The Politics and Contexts of Soviet Science Studies (Naukovedenie): Soviet Philosophy of Science at the Crossroads
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Boris Hessen: Physics and Philosophy in the Soviet Union, 1927–1931 Neglected Debates on Emergence and Reduction Series: History of Physics
springer.com Chris Talbot, Olga Pattison (Eds.) Boris Hessen: Physics and Philosophy in the Soviet Union, 1927–1931 Neglected Debates on Emergence and Reduction Series: History of Physics Presents key works by the outstanding Soviet philosopher of science Boris Hessen, available in English for the first time Revives important ideas that were lost after the author's execution by Stalin in 1936 Adds essential new perspectives to current debates on emergence This book presents key works of Boris Hessen, outstanding Soviet philosopher of science, 1st ed. 2021, IX, 169 p. 7 illus., 1 illus. in available here in English for the first time. Quality translations are accompanied by an editors' color. introduction and annotations. Boris Hessen is known in history of science circles for his “Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principia” presented in London (1931), which inspired new Printed book approaches in the West. As a philosopher and a physicist, he was tasked with developing a Hardcover Marxist approach to science in the 1920s. He studied the history of physics to clarify issues 119,99 € | £109.99 | $149.99 such as reductionism and causality as they applied to new developments. With the [1] 128,39 € (D) | 131,99 € (A) | CHF philosophers called the “Dialecticians”, his debates with the opposing “Mechanists” on the issue 141,50 of emergence are still worth studying and largely ignored in the many recent works on this eBook subject. Taken as a whole, the book is a goldmine of insights into both the foundations of 96,29 € | £87.50 | $109.00 physics and Soviet history. -
Hungarian Refugee Scientists in Defense of the Autonomy
THE INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF THE SOCIAL AND NATURAL SCIENCES: HUNGARIAN REFUGEE SCIENTISTS IN DEFENSE OF THE AUTONOMY OF SCIENCE By Csaba Olasz Submitted to Central European University Department of History In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts CEU eTD Collection Supervisor: Professor Karl Hall Second reader: Professor Emese Lafferton Copyright in the text of this thesis rests with the Author. Copies by any process, either in full or part, maybe made only in accordance with the instructions given by the Author and lodged in the Central European Library. Details may be obtained from the librarian. This page must form a part of any such copies made. Further copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the written permission of the Author. CEU eTD Collection i ABSTRACT The contribution of foreign born scientists to the building of the first Atomic bomb is well-known. That a number of theoretical physicist involved in the Manhattan Project continued taking an active part in the politicization of nuclear physics of post war America were also refugees is, perhaps, less so. This essay considers the public engagement of Hungarian born scientists in a broader historical context that has shaped their professional trajectories. Discussing themes as family backgrounds, (forced?) migration, totalitarian systems, personal ambitions, technical brilliance, socio-economic relations of science and government as well as nuclear defense politics, I point out that my protagonists have become agencies in and of the transformation that science politics had been undergoing at the time. The shared experience as Atomic scientists of Eugene Wigner and Leo Szilard is the departure point from which an analysis of personal and socio-political factors is used to interpret any discrepancies in the rationale behind, and the nature of, their public engagement. -
BERNOULLI NEWS, Vol 24 No 1 (2017)
Vol. 24 (1), May 2017 Published twice per year by the Bernoulli Society ISSN 1360–6727 CONTENTS News from the Bernoulli Society p. 1 Awards and Prizes p. 2 New Executive Members A VIEW FROM THE PRESIDENT in the Bernoulli Society Dear Members of the Bernoulli Society, p. 3 As we all seem to agree, the role and image of statistics has changed dramatically. Still, it takes ones breath when realizing the huge challenges ahead. Articles and Letters Statistics has not always been considered as being very necessary. In 1848 the Dutch On Bayesian Measures of Ministry of Home Affairs established an ofŮice of statistics. And then, thirty years later Uncertainty in Large or InŮinite minister Kappeyne van de Coppelo abolishes the “superŮluous” ofŮice. The ofŮice was Dimensional Models p. 4 quite rightly put back in place in 1899, as “Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek” (CBS). Statistics at the CBS has evolved from “simple” counting to an art requiring a broad range On the Probability of Co-primality of competences. Of course counting remains important. For example the CBS reports in of two Natural Numbers Chosen February 2017 that almost 1 out of 4 people entitled to vote in the Netherlands is over the at Random p. 7 age of 65. But clearly, knowing this generates questions. What is the inŮluence of this on the outcome of the elections? This calls for more data. Demographic data are combined with survey data and nowadays also with data from other sources, in part to release the “survey pressure” that Ůirms and individuals are facing. -
