Histories of the Concept of "Science"

"Science" is one of the defining concepts of modern history and culture. The scientific revolution of the 17th century was a central element of the revolutionary changes in European thought which occurred in the early modern period and the Enlightenment.¹ Due to the enduring success of the natural sciences and the technological application of the natural sciences during the 19th century, that century has been called the "Jahrhundert der Naturwissenschaften"² ("century of the natural sciences"), and the importance of the natural sciences and their applications has continued to grow ever since. As regards the history of the concept "science" itself, this concept is characterized by an unusual dialectic, which ultimately can only be understood in its historical context. On the one hand, the concept of "science" has normative connotations and implies strong assumptions and claims with regard to the validity of scientific methods and the veracity of scientific results; science creates and processes knowledge that meets particularly high standards. On the other hand, the concept contains a remarkable degree of openness and plurality; the adjective "scientific" encompasses numerous normative practices which differ fundamentally in the central questions which they seek to answer, the methods employed and the objects of enquiry, and which cannot be reduced to a single standard of validity.³

This openness of the concept of science manifests itself in the notorious difficulties involved in translating the term "science". The broad concept of "Wissenschaft" in German – and, similarly, of "wetenschap" in Dutch – is not equivalent to the term "science" in English and French, which in present usage refers almost exclusively to the natural sciences. Furthermore, the distinction between science and other forms of knowledge emerged relatively recently. As late as the 18th century, "science" could simply mean that one knows about something.⁴ A similar breadth and openness can be observed up to the present in the universities, one of the most important scientific institutions: there is no common, binding scientific ideal which is equally normative in all fields and faculties.

This openness is reflected in the processes leading to a theoretical sharpening of the concept of "science". Throughout its history, the term "science" was usually not regulated by clear definitions. For a long time, alternative terms were preferred (less formal terms relating to the practice of education, such as "learning" – as in the title of Francis Bacon's (1561–1626) Advancement of Learning of 1605 – or a term from the traditional university faculties, "philosophy", which persisted for a long time in the English term "natural philosophy", referring to what one would now call theoretical physics). Alternatively, the term "science" was used in combination with other terms, as in the title of the Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers published by Denis Diderot (1713–1784) and Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert (1717–1783), which provided a comprehensive picture of the state and organization of knowledge around 1750.⁵ There were English-language works with corresponding titles, as evidenced by the title page of Ephraim Chambers's (1680–1740) Cyclopædia of 1728.

These baroque titles reflect very well the state and nature of reflection on science in the 18th century. They also demonstrate that it was considerably more problematic to form a notion of "science" in the singular than to operate with a plural concept of "sciences". The singular concept of "science" emerged from the practice of the various sciences and has always been defined with reference to the many activities described as scientific.

This becomes apparent in the typical characterizations of the concept of science in the 17th and 18th centuries. In these, "science" is described in the form of open lists of activities and results which could be associated with the concept of science. A striking example of this is the Introduction to the first volume of the Philosophical Transactions of 1665/1666, the first journal to be devoted to the sciences in a recognizably modern sense of the word. The Philosophical Transactions – the title contains no reference to "science", and a very open description in the form of a list is chosen – are introduced as follows:

the most proper way to gratifie those, whose engagement in such Studies, and delight in the advancement of Learning and Profitable Discoveries, doth entitle them to the knowledge of what this Kingdom, or other parts of the World, do, from time to time, afford, as well of the progress of the Studies, Labours, and attempts of the Curious and learned in things of this kind, as of their compleat Discoveries and performances.⁶

The distinction between the "sciences" and the "arts" which is common to most contemporary European languages is to some extent overcome here. In the course of the 18th century, extensive areas of the "arts" – such as geometry, arithmetic and astronomy, which had belonged to the traditional seven "liberal arts", but also the technical skills of mechanics and optics – were incorporated into the field of science. Terminological remnants of this original link between the natural sciences and the "arts" survived for a long time, for example in the term Scheidekünstler ("artist of analysis"), which was a common German designation for a chemist in the 18th century.

