Transatlantic Correspondence and ‘Mobile Knowledge’ in Alexander von Humboldt's Exploratory Travels to Hispanic America

Summary

This article focuses on the relevance of Alexander von Humboldt's correspondence in the formation of transatlantic scientific networks at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Apart from connecting Humboldt with scientists and scholars worldwide, his correspondence turned out to be a fundamental tool for assuring the material conditions and the social and scientific connections he needed to carry out his research on the Spanish colonies and to simultaneously diffuse his achievements on the European side of the Atlantic. His contact with Hispanic American scientists and with the local elites enabled him to build a broad social network, gaining access to key material, human and intellectual resources. The letters sent to scientists, scientific institutions and noblemen in Europe, for their part, kept Humboldt's European correspondents informed about his activities in Hispanic America, contributing to the validation of his work before the scientific community and the fulfilment of the duties resulting from the political and institutional support he received both before and during his travels. This stresses the importance of strategic social groups and their cooperation in the framework of exploratory travels as a means to gaining access to resources in the peripheries. It also reveals the scientist's dependence on all those who supported his research: kings, barons, botanical gardens, universities, and academies.     

Showing and telling science – the integrated use of literature and images in the works of Erasmus Darwin and Alexander von Humboldt

ABSTRACT

In recent years, both the fields of literature and science and visual culture of science have addressed the importance of different visual and literary elements and their roles in establishing meaning and communication in science. In this article, I explore how visual and textual elements work to establish a narrative of plants in Erasmus Darwin’s The Botanic Garden (1791) and in Alexander von Humboldt’s Essai sur la géographie des plantes (1804). These two scientists employed literary and visual elements in order to construct their visions of the nature of plants in a time when the ideals of Enlightenment science gave way to a more holistic view of integrating the sciences and the arts. I, therefore, also discuss the analytical approach of integrated readings between the literary and visual elements of science.     

中国古代园林设计中的自然理想观

自然地理环境早先与现代都对人文传统的景观有很大影响。中国古代风景园林发源于自然生态环境的审美选择,进而以顺乎自然的设计指导思想求得\"虽由人作,宛自天开\"的审美标准,更有人与自然相与融洽的审美理想。西方古典园林中人造的几何规则景观超越于一切自然。在现代中国盲目模仿西方城市摩天大楼景观的时候,现代西方城市规划学者正致力于研究中国古代先哲的思想精髓和古代文化遗产,为塑造现代人居环境的自然协调寻找新的灵感启迪。     

江苏省地理景观与美丽乡村建构研究

乡村审美空间蕴含着内在和深刻的人地关系理念内容,比经济效应有更深的自然情怀,是可持续发展的思想感情基础,也是现代景观规划的重要研究课题。城市化发展过程中自然地理脉络破坏对于乡村景观是致命的。探讨以多尺度层面的地理景观建构乡村审美空间:在区域大尺度范围内设计地理视域观赏空间;在镇域中尺度范围内将生态文明和社会经济发展要求安排在景观空间格局配置中;在乡村小尺度范围内造就素雅含蓄的村落景观。江苏省乡村具有四千年的历史,留下珍贵的人地关系文化遗产和审美烙印。从地理景观形态结构、格局演化进程与机理响应对照乡村审美空间景观,建构和谐安宁的画面境界;最终造就广阔地域的\"美丽乡村\"。     

毛泽东与中国科学技术的自主研发

毛泽东将科学技术视为革命者完成自身历史使命的重要工具,他洞见先进技术在后发国家追赶发达国家中的作用,将大力发展科学技术视为国家的重要职能,在西方国家封锁禁运、苏联毁约的困境下,千方百计引进先进科技并努力促进自主研发,果断地发展高科技产业,提高中华民族的国际地位,为中国进一步发展打下了基础。回顾毛泽东与中国科学技术自主研发的历程,有助于我们深刻认识和实践新形势下中共中央、国务院做出的建设创新型国家的重大战略决策。     

Between Leibniz and Kant: The Political Thought of Wilhelm von Humboldt

Abstract

In his early text, The Limits of State Action, Wilhelm von Humboldt raises the Kantian question of the permissibility and legitimate extent of political and juridical coercion, as his contribution to a debate amongst Kantians launched by the publication in 1785 of Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. In arguing for a minimal state, concerned exclusively with internal and external security of its members but not at all with their felicity, Humboldt inflects Kantian political thought in the direction of a liberal laissez-faire state, in marked contrast to the strong interventionism that his fellow-Kantian Fichte derived from similar Kantian grounds. The article argues that the underlying conception of the individual retained by Humboldt has markedly Leibnizian traits, namely the notion of freedom as the spontaneous unfolding of a highly personal, monadic developmental trajectory toward perfection, which ought not to be impeded or homogenized by unnecessary state intervention. Humboldt thus represents not only a ‘rightist’ libertarian reading of Kant, but a particular appropriation of significant Leibnizian themes. His combination of these sources is compared with that of other contemporary theorists like Hufeland and Fichte.     

When Natural met Social: A Review of Collaboration between the Natural and Social Sciences

Abstract

This paper investigates the opportunities for further collaboration between the natural and social sciences. From 81 systematically identified and reviewed papers published in scientific journals, it became clear that complex situations that depend on human behaviour as well as natural processes require natural–social science collaboration. The creation of a community of collaborative natural–social science research, that learns from and can contribute to best practice across the sciences, is advocated to support natural– social science collaboration. Across disciplines, it became clear that such a community should deal with (1) difference between paradigms in the current sciences; (2) creation of skills and competences of the involved scientists; (3) scarcity of institutions sympathetic to collaborative research; and (4) the internal organization of collaborative projects.     

城市语言景观研究进展及展望

语言景观是城市景观的重要组成部分,同时也是重要的人文地理表征。新世纪以来语言景观日益引起语言学家和地理学家的关注和重视。1997年西方社会语言学家首先提出了语言景观(linguistic landscape)定义,21世纪以来涌现出大量城市语言景观研究成果;国内语言景观主要集中在城镇书法景观的地理学研究,主要包括书法景观与城镇景观的关系、书法景观的空间属性、书法景观的人地关系等。论文从三个方面对城市语言景观进行了评述。最后从语言地理学视角,对未来城市语言景观重要研究内容进行了展望,认为城市语言景观将可能成为语言地理学深入研究的有效途径和新方向,尤其是在城市象征空间塑造及其地方建构中语言景观研究将大有作为。     

历史学科必须面对现实拓展研究领域

历史学家应该而且必需对现实深切关怀,注意现实与历史的关系,并不断从现实的挑战中发现新的研究课题,形成学科的新的理论生长点,以发挥史学的社会功能.     

Reforming China’s polar science and technology system

ABSTRACT

Along with its modernization process, China has developed many interests in polar ecology and has connected the significance of the Antarctic and Arctic to its national interests. We present an in-depth analysis and assessment of the state of the art of China’s polar research from following points of view, mechanism of policy making on polar affairs, science diplomacy and polar governance, on-spot research expedition management, allocation of scientific funds, forming polar scientific team, especially on the management system of CHINARE. From an integrated perspective of social and natural sciences, we present a vision for future reform and development of polar affairs of China: to establish a macro and long term policy for the polar regions, to promote and establish a government-led, diversified polar scientific management system, to establish a reasonable and rule based evaluation system, to train, stabilize and expand polar scientific research teams, and to attract and encourage talents for polar science communication.