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Reading Group 2017 A reading group is an important part of the information exchange process, provoking essential dialogue designed to promote, exercise, and enlarge the powers of the mind. Usually, a reading group discusses (great) academic papers or a book chapter on a weekly basis, allocating 45-50-60 minutes to each piece of work. This reading group is different! The goal is to “Read for Honours” but without the examination... We will only meet once per month, namely on the last Friday of the month (except December), to unplug from the day-to-day activities. We will meet for a period of around 5 hours (4-9PM, Z808) and will hopefully continue for after-hours discussions somewhere in the city (it’s Friday night for Christ’s sake ). Why hopefully around five hours? There was a time when scholars sat for hours (sometimes daily…) in coffee houses to discuss problems (see, e.g., Stanislav Ulam’s experience as a student in Poland (Adventure of a Mathematician)). Ulam was surprised by what he experienced as a Harvard Junior Fellow: “I had my meals at Adams House, and the lunches there were particularly agreeable. We sat at a long table – young men and sometimes great professors; the conversations were very pleasant. But often, towards the end of a meal, one after the other would gulp his coffee and suddenly announce: “Excuse me, I’ve got to go to work!” Young as I was I could not understand why people wanted to show themselves to be such hard workers. I was surprised at this lack of self-assurance, even on the part of some famous scholars. Later I learned about the Puritan belief in hard work – or at least in appearing to be doing hard work. Students had to show that they were conscientious; the older professors did the same. This lack of self-confidence was strange to me, although it was less objectionable than the European arrogance. In Poland, people would also pretend and fabricate stories, but in the 1 opposite sense. They might have been working frantically all night, but they pretended they never worked at all. This respect for work appeared to me as part of the Puritan emphasis on action versus thought, so different from the aristocratic traditions of Cambridge, England, for example” (pp. 87-88). The goals of this reading group are to provide not only a critical discussion of the content of the books but also to discuss open research questions, scientific puzzles, big picture questions, and perhaps even potential collaborative attempts. There are quite a large number of books listed per session (it would be possible to fill an entire year of discussion on the books allocated for one session…or a year for an entire book (particularly for Marvin Minsky’s books1)). If you are keen to participate just read what you can and what you are interested in: try to see the reading list as a potential roadmap (the reading group should not be a stressful experience…). Regular attendance would be great to develop a “common language” over time but if you just show up for a particular topic that is okay too. Naomi Moy ([email protected]) will very kindly organise the books and will coordinate the lending/borrowing process (please cooperate to help that flow smoothly, as there are a large number of books). If you would like to discuss a particular book let us know. It would be wonderful to see students attending. I will organize pizzas and drinks. Thus, for each month please let Naomi know whether you are going to attend. I will continue the reading group in 2018 with new topics and I will send you the list earlier (within the next 3-4 months hopefully). The selection (or perhaps better the elimination) process of the books is quite time consuming…It reminds me of Hugh Lofting (Doctor Dolittle’s Zoo): “What to leave out and what to put in? That’s the problem”. We will start in April to give you some time (although not a lot…) to start reading. If you have further questions feel free to send me an email: [email protected]. Thanks. 1 His lectures (see link provided later) are worth a thousand books (or more). 2 April 28 Behind the Scenes Night Part I: The History, Psychology and Sociology of Science (and Survival Tips) Foundations 1. Rudolf Carnap (1995). An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Dover book. Rudolf Carnap has deeply influenced a very large number of excellent scholars. Nobel laureate Herbert Simon, for example, mentioned that Carnap was one of three major influences for him when he was a Chicago graduate student. The book covers important topics such as laws, explanation, and probability, measurement and quantitative language, or causality and determinism. The book is strongly linked to physics but still very important for any (social) scientist. 3 2. Thomas S. Kuhn (2012). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press. Ian Hacking introduces this book with the following: “Great books are rare. This is one. Read it and you will see”. A big picture book that becomes very relevant, more so in the Publish or Perish environment in which we currently live. The book helps to understand the nature of discoveries, revolutions, paradigms, or crises. 3. Karl Popper (2002). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Taylor & Francis Group. A classic in the thinking of science and knowledge. Peter Medawar calls the book one of the most important documents of the twentieth century. An important introduction to the logic of science and the theory of theories. His autobiography (Unended Quest) starts with: “When I was twenty I became apprenticed to an old master cabinetmaker in Vienna whose name was Adalbert Pösch, and I worked with him from 1922 to 1924, not long after the First World War. He looked exactly like Georges Clemenceau, but he was a very mild and kind man. After I had gained his confidence he would often, when we were alone in his workshop, give me the benefit of his inexhaustible store of knowledge. Once he told me that he had worked for many years on various models of a perpetual motion machine, adding musingly: “They say you can’t make it; but once it’s been made they’ll talk different!” (“Da sag’n s’ dass ma’ so was net mach’n kann; aber wann amal eina ein’s g’macht hat, dann wer’n s’ schon anders red’n!”) A favourite practice of his was to ask me a historical question and to answer it himself when it turned out that I did not know the answer (although I, his pupil, was a University student – a fact of which he was very proud). “And do you know”, he would ask, “who invented topboots? You don’t? It was Wallenstein, the Duke of Friedland, during the Thirty Years War.” After one or two even more difficult questions, posed by himself and triumphantly answered by himself, my master would say with modest pride: “There, you can ask me whatever you like: I know everything.” (Da können S’ mi’ frag’n was Sie woll’n: ich weiss alles.”). I believe I learned more about the theory of knowledge from my dear omniscient master Adalbert Pösch than from any other of my teachers. None did so much to turn me into a disciple of Socrates. For it was my master who taught me not only how very little I knew but also that any wisdom to which I might ever aspire could consist only in realizing more fully the infinity of my ignorance” (p. 7). 4 4. Friedrich A. Hayek (1979). The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason Nobel laureate Hayek, economist and philosopher, impresses with his intellectual power. This book is a compilation of essays covering interesting subjects such as the influence of natural sciences on social sciences, the problem and the method of the natural sciences, the subjective character of the data of the social sciences and many more topics. 5. Robin Dunbar (1995). The Trouble with Science. Harvard University Press. Dunbar, one of the most creative contemporary scholars, provides an excellent overview of the nature of science. History, Sociology, Economics, and Psychology of Science 6. Robert K. Merton (1979). The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. University of Chicago Press. Robert K. Merton2 is regarded as the father of the sociology of science (and a founding father of modern sociology). The book is a collection of his key papers. It covers many interesting topics such as sociology of scientific knowledge, the processes of evaluation in science and the reward system of science. 7. Bruno Latour (1987). Science in Action. Harvard University Press. Latour is a famous French scholar, and one of the most cited scholars in social science (this book has been cited more than 22,000 times (Google Scholar)). A valuable source to understand social context and content and scientific activity. 8. Paula Stephan (2012). How Economics Shapes Science. Harvard University Press. Stephan is one of the dominant forces in the economics of science. In this fact-driven book she focuses on some key factors of interest to economists, such as the production of research, funding, the market for scientists or the relationship of science to economic growth. 2 Father of Robert C. Merton. 5 9. Abraham H. Maslow (1969). The Psychology of Science: A Renaissance. Gateway Edition. The reading list has so far given voice to sociologists, philosophers and economists. Now it’s time for a psychologist.
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