Rational Organicism—Goethe, Steiner, and the Intuitive Understanding of Plants and Animals

Abstract

This paper examines the philosophical foundations of Goethe’s morphological studies, in particular his concept of the ‘archetypal plant', which can be described as the dynamic principle of a living surface that governs plant formation through alternating processes of expansion and contraction. The Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner claimed that Goethe’s approach offers a scientifically grounded approach to understanding organic form and development through what may be termed empirically based, productive intellectual intuition, namely the mental reconstruction of an organism’s formative principle and laws. Here it is shown that Goethe’s rational organicism, as elaborated by Steiner, provides a conceptual and methodological framework that suggests a solution to the long-standing problem of understanding organismic properties like autopoiesis, autonomy and agency. Yet, Goethe struggled to identify a comparable principle for animals. Steiner argued that animal life is determined by a psychological principle—a non-physical centre of sensation and movement that structures the organism in relation to its environment—and that this, too, can be grasped in productive intuition. The paper reconstructs the animal archetype by delineating its essential features: the relations between its interior and exterior, realized in sensory, nutritive and motor functions. The study concludes that Goethe’s rational organicism can serve as a methodological complement to the organicism of the current philosophy of biology.

Full text

Rational Organicism—Goethe, Steiner, and the Intuitive
Understanding of Plants and Animals
Christoph J. Hueck
Akanthos Academy
ABSTRACT
This
paper
examines
the
philosophical
foundations
of
Goethe’s
morphological
studies,
in
particular
his
concept
of
the
‘archetypal
plant’, which can be described as
the dynamic principle of a living
surface that governs plant formation through alternating processes
of
expansion
and
contraction.
The
Austrian
philosopher
Rudolf
Steiner
claimed
that
Goethe’s
approach
oers
a
scientifically
grounded
approach
to
understanding
organic
form
and
development
through
what
may
be
termed
empirically
based,
productive
intellectual
intuition,
namely
the
mental
reconstruction
of an organism’s formative principle and laws. Here it is shown that
Goethe’s
rational
organicism,
as
elaborated
by
Steiner,
provides
a
conceptual
and
methodological
framework
that
suggests
a
solution
to
the
long-standing
problem
of
understanding
organismic
properties
like
autopoiesis,
autonomy
and
agency.
Yet,
Goethe
struggled
to
identify
a
comparable
principle
for
animals.
Steiner
argued
that
animal
life
is
determined
by
a
psychological
principle—a
non-physical
centre
of
sensation
and
movement
that
structures
the
organism
in
relation
to
its
environment—and
that
this,
too,
can
be
grasped
in
productive
intuition.
The
paper
reconstructs
the
animal
archetype
by
delineating
its
essential
features:
the
relations
between
its
interior
and
exterior,
realized
in
sensory,
nutritive
and
motor
functions.
The
study
concludes
that
Goethe’s
rational
organicism
can
serve
as
a
methodological
complement
to
the
organicism
of
the
current
philosophy of biology.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 18 February 2025
Accepted 29 April 2025
KEYWORDS
Morphology; intuitive
judgment; organism;
entelechy; archetype
The greatness of [Goethe’s] thought becomes apparent only when one tries to bring it to life
in one’s mind. One then realizes that it is the nature of the plant itself translated into the
idea, which lives in our mind just as much as in the object. (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 12–13)
1. Introduction
Organisms are characterized by a holistic structure that emerges through goal-directed,
autonomous processes. While materially constituted and subject to physico-chemical
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the
author(s) or with their consent.
CONTACT Christoph J. Hueck hueck@akanthos-akademie.de Akanthos Academy, D-70188 Stuttgart, Germany
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2025.2500893

