Call for Application
Application deadline: January 30, 2008


VISU Vienna International Summer University
SWC Scientific World Conceptions

Since 2001 the University of Vienna and the Institute Vienna Circle have been
holding an annual two-week summer program dedicated to major current issues in
the natural and social sciences, their history and philosophy. The title of the
program reflects the heritage of the Vienna Circle which promoted
interdisciplinary and philosophical investigations based on solid disciplinary
knowledge.
As an international interdisciplinary program, VISU-SWC will bring graduate
students in close contact with world-renowned scholars. It will operate under
the academic supervision of an International Program Committee of distinguished
philosophers, historians, and scientists. The program is directed primarily to
graduate students and junior researchers in fields related to the annual topic,
but the organizers also encourage applications from gifted undergraduates and
from people in all stages of their career who wish to broaden their horizon
through crossdisciplinary studies of methodological and foundational issues in
science.
The summer course consists of morning sessions, chaired by distinguished
lecturers which focus on readings assigned to students in advance. Afternoon
sessions are made up of tutorials by assistant professors for junior students
and of smaller groups which offer senior students the opportunity to discuss
their own research papers with one of the main lecturers.


History and Philosophy of the Biomedical Sciences
Vienna, June 30 – July 11, 2008


organized by the University of Vienna and the Institute Vienna Circle.

A two-week high-level summer course on questions related to fundamental
philosophical problems of biomedical sciences, spanning a wide range of topics
in biomedicine, biotechnology and medical practices, and addressing normative,
historical and topical issues from an international perspective.




Main Lecturers:
Rachel A. Ankeny (University of Adelaide, Australia)
Bernardino Fantini (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
David Wootton (University of York, United Kingdom)

Guest Lecturer
Keith Wailoo (Rutgers University, USA)

International Program Committee
John Beatty (Vancouver), Martin Carrier (Bielefeld), Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara
(Florence), Maria Carla Galavotti (Bologna), Malachi Hacohen (Durham/Raleigh),
Rainer Hegselmann (Bayreuth), Michael Heidelberger (Tübingen), Elisabeth
Leinfellner (Vienna), Paolo Mancosu (Berkeley), Paolo Parrini (Florence),
Friedrich Stadler (Vienna), Roger Stuewer (Minneapolis), Thomas Uebel
(Manchester), Jan Wolenski (Cracow), Anton Zeilinger (Vienna).
Michael Stöltzner (Secretary of the PC, Vienna)
Karoly Kokai (Secretary of the VISU, Vienna)
ivc@univie.ac.at


The main Lecturers
Rachel A. Ankeny
Rachel A. Ankeny has a BA in Liberal Arts (Philosophy/Maths, St John's College,
Santa Fe, NM), and MA degrees in Philosophy and in Bioethics and a PhD in the
History and Philosophy of Science (all from the University of Pittsburgh, PA),
and a MA in Gastronomy (University of Adelaide). She is currently senior
lecturer in history at the University of Adelaide, and was director and
lecturer/senior lecturer in the Unit for History and Philosophy of Science at
the University of Sydney from 2000-2006. Ankeny's research interests include the
roles of models and case-based reasoning in science, model organisms, the
philosophy of medicine, and the history of contemporary life sciences. Her
research in bioethics examines ethical and policy issues in genetics,
reproduction, women's health, embryo and stem cell research, and food, among
other topics. She is a member of several editorial boards for scholarly journals
in HPS and bioethics, and associate
editor of the Journal of the History of Biology.

Bernardino Fantini
Bernardino Fantini received his Doctor in Biochemistry (1974) at the University
La Sapienza in Rome and his PhD in the History of Science and Medicine (1992) at
the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris-Sorbonne. He is currently Professor
of History of Medicine and Director of the Institute of the History of Medicine
and Health at the University of Geneva. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal
Medicina & Storia, Editor of the journal History and Philosophy of the Life
Sciences, corresponding member of the Académie Internationale d’histoire des
sciences and president of the Italian Institute of Anthropology. His main
research subjects are the history of the life sciences, epistemology of biology
and medicine and the history of the relationships between medicine and music.
http://histmed.unige.ch/fantini.php

