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Tian
Yu Cao
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Office: STH 515
E-mail: tycao@bu.edu
Education: Ph.D., University
of Cambridge
Interests: Philosophy of Science,
Philosophy of Physics, Philosophy of Cognitive
Sciences, History of Science and Methodology
of Historiography of Science, Epistemology, Metaphysics,
Social and Political Philosophy (with special
interests in philosophical issues related to
modernity and globalization) |
Before
coming to Boston University in the fall of
1994, Tian Yu Cao was
a Research Fellow of Trinity College (1985-90),
Cambridge. He also did research in the philosophy
of science at Northwestern University, in
the history of science at Harvard University,
and at the Dibner Institute of the History
of Science and Technology at MIT.
He was
a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford
(Fall 2000), and a Visiting Scholar of Wolfson
College, Oxford (Spring, 2001); he was offered
a joint membership in the School of Natural
Sciences and the School of Historical Studies,
and awarded the Neugebauer Fellowship, by the
Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton) for
the academic year 2004/05.
Dr. Cao is currently working on
From
Current Algebra to the Genesis of QCD – A
Case for Structural Realism (a book-length
monograph, whose manuscript has just been
completed in the summer of 2006).
Structural
Realism (a book-length
monograph, soon to be completed).
Philosophical Issues in
Quantum Gravity (a book-length
monograph, in preliminary preparation)
Dr. Cao is author of:
Conceptual Developments of Twentieth Century
Field Theories (Cambridge University Press,
February 1997); second printing and paperback
edition with minor revisions, May 1998; this book
was reviewed in more than 20 journals of philosophy,
of history and philosophy of science, and of physics,
published in the United States, United Kingdom,
Germany, Denmark, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, China
and Russia.
and editor of:
Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Field
Theory (Cambridge University Press,
February, 1999).
Philosophy of Science, vol. X of
the Proceedings of the 20th World Congress
of Philosophy, August 10-16, 1998. (Philosophical
Documentation Center, February 2001).
The Chinese Model of Modern Development (editor;
Routledge, May 2005) [the Chinese edition
titled Modernization,
Globalization and the Chinese Path was
published by Social Sciences Documentation
Publishing House, Beijing, China, July 2003).
He has also published articles
on the philosophy and history of contemporary
physics, as well as on the historiography, philosophy,
and sociology of science:
Journal Articles:
"Attempts at Reconciling Quantum Field
Theory with S-matrix Theory -- The Reggeization
Program: 1962-82," The Archive for History
of Exact Sciences, 41:3 (1991), 239-283
"Spontaneous Breakdown of Symmetry: Its Rediscovery and Integration into
Quantum Field Theory," with L. M. Brown, Historical Studies in the Physical
and Biological Sciences, 21:2 (1991), 211-235.
"The Conceptual Foundations and Philosophical Aspects of Renormalization
Theory," with S. S. Schweber, Synthese, 97:1 (1993), 33-108.
"Fundamental Physics in Transformation," La Letter de l'Association
Henri Poincaré, No. 8 (June 1993), 5-9.
"The Kuhnian Revolution and the Postmodernist Turn in the History of Science," Physis,
Vol. XXX (1993), 477-504.
"The Casimir Effect and the Interpretation of the Vacuum," with S.
E. Rugh and H. Zinkernagel, in Studies in History & Philosophy of Modern
Physics, 30(1) (1999), 111-139.
"Prerequisites for a Consistent Framework of Quantum Gravity," in the Studies
in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 32(2) (2001), 181-204.
(Its Russian translation appeared in Philosophy of Science, 7 (2001):
238-269)
"Philosophy of Science: Retrospect and Prospect," in Studies in
Dialectics of Nature, 17 (11) (November 2001), 5-17.
"Structural Realism and the Interpretation of Quantum Field Theory," in Synthese,
136 (1) (July 2003), 3-24.
"Ontological Relativity and Fundamentality - Is Quantum Field Theory the
Fundamental Theory?" in Synthese, 136 (1) (July 2003), 25-30 .
