{"id":597,"date":"2019-08-29T14:39:25","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T18:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/philo\/?post_type=profile&#038;p=597"},"modified":"2026-07-13T11:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T15:30:00","slug":"alfred-i-tauber","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/philo\/profile\/alfred-i-tauber\/","title":{"rendered":"Alfred I. Tauber"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Personal Website:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/ait\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/ait<\/a><br \/>\n<strong>Interests:<\/strong> Philosophy of Biology, Philosophy of Medicine, History of Science and of Medicine<\/p>\n<p>Alfred Tauber is a hematologist and biochemist by training. He joined the faculty of Boston University\u2019s School of Medicine in 1982 and the Department of Philosophy in 1993, where he served as Director of the Center for Philosophy and History of Science until 2010. Prof. Tauber has published widely on scientific epistemology (post-positivism), medical ethics, American Transcendentalism, and psychoanalysis. \u00a0In 2008, he was awarded the Science Medal from the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of Bologna for his critical studies of immunology and Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa from the University of Haifa in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from more than 80 research publications in biochemistry and immunology, and another 130 papers on 19th and 20th century biomedicine, contemporary science studies, and medical ethics, Dr. Tauber has authored <em>The Immune Self, Theory or Metaphor?<\/em>\u00a0(Cambridge 1994),\u00a0<em>Confessions of a Medicine Man, An Essay in Popular Philosophy<\/em>\u00a0(MIT 1999),\u00a0<em>Henry David Thoreau and the Moral Agency of Knowing<\/em>(California 2001),\u00a0<em>Patient Autonomy and the Ethics of Responsibility<\/em>\u00a0(MIT 2005),\u00a0<em>Science and its Quest for Meaning<\/em>\u00a0(Baylor \u00a02009),\u00a0<em>Freud, the Reluctant Philosopher<\/em>\u00a0(Princeton 2011),\u00a0<em>Requiem for the Ego, Freud and the Origins of Postmodernism<\/em>\u00a0(Stanford 2013),\u00a0<em>Immunity, the Evolution of an Idea<\/em>\u00a0(Oxford 2017), and\u00a0<em>The Triumph of Uncertainty<\/em> (Central European University Press, 2022) , and ), and <em>James contra Freud on the Mind. Saving<\/em> <em>Subjectivity<\/em> (Routledge 2025). In addition, he has co-authored <em>Metchnikoff and the Origins of Immunology<\/em> (with L. Chernyak, Oxford 1991) and <em>The Generation of Diversity, Clonal Selection Theory and the Rise of Molecular Immunology<\/em>\u00a0(with S. Podolsky, Harvard 1997), and and <em>Principles of Immunology, Philosophical Perspectives<\/em> (with B. Swiatczak, Oxford, forthcoming). He has also edited several volumes including <em>The Elusive Synthesis: Science and Aesthetics<\/em>\u00a0(Kluwer 1996),\u00a0<em>Science and the Quest for Reality<\/em>\u00a0(New York University 1997), and a collaborative translation project,\u00a0<em>The Evolutionary Biology Papers of Elie Metchnikoff<\/em>\u00a0(Kluwer 2000).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/philo\/files\/2019\/08\/cv-2026.docx\">Click Here for Latest CV<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7468,"template":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/philo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/philo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/philo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/profile"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/philo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7468"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/philo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10364,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/philo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/597\/revisions\/10364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/philo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}