Alexander von Humboldt's "amazing idea"
On the current relevance of the new edition of his "Kosmos"
Dieser Artikel in Deutsch
Those who read the Humboldt magazine will remember what happened in July 2001: with its newly-conceived magazine for research fellows all over the world entitled "Kosmos", the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation took a bold look back at Humboldt's own work, "Kosmos". It was a review imbued with the secret hope that Humboldt's incomparable magnum opus - which was published between 1845 and 1862 in five volumes by Cotta in Tübingen - might, one day, be available to today's readers in a complete, new edition of the original texts - a hope which this year, one day after Humboldt's 235th birthday (14 September), has unexpectedly become reality. In the original folio format (together with the Berghaus Atlas) it has finally appeared on the book market published by the Eichborn Verlag in the series "Andere Bibliothek", edited by Hans Magnus Enzensberger. It is Humboldt's magnificent late work which elicited the comment from him, "I have had the amazing idea of presenting the whole of the material world … in one work".
What has now become accessible again is that singular combination of outlook and conceptual thinking which, since Alexander von Humboldt, has been lost not only to science but to our educational system, too. Right back in 1855, Humboldt himself noted the loss when he commented, "If I had fallen victim to current schooling I should have perished both physically and mentally …" For the members of the world-wide Humboldt family this new edition opens the door, above all, to Humboldt's passion for research, his enthusiasm, and his cross-border and crossdisciplinary curiosity - precisely that free flow of the mind which understands science as an enormous whole rather than just a mere contribution to economic growth - a whole eliciting amazement and a desire to discover more. It is this very attitude, which went beyond the newest scientific knowledge of the time, that makes the work of its eponymous patron "Kosmos" a paradigm for the spirit and objectives of the Foundation to this very day.
Similar sensibilities and academic eros are also awakened by the first German translation of Humboldt's "Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of America" which also appeared on 15 September in the "Andere Bibliothek" series together with a new edition of "Views of Nature". What an adventure to read these works anew and once again find confirmation for the enthusiastic judgement of no less a figure than Charles Darwin who noted, "I have always admired him, now I worship him".
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