Landscape took on a new meaning through the new science of plant geography of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1857). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, “landscape” was foremost a painterly genre. Slowly, painted landscapes came to bear on natural surroundings, but by 1800 it was still not common to designate sites as “landscapes.” Humboldt looked at plant vegetation with a painterly gaze. Artists, according to him, could suggest in their work that an abstract unity lay hidden underneath observable phenomena. Humboldt (...) projected painted landscapes on nature and found its ecological unity. By doing so, he ultimately stripped the concept of landscape from its primary visual meaning. (shrink)

The long-term scientific interests of Alexander von Humboldt ranged from anthropology and ancient American studies to geology and geography, climatology and cultural theory, physics and plant geography to language history, volcanology and zoology. As a scientist, he crossed different disciplines and explored new paths of knowledge. Humboldt developed a transdisciplinary and, in the widest sense, nomadic knowledge as a traveller through the sciences. Like a nomad, he did not seek to possess or destroy a territory (of knowledge): no wonder (...) that he became the co-founder of an ecological and geo-ecological thinking. Humboldt wrote and published his works in German as well as in French. In his American Travel Diaries, which returned to Berlin in November 2013, and which are still awaiting their scientific analysis, Humboldt constantly changes between German and French, but also between Latin and Spanish. The author of the Kosmos couldn’t be used for nationalist purposes. Thus, Alexander von Humboldt can be understood as a nomad of science in constant movement, and in this sense as a world citizen. This first theorist of globalization shifted between the words, between the sciences, between the worlds. For him, the greatest possible mobility was not only a scientific program, but also the program of a life – his life. Humboldt wasn’t concerned with any specialization that would lead to a fragmented dialogue with other specialists. He was concerned with a nomadic knowledge, which, thanks to his extensive network of correspondents, always delivered the opportunity to argue from different disciplinary standpoints at the same time. His thinking doesn’t know the limits of interdisciplinary or “disciplined” research oppressing us today, but it rather took aim at the creation of a new world, in which mankind would be able to live together on a planetary scale in freedom and peace. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyse Alexander von Humboldt's views on the theory of evolution and tackle the following question: Can Humboldt be considered an evolutionist? I seek to show that Humboldt acknowledges three essential Darwinian elements of the theory of evolution: fossil records, the geographical distribution of species and the struggle for survival. Further, Humboldt recognises a special relation between the natural environment and organic life, and understands it in light of his naturalistic holism. This holism (...) reveals the unity of organic and inorganic nature and highlights the agency of organic life whilst allowing it to create and preserve the adaptive conditions in the natural environment. Accordingly, I argue that Humboldt believes some kind of evolutionary process happens in nature. However, due to the immense influence of Kant’s transcendental study and the rigid utilisation of the empirical method, Humboldt concludes that we cannot acquire knowledge of the exact course of the evolutionary process. This, however, does not imply Humboldt discredits the theory of evolution. (shrink)

On February 5, 1850, the Austrian emperor Franz Josef appointed C.G. Jacob Jacobi to the position of full professor at the University of Vienna. Thanks to the efforts of Alexander von Humboldt, however, the world-famous Prussian mathematician remained in Berlin and continued in his position as a salaried member of the Academy of Sciences.This paper describes the history of Jacobi’s appointment in Vienna and his ultimate rejection of it.

This article sheds new light on Alexander von Humboldt’s political position in the revolutionary decade between 1789 and 1799. The young naturalist interacted with both supporters and opponents of the revolution. In July 1790, he even participated in the preparations for the Festival of the Federation in Paris together with Georg Forster. However, Humboldt remained detached from Europe’s polarized politics. He avoided taking a firm stance and distanced himself from revolutionary violence. Continuous emotional and physical crises, in addition to (...) his immersion into scientific studies, fuelled this retreat. While steeped in Enlightenment ideas and committed to a cosmopolitan understanding of liberty, Humboldt absorbed the critique of the French Revolution and the skeptical take on rationalism that the philosophers Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi and Wilhelm von Humboldt, Alexander’s brother, articulated.By recognizing these influences and reexamining autobiographical sources, we can identify the various intellectual and political contexts in which Alexander von Humboldt operated during the 1790s. This polycentric approach leads to a nuanced understanding of Humboldt’s political thinking in revolutionary Europe. It explains his caution in political matters and revises the conventional image of Humboldt as a fervent supporter of the French Revolution. (shrink)

Alexander von Humboldt: Counternarrative of a dissenter? Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9514-0 Authors Andreas W. Daum, History Department, 570 Park Hall, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

In this paper I argue that the concept of pilgrimage provides a unifying trope for the otherwise seemingly unfocused travel accounts of Bashō’s Narrow Road to the Interior and Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland’s Voyage aux régions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent. I begin with a brief description of debates regarding the notion of pilgrimage. After that I show how pilgrimage as trope may be applied to the texts of these authors. This is followed by an application of the (...) classical stages of pilgrimage to particular phases of Bashō’s and Humboldt’s recounted experiences. I conclude that pilgrimage offers an illuminating new way to understand the travel accounts of these two writers. (shrink)

