In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.2 (2003) 269-270 [Access article in PDF] Steven Harvey, editor. The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy: Proceedings of the Bar-Ilan University Conference. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000. Pp. xi + 547. Cloth, $239.00. This fine volume, covering the proceedings of a conference at Bar-Ilan University (January, 1998), is the first book devoted to the medieval Hebrew encyclopedias of science (...) and philosophy. According to the editor, the talks at the conference "were arranged to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle," and that intention is also reflected in the current volume: It is extremely well-organized, the earlier essays provide useful background for the later ones, and the various parts of the book complement each other quite well. Though they contain much that is highly technical, the editor has succeeded in making the essays comprehensible to the non-specialist, as was his declared intention. [End Page 269]The editor's introductory essay draws the book together and makes it a coherent whole. The most important part of that essay raises the conceptual problem underlying the entire book, namely: what defines a medieval encyclopedia? The contributors do not always agree on how to answer this question, nor should we expect such agreement. Some of their criteria are: an encyclopedia must treat a subject comprehensively; it must be well-enough organized to facilitate retrieval; it is meant to be consulted, not read cover-to-cover; it is usually an eclectic collection of previously extant material, not an original composition, and certainly not a major source for new ideas. Finally, an important goal of the encyclopedist is popular enlightenment.The book's first two sections deal with the predecessors of the medieval Hebrew encyclopedias, the medieval Latin and Arabic works. Only the latter had heavy influence on the structure and content of later Hebrew works. Nevertherless, the Islamic author who had the greatest influence by far on Jews during the age of the encyclopedias under discussion, namely Averroes, is judged by Butterworth (as well as by Biesterfeldt) not to be an encyclopedist at all. The basis for this judgment is that Averroes had no interest whatsoever in popular enlightenment; his books are not introductory, and nowhere does he address himself to anyone but the expert.Nevertheless, when it comes to Averroes, it would be prudent to honor the editor's admonition that we not be too demanding with our criteria for what constitutes a medieval encyclopedia. Perhaps the corpus of Averroes's works does not make him an encyclopedist, as the essays contend. But we should not lose sight of how his works were actually used by later Hebrew writers: their Hebrew translations were copied and paraphrased extensively as state-of-the-art presentations of science on nearly every important topic. In other words, even if Averroes himself did not have the intentions of an encyclopedist for his works, later authors mined them for informative essays as if they were encyclopedias.Part 3 deals with Early Hebrew Encyclopedias. Despite the volume's otherwise outstanding organization, Woolf's fine article on Maimonides' Mishneh Torah seems out of place here, since it is by no means an encyclopedia of science and philosophy.Part 4 deals with the structure and organization of the three thirteenth-century encyclopedias that are the focus of the volume: Judah ben Solomon ha-Cohen's Midrash ha-Hokhmah; Shem-Tov ibn Falaquera's De'ot ha-Filosofim; and Gershom ben Solomon's Sha'ar ha-Shamayim. The descriptive essays are extremely useful for getting a balanced picture of these books, but perhaps of even greater value are the content outlines, which include pagination from the manuscripts to make them easier to consult.The most fascinating section of the book by far, and the most likely to become a productive model for future research, is part 5, which analyzes specific topics within the encyclopedias. These essays trace scientific problems from Aristotle to the medieval Aristotelians, especially Averroes, and then examine how they are dealt with in the Hebrew... (shrink)

Wilfried Sieg. Formal Systems, Church Turing Thesis, and Gödel's Theorems: Three Contributions to The MIT Encyclopedias of Cognitive Science.

The article examines the first Hebrew Encyclopedia of Science, Yesodei ha-Tvunah u-Migdal ha-Emunah, by Medieval Jewish scholar Abraham Bar Hiyya from Saragossa (Iberian peninsula).

