Goethe as Philosopher
This chapter explores the only apparent contradiction between Goethe’s profession of a lack of talent for philosophy and the significant reciprocal intellectual influence that existed between Goethe and leading philosophers of his time, including Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling. The essay traces the development of Goethe’s interest in philosophy in the years preceding the publication of Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship as he pursues the possibility of some form of “intuitive” (nondiscursive) understanding. This path appears to have grown especially at the start from Goethe’s interest in botany and in Spinoza’s notion of a scientia intuitiva. The full shape of Goethe’s reflections on this issue ultimately involve his engagement with Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment as well as with a set of reflections on how one might be able to construe a “complete series” of developmental transitions.