The americanization of unity

Daedalus

Volumn 127, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 45-71

  Galison, Peter ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 0008396455     PISSN: 00115266     EISSN: 15486192     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. From Carnap's handbook; cited in Holton, "From the Vienna Circle to Harvard Square: The Americanization of a European World Conception," in F. Stadler, ed., Scientific Philosophy: Origins and Developments (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993), 47-73.
2. Holton, "On the Vienna Circle in Exile," in W. DePauli-Schimanovich, E. Köhler and F. Stadler, eds., The Foundational Debate: Complexity and Constructivity in Mathematics and Physics (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995), 269-292;
3. Holton, "From the Vienna Circle to Harvard Square."
4. Also, see P. Masani to Holton, 5 April 1991, in which Masani recalls getting Frank, Shapley, LeCorbeiller, Birkhoff, Leontief, Bridgman and Uhlenbeck together for what became the "Inter-Scientific Discussion Group" in "1943 or 1944."
5. Frank, "The Institute for the Unity of Science: Its Background and Its Purpose." 1946, RG 1.1, 100 Unity of Science, Box 35, Folder 281, RFA.
6. Wittgenstein himself, as is well known, was often anything but happy with the idea of being grouped together with the Vienna Circle.
7. Frank, "Background and Purpose."
8. Frank, "Background and Purpose," 11.
9. Ibid.
10. [Frank], untitled, 1945-46, folder 4, GHP.
11. "Interview: WW [Warren Weaver], Friday, December 13, 1946, Professor Philipp G. Frank," RG 1.1, 100 Unity of Science, Box 35, Folder 281, RFA.
12. Frank to Weaver, 7 January 1947, RG 1.1, 100 Unity of Science, Box 35, Folder, 281, RFA.
13. Frank to Weaver, 7 January 1947, pp. 7, 42-43, RG 1.1, 100 Unity of Science, Box 35, Folder 281, RFA.
14. Resolution RF 47131 set a start date of 1 January 1948; this was emended to 1 July 1949 in RF 49085, both in RG 1.1, 100 Unity of Science, Box 35, Folder 281, RFA. The delay was due to the difficulty in establishing the proper tax status for the organization.
15. "Toward Integration of the Sciences," March 1949, excerpted from "Confidential Report to the Trustees," p. 6, RG 1.1, 100 Unity of Science, Box 35, Folder 281, RFA.
16. Whitehead, Lowell Lecture 1925, published as Science and the Modern World (New York: Macmillan Co., 1937);
17. see also George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science (Baltimore, Md.: published for the Carnegie Institution of Washington by the William and Wilkins Co., 1947-1948).
18. Both cited in "Toward Integration," Introduction to the History of Science (ibid.
19. "Toward Integration," 7.
20. Toward Integration," Ibid., 7-8.
21. Toward Integration," Ibid., 11.
22. Toward Integration," Ibid., 13.
23. Frank to Weaver, 29 September 1952, RG 1.1, 100 Unity of Science, Box 35, Folder 285, RFA.
24. Ibid.
25. Morris, Paths of Life (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1942).
26. On Einstein's protest that his work was not properly understood as purely positivistic, see Holton, "Einstein, Mach, and the Search for Reality," in Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein, rev. ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988), 261-262.
27. Steering Committee to participants, 11 January 1951, folder 3, GHP.
28. Wiener, "Speech, Language, and Learning," in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 22 (1950): 696-697,
29. reprinted in Wiener, Collected Works, ed. P. Masani, 4 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1976- ), vol. 4, 200-201;
30. original references to Shannon include "A Mathematical Theory of Communication," Bell Systems Technical Journal (3) and (427) (1948).
31. Institute for the Unity of Science, AAAS, 20 January 1953, from "The Steering Committee, to The Cybernetics and Communications Group of the Institute for the Unity of Science," RG 1.1, 100 Unity of Science, Box 35, Folder 285, RFA.
32. The secondary literature on the history of the Vienna Circle in general and on matters relating to "unity" in particular is vast and growing. For an introduction to the material see Galison and Stump, The Disunity of Science (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996);