laws, their distinctive organismic properties resist explanation in materialistic and
mechanistic terms (Gilbert and Sarkar 2000). This tension was thoroughly examined
by Immanuel Kant, who argued that organisms must be judged as purposive, self-gener-
ating wholes that determine their parts, but that the we cannot explain these properties,
because we cannot derive them ‘from a principle which must (…) be capable of being
clearly cognized and specified’ (Kant [1790] 2008, 412). According to Kant, human
understanding can only proceed from the parts to the whole (Kant [1790] 2008, 407),
but in organisms the whole determines the parts. Indeed, it has often been argued that
organisms cannot be understood by reductionist approaches (Brigandt and Love
[2008] 2023), and this assertion is supported by the fact that, despite unprecedented
success in molecular biology, it is still impossible to generate organisms de novo in
the laboratory (Porcar et al. 2011; Kauman 2013). Consequently, philosophers and
theoretical biologists increasingly turn away from reductionist interpretations of organ-
isms and instead view them as purposive and autopoietic systems and autonomous
agents (Moreno and Mossio 2015; Walsh 2015; Rosslenbroich 2023; Švorcová 2024).
However, it remains a central challenge not only to describe these essential properties
of organisms, but also to explain them.
At the same time, as Kant’s analysis appeared in the Critique of Judgment, Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe published a short treatise, An attempt to Explain the Metamorpho-
sis of Plants (Goethe [1790] 1965c),
1
in which he argued, in contrast to Kant, that a who-
listic understanding of organisms is indeed possible. Goethe described how dierent
organs of owering plants—seeds, leaves, calyx, corolla, stamens, pistil, and fruit—can
be understood as metamorphic realizations of a general principle, which he called the
‘leaf’.
2
According to Goethe, the plant’s structure is generated by this principle
through threefold expansion and contraction with progression—from seed to stem-
leaves, from calyx to ower, and from carpels to fruit and to seeds again. Goethe
called this concept of a lawfully metamorphosing principle the sensual-supersensible
‘archetypal plant’ (Urpanze) (Goethe [1831] 1965a, 79–80).
Much has been written about Goethe’s science and his view of nature (cf. the biblio-
graphies in Schmid 1940; Mandelkow 1980; Amrine 1996; Müller 2000; Danneberg
2018). Some referred to him—‘in somewhat disparaging terms’, as Timothy Lenoir
noted (Lenoir 1987, 23)—, as an essentialist and typologist who ushered idealistic mor-
phology as ‘a fusion of Plato’s essentialism with aesthetic principles’ (Mayr 1982, 457).
The theoretical biologist Edward S. Russell considered Goethe’s archetypal leaf a
fantasy that ‘can hardly be taken seriously as a scientific theory’ but conceded that
even though ‘Goethe’s morphological views were lacking in definiteness he hit upon
one or two ideas which proved useful’ (Russell 1916, 52).
Others were more appreciative. The biocyberneticist Bernhard Hassenstein asserted
that ‘a morphology-based biology will only be able to hold a candle to its big sister,
the exact natural sciences, when it has learned from Goethe that morphology also
demands the sharpest methodological rigor’ (Hassenstein 1951, 354–355). The zoologist
Adolf Portmann called Goethe an ‘intensely empathetic observer’ of nature (Portmann
1987, 139) and wrote about his method that ‘the observer brings utmost objectivity
into play, yet at the same time preserves the wealth of his world of symbols, of his inward-
ness (…); sensation and thinking celebrate their sublimest reconciliation’ (Portmann
1987, 143).
2 C. J. HUECK

However, no one was as enthusiastic about Goethe’s natural science as the Austrian
philosopher Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), who provided the most comprehensive analysis
of Goethe’s scientific approach. Steiner, who was one of the first editors of Goethe’s
Natural Scientific Writings, considered Goethe’s morphological works ‘a scientific
achievement of the first order’ because ‘they establish the theoretical basis and method
for the study of organic nature’ (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 70).
3
He even compared
Goethe to heroes of the physical sciences: ‘Goethe is the Copernicus and Kepler of the
organic world’ (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 107); ‘he arrived at fundamental ideas that
have the same significance for the science of the organic as Galileo’s basic laws for mech-
anics’ (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 119).
What Goethe had thought and worked out in detail about this or that area of knowledge of
nature seemed to me to be of less importance than the central discovery that I had to attribute
to him. I saw this in the fact that he had discovered how one must think about the organic in
order to come to an understanding of it. (Steiner [1923 .] 1982, 112; italics added)
Goethe himself wrote that by ‘contemplating an ever-creative nature’, one can become
‘worthy of mental participation in its productions’ (Goethe [1820] 1965, 878–879), that is
of cognizing nature’s generative principles. He claimed that it is possible to develop an
intuitive ‘awareness of the essential form with which nature only ever plays, as it were,
and playfully brings forth the manifold life’ (Goethe 2004, to Charlotte von Stein, 7.
July 1786; emphasis added).
Thus, the question arises as to how this ‘awareness of the essential form’ can be under-
stood. Friedrich Schiller, in his first extended discussion with Goethe, argued that the
archetypal plant was an idea, not an experience as Goethe had claimed (Goethe [1817]
1965, 867), and some scholars still consider Goethe’s archetype to be merely a general
scheme, abstracted from the phenomena (Classen-Bockho 2001, 1153). However,
Goethe famously responded to Schiller’s objection that he could ‘see’ his ideas with
‘the eye of the mind’ (Goethe [1817] 1965, 868; Förster 2001).
Steiner has extensively discussed and philosophically explained this ‘seeing with
mental eyes’ as Goethe’s essential method of ‘intuitive power of judgement’ [anschauende
Urteilskraft]. Interestingly, though, while he praised Goethe’s achievement with respect
to the principle of plant formation, he was critical about Goethe’s attempt to understand
the archetype of animals. Steiner claimed that in the case of animals, Goethe indeed only
produced an abstract scheme, not ‘a living idea that is filled with content according to the
basic laws of animal formation’ (Steiner [1897] 1990, 136). According to Steiner, plants
and animals dier significantly with respect to their archetypal, generative principles.
Here, I discuss these dierences in detail. I start by arguing why Goethe achieved to
explain the generative principle of plants in scientific terms (section 2). In section 3, I
discuss Goethe’s search for the archetype of vertebrate animals and discuss Steiner’s criti-
cal notion that Goethe did not find it as he found that of plants. In section 4, I describe
Steiner’s presentation of the dierences between plants and animals and discuss them in
terms of Goethe’s intuitive power of judgement, and in section 5, I further elaborate on
the essential principle of animals. In section 6 I discuss why Goethe’s intuitive method
allows to view an archetype not only as heuristic, but as an ontological principle. I con-
clude in section 7 by suggesting that Goethe’s method, which can be called rational orga-
nicism, provides scientific explanation of the essential properties of organisms.
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 3

