The Journal of Animal Consciousness Vol 1, Issue 2 Vol 1 Issue 2 | Page 10

or by taking things apart. Goethean science does not look
at just an interconnected set of actualities but also
considers a holistic structure of possibilities. Goethean
science is formed out of reciprocity for each phenomenon
being studied. Goethe wrote: “Natural objects should be
sought and investigated as they are and not to suit
observers, but respectfully as if they were divine
beings” (Seamon 1998, p. 2). The basis of Goethe’s
scientific investigations was direct experiential contact;
this was largely ignored by his contemporaries and even
criticized outright as being subjective or as a form of
philosophical idealism. Our experiencing the world as
subjective and objective is an artifact of consciousness, not
a fact of the world, and we find that the inextricable
dynamic unity of subject and object cannot be quantified
within a Cartesian/Newtonian type of disputation. In the
modern scientific methodology, the scientist is relegated to
a position of ‘objective observer’ (i.e. isolated from
becoming ‘involved’ with the object of his research) so as
to prevent any prejudice of anthropocentrism and thereby
(theoretically) eliminating any arrogation of an exceptional
position. The paradox is that this practice places the
scientist outside of nature in an exceptional position, and
the very anthropocentrism that is shunned has just been
reinforced!
It was in the 20th century that Edmund Husserl gave us the
conceptual language to be able to better articulate Goethe’s
method of science; this is the language of phenomenology
as it is “to the things themselves”, allowing the subject of
investigation to ‘speak’ for itself (Seamon 1998, pp. 1–2).
Unfortunately this, ‘Goethean science’, is still much
underused and misunderstood. Conventional scientific
methodology tends to separate the student/scientist from
that which he is studying (the subjective/objective
dichotomy mentioned above) and can lead to arbitrary or
inaccurate understandings (Seamon 1998, p. 2).
In
contrast, Goethean science is a participative, engaging
approach which actually becomes therapeutic for the
scientist – in the case of equine therapy, for the therapist
and the patient/client. Brent Dean Robbins says: “The
process of owning up to our obligations is one that can be
a healing process, a process of coming home to ourselves;
hence it is “therapeutic” (Robbins 2005, p. 114). This
process is what Goethe referred to as delicate empiricism;
in other words direct, sensorial experience. Every part of
nature is always in a process…of being born, growing and
developing, and of dying. Understanding of this continual
cycle in a holistic manner cannot be reached through
mathematical abstractions; it can only be reached through
careful observation and perception of the subject itself.

Equine Morphology – A Goethean View of Living
Form
An animal is visibly material, but it is also living
form, and it expresses soul faculties as well. How
are these three things related to each other, and
how does this relationship show itself in the bodily
form? Such are the questions that arise whenever
we observe animals. (Schad 1977, p. 10)
We know from a conventional taxonomical approach that
horses are animals within the class of Mammals;
furthermore they are of the order Perissodactyl, meaning
they are odd-toed (single-toed in the case of horses)
ungulates. But that doesn’t give us a feel for the nature of
Horse. We can engage in the horse’s organic life form and
come to understand how he interacts in his lifeworld9 at a
deeper level through Goethean science. When we use this
approach and involve an understanding of this kind of
morphology, we view the anatomical details always with
an eye towards the whole animal.
Conventional taxonomy is based upon the system
developed by Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), known as the
‘father of taxonomy’; it takes into account phylogeny as
well as similar characteristics of a given species. This
system gained much significance after the publication of
Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in 1859. Yet
taxonomists continue to be puzzled by similarities among
disparate groups, typically using convergent evolution to
explain these anomalies away, which of course must be
based upon the idea that differing species all over the
world adapted to their respective environments in very
similar ways.10 To accept this, we would have to believe
for instance, that the fawn inhabiting North America
evolved his pattern of rows of spots as an adaptation to the
environment much the same as the tropical forest-dwelling
Agouti paca, a large, heavy-bodied rodent whose native
habit ranges from Mexico to southern Brazil, as they both
carry remarkably similar coat patterns (Riegner 1998, p.
178).
A living alternative to a dead morphological classification
was given to us first by Goethe.
This was then
recapitulated and expanded by the biologist, Wolfgang
Schad, more than any single scientist has before or since.
Schad incorporated both Goethe’s approach to mammalian
science and Rudolf Steiner’s11 understanding of the
inherent threefold structure. Indeed, the phenomenological
animal sciences base their work upon his seminal book,
Man and Mammals, Toward a Biology of Form (English
translation - 1977, Waldorf Press). Goethe saw that all living
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© The Society for Animal Consciousness 2016.

Issue 2, Vol 1, April 2016.