The Swiss natural historian Johann Amman came to Russia in 1733 to take a position as professor of botany and natural history at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. As part of the job, he corresponded, and exchanged plant specimens, with the English merchant collector Peter Collinson in London, and the Swedish scholar Carolus Linnaeus, among others. After briefly reviewing Amman's correspondence with these scholars and the growing commerce in exotic specimens of natural history, I explore how encyclopedias came (...) to facilitate the exchange of zoological specimens in particular. I argue that, during the seventeenth century, a new genre of zoological encyclopedias appeared on the scene whose design was particularly well-suited for the purposes of identification, a key practice in long-distance exchanges. (shrink)

Mortal and immortal DNA : Craig Venter and the lure of "lamia" -- Homeopathy : Holmes, hogwarts, and the Prince of Wales -- Citizen Pinel and the madman at Bellevue -- The experimental pathology of stress : Hans Selye to Paris Hilton -- Gore's fever and Dante's Inferno : Chikungunya reaches Ravenna -- Giving things their proper names : Carl Linnaeus and W.H. Auden -- Spinal irritation and fibromyalgia : Lincoln's surgeon general and the three graces -- Tithonus and the (...) fruit fly : new science and old myths -- Swiftboating "America the beautiful" : Katharine Lee Bates and a Boston marriage -- Nothing makes sense in medicine except in the light of biology -- Apply directly to the forehead : Holmes, Zola, and Hennapecia -- Elizabeth Blackwell breaks the bonds -- Chronic lyme disease and medically unexplained syndromes -- Eugenics and the immigrant : Rosalyn Yalow and Rita Levi-Montalcini -- Science in the Middle East : Robert Koch and the cholera war -- How to win a Nobel prize : thinking inside and outside the box -- Homer Smith and the lungfish : the last gasp of intelligent design -- DDT is back : let us spray! -- Academic boycotts and the Royal Society -- Teach evolution, learn science : John William Draper and the "bone bill" -- Diderot and the yeti crab : the encyclopedias of life -- Dengue fever in Rio : Macumba versus Voltaire. (shrink)

The first of the three major thirteenth-century Hebrew encyclopedias of science and philosophy, the Midrash ha-Hokhmah presents a survey of philosophy and mathematical sciences. Originally written in Arabic, the author, Judah ben Solomon ha-Cohen, who was inspired by Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, translated his own work into Hebrew in the 1240s in Italy when he was in the service of Frederick II. The part on natural philosophy edited and translated in this volume is the first Hebrew text (...) to draw extensively on Averroes' commentaries on Aristotle. Over several chapters, Resianne Fontaine explores Judah's ambivalent attitude towards Aristotelian philosophy. (shrink)

ArgumentThe interwar period in France is characterized by intense activity to disseminate science in society through various media: magazines, conferences, book series, encyclopedias, radio, exhibitions, and museums. In this context, the scientific community developed significant attempts to disseminate science in close alliance with the State. This paper presents three ambitious projects conducted in the 1930s which targeted different audiences and engaged the social sciences along with the natural sciences. The first project was a multimedia enterprise aimed at (...) bridging what would later be named “the two cultures” – natural sciences and humanities – rather than at popularizing scientific results in the society at large. The second project, an encyclopedia namedEncyclopédie françaiseedited by the French historian Lucien Febvre, was meant to shape a cultural view of science for the general public. The third project and the most successful enterprise was thePalais de la découvertedesigned by the physicist Jean Perrin and explicitly aimed at attracting the young public. This paper explores the paradoxes that resulted from these large enterprises. Despite their social ideals, the scientists-popularizers favored an elitist concept of popular science essentially aimed at integrating science into high culture. While they strove to overcome the increased specialization of sciences, their efforts nevertheless accelerated the professionalization of scientific research and the isolation of science in an ivory tower. In their attempts to get closer to the public, they eventually contributed to spreading the cliché of the increasing gap between the scientists and the public. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Before “applied science” and “technology” became keywords, the concept of art was central to discourse about material culture and its connections to natural knowledge. By the late nineteenth century, a new discourse of applied science had replaced the older discourse of art. This older discourse of art, especially as presented in Enlightenment encyclopedias, addressed the relationship between art and science in depth. But during the nineteenth century the concept of fine art gradually displaced the broader (...) meanings of “art,” thus undermining the utility of the term for discourse on the relationship between knowledge and practice. This narrowed meaning of “art” obscured key aspects of the industrial world. In effect, middle-class agents of industrialism, including “men of science,” used the rhetoric of “applied science” and, later, “technology” to cement the exclusion of artisanal knowledge from the discourse of industrial modernity. (shrink)

