Archives: 2003–2004

Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science
44th Annual Program

 

The Structure of Evolutionary Theory: A Tribute to Stephen Jay Gould

September 17th, 2003
2 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
The Castle
225 Bay State Road

Moderator: Alfred I. Tauber Boston University

Memories of Stephen J. Gould

Ernst Mayr Harvard University

Hierarchical Selection Theory

Elisabeth Lloyd Indiana University

What Should Evolutionary Theory Be Trying to Explain?

Richard Lewontin Harvard University

Propinquity of Descent of Genome Acquisition

Lynn Margulis University of Massachusetts

Fifty Years of the Molecular Revolution: Ethics and Policy

September 29, 2003
9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Terrace Lounge, George Sherman Union (GSU)
Boston University
775 Commonwealth Avenue

Moderator: Alfred I. Tauber Department of Philosophy

Morning Session, 9 a.m. – Noon

  • James Watson, Shirley Temple Black, and Claude Vorilhon: The Ghost of DNA Ethics Past and Prospects for the Future

    George Annas Health Law Department

  • Bentham and Biotechnology

    Michael Baram School of Law

  • Genetics and the Future of the Human Species

    Charles Cantor Department of Biomedical Engineering

Afternoon Session, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.

  • Tampering with Our Food

    Hans Kornberg The University Professors and Biology Department

  • DNA and Research Involving Human Subjects: New Heresies in Natural Philosophy

    Joseph Loscalzo Department of Medicine

  • Can the Past Continue to Inform the Future?

    Charles DeLisi College of Engineering

Thomas Reid and the Sciences

Co-sponsored by the Reid Society and the Boston University Humanities Foundation
October 10, 2003
The Castle
225 Bay State Road

Moderator: Knud Haakonssen Boston University

Morning Session, 9 a.m. – Noon

  • Causality, Common Sense, and Science in Reid and His Successors

    John P. Wright Central Michigan University

  • Reid and Smith on Visual Localization

    Lorne Falkenstein University of Western Ontario

  • Priestley on Reid, or How Not to Be a Unitarian of the Mind

    Aaron Garrett Boston University

Afternoon Session, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.

  • Reid on the Character of a Science of the Mind

    James Harris St. Catherine’s College, Oxford

  • The Rise of Modern Science and the Problem of Common Sense Experience

    Benjamin Redekop Kettering University

  • Thomas Reid and the Tree of the Sciences

    Paul Wood University of Victoria

Follow-up Seminar

October 11, 2003: 11 a.m.

School of Theology, Room 525
Boston University
745 Commonwealth Avenue

  • M. A. Stewart University of Aberdeen

  • Rebecca Copenhaver Lewis and Clark College

Putnam on the Fact/Value Distinction

October 22, 2003
9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
The Castle
225 Bay State Road

Moderator: Stanley Rosen Boston University

Morning Session, 9 a.m. – Noon

  • The Language of Freedom

    Yemima Ben-Menahem Hebrew University of Jerusalem

  • “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’” in Historical Context

    Juliet Floyd Boston University

  • Prudence and Particularity

    Charles Travis Northwestern University

Afternoon Session, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.

  • The Call for a Moral Epistemology

    Alfred I. Tauber Boston University

  • Outwards from the Entanglement Thesis: Generality, Universality, and Disagreement in Ethics

    David Wiggins Oxford University

  • Concluding Comments

    Hilary Putnam Harvard University

Chirality in Kant and Contemporary Ethics

November 3, 2003
2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
The Castle
225 Bay State Road

Moderator: Alisa Bokulich Boston University

Chirality and Transcendental Idealism

Anja Jauernig University of Notre Dame

Geometric Space, Lived Space in Kant

Alfredo Ferrarin Boston University

The Regularity Account of Space

Nick Huggett University of Illinois at Chicago

No Knowledge without Self Knowledge? Philosophy and Truth in McCarthyite America

Co-sponsored by the Dibner Fund via the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology
November 10, 2003
4 p.m.
The Castle
225 Bay State Road

Moderator: Daniel Dahlstrom Boston University

John McCumber University of California at Los Angeles

Reflexivity Redux

November 17, 2003
2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
The Castle
225 Bay State Road

Moderator: Allen Speight Boston University

Does Reflexivity Separate the Human Sciences from the Natural Sciences?

