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The Gestation of German Biology: Philosophy and Physiology from Stahl to Schelling

Online ISBN:
9780226520827
Print ISBN:
9780226520797
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
Book

The Gestation of German Biology: Philosophy and Physiology from Stahl to Schelling

John H. Zammito
John H. Zammito
Rice University
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Published online:
24 May 2018
Published in print:
22 December 2017
Online ISBN:
9780226520827
Print ISBN:
9780226520797
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press

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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