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Department of History and Philosophy of Science

 

Research Seminars

Graduate Seminars

Reading Groups

Language Groups

Departmental Seminars

Seminars are held on Thursdays from 3.30 to 5pm in Seminar Room 2. There is tea and coffee before the seminar at 3pm in Seminar Room 1, and there are refreshments afterwards at 5pm in Seminar Room 1.

Organised by Riana Betzler and Agnes Bolinska.

16 January Ali Boyle (Trinity Hall, Cambridge)
Nonhuman episodic memory, scepticism and psychological kinds
For around 20 years, a significant research programme in comparative cognition has been investigating whether nonhuman animals have episodic memory – the form of declarative memory involved in remembering past events. This research programme has yielded many apparently confirmatory results, across a wide range of species. Yet there is little consensus on whether animals have episodic memory. Why is this? There are a number of grounds for scepticism, but here I focus on just one family of sceptical views, which I call 'kind scepticism'. Kind sceptics argue that the evidence doesn't support the hypothesis that animals have episodic memory, since it fails to rule out that they have a form of memory that, though similar to episodic memory, differs in kind. This raises a difficult question about how to delineate episodic memory as a psychological kind. I suggest that kind sceptics and advocates of nonhuman episodic memory are committed to different answers to this question, and that their disagreement can't be settled by appeal to the objective structure of the world, but only by appeal to pragmatic considerations. This dispute is in a sense terminological, but significant – since it brings into focus important questions about what the episodic memory research programme aims to, and can, achieve.
23 January Milena Ivanova (HPS, Cambridge)
How atoms became real
This paper revisits the debate on the reality of atoms. At the turn of the 20th century, many physicists treated the atomic hypothesis with scepticism, claiming that atoms were fictional entities. While many, such as Ostwald and Poincare, changed their minds after the publication of Thompson's and Perrin's experiments, some, such as Mach and Duhem, continued to oppose the reality of atoms despite the experimental support. I argue that at the heart of this debate are methodological arguments that influenced physicists' stances both before and after experimental evidence in favour of the reality of atoms. Ostwald and Poincare were able to accept the reality of atoms since the atomic hypothesis became scientific on their terms in light of being experimentally testable, with the multiple ways of calculating the number of atoms in a volume being particularly convincing. Conversely, Duhem and Mach continued to reject the reality of atoms since they held that science should offer explanations that do not go beyond the observable. I evaluate the arguments on both sides and reflect on how philosophical stances impacted on what scientists were willing to accept as genuine scientific evidence.
30 January Sabine Clarke (University of York)
Pick your poison: insecticides and locust control in colonial Kenya
Literature on the use of insecticides in the tropics after 1945 is preoccupied with the WHO's Malaria Eradication Programme. This scholarship describes a form of technological hubris in which scientists rushed to deploy the quick fix of DDT on the widest possible scale, fuelled by belief in the power of Western science and buoyed by Allied victory. This paper focuses on trials to control locusts in Kenya after 1945 using synthetic insecticides to tell a different story. It shows that approaches to the use of new synthetic insecticides in Britain's African colonies were often informed by debate about the relative costs of different locust control measures. This reflected the weaker economic position of Britain in comparison to the USA, backers of the WHO programme, but more importantly, regimes of locust control that used substances such as gammexane were evaluated in Kenya against pre-existing methods. In other words, the notion that DDT and related chemicals were wonder weapons of such power that they marked a radical departure from past measures, and quickly rendered all previous insect control methods obsolete, is not borne out by this study. The use of the new insecticides was dependent upon calculations of advantage versus cost in comparison to well-established existing methods. In addition, previous experience with arsenic bait and pyrethrum shaped the testing and deployment of gammexane in significant ways, including evaluation of its toxicity. The perception of the new chemicals as part of a continuum of poisons also informed the attitudes of Kenyan herdsmen. Their suspicion of gammexane was not merely the result of a distrust of Western science and the colonial government, but arose directly from the experience of seeing their cattle poisoned by arsenic bait during the interwar years.
6 February Miriam Solomon (Temple University)
On pluralism in psychiatry
I have argued that pluralism about methods and/or theories is good for science, because it can increase empirical success, but bad for scientific authority, because it hinders consensus. Psychiatry has been dominated by a single conceptual framework for the last forty years (the DSM framework) and enjoyed considerable professional authority. Because of the 'crisis of validity', this dominance has recently given way to a pluralist situation in which several different approaches to disease nosology are being developed. In addition to the DSM framework, there is the RDoC program, the network approach, the mechanistic property cluster approach, and others. My paper will explore the challenges and difficulties of working with pluralism in psychiatry, making constructive suggestions for future research.
13 February
at 4pm
Fifteenth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
Sarah Richardson (Harvard University)
The maternal imprint: gender, heredity and the biosocial body
The rise of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease and the fetal programming hypothesis is part of a forceful reassertion, over the past decade, of wide-ranging theories of the maternal-fetal interface as a critical determinant of lifelong health and intergenerational patterns in disease distribution. Presenting a history of maternal effects science from the advent of the genetic age to today, this talk analyses three intertwined dimensions of scientific speculations about the long reach of the maternal intrauterine imprint: interest in the power of maternal effects science to disrupt genetic determinist ideas about human fate; conceptual and empirical debate over how to study such effects given their crypticity; and claims about the implications of maternal intrauterine effects for women's well-being and autonomy. In each historical period, scientists' views about what can be empirically studied, and indeed known, about human maternal effects are entangled with cultural beliefs about women's and men's reproductive responsibilities and shaped by scientists' politically and historically situated convictions about the relative importance of genes or social environment to life outcomes.
20 February Cancelled
27 February Andreas Daum (University at Buffalo)
'I am rhapsodic man': Alexander von Humboldt in search of himself
In recent years, Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) has resurfaced as a heroic, public figure. Popular accounts and new text editions suggest that the Prussian-born scholar is one of us in the 21st century: ecological in his thinking, democratic in his beliefs, and far ahead of his own epoch. In contrast, Andreas Daum calls for carefully historicizing Humboldt. Based on an ongoing biographical project, his talk will concentrate on the 1790s, when the young Humboldt pursued widespread research interests and simultaneously tried to reconcile his divergent passions. Rather than navigating on a straightforward course toward his American journey and a future era, Humboldt became entangled in the uncertainties of the revolutionary times that surrounded him. He embarked on a rhapsodic search of himself as a mensch, researcher and friend to his male companions.
5 March Cancelled

