Doogab Yi
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226143835
- eISBN:
- 9780226216119
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226216119.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Chapter 2 examines these changing dynamics, and the scientific and political genealogy of recombinant DNA technology. I argue that recombinant DNA technology derived from particular experimental ...
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Chapter 2 examines these changing dynamics, and the scientific and political genealogy of recombinant DNA technology. I argue that recombinant DNA technology derived from particular experimental opportunities, and from commitments to the biology of higher organisms; this occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when molecular biology was experiencing an intellectual and political “crisis.”Less
Chapter 2 examines these changing dynamics, and the scientific and political genealogy of recombinant DNA technology. I argue that recombinant DNA technology derived from particular experimental opportunities, and from commitments to the biology of higher organisms; this occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when molecular biology was experiencing an intellectual and political “crisis.”
David S. Jones
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226390734
- eISBN:
- 9780226390901
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226390901.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Evolution and revolution are both models of change over time. It is easy to see the appeal of a claim of revolution for scientists and for their historians: it pronounces a radical break from the ...
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Evolution and revolution are both models of change over time. It is easy to see the appeal of a claim of revolution for scientists and for their historians: it pronounces a radical break from the past, confident and triumphant. Progress is implied by the decisiveness of the rupture. Such rhetoric is good for marketing, especially when contrasted against the cautious gradualism of evolution. But evolution has its own appeals, especially its reassuring connotations of progressive improvement. It is not enough simply to debate what counts, or not, as revolution or evolution. Instead, much can be gained through serious engagement with the theory and language of revolution and evolution in pursuit of the best possible accounts of scientific change.Less
Evolution and revolution are both models of change over time. It is easy to see the appeal of a claim of revolution for scientists and for their historians: it pronounces a radical break from the past, confident and triumphant. Progress is implied by the decisiveness of the rupture. Such rhetoric is good for marketing, especially when contrasted against the cautious gradualism of evolution. But evolution has its own appeals, especially its reassuring connotations of progressive improvement. It is not enough simply to debate what counts, or not, as revolution or evolution. Instead, much can be gained through serious engagement with the theory and language of revolution and evolution in pursuit of the best possible accounts of scientific change.
Davide Tarizzo
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780816691593
- eISBN:
- 9781452958835
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816691593.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Examines the emergence and the metaphysical meaning of “autonomous life” in the fields of philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Schelling) and of biology (from Darwin to Dawkins), then explaining where, why and ...
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Examines the emergence and the metaphysical meaning of “autonomous life” in the fields of philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Schelling) and of biology (from Darwin to Dawkins), then explaining where, why and how this metaphysical concept is still at work in contemporary thought (Freud, Canguilhem, Dennett).Less
Examines the emergence and the metaphysical meaning of “autonomous life” in the fields of philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Schelling) and of biology (from Darwin to Dawkins), then explaining where, why and how this metaphysical concept is still at work in contemporary thought (Freud, Canguilhem, Dennett).
Amanda Jo Goldstein
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226458441
- eISBN:
- 9780226458588
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226458588.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
Departing from the surprising allusion to De rerum natura hidden in Blake’s phrase “sweet Science,” this chapter introduces readers to the biological, philosophical, literary, and disciplinary ...
