[Globalization and its historical location. Some remarks with the example of Ernst Haeckel]. / Globalisierung in ihrer historischen Verortung. Einige Anmerkungen am Beispiel Ernst Haeckels.

Globalization, regarded here as the extensive and profound transformation process of modernity, manifests itself to us in the way it impacts the here and now. However, it also has a prehistory with regard to both its anthropogenic effects on nature and intellectual controversies. This prehistory is important for understanding how we deal with this phenomenon. Due to the important roles science plays in the process of globalization and the, in no way insignificant, repercussions it has on the sciences themselves, this article aims to present in detail a prehistory that pointedly illustrates how we perceive our modernity, also with regard to its discrepancies which result from the various underlying conditions. In its attempt to analyze the question of contemporary perception in an exemplary way, the article below looks back at the intellectual situation prevailing around 1900. It aims to clarify lines of influence and controversial issues connected with Ernst Haeckel, particularly in terms of the mutual interconnectedness and influence of intra-academic changes and cultural reflections.

[Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker - supporter of the concept of the East German movement in favor of self-organization during the political turning point 1989/90]. / Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker--Unterstützer für Konzepte der ost-deutschen Bürgerbewegung pro Selbstorganisation in der "Wende" 1989/90.

The luminosity of Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker's holistic thinking in the former German Democratic Republic (DDR) is reviewed. Broad-minded academics sought, in accordance with the modern paradigm of self-organization, beyond the ideological template for ways out of the dead end of incrustations of society and innovation blockages under the constraints of a dictatorship. Right after the fall of the wall, Weizsäcker willingly backed a "community of free researchers for self-organization" (Freie Forschungsgemeinschaft Selbstorganisation, FFGSO). This group, conceived as a nonpartisan "think tank" of civil activism, is also discussed. At a number of its meetings Weizsäcker debated the dangers of ideologically influenced science. The effectiveness of the dual leadership at his own Starnberg Institute, for instance, was stymied by the tensions arisen out of such conflicting aims. Against the voluntaristic anticipations of the mainstream in sociology, precisely that system proved to be more viable that was meant to be overcome: faulty and purportedly futureless capitalism. Weizsäcker repudiated social prognoses made in the absence of rules for their falsification resp. verification. Weizsäcker acted as a leading figure at the FFGSO's Potsdam conference, opened on 30 Mar. 1990, on the "DDR--and afterwards?". Its intention was in order to trigger a nationwide discussion of scientific scenarios in designing German unification in the face of gross practical disparities between East and West Germany. The Trust Agency inspired by the FFGSO at the Round Table between opposition and old government was supposed to transfer the national public property "Volkseigentum" of the DDR into private property of the East German citizens, to enable them to realize a role as subject through self-organization. At the group's request, Weizsäcker mediated the readiness by the Lutheran World Federation to assume the role of ombudsman in anticipation of conflicts of interest within the Trust Agency in processing the total assets of an entire country. Weizsäcker also opened contacts with competent earlier fellows from his Starnberg institute on practical cooperative projects at the beginning of the 1990s.

[Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Werner Heisenberg]. / Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker und Werner Heisenberg.

The 50-year relationship between Weizsäcker and Heisenberg spanned the highpoints of discovery and dictatorship during the 1930s, extended into the war-time uranium project, the post-war controversy over that project, debates over West German nuclear policy, and the philosophical implications of modern physics. This paper explores the interaction between these two leading figures during that difficult and significant half-century.

[Weizsäcker and Indian philosophy - a new beginning in negotiating the dualism of mind and matter?]. / Weizsäcker und die indische Philosophie-- ein Neubeginn für die Uberwindung des Dualismus von Geist und Materie?

