Experimenting at the Boundaries of Life: Organic Vitality in Germany around 1800 (Sci & Culture in the Nineteenth Century) PDF
Preview Experimenting at the Boundaries of Life: Organic Vitality in Germany around 1800 (Sci & Culture in the Nineteenth Century)
This content downloaded from 54.66.212.33 on Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:21:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ! ! Experimenting at the Boundaries of Life This content downloaded from 54.66.212.33 on Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:21:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century Bernard Lightman, Editor This content downloaded from 54.66.212.33 on Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:21:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Experimenting at the Boundaries of Life Organic Vitality in Germany around 1800 ! ! Joan Steigerwald university of pittsburgh press This content downloaded from 54.66.212.33 on Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:21:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260 Copyright © 2019, University of Pittsburgh Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-4553-6 ISBN 10: 0-8229-4553-3 Cover art: Caspar David Friedrich, Early Snow, c. 1828 (Kunsthalle, Hamburg). Cover design: Alex Wolfe This content downloaded from 54.66.212.33 on Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:21:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Contents Acknowledgments vii Note on Translations and Citations xi Introduction 3 ! ! 1 Organic Vitality in the Late Eighteenth Century: Lebenskräfte and Experimental Reasoning 41 ! ! 2 Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment: Organisms as Reciprocally Means and Ends of Themselves 95 ! ! 3 Blurring the Boundaries of Life: Organic Vitality and Instruments of Inquiry in the 1790s 147 ! ! 4 Jena Connections: A Science of Knowledge, Romantic Aesthetics, and Languages of Nature 207 ! ! 5 Schelling’s Philosophy of Life: Boundary Concepts and the Natural History of the World Soul 269 ! ! 6 The Science of Biology: Organic Vitality and the Boundaries of Life 323 Conclusion: Afterlife 391 Notes 399 Bibliography 427 Index 455 This content downloaded from 54.66.212.33 on Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:22:17 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 54.66.212.33 on Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:22:17 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Acknowledgments Given the interdisciplinary character of this project, it has led me to engage with scholars across different disciplines or fields of research—history of science and science studies, Romantic and German studies, and the history of philosophy. Although scholars in these different areas regularly read each other’s work and talk to each other, it is less common for scholars to present at conferences and publish in journals outside their disciplinary home. In offering my own work in a variety of scholarly venues, I have tended to adapt to the discursive conventions of each field. The challenge of writing this book has been to bring those different discourses into conversation. The danger is that historians of science will find the philosophical sections too theoretical, and those interested in philosophy and theory will find the historical discussions too empirically detailed. But I argue and attempt to demonstrate that similar problems were being addressed by scientists, philosophers, and Romantic writers in the years around 1800, that they engaged each other’s work, and that they enlisted similar methodical devices to address overlapping concerns. Although the book is largely structured around individuals, in order to explore their work in depth, it locates the work of each within larger debates and contexts. The book as a whole seeks to show how the challenges facing scientists in experimentally exploring and trying to conceive organic vitality influenced the epistemic questions posed by philosophers of nature, which in turn shaped scientific research, and how reflections by Roman- tic writers on the role of figurative languages informing understandings of the natural world affected both. It is hoped that scholars interested in the history of science, philosophy, and Romanticism will follow the arguments across chapters to see how similar issues were addressed in these different discourses. It has been a challenge to write for all these audiences at once, and I accept that not all readers will find this work meets that challenge successfully. This project has benefited from engagement with a wide range of colleagues who were open to interdisciplinary scholarship. From its beginnings it had the vii This content downloaded from 54.66.212.33 on Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:21:34 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ! viii Acknowledgments generous support of extraordinarily accomplished scholars—Nick Jardine, David