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Departing from the surprising allusion to De rerum natura hidden in Blake’s phrase “sweet Science,” this chapter introduces readers to the biological, philosophical, literary, and disciplinary histories necessary to the book’s argument by constellating a series of loaded examples: the tense collaboration between the Poet and the Man of Science in Wordsworth’s 1800 “Preface” to Lyrical Ballads, Herder’s claim that “our whole life is,” physiologically speaking, “poetics,” and Karl Marx’s early praise of Lucretius for depicting sensation as “embodied time.” Carefully reading the parts of De Rerum Natura to which Blake, Herder, Wordsworth, Goethe, Shelley and Coleridge point us, in dialogue with later modern interpreters (Auerbach, Althusser, Foucault, Latour, Butler), the introduction explicates three dimensions of Lucretian poetic materialism: the strange case the text extends for figuration as the basic action and passion of matter, the logic of associative emergence through which Lucretius accounts for life without recourse to teleological organicism, and the atomist imaginary that allowed Romantics to connect ontogeny to new experiences of social history. Expressly and by example, the introduction advances a critical method that understands interdisciplinarity as an artifact of its own historical position, taking pains to reconstitute the differently-ordered epistemological landscape of Romanticism.Less
Departing from the surprising allusion to De rerum natura hidden in Blake’s phrase “sweet Science,” this chapter introduces readers to the biological, philosophical, literary, and disciplinary histories necessary to the book’s argument by constellating a series of loaded examples: the tense collaboration between the Poet and the Man of Science in Wordsworth’s 1800 “Preface” to Lyrical Ballads, Herder’s claim that “our whole life is,” physiologically speaking, “poetics,” and Karl Marx’s early praise of Lucretius for depicting sensation as “embodied time.” Carefully reading the parts of De Rerum Natura to which Blake, Herder, Wordsworth, Goethe, Shelley and Coleridge point us, in dialogue with later modern interpreters (Auerbach, Althusser, Foucault, Latour, Butler), the introduction explicates three dimensions of Lucretian poetic materialism: the strange case the text extends for figuration as the basic action and passion of matter, the logic of associative emergence through which Lucretius accounts for life without recourse to teleological organicism, and the atomist imaginary that allowed Romantics to connect ontogeny to new experiences of social history. Expressly and by example, the introduction advances a critical method that understands interdisciplinarity as an artifact of its own historical position, taking pains to reconstitute the differently-ordered epistemological landscape of Romanticism.
Karl S. Matlin, Jane Maienschein, and Manfred D. Laubichler
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226520483
- eISBN:
- 9780226520650
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226520650.003.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Biochemistry / Molecular Biology
In the 1920s, a group of American biologists decided to initiate a new project: the creation of a comprehensive cytology textbook with individual chapters from many of the leaders in the field, most ...
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In the 1920s, a group of American biologists decided to initiate a new project: the creation of a comprehensive cytology textbook with individual chapters from many of the leaders in the field, most of whom already interacted on a regular basis during summers at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. When it appeared as General Cytology in 1924, edited by Edmund V. Cowdry, the volume sought to treat cytology comprehensively, but also to go beyond what the authors saw as the usual morphological considerations. In October 2014 another group of leading scientists, as well as historians and philosophers of biology came together at the MBL to reflect on Cowdry's General Cytology from the perspective of the 21st century. Among the scientists were not only individuals who clearly identified as cell biologists, but also those more focused on gene expression and its regulation, topics many would consider more properly as molecular biology. The historians and philosophers were also an eclectic group. The outcome of this and a subsequent meeting is Visions of Cell Biology: Reflections Inspired by Cowdry’s General Cytology, a book that examines the past, present, and future of cell biology.Less
In the 1920s, a group of American biologists decided to initiate a new project: the creation of a comprehensive cytology textbook with individual chapters from many of the leaders in the field, most of whom already interacted on a regular basis during summers at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. When it appeared as General Cytology in 1924, edited by Edmund V. Cowdry, the volume sought to treat cytology comprehensively, but also to go beyond what the authors saw as the usual morphological considerations. In October 2014 another group of leading scientists, as well as historians and philosophers of biology came together at the MBL to reflect on Cowdry's General Cytology from the perspective of the 21st century. Among the scientists were not only individuals who clearly identified as cell biologists, but also those more focused on gene expression and its regulation, topics many would consider more properly as molecular biology. The historians and philosophers were also an eclectic group. The outcome of this and a subsequent meeting is Visions of Cell Biology: Reflections Inspired by Cowdry’s General Cytology, a book that examines the past, present, and future of cell biology.
Davide Tarizzo
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780816691593
- eISBN:
- 9781452958835
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816691593.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Considers the repercussions of such a metaphysical framework in political history, with special emphasis on Nazism and contemporary trends in political theory and practices
Considers the repercussions of such a metaphysical framework in political history, with special emphasis on Nazism and contemporary trends in political theory and practices
Grant Ramsey and Charles H. Pence (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226401744
- eISBN:
- 9780226401911
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226401911.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Evolutionary biology since Darwin has seen a dramatic entrenchment and elaboration of the role of chance in evolution. It is nearly impossible to discuss contemporary evolutionary theory in any depth ...
