bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Perils of Petty Production: Pierre and Jean-Baptiste Serve of Chamalières
Authors: Rosenband Leonard N.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

This essay examines the prospects and plans of a family of small-scale French papermakers, the Serves, from the 1780s to the 1830s. It explores the interplay of risk, the state, labor discipline, and technological diffusion. Pierre Serve petitioned the monarchy, the Revolutionary state, and the Napoleonic regime for a subsidy to install Hollander beaters, a machine that macerated rags, in his shops. His son pursued a law to humble the journeymen paperworkers, whose custom and skill continuously challenged the Serves' mastery of their mill. Timely responses from the state, which favored large producers, never came. Consequently, the Serves fell back on their own resources and the market, which determined their fate.
What Is a Tachistoscope? Historical Explorations of an Instrument
Authors: Benschop Ruth
Published: September 2008

The Argument

This essay addresses the historiographical question of how to study scientific instruments and the connections between them without rigidly determining the boundaries of the object under historical scrutiny beforehand. To do this, I will explore an episode in the early history of the tachistoscope — defined, among other things, as an instrument for the brief exposure of visual stimuli in experimental psychology. After looking at the tachistoscope described by physiologist Volkmann in 1859, I will turn to the gravity chronometer, constructed by Cattell at Wundt's Leipzig institute of psychology in the 1880s. Taking Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblances as a methodological suggestion to travel from one member to another to find out just how members relate to one another, I will investigate part of the family to which both the tachistoscope and the gravity chronometer turn out to belong. A detailed analysis of these instruments, using both historical sources and historical accounts of psychological instruments, may demonstrate that the instrument is not a standard package that, if well applied, will simply secure good results. Each package needs to be assembled again and again; the particular package that is assembled may differ on different occasions. Thus an alternative is developed to an understanding of instruments as univocally functioning material means.
A Mannheim for All Seasons: Bloor, Merton, and the Roots of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge
Authors: Kaiser David
Published: September 2008

The Argument

David Bloor often wrote that Karl Mannheim had “stopped short” in his sociology of knowledge, lacking the nerve to consider the natural sciences sociologically. While this assessment runs counter to Mannheim's own work, which responded in quite specific ways both to an encroaching “modernity” and a looming fascism, Bloor's depiction becomes clearer when considered in the light of his principal introduction to Mannheim's work — a series of essays by Robert Merton. Bloor's reading and appropriation of Mannheim emerged from his background in experimental psychology and his attempts to supercede Merton's own structural-functionalist program for the sociology of knowledge. By retracing this extended trail of readings and re-readings, we may begin to understand the roots of Bloor's curious interpretation of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, and inquire in a reflexive way about the present and future directions of science studies.
On the Duties of Intellectuals to Truth: The Life and Work of Chemist-Philosopher Michael Polanyi
Authors: Jha S. R.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) is placed in the ongoing Enlightenment-reform tradition as one of the first twentieth-century scientists to propose a program to correct the gravest internal conflict of the modern Enlightenment project of radical criticism: scientific detachment and moral nihilism in conflict with humanist values. He held that radical criticism leads not to truth but to destructive doubt. Only the inclusion of the “personal element,” the judicial attitude of reasonable doubt and the acknowledgment of belief in the regulative principle of truth can overcome this end. Freedom — to reason, to criticize the method of doubt, and freedom of scientific thinking — is a precondition to reach truth. His epistemology of nonsubjective personal knowledge has redefined scientific knowing and objectivity as grounded in tacit knowing. Debate is continuing on objectivity and freedom versus the social duty of science. Polanyi's Hungarian correspondence highlights his commitment to truth and the contemporary cultural-political situation of Jewish intellectuals.
“Controversy”
Authors: Freudenthal Gideon
Published: September 2008

Controversies are pervasive in the history of science. History is thus here also at odds with science's images. According to both traditional and contemporary views of science, there are no scientific controversies sui generis. In traditional images of science controversies are external to science proper; in some contemporary views nothing about controversies in science specifically distinguishes them from controversies in other domains. According to one traditional image, science progresses from common ground to conclusions according to secure procedures such that there is no place for disagreement nor, therefore, for controversy. According to another traditional image of science, there are no such secure procedures. On the contrary: one does and even should jump to conclusions. Whereas here subsequent criticism is called for, it seems that controversy is not. This image is built on the assumption that refutations are clear cut, so that producing a valid refutation does not require a lengthy exchange of arguments.
Facing the Bounds of Tradition: Kant's Controversy with the Philosophisches Magazin
Authors: Senderowicz Yaron
Published: September 2008