The dialectic in the concept of science which led to this openness and simultaneously to science's supremely elevated epistemological claims is connected with two fundamentally different interpretations of the history of science. One can argue that science was conducted as early as Greek antiquity and that it was connected from the beginning with clear ideals of knowledge, building upon even older models of scientific activity, for example, in Babylonian and Egyptian astronomy and mathematics. From this perspective, the cosmology of the Pre-Socratic philosophers, the search for general proofs in Greek mathematics and philosophy, the development of a general logic of scientific knowledge in the writings of Plato (ca. 427–ca. 347 BC) and, in particular, in Aristotle's (384–322 BC) Analytics were important milestones in the development of the concept of science. The works of Euclid (ca. 360–ca. 280 BC), Archimedes (287–212 BC), Ptolemy (100–180) and others of the same period can then be considered brilliant examples of scientific achievement which remained highly influential throughout the entire history of science. The practice of interpreting Aristotle, the natural history and the technology of the Roman era, the incorporation of themes from antiquity into university teaching during the Middle Ages, and the re-ordering of the system of knowledge based on models from antiquity during the Renaissance and in humanism can be interpreted as continuations and re-interpretations of this concept of knowledge.

However, it is possible to write a fundamentally different history of the concept of science: one which stresses the openness of the concept and interprets the emergence of the concept of science as a remarkably late result of complex processes which were initially not understood in terms of "science". According to this version, "science" should not be considered the product of a linear, teleological development. The programmatic characterizations of "science" and the titles of important works from the 18th century quoted above provide clear evidence that the concept of science developed comparatively late. Even in the most advanced statements on the concept of science during the Enlightenment, systematic thinking regarding the concept continued to contain considerable ambiguities.⁷ Furthermore, "science" still had not yet become clearly embedded within the universities.

If one subscribes to the second interpretation of the history of science – and the difficulties involved in clearly locating the emergence of the concept of "science" favour this interpretation –, "science" is understood as the product of processes of stabilization which emerged from a very open collection of practices. These became specifically scientific, and were subsumed under the general notion of "science" only thanks to these processes of stabilization and structuralization which occurred primarily during the 17th and 18th centuries.

An important consequence of this openness is the fact that the fixed dichotomies which nowadays exist within the knowledge system – in particular, the dichotomy between the natural sciences and the humanities – are surprisingly late products of the development of science.⁸ The classifications of science provided by Bacon and d'Alembert contain both the natural sciences and the humanities; Giambattista Vico's (1668–1744) Scienza Nuova discusses the comune natura delle nazioni and formulates a programme for the development of the humanities under the concept of scienza.⁹ This makes the very question what the object of the history of science actually is a fundamental problem: should the history of science focus on science in general, or on the individual sciences, or on the disciplines, or on the practices which preceded these and which were less clearly ordered?

The same applies to the typical categorizations of philosophical positions. For example, many authors cannot be definitively assigned to an empiricist or a rationalist camp: Aristotle, René Descartes (1596–1650) and Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) are notable examples. Equally, it is impossible to identify clear standards for scientific rigour or a definitive scientific method. Since classical antiquity, experimentation, observation and description, mathematization and the explanation via causes have co-existed without any of these methods gaining clear primacy up to the present – the various scientific disciplines in the universities have parity of importance.¹⁰

Consequently, the retrospective application of modern standards becomes highly problematic; many historical phenomena defy an easy classification: The alchemists of the Middle Ages and the early modern period worked experimentally and in a technologically oriented fashion. The "magia naturalis" of the 16th and 17th centuries can be viewed as a form of technoscience.¹¹ Important early examples of the use of the German term "Naturwissenschaft" come from physico-theological contexts in which innovative natural science was employed to defend religious principles.¹²

Definitions and Classifications: Tendencies in the Theoretical Clarification of "Science"

