Der Band widmet sich der Frage, wie die in geisteswissenschaftlichen Texten propagierten Wissensanspruche durch die Konstruktion unterschiedlicher Formen von wissenschaftlichem Ethos befordert werden. Wissenschaftshistorische Studien zeigen an exemplarischen Konstellationen, wie und warum es seit Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts zur Entwicklung spezifischer Ethosformen sowie zum Einsatz damit verbundener pathetischer Redeweisen kam."

In a series of individual essays, this volume presents the important contributors and major trends in the field of German linguistics and literary studies at the University of Leipzig from the beginning of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. The volume, which addresses the broader context of the discipline s evolution during this period, is intended as a contribution to the history of German studies in Leipzig and, given the importance of the individual scholars discussed, to the history of German studies as a whole."

In this book, authors from a variety of disciplines examine how the interpretative disciplines deal with the lack or loss of certainty for their signs and texts. The focus is on forms of scepticism and theories of probability in the period from 1550 to 1850 which make it possible to access conceptualisations of a oeuncertaina or a oeweaka knowledge. Using historical source-material, the volume takes up impulses from research into probability and scepticism.

The study investigates imaginary libraries in literary works of the 16th and 17th centuries and their status in the context of the history of ideas. Since the invention of printing there had been a headlong increase in the production of texts, accompanied by a corresponding information overload. These were the preconditions required for certain feats of the imagination to become possible in the first place. In the form of thought-experiments, contemporary literary figures and scholars attempted to outline solutions for the urgent problems involved in imposing order on the unmanageable plethora of texts and assuring the progress of knowledge in the face of the untrammeled abundance of factual information.