Wem gehört Adam Smith? Gedanken zur Auseinandersetzung um das geistige Erbe des schottischen Philosophen und Ökonomen

Smith's appropriation by neoliberal theorists as the progenitor of economic liberalism and capitalism has recently been challenged by a phalanx of counter‐positions. In a concerted effort ?to salvage the real Smith’?, they rediscover the enlightenment philosopher who was very critical of ostentatious display of wealth and envisioned a society based on moral concerns rather than on the pursuit of self‐interest. This article discusses recent developments in the battle over the economist's and philosopher's heritage.     

Die Centrosophia des Athanasius Kircher SJ: Geometrisches Paradigma und geozentrisches Interesse

The main subject of the paper is to give an example of what could be called, in the history of philosophy and science, reinforcement of traditional topics or paradigms of explanation in order to give explanatory support to or to coooborate the defence of old or the solution of new problems. In the 17th century nearly all positions in the natural science are dependent from theological and philosophical (metaphysical) presuppositions, especially all positions which belong to types of the scientia universalis (Yves de Paris, S. Izquierdo, A. Kircher). To defend the finiteness of the world and the geocentric position of the earth, the Jesuit A. Kircher (1602–1680) returns to an old topic of cosmological speculation, to the geometria speculativa, in order to demonstrate the absolute perfect and finite structure of the world as an analogon of the absolute perfect and finite structure of the cercle or, better, the sphere (globe). He shows this in his Iter exstaticum (Rome 1656) and in his Mundus subterraneus (Amsterdam 1665). The paper discusses only a central part of the Mundus subterraneus titled ‘Centrosophia’: here we find all typical arguments for the phenomenon of reinforcement of old topics and paradigms. God is the center or the non-dimensional point (punctum) of the cosmic sphere (which is the sphere of all being) and he is in consequence the principle of all geometrical (ontological) parts of this figure. Kircher transmits the evidence of the perfect geometric relation between center and circumference modo analogico to the relation God (creator) and world. Together with this well known and often used analogy he develops a new theory: the theory of the dignity of the subterranean parts of the earth and the earth as earth, as the unic and ideologically exclusive place in all reality that gives mankind the fundament to develop its own implications. The high estimation of the earth sets free an unprejudiced view of what the subterranean area really is: Kircher thinks here in organologic categories — the subterranean world is an analogon of the world as such and this world is a great animal. Kircher develops in the limits of his traditional geocentric position an new non-traditional theory of the inner side of the world.     

Die Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin ‐ Bestand und Wandel einer gelehrten Gesellschaft Ein Überblick

The article deals with the foundation and development of the society Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin in the 18th and 19th centuries, its position as a privat society for natural history in Berlin, and its relation to Freemasonry. The paper shows the change of meaning of these society, especially after the foundation of the Berlin university in 1810.