Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge

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Department of History and Philosophy of Science
TypeDepartment
Parent institution
 University of Cambridge
Postgraduates c. 70 [1]
Location
Cambridge
,
Cambridgeshire
,
England
Website hps.cam.ac.uk/

The Department of History and Philosophy of Science (HPS), of the University of Cambridge is the largest department of history and philosophy of science in the United Kingdom. [2] A majority of its submissions received maximum ratings of 4* and 3* in the 2014 REF (Research Excellence Framework). [3] Located in the historic buildings of the Old Physical Chemistry Laboratories on Free School Lane, Cambridge, the department teaches undergraduate courses towards the Cambridge Tripos and graduate courses including a taught Masters and PhD supervision in the field of HPS. The department shares its premises with the Whipple Museum and Whipple Library which provide important resources for its teaching and research. [4]

Contents

Academic staff

The Department of HPS at Cambridge employs fifteen full-time teaching staff, approximately thirty research staff, numerous supervisors and research associates from departments and colleges across the University of Cambridge, in addition to external supervisors and examiners. A long-standing head of department was the noted Professor Peter Lipton, who served until his unexpected death in 2007. He was followed as head of department by the late Professor John Forrester, an international authority in the History of Mind, and a leading figure on Sigmund Freud and the history of psychoanalysis. Professor Jim Secord became head of the department in 2013 and was succeeded in 2016 by Professor Liba Taub. The current head is Professor Tim Lewens. Other departmental teaching staff include Professor Hasok Chang, Professor Lauren Kassell, Professor Nick Hopwood [5] and Professor Simon Schaffer.

Degree courses

The department offers a nine-month MPhil course in history, philosophy and sociology of science, medicine and technology. It also supervises graduate students for the Cambridge PhD in HPS and provides advisors in the related fields of research in history, philosophy and social science. Together with the Departments of Sociology and Social Anthropology, it also sponsors a nine-month MPhil in health, medicine and society. [6]

Undergraduate teaching and supervision is provided for students who have completed their first year at Cambridge. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the Cambridge Tripos system, undergraduates from a wide range of fields may study HPS, although entry is predominantly through the Natural Sciences Tripos. The resources of the Whipple Museum provide for first-hand study of scientific instruments which often provide topics for student dissertations.

History and philosophy of medicine

The department is an active centre for the history of medicine and for philosophy of biomedical science and medical ethics. It played a major role in the Wellcome Trust funded Generation to Reproduction project at Cambridge, led by Professor Nick Hopwood, and hosted seminars and day conferences in this field. [7] [8] Another major Wellcome-funded project has made available a remarkable corpus of English medical casebooks from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. [9] [10]

Related Research Articles

The history of science and technology (HST) is a field of history that examines the understanding of the natural world (science) and the ability to manipulate it (technology) at different points in time. This academic discipline also studies the cultural, economic, and political impacts of and contexts for scientific practices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tripos</span> Bachelors exam or course at Cambridge

A Tripos is an academic examination that originated at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. They include any of several examinations required to qualify an undergraduate student for a bachelor's degree or the courses taken by a student to prepare for these. Undergraduate students studying mathematics, for instance, ultimately take the Mathematical Tripos, and students of English literature take the English Tripos.

The Natural Sciences Tripos (NST) is the framework within which most of the science at the University of Cambridge is taught. The tripos includes a wide range of Natural Sciences from physics, astronomy, and geoscience, to chemistry and biology, which are taught alongside the history and philosophy of science. The tripos covers several courses which form the University of Cambridge system of Tripos. It is known for its broad range of study in the first year, in which students cannot study just one discipline, but instead must choose three courses in different areas of the natural sciences and one in mathematics. As is traditional at Cambridge, the degree awarded after Part II is a Bachelor of Arts (BA). A Master of Natural Sciences degree (MSci) is available to those who take the optional Part III. It was started in the 19th century.

Bachelor of Philosophy is the title of an academic degree that usually involves considerable research, either through a thesis or supervised research projects. Unlike many other bachelor's degrees, the BPhil is typically a postgraduate degree awarded to individuals who have already completed a traditional undergraduate degree.

A Master of Philosophy is a postgraduate degree. An MPhil may be awarded to postgraduate students after completing taught coursework and one to two years of original research, which may also serve as a provisional enrolment for a PhD programme.

