• “Render Innocuous the Abstraction We Fear” - Johann Wolfgang Goethe in the Epochal Conflict between Scientific Knowledge and Narrative Knowing

    Author(s):
    MICHAEL BOEHLER (see profile)
    Date:
    2015
    Subject(s):
    Literature and science, Narration (Rhetoric)
    Item Type:
    Book chapter
    Tag(s):
    Goethe, Science and literature, Narrativity
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6W950N16
    Abstract:
    Within the framework of the conference the present article argues that the controversial territories Goethe every so often trespasses are not so much those between science and poetry - as often put forward, but rather a twilight zone between a traditional culture of narrative knowing and a modern culture of scientific knowledge, a distinction set forth by Lyotard (The Postmodern Condition, 1979). In fact, if we examine more closely the forms and means of representation Goethe uses in his dealings with scientific objects, we find that to an astonishingly high degree they exhibit the characteristics which Lyotard considers symptomatic of pre-modern “narrative knowledge”, namely a mixture of various discourse functions such as savoir-faire, savoir-vivre, and savoir-écouter, with the corresponding criteria of usefulness, of justice or happiness, and of aesthetic appeal instead of the exclusive ‘true’/‘false’ criterion of modern science discourse.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Conference proceeding     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    10.1163/9789004184121
    Publisher:
    Brill Online
    Pub. Date:
    2015
    Proceeding:
    Narrated Communities – Narrated Realities: Narration as Cognitive Processing and Cultural Practice
    Page Range:
    51 - 68
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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