Archives: 1998–1999

Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science
39th Annual Program

 

Conceptual Origins of Science in Antiquity

September 24, 1998
10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Terrace Lounge, George Sherman Union (GSU)
Boston University
775 Commonwealth Avenue

Moderator: David Roochnik Boston University

Morning Session, 10 a.m. – Noon

  • The Developing Sciences in Antiquity

    Emilie Kutash Boston University

  • Place, Surface, and Form: Limits for Physics, Mathematics, and Metaphysics

    Helen Lang Trinity College

Afternoon Session, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.

  • Aristotle’s Physics

    Johannes Fritsche The New School for Social Research

  • Aristotle’s Method of Scientific Investigation and Beyond

    John McGinnis University of Pennsylvania

Consequentialism and The Right and The Good

September 25, 1998
4 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Terrace Lounge, George Sherman Union (GSU)
Boston University
775 Commonwealth Avenue

Co-sponsored by the Department of Philosophy, Boston University and supported by the Boston University Humanities Foundation

Moderator: Charles L. Griswold, Jr. Boston University

David Wiggins New College, University of Oxford

Debating the Biology of Language

October 7, 1998
2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Terrace Lounge, George Sherman Union (GSU)
Boston University
775 Commonwealth Avenue

Moderator: Bruce Fraser Boston University

The Symbolic Species

Terrence Deacon Boston University

The Evolution of Language and Mind

Steven Pinker Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Scientific Image in Early Modern Philosophy

October 8, 1998
9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Terrace Lounge, George Sherman Union (GSU)
Boston University
775 Commonwealth Avenue

Moderator: Jaakko Hintikka Boston University

Morning Session, 9 a.m. – Noon

    Experiment and Thought-Experiment in Descartes and Boyle: Sensation and the Nature of Matter

    Justin Broaches Brown University

    Groping for Something Modern in Science and Philosophy: Descartes and J.B. Morin

    Judson Webb Boston University

    Leibniz on Natural Curiosities

    Roger Ariew Virginia Polytechnic Institute

Afternoon Session, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.

  • Applied Metaphysics

    Jerome Lettvin Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Where Is the Science in Spinoza’s Scientia Intuitiva?

    Aaron Garrett Boston University

  • Making the Sensible Intelligible: Cudworth and Locke on Matter

    Kenneth Winkler Wellesley College

Thoreau’s Natural Philosophy

November 12, 1998
10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Terrace Lounge, George Sherman Union (GSU)
Boston University
775 Commonwealth Avenue

Moderator: Robert S. Cohen Boston University

Morning Session, 10 a.m. – Noon

  • A Material Faith: Thoreau and the Science of Life

    Laura Dassow Walls Lafayette College

  • Thoreau’s Notion of Time: An Ontology, a Metaphysic, an Ethic

    Alfred I. Tauber Boston University

Afternoon Session, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.

  • The Egocentrists’ Thoreau

    Lawrence Buell Harvard University

  • The Ecocentrists’ Thoreau

    Leo Marx Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Thoreau’s Landscape: Two Visions of Nature

    Daniel Peck Vassar College

The Boundaries of The Human Sciences

December 7, 1998
10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Terrace Lounge, George Sherman Union (GSU)
Boston University
775 Commonwealth Avenue

Moderator: John Clayton Boston University

Morning Session, 10 a.m. – Noon

  • The History of the Human Sciences as a Human Science

    Roger Smith Lancaster University, Emeritus

  • Uncertain Sciences

    Bruce Mazlish Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Afternoon Session, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.

  • To be announced

    Irving Velody University of Bristol

  • The Human Sciences: An Anthropologist’s Perspective

    Michael Fisher Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Verstehen and the Boundaries of the Human Sciences

    Michael Martin Boston University, Emeritus

Does Time Flow? In Memory of Milic Capek

January 25, 1999
2 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Terrace Lounge, George Sherman Union (GSU)
Boston University
775 Commonwealth Avenue

Moderator: Abner Shimony Boston University, Emeritus

Time’s Passing

Daniel Dahlstrom Boston University

Kurt Gödel: Time Travel and the Ideality of Time

Palle Yourgrau Brandeis University

The Twin Paradox and an Unorthodox Solution to the Problem of Absolute Space

Michel Janssen Boston University

The Robert S. Cohen Forum: Contemporary Issues in Science Studies

Naturalism and Its Discontents

January 29–February 9, 1999
Terrace Lounge, George Sherman Union (GSU)
Boston University
775 Commonwealth Avenue

Moderator: Steven Horst Wesleyan University

Part I

Friday, January 29, 2009

    Morning Session, 10 a.m. – Noon

  • Should Nature Be “Naturalized”?