Twentieth Century Think Tank

The Twentieth Century Think Tank offers broad coverage of 20th- and 21st-century topics in the history, philosophy and sociology of science, technology and medicine. The regular programme of papers and discussions takes place on Thursdays over lunch.

Think Tank meetings are held fortnightly on Thursdays, 1–2pm in Seminar Room 2. All welcome!

Organised by Mary Brazelton and Richard Staley.

23 January Allegra Fryxell (Pembroke College, Cambridge)
The tempo of modernity: rethinking the history of modern time
Transformations in time and space are fundamental components of definitions of modernity, yet time has only recently gained attention as a crucial category of the modern in historical research. While historians have typically explored changing notions and experiences of time through new technologies or conventions for measuring time, this paper seeks to expand the conceptual definition of time in modernity by arguing for an interdisciplinary approach that brings the history of science into conversations with the history of art and literary studies. Focusing on the period from the late 19th century to World War Two, ideas of time manifest in period philosophy, psychology, theatre and science fiction are used to capture a general sense of temporality (and its relationship to historicity) in early-20th-century modernity. The paper presents a new form of temporality, palimpsestic time, as a common feature of Euro-American modernity that must be taken into account alongside popular theories of 'social acceleration'.
6 February Zhu Jing (University of Warwick)
Non-Han bodies: anthropology, visuality and biopower in China's southwest borderland during the second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945)
This paper examines the biopolitics of non-Han bodies by probing how ethnicities were classified and conceptualized in Republican China. Extensive anthropometric research was carried out on non-Han populations in the southwest during the second Sino-Japanese War, during which several anthropologists turned to researching non-Han groups under the rubric of frontier politics (边政 Bianzheng). Through imagery, technology and statistics, Republican scholars sought to generate collective physical traits for non-Han populations, in order to justify state interventions, whether for 'civilizing' the non-Han, cultivating the frontier, reclassifying local ethnic groups or constituting a unifying Zhonghua Minzu. The paper emphasizes the legacies of late imperial ethnography on Republican frontier governmentality, in particular the ideas and techniques of representing racial orders through employing imagery and the body as tools. It thus enriches our understanding of the intersections of science, visuality and frontier biopower in Republican China.
20 February Cancelled
5 March Cancelled

