We have mentioned Goethe's method in the context of the history of phenomenology as well as its connection to the modern topological and geometric theory of differential equations and dynamical systems. Anyone who has studied biology, or plant biology in particular, learnt about the systems of nutrition and transport in vascular plants, the two main types of vascular tissues being xylem and phloem. The first system is easy to understand enough (and its analogy with animal systems obvious) and not incompatible with a general Goethean conception of a plant with its vertically rising gradient. But phloem is a different matter. Topologically phloem tubes - transporting sugars and amino acids synthesized in the leaves - are spread across the entire plant in a structure analogous to animal circulatory systems - a perplexing situation which begs for deep topological and dynamical questions and explanations. For if we consider the the system of phloem tubes to be topologically equivalent to a closed ball $B^3$, then the circulation of nutrients will define a vector field on $B^3$ which is tangent to its boundary $\partial B^3 = S^2$. So there must be sources and sinks. We can ask: where are the sources and sinks in the plant? Is there an analogy with animal digestive systems - or even neural pathways? And even more importantly: does this vector field change in time (undergo a continuous bifurcation)? Modern plant biology of course allows us to answer these questions. The point here is the great philosophical and methodological importance of asking precisely these kinds of question and the role of topological-dynamical thinking.
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