Conditions and Causes for the Change in Helmholtz’s Conception of Science and Nature

The conspicuous change in Helmholtz’s conceptions of science and nature raises the question of the conditions and causes responsible for it. Why did Helmholtz not retain the classical position? Why did the tendency towards hypothetization set in between the late 1860s and early 1870s? As much as these questions suggest themselves, clear answers are not to be found. The greatest obstacle for researching it historically was created by Helmholtz himself, by never directly addressing that change and never even hinting at what motivated his change in views.⁹¹⁸ One can thus only continue to attempt a rational reconstruction and will only obtain answers that basically depend on the prerequisites made by that reconstruction.

The complex scientific and cultural contexts surrounding Helmholtz’s writing create a web much too complicated than that the change could be traced back to certain identifiable causes. In addition, Helmholtz himself created new sorts of approaches. At the most, one can state under which conditions those approaches emerged but not why they did. It would be entirely inappropriate to narrow the question down to merely grasping the causes within the framework of a historical study, understanding them as conditions that are necessary and sufficient for bringing about the effects. When I speak of causes in the following, I take these merely as conditions that explain — in the sense of making plausible — why something unexpected happened. My intent is to cover a spectrum of factors that is as wide as possible, factors that perhaps determined the transitional process and the direction it took.