HYLE – International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry, Vol. 12 (2006), No. 1, 141-148.
Copyright
©
2006 by HYLE and Mi Gyung Kim.
S h o r t B i o g r a p h i e s o f
P h i l o s o p h i z i n g C h e m i s t s
Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932)
by Mi Gyung Kim
Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932) was one of the most celebrated German scien-
tists at the turn of the twentieth century. He gained an early reputation as a
leading figure in the studies of chemical affinity, then the central theoretical
question in chemistry. In the 1870s, he coordinated the previously disparate
concerns about affinity into collaborative efforts and an independent disci-
pline of physical chemistry by writing voluminous textbooks, founding the
Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie, and expanding the Leipzig Institute. His
laboratory became a site of pilgrimage for aspiring scientists worldwide, as
can be seen in the Einstein’s 1901 letters soliciting an assistantship.
1
It was in
recognition of his international renown that the Prussian Kultusministerium
solicited and appointed him as the first exchange professor to Harvard Uni-
versity in 1905.
2
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1909. His
turn to energetics from the 1890s, first as a unifying scientific program and
then as a cultural imperative, led, however, to his growing alienation from the
scientific community. As a scientific prophet that led a mass exodus from the
church, he envisioned a new century of organization and organizers based on
the efficient use of energy.
Ostwald’s successes and failures owed equally to his unconventional train-
ing at the periphery of German academic culture. He was born in Riga, Latvia
to a German cooper master.
3
Although Germans constituted the social elite
in the Baltic region and administered their own judicial, religious (Lutheran),
and educational institutions until the intensification of the Russification poli-
cies in the 1880s, Ostwald missed the humanistic curriculum of the German
schools. He attended a local Kronsschule along with other Russian and Latvi-
an children and a Realgymnasium where the curriculum included physics,
chemistry, mathematics, and foreign languages. Taking advantage of the brief
relaxation in the regulation that tracked the graduates of the Realgymnasium
to Riga Polytechnikum, he matriculated in 1872 at Dorpat University where
he enjoyed fraternity life which included, other than constant beer-drinking
and singing, free-floating conversations on poetry, music, art, sciences, phi-
142
Mi Gyung Kim
losophy, and worldview (Weltanschauung). Prompted by his father to pay
attention to academics, Ostwald set his sight on the ‘scientific paradise’ – the
chemical laboratory headed by Karl Schmidt. Having studied physiological
chemistry with Liebig, Wöhler, and H. Rose, Schmidt was working on the
mineral composition of waters. His assistant Johann Lemberg, who was in-
terested in chemical geology, taught Ostwald the basic techniques of inor-
ganic analysis and the concepts of chemical equilibrium, mass action, and
reaction velocity. He took up the question of affinity for his Kandidaten-
schrift in 1875 through the examination of bismuth chloride solutions.
4
After graduation, Ostwald obtained permission to work in the physics
laboratory of Arthur von Öttingen who had studied in Berlin amongst the
members of the Berlin Physical Society (Magnus, Kirchhoff, Helmholtz,
Wiedemann, Poggendorff, and Kundt) and then worked briefly with Reg-
nault in Paris. When Öttingen’s assistant took the job at Riga Polytech-
nikum, Ostwald became the paid assistant and began to work earnestly on
the measurement of chemical affinity. He followed Julius Thomsen’s path,
albeit with a different, ‘volumo-chemical’ method, which he hoped would
serve as a method as general and exact as calorimetry, but easier and more
accessible. This work became the basis of his Magister and doctoral disserta-
tions (Ostwald 1876-80, 1877, 1878). Employed afterwards as the assistant
back in Schmidt’s laboratory and as the teacher of mathematics and natural
sciences at Dorpat Kreisschule, Ostwald married in 1880 and began to work
on the Lehrbuch der Allgemeine Chemie (1885-7) while continuing the deter-
mination of affinities with chemical analysis (Ostwald 1879-84).