"Can We Dissolve Physical Entities into Mathematical Structures?" in Synthese,
136 (1) (July 2003), 57-71.
"What is Ontological Synthesis? A Reply to Simon Saunders," in Synthese,
136 (1) (July 2003), 107-126.
"Historian's Prevision of the
Future of Science in the Neo-liberal Age," in
Science and
Culture (Beijing, China), Vol. 2, No. 4 (August 2005): 65-77.
Book Chapters:
"Gauge Theory and the Geometrization of
Fundamental Physics," in Philosophical
Foundations of Quantum Field Theory (eds.
R. Harré and H. Brown; Oxford U. Press,
1988), 117-133.
"New Philosophy of Renormalization: From Renormalization Group Equations
to Effective Field Theories," in History of Renormalization from Lorentz
to Landau and Beyond (ed. L. M. Brown; Springer-Verlag, 1993), 89-133.
"A Philosopher Looks at Science," in Physics, Philosophy, and the
Scientific Community (eds. K. Gavroglu, J. Stachel and M. W. Wartofsky;
Kluwer, 1995), 171-187.
"Spontaneous Breaking of Symmetry," (co-authored with L. Brown, R.
Brout, P. Higgs and Y. Nambu, based on a Panel Session at The Third International
Symposium on the History of Particle Physics, SLAC, June 24-27, 1992) in The
Rise of The Standard Model (eds. L. M. Brown, M. Dresden, L. Hoddeson; Cambridge
University Press, 1997), 477-521.
"Postmodernity in Science and Philosophy," as part of the collection
of pamphlets (published both in English and Spanish) and videos (subtitled in
Spanish) on The Sciences and Humanities At the Threshold of the 21st Century,
(ed. Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, Mexico, 1997).
"A Philosopher's Reflections on the Standard Model," the Proceedings
of the XX International Workshop on the Fundamental Problems of High Energy Physics
and Field Theory (Russian Academy of Sciences, 1998) 158-166.
"Monism, But Not Through Reductionism," Philosophies of Nature (eds.
A. Tauber and R. S. Cohen; Kluwer, 1998), 39-51.
"Conceptual Issues in Quantum Field Theory," in Conceptual Foundations
of Quantum Field Theory (ed. T. Y. Cao; Cambridge University Press, 1999),
1-27.
"Why Are We Philosophers Interested in Quantum Field Theory?" in Conceptual
Foundations of Quantum Field Theory (ed. T. Y. Cao; Cambridge University
Press, 1999), 28-33
"Renormalization Group: An Interesting Yet puzzling Idea," in Conceptual
Foundations of Quantum Field Theory (ed. T. Y. Cao; Cambridge University
Press, 1999), 268-286.
"Introduction to the Proceedings of the 20th World Congress of Philosophy," in
the Proceedings of the 20th World Congress of Philosophy (Philosophical
Documentation Center, February 2001), i-ix.
"Representation or Construction? An Interpretation of Quantum Field Theory," in
the Proceedings of the 20th World Congress of Philosophy, 129-141.
"Space and Time," in Oxford Companion to the History of Modern
Science (ed. John Heilbron, Oxford University Press, 2003).
"A New Approach to Quantum Gravity," in the Proceedings of the
International Symposium on the Centenary of Quantum, (in Russian, Moscow,
2002), 31-38
"Ontology and Scientific Explanation," in Explanatios (ed. John Conwell,
Oxford University Press, 2004), 173-196.
"Why Is Walter Freeman's Mesoscopic Approach to Brain Sciences
Philosophically So Interesting?" An introduction to the Chinese translation
(Zhejiang University Press, China, October 2004) of Walter Freeman's Neurodynamics:
An Exploration of Mesoscopic Brain Dynamics (Springer-Verlag, 2000), 1-5.
"Modernization, Globalization and the Chinese Path," in
The Chinese Model of Modern Development (ed. T.Y.Cao; Routledge, May 2005), 1-6.
