Johann Sturm

Johann Christoph Sturm (1635-1703) was a German Lutheran clergyman, best known as a philosopher, astronomer and mathematician. His work sits between classical Aristotelian scholasticism and the newer ideas of the seventeenth century, and his name is linked to eclectic philosophy, an influential current at the dawn of the Enlightenment.

He studied in Weissenburg, Nuremberg, Jena and Leiden. After working as a pastor in Deiningen, he became professor of mathematics and physics at the University of Altdorf in 1669, a post he held until his death in 1703. He founded the short-lived Collegium Curiosum, modelled on the Florentine Accademia del Cimento, and edited two volumes of experiments, the Collegium Experimentale (1676 and 1685).

Sturm wanted science to be understood rather than merely memorised, taking a middle path between classical Aristotelianism and Cartesianism. In his Physica electiva sive hypothetica (1697) he criticised Leibniz, who replied with a rebuke. Leibniz held that nature and its parts possess a creative force of their own; Sturm argued that this view undermined the sovereignty of the Christian God, and his objection was partly theological.

His legacy lies in experimental popularisation and eclectic philosophy. He is less remembered today than Leibniz, but his work helped shape the intellectual climate of the early Enlightenment.