Cultivating Perception, Countering Faust: The Radical Resonance of Goethean and Indigenous Science

While still widespread, the pernicious belief that modern Western science is synonymous with ‘science proper’ – the culturally engrained conviction that it constitutes an incomparably effective means of interrogating natural reality – has been called into question in recent decades. This book offers a critique of that dominant worldview through a comparative analysis of two radical alternatives: Indigenous Science and Goethean Science. On close examination, the resonance between these two approaches to nature and knowledge becomes strikingly clear. The authors present both Goethean and Indigenous Sciences as counter-Faustian, using ‘Faust’ – Goethe’s greatest literary creation – as shorthand for the hubristic supremacism, massive destructiveness, and wanton disregard for the natural world characteristic of Eurocentric science in the last four centuries.

SEAN HOWARD is Adjunct Professor of Political Studies in the Department of L’nu, Political, and Social Studies at Cape Breton University in Canada. From 2004 to 2006 he facilitated an interdisciplinary seminar series in the Integrative Science Program (Toqwa’tu’kl Kjijitaqnn) at Cape Breton University. In addition to his academic work, he has published seven volumes of poetry.

LEE-ANNE BROADHEAD is Professor of Political Studies in the Department of L’nu, Political, and Social Studies at Cape Breton University in Canada. She has published widely on peace, security, and environmental issues. Her recent work has focused on the linkages between knowledge and power and the impact of instrumental rationality on humans and the natural world.