The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community

Observation, Eclecticism, and Pietism in the Early Enlightenment

Bibliographic Data

ID23136243
AuthorsKelly J Whitmer (0009-0003-4608-5759, corresponding author)
Year2015
Pages202
Publication date2015-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueThe Halle Orphanage as scientific community (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.7208/chicago/9780226243801.001.0001
OpenAlexW4230864551
ISBN9780226243801
Open LibraryOL31035084M
LanguageEN
Citations received8

Founded around 1700 by a group of German Lutherans known as Pietists, the Halle Orphanage became the institutional headquarters of a universal seminar that still stands largely intact today. It was the base of an educational, charitable, and scientific community and consisted of an elite school for the sons of noblemen. Yet, its reputation as a Pietist enclave inhabited largely by young people has prevented the organisation from being taken seriously as a kind of scientific academy - even though, Kelly Joan Whitmer shows, this is precisely what it was. This book calls into question a long-standing tendency to view German Pietists as anti-science and anti-Enlightenment, arguing that these tendencies have drawn attention away from what was actually going on inside the orphanage.

Ecology, Conservation, and Geographical Studies · European history and politics · German Colonialism and Identity Studies · History · Psychology · 18th century · Eclecticism · Education · Germany · Halle an der Saale · Observation (educational method) · Observation (Scientific method) · Pietism · Science · Science, study and teaching · Study and teaching · Syncretism (religion) · Waisenhaus (Halle an der Saale

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