Listing of Sessions and Abstracts of Papers - History of Science ...

terms of "sending" and "receiving" signals. The accurate communication of time signals was a central
problematic for the development of techniques to measure those psychological processes.
Schroeder, Iris
E-mail Address: schroeder@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de
When Natural Space Meets Social Theory : The Circulation of Friedrich Ratzel's Models of Space
in French Sociology, History, and Human Geography around 1900
Taking up the arguments of the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel, French social scientists of the
late nineteenth century started to reconsider the concept of "space.ral spaces", which were to be explored
with respect to their different spatial dimensions, sociologists and historians, too, started exploring the
spatial settings of their research by problematizing the effects of spatial features on their corresponding
human settlements. However, approaches in sociology, history and in the later so called human geography
considerably varied, enlarging Ratzel's initial set of questions. Sociologists like Emile Durkheim,
historians like Lucien Fevre or geographers like Paul Vidal de la Blache were mostly interested in the
interdependencies of a wide range of different spatial as well as social and ethnographical factors. In my
paper I will explore the different ways in which Ratzel's question of how "nature" influenced "mankind"
was taken up while at the same time being rejected because of its inherent determinism. Focussing
on scientific practices, especially the setting up of new scientific classificatory schemes and surveys, my
paper explores how social scientists succeeded in making up spaces. My aim is to show by what means
these spaces were being furnished by a rich set of all kinds of spatial as well as other features that were
being tentatively put on the front stage of an encompassing research agenda. In fact, this research agenda
combined questions of Nature with the newly discovered social.
Schuermann, Astrid
E-mail Address: Astrid.Schuermann@tu-berlin.de
Does Technology Act Contrary to Nature? Aristotle on Physis and Techne
Dealing with technological progress in antiquity, Aristotle is thought to be responsible for differentiating
science from engineering by using the terms "in accordance with nature" or "natural" (kata physin)
and "contrary to nature" or "artificial" (para physin). These ideas, developed by the German historian of
science Fritz Krafft, imply that scientists are only allowed to observe changes that happen spontaneously
and without human interference. They shall not experiment or describe their results mathematically. On
the other hand technologists can use all these procedures because they only deal with changes contrary
to nature. In modern terms, science was in deficit and could not support technological progress. In my
lecture I would like to point out that this opinion is wrong. Aristotle deals with changes "in accordance
with nature" and "contrary to nature" in his "Physics" because both can be found in nature without
human influence. He differentiates nature from technology by arguing that there is an ontological dichotomy.
Natural things carry the capacity to change in themselves whereas technological artefacts do
not have anything like that. They are made by human beings imitating nature. Aristotle not only talks of
imitating nature but of supporting and completing nature. Engineers are thus able to imitate both kinds
of processes, kata and para physin, in their aim to change the human environment according to human
needs. The ability of engineering (techne) is a major intellectual moment of human beings compared to
animals or plants. Aristotle uses his definition of changes kata or para physin in his "Politics" to legitimize
the social order. His cosmology is a means to underline and strengthen his ideas about supremacy
of Greeks over barbarians, men over slaves, men over women and children. His philosophy as a whole is
based on the difference between "normally" and "contrary to nature". From these considerations it is
clear that Aristotle in his "Physics" wanted to substantiate his ideas about biological evolution. To think
about technological progress in antiquity therefore must mean to look at the emergence of a technologi-