Disciplined Sciences? Differentiation of Academic Subjects at Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century German Universities
Disciplined Sciences? Differentiation of Academic Subjects at Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century German Universities

Summary/Abstract: The historiography of individual academic subjects and disciplines is an indispensable part of both university history and the history of science. Scientific disciplines are a relativelyrecent phenomenon from the university-historical perspective of longue durée, whose study hasnevertheless undergone some striking developments in the past forty years. At the level of thehistoriography of disciplines, structural patterns of academic subject histories are highlighted,leading from the philosophy of science of the 1970s to the cultural turns of the 1990s and 2000s.Disciplines are partial results of a broader process of diversification, fragmentation, and speciali sationthat began as early as the eighteenth century. This survey reconstructs processes of disciplinary differentiation and disciplining from the order of faculties to the “regime of disciplines” in thetransition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, focusing on the University of Göttingenas a dynamic hub of development. Using the example of German universities, the genealogies ofindividual chairs, subjects, and disciplines are traced. Special attention is paid to the dual character of disciplining as a submission to a system of rules and the organisation of knowledge.

• Details
• Contents