Stevin Seminar: Machines as Metaphors: a ‘big picture’ of the history of modern science

Frans van Lunteren on Machines as Metaphors

Wednesday 9 December 16.00-17.15h
Wis- & Natuurkundegebouw: WN C 161
Afterwards drinks in The Basket

Abstract
Machines as metaphors: a ‘big picture’ of the history of modern science

Over the last few decades there have been several calls for a ‘big picture’ of the history of science. There is a general need for a concise overview of the rise of modern science, with a clear structure allowing for a rough division in periods. Here I would like to propose such a scheme, one that is both elementary and comprehensive. It focuses on four machines, which mediated between science and society during successive periods of time. Following an extended developmental phase each of these machines came to play a highly visible role in Western societies, both socially and economically. Each of these machines, moreover, was used as a powerful resource for the understanding of both inorganic and organic nature. More specifically, their metaphorical use helped to construe and refine some key concepts that would play a prominent role in such understanding. Finally, in a refined form, each of these machine would eventually make its entry in scientific research, thereby strengthening the ties between these machines and nature.

Frans van Lunteren is professor in the history of science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Leiden University.

Stevin Seminar: Alchemy at Meissen, or How China became china (and Europe transmuted the world)

Stevin Seminar / Graduate Lecture Benjamin Schmidt on alchemy, porcelain and global imagination: “Alchemy at Meissen, or How China became china (and Europe transmuted the world)”
Date: Wednesday 11 November 2015
Time: 15.30-17.00. Drinks afterwards
Location: VU, Main Building, room 11A24

Stevin Seminar: Race and Conceptual Change. Reconsidering the History and Future of Racial Classifications

Lecturer: Dr. David Ludwig

Abstract
“Race” is widely considered a discredited scientific concept that was established by Enlightenment taxonomists but lost credibility over the course of the 20th century and became thoroughly debunked by post-war population biology and genetics. While it remains a consensus view that biological differences between human populations have no cognitive or behavioral implications, the concept of race has reemerged in debates about 21st-century genomics and biomedicine. Recent scholarship in the science studies discusses these developments by claiming that biological races are again “gaining in reality” and by questioning whether race is “still socially constructed”.

The aim of this talk is to argue that recent controversies about the status of race have to be understood in a broader context of conceptual change in science. “Race” is a historically variable term that is without stable referent but has been used to express vastly different biological, cultural, metaphysical, and political ideas. We therefore need to understand the history of race in terms of a historical ontology that acknowledges its referential instability. Finally, I argue that this perspective has relevant implications for the current state and the future of racial classifications. Instead of asking what races really are, we need to address the epistemic and social implications of different conceptual strategies in contemporary genomics and biomedicine.

Dr. David Ludwig is a researcher and Veni-laureate at the Faculty of Humanities, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Stevin Seminar: de ontdekkers van de hemel

Er is iets bijzonders aan de hand met de sterrenkunde in Nederland. Ondanks zijn bewolkte klimaat en dichte bebouwing is Nederland op astronomisch gebied een grootmacht, en dat al een eeuw lang, met kopstukken als Kapteyn, Minnaert en Oort. Hoe komt dat? Wie waren die mensen? En waarom werd juist de Nederlandse sterrenkunde zo succesvol?

Het seminar vindt plaats naar aanleiding van het nieuwe boek van wetenschapshistoricus David Baneke, verbonden aan het Descartes Centrum, over de Nederlandse sterrenkunde in de twintigste eeuw.

De middag staat onder voorzitterschap van Jeroen van Dongen (UvA-HHS) en zal behalve een presentatie van David Baneke bestaan uit reflecties vanuit sterrenkundig en historisch perspectief.

De reflectie vanuit de sterrenkunde zal worden verzorgd door emeritus hoogleraar astrofysica Ed van den Heuvel, die in 1995 de Spinozaprijs won. De historische reflectie wordt gegeven door Abel Streefland, die aan een proefschrift werkt over Jaap Kistemaker en de Nederlandse uraniumverrijking na 1945.

Na afloop borrel in The Basket

In De ontdekkers van de hemel analyseert David Baneke de ontwikkeling van de sterrenkunde in Nederland vanaf de negentiende eeuw tot nu. Hij beschrijft wat er in verschillende periodes van wetenschap werd verwacht, wat de dromen en ambities waren, en welke rol de overheid speelde.

Het verhaal van de sterrenkunde is verweven met de politieke, economische en culturele geschiedenis. Wereldoorlogen, wederopbouw en de koude oorlog speelden een rol, net als het idealisme van de jaren zeventig, het marktdenken dat daarop volgde, en de internationale opstelling van Nederland als ambitieus maar klein land.

