Maß (Moderation, Measure)

This entry on Maß (moderation, measure) explores a concept that has not received much attention in Goethe scholarship and makes a case for its usefulness and versatility in tracking how Goethe addresses a philosophical issue with a history stretching at least back to Aristotle’s conception of “the golden mean.” It shows how Goethe’s writings respond to numerous issues connected with the concept of moderation, ranging from the problem of self-moderation, when an individual’s own internal calibration comes in conflict with societal norms, to the more theoretical question of how to define the correct standard of measure (Maßstab). The discussion of moderation in Goethe’s work is, to be sure, coupled with its opposite, namely the potentially deadly threat of immoderation and excess, such as one finds in Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774; The Sorrows of Young Werther), Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795; Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship), and Torquato Tasso (1790). Such potential conflicts, which also raise questions of where to position the standard of measure (Maßstab) of behavior, lead naturally into contexts of scientific experimentation, as in Goethe’s essay “Der Versuch als Vermittler von Objekt und Subjekt” (1792; The Experiment as Mediator of Object and Subject), where such standards take on a different valence from their role in mathematically based natural sciences. In addition, Goethe’s novel, Die Wahlverwandtschaften (1809; Elective Affinities), provides a poetic model where conflicts between individually and socially calibrated notions of measure and moderation play out with major ethical consequences. The entry concludes with a reflection on different kinds of aesthetic experience, each with its particular understanding of Maß: the individual’s appreciation of the sublime, the theatrical performance, and the embodiment of the self through poetic meter. Throughout these examples, the entry will underscore the role of narrative constraints: regardless of whether the medium is prose or poetry, one finds that questions of Maß as moderation in Goethe’s writings are often accompanied by questions of narrative control and excess. The following overview and analysis of Maß in Goethe’s writing will show that this term is a nodal point of ethical, epistemological, and aesthetic concerns.

Kollektiv (Collective)

The idea of the ‘collective’ plays a key role in Goethe’s late work. It denotes a balance between multiplicity and unity, heterogeneity and homogeneity, which is characteristic both of Goethe’s authorship and of his literary work, above all his novel Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (1829; Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years). Etymologically, Goethe’s use of the term refers back to its original meaning from the Latin colligere; for him, a collective emerges when parts are gathered and arranged into some sort of ordered whole. It has formal, intellectual, and social implications. The term is semantically close to the concepts of the ‘aggregate’ and the ‘compendium,’ which are also essential to Goethe’s late poetics. The collective, the aggregate, and the compendium are all situated between mere particularity and full systematicity, in a sphere of the intermediary. Finally, Goethe’s idea of the collective found resonance primarily and early on in the United States, specifically in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Charakter (Character)

The lexeme Charakter denotes the set of innate or acquired dispositions that make an individual or a nation distinctive, determine its behaviour, and give it psychological and moral strength. Charakter plays a central role in Goethe’s moral psychology and his ethical thought in general, as well as in his thinking on culture. His psychological and ethical thought is notoriously hard to classify or to align with the main traditions of European thought. His concern with Charakter could be said to belong to the broad classical tradition of virtue ethics, in the sense that Goethe placed moral character at the heart of ethics. However, in contrast to the classical tradition of virtue ethics, which holds that both the rational and the non-rational parts of humans contribute to a virtuous character, and that virtues can be conceptualized clearly, Goethe resists the claims of reason on our moral character. His early writings on culture and the drama Egmont have a Rousseauian flavour: Charakter represents a natural force that is endangered by civilization. After the French Revolution and in opposition to the emergence of liberalism, Goethe came to see Charakter as a political resource that was superior to political rationality. In his most sustained engagements with philosophical ethics—his essays on Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1805) and Isaac Newton (1810)—Goethe argues, in deliberate opposition to Kant, that natural Charakter has at least as much ethical force as reason and that naturalistic descriptions of human behaviour are at least as valid as moral ones. Moreover, Charakter has the advantage of leading us by a more direct and reliable route to morally good outcomes. In this sense, it can be said without risk of exaggeration that Charakter displaces rationality in Goethe’s ethical thought.

