Von Vielschichtigkeiten und Verschränkungen “Kulturen der Wissenschaft – Wissenschaften in der Kultur”

On Multiple Levels and Linkages: Introduction to the Symposium ‘Cultures of Sciences – the Sciences in Culture’. – The article presents briefly approaches to cultural history and cultural studies that seem potentially useful to or have recntly been applied in historical studies of the sciences. The first section discusses three such approaches: discourse analysis, symbolic artefacts (images and text), and cultures of scientific practice. Each of the three approaches raises issues of its own, and all of them share a common problem characteristic of cultural and social history in general: linking micro and macro levels of analysis. The second section presents three approaches to resolving this dilemma by focusing on specific linkages between cultures of science (or culture in the sciences) and general history: scientific thought and practice as norms for professional behavior, for example in fields of knowledge dominated by women; spaces of knowledge, for example the city; and linkages of cultural, media and economic history in fields such as radio and television.     

Wissenschaft — Mathematik — Technik: Ihre Wechselwirkung in der Antike

The question whether there exists an interaction between ‘science’ (foreign text ignored) and ‘technology’ (foreign text ignored, esp. foreign text ignored) in Greek and Roman antiquity is discussed controversially until today. Especially representatives of the philologies strictly deny any form of relation, whereas modern scientists tend to take for granted that the current interaction between (exact) natural sciences and technology has always existed, at least since the beginning of real natural science founded by the ancient Greeks. This paper shows that both parties are right — at least in a certain way. Following current terminology and contents of ‘science’ and ‘technology’ there had been such an interaction — particularly with mathematics as linking element in so far as in antiquity especially foreign text ignored (mechanics) was regarded as applied mathematics and not as science. The strong interaction between pure mathematics and such fields of applied mathematics (namely mechanical technology) based on the fact that technological (mechanical) artefacts were properly constructed mathematically. Some of them are mentioned in this paper (astrolabes and sundials, waterclocks, tools and machines — especially lifting gears, bucket elevators, guns, pneumatic tools —, architecture of temples); in so far the supporters of an interaction between science and technology are right. However, the post-Aristotelian Greeks and Romans did not consider mathematics to be part of ‘science (of nature)’ as the post-kantian exact scientists do. Mathematics to them was a mere ‘art’ — consequently, in the mentioned cases there had been an interaction between ‘arts’ and of course not between ‘science’ and ‘art’ (technology); and in so far those are right who deny an interaction between natural science and technology. This shows that the contrariety of the answers to the question depends on the different terminology chosen. Following the current understanding of ‘exact natural science’ the answer is: yes; following the conception of ‘science’ in the self-understanding of Greek and Roman antiquity the answer is: no — and this is right as well! The reason for this apparent contrariety are just the different meanings and contents of ‘science (of nature)’ in antiquity and modern times.     

Das Problem der “entscheidenden Experimente”

In this historical essay an attempt is made to discuss the problem of decisive experiments both from the point of view of History of Science and of Philosophy of Science. The first part deals with Francis Bacon's idea of instantiae crucis and with the use of the term experimentum crucis mainly in optics. With respect to the experimental confirmation of Maxwell's electrodynamics the Duhem-Quine Thesis is discussed. Duhem had argued that not a single hypothesis but only a complete theory is examined by experiment. So a single experiment neither can prove nor can disprove a single hypothesis. With regard to Bucherer's and Neumann's data concerning the velocity-dependence of the electron's mass the question of the certainty of conclusions arising from experimental tests is treated. In the last parts the really historical problem of the decisive experiments is considered, namely the gap between the context of design of an experiment and the context of evaluation of an experiment in retrospect. The examples here are the Michelson-Morley experiment, the Franck-Hertz experiment, and the Compton-Effect. In the conclusion parity violation is discussed. Perhaps due to the possibility of a single alternative in theory and an unambiguous result of the experiment this test really was crucial. In general, however, the experimentum crucis will prove to be a very seldom event.     

