The Human Constitution
as an Instrument of Research 

Autumn Conference of the
Natural Science Section
at the Goetheanum
October 8 – 11, 2026

The human being is a wonder, with a multifaceted and comprehensive capacity for approaching nature not just through the physical body but through the etheric and soul-spiritual organisation as well. Levels of cognition thereby become accessible to the human that remain closed to artificial intelligence.

In his introduction to Goethe’s scientific writings, Rudolf Steiner describes how the human being feels an urge to explore the world out of an inner need of the soul. However, over the course of the modern era, research became increasingly detached from human sensory perception, and thinking became more abstract. Researchers sought an “objective” external viewpoint and gradually excluded inner, soul-based experience. So, although science brought tremendous progress and new technologies, these advances in knowledge distanced us from the forces of nature. But are we not part of nature? Have we therefore lost touch with ourselves? Is there an approach, a method, that could reconnect us with the meaning of life? The Goethean-anthroposophical approach to research proposes, as a first step, that we consciously turn our attention towards the organization of our own senses.

The child initially develops a relationship to their physical body through their sense of life, balance, self-movement, and touch. As their hands become free, they begin to “grasp” the world: their sense of warmth, sight, smell, and taste unfold a rich world of sensations and feelings. Finally, the child learns to engage their sense of hearing, speech, concept, and the ‘I’, which form the basis for thinking. The development of self-awareness arises simultaneously with the awareness of the world.

What develops unconsciously for the child is what Goethe considered the model for the scientist, who ought to esteem and use the senses consciously. In addition to this, can we develop other senses that, like Goethe’s “intuitive power of judgment” (anschauende Urteilskraft), go beyond intellectual thinking?

If we follow the growth of a plant through time, we can inwardly participate in its lawful dynamic. By training our thinking using the imaginal qualities of nature, we can recreate from many observations an inner formative image of the living plant. Is this what is meant by the “imaginative consciousness” through which we experience plant vitality with our etheric organisation? Is it possible to experience the inner side of nature through this spiritual activity in our soul?

We are part of the world when our senses are allowed to unfold their capacities in body, soul, and spirit. Then the world comes alive in our consciousness not only in what it has become but also in its process of becoming.

We warmly invite you to join us at this year’s Autumn Conference of the Natural Science Section, from October 8 to 11, 2026, to engage in dialogue on these questions and to contribute with your perspectives, work, and research presentations.