Theories are part and parcel of just about every human activity that involves knowing about the world and our place in it. In all areas of inquiry from the most mundane to the most esoteric and sophisticated, theorizing plays a fundamental role. What is true of our everyday existence is even more pervasive in more scholarly fields. How is thinking about the subject organized? What methods are used in moving a neophyte in a given subject matter into the position of (...) a competent student of that subject? What, in short, is the prime repository and vehicle for the knowledge that has been acquired in any discipline over the course of its development? The answer is the theories that are used, produced, and promulgated by the practitioners of those disciplines. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Theory is a landmark work serving as something of a capstone to 10 prior SAGE encyclopedias that examined theory in specific social science disciplines (psychology, sociology, education, political science, etc.). Within the pages of this more general work, readers will learn about the complex decisions that are made when framing theory, what goes into constructing a powerful theory, why some theories change or fail, how theories reflect socio-historical moments in time and how – at their best – they form the foundations for exploring and unlocking the mysteries of the world around us. Key features include: · Over 300 signed articles written by key figures across the social sciences spread across four comprehensive volumes · Further Readings and Cross References conclude each article aiding readers further in their research · A Reader’s Guide organizes entries by broad themes. · A Resource Guide takes readers to the next step in their research journeys by listing classic books in the field, key journals, associations, and websites. (shrink)

In the seventeenth century, new varieties of flowers were created in Istanbul’s many agricultural spaces. At the same time, new literary genres related to flower breeding appeared: technical “how-to” manuals, which derived from an earlier tradition of agricultural treatises; encyclopedias of the flower varieties created in Istanbul; and biographical dictionaries of Istanbul’s flower breeders. Such texts, which typically bear the designation Şükūfe-nāme (Books on Flowers), attempt to prescribe note-taking habits, agricultural timelines, and observational techniques. Varieties of flowers with various (...) shapes, sizes, and colors are attributed to the work of individual local breeders. This essay explores the role of seeds in this rich textual production in Istanbul. As things that are mobile yet can take root, seeds became objects of study during what was an era of heightened exchange and mobility in seventeenth-century Ottoman Istanbul. In contrast to the view holding that the history of flower seeds unfolded primarily in Ottoman exchanges with Western Europe, the case of Şükūfe-nāme works shows that seeds were technological objects with local histories. (shrink)

This paper takes James David Forbes’ Encyclopaedia Britannica entry, Dissertation Sixth, as a lens to examine physics as a cognitive, practical, and social enterprise. Forbes wrote this survey of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century mathematical and physical sciences between 1852 and 1856, when British “physics” was at a pivotal point in its history, situated between a field identified by its mathematical methods – originating in France – and a discipline identified by its university laboratory institutions. Contemporary encyclopedias provided a nexus for (...) publishers, the book trade, readers, and men of science in the formation of physics as a field. Forbes was both a witness, whose account of the progress of physics or natural philosophy can be explored at face value, and an agent, who exploited the opportunity offered by the Encyclopaedia Britannica in the mid nineteenth century to enroll the broadly educated public and scientific collective, illuminating the connection between the definition of physics and its forms of social practice. Forbes used the terms “physics” and “natural philosophy” interchangeably. He portrayed the field as progressed by the natural genius of great men who curated it within an associational culture that engendered true intellectual spirit. Although this societal mechanism was becoming ineffective, Forbes did not see university institutions as the way forward. Instead, running counter to his friend William Whewell, he advocated inclusion of the mechanical arts (engineering), and a strictly limited role for mathematics. He revealed tensions when the widely accepted discovery-based historiography conflicted with intellectual and moral worth, reflecting a nineteenth-century concern with spirit that cuts across twentieth-century questions about discipline and field. (shrink)

Starting from the assumption that the history of science is, in some significant sense, rational and thus that historical episodes may serve as evidence in choosing between competing normative methodologies of science, the question arises: "Just what is this history-methodology evidential relation?" After examining the proposals of Laudan, a more plausible account is proposed.

