Anneliese Maier (; November 17, 1905 in

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

– December, 1971 in

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) was a German historian of science particularly known for her work researching natural philosophy in the middle ages.

Biography

Anneliese Maier was the daughter of the philosopher Heinrich Maier (1876–1933). She studied natural sciences and

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

from 1923 to 1926 at the universities in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and

Zurich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

. In 1930 she finished her dissertation on

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...

(''Kants Qualitätskategorien''). She then worked for the Prussian Academy of Sciences. In 1936 she moved to

. There she worked until 1945 at the

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana The Vatican Apostolic Library (, ), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, alth ...

on the philosophy of nature. According to E. J. Dijksterhuis, the path of the influence of Oresme through James of St. Martinus was found by Maier: "The fourteenth-century treatise ''De Latitudinibus formarum'' which, omitting all the speculative elements, gives a summary of the purely mathematical part of Oresme's own work, was very widely diffused, first in manuscript and later in print, and as ''Auctor de latitudinibus'' the anonymous author became better known than Oresme himself. Through later researches by Miss A. Maier, the identity of this ''Auctor'' has meanwhile been established: the man who ensured the survival of Oresme's methods was an Italian Augustinian hermit, James of St. Martinus, also called James of Naples." In 1951 Maier became a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

at the University of Cologne. She became a member of the Academies of Sciences in Mainz (1949), Göttingen (1962) and Munich (1966). In 1966 she received the George Sarton Medal for her profound studies on the history of natural philosophy in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation has named a research grant after her, the Anneliese Maier Research Award, which is a "collaboration award to promote the internationalisation of the humanities and social sciences in Germany.""Anneliese Maier Research Award" ''Humboldt Foundation''. https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/web/anneliese-maier-award.html

Selected works

* 1982: ''On the Threshold of Exact Science: Selected Writings of Anneliese Maier on Late Medieval Natural Philosophy'', Steven D. Sargent, editor and translator,

University of Pennsylvania Press The University of Pennsylvania Press, also known as Penn Press, is a university press affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. History The press was originally incorporated with b ...

. * 1930: ''Kants Qualitätskategorien'' * 1938: ''Die Mechanisierung des Weltbildes im 17. Jahrhundert'' * ''Studien zur Naturphilosophie der Spätscholastik'', 5 parts, 1949–1958. ** 1949:''Die Vorläufer Galileis im 14. Jahrhundert'' ** 1951: ''Zwei Grundprobleme der scholastischen Naturphilosophie'' ** 1952: ''An der Grenze von Scholastik und Naturwissenschaft'' ** 1955: ''Metaphysische Hintergründe der spätscholastischen Naturphilosophie'' ** 1958: ''Zwischen Philosophie und Mechanik. Studien zur Naturphilosophie der Spätscholastik'' * 1964–1977: ''Ausgehendes Mittelalter: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Geistesgeschichte des 14. Jahrhunderts'', 3 volumes.

References

External links

*
''International Dictionary of Intellectual Historians''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maier, Anneliese 1905 births 1971 deaths People from Tübingen German historians of science 20th-century German writers 20th-century German historians 20th-century German women writers Women science writers German women historians Humboldt University of Berlin alumni University of Zurich alumni Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America

Biography

Selected works

References

Further reading

External links