Coffee with Scientists

The aim of this group is to explore and enhance the interface between HPS and science. Though many of us in HPS engage closely with science and scientists, we could benefit from more explicit discussions about the relationship between HPS and science itself, and from more opportunities for HPS-scholars and scientists to help each other's work.

We meet on Fridays, 3.30–5.00pm in Seminar Room 2. Further information and reading materials will be distributed through the email list of the group; please contact Hasok Chang (hc372) if you would like to be included on the list.

31 January Jenni Sidey-Gibbons (Canadian Space Agency, and Department of Engineering, Cambridge)
Cambridge to cosmos: why and how an academic engineer became an astronaut
14 February James Dolan (King's College, Cambridge), hosted by Anna Alexandrova
Science communication's 'missing masses': reconciling a scientist's lived experience with the science communication literature
6 March Jerry Kutcher (Department of History, Binghamton University)
Cancer research in the clinic: my twenty years at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Cabinet of Natural History

This research seminar is concerned with all aspects of the history of natural history and the field and environmental sciences. The regular programme of papers and discussions takes place over lunch on Mondays. In addition, the Cabinet organises a beginning-of-year fungus hunt and occasional expeditions to sites of historical and natural historical interest, and holds an end-of-year garden party.

Seminars are held on Mondays (except for the seminar on Friday 14 February) at 1pm in Seminar Room 1. Please feel free to bring your lunch.

Organised by Jules Skotnes-Brown (jasb2).

20 January Peter J. Bowler (Queen's University Belfast)
'Home and colonial' wildlife literature around 1900
The topic of this paper derives from earlier studies of popular science literature around 1900 and focuses on natural history literature devoted to wildlife in colonies of the British Empire, especially India. The 'home and colonial' theme refers to the emergence of a British population in the colony large enough to sustain serious interest in the local wildlife – wildlife that was an everyday experience for them but which would seem exotic and exciting to readers back in Britain. The paper looks at the relationship between material published in Britain and the growing body of works aimed at expatriate readers and increasingly published in India. It also looks at the emergence of societies such as the Bombay Natural History Society, and the links between them and the publication of descriptions of big game hunting in India.
27 January Tamara Fernando (History, Cambridge)
Seeing like the sea: the pearl fishery of Ceylon as a maritime assemblage, 1799–1925
This paper argues that the pearl fishery of colonial Ceylon, which has featured in key economic and state-centric analyses of imperialism in South Asia, may also be read as a multi-species assemblage where the non-human – sharks, molluscs and bluebottle flies, for instance – have new causal and agential power to shape emergent capitalist forms. Importantly, however, this consideration of the non-human above and below the waves of the sea also compels the parsing apart of the 'human', revealing a system of multiple, overlapping regimes of labour. Thus, contrary to the model of Raubwirtschaft [plunder economy], which homogenises and flattens both the natural world and those who inhabit it, the fishery represents a tiered and variegated system where overseers, divers, and indentured workers interacted with and produced the ocean and its maritime occupants in independent but intersecting ways.
3 February Sarah Qidwai (University of Toronto)
Decolonising history of evolutionary biology: a perspective from 19th-century India
In an 1896 article in the Urdu journal Tahzib-ul-Akhlaq, titled 'Adna Halat se Aala Halat par Insaan ki Taraqqi' ('The Stages of Human Development from an Inferior to Superior State'), Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898) wrote, 'the monkeys that exist today, orangutans and apes, are quite similar to humans in many ways. Darwin claims that middle chains are missing or extinct, but even if we found them, they would only prove similarities among kinds.' Here, Sayyid Ahmad refers to the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882), not to discredit or defend Darwin's theory of evolution, but to support Sayyid Ahmad's own position on the topic, outlined in 'Adna Halat', that humans evolved over time from a common animal ancestor and this process is guided by a divine creator.