For reasons already outlined, there is little point in writing the history of science as a history of the clarification of the definition of "science". The difficulties become apparent when one considers some of the more clear-cut definitions which have been suggested. Aristotle closely connects the definition of "science" with the themes of his Metaphysics. In his Analytica Posteriora, he defines "episteme" – which can best be translated as "scientific knowledge" – as knowledge of the causes for the existence of something. Or put another way, scientific knowledge follows from premises that are "true, primary, immediate, better known than, anterior to, and the cause of the conclusion".¹³ This definition points directly to two difficulties. The logical connection between the elements in this list remains to be explained; additionally, this definition is too narrow to justify Aristotle's own endeavours in the field of enquiry which we now recognize as "scientific". For example, his writings on zoology are more descriptive than causal in their approach, and therefore do not meet the criteria of his own definition. Take another example: In his Regulae ad directionem ingenii, Descartes  raised the problem that there are many "scientiae", but that the "scientiae" must ultimately come together in a single "humana sapientia",¹⁴ a unified form of human wisdom which must be defined solely in terms of its methodology, and not in terms of its content: "Omnis scientia est cognitio certa & evidens"; "all science is a certain and evident cognition".¹⁵ However, in this case, too, there is a fundamental problem with regard to the application: If one applies the criterion of evidence, it remains possible that even the best human knowledge is just a man-made model, a "fable", as it is expressly called in the book which Descartes is holding in a contemporary portrait.

Towards the end of the 18th century, Kant promised a fundamental revolution in philosophy in which the forms of knowledge which already existed in mathematics and physics could be taken as a starting-point. However, Kant then lost sight of the goal of defining science unequivocally. His works contain (at least) two parallel definitions, one of which involves the systematic-organic ordering of knowledge components to form a whole, while the other refers to the degree of mathematization.¹⁶ In the case of Kant also, the problem of how to differentiate between, and how to order, different forms of science remained. He was one of the first to clearly formulate the problem of the relationship between a general concept of science per se and the many specific sciences, employing a terminology which is still recognizable today. The parallel existence of forms of knowledge with various fields of transition between them is particularly evident in the spectrum of various approaches to nature that were adopted in the 18th century: In the 18th century, a threefold division was typical, which differentiated between a descriptive "natural history", a causal "natural philosophy", and an "applied mathematics" which encompassed the few fields which could be mathematicized in the strict sense, such as classical mechanics and ray optics. With his "pure" natural science and his "metaphysics of nature", Kant introduced a new level, which, however, is connected with the existing forms of approaching nature in a complex way (for example, the mathematical formulation of the Newtonian laws of motion form part of Kant's metaphysics of nature). Significantly, the first recorded instances of a comprehensive ordering function being ascribed to the term "natural science" occurred around 1800 and were directly connected with the reception of Kant's philosophy.¹⁷

The 19th century witnessed several approaches which attempted to embed the sciences – in the broad sense – in wider contexts. Empiricists stressed the continuity between scientific and everyday knowledge.¹⁸ Positivists called for a reform of the whole society – and consequently also of forms of knowledge – based on the model of the exact sciences. Ideological movements searched for scientific ideas which would enable them to define all aspects of life in a uniform manner, leading to a scientific world-view. This demonstrates a fundamental trust in science, which also resulted in the acceptance of very different fields as existing side by side in the system of the sciences. Typical visual representations of the system of sciences from the 19th century depict flat hierarchies. New disciplines and disciplinary fields  – most notably the humanities, but also psychology and the other social sciences – were created and incorporated into the system of sciences, though not without controversy.¹⁹

In the 20th century, a professionalized philosophy of science (see section 5) established itself, though even here a remarkable degree of openness remained. The "Vienna Circle", which started to dominate the genesis of analytical philosophy and philosophy of science in the 1920s, demanded that its members be competent in a scientific discipline, though that competence could be in any field of science. Additionally, two models of science were accepted in the Vienna Circle: a strictly formal logic, on the one hand, and the empirical sciences, on the other hand. Many of the systems proposed for the "unity of science" which were formulated in the context of the Vienna Circle – but also in subsequent decades – were remarkably tolerant with regard to the sciences that they deemed acceptable.²⁰ Karl Popper's (1902–1994) attempt to formulate a clear standard for scientific validity by means of his falsifiability criterion (that is, the thesis that the scientific validity of a theory is determined by the degree to which the theory is open to being falsified) was quickly criticized by Thomas Kuhn's (1922–1996) thesis of the unpredictably revolutionary character of changes in science.²¹ In addition to these attempts to establish a standard based on the perspectives of philosophy and the history of science, the sociological analysis of science became increasingly important. In this context, Robert Merton (1910–2003) returned to the approach of trying to define science by listing its central characteristics (according to Merton, science is characterized by four criteria: communalism, universalism, disinterestedness and organized scepticism).²² However, sociological analysis also increasingly called into question the guiding concept of the superior status of scientific knowledge.²³ Peter Galison (born 1955) combined sociological insights with ideas from the philosophy and history of science to produce a very potent metaphor for the status of scientific knowledge when he proposed "trading zones" – that is, sites of interaction and negotiation – as the only appropriate designation for science, capturing the openness and flexibility of science, but also its claim to high-standard negotiations about results, methods and practices.²⁴

