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1999–2000 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 interests of the Center’s staff and visiting scholars. The principal public forum of the Center is the Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science, whose program during its 40th session ranged from Hobbes to Husserl, and from mathematical intuition to conceptual strategies in industrial innovation. Of particular note in this anniversary year were reviews of 20th century philosophy and history of science as academic disciplines, and conferences inspired by the centenary of Nietzsche’s death and the birth of the quantum. Hosting forty-five speakers from the United States, Israel, Germany, France, Canada, and Australia, the Boston University community and the greater Boston academic and lay public were afforded the opportunity of engaging experts in the philosophy and history of science in eleven colloquium events. (The 1999–2000 Colloquium listing is included as an appendix. Unfortunately, Vadim Sadovsky’s “Epistemological Musings” was cancelled.)

Academic Activities of Center Members

Alfred I. Tauber
Director
Professor Tauber edited, with Helena Gourko and Don Williamson, The Evolutionary Biology Papers of Elie Metchnikoff (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000), the first English translation of these works, which include primary research on the embryology of various invertebrates, criticisms of Darwin’s theory of evolution, and speculations concerning the relevance of evolutionary biology to human nature and social organization. These papers are an important historical document of early evolutionary biology and the development of a central figure in late 19th century embryology and key architect of immunology. Other published papers: 1) Tauber, AI and Podolsky, SH, Nietzsche’s conception of health: The idealization of struggle, in Nietzsche, Epistemology, and Philosophy of Science: Nietzsche and the Sciences II., B. Babich (ed.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 299–311, 1999; 2) Tauber, AI, The elusive immune self: A case of category errors. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 42:459-74, 1999; 3) Tauber, AI Book review essay of The Historiography of Contemporary Science and Technology, T. Soderqvist [ed.] (Amsterdam: Harwood), Science, Technology and Human Values 24:384-401, 1999. Book reviews: Tending Adam’s Garden by I. Cohen (San Diego: Academic Press) New England Journal of Medicine 342:667-8, 2000; The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character by D. Kevles (New York: Norton) Quarterly Review of Biology 75:39, 2000.

Completed research which will be published in the next academic year include a monograph—Henry David Thoreau and the Moral Agency of Knowing (University of California Press)—and several papers: 1) Moving beyond the immune self? (Seminars in Immunology); 2) The quest for holism in medicine, in Complementary and Alternative Medicine, D. Callahan (ed.) (Georgetown University Press); 3) The ethical imperative of holism in medicine, in Limits of Reductionism, D.L. Hull and M von Regenmortel (INSERM, Paris); 4) A call for scientific literacy: The claims for public understanding, in Effects of Global Business on Scientific Research, M. Balaban (ed.) (Geneva); 5) Comments on historiographic options: Musings on metaphysics, in Immunology: Historical Issues and Contemporary Debates, A. Cambrosio and A.M. Moulin (eds.) (Paris); 6) with E. Crist, Phagocyte and antibody as contenders of immune explanation, in Immunology: Historical Issues and Contemporary Debates, A. Cambrosio and A.M. Moulin (eds.) (Paris); 7) with E. Crist, Selfhood, immunity, and the biological imagination: The thought of Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Biology and Philosophy.

Public lectures: 1) “The Horizons of Medical Humanities,” Visiting Distinguished Lectures in the Medical Humanities, George Washington University, Washington, D.C. October 27, 1999; 2) “Concluding Reflections,” Complementary and Alternative Medicine: The Scientific and Pluralistic Challenge, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, December 10, 1999; 3) “The Ethical Imperative of Holism in Medicine,” Limits of Reductionism, INSERM, Paris, France, May 24, 2000.

Robert S. Cohen
Director, Emeritus
Professor Cohen was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society and continued to serve as Chair, of the Executive Committee, Collected Papers of Albert Einstein (Princeton University Press), Editor, of the Vienna Circle Collection (Kluwer Academic Publishers), and Editor of the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Kluwer Academic Publishers). In the latter series he edited with introductory essays Edgar Zilsel’s Social Origins of Modern Science and Nietzsche and the Sciences (two volumes with Babette Babich as co-editor) and another seven volumes without introductory essays: R. Hooykaas, Fact, Faith, and Fiction in the development of Science, M. Feher, O. Kiss, and L. Ropolyi, Hermeneutics and Science, R. M. Macleod, Science and the Pacific War, Igor Hanzel, The Concept of Scientific Law in the Philosophy of Science and Epistemology, G. Helm, The Historical Development of Energetics, Orenstein, Knowledge, Language, and Logic: Questions for Quine, Salvo D’Agostino, A History of the Idea of Theoretical Physics, Sroan Lelas, Science and Modernity: Toward an Integral Theory of Science. Dr. Cohen supervised as First Reader the Boston University philosophy dissertations of James Stump and John Ongley.

Professor Cohen continues to actively participate in the Seminar on Healing (Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge Hospital, Harvard Medical School) and to work on various research projects which include three books in the Boston Series: Maimonides and the Sciences (to appear in Fall 2000), with Helena Gourko, David Zilberman’s On Analogy in Hindu and Western Thought, and with Thomas Uebel, Otto Neurath’s Selected Papers on Economics.
 