2. Goethe’s Rational Organicism
Goethe once summarized his method as follows:
Two requirements arise in us when we observe natural phenomena: to get to know them
completely and to appropriate them through reection. (…) If we can see an object in all
its parts, grasp it correctly and bring it forth again in our minds, then we may say that we
intuit it in a proper and higher sense, that it belongs to us, that we have attained a
certain mastery over it. (Goethe [1805] 1965, 863; emphasis added)
Apparently, Goethe’s scientific approach was not about explaining natural phenom-
ena in terms of mechanistic causality. Rather, he remained within the realm of the
phenomena and dealt with them in a distinctive way. This approach is particularly
important for understanding organisms since they invariably manifest as holistic entities.
Although mechanistic processes can be discerned within them, these processes cannot
explain the complexity and integrity of living things (Rosslenbroich 2023).
Comprehensive observation of the phenomena under investigation, along with their
mental reproduction (‘bringing them forth again in our minds’), constitute fundamen-
tal aspects of Goethe’s scientific method. A thorough empirical approach ensures the
highest possible degree of objectivity and fidelity to the facts, while the imaginative
activity of ‘recreating’ the phenomena facilitates an intuitive understanding of their
generative principles. In the first of his Introductions to Goethe’s Natural Scientific
Writings (hereafter: Introductions), Steiner elaborated on this mental reproduction,
emphasizing its significance in achieving a deeper insight into the essence of the
organism:
The significance of [Goethe’s conception of] plant metamorphosis (…) does not lie in the
discovery of the individual fact that leaf, calyx, corolla, etc., are identical organs but in
the magnificent intellectual structure of a living whole of interdependent laws of formation
that emerges from it and which determines the details, the individual stages of development,
from within. The greatness of this thought, which Goethe then sought to extend to the
animal world, becomes apparent only when one tries to bring it to life in one’s mind,
when one undertakes to ponder it. One then realizes that it is the nature of the plant
itself translated into the idea, which lives in our mind just as much as in the object.
(Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 12–13; emphasis added)
In his autobiography, Steiner wrote that if one imaginatively allows the forms of a
plant to emerge from one another in accordance with their inherent formative laws,
‘one constructs the whole plant. One recreates in one’s mind the process by which
nature actually designs the plant’ (Steiner [1923 .] 1982, 114).
Indeed, Goethe referred to the archetypal plant as the ‘concept of how we could gen-
erate it for us [wonach wir sie uns ausbilden könnten]’ (Goethe 2004, to von Nees von
Esenbeck, August 1816).
With this model and the key to it, one can then invent plants ad infinitum that must be con-
sistent, that is to say, they may not actually exist, but they could exist and are not mere pic-
torial or poetic shadows and illusions, but have an inner truth and necessity. (Goethe 1965-
1978, 503)
Goethe’s Urpanze, therefore, is a conceptual rule for mental (re)construction of a
plant’s structure. Eckart Förster, who discussed Goethe’s natural scientific approach in
4 C. J. HUECK

detail, interpreted the notion of a ‘model’ and the ‘key to it’ as two clearly distinguishable
aspects of the archetypal plant. Förster understands the model as the constructive element,
that is the ‘ideal leaf’, while the key to it as the constructive rule, i.e. the process of for-
mation and transformation through expansion and contraction with progression
(Förster 2012, 274).
However, while the idea of threefold expansion and contraction can easily be ima-
gined, the concept of an ‘ideal’ or ‘transcendental’ leaf is rather elusive. The Goethean
biologist Andreas Suchantke discussed this concept in a seminal essay and suggested
to understand the ‘essential leaf’ as the idea of a living, metabolizing surface:
In contrast (…) to the animal, the surface of the plant is not a boundary that shields the
interior of the body from the environment (…), but a transparent filter and passage area,
where the processual encounter of substances takes place, which on the one hand come
from the surrounding atmosphere, (…), and on the other hand from the (…) soil. Both
(…) are permeated by the life forces of the organic in this boundary layer area and raised
to a higher level. (Suchantke [1929/30] 1983, 377)
This interpretation renders Goethe’s concept much more comprehensible. However,
not only did Goethe’s ‘essential leaf’ require additional elaboration beyond Goethe’s own
representations. The description of the plant’s development also requires further terms—
in addition to expansion and contraction—which Goethe already suggested himself: div-
ision [Entzweiung], e.g. of the seed into the polarity of the root and stem (Goethe [1795]
1965a, 123–124), as well as the ‘vertical tendency’ of the stem and the ‘spiral tendency’ of
its lateral organs (Goethe [1831] 1965b).
One can imagine how these principles generate the structure of a plant: the seed
divides into the polarity of a supporting pole in the moist and dark (root) and a devel-
oping pole in the dry and light (green shoot). The plant extends vertically, directed by
gravity and light, successively forming lateral organs on the shoot in a more or less
spiral arrangement. The whole complex exhibits threefold expansion and contraction
with progression: first successive (from seed to stem leaves to bud), then adjacent
(from calyx to petals to pistil and stamen), and finally nested (from carpels to fruit to
seed). The process thus follows a spatiotemporal logic that does not allow for a further
step in this series—to continue the plant’s life, the cycle must begin again. Finally, the
environment inuences plant formation, promoting expansion in spring and summer
and contraction in fall and winter.
4
Taken together, these complex, dynamic and intertwined ideas represent major
aspects of the morphological principle of dicotyledonous plants. By ‘bringing it forth’
in our mind, dynamically moving through it ‘forward and backward’, ‘we may say that
we intuit [the plant] in a proper and higher sense, that it belongs to us, that we have
attained a certain mastery over it’ (Goethe [1805] 1965, 863).
Why does mental reconstruction of a plant’s development promote understanding?
Steiner addressed this question by drawing a parallel to the rational mode of thinking
employed in mechanics:
[M]echanics satisfies the desire for understanding because it generates concepts in the
human mind in a rational way, which it then finds realized in the sensory experience of
the inanimate. Goethe [was] the founder of an organic science that relates to the animate
in the same way. (Steiner [1923 .] 1982, 113)
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 5

