Paul Ziche

Wissenschaftskultur in Briefen

The “Naturforschende Gesellschaft” (NFG) of Jena, founded in 1793, became instrumental for the development of the sciences in Jena in this period. New experimental facilities, new organizational structures and new scientific topics such as antiphlogistic chemistry and galvanism were introduced into Jena via the NFG. An investigation of the letters that were sent to the NFG shows, 1., how important the NFG was for the reception of these new results and for transmitting them to a wider audience; 2., how scientists, both in Germany and abroad, tried to establish a network for scientific communication via the NFG, and 3., how personal contacts between scientists and how various forms of written exchange interrelate in the activities of the NFG. The letters to the NFG, therefore, show how, in the period around 1800; smaller scientific organizations such as the NFG managed to form a focus for scientific research and scientific exchange, with these societies being particularly important for the reception of the, by the time, latest developments in science.

New forms of science and new sciences of form: On the non-mathematical reception of Grassmann’s work

In 1907, two important texts on Kant were published, both highlighting typical aspects of a reception of Grassmannian ideas outside mathematics, mathematical logic ormathematical physics. Ernst Cassirer’s article on “Kant und die moderne Mathematik” [Cassirer 1907] deals mainly with the philosophy of mathematics, but his arguments culminate in his monumental Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff from 1910 and range far beyond the realm of traditional mathematics: a general theory of concept formation, a turn towards “order” as the most fundamental concept imaginable, a shift from substances and things towards relations and functions, and the attempt to formulate a general science of forms. In the same year, the philosopher-plus-psychologist Oswald Kulpe – pupil of Wilhelm Wundt, professor of philosophy in Wurzburg, Bonn and Munich – presents Kant’s philosophy in the form of a popular survey that is motivated by the problem to bring philosophy and science (Wissenschaft) into a productive relationship [Kulpe 1908; onKulpe see Ziche 1999; Kusch 1999].

Theories of Order in Carnap’s Aufbau

The notion of “order” occupies a prominent place in Carnap’s Aufbau, and is a key concept in important debates in the period around 1920. This paper discusses how this notion functions in a number of, in retrospect, highly diverse debates, ranging from logic and philosophy of mathematics to psychology and epistemology, and why it could be seen as integrating these discourses. Key features to be found in all theories of order in this period are the search for an ultimately general form of science, an anti-atomist approach that accepts the existence of complex elements, and an attitude of tolerance or neutrality that allows to capture a large array of different scientific attitudes under the notion of “order”. This paper presents the background of the theories of order that Carnap is referring to, highlights some issues in which Carnap’s Aufbau-project fits into a discourse about order, and raises the question as to which historiographical conclusions should be drawn from the prominence of these theories in the Aufbau.

Paul Oppenheim on Order—The Career of a Logico-Philosophical Concept

Paul Oppenheim (1885–1977) entered into the annals of twentieth-century philosophy as the co-author of Hempel, Kemeny, Putnam and Rescher, among others. Together, these authors made crucial contributions to issues such as the nature of scientific explanation, reduction, and the unity of science. In his far less studied writings as a single author, Oppenheim pursued a line of argument that is closely related to those classical issues of analytical philosophy, while at the same time opening up new perspectives.