Berlin Academy Research Articles

Deux lettres inédites de Diderot

Two Unpublished Letters by Diderot. Two letters, one (in a private collection) to Maupertuis, dated 5th May 1751, on Diderot's election to the Berlin Academy, and the other (in the Langres Public Library) to La Condamine, dated 2nd February 1753.

The Berlin Academy under Frederick the Great

The Berlin Academy under Frederick the Great

Berlin academy fights closure threats

Berlin academy fights closure threats

Langue universelle et diversité des Lumières. Un concours de l'Académie de Berlin en 1784

Jochen Schlobach : Universal language and the diversity of the enlightenment. The 1782 Berlin Academy prize. The universality of French was generally accepted in 18h century Europe, less because of enlightened philosophy than because of the influence of French absolutism in courts and their culture (theatres, academies, princely education, etc.). Voltaire, who attempted a synthesis of classical aesthetics and «philosophy », represented the Enlightenment's temporary agreement with princes, symbolized by his stay in Potsdam. The Berlin Academy's 1782 prize on the universality of French sparked off a debate in Germany which encouraged the Aufklärer's unwillingness to accept the French language's superiority or suitability for philosophy. Some authors even doubted the usefulness for the French themselves of a universal language and considered that the multiplicity of European languages promoted the obvious national diversity in science, the arts and the Enlightenment.

Also Ran

SummaryJohann Gottfried Herder’s (1744–1803)Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprachewas published in 1772 after winning a prize competition instituted by the Berlin Academy of Sciences for an essay to determine whether or how man, left to his own devices, could devise language for himself. The work was hastily written in the last weeks of 1770 in order to meet the closing date, and its diction and form bear the marks of hurried composition. Alhough it is generally considered to be a seminal work on its subject, it is anything but academic, and some critics have even gone so far as to regard it as a lampoon at the expense of the Academy by showing its question to be a ‘non-question’. At all events, the argumentation of theAbhandlungis not without its weak points; and it is interesting in this light to examine the work of others of the 30 entrants to the competition, who published their essays anonymously about the time when Herder’s work appeared, or a little later.The present paper traces the main lines of the arguments of three of these essays; and it emerges that Herder’s was not the only one to establish the importance of the distinctive feature(Merkmal)in identifying an object. The more cautious contestants, however, looked upon theMerkmalas an indispensable first step in creating a name; this in turn was to become an initial stage in language. They portrayed the origin of language as a continuous process rather than a sudden discovery by emphasizing the progressive development of abstraction or by examining the means by which the association between words and objects was established within communities. Herder’s rivals, however, do not take account of views expressed before their time, as Herder does in the prize-winning essay, nor do they stress, as he does, that language is necessarily a product of human ingenuity. Nevertheless, Herder was not the only competitor to make an original and positive contribution to the debate, and the essays examined here, too, throw valuable light on a problem which exercised scholars in the 18th century, and in which the 20th has shown renewed interest in the light of enhanced knowledge of linguistics, physiology and ethology.

Maria Winkelmann at the Berlin Academy: A Turning Point for Women in Science

Maria Winkelmann at the Berlin Academy: A Turning Point for Women in Science

Schleiermacher and the Theology of Bourgeois Society: A Critique of the Critics

Ever since his death in 1834 the thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher has constituted a battleground of competing theological perspectives. His corpus, which touches on so many diverse aspects of human culture in the modern setting, continues to be the seedbed of rival interpretations and theories. This holds for the relationship between politics and theology. Though discussion of the political teaching of Schleiermacher has never attained the intensity of discussion of his theology, it is well known that much of his life work focused on a theory of politics and society, including his ethics, his lectures on the state, occasional papers and addresses before the Berlin Academy and other bodies, his Plato translations and prefaces (especially the Republic), not to mention the political dimension of numerous sermons or his direct involvement in the movement of Prussian Reform. To this day no study integrates the diverse strata of Schleiermacher's theological and political teaching into a full-scale treatment of his thought. The fact that several recent Schleiermacher interpretations take a political bent is to be lauded. The subject is worthy of investigation for its own sake but also because of its potential for throwing light on the relationships between political, economic, or social issues and presentday theological imperatives. By looking at familiar texts with a heightened political consciousness a reader is forced to rethink fundamental positions of Schleiermacher's thought and to weigh perspectives that often reach into the fabric and aspirations of our own society.

