Cover not available

In:Translation in Knowledge, Knowledge in Translation
Edited by Rocío G. Sumillera, Jan Surman and Katharina Kühn
[Benjamins Translation Library 154] 2020
► pp. 209–227

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Chapter 10
Energetic visions

Translating science in the German Monist movement, 1900–1915

 | Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Published online: 29 October 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.154.10leb
Abstract
In the aftermath of the revolutions of 1848, anticlerical and freethought organisations had evolved a powerful opposition to the Church and generally to conservatism in Europe. Amongst these organisations, the German Monist League (founded in 1906) became one of the main representatives of secularism in Wilhelmine Germany. The League not only opposed the Christian churches, but also popularised a scientific worldview which sought to unite the material and spiritual worlds. Monist thinkers translated scientific knowledge into a popular language, transferring it to new domains of knowledge, such as ethics, politics, gender, sexuality, law and education. This chapter argues that Monist thinkers used scientific knowledge as a way to essentialise and legitimise their ethical and educational reform goals. By doing so, they transformed scientific knowledge itself.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Translation and transfer of knowledge
  • 3.Wilhelm Ostwald and the German Monist movement (1910–1915)
  • 4.Monist ethics: Naturalising the Golden Rule
  • 5.Organic machines: Ostwald’s “energetic education”
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (65)
References
Anonym. 1911. “Wilhelm Ostwald über Kirche und Schule [Wilhelm Ostwald on church and school]”. Der Monismus 6 (57): 110–112.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ash, Mitchell. 2006. “Wissens- und Wissenschaftstransfer – Einführende Bemerkungen [Transfer of knowledge – introductory remarks].” Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 29 (3): 181–189. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beard, George Miller. 1881. American Nervousness: Its Causes and Consequences. A Supplement to Nervous Exhaustion (Neurasthenia). New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Borutta, Manuel. 2011. Antikatholizismus. Deutschland und Italien im Zeitalter der europäischen Kulturkämpfe [Anticatholicism. Germany and Italy in the age of the culture wars] (Bürgertum, Neue Folge, 7), 2nd edition. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bowler, Peter. 2009. Evolution. The History of an Idea. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Braune, Andreas. 2009. Fortschritt als Ideologie. Wilhelm Ostwald und der Monismus [Progress as ideology. Wilhelm Ostwald and Monism]. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Breidbach, Olaf. 1998. “Monismus um 1900. Wissenschaftspraxis oder Weltanschauung? [Monism around 1900. Scientific practice or worldview?]” In Welträtsel und Lebenswunder: Ernst Haeckel – Werk, Wirkung und Folgen (Stapfia, 56), ed. by Erna Aescht, Gerhard Aubrecht, and Franz Speta, 289–316. Linz: Eigenverlag Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coen, Deborah. 2007. Vienna in the Age of Uncertainty Science, Liberalism, and Private Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Daum, Andreas W. 1998. Wissenschaftspopularisierung im 19. Jahrhundert. Bürgerliche Kultur, naturwissenschaftliche Bildung und die deutsche Öffentlichkeit, 1848–1914 [Popularising science in the nineteenth century. Bourgeois culture, science education, and the German public sphere, 1848–1914]. München: Oldenbourg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
D’hulst, Lieven, and Yves Gambier. 2019. “General Introduction”. In A History of Modern Translation Knowledge, ed. by Lieven D’hulst, and Yves Gambier, 1–16. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Di Gregorio, Mario A. 2005. From Here to Eternity: Ernst Haeckel and Scientific Faith (Religion, Theologie und Naturwissenschaft, 3). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dietz, Bettina. 2016. “Introduction: Special Issue ‘Translating and Translations in the History of Science’.” Annals of Science 73 (2): 117–121. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dittrich Lisa. 2015. “European Connections, Obstacles and the Search for a New Concept of Religion. The Freethinker Movement as an Example for Transnational Anti-Catholicism in the Second Half of the 19th Century.” Journal of Religious History 39 (2): 261–279.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dittrich, Lisa. 2014. Antiklerikalismus in Europa. Öffentlichkeit und Säkularisierung in Frankreich, Spanien und Deutschland, 1848–1914 [Anticlericalism in Europe. The public sphere and secularization in France, Spain and Germany, 1848–1914] (Religiöse Kulturen im Europa der Neuzeit, 3). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fischer-Tiné, Harald. 2013. Pidgin-Knowledge. Wissen und Kolonialismus [Pidgin knowledge: knowledge and colonialism]. Zurich: Diaphanes.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gamsa, M. 2011. “Cultural Translation and the Translational Circulation of Books.” Journal of World History 22 (3): 553–575. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Groschopp, Horst. 1997. Dissidenten. Freidenkerei und Kultur in Deutschland [Dissidents: Freethinkers and Culture in Germany]. Berlin: Dietz VerlagStrauss.