Nagel, Ernest (1901–85)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac Levi
Keyword(s):  
John Dewey ◽  
History Of Mathematics ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
External World ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire Career ◽  
The 1960S

Ernest Nagel was arguably the pre-eminent American philosopher of science from the mid 1930s to the 1960s. He taught at Columbia University for virtually his entire career. Although he shared with Bertrand Russell and with members of the Vienna Circle a respect for and sensitivity to developments in mathematics and the natural sciences, he endorsed a strand in the thought of Charles S. Peirce and John Dewey that Nagel himself called ‘contextual naturalism’. Among the main features of contextual naturalism is its distrust of reductionist claims that are not the outcomes of scientific inquiries. Nagel’s contextual naturalism infused his influential, detailed and informed essays on probability, explanation in the natural and social sciences, measurement, history of mathematics, and the philosophy of law. It is reflected, for example, in his trenchant critiques of Russell’s reconstruction of the external world and Russell’s epistemology as well as cognate views endorsed at one time or another by members of the Vienna Circle.

scholarly journals Points of convergence between logical empiricism and inductive metaphysics: Hans Reichenbach and Erich Becher in comparison

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ansgar Seide
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
External World ◽  
Logical Empiricism ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Hans Reichenbach

AbstractIn this paper, I take a closer look at Hans Reichenbach’s relation to metaphysics and work out some interesting parallels between his account and that of the proponents of inductive metaphysics, a tradition that emerged in the mid- and late 19th century and the early 20th century in Germany. It is in particular Hans Reichenbach’s conception of the relation between the natural sciences and metaphysics, as displayed in his treatment of the question of the existence of the external world, that shows some very interesting similarities with inductive metaphysics. By a comparison with the position of the inductive metaphysician Erich Becher and his handling of the problem of realism, I work out the parallels between Reichenbach’s program and inductive metaphysics. I come to the conclusion that while there are certainly some respects in which Reichenbach’s logical empiricism is closer to the positions of the representatives of the Vienna Circle, it turns out that with regard to his views on metaphysics there is a greater affinity with the program of inductive metaphysics.

scholarly journals Práticas matemáticas inscritas em cadernos escolares: o caso das fraçõesMathematical practices inscribed in school notebooks: the case of fractions

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 751-788
Author(s):  
Francine Fragoso de Miranda Silva ◽  
Cláudia Regina Flores ◽  
Rosilene Beatriz Machado
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
History Of Mathematics ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Santa Catarina ◽  
Mathematical Practices ◽  
New Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

ResumoEste artigo tem por objetivo identificar e analisar práticas matemáticas inscritas em cadernos escolares de uma escola mista estadual do município de Antônio Carlos (SC), nas décadas de 1930 e 1940, com enfoque dado para as frações. São utilizadas as teorizações de Michel Foucault para nortear os preceitos teórico-metodológicos. Os resultados da pesquisa indicam práticas matemáticas desenvolvidas nessa escola obedecendo aos programas oficiais catarinenses da época, com soluções rápidas e sucintas e voltadas às tarefas de seu cotidiano. Também se observam que elas estão inseridas num contexto histórico, compreendido entre a Reforma Francisco Campos, de 1931, e o início do Movimento da Matemática Moderna, nos anos de 1960, no qual a fração recebe uma nova abordagem, distanciando-se da relação entre número e medida e aproximando-se da noção de parte-todo.Palavras-chave: Práticas matemáticas, Cadernos escolares, Frações, História da educação matemática.AbstractThis article aims to identify and analyze mathematical practices registered in school notebooks of a mixed state school in the city of Antônio Carlos (SC), in the 1930s and 1940s, focused on fractions. Michel Foucault's theorizations are used to guide theoretical and methodological precepts. The results of the research show mathematical practices developed in these schools obeying the Santa Catarina official programs of the time, with quick and succinct solutions and focused on their daily tasks. It is also observed that they are inserted in a historical context, between the Francisco Campos Reform, of 1931, and the beginning of the Modern Mathematics Movement, in the 1960s, in which the fraction receives a new approach, moving away from the relationship between number and measure and approaching the notion of part-whole.Keywords: Mathematical practices, School notebooks, Fractions, History of mathematics education.ResumenEste artículo tiene como objetivo identificar y analizar las prácticas matemáticas registradas en los cuadernos escolares de una escuela estatal mixta en la ciudad de Antônio Carlos (SC), en la década de 1930 y 1940, con un enfoque en las fracciones. Las teorizaciones de Michel Foucault se utilizan para guiar los preceptos teóricos y metodológicos. Los resultados de la investigación muestran prácticas matemáticas desarrolladas en estas escuelas que obedecen los programas oficiales de Santa Catarina de la época, con soluciones rápidas y sucintas y centradas en sus tareas diarias. También se observa que se insertan en un contexto histórico, entre la Reforma Francisco Campos, de 1931, y el comienzo del Movimiento de Matemáticas Modernas, en la década de 1960, en el que la fracción recibe un nuevo enfoque, alejándose de la relación entre numerar y medir y acercándose a la noción de parte-todo.Palabras clave: Prácticas matemáticas, Cuadernos escolares, Fracciones, Historia de la educación matemática

