Zur Pluralisierung im Luthertum des 17. Jahrhunderts und ihrer Bedeutung für die Deutungen von ‚Natur’︁

Building on methodological considerations in cultural history and historical anthropology, the following contribution proceeds from the concept of ?nature’? rather than from ?natural science’?, with the former understood here as the object of culturally determined projections, values and practices. This ?constructive’?, practice‐oriented concept of nature exposes perceptions of and attitudes towards nature that, owing to the usual reduction of nature to natural science, would otherwise have remained hidden, but which may well be essential to its constitution. To a certain extent, the term ?nature’? continues the terminological extension from ?natural science’? to ?natural philosophy’?, but as a heuristic device it more strongly implies the significance of culturally mediated practices and dynamics. The essay raises the following questions: Which religious conceptions entered into which attitudes towards nature and which religious expectations and interpretive matrices were the motivating forces behind which studies of nature? The figures within seventeenth‐century Lutheranism who shaped and promoted nature‐oriented attitudes and practices were not the ?orthodox’? scholars more strongly tied to academic and controversialist theology, but rather reform‐oriented theologians critical of the church. In the context of the inner differentiation and pluralization of seventeenth‐century Lutheranism, these reform‐oriented groups not only inspired innovate theological projects but also assumed a leading role, along with liked‐minded Christian laypersons, in interpreting and studying ?nature’?.     

Die Französische Revolution im Spiegelbild. Die Reaktion der deutschen Ärzte auf die Revolution und das Revolutionieren

The German physicans and medical scientists reacted to the French Revolution in several ways, if you judge only from the medical literature:

• 1 At the beginning of the French Revolution, the scientist answered with still silence, whereas the young intellectual generation was filled with enthusiasm. But after the battle of Valmy (1792) this enthusiasm vanished and they resigned to execute an equal revolution in Germany.
• 2 When, in the middle of the 1790s, scientists gave commentaries on revolutionary acts, they despised the revolution itself. This could only destroy the old – and even better – order. They argued that you can have recourse to science to avoid the political and socially deranged situation.
• 3 This rejection against the political revolution was combined with a rejection against the influences of natural philosophy on medicine. Schelling's philosophy plays the role as an scientific revolution with all negative aspects like the political one. In this sense, the science in the old scientific manner has to be an accepted refuge.
• 4 But in this retreat they developed ideas of German national science to conteract on the French influences. The consciousness of nationalism was supported by the scientists of romantic movements.
• 5 The following degree is characterized by a mental leap. Now, they argued, it will never be necessary to revolutionize the medicine: in science all the ideals of French Revolution are realized – freedom, equality and fraternity.
• 6 Consequently, only in a formal sense did they respond to the French Revolution and so they avoided recognizing, that science is influenced politically and also science itself exercises on in a political way.

     

Zur frühen Geschichte der Paläocheloniologie von Schaumburg‐Lippe. Die Rolle des Gymnasial‐Professors Max Ballerstedt in der Naturwissenschaft

A survey is given on some new aspects of the early history to the palaeochelonology in Schaumburg‐Lippe (Northern Germany). The very slow development of this is good reconstructable on base of authentic estates. It is the first time to made such a nearly complete reconstruction.     

Platon im Arzneibuch und der Heller am Tresen Pharmazie im 16. Jahrhundert zwischen Humanismus,Stadtgesellschaft und Ökonomie

The study focuses on the development of pharmacopoeas during the early modern time. First, the >Nouvo Receptario< of 1499 came out in Florence as the first printed pharmacopoea of a north‐Italian town, edited by the guild of medicins and apothercaries. Following trading routes the idea of >pharmacopoea< arrived in Nuremberg, where the counsil of the town asked the humanist Valerius Cordus to prepare such a book. Printed in 1546, it quickly became the standard in preparing medicines for other towns in southern Germany. At Augsburg, a wealthy and powerful town, the physicians wrote their own pharmacopoea which was printed in 1564. The comparison of the three pharmacopoeas shows that its printing depended on the social stucture and the financial aspects of each town. But even if the apothecaries, the doctors or the mayors were trained in the humanistic tradtion, the materia medica still continued in the arabic tradition, i.e. the old drugs and preparations remained in these pharmacopoeas, probably for financial reasons.     

