Institucions d‘ensenyament musical a les Illes Balears

fic^cre © w r tM a g e be# 0£u& titm & : Uitb U n U tcic^ tS itt p fo fifa tifd )e tt unb f r if t w if d ie n ^ if ie n f d j a f t e n , ' '

' 0 .0 * 7 V, S a u l dt i t t t r; * ^Citiuj'eiruirgit \ >»■■.■ - ^ c o a h i s i o Bat&d V <£ r ffc-.i c J ^ t i jL 2 * & * f ^ St t i m t r. •< ►

R itte r’s attem pts at definition provide the prim ary m aterial upon w hich Plew e and B eck based their interpretations.

The Substance of the Debate

T he Plew e-B eck debate over the m eaning o f the term s g en eral and com parative has a dual character. It is concerned not only w ith the specific m eanings o f the term s, but also w ith identifying their respective origins. These two questions are of course closely related, for the m eanings rem ain problem atic if the term s rem ain isolated from the body o f theory from which they originate—a problem w hich the geographer Joseph M ay once described as "coherence" (M ay, 1972, pp. 79-81). This is especially true of the term com parative.

U ntil 1959, R itter’s w ords, as published in the introduction to the E rdkunde, 1817, w ere accepted uncritically as indicating the origin and m eaning o f the term s. R itter w rites of the term com parative:

V ergleichend, wird sie [Geographie] zu nennen versucht, in dem selben Sinne, in w elchem andre vor ihr zu so belehrenden D isciplinen

ausgearbeitet w orden sind, wie vor alien z.B. die vergleichende A natom ie (R itter, 1817, p.21).7

R itter does not define the term here, he only indicates its origin to an audience w ho understood its m eaning within the context of the sciences of the tim e. Elsew here, in a m uch cited letter written to the fam ous com parative anatom ist S.T. Som m erring in the sum m er o f 1815, when Ritter was actually w orking on the introduction, Ritter w rote that the m ain character of his w ork consists m the fact:

...daB sie [Geographie] eine vergleichende (im Sinne d er A natom e com parata) [W issenschaft ist] und das W echselverhaltniB der anorganischen und organischen N atur wie zur V olkergeschichte darzustellen bem iiht ist (R itter to Som m erring, Sum m er 1815, in Kram er, 1875, p.235).8

7"C om parative is proposed as a nam e for this [geography], in the sam e sense in w hich other [branches] have been developed to such instructive disciplines, as for exam ple, above all, com parative anatom y."

8"...that it [is] a com parative [science] (in the sense o f A natom e com parata) and has endeavoured to portray ethnic history and the interrelationship o f inorganic and organic nature."

He specifically refers to the teachings of the comparative anatomist Blumenbach as instrumental in his structuring of the Erdkunde. But he also acknowledges Hausmann who was a geologist and mineralogist. If Ritter’s words do little to define precisely the term comparative, there is ample evidence that his knowledge was not exclusively derived Irom comparative anatomy. The evidence of his diaries indicates that he was concerned more with inorganic science at the time of his preparation of the

methodological introduction (Ibid., p.235).

Despite his attempt to explain the term general in the introduction to the Erdkunde, the origin of the term is not as well documented by Ritter.

Allgemein, wird diese Erdbeschreibung genannt, nicht, weil sie Alles zu geben bemiihet ist, sondem weil sie ohne Riicksicht auf einen speciellen Zweck, jeden Theil der Erde und jede ihrer Formen, liege sie im Fliissigen oder auf dem Festen, im femen Welttheil oder im Vaterlande, sey sie der Schauplatz eines Culturvolkes oder eine Wiiste, ihrem Wesen nach mit gleicher Aufmerksamkeit zu erforschen bemiihet ist: denn nur aus den Grund-Typen aller wesentlichen Bildungen der Natur kann ein natiirliches System hervorgehen (Ritter, 1817,

P.2i)>

In the absence of an historical context, his definition is not without difficulty.