David Wootton
David Wootton is Anniversary Professor of History at the University of York and
author of Bad Medicine: Doctors Doing Harm Since Hippocrates (Oxford, 2006). He
was educated at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and has held visiting
positions at Cambridge, Princeton, Washington (St Louis), and McGill, and
permanent positions at the Universities of London (twice) and Brunel in England
and at the Universities of Halifax, London, and Victoria in Canada. He has held
chairs in History, Politics, and Humanities. He has published widely on early
modern intellectual history, particularly the history of political theory and of
atheism, and has translated Machiavelli, More, and Voltaire, and edited Locke in
editions published by Hackett. He reviews regularly for the Times Literary
Supplement and the London Review of Books. He is currently writing on Galileo
for Yale University Press, with funding from the Leverhulme Foundation.
www.badmedicine.co.uk and www.york.ac.uk/depts/hist/staff/wootton.shtml


History and Philosophy of the Biomedical Sciences
The field of History and Philosophy of the Biomedical Sciences has become in the
recent decade a hot spot in historical research and philosophical debate. The
increasing place of biomedical sciences in contemporary societies and individual
lives has raised many questions concerning the epistemological status and
practice of biology and medicine of biology and medicine.
The course will deal with some of the fundamental philosophical problems of
biomedical sciences, raised by their historical development since the age of the
Scientific Revolution of the 17th century to the very contemporary development
in biomedicine, biotechnology and medical practices.
Selected topics of historical and philosophical relevance will be covered, which
are at the core of present-day debates and have great relevance for bioethical
debates and social and political concerns on the role of biology and medicine in
our societies. Particular attention will be devoted to some methodological
issues and to the necessary link between historical and philosophical inquiries.
The course will be necessarily trans-disciplinary and because of its advanced
content, general background and introductory material will be distributed to the
participants in advance in order to facilitate the discussion and a common
reflection on the topics suggested.


The lectures will deal with the following topics:
The epistemological status of medicine
The Hippocratic tradition, from Hippocrates to the Nineteenth Century
The origins of scientific medicine (16th–20th centuries)
The concept of disease: Historical roots and philosophical perspectives
Causality in biomedical sciences. An historical and epistemological analysis
The pragmatics of causation in clinical practice
The philosophical debate on the normal and the pathological
The role of the case in medical reasoning
Error in medicine
From germs to genes: Theories on generation and infection (16th–20th centuries).
Form, information, and programmes: The rise of the molecular explanation of life
and disease
Moral issues associated with gene therapy
Darwinian Medicine: How evolution by natural selection can explain health and
disease?
Historical and epistemological issues associated with animal models in
biomedical research
The social and economical determination of health and disease: The McKeown
Thesis
Historical and epistemological issues in Evidence Based Medicine


Cost of the program: EUR 880,–
Lodging in student dormitories is available at approximately EUR 300,– for the
whole duration of the course.


Applicants should submit:
A short educational curriculum vitae
A list of most recent courses and grades or a copy of your diplomas
A one-page statement (in English), briefly outlining your previous work and your
reason for attending the VISU-SWC
A (sealed) letter of recommendation from your professor, including some comment
on your previous work. This letter may also be sent directly by your professor.
A passport photo
Please make sure that all documents arrive in time because we can process only
complete applications.
Application form (available on our web site: http://www.univie.ac.at/ivc/VISU)
may be sent in advance.

To participate mastering English on a high level is required.

Application deadline: January 30, 2008 (Later applications may be considered if
space is still available.)

A letter of admission together with a detailed syllabus will reach successful
applicants by mid-February, 2008.

The administration of VISU-SWC at the University of Vienna can assist the
candidates admitted in applying for funds and in the accreditation of the
course, but unfortunately, cannot offer financial assistance. However, for a few
gifted applicants who can demonstrate that, despite serious documented efforts,
they have not been able to obtain any financial support, in particular due to
economic difficulties in their own country, a tuition waiver grant, awarded by
the Institute Vienna Circle and the University of Vienna, will be provided.

Applications should be sent to
Professor Friedrich Stadler, Institute Vienna Circle
University Campus, Spitalgasse 2–4, Court 1, A-1090 Vienna, Austria
Fax: +43-1-4277 41297

For further inquiries, please send email to friedrich.stadler@univie.ac.at or
consult the IVC's Web site http://www.univie.ac.at/ivc/VISU

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