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haeckel, Ernst. 1893. Der Monismus als Band zwischen Religion und Wissenschaft. Glaubensbekenntnis eines Naturforschers, vorgetragen am 9. Oktober 1892 in Altenburg [Monism as link between religion and science. A naturalist’s confession of faith]. Bonn: Emil Strauss.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1895. “Die Wissenschaft und der Umsturz [Science and revolution].” Die Zukunft 10: 197–206.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1899. The Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the Nineteenth Century. Translated by Joseph McCabe. New York, London: Harper & Brothers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hakfoort, Caspar. 1992. “Science Deified. Wilhelm Ostwald’s Energeticist World-view and the History of Scientism.” Annals of Science 49 (6): 525–544. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Helmholtz, Hermann von. 1884. Die Erhaltung der Kraft [The conservation of force] (Ostwald’s Klassiker der exacten Wissenschaften, Vol. 1). Leipzig: Engelmann.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hillermann, Horst. 1976. “Zur Begriffsgeschichte von ‘Monismus’ [On the conceptual history of Monism].” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 20: 214–235.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hölscher, Lucian. 2005. Geschichte der protestantischen Frömmigkeit in Deutschland [History of Protestant faith in Germany]. München: C.H. Beck.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holt, Niles R. 1970. “A Note on Ostwald’s Energism.” Isis 61 (3): 386–389. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1971. “Ernst Haeckel’s Monistic Religion.” Journal of the History of Ideas 32 (2): 265–280. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hübinger, Gangolf. 1997. “Die monistische Bewegung. Sozialingenieure und Kulturprediger [The Monist movement. Social engineers and cultural preachers].” In Kultur und Kulturwissenschaften um 1900. Vol. II: Idealismus und Positivismus, ed. by Gangolf Hübinger, Rüdiger vom Bruch, and Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, 246–259. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jacobsen, Eric Paul. 2005. From Cosmology to Ecology: The Monist World-View in Germany from 1770 to 1930 (German Life and Civilization). Oxford, Bern, Berlin et. al.: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jodl, Friedrich. 1912. “Der Monismus und die Kulturprobleme der Gegenwart [Monism and the cultural challenges of today].” In Der erste internationale Monisten-Kongreß in Hamburg vom 8.-11. September 1911, ed. by Wilhelm Bloßfeldt, 117–130. Leipzig: Unesma.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaiser Jochen-Christoph. 1981. Arbeiterbewegung und organisierte Religionskritik. Proletarische Freidenkerverbände in Kaiserreich und Weimarer Republik [Labor movement and organized secularism. Proletarian freethinkers in Imperial Germany and the Weimar Republic]. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kammerer, Paul. 1913. Genossenschaften von Lebewesen auf Grund gegenseitigen Vorteile (Symbiose) [Associations of living organisms based on mutual aid]. Mit 8 Bildtafeln. Stuttgart: Strecker & Schröder.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kleeberg, Bernhard. 2005. Theophysis. Ernst Haeckels Philosophie des Naturganzen [Theophysis. Ernst Haeckel’s philosophy of nature]. Köln/Weimar/Wien: Böhlau.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. “God-Nature Progressing: Natural Theology in German Monism.” Science in Context 20 (3): 537–569. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krauße, Erika, 2005. “Wege zum Bestseller. Haeckels Werk im Lichte der Verlegerkorrespondenz: Die Korrespondenz mit Emil Strauss [Making a bestseller. Haeckel’s correspondence with his publisher Emil Strauss].” In Der Brief als wissenschaftshistorische Quelle [Letters as sources for history of science], ed. by Erika Krauße, 145–170. Berlin: Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lässig, Simone. 2012. “Übersetzungen in der Geschichte – Geschichte als Übersetzung? Überlegungen zu einem analytischen Konzept und Forschungsgegenstand für die Geschichtswissenschaft [Translation in history – History as translation? Reflections on an analytical concept].” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 38 (2): 189–216. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leber, Christoffer. 2017. “Energetic Education. Monism, Religious Instruction, and School Reform in Fin-de-Siècle Germany.” Yearbook of the Italian-German Institute in Trient 43 (1): 85–114.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
