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.     

„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.     

„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.     

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.