Präzision versus Exaktheit: Konfligierende Ideale der angewandten mathematischen Forschung: Das Beispiel der Tragflügeltheorie

It is often supposed that mathematical argument provides a model of precision for the sciences. In contrast to this view, the present article proposes to distinguish between mathematical exactness as a (historically variable) ideal regulating the inner standards of mathematical argumentation and precision as a (historically variable) norm governing the relation between products of mathematical reasoning in scientific contexts and empirical or practical data. By discussing a major achievement in the mathematization of flight, Ludwig Prandtl's lifting line theory of wings, it is shown that exact reasoning does not necessarily lead to scientific precision, and that the achievement of precision may even require to loosen existing standards of exactness. It is argued that the main contribution of mathematical argument to generating precision in science lies in its capacity to provide sophisticated tools for the production of data, rather than in its adherence to an ideal of exactness.     

Körpergefühl und Raumvorstellung: Leonardo und Descartes

“Experience and the conception of the world in science in transition to modern times” is the general subject. There are two different points to be made clear, i.e. 1. That the conception of the world had to be made imaginable by art before it could be taken over by science. The central perspective dates back to about three centuries before the time Descartes developed the co-ordinate system. 2. Furthermore it should be taken into account that it was first of all due to the lead of the painters (especially in the Italy of the Quattrocento’) that the possibility of making experiences had changed. In a space opened by a perspective view and seemingly thus appearing as measurable even the painted figures acquire a new reality. Due to his anatomic studies Leonardo could treat the natural movement of the figures shown in his paintings. It was the artists who first of all investigated optics and anatomy before relations could be measured with the aid of scientific methods ami before quantities — instead of qualities — could become the base of unbiased science, as called for by Galilei in 1623.     

Alltagswissen – Körperwissen – Praxiswissen – Fachwissen. Zur Aneignung,Bewertungs‐ und Orientierungslogik von Wissenskulturen

Everyday knowledge – body knowledge – knowledge of experience – specialized knowledge: Acquisition, assessment and the orientation of logic concerning cultures of knowledge. – The essay explores changes in the understanding, legitimisation, and practice of midwifery. It was one of the earliest professional activities for women. During the eighteenth century a new culture of expertise emphasized theoretical knowledge and adherence to medical disciplines over the empirical practice gained by women. This early phase of professionalisation, with its hierarchies and preferred use of medically accredited knowledge, was not, however, solely divided along gender lines. Female professionalism was not just supplanted by male academic medicalisation. New ways of attaining and assessing knowledge, a different perception of how it is organised, and above all, social change created new patterns of understanding. This process achieved a new professional ethos. In pursuing the issue of gender, various examples are chosen to illustrate how changes in scientific knowledge and its relevant application are mediated. The construct of scientific knowledge and how it is used reflects gender relations and power structures. There is not only competition between female and male perceptions of knowledge, but also male stereotyping of female knowledge, in particular male notions of what kind of knowledge is necessary and how this is perceived by women. Karen Offen used the term ‘knowledge wars’ to describe how a monopoly of scientific expertise and relevant knowledge works within the professions.     

Zur Historisierung der Staatswissenschaften Von der Kameralistik zur historischen Schule der Nationalökonomie

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the mostly practically orientated and speculative patterns of economic theory of the eighteenth-century cameralists result with interrupted (but on the whole remarkable) traditional bands in the German Historical School of National Economy, which prevailed most of the German universities after 1870. This school of thought developed, although in the Germany of the beginning nineteenth century the cameralist encyclopedias and the reception of traditional theories of economic liberalism declined. The school of National Economy proved to be determined by traditional professional impacts (training of government officials), regional differences and specific regional changes of the English model, by the historical attitude of National Economy in relation to the arts sciences - this was however not a defined economic science concerning method and contents -, and by continuing the aims of a welfare state within late industrialized authoritarian governments.     