Uiteindelijk probeert De ontdekkers van de hemel een antwoord te geven op de vraag waarom we überhaupt aan sterrenkunde doen.

David Baneke studeerde geschiedenis en werkte als wetenschapshistoricus aan verschillende Nederlandse universiteiten en op het Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington. In 2008 publiceerde hij Synthetisch denken: natuurwetenschappers over hun rol in een moderne maatschappij, 1900-1940.

Stevin Seminar: ‘Our’ Common Knowledge. Epistemic Constellations and the A priori in the Early Stoa, in Arabic Philosophy, and in Medieval Latin Philosophy

Lecturer: Wouter Goris
Abstract:
If Kant, in a famous passage in the first Critique (A166-7), refers to Epicurus to connect his anticipation of perception with the latter’s notion of prolēpsis, this prolēpsis, meanwhile comfortably embedded in the opposition between the empirical and the transcendental, is defined in contradistinction to one of its main characteristics in Epicureanism and the Early Stoa: its empirical character. Between Epicurus and Kant, the history of the a priori is enacted. In this contribution, we present some stages of this history. Instead of analyzing a continuity, however, we set out to describe the way different epistemic constellations put into operation like formal structures. In the Early Stoa, in Arabic Philosophy, and in Medieval Latin Philosophy, we encounter the idea of natural conceptions common to all mankind. In each of these traditions, this idea is put forward to provide an answer to the Meno-paradox. And in each of these traditions, finally, we can observe a specific tension between the empirical and the transcendental dimensions of these natural conceptions. Judged from the history of philosophy, we are confronted here with the question of reason, the inalienable associate of human nature, and the need to allow for anthropological constants. Judged from the variety of epistemic constellation, however, the question is rather how these discourses create the illusion of continuity.

Wouter Goris is professor of the history of ancient, patristic and medieval philosophy at the VU University

Stevin Seminar: Kuyper en Warfield over evolutie

Het werk van VU-oprichter Abraham Kuyper beleeft momenteel een ware revival in de Verenigde Staten. Met name door evangelicale theologen wordt Kuypers hulp en autoriteit ingeroepen voor de oplossing van zeer uiteenlopende hedendaagse samenlevingsvragen. De vraag is nu of Kuyper ook zou kunnen helpen bij het overbruggen van de vaak grote kloof tussen geloof en wetenschap, tussen old time religion en academie? Om hier een antwoord op te vinden, herlezen we de rectorale rede over Evolutie die Kuyper op de VU hield in oktober 1899. Dat was één jaar nadat hij te Princeton zijn fameuze Stone-lectures had gehouden, op uitnodiging van zijn gastheer en collega daar: Benjamin B. Warfield. Mijn hypothese is nu dat Kuyper in zijn rede weliswaar op retorisch fraaie en inhoudelijk goed geïnformeerde wijze het evolutiedenken kritiseert, maar op het beslissend punt invloed vertoont van Warfields veel opener benadering van de evolutietheorie. Recent onderzoek van David Livingstone e.a. heeft laten zien dat de reacties van religieuze gemeenschappen op Darwins evolutietheorie sterk gekleurd werden door ‘the particulars of place’. In deze lezing zal dit nagegaan worden met betrekking tot Amsterdam en Princeton – Kuyper en Warfield. 

Gijsbert van den Brink is URC-hoogleraar Theologie en wetenschap aan de Faculteit der Godgeleerdheid.

Stevin Seminar: Theologians and Recalcitrant Horses. How Early-Modern Scholasticism Shaped 16th-Century Castilian Sales Law

Lecturer: Niels de Bruijn
Abstract:
In the year 1571, Antonio de la Vega Sanz, proudly seated on his recently acquired horse, rode toward Toledos’ plaza mayor to royally entertain Queen Anna of Austria. However, to Sanz’ dismay, his latest purchase ‘made a lot of trouble and kicked him twice and it was necessary for him to leave the said square for all the hubbub he caused on it’, so a witness later told. After this embarrassing scene, Sanz channeled his frustrations into a suit against Pedro de Hortiz and his son who had sold him the indomitable horse and claimed compensation for all the damages he had incurred. This case is one of many about a defect in a thing bought which made it to the Royal Chancery of Valladolid, Castilian’s highest appellate court at the time, and which can still be consulted today in the Chancery’s archives. Yet, the files of these lawsuits do not inform us about the legal sources which were used to come to a decision. Discussing 16th-century books on Castilian legal doctrine, theological treatises and case law of the Royal Chancery, this presentation attempts to illustrate by which principles and norms Castilian legal scholars and practitioners led themselves be guided in their pleas and judgments in cases such as Sanz’. Particular attention will be paid to the role early-modern scholastics played in the treatment of such down-to-earth issues as sales of recalcitrant horses.