The Argument

The main subject examined in this paper is Immanuel Kant's controversy withPhilosophisches Magazinregarding Kant's new theory of judgments. J. A. Eberhard, editor ofPhilosophisches Magazin, and his colleagues wanted to vindicate the Wollfian traditional concept of judgments by undermining Kant's claims. As will be demonstrated, their arguments were effective mainly in exposing the ambiguity that was inherent in Kant's concept of the synthetic a priori; an ambiguity that resulted from Kant's desire—central to his critique of metaphysics—to present judgments pertaining to mathematics, (dogmatic) metaphysics, and pure natural science as judgments which shared a common form. Exposing this ambiguity was not the intended result, and it was insufficient for the purpose of vindicating the Wollfian tradition. The contributors toPhilosophisches Magazinignored the important properties shared by the class of judgments falling under Kant's concept of synthetic a priori judgments. They also ignored the fact that their position was unable to account for the logical phenomena that motivated Kant to present a new theory of judgments. On the other hand, Kant's theory of judgments was insensitive to the important differences that exist among the distinct types of judgments falling under his concept of a synthetic a priori judgment. This latter point is clearly shown in the controversy regarding the novelty of Kant's concept of a synthetic a priori judgment, and in the controversy regarding the function of intuitions within synthetic judgments.

A result of the controversy was that Kant's concept of the synthetic a priori, which he believed to be an exact concept, was revealed to be a metaphor: no more than an invitation to view certain intellectual fields in the light of others. On the other hand, Eberhard and his colleagues failed to come up with satisfactory answers to Kant's questions within their traditional concept of judgment. Both parties refused to acknowledge this result. Consequently, the search for a new logic, a new architectonic order, and a new unity within reason became a general problem for the new generation of philosophers.
Malthus and Ricardo: Two styles for Economic Theory
Authors: Cremaschi Sergio , Dascal Marcelo
Published: September 2008

The Argument

We examine the most famous controversy between economists — the one between Thomas Robert Malthus and David Ricardo — as a means of shedding fresh light on the current debate about economic methodology. By focusing on this controversy as the primary unit of analysis, we show how methodological considerations are but one of a whole set ofstratagemsemployed by each opponent. We argue that each opponent's preference for a particular kind of stratagem expresses his own specificscientific style(within the general scientific and cultural style of an age). We also describe adynamic dimensionof the controversy, independent of the participants' intentions. Such a dimension is analyzed in one of the “cycles” of the controversy, which begins with a well-defined issue and expands to additional topics, without reaching a “solution” of the initial issue. The Controversy, thus, does not yield asolutionof a given problem norpersuasionof the adversary — its presumable aims. Rather, its “benefit” seems to lie in an unintended result — the clarification and deepening of contrasting approaches to the discipline. Insofar as the history of a discipline requires a reconstruction of such contrasts, it is indispensable that it take into account the controversies where they emerge, and view both the positive doctrines and the methodological postures of the contenders as parts of a wider framework, within which the notion of a scientific style — which this paper attempts to clarify — looms large.
Eugenics and Individual Phenotypic Variation: To What Extent Is Biology a Predictive Science?
Authors: Balaban Evan
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Eugenics, in whatever form it may be articulated, is based on the idea that phenotypic characteristics of particular individuals can be predicted in advance. This paper argues that biology's capacity to predict many of the characteristics exhibited by an individual, especially behavioral or cognitive attributes, will always be very limited. This stems from intrinsic limitations to the methodology for relating genotypes to phenotypes, and from the nature of developmental processes which intervene between genotypes and phenotypes. While genetic studies may generate valid population predictions for conditions which impact human health, neither genetics nor developmental biology are likely to generate useful individual predictions about variation in non-disease-related human behavioral and cognitive phenotypes in the foreseeable future.
Genes for Human Personality Traits
Authors: Benjamin Jonathan
Published: September 2008