Rhythmus (Rhythm)

The lexeme Rhythmus has a long history of its own. In the context of Goethe’s thought, it needs to be approached via both his theoretical discussions of the term and his handling of rhythm in his literary work. Goethe conceives of rhythm in terms of its materiality, and its major philosophical opportunity is the intense connection that it offers between subject and object. Goethe’s attitude to meter—that is, rhythm organized for the purposes of poetic production—was ambivalent: although he mastered any number of different verse forms, he remained suspicious of poetic rhythms that were too metronomic. The creative tension of rhythm is an implicit theme in various works and is explored through two examples in this entry: the poem “Der Musensohn” (1774/1800; The Son of the Muses) and the character Mignon from the novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795–1796; Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship).

Anschauung, Anschauen (Intuition)

Since Plato’s metaphor of the light of knowledge used in the “Allegory of the Cave” from his dialogue Politeia, the concepts of Anschauen or Anschauung (intuition) and their corresponding lexical field, including the terms light, sun, and eye, represent key notions and much-debated issues in philosophical thinking. In his literary, scientific, and philosophical writings, Goethe does not articulate a systematic and explicit theory of these concepts; on the contrary, most of his remarks on the topic of “intuition” are aphoristic or tacitly integrated into his poetic and scientific works. One of his main contributions to the philosophical debates surrounding Anschauen and Anschauung is that he developed and integrated into his works different modes of a specifically creative and productive—as opposed to a merely receptive and sensory—form of Anschauen. This productive form of Anschauen, for which he also uses the terms “Phantasie” (phantasy), “Einbildungskraft” (imagination), “exakte sinnliche Phantasie” (exact sensory phantasy or imagination) or “anschauende Urteilskraft” (intuitive power of judgment) in various contexts, can serve as both a creative faculty in his poetry and a precise scientific or philosophical instrument of cognition. Within the context of the philosophical tradition, and apart from the heritage of Plato and Platonism, Goethe’s notion of Anschauen can be understood, on the one hand, in the context of classical German philosophy and its debates on “anschauender Verstand” (intuitive understanding) and “intellektuelle” or “intellektuale Anschauung” (intellectual intuition). On the other hand, it is also phenomenologically grounded and anticipates the main insights of Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) and the phenomenological movement in the 20th century, one of the most important of which is the so-called phenomenological Wesensschau (eidetic intuition).

Welt (World)

Goethe uses the word Welt (world) repeatedly in his writings, especially in his poetry, both singularly and in compounds, to establish a rich constellation of nature, divinity, and subjectivity, managed discursively at the intersection of economics, science, and literature. The most widely discussed example is Weltliteratur (world literature), but his understanding of Welt is equally evident in such compounds as Weltgeschichte (world history), Weltseele (world soul), Weltgeist (world spirit), Weltensumpf (world morass), Weltregiment (world regime), Weltwirrwesen (tumultuous world essence), Weltenschöpfer (world creator), Weltbürger (world citizen), Weltfrömmigkeit (world piety), and many more. I will focus in this lexicon entry on Goethe’s cosmological and phenomenological understandings of Welt, with the aim of showing how he enables the latter by his treatment of the former. Welt is such a widespread concept that it is not possible to do justice to all aspects of its use. As a result, the main textual references used in this entry are Faust, the Wilhelm Meister novels, and the poem “Auf dem See” (1775/89; On the Lake).