Summary From summer 1792 until spring 1797, Alexander von Humboldt was a mining official in the Franconian parts of Prussia. He visited mines, inspected smelting works, calculated budgets, wrote official reports, founded a mining school, performed technological experiments, and invented a miners’ lamp and respirator. At the same time he also participated in the Republic of Letters, corresponded with savants in all Europe, and was a member of the Leopoldine Carolinian Academy and the Berlin Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde. He collected (...) minerals, made geognostic observations, performed chemical and physiological experiments, read the newest scientific journals, and prepared and published texts on mineralogy, geognosy, chemistry, botany and physiology. Humboldt did his scientific investigations alongside his administrative and technical work. This raises the question of whether there were fruitful interactions between Humboldt's technical-administrative work and (parts of) his natural inquiry. I argue that the mining official Humboldt was a late eighteenth-century figure of hybrid savant-technician. Mines and smelting works provided numerous opportunities for studies of nature. Humboldt systematically used inspection tours for mineralogical and geognostic observations. He transformed mines into chemical laboratories, and he transferred knowledge and material items from his natural inquiries in mines to academic institutions. The main objective of this paper is to illuminate the persona of savant-technician (or scientific-technological expert) along with Humboldt's mixed technological and scientific work during his term as mining official. (shrink)

The continuous substantial and flexible material support of the bankers Joseph and Alexander Mendelssohn were of essential importance for Alexander von Humboldt's outstanding scientific expeditions and his work as a publicist, coordinator and supporter of fellow scientist and scientific projects in Berlin for decades. New sources present this support of Humboldt by the Mendelssohns in all its depth and variety. At the same time, the enduring funding of one of Prussia's most important Bildungsbürger clearly illustrates that the business (...) policy of the Mendelssohn bankers was based on a canon of values in which the acceptance of responsibility in different fields of society were of equal importance as pure economic success. (shrink)

The cognizability of the world according to Alexander von Humboldt: the experience of landscape. According to Alexander von Humboldt, geography ought to aim to go beyond the modern attitude of seeing knowledge as being the result of a spatial and temporal abstraction from the real world. Von Humboldt wishes to create a new theory of knowledge, one that instead of just simplifying, schematizing, and categorizing reality is able to highlight its multiple meanings, its diversity of perspectives, and its (...) hermeneutical keys. Von Humboldt’s project strives to achieve a universal cognition of the world (or a universal geography) by claiming the centrality of the experience of landscape. This is evidence for von Humboldt’s far-sightedness, since he anticipated the present day trend of considering landscape as a corner stone of interdisciplinary enquiries into the meaning of the world. (shrink)

Ähnlich wie Adalbert Stifters Erzähler im Roman ,,Nachsommer” verband A. v. Humboldt auf seiner Amerikareise Erkundung und Erforschung, Reiselust und Erkenntnisstreben. Humboldt hat sein doppeltes Ziel klar benannt: Bekanntmachung der besuchten Länder, Sammeln von Tatsachen zur Erweiterung der physikalischen Geographie. Der Aufsatz ist in fünf Abschnitte gegliedert: Anliegen, Route, Methoden, Ergebnisse, Auswertung.

This article compares Alexander von Humboldt 's and John Ruskin's writings on landscape art and natural landscape. In particular, Humboldt 's conception of a habitat's essence as predominantly composed of vegetation as well as judgment of tropical American nature as the realm of nature of the highest aesthetic enjoyment is examined in the context of Ruskin's aesthetic theory. The magnitude of Humboldt 's contribution to the natural sciences seems to have clouded our appreciation of his prominent status in the (...) field of art history. In addition to his position as scientist, Humboldt 's role as aesthetician is demonstrated in this paper. Unlike Ruskin, who comfortably resides in the canon of art history relative to his minor significance in the field of geology, Humboldt has not been recognized for his impact on the world of art; his tremendous scientific importance seems to have overshadowed an appreciation of it. (shrink)

Ante la fragmentariedad de las ciencias particulares desarrolladas por el hombre en vísperas del siglo XXI, la obra Cosmos de Humboldt tiene dos puntos interesantes: (a) la sinopsis de los variados y nuevos conocimientos de entonces, y (b) la intención de definir el lugar del hombre en el Cosmos. Una relectura de Humboldt se hace necesaria para conocer su actitud frente a la dispersión del saber, la cual evitaría tener una visión de conjunto del sentido del todo. La tesis de (...) la autora en la primera parte es que dicha concepción se inscribe en el paradigma científico elaborado en la tradición del llamado neovitalismo. Con base en lo anterior, la segunda parte se centra en la relación entre naturaleza y espíritu. (shrink)

Humboldtian science Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9480-6 Authors David Oldroyd, School of History and Philosophy, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052 Australia Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

By resituating Alexander von Humboldt in the “working world” of mining, this essay offers a case study of the way in which industry has shaped practice and theory in the history of science. While Humboldt’s experience as a miner in Saxony and Prussia provided him a venue in which to study fossilized vegetation, revealing a fundamental link between the migrations of plants and of peoples, industrial concerns about miners’ safety inspired a study of the interplay between plants and people (...) that shaped his later articulation of the verticality of plant distribution. Moreover, the cartographic methods Humboldt employed during his American journey depended as much on drawing practices indebted to mining as they did on patterns of vertical mobility above and below the surface of the earth. These arguments ultimately encourage a departure from “Humboldtian Science,” a term that has veiled an originally Prusso-Saxon science beneath a set of Anglo-American connotations. (shrink)