Listing of Sessions and Abstracts of Papers - History of Science ...

nothing illustrates better this difference in working procedures than the whole research on monstrosities
to which they devoted themselves".
Lanzoni, Susan
E-mail Address: slanzoni@fas.harvard.edu
Forging a foundational psychology: Ludwig Binswanger’s turn to phenomenology
In German-speaking nations of the early twentieth century, the adoption of natural scientific methods
in the new discipline of psychology met with resistance from a number of psychologists and psychiatrists.
Many were particularly intent upon retaining the experiencing self or subject as the centerpiece of
any scientific psychology. The Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger endorsed this view in his littleknown
book of 1922, Introduction to the Problems of General Psychology. Binswanger’s aim in this
work, and in his psychiatric lectures of the period, was twofold: 1) to establish a firm scientific basis for
the clinical encounter with the patient, and 2) to lay a theoretical foundation for a psychology of the
person, which would not only focus on cognition, but also embrace the ethical and aesthetic dimensions
of personhood. In this paper, I examine Binswanger’s attempt to lay a theoretical groundwork for a
subject-oriented psychology, in light of both his professional duties as the director of a psychiatric
asylum, and in view of the larger cultural discourse on the role of meaning and value in the scientific
realm. In attempting to rescue the beleaguered subject from the onslaught of what he saw as a natural
scientific fragmentation, Binswanger steered a course between biological constitutionalists (Kretschmer)
on the one hand, and characterologists (Jaspers, Spranger) on the other. In doing so, he turned to the
phenomenological approaches of Max Scheler and Edmund Husserl, which held that one could directly
intuit (Anschauen) the essences of the psychological realities of the other. Understood as both theory
and research method, phenomenology occupied an ambiguous role in this endeavor, but nonetheless
gave Binswanger a means to focus on experiential meanings in what he viewed as an increasingly
‘disenchanted’ scientific world.
Lassman,Tom
E-mail Address: toml@chemheritage.org
What I Learned and Wished I had Learned in my Graduate Program in the History of Science
What does a historian trained at a major research university find when he/she accepts a position in
public history? Graduate programs typically train students for university careers. Little emphasis is
placed on alternative careers outside the academy. Pedagogy and public history, for example, receive
scant attention in graduate curricula. This paper will address from the perspective of a recent Ph.D. the
strengths and weaknesses perceived in the graduate training of historians. Specific examples of on-thejob
training that proved necessary will be offered and evaluated for those skills that might have been
included in a graduate program.
Lassman,Tom
E-mail Address:
What I learned and what I Wish I had Learned in my Graduate Program in the History of Science
Laubichler, Manfred
E-mail Address: manfredl@princeton.edu
Fin-de-Siècle Origins of Theoretical Biology
The early decades of the 20th century saw the rise of a discourse of theoretical biology among experimental
biologists from a variety of disciplines, physicians, and some philosophers and historians. Theo-