The many meanings of integrity are distinguished. This paper focuses specifically on how the concept of integrity in the sense of firm adherence to values applies to science qua institution. The most relevant values - the epistemological values of evidence-sharing and respect for evidence - are articulated, and shown to be rooted in the character of the scientific enterprise. This paves the way for an exploration of the circumstances that presently threaten to erode commitment to these core values: an (...) exploration illustrated by the disturbing saga of the arthritis drugs Vioxx and Celebrex. The paper concludes with an articulation of why the erosion of scientific integrity should concern us. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is to give a coherent account of the different perspectives on science and technology that are normally studied under various disciplinary heads such as philosophy of science, sociology of science and science policy. It is intended for students embarking on courses in these subjects and assumes no special knowledge of any science. It is written in a direct and simple style, and technical language is introduced very sparingly. As various perspectives (...) are sketched out in this book, the reader moves towards a consistent conception of contemporary science as a rapidly changing social institution that has already grown out of its traditional forms and plays a central role in society at large. It will appeal to students in a wide range of scientific disciplines and complement well Professor Ziman's earlier books. (shrink)

Much historical investigation has been conducted into the Victorians' fear of moral decline at the end of the nineteenth century. In part, concerns about the future of human morality and ethics were intimately connected with the rise of materialist science that appeared to be permeating every facet of human life and civilization. Uniquely, Alan Rauch's work moves this investigation back in time to examine the fear of moral decline in the early years of the Victorian era. Rauch posits that (...) in this period there was, on the one hand, a cultural recognition of the importance of the growth of “knowledge” production, often of the scientific kind. Such knowledge was considered to be useful in making technological advances that would improve human life. Yet, on the other hand, there was also concern that too much emphasis on the “getting and spending” of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, would lead to materialism, atheism, and, thus, a loss of moral and ethical standards.Arguing that novels in this period reflected and responded to the larger cultural movements of the time, Rauch takes up a discussion of five novels: Jane Loudon's The Mummy , Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , Charlotte Bronte's The Professor , Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke , and George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss . Each of these novels, he argues, attempts to balance the need of British society to recognize the usefulness of scientific knowledge with the desire to retain traditional morals and values: “The challenge for the novelist was to create societies that responded to these inevitable developments without succumbing to a cynical dismissal of moral responsibility” . Before beginning his discussion of the novels, each of which gets a chapter, Rauch includes a useful introduction to the process of the dissemination of knowledge in this period that attends to the rise of encyclopedias, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and popular works for children. In each instance he shows how knowledge was paired with moral responsibility in this wider literary milieu. Rauch then moves on to show how novelists were clearly as fascinated as other writers by scientific and technological advances. They were also as worried as other groups in society that such progress could cause humans to lose their sympathy and concern for others, their spirituality, their ability to cooperate with members of other classes, their ability to grow and change for the better as physical, moral, and religious beings, and their respect for the natural world. The novelists Rauch discusses seem to argue that a balance may be struck between scientific knowledge and morality, maintaining the advantages of both.While the last chapter, on The Mill on the Floss, takes the reader beyond Rauch's time frame of the early Victorian period, his aim here is to show how the depiction of the relationship between science and morality in the novel must necessarily change after Darwin. Rauch argues that, unlike the earlier novelists, Eliot “constructed a world where scientific knowledge is, prima facie, the appropriate measure of the material world, and moral knowledge must bend to accommodate it” . Still, despite her acceptance of the laws of nature, Eliot, according to Rauch, still looked for a way to maintain human free will and moral duty. The introduction of this post‐Darwinian writer, in contrast to the earlier writers, raises the question of whether there were other novelists attempting to reconcile science and morality in this way in the later period and, if so, how they went about it.Rauch's main argument is convincing and contributes to the work to date on the relationship between literature and science and, more generally, to the recognition of the importance of science as a powerful cultural force in nineteenth‐century society. The book would certainly have benefited, however, from a much stronger gender analysis. Of the five novels treated, four are by women. The Victorian association of women with the moral, spiritual, and religious world, together with the female authorship of the majority of novels under discussion, leaves the reader to ponder the relationship between Rauch's main thesis and the gender of his chosen novelists. This is particularly relevant as Rauch argues that only Kingsley's novel fails in its endeavor to “link science with tradition” and attributes that failure to his insistence on “invoking religion” rather than a moral tradition that is not necessarily connected with the Church . Are women novelists alone responsible for successful explorations of the relationship between morality and scientific knowledge? Do the men who explore this relationship always fail? Considering his choice of novelists, this is an issue Rauch ought to have explored. (shrink)

