A biography of a 19th-century German scientist renowned for the co-discovery of the second law of thermodynamics and his invention of the ophthalmoscope. The volume relates how von Helmholtz also made contributions to the fields of physiology, philosophy of science and aesthetics.

Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) was a polymath of dazzling intellectual range and energy. Renowned for his co-discovery of the second law of thermodynamics and his invention of the ophthalmoscope, Helmholtz also made many other contributions to physiology, physical theory, philosophy of science and mathematics, and aesthetic thought. During the late nineteenth century, Helmholtz was revered as a scientist-sage—much like Albert Einstein in this century. David Cahan has assembled an outstanding group of European and North American historians of science and philosophy for this intellectual biography of Helmholtz, the first ever to critically assess both his published and unpublished writings. It represents a significant contribution not only to Helmholtz scholarship but also to the history of nineteenth-century science and philosophy in general.

Two seemingly contradictory tendencies have accompanied the development of the natural sciences in the past 150 years. On the one hand, the natural sciences have been instrumental in effecting a thoroughgoing transformation of social structures and have made a permanent impact on the conceptual world of human beings. This historical period has, on the other hand, also brought to light the merely hypothetical validity of scientific knowledge. As late as the middle of the 19th century the truth-pathos in the natural sciences was still unbroken. Yet in the succeeding years these claims to certain knowledge underwent a fundamental crisis. For scientists today, of course, the fact that their knowledge can possess only relative validity is a matter of self-evidence. The present analysis investigates the early phase of this fundamental change in the concept of science through an examination of Hermann von Helmholtz's conception of science and his mechanistic interpretation of nature. Helmholtz (1821-1894) was one of the most important natural scientists in Germany. The development of this thought offers an impressive but, until now, relatively little considered report from the field of the experimental sciences chronicling the erosion of certainty.

Hermann von Helmholtz was a towering figure of nineteenth-century scientific and intellectual life. Best known for his achievements in physiology and physics, he also contributed to other disciplines such as ophthalmology, psychology, mathematics, chemical thermodynamics, and meteorology. With Helmholtz: A Life in Science, David Cahan has written a definitive biography, one that brings to light the dynamic relationship between Helmholtz’s private life, his professional pursuits, and the larger world in which he lived. ? Utilizing all of Helmholtz’s scientific and philosophical writings, as well as previously unknown letters, this book reveals the forces that drove his life—a passion to unite the sciences, vigilant attention to the sources and methods of knowledge, and a deep appreciation of the ways in which the arts and sciences could benefit each other. By placing the overall structure and development of his scientific work and philosophy within the greater context of nineteenth-century Germany, Helmholtz also serves as cultural biography of the construction of the scientific community: its laboratories, institutes, journals, disciplinary organizations, and national and international meetings. Helmholtz’s life is a shining example of what can happen when the sciences and the humanities become interwoven in the life of one highly motivated, energetic, and gifted person.

Sound and Science in Nineteenth-Century Britain is a four-volume set of primary sources which seeks to define our historical understanding of the relationship between British scientific knowledge and sound between 1815 and 1900. In the context of rapid urbanization and industrialization, as well as a growing overseas empire, Britain was home to a rich scientific culture in which the ear was as valuable an organ as the eye for examining nature. Experiments on how sound behaved informed new understandings of how a diverse array of natural phenomena operated, notably those of heat, light, and electro-magnetism. In nineteenth-century Britain, sound was not just a phenomenon to be studied, but central to the practice of science itself and broader understandings over nature and the universe. This collection, accompanied by extensive editorial commentary, will be of great interest to students and scholars of the History of Science.

Between the publication of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 and Husserl’s Ideas in 1913, the nineteenth century was a pivotal period in the philosophy of mind, witnessing the emergence of the phenomenological and analytical traditions that continue to shape philosophical debate in fundamental ways. The nineteenth century also challenged many prevailing assumptions about the transparency of the mind, particularly in the ideas of Nietzsche and Freud, whilst at the same time witnessing the birth of modern psychology in the work of William James. Covering the main figures of German idealism to the birth of the phenomenological movement under Brentano and Husserl, Philosophy of Mind in the Nineteenth Century provides an outstanding survey to these new directions in philosophy of mind. Following an introduction by Sandra Lapointe, fourteen specially commissioned chapters by an international team of contributors discuss key topics, thinkers, and debates, including: German idealism, Bolzano, Johann Friedrich Herbart, Ernst Mach, Helmholtz, Nietzsche, William James, Sigmund Freud, Brentano’s early philosophy of mind, Meinong, Christian von Ehrenfels, Husserl, and Natorp. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of mind, continental philosophy, and the history of philosophy, Philosophy of Mind in the Nineteenth Century is also a valuable resource for those in related disciplines such as psychology, religion, and literature.

Far from the hushed restraint we associate with the Victorians, their world pulsated with sound. This book shows how, in more ways than one, Victorians were hearing things. The representations close listeners left of their soundscapes offered new meanings for silence, music, noise, voice, and echo that constitute an important part of the Victorian legacy to us today. In chronicling the shift from Romantic to modern configurations of sound and voice, Picker draws upon literary and scientific works to recapture the sense of aural discovery figures such as Babbage, Helmholtz, Freud, Bell, and Edison shared with the likes of Dickens, George Eliot, Tennyson, Stoker, and Conrad.