Conference pitch finished, PhD book

After about 15 redrafts, my pitch to the "Second Conference on the Integration of History and Philosophy of Science" has been sent off. This takes place in March 2009 at the University of Notre Dame in Illinois. I do not expect there to be a high probability that my paper will be accepted, but what if it was?

On the practical side, I would hear about Jan 13th, just before the new term starts at LSE. I would then have less than 2 months to produce my actual paper. Would that be do-able? Very possibly, and I would then almost certainly base my dissertation on this same theme - thus killing two birds with one stone. But I have given little thought to actually going to the USA to the conference - I would have to ask Miklos for some thoughts on what this entails. But that is really getting too far ahead at the moment. The fact is, I don't believe there is a high chance it will be accepted.

That said, I was quite pleased with the final version of my plan. In the end, I chose to argue that Bruno, Clavius and Brahe each produce problems for the philosophical part of the integration thesis. Clavius was a very late addition to my thinking and was caused by reading a couple of articles on him from the journal articles I have collected. So I would be presenting Bruno as someone who got things broadly correct for the wrong reasons, and both Clavius and Tycho who got things wrong, but perhaps for the right reasons. My weakest part is to bring out the implications of erroneous theories for history and philosophy of science. History of science tends to be written from the point of view of the winners - like much history. What should we learn from the history of losers?

While walking round Oxford on Saturday I was struck yet again with thoughts of the history of Oxford. Where did Bruno stay in Oxford? Did he walk along Broad Street as I did on my way to Blackwells?

Giordano Bruno's statue in the Campo de' Fiori (the "Field of Flowers") in Rome, erected in 1889, where Bruno was burnt as a heretic on February 17, 1600

Wider view of the Campo de' Fiori - Bruno faces the Vatican, so his face is always in shadow - last minute change of plan, as the Vatican considered that facing away, towards the sun, would be disrespectful!

Purchased two books - the first I have purchased in a shop for a while - Thomas Kuhn's The Road Since Structure and Lucy Russell's Dr Dr I feel like . . . doing a PhD. Recently I have been getting more interested in Kuhn's ideas of the interaction of history and philosophy of science due to the large number of articles on him that I have downloaded and saved to the PC. As for the PhD book, this is a remote possibility, but I would like to read more about the experiences associated with such a venture. In many respects, I have enjoyed the last few months more than just about any other period since I left University. Yet the MSc is rather hanging by a thread at the moment. Another domestic row about it over the weekend and a deep pessimism continues to hang over it all. In an ideal world, I would go on and do a PhD - but the chances are currently slim - less than 1 in 10 I would say.