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel 1784, July 22–1846, March 17

Bessel had a very early inclination to calculation; he decided to become a businessman with a specialty as ship-broker. He studied navigation with enthusiasm, including the work of Lalande and of Olbers, as well as higher mathematics. His famed results on astronomy led to his appointment in 1810 as director of the then new observatory in Konigsberg, planned by King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia. With initially limited means, he obtained valuable results, both to instrumentation and theory. Stellar catalogues included the observations of James Bradley (Fundamenta Astronomiae, Konigsberg, 1818). Further catalogues of stars were worked on for the Berlin Academy. Bessel worked on one of the established ‘zones’, about one degree wide in declination, cataloging accurate positions of stars. He noted that the tails of comets are affected by both, the comet and the Sun.

D'Alembert, Euler et l'Académie de Berlin

René Taton : D'Alembert, Euler and the Berlin Academy. D'Alembert, who won one of the Berlin Academy's prizes in 1746, began a correspondence with Euler, the director of the Mathematical Class, and published several mathematical articles in the Academy's Mémoires. The letters he exchanged with Euler, especially in 1746-1751, are extremely interesting for the history of science in the 18th Century. Frederick II wished to make d'Alembert President of the Academy as early as 1752 and exchanged letters with him. His stay in Berlin in 1766 and Euler's replacement by Lagrange in 1766 increased d'Alembert's influence in the Academy, which was not however constant and was more marked in the field of letters than in those of philosophy and science.

Historicism vs. history: The comparative method

In 1754 the Berlin Academy of Sciences offered a prize for the best essay answering the question: 'Whether the Earth since its origin has undergone a change in its period of rotation, and whence this fact could be established'. Immanuel Kant, at the threshold of his career, submitted an essay. It did not win the prize but was published in a K6nigsberg newpaper in order to publicize his forthcoming book, A General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, which appeared the next year and has been called by Karl Popper 'one of the greatest contributions ever made to cosmology and cosmogony' (1965:177). At the beginning of his essay, Kant acknowledges that it is unlikely to win the prize because it deals only with physics, whereas the academy's question obviously presupposes an answer based on history. Kant acknowledges too that the question could be pursued historically. This could be done by consulting the documents of remotest antiquity concerning the length of the year and the use of intercalation to determine possible changes in the reckoning of days or hours of the day. Such information could indicate whether the Earth's rotation has ever increased or diminished within historical times. Yet Kant goes on to declare:

The Royal Society and the International Association of Academies 1897-1919

In the history of the sciences and the arts since the last third of the 19th century two diverging tendencies can be seen. On the one hand the highpoint of nation-state thinking and nationalistic policies was also accompanied by an unmistakable ‘nationalization’ of science and learning. Science, research and learning, which by their very nature should transcend national boundaries, were conceived of as an element in the competitive struggle between the European nations in which ‘jedem wissenschaftlichen Forschungsergebnis ein nationaler Stempel aufgedriickt wird’ and ‘in which science and brains take the place of swords and sinews’. But in contrast to the development towards a ‘wissenschaftlichen Chauvinismus’, about which the German » physiologist Emil Du Bois-Reymond warned as early as 1878 in a speech at the Berlin Academy, there followed in the wake of increasing international liaison in business and trade more pronounced international co-operation between scientists, researchers and learned societies. It was the second half of the 19th century which experienced the remarkable first flowering of institutional ‘scientific internationalism’ with an increasing incidence of international conferences and the founding of numerous international organizations and conventions. No less than 3000 international scientific functions can be counted between 1840 and 1914. And while only 25 international organizations came into existence between 1870 and 1880, and 40 between 1880 and 1890, 68 were founded between 1890 and 1900 and another 300 before 1910.

Hegel and Schleiermacher at Berlin: A Many-Sided Debate

Anyone who wishes to understand the debate between Hegel and Schleiermacher is forced to confront not only the staggering complexity of their thought but also the disparate nature of the key texts which are available and the fact that many philosophers and theologians approach Hegel and Schleiermacher with misleading preconceptions. This article attempts to illuminate the conflict between the two thinkers by exploring the biographical and historical context in which it arose. The author argues that, while neither thinker depended upon the other in forming his own position, each man kept the other's position constantly in view as a foil for his own. After a consideration of some early indications of conflict, the debate between Hegel and Schleiermacher is traced through a series of events which begins with Hegel's call to Berlin. While Schleiermacher was apparently quite willing to have Hegel come to Berlin, differences in political philosophy soon led to conflict, with the student movement providing a concrete focus for their disagreement. Schleiermacher's role in excluding Hegel from the Berlin Academy of Sciences is shown to have heightened the tensions. The article concludes with an exploration of Hegel's critique of Schleiermacher's dogmatics. It is argued that the intellectual core of the conflict between the two men centers upon the problem of immediate knowledge. Richard Crouter (Th.D., Union) is Professor of Religion at Carleton College. Currently he is working on a book about Hegel and Schleiermacher on religion. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.124 on Mon, 16 Jan 2017 18:11:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Kant and Newtonian Science: The Pre-Critical Period