Kepler’s laws, for example, can be derived purely mathematically and can also be
found in the movements of planets. The reconstruction of natural phenomena according
to mathematical concepts allows insight into their constitutive principles.
5
According to
Steiner, Goethe was seeking an organic science based on the model of a quasi-mathemat-
ical explanation of nature:
Goethe wanted to grasp the qualitative aspect of plant design in terms of the rigor and clarity
of mathematical thinking. Just as one sets up mathematical equations in which only particu-
lar values are used to encompass a multitude of individual cases under a general formula,
Goethe searches for the archetypal plant, which is all embracing in terms of quality and
spiritual reality. (…) Goethe seeks the still completely formless archetypal plant and endea-
vors to derive from it the plant forms, just as the mathematician derives the particular forms
of lines and surfaces from an equation. (Steiner 1984, 17–18)
To be clear: Steiner did not mean that Goethe was seeking a mathematical explanation
of natural phenomena. Rather, he referred to an explanation that, like mathematical for-
mulas, can be derived entirely through intellectual construction. Indeed, Goethe called
the Urpanze a ‘general formula [which] is applicable to all plants’ (Goethe 2004,
3089). Förster explained that like mathematical concepts are formed by pure thought
(according to Kant: constructed in pure intuition) and then rediscovered in sensory
experience; the idea of the Urpanze ‘cannot (…) be discovered in the external world,
but only in the intuitive understanding. Once it has been discovered, however, its
eects can be rediscovered’ (Förster 2012, 275).
Thus, Steiner claimed that Goethe attempted to introduce a true science of the
organic:
What Goethe wanted was nothing other than to banish all dark and unclear ideas such as
‘life force’, ‘formative drive’ and so on from science and to find natural laws for them.
However, he wanted to find laws for organics in the same way as they had been found
for mechanics, physics and chemistry, not simply to adopt those existing in these other
fields. (…) Goethe wanted an independent organic science that had its own axioms and
its own method. (Steiner [1891] 1989, 274–275)
This Goethean method can be called rational organicism.
3. Discussion of Goethe’s Osteological Type of Vertebrate Animals
After Goethe had found and described the principle of plant formation, he turned his
attention again to osteological studies.
6
In doing so, I soon felt the need to establish a type by which all mammals could be examined
in terms of their similarities and dierences. Just as I had previously sought out the arche-
typal plant, I now sought to find the archetypal animal, that is, ultimately, the concept, the
idea of the animal. (Goethe [1807] 1965, 21)
Goethe wrote several ‘drafts’ in which he attempted to derive the archetypal animal by
compiling lists of corresponding bones of dierent vertebrates.
7
He viewed these lists as
‘general guides through the labyrinth of forms’, a ‘framework’, and a ‘general scheme,
(…) to which both humans and animals are subordinate, with which the classes, the
sexes, the genera were compared, and by which they were judged’ (Goethe [1790]
1965a, 373).
6 C. J. HUECK

Experience must first teach us the parts that are common to all animals and how these
parts dier. The idea must prevail over the whole and abstract the general picture in a
genetic way. Once such a type has been established, even if only as an attempt, we can
very well use the previously customary comparative ways to examine it. (Goethe [1795]
1965b, 233–234)
This, however, sounds more like a plan for future research than the description of a
concrete intuition, as Goethe had achieved in plant morphology. Thus, the literary
scholar Hans Joachim Becker commented:
[While Goethe] “was able to round o his plant-morphological work into a coherent whole,
he was not yet able to achieve this in the First Draft of a General Introduction to Comparative
Anatomy. One is tempted to view The Metamorphosis of Plants as Goethe’s journeyman
piece in morphology. The diculty of the work on the masterpiece—the comparative
anatomy of vertebrates – can be seen from the frequency and extent of the formulation
attempts. In the First Draft, the treatment of the subject is far less systematic, and the pres-
entation is far less taut than in the Metamorphosis of Plants. The author’s uncertainty is
equally evident in the title of the work, in the first part of which he repeatedly restricts
the plan to develop a comparative anatomy”. (Becker 1998, 699; my transl.)
Similarly, Hassenstein wrote that Goethe’s osteological type ‘did not arise from intui-
tion’ but was ‘a construction’: it ‘was never envisioned by Goethe in a specific form [like
the archetypal plant was], and, given the way it was created, it could only at best have
been envisioned as an ‘average mammal skeleton consisting of mean-value bones’’ (Has-
senstein 1951, 335; my addition).
Steiner also had a dierentiated view of Goethe’s anatomical studies. He not only cri-
ticized their abstract schematism but also noted the deeper reason for it, namely, that
Goethe had not penetrated the living intuition of the animal type. In Goethes Worldview,
Steiner wrote:
Goethe did not succeed in proceeding (…) to the laws of the formation of the whole animal
shape. However much he tried to find the type of animal form, nothing analogous to the idea
of the archetypal plant was achieved. He compared animals with each other and with
humans and tried to obtain a general picture of the animal structure, according to which
nature forms the individual shapes as a pattern. This general image of the animal type is
not a living idea that is filled with content according to the basic laws of animal formation
and thus, as it were, recreates the archetypal animal from nature. It is only a general
concept that is abstracted from particular appearances. It establishes what is common to
the manifold animal forms; but it does not contain the lawfulness of animality. (Steiner
[1897] 1990, 136; emphasis added)
Steiner did not further elaborate on this rather apodictic assertion at this point.
However, he had already discussed the problem of the animal type in the Introductions.
8
How did he conceive of the ‘lawfulness of animality’?
4. Steiner on the Concepts of Plants and Animals
In the first Introduction, Steiner compared and fundamentally determined the formative
principles of plants and animals.
In nature, the organism appears to us in two main forms: as a plant and as an animal; in both
in dierent ways. The plant diers from the animal in the lack of real inner life. In the
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 7