The Argument

This article considers three major problems with the concept of genes for human personality traits: (1) uncertainty about what human personality is; (2) what we mean when we say there is a gene “for” a mental attribute; and (3) the complexity of interactions between genes and environment, and among the genes themselves. It then draws on examples from empirical human genetic studies by the author and his colleagues in order to suggest that the concept of genes for human personality traits nevertheless does have some validity, and also that we may be on the brink of discovering genes with major effects on human personality. This possibility, in particular its ethical aspects, has aroused some public concern. It is suggested that confidential information about an individual's genes does not differ in principle from other confidential information about him or her, and that the ability (currently theoretical) to affect genes and their expression, temporarily or permanently, does not differ ethically from our current ability to affect other aspects of an individual's physical and psychological functioning. Genes for potential offspring, contained in ova and sperm cells, constitute a special case.
Eugenics and Genetic Testing
Authors: Holtzman Neil A.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Pressures to lower health-care costs remain an important stimulus to eugenic approaches. Prenatal diagnosis followed by abortion of affected fetuses has replaced sterilization as the major eugenic technique. Voluntary acceptance has replaced coercion, but subtle pressures undermine personal autonomy. The failure of the old eugenics to accurately predict who will have affected offspring virtually disappears when prenatal diagnosis is used to predict Mendelian disorders. However, when prenatal diagnosis is used to detect inherited susceptibilities to adult-onset, common, complex disorders, considerable uncertainty is inherent in the prediction. Intolerance and the resurgence of genetic determinism are current pressures for a eugenic approach. The increasing use of carrier screening (to identify those at risk of having affected offspring) and of prenatal diagnosis could itself generate intolerance for those who refuse the procedures. Genetic determinism deflects society from social action that would reduce the burden of disease far more than even the maximum use of eugenics.
Eugenic Considerations in the Theory and Practice of Genetic Counseling
Authors: Resta Robert G.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Is genetic counseling a form of eugenics? To some extent, the answer depends upon how the terms “eugenics” and “genetic counseling” are defined. This paper reviews the eugenic implications of four models of genetic counseling. The complexities of slapping the eugenic label on genetic counseling are illustrated with three cases drawn from clinical practice. However, even though genetic counseling is not always a eugenic activity, genetic counselors work in a medical/ financial setting that has the net eugenic effect of, and profits from, reducing the number of people with genetic disorders.
Negative and Positive Genetic Interventions: Is There a Moral Boundary?
Authors: Daniels Norman
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Some have claimed that negative genetic interventions are morally permissible while positive ones are not, but the distinction cannot be used to draw this moral boundary. Underlying the negative/positive distinction is a distinction between treatment and enhancement. The treatment/enhancement distinction at best provides an imperfect guide to which health care services we are obliged to provide and which we are not. It offers only some “warning flags” to help us think about what is permissible or not.
Eugenic Values
Authors: Wilker Daniel
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Eugenics is generally regarded as evil; but what was its sin? Racism, class bias, and violation of reproductive freedom, which tainted objectionable eugenic interventions, are not part of the core notion of eugenics. A number of candidates have been suggested as the wrong inherent in eugenics, ranging from statism to the impossibility of consensus on the ideal human being. It is most plausible to view eugenics as sharing moral dilemmas with much of public health, and the critical issues as those of distributive justice.
Can Genetic Counseling Avoid the Charge of Eugenics?
Authors: Chadwick Ruth
Published: September 2008

The Argument

The claim that x is a form of eugenics is frequently used as if it were a knockdown argument against x. Genetic counseling has tried to distance itself from eugenics by presenting itself as facilitating choice. Its success in this attempt has been challenged. The argument however is not a knockdown one and there is scope for some mediation between autonomy and public health goals in genetics.
Eugenics Is Alive and Well: A Survey of Genetic Professionals around the World
Authors: Wertz Dorothy C.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

A survey of 2901 genetics professionals in 36 nations suggests that eugenic thought underlies their perceptions of the goals of genetics and that directiveness in counseling after prenatal diagnosis leads to individual decisions based on pessimistically biaed information, especially in developing nations of Asia and Eastern Europe. The “non-directive counseling” found in English-speaking nations is an aberration from the rest of the world. Most geneticists, except in China, rejected government involvement in premarital testing or sterilization, but most also held a pessimistic view of persons with genetic disabilities. Individual, but not state-coerced, eugenics survives in much modern genetic practice.
Biblical Biology: American Protestant Social Reformers and the Early Eugenics Movement
Authors: Zenderland Leila
Published: September 2008

The Argument

In most historical accounts, eugenic doctrines and Christian beliefs are assumed to be adversaries. Such a perspective is too narrow, however, for while many prominent eugenicists were indeed religious skeptics, others sought to reconcile eugenics with Christianity. Various American Protestant social reformers tried to synthesize new biological theories with older biblical ideas about the meaning of a good inheritance. Such syntheses played an important role in disseminating eugenic doctrines into America's deeply Protestant heartland.
Eugenics in Japan: Some Ironies of Modernity, 1883–1945
Authors: Otsubo Sumiko , Bartholomew James R.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Japanese eugenic discourse and institution building contrast sharply with comparable movements elsewhere. As a social-intellectual phenomenon, Anglo- American eugenics considered the Japanese racially inferior to Western peoples; yet eugenic ideals and policies achieved a remarkable popularity in Japan. Most of mainstream Japanese genetics was derived from orthodox Mendelian roots in Germany and (to a lesser degree) the United States. But French-style Lamarckian notions of the inheritability of acquired characters held surprising popularity among enthusiasts of eugenics. Japanese eugenicists could condemn the actions of foreign eugenicists like Charles Davenport in the United States for their efforts to forbid Japanese immigration in the 1920s, yet appeal to these same eugenicists as a source of legitimacy in Japan.

