Chapter Christoph Pfautz as a Reviewer for the Acta Eruditorum: the Invention of a German Tradition in the Sciences

Abstract

In 1682, Otto Mencke and Christoph Pfautz founded the Acta Eruditorum, the first fully-fledged German scientific journal. In this paper, I argue that this journal had a fundamental role in shaping the narrative on the rise of the new science in the 17th century, placing Germany as the ideal intermediary between tradition and innovation. In particular, Pfautz’s review of Newton’s Principia in the Acta Eruditorum initiated the Leibniz-Newton controversy, which forced the German tradition to reconsider its role and reshape its philosophical foundations to appeal to a wider international audience.