The gestation of German biology : philosophy and physiology from Stahl to Schelling / John H. Zammito.

9780226520827 (ebook) :

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2018.

1 online resource

Access is available to the Yale community.

Access restricted by licensing agreement.

The emergence of biology as a distinct science in the eighteenth century has long been a subject of scholarly controversy. Michel Foucault, on the one hand, argued that its appearance only after 1800 represented a fundamental rupture with the natural history that preceded it, marking the beginnings of modernity. Ernst Mayr, on the other hand, insisted that even the word 'biology' was unclear in its meaning as late as 1800, and that the field itself was essentially prospective well into the 1800s. Historian of ideas John Zammito presents a different version of the emergence of the field, one that takes on both Foucault and Mayr and emphasizes the scientific progress throughout the eighteenth century that led to the recognition of the need for a special science.

Chicago scholarship online.

Print version :

Books / Online

English

June 22, 2018

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Specialized.