These paradoxes can partly be explained against a background of relative isolation in a period of profound social change. Few Japanese eugenicists had close personal contact with foreign eugenicists, and most of their knowledge was acquired through reading rather than direct exposure. The eugenic ideal of ethnic purity was attractive to a society long accustomed to monoracial self-imagery. The need to defend national independence in an era of high imperialism seemed to require the most up-to-date policies and ideas. And Japan's own acquisition of an overseas empire seemed to demand a population management philosophy ostensibly based on scientific principles. These and other forces supported the implementation of eugenic policies and prescriptions among the Japanese people in the first half of the twentieth century.
From Lineage to Sexual Mores: Examining “Jewish Eugenics“
Authors: Zohar Noam J.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

To describe the attitude of the Jewish tradition toward eugenic ideology and policies, it is necessary to examine classical sources from a contemporary perspective. In the heyday of eugenics, Rabbi Max Reichler (1916) enthusiastically endorsed its ideology, supporting his position with numerous traditional texts. Similar views of traditional teachings on “chosen people” and on the importance of lineage have a certain contemporary following as well. The paper argues, however, that these views involve a one-sided reading of the Jewish tradition and, particularly, the suppression of traditional critiques of lineage and of the notion of a “Jewish race.”
Zionism and the Biology of the Jews
Authors: Falk Raphael
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Whereas eugenics aspired to redeem the human species by forcing it to face the realities of its biological nature, Zionism aspired to redeem the Jewish people by forcing it to face the realities of its biological existence. The Zionists claimed that Jews maintained their ancient distinct “racial” identity, and that their regrouping as a nation in their homeland would have profound eugenic consequences, primarily halting the degeneration they fell prey to because of the conditions imposed on them in the past. Some Zionists believed in a Lamarckian driven eugenics that expected the “normalization” of Jewish life styles to change their constitution. Others believed that transforming conditions would shift selective pressures exerted on the Jewish gene pool.
The Program of Proletarian Rassenhygiene
Authors: Mocek Reinhard
Published: September 2008

The Argument

In contrast to “socialist eugenics” as a set of ideas on how to deal with the biological problems of mankind, “proletarian race hygiene” placed its emphasis on the environmental components of human life. This mode of eugenics always assumed a change in living conditions, or social milieu, to be the key to human betterment. Its objective was a gradualist, thoroughgoing improvement of human working and living conditions in order to bring about a life of harmony, solidarity and equality. These ideas can be traced back to phrenomesmerism at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and developed through a stage closely entwined with the Marxist thought of Daniels, Engels, Bebel, etc. (which has scarcely been acknowledged by more modern Marxist literature). This tradition was picked up in the early twentieth century by the Austrian sociologist Goldscheid as well as by the developmental biologist Kammerer. These men extended these ideas and incorporated them into the framework of “proletarian race hygiene,” involving as key concepts what they called “human economy” and “organic technology.”
Publish or Perish: Legal Contingencies and the Publication of Kepler's Astronomia nova
Authors: Voelkel James R.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

The publication of Johannes Kepler's brilliant and revolutionary Astronomia nova (1609) has hitherto been viewed as somehow inevitable. This paper argues that, on the contrary, the book's very existence and a measure of its unusual form and content are in fact highly contingent, and derive from a legal dispute between Kepler and Tycho's heirs over the right to capitalize on his astronomical legacy. On Tycho's death, Kepler rather accidentally found himself in charge of Tycho's posthumous astronomical publications, especially the highly prestigious Rudol phine Tables. Tycho's legal heirs, not having been paid by the emperor for Tycho's astronomical assets and feigning Kepler's unworthiness as his successor, wrested this mandate back. Ordered in turn to justify his employment, Kepler contrived the Astronomia nova as an interim announcement of the fruits of his astronomical research. In an effort to block Kepler's continuing exploitation of Tycho's observations, the heirs obtained the legal right to censor his publications, which severely threatened his philosophical freedom. The threat of editorial interference was responsible in part for Astronomia nova's unusual narrative form.
Law and the Natural Sciences in Nineteenth-Century American Universities
Authors: Schweber Howard
Published: September 2008