Kant’s philosophy of science takes on sharp contour in terms of his interaction with the practicing life scientists of his day, particularly Johann Blumenbach and the latter’s student, Christoph Girtanner, who in 1796 attempted to synthesize the ideas of Kant and Blumenbach. Indeed, Kant’s engagement with the life sciences played a far more substantial role in his transcendental philosophy than has been recognized hitherto. The theory of epigenesis, especially in light of Kant’s famous analogy in the first Critique, posed (...) crucial questions regarding the ‘looseness of fit’ between the constitutive and the regulative in Kant’s theory of empirical law. A detailed examination of Kant’s struggle with epigenesis between 1784 and 1790 demonstrates his grave reservations about its hylozoist implications, leading to his even stronger insistence on the discrimination of constitutive from regulative uses of reason. The continuing relevance of these issues for Kant’s philosophy of science is clear from the work of Buchdahl and its contemporary reception. (shrink)

Some popular views of Ernst Mach cast him as a philosopher-scientist averse to imaginative practices in science. The aim of this analysis is to address the question of whether or not imagination is compatible with Machian philosophy of science. I conclude that imagination is not only compatible, but essential to realizing the aim of science in Mach’s biologico-economical view. I raise the possible objection that my conclusion is undermined by Mach’s criticism of Isaac Newton’s famous “bucket experiment.” (...) I conclude that Mach’s issue lies not with thought experimentation, tout court, but with the improper use of thought experimentation as it relates to the aim of the biologico-economical development of science. (shrink)

In the last few years, justice has emerged as a matter of concern for the contemporary constitution of technoscience. Increasingly, both practicing scientists and engineers and scholars of science and technology cite justice as an organizing theme of their work. In this essay, I consider why “science and justice” might be arising now. I then ask after the opportunities, but also the dangers, of this formation. By way of example, I explore the openings and exclusions created by the (...) recent conjugation of science and justice in the field of personal genomics. Finally, I conclude with reflections on what other forms “science and justice” might take, and what might be gained or lost in fostering them. (shrink)

Models are a principle instrument of modern science. They are built, applied, tested, compared, revised and interpreted in an expansive scientific literature. Throughout this paper, I will argue that models are also a valuable tool for the philosopher of science. In particular, I will discuss how the methodology of Bayesian Networks can elucidate two central problems in the philosophy of science. The first thesis I will explore is the variety-of-evidence thesis, which argues that the more varied the (...) supporting evidence, the greater the degree of confirmation for a given hypothesis. However, when investigated using Bayesian methodology, this thesis turns out not to be sacrosanct. In fact, under certain conditions, a hypothesis receives more confirmation from evidence that is obtained from one rather than more instruments, and from evidence that confirms one rather than more testable consequences of the hypothesis. The second challenge that I will investigate is scientific theory change. This application highlights a different virtue of modeling methodology. In particular, I will argue that Bayesian modeling illustrates how two seemingly unrelated aspects of theory change, namely the (Kuhnian) stability of (normal) science and the ability of anomalies to over turn that stability and lead to theory change, are in fact united by a single underlying principle, in this case, coherence. In the end, I will argue that these two examples bring out some metatheoretical reflections regarding the following questions: What are the differences between modeling in science and modeling in philosophy? What is the scope of the modeling method in philosophy? And what does this imply for our understanding of Bayesianism? (shrink)

