Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), a French Philosopher and a Jew, became known first for his role in the introduction of Husserl’s phenomenology to France, and later for his criticisms of Husserl and Heidegger. As the Holocaust gave a significant impact on many theologians and philosophers to establish their theoretical systems, Levinas realized how ethic of responsibility was important through his personal tragic experience. What most peculiar character of his experience is that it leads him to cast a doubt a subject-oriented modern (...) reason. I will explore the modern subjectivity through the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. As Nietzsche mentioned earlier in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is subject dead? Is it no longer meaningful to discuss the modernity in the postmodern ear?Should the trend of anti-subjectivity in the postmodernity be the only alternative? Those questions are underlain this study. For him, the preeminence of the inviolability of the human being must be regarded as the initial point of departure and final destiny. According to Levinas, philosophy is open to its role of significance only insofar as it describes the ethical situation of the responsible self that precedes the metaphysical subject. A bold assertion against the modern perquisite of theory becomes a signature aphorism of Livinas’ work: “ethics is first philosophy.” For Levinas, ethics is not a question of adjusting one’s adherence to transcendent or historical laws or inner principles. Whereas philosophy traditionally gives priority to inner subjectivity and treats ethics as derivative, Levinas’ philosophy stresses that knowing occurs within and is a result of the intersubjective relation. The subject as hostage to the Other, he writes, “has been neither the experience nor the proof of the infinite, but the witnessing of the infinite.” This subjective condition of the ‘I’ is what Levinas calls the responsible self. This article explores whether Emmanuel Levinas's ethic of the Other can be regarded as a theological discourse. After publishing Totality and Infinity, there have been manyserious questions of the relationship between transcendence and immanence; infinity and the finite among many philosophers and theologians. Interestingly enough, Levinas tries to mediate these concepts by his ethic of the Other. I examine how Levinas deals with the tension and difficulty of these two areas in his ethic of the Other. As a French phenomenologist, Jean-Luc Marion already mentioned, this kind of attempt has confronted a double-bind dilemma. One is that it would be a question of phenomena that are objectively definable but lose their religious specialty; and the other is that it would be a question of phenomena that are especially religious but cannot be described objectively. In this sense, Levinas’s ethic of the Other gives us an insight that what philosophy of religion would be. A great deal of information about such great philosophers does not always guarantee sound philosophical reflection. As Levinas’ philosophy was developed in his struggle with Heidegger’s philosophy in the matrix of Husserl’s phenomenology, my philosophical reflection on Levinas’ ethics has to be examined by those who are experts in various philosophical areas. Many members of WCP from all around the world will provide me more mature philosophical thinking, and their advice and expertise will be invaluable. In addition, chances to meet great visiting scholars who will come from all over the world will be also one of the prestigious privileges to articulate my thinking. I look forward to interacting with the great scholars who will visit Seoul National University, and in these interactions, to clarify and better articulate my ideas. (shrink)

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

In a recent Target Article Naomi Scheinerman (2023a) has offered an important and compelling call to institutionalize popular participation for heritable genome engineering through the inclusion of...

The current study presents the findings of an empirical inquiry into the effects of Confucian ethics and collectivism, on individual whistleblowing intentions. Confucian Ethics and Individualism–Collectivism were measured in a questionnaire completed by 343 public officials in South Korea. This study found that Confucian ethics had significant but mixed effects on whistleblowing intentions. The affection between father and son had a negative effect on internal and external whistleblowing intentions, while the distinction between the roles of husband and wife had a (...) positive effect on those intentions. The effects of collectivism were also different depending on the specific types of collectivism. Horizontal collectivism had a positive effect on both types of whistleblowing intentions, whereas vertical collectivism did not show any significant effects on whistleblowing intentions. These results indicate that cultural traits such as Confucian ethics and collectivism may affect an individual’s whistleblowing intentions in degree and direction, making blanket predictions about cultural effects on whistleblowing difficult. (shrink)

A historical investigation of the exclusion of Africa and Asia from modern histories of philosophy.