Traditional eighteenth-century geography was often criticized for its traditional focus on current problems or its subservience to the aims of statesmanship and commerce. It is generally known that Ritter sought to go beyond such parochialism. This is evident especially in his desire to establish a natural system of delineating the earth’s surface in opposition to the traditional emphasis on state boundaries. But there is at least one other possible meaning. Ritter may also have used the term to denote what is

elsewhere described as universal concepts which are derived from what Kant called "fcomparativtAllgemeinheit"—comparative generality, a term used to denote the

comparative refinement of concepts usually associated with the inductive process (Kant,

9"This earth description is called general, not because it labours to give everything, but because it endeavours to investigate with no regard to a special purpose and with equal attention, each part of the Earth in accordance with each of its forms whether they be fluid [atmosphere and hydrosphere] or fixed [lithosphere], in distant areas of the world or in the fatherland, or whether it be the show-place of a cultural group or a desert. For only from the basic-types of all essential developments of nature can a natural system

1787, re., 1966, p.52). Ritter’s pursuit of essential or ideal forms proceeded through just such a process of iterative refinement. Ritter cites Francis Bacon on the title page of the Erdkunde: "Citius emergit veritas ex errore quam ex confusione"—Truth emerges more quicldy from error than from confusion.

The Plewe-Thesis 1959

One plausible solution to the question of definition lies in examining how the terms general and comparative are logically linked. This apparently is what Plewe had in mind in 1959 when, after deciphering several unknown Ritter diary entries concerning Ritter’s visit in 1807 to the Pestalozzi Institute in Yverdon, he saw the words linked in just such a way. In a series of remarkable diary entries, Ritter records his thoughts

concerning the Pestalozzi pedagogical method which was understood by Ritter and others (including Fichte) as a generalized method of constructing a science regardless of subject matter. In this context, Ritter writes:

Sehr merkwiirdig ist der reine Gang der Methode zur Konstruktion der Wissenschaft. Das Lemen des einzelnen[,] erste Stufe. Das Vergleichen des Vorhandenen aus alien Standpunkten, zweite Stufe. Dies ist die Treppe, die zur dritten fiihrt, zu dem allgemein Gesonderten nach alien moglichen Bedingungen, oder das Resultat des Ganzen, das durch den notwendigen Gang der Natur konstruierte System nach alien Standpunkten, die (nicht der Mensch) sondem die Natur selbst darbietet. Einzig mogliches System aller Wissenschaft fur alle Zwecke der Wissenschaft und des Lebens (Ritter, 25-09-1807, as transcribed in Plewe, 1959, pp.122-3,140).10

Plewe found the apparent sequential hierarchical linkage of the terms in this passage so compelling that he concluded:

...daB er [Ritter] historisch durch Iferten auf den Vergleich gebracht worden ist, daran ist nicht zu zweifeln...Auch hier fiihren erst wieder seine Tagebiicher zu einer verbliiffend einfachen Losung...(Plewe, 1959, p.122).11

10"The pure operation of the method for the construction of science is very remarkable. The learning of individual objects [is] the first step. The comparison of the available from all standpoints, the second step. This is the staircase which leads to the third, to the generally ordered according to all possible conditions. Or the result of the whole or the requisite system constructed by nature itself according to all perspectives, which are provided not by man, but by nature itself. [This is] the single possible system of all science, for all aims of science and life."

n"...that it is not to be doubted historically that through Yverdon, he [Ritter] had been brought to comparison...here again, the diaries lead us to an amazingly simple

Plewe argues that Ritter’s Erdkunde is distinguished from topographic elementary geography by the incorporation of the latter two steps of the Pestalozzi’s three-step method of instruction, i.e. the comparative and general steps. Plewe does not explore the origin or the logical mechanics of this three-step system and therefore fails to provide a conclusive argument. Beck rightly raises this as a legitimate complaint (Beck, 1979, p.l 15). In fairness to Plewe, such an undertaking lay outside the scope of his paper, which sought primarily to bring to light new Ritter materials. But this was a legitimate starting point for Beck’s criticisms of the Plewe-Thesis.

Beck’s Critique and Definition 1979

The subsidiary issues in the debate are interesting. Beck begins by agreeing that Ritter’s 1807 meeting with Pestalozzi in Yverdon was important to Ritter’s

conceptualization of the Erdkunde, but it was not the origin of Ritter’s adoption of a general, comparative methodology. Beck argues that it is obvious from visual inspection of the full title that General Comparative Geography is not sequentially consistent with the latter two steps of the three-stepped pedagogic system which are inverted, i.e. comparative, general. He also notes that nowhere in the nineteen volumes of the Erdkunde did Ritter invert the sequence as found in the title. Beck agrees that the three-stepped system in Ritter’s diary is sequentially linked, but Ritter’s inversion of the terms indicates that he could not have derived it from the Pestalozzi Method (Beck, 1979, p.114).

