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2000–2001 Annual Report

The Center for Philosophy and History of Science followed its traditional mission of offering a site for post-graduate scholarly exchange concerning all aspects of the philosophy and history of Science, and to examine, in the broadest humanistic and social context, the factors that govern science, mathematics, and logic. The individual reports of the various members of the Center (listed below) highlight the wide range of interest of the Center’s visiting scholars. The principal public forum of the Center is the Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science, whose program, during its 41st session, exhibited several themes: 1) Issues of objectivity (“Constructivism and the Courts“ and “Beliefs of Science: An Anthropological Perspectives”) 2) ethics and science in the contemporary setting (“Protecting Human Research Subjects: The Challenge of Informed Consent and Risk Management,” “Biological Warfare: The Role of Public Discourse,” and “Randomized Clinical Trials: Historical Origins and Future Perspectives”); 3) historical consideration of ethics and science (“Animal Rights in the Eighteenth Century” and “The Science of the Moral Sciences”); 4) science and great philosophers (“Kant on the Sciences” and “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Theory of Number”); and 5) a tribute to two Boston University Professors of Philosophy, Burton Dreben (“The Analytic Tradition: A Tribute to Burton Dreben”) and Jaakko Hintikka (“Perspectives on the Philosophy of Jaakko Hintikka”). The electric program sponsored by the Center continues to draw speakers and audiences from fields outside the usual constellation of science studies, in the effort to explore the deep influence of science on our culture and the forces that help define the scientific endeavor.

The individual academic activities of the Center’s faculty are presented below:

Alfred I. Tauber
Director
Professor Tauber published Henry David Thoreau and the Moral Agency of Knowing (University of California Press, 2001), a study of Thoreau’s reaction to mid-nineteenth century positivism and the professionalization of science. Acutely self-conscious, both of observing nature and of observing himself as observer, Thoreau was, in Tauber’s view, concerned with the value-laden structure of knowledge. Thus Thoreau is portrayed as a man whose self-proclaimed “metaphysical ethics” of self-discovery and self-knowing guided his diverse endeavors. Tauber also published several papers in his ongoing historical and philosophical critique of immunology: 1) Crist, E. and Tauber, AI. Selfhood, immunity, and the biological imagination: The thought of Frank Macfarlane Burnet. Biology and Philosophy. 15:509-33, 2000; 2) Tauber, A.I. Tales of neglected (orphaned?) historiographies, in A.M. Moulin and A. Cambrosio (eds.), Singular Selves: Historical Issues and Contemporary Debates in Immunology. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2001, pp. 247–58; 3) Crist, E. and Tauber, A.I. “The phagocyte, the antibody and agency in immunity: Contending turn-of-the-century approaches”, in A.M. Moulin and A. Cambrosio (eds.), Singular Selves: pp. 115–39. Other papers: Tauber, A.I. “A call for scientific literacy: The claims for public understanding,” in Effects of Global Business on Scientific Research, M. Balaban and H-P Sambuc (eds.) Geneva: Science and Conscience of Man Foundation, 2000. pp. 61–84; and Tauber, A.I. Le role de Nietzsche dans l’elebaration de l’utopie medicale, in L’utopie de la Sante Parfaite, L. Sfez (ed.) Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001, pp. 29–37; and one book review: Tauber, A.I. Book review of Prometheus Bedeviled. Science and the Contradictions of Contemporary Society by Norman Levitt. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999. Science, Technology, and Human Values. 25:385-89, 2000. Professor Tauber continues to write on medical ethics and medical epistemology, and currently is pursuing a new study of Emerson.