The purpose of this study was to investigate external whistleblowers’ experiences of workplace bullying by superiors and colleagues, and to analyze how the bullying was influenced by factors such as the support they received from government or NGOs, and whether colleagues understood the reasons for the whistleblower’s actions. For bullying by colleagues, we also examined to what extent this was influenced by superiors’ behavior towards the whistleblower. We reviewed the relevant literature on workplace bullying and whistleblowers’ experiences of negative or (...) retaliatory actions and developed three hypotheses, which we tested using data gathered from Korean external whistleblowers. Results revealed that external whistleblowers experienced work-related bullying by superiors and social relation-related and person-related bullying by colleagues more frequently, and found it more distressing, than other types of workplace bullying. Superiors’ bullying was a dominant factor affecting bullying by colleagues. Colleagues’ understanding of the reason for the whistleblower’s actions was significant in reducing bullying frequency while support from government and NGOs was not significant in reducing it. Based on these findings, practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to explore the motivational structures of external whistleblowers involved in the decision to blow the whistle by applying MEC theory and the laddering technique. Using both soft and hard laddering methods, data were collected from 37 Korean external whistleblowers. Results revealed that the means-end chain of external whistleblowers was the hierarchical linkage among two concrete attributes, two functional consequences, and one terminal value. The extant whistleblowing literature has either made assumptions about whistleblowers’ motivations when (...) developing models or has drawn indirect inferences from measures of other variables. Our study is the first with an explicit and empirical focus on whistleblowers’ motivations. The findings provide evidence of the motivational structures of external whistleblowers that consist of a set of complex paths linked by multi-layered motivators. This research will be helpful in designing and reviewing whistleblowing programs for organizations, regulatory agencies, and journalists. (shrink)

This study investigated how decision-makers differ in processing their organizational environment, depending on the levels of their idealism and relativism. Focusing on socially responsible buying/sourcing issues, responses from buying/sourcing professionals from U.S. apparel and shoe companies were analyzed, using a series of regression analyses. The results generally supported the proposition that the degrees of idealism and relativism determine involvement levels that, in turn, result in varying levels of reactions to the organizational environment and corresponding amounts of information processing. Highly idealistic (...) individuals were influenced by only idealistic signals of organizational environment. Further analysis showed highly idealistic and relativistic individuals were more likely to evaluate the organizational environment in terms of its business merit. The results suggest that organizations need to carefully plan how to communicate underlying meanings of organizational initiatives with their employees, knowing that individuals who have strong ethical opinions will only react to what they believe and elaborate its value for business. Further theoretical and practical implications and suggestions are discussed. (shrink)

The overall purpose of this paper is to clarify the physical meaning and epistemological status of the term 'measurement' as used in quantum theory. After a review of the essential logical structure of quantum physics, Part I presents interpretive discussions contrasting the quantal concepts observable and ensemble with their classical ancestors along the lines of Margenau's latency theory. Against this background various popular ideas concerning the nature of quantum measurement are critically surveyed. The analysis reveals that, in addition to internal (...) mathematical difficulties, all the so-called quantum theories of measurement are grounded in unjustifiable, classical presuppositions. (shrink)

The pessimistic induction is built upon the uniformity principle that the future resembles the past. In daily scientific activities, however, scientists sometimes rely on what I call the disuniformity principle that the future differs from the past. They do not give up their research projects despite the repeated failures. They believe that they will succeed although they failed repeatedly, and as a result they achieve what they intended to achieve. Given that the disuniformity principle is useful in certain cases in (...) science, we might reasonably use it to infer that present theories are true unlike past theories. Hence, pessimists have the burden to show that our prediction about the fate of present theories is more likely to be true if we use the uniformity principle than if we use the disuniformity principle. (shrink)

Public consumption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has been rarely investigated from the perspective of data surveillance and security. We show that the technology acceptance model, when properly modified with security and surveillance fears about AI, builds an insight on how individuals begin to use, accept, or evaluate AI and its automated decisions. We conducted two studies, and found positive roles of perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU). AI security concern, however, negatively affected PEOU and PU, resulting (...) in less acceptance of AI—(1) use, (2) preference, and (3) participation. AI surveillance concern also had negative effects on the credibility of AI and its recommendations. We integrated extant literature on socio-demographic differences, providing an insight on how AI acceptance is based on one’s rationality regarding (1) technological risks (security/surveillance) and (2) benefits (PEOU/PU) as well as other contextual factors of socio-demographics. (shrink)

Ethics, Policy & Environment, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 259-262, June 2011.

