Summary

BEGRIFF in its Goethean reconstruction lays out a complex and dynamic plane of verbal experimentation and conceptual reinvention that lies immanently within the world. Unlike the clear and distinct concepts of rational metaphysics, which function as fixed universals beyond the reach of sense experience, Goethe's metaconcept draws on an expressive power within language to generate sequences of cognitive moves and transitional moments of understanding that stand in close relation to each other and can be gathered in graded series, where they are “saved,” like ARISTOTLE's phainomena (appearances), for further observation, reflection, and composition. Through its successive manifestations, BEGRIFF encompasses a force field of philosophical activity and discovery with fluid and permeable borders that are in constant motion. As the driving mechanism of Goethe's heterodox thinking, it proves to be a more encompassing structure of thought and offers a more responsive perspective onto the fugitive things of the world (including its thought things) than the conceptual machinery of traditional metaphysical systems with their regulatory regimes of limit-setting terms.

Cross-References

ABENTEUER DER VERNUNFT (adventure of reason), ABSTRAKTION (abstraction), APERÇU (insight), ANSCHAUUNG (intuition), ÄSTHETISCH (aesthetic), ARISTOTLE, BABELGEDANKE (Babel-thought) BEDEUTUNG (meaning), BEGRIFF (concept), BESTIMMUNG (determination), BEWEGUNG (motion, movement), BILD (image), BILDUNG (process of formation), BLATT (leaf), DARSTELLUNG (representation), DAUER and WECHSEL (permanence and change), DELEUZE, DENKEN (to think), DENKMAL (monument), DIASTOLE and SYSTOLE (diastole and systole), DING (thing), EMPIRIE, EMPIRISCH (empiricism, empirical), ENTZWEIEN and VEREINEN (to separate and join), ERFAHRUNG (experience), ERSCHEINUNG (appearance, phenomenon), ERSTAUNEN (sense of wonder, amazement, awe) FASSUNG (formulation, version, composition), ERFASSUNG (gathering, compilation), FASSUNGSKRAFT (power of comprehending, mental capacity), FIGUR (figure), FORM, GEGENSTAND, GEGENSTÄNDLICH (object or thing, objective), GEIST (spirit, mind) GEHALT (content), GLEICHNIS (parable, simile, comparison), GOTT (God), HEGEL, HERDER, IDEE (idea), IRRLICHTELIEREN (to will-o’-the-wispback- and-forth), JACOBI, KANT, KONZEPT (concept), KRAFT (power, force) KREIS (circle), LAMBERT, LEBEN (life), LEIBNIZ, MEINUNG (opinion, notion, belief, endoxa, concept), METAMORPHOSE (metamorphosis) METAPHYSIK (metaphysics), MONADE (monad) MORITZ, MORPHOLOGIE (morphology), NACHAHMUNG (imitation), OBJEKT (object), PHÄNOMEN (phenomenon), PHILOSOPHIE (philosophy), PLASTISCH (plastic), POLARITÄT and STEIGERUNG (polarity and intensification or gradation), PROBLEM, RAUM (space), REIN (pure), SCHAUEN (to behold or look at something intensively), SINN (sense, meaning),