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.     

Spezialisierung und Bildungsanspruch. Zur Geschichte der Technischen Hochschulen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert

In the late 19th century at the “Technische Hochschulen” the understanding of “Wissenschaft” and “Bildung” changed considerably. During the 19th century the “Polytechnische Schulen” and “Technische Hochschulen” adopted the neo-humanistic standards of “Bildung”, established by the universities and the “Humanistische Gymnasium”. At the end of the century they joined the “realistische Schulbewegung” which emphasized the value of mathematics and natural sciences, taking issue with the classical languages. At the same time, systematic experimentation was added to mathematics, natural sciences and technical experience to constitute the specific methodology of engineering sciences. Attempts to define specific technical elements of “Allgemein-bildung” did not succeed as a result of the rapidly increasing differentiation and specialization of engineering sciences.     

Der Kampf gegen den „Schwarzen Tod”︁. Quarantäne und Epidemiebekämpfung der frühen Neuzeit im Mittelmeer aufgezeigt am Beispiel Maltas

During early modern period Mediterranean people feared epidemics far more than war and other destructive activities. Where epidemics, especially the plague, struck, all communications broke down and trade just withered away. With the coming of the Knights of St. John in 1530 the Maltese Islands became increasingly important as an international boarding place in the very center of the Mediterranean. Soon the maritime development of the Order's State was enhanced by the high regard in which the Maltese Quarantine System was held by European countries in the 17th and 18th century. The aetiology of plague was then unknown and the restrictive measures adopted by the Maltese Quarantine System too were in accordance with the approved epidemiological practices and theories of the time. This article tries to single out the importance of the Maltese Quarantine as a kind of medical “shield” for the southern European countries.     

Analogien in Physik und Technik im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert

In this paper the use of analogies in physics and in technology is analysed. First the important role philosophically deep rooted analogies played in romantic physics is discussed. The work of Schelling and Ritter is treated in particular. Second the mechanical analogue models in the kinetic theory of gases and in electrodynamics are examined, as well as the severe philosophical criticism which they received. A sketch of the theory of the electron gas is presented as an example for the success and the shortcomings of analogue models. Finally mechanical and electric analogue models in technology are considered; moreover biological analogies in engineering research, and the principle of similitude as applied to model experiments in shipbuilding are discussed. The analysis of the historical examples shows that in the 19th and 20th century the word “analogy” is no longer a vague notion. It represents a scientific method, which, however, inevitably leads to both an extension of the original theoretical models and to special theories of mapping.     

Vernunft und Sprache — oder die Schwierigkeit,Kant auf Italienisch sprechen zu lassen

We can reach the exactness and univocity the scientific thougth aims at only by mastering the polysemy historically present in language. This appears even more difficult when we move from one polysemic system to another, as in translations into other languages. Thus, in Italy in the early XIXth century, the first attempts to translate Immanuel Kant's Critique of pure reason met great difficulties in understanding his new terms and led to misunderstanding and therefore rejecting his new philosophy.     

Von der „Natur der Sache”︁ zur Geschichte der Sprache Der Übergang von der Sprachforschung zur Sprachwissenschaft zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts

From the “nature of things” to the history of language: The transition from the study of language to historico-comparative linguistics. This brief essay deals with a somewhat problematic phase in the history of linguistics and tries to investigate the process by which language could be understood as a historical phenomenon with a history of its own. This new understanding of language turned out to be the starting condition for a new and very prolific way in the study of language. The conjecture is that this is due to certain alterations in the semantic field of some important notions relating to language and its study. The process of alteration began by the end of the eighteenth century with conceptual achievements which could adequately be termed as temporalization of aspects of language and the notions related to these aspects. In connection with the so called discovery of the Sanskrit language and the gradual reception of its grammatical structure, looking upon language as an organic entity with autonomous and internal structures of developpement became possible after the German romantic language philosophy had developped a strictly abstract concept of language as a notion of form. This essentially metaphorical mode of speaking nevertheless inaugurated that languages were concieved of as having their own history totally independent of their speakers. With language as an autonomous object the study of language rapidly became the science of language.     

Die Fotografie – ein neues Bildmedium im Wissenschaftspanorama des 19. Jahrhunderts. Einführung in das Symposium

Photography – a novel medium of scientific representation in the XIXth century array of arts and sciences. To delve into various nineteenth century academic disciplines under the heading ‘photography in the arts and sciences’ as did last year's annual conference of the History of Science Society – the interest in such a topic only partly stems from the ‘iconic turn’ that has generally enlarged the scope of the social sciences in recent years. A more poignant feature in any such present day study will probably be a basic scepticism facing the fact that in public use photographs have been manipulated in many respects. Yet, while shying away from any simple success story, a historically minded approach to changing ‘visual paradigms’ (Historische Bildwissenschaft) has begun to emerge. In this context, it has proved of considerable heuristic value to reconsider the role of early photography in an array of science, arts and technology: Since the reliance on the traditional ways of sketching reality persisted, in many an instance where photography was introduced, the thoughts the pioneer photographers had about their new, seemingly automated business, call for close attention. Thus scholarship sets up a parallel ‘discussion room’; the lively debate on the benefit of academic drawings as opposed to photographic portraits is a case in point. Some fairly specialised reports on photographically based analyses, such as electron microscopy, point to a borderline where the very idea of representation as a correspondence of reality and imagination gets blurred. Even though any ‘visual culture’ will have to shoulder the ‘burden of representation’, it is equally likely that it will offer a deeper sensibility for the intricacies entailed in the variegated ways of illustrating or mapping chosen subjects of scientific interest. Scholarship may thus somewhat control the disillusionment that by now has become the epitome of writing on photographic history. Provided with a renewed methodological awareness for the perception process and its photographic transition, historians may strike a better balance between the ever present tendencies of a realistic and an aesthetic way of picturing the world we live in.     