This talk examines questions related to Sayyid Ahmad's views on human evolution and its broader implications related to historians of biology. What is left out when historians use a term such as 'Darwinism' to represent the history of evolutionary biology? Does it create a Eurocentric narrative of evolutionary thought focused on a specific area? I will argue that Sayyid Ahmad's views on human evolution are not only important in how we write about the history of evolutionary biology, but also of the theories of human development from a non-Eurocentric perspective, in this case a Muslim in 19th-century India.

Friday
14 February
Jonathan Saha (University of Leeds)
Monkeys and modernity in colonial Myanmar
Animal studies scholars have long interrogated the ways in which definitions of what it means to be human have rested upon comparisons with animal others. As this work has shown, monkeys and apes have been pivotal in the history of these definitions. The taxonomical order of primate has been a site for much discussion over the place of humans within the animal kingdom, as well as the grounds for disputes over what constitute distinctively human traits. However, these are often Eurocentric narratives which examine the intellectual debates within Natural History as they played out in imperial scientific societies, publications and research institutions. In contrast, my paper focuses instead on a colonial context, looking particularly at more ephemeral, vernacular Burmese-language texts. It explores how Burmese, British and wider understandings of monkeys intermingled in early 20th-century Myanmar. Monkeys, it will be argued, were entangled with shifting discourse on Buddhism, modernity and nationalism. By focusing on Burmese anti-colonial thought, the paper expands the ambit of animal studies scholarship and carefully attempts to better align its concerns with those of postcolonial and decolonial critique.
17 February Chris Manias (King's College London)
Fossils in the Fayum: biogeography and colonial palaeontology in the 1900s
At the turn of the 20th century, European and American palaeontologists expanded their research into colonial regions. Partly this took advantage of imperial expansion, which formed a new context for natural history collecting, the increased influence of European and American museums, and the development of geological surveys. It was also connected with new scientific research agendas, with debates and researches on biogeography becoming a major scientific concern. This paper will examine one of the most high-profile instances where these areas intersected: the upsurge of palaeontological excavation in the Fayum in Egypt in the years around 1900. Expeditions from a range of countries and institutions, including the British Museum of Natural History in London, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the natural history of museums of Munich and Stuttgart, conducted excavations in the region, seeking to acquire Egyptian fossils and present them to public audiences in their home countries. This paper will examine how these expeditions interacted with one another, and operated through local intermediaries, geological institutions and excavators, as a case-study of the complex interrelations within colonial science in this period. Moreover, it will examine how the fossils collected during these projects were understood to revise dominant interpretations of evolutionary and biogeographic history. They seemed to show the ancestors of elephants, manatees, hyraxes and whales, as well as a range of stranger herbivorous and carnivorous mammals, and therefore filled important gaps in knowledge of life's history. In this way, this international colonial project drew off a sense of mystery and purpose, marking out Africa as a whole as an important centre of evolutionary development.
24 February Cancelled
2 March Cancelled
9 March Cancelled

AD HOC

AD HOC (Association for the Discussion of the History of Chemistry) is a group dedicated to the history of chemistry. While our main focus is historical, we also consider the philosophical, sociological, public and educational dimensions of chemistry.

The group meets on Mondays at 5.00–6.30pm in Seminar Room 1. Coordinated by Hasok Chang, and funded by the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC).

27 January Vanessa Seifert (Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol)
The chemical bond as a real pattern
10 February Catherine M. Jackson (Faculty of History, University of Oxford)
How can history of chemistry engage chemists? And why should it?

History of Medicine

Seminars, funded by Wellcome, are on Tuesdays from 5.00 to 6.30pm in Seminar Room 1. Tea and biscuits are available from 4.40pm. All welcome!

Early Science and Medicine

Organised by Dániel Margócsy.

18 February Eric Jorink (Huygens Institute and Leiden University)
Reconstructing Noah's ark in the 17th-century Dutch Republic
10 March Cancelled
12 May Anne Goldgar (King's College London)
Affect and empiricism in the early modern Arctic

History of Modern Medicine and Biology

Organised by Jenny Bangham, Mary Brazelton and Nick Hopwood.