Previous articleNext article No AccessKant and Newtonian Science: The Pre-Critical PeriodRonald CalingerRonald Calinger Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 70, Number 3Sep., 1979 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/352280 Views: 19Total views on this site Citations: 8Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1979 History of Science Society, Inc.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Cinzia Ferrini A “Physiogony” of the Heavens: Kant’s Early View of Universal Natural History, HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 12, no.11 (Mar 2022): 261–285.https://doi.org/10.1086/718995Brigitte Falkenburg Physics and Metaphysics, (Dec 2020): 3–31.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52290-2_1Matthew Rukgaber Space, Force, and Matter in the Early Natural Science Writings, (Nov 2020): 19–58.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60742-5_2Matthew Rukgaber Substances, Space, and Causality in the Early Metaphysical Writings, (Nov 2020): 59–107.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60742-5_3Luca Sciortino On Ian Hacking’s Notion of Style of Reasoning, Erkenntnis 82, no.22 (Jun 2016): 243–264.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-016-9815-9Michela Massimi, Silvia De Bianchi Cartesian echoes in Kant’s philosophy of nature, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44, no.33 (Sep 2013): 481–492.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2012.10.011MI GYUNG KIM A HISTORICAL ATLAS OF OBJECTIVITY, Modern Intellectual History 6, no.33 (Nov 2009): 569–596.https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479244309990187Roger Jaquel Leonhard Euler, son Fils Johann Albrecht et leur ami Jean III Bernoulli jusqu’en 1766, (Jan 1983): 435–446.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-9350-3_24

Friedrich Wilhelm Kühne

Often the past has been said to be the mirror to the future. We pause, therefore, in this 1977th year to honor a distinguished scientist of the recent past, Friedrich Wilhem Kuhne, and to acknowledge the debt owed to him on the part of visual scientists. The year 1977 marks the centennial of Kuhne's pioneer investigations of the visual pigments, investigations that have set the pattern for much of the work carried out since his death. This work has resulted in the present comprehensive knowledge of rhodopsin and of the visual cells. To Kuhne belongs much of the credit for generating the initial impetus and vigor for this field of visual science. Kuhne was first inspired to examine rhodopsin as the result of Franz Boll's report to the Berlin Academy in 1876. He quickly obtained results, which he reported, on Jan 5, 1877, to the Naturhistorisch-Medizinischen Verein of Heidelberg in

The theory of equations in the 18th century: The work of Joseph Lagrange

In 1754 an eighteen-year-old mathematician, JOSEt'H LOUIS LAGRANGE, addressed a letter to LEONARD EULER, one of the giants of European mathematics. In it he announced his discovery of a formal calculus. EUL~R was impressed with the quality of LAGRANGE'S early mathematical research, and was later instrumental in establishing LAGRANGE'S career. LAGRANGE joined EUL~ in the first rank of eighteenth century mathematicians, and their careers and research were often related. In particular, they both devoted much attention to algebraic problems, at a time when the popular topic in European mathematics was infinitesimal analysis. LAGRANGE'S algebraic work, as well as his other research, was strongly influenced by EULE~ but "even in the face of this great model he preserved an originality that allowed him to criticize but above all to generalize, to systematize, and to deepen the ideas of his predecessors." 1 In his attempts to extend and generalize the results of other mathematicians, LAGRANGE'S approach was analytic. Indeed, one of his early biographers maintained that if LAGRANGE believed in anythin~ he "believed firmly in the superiority of analysis." 2 The analytic approach was certainly evident in LAGRANGE'S algebraic papers. Many of these were published during his tenure at the Berlin Academy, where he succeeded EUL~ in 1766; another, a lengthy treatise on the numerical solution of equations, appeared after LAG~NGE moved to the Paris Academy in 1787. LAGRANGE'S research in the theory of equations can be divided into two categories: the algebraic solution of polynomial equations (in terms of their coefficients and radicals), and techniques for numerical solution of particular equations. As LAGRANGE explained in the introduction to the Trait6 de la r~solution des ~quations num~riques de tousles degr~s, these two categories ought to be viewed as distinct:

