The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe

by Richards, Robert J.

• ISBN13: 9780226712116
• ISBN10: 0226712117
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780226712185
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr
• More Book Details

Summary

"All art should become science and all science art; poetry and philosophy should be made one." Friedrich Schlegel's words perfectly capture the project of the German Romantics, who believed that the aesthetic approaches of art and literature could reveal patterns and meaning in nature that couldn't be uncovered through rationalistic philosophy and science alone. In this wide-ranging work, Robert J. Richards shows how the Romantic conception of the world influenced (and was influenced by) both the lives of the people who held it and the development of nineteenth-century science. Integrating Romantic literature, science, and philosophy with an intimate knowledge of the individuals involvedfrom Goethe and the brothers Schlegel to Humboldt and Friedrich and Caroline SchellingRichards demonstrates how their tempestuous lives shaped their ideas as profoundly as their intellectual and cultural heritage. He focuses especially on how Romantic concepts of the self, as well as aesthetic and moral considerationsall tempered by personal relationshipsaltered scientific representations of nature. Although historians have long considered Romanticism at best a minor tributary to scientific thought, Richards moves it to the center of the main currents of nineteenth-century biology, culminating in the conception of nature that underlies Darwin's evolutionary theory. Uniting the personal and poetic aspects of philosophy and science in a way that the German Romantics themselves would have honored, The Romantic Conception of Life alters how we look at Romanticism and nineteenth-century biology.

Author Biography

Robert J. Richards is a professor of history, philosophy, and psychology and director of the Fishbein Center for the History of Science at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior and The Meaning of Evolution: The Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin's Theory, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	xiii
Acknowledgments	xv
Prologue	xvii
1 Introduction: A Most Happy Encounter	1	(16)
The Historical Meaning of Naturphilosophie and Romantic Biology	6	(11)
PART ONE THE EARLY ROMANTIC MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SCIENCE
2 The Early Romantic Movement	17	(97)
Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel	23	(2)
Novalis: The Romantic Personality	25	(11)
Caroline Böhmer and the Mainz Revolution	36	(9)
The Schlegels in Jena: The Break with Schiller and the Politics of Romanticism	45	(14)
Fichte, the Philosopher of Freedom	59	(32)
The Salons of Berlin	91	(3)
Friedrich Schleiermacher: The Poetics and Erotics of Religion	94	(11)
Friedrich Schlegel's Aesthetic Theory	105	(9)
3 Schelling: The Poetry of Nature	114	(79)
Schelling's Early Life	116	(12)
Naturphilosophie	128	(19)
Schelling in Jena	147	(4)
Transcendental Idealism and Poetic Construction	151	(15)
Schelling's Affair with Caroline and the Tragedy of Auguste	166	(10)
Schelling's Identity Philosophy	176	(17)
4 Denouement: Farewell to Jena	193	(14)
The Meaning of Romanticism	199	(8)
PART TWO SCIENTIFIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE ROMANTIC CONCEPTION OF LIFE
5 Early Theories of Development: Blumenbach and Kant	207	(31)
Embryology and Theories of Descent in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries	211	(5)
Blumenbach's Theory of the Bildungstrieb	216	(13)
Kant's Theory of Biological Explanation	229	(9)
6 Kielmeyer and the Organic Powers of Nature	238	(14)
Lecture on Organic Forces	241	(5)
Theory of Species Origin and Transformation	246	(2)
Critique of Kant and the Idealists	248	(4)
7 Johann Christian Reil's Romantic Theories of Life and Mind, or Rhapsodies on a Cat-Piano	252	(37)
Early Training and Practice	253	(2)
Lebenskraft	255	(6)
Studies of Mental Illness	261	(32)
The Romantic Movement in Halle	293
The Romantic Naturphilosoph	278	(4)
Final Years: War and Romance	282	(7)
8 Schelling's Dynamic Evolutionism	289	(18)
Biological Treatises	291	(1)
Critical Analysis of the Biological Theories of Contemporaries	292	(2)
Nature as a Dynamically Shifting Balance of Forces	294	(4)
Theory of Dynamic Evolution	298	(9)
9 Conclusion: Mechanism, Teleology, and Evolution	307	(18)
Appendix: Theories of Irritability, Sensibility, and Vital Force from Haller to Humboldt	313	(12)
PART THREE GOETHE, A GENIUS FOR POETRY, MORPHOLOGY, AND WOMEN
10 The Erotic Authority of Nature	325	(82)
Growing Up in Frankfurt	330	(4)
University Education	334	(5)
The Law, Herder, and Lotte	339	(16)
The Weimar Councillor and the Frustrated Lover	355	(10)
The Science of Goethe's First Weimar Period	365	(2)
The Unity of Biological Nature: Goethe's Discovery of the Zwischenkiefer in Human Beings	367	(9)
The Impact of Spinoza	376	(6)
Goethe's Italian Journey: Art, Nature, and the Female	382	(22)
Conclusion	404	(3)
11 Goethe's Scientific Revolution	407	(96)
Homecoming	409	(4)
The Foundations of Morphology	413	(8)
Friendship with Schiller and Induction into the Kantian Philosophy	421	(13)
The Science of Morphology	434	(23)
The Romantic Circle and Schelling	457	(14)
Zur Morphologic	471	(20)
The Vertebral Theory of the Skull: Goethe's Dispute with Oken and the Truth of Memory	491	(12)
12 Conclusion: The History of a Life in Art and Science	503	(8)
PART FOUR EPILOGUE
13 The Romantic Conception of Life	511	(3)
14 Darwin's Romantic Biology	514	(41)
The Romantic Movement	516	(6)
Darwin's Romantic Conception of Nature	522	(4)
Romantic Nature in the Origin of Species	526	(14)
Darwin's Theory of Morals	540	(12)
Conclusion	552	(3)
Bibliography	555	(18)
Index	573