21 January Hilary Smith (University of Denver and Needham Research Institute)
The Chinese calorie: nutrition science in early 20th-century China
4 February Sarah Marks (Birkbeck, University of London)
'You have to incorporate the client's belief system... even when it is the opposite of your own': CBT and psychotherapy in Ghana since 1974
25 February Cancelled

Generation to Reproduction

Organised by Nick Hopwood.

14 January Laura Kelly (University of Strathclyde)
The contraceptive pill in Ireland: activism, women's agency and doctors' authority in the 1960s and 1970s
11 February Elena Serrano (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science)
A good match: gender and the physiology of love in 18th-century Spain

CamPoS

CamPoS (Cambridge Philosophy of Science) is a network of academics and students working in the philosophy of science in various parts of the University of Cambridge, including the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and the Faculty of Philosophy. The Wednesday afternoon seminar series features current research by CamPoS members as well as visitors to Cambridge and scholars based in nearby institutions. If you are interested in presenting in the series, please contact Matt Farr (mwef2). If you have any queries or suggestions for other activities that CamPoS could undertake, please contact Huw Price, Jeremy Butterfield or Anna Alexandrova.

Seminars are held on Wednesdays, 1.00–2.30pm in Seminar Room 2.

29 January Marta Halina (HPS, Cambridge)
Creativity and AI
In March 2016, DeepMind's computer program AlphaGo surprised the world by defeating the world-champion Go player, Lee Sedol. AlphaGo has a novel, surprising and valuable style of play, and has been recognized as 'creative' by the AI and Go communities. This paper examines whether AlphaGo engages in creative problem solving according to the standards of comparative psychology. I conclude that although AlphaGo lacks one important aspect of creative problem solving found in animals (domain generality) it exhibits a different capacity for creativity: namely, the ability to transform a conceptual space through something akin to instrumental conditioning. This analysis has consequences for how we think about creativity in humans and AI.
5 February Jonathan Birch (LSE)
The search for invertebrate consciousness
There is no agreement on whether any invertebrates (e.g. insects, spiders, worms, octopuses, crabs) are conscious and no agreement on a methodology that could settle the issue. How can the debate move forward? I distinguish three broad types of approach: theory-heavy, theory-neutral and theory-light. I argue that the theory-heavy and theory-neutral approaches face serious problems, motivating a middle path: the theory-light approach. At the core of the theory-light approach is a minimal theoretical commitment about the relation between consciousness and cognition that is compatible with many specific theories of consciousness: the hypothesis that conscious perception of a stimulus facilitates, relative to unconscious perception, a cluster of cognitive abilities in relation to that stimulus. This 'facilitation hypothesis' can productively guide inquiry into invertebrate consciousness. What's needed? At this stage, not more theory, and not more undirected data gathering. What's needed is a systematic search for consciousness-linked cognitive abilities, their relationships to each other, and their sensitivity to masking. I illustrate the 'theory-light' approach using the example of bees.
12 February Bryan W. Roberts (LSE)
The good news about killing people
Modern economics has designed a body of theory for how to make decisions involving irreversible outcomes. Motivated by this theory, we propose a 'Good News Principle' for the decision to kill one's self or others, which states that such a decision depends on the quantity and probability of future good news (supporting not killing), but not of future bad news (supporting killing). We then derive this principle as a theorem of a simple consequentialist model for irreversible acts.

Science, History of Science and Modernity

Tuesdays, 9.30am–11am, weekly from 21 January (6 sessions)
Lorraine Daston

The discipline of the history of science originated with the claim that science made the modern world and our periodization still hinges on the premodern/modern divide. But recent scholarship, especially in global history, has challenged the very idea of modernity. We'll be reading both classical and current work on this question and discussing its implications for rethinking the history of science.

Images of Science

Wednesdays, 11am–12.30pm, weekly from 22 January (6 sessions)
Sachiko Kusukawa, with Dániel Margócsy, Nick Jardine, Nick Hopwood and Boris Jardine

These graduate seminars will focus on the role of images in the history of science. Images have been central to observational practices, fieldwork, professional identities and scientific arguments. They contribute to our historical understanding of the sciences within visual culture, material culture, collecting and making, and the history of the book. Each seminar will be led by researchers who have worked extensively with images, and will be an opportunity to examine both primary and secondary sources.