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker's thought is centred around the idea of the unity of reality. He tries to express this idea in his interpretation of quantum physics as well as on the background of neoplatonic thinking. Even his interest in Indian philosophies is based on this concept that would overcome the dualism of mind and matter as well as the dualism of subject and object. On this basis he also tries to reflect on his own inexpressible "mystical" experience in Tiruvannamalai, India, interpreting it with the help of the experience he has been told about by the Indian thinker Gopi Krishna. This is the concept of prana (vital energy) that he uses to find a common terminological ground for physical and mental events. According to Indian Advaita Vedanta, the non-dualistic interpretation of the Vedantic scriptures, reality is based on a non-dual oneness that is self-reflective, transparent and neither immanent nor transcendent but beyond any category. It is pure bliss in its self-expression. Human "mental" experience is a reflective mode of this one reality, subject and object coincide. The result is a holistic psycho-somatology. In view of these ideas Weizsäcker reformulates the notion of "matter". It is less an interaction of particles with specific mass than a non-dual net of interrelations and information, and this would correlate with a concept of mind (consciousness) that could be conceptualized as the energy of self-reflectivity in that very process.

[Jakub Barner (1640-1683) and his Chymia philosophica (1698): side notes on the publication of the Polish translation]. / Jakub Barner (1640-1683) i jego Chemia filozoficzna (1698). na marginesie publikacji polskiego przekladu.

The translation of Chymiaphilosophica by Jakub Barner is the second publication in Polish historiography of a printed source work on early modem chemistry (alchemy) written by a Polish citizen, well known and influencial across Europe (the first such translation comprised the treatises of Michael Sendivogius). This admirable initiative of unquestionable value to Polish historians of science resulted in an elegantly published volume, with an extensive introduction and useful appendices. The language of the translation is pleasant to read, retaining the spirit of the original by means of a moderate use of archaisms and generally accurate selection of proper terminology. A closer comparison of some fragments of the translation reveals, however, that it omits essential words, phrases and even entire sentences. The translation itself is occasionally incorrect as well, completely changing the meaning of the author's text and distorting his intentions, thereby undermining the reliability of the Polish translation as a whole. In the factual layer, identifying both chemical substances and (especially) the names of the authors cited by Barner often appear to be doubtful or problematic. Apart from numerous obvious mistakes, as well as leaving many surnames unidentified even when it was very difficult, the translators and/or editors of the Polish text created some non-existent authors as a result of errors produced while copying their surnames from the original text or due to unfounded assumptions that some chemical or botanical terms are names of chemical authors. There is also no consistency in the spelling of surnames (usually left in the Latin form, sometimes spelled with wrong inflection, but also modernised). In the biographical introduction there are also numerous factual errors and some bizarre mistranslations. Not only did its author fail to correct invalid information of earlier biographers of Barner, relying only on the most obvious and accessible publications, but also perpetuated these "historiographical myths" and even created new ones. Neither did he consult any sources apart from some other of Barners published books. Writing from the positivist perspective and on the basis of outdated literature, he also sustained the categorical distinction between alchemy and chemistry, already rejected in contemporary historiography, thus presenting the role and position of Barner in the history of science not quite adequately. If one adds to that the very numerous "typos" throughout the book, it may be regarded as a negative example of poor source editing in almost every respect, even though it makes a pleasant reading.

[Medical anthropology in academies: on the criticism of natural science medicine exemplified by Viktor von Weizsäcker]. / Medizinische Anthropologie in Akademien: Zur Kritik der naturwissenschaftlichen Medizin am Beispiel Viktor von Weizsäckers.

Viktor von Weizsäcker (1886-1957) founded his concept of medical anthropology as a clinician educated in internal medicine and neurology. He tried to broaden natural scientific medicine psychosomatically focussing on the "sick human". The natural scientific approach would exclude subjectivity, and therefore he propagated the "introduction of the subject' (Einführung des Subjekts) into the life sciences. His own sensory physiological experiments and Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis inspired him essentially since the 1920s. In his main work Der Gestaltkreis (gestalt circle) published in 1940 he stressed the "entity of perceiving and moving" (Einheit von Wahrnehmen und Bewegen) in regard to relevant aspects of medicine. In 1932, Weizsäcker became a member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, whose president he was from 1947 till 1949; 1942 he became a member of the Leopoldina. Primarily his merits as a neurologist were highly appreciated. His medical anthropology was not relevant for his election by the two academies. Nevertheless, there was a certain repudiation against the objectivistic and materialistic Weltanschauung within the scientific community. So, Paracelsus and Goethe were highly estimated as natural philosophical guides for own conceptions. This was especially evident for the circle around Wilhelm Troll and Karl Lothar Wolf in Halle, both members of the Leopoldina, who were fascinated by Goethe's concept of "Gestalt". Weizsäcker's lecture on "Gestalt und Zeit" in Halle in 1942 fitted in the concept of those natural scientists.