The Argument

In the nineteenth century, American legal educators drew on the idea of “legal science” the claim that the study of law was similar to the study of the natural sciences. In this paper, I propose to examine the particular conceptions of “science” that were incorporated into that idea. The primary point of the paper is to argue that in antebellum America, a particular view of the natural sciences dominated public discourse, and it was this conception that was appropriated by contemporaneous legal scientists. Public discussions of natural science in lyceums, surveys, and journals, were carried out in a language grounded in the same religious commitments and the same normative conception of nature that drove the ideology of laissez-faire. Described under the rubric “Protestant Baconianism,” the approach was characterized by commitments to four elements: natural theology; a constrained version of Baconian inductivism; a belief in grand synthesis and proof by analogy; and claims of moral improvement. These elements were typical of the efforts of a particular influential circle of natural scientists and, similarly, of some of the more influential legal scientists in the antebellum period. This article examines the elements of the Protestant Baconian approach that were incorporated into Christopher Columbus Langdell's model of legal science in the 1870s, a model that continues to influence thinking about both legal education and jurisprudence to this day.
Separating Spheres: Legal Ideology v. Paternity Testing in Divorce Cases
Authors: Rudavsky Shari
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Blood tests developed at the turn of the century could in some cases discern genetic relations. While such tests could never prove that a given individual had fathered a child in question, men of certain blood types could be exonerated from paternity of children with other blood types. Starting in the 1930s, scientists and lawmakers attempted to introduce such evidence into paternity or bastardy trials to attest to a man's innocence. Evidence from blood tests soon came to be used in divorce cases.

Blood tests appeared to be ideal for providing relevant information in cases when divorcing men claimed as a part of their suit that they had not fathered their ex-wife's child or children. Nevertheless, the courts remained reluctant to intro duce such evidence in divorce cases. This paper will argue that reluctance derived not from a distrust of the science, but from the courts' clinging to a definition of paternity that was not rooted in genetic connection.

Many judges and juries fell back on the pre-industrial assumption that once a man married a woman he was automatically the father of any children she bore. While this assumption flew in the face of scientific evidence, it did have the advantage of ensuring that the children of married women could not be bastard ized. The changing manner in which courts handled the tension between genetic paternity and traditional paternity in divorce cases reveals how society's views on paternity have evolved over the course of this century.
What Counts for Identity? The Historical Origins of the Methodology of Latent Fingerprint Identification
Authors: Cole Simon
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Two parallel traditions have coexisted throughout the history of modern finger print identification. One, which gave more emphasis to the rhetoric of “science,” has always been somewhat troubled by the lack of an easily articulated scientific foundation for “dactyloscopy.” The other, more concerned with practicalities, was satisfied that the method of fingerprint identification appeared to “work” and that it won widespread legal acceptance. The latter group established conser vative rules of practice to guard against errors and preserve the credibility of latent fingerprint identification in the eyes of the law. The legacy of this history is coming home to roost today, as some latent fingerprint examiners (LFPEs) are beginning to argue that the traditional practice of latent fingerprint comparison lacks a scientific foundation appropriate to contemporary forensic science. This issue raises the question of what constitutes a “scientific” method for individual ized identification in a legal setting.
Between Beneficence and Chattel: The Human Biological in Law and Science
Authors: Landecker Hannah
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Cell lines and other human-derived biological materials have since 1980 become valuable forms of patentable matter. This paper revisits the much-critiqued legal caseMoore v. Regents of the University of Cahfornia, in which John Moore claimed property rights in a patented cell line made from his spleen. Most work to date has critiqued the text of the decision and left the relevant scientific and technical literature unexamined. By mapping out the construction of discontinuity and continuity between human body and cell line in this literature, this paper provides a novel critique of the Moore case regarding the source and mobilization of scientific information in the decision. At the same time, the elisions of the case are used to move to a larger set of questions. Comparative material from the history of the first widely used cell line, HeLa, and a discussion of the relation of the scientific and economic value of cell lines, are aimed at analysis of how new objects such as patented human cell lines come into existence through science and law, and what kinds of definitions and practices make them valued objects of contention in the first place.
Law and Science — Reflections
Authors: Ben-Menahem Hanina , Ben-Menahem Yemima
Published: September 2008

The Argument

This paper construes various positions in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of law as responses to the problem of underdetermination in science and in law. We begin by drawing a close analogy between the successive approaches to this problem in the two fields. In particular, we stress the analogy between conventionalism as a philosophy of science and legal realism as a philosophy of law, and between Putnam's and Dworkin's critiques of these positions. We then challenge the Putnam-Dworkin strategy, arguing that their attempts to combat underdetermination are unsuccessful. We are thus led to scepticism regarding the outlook underlying the celebrated maxim, “ruled by law, not by men”.
Experimenting on Theories
Authors: Dowling Deborah
Published: September 2008

