{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 78/1921-08-30/p010","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Goethe presented things differently; Goethe thought about the world differently from those who, in a certain sense, believed they had achieved a kind of philosophical conclusion at the end of the 19th century. This can be seen particularly clearly in Goethe when we consider how, on his return from his Italian journey, he wrote the classic little treatise “An Attempt to Explain the Metamorphosis of Plants,” and how the ideas in this treatise emerged as a natural product of his soul from this particular kind of quest for knowledge. If we look at what is presented here, we will find that Goethe's way of knowing was particularly suited to penetrating the life of the plant world through observation. At the end of the 19th century, however, there was a particular focus on developing those processes of knowledge that penetrate the fabric of inorganic, inanimate nature. In their knowledge, some individuals attempted to react against this orientation of the entire process of knowledge toward inanimate nature. It can be said that Goethe's thinking, Goethe's imagination, lived in a different way in relation to external perception, to the external sensory world, than the kind of thinking that is particularly capable of penetrating the inanimate world. What Goethe thought was, in a sense, inclined to penetrate deeply into what his eyes saw, what his senses perceived. What the senses perceive is much further removed from the thought process that approaches inanimate nature than perception and thinking were in Goethe. Goethe's thinking was such that it could remain flexible by following the entire growth process of the plant, by following how one plant form is a modification of another. Goethe's thinking was not rigid, not stiffly contoured; it was such that his concepts were constantly metamorphosing, and through this they became, I would say, intimately adapted to the course that plant nature itself undergoes.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Second Lecture","site_heading":"Thinking as Creative Participation in Reality","site_heading_note":"A heading the site wrote for this unit from a summary of it; not in the edition, and not the words of Rudolf Steiner or of the translator. Cite the unit by its title and locus, never by this heading, and do not quote it.","date":"1921-08-30","location":null,"word_count":310,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/78/1921-08-30/p010","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Anthroposophy: Its Roots of Knowledge and Fruits of Life","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA078/English/SOL2025/19210830p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/78/1921-08-30/p010"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/78/1921-08-30/p010","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 78/1921-08-30/p010","passage_number":10,"text":"Goethe stellte anders vor über die Dinge, Goethe dachte über die Welt anders als diejenigen, die mehr in einer gewissen Beziehung eine Art philosophischen Abschluß glaubten errungen zu haben am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts. Und man kann bei Goethe dies ganz besonders sehen, wenn man beachtet, wie er, von seiner italienischen Reise zurückgekehrt, das klassische kleine Schriftchen «Versuch, die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären» geschrieben hat, und wie die Ideen dieses Schriftchens wie als ein selbstverständliches Seelenprodukt hervorgegangen sind aus dieser besonderen Art des Erkenntnisstrebens. Geht man ein auf das, was hier vorliegt, dann wird man finden, daß Goethes Erkenntnisart besonders dafür veranlagt war, anschauend in das Leben der Pflanzenwelt einzudringen. Am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts aber war man ganz besonders darauf aus, diejenigen Erkenntnisprozesse auszubilden, die in das Weben der unorganischen, der unlebendigen Natur eindringen. Einzelne Menschen versuchten in ihrem Erkennen eine Art Reaktion gegen diese Hinorientierung des ganzen Erkenntnisprozesses auf die unlebendige Natur. Man kann sagen, Goethes Denken, Goethes Vorstellen lebte in anderer Art im Verhältnis zu der äußeren Wahrnehmung, zu der äußeren sinnlichen Welt als dasjenige Denken, welches besonders befähigt ist, in die unlebendige Welt einzudringen. Was Goethe dachte, war gewissermaßen geneigt, sich innig zu durchdringen mit dem, was seine Augen sahen, was seine Sinne wahrnahmen. Was Sinne wahrnehmen, das steht dem Gedankenprozesse, der sich namentlich an die unlebendige Natur heranmacht, viel ferner, als bei Goethe Wahrnehmung und Denken standen. Goethes Denken war ein solches, daß es sich beweglich verhalten konnte, indem es den ganzen Wachstumsprozeß der Pflanze verfolgte, indem es verfolgte, wie die eine Pflanzenform eine Modifkation der andern ist. Goethes Denken war kein starres, kein steif konturiertes; es war ein solches, daß sich seine Begriffe fortwährend metamorphosierten, und dadurch wurden sie, ich möchte sagen, innig angepaßt an den Gang, den gerade die pflanzliche Natur selber durchmacht.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":301,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/78/1921-08-30/p010"}],"english":["GA 78/1921-08-30/p010"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":301,"en_words":310,"ratio":1.03,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","audit"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.01,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":5464,"original_word_count":5410,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Anthroposophy: Its Roots of Knowledge and Fruits of Life","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA078/English/SOL2025/19210830p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 78/1921-08-30/p010"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. 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