The ‘Brazilian Connection’ in the History of American Linguistics

1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-382
Author(s):  
Cristina Altman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
South American ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Structural Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Roman Jakobson ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The One

Summary When mention is made of Brazil in connection with American linguistics, it usually amounts to a reference to the Linguistic Circle of New York, where Roman Jakobson (1896–1982) and Claude Lévi-Strauss (b.1908), who had come from Brazil where he had done ethnological work, met and exchanged ideas. This singular event has cast a shadow on other contacts between Brazil and American linguistics, of which, the one between Jakobson and the Brazilian linguist Joaquim Mattoso Câmara (1904–1970) was much more consequential, at least as far as the implementation of structural linguistics in Brazil and in South America generally during the 1950s and the 1960s is concerned. Mattoso Câmara came to the United States and spent most of his time in New York City (September 1943 till April 1944), where he got exposure to Praguean type structuralism, notably through Jakobson’s lectures he attended at Columbia University and at the École Libre of New York, which had been established by European refugees at the time. He also participated in the first meetings of the Linguistic Circle of New York in 1943 as one of its co-founders. Following his return to Rio de Janeiro, Mattoso Câmara proposed, in 1949, as his doctoral thesis a phonemic description of Brazilian Portuguese. The work was published a few years later, in 1953. His most influential work, Princípios de Lingüística Gerai, first published in 1954, had two more revised and updated editions (1958, 1967) and served to introduce several generations of Brazilian as well as other South American students to structural linguistics during the 1950s and 1960s.

Bertrand Russell in Bollyworld

2019 ◽  
pp. 199-228
Author(s):  
Raminder Kaur
Keyword(s):  
Linear Equations ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Popular Cinema ◽  
Historical Film ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Jawaharlal Nehru

The chapter considers the scope of film to act as what is described as a ‘docu-drama-ment’ for conveying affective engagements with political history. It does so with a focus on unique incidents in the history of Indian popular cinema with the example of the film, Aman (Mohan Kumar, 1967). The discussion centers on the cameo appearance of a British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, in the film along with phantasmal invocations of Indian anti-nuclear weapons protagonists such as India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and reproductions of the 1945 atomic attack in Hiroshima and subsequent nuclear tests in the Pacific. The chapter considers how the film may be viewed in terms of a ‘corporeal compound lens’ on the political vicissitudes of the 1960s. With such an approach – on the one hand to do with the assemblage of a historical film, and on the other, to do with the way this intersects with compound lines of reflexive reception – the author shows how the ‘docu-drama-ment’ moves away from linear equations of the filmic signifier with the signified - or the film and the represented - to one that revels in affective residues and resonances that are a constitutive force in socio-political realities of the Cold War era. 

Scientific realism and social science

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Keat
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Realist Conception

A central issue in the philosophy of the social sciences is the possibility of naturalism: whether disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, economics and psychology can be ‘scientific’ in broadly the same sense in which this term is applied to physics, chemistry, biology and so on. In the long history of debates about this issue, both naturalists and anti-naturalists have tended to accept a particular view of the natural sciences – the ‘positivist’ conception of science. But the challenges to this previously dominant position in the philosophy of science from around the 1960s made this shared assumption increasingly problematic. It was no longer clear what would be implied by the naturalist requirement that the social sciences should be modelled on the natural sciences. It also became necessary to reconsider the arguments previously employed by anti-naturalists, to see whether these held only on the assumption of a positivist conception of science. If so, a non-positivist naturalism might be defended: a methodological unity of the social and natural sciences based on some alternative to positivism. That this is possible has been argued by scientific realists in the social sciences, drawing on a particular alternative to positivism: the realist conception of science developed in the 1970s by Harré and others.

