The Philology of the Physicists. Textual Knowledge and Practices within the Academic Culture of Quantum Physics

In both their published and unpublished writings, the German-speaking founders of quantum theory frequently drew on their philological knowledge. This project suggests that the much vaunted philological training which the physicists had undergone in the course of their classical education, affected their working techniques and methods of knowledge production. Neither the history of philology nor the history of science has systematically investigated this phenomenon thus far. The project’s aim is to explore the historical interrelations between physics and philology at the turn of the 20th century, within the methodological framework of literary and cultural studies.

The project is grounded in an analysis of the archival holdings of German-speaking modern atomic physicists. In doing so, it considers not only cultural dispositions but also, and in particular, the media-technological, material, and infrastructural conditions of knowledge production at that time. Building on textually and materially grounded case studies, the project explores those points of contact and spheres of knowledge that enabled a profound exchange between physics and philology during the first half of the 20th century. Additionally, the research group addresses the circulation and productive transformation of the epistemic practices employed by theoretical physics and philology in dealing with uncertain, fragmentary, yet ever-expanding bodies of knowledge. To what extent were the various techniques of reading, interpreting, translating, and generating “texts,” as practiced in the philology and physics seminars of the time, mutually compatible? Under what conditions could philology function as a epistemic model in modern physics? Or is this a case of comparable practices emerging simultaneously in similarly organized epistemic spaces and situations?

By addressing such questions, the project highlights the prominent role of philology in the production of knowledge beyond disciplinary boundaries. Through a study of philological and physical practices and cultural techniques, the project further contributes to understanding the cultural history of intellectual practices between 1875 and 1950. It also offers new impulses for contemporary literary debates, as these have announced not only the “end of philology” but also its “return” and its “future,” its “promises” and its “power.”

Fig. above: © Martin Gronau