Ideologies of Science

Tuesdays, 3pm–4.30pm, weekly from 4 February (6 sessions)
Nick Jardine, with Anna Alexandrova, Mary Brazelton, Stephen John and Richard Staley

These graduate seminars will explore rival conceptions of the nature of science and of its social and political roles. Ideological conflicts to be considered include: radical agnostic John Stuart Mill vs conservative Anglican William Whewell on the methods of natural science and its proper place in education; liberal Ernst Mach vs conservative Catholic Pierre Duhem on the history and prospects of the sciences; the Society for Freedom in Science vs socialist visions of the functions of science; the 'two cultures' controversy sparked off by C.P. Snow, champion of science education, and F.R. Leavis, champion of literary education; Philip Kitcher and his critics on science, feminism and democracy.

Participants will be invited to offer contributions and to suggest further readings.

Philosophy of Psychology and Psychiatry Reading Group

Thursdays, 10am–11am in Seminar Room 1. Organised by Riana Betzler and Sahanika Ratnayake.

23 January – Involuntary Treatment/Commitment

  • Levenson, J. L. (1986–87). Psychiatric Commitment and Involuntary Hospitalization: An Ethical Perspective. Psychiatric Quarterly, 58(2), 106–112.
  • Sjöstrand, M. & Helgesson, G. (2008). Coercive Treatment and Autonomy in Psychiatry. Bioethics, 22(2), 113–120.

30 January – Pregnancy & Mental Health Care

6 February

  • Dimidjian, S. & Hollon, S. D. (2010). How would we know if psychotherapy were harmful? American Psychologist, 65(1), 21–33.

13 February

  • Stegenga, J. (2018). Chapter 9: Hollow Hunt for Harms. Medical Nihilism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

20 February

  • Sayce, L. (2000). Introduction (pp. 1–17). From Psychiatric Patient to Citizen: Overcoming Discrimination and Social Exclusion. St. Martin's Press.

27 February

  • Rogers, A. & Pilgrim, D. (1997). The contribution of lay knowledge to the understanding and promotion of mental health. Journal of Mental Health, 6(1), 23–36.

5 March

  • Draft paper by Sahanika Ratnayake (to be circulated).

Kinds of Intelligence Reading Group

What? A reading group focused on comparative and theoretical issues in the philosophy of psychology and cognitive science, with particular focus on the puzzles, insights, and challenges presented by non-human intelligence.
When? Thursdays, 11am–12.30pm
Where? Upstairs Boardroom (unless otherwise specified), Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence
Convener: Henry Shevlin

Part 1: Comparative Cognition

9 January Guest: Konstantinos Voudouris. Inside Insight: Against a Thorpean Dogma.
Supplementary reading: Anthropomorphomania and the Rise of the Animal Mind: A Conversation. Barker & Povinelli (2019). Journal of Folklore Research.
16 January No meeting
23 January Guest: Henry Shevlin. Rethinking creative intelligence: comparative psychology and the concept of creativity. (Paper under review).
30 January Guest: Benjamin Farrar. The illusion of science in comparative cognition. Farrar & Ostojic (2019). Psyarxiv.
Change of location: CFI Downstairs Boardroom
6 February Understanding the replication crisis as a base rate fallacy. Bird (forthcoming). British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
13 February No meeting

Part 2: Artificial Intelligence

20 February On the measure of intelligence. Chollet (2019). Arxiv.
27 February The rhetoric and reality of anthropomorphism in artificial intelligence. Watson. (2019). Minds & Machines.
5 March Deep learning: a philosophical introduction. Buckner (2019). Philosophy Compass.
12 March Guest: John Zerilli. Algorithmic decision-making and the control problem. Zerilli et al. (2019). Minds & Machines.
19 March Guest: Catherine Stinson. From implausible artificial neurons to idealised cognitive models: Rebooting philosophy of artificial intelligence. Stinson (2019) Philosophy of Science.

Twentieth Century Reading Group

The group discusses books and papers relating to the history and historiography of 20th-century science, technology and medicine, broadly construed. We meet fortnightly on Thursdays, 1pm to 2pm in the Board Room. Organised by Mary Brazelton, Josh Nall and Richard Staley.