Die Rezeption der humanistischen Gedächtnislehre bei Luther: Natur,Kunst und Konfessionen

Iconoclasm is one of the central characteristic of the reformation movement. In several books it was argued that there was a connection between iconoclasm and the interpretation of nature as a language and as a text since about 1600. This article discusses the artist as a creator in Renaissance culture. It shows the reaction of Luther to this concept and to iconoclasm, focussing on the connection between the Lutheran control of pictures and images and his conception of the mind and of memory on the one hand and of creatures as images and natural history on the other. In Lutheran context the book of nature was a book made of images as signs of the word of God.     

Pest,Stadt, Wissenschaft — Wechselwirkungen in oberitalienischen Städten vom 14. bis 17. Jahrhundert

After the Black Death of 1348 the Plague was not only the cause of personal disasters and individual despair, but was also of political and social significance. Each outbreak of the epidemic implied a crisis for the community with crucial consequences for trade, jurisdiction, administration, executive powers and for food supply. The faith in authority by the leading university medics was tragic, as they subscribed to the hippocratic-galenical humoral pathology and to the miasmatic theory. On the other hand, municipal authorities, from the 14th century onwards responded to the epidemic in a pragmatic manner, isolating the sick, carrying out checks, imposing trade embargos and special epidemic laws. From the 15th century onwards people were also put under quarantine. The medics' role, their relationship with the government and their tendency to play down the diagnosis will be discussed at length, together with the questionable tradition of the Regimina pestis.     

Disziplinerneuerung und Universitätsreform: Das Ius publicum Romano Germanicum

What caused the reforms which permitted the universities in the Holy Roman Empire to become leading places of scientific communication and mental orientation for centuries? In most cases, outside influences - pressures from governments, princes, scholars, councillors, consistories, or, as we would say today, state and churches - were decisive. But some reforms were the consequences of paradigm-changes within the universities themselves. Such shifts were less likely to originate with faculties concerned with medicine or the natural sciences than with those which were concerned directly with the political community or human societies. This changed only in the nineteenth century, which cannot be dealt with here.     

Der medizinische Wissensaustausch zwischen Siebenbürgen und anderen europäischen Ländern im Spiegel des Auslandsstudiums und der ärztlichen Ausbildung der Siebenbürger vor der Gründung der Klausenburger Universität (1872)

The first perpetual university in Transylvania was founded rather late compared to European standards, namely only in 1872 in Klausenburg (Cluj, Kolozsvár). Through the centuries, the social request for physicians was satisfied by the education of Transylvanian students at foreign universities and by the immigration of physicians from abroad. Concerning the period from 1180 to 1849, we know about 7145 Transylvanian students at more than 80 different universities of the Occident. Thereof, 412 physicians and 219 surgeons can be documented by their names. The ranking list of the most frequented medical faculties (Vienna, Padova, Leyden, Utrecht, Jena, Lipsia, Erlangen, Frankfort‐on‐Oder, Goettingen, Basel etc.) proves that all of these medical men received their professional education (being sponsored socially) from the then most excellent foreign universities. Thus, studies abroad guaranteed continual transfer of knowledge from Western to Eastern Europe. This situation seems to partially have compensated the disadvantages of lacking own Transylvanian universities ‐ at least from the quality point of view, so that the professional standard of the education of doctors working in Transylvania used to correspond to the highest level of European medicine.     

