Helmholtz, a Bildungsbürger, Scientist, and Research Strategist

Before I embark, in the second part, on exemplarily reconstructing how the modern conception of science evolved, it seems advisable to introduce some aspects of the context in which our case study is embedded. Outlining biographical, scientific and cultural contexts may compensate two things. For one, it may balance the focus on one single aspect of Hermann von Helmholtz’s work by indicating the extraordinary complexity of his entire production. The development of his conception of nature and science, being the topic of this case study and remaining deliberately largely unelucidated so far in these preliminary remarks, is only one aspect of his complete works.

The topic I shall delineate is to be introduced as part of a whole, into which it — more or less harmoniously — fits. This arrangement intends to aid the reader. Yet, it remains open to question, to what extent Helmholtz’s production can be characterized as a well-ordered whole at all. As a natural scientist, Helmholtz not only occupied himself with topics as diverse as questions in geometry, physics, chemistry, physiology, aesthetics, sensory perception, epistemology and education, he also did so in a variety of ways. Some motifs — such as his mechanistic conception of nature — do recur and he adhered lifelong to a mathematical experimental method. Another uniform or unifying element was his endeavor to produce syntheses by applying findings from one field to other domains as well. His intellectual interests, as D. Cahan has noted, were transdisciplinary¹⁷³ and he is certainly one of the few researchers who still commanded a view over a wide range of scientific activity.