Het ontstaan van het systeem van bètadisciplines: de natuurkunde

Abstract

The emergence of the system of scientific disciplines: the case of physics This essay aims to contribute to a better understanding of the emergence of academic disciplines in the course of the nineteenth century. Being largely based upon Rudolf Stichweh’s 1984-exemplary study Zur Entstehung des modernen Systems wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen. Physik in Deutschland 1740–1890, this essay takes an academic discipline to comprise a well-defined body of knowledge, a corresponding field of research, a set of institutions and a community of representatives, who owe their access to this community to expert skills acquired through an academic education. It describes the emergence of these different facets in the case of physics. This process involved the gradual emergence of a clear demarcation with respect to bordering fields like chemistry and mathematics, the rise of vocational training at the universities, the emergence of specialized journals and of disciplinary communities. Seen from this perspective and in contrast to the received view the modern system of academic disciplines only emerged in the second half – or rather, the last third – of the nineteenth century.