Robert S. Cohen
Director, Emeritus
Professor Cohen gave a plenary lecture to the International Congress on the History of the Philosophy of Science (HOPOS) in Vienna, July 6–9 (2000). The topic was the development of philosophy of science since 1950 as shown by the Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science through the first 35 years. At Boston University, Professor Cohen was a commentator at Professor Lee Rouner’s Institute for Philosophy and Religion, giving an introduction to Rouner’s lecture on the topic of courage. He was also a reader and/or advisor to three PhD. candidates. This year, Professor Cohen was involved in the following publications: Edgar Zilsel, The Social Origins of Modern Science, ed. Cohen, Faven and Krohn (Boston Studies in Philosophy of Science, vol. 200, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000), Maimonides and the Sciences, ed. Cohen and Levine (Boston Studies, vol. 211, Kluwer, 2000). He was also active as a series editor of: Igor Hanzel, The Concept of Scientific Law in the Philosophy of Science and Epistemology (Bratislava, Slovakia: Boston Studies, vol. 208), Georg Helm, The Historical Development of Energetics, trans. and ed. Deltete (Boston Studies vol. 210), Knowledge, Language and Logic: Questions for Quine, ed. Orenstein and Kotatko S. D’Agostino, A History of the idea of Theoretical Physics (Boston Studies vol. 213), Srdan Lelas, Science and Modernity (Zagreb, Coratia: Boston Studies, vol. 214), The Reality of the Unobservable: Observability, Unobservability and the Impact of the Issue of Scientific Realism, E. Agazzi and M Pauri (Boston Studies, vol. 215). Research projects underway: David Zilberman’s studies of analogy in classical Indian philosophy and in Western philosophy, drawn from his Fussian and English unpublished manuscripts and letters (with Helena Gourko); Felix Kaufmann, Methodology of the Social Sciences, translation and introductory essay of the 1934 treatise which mediated between phenomenology and logical empiricism, including classical Austrian economics (with Ingeborg Helling of Chemnitz) for the Vienna Circle Collection; Otto Neurath, Economic Writings, two volumes, translated with introductory essays (with Thomas Uebel of Manchester), the third of Cohen’s translations of Neurath, for the Vienna Circle Collection; Edgar Zilsel, History of the Idea of Genius, translation, with Joanna Zilsel; Arne Naess, Selected Works in 14 volumes, advisory editor, with Harold Blasser (Michigan) and collaboration of Maess (Oslo); Einstein Papers Project. Professor Cohen has continued as chair of the executive committee, and as consultant to the volumes underway from 1916–1919.

Research Fellows
 
Miriam Balaban
Dr. Balaban serves as a publisher and an editor of books and journals at the International Science Services in Rehovot, Israel. She also continues as the Head of Communication Unit at Science Park of Abruzzo, L’Aquila, Italy, and as the Editor in Chief of the journal Desalination: The International Journal on Science and Technology of Desalting and Water Purification. Activities in 2000: July 23–28, the 8th International Energy Forum, ENERGEX 2000, Las Vegas, USA. Published: Energex 2000; August 5–12, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and Institute for Global Environmental Issues. Beyond Kyoto: Achieving Sustainable Development, Hamburg, Germany. Dr. Balaban lectured on Scientific Communications; September, EUROMED 2000: Desalination Strategies in South Mediterranean Countries, which concerned the issue of the cooperation between Mediterranean countries of Europe and the southern rim of the Mediterranean (Jerba, Tunisia); Dr. Balaban was co-chairman and organizer, as well as editor of the Proceedings; October 3–6, Conference on Membranes in Drinking and Industrial Water Production, Paris, France. 2001: Alexandria University Desalination Studies and Technology Center; 2nd Workshop on Desalination Technologies; Cooperation with Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt. Keynote lecture on: Desalination: Networking, Information and the public. October 8–10, Middle East Energy 2001: Meeting the Energy and Water Needs of the Middle East, Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Chairman of a session on: Current and future trends in desalination Lecture on: Energy in desalination. June 25, Conference on Change and Continuity in Scholarly Communication: Editorial aspects of electronic publication of scholarly journals in all academic domains The Royal Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts and Science, the Development Institute for Knowledge, Education and Learning, Twente University Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Robert Becker
Dr. Becker did not have any publications this year. However, he has papers under review and in preparation. His research during the last year addressed the design of clinical trials to identify responders and non-responders to the treatment.

Lin Chun
Lectures: “Welfarism: an “East-West” comparison”, International Symposium on the 20th Century, Hitotsubashi University, Japan, Dec. 2000; “China and human rights”, Oxford Amnesty International seminar, Feb. 2001. Publications: Edited with an introductory essay to each volume: China I, II and III (Dartmouth: Ashgate, 2000); “Participation and recognition”, New Political Science, 22:4, 2000; “Human rights and democracy: the case for decoupling”, The International Journal of Human Rights, 5:2, 2001; “Defining and defending the Ôsocial’”, forthcoming in Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Sciences (Tokyo, in English), 33:1, 2001; “Whither feminism”, forthcoming in Signs, summer 2001; “The singing past”, forthcoming in Dushu (Beijing, in Chinese), 7, 2001. Other related activities: Participating in UNESCO’s working group on “the concept of human rights” based in the Philosophy of Human Rights Center, Hacettepe University, Ankara; A member of the program committee for the international conferences held in Beijing on political philosophy, April 2001.

