scientific practice-a wild ethic. Each responded to an emerging modern science by deliberately refining and integrating experience into their methods.
Prior to the emergence of modern science, the moral, aesthetic, and scientific spheres were more united. A historical consideration of the context of this development is crucial for understanding renewed possibilities for a reunited approach to comprehending and managing nature. This historical consideration will begin with Henry David Thoreau in order to investigate the moral and historical dimensions of scientific practices as an important corrective to scientific and technological mediation.