Jesuiten zwischen Religion und Wissenschaft

Natural sciences and natural philosophy of the Jesuits are based on theology. At least the concept of God is an integral part of their theoretical structure. Examples are taken from Rudjer Boskovic, Honoré Fabri and Nicolaus Cabeus. In fact, the Jesuits, e.g. Theophil Raynaud, dealt with natural theology as the spiritual foundation of knowledge independent of revelation. But natural theology, as in Raimundus Sabundus, has an anthropocentric and hence moral dimension: it links knowledge with religion. ‘Ignatius of Loyola influenced decisively the Jesuits’ concept of science and its relationship to religion through his Spiritual Exercises in which meditation and religious practice are developed into a technique and a scientific approach to faith.     

Wissenschaft im Gehäuse: Vom Nutzen und Nachteil institutionengeschichtlicher Perspektiven

Research is realized in social and cultural context, it is established in institutions, as far as different forms and conditions of practice are concerned. In this article some German examples demonstrate how flexible and varied the institutions of research can be during the course of history of science. The first part deals with historically grown, yet chronologically overlapping institutions of research: beginning with the lonely scholar, going on to hierarchally organized big science and ending up with virtual institutions. In the second part, at the intersection of political‐social administration and styles of scientific thought terms like German Realpolitik, science in context, and science policy are discussed within the modernization process.     

Natur-Wissenschaft und Gotteserkenntnis: Das jüdische Modell

The thesis proposed here is that in Judaism creation is seen as a unique act of God at a specific point in time. In medieval philosophy the act of creation is interpreted as natural science, which concerns itself only with products of divine creation. This is contrasted with theology, which is concerned not with creation but with God. Francis Bacon takes this model from Moses Maimonides for his work Nova Atlantis. Natural science replaces theological studies for Bacon.     

Das Förderprofil der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft 1949 bis 1969

The DFG, short for ‘Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft’ (German Research Foundation), was founded in 1920 and re‐founded after the 2. World War in 1949. This article concentrates on the activities of the DFG in the period between 1949 and the end of the sixties and on the two major programmes (the so‐called ‘Individual Grants Programme’ and the so‐called ‘Priority Programme’) because until now it has not been known, how many — and more importantly — which studies in which disciplines had been financed by the DFG. All together almost 54.000 studies (36.500 in the ‘Individual Grants Programme’ and 17.400 in the ‘Priority Programmes’) were accomplished with the support of the DFG, whereas — in the ‘Individual Grants Programme’ — less than 3.000 proposals were declined (there are no figures for the ‘Priority Programmes’). Till the end of the seventies the whole amount of money allocated for the ‘Individual Grants Programme’ was not fixed for the different disciplines in advance. Consequently every proposal submitted in the ‘Individual Grants Programme’ had to compete against all others for the overall allocated funds. Who — in other words: which of the disciplines — won this competition? The analysis shows a clear result. With regard to both, the number of successful proposals and the money received, the winner was medical science (with 23 percent of all successful proposals in the ‘Individual Grants Programme’). Chemistry finished second with 15 percent and then biology a distant third (9 percent), followed by physics (8 percent) and agronomy (8 percent). Coming to the ‘Priority Programmes’, which were instituted in the middle of the 1950s, it must first be stated that here the topic is fixed in advance. The broad issue of investigation is devised by the DFG itself or — to be more precise — by the Senate of the DFG. In contrast to the ‘Individual Grants Programme’ the ‘Priority Programme’ can therefore be seen as an important instrument of the politics of research support. This leads to the following question: Which programmes did the DFG establish between 1954 and 1969? In other words: Which research topics or fields were, in the view of the DFG, the most important ones? The database again shows a clear result. Almost 50 percent of the money distributed overall and more than 50 percent of all programmes were benefitted to natural science, another fifth part to engineering technology (which didn't play an important role in the ‘Individual Grants Programme’). Medical science which was the most successful discipline in the ‘Individual Grants Programme’ received 16 percent of the funds. With regard to — first — the number of successful proposals within a Programme, — second — to the money received and — third — to the duration there were three frontrunner programmes: nourishment research, research on water and hydraulic engineering, and aeronautical research. And the humanities? The DFG didn't grant much relief giving only 7 percent to these disciplines.