[Early career of Michael Sendivogius]. / Michal Sedziwój--poczatki kariery.

One of the most influential alchemical authors of the early modern period was Michael Sendivogius whose early life is shrouded in mystery. He may be labelled the most famous Polish scientific writer between Copernicus and Marie Sklodowska-Curie, but because of the difficulties involved in researching the biography of any alchemist, there has been relatively little interest in him among Polish historians. The early work of Roman Bugaj (author of the still fundamental monograph) and Wlodzimierz Hubicki (who made his research available to the international community) has been continued only by the English-born Zbigniew Szydlo and the author of this article. The roots of many legends about Sendivogius were three mid-17th century short biographies, none of which is trustworthy, so it is crucial to verify the received myth and the version constructed in the 1960's and 1970's with primary sources and evidence from the recent "new historiography of alchemy". The present article examines them in the light of newly discovered sources and reinterpretation of the old ones. The genealogy of the Sedzimir family is discussed at length to show that Sendivogius most probably was not its member but only a pretender in order to assume (or prove) the status of a nobleman. Several possible hypotheses about his origins are presented. He is known to have studied at three universities (Leipzig, Vienna and Altdorf) but authors of early panegyrics dedicated to Sendivogius list more universities which he may have attended. The most interesting is that of Cambridge, listed as the first one, because practically no Poles or Czechs went there at the time. Finally, his marriage to Veronica Stiebar, a wealthy widow of a Franconian knightly family, and her interesting family relationships (links to Erasmus, Camerarius, Paracelsus and the original Doctor Faustus) are discussed. The period covered is that before Sendivogius moved to Prague in about 1597, having already been a courtier of Rudolf II since early 1594.

[The role of ancient astrology in preparation for a secular natural science and medicine]. / Zur Rolle der antiken Astrologie in der Vorbereitung einer säkularen Naturwissenschaft und Medizin.

The Persian period in the Near East (from c. 500 BCE) represented the first example of globalisation, during which advanced cultural centres from Egypt to Afghanistan were united under a single rule and common language. Paul Unschuld has drawn attention to a scientific revolution in the late first millennium BC, extending from Greece to China, from Thales to Confucius, which saw natural law replace the divine law in scientific thinking. This paper argues for new advances in astronomy as the specific motor which motivated changes in scientific thinking and influenced other branches of science, including medicine, just as the new science of astrology, which replaced divination, fundamentally changed the nature of medical prognoses. The secularisation of science was not universally accepted among ancient scholars, and the irony is that somewhat similar reservations accompanied the reception of modern quantum physics.

[The foundational myth of Argentinian homeopathy. The journal "Homeopatía," Buenos Aires (1933-1940)]. / El mito fundacional de la homeopatía Argentina. La revista "Homeopatía," Buenos Aires (1933-1940).

The present article analyzes the historical-identitary construction in the older and most important institution of Homeopathy in Argentina. Two analytical axes are constructed: on the one hand, the construction of a foundational myth that outlines a genealogical thread between the "divinities" of the medicine, and on the other hand, the mitification of Hahnemann, founding father of the discipline. Using both axes we explain how the discourses of the journal were creating a symbolic support for the weak conjuncture in which they tried to be consolidated legally as an institution.

[New investigations on Philippe Désiré Cauvet (Agde 1827-Lyon 1890), military pharmacist, naturalist, fellow and professor]. / Nouvelles recherches sur Philippe Désiré Cauvet (Agde 1827-Lyon 1890), pharmacien militaire, naturaliste, agrégé et professeur.