Gennady Gorelik
The major event of Dr. Gorelik’s last year was the publication, in Russian, of his book Andrei Sakharov: Nauka i Svoboda [Andrei Sakharov: Science and FreedomA], Izhevsk, RCD, 2000. His main occupation was work on the English version of this book. In November-December, thanks to the support of IREX (The International Research and Exchanges Board), Dr. Gorelik visited Russia to collect material for his new project, the social biography of Lev Landau (1908–1968), one of greatest Soviet theoretical physicists and noted for his uncompromising anti-Soviet social attitude. Dr. Gorelik intends to write a book: The Soviet Life of Lev Landau and his Friends. Dr. Gorelik will visit the Physico-Technical Institute in Kharkov, Ukraine, in order to study archives and to collect oral history. In Udmurt University, Izhevsk, Dr. Gorelik gave a talk on his new book on Andrei Sakharov. On December 8, a presentation of his book took place at the Andrei Sakharov Center. The session was entitled: “Peace, Progress and Human Rights” (Moscow). Elena Bonner gave an introductory talk. Recently, Dr. Gorelik took part in the “Workshop on The Development of the Hydrogen Bomb: British, Soviet and American Perspectives” (Stanford University, April 19–20, 2001). In May, Dr. Gorelik traveled to Russia/FSU to take part in the Sakharovfest in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. He will give a talk on oral history of science at the conference on Audio-Culturology in Moscow (Institute for the History of Science). His talk will be on the three “fathers of nuclear weapon”—A. Sakharov, R. Oppenheimer and E. Teller. He also established a homepage at BU site http://people.bu.edu/gorelik/ to present his publications and other activities.
 
Helena Gourko
During 2000–2001 academic year, Dr. Gourko published, in Russian, a book, Deconstruction: Texts and Interpretation (Minsk: Econompress, 2001, 412 pp.) She continues to work on final editing of her translation of D. Zilberman’s Analogy in Indian and Western Philosophical Thought, to be published by the Kluwer Academic Publishers (Dordrecht) in 2001. This is a joint project with Professor R. Cohen. In September of 2000, Dr. Gourko was a keynote speaker at the International Congress of the Family Foundation (Seoul, Korea) where she delivered a lecture “Values and Christian Piety”. Her other activities included: initiation of a research and educational project on establishing a major of philosophy of religion in Russian and Belorussian colleges and universities (grant applications), and of a publication project of writing a textbook on philosophy of religion, and translating an anthology on philosophy of religion for Russian and Belorussian university students. Dr. Gourko also took part in writing a textbook on philosophy (chapters on Poststructuralism and Postmodernity, and on Religious Philosophy), to be published in Minsk in 2001 (in Russian).

Lillian Greeley
This past year Dr. Greeley has continued to attend conferences and to edit books and articles in the area of neurophilosophy. She is in the process of writing two articles. One is on the neurophysics of attention in the cognitive learning process that is used in generative learning, the process that generates a strategy to find a solution to an open-ended problem. The other article is on methodology and concerns an unexpected problem of using non-real derivative numbers in nonlinear analyses, which has been central to her work in the analysis of the cognitive learning process. During the past year, the range of work being done with vocalizations of various animals, including whales, birds, dolphins, dogs, wolves, shrimp, lobsters and others, has increased, providing valuable information with which to study the comparative evolution of cognition and the effect of socialization on its development. Specifically, Dr. Greeley is interested in analyzing these vocalization patterns for the Spacing phenomenon that she suspects is necessary for all cognitive generative learning development. She also organized a Colloquium session for the Center on biological warfare.
 
