Historische Epistemologie

Investigating the material, cognitive and social dimensions of mathematical notes to understand their function as tools for thinking in different cultural contexts.

Stefano Farinella, Matthias Schemmel

In contradistinction to printed works, which present knowledge for it to be shared, mathematical notes usually serve their writers as tools of knowledge production. They therefore constitute a category of written artefact that presents us with a particularly close relation between the material and the mental. Their study enables us to investigate mathematical practices as they are documented in the artefact and to learn how knowledge production is conditioned and shaped by the materiality of the means of knowledge representation available in a society at a certain time in history.

To this end, the project takes a comparative approach that includes the study of notes from different scientists, cultures, and historical periods. These may range from the clay tablets of Mesopotamian scribes to the notes of contemporary theoretical physicists, from early modern European symbol systems to Tamil writing and learning practices to marginal notes in Chinese printed works, as was the case in a recent workshop held at the Cluster Understanding Written Artefacts. The goal of such comparison it to shed light on how differences among authors as well as among whole knowledge traditions are linked to the material culture to which they belong, along with its specific symbolic and instrumental means of intellectual labor. The aim is to distinguish individual, collectively shared, or even universal aspects in these artefacts and to address fundamental questions about the connection between the material, social and cognitive dimensions of mathematical practices.

This project is conducted in the context of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures.

Reconstructing research approaches from the Max Planck Institute for the Study of the Living Conditions of the Scientific-Technical World (1970s) and building on them. 

 Matthias Schemmel

In times of crisis, when societies are confronted with eminent challenges, there is an increasing need for institutionalized reflection to plan collective action and assess its consequences. In the 1960s and 70s, the awareness of global crises had deepened, as increased references to the danger of nuclear annihilation (e.g. the Cuba crisis), to global inequalities and the questionable future of growth, as well as to the local and global environmental consequences of the world economy show. As a reaction to this awareness and under names such as futurology, strategic studies, peace research, and world economics, institutions that engaged with these problems in a scientific manner were established in various countries. As examples consider the Club of Rome and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenberg near Vienna.

In this context, and as a reaction to the new public and political role of science, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of the Scientific-Technical World (1970–1980) was established in Starnberg near Munich. With the founding of this institute, the Max Planck Society had created a space for reflection on science and its role in society that had never existed before in its history. The project reconstructs and analyzes research activities at the Starnberg Institute, particularly in the field of science studies, in relation to the institutional developments within the Max Planck Society that enabled and restricted them. Strikingly, it turns out that researchers at the Starnberg Institute raised questions half a century ago that seem more topical than ever in view of today’s crises. The project aims to link these questions with more recent developments in historical epistemology and to examine the extent to which such a synthesis can contribute to a political epistemology.

This project explores how early modern continental thinkers approached the relationship between experimental practice and epistemological reflection. While the historiography of early modern science has often centered on the British tradition, emphasizing figures like Bacon, Boyle, and Locke, this project shifts the focus to Continental Europe—where philosophers and scientists developed rich, diverse, and often underappreciated traditions of empirical inquiry. At the heart of the project lies a central question: How did Continental philosophers and experimentalists of the early modern period conceptualize and integrate empirical practices into their reflections on knowledge? Rather than viewing experiment and theory as separate or opposing modes, many continental thinkers developed approaches in which they were deeply intertwined.

The main output of this project is a forthcoming edited volume Continental Empiricism co-edited by Rodolfo Garau and Arnaud Pelletier (ULB), and published by Routledge. This volume brings together leading scholars to explore a wide range of case studies, intellectual traditions, and experimental cultures that flourished in France, Italy, the Low Countries, and the German-speaking world between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. This volume makes the case for the introduction of the category of “Continental Empiricism,” describing the intersection between experimental practices, sociological elements, and epistemological reflection in early modern continental thought. It emphasizes the interconnection of ideas, transnational exchange, and local intellectual ecologies over nationalistic narratives. At the same time, it demonstrates the untenability of a sharp divide between experimental or empirical research and speculative or rationalist epistemologies within the continental context—showing instead how these modes of inquiry were often entangled, cooperative, and mutually constitutive.

Studying the merger of Chinese and European knowledge in a late Ming (1627) work on mechanics as an instance of the globality of early modern science.

Pietro D. Omodeo, Jürgen Renn, Matthias Schemmel, TIAN Miao, ZHANG Baichun

The historical transformations of knowledge that are often referred to as the Scientific Revolution have traditionally been considered to be a purely European phenomenon that occurred in early modernity. While it is true that there were specific conditions in the early modern European society and knowledge system that shaped modern science, adopting a global perspective is essential for a more comprehensive understanding of early modern science in at least three ways. First, European knowledge in the early modern period is itself the result of millennia of knowledge transfers across the Eurasian and northern African continents. Second, the transformations of the early modern European knowledge system took place exactly at a time of European expansion and enhanced knowledge exchange with non-European societies all across the globe. And third, studying different knowledge systems and their societal embeddings in their own right is a precondition for understanding the historical conditions of knowledge change in general.

Presently, the project is focused on the transmission of European science to China in the seventeenth century, which came about through the partial alignment of the ambitions of Jesuit missionaries in China and Chinese scholar-officials. The texts produced in this context were therefore jointly shaped by the diverging agendas and intellectual traditions of these two groups. The first Chinese book on Western mechanics in the Chinese language, Yuanxi qiqi tushuo luzui (‘A Record of the Best Illustrations and Explanations of Remarkable Machines from the Far West’), compiled and written by the Chinese scholar Wang Zheng and the German Jesuit Johann Schreck and published in 1627, documents this combination of different influences in the field of mechanics and machine building. A scholarly translation of this text into English with a thorough analysis of its sources has been completed and will be published as a commented edition of this unique source. Interpretative essays on different contexts will be included, such as the networks of Jesuit and Chinese scholarly actors, the role of deductive structures in the presentation of knowledge, and the double origins (Chinese and Western) of the engineering knowledge reflected in the illustrations and descriptions of machines.