"Research Grants in Russian Science: Evidences of an Empirical
Ekaterina A. Streltsova RESEARCH GRANTS IN RUSSIAN SCIENCE: EVIDENCES OF AN EMPIRICAL STUDY BASIC RESEARCH PROGRAM WORKING PAPERS SERIES: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION WP BRP 70/STI/2017 This Working Paper is an output of a research project implemented within NRU HSE’s Annual Thematic Plan for Basic and Applied Research. Any opinions or claims contained in this Working Paper do not necessarily reflect the views of HSE. Ekaterina A. Streltsova1 RESEARCH GRANTS IN RUSSIAN SCIENCE: EVIDENCES OF AN EMPIRICAL STUDY2 The paper discusses the results of a survey devoted to the role of research grants for the modern Russian academic community. Researchers’ motives to apply for grants, the strategies used in grant contests, the factors decisive for grant success are presented. Also the extent of Russian scientists’ trust to the main research foundations in the country is discussed. The study has demonstrated that the symbolic value of grants for Russian scientists play a secondary role in comparison to their economic meaning: participation in grant contests is mainly motivated not by the aspiration for professional recognition, but the need for financial support. The paper might be of interest for sociologists of science and others interested in current transformations of scientific field in the country. Above all, an overview of academic literature on the topic – both foreign and Russian – is presented in the paper, what can make a significant contribution to any research on grant science: its evolution, national peculiarities of grant systems, grants’ influence on researchers’ work and life worldwide. JEL Classification: C83, I21, Y10 Keywords: research grants, research foundation, scientific field, Russia. -
Academic Brain Drain and Its Implications for Scientific Manpower Reproduction in Russia
WP3/17 SEARCH WORKING PAPER Academic brain drain and its implications for scientific manpower reproduction in Russia Alexander Chepurenko May 2013 ACADEMIC BRAIN DRAIN AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR SCIENTIFIC MANPOWER REPRODUCTION IN RUSSIA Alexander Chepurenko, Prof. Dr. National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia) Faculty of Sociology e-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT The paper looks into Russian researcher migration to the EU supported by international science foundations, by Humboldt Foundation (FRG) in particular. Examination of the specific involvement of highly skilled Russian experts in the current cross-border academic mobility helps answer the following question: does the wide-scale involvement of Russian researchers in international scientific community in the context of growing internationalization and globalization hinder or promote brain drain? It also makes it possible to assess the role of Western foundations in the development of Russian science, in particular, formation, academic development, integration in formal and informal international academic networks of the most skilled Russian researchers. Consideration is given to the factors influencing the current transboundary migration of Russian academics. Special attention is given to the role played by foreign non-commercial science foundations (A.Humboldt Foundations as an example) in formation, academic development, integration in formal and informal international academic networks of the most skilled Russian researchers. KEYWORDS Migration, -
Soviet States and Beyond: Political Epistemologies Of/And Marxism 1917-1945-1968
Soviet States and Beyond: Political Epistemologies of/and Marxism 1917-1945-1968 21-22 June 2018, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Myasnickaya 20, Moscow Самойлов Д.,Ефимович Б., Дворец техники. 1933 Organized by FRIEDRICH CAIN Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt ALEXANDER DMITRIEV Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities National Research University Higher School of Economics (IGITI HSE), Moscow DIETLIND HÜCHTKER Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO), Leipzig JAN SURMAN IGITI HSE Thurdsay, 21 June 2018, Myasnickaya 20, aud. 311 10:00-10:30 Opening 10:30-12:00 Soviet Science Studies and Their Politics (Chair Dietlind Hüchtker) ALEXANDER DMITRIEV, IGITI HSE: Beyond Boris Hessen: New History and Philosophy of Science in Early Soviet Union IGOR KAUFMANN, ST. PETERSBURG STATE UNIVERSITY: Epistemic Programme(s) of the Soviet Science Studies: something old, something new, something bizarre 12:00-13:00 Lunch Break 13:00-14:30 Entanglements & Receptions I: Before WWII (Chair Friedrich Cain) DARIA DROZDOVA, SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY, HSE: Historicizing Science: Soviet and Italian Interwar Projects in Comparison KARL HALL, CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY, BUDAPEST: Sarton’s Rivals: Disciplinary Dilemmas of History of Science circa 1931 14:30-15:00 Coffee Break 15:00-16:30 Soviet Science (Studies) in Comparison (Chair Daria Petushkova) GEERT SOMSEN, MAASTRICHT UNIVERSITY: The Epistemology of Popularization: British ‘Scientific -
The Social and Economic Roots of the Scientific Revolution
THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ROOTS OF THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION Texts by Boris Hessen and Henryk Grossmann edited by GIDEON FREUDENTHAL PETER MCLAUGHLIN 13 Editors Preface Gideon Freudenthal Peter McLaughlin Tel Aviv University University of Heidelberg The Cohn Institute for the History Philosophy Department and Philosophy of Science and Ideas Schulgasse 6 Ramat Aviv 69117 Heidelberg 69 978 Tel Aviv Germany Israel The texts of Boris Hessen and Henryk Grossmann assembled in this volume are important contributions to the historiography of the Scientific Revolution and to the methodology of the historiography of science. They are of course also historical documents, not only testifying to Marxist discourse of the time but also illustrating typical European fates in the first half of the twentieth century. Hessen was born a Jewish subject of the Russian Czar in the Ukraine, participated in the October Revolution and was executed in the Soviet Union at the beginning of the purges. Grossmann was born a Jewish subject of the Austro-Hungarian Kaiser in Poland and served as an Austrian officer in the First World War; afterwards he was forced to return to Poland and then because of his revolutionary political activities to emigrate to Germany; with the rise to power of the Nazis he had to flee to France and then America while his family, which remained in Europe, perished in Nazi concentration camps. Our own acquaintance with the work of these two authors is also indebted to historical context (under incomparably more fortunate circumstances): the revival of Marxist scholarship in Europe in the wake of the student movement and the pro- fessionalization of history of science on the Continent. -
Supplementvolum-E18 Nu-Mber-41989 .__L,___Society
ISSN 0739-4934 NEWSLETTER I IISTORY OF SCIENCE SUPPLEMENTVOLUM-E18 NU-MBER-41989 .__L,___SOCIETY - WELCOME TO GAINESVILLE HSS EXECUTIVE BY FREDERICK GREGORY COMMITTEE "A SOPI-llSTICATED SLICE of small-town south": so wrote Jonathan Lerner PRESIDENT about Gainesville for Washington Post readers this past spring. Like the majority MARY JO NYE, University of Oklahoma of visitors to Gainesville, Lerner was impressed with the topography of the city, VICE-PRESIDENT which forms a hammock-a dry area, relatively higher than its surroundings, STEPHEN G. BRUSH, University of Maryland that can support hardwood trees. Residents of Gainesville are enormously proud of the extensive canopy that covers 46 percent of their town, the highest per EXECUTIVE SECRETARY MICHAEL M. SOKAL, Worcester centage of any Florida city. In addition to the majestic live oaks, the southern Polytechnic Institute pine, and a variety of palm trees, dogwoods and magnolias are also plentiful. TREASURER Unfortunately the HSS Annual Meeting is held at a time of year that misses the MARY LOUISE GLEASON, New York City blossoms of our giant azaleas, some older ones of which are as high as roof tops. EDITOR f obvious interest to historians of science is nearby Paynes Prairie, an 18,000- RONALD L. NUMBERS, University of acre wildlife preserve whose zoological and botanical life was described in vivid Wisconsin-Madison detail by William Bartram after his travels through the region in 1774. Meeting sessions will be held on the campus of the University of Florida, which, at least in this part of the country, is never to be mixed up with Florida State University in Tallahassee. -
Philosophical and Comparative Analysis of Scientific Thought in China to Study the Activity of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues ISSN: 2146-4138 available at http: www.econjournals.com International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 2016, 6(S1) 266-269. Special Issue for “Theory and Practice of Organizational and Economic Problems of Territorial Development and the Effectiveness of Social and Economic Systems” Philosophical and Comparative Analysis of Scientific Thought in China to Study the Activity of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Olga Borisenko* Transbaikal State University, Chita, Russian Federation. *Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT The article analyzes the strategic partnership between the Russian Federation and China, as a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and we can see analysis of scientific works in China. In this article author said that all the SCO studies in China can be divided into two categories, where one of them is the real political dynamics studies, the other - focuses on theoretical questions. Its creation has affected not only the solution of border issues of China with neighboring countries. The emergence of new international non-governmental organizations focused on dialogue contribute to globalization and challenges against the backdrop of the current international image of the world. Directly in China studies at the SCO is of great interest not only in the scientific public, but also in society. This is due to the fact that the SCO is the only international and regional organizations, which was established on the initiative of not only China, but also with the regional headquarters located in China. The SCO creation has affected not only the solution of border issues of China with neighboring countries, but also largely contributed to peace and stability in the region. -
Corel Ventura