Research Fellows
 
Miriam Balaban

Robert Becker
Robert Becker has published the following articles during the academic year 1999–2000: (1) Becker RE, Meisler N and Stormer G. Employment Outcomes for Clients with Severe Mental Illness in a PACT Model Replication. Psychiatric Services 50(1) 104-106, 1999. (2) Moriearty PL, Seubert P, Galasko D, Markwell S, Unni L, Vicari S, Becker RE. Effects of time and cholinesterase inhibitor treatment on multiple cerebrospinal fluid parameters in Alzheimer disease. Methods Find Exp Clin Pharmacol 21(8): 549-554, 1999. (3) Becker RE, Markwell S. Problems arising from the generalizing of treatment efficacy from clinical trials in Alzheimer's disease. Clin Drug Invest 19:33-41, 2000. (4) Unni L, Vicari S, Moriearty P, Schaefer F, Becker R. The recovery of cerebrospinal fluid acetylcholinesterase activity in Alzheimer's disease patients after treatment with metrifonate. Methods Find Clin Pharmacol 22:57-61, 2000.

Dr. Becker has also completed a book entitled Hold on to your Brains for which he is hoping to find a publisher in the coming year. It addresses his ongoing research in the development of a description of medical inquiry.

Lin Chun
In the area of the methodology of political science, Dr. Chun has contributed the following three introductory essays to China (selected journal articles in three volumes), forthcoming from Ashgate, 2000: “Modernity and the study of Chinese politics”, “The significance of the Chinese experience for political science”, “The Chinese path and the limit of globalism.” In political philosophy, she has published “Human rights and democracy: a clarification”, in Ionna Kucuradi, ed. Human Rights 50 Years (Andara: UNEXCO and Hacettepe University, 1999; in Turkish) and “Recognition and participation: the politics of work and (un)employment,” forthcoming in New Political Science, Dec. 2000. In the philosophy of history, she has written “Uneven and compressed development: a note on China,” in Armand Clesse, ed. The World and the New Century (Luxembourg Institute for European and International Studies, 2000). Her work-in-progress is a book-length study in political theory, history, and political science to be entitled The Transformation of Chinese Socialism.  

Gennady Gorelik
During the past year, Gennady Gorelik’s main occupation was the editing of Russian and English versions of his book Andrei Sakharov: Science and Freedom. He also gave a talk, “Andrei Sakharov: Theoretical Physicist and Practical Humanist,” as part of the Commemorative Ceremony on the Occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the death of Andrei Sakharov at the European Parliament, Strasbourg, December 14, 1999. In addition, Dr. Gorelik has written an article, “Vladimir Fock: a Philosophical Lesson of the History of Physics,” which is to be published in a volume dedicated to the 100th anniversary of V. Fock. Finally, Dr. Gorelik has begun a new research project, “Soviet Life of Lev Landau and his Friends”, a social biography of the most prominent theoretical physicist of the USSR and, at the same time, a “biography” of the activity of a scientist under an evolving totalitarian regime.
 
Helena Gourko
During the 1999/2000 academic year, Dr. Gourko published two books: Dekonstrukciya: teksty i intepretaciya. Minsk: Ekonompress, 367 pp., including a translation of “Sauf le nom” and “Denegations”, by J. Derrida. (from the original French, in Russian) and with Prof. Tauber and Williamson the translation and editing of The Evolutionary Biology Papers of Elie Metchnikoff (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. She is currently working on another editing/translation project with Prof. Cohen: Analogy in Indian and Western Philosophical Thought, by David Zilberman (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers). Dr. Gourko is also a professor in the Philosophy Department at Belorussian University (Minsk, Belarus), where she taught two courses: “Philosophy of Religion”, and “Philosophy of Deconstruction”, both in person (October 1999) and via the internet.

Lillian Greeley
This past year, Dr. Greeley has continued to attend conferences and to edit books and articles in the area of neurophilosophy. She has also been reading in the area of biological warfare since it is her belief that ethical development of the issues surrounding it have not kept up with the technology and politics of its research, development and use. She has rethought the methodology for her research of the attention system of the cognitive learning process, which has taken her four years, and is now in the process of being tested. Should this methodology prove to be viable, she will be redoing all of her analyses in the next year. This research has the potential to explicate both the theoretical understanding of the brain's evolutionary development and the practice of education.
 
Emily Kutash
Emilie Kutash has finished her research on Proclus and Twentieth Century Physics. She presented a paper in Nashville at a conference on Neo-Platonism and American Thought. This paper has been edited and will appear in a book by that name. Dr. Kutash also completed a paper entitled “Golden Chains: Diadochoi in Late Antiquity,” to be submitted to the Journal of the History of Philosophy. This paper represents the completion of her research on ancient academies in late antiquity and she presented it last fall at the meeting of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy at Binghamton. Her article, “Oikoumene, Ousia, and Outside... etc.”, was accepted for publication in 1999 in the Journal of the Graduate Faculty, New School for Social Research and will be published in the next issue. Finally, Dr. Kutash has been doing research on Orthodox Jewish dress codes, a project that is part of a book that is being published on dress codes in contemporary religions.
 
