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SUMMARY:Constructing the organism in the age of abstraction - Mazviita D. 
 Chirimuuta (University of Pittsburgh)
DTSTART:20180530T120000Z
DTEND:20180530T133000Z
UID:TALK99226@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:31287
DESCRIPTION:This paper examines the mutual influence between Ernst Cassire
 r (1874-1945) and his cousin\, the neurologist Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965).
  For both Cassirer and Goldstein\, views on the nature of human cognition 
 were\nfundamental to their understanding of scientific knowledge\, and the
 se were informed both by philosophical theorising and empirical research o
 n\npathologies of the nervous system. Between the wars\, Goldstein publish
 ed a series of famous case studies on brain damaged WW1 veterans with the 
 Gestalt psychologist Adhémar Gelb. This activity culminated in the book p
 ublished by Goldstein in exile\, _Der Aufbau des Organismus: Einführung i
 n die Biologie unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Erfahrungen am krank
 en Menschen_ (translated for publication as _The Organism: A holistic appr
 oach to biology derived from pathological data in Man_).\n\nIn contrast to
  Harrington (1996)\, I argue that Goldstein’s methodological prescriptio
 ns are not straightforwardly holistic\, but require the biologist to alter
 nate between holistic and “dissective” ways\nof characterising living 
 organisms (Goldstein 1934/1995\, p.316). Following Cassirer\, and in agree
 ment with the contemporary logical empiricists\,\nGoldstein held that the 
 physical sciences had progressed by arriving at abstract\, mathematical fo
 rms to take the place of qualitative characterisations of empirical realit
 y. Unlike the logical empiricists\,\nGoldstein was not sanguine about the 
 fruitfulness of the abstractive approach in biology. An interesting point 
 of comparison is with the other famous _Aufbau_ treatise of the era\, Carn
 ap’s _Der Logische Aufbau der Welt_. Whereas Carnap constructed the scaf
 folding for a unified science operating according to mathematical and logi
 cal principles\, Goldstein argued that\nbiology must retain descriptions o
 f the “qualities” that are excluded by mathematical abstractions (Gold
 stein 1934/1995\, p.315).\n\nAccording to Friedman (2000\, p.155-6)\, the 
 rejection of mathematical logic as the unifying language for natural and h
 uman sciences motivated Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms as a mea
 ns to provide a\nsystematic epistemology for the non-mathematical discipli
 nes. Friedman points to Cassirer’s failure to buttress his claims for th
 e “underlying unity” of the symbolic forms in human cognition as the r
 eason for the failure of his programme. I examine the ways in which the ne
 urological writings of Goldstein offer insights into Cassirer’s unificat
 ory project\, where the bio-medical sciences take an intermediate position
  between the human and the physical sciences.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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