Prussian Scot

About a year ago I had my interview for the PhD scholarship that I have now. A bit later I went to London, saw my friend Lars, stayed at Richmond and was reminded of my lost love who lived close by. On the 17th of November I received an Email with the all clear for my scholarship as a final approval. 

I then went to Glasgow, enjoying what I thought would be my last think-free holiday for a while. I had a drink in Oran Mor, met some friends and a heavy sadness accompanied me for the whole trip. I knew from now on I have to focus on my studies again and wont be able to just rush off into the night or rush off to UK, especially Glasgow or Scotland. Seems I was already aware of how much I am going to miss my 2nd home.

Back in Berlin I started reading, endlessly reading, some writing and a lot of thinking. Within this first year I found out that what I really wanted to write about wouldn’t have enough solid ground to base a PhD thesis on it and I was relieved my Prof changed my topic during my interview already. I by now have written 75 pages and have a rough idea where I am going, and an even better idea of what I want to find out and implicate.

Sadly that means that my possible trips to Scotland wouldn’t happen for and within the thesis, but that wouldn’t stop me from going anyway. So I did, this summer but this is to be told in another blogg entry.

Now, since I know that Lessing didn’t translate Hutchesons work out of curiousity or interest but because he needed the money, I also know how to put things. Who can ever say that just because you did a job for the money it didn’t influence you. I know I got some impressions by my stupid pocket money jobs. Its all about the introduction. If you put things right there, you don’t need to worry about anything.

The really funny thing or rather epiphany moment was, when I found out that not just Hutcheson left his mark on Lessing. No, our good dear german poet was influenced, I mean hugely influenced, by Ferguson. Adam Ferguson made Lessing think and there we go again, cause this is really something i can emphasize in my thesis and I will. 

Yeah, Scots played a role in german enlightenment, more important for me and my thesis - they did so with G.E. Lessing, one of the most important poets and thinkers of the enlightenment, whos works are still read in schools today. And since also Goethe admitted to be drawn to scots I can just put the balance right, to give Scots a little place in german thinking.

At the end, we are quite similar, aren’t we? Genetics and all, Saxons came from the middle of Germany, the area where Goethe, Lessing and Schiller worked and came from themselves. 

:)

While working on my research I took a break to read todays news, when I found the article about Red Kites in Herald Scotland.

The bird looked so familiar that I looked it up and found out that of course I must know the red kite, that is known as Roter Milan in German.

The map below shows where one can find the Red Kite in Europe. While orange means they are just passing through in certain seasons, green shows the area where they live the whole year. This little green dot within Germany is close to the area where my grandparents live and where I spent most of my childhoods summers.

So once again I found something familiar, another similarity between northerly Germany - once Prussia - and Scotland :)

Although many days have passed it feels as if time flew by.

I got the PhD scholarship and started researching for my topic. Originally I applied with a thesis about the influence of scottish enlightenment on german protestant theologians, using Francis Hutcheson - whos work was translatet by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing - as an example. During my interview and a discussion between the profs and my going-to-be mentor we changed the topic. I am now researching Lessings approach on educating the people in his view that was formed by his own protestant tradition. Since the first thesis would have meant researching more about Lessing thant Hutcheson, the change wasn’t that huge. I still will dive into Hutcheson and scottish protestant educational theories but if I find out that Lessing wasn’t as much influenced as I hoped my thesis won’t lose ground. Its like Hutcheson is the icing on the cake but Lessing is the cake. Even without the icing the cake ‘d be fine :)

What I found so far:

Since I have to get the basics on education and education philosophy I am reading Hans-Georg Gadamer at the moment. Quite at the beginning of his “Wahrheit und Methode” he talkes about the sensus communis. An ancient greek term that was adopted by the romans (therefore being in latin) and included social/ politic aspects as well as reason. Thanks to our way to much praised Immanuel Kant only reason was left in Germany and sensus communis in the rest of europe means something else than in German(y). Even Gadamer said that Kant ruined the bigger meaning of it. While in Britain and France it has still (at least when Gadamer wrote his book in the 1960s) a social/ political meaning, it is about the mental ability only in German. Francis Hutcheson and Thomas Reid (re)introduced the Sensus Communis into society. Thomas Reid even founded a whole new philosophy on it - the common sense philosophy.

Is this significant for my topic? Yes ist is. It shows that there was an influence and depending on which side one was, it was correctly interpreted or ruined alltogether.

Gotta dive deeper. :)