Philosophical Foundations of Science: Proceedings of Section L, 1969, American Association for the Advancement of Science (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science)

At the 1969 annual meeting of the American Association for the Ad­ vancement ofScience, held in Boston on December 27-29, a sequence of symposia on the philosophical foundations of science was organized jointly by Section L of the Association and the Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science. Section L is devoted to the history, philos­ ophy, logic and sociology of science, with broad connotations extended both to 'science' and to 'philosophy'. With collaboration generously extended by other and more specialized Sections of the AAAS, the Section L program took an unusually rich range of topics, and indeed the audiences were large, and the discussions lively. This book, regrettably delayed in publication, contains the major papers from those symposia of 1969. In addition, it contains the distin­ guished George Sarton Memorial Lecture of that meeting, 'Boltzmann, Monocycles and Mechanical Explanation' by Martin J. Klein. Some additions and omissions should be noted: In Part 1, dedicated to the 450th anniversary of the birth of Leonardo da Vinci, we have been una bie to include a contrihution by Elmer Belt who was prevented by storms from participating. In Part II, on physics and the explanation of life, we were unable to persuade Isaac Asimov to overcome his modesty about the historical remarks he made under the title 'Arrhenius Revisited'. Front Matter....Pages I-IX Front Matter....Pages 1-1 An Aspect of Leonardo’s Painting....Pages 3-16 Leonardo Da Vinci and the Sublimatory Process....Pages 17-40 On the Physical Insights of Leonardo Da Vinci....Pages 41-53 Leonardo as Military Engineer....Pages 55-95 Leonardo Da Vinci and the Beginnings of Factories with a Central Source of Power....Pages 97-115 Front Matter....Pages 117-117 Physics and the Explanation of Life....Pages 119-132 New Concepts in the Evolution of Complexity....Pages 133-151 Front Matter....Pages 153-153 Boltzmann, Monocycles and Mechanical Explanation....Pages 155-175 Front Matter....Pages 177-177 Introduction to the Symposium on Cosmology....Pages 179-180 Cosmology as a Science....Pages 181-188 Open or Closed?....Pages 189-202 Cosmic Evolution....Pages 203-213 Highly Condensed Objects....Pages 215-226 The Case for a Hierarchical Cosmology....Pages 227-256 From Mendeléev’s Atom to the Collapsing Star....Pages 257-301 Front Matter....Pages 303-303 Objectivity in the Social Sciences....Pages 305-316 On the Objectivity of Anthropology....Pages 317-324 Acquired Models and the Modification of Anthropological Evidence....Pages 325-336 The Present Status of Anthropology as an Explanatory Science....Pages 337-348 ‘Subjective’ and ‘Objective’ in Social Anthropological Epistemology....Pages 349-361 Front Matter....Pages 363-363 Scientific Concepts and Social Structure in Ancient Greece....Pages 365-381 Algébre et Linguistique: L’analyse Combinatoire Dans La Science Arabe....Pages 383-399 Scientific Strategies and Historical Change....Pages 401-414 Logicality and Rationality: A Comment on Toulmin’s Theory of Science....Pages 415-430 On Pursuing the Unattainable....Pages 431-444 Sciences and Civilizations, ‘East’ and ‘West’ Joseph....Pages 445-492 Front Matter....Pages 495-495 The Unity of Science and Theory Construction in Molecular Biology....Pages 497-533 The Evolution of the Problem of the Unity of Science....Pages 535-545 Proceedings of Section L, 1969, American Association for the Advancement of Science