Epistemic Virtues in the Sciences and the Humanities by Jeroen van Dongen & Herman Paul

Author:Jeroen van Dongen & Herman Paul
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Friedrich Wöhler

If physicists could quarrel over ‘pure’ versus ‘applied’ research, so could chemists in late nineteenth-century Germany. As early as the 1840s, Justus von Liebig in Giessen had been criticized in moral terms for exploring the commercial potential of nitrogen-based fertilizer (a true sign of ‘greed’ and ‘vanity’, in the eyes of critics more devoted to ‘pure’ science; see e.g., Mulder 1848: 533–534, 1851: 99). This tension was reflected, moreover, in institutional arrangements. In the days of Wöhler’s appointment in Göttingen, the chemistry professor had had to inspect all pharmacies in the Kingdom of Hanover on an annual basis – a requirement clearly reflecting the practical expectations held of the field (Meinel 2002: 100–101, 106–107). Although chemistry in the third quarter of the century had been successful in acquiring more autonomy, the 1870s had witnessed the emergence of new institutional conflicts, primarily between traditional universities devoted to ‘pure’ research and new, technical colleges founded as training centers for engineers. Surprisingly, however, none of these factions – ‘scientists’ versus ‘industrialists’ and ‘theoreticians’ versus ‘factualists’ – tried to appropriate Wöhler as an embodiment of their preferred persona. Why not?

Presumably, the answer is that no one cultivated Wöhler’s reputation as a father figure as strongly as August Wilhelm von Hofmann, one of the leading German chemists of his day. As a Berlin professor with close ties to the chemical industry (Meinel 1992: 1274), Hofmann saw it as his task to prevent growing tensions between ‘science’ and ‘industry’ to deteriorate into conflict. His institutional means to that end was the German Chemical Society, which he had co-founded in 1867 ‘to provide an opportunity for mutual exchange of ideas between the representatives of speculative and applied chemistry in order to seal anew the alliance between science [Wissenschaft] and industry’ (N. N. 1868: 3; cf. Johnson 2008: 114–123). Under Hofmann’s leadership, this society acquired a reputation for its celebratory style: it let no opportunity pass to celebrate a jubilee or to invite its members to large-scale drinking parties and multi-course dinners (Meinel 1992: 1276–1278). At most of these events, Hofmann delivered festive speeches, in what Friedrich Nietzsche (1995: 83–168) would have called a ‘monumental’ key, aimed at glorifying the greatness of the scientific ancestors. This construction of a shared past was Hofmann’s means for furthering unity among academic and industrial chemists in Germany. If the German Chemical Society at times resembled a Society for Chemical Feasts – the year 1890 even witnessed a Benzolfest and an Anilinfest (Lepsius 1918: 41–47) – this was because their celebrations of the discipline’s past was to provide chemists of different stripes and colors with a shared background. As Christoph Meinel puts it: ‘[T]he more differentiated and dissonant. …Wilhelmian Germany became, the more brilliant and jubilant were the festivities of the German Chemical Society: expressions of a deep desire to rise above the conflicts of the day, to compensate for dissonance in society with the harmony of a community’ (Meinel 1992: 1276).

It is in this context that Hofmann’s necrology of Wöhler and his unveiling speech in Göttingen must be read.

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