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The University of Cambridge was the birthplace of the 'Analytic' School of Philosophy in the early 20th century. The department is located in the Raised Faculty Building on the Sidgwick Site and is part of the Cambridge School of Arts and Humanities. The Faculty achieved the best possible results from The Times 2004 and the QAA Subject Review 2001 (24/24). In the UK as of 2020, it is ranked second by the Guardian, second by the Philosophical Gourmet Report, and fifth by the QS World University Rankings.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faculty of Human, Social, and Political Science, University of Cambridge</span> University faculty in England

The Faculty of Human, Social, and Political Science at the University of Cambridge was created in 2011 out of a merger of the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Faculty of Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies. According to the Cambridge HSPS website: graduates pursue careers in "research, the Civil Service, journalism, management consultancy, museums, conservation and heritage management, national and international NGOs and development agencies, the Law, teaching, publishing, health management, and public relations."

The School of Biological Sciences is a research-led academic community at the University of East Anglia. It works with partners in industry on a range of activities, including translating research discoveries into products, making knowledge and research expertise available through consultancies, contract research and provision of analytical services, as well as partnering industry in training both undergraduate and postgraduate students.

John Andrew Todd FMedSci FRS is Professor of Precision Medicine at the University of Oxford, director of the Wellcome Center for Human Genetics and the JDRF/Wellcome Trust Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory, in addition to Jeffrey Cheah Fellow in Medicine at Brasenose College. He works in collaboration with David Clayton and Linda Wicker to examine the molecular basis of type 1 diabetes.

Tim Lewens is a professor in the history and philosophy of biology, medicine, and bioethics at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. Lewens is a Fellow of Clare College, where he serves as Director of Studies in Philosophy and he is a member of the academic staff and lecturer in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science (HPS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge</span> A faculty of University of Cambridge, UK

Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge is the School of Education at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It was established in 2001. It is part of the school of humanities and social sciences at the University of Cambridge.

Alfred Rupert Hall was a prominent British historian of science, known as editor of a collection of Isaac Newton's unpublished scientific papers (1962), and Newton's correspondence, in 1977.

The Department of Social Policy and Intervention is an interdisciplinary centre for research and teaching in social policy and the systematic evaluation of social intervention based in the Social Sciences Division of the University of Oxford. It dates back to Barnett House, a social reform initiative founded in 1914 by a reform movement clergyman, Samuel Barnett, becoming a department of Oxford in 1961.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge</span> Constituent department of the University of Cambridge

The Faculty of Classics is one of the constituent departments of the University of Cambridge. It teaches the Classical Tripos. The Faculty is divided into five caucuses ; literature, ancient philosophy, ancient history, Classical art and archaeology, linguistics, and interdisciplinary studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faculty of History, University of Cambridge</span> History of the University of Cambridge

The Faculty of History is one of the constituent departments of the University of Cambridge.

The Department of Genetics is a department of the University of Cambridge that conducts research and teaching in genetics.

James Andrew Secord is an American-born historian. He is a professor of history and philosophy of science within the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of Christ's College. He is also the director of the project to publish the complete Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Secord is especially well known for his award-winning work on the reception of the anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, a pioneering evolutionary book first published in 1844.

Lauren Kassell is Professor of History of Science and Medicine at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Since September 2021, she is on leave from Cambridge to serve as the Professor in History of Science at the European University Institute (Florence). She completed a doctorate at the University of Oxford in 1997. She is known for her work on the history of astrology and medicine in early modern England.

References

  1. ↑ Thompson, David (12 July 2016). "About the Department". Department of History and Philosophy of Science. University of Cambridge. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  2. ↑ Ian Hutchinson, Monopolizing Knowledge (Belmont MA, 2011), p. 73.
  3. ↑ "Results & submissions : REF 2014 : View submission".
  4. ↑ 'About the Department' Archived 3 September 2010 at the Wayback Machine HPS Cambridge. Retrieved 5 September 2010.
  5. ↑ "Nick Hopwood | People | HPS".
  6. ↑ "New MPhil in Health, Medicine and Society, University of Cambridge | H-Sci-Med-Tech | H-Net".
  7. ↑ "Wellcome History 42".
  8. ↑ N. Hopwood, R. Flemming and L. Kassell (eds), Reproduction: Antiquity to the Present Day(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2018.
  9. ↑ "Casebooks". casebooks.lib.cam.ac.uk.
  10. ↑ Katz, Leslie. "'Rapier in his privy parts': Notorious astrologer doctors' 17th-century case notes a wild read". CNET.

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