TY - JOUR T1 - A Commitment to Observation A1 - Theilmann, Florian JA - Elem. d. Naturw. JF - Elemente der Naturwissenschaft PY - 2005 VL - 83 SP - 90 EP - 96 DO - 10.18756/edn.83.90 SN - p-ISSN 0422-9630 LA - en N2 -

In Heft 82 der Elemente nimmt sich Pepe Veugelers eines alten Themas an (Veugelers 2005): den prismatischen Farben. Es geht einmal mehr um den Versuch, die Entstehung prismatischer Farben mit Hilfe von Goethes «Urphänomen» zu verstehen. Sein Ansatz, die Wirkung der optischen Dichte des Mediums und dessen Dispersion so zu kombinieren, dass Argumente aus optischen Situationen im Zusammenhang mit «streuenden Medien» anwendbar werden, soll hier kritisch untersucht werden. Dabei wird auch die Frage augeworfen, ob ein solches Unterfangen innerhalb einer «goetheanistischen» Methodik überhaupt fruchtbar sein kann.
 

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In his article Pepe Veugelers (Veugelers 2005) takes up the old issue of whether it is possible to explain “prismatic colours”, i.e. the characteristically coloured and diffuse transitions between bright and dark structures seen obliquely through a boundary between media of different optical densities, with Goethe’s ‘archetypal phenomenon’1 ? In other words his project is to explain colours which arise under the use of dispersive optical media in the context of looking through ‘hazy’ media, i.e. media that in a conventional manner of speaking cause ‘light scattering’. I will not try to decide whether such a project can be at all fruitful, although there are some concerns that will be mentioned later, but I will discuss why Veugelers’ arguments are not convincing for me. Two objections touch his argumentation directly and lead us to more fundamental methodological issues.

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In his article Pepe Veugelers (Veugelers 2005) takes up the old issue of whether it is possible to explain “prismatic colours”, i.e. the characteristically coloured and diffuse transitions between bright and dark structures seen obliquely through a boundary between media of different optical densities, with Goethe’s ‘archetypal phenomenon’1 ? In other words his project is to explain colours which arise under the use of dispersive optical media in the context of looking through ‘hazy’ media, i.e. media that in a conventional manner of speaking cause ‘light scattering’. I will not try to decide whether such a project can be at all fruitful, although there are some concerns that will be mentioned later, but I will discuss why Veugelers’ arguments are not convincing for me. Two objections touch his argumentation directly and lead us to more fundamental methodological issues.

ST - A Commitment to Observation UR - https://dx.doi.org/10.18756/edn.83.90 Y2 - 2024-03-28 09:19:31 ER -