Room 222
Matthias Schemmel studies the historical development of structures of knowledge connected to the exact sciences in their cognitive, material, and social dimensions, both from a long-term and a global perspective. The aim is to achieve an understanding of the place of scientific knowledge within human societies, as regards its epistemic status as well as its impact on society. In working toward this goal, he has pursued empirical, i.e., source-based, research in different areas marked by important knowledge transformations. These areas are the emergence of theoretical science in ancient societies; transformations within the medieval and early modern European knowledge systems; the transfer of knowledge between cultures, particularly China and the West; and the reorganization of the knowledge of physics, astronomy, and their neighboring disciplines in the twentieth century.
A particular focus of his research are external, or material, representations of knowledge such as manuscripts and the role they play in the transmission and transformation of knowledge. In this context he also works on various digital editions of manuscripts and hand written artifacts. Current research and teaching activities further pertain to the political dimension of science and the role of science in the Anthropocene.
Projects
Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative Project (CDLI)
Mathematical Practices in Early Modern India
Research Websites as Research Data
The Emergence and Expansion of Preclassical Mechanics
The Encounter of Two Systems of Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century China
The Origin of Theoretical Science in Ancient China
Weighing as an Early Global Innovation
Development of Mechanical Knowledge in China
Historical Epistemology of Space
Knowledge as a Fellow Traveler
Knowledge of Astronomy and the Invention of the Telescope: International Year of Astronomy 2009
Scholastic Elaborations of Ancient Mechanics
The Genesis of General Relativity (Four-Volume Edition)
The Use of Scholastic Tools in Early Modern Mechanics
Selected Publications
Schemmel, M. (2019). Everyday Language and Technical Terminology: Reflective Abstractions in the Long-term History of Spatial Terms. Berlin: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte.
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Feldhay, R., Renn, J., Schemmel, M., & Valleriani, M. (Eds.). (2018). Emergence and expansion of preclassical mechanics. Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-90345-3.
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Feldhay, R., Renn, J., Schemmel, M., & Valleriani, M. (2018). Introduction. In R. Feldhay, J. Renn, M. Schemmel, & M. Valleriani (Eds.), Emergence and expansion of preclassical mechanics (pp. IX-XIII). Dordrecht: Springer.
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Büttner, J., Renn, J., & Schemmel, M. (2018). The early history of weighing technology from the perspective of a theory of innovation. In R. Feldhay, J. Renn, M. Schemmel, & M. Valleriani (Eds.), Emergence and expansion of pre-classical…
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Events
Workshop
Euclid on the Road. Cross-Cultural Transmission, Translation, and Transformation of the Elements
MOREInstitute's Colloquium
- Institute Event
Paradox and Propositio: Arguing against Received Opinion in and outside the Early Modern University
MOREInstitute's Colloquium
Equal Opportunities in the Max Planck Society: Education, Human Development and Gender Issues
MOREInstitute's Colloquium
- Institute Event
Knowledge Institutions: A Search for Traces in European Prehistory
MOREInstitute's Colloquium
- Institute Event
Time(s) for Planning: Labour as Scientific Object in Socialist Romania
MOREInstitute's Colloquium
- Institute Event
The Commercialization of Science within the Max Planck Society
MOREInstitute's Colloquium
- Institute Event
Knowledge and Institutions in the Middle Ages
MOREInstitute's Colloquium
- Institute Event
Forms of Knowledge and Their Settings. Some Ancient Greek Cases
MOREInstitute's Colloquium
- Institute Event
A Cluster of Excellence? The Museion in Alexandria and the Development of Ancient Science
MOREInstitute's Colloquium
- Institute Event
Citizen Science in the 19th and 21st Centuries
MOREInstitute's Colloquium
- Institute Event
Institutions of Knowledge in Islamicate Societies: Patronage, Books, Families, the Arts
MOREConference
Geometry and Mechanics
MOREWorkshop
- Institute Event
An Intellectual Life Across Disciplines
MOREWorkshop
- Institute Event
Zukunftsphilologie
MORESelected Talks & Teaching Activities
Seminar (with Senthil Babu, Sascha Freyberg, and Pietro D. Omodeo), Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
Seminar, Humboldt University of Berlin
"Humanities on the Ground: Confronting the Anthropocene in Asia," Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto
Conference, "The Epistemic Functions of Vision in Science," Università degli Studi di Bergamo
European Society for the History of Science Biennial Conference 2018, London
"Philosophy of Time: A View from the Past," University of Milan
Center for Logic, History and Philosophy of Science, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest
International Symposium on China and the World in the Global History of Science and Technology, Institute for the History of the Natural Sciences, CAS, Beijing