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IN_CONTRAST

                                             February 27, 2009


Goethe's theory of color is a prime
example of intellect overreaching.

Goethe himself had no mathematical
background, so he started with the
presumption that math was unnecessary,         But before we judge
that Newton was led astry by his               Goethe too harshly:
facility (rather than Goethe held back         aren't there other
by his lack).                                  cases one can think
                                               of where the winning
   Goethe worked up a theory                   sides were reversed?
   of color based on
   qualitative reasoning,                         Perhaps in the realm
   starting with the                              of economics?
   importance of contrast
   (apparently a notion he                        Or military planning?
   picked up from Aristotle).
                                                  Or software engineering?

                                                  Or urban design?

                                                    Sometimes, in retrospect,
                                                    the experts seem rather
                                                    lacking in common sense...

                                                         (But only sometimes).
Some quotations from Goethe's
"Theory of Colors":             MIT Press,               NUKE
                                Translated by
                                Charles Lock
                                Eastlake (1840)
   13.

   In the act which we call seeing, the retina is at
   one and the same time in different and even opposite
   states.  The greatest brightness, short of dazzling,
   acts near the greatest darkness.  In this state we
   at once perceive all the intermediate gradations of
   _chiaro-scuro_, and all the varieties of hues


   HARMONY OF THE COMPLETE STATE.

   708.

   The whole ingredients of the chromatic scale, seen
   in juxtaposition, produce an harmonious impression
   on the eye.  The difference between the physical
   contrast and harmonious opposition in all its
   extent should not be overlooked.  The first
   resides in the pure restricted original dualism,
   considered in its antagonizing elements; the other
   results from the fully developed effects of the
   complete state.


   748.

   Colour and sound do not admit of being directly
   compared together in any way, but both are referable
   to a higher formula, both are derivable, although
   each for itself, from this higher law.  They are
   like two rivers which have their source in one and
   the same mountain, but subsequently pursue their way
   under totally different conditions in two totally
   different regions, so that throughout the whole
   course of both no two points can be compared.  Both
   are general, elementary effects acting according to
   the general law of separation and tendency to union,
   of undulation and oscillation, yet acting thus in
   wholly different provinces, in different modes, on
   different elementary mediums, for different senses.
      -- Note B B.


   752.

   Metaphysical formulae have breadth as well as depth,
   but on this very account they require a
   corresponding import; the danger here is vagueness.
   Mathematical expressions may in many cases be very
   conveniently and happily employed, but there is
   always an inflexibility in them, and we presently
   feel their inadequacy; for even in elementary cases
   we are very soon conscious of an incommensurable
   idea; they are, besides, only intelligible to those
   who are especially conversant in the sciences to
   which such formulae are appropriated.  The terms of
   the science of mechanics are more addressed to the
   ordinary mind, but they are ordinary in other
   senses, and always have something unpolished;  they
   destroy the inward life to offer from without an
   insufficient substitute for it.  The formulae of
   the corpuscular theories are nearly allied to the
   last; through them the mutable becomes rigid,
   description and expression uncouth: while, again,
   moral terms, which undoubtedly can express nicer
   relations, have the effect of mere symbols in the
   end, and are in danger of being lost in a play of wit.



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