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Evolutionary biology since Darwin has seen a dramatic entrenchment and elaboration of the role of chance in evolution. It is nearly impossible to discuss contemporary evolutionary theory in any depth at all without making reference to at least some concept of “chance” or “randomness.” Many processes are described as chancy, outcomes are characterized as random, and many evolutionary phenomena are thought to be best described by stochastic or probabilistic models. Chance is taken by various authors to be central to the understanding of fitness, genetic drift, macroevolution, mutation, foraging theory, and environmental variation, to take but a few examples. And for each of these notions, there are yet more stories to tell. Each weaves itself into the various branches of evolutionary theory in myriad different ways, with a wide variety of effects on the history and current state of life on Earth. Each is grounded in a particular trajectory in the history of philosophy and the history of biology, and has inspired a variety of responses throughout science and culture. This book endeavors to offer a cross-section of biological, historical, philosophical, and theological approaches to understanding chance in evolutionary theory.Less
Evolutionary biology since Darwin has seen a dramatic entrenchment and elaboration of the role of chance in evolution. It is nearly impossible to discuss contemporary evolutionary theory in any depth at all without making reference to at least some concept of “chance” or “randomness.” Many processes are described as chancy, outcomes are characterized as random, and many evolutionary phenomena are thought to be best described by stochastic or probabilistic models. Chance is taken by various authors to be central to the understanding of fitness, genetic drift, macroevolution, mutation, foraging theory, and environmental variation, to take but a few examples. And for each of these notions, there are yet more stories to tell. Each weaves itself into the various branches of evolutionary theory in myriad different ways, with a wide variety of effects on the history and current state of life on Earth. Each is grounded in a particular trajectory in the history of philosophy and the history of biology, and has inspired a variety of responses throughout science and culture. This book endeavors to offer a cross-section of biological, historical, philosophical, and theological approaches to understanding chance in evolutionary theory.
Davide Tarizzo
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780816691593
- eISBN:
- 9781452958835
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816691593.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Considers the emergence and the meaning of “autonomy” in modern philosophy, by paying special attention to the Kantian turn and its aftermath.
Considers the emergence and the meaning of “autonomy” in modern philosophy, by paying special attention to the Kantian turn and its aftermath.
Davide Tarizzo
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780816691593
- eISBN:
- 9781452958835
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816691593.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
The underlying idea is that “life” is a metaphysical notion, not a scientific one, and that this notion has permeated both the European and the Anglophone traditions of thought
The underlying idea is that “life” is a metaphysical notion, not a scientific one, and that this notion has permeated both the European and the Anglophone traditions of thought
Kriti Sharma
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823265527
- eISBN:
- 9780823266913
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823265527.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Two assumptions regarding standard views of sensing are examined: first, that some things can become the organism (i.e., can be assimilated into the organism) while others must always remain ...
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Two assumptions regarding standard views of sensing are examined: first, that some things can become the organism (i.e., can be assimilated into the organism) while others must always remain radically separate from the organism (i.e., can only be sensed by the organism); and, second, that energy exists intrinsically. An alternative contingentist view of signal transduction and sensing is then offered, one that does not rest upon the assumptions of the standard view. A brief intellectual history of signal transduction is given, tracing the relations of cell receptiveness, reactivity, and responsiveness from early cell physiology to present-day signal transduction theory. A contingentist account of what is called sensing is offered, one that describes phenomena not as intrinsically existent, or as interacting, or as reactive, or as changed or transformed over time. The alternative formulation that comes into view in the absence of the aforementioned concepts is that phenomena arise anew in each instant. This alternative view also offers novel and useful reconsiderations of the relation of lower-level and higher-level phenomena more generally; of agency and determinism; of stasis, change, and causal relations; and of the relation between physical and psychological phenomena.Less
Two assumptions regarding standard views of sensing are examined: first, that some things can become the organism (i.e., can be assimilated into the organism) while others must always remain radically separate from the organism (i.e., can only be sensed by the organism); and, second, that energy exists intrinsically. An alternative contingentist view of signal transduction and sensing is then offered, one that does not rest upon the assumptions of the standard view. A brief intellectual history of signal transduction is given, tracing the relations of cell receptiveness, reactivity, and responsiveness from early cell physiology to present-day signal transduction theory. A contingentist account of what is called sensing is offered, one that describes phenomena not as intrinsically existent, or as interacting, or as reactive, or as changed or transformed over time. The alternative formulation that comes into view in the absence of the aforementioned concepts is that phenomena arise anew in each instant. This alternative view also offers novel and useful reconsiderations of the relation of lower-level and higher-level phenomena more generally; of agency and determinism; of stasis, change, and causal relations; and of the relation between physical and psychological phenomena.