All these authors employ a strategy that is effective even in those cases where no clear definition of "science" can be given: Reflection on science essentially becomes a reflection on the systematization and classification of sciences. This area of debate is characterized by surprising continuities. Perhaps the most influential suggestion regarding the classification of sciences follows the structure that is assumed to exist among man's basic cognitive capacities. Drawing on suggestions of Aristotle, whom he otherwise criticized in the starkest terms, Francis Bacon divided these capacities into the three areas of memory, reason and imagination, which correspond to the three archetypal types of science (history, natural science and art). This classification is still present much later, forming the basis of the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d'Alembert, where the capacities are also referred to as mémoire, raison and imagination.²⁵

There are three important points to be made in this context. Firstly, the proposed classifications of science are all intended to be comprehensive and are consequently formulated in a tolerant and open way. Secondly, the "sciences" in the plural proved considerably less problematic than the development of an overarching concept of "science" in the singular; the greatest challenge lies in the conceptual or classificatory systematization of the sciences.²⁶ Thirdly, the typical terminology which is used in the discourse on science in the present day – natural sciences, humanities – also stems from the discourse on the systematization and classification of the sciences, which was conducted with great intensity in the 19th century in particular.²⁷

Scientific Institutions: Sites of the Stabilization of Science

The fact that the sciences are essentially the result of a structuring of existing practices is demonstrated by the large role that institutions have played in defining the concept of science. These institutions formed relatively late in the history of science, and are also characterized to a considerable degree by science's characteristic openness. The relationship between universities and non-university institutions is a useful starting point for the reconstruction of the history of institutions that are devoted to science in a more specific sense. Historically, universities are rather conservative organizational structures due to the longevity of their institutional form, but also due to their independent legal status. In the beginning, their main role was seen as the dissemination of knowledge and professional preparation, and from the Middle Ages onwards they were essentially uniform in structure: a propaedeutic faculty, the philosophical faculty, prepared students for profession-oriented studies in one of the higher faculties of medicine, law and theology.²⁸ Science was not a primary organizational criterion in the traditional university.

The present-day natural sciences illustrate best the difficulties resulting from this structure of the university. The subjects which today make up the natural sciences were spread across the university faculties, and differed in status.  Some had the function of auxiliary disciplines of medicine (botany, zoology, mineralogy and chemistry), while others were subjects within the philosophical faculty (mathematics, applied mathematics and physics). Camerialist faculties and specialist academies – for example, the Mining Academy which has existed in Freiberg since 1765 – further complicated the picture, as did theological positions that took the explanation of nature in scientific terms as part of a theological argument, as referred to above. In spite of these structural problems of the traditional universities, individual universities emerged as centres which attracted acclaim and students from throughout Europe, often due to the achievements of individual scholars or schools based there (examples are Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738) in Leiden and Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777) in Göttingen in the field of medicine and its auxiliary sciences; philology and orientalism in Göttingen in the 18th century). The large role played by medicine is conspicuous in this context. In addition to Boerhaave and Haller, Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694) and Giovanni Borelli (1608–1679) in Pisa, Frederik Ruysch (1638–1731) in Amsterdam and William Harvey (1578–1657) in Padua und Cambridge were prominent figures. The central importance of medicine is understandable in view of its practical importance and the internal diversification of medicine, which remained the primary site within the university for the teaching of many areas of the natural sciences into the 19th century.²⁹

