Visualisierungen in der deutschen Geographie des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die Beispiele Robert Schlagintweit und Hans Meyer

Visualization in 19^th‐century German geography: Robert Schlagintweit and Hans Meyer as examples. – Visual representations of nature formed an essential part of 19^th‐century earth sciences. In particular, colonial photography – as a visual source, and as an instrument of the construction of national identities – serves essential research interests of current history and social sciences. The present paper is a case study on the role and function of photography in German geography of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. It focuses on the work of the Munich geographer Robert Schlagintweit (1833–1885) and the Leipzig colonial geographer Hans Meyer (1858–1929); the early history of photography in India and the function of images in the geographical exploration of overseas territories are discussed. Although there is nearly half a century between the work of R. Schlagintweit and H. Meyer, their photography shows remarkable parallels. The ideas of both on the practice of visualization are rooted in pedagogic and didactic concepts as well as in popular science. For both geographers photography was essentially a technical help, which often needed graphic revisions. And they both preferred photography to depict people and buildings (compared, for instance, to landscapes). Concerning the more comprehensive question of how far their photography transmitted a specific German ‘image of abroad’, it is indicated that such a specific image should have its essential roots in a peculiar visual culture of German earth sciences in the first half of the 19^th century. Thus the paper offers a starting point for further studies discussing the change from a ‘Biedermeier image’ of foreign cultures to a more ‘colonial’ one in 19^th‐century German geography.     

Georges Canguilhem als Medizinhistoriker

The work of the French philosopher Georges Canguilhem is introduced here. Medical historiography is not the ultimate aim of Canguilhems work, but rather a tool for the analysis ef epistemological questions. These questions are to be investigated, as well as the art of medical history that Canguilhem considers to be helpful for such investigations. French ?epistemology”?, a direction of philosophy of science to which Canguilhem belongs, is discussed first. Canguilhem's epistomology does not aim at a rational reconstruction of decontextualized scientific results, but at an historical reconstruction of science. It analyses the functioning of scientific concepts in relation of their historical context. The main themes of Canguilhems work (biological normality, scientific ideology and history of physiology) are summarized in a second part of this study. Finally we investigate the importance of Canguilhem for modern research in history of medicine.     

Wissenschaftsgeschichte mit oder ohne System? Ein methodologischer Rückblick auf das DFG‐Projekt Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Germanistik im 19. Jahrhundert

Among the more recent developments in the historiography of the sciences accounts involving the systems theory by Niklas Luhmann have shown quite prolific in terms of published results and sources. The article investigates the hold of the theoretical grounds of systems theory for the several applications in the field of the history of German literary Scholarship, i. e. the Germanistik, and for this reason expands on the related project conducted by the German Research Society (DFG). In the course of this examination several cruces of theory transfer, especially concerning systems theory towards historiography, will be addressed, such as a deficit in operational application, the essentially ahistoric design of systems theory and its questionable inherent presuppositions on the processes of science.     

Die Entwicklung der Sozialgeschichte der modernen Mathematik und Naturwissenschaft und die Frage nach dem sozialen Raum zwischen Disziplin und Wissenschaftler

The use of the concept of social history of science is sketched in the Anglo‐American and the German discussions from the mid 1970s up to recent work. By presenting a ‘social map’ of a selected scientific community it is argued that between the categories of discipline and single scientist there exists a wide ‘social space’ of groups within which science is pursued. In adopting a milieu theoretic approach an ecology of science is proposed as a suitable extension of the social history of science.     

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.     

Global finance and the German model: German corporations, market incentives, and the management of employer-sponsored pension institutions

Where there was a settled political geography of state power and responsibilities, the remarkable growth of global finance has put enormous pressure on national economic, political and social institutions. Furthermore, the looming crisis facing many continental European social security systems has raised many doubts about the long-term viability of the German model compared to its Anglo-American rivals. In this context, large German corporations have sought ways of sustaining their global competitiveness by, in part, restructuring their national and regional commitments. To illustrate, in this paper we concentrate on the nature and organization of German employer-sponsored pension institutions in relation to Anglo-American management practice. Two issues drive the analysis. One has to do with an emerging coalition between corporate management and shareholders with respect to the market value of the firm. The second issue has to do with the allocation of risk and uncertainty between the social partners when negotiating the financing and final value of promised retirement income. The institutional framework of collective decision-making common to many of Germany's largest firms is under pressure; three models of investment decision making relevant to pension assets and liabilities are used to illustrate this point. In doing so, we suggest that the German model is more fragile than commonly realized. We also suggest that Anglo-American management practices have penetrated and affected German corporate (national and regional) institutions and regulations. The social market lauded by advocates of stakeholder capitalism is changing rapidly, at least in the sphere of large firms and global finance.     