animal, the latter appears as sensation, voluntary movement, etc. The plant has no such soul
principle [seelisches Prinzip]. It is still completely absorbed in its outward appearance, in its
form. The entelechical principle determines life from one point, so to speak; thus, it appears
that all the individual organs are formed according to the same formative principle. The
entelechy appears here as the formative power of the individual organs. (…) What makes
the plant a plant, a certain formative power, is at work in the same way in each of its
organs. (…) The formation of the plant thus progresses from stage to stage, forming
organs; each organ is identical to every other, that is the same in terms of the principle of
formation but dierent in appearance. The inner unity of the plant expands, as it were,
into the breadth; it unfolds in the manifold, loses itself in it, so that it does not, as we
shall see later in the animal, gain a concrete existence endowed with a certain independence,
which, as the centre of life, confronts the manifold of the organs and uses them as mediators
with the external world. (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 89–91)
[I]n the animal, that higher principle that governs each individual part presents itself to us
concretely as that which moves the organs, uses them according to its needs, etc. (Steiner
[1884 .] 1987, 35)
Thus, Steiner distinguished plants and animals by the fact that the ‘entelechical prin-
ciple’ manifests in plants only in spatiotemporal formations, whereas in animals, it ‘gains
a concrete existence’, which to a certain degree is independent of the bodily organization.
In the case of the animal (…) life does not lose itself in externality, but separates and dis-
tinguishes itself from corporeality, using the physical appearance only as a tool. It no
longer expresses itself as a mere ability to shape an organism from within but as something
that is still there outside the organism, as its dominant power. The animal appears as a self-
contained world, a microcosm in a much greater sense than the plant. It has a centre that
every organ serves. (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 96)
However, according to Steiner, this ‘centre’ not only uses its organs as ‘mediators with
the external world’ but also forms its organs according to its needs:
In the animal, each organ appears to come from that centre; the centre, in line with its
nature, forms all organs. The form of the animal is thus the basis for its external existence.
However, it is determined from within. The animal’s way of life must therefore be based on
those internal formative principles. (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 96)
Nevertheless, Steiner also emphasized in Outlines of an Epistemology of Goethe’s
Worldview that the organs of organisms acquire their specialized shapes in relation to
their respective environments:
We know very well that specialization [of forms] comes from outside inuence. (…) We
gain information about the fact that just this particular form has developed, when we
study the environment of a being.” However, ‘[w]e must base such eects of external cir-
cumstances on something that (…) actively determines itself from within under the
inuence of those circumstances. (Steiner [1886] 1979, 101)
Goethe wrote accordingly, that
The essential form is, as it were, the inner core, which is formed in dierent ways through
the determination by the external element. It is precisely because an animal has been formed
from the outside as well as from the inside that it acquires its external purposiveness.
However, the external element can transform the external form after itself rather than the
internal one. (Goethe [1790] 1965b, 229)
8 C. J. HUECK

