107 Permeable Boundaries of Science

Friday, April 15, 2016: 11:00 AM-12:45 PM
Assembly A (DoubleTree by Hilton Philadelphia Center City)
Modern science has played a central role in the intellectual history of twentieth-century Europe.  Our panelists explore some of the ways that the sciences have reshaped other spheres of thought.  The first paper, “Epistemologies of the Dancing Subject,” argues that German dancers before 1928 saw their practice as a way beyond the limits of science.  The second paper, “Biology, Structure, and Temporality in 20th Century French Thought,” uncovers the relationship between the history of structuralism and French philosophers’ engagement with modern biology.  The third paper, "The Spirit of Psychiatry in Interwar France," shows how the science of psychiatry in interwar France was part of a broader spiritualist movement.  Finally, "Historical Epistemology and Economic Truth in 1950s French Thought," argues that postwar discussions of a “crisis of economic thought” masked deeper debates about the epistemological status of economics. Together these papers highlight historical figures for whom the boundaries between science and other domains of thought were not fixed, but permeable and, in doing so, bring to light historical developments only discernable at the boundary between intellectual history and the history of science.
Organizer:
Isabel Gabel
Chair:
Warren Breckman
Discussant :
Warren Breckman
Epistemologies of the Dancing Subject
Ana Isabel Keilson, Columbia University
The Spirit of Psychiatry in Interwar France
Larry S. McGrath, Wesleyan University
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