Erscheinung, Erscheinen (Manifestation)

The lexeme Erscheinung/Erscheinen (manifestation) is related to the formative process of Werden (becoming) that fascinated Goethe throughout his life and which, in turn, is part and parcel of his understanding of morphology in all its manifestations, from the most elementary chemical processes to the highest products of the human mind. Because he was convinced that every existent thing necessitates interpretation to be grasped in its changefulness, he employed a range of surrogates to express the meanings of Erscheinung/Erscheinen. Thus, the lexeme can be translated in different ways: foremost as manifestation, phenomenon, appearance, or illusion. Moreover, Goethe believed that each manifestation is the result of an unrecognized law in the appearing object that corresponds to an unknown regulating principle in the observing subject and that nothing in living nature is static or occurs in isolation; everything is interconnected. Thus, Goethe’s method of inquiry consisted of close empirical observation that included reflection on the observing subjects themselves—a form of phenomenology. Consequently, Anschauen and Gegenstand also enter into the semantic field. Finally, the following examination highlights a lesser-known signification of Erscheinung in Goethe’s usage, one for which he did not have a specific term: that of emergence. Emergence seems most apt to express Goethe’s “lebendiger Begriff” (living concept), which can be seen as the counterpart to nature’s “lebendiges Fließen” (living flow), which he repeatedly expressed in his literary and scientific writing.

Irrlichtelieren (Will-o’-the-wisping-around)

The lexeme Irrlichtelieren (will-o’-the-wisping-around, i.e. thinking outside the box) is Goethe’s neologism for a heterodox line of thought that displaces traditional methods of philosophy and science. Although the term occurs only once, in the student scene of Faust, Part One (FA 1.7:83.1917), the shifting value of will-o’-the-wisps in Faust and other works corresponds to the theories of scientific method Goethe advanced in essays of the 1790s and especially to the methodology of his Zur Farbenlehre (Theory of Color) of 1810. While in Goethe’s letters and in the devil’s language in Faust, will-o’-the-wisps betoken illusion, they develop in the course of Faust into symbols of the ineffable truth that Kantian metaphysics had effectively substituted for God. The ironic dialectic of the will-o’-the-wisps shapes Goethe’s views of pedagogy and scientific epistemology and his positions on the idealist subject/object dichotomy, on the relationships of nature and truth, on representation and knowledge, and on knowledge and community.

Schattenriss (Silhouette)

The lexeme Schattenriss (silhouette) refers to an object that is suggestive of why materiality matters to Goethe’s philosophical thought. It touches on several intellectual and aesthetic areas, including semiotics (natural versus arbitrary signs), art, physiognomy, anthropology, color theory, and epistemology. A popular reproductive artform of the late eighteenth century, the silhouette entered into Goethe’s own collecting and artistic practices already in the 1770s. Collaboration with Johann Caspar Lavater (1741–1801) extended the significance of the silhouette profile into the scientific arena and built on Enlightenment visual agendas. The Schattenriss is also connected with eighteenth-century theories of mimesis and representation that concern related terms like Umriss (outline, contour) and also appear in Goethe’s aesthetic writings. In his later work on color theory and the art-making activities of the Johanna Schopenhauer salon, however, Goethe focuses on the shadowy interior and the colorful shades of the shadow rather than the static line of the Umriss to take the silhouette into striking new scientific and aesthetic territory.

Veloziferisch (Velociferian)

The lexeme veloziferisch (velociferian) was first coined by Goethe in an unsent letter from 1825 and entered the public stage four years later with the second edition of the novel second edition of the novel Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, oder die Entsagenden (1829; Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years, or The Renunciants). As a portmanteau, the neologism, which is composed of the Italian velocità and the German luziferisch, combines two central elements of the Goethean imaginary: the accelerated velocity of modern life and the “luciferian” function of negation. Das Veloziferische marks a dangerous speed at which organic growth is outpaced by the rapid acceleration of technological development. At velociferian speeds, the otherwise figurative role of negation in Goethe’s philosophy of nature takes on a disfiguring function, highlighted most clearly by the techno-accelerationist allegory Faust. The invention of this term has prompted recent investigations into the relationship between technological development and social acceleration in modernity. Furthermore, an appreciation of Goethe’s critique of the velociferian enables a fuller understanding of his unique position in relation to broader trends in natural philosophy and the philosophy of biology (Spinoza, Schelling, and Erwin Schrödinger), in addition to the philosophy of technology (Thomas Carlyle and Bruno Latour).