Von der Wissenschaftsverwaltung zur Wissenschaftspolitik. Friedrich Althoff (19. 2. 1839-20. 10. 1908)

Friedrich Althoff (1839–1908) was one of Germany's three great administrators of science and humanities between Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) and Carl Heinrich Becker (1886–1933). He was perhaps the most prominent representative of Prussian bureaucratic liberalism and the first eminent politician of culture or — in the words of W. H. Dawson — “the most enlightened but also the most dictatorial Minister of Education Prussia has ever had”. Althoff dominated the state administration of higher education in Prussia between 1882 and 1907, serving as Ministerial director over higher educational affairs under at least four ministers. The so-called “Althoff system”, that he built pushed the development of German science and scholarship to a dominant position in the world, rationalized the universities and further subordinated them to state or ministerial policy through a rigid control of professional appointments, started the mobilization of private capital in support of German scientific hegemony (founding of Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft), and put forward the Prussian tradition — ultimately an unsustainable one — of strong personal administration, by which Althoff systematically manipulated or overrode the very bureaucratic apparatus he had helped to create. On the other hand his policy defended academic freedom, patronized Catholic and Jewish scholars against reactionary university faculties as well as the so-called Kathedersozialisten against the influences of big business and laissez-faire capitalism. As a creator of german cultural foreign policy he paved the way for more international understanding and peace policy, an alternative to the war-aims policy of Imperial Germany on the eve of the Great War.     

FROM BREXIT TO HEGEL

British idealism has led an ambiguous existence in any overview of British historical and political thought in the twentieth century. Seen partly as an alien Continental intrusion into presumably typical British priorities of empiricism, positivism, and utilitarianism, it was badly damaged by its putative associations with the military enemy of two world wars. Admir Skodo's meticulous study of British “idealist revisionists” during the postwar period 1945–1980 repairs this damage by showing the extended influence of that idealism as funneled through the “new idealism” of the interwar period represented mainly by the philosophers R. G. Collingwood and Michael Oakeshott. Skodo demonstrates how these idealist revisionists deeply influenced postwar British historiography by underscoring qualities of humanism, pluralism, and variety not characteristically associated with idealism, reinterpreted a range of important topics in British history from the Tudors through the English civil wars to the Victorian period, and came up with political theorizing that celebrated the postwar welfare state while indicating its vulnerabilities to an increasingly technologized society. Just as Skodo's protagonists negotiated the 1970s transition in Britain's turn to Europe, so his account proves stimulating for contemporary concerns regarding a post‐Brexit Britain. The final part of the essay therefore looks at some suggested models, such as the “Anglosphere” or a “Singapore in the Atlantic” for Britain, before concluding with reflections on the importance according to a Hegelian reading of the modern “rational state” of the continued influence of Oxbridge intellectuals on the evolution of British directions and goals since the Victorian age.     

Australian energy diplomacy

While Australia is considered an energy superpower, Australian foreign policy has often overlooked energy diplomacy. Given the transformations taking place in global energy markets, the time is ripe to begin a policy discussion in Australia on energy diplomacy. I argue that Australian diplomatic efforts should broaden beyond a historical focus on promoting fossil fuels and securing export markets, to driving global energy governance reforms through the G20. This will not only help to ensure that the international energy architecture is capable of achieving governance objectives around energy security, energy access and climate change, but significantly, it will also help Australia to achieve broader foreign policy goals, such as ensuring emerging economies become responsible stakeholders within the international system.     

HISTORY AS PHILOSOPHY

Historians have taken a beating in recent times from an array of critics troubled by our persistent unwillingness to properly theorize our work. This essay contends that their criticisms have generally failed to make headway among mainstream historians owing to a little noticed cognitive byproduct of our work that I call history as philosophy. In so doing I offer a novel defense of professional history as it has been understood and practiced in the Anglophone world over the last half‐century or so while suggesting, in conclusion, that historians could not do other than they do without serious psychic and societal loss.     

Hidden footnotes: J.A. Smith,R.G. Collingwood and Croce’s conception of history

This article examines the role J.A. Smith played in introducing Croce’s conception of history into British philosophy. In particular, it examines his influence on R.G. Collingwood’s incorporation of the Italian idealist conception of history into his own philosophy. The contentions that Smith was a key popularizer of Italian idealist ideas into Britain and that he helped to shape Collingwood’s intellectual developed is not new. Yet these interrelated topics have not been explored in any great depth. Collingwood’s own reticence over his intellectual debt to Smith, a lack of interest in Smith and an unfamiliarity with his philosophy have all contributed to this neglect. This article seeks to redress this neglect through analysing how Smith nurtured Collingwood’s adoption of a Crocean conception of history. To achieve its aim, this article first analyses Smith’s own reception of Croce’s conception of history. From this, it presents a contextualist analysis of Collingwood’s development of a Crocean conception of history and the role Smith played in its adoption. Finally, this article examines why, despite Smith’s influence over his intellectual development, Collingwood failed to acknowledge the intellectual debt he owed to Smith.     

Simon McBurney’s Ambitious Pursuit of the Pure Maths Play

Abstract

When Simon McBurney set out to create a play about the fabled relationship between Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy and the self-taught Indian genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, he was immediately confronted by the question of how to engage the mathematics authentically. Undaunted by his own uneasiness with the subject, McBurney incorporated a host of experts into the rehearsal process, calling on mathematical educators, expositors, and Fields medalists to come work with the company. While on the surface maths and drama make an incongruous pair, the result was a vibrant collaboration. The final product — the award-winning play A Disappearing Number — shines an interesting light on the surprising similarity between the creative process in mathematics and the creative process in theatre, especially as manifested by the company at Complicite.     

桐城派研究百年回顾

本文将百年来的桐城派研究分为20世纪前20年、20至60年代、改革开放新时期三个发展阶段,并进行了较为全面的回顾与考察,同时对香港、台湾地区以及国外的桐城派研究状况也作了简要介绍.     

Oszillierende Weltmodelle versus Urknallmodelle. Das oszillierende Weltmodell Friedmanns,die Ablehnung der Anfangssingularität durch russische Kosmologen und die Zustimmung der katholischen Kirche zur Urknalltheorie Lemaîtres und Hawkings

The Russian mathematician and physicist Friedmann and the Belgian priest and physicist Lemaître were the first to consider non‐static world models in the framework of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Friedmann seemed to favour a periodic, oscillating cosmological model. His investigations were taken up by Russian cosmologists in the 1960s. They stated that the singularities present in many of the Friedmann‐Lemaître cosmological models seemed to be artificial and were ascribed to the assumption of a highly symmetric distribution of cosmic matter. Their disapproval of singularities seems to be in accord with Soviet ideological requirements during that time like atheism and dialectic materialism. They had to retract their statements after Hawking had proved his singularity theorems and after the microwave background had been discovered. Hawking followed the line of thought which was initiated by Lemaître in the early 1930s. Lemaître had combined for the first time quantum physics and relativistic cosmology and had developed his idea of the primeval atom, a beginning of the universe in a dense state with just one quantum containing the whole mass of the universe. Pope Pius XII brought together this primeval atom and God as the Creator of the universe and declared in 1951 that big bang cosmology is compatible with the Bible. Not surprisingly Hawking was awarded the Pius XI medal by the Vatican in 1975 for his contributions to big bang cosmology.