Abstracts of the History of Science Society 2004 Austin Meeting 18 ...

Bourgeois Automata: Mechanical Bodies and Autonomous Subjects in the
Nascent Civil Society of Late 18th-Century Germany
Of the literary writers working in the infamous period often referred to as ‘around 1800’ in Germany, it was in particular Jean Paul who
made automata a major concern in his texts. Between 1785 and 1792 he wrote five satires which illustrate and elaborate on various
mechanical and epistemological aspects of ‘machine-men’. While Jean Paul’s texts are notoriously fragmentary and enigmatic pieces,
replete with subtle and obscure allusions and metaphors, they are also an intriguing and significant microcosm of the scientific and political
preoccupations of late 18th-century Germany. Taking close readings of a few key passages of these satires as a starting point, my
presentation first sketches out briefly the tradition of the Early Enlightenment in Germany and the role of the mechanism, the machine,
and the human body in it. This tradition was one of the most important intellectual currents on which the political and the (natural)
philosophical modernity in Germany was built. Second, I will demonstrate that, even in the reactions to, and criticisms of, the rationalist
epistemologies of the Early Enlightenment (as they are expressed, for example, in the traditions of the Late Enlightement and the
Early Romanticism) the motif of the automaton was far from being a clearly marked spectre of the all-encompassing mechanical worldview.
The mechanism and the principles of (self-)determination and rationality coming with it were an important part in the negotiation
of principles of ‘sensitive’ selfhood and bourgeois subjectivity in the nascent civil society in the German lands. Taking Jean Paul’s
literary expression as an example, I aim to elucidate the intricacies of the motif of the automaton and its paradoxical connotations at
that time to explain the role of the man-machine in the beginnings of modern society in Germany.
Mark A. Waddell, The Johns Hopkins University (m.waddell@gmail.com)
Saturday, 20-Nov-04, 3:30 - 5:30 PM - Hill Country C
Magic, Magnets, and Machines: Jesuit Depictions of Artifice and the End of Nature’s Wondrous Power
Around the middle of the seventeenth century, several important treatises penned by Jesuit authors — most significantly, Athanasius
Kircher, Gaspar Schott, and Francesco Lana Terzi presented readers with a conception of the world in which the wondrous and mysterious
powers of Nature were replaced as a focus of discussion by the spectacle of human (or, more precisely, Jesuit) ingenuity. Filled
with demonstrations of artificial magic and depictions of machines designed to harness and exploit these natural powers, such works
permitted the revelation and subsequent devaluing of Nature’s secrets while they simultaneously affirmed the skill and power of the
Jesuits themselves.
Brett L. Walker, Montana State University (bwalker@gemini.oscs.montana.edu)
Saturday, 20-Nov-04, 9:00 - 11:45 AM - Texas Ballroom VII
Global Science and National Distinctiveness: Animal Representations and the Birth of Ecology in Japan
In the 1930s and 40s, Japanese scholars, who defined their field as “ecology” (seitaigaku), began fashioning their own version of the
new global science that sought to elucidate the organic relations between living things and their environments. In particular, Imanishi
Kinji, when crafting theories of wolf extinction, preferred to look at the influence that human activities and the environment had on
animal societies as a whole and not focus on the internal mechanisms that might be behind the individual animal’s struggle with the outside
world. Similar to the “organismic” ecological tradition in Europe and the United States, Imanishi represented animal societies as
holistic organisms unto themselves – such as aggregations of wolves or monkeys and not as individualistic social animals. In the case
of Imanishi, a Confucian and Buddhist milieu linked directly to the Kyoto school of philosophy provided the context for many of his
scientific theories, such as those outlined in his philosophy of biology, Seibutsu no sekai (The world of living things; 1941); but in his
more scholarly writings on biological communities, such as the Seibutsu shakai no ronri (The logic of biological societies; 1948), he
repeatedly referenced the scientific observations of such prominent European and American ecologists as Victor Shelford, Charles
Elton, and Warder Clyde Allee. The influence of the Kyoto school of philosophy on Imanishi meant that he and many later Japanese
ecologists, when representing animals, tended to focus on the organic interrelatedness of the entire known world: all things, argued the
famous Kyoto philosopher Nishida Kitar, shared a “common origin.” But because the global “organismic” tradition of ecology stressed
biological interrelatedness as well, Imanishi could seamlessly wed the distinctive Kyoto school with global trends in science. By focusing
on Imanishi’s debate with ethnologist Yanagita Kunio, and his use of Shelford, Elton, Allee and others in his writings, this short
paper will argue that even though Imanishi is often hailed as having created a distinctively “Japanese” form of ecology, biology, and
most importantly, primatology ones that mirror Japan’s “exquisite harmony” (bim no ch wa) with the natural world and its group-oriented
culture his theories were as much the product of global ecological discourses. Imanishi’s representation of animal societies as
holistic a holism commonly attributed to a Japanese way of thinking and often seen as an alternative to the Darwinian focus on the individual
was in fact Imanishi’s attempt to engage Western ecologists. Imanishi’s animal representations thus not only trace the global
exchange of scientific ideas, but force scholars to ask whether there is a “Japanese science,” one different than that practiced in the West.
Jessica Wang, University of Califorina, Los Angeles (jwang@history.ucla.edu)
Friday, 19-Nov-04, 9:00 - 11:45 AM - Texas Ballroom II
Knowledge and Policy: Pragmatism, Law, and Social Science in New Deal America
How do assumptions about science and technology shape conceptions of political organization, order, and authority? In the realm of
early twentieth century American law and politics, science and technology came to provide not merely objects for policymaking and reg-