Dr. G. Schweinfurth's Journeys in the Sudan

Returning to Europe in July 1866, his excellent botanical collections and the wealth of other scientific data led to grants being made by the Berlin Academy of Sciences from the 'Humboldt Stiftung fur Naturforschung und Reisen' and by the Berlin Geographical Society 'Ritter Stiftung' to finance his exploration of the Bahr el Ghazal region of the Sudan. The journey, from 1869 until 1871, led to his discovery of the Ud1l river, for which he was awarded the 'Founders Medal' by the Royal Geographical Society in 1874. Returning once more to Egypt in 1874 he spent the next thirteen years in Cairo. In 1875 he became the first president of the Khedivial Geographical Society. From 188o until 1889 he was the director of the Cairo Museum. He travelled extensively through Egypt, contributing much to our knowledge of botany, geography and archaeology. In the summer of I88o he visited the Lebanon and in the spring of 1881 the island of Socotra. Learning of Professor Balfour's expedition of I88o, Schweinfurth, with characteristic generosity, handed over his own valuable plant collection to Professor Balfour for study and publication. In July 1888 he retired to Berlin, although spending the winter months in northern Africa and Arabia. In 1888-89 he visited the Yemen in order to rediscover plants from some of Forsskal's original collecting localities (Christensen, 1922), and in 1891 and I894 explored the Italian colony of Eritrea. The winters of I901, 1906 and 1908 were spent in Algiers and Tunisia, with his final visit to Egypt in 1914. He died in Berlin on the 19th September 1925, in his 89th year. Schweinfurth was a great scholar, a gifted naturalist and explorer, rendering outstanding contribution in the fields of botany, zoology, anthropology, geography, geology and archaeology; it was to Egyptology that he was to devote much of his later years. His rich collections contain many type specimens. Leeuwenberg (1965) gives the following herbaria, BO, BR, FL, G, K, LE, P, S, W. & WU as having isotypes of the Berlin collection destroyed during the war.

Frederick the Great and the Berlin Academy of Sciences (1740–1766)

(1968). Frederick the Great and the Berlin Academy of Sciences (1740–1766) Annals of Science: Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 239-249.

Studies of Goethe's Faust since 1959

This sequel to my Referat Faustforschung und Faustdeutung seit 1945 (Euphorion, LIII [1959], 422-40) is based on an examination of some 125 books and articles, of which only representative contributions are here mentioned by title or author. Since accounts of the historical Faust, and literary treatments of him by others than Goethe, are tangential to my subject, new insights into the Faust legend such as are offered by H. G. Haile, H. Hennig and V. M. Zhirmunskii must be ignored-those interested in recently discovered Faustsplitter and in the reception and influence of Goethe's Faust will find a wealth of material in Blitter der Knittlinger Faust-Gedenkstitte und des Faust Museums, edited since 1959 by K. Theens. The Berlin Academy edition has not got beyond the text of Faust I; comment on it is thus still better reserved, although one may note that it fails to reproduce significant typographical distinctions of the 1808 text which one hopes will be recorded in its eventual critical apparatus. That this apparatus will be of high quality is evident from essays appearing as it were aus der Werkstitte der Akademie-Ausgabe-e.g., R. Fischer-Lamberg's Der SchluB der Klassischen Walpurgisnacht, adducing evidence that Goethe completed, and did not just add to, that episode in December, 1830. (H. Bluhm's study of the Yale MS of Offene Gegend helps date this scene and indicates Goethe was concerned that in it Baucis's unfavorable account

Bernard Le Bovier De Fontenelle, F. R. S., 1657-1757

Bernard Le Bovier, sieur de Fontenelle, member of the Académie Française, of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, of the Académie de Rouen, Fellow of the Royal Society of London and of the Berlin Academy, was born in Rouen on 11 February 1657, his survival through that day being doubtful, and died in Paris on 9 January 1757 within about a month of completing his hundredth year. This year of 1957 marks, therefore, the tercentenary of his birth and the bicentenary of his death. His life spanned two great ages in literature and in science, from Corneille to Voltaire and from the beaux esprits of the seventeenth to the philosophes of the eighteenth century, and, it may be said, from Descartes, whose spiritual disciple he was, and from Newton to Diderot and d’Alembert: and for forty-four years he was secrétaire-perpétuel of the Académie Royale des Sciences.

Berlin Academy of Sciences

Berlin Academy of Sciences