Theses - History and Philosophy of Science
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Recent Submissions
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Inventing Intelligence: On the History of Complex Information Processing and Artificial Intelligence in the United States in the Mid-Twentieth Century
In the mid-1950s, researchers in the United States melded formal theories of problem solving and intelligence with another powerful new tool for control: the electronic digital computer. Several branches of western ... -
Conceptual schemes and human (inter)action: disentangling fact and value for a broader vision
(2020-10-12)This thesis investigates the role of conceptual schemes in shaping how we make sense of experience in human affairs. Conceptual schemes involve values and beliefs, assumptions and presuppositions that originate in past ... -
Managing Nature in the Age of Enlightenment: The Practice of Natural History in Britain, 1760-1820
(2020-12-25)The relationship between printed books, manuscripts and specimens dominated the practice of natural history during the late eighteenth century. This dissertation explores the complex connections between these materials and ... -
Pests, Knowledge and Boundaries in the Early Union of South Africa: categorising, controlling, conserving
This dissertation interrogates the relationships between humans and animals responsible for creating ‘pests’ as an element in the physical and intellectual landscape of rural South Africa in the 1910s through the 1930s. ...