Thus, in Steiner’s view, an entelechical principle, a ‘power that calls itself out of itself
into existence’ (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 83), works in both plants and animals. In plants,
this principle fully embodies itself within the spatiotemporal, physical organization of the
plant’s organs. In animals, on the other hand, the entelechical principle also generates
organs; however, it is not entirely absorbed within them but rather remains independent
to a certain extent and uses the organs as tools to satisfy its needs. The ‘soul principle’ of
the animal manifests itself in the animal’s abilities to sense its environment and to move
within it.
From an external point of view, these elaborations must be incomprehensible since it
sees the physical forms of the organisms but not the entelechical principle by which they
are formed. This entelechical principle can be grasped only through productive intuition.
In Outlines of an Epistemology of Goethe’s Worldview, Steiner described this form of
intuitive thinking:
Our mind must (…) work much more intensively in grasping the [organic] type than in
grasping the [inorganic] natural law. It must generate not only the form but also the
content. It must undertake an activity that, in inorganic natural science, is performed by
the senses and which we call intuition. At this higher level, the mind itself must therefore
be intuitive. Our power of judgment must view in thinking and think in viewing. Here, as
Goethe first set out, we are dealing with an intuitive power of judgment. (Steiner [1886]
1979, 109)
In the first Introduction, Steiner explained that:
If we want to recognize organic nature, we have to grasp (…) the conceptual as such; it has to
have its own content from itself, not from the spatiotemporal senses. (…) What is necessary
for such a grasp? A power of judgment that can give a thought another substance [Sto] than
just that which is taken in through the external senses – one that can grasp not only the sen-
sually perceptible but also the purely ideal for itself, separate from the sensual world. We can
call a concept that is not derived from the sense world by abstraction but that has a content
[Gehalt] owing from it and only from it an intuitive concept and the knowledge of it an
intuitive one. What follows from this is clear: an organism can only be grasped in the intuitive
concept. (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 82–83)
If we thus mentally create (or recreate, for that matter) the plant in its metamorphic
development, the animal in its sensitive reactions and desireful movements, then we
intuitively grasp their dierent entelechical principles. In other words, if we imaginatively
do what the plant does (i.e. generate and transform its organs) or do what the animal does
(i.e. use its organs to fulfil its needs), then we come to understand them. When we men-
tally recreate a plant’s metamorphic formations, we ‘see’ how its essential principle rea-
lizes itself via expansion and contraction in space and time, thereby ‘losing itself in
externality’. If we mentally recreate an animal’s sensitivity and desire, then we ‘see’
that the animal has a ‘centre’, a ‘soul principle’ in which its sensitivity concentrates
and from which its desire springs. We also intuitively ‘see’ that this centre is not identical
to its corporeality but rather that it uses its organs, its senses and limbs, as ‘meditators
with the external world’. Furthermore, we realize that in each animal, all organs and
their functions are perfectly adapted to each other. Since they all serve the animal’s
‘centre’, ‘each organ appears to come from that centre’ (and, at the same time, is perfectly
adapted to its environment).
9
Therefore, while the essential principle of the plant has
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 9

only formative power, the essential principle of the animal has both formative and sen-
tient and desiring power.
How then can one conceive of the archetypal animal, the generative principle or ‘law-
fulness of animality’ (which, according to Steiner, Goethe did not find)? Obviously, an
answer to this question can be found only through intuitive thinking.
5. Construction of the Animal Archetype
The archetype of the animal contrasts with that of the plant in fundamental ways related
to structure, function, and its relationship with the environment. A plant dynamically
embodies its archetype, the ‘essential leaf’ (i.e. a living surface), in spatio-temporal expan-
sion and contraction with progression. In contrast, according to Steiner the animal
archetype must be viewed as a nonphysical principle, a ‘psychological centre’ that
relates to its environment through sensitivity and desire and that realizes itself in the
animal’s reactions and motility. While the living surface of the plant is functionally
oriented toward its exterior, the animal is essentially characterized by its interior func-
tions. Thus, while the plant expands outward, the animal ‘invaginates,’ forming internal
cavities and organs that facilitate its relationship with the external world.
The animal relates to its environment by receiving sensory stimuli and nourishment
and by acting according to its needs. While the archetypal, constructive element of a
plant is a surface that promotes the exchange and transformation of physical substances,
the constructive element of an animal can, in a first approximation, be regarded as a
cavity, – an interior space separated from the external environment by an outer protec-
tive shell or skin – yet one that, through its organs, enables various forms of exchange
between the interior and its surroundings. And while the constructive rule of the arche-
typal plant is a threefold spatio-temporal expansion and contraction (cf. Förster, above),
the constructive rule of the animal archetype is a threefold relationship of the interior to
the exterior: through the sensing of external stimuli (outside → in); through uptake,
metabolism, and excretion of organic substances (outside → inside → out); and
through its initiation of movements (inside → out). The animal archetype, therefore, rea-
lizes itself in three primary functions and their corresponding organ systems: sensitivity
(senses, nerves), metabolism (lungs, blood system, digestive tract), and motility (muscles,
limbs).
10
Plants are sessile and grow in a vertical direction between the inuences of sunlight
and gravity, leading to their radial symmetry. In contrast, the animal archetype (sensi-
tivity and desire) expresses itself in the ability of directed movement toward a perceived
goal in a predominantly horizontal orientation with a clear front and back, head and tail,
leading to bilateral symmetry of the body. In addition, plants have an open form that can
potentially grow endlessly (‘losing themselves in externality’), while animals end their
growth in a closed shape, facilitating their ‘inner’, psychological life.
Plants use the energy of the sun to build up organic substances from water and CO
2,
while animals break these substances down, producing water and CO
2
, thereby trans-
forming the sun’s energy into autonomous motility. An animal’s body structure and
organ systems, its ability to sense and move within its environment, and its ability to
use metabolic energy to support its life and its psychological functions, are therefore inse-
parably related to each other and can be viewed as the expression of the animal’s
10 C. J. HUECK