The sciences were addressed far more directly and explicitly in non-university institutions such as academies and learned societies. Proto-institutions had existed since the Renaissance, but the typical scientific societies and academies which were to play an important role over a long period were founded in the 17th and 18th centuries. In particular, the 18th century witnessed an explosion in the number of societies, especially smaller ones, many of which existed only for a short period of time.³⁰

In many cases, these societies emerged from pre-existing structures (court structures; professional structures such as doctors' networks, which played a central role in the establishment of learned societies in Germany; social classes such as the "invisible college" of university professionals and wealthy amateurs in England, out of which developed the Royal Society). The "Academia naturae curiosorum", which subsequently became the German national academy for the sciences, "Leopoldina", is a prominent example of the emergence of new institutions and societies from existing structures, as is indicated by the fact that initially, this society had no set location, but was located at the place of residence of the respective president. In many cases, the early societies and institutions remained quite vague in their structure and goals. Broad titles such as "Académie des sciences" and "Royal Society for Improving Natural Knowledge"³¹ are once again indicative of the openness of the concept of science. The concept of the academy and the learned society was not restricted to particular fields. In many cases, such institutions and societies were founded almost simultaneously for different subjects. This point is well illustrated by the following examples from mid-17th-century Paris: Académie Française (founded in 1635), Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (founded in 1648), Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (founded in 1663), Académie des Sciences (founded in 1666), Académie Royale d'Architecture (founded in 1671).

Typically, there were three forms of membership in these societies: full members, external or corresponding members, and honorary members. The interaction between these three groups further contributed to the refinement of the concept of science, as this membership structure established a local context for scientific endeavour, built up an (often international) network of correspondents, and also contributed to the archetypal concept of the scientist (though this term was not yet in use), primarily through the "honorary members" category and the phenomenon of membership of multiple institutions. Almost all of the important scientists of the 17th and 18th century held central positions in academies and learned societies, for example Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) in the Accademia dei Lincei, Isaac Newton (1643–1727) in the Royal Society, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) in the Berlin Academy.

Many of these societies provided an infrastructure which could be used for research. The collections, libraries and laboratories of the societies were generally much more accessible than the corresponding resources in universities. Most importantly, however, the societies established networks of people – which were in many cases international in scope, and which through correspondence and publications provided the context in which these institutions took a more fixed form – and the framework for the exchange and coordination of different activities happening at the local level. The genre of the scientific journal emerged from the activities of the academies and societies (see section 4).³² The correspondence of the societies related to all aspects of science. Correspondence not only included the exchange of data and information regarding research results; concrete materials such as collection objects were also exchanged. The organization and evaluation of research voyages and voyages of discovery were another core activity of the learned societies.

In many cases, universities and other forms of institutions cooperated with one another in a complementary way, whereby the connection between research and teaching which is typical of the modern understanding of science emerged. This cooperation was explicitly stated and developed during the joint founding of the University and the Academy in Göttingen in 1751. Albrecht von Haller, who was the main originator of this double foundation, spoke of "zweyerley Academien" ("two types of academy"), one of which – the University – was aimed at the "Belehrung der Jugend" ("instruction of the youth"), while the other was devoted to "Erfinden" ("invention").³³ Jena provides a similar example of cooperation – albeit less formally established – between a traditional university and more flexible private institutions such as learned societies. The Jena model was influential, because the texts which appeared around 1800 defining the role and function of a university, in which the connection between research and teaching was identified as indispensable, and in which science was expressly named as the guiding concept of universities for the first time, emerged from debates in Jena.³⁴

In a text on the Streit der Facultäten (Conflict of the Faculties) of 1798, Kant noted merely in an aside that one could invert the traditional university hierarchy and place the philosophical faculty at the top, because philosophy involves general reflection on science which is not subject to pragmatic aims or a direct benefit. The generation of thinkers who directly continued and superseded the work of Kant – most prominent among them as theorists of the university were Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775–1854) and Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) – proposed just such a reconstitution of universities into scientific institutions, as was then indeed to occur in Berlin in 1810 and as was ultimately described in the writings of Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835).³⁵ This reform emerged from the philosophical faculty, which thereby claimed for itself the concept of "science", as well as the ultimate responsibility for interpreting the concept, and which, in so doing, became an institution for scientific reflection. Science thus became a concept sui generis and was no longer dependent on external justification. In particular, these philosophical definitions of the concept of science deliberately dispensed with all reference to the utility of science.