Jesuiten zwischen Religion und Wissenschaft

Natural sciences and natural philosophy of the Jesuits are based on theology. At least the concept of God is an integral part of their theoretical structure. Examples are taken from Rudjer Boskovic, Honoré Fabri and Nicolaus Cabeus. In fact, the Jesuits, e.g. Theophil Raynaud, dealt with natural theology as the spiritual foundation of knowledge independent of revelation. But natural theology, as in Raimundus Sabundus, has an anthropocentric and hence moral dimension: it links knowledge with religion. ‘Ignatius of Loyola influenced decisively the Jesuits’ concept of science and its relationship to religion through his Spiritual Exercises in which meditation and religious practice are developed into a technique and a scientific approach to faith.     

Reine und angewandte Chemie Die Entstehung einer neuen Wissenschaftskonzeption in der Chemie der Aufklärung

In its attempt to achieve acknowledgement and support as a true science and academic discipline eighteenth-century chemistry experienced that the traditional distinction between theory and practice, respectively between science and art, was an incriminating heritage and did not longer conform to the way chemists saw themselves. In order to substitute the former, socially judging classification into theoretical science and practical art, J. G. Wallerius from Uppsala coined the term pure and applied chemistry in 1751. The idea behind this new conception was that it ought to be chemistry's research aim and not the kind of work, be it manual or intellectual, which was to decide about its branches and their dignity. The change in orientation which took place during the eighteenth century, and which is symbolized by the new dichotomy “pure and applied”, led towards a revaluation of the utilitarian aspects of chemistry. Its historical roots reach back to a long and fruitful cooperation of, and interaction between chemistry and economy, which was reinforced by the Stahlian tradition in Germany and Scandinavia. Subsequently, it was its strong economic bias that helped chemistry to become institutionalized and accepted as an academic discipline distinct from the medico-pharmaceutical profession. The analysis of this change of attitudes, behaviour and institutional pattern suggests that, at least during the period of institutionalization of this particular discipline, social structures and the intrinsic scientific contents are so tightly interrelated, that any division into “internal”, cognitive developments (facts, theory and subject-matter) and “external” conditions (social context and stategies of institutionalization) would be artificial, since they both constitute the scientific community as a context of argumentation and action.     

Eine handgreifliche Geschichtslüge. Wie Martin Luther zum Gegner des copernicanischen Weltsystems gemacht wurde.

Martin Luther has been severely criticized for an offhand remark about Copernicus. In the most frequently cited version of this statement, Luther is alledged to have branded Copernicus as a fool who will turn the whole science of astronomy upside down. This disparaging judgment on Luther prevails in many publications by respected historians of science of the 20th century, although since the early thirties, it has been convincingly demonstrated that the famous citation from Luther's table talk is next to worthless as an historical source, that Luther never referred to Copernicus or to the heliocentric world system in all of his voluminous writings, and that there is no indication that Luther ever suppressed the Copernican viewpoint. His attitude towards Copernicus was indifference or ignorance, but not hostility. In this paper, it is shown that the story of Luther's anti‐Copernicanism emerged in the second half of the 19th century. It was invented by Franz Beckmann and Franz Hipler, two Prussian Catholic historians who were engaged in the conflict between the German government under Bismarck and the Catholic Church (Kulturkampf), and it was disseminated by influential German and American historians like Leopold Prowe, Ernst Zinner, and Andrew D. White. In the second half of the 20th century, many historians of science relied on the authority of these authors, rather than studying the sources or the secondary literature in which it has been proved that Luther's anti‐Copernicanism is an outright falsification of history.     

“Die wissenschaftliche Ausbildung des Arztes ist eine Culturfrage …”. Über das Verhältnis von Wissenschaftsanspruch,Bildungsprogramm und Praxis der Medizin

The article shows that the elite, nationalistic and imperial mentality of German medicine in the second half of the nineteenth century was closely connected to its aim to be understodd as a natural science. With this in view leading representatives of German medicine propagated a scientific approach to man and nature instead of the traditional values of humanistic education (“Bildung”). One of the most important consequences of the new scientific ideal in medicine — integration in governmental planning, the change in professionel status of doctors, the increasing tendeny to recognize biologistic ideologies — was the loss of the medical ideal of the ars medica, a subject which has not received sufficient thematic attention. This theme is explored in the third part of the article.     

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.     

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.     

„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.     

