Scientificity before Scientism: The Invention of Cultural Research in German Studies of Antiquity 1800–1850

Abstract

AbstractThis paper examines how scholars of Greek and Roman antiquity in the German-speaking territories in the first half of the nineteenth century define scientificity (Wissenschaftlichkeit). I will argue that antiquity studies in this period of its foundation as a discipline is an instructive case to examine with regard to questions as to how scientific knowledge is established as different from other forms of knowledge, how scientific fields establish relative autonomy from other fields and what forms scientific autonomy can take. Widely recognised as important for the history of the modern research university, the case is not only interesting because it is influential. It is also interesting because the discussions in this period are so different to discussions in the later nineteenth century in the social sciences and the humanities, which have shaped debates about scientificity in sociology and cognate disciplines: We find here a notion of social and cultural research as a scientific endeavour, discussed not primarily with reference to or in defence against the natural sciences, but rather defined against imitative learning and the expectation that research provide moral support for the emerging Germany by idealizing the Greeks. The case highlights moralization as a source of heteronomy in cultural fields in addition to the more widely discussed forces of the market and the influence of the state.