Avi Lifschitz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199661664
- eISBN:
- 9780191751653
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199661664.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, History of Ideas
After an overview of the history of the Berlin Academy since its foundation in 1700, this chapter outlines the main questions concerning language that were debated in Berlin of the 1750s. Foremost ...
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After an overview of the history of the Berlin Academy since its foundation in 1700, this chapter outlines the main questions concerning language that were debated in Berlin of the 1750s. Foremost among these issues was Rousseau's discussion of the emergence of language, mind, and society in his Discours sur l’inégalité of 1755. Far from being perceived as a modern version of the Epicurean story, Rousseau's Discours served to undermine the naturalistic thesis. It spurred into action a divine party arguing that language could have never evolved exclusively by human means. Meanwhile, another member of the Academy, Prémontval, combined the cognitive aspects of the language debates with the ‘genius of language’ discourse, or the thesis that language reflected and conditioned the cultural outlook of its speakers. His synthesis led to the declaration of the topic of the 1759 contest: the reciprocal influence of language and opinions.Less
After an overview of the history of the Berlin Academy since its foundation in 1700, this chapter outlines the main questions concerning language that were debated in Berlin of the 1750s. Foremost among these issues was Rousseau's discussion of the emergence of language, mind, and society in his Discours sur l’inégalité of 1755. Far from being perceived as a modern version of the Epicurean story, Rousseau's Discours served to undermine the naturalistic thesis. It spurred into action a divine party arguing that language could have never evolved exclusively by human means. Meanwhile, another member of the Academy, Prémontval, combined the cognitive aspects of the language debates with the ‘genius of language’ discourse, or the thesis that language reflected and conditioned the cultural outlook of its speakers. His synthesis led to the declaration of the topic of the 1759 contest: the reciprocal influence of language and opinions.
Avi Lifschitz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199661664
- eISBN:
- 9780191751653
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199661664.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, History of Ideas
The chapter is dedicated to the Berlin contest of 1759 on the reciprocal influence of language and opinions. While most contestants tried to answer the question by recasting it as a historical ...
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The chapter is dedicated to the Berlin contest of 1759 on the reciprocal influence of language and opinions. While most contestants tried to answer the question by recasting it as a historical account of the evolution of language, Johann David Michaelis focused on the set topic while elaborating a panoramic view of language as an ongoing project of a living community. Michaelis's principled objection to invented scientific idioms and his espousal of the common use of the vernacular had strong political overtones. He repeatedly compared language to political democracy and discussed several Epicurean themes in a delicate manner. The combined effect of the 1759 prize contest and the local discussions of Rousseau's conundrums led to what was commonly perceived as an insurmountable stalemate. The chapter ends with an overview of the new challenges elaborated by Formey, Mendelssohn, and Hamann.Less
The chapter is dedicated to the Berlin contest of 1759 on the reciprocal influence of language and opinions. While most contestants tried to answer the question by recasting it as a historical account of the evolution of language, Johann David Michaelis focused on the set topic while elaborating a panoramic view of language as an ongoing project of a living community. Michaelis's principled objection to invented scientific idioms and his espousal of the common use of the vernacular had strong political overtones. He repeatedly compared language to political democracy and discussed several Epicurean themes in a delicate manner. The combined effect of the 1759 prize contest and the local discussions of Rousseau's conundrums led to what was commonly perceived as an insurmountable stalemate. The chapter ends with an overview of the new challenges elaborated by Formey, Mendelssohn, and Hamann.
Avi Lifschitz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199661664
- eISBN:
- 9780191751653
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199661664.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, History of Ideas
This postscript begins with an overview of further developments in the 1780s, among them the complex combination of innatism with naturalism, Frederick the Great's essay on German language and ...
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This postscript begins with an overview of further developments in the 1780s, among them the complex combination of innatism with naturalism, Frederick the Great's essay on German language and literature, and the 1784 contest on the universality of French. The chapter concludes with a re-assessment of the role of German thinkers in the eighteenth-century Republic of Letters. It argues for the close reconstruction of intellectual debates and contexts instead of their examination through national perspectives, as in Isaiah Berlin's ‘Counter-Enlightenment’ thesis.Less
This postscript begins with an overview of further developments in the 1780s, among them the complex combination of innatism with naturalism, Frederick the Great's essay on German language and literature, and the 1784 contest on the universality of French. The chapter concludes with a re-assessment of the role of German thinkers in the eighteenth-century Republic of Letters. It argues for the close reconstruction of intellectual debates and contexts instead of their examination through national perspectives, as in Isaiah Berlin's ‘Counter-Enlightenment’ thesis.
Avi Lifschitz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199661664
- eISBN:
- 9780191751653
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199661664.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, History of Ideas
This chapter traces new impulses in the 1760s such as the first publication of Leibniz's Nouveaux essais, the 1763 contest on certitude in metaphysics, and investigations of animal instincts. At the ...
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This chapter traces new impulses in the 1760s such as the first publication of Leibniz's Nouveaux essais, the 1763 contest on certitude in metaphysics, and investigations of animal instincts. At the end of the 1760s, despite some exasperation with the naturalistic thesis, the Academy announced its prize question for 1771. It required an explanation of how initially speechless human beings could have invented language on their own. Though Michaelis submitted an entry, the prize went on this occasion to Johann Gottfried Herder. Herder's prize essay recast the question while trying to save the human origin of language from both its detractors and its inadequate defenders. This engagement with the preceding debate should corroborate the recent reassessment of Herder's significance as a central thinker of the Enlightenment rather than its enemy.Less
This chapter traces new impulses in the 1760s such as the first publication of Leibniz's Nouveaux essais, the 1763 contest on certitude in metaphysics, and investigations of animal instincts. At the end of the 1760s, despite some exasperation with the naturalistic thesis, the Academy announced its prize question for 1771. It required an explanation of how initially speechless human beings could have invented language on their own. Though Michaelis submitted an entry, the prize went on this occasion to Johann Gottfried Herder. Herder's prize essay recast the question while trying to save the human origin of language from both its detractors and its inadequate defenders. This engagement with the preceding debate should corroborate the recent reassessment of Herder's significance as a central thinker of the Enlightenment rather than its enemy.