The search for a general method of measuring affinities shaped Ostwald’s
early investigative trail. His long-term agenda lay in preparing a three-
dimensional affinity table that would include temperature in addition to the
specific affinity constants of acids and bases. In 1882, he became ordinary
professor of chemistry at the Riga Polytechnikum where he gradually built
up a laboratory and a research program on ‘chemical dynamics’ (Ostwald
1883-88). With a reliable thermostat, he sought to determine the ‘intensity of
chemical forces’ from the velocity of the course of chemical processes. He
also succeeded in persuading the administration to build a new chemical la-
boratory for which he was granted a travel stipend throughout Germany and
Switzerland to inspect the university laboratories. The trip occasioned his
first meetings with leading German scientists, such as Landolt, Hofmann,
Helmholtz, Kolbe, Horstmann, Erlenmeyer, and Baeyer.
The appearance of Svante Arrhenius’ dissertation on electrolytic conduc-
tion in 1884 set Ostwald on a new path. It contained a close scrutiny of the
electrical conductivity of acids and bases with extreme dilution, along with
highly speculative hypotheses on the constitution of these solutions (Ost-
wald 1884-88). The most promising aspect of Arrhenius’ work for Ostwald
BIOGRAPHY: Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932)
143
lay in the possible use of electrical measurements for the quantification of
chemical affinities. Ostwald immediately proceeded to test the numerical
correspondence between the affinity coefficients from his previous measure-
ments and the electrical conductivities of acids and published a preliminary
note, which he used to secure a dozentship for Arrhenius. He traveled to
Sweden during the summer to meet him and other Scandinavian scientists
whose works he had utilized – Guldberg, Waage, and Thomsen. Arrhenius
traveled to Germany with him and later to Riga. Soon, van’t Hoff joined the
roster, completing the core of what was to become the Leipzig school of
physical chemistry (Root-Bernstein 1980).
The electrochemical studies marked the final destination in Ostwald’s
journey searching for a general method of measuring affinities by occasioning
his transition to energetics. Throughout the journey, Ostwald always corre-
lated the results of the different kinds of measurement to obtain a constant
set of numbers for the relative affinities of acids and bases, which he consid-
ered as invariable natural constants. A close scrutiny of the process of dilu-
tion with the measurement of electrical conductivities indicated, however,
that the affinity coefficients of acids lost their value with increasing dilution.
Ostwald attempted to deal with this problem by developing the law of dilu-
tion as ‘one and the same function’ common to all acids and bases. With Ar-
rhenius’ formulation of the dissociation theory of electrolytes, however, he
was compelled to seek an alternative, more general foundation for his affinity
chemistry.
When Ostwald was called in 1887 to Leipzig, the first chair of physical
chemistry in Germany, he responded with an inaugural address, ‘Energy and
its Transformations’, that contained his nascent program of energetics. He
sought to legitimize his young discipline and himself – a ‘Russian’ educated
in a Realgymnasium – in a prestigious German university.
5
To this end, he
presented physical chemistry as a new boundary discipline that would remedy
the ‘atomistic’ fragmentation of scientific disciplines by dealing with the
most general problems – the transformations of matter and energy, the two
‘realities’ that constituted the objects of all scientific investigations (Ostwald
1916, pp. 185-206). By 1891, he developed a ‘radical’ or monistic energetics
that granted the status of reality only to energy. Matter no longer constituted
an independent reality, but became a complex of energy factors. While the
new scheme was apparently reductionist, Ostwald’s intention was the oppo-
site: the overriding theme in his discourse of energetics was unification
through systematization. Various kinds of energy were accommodated not
through a reduction to a single entity, such as mechanical energy, but
through functional coordination.