archetype (i.e. of its constructive element and constructive rule as described above). Ulti-
mately and appropriately, while the plant’s principle alternates between expansion and
contraction, the animal’s essential principle oscillates between waking and sleeping.
11
In this way, the archetype of the animal can be constructed in a purely intellectual,
quasi-mathematical style and subsequently rediscovered in sensory experience.
6. From Epistemology to Ontology
Steiner claimed that Goethe strove for ‘an independent organic science that had its own
axioms and its own method’ (Steiner [1891] 1989, 274–275). To live up to its name, such
rational organicism would therefore have to solve the enduring riddle of the organism.
Kant had emphasized that organisms must be judged as autonomously developing, tele-
ologically organized beings, but that they could not be explained as such, since these
properties presuppose an idea of the whole. Ideas, however, cannot be ontological prin-
ciples of nature, for ‘we do not take [nature] to be an intelligent being’ (Kant [1790] 2008,
359). Here, I suggest that Steiner’s interpretation of Goethe’s approach suggests a sol-
ution to this dilemma.
To fully grasp this approach, it is crucial to note once again that the structure, inter-
action and development of the parts of an organism cannot be explained causally and
analytically. The root does not cause the ower, as the warmth of the water causes the
rise of the mercury column in the thermometer.
12
In an organism, the parts are not
mutually cause and eect of each other—as Kant erroneously asserted (Kant [1790]
2008, 373)—but rather mutually necessary conditions. ‘No ower without the root’
does not mean that the root is sucient for explaining the ower. Steiner wrote:
The living is a self-contained whole that sets its conditions from within itself. In the juxta-
position of its parts, as in the temporal succession of the states of a living being, there is an
interrelation that does not appear to be conditioned by the sensually perceptible properties
of the parts, not by the mechanical-causal determination of the latter by the earlier, but
which is governed by a higher principle that stands above the parts and states. It is deter-
mined by the nature of the whole that a particular state is set as the first, another as the
last; and the succession of the intermediate states is also determined within the idea of
the whole. (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 34–35)
Therefore,
All sensual qualities [of the organism] appear (…) as a consequence of something that is no
longer perceptible to the senses. They appear as a consequence of a higher unity that hovers
above the sensual processes. It is not the shape of the root that determines that (…) of the
leaf, etc., but all these forms are determined by something that stands above them, which
itself is not a sensually perceptible form; they are there for each other, but not through
each other. (…) We cannot deduce what we perceive with our senses from conditions
that can be perceived with our senses. We must include elements in the concept of processes
that do not belong to the world of the senses. (…) We have to grasp the unity conceptually if
we want to explain the phenomena. (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 73–74)
In saying this, Steiner touched on the very point that Kant had also alluded to and
where biology and philosophy continue to founder. Because the organism cannot be
explained by the interactions of its parts, ideal elements must be included in the expla-
nation. However, as long as one hesitates to grant these ideal components an ontological
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 11

status and maintains that sensually perceptible phenomena can only be caused by other
sensually perceptible phenomena, the explanation remains caught in a circular argument.
Steiner countered this epistemological circle with the argument that Goethe had suc-
ceeded—albeit only in the beginnings—in finding the laws of organic formation in a
similar way to how one finds the laws of physics through purely intellectual construction
(which, of course, is based on the observable phenomena as its template to be explained).
Steiner showed that by thinking in exible, living concepts (‘when one tries to bring them
to life in one’s mind’), one can ideally experience the generative processes of the organism
and their constitutive principles (Hueck 2025). In this way, the living principle that
brings about the formation of an organism is no longer thought of only in an abstract
way but is observed, if not with the senses, but at an intellectual level. Thus, this principle
is no longer merely heuristic but acquires an ontological status: ‘One then realizes that it
is the nature of the plant itself translated into the idea, which lives in our mind just as it
lives in the object’ (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 12–13; emphasis added). In other words, by
‘intuitive power of judgment,’ as Goethe called it, one ‘sees’ with the ‘eye of the mind’
the ideal principle that is actually at work in the plant or that shapes and moves the
animal and makes it a living, holistic, developing organism. What one grasps in this
way is just as undoubtedly real as what one perceives with physical senses. This is why
Goethe claimed that ‘I have ideas without knowing it, and even see them with eyes’
(Goethe [1817] 1965, 868).
This ‘seeing with the mind’s eye’ is not receptive but rather a productive process
(Förster 2001; Pfau 2010). We have to generate the content of the thought, have to
give it its own substance [Sto], as Steiner said (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 82–83), in pro-
ductive intuition. This is a major diculty in understanding Goethe’s rational organicism
because we are deeply accustomed to accepting as objective only what can be perceived in
a receptive mode. It can be claimed that we are dealing here with deeply rooted preju-
dices. Steiner illuminated them through his precise analysis of Goethe’s approach to
organic cognition.
13
7. Conclusion
In this article, I describe rational organicism, a method for cognition and scientific expla-
nation of organisms developed by Goethe and interpreted by Steiner. Steiner considered
Goethe’s organicism to be explanatory because it facilitates the construction of organic
laws in an intellectual manner that can then be rediscovered in the phenomena—analo-
gous to how mathematical laws are applied in physics or chemistry.
Today’s philosophy of biology ascribes properties to organisms such as autopoiesis
(self-formation), autonomy (self-determination), and agency (self-ecacy) (Rosslen-
broich 2023). Although this view is much closer to our real-world experience of organ-
isms than the view that they are genetically programmed, statistically selected survival
machines, the above terms remain mere descriptions if one cannot grasp their ontological
status (Wolfe 2024, 2010). What Kant showed for the teleology of the organism applies
equally to organic autopoiesis, autonomy and agency. Through Goethe’s intuitive
method of rational organicism, these concepts can be apprehended as ontologically
real. One comes to ‘see’ these principles with the ‘mind’s eye’. It is no longer necessary
to derive the purposive self-generation of organisms from mechanistic principles – as,
12 C. J. HUECK