Über deutsch‐ungarische Beziehungen der Medizin im Zeitalter der Aufklärung ‐ zugleich ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Pestinokulation

The influence of German science and medicine on the development of Hungarian medicine in the age of Enlightenment has been extraordinary strong. Many Hungarian medical students staid in German medical faculties. The medical interrelationships between Germany and Hungary in the 18^th century are discussed in an overview according to following dimensions: education of protestant Hungarian medical students at German »Aufklaerungs‐Universitaeten«, practical and theoretical resonance, membership of scientific societies, personal contacts and correspondence. Outstanding personalities of this aera were Daniel Fischer, István Weszprémi, Abraham Vater. Special attention is given to a new idea: inoculation against plague as first described by A. Vater in his work Blattern‐Beltzen (1721). Thirty years later I. Weszprémi published his original conception ‐ independently from Vater ‐ in the Tentamen de inoculanda peste (1755).     

Wissenschaftsstädte – Zur Bedeutung des Topos der ‘kreativen Stadt’ für die Wissensproduktion

Science Cities: What the Concept of the Creative City Means for Knowledge Production. – The article aims to show that the relationship of science and the city has changed since the 1970s in the context of the knowledgeable society. While cities have principally been regarded as the typical space of science, of new ideas and innovation for centuries, since the 1960s and 1970s universities, research institutes as well as industrial research institutes have relocated to the periphery of cities. There, however, these sites of knowledge have been organized in an ‘urban mode’. That means that the concept of the city as a place of science and innovation has determined the architectural, spatial, and social organization of these sites on the periphery of cities. Certain features of the city have been copied, such as social infrastructures, places of communication, restaurants, cafes etc., while others have been left out – housing, cinema, theatre etc. An ‘urban mode of knowledge production’ in the sense of a very stylized model of the city has become a tool to enhance the production of scientific and technological knowledge. – The article exemplifies this by focusing on a case study, namely of the so‐called ‘Science City’ of the Siemens Company in Munich‐Neuperlach.     

Die Grippe‐Pandemie 1918–20 in der medizinischen Debatte

The Influenza Pandemic of 1918–20 in medical debate. The history of the so called Spanish Influenza 1918–1920 is summarized especially in regard to the developments in medical debate. In Germany, Richard Pfeiffer, who had discovered Haemophilus influenzae after the previous pandemic 1890 / 91, managed it to defend his thesis that his “bacillus” was the causative agent of the flu, by modifying his theory moderately. The Early Virology of influenza in postwar times was still fixed to bacteriology and did not yet have the force of school‐building. Aggressive therapy, e.g. with derivatives of chinine, were used in a concept of polypragmasy. The connection between influenza in animals and influenza in mankind was unknown or of no major interest till the rise of virology as an academic discipline in the 1950s. Since the outbreak of avian influenza in Asia 1997 virological archaeology is challenged to fill the historical part in the attempt to fight the threat of the highly pathogenic bird flu. In the beginning of the “short 20. century” politicians and doctors had no interest to build a “monument” of influenza. Today, virological reductionism does not have the power to (re‐)construct such a monument.     

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.     

Das erste zoologische Kompendium in der Zeit der Renaissance: Edward Wottons Schrift „Über die Differenzen der Tiere”︁

The English physian Edward Wotton wrote the first zoological compendium in the time of the Renaissance. As a convinced representative of Renaissance-Humanism Wotton strictly applied Aristotelian methodological principles to Aristotelian facts. In this way he tried to make Classical Antiquity complete; the Renaissance of ancient zoology is here tantamount to a new beginning. Wotton's achievement is in the first place to have provided a good summary of the whole of ancient zoological knowledge to which he added a few observations of his own. He carried through the Aristotelian concept of differentiation by many distinguishing features more strictly than Aristotle himself and all subsequent authors. In this way he attained the first zoological system, which influenced all later systematic attempts. The main Aristotelian groups are further subdivided and the Zoophyta are separated for the first time as an independent group. Wotton used a practical indexation method and got rid of an excess of detail in the text, adding critical annotations to each chapter. By means of the two indices, one of the names and the other of the parts of animal, Wotton tried to improve the precision of nomenclature and by this the identification of the objects under examination. His critical position on fabulous animals reveals his progressive mind.