Everyone is welcome – feel free to bring along your lunch.

16 January Yulia Frumer, Making Time: Astronomical Time Measurement in Tokugawa Japan (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2017), Introduction and ch. 7, 'Clock Makers at the Crossroads'.
30 January Anne Marcovich and Terry Shinn, 'How Scientific Research Instruments Change: A Century of Nobel Prize Physics Instrumentation,' Social Science Information 56, no. 3 (2017): 348–74.
13 February Vanessa Heggie, 'Blood, Race and Indigenous Peoples in Twentieth Century Extreme Physiology,' History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 41, no. 2 (2019): 26.
27 February Sarah Hodges, 'Plastic History, Caste, and the Government of Things in Modern India,' in Stephen Legg and Deana Heath, eds., South Asian Governmentalities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 176–197, and other chapters by choice.

Decolonise HPS Working Group

The Decolonise HPS Working Group is a staff-student collaboration that considers issues surrounding decolonisation in the Department and the field(s) of HPS more broadly, as well as related issues. Discussion includes such topics as curriculum reform, inclusive pedagogy, and collaborations on similar projects with other such groups in the University. The group meets every other Friday at 2pm–3pm in the Board Room. All members of the Department are welcome to attend.

Power and Identity in Philosophy of Science

This reading group (formerly the Intersection of Gender, Race and Disability with Philosophy of Science) meets on Mondays, 2–3pm, in Mill Lane Lecture Room 10. Organised by Rory Kent (rdk32).

20 January Madva, A., and K. Gasdaglis. 'Intersectionality as a Regulative Ideal.' Ergo (forthcoming).
27 January Okruhlik, K. 'Logical Empiricism, Feminism, and Neurath's Auxiliary Motive.' Hypatia 19, no. 1 (2004): 48–72.
3 February Emedolu, C. C. 'From Magic to African Experimental Science: Towards a New Paradigm.' Filosofia Theoretica 4, no. 2 (2015): 68–88 and Uduagwu Chukwueloka, S. 'Understanding the Difference Between African Magic and African Science.' Filosofia Theoretica 5, no. 2 (2016): 74–78.
10 February Biddle, J., A. Leuschner, and I. Kidd. 'Epistemic Corruption and Manufactured Doubt: The Case of Climate Science.' Public Affairs Quarterly 31, no. 3 (2017): 165–87.
17 February Reynolds, J. M. '"I'd Rather Be Dead Than Disabled" – The Ableist Conflation and the Meaning of Disability.' Review of Communication 17, no. 3 (2017): 149–63.
24 February Yeng, S. 'Foucault's Critique of the Science of Sexuality: The Function of Science within Bio-power.' Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 18, no. 1 (2010): 9–26.
2 March Griffiths, D. A. 'Queer Genes: Realism, Sexuality and Science.' Journal of Critical Realism 15, no. 5 (2016): 511–29.
9 March Jaggar, A. M. 'Does Poverty Wear a Woman's Face? Some Moral Dimensions of a Transnational Feminist Research Project.' Hypatia 28, no. 2 (2013): 240–56.

Calculating People

Calculating People is a reading group on history and philosophy of social sciences. This term we continue the theme of what counts as evidence in different disciplines. The group reads leading social science research in alternation with methodological and philosophical articles. All participants commit to doing the reading each time and to attending all sessions. The session starts with each participant briefly describing their impressions/questions on the reading assigned, after which the chair conducts a discussion on the recurring themes.

The meetings take place on Tuesdays, 11am–12noon in the Board Room (but check for location on the monitor in the lobby). Organisers are Christopher Clarke and Anna Alexandrova.

All are welcome!

21 January

  • Bright, L. K., Malinsky, D., & Thompson, M. (2015). Causally Interpreting Intersectionality Theory. Philosophy of Science, 83(1), 60–81.

28 January

4 February

11 February

18 February

3 & 10 March

  • Draft excerpts from Petri Ylikoski's Learning from Case Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and Micro, Macro, and Mechanisms (Helskinki University Press, 2020).

Philosophy of Medicine Reading Group

This reading group is dedicated to new and old problems in philosophy of medicine. All are welcome.

