Book Description
Participatory methods are emerging as a necessary next step in the development of science. As inaugurated by Goethe, further developed by Steiner, and independently conceived of by Polanyi, this new scientific approach calls for conscious inner participation in the processes and qualities of the external world and finally comes to see them as lawful manifestations of creative forces that are inaccessible to the methods of materialistic science. Such insights into the dynamic principles of life, soul, and spirit provide the basis for the practical realization of a healing culture.
From the back cover:
Modern science, with its causal and quantitative methods, has provided the basis for our technologically driven civilization. But the technological prowess that has brought us incredible wealth and power has also led to the exploitation and degradation of nature. Moreover, the reductive methods of modern science have left us without any scientific understanding of our own immediate experience: of the creative human spirit, or of the qualitative richness and dynamic wholeness of natural phenomena.
Deftly retracing the evolution of human consciousness, this lively essay shows how participatory methods are emerging as a necessary next step in the development of science. As inaugurated by Goethe, further developed by Steiner, and independently conceived of by Polanyi, this new scientific approach calls for conscious, rigorous inner participation in the processes and qualities of the external world and finally comes to see them as lawful manifestations of creative forces that are inaccessible to the methods of modern science. Such concrete insights into the dynamic principles of life, soul, and spirit provide the basis for the practical realization of a healing culture.
Contents
Foreword
Participatory Science
The Crisis of Objectivism
From Monism to Dualism
Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge
Goethe
Steiner
Anthroposophy
Art
Applied Participatory Science
Toward a Third Culture
Notes
