Science in the

Romantic Era
 The A󰈇󰈩 󰈢󰇿 Rom󰈀󰈝󰉄󰈏c
En󰈗i󰈈h󰉃󰈩󰈞m󰇵󰈝󰉄 Era

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A philosophical movement that dominated
A movement that emphasised emotion and
Europe that was centred around the idea
individualism as well as glorification of all the
that reason is the primary source of
past and nature, preferring the medieval rather
authority and legitimacy. Three main
than the classical. They believed that science
concepts were reason, scientific method
can’t be used to explain everything.
and progress.

1738-1937
 Romanticism arose as a counter movement to the
enlightenment, and thus held opposing views on many

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topics, including science.
Introduction

Enlightenment valued empiricism and rationalism,

and the romantics viewed this outlook as being cold,
and saw the enlightenment movement to be taking
control of nature.

Romantics felt that the enlightenment encouraged

the abuse of the sciences and instead sought to
improve scientific knowledge in a way that benefitted
both mankind and nature- they valued coexisting with
nature, rather than controlling it.
What fields of science did the romantics contribute to?

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- Philosophy of nature developed at the time of German romanticism
- Associated with Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
- Aimed to comprehend nature in its totality and outline its theoretical structure- attempting to lay
the foundations for the natural sciences
- Inspired by Ancient Greek Ionian philosophers
- Contributed to the development of biology, physics, mathematics, natural history, chemistry and
astronomy
- Biology arose from naturphilosophie as an “independent scientific disciple born at the end of a long
process of erosion of ‘mechanical philosophy’”
- Was first coined in 1801 by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
- Lamarck believed the life sciences should detach from the physical sciences, and rejected
mechanical philosophy
- Lamarck stated that ‘living beings have specific characteristics which cannot be reduced to those
possessed by physical bodies’ and that nature was ‘an assemblage of metaphysical objects’
- Sir Humphry Davy was a British scientist who has been described as a Romantic
- His take on ‘chemical philosophy’ is an example of romantic principles influencing sciences
- His work stressed that it was not the individual components of chemicals that gave them character,
but the powers associated with them
- In other words, not the properties of elements, but how they combined to create reactions
- The development of organic chemistry necessitated the acceptance of ideas derived from
naturphilosophie
- The concepts of romantic naturphilosophie modified the enlightenment concepts of organic
chemistry
- The developments in this era are central to the work of contemporary scientists in the field of
constitution and synthesis of organic substances
 Met󰈀󰈥󰈋󰈢r󰈻 + S󰇸i󰈩n󰇹󰇵?

- The Romantics used metaphors in a new way and

used them to resist what they saw as the harmful
effects of science on society

- They adopted literary devices like metaphors to “li󰇾󰈩󰈘󰇵s󰈻 󰈛ac󰈊󰈎󰈞󰇵”

convey their sentiments
“on󰈩 󰈗󰈏󰇿e”
- To reconnect nature and humanity within
people’s frames of mind, Romantic writers used “we󰇼 󰈡󰇿 l󰈏󰇾e”
metaphor in order to counteract science and
bring society closer to the natural world.
 Romantic Science vs. Enlightenment science

R omantic

- Romantic view of science flourished in

-both sought to
increase individual and
cultural self
Great Britain and Germany
understanding by
recognizing the limits in
- Resulted in the increased dislike by many human knowledge
individuals for the tenets promoted by the through the study of
enlightenment nature and the
intellectual capacities
of man.