G. Clinton Godart
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780824858513
- eISBN:
- 9780824873639
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824858513.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine demonstrates that evolutionary theory was never passively accepted, but played active and controversial roles in modern Japanese thought. Evolutionary theory was ...
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Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine demonstrates that evolutionary theory was never passively accepted, but played active and controversial roles in modern Japanese thought. Evolutionary theory was controversial and of a major concern to Japanese Buddhist, Shintō, Confucian, and Christian thinkers, who actively debated and contested the theory. As the Japanese redefined their relation to the world, to nature, and built a modern nation-state, evolutionary theory also became an intellectual battleground, and Japanese state ideology became increasingly hostile to evolutionary theory. Japanese intellectuals and religious thinkers actively and constructively, and often critically, appropriated evolutionary theory for a wide variety of ends, but the religious reception of evolution in Japan was dominated by a long and continuous fear of the idea of nature and society as a cold, materialist, world, governed by a mindless “struggle for survival.” This aversion engendered many religious thinkers, philosophers, and biologists, to find goodness, beauty, and the divine within nature and evolution itself. It was this drive that shaped much of Japan’s modern intellectual history, and changed Japanese understandings of nature, society, and the sacred.Less
Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine demonstrates that evolutionary theory was never passively accepted, but played active and controversial roles in modern Japanese thought. Evolutionary theory was controversial and of a major concern to Japanese Buddhist, Shintō, Confucian, and Christian thinkers, who actively debated and contested the theory. As the Japanese redefined their relation to the world, to nature, and built a modern nation-state, evolutionary theory also became an intellectual battleground, and Japanese state ideology became increasingly hostile to evolutionary theory. Japanese intellectuals and religious thinkers actively and constructively, and often critically, appropriated evolutionary theory for a wide variety of ends, but the religious reception of evolution in Japan was dominated by a long and continuous fear of the idea of nature and society as a cold, materialist, world, governed by a mindless “struggle for survival.” This aversion engendered many religious thinkers, philosophers, and biologists, to find goodness, beauty, and the divine within nature and evolution itself. It was this drive that shaped much of Japan’s modern intellectual history, and changed Japanese understandings of nature, society, and the sacred.
Leif Weatherby
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823269402
- eISBN:
- 9780823269457
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823269402.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Transplanting the Metaphysical Organ reconstructs Romantic Organology, a discourse that German Romantics developed by combining scientific and philosophical discourses about biological function and ...