Philippe Cauvet undertook a military career after having obtained his pharmacist diploma in the school of Montpellier in 1854. He kept first his terms in the military school of "Val-de-Grâce" in Paris and came after some years to Strasbourg as a tutor at the "Ecole impériale du Service de santé militaire". Cauvet obtained his philosophical thesis in this town in 1861. Some years later, in 1864, he was accepted as a fellow at the school of pharmacy where he teached botany and zoology to military and civilian students. After some years in Algeria and other towns in France, he asked in 1874 to become a professor at the school of pharmacy of Nancy, but the ministry of war did not agree with the plurality of activities. Cauvet was named as the professor of materia medica at the n 1882. He remained at these two functions until his death, suddenly occured in 1890. Professor Philippe Cauvet worked mainly in botany and wrote books in this field and in natural history.

Magic and artifice in the collection of Athanasius Kircher.

Situated at the center of intellectual life in baroque Rome, the museum administered by the Jesuit naturalist Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) simultaneously instructed and bemused its audiences with an exuberant mix of exotic animals, classical art and technological marvels. Kircher's playful use of spectacle and his irrepressible fondness for "magic" were derided by contemporaries as frivolous wonder-mongering, but the lavish machines at the heart of his museum were more than mere showpieces. Instead, they presented audiences with a compelling vision of the natural world in which the hidden foundations of the universe could be captured and displayed by artifice. Kircher's collection was in itself a vast instrument of revelation, conceived on a grander scale than the telescope of Galileo but rooted all the same in contemporary scientific culture.

The formation of the study of Shushu and its development in the Middle Ages: a tentative study of a field of scientific study peculiar to East Asia.

Natural science in East Asia formed a unique field of study called the study of shushu, which consisted of various fields of natural science and divinations derived from the Yijing [Chinese characters: see text]. Though the study of shushu is a field peculiar to East Asia where people want to evaluate the essence of the scientific culture of East Asia properly, it seems indispensable to grasp its structure and historical development. In this paper, the process of transformation of fangshu [Chinese characters: see text] in the pre-Qin period into shushu caused by the great thought revolution occurring in the period of Han period and its development in the Middle Ages are discussed. In particular, the origin of the theory of yinyang [Chinese characters: see text] and the five phases that is the theoretical basis of the study of shushu is studied using materials excavated recently in China. Using the texts preserved in Japan seen in the Wuxing Dayi [Chinese characters: see text] and the Ishinpo [Chinese characters: see text] the development of the theory of yinyang and five phases in the Middle Ages and its theoretical characteristics are discussed.

[Academy idea and Curiositas as leitmotif of the early modern Leopoldina]. / Akademie-Idee und Curiositas als Leitmotive der frühmodernen Leopoldina.