This innovation in the history of the concept "science" coincided with fundamental changes in university structure – the ways in which these two developments influenced each other requires further investigation – which occurred throughout Europe. The traditional spectrum of faculties was subdivided further. In particular, independent faculties of mathematics and natural sciences were established. The important role played by centralist political structures, such as in France and the French-dominated territories under the influence of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821), and in the Russian Empire under Alexander I (1777–1825), is conspicuous. The profound changes that reformed the traditional self-governing university structure were only possible in the context of the general restructuring of society. Even in cases where entirely new faculties were not established, "seminars"³⁶ and "institutes" created within existing university structures provided institutional entities devoted to research.³⁷

Overview: Specialization in the Spectrum of Faculties of Universities (up to 1890)

A comparison of the above dates highlights a number of structural trends. In many cases, chemistry received separate institutional status earlier than physics, which may be connected with the fact that chemistry had to separate out from the medical faculty and was not involved in the subdivision of the philosophical faculty. It may also be significant that chemistry was a more recent discipline than physics and as such was forced to differentiate itself more clearly. It is also noteworthy that mathematics and the natural sciences remained part of the philosophical faculty or the faculty of arts for a long time in many places (for example, up to 1910 in Freiburg, up to 1921 in Bern, up to 1971 at McGill).

Forms of the institutionalization of science can also be found within other institutions, though it is difficult to clearly identify the profile and function of these institutions. The Kunstkammern(cabinets of curiosity) of the 17th and 18th centuries always contained elements of later research collections, such as scientific instruments and natural specimens, but also book collections.³⁹ Botanical gardens reflected the changing status of botany as this former auxiliary discipline increasingly became a scientific discipline in its own right. Anatomical theatresand medical demonstration collections mediated between didactic goals and research.⁴⁰ At an early stage, scientific experiments became spectacular public demonstrations, and it was difficult to distinguish between the two.⁴¹

Institutions of Scientific Communication

The history of the sciences as a history of the structuring and stabilization of an open field of activities presupposes forms of exchange and communication. The relationship between the formation of a scientific worldview and the invention of printing has been well researched, as has the close connection between the dissemination of Enlightenment knowledge and commercial booksellers.⁴²

As already mentioned, communication was one of the primary functions of the academies and learned societies. The different forms of communication permeated one another. Correspondence networks and publications were inextricably linked. Journals were often based on letter correspondence. Indeed, right up to the present, the most important natural science journals feature "letters to the editor". Gigantic correspondence networks encompassed the European scientific landscape. In many instances, the persons involved also served as nodal points in the institutional networks (see the EGO article on Christoph Jacob Trew (1695–1769); other central figures of scientific exchange were Haller and the Bernoullis. Large projects such as the Encyclopédie would have been impossible without a network of correspondents).

Scientific journals made use of the structures of the learned societies and existing correspondence networks, complemented existing forms of publications such as newspapers and bookshop catalogues, and, in the form of review journals and excerpt journals, disseminated existing literature. There was a wide variety of types of journals and the spectrum of their functions was broad: collecting and disseminating results and data; discussion of theories; information on literature.⁴³ The target readership was diverse and included a broad public as well as professional colleagues. In the 18th century, even fashion journals contained reports on scientific innovations.