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Transplanting the Metaphysical Organ reconstructs Romantic Organology, a discourse that German Romantics developed by combining scientific and philosophical discourses about biological function and speculative thought. Organology attempted to think a politically and scientifically destabilized world and offered a metaphysics meant to alter the structure of that world. Friedrich Hölderlin, Friedrich Schelling, and Novalis shared the project of determining what sort of knowledge can count as metaphysical in a world filled with antinomies created by political and technological upheavals over the course of the eighteenth century. A new metaphysics, they reasoned, would need a determinate tool. Aristotelian scholasticism had long described logic a set of tools for philosophy, an organon. The organon’s etymological sibling, the organ, had a primarily physiological heritage (sense-organ, internal organ). Combining the medical sense of the term (from Albrecht von Haller and Johann Wilhelm Ritter) with the logical senses (from Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Johann Heinrich Lambert, and Immanuel Kant) of these related terms, the Romantics imagined their literary-philosophical efforts as the construction an “organ of metaphysics.” This terminological history is missing from the intellectual historiography of the period, especially in the important works of Hans Blumenberg and Michel Foucault. Building on the work of Frederick Beiser and Manfred Frank, Transplanting the Metaphysical Organ shows how the Romantic synthesis of science and philosophy led to the invention of a modern metaphysics.Less
Transplanting the Metaphysical Organ reconstructs Romantic Organology, a discourse that German Romantics developed by combining scientific and philosophical discourses about biological function and speculative thought. Organology attempted to think a politically and scientifically destabilized world and offered a metaphysics meant to alter the structure of that world. Friedrich Hölderlin, Friedrich Schelling, and Novalis shared the project of determining what sort of knowledge can count as metaphysical in a world filled with antinomies created by political and technological upheavals over the course of the eighteenth century. A new metaphysics, they reasoned, would need a determinate tool. Aristotelian scholasticism had long described logic a set of tools for philosophy, an organon. The organon’s etymological sibling, the organ, had a primarily physiological heritage (sense-organ, internal organ). Combining the medical sense of the term (from Albrecht von Haller and Johann Wilhelm Ritter) with the logical senses (from Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Johann Heinrich Lambert, and Immanuel Kant) of these related terms, the Romantics imagined their literary-philosophical efforts as the construction an “organ of metaphysics.” This terminological history is missing from the intellectual historiography of the period, especially in the important works of Hans Blumenberg and Michel Foucault. Building on the work of Frederick Beiser and Manfred Frank, Transplanting the Metaphysical Organ shows how the Romantic synthesis of science and philosophy led to the invention of a modern metaphysics.
Davide Tarizzo
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780816691593
- eISBN:
- 9781452958835
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816691593.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
The word “biology” was first used to describe the scientific study of life in 1802, and as Davide Tarizzo demonstrates, our understanding of what being alive means is an equally recent invention. ...
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The word “biology” was first used to describe the scientific study of life in 1802, and as Davide Tarizzo demonstrates, our understanding of what being alive means is an equally recent invention. Circumventing tired debates about the validity of science and the truth of Darwinian evolution, Tarizzo instead envisions a profound paradigm shift in philosophical and scientific concepts of biological life.Less
The word “biology” was first used to describe the scientific study of life in 1802, and as Davide Tarizzo demonstrates, our understanding of what being alive means is an equally recent invention. Circumventing tired debates about the validity of science and the truth of Darwinian evolution, Tarizzo instead envisions a profound paradigm shift in philosophical and scientific concepts of biological life.
Leif Weatherby
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823269402
- eISBN:
- 9780823269457
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823269402.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
“Organ” was first literalized in German in the 1780s, but this literalization came just as the life sciences re-introduced seemingly atavistic metaphysical questions, especially on the topics of a ...
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“Organ” was first literalized in German in the 1780s, but this literalization came just as the life sciences re-introduced seemingly atavistic metaphysical questions, especially on the topics of a “life-force” and an “organ of the soul,” into a public discourse in which Kant’s philosophy had rejected them, especially in The Conflict of the Faculties. The chapter shows that “organ” came to have its modern biological meaning under pressure to define a science that would come to be known as biology, before philosophy and science were separated as disciplines. Scientists like Samuel Thomas Soemmerring, Johann Christian Reil, and Alexander von Humboldt integrated the term into studies of scientific method, the brain, animal physiology, and electricity, but these first literal uses were always combined with the methodological concerns of post-Kantian philosophy. This discourse was the immediate inheritance of the Early Romantics.Less
“Organ” was first literalized in German in the 1780s, but this literalization came just as the life sciences re-introduced seemingly atavistic metaphysical questions, especially on the topics of a “life-force” and an “organ of the soul,” into a public discourse in which Kant’s philosophy had rejected them, especially in The Conflict of the Faculties. The chapter shows that “organ” came to have its modern biological meaning under pressure to define a science that would come to be known as biology, before philosophy and science were separated as disciplines. Scientists like Samuel Thomas Soemmerring, Johann Christian Reil, and Alexander von Humboldt integrated the term into studies of scientific method, the brain, animal physiology, and electricity, but these first literal uses were always combined with the methodological concerns of post-Kantian philosophy. This discourse was the immediate inheritance of the Early Romantics.