Papineau, the late Roy Porter, Bob Richards, and Phil Sloan. Their patience with the glacial pace of my own work has been humbling. This book also took inspiration from the early work of a very promising group of scholars—Michael Dettelbach, Stuart Strickland, and Maria Trumpler. I hope it lives up to some aspects of their vision for the history of German science at the turn of the nine- teenth century. A wider group of historians of science and STS scholars have stimulated and shaped my work at important junctures—Cornelius Borck, Olaf Breidbach, Soraya de Chadarevian, Patricia Fara, Sarah Franklin, Jan Golinski, Stefan Helmreich, the late Lily Kay, Hannah Landecker, Staffan Müller-Wille, Lynn Nyhart, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Simon Schaffer, and Jim Secord. I have been fortunate to be welcomed into the circle of Romantic and German studies scholars who have taught me so much about the subtleties of Romanticism. Through meetings of the North American Society for Studies in Romanticism I have been able to engage with a remarkably open and theoretically sophisti- cated groups of scholars—Ian Balfour, Alan Bewell, David Clark, David Colling, Stefani Engelstein, Nick Halmi, Jocelyn Holland, Jacques Khalip, Alice Kuzniar, Rob Mitchell, Thomas Pfau, Arkady Plotnitsky, Tilottama Rajan, and Gabriel Trop. Historians of philosophy have been important to my work. I have benefited in particular from the enthusiasm and collegiality of the community of Schelling scholars—Kyla Bruff, Anthony Bruno, Marcela Garcia, Iain Grant, Lore Hühn, Chris Lauer, Joe Lawrence, Bruce Matthews, Sean McGrath, Tilottama Rajan, Dale Snow, Michael Vater, Daniel Whistler, and Jason Wirth. But a wider circle of historians of philosophy have also inspired my work at key points—Angela Breitenbach, Hannah Ginsborg, Philippe Huneman, Peter McLaughlin, Dalia Nassar, Marcel Quarfood, and John Zammito. I have been especially fortunate to have a wide circle of highly accomplished and intellectually engaging colleagues and friends in Toronto—Katey Anderson, Steve Bailey, Ian Balfour, Amila Buturovic, Sylwia Chrostowska, David Clark, Barbara Crow, Lucia Dacome, Marnie Ferguson, Doug Freake, Jan Hadlaw, Edward Jones-Imhotep, Avron Kulak, Bernie Lightman, Aryn Martin, Hélène Mialet, Michelle Murphy, Natasha Myers, Mike Pettit, Cate Sandilands, Rusty Shteir, Nell Tenhaaf, Daphne Winland, and Selma Zecevic. Their conversation, stimulus, and support have been invaluable. York University has provided a conducive setting for my work, allowing me to explore my varied academic personalities. The Department of Humanities, This content downloaded from 54.66.212.33 on Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:21:34 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ! Acknowledgments ix incredibly supportive chairs in Andrea Davis, Doug Freake, and Patrick Taylor, and the remarkable collegiality of the members of the department, have made working at a large university enjoyable and meaningful. I have also been fortu- nate to teach in the graduate programs in Humanities, Science and Technology Studies, and Social and Political Thought. I have learned a tremendous amount from amazing graduate students, especially Robert Brown, Angela Cope, Juan Felipe Guevara-Aristizabal, Jenny Kerber, Jessica Lee, Ellie Lousen, Ben Mitchell, Greg Rupik, Chris Satoor, Paul Toro, Jeffrey Wajsberg, and Ben Woodard. Numerous libraries have provided invaluable assistance for my research. I would like especially to thank librarians at the British Library, Bayerische Sta- atsbibliothek, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, Robarts and Thomas Fisher Rare Book Libraries in Toronto, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Jena, and York University Library. Research on this book has been generously supported through funding from York University, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. I would like to thank University of Pittsburgh Press for their support in bringing this work to print, and especially the able editorial assistance of Abby Collier, Alex Wolfe, and Bernie Lightman. I would also like to thank the care with which the reviewers read the manuscript and their insightful critical com- ments. I would like to extend a special thanks to Marnie Ferguson for reading the book with careful attention. Finally, I am tremendously grateful to my family for their unfailing support over the years. The Morrison clan has been extraordinarily generous in welcom- ing me into their midst in Toronto. Thanks to Kate for her vibrant presence in our lives. I would like to express my immense gratitude to the extended Steiger- wald family for their ongoing love and care, and their example and inspiration. To Ed, for his deep love and grounding, I owe more than I can express. This content downloaded from 54.66.212.33 on Thu, 08 Dec 2022 05:21:34 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
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