Wolfgang Drechsler

On the Viability of the Concept of Staatswissenschaften

Staatswissenschaften is said to mean that there are certain specific fields of scholarly inquiry and higher education that relate primarily to the state, which is defined widely as structured human living-together. It is outlined why this is a concept viable for the future, particularly—but not only—in and for Europe.

On the possibility of quantitative-mathematical social science, chiefly economics: Some preliminary considerations

Argues preliminarily that quantitative‐mathematical social science, including economics, is not possible because it applies a method useful in other areas to a field to which it cannot be applied and because the truth claim of science so conceived is self‐referential to begin with. The argument is primarily based on the classic Gadamerian hermeneutic critique of the natural sciences and on the conception of the social sciences as related to phronesis.

Christian Wolff (1679-1754) A Biographical Essay

This essay narrates chronologically the life of Christian Wolff (1679-1754), arguably the most eminent German philosopher between Leibniz and Kant, and an important figure in the development of thought about the state and its tasks as well as about the national economy. It is the first longer biographical sketch of Wolff in English, other than skeletal encyclopedia entries, since 1934, and the first original English one since 1910. Special attention is paid to Wolffs formal honors, academic calls, salary questions, and the political, historical, and academic background, and particularly to his ennoblement, as Wolff may well have been the first scholar to receive such a high Imperial recognition on the basis of his scholarly work alone.

Etienne Laspeyres' History of the Economic Thought of the Netherlanders: A Law & Economics Classic?

Etienne Laspeyres (1834–1913) is today best known for the price index number formula named after him, but arguably his main contribution to economic literature is his Geschichte der Volkswirthschaftlichen Anschauungen der Niederländer und ihrer Litteratur zur Zeit der Republik (1863). This sketch sets out to consider whether this work, the contents of which will be briefly outlined and placed into context, can be considered a Law & Economics classic, in the sense of the biographical part of the Elgar Companion to Law and Economics (1999), as well. While interesting in its own right, the discussion of this question also serves as an inroad into the discussion of exactly what type of combination of law and economics is necessary to be considered part of Law & Economics as a specific mode of scholarly inquiry.

Beyond Florence: The Contours of Medieval and Early Modern Italy: Findlen, Paula, Michelle M. Fontaine, and Duane J. Osheim, eds.: Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press 324 pp., Publication Date: December 2002

tious diplomat, and as a man of principal and as a pragmatic opportunist. Even Italian sources haw seldom givcn Scaglia such undividcd attention. Given thc uniqueness of thc emphasis and thc dryness of the prosc, the motivation of the rexlers is a matter of some concern. Generally speaking, those with only a superficial knowledge of the players and the era of the Thirty Years War will likely not appreciate the ground-breaking contributions made by this work. Serious historians of the period will, however, and they will also appreciate the extensive bibliography and the completeness and variety of thc explanatory notes.

Herrn Eugen Dühring’s remotion

The essay narrates and analyzes Eugen Duhring’s remotion, i.e. the taking away of his status as Privatdozent, and thereby of his right to teach at a university, by the Prussian Minister of Culture in 1877. After sketching out the background of the University of Berlin, the institution of Privatdozent, and Duhring himself, first, Duhring’s 1875 clash with Adolph Wagner is described, which put him on “probation”. Then, the 1877 scandal is looked at in detail, and the accusations against Duhring by the Faculty of Philosophy – mainly libel and insult – checked against the facts. It is argued that, while there might have been a point in Duhring’s charge of plagiarism against the physicist Helmholtz regarding the first law of thermodynamics, Duhring was generally guilty as charged, and that his remotion was certainly legal. As far as the legitimacy of this harsh measure is concerned, the case is less clear, but in the end, it is claimed that the remotion was legitimate as well.

German Holism Revisited: Really?

Anne Harrington, Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University, has written a so far very well-received book on the history of holism in Germany. The biographies of four men are at its center: Jakob von Uexkull, Constantin von Monakow, Max Wertheimer and Kurt Goldstein—although Christian von Ehrenfels, Wolfgang Kohler, Hans Driesch and others receive considerable treatment as well. It is not clear on which basis the four main characters were selected. To a good extent, the book parallels Mitchell G. Ash’s Gestalt Psychology in German Culture, 1890–1967 (1995). Reenchanted Science belongs to the American ‘Science Wars’ framework, in which Harrington is a bridge-builder between the hard-nosed natural scientists and those theoreticians who seem to threaten the absolute truth-claim of the former. Commendable as this is, in order to locate the development of science in the social-political context of its time, one needs some working knowledge about this context. Harrington’s knowledge of Nazi Germany, however, is but slight; that of the German Empire and World War I, slighter still and mainly based on 25-year-old textbook-style accounts, rehashing outdated cliches (see pp. 19–21, 24, 31, 58). While one cannot expect original research on every subject in a book like this, there are by far too many secondary and even tertiary