News & Events
Announcements
- You are cordially invited to attend a small workshop organized by IHPST graduate students on Eugenics in North America to be held from 9:45 am to 3:30 pm on 9 May 2013 at PDR (second floor), Senior Common Room, Burwash Hall, 89 Charles street West. Coffee and cookies will be provided. Those who need something more substantial are encouraged to bring their own lunch.
- Congratulations to Mark Solovey, the newest inductee to IHPST's illustrious Order of the Falling Apple.
- Check out our new gallery of photos from the 2012-2013 Falling Apple Party
- IHPST graduate and current postdoc at McGill, Leslie Tomory, Ph.D. 2009, has just received the prize of the Quebec Fonds de Recherche "Étudiants Chercheurs Étoiles" for his recently published book Progressive Enlightenment: The Origins of the Gaslight Industry,1780–1820, Cambridge : MIT Press, 2012. DETAILS
- IHPST will be hosting the Fourth Biennial Meeting of the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice 26-29 June 2013.
- Read this new article on Taking Toronto's Healthcare History (PDF)
Calendar
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HPS Colloquium Series
The HPS Colloquium series is a formal event open to all faculty and graduate students interested in the history and philosophy of science and technology. The series usually takes place on Wednesdays from 4:00-5:30, in Victoria College Room 323, with refreshments following in the Graduate Common Room of the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (Victoria College, Room 303). Any questions may be addressed to Brian Baigrie.
- 9 Jan“Supervenience, Fundamentality and Quantum States”» Bill Seager, Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto
- 16 Jan“The Camera Obscura and New Science Imaging Technologies: a Deep History”» Don Ihde, Professor of Philosophy, Stony Brook University
NOTE: Lunch hour talk - 23 Jan“Reconfiguring the (Infant and Child) Body: Pediatric Surgery at the Hospital for Sick Children, 1892-1914”» David Wright and Renée Saucier, Department of History, McGill University
- 13 Feb“Scientific Representation: a New Approach with a Long History”» Robert DiSalle, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario
- 27 Feb“Anatomical Transparencies”» Shelley Wall, Biomedical Communications, Dept. of Biology, University of Toronto
- 6 Mar“TBA”» Nicholas Everett, Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto
- 20 Mar“The No Alternatives Argument”» Stephan Hartmann, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, LMU Munich
NOTE: Lunch hour talk (12-1:30pm). LOCATION: Emmanuel College Room 108 - 17 Apr“Traces of Life: Reflections on ‘Medical Portraiture”» Ludmilla Jordanova, Department of History, King's College London
HPS Workshop
The HPS Workshop is a seminar group devoted to offering informal, constructive feedback on work in progress in the history and philosophy of science and technology, such as MA term papers, PhD chapters, prospective conference talks, and articles ultimately intended for publication. The seminar is open to all faculty and graduate students, and takes place on Wednesdays from 12-1 in the Graduate Common Room of the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (Victoria College, Room 303). Pizza will be provided!
Each session will begin with a 20-45 minute talk, followed by discussion. No paper is too half-baked for the HPS Workshop, and fully-baked comments will be provided. Anyone desiring helpful feedback on their work should contact the organizer by email Greg Lusk to book a slot in the schedule below.
- 13 FebJacob Stegenga» Effectiveness of Medical Interventions
- 20 FebIsaac Record» Remaking history: The case for 3D scanning and printing as a methodology in the humanistic studies of science and technology
- 6 MarMariya Boyko
- 13 MarMike Stuart Special time: 1pm
- 3 AprDenis Walsh
- 17 AprPaul Greenham
HPS Reading Group
The HPS Reading Group is an informal discussion group open to all faculty and graduate students interested in the history and philosophy of science and technology. Meetings are held in the Common Room of the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (Victoria College, Room 303), on Wednesdays, 13:00–14:15 p.m., and are scheduled so as not to conflict with especially busy times at the beginning and end of term (see below). Please feel free to bring your lunch!
This term, we will read Alan J. Rocke, Image and Reality: Kekule, Kopp, and the Scientific Imagination (Chicago: 2010)
Please contact the organizer, Brian Baigrie with any questions.
The book is available from Amazon on a 3-day delivery and the Kindle version can be downloaded immediately.
Nineteenth-century chemists were faced with a particular problem: how to depict the atoms and molecules that are beyond the direct reach of our bodily senses. In visualizing this microworld, these scientists were the first to move beyond high-level philosophical speculations regarding the unseen. In Image and Reality, Alan Rocke focuses on the community of organic chemists in Germany to provide the basis for a fuller understanding of the nature of scientific creativity.
Arguing that visual mental images regularly assisted many of these scientists in thinking through old problems and new possibilities, Rocke uses a variety of sources, including private correspondence, diagrams and illustrations, scientific papers, and public statements, to investigate their ability to not only imagine the invisibly tiny atoms and molecules upon which they operated daily, but to build detailed and empirically based pictures of how all of the atoms in complicated molecules were interconnected. These portrayals of “chemical structures,” both as mental images and as paper tools, gradually became an accepted part of science during these years and are now regarded as one of the central defining features of chemistry. In telling this fascinating story in a manner accessible to the lay reader, Rocke also suggests that imagistic thinking is often at the heart of creative thinking in all fields.
Schedule for Winter 2012-2013
- Jan 9Initial Meeting (11 am, IHPST lounge)
- • IHPST is hosting the Picturing Health and Medicine workshop on April 17.
- • It's Back! The 5th annual GTA will take place on April 19.
- • Evelyn Fox Keller will deliver this year's Wiegand Lecture, entitled “Self-Organization and God” at 7pm on Wednesday 14 November at the Innis Town Hall, Innis College, 2 Sussex Avenue.
- • The Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology would like to announce that Brooke Abounader, Eugene Earnshaw-Whyte, Vivien Hamilton, Sarah Kriger, Isaac Record, Anna Stoklosa, and Jonathan Turner have successfully defended their dissertations. Congratulations Dr. Abounader, Dr. Earnshaw-Whyte, Dr. Hamilton, Dr. Kriger, Dr. Record, Dr. Stoklosa, and Dr. Turner!
• In the spring of 2012 the University of Toronto Scientific Instrument Collection organized a symposium, artifact exhibition and co-hosted a viewing party for the June 5th Transit of Venus in honor of the scientific and historical importance the event has held here at the University of Toronto. You can watch the documentary short on the Transit of Venus here. UTSIC is proud to develop new ways with which to communicate the importance of material culture at the University of Toronto and hopes that this project is the first of many dynamic and engaging endeavours to come.- • Craig Fraser will speak on "Mathematics on the Eve of the Great War: Background to the Career of John Charles Fields" at 3:30pm on 11 October at the Fields Institute, 222 College Street, Room 230.
- • The IHPST is pleased to announce that Hakob Barseghyan has joined the faculty of the Institute in a one-year appointment as assistant professor in the philosophy of science.
If you have an accessibility or accommodation need for colloquia, conferences, lectures, meetings, please e-mail the IHPST department directly at ihpst.info@utoronto.ca so that the appropriate arrangements can be made. If you prefer and/or have questions regarding accessible employment at the University please contact our Employment Equity Office at employment.equity@utoronto.ca