Several contemporary Confucian philosophers have posited differing hybrid views fusing meritocracy to democracy. There is a good deal of interest in a meritocracy in contemporary Confucian thought, and such a view perhaps should receive more serious consideration in liberal democratic thought since it may make for a stronger form of government when appended to democracy. In this paper, four contemporary hybrid theorists who combine elements of a meritocracy with a democracy are critically analyzed concerning an ability for their views to (...) be instantiated in liberal democracies for the legislative branch only. Finally, I provide a modified hybrid view for the legislature that I believe is the best fit for current liberal democracies. (shrink)

The Fourth Industrial Revolution has become a global buzz word since the World Economic Forum adopted it as an annual issue in 2016. It is represented by hyper automation and hyper connectivity based on artificial intelligence, big data, robotics, and Internet of things. AI, big data, and robotics can contribute to developing hyper automation that can increase productivity and intensify industrial production. Particularly, robots using AI can make decision by themselves as human being on complicated processes. Along with the hyper (...) automation, the hyper connectivity increases not only at national, but also global level by using information and communication technologies. IoT is the core technology to create the hyper connectivity in Cyber Physical System that connects technology, nature, and human being. Accordingly, a perfect convergence between ICT and manufacturing can be completed in the Fourth Industrial Revolution era and an extremely efficient flexible production system by spreading IoT in CPS will be established. Under such a condition, innovative clusters must play their traditional roles in cradles of technology innovation and commercialization. It must be difficult challenges for innovative clusters to meet their targets and to be adjusted by the changing new environment at the same time. This paper argues how the Fourth Industrial Revolution can change the global production chain and how core technologies function in industries. Furthermore, it focuses on how innovative clusters have to evolve to respond the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Last, but not least it also analyzes whether or not innovative clusters can play their roles as technology innovation hubs in the real world and CPS in the Fourth Industrial Revolution era. (shrink)

The concept of quantum transition is critically examined from the perspective of the modern quantum theory of measurement. Historically rooted in the famous quantum jump of the Old Quantum Theory, the transition idea survives today in experimental jargon due to (1) the notion of uncontrollable disturbance of a system by measurement operations and (2) the wave-packet reduction hypothesis in several forms. Explicit counterexamples to both (1) and (2) are presented in terms of quantum measurement theory. It is concluded that the (...) idea of transition, or quantum jump, can no longer be rationally comprehended within the framework of contemporary physical theory. (shrink)

The genre of fable tends to be overlooked in the study of Korean literary history on the ground that the genre seems too archaic to reflect the aesthetic standards established in the modern European novel, in which the focus lies in the realistic representation of the individual or contemporary society. However, the genre was not completely abandoned by modern Korean writers. Few critics have noted the continuing role played by the rich Korean fable tradition, which eventually made the reinvention of (...) the genre in the mass media possible. In particular, it is worth noting that there was the emergence of a new subgenre of fable in the late nineteenth century: that is, fabulous court case fiction, which is quite distinct from the Chinese literary tradition that had underprivileged imaginative narrative texts under the absolute domination of Confucian historiography. The genre of fabulous court case fiction makes us reconsider the plurality of narrative forms and various narrative functions. In this study, I examine how imaginative narrative texts such as fables simultaneously pursue the pleasure of storytelling and the purposes of both moral and specialized education. (shrink)

Previous research has shed light on the detrimental effects of abusive supervision. To extend this area of research, we draw upon conservation of resources theory to propose a causal relationship between abusive supervision and psychological distress, a mediating role of psychological distress on the relationship between abusive supervision and employee silence, and a moderating effect of the supervisor–subordinate relational context on the mediating effect of abusive supervision on silence. Through an experimental study, we found the causal path linking abusive supervision (...) and psychological distress. Results of both the experimental study and a field study provided evidence that psychological distress mediated the relationship between abusive supervision and silence. Lastly, we found support that this mediation effect was contingent upon the relational context in Study 2 but not in Study 1. We discuss implications for theory and practice. (shrink)

Rival applied ethicists have constructed arguments for and against affirmative action independently of Rawls’s theory of justice. Those arguments do not resolve the dispute about affirmative action. I reformulate them with the use of Rawls’s theory of justice and conclude that the reformulated arguments do not resolve the dispute about affirmative action either. Therefore, Rawls’s theory of justice is not useful in resolving the dispute about affirmative action. This point applies to affirmative action in science, contrary to what some writers (...) suggest. (shrink)

