Erfahrung und Vorurteil im naturwissenschaftlichen Denken Johannes Keplers

The change from ancient and medieval to modern natural science, called Wende (instead of ‘revolution’), must be associated with the work of Johannes Kepler and not that of Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus merely showed the way, introducing heliocentricity as the order of the planets. This Wende resulted from the synthesis of several disciplines formerly isolated from each other, namely mathematical (i.e. hypothetical) astronomy, new physics, mathematical harmony, astrology, new physical optics, and natural theology. Whereas Copernicus united mathematical astronomy and peripatetic (Aristotelian) physics, Kepler was first to see the necessity for providing a physical explanation and an ontological foundation to the heliocentric system. He was the first to consider and measure the movement of the planets in depth. The elements for his new physics Kepler obtained not from newly observed data, but from a harmonic archetypus of the regular polyhedra fitted in between excentric planetary spheres. On the basis of this archetypus (which he considered to be God's model in creating the universe) he accepted the new heliocentric planetary system as a physical reality. That is why astronomy, by way of taking into account stereometric quantities, is, in Kepler's eyes, a kind of divine worship. Later, the best empirical data had also to be taken into consideration as a means of proving this a priori archetypus (Vorurteil, preconception). The result was, on the one hand, a universal natural science able to explain natural processes in grater abundance than ever before or since in the history of science. Although accepted only in parts, it resulted in founding a new natural science with adherent mathematical and empirical methods. It also led Kepler to establish, step by step, the elliptical path of the planets, thereby overcoming, for the first time, the two axioms of ancient astronomy, requiring uniform and circular planetary motion. It has been shown that this Keplerian Wende was possible only within the Historischen Erfahrungsraum (‘historical field of experience’) of Renaissance Humanism (cf. this Journal 9/1986, p. 201), which came about itself as the result of reactivating the scientific and philosophical thinking of the ancient Greeks and was accomplished by three steps (phases) relating to the revival of (1) original ancient writings, (2) the ancient knowledge of natural facts and data, and (3) the ancient scientific and philosophical ideas and mentalities (Drei-Phasen-Modell).     

"旺代叛乱"述略

“旺代叛乱”是法国大革命中的一个重大事件。这一事件的发生,不能简单地归因于旺代农民的“愚昧”、“保守”。从最直接的现象看,它实起因于共和国政府的政策与农民的传统情感之间的冲突,共和国政府的过激政策无疑应负一定的责任。共和国政府对旺代农民的镇压,不仅是拯救共和国的胜利,而且也是恐怖政策的过火表现。在近现代世界历史中,“旺代叛乱”并非只是个别的现象。在革命或者现代化进程中,不难看到一部分农民或者一部分弱势群体因维护自身利益而陷入与掌握着“革命”话语权的政府相对抗的困境乃军绛埔汶种历史现象。萤新探讨“旺代叛乱”,有助于深入理解法国大革命以及世界历史中的“旺代现象”。     

俄国革命中的立宪会议问题

立宪会议问题对于1917年俄国革命进程具有重大影响。立宪会议被赋予解决所有迫切问题的重负,承载了人民群众的主要期待和希望,但临时政府受继续进行战争的政策牵制,没有把它作为紧迫的任务来解决,因而延缓了和平、土地、民族等迫切问题的解决。十月前后布尔什维克对立宪会议的态度从积极主张到彻底否定,这一变化除了现实政治原因之外,也有思想理论上的根源。而俄国社会、经济、文化的相对落后,是影响立宪会议命运的深层因素。     

The history of modern and contemporary Italy: Made in France (from the late 1970s to the late 1990s)

Abstract

Over the past three centuries Italy has been the focus of numerous studies by French historians, who have taken advantage of the great wealth of sources available there. While no new synthesis has yet been achieved, we can identify certain main lines of development in French historiography. In the late 1970s and into the 1980s international relations and, especially, the relations between France and Italy were given the greatest attention, before a new focus on forms of sociability and political pedagogy began to be more common. However, the shifting of focus of historical studies to the centres of political decision making often coincided with less attention being paid to social stratification. Beyond these major themes, some researchers have reconstructed ‘global’ historical models, which have been characteristic of the renewal of post‐war French historiography.     

