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Johann Georg Sulzer (; 16 October 1720 in
Johann Georg Sulzer (; 16 October 1720 in Winterthur
, neighboring_municipalities = Brütten, Dinhard, Elsau, Hettlingen, Illnau-Effretikon, Kyburg, Lindau, Neftenbach, Oberembrach, Pfungen, Rickenbach, Schlatt, Seuzach, Wiesendangen, Zell
, twintowns = Hall in Tirol (Austria ...
– 27 February 1779 in Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
) was a Swiss professor of Mathematics, who later on moved on to the field of electricity. He was a Wolffian
Christian Wolff (less correctly Wolf, ; also known as Wolfius; ennobled as Christian Freiherr von Wolff in 1745; 24 January 1679 – 9 April 1754) was a German philosopher. Wolff is characterized as the most eminent German philosopher between Le ...
philosopher and director of the philosophical section of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and translator of David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
's '' An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals'' into German in 1755.
Sulzer is best known as the subject of an anecdote in the history of the development of the battery
Battery most often refers to:
* Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power
* Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact
Battery may also refer to:
Energy source
*Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...
. In 1752, Sulzer happened to put the tip of his tongue between pieces of two different metals whose edges were in contact. He exclaimed, "a pungent sensation, reminds me of the taste of green vitriol when I placed my tongue between these metals." He thought the metals set up a vibratory motion in their particles which excited the nerves of taste. The event became known as the "battery tongue test": the saliva serves as the electrolyte carrying the current between two metallic electrodes.
His ''General Theory of the Fine Arts'' has been called "probably the most influential aesthetic compendium of the closing years of the eighteenth century". In it, he "extended Baumgarten's approach into an even more psychological theory that the primary object of enjoyment in aesthetic experience is the state of one's own cognitive condition." Kant had respectfully disagreed with Sulzer's metaphysical hopes. Kant wrote: "I cannot share the opinion so frequently expressed by excellent and thoughtful men (for instance Sulzer) who, being fully conscious of the weakness of the proofs hitherto advanced, indulge in a hope that the future would supply us with evident demonstrations of the two cardinal propositions of pure reason, namely, that there is a God, and that there is a future life. I am certain, on the contrary, that this will never be the case…."''Critique of Pure Reason'', A 742
Bibliography
* ''Unterredungen über die Schönheit der Natur'' (1750) * ''Gedanken über den Ursprung der Wissenschaften und schönen Künste'' (1762) * ''Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste'' (1771–74) * ''Vermischte philosophische Schriften'' (1773/81)Notes