Goethe-Lexicon of Philosophical Concepts

Einbildungskraft (Imagination)

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Einbildungskraft (imagination) is a multifaceted mental faculty in Goethe’s theoretical writings and poetic works that is non-systematic and rich in aporias. At work in both cognitive processes and artistic production, it becomes a defining concept in Goethe’s creative understanding of natural and aesthetic processes. Einbildungskraft serves as a faculty that presides over nature, the human mind, and the arts as a source of interdisciplinary knowledge. As a pre-noetic power, moreover, it also manifests the poietic force of language. By creatively expanding the Kantian distinction between the productive and reproductive imagination, Goethe theorizes a third kind of Einbildungskraft at work in poetic language with an internal law (Gesetzlichkeit) that “circumspectively surveys” the inner and outer worlds. As a kind of analogical thinking, this “umsichtige Einbildungskraft” (surveying imagination) participates in cognitive processes by actively elaborating thought, affect, vision, and memory. And as an artistic power, it mirrors in metaphorical language the organic forces of nature, which share the same principles of human life: synthesis, expansion, and transformation. According to Goethe, Einbildungskraft is the faculty responsible for shaping perceptual inputs, affects, memories, and mental images into artistic and verbal forms, thereby reconfiguring all the fragmented pieces of existence into an organic system that represents reality in its ontological essence.

Gleichnis (Analogy, Likeness, Parable, Simile)

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The concept Gleichnis—together with original phenomenon (Urphänomen) and metamorphosis (Metamorphose)—is key to Goethe’s worldview and one of his favorite terms due to its semantic polyvalence and ambivalence in German. Primarily in religious contexts, Gleichnis means “likeness” and “parable”; in rhetoric it denotes “figurative language” in general; in poetry it refers specifically to a simile; and in philosophical terms it is grounded in “analogy.” Gleichnisse feature prominently in Goethe’s poetry as well as in his scientific and philosophical writings. Since he uses this concept self-reflexively, his oeuvre amounts to a theory of Gleichnis. This entry showcases Goethe’s poetic practice of Gleichnis in prominent examples ranging from lyric, epic, and drama, and in so doing seeks to outline the basic structure of Gleichnis as a metapoetic form of reflection which aims to harmonize and transcend the disciplinary differences between theological, philosophical, and scientific discourses.

Materie (Matter)

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The lexeme Materie (matter) and related terms occur hundreds of times across Goethe’s oeuvre. Goethe’s concept of matter sits within the philosophical tradition of hylomorphism, as illustrated by his geological work on the subject, which foregrounds the extent to which he was influenced by earlier thinkers in that field. Nevertheless, his understanding of matter as a vibrant, vital entity is also strikingly modern, and in this respect it evinces parallels to contemporary ecocriticism and New Materialist thought.

Reihe (Series)

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For Goethe, the lexeme Reihe (series) is not just a word of common parlance but a concept and a figure of thought with significant philosophical implications. In its most developed articulations, a Reihe is an ordering technique that is needed for proper experimentation and scientific research as well as for an effective presentation of the natural order. When something is serialized, its inner order becomes visible and perceptible, as Goethe states in his short essay Der Versuch als Vermittler von Objekt und Subjekt (1792; The Experiment as Mediator between Object and Subject). As a scientific practice, serialization requires strong self-moderation, which helps the scientific observer treat everything with adequate accuracy. For Goethe, moreover, a series that presents something to an observer is in a continuous state of movement, akin to living forms of nature themselves. This ambiguity between object and method is especially evident in Goethe’s morphological notebooks, in which the concept of the series oscillates between the form of nature and the form of its depiction, suggesting that the traditional order of the signified and the signifier is itself serialized in his scientific work. Most significantly, Goethe defines a series as a form of demonstration, exposition, and recapitulation, rather than of argumentation, which distances it from rational concepts of series. A key aspect of serialization for Goethe, therefore, is its deployment as a form of presentation or depiction, not one of deduction, and for this reason it can also be detected in his literary works. While the first part of the entry is devoted to a reconstruction of Goethe’s usage of the concept in his scientific and literary works, the second part compares Goethe’s concept of the series with similar, historically adjacent usages, such as those developed by F.W.J. Schelling (1775–1845), J.F. Herbart (1776–1841), and Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772–1801). None of these can be regarded as a main model for Goethe, but the existence of other serial concepts makes it clear that Goethe’s concept does not emerge out of a historic vacuum. Instead, his contemporaries likewise define a series as a form of presentation, even if it varies in each case. The entry concludes, finally, with an overview of the reception of the concept of the series in the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Schleier (Veil)

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The motif of the Schleier (veil) can be found throughout Goethe’s works, where it is often associated with images of textual production. In so doing, Goethe builds on a rich literary tradition of comparing the production of verbal works of art with the making of fabrics and the art of weaving. The following entry isolates and analyzes some representative instances of this lexeme in which the veil is used to evoke not only the traditional semantic field of textiles and their crafts as models for verbal works of art but also this lexeme’s potential in regard to epistemological and perceptual concerns. It will thereby trace the veil’s emergence as a “thing to think with” when it concerns the truth function of poetry and show how, as a conceptual metaphor, it invites reflection on the verbal work of art as an exceptional means of negotiating the position between perception and truth, the sacred and the profane, the eternal and the ephemeral, and the local and the global. In modelling this mediation in Goethe’s oeuvre, the veil lies at the intersection of poetology and epistemology. It also offers a reflection on the human subject’s position vis-à-vis the world and on the work of art’s position with regard to temporality and ever-changing historical contexts.