Emily Kutash
In August 2000, Dr. completed research on early Greek thought and the environment, presenting a paper in Florance, Italy, which will soon be published. Her paper, “The Third and the Fifth day of Creation vs. The Eternal Now”, contrasts the Hebrew and Greek view of creation and their implications, respectively, for injunctions concerning the environment. In October 2000, she presented a paper on the early Greek map and its analogy with a metaphysics “beyond being” to the Society of Ancient Greek Philosophy. This paper appeared subsequently in the Graduate Faculty Journal of the New School of Social Research, spring 2001, vol. 33,.no. 2, pp.115–145. Dr. Kutash is continuing her work on translating Proclus’ Elements of Physics. Finally, she has submitted a paper, “Golden Chains, Diadochai in Late Antiquity” concerning the history of the late Athenian academy and their mythologized view of successorship.
 
Lee McIntyre
Dr. McIntyre wrote a review of J.D. Trout’s Measuring the Intentional World that will appear in a forthcoming issue of Philosophy of Science. He completed an article entitled “Medicine and Social Science” that is currently under review at The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. The article draws an analogy between the state of medicine in the 18th century--before it was really a true “science”—and the current state of social science. His book Dark Ages: The Case for a Science of Human Behavior is still searching for a publisher. Dr. McIntyre’s current projects include: Philosophy of Chemistry: Synthesis of a New Discipline which he is co-editing with Davis Baird and Eric Scerri. It will appear in the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science series and will feature about 30 articles in this newly emerging field. One of those articles will be his own entitled “Emergence and Reductionism: Ontological or Epistemological Concepts?” This will be one of the very first books to appear in the field. Another work in progress is his article “Taking Underdetermination Seriously.”

Mark Notturno
Dr. Notturno’s research during the past year has been devoted to three projects: 1) The role that Karl Popper’s philosophy of science played in the Supreme Court’s Daubert decision. He completed a draft of a paper on the Daubert decision last autumn, and presented it at the Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science, and then in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Virginia. He was also invited, in this connection, to participate as a discussant in the Symposium on Evidence that was held in February at the University of Virginia’s Law School. 2) Interpreting Popper’s intellectual differences with Friedrich von Hayek regarding rationality, economism, and democracy has undergone substantial revision, and two chapters of a monograph, “Rationality” and “Economism”, are complete. (3) Dr. Noturrno is also preparing On Popper for the Wadsworth “On the Philosophers” series, scheduled later in 2001. Papers published in the past year include : “The Open Society and Its Enemies: Community, Authority, and Bureaucracy”. Published in Italian translation in Ian C. Jarvie e Sandra Pralong, “Popper e la Societ Aperta 50 anni dopo,” with an introduction by Dario Antiseri and Massimo Baldini, Rome: Armando Armando Editore, 2000. In addition to these activities, Dr. Notturno taught philosophy of science as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Virginia this past spring. He has also been an active participant in the university’s year-long “Rethinking Socialism” workshop, and in the faculty’s “Philosophy and History of Science and Technology” reading group. He made presentations in each of these groups, and, in addition to the lectures mentioned above, also spoke at James Madison University and at Purdue University.
 
Thomas Winner
During the past year, Dr. Winner’s main activity was the writing of a book on the inter-war Czech artistic avant-garde. The monograph is almost complete. Two papers, delivered last year in Helsinki and Tartu (Estonia), have now appeared. They are entitled “Tartu-Moscow Semiotics: The Cultural Semiotics of Vladim’r Macura (1945–1999)” and “In Memoriam Vladim’r Macura. Semeiotik” (Tartu) v. 28: 158-180. There is also a shortened Russian version, “Semiotika kul’tury Vladimira Macury (The Cultural Semiotics of Vladimir Macura)”. Slavica Helsingiensia (Helsinki) 2001. An extended Czech version is to be published this fall in the journal Ceska Literatura of the Institute for Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences. This journal will also publish another article of Professor Winner, entitled “Prazsk_ strukturalismus v anglofonn’m a frankofonn’m sv t: Ignorov‡n’ a nepochopen’. Z Mathauserovi k 80tin‡m” (Prague structuralism in the anglophone and francophone world: ignorings and misunderstandings; in honor of Professor Z. Mathauser for his 80th birthday), Cesk‡ Literatura (Prague). Professor Winner accepted an invitation to present the opening keynote address in the international conference on Semiotics of Culture to be held February 27–March 5th, 2002 at the University of Tartu, Estonia. The conference is to be followed by a two-week conference of a group of six scholars from Estonia, Germany, and the US to outline a joint book on the work of Jurij M. Lotman and its relation to Western European and American philosophy. Professor Winner is the leader and chief editor of the team.