Bob Hansman
runs nationially recognized City Faces program
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Bob Hansman runs nationially recognized City Faces program |
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Hacking, Beatty to speak for Assembly Series
By Mary Kastens The University will welcome two eminent philosophers in two days for its Assembly Series. Ian Hacking will deliver a lecture titled "Body Parts: Large and Small" at 11 a.m. Sept. 25 in Graham Chapel, and John Beatty will give the Thomas Hall Lecture titled "Genetics, the Atomic Age and the Cold War" at 4 p.m. Sept. 26 in Rebstock Hall, Room 215.
Hacking is best known for his work in the philosophy of science, language and mathematics and his inquiry into philosophical questions about psychopathology. In an interview with The Toronto Star, Hacking said, "I have this extraordinary curiosity about all subjects of the natural and human world and the interaction between the physical sciences and the social sciences. I sometimes describe myself, somewhat condescendingly, as a dilettante. But dilettantes are useful because they're not scared of things." The Modern Library selected The Taming of Chance, Hacking's 1990 cultural history of probability, as one of the top 100 works of nonfiction in the 20th century. Hacking's other publications include An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic (2001), The Social Construction of What? (1999), Mad Travelers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illness (1998) and Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory (1995). Rewriting the Soul was the winner of the 1995 Pierre Janet Writing Award of the International Society for the Study of Disso-ciation. A reviewer from Con-temporary Psychology wrote, "In Hacking's hands, multiple personality emerges as a paradigmatic case study illuminating basic questions about truth, memory, fact and fiction, about knowledge, science and identity. . ." In 2000, Hacking was elected to a chair in philosophy and the history of scientific concepts at the College de France in Paris. He is the first English-speaking scholar to receive this honor and joins the ranks of such distinguished intellectuals as Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Claude Levi-Strauss and Umberto Eco. Hacking was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. He earned a bachelor's degree at the University of British Columbia and a second bachelor's and a doctorate in philosophy at Cambridge University. He has taught at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford and also at Stanford University, where he chaired the philosophy department.
Philosopher of science Beatty is the Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor in the department of ecology, evolution and behavior at the University of Minnesota. The thrust of his talk will be on the way science and national security have tended, until recently, to focus almost exclusively on the physical sciences. But recent fears of bioterrorism have led modern society to think more broadly about the role that biology might play in national security in the 21st century. However, according to Beatty, biology has long played a role in considerations of national security, and he will consider the relevance of genetics (and population genetics) to Atomic Age and Cold War concerns, and in turn the impact of the Atomic Age and the Cold War on genetics.
Beatty earned a bachelor's degree in biology and chemistry from Tulane University in 1973, and master's and doctoral degrees in history and philosophy of science in 1977 and 1979, respectively, both from Indiana University. He has taught at Harvard, Arizona State and Stanford universities. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Beatty chairs the AAAS's Section on History and Philosophy of Science. He also chairs the U.S. National Committee of the International Union for History and Philosophy of Science. |
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