Niels de Bruijn is a Ph.D-Candidate in Legal History at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

Stevin Seminar: Self-knowledge through numbers. Self-instructors in phrenology as self-tracking technologies, 1850-1900

Lecturer: Fenneke Sysling
Abstract:
Today it has become popular to use digital technology to acquire data on daily life: on sleep patterns, calorie intake or the number of steps taken for example. These data are supposed to give people a more accurate and objective sense of themselves which can help implement changes, for example to live a healthier life. The technologies to make this possible are revolutionary but the use of quantification to study and understand the individual body is not new. This paper looks at the late nineteenth century example of phrenology. Phrenologists believed that the human mind could be categorized in different mental faculties, with each particular faculty represented in a different area of the brain. On the head the development of these areas could be studied by analyzing the bumps. These bumps however were not only studied by (semi-)professional phrenologists but also by individuals who applied phrenology to themselves and to others, mostly in the U.S. and England. This paper shows how with the help of phrenological ‘Self-Instructors’ individuals in this historical period too transformed their own self-understanding and worked towards self-improvement by engaging with techniques of quantification.

Fenneke Sysling is a lecturer at the Vrije Universiteit, specialized in the history of science, race and colonialism. She wrote her PhD thesis on the history of physical anthropology in the Netherlands Indies.

Stevin Seminar: Troubled Waters, Clearing Skies: boundary disputes and the struggle for authority in 19th-century meteorology

Lecturer: Azadeh Achbari
Abstract:
Understanding weather conditions on land and at sea became a matter of prime concern and gained increasing relevance in the 19th-century globalizing world of colonial expansion and maritime trade. As the weather knew no boundaries, neither national, nor between land and sea, knowing its phenomena was a shared interest. Despite an increasing awareness of the need for international cooperation, however, 19th-century meteorology was a highly contested field. Naval officers and academic men of science struggled for authority in the emerging science. Practical concerns clashed with scientific ambitions when the primacy of marine or land-based observations was discussed. The growing practice of weather forecasts and storm warnings added a new dimension to the dispute as their scientific basis was severely questioned by academic elites. Meteorological theories abounded, but who was to be trusted as an expert? What meteorological standards should be met? While the British Royal Society sought to bend these issues to suit its concerns, it was the Dutch professor Buys Ballot who, mainly through his networking abilities, got the upper hand in most of these battles. In 1868 his rule of thumb was transformed into a universal law of nature, internationally referred to as “Buys Ballot’s Law”. Five years later his leading position was manifest in his appointment as president of the international meteorological conference held in Vienna.

Azadeh Achbari is a PhD student at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She has a Master Degree in European Studies of the University of Amsterdam. Her research was funded by NWO and Fulbright.

Stevin Seminar: Hoe kennis van China naar Europa kwam: de rol van jezuïeten en VOC-dienaren, ca. 1680-1795

Lecturer: Frasie Hertroijs
Abstract: Europese geleerden uit de achttiende eeuw waren onder de indruk van de Chinese beschaving, die toen volop in ontwikkeling was. Het verzamelen van kennis over deze beschaving was echter niet zo gemakkelijk. De Chinese keizers lieten alleen kleine groepen Europese missionarissen en handelaren toe in hun rijk, en hielden streng toezicht op wat deze buitenlanders naar Europa stuurden. De Jezuïetenorde en de VOC vormden lange tijd de informatiebron voor Europa. Vervolging en concurrentie in de loop van de achttiende eeuw leidde ertoe dat hun positie veranderde. Niettemin bleven zij bijdragen aan de circulatie van kennis, waarin persoonlijke relaties en betrekkingen met nationale academies van cruciaal belang waren.

Frasie Hertroijs (1980) verdedigde dit voorjaar aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam haar proefschrift. Haar onderzoek werd gefinancierd door de Stichting Professor van Winter Fonds en vond onder meer plaats in archieven in Parijs en Rome

Symposium on Rienk Vermij’s new book ‘De geest uit de fles: de Verlichting en het verval van de confessionele samenleving’

RIENK VERMIJ will give an introduction. Then HENRI KROP (philosophy, EUR), WOUTER VERAART (philosphy of law, VU) and IDA STAMHUIS (history of exact-natural science, VU) will react, each from her/his expertise. Plenary discussion.

Afterwards drinks will be available.

From 14:30 hr. to 15:15 hr., the Council of the Stevin Centre will present its plans for the next 2 years and an initial proposal for a Stevin Centre MINOR will be discussed.

About the book (link):DE GEEST UIT DE FLES

All interested people are welcome. The language of the Symposium will be Dutch.

Opening Symposium Stevin Centre for History of Science and Humanities