Mechanism and modernity

Abstract

Gregor Schiemann’s Wahrheitsgewissheitsverlust: Hermann von Helmholtz’ Mechanismus im Anbruch der Moderne (1997) is a mighty endeavor. Part intellectual history, part history of philosophy of science and nature, it has an ambitious, twofold aim: to chart mechanistic philosophy of nature and to trace the transformation from the ‘‘classical’’ to the ‘‘modern’’ concept of science. In doing so, it seeks to provide a new periodization of the history of modern science. The abridged English version, Hermann von Helmholtz’s Mechanism: The Loss of Certainty, still advances a number of big claims. Commonly, the Early Modern period is regarded as a period of major changes of the structure, content, and organization as well as of the conception of science. Schiemann, however, advocates a different periodization. While he agrees that the seventeenth century was a time of profound transformation of mechanics, he argues that the transformation from the classical to the modern conception of science took place in the second half of the nineteenth century (and, according to Schiemann, is still going on). One of the main features of this transformation is the shift from the claim to absolute, valid knowledge or truth to the insight into the hypothetical character of scientific knowledge. The loss of confidence in the certainty of knowledge— Wahrheitsgewissheitsverlust, as it is so exquisitely put in the original title—is a distinctive feature of modernity. Schiemann takes his cue from German philosopher Alwin Diemer and historian and sociologist Wolf Lepenies as well as from Bachelard and Foucault. In his introduction, he reminds us that these thinkers highlight transitions and ruptures in the long-term development of science and that they see the dawn of modernity occurring in the nineteenth century. Schiemann utilizes the works of one of the most eminent nineteenth-century scientists, Hermann von Helmholtz, to illustrate and