Lee McIntyre
Lee McIntyre published three articles in the fall of 1999: (1) “Prediction in the Social Sciences” in the Review Journal of Philosophy and Social Science, vol. 25 (October 1999), pp. 69–92; (2) “Reduction, Supervenience, and the Autonomy of Social Scientific Laws” in Theory and Decision, vol. 48 (March 2000), pp. 101–122; (3) “Davidson and Social Scientific Law” in Synthese, Vol. 120 (1999), pp. 375–394. He has also co-edited a volume with Davis Baird and Eric Scerri entitled Philosophy of Chemistry: Synthesis of a New Discipline that will appear in the Kluwer Boston Studies series. His ongoing research, in addition to the volume mentioned above, includes the writing/revision of an essay entitled “Accommodation, Prediction, and Confirmation” that is currently under review at the British
Journal for the Philosophy of Science. Another essay, “Supervenience and Explanatory Exclusion” is under review at Erkenntnis.

Mark Notturno
Since his appointment as a fellow, Mark Notturno has completed his book, Science and the Open Society, which was published in February of this year (CEU Press, Budapest, 2000). He has also written the first chapter of a book that is the focal point of his research fellowship at the Center. In addition, Notturno has prepared a paper on the topic of the Supreme Court’s 1993 Daubert vs. Merrell Dow Pharmeceuticals decision, in which the Court cites falsifiability as a key question to be asked in the determination of the scientific status of a theory or technique. This paper will be presented at next year’s Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science.
 
Thomas Winner
Thomas Winner’s research activties during the 1999–2000 academic year were partly related to the completing of his book, The Czech Avant Garde between the Two World Wars. He expects this book to enter its final stage by the fall of 2000. During the summer of 1999, Winner was invited to the First World Congress of Bohemists, held in Prague at Charles University. The Congress, marking the 650th anniversary of Charles University, was attended by specialists in Czech literature, linguistics and history. Winner presented a paper on the reception of Czech structuralism in the Anglophone and Francophone world, and the contrast between French-based and Czech-based structuralism and semiotics. He was also awarded the Bold Medal of the 650th anniversary of Charles University.

In October 1999, Winner and his wife were invited to present a series of lectures and seminars at Tartu University (Estonia), where Winner discussed Moscow-Tartu semiotics of culture in America and Western Europe and gave a lecture in memory of the late Czech literary critic Vladimir Macura.

A paper on the topic of Moscow-Tartu semiotics will be published in the next issue of Semiotike Sign Systems Studies (University of Tartu), to appear this summer. Winner and his wife were also interviewed by the Estonian monthly Luup. The text of this interview is soon to be published. One of the outgrowths of Winner’s stay in Tartu was the development of a joint project concerning the relationship between Moscow-Tartu semiotics of culture and Western semiotic theories from Peirce and Saussure to the present. A joint monograph is to be published in English by three Tartu scholars, Winner, and Winner’s wife, preceded by several editorial conferences held in Europe and the Boston area. During Winner’s stay in Tartu, he was also invited to participate in the annual Finnish-Estonian Colloquium, held at Helsinki University, where he presented a short version of his Tartu memorial lecture, to be published in Slavica Helsingiensia this spring. Prior to his visit to Tartu, Winner was
invited to the International Congress of Semiotics, held in Dresden, Germany, where he participated in roundtable discussions about the Moscow-Tartu school and presented another paper on the work of Macura, to be published in the Proceedings of the Congress. Winner has also continued his activities as a consultant for the Research Support Scheme of the Soros Foundation.

The following papers were published or are to be published during the next two to three months:

“Vladislav Vancura as Critic: His Relations to the Prague Linguistic Circle”, S-European Journal for Semiotic Studies (Vienna) 10/1-2 (1999).

“Is Art Dead? Postmodernism and Czech Poetism”, in Proceedings of the International Semiotics Conference in Honor of the 80th Birthday of Professor T.G. Winner. Prague. Festschrift for Professor T.G. Winner. S-Europena Journal for Semiotic Studies (Vienna). (In print)

“Czech and Tartu-Moscow Semiotics: The Cultural Semiotics of Vladamir Macura (1945–1999)”. In Memorium Vladimir Macura. Semiotike (Tartu). (In print)

“Kul’turnaja semiotika Vladimira Macury (The Cultural Semiotics of Vladimir Macura)”. Slavica Helsingiensia (Helsinki). (In print)

“Nezval’s Edison: Poetry and Music.” Poetika, Istorija Literatury, Lingvistika/Poetics, Literary History, Linguistics. Festschrift for the 70th Birthday of V.V. Ivanov. Ed. A.A. Vygasin et al. Moscow: OGIZ 1999: 407-418.

“The Debate between the Avantegarde and Socialist Realism: The Soviet Uion and Czechoslovakia.” Festschrift for the 80th Birthday of Zdenek Mathauser. Slavia. Prague. Ed. Ivo Pospisil et al. 2000. (In press).

“Kak ja obnaruzil Ju. M. Lotmana (How I Discovered Ju. M. Lotman).” Semiotike (Tartu). 2000 (in print).