> 1st Vienna International Summer University
> Scientific World Conceptions
>
> Beginning in 2001 the University of Vienna and the Institute Vienna Circle
> will hold an annual two-week summer program dedicated to major current issues
> in the natural and the social sciences, their history and philosophy. The
> title of the program reflects the heritage of the Vienna Circle which promoted
> interdisciplinary and philosophical investigations based on solid disciplinary
> knowledge.
>
> As an international interdisciplinary program, VISU-SWC brings graduate
> students in close contact with world-renowned scholars. It operates under the
> academic supervision of an International Program Committee of distinguished
> philosophers, historians, and scientists. The program is directed primarily to
> graduate students and junior researchers in fields related to the annual
> topic, but the organizers also encourage applications from gifted
> undergraduates and from people in all stages of their career who wish to
> broaden their horizon through cross-disciplinary studies of methodological and
> foundational issues in science.
>
> The schedule consists of morning sessions, chaired by distinguished lecturers
> which focus on readings assigned to students in advance. Afternoon sessions
> are made up of tutorials by assistant professors for junior students and of
> smaller groups which offer senior students the opportunity to discuss their
> own research papers with one of the main lecturers. A more detailed syllabus,
> based on the specific interests indicated by applicants, will be provided at
> the end of the admission process. The first topic is:
>
>
>
> Unity and Plurality in Science
>
> 16-28 July 2001
>
> Don Howard (University of Notre Dame) and
>
> Elliott Sober (University of Wisconsin)
>
> A Two week high-level summer course on questions about unity and plurality in
> science from am variety of philosophical, historical and institutional
> perspectives
>
> Organized by the University of Vienna and the Institute Vienna Circle
>
> A unified scientific understanding of nature was once a widely-accepted aim of
> science and remains so in more than a few areas of contemporary science. In
> recent years, however, both the possibility and the advisability of
> unification have been questioned, with some arguing that pluralism should be
> prized in the sciences, perhaps for political as well as philosophical
> reasons. This course will consider questions about unity and plurality in
> science from a variety of philosophical, historical, and institutional
> perspectives. Specific topics to be covered include:
>
> 1. Theoretical unification in physical science.
> 2. Vitalism, materialism, and reductionism in biology.
> 3. Relativity, complementarity, and underdetermination: Metaphors of
> multiplicity in twentieth-century science and philosophy.
> 4. The Unity of Science movement and the Vienna Circle.
> 5. The organization of scientific research.
> 6. Realism, reduction, simplicity, and explanation: Methodological
> perspectives on unification.
>
> International Program Committee
> Martin Carrier (Bielefeld), Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara (Florence), Maria Carla
> Galavotti (Bologna), Malachi Hacohen (Duke), Rudolf Haller (Graz), Rainer
> Hegselmann (Bayreuth), James G. Lennox (Pittsburgh), Michael Heidelberger
> (Berlin), Elisabeth Leinfellner (Vienna), Paolo Mancosu (Berkeley), Paolo
> Parrini (Florence), Friedrich Stadler (Vienna), Roger Stuewer (Minneapolis),
> Thomas Uebel (Manchester), Jan Wolenski (Cracow), Anton Zeilinger (Vienna);
> Michael Stöltzner (Secretary of the Program Committee,Vienna)
>
>
> The main Lecturers
>
> Don A. Howard is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the History and
> Philosophy of Science Graduate Program at the University of Notre Dame. His
> research interests include the foundations of physics, the history of
> nineteenth- and twentieth-century physics, and the history of the philosophy
> of science.
>
> Co-founder of HOPOS, the History of Philosophy of Science Working Group,
> contributing editor of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein (Princeton
> University Press), and co-editor, with John Stachel, of the Einstein Studies
> series (Birkhäuser). Howard is currently working on a book on Einstein's
> philosophy of science, as well as a study of the institutional history of the
> philosophy of science in North America in the mid-twentieth century.
>
> http://www.nd.edu/~dhoward1/
>
> Elliott Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor of Philosophy and Henry Vilas
> Research Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA, where he has
> taught since 1974. His research is in philosophy of science, especially in the
> philosophy of evolutionary biology.
>
> Sober's books include The Nature of Selection - Evolutionary Theory in
> Philosophical Focus (MIT Press, 1984; 2nd edition, University of Chicago
> Press, 1993), Reconstructing the Past - Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference
> (MIT Press, 1988), Philosophy of Biology (Westview Press, 1993), From a
> Biological Point of View - Essays in Evolutionary Philosophy (Cambridge
> University Press, 1994), and, most recently (with David S. Wilson) Unto Others
> - The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (Harvard University
> Press, 1998). Sober is a past president of the American Philosophical
> Association Central Division and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
> Sciences.
>
> http://philosophy.wisc.edu/sober/
>
> Application
>
> Costs of the Program
>
> ATS 12,000
>
> Cheap Lodging in Students Dormitories available at approximately ATS 3,000 for
> the whole duration.
>
> Applicants should submit
>
> 1. a short educational curriculum vitae;
> 2. a list of their most recent courses and grades or a copy of their diplomas;
>
> 3. a one-page statement (in English), describing briefly their previous work
> and their purpose in attending VISU-SWC;
> 4. a (sealed) letter of recommendation by their major professor, including
> some comment on their previous work.
>
> Deadline for applications
>
> 31 January, 2001
> (Later applications may be considered if place is still available.)
