Meeting report: fourth ISHPSSB off-year workshop

Abstract

Philosophers who specialize in the ways and workings of science have frequently heeded Dewey’s advice, engaging in myriad ways with the natural, social, and historical sciences. However, too often the products of history and science become ‘mere data’ for philosophers, producing a loveless ‘‘marriage of convenience’’ (Kuhn 1977; Burian 1977). For the fourth biennial ISHPSSB off-year workshop, ‘‘Integrating Complexity: Environment and History’’ (ICEH), we tried to recapture the spirit of Dewey’s time, when historians, philosophers, anthropologists, biologists, and psychologists together discussed the problems of life, mind, morality, development, and evolution. We chose as our main workshop theme ‘‘integrating complexity’’—just as organisms are complex integrations of diverse parts, the workshop was to be a coming together of researchers from many different fields to address challenging conceptual and methodological questions. Thus, the 2010 workshop continued the ISHPSSB off-year tradition of ‘‘future directions in biology studies’’ by placing a bet: whatever their precise direction, such studies will tend to be more and more interdisciplinary. The workshop was sponsored by the Rotman Institute of Philosophy, the Department of Philosophy, and the Department of History at the University of