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.     

„Und setzet eure Worte nicht auf Schrauben”︁ Medizinische Semiotik vom Ende des 18. bis zum Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts - Gegenstand und Forschung

There is no doubt that medical semiotics are having a revival at the moment. Different aspects of yesterday's and today's interest in semiotics and in the historical interpretation of signs of disease in the context of theory and history of medicine can be illuminated: their deciphering as the history of the sign in medicine by historic science, their overestimation by philosophy during the Age of Enlightenment, their reduction to a phenomenology of medicine and natural science during the first half of the 19th century and their transformation to medical diagnostics since the middle of the 19th century and recently even their functionalization as methodical instrument within the history of science. The following will show the change in meaning of medical semiotics. Modern development and especially the transition to medicine, based on natural science, will be emphasized.     

Zoologische Gärten in Stadtkultur und Wissenschaft im 19. Jahrhundert

The foundation and administration of European Zoological gardens in the 19^th century is analized. It is significant of such new institutions, that they are founded in the large cities, and that most of the founders looked at the great models in Paris and London, which are described first. Further it is shown that the change from princely menageries to public Zoological Gardens is caused both by common interests in people's education and pleasure and by scientific aims which leaded to choose the name Zoological “garden” in analogy to botanical gardens. It seems to be characteristic of such public institutions created by citizens in the 19^th century that they are mostly supported by commercial or scientific local societies. This is exemplified by describing the administration of the Zoological gardens of Berlin (1841), Frankfurt (1856) and Hamburg (1863), which initiated also research for acclimatization of wild animals.     

Kleinstadt und Bibliothek in der Frühmoderne. Zu Genese und Struktur der Ratsbibliothek der fränkischen Reichsstadt Weißenburg

Small town and library in early modern times: Even small German imperial towns in particular were unable to conduct their daily business without maintaining a library with a wide range of excellent and usefull books suitable for employment by the judiciary, the administration, the health-care services, the church and school system as well as for supporting the interests of the town effectively. It is clear that the municipial council placed high value on the acquisition of the most important works in the field of law, theology and literature treated in school considering the relatively rational manner in which the “Ratsbibliothek” (library of the council) of the imperial town of Weißenburg (Bavaria) took stock of its books in the early modern times (16th to 18th century): this can be seen in the contemporary cataloguing (1600/1745/1829) of the library. Since the library orientated itself pragmatically towards the administrative interests of the town, there was hardly any inclination towards the acquisition of works in the fields of philosophy or poetry. — This study is based on the first edition of the “Beringer-catalogue” included (1600).     

Spekulation und Physik im 18. Jahrhundert. Lomonossow,Kant und Lavoisier in Sachen Erhaltungsgesetz und Äther

As far as the law of preservation of matter and the existence of ether are concerned, Kant, Lomonossow and Lavoisier had very similar views. Nevertheless, according to historical evidence they worked out their theories never taking each other's results for granted. Whereas it is well known that Lavoisier did not base his experiments on the former ones by Lomonossow, it has been argued that Kant based his philosophy of nature on Lavoisier's experiments. I try to show here, that Kant had his philosophy of nature done, prior to Lavoisier's Elements of Chemistry. Further that the only one to have been able to influence Kant was not Lavoisier but Lomonossow. But Kant never mentioned Lomonossow. There is strong evidence that the similarity of views in Kant, Lomonossow and Lavoisier is not due to any kind of interaction between them. This also holds of the (same) mistakes, which Kant and Lomonossow made. The only substantial difference is that Kant thought, that some laws of nature may be logically inferred without experiments.     

Outer form and internal disease: clinical photography in the late 19th century

Clinical photography in the late 19th century aimed at unveiling the hidden processes invisible to the clinical eye. Changes in the outer form hinted at deeper lying causes, and decoding these forms was supposed to extend the range of the clinical eye in to the realm of invisibility. Two suppositions supported this hope: the belief that each disease as an ontological entity showed typical exterior signs which allowed a diagnosis at sight, and the technological trust in photography as a precise and objective means of representation superior to the human eye. For a short time, clinical photography seemed to be the 'via regia" of diagnosis. Heinrich Curschmann's Klinische Abbildungen and Ludwig Jankau's periodical Internationale medizinisch-photographische Monatsschrift marked the climax of this development in Germany. R?ntgen's discovery and its immediate application in clinical medicine put an end to the optimistic expectations: clinical photography was from now on only one among many different means of documenting clinical signs and findings.     

Raumvorstellungen und Erkenntnismodelle im 18. Jahrhundert

Since the late 17^th century, two physical concepts of space exist. Isaac Newton's theory of an immovable ‘absolute space’ made it possible to explain motion and force by the quality of material elements. Less influential was Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's concept of space as an ‘order of coexistence’, which focuses, contrary to Newton, on the relationship between material bodies. The author argues that both concepts not only concern physical notions, but also include general models to explain cause, effect and relation. In an analogy to Newton's ‘absolute space’, theories of natural law employ the state of nature to explain society according to the anthropological quality of human beings. Leibniz's concept, in contrast, is used to elaborate theories of complex dynamic interactions and relationships. This essay attempts to illustrate the application of Leibniz's concept with examples of 18^th century natural history, demography, economic theory and Charles Bonnet's natural law.     

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.