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Part of
Translation in Knowledge, Knowledge in Translation
Edited by Rocío G. Sumillera, Jan Surman and Katharina Kühn
[Benjamins Translation Library 154] 2020
► pp. 209–227

Chapter 10
Energetic visions

Translating science in the German Monist movement, 1900–1915

| Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

In the aftermath of the revolutions of 1848, anticlerical and freethought organisations had evolved a powerful opposition to the Church and generally to conservatism in Europe. Amongst these organisations, the German Monist League (founded in 1906) became one of the main representatives of secularism in Wilhelmine Germany. The League not only opposed the Christian churches, but also popularised a scientific worldview which sought to unite the material and spiritual worlds. Monist thinkers translated scientific knowledge into a popular language, transferring it to new domains of knowledge, such as ethics, politics, gender, sexuality, law and education. This chapter argues that Monist thinkers used scientific knowledge as a way to essentialise and legitimise their ethical and educational reform goals. By doing so, they transformed scientific knowledge itself.

Keywords: Monism, Energetics, secularism, freethought, anticlericalism, knowledge transfer, Monist ethics, Wilhelm Ostwald
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Translation and transfer of knowledge
  • 3.Wilhelm Ostwald and the German Monist movement (1910–1915)
  • 4.Monist ethics: Naturalising the Golden Rule
  • 5.Organic machines: Ostwald’s “energetic education”
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 29 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.154.10leb
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