Poetry and Science

-Naturwissenschaften sind konstruktivistisch. Ihre Theorien konstruieren als -freie Schöpfungen des Denkens- Modelle, die vor allem an den Zielen der technischen Brauchbarkeit orientiert sind. Diese Modelle sind jedoch thematisch-reduzierte und methodisch-abstrakte Filterkonstruktionen. Im naturwissenschaftlichen Weltbild werden die Modellkonstruktionen mit der Wirklichkeit identifiziert. Die menschliche Person mit ihren existentiellen Problemen fällt dabei durch alle methodischen Filter der Modellkonstruktionen. Insofern entfremdet das naturwissenschaftliche Weltbild den Menschen. Es lässt seine Problematik offen. (…) Die Naturwissenschaft konstruiert ein Modell von der Wirklichkeit, das in sich widerspruchsfrei ist und nicht im Widerspruch mit den Experimenten stehen darf. Es ist möglichst einfach, überprüfbar und vereinheitlicht verschiedenste Phänomene unter übergeordneten Gesichtspunkten. Um dies zu erreichen, müssen einige Voraussetzungen außer Streit gestellt werden; sie sind von allen, die dieses Modell gebrauchen, zu akzeptieren. Damit ermöglichen wir uns eine Beherrschung der Welt, weil wir möglichst alles zu Dingen machen, aus denen die Widersprüche eliminiert sind. Das Individuum Mensch mit seinen persönlichen Problemen und Gefühlen muss dabei ausgeklammert werden. Menschliche Probleme, sowie sie zwischenmenschlich gefasst werden können, stehen jedoch im Vordergrund und können tatsächlich in einer unübertroffenen Weise beseitigt werden- (Arno Anzenbacher Einführung in die Philosophie). -How [can we] bring together our ideas of science and poetry within a whole that has a place for both of them? [I investigate] the strange, imperialistic, isolating ideology about science which now makes this kind of connection seem impossible. That ideology is what makes science itself look so alarming today. What is called ‘anti-science’ feeling is not usually an objection to the actual discovery of facts in the world. (That would be odd.) Instead, it is a protest against this imperialism (…) which is not centrally fuelled by the wish for knowledge. It is primarily a dream of taming and simplifying our inner life” (Mary Midgley Poetry and Science). -Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!/ Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes./ Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,/ Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?” (Edgar Allen Poe -Sonnet to Science). -O man-projected Figure, of late/ Imaged as we, thy knell who shall survive?/ Whence came it we were tempted to create/ One whom we can no longer keep alive?/ And, tricked by our own early dream/ And need of solace, we grew self-deceived,/ Our making soon our maker did we deem,/ And what we had imagined we believed” (Thomas Hardy -God’s Funeral”). -Science has failed our world/ Science has failed our mother earth” (System Of A Down -Science”). -I can’t believe we’re here for no reason/ There must be something we can believe in/ Blinded by science, I’m on the run” (Foreigner -Blinded by science”). -I was just guessing at numbers and figures/ Pulling the puzzles apart/ Questions of science, science and progress/ Do not speak as loud as my heart” (Coldplay -The Scientist”). -You won’t find faith or hope down a telescope/ You won’t find heart and soul in the stars/ You can break everything down to the chemicals/ But you can’t explain a love like ours” (The Script -Science and Faith”). Since the dawn of modern science, science and poetry have been understood as mutually exclusive forms. While romantic poets were accusing science of destroying the idea of transcendence as a vital aspect of human existence, science accused poetry of being irrational, and that instead science is the only proper approach to life. This seminar is looking at the history of how this tension has developed into binary, rival opposites (and how the concept of rationality includes a forceful if not violent repression of what is considered emotional), but also how poetry and science were and are connected (insofar that scientific enquiry is lead by and reflects desire). -Science is the only way to understand the real world,” Richard Dawkins argues. Mary Midgley in her book Science and Poetry counters this argument, pointing to various transcendental expressions in the works of natural scientists themselves: -In this war, a very interesting asymmetry about rhetoric emerged. Highly emotive Baconian hostile imagery about nature was counted as scientific and therefore belonging to the language of reason, while affectionate and respectful imagery such as Ficino used was dismissed as mere sentiment. This ruling still persists and accounts for the fact that no Western scientist after Kepler’s time could ever dare to use the terms such as love for forces of attraction, though today equally anthropomorphic – but hostile – words such as spite, cheat, selfish and grudging are the accepted coin of sociobiological discourse” (Midgley, Science and Poetry 61). Gowan Dawson remarks: -The understanding of this particular cultural interface was, for a very long time, dominated – and distorted – by a rigid and ahistorical contrast between abstract poetic idealism and empirical scientific positivism which, in its insistence on a sharp divide between the subjective and the objective, pitted the metaphysical and imaginative values of poetry against the dispiriting, but increasingly authoritative, creeds of science and industry.” Mary Midgley. -Science and Poetry-. London, New York: Routledge, 2009. Klaus Theweleit: Männerphantasien, Band 1, S. 379-461. siehe auch Vortrag: http://www.untot.info/218-0-DER-TECHNOLOGISIERTE-ABSPALT-UNTOTE.html Christoph Bode. Einführung in die Lyrikanalyse. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2001. Anglistik - Literaturwissenschaft Universität Siegen SoSe 2012 M.A. Wilkinson Nils M.A