The strength of Beck’s counter argument does not rest on this deduction alone. He surmises that the three-stepped system was an original creation of Ritter’s mind which already may have been trained to think in terms of the comparative method, i.e. Ritter’s own systematic comparative version of what he understood as the Pestalozzi Method (Ibid., pp. 114-115,127). Ritter never stated that he took this system directly from the words of Pestalozzi and Beck further reveals that according to the knowledge of several Pestalozzi experts, no such three-stepped system ever formally existed, despite the system’s affinity with other Pestalozzi three-stepped systems (Ibid.,

pp.l 15,127). Finally, and perhaps conclusively, Beck argues that the persuasive power of the Plewe-Thesis is ultimately undermined by Ritter’s statement in the introduction

to the Erdkunde that comparative came from comparative anatomy. He cites Ritter’s statements in the later Frobel Controversy asserting the same (Beck, 1961, p.116). The comment that Plewe must have overlooked Ritter’s statement in the Erdkunde is only rhetoric.

The influence of Pestalozzian ideas are not dismissed by Beck. Like Plewe, he was well aware of another of Ritter’s diary entries which suggests a prominent role for such ideas in the body of the Erdkunde. In 1815/16 while working in Gottingen, Ritter writes:

Meine ganze geographische Arbeit ist Darstellung der Pestalozzischen Methode- sie ist vom Standpunkt des Erziehers aus geschrieben, und darum umfaBt sie die ganze historische Seite des Unterrichts (Ritter, 1815/16, in Plewe, 1959, p.165; emphasis added in accordance with original diary entry, V343-RT IV/21, p .ll).12 But according to Beck, Ritter’s work was representative of the Pestalozzi Method only insofar as it adopted the central category of cognition (Anschauung). Indeed Ritter’s diary emphasizes Anschauung.

Darum hebt sie die Seite der Anschauung und ihren EinfluB auf den inneren Menschen, auf ihre Notwendigkeit fur jeden Menschen zur selbstandigen Darstellung seiner Individuality in dem wirklichen Leben, wodurch jedesmal eine der platonischen Ideen realisiert werden muB, was ja immer die Aufgabe jedes Menschen ist, und durch die er nur zum Besitz des freien Gebrauchs

seiner eigenen Kraft teils zum Aufhehmen des Fremden, teils zum Produzieren des Eigenen gelangen kann (Ibid., p. 165; emphasis added in accordance with original diary entry, ibid., p .ll).13

Ritter’s reference to the realization of platonic ideas within the context of cognition is an unmistakable acknowledgement of the Leibniz-Wolffian theory of human knowledge which assumes the existence of innate (angebome) ideas. Neither Beck nor Plewe has

12"My entire geographic work is representative of the Pestalozzi Method--it is written from the standpoint of an educator and embraces therefore the entire historical side of instruction."

13"Therefore it [the Erdkunde] elevates the aspect of cognition and its influence on the inner man, on its necessity for each man so he can represent his own individuality in real life, whereby in each case, a platonic idea must be realized. This of course is always the task of man, and only through it he can acquire possession of the free use of his own ability, partly for the incorporation of unknown, partly to the production of that which is uniquely'his own."

explored systematically or in any significant depth the mechanics of this theory, Ritter’s exposure to these ideas, or the various ways in which they are expressed in Ritter’s work. Likewise, neither author has explored the relationship of the role of comparison as a basic faculty of mind in pedagogic theory and the comparative sciences of Ritter’s time.

Beck attempts to define the comparative method by careful consideration of the Erdkunde. He concludes that what Ritter understood by the comparative procedure is nothing other than:

...die Zusammenstellung historischer, chronologisch geordeneter Quellen, vor allem von Reiseberichten (Beck, 1979, p.115).14

After some searching, he relates this to a passage in the Erdkunde, vol. 7, p.452, where Ritter calls such an arrangement, with some reservation, "comparative." Beck further argues that Ritter ultimately sought to create a series of historical transects of an area which were comparable over time. As a result it:

...ergibt sich fur den Leser selbstverstandlich eine Stufenfolge, die Ritter "vergleichende Zusammenstellung" genannt hat...In dieser lag stets auch eine echte historische Entwicklung beschlossen (Beck, 1979, p.116).15

Beck does not explain the procedure of comparative anatomy except to say that Ritter’s procedure resembles it. He asserts elsewhere that all sciences of the time had been greatly influenced by the model of comparative anatomy and observes that Goethe in collaboration with the von Humboldt brothers and J.C. Loder, had produced an introduction for comparative anatomy (Beck, 1986, p.3). Beck does not pursue the question, nor does he recognize the importance of Herder’s comparative anatomical thinking. Instead his article enumerates many different attempts at a comparative approach in Geography over the centuries, in particular in. connection with theories of environmental determinism.