>
> A Letter of admission together with a detailed syllabus will reach successful
> applicants by the end of February, 2001.
>
> The administration of VISU-SWC at the University of Vienna can assist the
> candidates admitted in applying for funds and in the accreditation of the
> course, but, unfortunately, cannot offer financial assistance of its own.
> However, for one gifted applicant who can demonstrate that, despite serious
> documented efforts, s/he has not managed to obtain any financial support, in
> particular due to economic difficulties in his or her country, one
> tuition-waiver grant, awarded by the Institute Vienna Circle and the
> University of Vienna, is available.
>
> Applications should be sent to Professor Friedrich Stadler.
>
> Institute Vienna Circle
> Museumstrasse 5/2/19
> A-1070 Vienna
> Austria
>
> For further inquiries, please send email to
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
> or consult the IVC's Web page: http://ivc.philo.at/visu/
>
> Application Form
>
> To apply for admission please send by mail or fax this application form
> together with
>
> 1. a short educational curriculum vitae;
> 2. a list of their most recent courses and grades or a copy of their diplomas;
>
> 3. a one-page statement (in English), describing briefly their previous work
> and their purpose in attending VISU-SWC;
> 4. a (sealed) letter of recommendation by their major professor, including
> some comment on their previous work.
>
> Please make sure that all documents arrive in time because we can process only
> complete applications.
>
> Last name: _______________________________________
>
> First name: _______________________________________
>
> female: ______ male: ______
>
> Date of birth: day ______ month ______ year ______
>
> Home address: _________________________________
>
> _________________________________
>
> _________________________________
>
> Telephone: ________________________________________
>
> fax: ___________________ e-mail: ____________________
>
> Postal adress: __________________________________
> (if other then
> home adress) __________________________________
>
> __________________________________
>
> Telephone: _________________________________________
>
> Citizenship: ________________________________________
>
> Profession or program: ________________________________
> currently enrolled in
> University
> Academic grade:
>
> Bachelor of _________________________________
>
> Master of ___________________________________
>
> PhD in _____________________________________
>
> Accomodation requested in students dormitories:
>
> yes ______ no ______
>
> Date ____________________________
>
> Signature ____________________________________________
>
> Professor Friedrich Stadler, Institute Vienna Circle
> Museumstrasse 5/2/19
> A-1070 Vienna, Austria
> Fax: +43-1-524 88 59
>
> VISU and Vienna
>
> Founded in 1365 by Duke Rudolf IV of Habsburg, the Alma Mater Rudolphina
> Vindobonensis is the oldest university in theGerman-speaking world. Today
> 87,000 students from 128 countries are currently enrolled at the university
> whose eight facul-ties offer 130 degree programs (Master's and doctoral).
>
> Today's university "head-quarters",which were erectedin 1884 are situated in
> the main building on the Ringstrasse.
>
> VISU is located on the newly adapted "Universitätscampus",which was originally
> part of the city's general hospital and built inthe 18th century, within
> walking distance of the main building.
>
> http://www.univie.ac.at/universitaetscampus
>
> While attending the summer university's lectures, students willeasily be able
> to discover and understand Vienna's urban culturalroots and also visit other
> sites (all in the vicinity) connected with Vienna's historic, artistic and
> architectural heritage.
>
> *************************************
>
> For more general information
> on Vienna please visit
> http://www.wien.at
>
> A recently published regional map of sites related to the history of
> philosophy of science may serve as a more specific city guide:
>
> http://scistud.umkc.edu/hopos/nl/5-2.pdf
>
>
> Homepage of the University of Vienna
>
> http://www.univie.ac.at
>
> *************************************
>
> The Institute Vienna Circle
>
> The international Institute Vienna Circle, a nonprofit society founded in
> Vienna in October 1991, sets as its goals, firstly, the documentation and
> furtherance of the contributions and development of the 'Vienna Circle' in the
> areas of science and adult education; and secondly the cultivation and
> application of logical empiricism, critical rationalism and linguistic
> analysis in the sense of a scientific philosophy and coordinated with general
> socio-cultural developments.
>
> The Vienna Circle, a group of about three dozen scientists in Vienna who
> worked in the areas of philosophy, logic, mathematics, the natural and social
> sciences, pioneered in the development of analytic (linguistic) philosophy and
> philosophy of science and may be counted among the most important and most
> influential trends of thought in the twentieth century.
> This modernistic movement first became known to the public in 1929. Its core
> was the so-called 'Schlick Circle' centered around Moritz Schlick, a professor
> of philosophy at the University of Vienna, who was murdered there in 1936 by a
> student. In particular Friedrich Waismann, Herbert Feigl, Rudolf Carnap, Hans
> Hahn, Philipp Frank, Otto Neurath, Viktor Kraft, Karl Menger, Kurt Gödel and
> Edgar Zilsel figured at the meetings in Boltzmanngasse at which Olga
> Taussky-Todd, Olga Hahn-Neurath, Felix Kaufmann, Rose Rand, Gustav Bergmann
> and Richard von Mises also took part. Foreign guests, some of them well-known
> today, such as Hans Reichenbach, Carl G. Hempel, Alfred Jules Ayer, Ernest
> Nagel, John von Neumann, Willard Van Orman Quine and Alfred Tarski attended
> now and then. At the periphery of the Vienna Circle contacts flourished with
> Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl R. Popper and Heinrich Gomperz.
>
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