Physics textbooks from ca 1800 are on the one hand self reflective texts that consider the then emerging discipline ‚physics’︁, and serve on the other hand as the bread and butter for the day to day work of teachers and students of physics. The two parts of this paper explore this twofold nature. First, those textbooks written and used by professors in Jena, Halle and Göttingen are used in order to identify a typical textbook. This relies on a close examination (...) of the respective introductory chapter and the one on electricity. The result is used in the second part to provide the background for the reconstruction of the use of physics textbooks in Jena. It is shown when and, as far as possible, why each particular textbook was chosen, withdrawn, neglected, changed or written in the course of physics teaching from 1780 to 1820. Some conclusions are drawn with regard to Jena's position in physics at that time. (shrink)

From the outset Protestant theology was conscious that its scientific objects were in one respect historical phenomena. In the 18th century, however, and against the background of its growing knowledge of history, theology had to renounce its traditional distinction of divine “dogma” and human “history”. Even the eclectic method, developped around 1700 , became insufficient when dogmatic interest itself began to move away from traditional dogma. A new mentality which saw itself as both religious and enlightened, demanded a historical criticism (...) of dogmatic tradition; a criticism which would consequently reach the Bible, making the revealed canon a historical source . In this critical “history of dogma” and “history of the Old and New Testament” theology handed over its traditional role as the basic science to philosophy and became itself a positive discipline.The measure of its criticism, however, was admittedly only religious subjectivity, grounding itself on the dogmatic construction of an “essence of Christianity” and in the historical construction of a divine “education of mankind”, and trying to prove the “perfectibility of Christianity” in the course of human history. Founded only on subjectivity, the historical consciousness of enlightened theology was therefore ambiguous; it was continually forced to ignore its own historical determination. Only the realization of the historicity also of the subjective principle of theology resolved this ambiguity ; that meant that the theological enlightenment in the first sense had been overcome. (shrink)

In its attempt to achieve acknowledgement and support as a true science and academic discipline eighteenth-century chemistry experienced that the traditional distinction between theory and practice, respectively between science and art, was an incriminating heritage and did not longer conform to the way chemists saw themselves. In order to substitute the former, socially judging classification into theoretical science and practical art, J. G. Wallerius from Uppsala coined the term pure and applied chemistry in 1751. The idea behind this new conception (...) was that it ought to be chemistry's research aim and not the kind of work, be it manual or intellectual, which was to decide about its branches and their dignity. The change in orientation which took place during the eighteenth century, and which is symbolized by the new dichotomy “pure and applied”, led towards a revaluation of the utilitarian aspects of chemistry. Its historical roots reach back to a long and fruitful cooperation of, and interaction between chemistry and economy, which was reinforced by the Stahlian tradition in Germany and Scandinavia. Subsequently, it was its strong economic bias that helped chemistry to become institutionalized and accepted as an academic discipline distinct from the medico-pharmaceutical profession. The analysis of this change of attitudes, behaviour and institutional pattern suggests that, at least during the period of institutionalization of this particular discipline, social structures and the intrinsic scientific contents are so tightly interrelated, that any division into “internal”, cognitive developments and “external” conditions would be artificial, since they both constitute the scientific community as a context of argumentation and action. (shrink)

A rather cheeky philosopher, I think it was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, said that there were a lot of things in heaven and on earth that were not in our textbooks. If this simpleminded man, who as known was out of his mind, so sneered at our textbooks, then one might answer him, consoled: Good, but there are also a lot of things in our textbooks that are neither in heaven nor on earth.