scholarly journals Collingwood, Scientism and Historicism

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-288
Author(s):  
Giuseppina D’Oro ◽  
James Connelly
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

Abstract The philosophy of history is undergoing something of a revival. Much has happened since its heyday in the 1960s when methodological discussions concerning the structure of explanation in history and the natural sciences were central to the philosophical agenda. This introduction revisits Collingwood’s contribution to the philosophy of history, his views on the relation between science and history, and the possibility of historical knowledge suggesting his work is of enduring relevance to contemporary debates. It locates his contribution in the context of the hermeneutic tradition and locates his defence of the methodological autonomy of history in the context of recent debates concerning the relation between science and the history of the philosophy of science.

The teaching of graphical calculus in engineering schools (1860-1970)

2020 ◽  
pp. 101-114
Author(s):  
Dominique Tournès
Keyword(s):  
Diffusion Processes ◽  
History Of Mathematics ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Graphical Calculus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Graphical Integration ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Industrial Revolutions ◽  
Engineering Schools

Graphical calculus is the part of numerical calculation that is based on geometrical constructions. It was established as a subject of knowledge and teaching from the 1860s onwards. With its three specialized components, graphical statics, graphical integration and nomography, it was a response to the growing calculation needs of engineers at the time of the industrial revolutions and the development of communication channels. It then became progressively obsolete in the 1960s due to the increasing role of computers and electronic calculators. The aim of the present contribution is to examine the content of graphical calculus courses created in engineering schools and universities between 1860 and 1960. Through a quantitative study of the treatises intended for the teaching of graphical calculus, we will also attempt to analyse, both chronologically and geographically, the diffusion processes of this teaching in Europe and the rest of the world during the period under consideration. Keywords: history of mathematics, mathematics education, mathematics of engineers, graphical calculus, graphical statics, graphical integration, nomography

scholarly journals A Norman French Quittance dated 1413

1927 ◽  
Vol 1 (7) ◽  
pp. 8-9
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
History Of Mathematics ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
University Professor ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Norman French

A fifteenth century quittance, the oldest business document so far acquired by the Society, has come recently from Professor David Eugene Smith of Columbia University. Professor Smith is himself an enthusiastic collector, particularly in the line of the history of mathematics, and early Arabian literature on astronomy and mathematics.

The interest of G. H. Hardy, F.R.S., in the philosophy and the history of mathematics

2001 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Grattan-Guinness
Keyword(s):  
History Of Mathematics ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Research Career ◽  
History Of

Hardy's research career shows an orthodox concern with certain areas of mathematics, where he contributed with great distinction. But throughout his career there is also evidence of regular interest in the philosophy and the history of mathematics. The influence of Bertrand Russell is quite marked.

C. T. Hsia on Chinese Literature. By C. T. Hsia. [New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 544 pp. £26.50. ISBN 0-231-12990-4.]

2004 ◽  
Vol 179 ◽  
pp. 825-827
Author(s):  
Chloë Starr
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Chinese Literature ◽  
Modern Chinese Literature ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Dust Jacket ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

First impressions matter when buying a book; they are less important when chasing up a reference in a library or following a reading list to a book shop. C.T. Hsia on Chinese Literature is a serious tome which looks like a biography – a bust portrait of the octogenarian author smiles out of a stark black and white dust jacket, and the playful title leaves ambiguous whether it is C. T. Hsia or his thoughts we are buying. One of the delights of reputation and seniority is the publication of a lifetime's collected essays. This produces a gift to the reader which takes its rightful place as a history of criticism as well as literary criticism, gathering 16 essays published between 1962 (in The China Quarterly) and 1990, a volume for celebration. As undergraduates of modern Chinese literature, we used to groan when C. T. Hsia appeared on reading lists, as much because the works containing the essays were dog-eared, smelly old volumes, as for their polemicism. Publication in a smart, single volume presents easy access and allows the essays to be contemplated for their merit and range. Since C. T. Hsia has been considered, as Patrick Hanan writes, “without question the most influential critic of Chinese fiction since the 1960s,” his essays remain important reading matter.

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