Talk of a revolution of common sense in the USA and around the world is focused on nationalism, economic competition and development without regard of environmental and ecological considerations. This episode suggests the revolution offers a false promise even while the widespread appeal of the idea of a revolution of common sense is deeply justified. In this episode Goethe’s natural scientific method of intuitive understanding is presented as a discipline of common sense, or aesthetics, with reference to the role it played during the emergence of the modern environmental movement and green banks. A follow up episode indicates how this is connected with Rudolf Steiner’s associative economics, how Goethe’s primal phenomena is for theoretical philosophy what true price is for economic, practical philosophy. 

References:

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1975) Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften Ed. Rudolf Steiner. Vol. I-V. (Dornach, Switzerland: Rudolf Steiner Verlag).

Förster, Eckart (2017) Die 25 Jahre Der Philosophie. (Frankfurt, Germnay: Vittorio Klostermann GmbH).

McKanan, Dan (2017) Eco-Alchemy: Anthroposophy and the History and Future of Environmentalism. (Berkeley, CA: Univ of California Press).

https://www.natureinstitute.org/

https://science.goetheanum.org/en/section/natural-science-section

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