14lf...the arrangement of historic, chronologically ordered sources, primarily travel reports."

15"...produces for the reader an obvious stepped-sequence which Ritter called "comparative arrangement"...This always includes also a genuine historical development."

Beck’s purpose here is confusing. According to his own argument Ritter’s comparative method must be qualitatively different from these earlier geographic applications of the comparative method by virtue of its incorporation of the model of comparative anatomy—a product of the mid-eighteenth century. Beck appears to recognize-the chain of being in Ritter’s thinking, but fails to explain the pervasiveness of its role here or in comparative anatomy, despite the central role it plays in Goethe’s and Herder’s anatomical thinking. It led to the celebrated and disputed discovery by Goethe of the intermaxillary bone in humans in 1784 (Wells, 1978, p. 16). Goethe recognized this anatomical feature as an archetypical form, and understood the task of the biologist as the creation of a clear idea of such archetypical forms [i.e. Urtypen and Urformen] by a process of repeated comparison of a large number of specimens (Ibid., p. 17). This was clearly the direction, but not necessarily the source of Ritter’s thinking.

Plewe’s Response 1981

Plewe does not address himself specifically to Beck’s objections to his main thesis, and Beck is justified in his claim that his counter-argument has never been refuted properly (Beck, 1989). Plewe does make a few relevant points in criticizing Beck’s interpretation, arguing that Ritter did not necessarily take the comparative method from comparative anatomy, because that discipline is only one among many that were mentioned. Plewe adds comparative linguistics, comparative religion, comparative law, comparative arts (Plewe, 1981, p.46). It is noteworthy that he does not mention geology as a comparative science despite its use of a comparative methodology in this period.

Plewe also criticizes Beck’s interpretation of general. Plewe argues that Beck reads too much into Ritter’s phrase "...jeden Teil der Erde,"—each part of the Earth, from which Beck infers that the object of Ritter’s Geography is:

...das voile Kontinuum der Erdoberflache...in welchem es also keine leeren Stellen geben darf (Plewe, 1981, p.46).16

16"...the full continuum of the Earth’s surface...in which there must be no empty places."

Plewe says that his own interpretation places more emphasis on the phrase "...jede ihrer Formen ihrem Wesen nach"—each of its forms according to its essence (Ibid., p.46). These forms include surface features, climate and water features, the plant and animal worlds, man and his way of life, etc. Together these forms constitute a natural system which is a legitimate subject of study in itself and is not investigated solely to serve the-needs of other sciences (Ibid., p.46). Beck’s words might be understood alternatively as indicating that different natural regions (i.e. desert regions, river valley regions, etc.) were to be "generally" investigated without emphasis on any particular type.

"Allgemein" bezog Ritter auf die ganze Erdoberflache, von der er Wiiste wie Stromtal beriicksichtigen wollte (Beck, 1979, p.76).17

Plewe does not elaborate the possibility of Ritter’s use of general to denote universal- concepts, i.e. a level of abstract inductive generalization, despite the repeated citations of Ritter’s use of archetypes and essential forms and the theory of cognition. In particular, Plewe did not respond to Beck’s criticisms by further elaborating how the terms general and comparative might be linked within Pestalozzi’s thought. Neither Plewe nor Beck explore Ritter’s use of the chain o f being as an important device for his conception of human understanding as well as the organization of nature itself despite the clear hierarchical elements of his thought as Emil Hozel has described (Hozel, 1896).

17"‘General’ fpr Ritter refers to the entire Earth’s surface, of which he wanted to consider deserts just as well as river valleys."

II

THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING, STEPWISE PROGRESSION AND GENERAL COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY

"Denn, liebe Freunde, in Gottes Natur ist kein Sprung. Alles ist eine Leiter voller Stufen, worauf es vom Unedlem bis zum Edlern fortgeht."1

H. G. Zerrenner, 1792

Many elements of physicotheology are found in Ritter’s thinking perhaps betraying his