The Jesuit C.F. Milliet Dechales, author of one of the most famous early modern mathematical encyclopedias, Cursus seu mundus mathematicus, wrote a hundred-folio-page long treatise devoted to the “progress of mathematics,” which was published in the second, enlarged edition of his encyclopedia. His historical treatise covers the gamut of mixed mathematics—including astronomy, mechanics, optics, music, geography and navigation, ars tignaria, and architecture. The early modern historical narratives about the mathematical sciences, from Regiomontanus’s Oratio onwards, have been aptly characterized by (...) their literary form and goals rather than their historical content. Rhetoric, humanistic topoi, and philosophical filiation turned the histories of mathematics into powerful tools for different purposes. My account of Dechales’ tract on the “progress of mathematics” analyzes the ways in which it dovetails with Jesuit approaches to mathematics, provides legitimation to the mathematical sciences as well as to their authors, and contributes to define the role and boundaries of the discipline, in particular vis-à-vis natural philosophy. (shrink)

The author uses personal experiences to introduce the view that the critique of science, on entering the academy in the form of the sociology of scientific knowledge, has become increasingly remote from crucial social issues and social movements confronting it. By linking their analyses more with such issues and movements, science studies scholars can serve a more useful social purpose and also reinvigorate their theory.

Like science, engineering engages in analysis and synthesis. But whereas scientists tend to break matter down to its most basic building blocks, engineers ultimately aim to assemble myriad components into a complex system. Because the components are heterogeneous, engineers must integrate knowledge in many areas, and multidisciplinary teamwork is common practice. Like science, engineering covers both the general and the particular. But whereas scientists tend to design particular experiments for discovering general laws of nature, engineers tend to formulate (...) general principles for designing particular artifacts. Modern engineering has developed general theories about large types of artificial systems, notably information, control, and computation theories. These engineering theories are most effective for designing concrete artifacts, yet their abstract theorem-proof format is closer to pure mathematics than the format of physical theories, which are closer to applied mathematics. The apparent paradox accentuates the engineering emphasis on creating things rather than discovering phenomena already existent. (shrink)

Studies examining the ways in which the training of engineers and scientists shapes their research strategies and scientific identities.

Azarya Polikarov was born in Sofia on October 9, 1921. Through the many stages of politics, economy, and culture in Bulgaria, he maintained his rational humanity and scientific curiosity. He has been a splendid teacher and an accomplished critical philosopher exploring the conceptual and historical vicis situdes of physics in modern times and also the science policies that favor or threaten human life in these decades. Equally and easily at home both within the Eastern and Central European countries and (...) within the Western world. Polikarov is known as a collaborating genial colleague, a working scholar. not at all a visiting academic tourist. He understands the philosophy of science from within, in all its developments, from the classical beginnings through the great ages of Galilean, Newtonian. Maxwellian science. to the times of the stunning discoveries and imaginative theories of his beloved Einstein and Bohr of the twentieth century. Moreover, his understanding has come along with a deep knowledge of the scientific topics in themselves. Looking at our Appendix listing his principal publications, we see that Polikarov's public research career, after years of science teaching and popular science writing, began in the fifties in Bulgarian, Russian and German journals. (shrink)

In this work the problem of scientific ontology is applied to the general issue of scientific realism. In addition, particular ontological issues raised by particular theories or fields are explored.

The increased popularity of the label "cultural" within science studies, especially in relation to "cultural studies, " invites consideration of how it is and can be used in historical work. A lot more seems now to be invested in the notion of "cultural history. " This article examines some recent historiography of science as a means of considering what counts as cultural history in that domain and attempts to coordinate it with the sociologically informed studies of the past (...) ten orfifteen years. The label "sociocultural" seems a more useful term by which to capture recent developments. (shrink)

Ethical questions posed by emerging technologies call for greater understanding of their societal, economic, and environmental aspects by policymakers, citizens, and the engineers and applied scientists at the heart of their development and application. This article reports on the efforts of one research project that assessed the growth of critical thinking and awareness of these multiple aspects in undergraduate engineering and applied science students, with specific regard to nanotechnology. Students in two required courses, a first-year writing and engineering ethics (...) course and a second-year social science course, went through nanotechnology modules as a part of their regular coursework. In the first-year humanities course, we observed self-reported increases in risk awareness, significant educational impact of the module, and a greater awareness of nanotechnology’s applications and social context. In the second-year social science course, we noted changes in risk/benefit analysis as well as in the character and depth of students’ historical analysis, but no change in comparative awareness of other topics, including labor issues and corporate motivations. (shrink)