"Theory and Practice of the Chinese Model," in The Chinese
Model of Modern Development (ed. T.Y.Cao; Routledge, May 2005), 293-317.
"Structural Realism and Quantum Gravity," in Structural
Foundation of Quantum Gravity (ed. Steven French, Oxford University Press, forthcoming
in December 2006), 42-55.
“Will Einstein Still be the Super-Hero of Physics in
2050?” forthcoming in the Festschrift in Honor of S. S. Schweber (eds.
J. Renn and K. Gavroglu, Kluwer, 2006).
Book Reviews:
Review of The Description of Nature: Niels
Bohr and the Philosophy of Quantum Physics by
John Honner (Oxford University Press, 1987),
Isis, 81:1 (1990), 151-2.
Review of Theory Construction and Selection
in Modern Physics: The S Matrix by James
T. Cushing (Cambridge University Press, 1990),
Isis, 83:4 (1992), 682-4 .
"Julian Schwinger, But Not the Definitive Julian Schwinger" -- Review
of Climbing the Mountain – The Scientific Biography of Julian Schwinger by
Jagdish Mehra and Kimball A. Milton (Oxford U Press, 2000), Physics Today 55
(4) (April 2002), 77-78; a further exchange with Mehra and Milton in Physics
Today 56 (5) (May 2003), 15-16.
“The Story of Feyman
Diagrams” – Review of Drawing
Theories Apart: The
Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams
in Postwar Physics by David Kaiser (the University
of Chicago Press, 2005), Physics World 19 (1)
(January 2006), 36-37.
Review of China and Albert Einstein: The
Reception of the Physicist and His Theory
in China, 1917-1979,
by Danian Hu (Harvard Univ. Press, 2005),
forthcoming in Isis (September, 2006).
Over the years, he has received fellowships
and Grants from various institutions:
1985-90 Research Fellowship, Trinity College,
Cambridge, United Kingdom.
1990-92 Grant from NSF [Grant DIR-No. 9014412 (4-59070)]
1995-96 Grant from NSF [Grant No. SBR-9529112], in support of the conference
on the foundations of quantum field theory, held on March 1-3, 1996.
1996-97 Grant from NSF [Amendment No. 001 to Grant No. SBR-9529112, as a supplement
support for the publication of the Proceedings of the conference.]
1999 Award from the Lakatos Foundation for a short visit to the London School
of Economics and Political Sciences.
1999 Grant from the Smithsonian Institution for a short visit in June.
2000 (March - August): Senior Smithsonian Institution Fellowship with a research
grant.
2001 (June): Grant for a short visit from the Max-Planck Institute for the History
of Science, Germany.
2002 Grant from Ford Foundation in support of a three day conference "Modernization,
Globalization and the Chinese Path" which was held in Hangzhou, China, July
5-7, 2002; and a supplement in support of the publication of the conference volume
in Chinese.
2004-05 Neugebauer
Fellowship, the Institute for Advanced Study,
Princeton.
2006 (May-June) Lakatos
Research Fellowship, London School of Economics
and Political Science
In addition,
Dr. Cao has given more than 40 invited lectures
in the United States, United Kingdom, France,
Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Russia, Mexico
and China.
Dr. Cao regularly teaches
the following courses:
Undergraduate level:
Philosophy of Science (PH 270)
History of Science (PH 271)
History of Modern Philosophy (PH 310)
Philosophy of Cognitive Science (PH 465)
Philosophy of Physics (PH 470)
Marx and Marxism (PH 418)
Social Philosophy (PH 253)
Graduate level:
Philosophy of Cognitive Science (PH 665)
Philosophy of Physics (PH 670; Space-time,
Probability, Quantum)
Seminar on The History of Philosophy of Science
(PH 870; Poincaré, Russell, Carnap, Quine,
Popper, Putnam, Kuhn, Fine/Shimony)
Seminar on Contemporary Issues in the History
and Philosophy of Science (PH 871; Relativism
and its Opponents: Positivism, Realism and Pragmatism)
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