Ostwald’s energetics as a comprehensive scientific program contained two
main features: a new system of absolute measurement and a new interpreta-
144
Mi Gyung Kim
tion of the second law of thermodynamics. Criticizing the Gaussian system
of absolute measurement for its arbitrary nature, Ostwald proposed space,
time, energy (instead of mass), and an intensity or capacity factor of energy
(except in mechanics) as the four dimensions of the new system. He identi-
fied the capacity/intensity factors of the known forms of energy – for exam-
ple, heat capacity/temperature for heat energy, the amount of electricity/
electrical potential for electrical energy, and the combining weight/affinity
for chemical energy. The factorization of energy allowed not only a dimen-
sion specific to each field of investigation, but also a way of correlating dif-
ferent forms of energy through their ‘transformations’: when one kind of
energy disappeared, the other kind appeared in compensation, exactly as in
the transformation of chemical substances. The two laws of energetics (ra-
ther than those of thermodynamics) governed the conservation and the
transformation of energy: the first law expressed “the fact that energy is an
independent and […] homogeneous magnitude whose total amount proves
invariable” throughout various transformations. The second law governed
these transformations according to the difference in the intensity factor of
energy. Instead of reducing all other kinds of energy to the mechanical ener-
gy, however, Ostwald saw them in “mutually functional relations” to each
other: “one cannot change the factors of one kind of energy without simulta-
neously changing the factors of the other kinds of energy” (Ostwald 1892).
His mammoth book, Elektrochemie: Ihre Geschichte und Lehre (1896), was
meant to illustrate this functional coordination between different forms of
energy, and correspondingly, between different branches of science. Ost-
wald’s vision of monistic and holistic energetics ran into a unified opposition
from mathematicians, physicists, and chemists at the 1895 Naturforscherver-
sammlung, however, which killed it as a scientific program (Deltete 1983).
Ostwald’s energetics as a discourse of unification matured in the Leipzig
context. In part thanks to the Saxon government policy that aimed at restor-
ing the preeminence of her flagship university, Leipzig university harbored a
number of distinguished scholars who challenged the dominance of Prussian
schools and cultivated a vision of unified cultural sciences: Wilhelm Wundt,
Karl Lamprecht, and Friedrich Ratzel (Wundt 1900-1920, Lamprecht 1891-
1909, Chickering 1993). Their shared concern with Kulturwissenschaft and
Kulturpolitik – valuing culture as a whole over the individual, pursuing the
laws of historical change and coordination of different cultures – had a signif-
icant bearing on the evolution of Ostwald as a natural philosopher. His ener-
getics explicitly refuted the mechanistic reductionism of classical physics and
offered an alternative framework for the unification of the physical sciences
that avoided two prevalent criticisms. By eliminating the discussion of atoms
and forces altogether, Ostwald sought to silence the critique of scientific ma-
terialism often associated with the mechanistic conception of nature. At the
BIOGRAPHY: Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932)
145
same time, by reinterpreting the second law of thermodynamics as a subsidi-
ary law that regulated the transformation and coordination of energy, he
sought to circumvent the common characterization of the law as the dissipa-
tion of energy and consequently of the universe, which was held responsible
for the decadent modernist culture.
After the failure of energetics as a scientific program, Ostwald became
increasingly interested in its philosophical, social, and cultural applications.
He established a new journal in 1902, Annalen der Naturphilosophie, which
shunned mechanism and materialism while advocating historicism and organ-
icism. The overriding theme was unification through systematization. A
standard repertoire of Ostwald’s Naturphilosophie was the ‘system of scienc-
es’ that provided a new map of university disciplines. In his ‘pyramid of sci-
ences,’ a modification of August Comte’s, the energetical sciences (Energe-
tische Wissenschaften: mechanics, physics, and chemistry) occupied the cur-
rent historical stage or ‘epoch’ in the development from the sciences of order
(Ordungswissenschaften: logic, mathematics, and geometry) to the life scienc-
es (Lebenswissenschafent: physiology, psychology, culturalogy, and genealo-
gy). The new disciplinary map subverted the traditional disciplinary hierar-
chy, downgrading humanists – the traditional guardians of German Kultur
since the Humboldtian reform of the early nineteenth century. Ostwald criti-
cized philology sharply, characterizing it as a ‘paper science’ (Papierwissen-
schaft) for its lack of predictive power, the hallmark of scientificity (Ostwald
1902, 1910, 1912, 1914).