Roger Smith Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Moscow

Reflexivity, Reflection, Language and Thought: Self-Organization and Organization of Self

Klaus Brinkman Boston University

Reflexivity and the Psychologist

Jill Morawski Wesleyan University

The Young Einstein: Poetry and Truth

Co-sponsored by the Center for Einstein Studies
December 1, 2003
7 p.m.
The Castle
225 Bay State Road

Moderator: Robert S. Cohen Boston University

John Stachel Boston University

Physics in Conflict: The Case of Leibniz Cookies or Fig Newtons

Co-sponsored by the Dibner Fund via the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology
January 26, 2004
2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
The Castle
225 Bay State Road

Moderator: George Smith Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology and Tufts University

Newton on Time and the “Philosophy of Clockwork”

Judson Webb Boston University

Leibniz to the Limit

Samuel Levey Dartmouth College

Dis-connecting Newton? The Unitary Author and the Science-Religion Relationship in Newton’s Work

Robert Iliffe Imperial College

The Fate of Inflationary Cosmology

February 9, 2004
1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
The Castle
225 Bay State Road

Moderator: Peter Bokulich Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology

Taking the Measure of the Universe: Probabilities in Cosmology

Christopher Smeenk University of California at Los Angeles

Whose Mass Is It Anyway? Forging the Interface Between Particle Physics and Gravitation

David Kaiser Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Eternal Inflation

Alexander Vilenkin Tufts University

Inflationary Cosmology and the Accelerating Universe

Alan Guth Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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

Ethics of Psychopharmacology

February 23, 2004
2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
The Castle
225 Bay State Road

Moderator: Gary Belkin Harvard University

Authenticity and the Contours of the Self

Susan Lanzoni Boston University

Against Depression

Peter D. Kramer Brown University

The Vitality of Neurosis

Paul Roazen York University

A Comparative Perspective on Medieval Scientific Translation Movements: The Invention of “Hebrew Science”

Co-sponsored by the Dibner Fund through the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology
March 1, 2004
7 p.m.
The Castle
225 Bay State Road

Moderator: Simon Keller Boston University

Thomas Glick Boston University

Genes and Human History

Co-sponsored by the Dibner Fund through the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology
March 15, 2004
4 p.m.
The Castle
225 Bay State Road

Moderator: Peter Schwartz Boston University

David Reich Harvard University

Spinoza’s Naturalism

April 2, 2004
1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
The Castle
225 Bay State Road

Moderator: Henry Allison Boston University

Spinoza the Natural Historian

Aaron Garrett Boston University

Spinoza’s Incremental Naturalism about the Mind and Imagination

Don Garrett University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and New York University

Naturalism and the Two-Fold Use of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in Spinoza

Michael Della Rocca Yale University

The Two Faces of Spinoza’s Naturalism

Amélie Oksenberg Rorty Yale University

Whither Public Health?

April 12, 2004
3 p.m. – 5 p.m.
The Castle
225 Bay State Road

Moderator: Gary Belkin Harvard University

Trials and Tribulations: Science and History in the Courtroom— The Case of Lead Poisoning and Public Health

David Rosner Columbia University

W(h)ither Public Health

David Ozonoff Boston University

Whitehead and Constructivism

April 21, 2004
7 p.m.
School of Theology, Room 115
Boston University
745 Commonwealth Avenue

Moderator: Bruno Latour Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines

Isabelle Stengers Université Libre de Bruxelles

Commentator: Robert C. Neville Boston University