Abstract
Goethe carried out an enormous number of experiments before criticizing Newton’s theory of light and colours in the Farbenlehre (1810). He managed to show that Newton’s reasoning is based on a rather narrow choice of experiments, in which parameters such as the distance between the prism and the screen are fixed arbitrarily: Newton’s famous spectrum (with its green centre) occurs only at a specific distance. Once you reduce the distance, the green centre disappears, and you see the two border spectra instead. Newton can of course explain these border spectra; but things can be explained just as well the other way around: Then you start with a theory based on the two border spectra in order to derive the Newtonian spectrum. Both accounts fit many data (available in Newton and Goethe’s days) equally well. Thus by insisting that the step to theory is not forced upon us by “reason and experiments” alone (as Newton would have it), Goethe revealed our own free, creative contribution to theory construction. And surprisingly, his theory of the prismatic colours seems no worse off than Newton’s, even taking into account additional criteria of theory choice, such as simplicity or elegance.
It is sometimes bizarrely demanded by people, who do not themselves attend to such demands, that experiences be described without any theoretical connections […]. Surely the mere inspection of some object can profit us but little. Every act of seeing leads to consideration, every consideration to reflection, every reflection to combination, and thus it may be said that in every attentive look at nature we already theorize. Let us engage in it with consciousness, with self-awareness, with freedom, and to use a bold word, with irony: all of this is needed if the abstraction we fear is to be harmless, and the empirical result we hope for is to be quite lively and useful
(Goethe [LA]/I.4:5, compare Goethe [GTC]:x1–x1i and Goethe [ToC]:159)
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Notes
- 1.
See Mausfeld [WANS]:23/4 on the neural coding of complementary colours. The reference to colour television can be found without further explanation in Hegge [ToSi]:202.
- 2.
Goethe’s Farbenlehre consists of three parts and several appendices; the original titles of the three parts are: Entwurf einer Farbenlehre ([LA]/I.4, generally known as the didactic part); Enthüllung der Theorie Newtons ([LA]/I.5, generally known as the polemic part); Materialien zur Geschichte der Farbenlehre ([LA]/I.6, generally known as the historical part). Whereas the main sources of my considerations can be found in the second part, only the first part has been translated into English (twice, in fact), though not everywhere in the most satisfactory fashion (Goethe [GTC], [CoT]). Thus, all English quotations from Goethe’s Farbenlehre presented here have been translated anew. For the reader’s convenience, however, references to the existing published English translations will be provided wherever possible. In the meantime, there is also a translations of the polemicae part, published by M. Petry and M. Duck, which occured too late to be incorporated here.
- 3.
It results from Newton’s first two theorems (Newton [O]:17, 21).
- 4.
See, for example, Goethe’s discussion of the first Newtonian experiment ([LA]/I.5:§35, §37, §39, §41).
- 5.
For the following, see Newton [NTaL]:3076–3078.
- 6.
Whether the observed patches of colour are seen arranged horizontally or vertically depends on the orientation of the prism. In my representation, I have chosen the second possibility. Goethe and Newton often had the first possibility in mind (see e.g. Newton’s sketch in Fig. 1). For the sake of uniformity, I will often adapt their considerations to my representation, without noting this in each case.
- 7.
This expression – “vermannigfaltigen” – occurs often, see e.g. [LA]/I.5:§56, §168.
- 8.
For details about another important group of these phenomena and their significance see O.M. [PE].
- 9.
It is remarkable how casually Newton treats the topic. See Newton [O]:102.
- 10.
See Goethe [LA]/I.7:72/3, 79–83; the claim that the response was not borne in mind by Goethe can be found for example in Helbig [NO]:122.
- 11.
Goethe: “We thus do not by any means imagine ourselves to have proven that Newton was wrong” ([LA]/I.5:§31).
- 12.
The slogan can be found in a prominent place in the Principia, namely in the penultimate paragraph right at the end of the monumental work (in the “SCHOLIUM GENERALE” that appears for the first time in the second edition, see Newton [PNPM]:174). Newton also applied the slogan to optics, see Sect. 2 and note 14.
- 13.
Goethe follows the second option in his own account of the prism experiments, see Goethe [LA]/I.4:§330, §214, §216, compare [GTC]:§330, §214, §216, [ToC]:§330, §214, §216.
- 14.
Newton was serious about this ambition, as can be seen in many places throughout the Opticks. See for example the summary of his results directly after formulation of “PROPOSITION VII. THEOREM V” ([O]:100).
- 15.
See Goethe [LA]/I.5:§115–118 as well as Newton [O]:43/4.
- 16.
