In 2003-04 the Princeton workshops in the History of Science hope to explore new ways in which the history of science can articulate with philosophy, including both philosophers of science and those of other persuasions. Two historical problems will underpin our conversations. The first concerns the widespread (and popular) assumption that certain scientific, technological, and medical traditions have become both uniquely global and uniquely powerful simply because they work. The second focuses on the continued existence of other traditions of knowledge, in both literate and non-literate societies, which have historically been fodder for – and a challenge to – disciplinary and professional developments in the sciences. Questions that arise from such an engagement include:

• To what extent has “science” been a specifically European activity? How can it be recognized and comprehended in other cultures? To what extent must one recognize the specific cultural context when trying to understand supposedly scientific work in another culture?

• There is an abiding tendency among those who work with other cultures to adopt relativistic views on the truth of scientific theories or to beg the question entirely; there is an abiding tendency among philosophers to reject relativism for a more absolute standard of truth. Can these differences be resolved?

• To what extent is the thesis of incommensurability in the philosophy of science useful for understanding the differences between science in different cultures?

• Philosophers of language have emphasized the role of assumptions of rationality (for example, Donald Davidson’s “Principle of Charity”) in coming to understand other languages and peoples. Does this raise practical or theoretical problems for the kinds of work that recent historians of science are trying to do?

•  Historians and anthropologists make use of a variety of qualifiers when dealing with the issue of non-elite knowledge: traditional, folk, indigenous, popular, and ethno, each having slightly different connotations.  Does it make sense to talk of science in these terms? More generally, can one speak of scientific traditions in non-literate societies and populations?

Session I. October 24th : Friday              (Program available on the Calendar of Events  )

Workshop papers are available for download by clicking on the highlited titles.

9:00 a.m. Christopher Minkowski, Cornell University "Competing Cosmologies and the Problem of Contradiction in Sanskrit Knowlege Systems" Commentator: Gary Hatfield, University of Pennsylvania

10:40 a.m. David Arnold, SOAS-London "Plurality and Transition: Knowledge Systems in Nineteenth Century India" Commentator: Akeel Bilgrami, Columbia University

1:30 p.m. Laurence Monnais -Rousselot, Université de Montréal " The Role of French Colonialism in Current Vietnamese Attitudes towards Pharmaceuticals" Commentary: David Wong, Duke University.

3:10 p.m. Bridie Andrews, Harvard University "Language, Science and the Organization of Knowledge in Republican China" Commentary: Daniel Garber, Princeton University.

Session II. February 13th: Friday                            (Program available on the Calendar of Events  )


Workshop papers are available for download by clicking on the highlited titles.

9:00 a.m. Jorge Canizares-Esguerra, SUNY-Buffalo "How Derivative was Humboldt? Microcosmic Nature Narratives in Early Modern Spanish America and the (Other) Origins of Humboldt's Ecological Sensibilities" Commentary: Daniela Bleichmar

10:40 a.m. Damon Salesa, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor "Finding and Forgetting the Way: Navigation and Knowledge in Samoa & Polynesia" Commentary: Alison Wylie

1:30 p.m. Barry Hallen, Morehouse College, Atlanta and W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University and Kwasi Wiredu, University of South Florida, Tampa {Joint paper} "Science and African Culture" Commentary: Julie Livingston

3:10 p.m. Londa Schiebinger, Pennsylvania State University "Agnotology and Exotic Abortifacients: The Cultural Production of Ignorance in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World" Commentary: John Dupre

Session III. "Magic and Medicine" May 21st: Friday                        (Daily Program)
 

Stephan Palmié, University of Chicago "Thinking With Ngangas: Reflections on Embodiment and the Limits of Objectively Necessary Appearances" Commentary: Paul Boghossian, New York University

Ruth Rogaski, Vanderbilt University "A Plague of Vampires: Problems in the Legacy of Japanese Colonial Medicine" Commentary: Anne-Marie Makhulu, Princeton University

Sloane Mahone, Oxford University "The Psychology of Rebellion: Medical Responses to Dissent in British East Africa" Commentary: Vinh-Kim Nguyen, McGill University

Otniel Dror, Hebrew University of Jerusalem "Primitive Stress: Fantasy, Excitment and 'Voodoo Death'" Commentary: Lisa Loyd, Indiana University ( Please contact Tina Erdos @ terdos@princeton.edu to request a copy of this paper)

General Commentary: Steve Feireman, University of Pennsylvania and Mark Johnston, Princeton University
 
 
 
Note: Papers for the workshops are precirculated and will be available to download approximately two weeks prior to the workshop. Lunch is provided for all who attend. Please register for lunch at (609-258-6705).

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