Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886)

1
History as a Professional Discipline
Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886)
1) Establishing history as a professional
discipline
2) Emphasis on the past in context (historicism)
3) Emphasis on critical methods (primary sources)
Wie es eigentlich gewesen To history has been
assigned the office of judging the past, of
instructing the present for the benefit of future
ages. To such high offices this work does not
aspire it wants only to show what actually
happened.
2
History as a Professional Discipline
David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874)
1) Applied critical methods to history of religion
2) Publishes Life of Jesus (1835)
The author is aware that the essence of the
Christian faith is perfectly independent of his
criticism. The supernatural birth of Christ, his
miracles, his resurrection and ascension, remain
eternal truths, whatever doubts may be cast on
their reality as historical facts. The certainty
of this can alone give calmness and dignity to
our criticism, and distinguish it from the
naturalistic criticism of the last century, the
design of which was, with the historical fact, to
subvert also the religious truth, and which thus
necessarily became frivolous.
3
Geology as a Professional Discipline
Charles Lyell (1797-1875)
1) Gradual causes of geological change
2) Publishes Principles of Geology (1830-33)
The readiest way, perhaps, of persuading the
reader that we may dispense with great and sudden
revolutions in the geological order of events is
by showing him how a regular and uninterrupted
series of changes in the animate and inanimate
world must give rise to such breaks in the
sequence, and such unconformability of stratified
rocks, as are usually thought to imply
convulsions and catastrophes. Principles of
Geology, being an attempt to explain the former
changes of the earths surface, by reference to
causes now in operation
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4
Biology as a Professional Discipline
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
1) Gradual, natural causes of biological change
2) Publishes Origin of Species (1859)
As many more individuals of each species are born
than can possibly survive and as, consequently,
there is a frequently recurring struggle for
existence, it follows that any being, if it vary,
however slightly, in any manner profitable to
itself, under the complex and sometimes varying
conditions of life, will have a better chance of
surviving, and thus be naturally selected. On the
Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,
or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the
Struggle for Life.
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