A. von Humboldt et Goethe : des épistémés relationnelles et orphiques pour connaître les formes vivantes

Abstract

The dialogue between Alexander von Humboldt and Goethe underlines their common interest in an approach of nature that combines natural sciences and poetry, even though these two fields of knowledge are at the time increasingly separated from each other. They share an awareness of the relational nature of the world and of knowledge, the latter having, according to them, to be conceived in contact with and in the image of the former. Their creative friendship and their mutual Bildung are rich in up-to-date epistemological suggestions they make to each other, at a time when ecology, as a science of living relationships and interactions, increasingly sees the need for a sensitive knowledge of the world. Goethe and Humboldt share a common way of practicing living sciences, both being careful not to upset what they observe, in an Orphic manner. 

Keywords: zoopoetics, animal, ecology, relationship, vulnerability.