Mankind and its Histories: William Robertson,Georg Forster,and a Late Eighteenth-Century German Debate

The Scottish historian William Robertson's works on European encounter with non-European civilizations (History of America, 1777; Historical Disquisition […] of India, 1791) received a great deal of attention in contemporary Germany. Through correspondence with Robertson, as well as by reviewing and translating his texts, Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg took an active part in this process. The younger Forster also became simultaneously involved in a debate which was unfolding on the German intellectual scene concerning the different or equal “value” (Wert) of the various “races of mankind” (Menschenrassen), engaging especially the relevant views advanced by the Göttingen historian Christoph Meiners and Immanuel Kant. The debate was firmly embedded in the context of an emerging ‘science of man’ in the German Enlightenment, to which Forster contributed an almost incomparable richness of empirical knowledge as well as theoretical sophistication. Forster's direct engagement with Robertson's work during the same period (mid-1780s to the early 1790s) creates a context through which the Wissenschaft vom Menschen in the Aufklärung and the Scottish version of the science of man – built on the neighbour disciplines to which Robertson's historiography was crucially indebted – is set in an interesting comparative light. This paper, part of a comprehensive project tracing the German reception of Robertson as an instance of inter-cultural exchange in the Enlightenment, will exploit the opportunities presented by one particular and documented case for a general comparison of enlightened ‘sciences of man’.     

„Und nur die Zukunft wird Klarheit bringen!”︁Der Fall des Biomediziners Jacques Benveniste aus dem Jahr 1988 im Blickfeld der wissenschaftlichen Publikationsorgane und der Laienpresse

Scientific disputes on the objectivity of research results are an integral part of the collective production of knowledge. One motivation to study cases of scientific controversy is the attempt to discover general patterns in the behaviour of participants and institutions involved in such controversies. Yet, for there to be a controversy, one must assume an important amount of social interaction, so much so that it renders it an essentially social phenomenon, which is accessible to historical study. Cases of obvious scientific fraud, in addition, are neither clear‐cut nor rare and the mere accusation of scientists by their peers frequently constitutes considerable examples of scientific debate. Together with this, it is often assumed that publication organs play a dominant role in directing the lines of scientific controversy, but their institutional significance and the task of individual editors remain widely unexplored. The present article studies the prominent Nature affair of the Parisian biomedical scientist Jacques Benveniste, both, from a perspective on scientific fraud and on the beginning and closure of scientific disputes. One of the most remarkable features of Benveniste's antibody dilution experiments was that they stroke at the foundations of modern physical and biomedical sciences. Could recent history of science actually resolve the case of the so‐called ‘memory of water’ phenomenon?     

Die Französische Revolution im Spiegelbild. Die Reaktion der deutschen Ärzte auf die Revolution und das Revolutionieren

The German physicans and medical scientists reacted to the French Revolution in several ways, if you judge only from the medical literature:

• 1 At the beginning of the French Revolution, the scientist answered with still silence, whereas the young intellectual generation was filled with enthusiasm. But after the battle of Valmy (1792) this enthusiasm vanished and they resigned to execute an equal revolution in Germany.
• 2 When, in the middle of the 1790s, scientists gave commentaries on revolutionary acts, they despised the revolution itself. This could only destroy the old – and even better – order. They argued that you can have recourse to science to avoid the political and socially deranged situation.
• 3 This rejection against the political revolution was combined with a rejection against the influences of natural philosophy on medicine. Schelling's philosophy plays the role as an scientific revolution with all negative aspects like the political one. In this sense, the science in the old scientific manner has to be an accepted refuge.
• 4 But in this retreat they developed ideas of German national science to conteract on the French influences. The consciousness of nationalism was supported by the scientists of romantic movements.
• 5 The following degree is characterized by a mental leap. Now, they argued, it will never be necessary to revolutionize the medicine: in science all the ideals of French Revolution are realized – freedom, equality and fraternity.
• 6 Consequently, only in a formal sense did they respond to the French Revolution and so they avoided recognizing, that science is influenced politically and also science itself exercises on in a political way.

     

Chemische Laboratorien: Funktion und Disposition

In this essay laboratories are dealt with as symbolic spaces that structure social relationships and ways of knowledge in chemistry. The spatial vicissitudes of the nineteenth‐century research laboratory reflect, and at the same time direct, the way chemical knowledge is being produced, transmitted, and perceived.     

“Gedankenaustausch über Probleme und Methoden der Forschung”. Transatlantische Gastprofessoren aus Emigrantenkreisen in Westdeutschland nach 1945

The history of the sciences and humanities follows cycles in some of which there is greater emphasis on the continuity of developments, in others on the breaks in continuity. In recent years the main focus of research for the 20^th century has been on the continuities extending beyond the boundaries of 1933 and 1945. The main aim of this study, however, is to examine the impulses for the internationalization of German universities provided by a transnational group of academic migrants. These migrants, whose origins were in the German academic community, represented an alternative continuity beyond the boundaries of this period: they were visiting academics who were the conveyors and interpreters of ideas from Germany into the USA and Britain and vice versa. The study of this group therefore combines remigration history and the history of universities as institutions, focussing on actors, networks and innovations in teaching, with the history of individual subjects and disciplines.