    Joseph Rouse Wesleyan University

  • Naturalism: Its Sources, Status, and Claims

    Jaegwon Kim Brown University

    • Afternoon Session, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.

  • Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mind: Archeology and Critical Analysis

    Steven Horst Wesleyan University

  • Imaging the Mind

    William Bechte Washington University

  • The Intellectual Responsibilities of Naturalism

    Abner Shimony Boston University, Emeritus

Part II

Tuesday, February 2, 1999: 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.

  • Philosophical Anthropology, Old and New

    Lenny Moss Northwestern University

  • Construction, Connection, and C. Elegans: What the Worm Can Tell Philosophers

    Kenneth Schaffner George Washington University

  • Making Sense of Life: Explanation in Developmental Biology

    Evelyn Fox Keller Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Part III

Tuesday, February 9, 1999: 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.

  • A Naturalistic Approach to the Philosophy of Science: An Evolutionary Case Study

    Michael Ruse University of Guelph

  • Complexity, Epigenesis, and the Future of Naturalism

    David Depew University of Iowa

  • Infelicities of Evolutionary Naturalism

    Robert Richardson University of Cincinnati

The Galileo Affair From John Milton to John Paul II

March 30, 1999
4 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Terrace Lounge, George Sherman Union (GSU)
Boston University
775 Commonwealth Avenue

Supported by the Dibner Fund, through the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology

Moderator: John Stachel Boston University

Commentator: Mario Biagioli Harvard University

Maurice A. Finocchiaro University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Norms of Language

April 27, 1999
2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Terrace Lounge, George Sherman Union (GSU)
Boston University
775 Commonwealth Avenue

Moderator: Jaakko Hintikka Boston University

Why There Are No Rules of Language

Ruth Millikan University of Connecticut

Normativity and Modality

Robert Brandom University of Pittsburgh

Michael Polanyi Reconsidered

May 3, 1999
1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Terrace Lounge, George Sherman Union (GSU)
Boston University
775 Commonwealth Avenue

Moderator: Gerald Holton Harvard University

Tacit Knowing and Artificial Intelligence

Richard Gelwick University of New England, College of Osteopathy

Polanyi and Wittgenstein

Charles Lowney Boston University

Polanyi’s Conception of Judicial Attitude

Stefania Jha Harvard University

Polanyi on Science Policy

Philip Mullins Missouri Western State College

Science Without Freedon in The Twentieth Century

May 9–10, 1999
Sargent College, Room 101
635 Commonwealth Avenue

Sunday, May 9, 1999, 1 p.m. – 5 p.m.

  • Moderator: Yakov Rabkin Montreal University

  • Science and Totalitarianism: Readjusting the Agenda

    Yakov Rabkin Montreal University

  • Authority in Physics in the Authoritarian State

    Genady Gorelik Boston University

  • Transition of Science from Stalin to Khruschev: Cybernetics

    Slava Gerovich Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • The Collectivization of Soviet Physics

    Alexei Kozhevnikov The American Institute of Physics, New York

Monday, May 10, 1999, 10 a.m. – Noon

  • Moderator: Loren Graham Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Successes and Failures in the Nazification of the Content of Science

    Benoit Massin Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris)

  • Scientific Changes in Germany: 1933, 1945, and 1990

    Mitchell Ash University of Vienna

Monday, May 10, 1999, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.

  • Moderator: Loren Graham Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Human Origins and National Socialism

    Mark Walker Union College/Harvard University

  • The Quest for an Antimaterialist Science in Germany in the Twentieth Century

    Richard Beyler Portland State University

  • German Physical Society in Nazi Germany

    Dieter Hofmann Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin