Wachstum der Wissenschaftsressourcen in Deutschland 1650‐2000: Eine empirische Studie zur Anzahl der Hochschulen und Professoren sowie der Forschungsausgaben

When Derek J. de Solla Price studied the growth of science in the 1960s he found a very rapid exponential growth doubling every 15 years. He predicted a logistic slowing down of the growth rate until finally saturation is reached. This study examines three ressource indicators ‐ R&D expenditures, number of professors and of universities ‐ for Germany between 1650 and 2000. They show rather hyperbolic than exponential growth until 1980 when saturation is suddenly reached.     

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.     

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).     

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).     

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.     

Dualistische Entwürfe zur Einheit der Naturphänomene und die Anfänge der Romantischen Naturphilosophie

The importance of German Naturphilosophie for the development of a unified view of nature is often emphasized. The search for ultimate unity of natural phenomena, however, was already too common among physicists of the waning 18th century to ascribe its popularity to the influence of philosophers. To avoid the plethora of imponderable fluids, many ?atomists”? reduced electric, magnetic, thermal, and chemical phenomena to a dualism of contrary principles, thereby prefiguring the ?dynamic”? ideas of romantic Naturphilosophen. In particular we show how Schelling's early account of his Naturphilosophie was shaped by J. A. Deluc's atomistic theory of gases and vapours.     

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.     

Ein gravierender Fehler in der Übersetzung und Interpretation der Akten des Galileischen Inquisitionsprozesses

Erroneous translation of a crucial document from the Inquisition file on the trial of Galileo Galilei: In 1616 Galileo was forbidden to propagate the doctrine that the earth revolves around the sun. This injunction, by order of the pope, was only to be implemented if Galileo actually refused when asked to abandon his stance. Galileo was asked and did refuse. This fact has remained hitherto unknown because of an error in translation. The words in question are “successive, ac incontinenti”, which must be rendered as “then (following the order of the pope) because Galileo did not agree”. The document makes sense if translated in this manner.     

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.     

Globaler Pflanzentransfer und seine Transferinstanzen als Kultur‐, Wissens‐ und Wissenschaftstransfer der frühen Neuzeit

In three steps, the polyvalent phenomenon of global plant transfer will be analysed. Starting from the model of cultural transfer, the latter one will be discussed in combination with network research. Finally, the connection of various instances of transfer such as botanical gardens, ships and islands will be established. The fact that botanists take part in the process of transfer increasingly and from the middle of the 18th century onwards control the plant transfers in all phases emphasises the entwinement of science and colonialism.     

Romantischer Dilettantismus — Johann Wilhelm Ritter und die Begründung der Elektrochemie

In this paper the psychological and historical problems of the german philosophy of nature at the time about 1800 are described. During this time the romantic philosopher and scientist of nature Ritter developed a new scientific branch of knowledge: the electrochemistry. Ritter represents exemplarily the type of a romantic dilettante. In this period, the problem of dilettantism got a new validity, especially by Goethe and Schiller: it was recognized as a positive power of human. In the romantic dilettantism of Ritter three aspects are shown: 1st, romantic dilettantes are intellectual flaneurs; 2nd, romantic dilettantes confront facts and general provisions, which up to this moment are supposed to be paradox, and obtain by this method a synthesis; 3rd, romantic dilettantes favour the intuitive power.     

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.     

“… daß der Liebhaber etwas Erfreuliches und Nützliches zu leisten im Stande ist.” Goethe,Soemmerring und das Os intermaxillare beim Menschen

Goethe's theoretical comments on the acknowledgement of the natural sciences dilettante differ considerably from his own experiences in this role (Farbenlehre, Zwischenkieferknochen) of dilettante. Therefore, it seems necessary to raise general questions on the concept: dilettante of natural sciences during Goethe's time, furthermore, on the characterization and labeling of such a dilettante in an historical-scientific context. This is especially important since up to the present time this particular problem has hardly ever been examined. In addition, there is a summary of an historical case study, the discovery of the human intermaxillary bone by Goethe and of the specialists' reactions on this discovery, especially that of Soemmerring.     

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.     

Vertrauensvorschuß und wissenschaftliches Fehlhandeln — Eine reliabilistische Modellierung der Fälle Abderhalden,Goldschmidt, Moewus und Waldschmidt‐Leitz

Reliabilist philosophy of science considers scientific misconduct a transgression against the principles of good cognitive practice. Good practice in research is characterised by the reliability, efficiency and fertility of the cognitive processes involved. The reliabilist approach is closely connected to the idea of mutual cognitive dependency of the research community. Trust in the testimony of others is not an inevitable but a favouring factor of scientific progress — and misconduct damages the testimonial chain, respectively the principle of trustworthiness. Within the reliabilist framework, the main focus on questionable research is not on whether or not there are fraudulent intentions (that means particular mental events of the past), but on recognisable consequences for the research community. Criticising the constructivist modeling of questionable research, we reconstruct certain contributions by Emil Abderhalden, Richard Goldschmidt, Franz Moewus, and Ernst Waldschmitz‐Leitz as serious misconducts respectively frauds. We also show that specific social factors — often regarded as “apologising” conditions — decisively interfere with the principle of trustworthiness in the scientific community.     

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.