The Gestation of German Biology: Philosophy and Physiology from Stahl to Schelling
The Gestation of German Biology: Philosophy and Physiology from Stahl to Schelling
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Abstract
This study traces the gestation of German biology from the debate about organism between Stahl and Leibniz to the formulation of developmental morphology in the era of Kielmeyer and Schelling. Over the eighteenth century, inspired by the “Queries” in Newton’s Opticks, “experimental Newtonianism” opened new fields for empirical inquiry. Some naturalists undertook to reformulate a portion of descriptive natural history (the catalogue of living things) into a distinct branch of explanatory natural philosophy (ultimately, the science of biology). Led by Buffon, a new, historical approach to organisms combined with exclusion of supernatural explanations in the study of life to create a paradigm shift that has been termed “vital materialism.” Reception of experimental Newtonianism, vital materialism, and Buffon’s new natural history proved decisive for the gestation of biology in Germany. Physiology and philosophy carried on a constant dialogue in Germany, from the time of Leibniz and Stahl to that of Schelling and Kielmeyer. Notably, epigenesis – immanent self-organization in nature – triggered controversy between the established eminence, Albrecht von Haller, and the newcomer, Caspar Friedrich Wolff, then culminated in the notion of a formative drive [Bildungstrieb] in Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. The coining of “biology” around 1800 signaled a theoretical convergence of the historicization of nature with comparative physiology. Inquiry in each research domain pointed to the same result: descent explained similarities in organization. Kielmeyer pioneered this convergence. Goethe baptized it developmental morphology. Schelling made it the basis for his philosophy of nature [Naturphilosphie].
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Front Matter
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Introduction
The Gestation of German Biology
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One
Animism and Organism: G. E. Stahl and the Halle Medical Faculty
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Two
Making Life Science Newtonian: Albrecht von Haller’s Self-Fashioning as Natural Scientist
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Three
Albrecht von Haller as Arbiter of German Medicine: Göttingen and Bern (1736–1777)
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Four
French Vital Materialism
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Five
Taking Up the French Challenge: The German Response
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Six
From Natural History to History of Nature: From Buffon to Kant and Herder (and Blumenbach)
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Seven
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach and the Life Sciences in Germany: His Rise to Eminence from the 1770s
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Eight
Blumenbach, Kant, and the “Daring Adventure” of an “Archaeology of Nature”
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Nine
Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer and “an Entirely New Epoch of Natural History”
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Ten
Polarität und Steigerung: The Self-Organization of Nature and the Actualization of Life
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Eleven
Naturphilosophie and Physiology
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End Matter
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