33. Thomas Uebel, ed., Rediscovering the Forgotten Vienna Circle (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991);
34. F. Stadler, ed., Scientific Philosophy (1993);
35. R. N. Giere and A. Richardson, eds., The Origins of Logical Empiricism, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, volume 16 (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1996);
36. and N. Cartwright, J. Cat, L. Fleck, and T. R. Uebel, Otto Neurath: Philosophy Between Science and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
37. M. Friedman, "Carnap's Aufbau Reconsidered," Noûs 21 (December 1987): 521-546;
38. and R. Creath, "The Unity of Science: Carnap, Neurath and Beyond," in Galison and Stump, eds., The Disunity of Science.
39. J. Cat, N. Cartwright, and H. Chang, "Otto Neurath: Politics and the Unity of Science," in Galison and Stump, eds., The Disunity of Science.
40. N. Cartwright, et al., Otto Neurath, 167-188.
41. Otto Neurath, Ibid, 173-74.
42. Galison, "Ontology of the Enemy," Critical Inquiry (1994): 228-266, 234.
43. Critical Inquiry (Ibid., 240.
44. Critical Inquiry (Ibid., 247.
45. Wiener, Collected Works, vol. 4, 169-73.
46. Program Committee of Interscience Discussion Group to participants, 7 January 1947, folder 2, GHP;
47. Herman Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947), 267.
48. Boring to Masani, 13 November 1944, folder 1, GHP.
49. Masani to Wiener, 6 December 1944; Masani to Ducasse, 6 February 1945, both folder 1, GHP.
50. Steve J. Heims, The Cybernetic Group (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991).
51. See "History of Harvard's War Contracts," in Sterling Dow Papers, HUA, and Dow interview with Eric Arthur Walker, S.D., Associate Director of the Underwater Sound Laboratory, 18 June 1945, Sterling Dow Papers, HUA.
52. "Statement of War Activities," 1 February 1946, W. Furry folder, Sterling Dow Papers, HUA.
53. "When asked how the Germans did so well despite their failure to use academic scientists to advantage, Kemble observed that the analytical engineers in Germany came close to beating us, in spite of the fact that they didn't use their pure scientists to advantage. If they had had somewhat more intelligent overall leadership, things might have come out differently. These engineers had originally good academic training." Interview with Edwin Crawford Kemble, 22 June 1945, Kemble File, Sterling Dow Papers, HUA.
54. Attendance sheets for the early meetings of the Inter-Scientific Discussion Group can be found in GHP, folder 2.
55. Bridgman, "Two major jobs for OSRD, Others for Watertown Arsenal," 1 May 1945, P. Bridgman folder, Papers of Sterling Dow, HUA.
56. On Quine's war work, see David Kahn, Seizing the Enigma (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991), 241 ff.
57. See, e.g., Program Committee to "Dear Sir" (participants), 24 October 1950, folder 3, GHP.
58. Beranek, as narrated to S. Dow, "History of Electro-Acoustic Laboratory (Formerly called: Research on Sound Control)," 9, LBP.
59. Beranek, "Electro-Acoustic Laboratory," History of Electro-Acoustic Laboratory (Formerly called: Research on Sound Control),"ibid.
60. Beranek, "Our Laboratory During the War," Report Covering Activities Between December 1, 1940, and July 1, 1944, Cruft Laboratory, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 9.
61. See L. Beranek folder, Papers of Sterling Dow, HUA; Holton, informational communication, 28 March 1996.
62. "Systems Research Laboratory: Wartime Organization and Purpose of the Systems Research Laboratory, Harvard University," 5, LBP.
63. On the prewar Fatigue Laboratory, see Bard Clifford Cosman, "The Human Factor: The Harvard Fatigue Laboratory and the Transformation of Taylorism," Harvard Senior Thesis, 1983;
64. Richard Gillespie, Manufacturing Knowledge: A History of the Hawthorne Experiments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
65. Galison, "Aufbau/Bauhaus: Logical Positivism and Architectural Modernism," Critical Inquiry 16 (1990): 709-752;
66. Galison, "Constructing Modernism: The Cultural Location of Aufbau," in Giere and Richardson, eds., Origins of Logical Empiricism, 17-44.
67. For a discussion of the fierce struggle between Carnap and Heidegger, see M. Friedman, "Overcoming Metaphysics: Carnap and Heidegger," in Origins of Logical Empiricism, ibid., 45-79.
68. E. Bright Wilson, Jr., to Holton, 6 October 1950, folder 3, GHP.