The Argument

This paper sets out a framework for understanding how the scientific community constructs computer simulation as an epistemically and pragmatically useful methodology. The framework is based on comparisons between simulation and the loosely-defined categories of “theoretical work” and “experimental work.” Within that framework, the epistemological adequacy of simulation arises from its role as a mathematical manipulation of a complex, abstract theoretical model. To establish that adequacy demands a detailed “theoretical” grasp of the internal structure of the computer program. Simultaneously, the pragmatic usefulness of simulation arises from its role as a “virtual laboratory.” That role is made possible by black-boxing the internal structure of the program, such that the scientist can interact with the computer in an intuitive, “experimental” manner. Thus simulation is rendered authoritative, opening up encoded theories to a novel, “experimental” type of manipulation.
Multiplex and Unfolding: Computer Simulation in Particle Physics
Authors: Merz Martina
Published: September 2008

The Argument

What kind of objects are computer programs used for simulation purposes in scientific settings? The current investigation treats a special case. It focuses on “event generators,” the program packages that particle physicists construct and use to simulate mechanisms of particle production. The paper is an attempt to bring the multiplex and unfolding character of such knowledge objects to the fore: Multiple meanings and functions are embodied in the object and can be drawn out selectively according to the requirements of a work setting. The object's conceptual complexity governs its application in some contexts, while the object is considered a mere “black box,” transparent and ready-to-hand, in others. These two poles span a full spectrum of object aspects, functions, and conceptions. Event generators are ideas turned into software, testing grounds for models, just a tool to study the performance of a detector, etc. The object's multiplex nature is submitted to negotiation among different actors.
Beyond Metaphor: Mathematical Models in Economics as Empirical Research
Authors: Breslau Daniel , Yonay Yuval
Published: September 2008

The Argument

When economists report on research using mathematical models, they use a literary form similar to the experimental report in the laboratory sciences. This form consists of a narrative of a series of events, with a clear temporal segregation of the agency of the author and the agency of the objects of study. Existing explanations of this literary form treat it as a rhetorical device that either conceals the agency of the author in constructing and interpreting the findings, or simply appropriates the appearance of accepted (natural-)scientific method. This article — based on analysis of a research program in economics, a single article that issued from that program, and in-depth interviews with the authors — proposes an alternate interpretation. Drawing on the praxeological “laboratory studies” tradition in science studies, we treat work with mathematical models as involving the interaction of economists with objects (models) that act independently of the analyst's will. The clear separation of the economist's and the models agency, as depicted in the published report, is not the result of a rhetorical rewriting of actual events, but is a practical accomplishment. Every step in the analytical work that preceded the paper is devoted to developing a procedure in which the economists' agency will be completely accountable in terms of accepted practices, and the performance of the model will be distinct and compelling.
Economic Models and Policy Advice: Theory Choice or Moral Choice?
Authors: Evans Robert
Published: September 2008

The Argument

This paper examines the interaction between economic models and policy advice through a case study of the U.K. government's Panel of Independent Forecasters. The Panel, which met for the first time in February 1993, was part of the government's response to the policy vacuum created by its departure from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. The paper focuses on the policy recommendations made by the Panel and their foundation in economic models. It is argued that, because of their ambiguity, economic models do not provide an “objective” basis for policy making. Rather, they provide a level epistemological basis for debating the various social, political, and moral theories that can be used to frame economic policy. The paper concludes that although economic models often serve to depoliticize economic issues, they also have the potential to do exactly the opposite — namely, repoliticize them by connecting economics to wider social and moral debates.
The Interests of the Republic of Letters in the Middle East, 1550–1700
Authors: Brentjes Sonja
Published: September 2008

The Argument

The “raison d'être” of this paper is my dissatisfaction with current portrayals of the place and the fate of the so-called rational sciences in Muslim societies. I approach this issue from the perspectives of West European visitors to the Ottoman and Safavid Empires during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I show that these travelers encountered educated people capable of understanding and answering their visitors' scholarly questions in non-trivial ways. The travels and the ensuing encounters suggest that early modern Muslim societies and their institutions, their ways of producing knowledge, the types of their knowledge, and their material resources contributed important elements to various early modern West European approaches to gaining knowledge about nature, history, and politics.
Renaissance Representations of Islamic Science: Bernardino Baldi and HisLives of Mathematicians
Authors: Moyer Ann
Published: September 2008

The Argument

During the later European Renaissance, some scholars began to write about the history of scientific disciplines. Some of the issues and problems they faced in constructing their narratives have had long-term effects on the history of science. One of these issues was how to relate scholars from the Islamic traditions of scientific scholarship to those of antiquity and of postclassical Europe. Recent historians of science have rejected a once-common Western opinion that the contribution of these Islamic scientists had lain mainly in their preservation of ancient texts that were then handed over to Western scholars, who mastered them and then moved beyond them as part of the scientific revolution. This article examines the first effort to write a history of mathematics, theLives of the Mathematiciansby Bernardino Baldi (1553–1617), to determine how he treated this issue in his work. Baldi's efforts are especially important here because he was also an early European scholar of Arabic.