Meetings take place on Tuesdays, 1–2pm, in Seminar Room 1.

Conveners: Tim Lewens, Stephen John, Jacob Stegenga, Anna Alexandrova

21 January

  • De Block, Andreas & Adriaens, Pieter. 2013. 'Pathologizing Sexual Deviance: A History' Journal of Sex Research 50(3-4): 276–298.

28 January

  • Kleinplatz, Peggy. 2018. 'History of the Treatment of Female Sexual Dysfunction(s)' Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 14: 29–54.

4 February

  • Bueter, Anke and Jukola, Saana. Forthcoming. 'Sex, Drugs, and How to Deal with Criticism' in Uncertainty in Pharmacology (Osimani and La Caze, Eds.)

11 February

  • Taylor, Chloë. 2015. 'Female Sexual Dysfunction, Feminist Sexology, and the Psychiatry of the Normal.' Feminist Studies, 41(2), 259–292.

18 February

  • Mamo, Laura and Epstein, Steven. 2014. 'The Pharmaceuticalization of Sexual Risk: Vaccine Development and the New Politics of Cancer Prevention' Social Science and Medicine 101: 155–165.

25 February

  • Stegenga, Jacob. 'The Medicalisation of Female Sexual Desire', draft chapter.

Presenter: Anna Alexandrova

3 March

  • Lloyd, Elisabeth. 1993. 'Pre-Theoretical Assumptions in Evolutionary Explanations of Female Sexuality' Philosophical Studies 69: 139–153.
  • Meynell, Letitia. 'Review of The Case of the Female Orgasm.' Hypatia 22(3): 218–222.

Presenter: Miriam Solomon

10 March

  • Tuana, Nancy. 2004. 'Coming to Understand: Orgasm and the Epistemology of Ignorance' Hypatia 19(1): 194–232.

Philosophy and History of Physics Reading Group

This reading group meets on Tuesdays, 4.30pm to 6pm in the Board Room. Organised by Jeremy Butterfield, Matt Farr and Bryan Roberts.

Our theme this term is: spacetime.

21 January

We will discuss David Malament, 'Causal theories of time and the conventionality of simultaneity', Nous 1977.

28 January

We will discuss (i) a philosophical introduction to representation theorems for geometry and spacetime, and then (ii) a paper by Bryan Roberts which generalizes Malament's 1977 theorem.

4 February

We will have presentations by Grace Field (on black holes) and James Wills (on singularities in general relativity). For a copy of the corresponding papers, please contact Jeremy Butterfield (jb56).

11 February

We will discuss Gryb, Palacios and Thébault, 'On the Universality of Hawking Radiation'.

18 February

We will discuss Unruh's 1995 paper on sonic analogues of black holes. Discussion will be led by Bryan Roberts, who will kindly provide notes.

Early Science and Medicine Work-in-Progress

This is a termly forum, supported by Wellcome, for early career scholars to discuss their work-in-progress. We usually discuss two pieces of work at each session.

If you would like to participate, please email the organisers, Justin Rivest (jr723) and Carolin Schmitz (cs2003).

Meetings are held in the Board Room at the start of each term. The meeting this term is on Tuesday 14 January, 5–8pm.

Convened by Lauren Kassell, Silvia De Renzi (OU) and Dániel Margócsy.

Latin Therapy

Latin Therapy is an informal reading group. All levels of Latin are very welcome. We meet on Fridays, 3.00 to 4.30pm in the Board Room, to translate and discuss a text from the history of science, technology or medicine. This is an opportunity to brush up your Latin by regular practice, and if a primary source is giving you grief, we'd love to help you make sense of it over tea and biscuits!

To be added to the mailing list, or to suggest a text, please contact Arthur Harris.

Manchu Therapy

The Manchu Therapy group meets fortnightly on Tuesdays, from 10.00 to 11.00am in the Board Room.

Manchu Therapy is an informal group for those who have an interest in the Manchu language, or who are working with Manchu documents, to learn more and improve their reading skills. (See this brief description of the Manchus and the Manchu language.) Every other week, we will meet to read texts together. All are welcome.

For more information or to be added to the mailing list, please contact Mary Brazelton.