From constitutional monarchy to republic: The trajectory of Yuan Shikai

In the conventional narrative of the 1911 Revolution, the reemergence of Yuan Shikai leads to a series of troubling actions. First, he bargained with the Qing court by taking advantage of the crisis at Wuchang to extract concessions for himself, and then he used the Qing military force to menace the southern revolutionaries. Eventually Yuan used the southern revolutionary threat as a pretext to force the abdication of the Qing emperor. Moreover, he traded his contribution for the position of the first president of the Republic, and thus stole the fruits of victory. This narrative is quite different from the historical facts. As one of the most important higher officials in late Qing times, Yuan played an essential role in pushing the political reforms of the late Qing. His generation of the political elite largely supported constitutional monarchy, consequently he chose to promote political reform to realize a constitutional solution after he returned to the political arena during the 1911 Revolution. Only after realizing that the goal of a constitutional monarchy had been rejected by all the political groups did Yuan follow the trend by supporting republicanism.     

The Symbol of Orpheus in the Sturm und Drang Period

The handling of gender in the Old French Roman de Silence has caused considerable scholarly conflict because the poem simultaneously endorses two competing and mutually irreconcilable gender ideologies. Asserting that gender is essential and its boundaries inviolate—even as its eponymous heroine freely crosses gender boundaries to become supremely successful in male roles—the poem creates a radically unstable conception of gender that has implications not only for its portrayal of social gender roles but also for its use of gendered language. The heroine's name, Silence, becomes emblematic of language's inability to fully represent its subject, as neither Latin nor the vernacular proves adequate to the task of depicting an ambiguously or multiply gendered character. Gendered language and gendered behavior emerge as mutually dependent sources of paradox that point to the limitations of both language and narrative.     

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ON CHANGES IN RURAL AREAS

The author advances an interesting and somewhat controversial argument for the dismal state of affairs in central Russia's countryside. Programs addressing problems in the countryside should focus not on reversing the tide of outmigration and agricultural employment loss, but on reducing labor intensity in agriculture and recognizing social and other realities working to the disadvantage of remote rural areas. What is needed is not expensive and unfeasible “revitalization” of the countryside, but the regulated decline of its agricultural workforce and the selective introduction of new labor-saving technologies and alternative land uses. Translated by H. L. Haslett, Leamington Spa, UK from: Evolyutsiya rasseleniya v SSSR, Chast' I (Evolution of Settlement in the USSR, Part I), G. M. Lappo, Zh. A. Zayonchkovskaya, and P. M. Polyan, eds. Moscow: Akademiya Nauk SSSR and Pol'skaya Akademiya Nauk, 1989, pp. 43-59.     

Humphrey and Civil Rights: The Politics of Racial Progress

Abstract

This article explores and defends Leo Strauss's interpretation of Edmund Burke's thought. Strauss argues that Burke's conservatism is rooted in the modern empiricist school of John Locke and others. Following Strauss, this article sets out to consider the suitability of these foundational principles to conservative politics. Burke wants to temper or ennoble Lockean politics by inspiring sublime attachment to the political community and its traditions, but he shies away from stating universal standards according to which the traditions of political communities ought to be judged. This respect for reason in history without moorings in transcendent standards of reason or revelation leaves his conservatism on precarious ground.     

Rose de Freycinet and the French Exploration Corvette L'Uranie (1820): a Highlight of the 'French Connection' with the 'Great Southland'

Rose de Freycinet, the first woman to record her circumnavigation of the globe, was shipwrecked in the Falkland Islands in the closing stages of her three-year voyage. The significance of her account is slowly becoming widely recognised, rendering the archaeological remains at the wreck of her transport the corvette L'Uranie and the survivors' camp ashore of growing international importance. In March 2001 a team under the auspices of the Western Australian Maritime Museum conducted research, search and survey aimed at adding to the body of knowledge about the de Freycinets, their ship and their camp. This is a précis of their results.
© 2005 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

Introductory Remarks

The author introduces the articles in this special issue of the journal, which draw on historical and architectural data to interpret the past and focus on French identity in the New World. The introduction stresses the importance of interdisciplinary studies to historical archaeological interpretation.