After he resigned from the Leipzig faculty in 1906, Ostwald retired to his
country estate, christened ‘Landhaus Energie’, and focused on promoting the
energetical Weltanschauung that would build a harmonious Weltreich. His
vision of an organized society was that of a well-functioning body that coor-
dinated individual organs to maximize its energetical efficiency, which served
as the measure of cultural progress. He was an ardent supporter of artificial
languages, or Weltsprache, that he thought would save energy by eliminating
the irregular and unsystematic natural languages, shape the students’ minds
more logically, and facilitate science and technology education by eliminating
the language barrier (Ostwald 1907). He also applied the energetical impera-
tive to the problem of industrial labor, or the ‘social question’. He thus
named energetical science as Arbeitswissenschaft, arguing that energetical effi-
ciency should provide the underlying rationale for the organization of labor.
Ostwald’s technocratic vision invited a scathing critique from Max Weber
who lambasted the ‘technologists’ who ‘raped’ sociology (Weber 1909).
The award of the Nobel Prize in 1909 brought Ostwald into the public
spotlight. The following year, Ernst Haeckel, the founder of the Deutscher
Monistenbund, invited him to join the organization as president. As the act-
ing president of a popular movement, Ostwald promoted energetics as the
146
Mi Gyung Kim
organizing principle of all facets of society and culture, which culminated in
his famous energetical imperative: waste no energy, utilize it! As the scientific
rationale for ‘universal monism,’ the energetical imperative would bring
about a ‘harmony’ of human activities. He envisaged monistic student organ-
izations as ‘a movement from below’ that would provide a new ‘spiritual lead-
ership of Germany [geistige Führung der Nation]’, led an exodus from the
church alongside the social democrats, delivered Monist Sunday Sermons,
formed an alliance with international peace movements, and organized inter-
national societies (Ostwald 1912). Two organizations Ostwald founded in
1911 enacted the energetical imperative. The Association of Chemical Socie-
ties, an international organization of national chemical societies, was meant
to alleviate the duplication of work and the waste of resources. The Brücke
was supposed to function as the ‘Brain of Mankind’ that would allow an effi-
cient use of mental energy by organizing the organizers.
6
Politics, or ‘the
technology of human perfection’, as an energetical science required the dimi-
nution in the ‘biological law of inertia’ that slowed down the progressive pace
of man’s dominion over nature. Education, emancipation from traditional
religion, and international cooperation would provide the necessary steps.
Ostwald’s liberal and pacifist vision of energetics was crippled by the First
World War. Working with the Werkbund, an association of painters and ar-
chitects, he began to focus his energy on systematizing the color schemes
with his characteristic zeal, preparing elementary textbooks, inventing in-
struments for measurement, and devising color standards. After the war, he
continued to work on standardizing color schemes through measurement,
hoping to establish the laws of color harmony and founded the journal Die
Farbe. He sought to institute his color schemes in schools, factories, and
state art institutions (Domschke & Lewandrowski 1982, Ball & Ruben 2004).
An accomplished painter (Ostwald 1992), Ostwald saw his efforts in devel-
oping and instituting the science of color as his most enduring and beneficial
contribution to the world culture, one that would embody and carry on his
monistic vision. He died on April 4, 1932, before the Nazi propaganda ma-
chinery began to distort the monistic imperative of unity and efficiency to
destructive ends.
Notes
1
Ostwald Nachlass, Berlin Academy, nos. 677 and 678; published in Körber 1964.
2
For Ostwald’s American students, see Servos 1990.
3
The best available biography is still Ostwald 1933.
BIOGRAPHY: Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932)
147
4
Ostwald 1875. For an account of Ostwald’s affinity studies and his precursors, see
Kim 1990.
5
When he learned of the vacancy, Ostwald inquired cautiously to Wilhelm Wundt,
betraying his insecurity, “whether my person – I am neither a German national
[Reichsbürger], nor has been educated in a German university – can be considered
at all for the vacancy in question.” Ostwald to Wundt, April 4, 1887 [Ostwald
Nachlass, no. 3379]. For the continuing harassment from his colleagues, see Grete
Ostwald 1953, p. 44.
6
Ostwald, ‘Eine Weltreich der Wissenschaft’ and ‘Die Organisierung der Organisa-
toren’, [Ostwald Nachlass, nos. 5844 and 5833]
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Mi Gyung Kim:
Department of History, North Carolina State University, Raleigh,
NC 27695-8108, U.S.A.; Kim@social.chass.ncsu.edu
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