Abstract

The systematization of the sciences as a cultural task. Options for an open understanding of culture in Paul Hinneberg's Encyclopedia. – Paul Hinneberg promises, in his multi‐volume Kultur der Gegenwart (1906sqq.), to capture the ‘culture’ of his time in its entirety; only a veritable encyclopedia could be adequate to the task of synthesizing the manifold and disparate tendencies of ‘Kultur’. Surprisingly, however, any attempt to make explicit the systematic principles governing his encyclopedic synthesis is missing from his project. It is argued that this – unusual – feature of Hinneberg's Kultur der Gegenwart can itself be understood as a result of typical analyses of ‘Kultur’ at the turn of the century; culture, as an open, multi‐sided, and integrative concept may indeed best be captured in an open system that avoids strict and explicit demarcations. In these respects, the task of capturing Kultur turns out to be closely linked to another task prominent around 1900: that of providing a systematic ordering of the various ‘Wissenschaften’.