Philosophical Foundations of Science

At the 1969 annual meeting of the American Association for the Ad­ vancement ofScience, held in Boston on December 27-29, a sequence of symposia on the philosophical foundations of science was organized jointly by Section L of the Association and the Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science. Section L is devoted to the history, philos­ ophy, logic and sociology of science, with broad connotations extended both to 'science' and to 'philosophy'. With collaboration generously extended by other and more specialized Sections of the AAAS, the Section L program took an unusually rich range of topics, and indeed the audiences were large, and the discussions lively. This book, regrettably delayed in publication, contains the major papers from those symposia of 1969. In addition, it contains the distin­ guished George Sarton Memorial Lecture of that meeting, 'Boltzmann, Monocycles and Mechanical Explanation' by Martin J. Klein. Some additions and omissions should be noted: In Part 1, dedicated to the 450th anniversary of the birth of Leonardo da Vinci, we have been una bie to include a contrihution by Elmer Belt who was prevented by storms from participating. In Part II, on physics and the explanation of life, we were unable to persuade Isaac Asimov to overcome his modesty about the historical remarks he made under the title 'Arrhenius Revisited'.

Inhalt

I / 450th Anniversary of the Death of Leonardo da Vinci.- An Aspect of Leonardo's Painting.- Leonardo da Vinci and the Sublimatory Process.- On the Physical Insights of Leonardo da Vinci.- Leonardo as Military Engineer.- Leonardo da Vinci and the Beginnings of Factories with a Central Source of Power.- II / Physics and the Explanation of Life.- Physics and the Explanation of Life.- New Concepts in the Evolution of Complexity. Stratified Stability and Unbounded Plans.- III / The George Sarton Memorial Lecture, 1969.- Boltzmann, Monocycles and Mechanical Explanation.- IV / Current Problems of Cosmology.- to the Symposium on Cosmology.- Cosmology as a Science.- Open or Closed?.- Cosmic Evolution.- Highly Condensed Objects.- The Case for a Hierarchical Cosmology. Recent Observations Indicate that Hierarchical Clustering Is a Basic Factor in Cosmology.- From Mendeléev's Atom to the Collapsing Star.- V / Objectivity and Anthropology.- Objectivity in the Social Sciences.- On the Objectivity of Anthropology.- Acquired Models and the Modification of Anthropological Evidence.- The Present Status of Anthropology as an Explanatory Science.- 'Subjective' and 'Objective' in Social Anthropological Epistemology.- VI / Comparative History and Sociology of Science.- Scientific Concepts and Social Structure in Ancient Greece.- Algébre etlinguistique: l'analyse combinatoire dans la science arabe.- Scientific Strategies and Historical Change.- Logicality and Rationality: A Comment on Toulmin's Theory of Science.- On Pursuing the Unattainable.- Sciences and Civilizations, 'East' and 'West'. Joseph Needham and Max Weber.- VII / Unity of Science.- The Unity of Science and Theory Construction in Molecular Biology.- The Evolution of the Problem of the Unity of Science.