This project investigates salient stakeholder forces of socially responsible supply chain orientation (SRSCO) in the apparel and footwear sector focusing on fair labor management issues. SRSCO was conceptualized as a composite of internal organizational direction and external partnership for a creation and continuation of fair labor conditions throughout the supply chain. Primary stakeholders identified were consumers, regulation, industry, and media. A total of 209 mail survey responses from sourcing managers of U.S. apparel and footwear companies were analyzed. Two dimensions of (...) SRSCO were confirmed: internal direction and external partnership. Consumer and industry peer pressures were found significantly related to internal direction, while industry peers and media were significantly related to the external partnership. Regulation was not significantly related to either internal direction or external partnerships. Lack of regulation forces to govern labor issues and roles of consumers, industry peers, and media in promoting fair labor management are discussed in this article. (shrink)

The study reviewed 20 currently-available structured ethical decision-making models and developed an integrated model consisting of six steps with useful questions and tools that help better performance each step: (1) the identification of an ethical problem; (2) the collection of additional information to identify the problem and develop solutions; (3) the development of alternatives for analysis and comparison; (4) the selection of the best alternatives and justification; (5) the development of diverse, practical ways to implement ethical decisions and actions; and (...) (6) the evaluation of effects and development of strategies to prevent a similar occurrence. From a pilot-test of the model, nursing students reported positive experiences, including being satisfied with having access to a comprehensive review process of the ethical aspects of decision making and becoming more confident in their decisions. There is a need for the model to be further tested and refined in both the educational and practical environments. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis study assessed the knowledge and perception of human biological materials and biorepositories among three study groups in South Korea. The relationship between the knowledge and the perception among different groups was also examined by using factor and regression analyses. In a self‐reporting survey of 440 respondents, the expert group was found more likely to be knowledgeable and positively perceived than the others. Four factors emerged: Sale and Consent, Flexible Use, Self‐Confidence, and Korean Bioethics and Biosafety Action restriction perception. The (...) results indicate that those who are well aware of the existence of biobanks were more positively inclined to receive the Sale and Consent perception. As a result of the need for high quality HBMs and the use of appropriate sampling procedures for every aspect of the collection and use process, the biorepository community should pay attention to ethical, legal, and policy issues. (shrink)

Progress has reached the point where cyborg technology is leaving the sphere of mere science fiction. Whereas society as a whole formed a symbiosis with technology long ago, individuals are now starting to merge with technology as well. The effects can already be studied by looking at the examples of smartphones, computers and the Internet. The idea of ‘repairing’ humans, medical implants more sensitive than our natural, human faculties and even non-medical implants raise a lot of ethical questions, and require (...) the concept of inclusion to be re-thought. (shrink)

Externalists argue that motivation is external to moral judgments on the grounds that people can be unmoved by their moral judgments. I reply that people sometimes act indifferently to their moral considerations not because their moral judgments lack motivation but because their moral judgments are obstructed by rival desires. It appears that the moral motivation wanes while the moral judgments linger. In reality, however, the moral motivation is only made inconspicuous by the motivation of the opposing desires. A moral judgment (...) is subject to obstruction just like an emotive judgment and a gustatory judgment. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

The identification of a set of mutually exclusive and exhaustive propositions concerning the states of quantum systems is a corner stone of the information-theoretic foundations of quantum statistics; but the set which is conventionally adopted is in fact incomplete, and is customarily deduced from numerous misconceptions of basic quantum mechanical principles. This paper exposes and corrects these common misstatements. It then identifies a new set of quantum state propositions which is truly exhaustive and mutually exclusive, and which is compatible with (...) the foundations of quantum theory. (shrink)

The evolution of color categorization systems is investigated by simulating categorization games played by a population of artificial agents. The constraints placed on individual agent’s perception and cognition are minimal and involve limited color discriminability and learning through reinforcement. The main dynamic mechanism for population evolution is pragmatic in nature: There is a pragmatic need for communication between agents, and if the results of such communications have positive consequences in their shared world then the agents involved are positively rewarded, whereas (...) if the results have negative consequences, then involved agents are punished. A mechanism for changing the composition of the population due to agents’ birth and death is also investigated. This birth-death mechanism is found to effectively move an established population color naming system toward a theoretically more optimal one. The simulation results of this article provide insights regarding mechanisms that may constrain universal tendencies in human color categorization systems observed in the linguistic and anthropological literatures. (shrink)