An examination of the work shows that Baldi did not share the negative views held by later Europeans about these non-European scientists. However, despite his knowledge of Arabic he had no active contacts with ongoing mathematical scholarship in Arabic. As a consequence, his narrative does follow the chronology of those later Europeans who would limit consideration of these mathematicians to approximately the ninth to the fourteenth centuries. In Baldi's writings, then, we can see the later narrative shape used by Western historians of science until recent years, but not the subsidiary role accorded to non-European scholars.
From Symbolic Forms to Lexical Semantics: Where Modern Linguistics and Cassirer's Philosophy Start to Converge
Authors: Dor Daniel
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Ernst Cassirer's theory of language as a symbolic form, one of the richest and most insightful philosophies of language of the twentieth century, went virtually unnoticed in the mainstreams of modern linguistics. This was so for what seems to be a good metatheoretical reason: Cassirer insisted on the constitutive role of meaning in the explanation of linguistic phenomena, a position which was explicitly rejected by both American Structuralists and Chomskian Generativists. In the last decade, however, a new and promising linguistic framework has emerged — the framework of lexical semantics — which seems to bear close theoretical resemblance to Cassirer's theory. In this paper, I show how the empirical results accumulated within the framework of lexical semantics serve to validate Cassirer's most fundamental philosophical insights, and suggest that Cassirer's philosophy helps position these empirical results in their appropriate epistemological context. I discuss the following fundamental points, which, for me, constitute the backbone of both Cassirer's philosophy and the theory of lexical semantics: (i) natural language grammars constitute structural reflections of a deeply-rooted, highly structured level of semantic organization; (ii) the representational level of linguistic meaning, which is prior to experience in the Kantian sense, comprises a partial set of semantic notions, which language selects as centers of perceptual attention; (iii) this partial set is potentially different from the sets selected by other symbolic forms, such as myth, science, and art; and (iv) linguistic variability is to be explained in universalistic terms, thus allowing for specific patterns of variability within universally-constrained limits.
Ernst Cassirer and the Structural Conception of Objects in Modern Science: The Importance of the “Erlanger Programm”
Authors: Ihmig Karol-Nobert
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Cassirer's analyses of twentieth-century physics from the perspective of the philosophy of science focuses on the concept of the object of scientific experience. Within his concept of functional knowledge, he takes a structural stance and claims that it is specifically this concept of the object that has paved the way for modern science. This article aims, first, to show that Cassirer's interpretation of Felix Klein's “Erlanger Programm” provided the impetus for this view. Then, it analyzes Kant's conception of objectivity in order to examine whether Cassirer can rightfully claim that his view is a further development of transcendental principles. Finally, it is argued that it is Cassirer's concept of the object that enables him to integrate one decisive feature of scientific progress, namely, the increasinggeneralizationof the basic concepts of a science, into his conception of knowledge. This is illustrated in more detail through the example of the progression from Newton's mechanics to relativity theory.
Cassirer's “Prototype and Model” of Symbolism: Its Sources and Significance
Authors: Krois John Michael
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Ernst Cassirer's fundamental conception of symbolism (symbolic pregnance) derives from what may be called a bio-medical model of semiotics, not a linguistic one. He employs both models in his philosophy of symbolic forms, but his notion of the “prototype and model of symbolism” was not derived from linguistics. The sources for his conception of symbolism include the ethnographic and anthropological literature he discovered in Aby Warburg's (1866–1929) Hamburg research library, findings of medical research on aphasia and related conditions, particularly the work of Kurt Goldstein (1878–1965) and the theoretical biology of Jacob von Uexküll (1864–1944). The linguistic model of semiotics regards the bond between the signifier and the signified as purely arbitrary and conventional, but Cassirer traced meaning back to a “natural symbolism” of image-like configurations in bodily feeling and perception. In this way, his doctrine of symbolism assumed a form that undercut the distinction between philosophical Naturalism and Idealism. This helps to explain why in later years Cassirer developed his theory of Basic Phenomena. Cassirer's notion of the “prototype and model of symbolism” illustrates his method of thought, which eschews pure argument in favor of interaction with empirical research.
Einstein, Cassirer, and General Covariance — Then and Now
Authors: Ryckman T. A.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Recent archival research has brought about a new understanding of the import of Einstein's puzzling remarks (1916) attributing a physical meaning to general covariance. Debates over the scope and meaning of general covariance still persist, even within physics. But already in 1921 Cassirer identified the significance of general covariance as a novel stage in the development of the criterion of objectivity within physics; an account of this development, and its implications, is the primary task undertaken in his monograph of “epistemological considerations” on the theory of relativity. Cassirer's assessment is correct: general covariance, understood as an injunction against dynamical theories with background elements, is a “limiting heuristic principle” guiding Einstein's fundamental conception of a “complete field theory”; as such, it underlies a “separation principle” built into the conceptual framework of the EPR criticism of quantum mechanics. In conclusion, a further parallel is noted: mutual recognition that the principle of general covariance is but a form of “anthropomorphism.”
Aby Warburg's Late Comments on Symbol and Ritual
Authors: Schoell-Glass Charlotte
Published: September 2008

