The Quest for the New Science: Language and Thought in Eighteenth-Century Science - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0809309173 ISBN 13: 9780809309177

Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979

Synopsis

A new philosophical and historical examination of the work of Vico, Herder, Schiller, and Goethe, this book suggests that each of them experienced an independent rediscovery of the eternal truth that it is man who is the measure of all things. The explosion of German speculative science in the final quarter of the eighteenth century may be explained by the conscious efforts of the German intelligentsia to create a language sufficiently facile and precise to express the philosophical and scientific insights of their day. Coupled with their aggressive expansion of a language that had been repressive of speculative thought was an intellectual movement progressing in counterpoint to the Enlightenment. The question of why "this generation suddenly 'discovered' science" has been posed previously but with only tentative suggestions forthcoming. Perhaps more important is the question of the nature of the speculative science proposed by men such as these, together with Jung-Stilling, Novalis, Lichtenberg, Fichte, and Schelling, as well as its importance to us as a view of science today. With the independent but shared perception that language is the essential element that sets man apart from the rest of nature, the essayists have proceeded upon the premise that it is through language that man and his creations must be studied. Thus David R. Stevenson, K. Michael Seibt, Harry Ritter, and Karl J, Fink join recent theories in semiotics, psychoanalysis, language philosophy, and the sociology of knowledge to approach a comprehension of the creations of man through the study of his language. To this end Stevenson, in his examination of the works of Vico, stresses the concept of ingenium over ratio, while Seibt emphasizes Herder's insistence upon Einfühlung; for the creations of man, like his mind, are individual things. Both essayists discuss the poetic and religious origins of these concepts as well as their significance for present-day theories of historiography.

About this title

About the Author

Karl J. Fink is Assistant Professor of German at the University of Kentucky.

James W. Marchand is Professor of Ger­man and of the Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Illinois.

Edition details

• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Publication date: 1979
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809309173
• ISBN 13: 9780809309177
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 112
• Editor: Fink Karl J., Marchand James W.