This volume grew out of work on Berkeley which was presented in a dissertation several years ago. Though now much revised and greatly expanded. particularly in respect of the theory of concepts, a good part of the present text rests on this earlier foundation. I therefore gladly take this opportunity to express my appreciation to my teachers both at Indiana University and at McGill, and especially to Professor Newton Stallknecht who directed my dissertation. For permission to quote from the Berkeley (...) manuscripts in their keeping, I have first to thank the Trustees of the British Museum, and the Board of Trinity College Dublin. I wish further to thank the Bodleian Library, Oxford for allowing me to quote from their collection of Locke manu scripts. Also I am grateful to the Editor of Filoso/ia for letting me use excerpts from an article that first appeared in the Stu'di Internazionali di Filoso/ia, and to George Allen and Unwin. Publishers, for permission to quote a long passage from Bertrand Russell's Analysis 0/ Mind. From thesis project to published book, my research on the Berkeley manuscripts has been made possible by the generous and timely support of the Canada Council. Finally. I wish to thank Mrs. Anne Hillier for preparing the manuscript with great patience and skill. (shrink)

This portion of the essay concludes a two-part paper, Part I of which appeared in an earlier issue of this Journal. Part II begins with a careful study of the quantum description of real experiments in order to motivate a proposal that two distinct quantum theoretical measurement constructs should be recognized, both of which must be distinguished from the concept of preparation. The different epistemological roles of these concepts are compared and explained. It is then concluded that the only possible (...) type of "quantum measurement theory" is one of little metaphysical interest and that quantum measurement seems problematical only when viewed from an overly narrow classical perspective. (shrink)

The Canadian-American biologist Edmund Vincent Cowdry played an important role in the birth and development of the science of aging, gerontology. In particular, he contributed to the growth of gerontology as a multidisciplinary scientific field in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. With the support of the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, he organized the first scientific conference on aging at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where scientists from various fields gathered to discuss aging as a scientific research topic. He also (...) edited Problems of Ageing (1939), the first handbook on the current state of aging research, to which specialists from diverse disciplines contributed. The authors of this book eventually formed the Gerontological Society in 1945 as a multidisciplinary scientific organization, and some of its members, under Cowdry's leadership, formed the International Association of Gerontology in 1950. This article historically traces this development by focusing on Cowdry's ideas and activities. I argue that the social and economic turmoil during the Great Depression along with Cowdry's training and experience as a biologist – cytologist in particular – and as a textbook editor became an important basis of his efforts to construct gerontology in this direction. (shrink)

Inspired by Bermúdez’s notion of proto-logic, I would like to fathom what the true proto-logic could be like. But this will be approached only in a negative way of figuring out what it could not be. I shall argue that it could not be purely deductive by exploiting the recent researches in logic of maps. This will allow us to reorient the search for proto-logic, starting with animal abduction. I will also suggest that proto-logic won’t get off the ground without (...) proto-geometry. These negative results will shed some lights on some further conceptual and historical issues around the language of thought hypothesis to arrive at the true proto-logic. (shrink)

In order to address the influence of unethical leader behaviors in the form of abusive supervision on subordinates’ retaliatory responses, we meta-analytically examined the impact of abusive supervision on subordinate deviance, inclusive of the role of justice and power distance. Specifically, we investigated the mediating role of supervisory- and organizationally focused justice and the moderating role of power distance as one model explaining why and when abusive supervision is related to subordinate deviance toward supervisors and organizations. With 79 independent sample (...) studies, we found that abusive supervision was more strongly related to supervisory-focused justice, compared to organizationally focused justice perceptions, and both types of justice perceptions were related to target-similar deviance. Finally, our results showed that the negative implications of abusive supervision were stronger in lower power distance cultures compared to higher power distance cultures. (shrink)

In Testing for Athlete Citizenship: Regulating Doping and Sex in Sport, Kathryn E. Henne provides ‘a genealogical account of anti-doping regulation by questioning the meanings we take from sport’ (...