Founded in 1652, the Academia Naturae Curiosorum fiercely defended this name, which it wished to bear. On the occasion of the founder's 400th birthday, this article will try to examine the objectives of the concept of academia and the understanding of curiositas in its historical context, with a focus on the early history of the academy up to its receipt of imperial privilege in 1687/88. This is done in four chapters (I-IV). The memorial occasion suggests a preliminary note on our contemporary situation: I. The Jubilee Triangle--Berlin (Berlin academies), Halle-Wittenberg (university), Schweinfurt-Halle (Leopoldina)--considering the fate of the different historical models of scholarly organizations before and after the political turnaround (die "Wende") in 1989/90. The main questions about the 17th century orient themselves around the founding documents, the imperial status of the foundational city, as well as the Bausch family's places of study, educational travels, and library.--II. The Imperially Privileged Leopoldina--"Academy" or "Society"? This question's point of departure is the incipient engagement--the year after J. L. Bausch died (1665)--of G. W. Leibniz, who had likewise earned his doctorate at the University of Altdorf. He was engaged for his state-based vision of society that considered scholarly critique of hitherto extant academies, including the curiosité of the Collegium Medicorum. The summing up of the naturae-curiosi's pursuit of imperial privilege emphasizes the denominational controversy, which pitted the imperial counsellors against the societal Nomen preferred by Vienna. The attempt to interpret both sides of the argument deals on the one hand with the semantic expansion to universities of the concept of academia, inspired by humanism and the reception of Roman law; this expansion also affected the imperial reservation rights (exemplary references to legal argumentation from the work on imperial publicity by Ch. Besold). On the other hand, it deals with aspects of privilege law, regarding the development of new kinds of higher learning institutions and university politics in the imperial city in the confessional era ("Semi-Universities"/"Academies" Strassburg, Nuremberg-Altdorf). This is followed by a thematic balancing.--Chapter III. Curiositas as an Early Modern Leitmotif of Natural Science Academies refers first to the multivalent popular usage of the fashionable and borrowed German word "Kuriosität" [curiosity] during the Enlightenment, then inquires about the word's original definitions in ancient and medieval scholarly traditions. In the age of humanist source study and expeditions into "new worlds", the concept of curiositas as an (ethically ambivalent) "desire for knowledge" was revitalized; this is exemplified by two types of sources: the report of the Orient and Brazil explorer André Thevet and the literarily virulent figure (around 1600) of knowledge-thirsty Faust. A reexamination of the academy's foundational documents, in conjunction with the peregrinatio academica of Schweinfurt doctors to Italy, confirms the old question, now newly posed, about the methodological and programmatic signal of the curiositas device. The self-reflection of the naturae-curiosi and their focus on observational development and natural-historical classifications in the area of "materia medica" show--besides other advances in scholarship in the early 17th century--clear correlation with the "phenomenology of modern thought" that is so often discussed today. However, there must be an evolutionary and innovative differentiation from what would later be called "natural science" disciplines (like biology, zoology, mineralogy, chemistry), as opposed to an all-inclusively defined "scientific revolution", which pertains to astronomical and mathematical ways of thinking, as well as new insights in the physical-instrumental field.--Chapter IV. The Urban Medical Profession Between Scholarly Medicine and Practice applies to the life of the academy's founders as urban physici with supervisional functions determined by their classification into the profession's historical three-part organization of medical personell, and into the forms of "public" health care; here, upper German imperial cities had been influenced by Italian city-states concerning trade relations and printing. Exemplary emphasis is given to developments in Nuremberg (Collegium Medicum and Collegium Pharmaceuticum 1632, medicinal organization 1652) in consideration of the professional circumstances of doctors and pharmacists. Thanks to their educational travels through Italy or The Netherlands, the Bausch's, both father and sons, were able to gain important experience for their future professional practice. These included impressions not only of the academic movement, but also of the networks of museum-like cabinets, anatomical theaters and botanical gardens associated with universities and pharmacies. A concluding look touches on the status of doctors and pharmacists--two traditionally separate healing professions that were nonetheless jointly responsible for the health of their patients--in the religious horizon of the confessional era.

[Medicine, natural philosophy and magic. Johann Laurentius Bausch from the medical history viewpoint]. / Medizin, Naturphilosophie und Magie. Johann Laurentius Bausch aus medizinhistorischer Sicht.

The Bausch reception created a double image: On the one hand he is appreciated as the outstanding founder of the Academy (later called Leopoldina) with its most important impact on the history of science, on the other hand he appears as a rather mediocre doctor and natural scientist, an "uninteresting man", whose scientific ideas soon turned out to be obsolete. This contribution tries to illuminate especially the neglected shady side of Bausch. For this purpose, four of his major writings are analysed: the "Apothecken Tax" and the monographs on the blood stone, the eagle stone and the unicorn. Here, the author intended a synopsis as broad as possible; in his opinion, the collecting of historical documents was as valid as own observations and experiments. Although Bausch again and again alludes to ideas of natural philosophy and magic he does not follow a specific doctrine and particularly keeps out of the controversy between galenism and paracelsianism.