This paper differentiates between science’s intentional theoretical objects and purely idealized theoretical objects. One identifies the former by inquiring into thefunctions they fulfill in a dynamic system (say, the system of chemical reactions in a metabolic pathway), whereas the latter get introduced by means of mathematical idealizations. Regardless of the epistemological differences, the existence of both types of theoretical objects is projected upon possibilities that are to be appropriated in a research process. The paper addresses the potentiality-for-being of the (...) intentional theoretical objects. Though the functions which such an object fulfills are throughout experimentally recognizable, its being never becomes transformed into an actually accomplished presence. (shrink)

En 1956, l' Academie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences couronnait, a Bruxeiles, 1'etude de M. Yolton, intitulee The Phi­ losophy o/Science 0/ Arthur S. Eddington, etude dont le present ouvrage est la reprise. Pourquoi la personne, 1'oeuvre et les idees de l'illustre physicien anglais avaient-elles ete designees a l'atten­ tion des candidats a ce Prix? Quels enseignements l'Academie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences en attendait-eile? N'esperait-elle pas que le rapport de la recherche philosophique a la recherche scientifique pourrait en (...) etre eclaire? M. Yolton offre a l'un des membres de son jury l'occasion de s'en expliquer a cet endroit. Je m'en vais donc le faire pour ce qui me concerne personnellement, conformement aux vues que je defends moi-meme depuis assez longtemps. La vision du monde et de l'homme, du philosophe et celle du savant s'accordent-elles ou s'opposent-elles? Pour ma part, je ne mets pas en doute qu'il existe entre la science et la philosophie une relation qu'il importe de mettre en evidence, mais j'insiste en meme temps sur le fait que cette relation est ambivalente. A la fois, elles les unit, elle les separe. Elle les fait tour a tour se rapprocher et s'eloigner 1'une de l'autre. La science et la philoso­ phie sont necessaires l'une a 1'autre, mais cette necessite est par­ fois ceile de leur alliance et parfois celle de leur antagonisme. (shrink)

A number of authors have drawn attention to the contributions to geology of Robert Hooke, and it has been pointed out that in several ways his ideas were more advanced than those of Steno, who is sometimes taken to be the founder of geology as a scientific discipline. Moreover, it has been argued that in a number of instances Hooke should receive the credit for ideas which are usually believed to have originated in the work of James Hutton. This recognition (...) of the significance of Hooke's work is regarded by the present writer as being well founded. But, by contrast, the relationship between Hooke's geological ideas and his views on the proper methods for conducting scientific enquiries has been largely overlooked, and his views on the methodology of science, as revealed in his Posthumous works, have received little discussion. Moreover, on one of the few occasions on which they were discussed, by William Whewell, they were belittled. Whewell regarded Hooke's methodological contribution as merely ‘an attempt to adapt the Novum organon to the age which succeeded its publication’, 5 and he implied that the ‘same imperfections’ were to be found in the writings of both Hooke and Bacon. The influence of Bacon is, to be sure, most obvious in Hooke's general philosophy. Nevertheless, it will be argued that Hooke had a much clearer idea than did Bacon of the importance of so-called ‘hypothetico-deductive’ methods in science, and that in many ways his methodological views represent a significant advance on those of Bacon. (shrink)

Three periods in the development of Whitehead's thought are generally recognized : ()-: The period of the writing of Universal Algebra, ...

Considering the two most applied ethical ideologies in science, the Value Neutrality and the Precautionary Principle, the latter is the ethical criterion that best fits the way in which chemistry has been developed and is currently executed. This work begins with a historical description of each ideology and a comparison of their fundamental statutes. After an analysis of the main problems that humanity has experienced through the chemical sciences— massive accidents, environmental pollution and public health problems—an evaluation is made (...) of how chemistry has applied the Precautionary Principle to evaluate every scientific and technological development and thus reestablish new criteria for the remediation and prevention of harmful scenarios to humanity and the environment. The work concludes that chemistry has established a basis for ethical exercise applying the Precautionary Principle, and this is reflected in pragmatic and objective developments as Green Chemistry, remediation and substitution technologies, and in Sanitary and Environmental Regulation. (shrink)