The Icarus flight of speculation: Philosophers' vices as perceived by nineteenth‐century historians and physicists

Why did nineteenth-century German historians and physicists habitually warn against vices that they believed philosophers in particular embodied: speculation, absence of common sense, excessive systematizing? Drawing on a rich array sources, this article interprets vice-charging as rhetorical practice aimed at delineating empirical research from Naturphilosophie Geschichtsphilosophie practiced the heyday Idealism. The strawman “the philosopher” invoked by served negative model for strongly empiricist scholars committed to virtues like precision, thoroughness, conscientiousness. In their historical narratives, consistently depicted philosophy either relic past or phase had virtuously left behind. This boundary work was central self-positioning both history physics, which makes clear persona philosopher mattered not only but also adjacent disciplines.