Neuroeconomics has the potential to fundamentally change the way economics is done. This article identifies the ways in which this will occur, pitfalls of this approach, and areas where progress has already been made. The value of neuroeconomics studies for social policy lies in the quality, replicability, and relevance of the research produced. While most economists will not contribute to the neuroeconomics literature, we contend that most economists should be reading these studies.

Do chief financial officers (CFOs) of publicly held corporations agree with the Institute of Management Accountants' (IMA) Standards of Ethical Conduct and are they willing to adopt them? To address these issues, a survey was conducted concerning the Standards. The IMA issued the Pronouncement of Standards in June, 1982.In November, 1992, 790 survey questionnaires were mailed to chief financial officers (CFOs) of corporations listed in Forbes. These CFOs held the positions of vice president of finance and controller. Completed questionnaires were (...) received from 208 CFOs representing a 26.3% response rate. The questionnaire employed a 5-point Likert scale and included seven demographic questions to facilitate the interpretation of the findings. (shrink)

Van Fraassen does not merely perform Bayesian conditionalization on his pragmatic theory of scientific explanation; he uses inference to the best explanation (IBE) to justify it, contrary to what Prasetya thinks. Without first using IBE, we cannot carry out Bayesian conditionalization, contrary to what van Fraassen thinks. The argument from a bad lot, which van Fraassen constructs to criticize IBE, backfires on both the pragmatic theory and Bayesian conditionalization, pace van Fraassen and Prasetya.

Descriptive realism holds that T is true, while normative realism holds that T is warranted. Descriptive pessimism holds that T is false, while normative pessimism holds that T is unwarranted. We should distinguish between descriptive and normative realism because some arguments against scientific realism require that scientific realism be interpreted as descriptive realism, and because scientific realists can retreat from descriptive to normative realism when descriptive realism is under attack. We should also distinguish between descriptive and normative pessimism because some (...) arguments against scientific pessimism require that it be interpreted as descriptive pessimism, and because scientific pessimists can retreat from descriptive to normative pessimism when descriptive pessimism is under attack. -/- . (shrink)

Using video recordings of one-on-one writing conferences as data, this conversation analytic study provides a sequential analysis of student-initiated question–answer sequences and demonstrates that the building of social interaction is contingent upon the composition of a turn as well as its position in the larger sequence. In particular, the article focuses on the distinct sequential environments in which students use yes/no interrogatives and yes/no declaratives. In the context of writing conference, the epistemic asymmetry between the participants is made relevant throughout (...) the session; in general, the teacher is in a more knowledgeable position, whereas the student is in a less knowledgeable position concerning writing practices. Nonetheless, students invoke a different degree of knowledge gap between the participants by using different forms of polar questions. This article illustrates how students convey their epistemic positions with different syntactic structures and how such distinct positions are ratified in the unfolding sequence. The analysis of this study contributes to finding new aspects of question–answer sequences and pedagogical practices. (shrink)

In 1965, John A. Pope presented a paper entitled 'Two-Dimensional Chart of Quantum Chemistry' to illustrate the inverse relationship between the sophistication of computational methods and the size of molecules under study. This chart, later called the 'hyperbola of quantum chemistry', succinctly summarized the growing tension between the proponents of two different approaches to computation–the ab initio method and semiempirical method–in the early years of electronic digital computers. Examining the development of quantum chemistry after World War II, I focus on (...) the role of computers in shaping disciplinary identity. The availability of high-speed computers in the early 1950s attracted much attention from quantum chemists, and their community took shape through a series of conferences and personal networking. However, this emerging community soon encountered the problem of communication between groups that differed in the degree of reliance they placed on computers. I show the complexity of interactions between computing technology and a scientific discipline, in terms of both forming and splitting the community of quantum chemistry. (shrink)

This essay reflects on the ambivalent reception of The Death of Nature among English‐speaking historians of early modern science. It argues that, despite its importance, the book was mostly ignored or marginalized by these historians for a variety of reasons. These included the special role played by the “Scientific Revolution” in the grand narrative that increasingly shaped the historiography of science beginning in the 1940s and the subsequent “hyperprofessionalism” of the discipline as a whole. The essay concludes by placing Carolyn (...) Merchant’s work in the context of feminist utopian writing of the late 1970s and calls for renewed attention to the history of the utopian genre as a resource for teachers and feminist scholars of the history of science. (shrink)