The Argument

The last two plates (78 and 79) of Aby Warburg's unpublished picture-atlasMnemosyne, which is thought today to be among Warburg's most innovative contributions to the study of art history, are here analyzed in detail. These plates were assembled in the summer before his death in 1929; they reflect experiences of the time he spent in Rome during 1928 and 1929 and are here understood as Warburg's attempt to visualize his theory of the symbol.

TheBilderatlaswas to have a two-fold function: Warburg planned it to be a summary of his life's work; he also wanted its plates to reflect his theory of pictures and images. I argue here that particularly plate 79 is indeed an attempt tovisualizethe theoretical foundation of Warburg's view of the representational function of pictures. It refers to the origin of the power of images in sacrificial rituals and to the limits of this power. Warburg singles out the Eucharist and the doctrine of transsubstantiation (as pictured in Raffael'sMass of Bolsena, 1511) to illustrate the role of the symbol in rituals.

With this emphasis on ritual as a necessary complement for the functioning of the symbol, Warburg reaffirms his theory of the image to include the social act. This inclusion can be shown to be motivated by contemporary political concerns.
Galileo Engineer: Art and Modern Science
Authors: Lefèvre Wolfgang
Published: September 2008

The Argument

In spite of Koyré's conclusions, there are sufficient reasons to claim that Galileo, and with him the beginnings of classical mechanics in early modern times, was closely related to practical mechanics. It is, however, not completely clear how, and to what extent, practitioners and engineers could have had a part in shaping the modern sciences. By comparing the beginnings of modern dynamics with the beginnings of statics in Antiquity, and in particular with Archimedes — whose rediscovery in the sixteenth century was of great consequence — I will focus on the question of which devices played a comparable role in dynamics to that of the lever and balance in statics. I will also examine where these devices came from. In this way, I will show that the entire world of mechanics of that time — “high” and “low,” practical and theoretical — was of significance for shaping classical mechanics and that a specific relationship between art and science was and is constitutive for modern sciences.
Hunting the White Elephant: When and How did Galileo Discover the Law of Fall?
Authors: Renn Jürgen , Damerow Peter , Rieger Simone , Giulini Domenico
Published: September 2008

The Argument

We present a number of findings concerning Galileo's major discoveries which question both the methods and the results of dating his achievements by common historiographic criteria. The dating of Galileo's discoveries is, however, not our primary concern. This paper is intended to contribute to a critical reexamination of the notion of discovery from the point of view of historical epistemology. We claim that the puzzling course of Galileo's discoveries is not an exceptional comedy of errors but rather illustrates the normal way in which scientific progress is achieved. We argue that scientific knowledge generally develops not as a sequence of independent discoveries accumulating to a new body of knowledge but rather as a network of interdependent activities which only as a whole makes the individual steps understandable as meaningful “discoveries.”
Gazing Hands and Blind Spots: Galileo as Draftsman
Authors: Bredekamp Horst
Published: September 2008

The Argument

The article deals with the interrelation between Galileo and the visual arts. It presents a couple of drawings from the hand of Galileo and confronts them with Viviani's report that Galileo had not only wanted to become an artist in his youth but stayed close to the field of visual arts throughout his lifetime. In the ambiance of these drawings the famous moon watercolors are not in the dark. They represent a very acute and reasonable tool to convince the people who trusted images more than words. The article ends with Panofsky's argument that it was Galileo's anti-Mannerist notion of art that evoked a repulsion of Kepler's ellipses. It tries to show that it was again an aesthetical prejudice that hindered Einstein from accepting Panofsky's theory.