Goethe was perhaps the first commentator of modern physics who (against Newtonian naïvety) emphasized that in principle each observation is theory-laden (Goethe [LA]/I.4:5, Goethe [GTC]:x1-x1i and Goethe [ToC]:159). See the quote at the very beginning of my essay.
- 17.
Goethe provides a brilliant discussion of abstract geometrical aids that are used in textbooks to clarify the law of refraction, see his eleventh table (Goethe [LA]/I.7:93–95). Unfortunately, its description missing in the English translation.
- 18.
See Goethe [LA]/I.4:§723, compare [GTC]:§723, [ToC]:§723.
- 19.
Perhaps no tools from the region of higher mathematics are necessary for the specification of such a formula. (Given the prism’s optical parameters, it might be just a little trigonometry, see Fig. 5). But what harm does that do? The mathematics in Newton’s Opticks is also rather down to earth in comparison to the mathematics in the Principia.
- 20.
See e.g. Quine et al. [WoB]:66–80.
- 21.
According to Kuhn, there is “no neutral algorithm for theory-choice, no systematic decision procedure which, properly applied, must lead each individual in the group to the same decision” (Kuhn [SoSR]:200). Cf. Duhem [ASoP]:218.
- 22.
See Quine [oEES]. In the twin paper to the present one (see note 34), I propose a more rigorous reasoning in favour of underdetermination à la Quine, which derives from another Goethean variation of Newton’s experiments; see O.M. [PE].
- 23.
He talks, for example, of “prejudices” instead of theoretical preferences, see [LA]/I.5:§30. In his terminology, Goethe came closest to the underdetermination thesis in Goethe [LA]/I.8:182.
- 24.
Arguably Goethe’s strongest example is what I call the theory of the heterogeneity of darkness (without that name in Goethe [LA]/I.7:86). Unlike Goethe’s own account of prismatic colours sketched in the main text, the heterogeneity of darkness is introduced by Goethe merely for the sake of argument. He wants to demonstrate, and can demonstrate, that all things considered, this theory is just as good (or bad) as Newton’s. (For many details about this see O.M. [PE]; a comprehensive account is given in O.M. [ML]).
- 25.
Here is roughly what current physics says about the matter: white light consists of different types of photons, whose frequencies correspond to the various spectral colours (as long as enough photons of the same frequency reach a white screen); in particular, there are photons of a certain frequency that produce light of green appearance – so there is such a thing as unmixed, pure spectral green (speaking loosely). On Goethe’s view, however, green can only be composed of different colours, namely of the turquoise section in border spectrum SC and of the yellow section in SW, see Goethe [LA]/I.4:§245/6, [GTC]:§245/6, [ToC]:§245/6.
- 26.
The next paragraphs comprise considerations and formulations that were first published in a different – art historical – context, see O.M. [BSiS]:133–135.
- 27.
Bjerke [NBzG]:42. The Viennese painter and colour researcher Ingo Nussbaumer voiced similar criticism of Newton’s yellow in his lecture “Paradigma, Urphänomen, Hypothese und Prinzip” (philosophy of science colloquium at the Humboldt University Berlin on 21 June 2007).
- 28.
Goethe’s systematic search for symmetry is discussed in O.M. [GPmS] and O.M. [ML], part II; symmetries in science are the subject of O.M. [ZSUF], O.M. [CSC].
- 29.
They also matter when experiments are chosen, canonized, or published. (See O.M. [CSC]).
- 30.
See Doncel et al. (eds) [SiP].
- 31.
O.M. [GPmS]: 164–167.
- 32.
In the following paragraphs I have incorporated some formulations that have been published before, see O.M. [CSC], Sect. 6.
- 33.
For the following see Desaguliers [AoSE]:442 (= Experiment V).
- 34.
This is a revised translation, elaboration, and correction of 50% of a paper published in German with quite some mistakes ten years ago (O.M. [GPUb]). The other half of the paper is translated (and again, corrected) in O.M. [PE]. For the sake of clarity, the two English papers have a certain overlap (particularly in sections II and III of the present paper). However the main arguments in these two papers are independent of one another: In the other paper I have employed sharp mathematical means to radicalize one line of Goethean thought (perhaps far beyond of what he would have liked). In the present paper, by contrast, I have tried to be closer to Goethe’s spirit in colour research. Many thanks to Eric Oberheim for translating large portions of the original text into English, and to Emanuel Viebahn for both philosophical and stylistic advice concerning the final version. Last but not least, I wish to express my gratitude to Ingo Nussbaumer for years and years of conversations about spectral colours as well as for carrying out and documenting the ultimate experiment of the present paper.
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Müller, O.L. (2017). Goethe contra Newton on Colours, Light, and the Philosophy of Science. In: Silva, M. (eds) How Colours Matter to Philosophy. Synthese Library, vol 388. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67398-1_4
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