Der Natur‐Begriff des 17. Jahrhunderts und zwei seiner Inter‐pretamente: „res extensa”︁ und „intima rerum”︁

This article aims to show the general and broad use of the concept of nature in the philosophical discourse of the 17th century ‐ and in this context it is obvious that this discourse includes both philosophy and theology. I will discuss two opposite views concerning its fundamental understanding of nature, yet will not go into elaborating differences concerning such particular concepts as, for example, space, void or motion. These views and the theoretical positions from which they emerged will here be called res extensa and intima rerum ‐ this is done in order to clarify the basic opposition: there is no interior in pure extension and there is no extension at all in that what is called the interior. My aim is to show that these two views are, in fact, not quite as incompatible and contradictory as it easily may seem at first glance. Although I will for heuristic purposes introduce the two concepts res extensa and intima rerum as complete opposites and in a wholly contrary manner, ist should become clear that there exist both influences and interactions between these two notions. Theorists introduced here as advocates of the intima rerum‐position, can, for example, be seen as having been influenced by the mechanistic, or res extensa‐position, mainly through the formally and methodologically attractive geometric and mathematical argumentation. Likewise theorists advocating a mechanistic position can be said at some points to have been led by a substantial necessity concerning the contect of their argumentation to take recourse to the concept of intima rerum, at least partly or in a modified manner.     

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.     

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.     

„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.     

„Siege der Freiheit,welche die Menschen durch die Erforschung des Grundes der Dinge errangen”︁ Wandlungen im politischen Selbstverständnis deutscher Naturwissenschaftler des 19. Jahrhunderts

“Victories of Freedom which Humans Achieved by Research in the Foundation of Things”. - This article analyzes the political self-conception of leading representatives of the natural sciences in 19th century Germany. It is argued that the main feature of this self-conception which remained constant over the time consisted in a strong “rationalization-imperative”, i.e. the postulate that state and society have to be reshaped on the basis of natural science. On the other hand, this imperative was put forward in very different forms and with different political content: it shifted from revolutionary aspirations in the period of 1848 to moderate and sometimes even reactionary positions in the last decades of the century.     

Nur „Zweite Wahl”︁ oder Die Berufung Adolf Butenandts zum Direktor des KWI für Biochemie

The remarkable career of the nobel laureate Adolf Butenandt in Germany before 1945 and especially after the second world war is well known. But in recent years several publications have questioned his personal behaviour in the Third Reich. But all these articles interpreted Butenandts career and his attitude from our knowledge today about Nazi Germany. From archival sources this article will view on the situation in the 1930s and will show that Butenandt was originally not the first choice of the government for the position of director at the Kaiser‐Wilhelm‐Institute for Biochemistry. Finally it is shown, that Butenandt did knew what was going on behind the scenes, because through his close connections with officers of the Rockefeller Foundation he got several information on the selection.     

„Fremde Körperwelten”︁. Russische Anthropologie und Medizin im kolonialen Diskurs des ausgehenden Zarenreiches

?Exotic Bodies”?: Russian Anthropology and Medicine in the Colonial Discours of Late Imperial Russia. In the nineteenth century Russian anthropologists adopted Western theories on the biological superiority of the white man in order to justify Russian colonization at the Asiatic periphery. After the Great Reforms the imperial process of acculturation was discussed in the context of modernization that also touched the institutionalization of colonial medicine. Whereas Russian armchair anthropologists were operating with racial idioms, physicians as practitioners on the colonial spot were not receptive to the ideology of “white man's burden”. From experience with the socioeconomic backwardness of Russia's Asiatic periphery physicians stood up for the vital rights of the indigenous population in the colonial Public Health. With deep respect for indigenous medicine Russian physicians were not advocates of Russian colonial expansion and racial discrimination that made them different to their Western colleagues. On the basis of Russian nineteenth century medical literature and Siberian archival sources this paper outlines the critical reflections of Russian physicians on Tsarist colonialism     

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.     

„… daß Sie Ihre Tätigkeit einstellen müssen”︁: Die Entlassung Sergej Tschachotins aus dem Heidelberger Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut 1933

“…that you must have to stop working here.” How Sergej Chakhotin was forced to leave the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute at Heidelberg in 1933. - In this essay the author presents some basically unpublished material according to the dismissal of the Russian natural scientist Sergej Chakhotin, a former assistant of I. P. Pavlov. Chakhotin, who got a sholarship granted by an American institution, worked since 1930 at the newly established Kaiser Wilhelm Institute at Heidelberg, as a scientist. Moreover, he practically engaged himself in the political struggle of the German Social Democrats against Nazism and, in 1932, created the at that time well-known symbol of the Three Arrows. But he was - being a Soviet citizen - a guest in Germany. His political activity was the very reason for his discharge in April, 1933, and even the engagement of some prominent academic collegues was not able to stop the administration measure. So Chakhotin became a political refugee like some of his German collegues.     

„On employera les meilleurs Graveurs pour les Figures”︁. Zeichner und Stecher der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1700–1806

“We will employ the best engravers for the figures” – Draughtsmen and Engravers of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, 1700–1809. – Although barely mentioned in accounts of its history of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, draughtsmen and engravers were, from the very inception, essential collaborators. Based on previously overlooked archival sources, this paper investigates the strategies that scientists used to select the most appropriate candidates during the first hundred years of the academy's existence. These included: (1) the engaging of artists already known to the scientists or those who had been recommendaded to them; (2) maintaining long‐term relationships with a number of artists, and later with their offspring (who had frequently been trained by their fathers); in 1768 this strategy culminated in the creation of a permanent position for one academic draughtsman; and (3) hiring draughtsmen who specialised in the subject matter in question, which entailed, for example, employing different people to carry out anatomical and botanical illustrations.