MacLeod, Miles, Rocío G. Sumillera, Jan Surman, and Smirnova Ekaterina. 2016. “Introduction”. In Language as a Scientific Tool: Shaping Scientific Language Across Time and National Tradition, ed. by Miles MacLeod, Rocío G. Sumillera, Jan Surman, and Ekaterina Smirnova, 1–8. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Montgomery, Scott L. 2000. Science in Translation: Movements of Knowledge through Cultures and Time. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Myers, Perry. 2015. “An Elite Class of Thinkers. Monism between Science and the Spiritual in Wilhelmine Germany.” In Revisiting the “Nazi Occult”. Histories, Realities, Legacies, ed. by Monica Black and Eric Kurlander, 42–64. Rocherster; New York: Camden House.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Neef, Katharina. 2012. Die Entstehung der Soziologie aus der Sozialreform. Eine Fachgeschichte [The origins of sociology in social reform]. Frankfurt am Main, New York: Campus.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Neswald, Elizabeth. 2003. Thermodynamik als kultureller Kampfplatz. Eine Faszinationsgeschichte der Entropie [Thermodynamics as a cultural battlefield. A fascination history of entropy]. Berlin: Rombach.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nöthlich, Rosemarie, Heiko Weber, Uwe Hoßfeld, Olaf Breidbach, and Erika Krauße (eds). 2006. "Substanzmonismus" und/oder “Energetik”: Der Briefwechsel. Der Briefwechsel von Ernst Haeckel und Wilhelm Ostwald (1910 bis 1918). Zum 100. Jahrestag der Gründung des Deutschen Monistenbundes [“Substance Monism” and/or “Energetics”: The correspondence between Ernst Haeckel and Wilhelm Ostwald (1910 bis 1918)]. Berlin: Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ostwald, Grete. 1953. Wilhelm Ostwald. Mein Vater [Wilhelm Ostwald. My father]. Stuttgart: Berliner Union.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ostwald, Wilhelm. 1905. “Theorie des Glücks [Theory of luck].” Annalen der Naturphilosophie 4: 457–474.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1909a. Energetische Grundlagen der Kulturwissenschaft [Energetic foundations of cultural science]. Leipzig: Dr. Werner Klinkhardt.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1909b. Wider das Schulend. Ein Notruf [Against the misery at schools]. Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1910. Die Forderung des Tages [The challenge of the day]. Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1911. Monistische Sonntagspredigten [Monist Sunday sermons], Vol. 1. Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(ed.). 1914. Auguste Comte. Entwurf der wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten welche für eine Reorganisation der Gesellschaft erforderlich sind (1822). Deutsch herausgegeben, eingeleitet und mit Anmerkungen versehen von Wilhelm Ostwald. [Auguste Comte. Plan for the scientific work necessary to reorganize society (1822)]. Leipzig: Unesma.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1927. Lebenslinien. Eine Selbstbiographie [Lifelines. An autobiography], Vol. 2: Leipzig 1887–1905. Berlin: Klasing & Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rabinbach, Anson. 1992. The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Radkau, Joachim. 1998. Das Zeitalter der Nervosität. Deutschland zwischen Bismarck und Hitler [The age of nervousness. Germany between Bismarck and Hitler]. München: Hanser.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raj, Kapil. 2007. Relocating Modern Science: Circulation and the Construction of Knowledge in South Asia and Europe, 1650–1900. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Richards, Robert J. 2006. The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rupke, Nicolaas. 2000. “Translation Studies in the History of Science: The Example of ‘Vestiges’.” British Journal for the History of Science 33: 209–222. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schleicher, August. 1873 [1863]. Die Darwinsche Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft, 2nd edition. Weimar: Hermann Böhlau.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schwarz, Angela. 1999. Der Schlüssel zur modernen Welt. Wissenschaftspopularisierung in Großbritannien und Deutschland im Übergang zur Moderne (ca. 1870–1914) [The key to the modern world. Science popularization in Great Britain and Germany (ca. 1870–1914)]. Stuttgart: Steiner.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simon-Ritz, Frank. 1997. Organisation einer Weltanschauung. Die freigeistige Bewegung im Wilhelminischen Deutschland [The organization of a worldview. The freethought movement in Wilhelmine Germany] (Religiöse Kulturen der Moderne, 5). Gütersloh: Kaiser.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ullrich, Volker. 2010. Die nervöse Großmacht 1871–1918. Aufstieg und Untergang des deutschen Kaiserreichs [The nervous nation 1871–1918. Rise and fall of the German Empire], 2nd edition. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wegener, Daan. 2009. A True Proteus. A History of Energy Conservation in German Science and Culture 1847–1914. Utrecht: Dissertation thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “Ostwald’s Utopias. Energeticism in the Wilhelmine Empire.” In Utopianism and the Sciences, 1880–1930, ed. by Mary Kemperink, 59–78. Leuven: Peeters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weir, Todd. 2012. “The Riddles of Monism. An Introductory Essay.” In Monism: Science, Philosophy, Religion, and the History of a Worldview, ed. by Todd Weir, 1–44. Basingstoke: Palgrave.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Secularism and Religion in Nineteenth-Century Germany: The Rise of the Fourth Confession. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wright, David. 2000. Translating Science: The Transmission of Western Chemistry into Late Imperial China, 1840–1900. Leiden, Boston: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ziche, Paul (ed.). 2000. Monismus um 1900. Wissenschaftskultur und Weltanschauung [Monism around 1900. Science culture and worldview]. Berlin: Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue