This dissertation examines the intersection between the culture of knowledge and socio-economic conditions of late Ming and Qing China (1550-1800) through the lens of materia medica. I argue that medicine in China during this time developed new characteristics that emphasized the centrality of drugs as objects of pharmacological knowledge, commodities valued by authenticity and efficacy, and embodiment of medical skills and expertise. My inquiry contributes to a deeper understanding of the materiality of healing as a basic condition in early modern societies: on the one hand, textual knowledge about drugs and the substances themselves became increasingly available via the commoditization of texts and goods; on the other hand, anxiety arose out of the unruly nature of potent substances, whose promise to cure remained difficult to grasp in social practice of medicine. / History of Science

This dissertation begins with a simple set of questions: how and why did the Western discipline of psychiatry gain traction in the Republic of Korea? My answers point to the Korean War and the US-ROK alliance as the two most important factors enabling this phenomenon. / East Asian Languages and Civilizations

For many historians, sociologists, and anthropologists of medicine, "disease" and "illness" are not equivalent. Whereas "disease" denotes the physician's ostensibly objective criteria, "illness" emphasizes the patient's subjective experience. This dissertation examines that distinction precisely at a point where it breaks down, in the history of a diagnosis called "anosognosia," also known as the denial of illness. / History of Science

Between Figure and Line: Visual Transformations of Cartesian Physics, 1620-1690 is the first sustained examination of the diagrams and illustrations that constituted the seventeenth century's new physics. When René Descartes introduced natural philosophy to the graphic techniques of geometry, mixed mathematics, cartography, and master engravers, subsequent interpreters of the new science were encouraged to respond in kind. But none of their pictures - neither the outlines of barometric tubes employed by Parisian salon impresario Jacques Rohault, nor the still lifes and landscapes into which Leiden university professor Wolferd Senguerd etched Cartesian matter, and certainly not the copies of Descartes's figures with which Jesuit priest Gabriel Daniel refuted the new philosophy - agreed on a single visual idiom for revealing nature's laws. Such pictorial diversity, I argue, marked the natural philosophical figure as a critical, and contested, apparatus for grasping at truth amidst the slow disintegration of Aristotelian certainty. / History of Science

Στην εργασία επιχειρείται η καταγραφή και στη συνέχεια ο μετασχηματισμός βιωματικών νοητικών παραστάσεων μαθητών ηλικίας 12 -16 ετών, για τα φαινόμενα του σχηματισμού φωτεινών προβολών και σκιών από εκτεταμένες φωτεινές πηγές. Το μεθοδολογικό σχέδιο που χρησιμοποιείται βασίζεται στην αξιοποίηση δεδομένων από την Ιστορία της Επιστήμης: Η ανίχνευση και ανάλυση των παραστάσεων των μαθητών επιτελείται στη βάση των εναλλακτικών επιστημονικών μοντέλων που διατυπώθηκαν στην ιστορική εξέλιξη της Επιστήμης για την ερμηνεία ενός οπτικού φαινομένου - γρίφου, ενώ η διδακτική παρέμβαση, η οποία πραγματοποιείται στα πλαίσια ενός αλληλεπιδραστικού μαθησιακού περιβάλλοντος, συνίσταται στη συστηματική διαμεσολάβηση του διδάσκοντος και την παρουσίαση του ορθού προτύπου, τα χαρακτηριστικά του οποίου αντλούνται από το σχετικό ιστορικό πείραμα του J. Kepler. / The purpose of the study is the recording and following then the restructure of students.

Cybernetics, despite being initially rejected in the Eastern Bloc throughout the 1950s for ideological reasons, rose to a high level of institutional prominence in the 1960s, profoundly influencing state philosophy and economic planning. This thesis is an examination of this transition, charting the development of cybernetics from the object of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands’s (SED) opprobrium to one of the major philosophical currents within the party intelligentsia.

Very little historical scholarship specifically analyzes or explores the absence of chemical weapons in World War II. This thesis seeks to fill the gaps in the historical narrative by providing insight into the personal and external factors that influenced Hitler’s chemical weapons policy. This thesis also touches upon the wartime violence perpetrated by both the Axis and the Allies, thereby offering a neutral, unbiased historical account. From 1939-1941, Hitler did not deploy chemical weapons because his blitzkrieg of Europe was progressing successfully – chemical warfare was unnecessary. With the failure of Operation Barbarossa from 1942-1943, Armaments Minister Albert Speer oversaw a massive increase in the production of the lethal nerve agent tabun, indicating Hitler’s desire to deploy chemical gas on the Eastern Front. However, by the request of Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill threatened to retaliate against Nazi Germany with chemical strikes on German cities in May 1942. Hitler backed down because of the inadequacy of German air defense and his desire to protect the “Aryan” people – based on his own trauma with gas in World War I. However, in the final years of the war in 1944-1945, the stress of the Allied advance on Berlin caused the deterioration of the German dictator’s mental and physical state. Hitler’s thoughts became suicidal and destructive – the German people deserved extinction for their failure in World War II. Thus, Hitler issued the Nero Decree in March 1945. However, the architect turned Armaments Minister, aware of the war’s foregone conclusion, sought to obstruct Germany’s path to catastrophe. Likewise, Hitler sought to initiate chemical warfare. Again, Speer prevented unnecessary civilian casualties by shutting down chemical production plants. The German dictator did not take matters into his own hands because following the failure of the Ardennes Offensive in January 1945, Hitler also grew increasingly apathetic to governing the Third Reich. By April 1945, with Hitler a ghost of his former self, his subleaders fought for control of Nazi Germany, and their inability to cooperate led to a crisis of leadership. Thus, World War II concluded in Europe without chemical warfare. Ultimately, this thesis promotes an awareness of the legacy of violence ushered in by “modern warfare,” a contemporary issue yet to be adequately addressed.

In this thesis I describe a study of how the science of genetics is transformed into school science in upper secondary level textbooks and the impact that this transformation has on students’ understanding. The didactic challenge that we face is to decide which science from the academic disciplines we should bring into schools.   Using the History and Philosophy of Science as my point of reference, I identified and categorized five multiple historical models of gene function: the Mendelian model, the classical model, the biochemical-classical model, the neoclassical model and the modern model. I then developed a research instrument to be used to analyse how these models are transformed within the educational system via textbooks. Biology and chemistry textbooks from Sweden, as well as a number from English speaking countries, were studied. The models used to describe gene function in the textbooks were investigated, as were the conceptual changes between the actual models and the way they are presented in textbooks. Finally I studied how the transformed science in textbooks is understood by students.   I found that all the multiple historical models were used implicitly in the textbooks. The older historical models were presented more frequently, resulting in a simplified and deterministic description of genetics. Throughout the textbooks a specific model was usually described in a particular subject matter context. The models used in the textbooks were usually hybrid models consisting of features from several of the historical models, thus creating incommensurability. The textbooks do not provide any epistemological foundations to facilitate readers’ understanding of the implications of multiple models. Furthermore my results show that, when reading the textbooks, students’ have difficulties in detecting the use of multiple models, incommensurability, and the conceptual changes that occur in a content-specific context such as gene function. Overall, students’ understanding of the use of multiple models, conceptual change, and incommensurability reflects the way in which they are depicted in the textbooks. Students’ domain-specific difficulties in understanding genetics might therefore be due to the way science is transformed into school science.     These findings indicate the importance of epistemological aspects in the transformation of science into school science, i.e. science as a way of knowing, not only for students’ understanding of the nature of science, but also for their understanding of the conceptual knowledge. The degree to which school science should mimic the academic discipline, as well as an understanding of what is lost in the transformation of science into school science, are key issues discussed in the thesis.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: A, page: 4529. Adviser: Paula Treichler. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 276-304) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

The purpose of this thesis is to reflect on the importance that deception has had on the efficient functioning of societies and the development of individuals. I attempt to do so by adopting an historical perspective, analysing the development of the notion of lawful deception during the Middle Ages and, mainly, the Early Modern Age through theological and political discourses. The scope of my investigation is pan-European. I examine sources from the major Western territories, but I pay special attention to those produced in the Spanish-Habsburg Empire, which was a major political and cultural entity during this period. My claim is that between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, the West witnessed the formation of what I call an "Ethics of Deception:" a trend of thought that, without challenging the Augustinian prohibition of lying, recognised deception as intrinsic to nature and mankind, thereby justifying its use from moral and political perspectives. I explain how this intellectual process was conducted, fostered by new social realities, and helped by the flourishing of casuistry, tacitism and neostoicism. Furthermore, I argue that the acceptance of deception contributed to the creation of a new view of the world, language and human interaction. A view that is in the very basis of some of the most characteristic features of Baroque art and that opened the door to some of the most transcendental cultural changes of the period, such as the creation of politics governed by reason rather than faith, the secularisation of social behaviour, and the emergence of the notions of individualism, privacy and freedom of thought. For these reasons, I claim that deception played an important role in the shaping of Modernity.