 

Stefano Farinella, Matthias Schemmel

Thomas Harriot (c. 1560 – 1621) was an Early Modern English mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, ethnographer and polymath. His far-ranging contributions include studying the motions of projectiles and of free-falling bodies, discovering the law of refraction, and pioneering algebraic methods and interpolation algorithms. Unlike his contemporary Galileo, he never published his results, which are only found in his more than 5000 sheets of rough personal notes.

 This project aims at studying the rough notes of Thomas Harriot adopting the perspectives of history of science and manuscript studies. Different sections of the notes are analyzed using techniques such as paleography, watermark analysis, ink analysis, and a careful reconstruction of the scientific process. This leads to a better understanding of Harriot’s results; examples include solving an authorship problem related to some notes on fortifications, exploring the true meaning of number squares previously classified as military tactics, and using the study of materiality to reconstruct the genesis of Harriot’s shipbuilding rules and his interactions with practitioners. The methods and insights developed in this study will be useful in studying notes from different authors and historical periods, as the role of mathematical notes as tools for thinking and their characteristics as written artefacts is the main focus.

This project is conducted in the context of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures.

War, Science, and the Reshaping of Urban Space from Renaissance to Modernity

How did early modern science shape the very spaces people lived in? This research project explores how the intersection of military innovation, cartographic science, and urban design in early modern Europe contributed to a new way of thinking about space—one shaped not only by geometry and engineering, but by politics, social control, and imperial ambition.

Focusing on the science and practice of fortification between the Renaissance and early modernity, this project investigates how the rise of artillery and new military technologies triggered a dramatic transformation in the organization of urban and natural environments.

One of the main outputs of this research will appear in the forthcoming volume Historical Geo-Anthropology: Theory, Histories, and Perspectives, edited by Pietro Omodeo and Rodolfo Garau. This volume brings together contributions that examine how the human experience of space is historically produced through social, scientific, and environmental entanglements.

A central case study will focus on Pierre Petit (1594–1677)—a French mathematician, physicist, engineer, and cartographer who served under both Louis XIII and XIV and Cardinal Richelieu. Petit was a key figure in the intellectual and practical transformation of space in 17th-century France, integrating mathematical precision with military needs. He participated in numerous cartographic and fortification projects, linking scientific innovation with state-building and territorial control. His work exemplifies the merging of theoretical reflection, practical engineering, and political strategy that defines the emerging political epistemology of space.

This project views early modern fortification not merely as a technical response to new weaponry, but as a deeply symbolic and epistemological phenomenon—one that reveals how early modern states sought to control territory, populations, and knowledge through the redesign of space itself. By analyzing treatises on fortification, military cartography, and the institutionalization of engineering, the project highlights the epistemic and political dimensions of spatial transformation.

Ultimately, the goal is to rethink fortification as a privileged lens for understanding how knowledge, power, and space were co-produced in early modernity—locally, across Europe, and globally.

 

Studying the role of deep-sea exploration technology in popular understandings of the under-sea as a colonial frontier in the early 20th century.

Christopher Steinbiß

In the early 20th century, reaching the deep sea has been understood as an engineering challenge. One avenue of exploration was the construction on self-contained and pressure-resistant one-atmosphere diving armors or Atmospheric Diving Suits.  The HAGENUK Deep-Sea Diver was the first functional and commercially used of these armored suits. Its inventor Friedrich Gall built this machine with grand ambition. He first got the idea when he was traveling to the Dutch East-Indies, gazing upon the waters below and wondering if the treasures of the ocean floor too might be extracted like the resources of the colony he was heading to. Later, the Deep-Sea Diver would become a popular symbol for conquering the frontier below with the power of technology.

Applying methods of the cultural history of technology, the interactions between technical development and cultural reception of the Deep-Sea Diver are examined. A broad array of source material, from technical drawings to sci-fi novels featuring this invention, will be analyzed. These micro-historical observations will provide a basis for studying how exploration technologies shape – and are in turn shaped by – public imaginations of frontiers.

Exploring one of the most fascinating cultural shifts in the history of science: the marginalization of astrology in early modern Europe and the emergence of the modern idea of pseudoscience.

For centuries, astrology occupied a central place in European intellectual life. Astrologers were key figures at universities, courts, and in medical practice; astrology was a standard subject in the curriculum, and celestial influence was considered a legitimate factor in both politics and health. Yet by the eighteenth century, this once-respected field had been pushed to the fringes of scholarly and public life. Dismissed by intellectual elites, astrology was rebranded as superstition—an emblem of the irrational, soon to be labeled “pseudoscience.” How did this transformation occur?

This project investigates the intertwined intellectual, social, and political forces behind astrology’s decline, with a particular focus on 17th-century France, where the shift was especially swift and dramatic. At the heart of the research lies the conflict between two key figures: the philosopher and astronomer Pierre Gassendi and Jean-Baptiste Morin, a mathematician and court astrologer sometimes dubbed “the last official astrologer.” Their polemic illuminates deeper changes in cosmology, epistemology, and the politics of knowledge during a time when astronomy was becoming a pillar of modern science—and astrology a symbol of the past. The project has already led to several significant publications, including contributions to journals such as The British Journal for the History of Science, Early Science and Medicine, and Lias, and aims to culminate in a monograph. By tracing the fall of astrology from the heights of scholarly authority to the margins of popular belief, this research sheds light on how modern science was shaped not just by discoveries, but by exclusions.