The seminar deals with fundamental theoretical, instititutional and technical developments of physical research from the 17th century to debates in contemporary history of science. We will focus on central topics such as: relations between “nature and culture”, “experiment and theory”, “science and the public” or “history and mythology”.

Previous to the separation of the sciences and humanities, "historia" was not a historical discipline in the modern sense but a method of empiricism, concerned with the minute description of facts. The seminar will study "historia", using examples from natural history, medicine, and philology.