THE ROLE OF ISAAK PREZENT IN THE RISE AND FALL OF LYSENKOISM GIULIA RISPOLI1 ABSTRACT. The establishment of an “official” biology in the Soviet Union is often associated with the rise of Trofim D. Lysenko and with the unbridled power that he exercised with the active complicity of Stalin. However, Lysenko did not apply his tyrannical methods with the same effectiveness and to the same ends throughout his career. The institutionalization of the new agron- omy involved a complex combination of factors, and the power and charisma of those who surrounded Lysenko greatly facilitated his indoctrination of this branch of science. One of the most influential collaborators of Lysenko was the Marxist ideologist and Party official Isaak Izrailevich Prezent, whose relation- ship with Lysenko is crucial to understand Lysenko’s development from a simple plant breeder to a political force of the Soviet Union. KEY WORDS. Trofim D. Lysenko, Isaak I. Prezent, official biology, genetics, Academy Session, Alexander A. Malinovskij, science and politics, Soviet sci- ence, Stalinism, agricultural sciences. LYSENKO COMES TO POWER In a report published in 1944, the distinguished Soviet geologist Alexander E. Fersman was eager to demonstrate to the Western world the scientific advances achieved by the Soviet scientists thanks to the advent of Com- munism. His words sounded flattering especially in the field of biological sciences: In the study of the organism and its cells T. D. Lysenko was right when he wrote in the columns of the Herald of the Academy of Sciences that the nature of an organism is unusually pliant and inconstant, that changes in it may occur in the course of not only several generations but even during several days of its life, and that these changes may be caused artificially. -
Universities and Empire
Universities and Empire MONEY AND POLITICS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES DURING THE COLD WAR Edited and Introduced by Christopher Simpson THE NEW PRESS * NEW YORK 1998 (Slava Gerovitch) Writing History in the Present Tense: Cold War-era Discursive Strategies of Soviet Historians of Science and Technology The study of Soviet discourse is a fascinating journey through multiple layers of meaning, exquisite rhetorical feats, and intentional paradoxes. Soviet leaders fairly early arrived at the idea of supplementing direct political censorship with more subtle ideological controls over disciplinary discourses. However, their attempts to supervise and homogenize public discourse simply did not reach its goals. The fragmented and unstable real ity of Soviet discourse was a far cry from the (purported) perfect orderliness of totalitarian discourse, so vividly imagined in George Orwell’s 1984 and in various Orwell-inspired studies.1 Only recently have scholars begun to explore the tensions, in consistencies, and uncertainties of Soviet discursive practices. Studies of political discourse provided a few illustrative examples of the complexities involved. Michael Gorham, for instance, has pointed to an essential conflict in Soviet political discourse: The more colloquial a tone Soviet propaganda assumed, the less it was capable of conveying abstract ideas and political symbols of the central state. When sophisticated political language was em ployed, it often caused frustration, distrust, and alienation on the part of peasants and workers.2 In another study, Rachel Walker 189 SLAVA GEROVITCH identified a “linguistic paradox” in Soviet political discourse, which stemmed from the necessity for Soviet leaders to maintain the appearance of continuity with the teachings of Marx and Le nin, and at the same time “creatively develop” Marxist-Leninist doctrine.3 An even more complex picture emerges when we turn from political texts to various disciplinary discourses characteristic of the Soviet academic community. -
The Phenomenon of Soviet Science
The Phenomenon of Soviet Science By Alexei Kojevnikov* ABSTRACT The grand “Soviet experiment” constituted an attempt to greatly accelerate and even shortcut the gradual course of historical development on the assumption of presumed knowledge of the general laws of history. This paper discusses the parts of that experiment that directly concerned scientifi c research and, in fact, anticipated or helped defi ne important global changes in the functioning of science as a profes- sion and an institution during the twentieth century. The phenomenon of Soviet, or socialist, science is analyzed here from the comparative international perspective, with attention to similarities and reciprocal infl uences, rather than to the contrasts and dichotomies that have traditionally interested cold war–type historiography. The problem is considered at several levels: philosophical (Soviet thought on the relationship between science and society and the social construction of scientifi c knowledge); institutional (the state recognition of research as a separate profession, the rise of big science and scientifi c research institutes); demographic (science be- coming a mass profession, with ethnic and gender diversity among scientists); and political (Soviet- inspired infl uences on the practice of science in Europe and the United States through the social relations of science movement of the 1930s and the Sputnik shock of the 1950s). SCIENCE AND SOVIET VALUES The fact that the Soviet Communist regime placed extraordinarily high value and ex- pectations upon science is, of course, rather well known. So much so, perhaps, that it has usually not been seen as a historical problem but has been taken for granted as something natural that does not ask for further discussion or inquiry.