Summary of the book “Science Still Born” (2001), presented at the XXIst International Congress of History of Science, Mexico City, Mexico, July 8-14, 2001. // Resumen del libro “Amistad y Progreso” (2001), presentado en el XXI Congreso Internacional de la Historia de la Ciencia, Ciudad de Mexico, 8-14 de julio del 2001.

Part of a special issue “Making Animal Materials in Time” (HSNS 53, no. 3)

1. Gergen argues that situations which human beings didn’t understand or deal with appropriately would inflict painful lessons – providing a conditioning or predisposition for learning. “In the Darwinian sense, the ability to conceptualize has survival value. To be more specific, concepts are valuable tools in problem solving.” (p.23) “In ess…[Read more]

There is no doubt whatsoever that emotions are very important and highly significant in the processing of data and information, as well as in the day-to day functioning of the human being. Eric Klinger, whose expertise is in personality psychology and motivation theory, focuses on the influences of motivation and emotion on cognition. Klinger…[Read more]

How do we know if animals can think? In extension of the previous debate on human-animal relations, this book analyzes the conditions and contexts of the scientific acquisition of our knowledge of animals. The current discussions within animal philosophy revolve around the three central questions of whether we can attribute a mind to animals, what…[Read more]

In current debates about the relationships between humans and nonhuman animals, knowledge about animals is often adopted from the sciences. However, this largely ignores the fact that relationships of this kind also exist in empirical animal research and that these constellations between researchers and the researched have both ethical and…[Read more]

Animal welfare and animal rights issues have reached the curricula, agendas and priorities of a wide range of educational institutions and initiatives. Their actors are faced with the challenge of not only explaining the relevance of animal ethics and animal rights, but also conceptualising how to teach them: How can animal protection and animal…[Read more]

On the example of “The Walking Dead”, we demonstrate in how far the reception of pop culture narratives can serve not merely trivial entertainment, but epistemological interest as well. For this purpose, we introduce the term pop cultural secondary worlds and formulate the thesis that these can be used analogously to thought experiments. The…[Read more]

कोरोना की आड़ में जो कुछ हुआ है, उस पर नजर रखना आवश्यक है। ऐसी अनेक छोटी-छोटी घटनाएं हैं, जिनकी ओर प्राय: हमारी नजर नहीं जाती। वैश्विक स्वास्थ्य बाजार के किंग पिन माने जाने बिल गेट्स इनमें से अधिकांश घटनाओं से आपको जुड़े हुए दिखाई देते हैं। ऐसा ही एक मामला वीडियो कॉलिंग की सर्विस देने वाले ‘जूम’ से संबंधित था।

वस्तुत: यह सब सिर्फ व्यापा…[Read more]

People can laugh at almost anything. What’s the deal with that? What makes something funny? This essay reviews some theories of what it is for something to be funny. Each theory offers insights into this question, but no single approach provides a comprehensive answer.

Wissenschaftler und Denker haben sich widerstandslos für die Durchsetzung der herrschenden Corona-Agenda einspannen lassen.

Der durch das Coronavirus veranlasste Lockdown hat nicht nur unsere körperliche Freiheit ausgehöhlt, sondern auch unsere geistige Freiheit untergraben. In vielen Ländern wurde für das Denken Käfighaltung angeordnet. Offen…[Read more]

Although he obtained a medical degree at the University of Caen in 1618, Isaac Beeckman never practised medicine. Instead, he developed an atomistic conception of Galenic physiology by discussing, throughout his notebook, the constituents and functioning of the living body. Interestingly, Beeckman applied his atomistic interpretation to the notion…[Read more]

The present study has been primarily provoked from the inadequacy of both late and present presuppositionalists to sufficiently answer or refute the more philosophical, transcendental challenges levelled against Van Til’s Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (hereafter TAG). Given this shortcoming—which, with it, comes an atm…[Read more]

Lynn Margulis’s writing about symbiosis has profoundly influenced contemporary evolutionary theory, as well as continental and analytic philosophy of science, the materialist turn, and new materialism. Nonetheless, her work, and all symbiosis or evolution, is founded on a paradox: symbiosis fictionalizes customary accounts of the origin and e…[Read more]

In two very influential papers from 2008, Tamar Gendler introduced the concept of “alief” to describe the mental state one is in when acting in ways contrary to their consciously professed beliefs. For example, if asked to eat what they know is fudge, but shaped into the form of dog feces, they will hesitate, and behave in a manner that would be…[Read more]

कोविड महामारी से निपटने के लिए विज्ञान की भूमिका को सर्वोपरि बताया गया। लेकिन विज्ञान के नाम पर अनेक ऐसी चीजें भी हुईं, जिसने इस विभिषिका को निर्मित करने तथा इसे और भयावह बनाने में योगदान किया। इस दौरन सांख्यिकी के आंकड़ों को विज्ञान बनाकर प्रचारित किया गया तथा दुनिया के अधिकांश हिस्से को लॉकडाउन में धकेल दिया गया। ऐसे में सवाल यह…[Read more]

Pramod Ranjan wirft einen Blick aus Indien auf die Coronakrise und das wissenschaftliche Verständnis von der Welt, das oft erwähnt, aber meist ignoriert wird, sowie die Frage, wem das nutzt.

Die übertriebene Angst vor Covid-19 hat die menschliche Zivilisation und Kultur in Gefahr gebracht. Die Richtung, in die sich die Menschheit bewegte, br…[Read more]

The chair of chymiatria created at the University of Marburg was among the earliest academic initiatives aiming to integrate chymistry into the medical curriculum. If its practical applications in pharmacy and its relationship with patronage have been examined by historians, the theoretical part of the chymiatria programme still remains to be…[Read more]

Scientific diagrams could and did appear in unexpected places. This essay discusses such an example: the diagrams that the thirteenth- to fourteenth-century scholar George-Gregory Chioniades added to a manuscript of John of Damascus’s Fountain of Knowledge as part of his commentary on the text. I argue that the diagrams were a very important, if…[Read more]