Stil (Style)

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The lexeme Stil (style) derives from Latin stilus, which originally designated a writing utensil used in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. In modernity, it is used in a broader sense to refer to characteristic and recurrent forms of artistic production or of human behavior. In Goethe’s philosophical and aesthetic lexicon, style denotes a specific mode of aesthetic representation in which the relation between the artist and the object represented is one of “Gegenständlichkeit” (object-orientedness). This is how Goethe defines the term in his short theoretical essay “Einfache Nachahmung der Natur, Manier, Styl” (1789; Simple Imitation of Nature, Manner, Style), whose reflections grow out of a period of stylistic experimentation best exemplified by the Italienische Reise (1816/1817/1829; Italian Journey). A key component of his classicist aesthetic theory, Goethe’s concept of style is at odds with the better part of the modern discourse on style that emerged in the late eighteenth century.

Urphänomen (Original/Primordial Phenomenon)

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The concept of Urphänomen (original, archetypal, or primordial phenomenon) is central to Goethe’s scientific studies. The neologism designates a phenomenon that is both real (experienced) and ideal (conceptualized). Thus, it testifies to Goethe’s specific epistemological mediation between idealism and empiricism and opens onto a notion of intuitive understanding. The term belongs in the context of Goethe’s theory of colors and accordingly leads avant la lettre to the optical writings of the 1790s. Furthermore, the term appears in the context of Goethe’s biological writings as well as in geognostic and meteorological considerations. In the Maximen und Reflexionen (Maxims and Reflections) as in the conversations with Eckermann, the Urphänomen is deployed in ethical and aesthetic spheres. The Urphänomen derives from an “Erfahrung höherer Art” (experience of a higher kind) and is defined as a phenomenon acquired through progressive experience, to which the variety of related appearances may in turn be referred step by step. Once recognized, the Urphänomen can serve as a key to further insights through its synthetic mediation of theoretical idea and empirical knowledge. This epistemic function renders it ambiguous because, on the one hand, it denotes a mental construct that allows for the cognition of further phenomena and, on the other hand, it simultaneously denotes an empirical experience in its Urform (primordial form).

Wechsel-Dauer (Change-Constancy)

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The lexeme Wechsel-Dauer (change-constancy) appears in “Anmutige Gegend” (A Pleasant Landscape) in Act I of Faust II, as part of Faust’s famous description of the rainbow before him. While the hyphenated term captures the essential temporal tension of the drama, reflecting the complexity of the Augenblick (moment), it also indexes the temporality of Metamorphose (metamorphosis) within Goethe’s scientific thought. The obvious overlap with the poem “Dauer im Wechsel” (1803; Constancy in Change), which is linked with early nineteenth-century psychology, points toward some of the term’s broader resonances. Beyond the natural scientific and psychological contexts, Wechsel-Dauer is connected to several interrelated aspects of cultural production, including publication practices, tradition, and late style. Furthermore, the hyphenated term, as distinguished from either Wechsel or Dauer alone, manifests the Goethean principles of Polarität (polarity) and Steigerung (intensification).

Wechselseitigkeit (Reciprocity)

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Wechselseitigkeit (reciprocality, mutuality) refers to Goethe’s interactive understanding of human and non-human relations. In its attributive inflection wechselseitig, which can be variously rendered as reciprocal, mutual, alternate, interchangeable, or two-way, the concept mediates the inexorable polarities of life. As a vital “force of attraction” (Anziehungskraft) between contrasting phenomena, these Goethean oppositions operate within both nature and the human world, as when the narrator claims in Die Wahlverwandtschaften (1809; Elective Affinities), “[j]ede Anziehung ist wechselseitig” (WA 1.20:282; Every attraction is reciprocal).

As in this novel, wechselseitig in Goethe’s theoretical writings configures assemblages of shared feelings, actions, or close relationships between two or more entities. And whether they are inter-subjective or intercultural, these reciprocal interactions typically involve an order of exchange between opposing sides (Seiten) that give of themselves in mutual enhancement or decline. Grounded in change (Wechsel) and linked to such cognate compounds as Wechselspiel (alternate play, fluctuation), Wechselwirkung (reciprocal effect, mutual influence), and Wechselblick (reciprocal gaze), the ascription also at times highlights an ethics of interaction within heterological relations of parity for the purpose of producing intensified or enhanced (gesteigerte) outcomes. Ultimately, the lexeme configures mediations of overlapping and interdependent systems that operate within science, society, and aesthetics, while also illuminating post-Kantian subject-object relations.