Reihe (Series)

Abstract

For Goethe, the lexeme Reihe (series) is not just a word of common parlance but a concept and a figure of thought with significant philosophical implications. In its most developed articulations, a Reihe is an ordering technique that is needed for proper experimentation and scientific research as well as for an effective presentation of the natural order. When something is serialized, its inner order becomes visible and perceptible, as Goethe states in his short essay Der Versuch als Vermittler von Objekt und Subjekt (1792; The Experiment as Mediator between Object and Subject). As a scientific practice, serialization requires strong self-moderation, which helps the scientific observer treat everything with adequate accuracy. For Goethe, moreover, a series that presents something to an observer is in a continuous state of movement, akin to living forms of nature themselves. This ambiguity between object and method is especially evident in Goethe’s morphological notebooks, in which the concept of the series oscillates between the form of nature and the form of its depiction, suggesting that the traditional order of the signified and the signifier is itself serialized in his scientific work. Most significantly, Goethe defines a series as a form of demonstration, exposition, and recapitulation, rather than of argumentation, which distances it from rational concepts of series. A key aspect of serialization for Goethe, therefore, is its deployment as a form of presentation or depiction, not one of deduction, and for this reason it can also be detected in his literary works. While the first part of the entry is devoted to a reconstruction of Goethe’s usage of the concept in his scientific and literary works, the second part compares Goethe’s concept of the series with similar, historically adjacent usages, such as those developed by F.W.J. Schelling (1775–1845), J.F. Herbart (1776–1841), and Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772–1801). None of these can be regarded as a main model for Goethe, but the existence of other serial concepts makes it clear that Goethe’s concept does not emerge out of a historic vacuum. Instead, his contemporaries likewise define a series as a form of presentation, even if it varies in each case. The entry concludes, finally, with an overview of the reception of the concept of the series in the nineteenth and twentieth century.