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226793603
- eISBN:
- 9780226793627
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226793627.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter discusses Maupertuis's mature formulation of a teleological mechanics as the basis for a rationalist theology and a proof for God's existence. When Voltaire rather perversely entered the ...
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This chapter discusses Maupertuis's mature formulation of a teleological mechanics as the basis for a rationalist theology and a proof for God's existence. When Voltaire rather perversely entered the polemic in defense of König, the dispute became a full-blown literary quarrel, involving the Prussian king as well as the Berlin Academy. At stake in this apparent priority dispute were honor and reputation, certainly, but also the credibility of mechanics based on the principle of least action. In the aftermath of this bitter controversy, Maupertuis returned to the problems of generation and heredity, extending his earlier speculations on active matter and organization. Furthermore, this chapter argues that convincing proofs for God's existence must come instead from the general laws of nature. Such are the laws of motion “founded on the attributes of a supreme Intelligence.”Less
This chapter discusses Maupertuis's mature formulation of a teleological mechanics as the basis for a rationalist theology and a proof for God's existence. When Voltaire rather perversely entered the polemic in defense of König, the dispute became a full-blown literary quarrel, involving the Prussian king as well as the Berlin Academy. At stake in this apparent priority dispute were honor and reputation, certainly, but also the credibility of mechanics based on the principle of least action. In the aftermath of this bitter controversy, Maupertuis returned to the problems of generation and heredity, extending his earlier speculations on active matter and organization. Furthermore, this chapter argues that convincing proofs for God's existence must come instead from the general laws of nature. Such are the laws of motion “founded on the attributes of a supreme Intelligence.”
Roger Mathew Grant
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- December 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199367283
- eISBN:
- 9780199367306
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199367283.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
Through the long eighteenth century, the relationship between motion and time was rewritten. Time, in this new view, was no longer a conceptual descendant of motion but was, in its new form, ...
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Through the long eighteenth century, the relationship between motion and time was rewritten. Time, in this new view, was no longer a conceptual descendant of motion but was, in its new form, absolute: a demarcated backdrop against which events were situated. Discourses on meter reflected this shift in time's epistemological grounding. Meter, explained anew, was no longer a motion, the beat and the measure finally parted ways in this transition. Theorists in the eighteenth century shifted the focus of their explanation from the physical act of the beat to the properties of the measure, and the edifice that had once joined meter, character, and tempo began to shatter. Kirnberger's Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik drew on the particular images and pieces of language associated with absolute time in natural philosophy and mathematics. In this document, Kirnberger reimagined meter as an ongoing, dynamic division of absolute time.Less
Through the long eighteenth century, the relationship between motion and time was rewritten. Time, in this new view, was no longer a conceptual descendant of motion but was, in its new form, absolute: a demarcated backdrop against which events were situated. Discourses on meter reflected this shift in time's epistemological grounding. Meter, explained anew, was no longer a motion, the beat and the measure finally parted ways in this transition. Theorists in the eighteenth century shifted the focus of their explanation from the physical act of the beat to the properties of the measure, and the edifice that had once joined meter, character, and tempo began to shatter. Kirnberger's Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik drew on the particular images and pieces of language associated with absolute time in natural philosophy and mathematics. In this document, Kirnberger reimagined meter as an ongoing, dynamic division of absolute time.
Kelly Joan Whitmer
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226243771
- eISBN:
- 9780226243801
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226243801.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter focuses on the efforts of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and the first director of the Orphanage, August Hermann Francke, to devise a “new way” to teach ...
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This chapter focuses on the efforts of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and the first director of the Orphanage, August Hermann Francke, to devise a “new way” to teach mathematics and experimental physics in the Orphanage schools—and to turn the school into a space for research by assembling a collection of curious things, including a variety of scientific instruments such as burning mirrors and an air pump. Tschirnhaus is a figure commonly associated with the German Enlightenment, yet he was attracted to Pietism, particularly the early face of movement in Germany: Philipp Jakob Spener. Francke hosted Tschirnhaus at the Orphanage and took his recommendations very seriously. This chapter also considers both Leibniz and Francke’s interest in using the combined resources of the Orphanage and the Berlin Academy of Sciences, which Francke joined in 1701, to attract the attention of Tsar Peter I and to found a Protestant mission capable that would challenge the success of Jesuit missions abroad.Less
This chapter focuses on the efforts of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and the first director of the Orphanage, August Hermann Francke, to devise a “new way” to teach mathematics and experimental physics in the Orphanage schools—and to turn the school into a space for research by assembling a collection of curious things, including a variety of scientific instruments such as burning mirrors and an air pump. Tschirnhaus is a figure commonly associated with the German Enlightenment, yet he was attracted to Pietism, particularly the early face of movement in Germany: Philipp Jakob Spener. Francke hosted Tschirnhaus at the Orphanage and took his recommendations very seriously. This chapter also considers both Leibniz and Francke’s interest in using the combined resources of the Orphanage and the Berlin Academy of Sciences, which Francke joined in 1701, to attract the attention of Tsar Peter I and to found a Protestant mission capable that would challenge the success of Jesuit missions abroad.
