The Marriage of Sense and Thought: Imaginative Participation in Science

“It is generally accepted that science entails an effort to be ‘objective.’ But it is not generally realized that such science is based upon assumed notions concerning the nature of the universe, notions settled upon before any description or discussion even begins. The most primary and obvious of such notions is that the universe consists essentially of ‘objects.’” (from the book)

Having imagined a machine-like world, scientists now haunt this machine uneasily. Their plight is paradoxical: they have realized their world only through intense mental effort, yet this effort finds no legitimate place in the world it so painstakingly comprehends. It seems “objectivity” comes only at a cost. Why, for example, is science unable to describe a smile? Why is the moral life of a physicist regarded as one’s own private affair?

This exclusion of human qualities from science has both practical and theoretical consequences. If we systematically imagine a world in which human beings do not exist, we will eventually create a world in which they cannot exist.

Reclaiming the human sources of scientific insight, the authors of this book restore scientists to the world given by science and celebrate the joyous marriage of sense and thought.

“Scientists see the world as a machine, which they haunt like ghosts. Since the idea of a detached observer seems to call for attentiveness, but otherwise for no mental work, the scientist is actually a rather passive ghost. Yet one of the experiences common to all scientists is that of intense mental work―indeed, work that takes place within the mind, the very realm with no existence in the objective universe.” (from the book)

Georg Maier (1933–2016) directed research into modes of observation and conceptualization of nature at the Forschungslinstitut am Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. Previously, he had been engaged in neutron diffraction research at the Kernforschungsanlage Jülich (KFA) in Germany. Maier coauthored Being on Earth (1996) and The Marriage of Sense and Thought (1997).

Hans Gebert was co-director of the Waldorf Institute of Mercy College in Detroit, Michigan. Before that, he was director of the physics laboratory of the Birmingham Technical University in England.

John Davy, O.B.E., M.A. (1927-1984), was co-director of Emerson College, Forest Row, England, and had particular responsibility for the foundation year program, a requirement for the Waldorf teacher training. He was also an international lecturer and chairman of the Anthroposophical Society of Great Britain. After studying zoology at Cambridge, he became science editor of the Observer in London. He was awarded the O.B.E. (Order of the British Empire) in 1965 by Queen Elizabeth II for his achievements in writing on science.

Dr. Stephen Edelglass graduated from MIT (BS and MS in mechanical engineering) and the Stevens Institute of Technology (MS in physics; PhD in metallurgy). He was professor of mechanical engineering at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art before assuming a position as Director of Science at the Threefold Educational Foundation in Chestnut Ridge, New York, where he was also on the faculty of Sunbridge College and taught in that school's graduate program. In addition, he taught science to high school students at the Green Meadow Waldorf School in Chestnut Ridge for many years. In 1999, Michael D'Aleo and Dr. Edelglass founded SENSRI, an organization in Saratoga Springs, New York, devoted to phenomena-centered research. He authored several books in materials science and philosophy of science, and contributed a number of research papers in materials science, epistemology, and pedagogy. He was coauthor of Being on Earth (2006) and The Marriage of Sense and Thought (1997). Some of his later writings and lectures were published as The Physics of Human Experience (2006). He was the recipient of a National Science Foundation Faculty Fellowship. Dr. Edelglass died in November 2000.