Integrated HPS? Formal versus historical approaches to philosophy of science

The project of integrated HPS (‘integrated history and philosophy of science’) has occupied philosophers of science in one form or another since at least the 1960s. Yet, despite this substantial interest in bringing together philosophical and historical reflections on the nature of science, history of science and formal philosophy of science remain as divided as ever. In this paper, I will argue that the continuing separation between historical and formal philosophy of science is ill-founded. I will argue for this in both abstract and concrete terms. At the abstract level, I reconstruct two possible arguments for the incompatibility of historical and formal philosophy of science and argue that they are both wanting. At the concrete level, I discuss how historical and formal philosophy of science have been brought together in practice, namely: in the form of a largely forgotten research tradition that I will refer to here as the study of formalized macro-units. After a brief exposition, I argue that this research tradition has been unduly overlooked by historically minded philosophers of science. Bringing together these observations, I argue that the divide between historical and formal philosophy of science is not grounded in any substantive arguments, but can be primarily attributed to disciplinary happenstance.

The Cultural Challenge in Mathematical Cognition

In their recent paper on “Challenges in mathematical cognition”, Alcock and colleagues (Alcock et al. [2016]. Challenges in mathematical cognition: A collaboratively-derived research agenda. Journal of Numerical Cognition, 2, 20-41) defined a research agenda through 26 specific research questions. An important dimension of mathematical cognition almost completely absent from their discussion is the cultural constitution of mathematical cognition. Spanning work from a broad range of disciplines – including anthropology, archaeology, cognitive science, history of science, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology – we argue that for any research agenda on mathematical cognition the cultural dimension is indispensable, and we propose a set of exemplary research questions related to it.

A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON MATHEMATICS EDUCATION COMING FROM HISTORY: THE EXAMPLE OF INTEGRAL CALCULUS

This research deals with a possible use of history of mathematics in mathematics education. In particular, history can be a fundamental element for the introduction of the concept of integral through a problem-centred and intuitive approach. Therefore, what follows is dedicated to the teaching of mathematics in the last years of secondary schools, where infinitesimal calculus is addressed. The thesis here proposed is that the resort to Archimedes’ use of exhaustion method and to Newton’s initial lemmas expounded in his Principia Mathematica are useful means to reach a genetic comprehension of the concept of integral. Hence, two demonstrations by Archimedes and two lemmas by Newton are used to prove such thesis. A further idea here proposed is that history of mathematics can be of help for an interdisciplinary education. Keywords: interdisciplinary education, mathematics education, science history, secondary schools

Chemistry in the mail: Stamps from around the globe and public science communication in the twentieth century

Postage stamps are designed to convey messages that reverberate symbolically with broad swaths of the public, and their content has been employed as a window into how members of the public understand the ideas represented therein. In this rhetorical analysis, we analyze Philadelphia’s Science History Institute’s Witco Stamp Collection, which features 430 stamps from countries around the globe dating from 1910 to 1983, to identify how chemistry is portrayed in this ubiquitous medium. We find the vernacular of science reflected and supported by these images functions to (a) define chemistry in terms of its invisibility and abstraction; (b) uphold chemical operations as instrumental and daedal, or exceptional, in nature; and (c) delineate practitioners of chemistry as—on the whole—privileged and preternatural. Our findings reveal some of the overarching communicative tools made available to twentieth-century non-experts for articulating chemistry as an enterprise and reveal how those tools positioned chemistry in terms of values related to opacity and exclusivity.

The Review of Science Education in China

Science education is paid more attention nowadays. This article describes the current situation of Science education in China. As a concept paper, it is divided into some aspects, such as the history and development, the Necessity of Science history, incorporate the history of science into today's science education, the future trend of science education, the goal and significance of science education, also, it states the problems and solutions in science education as well. More importantly, science education in the 21st Century is introduced in the end which combines the advanced technology in science teaching and learning process. Conclusion comes lastly with the enlightenment for future development of science education.

BOOK REVIEW: "FILSAFAT ILMU: SEJARAH, KONSEP, DAN STRATEGI PENGEMBANGAN IPTEKS" (PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE: HISTORY, CONCEPT, AND STRATEGY OF SCIENCE DEVELOPMENT)

"Filsafat Ilmu: Sejarah, Konsep, dan Strategi Pengembangan IPTEKS" (Philosophy of Science: History, Concept, and Strategy of Science Development) by Ade Hidayat was published in 2020. According to the author, the philosophy of science is one of the courses presented to students as the main source of reference to explore the foundation of science. With the writing of it, the author aims to help students train the way of thinking critically, more deeply, and systematically, to view the problem according to its proportions with the right perspective.