The relevant journals emerged soon after the founding of the academies and learned societies of the 17th century and as a result of the organizational structures of the latter. From 1665, the Philosophical Transactions reported on the activities of the Royal Society. The Paris Academy presented its results in the form of Memoires.⁴⁴ However, independent journals also came into being and developed into influential institutions in their own right (such as the Journal des Sçavans, which also started in 1665;⁴⁵ the Acta Eruditorum, published from 1682, which was influenced by Leibniz and which followed the example of French journals; and the Allgemeine Literaturzeitung in 18th-century Jena). It is noteworthy that most of the early journals were general in the sense that they did not limit themselves to particular subfields of the sciences. Differences in the approaches of the various journals were on a far more general level: the French publications were associated with a more "abstract" approach, while the journals of the Royal Society were seen as featuring a "concrete" approach.⁴⁶

In addition to the universities, the academies and societies, and the journals, a further organizational form developed – significantly, also from the late-18th century onwards: supra-regional and international conferences. These conferences were of two types. On the one hand, there was the model of the trade fair which presented new products. In the case of the sciences, new technical and industrial products were particularly relevant. Conversely, one could also view book fairs, which had existed for far longer, as scientific events. The unmistakable and important influence of this model continues to be observable in the world exhibitions.

A second model was established with the foundation of the "Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte" (Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors) in 1822 by Lorenz Oken (1779–1851). This society was influenced by the concept of science developed in Jena and had its own journal called Isis.⁴⁷ Each year, this society brought together all those who were active in the field of medicine and natural science, keeping the membership criteria very liberal. Both of these models of scientific conferences carry a clear societal and political agenda.⁴⁸ The paradigm of the "Gesellschaft deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte" gave rise to a series of new associations, such as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1831), the Riunione degli Scienziati Italiani (1839) and the Nordiske Naturforskermøde, Naturforskerselskabet (1839). At the conferences of these associations, "general" lectures discussed general questions regarding the organization of science. The increasing degree of specialization of the natural sciences was clearly reflected in the development of the special sections of these conferences. It is also noticeable that many of the early conferences were devoted to questions regarding standardization in science (such as in units of measurement or terminology). The large conferences were indispensible for the formation of a collective identity and shared norms of practice in the sciences.

Overview: Important Scientific Conferences

Many of these conferences continue to be held regularly, particularly the conference series initiated more recently.

Science, Popularization, Weltanschauung: Blurring of Boundaries and Radicalized Demarcation

The history of science is the history of positioning science in relation to other forms of knowledge, and this can occur through the development of an internal frame of reference within the sciences or by locating science in the context of general cultural developments. Indeed, there is a strong tradition of science's being discussed in such broader cultural contexts, both positively and critically. Bacon presented his idealized projects for the development of science in the form of an utopian novel, Nova Atlantis of 1627. Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) caricatured the contemporary academies already in the 18th century as sites where otherworldly and abstruse practices occurred. The presentation of new scientific results in the convivial context of the salons of the 18th century had a fundamental effect on scientific experiments.⁵⁶

At least from the 18th-century glorification of Newton onwards, the natural scientist became an archetypal creative genius, though this was not reflected conceptually until around the end of the 18th century when idealistic and romantic philosophy expressly claimed the genius status not only for the artist, but also for the natural scientist. This development continued in the 19th and 20th centuries, which saw Charles Darwin (1809–1882)[] and Albert Einsteinbecome icons – with the most diverse and sometimes extremely critical and polemical connotations – and whole genres in literature and film referring to a particular, often rather negative, image of the scientist.⁵⁷

All trends referred to so far converge on the 19th century. The "century of the natural sciences" institutionalized a general reflection on the sciences and their development. Two trends converge in this context: on the one hand, the movement towards the professionalization of reflection on science in the philosophical faculty, which began around 1800 and which made reflection on science a topic equal in importance to the traditional themes of philosophy, which was rendered even more important by its being intertwined with large-scale cultural development; on the other hand, the increasingly important role played by science and technology in everyday life.

The growing importance of science had several causes. Scientific theories such as Darwinism and materialism became directly relevant to the position of humans in history and in the universe.⁵⁸ The movement beginning around 1800 which was occupied with new forms of reflection on science and with the differentiation between forms of science ultimately led to a dynamic process of specialization which, in the context of the industrial revolution and the concomitant explosion in knowledge and new forms of legitimization through the application of scientific results, resulted in a complex situation: specialization makes unprecedented progress in science and technology possible, but leads, on the other hand, to negative consequences that were highlighted by contemporaneous cultural criticists, who used terms such as "alienation" and "demystification". Almost all concepts that were used to criticize culture around 1900 could be related to science, which was depicted simultaneously as a promise of salvation and a constant source of problems.⁵⁹ Additionally, changes to the educational system had increasingly important consequences for the role played by science in society. In the 19th century, alternatives were sought to the classical model of humanist grammar school education, which had previously been the sole route to university education. Realgymnasia and technical academies were founded. Additionally, science became a central element in the adult education movement and in workers' education.