for instance, Stuart Kauman attempted with his concept of ‘work-constraint cycles’
(Kauman 2000). Rather, autopoietic forces and laws may be acknowledged as a
reality that forms the foundation for the empirical investigation of organismic life. There-
fore, Goethe’s rational organicism can be regarded as a method that complements the
organicism of the current philosophy of biology.
In applying Goethe’s method, one also arrives at the notion that nature consists of
more than just dead matter and that there is a realm of living reality of its own, which
cannot be observed and researched by the physical sciences but is accessible in phenom-
enologically guided, intuitive contemplation (Hueck 2025). Kant was right that the
essence of the organism lies within a ‘supersensible substrate of nature’, but he
appears to have been wrong in claiming that this supersensible substrate is unknowable
to us (Kant [1790] 2008, 410).
The properties of organisms mentioned above can be summarized in the Aristotelian
term entelechy, ἐν (inner) τέλος (goal, purpose) ἔχειν (to have): to have one’s goal within
oneself. This paper attempted to show how organic entelechy can be grasped through
intellectual intuition as an ontologically real and eective principle. ‘Entelechy is the
power that calls itself out of itself into existence’ (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 83). ‘For
anyone who has grasped the ‘forming-itself-according-to-itself’ of the entelechical prin-
ciple, this constitutes the solution to the riddle of life. Another solution is impossible
because this is the essence of the issue itself’ (Steiner [1884 .] 1987, 99). Goethe’s arche-
type is therefore not an abstract blueprint, as has sometimes been claimed, nor is it a Pla-
tonic, otherworldly idea. ‘It is the nature of the plant [or of the animal] itself translated
into the idea, which lives in our mind just as much as in the object’ (Steiner [1884 .] 1987,
12–13).
Notes
1. Both books appeared at the Easter Book Fair in Leipzig, 1790 (Schmid 1940, 8; Förster 2012,
166).
2. Goethe called ‘the leaf’ a ‘transcendental’ principle (Goethe [1788] 1965, 130) and empha-
sized that
we would obviously need a general term to describe this organ that metamorphosed
into such a variety of forms. (…) For now, however, we must be satisfied with learning
to relate these manifestations both forward and backward. Thus, we can say that a
stamen is a contracted petal or, with equal justification, that a petal is a stamen in
a state of expansion; that a sepal is a contracted stem leaf with a certain degree of
refinement, or that a stem leaf is a sepal expanded. (Goethe [1790] 1965c, 57)
3. All translations of Goethe’s and Steiner’s texts are my own.
4. For further aspects of plant development, especially with respect to its environment, see
Suchantke (2011).
5. This aligns with Kant’s view of scientific explanation as ‘derivation from a principle which
must (…) be capable of being clearly cognized and specified’ (Kant [[1790] 2008], 412), since
‘we have complete insight only into what we can make and accomplish according to our
concepts’ (Kant [[1790] 2008], 384).
6. Already in 1784 he discovered the premaxillary bone in humans (Goethe [1784] 1965) and
began to search for a ‘general bone type’ (Goethe [1784] 1965, 311).
7. Attempt on the Form of Animals (Goethe [1790] 1965a); First Draft of a General Introduction
to Comparative Anatomy, Based on Osteology (Goethe [1795] 1965b); Lectures on the First
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 13

Three Chapters of the First Draft of a General Introduction to Comparative Anatomy, Based
on Osteology (Goethe [1796] 1965).
8. This method was often used by Steiner: he formulates statements that can only be fully
understood in the context of other of his texts and leaves it to the reader to establish
these connections. Just as the individual organs of a plant cannot be fully understood in iso-
lation but only in terms of their connecting principle, Steiner’s ideas often cannot be found
directly in his texts but must be found in the relationships between them. Steiner’s way of
presentation therefore requires a Goethean approach to his texts.
9. In this way, it also becomes an intuitive experience that the animal is embedded psycholo-
gically and behaviourally in a certain environmental context as described by Jakob von
Uexküll (Uexküll [1934/1957] 1992), and that its organs are formed both in accordance
to its needs and in perfect adaptation to its environmental conditions. This idea, which
goes back to Aristotle, was discussed at length by Martin Heidegger (Heidegger [1929/30]
1983, 319 .) and recently by Anne Sophie Meincke (Meincke 2023).
10. The reproductive system and the animal’s immune system require additional intuitive con-
ceptions which relate to the concept of continuing individuality, which in turn relates to the
concepts of species, systematics, and evolution. These relations cannot be discussed here in
detail.
11. For further aspects of intuitive characterization of the dierences between plants and
animals cf. Hartmann (1945).
12. Genes also do not cause the organism. They are necessary conditions – ‘highly sensitive
organs’ in the words of the geneticist Barbara McClintock (McClintock 1993, 198) –, but
do not suce to explain the life, development and structure of an organism (Moss 2004;
Robert 2004). However, just as the macroscopic structure of an organism can be understood
through rational organicism in intuitive contemplation, so can its molecular components
and their functions (genes, proteins, etc.). This will be shown in detail in another publication.
13. In his later, anthroposophical writings, Steiner showed how one can strengthen and deepen
one’s intuitive perception of the organic through simple and targeted mental exercises until
it is experienced as real as the external, physical world (Steiner [1904/1905] 1992).
Disclosure Statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the author(s).
ORCID
Christoph J. Hueck http://orcid.org/0009-0008-2513-1919
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