The promise of salvation that could be associated with science expressed itself most clearly in the elevation of the scientific worldview to a scientific religion, as emerged from Auguste Comte's (1798–1857) positivism, and in large Weltanschauung organizations, such as the "Deutscher Monistenbund" founded in 1906, which – resulting primarily from the ideas of the zoologist and Darwinist Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), the chemist Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932) and the neurologist and entomologist Auguste-Henri Forel (1848–1931) – devoted itself to the propagation of a uniform scientific worldview encompassing all aspects of life. All the types of organizations referred to served the new forms of education and deliberately contributed to a comprehensive popularization of science. New types of publications brought science to a new readership. The societal responsibilities of science led to a growing consciousness of the political role of science. Ideals such as cosmopolitanism were expressly supported in the types of organizations referred to above.

Science, Standardization and the Institutionalization of Reflection on Science

Science moves continuously between standardization and openness. From the Weltanschauung movements around the turn of the century emerged very detailed suggestions ranging from the standardization of languages to library systems and efficient paper formats, though the calls for standardization were directly undermined by the fact that the suggestions were so varied: suggestions on the standardization of languages included a formal logic based on mathematics and a world language intended for everyday use, such as Esperanto.⁶⁰ On the other hand, recent research has demonstrated that the adoption of standardized scientific practices was neither conducive to progress (as the romantics and Weltanschauung thinkers had already pointed out) nor unequivocally suggested by the sources. Science finds its place between ideals and concrete practices. It does not adhere to any linear path of development. The formation of disciplines and the establishment of concrete structures proceeded from a starting point of openness in a second, derivative step.

History does not suggest a unique model for science. No form of science consistently held the position of the main and leading paradigm of science throughout history. Thus, the assumption that such models exist is questionable. A central element of the history of science, therefore, has to be the history of reflection on science and the emergence of a philosophy of the sciences. The latter is closely connected with developments in the history of ideas and institutions which are described above. The central role played by philosophical concepts of the system of science from the time around 1800 onwards has already been discussed above. In the 19th century, a separate tradition of reflection on science took institutional form. The Weltanschauung organizations of the 19th century performed an important function in this context. Wilhelm Ostwald, who was president of the Deutscher Monistenbund from 1911, published a periodical called Annalen der Naturphilosophie(Annals of Natural Philosophy) , in which Ludwig Wittgenstein's (1889–1951) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was published in 1921, and his series entitled Ostwalds Klassiker der Naturwissenschaft (Ostwald's Classical Texts on the Natural Sciences) made primary texts of the history of science available.

Universities began to provide courses of study corresponding to this increasing interest in a reflection on science, beginning with the founding of a chair of "inductive philosophy" in Zurich in 1870,⁶¹ and with the establishment of a professorship for Philosophie, insbesondere Geschichte und Theorie der induktiven Wissenschaften (philosophy, in particular the history and theory of the inductive sciences) in 1895 in Vienna, which was initially held by Ernst Mach (1838–1916). These were once again connected with broader societal organizations such as the "Verein Ernst Mach" in Vienna, of which the Vienna Circle which emerged in the 1920s was a direct follow-on. Conferences on the "unity of science" were held from 1935 onwards, though natural science conferences such as the Solvay conferences also helped establish a defined image of science.⁶²

All the processes and structures discussed here in the context of the emergence of science and of reflection on the concept of science are characterized by the same dialectic between precise standardization, on the one hand, and liberal openness, on the other. In this context, even the development of a professional form of self-reflection of the sciences can be understood as a reflex of the openness of the scientific concept, which does not meet any clearly defined standard.

Paul Ziche and Joppe van Driel