Tuesday & Wednesday back at LSE

Tuesday

One of the effects of my timetable changes is that I am not required to be down till 6:00pm today. Some initial thought about commuting each day this week, but it is better to stay up when I don't finish till 8:30 and so a late decision to book a hotel - the £30 a night Edward Hotel at Lancaster Gate.

I have a lot of trouble parking today as the "park and ride" was full and many of the streets where I used to park are now resident permits only. This might make a big difference to my plans going forward for this term. I might just do Wednesday and Thursday. But perhaps it is not the best excuse to miss PH400 that I can't find a place to park in Oxford!

To the Library by 4:00 and a long list of books that I wanted to find, most of which are not there - missing rather than taken out. But I did manage to get Bevir's The Logic of the History of Ideas, Israel's Enlightenment Contested (to review prior to possibly buying), Kitcher's The Advancement of Science, Collingwood's Autobiography, and Thurston's excellent Early Astronomy. And some others. But I was disappointed not to find some I really wanted e.g Hart's Doing a Literature Review.

PH400 has changed teachers for this term - now Peter Ainsworth rather than Miklos. I sat with Anne Marie and soon joined by Leonardo, Caroline and Femke. Anne Marie is apparently thinking of switching to part time study having got too far behind.

Tonight's lecture is on reductionism - again I haven't done the reading, but I do have a vague idea about this. Therefore I can contribute to the seminar afterwards - mainly through a strange comment I made against anti-reductionism based on the story of the universe and the emergence of structure (from where). I had expected people to jump on this and critique it strongly, but no one did.

Jacob has a copy for me of Clare Market Review - the magazine with my "Black Swan" article in it. I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed with the art work and the lack of index. But it is nice to be in print again.

A short tube ride to Lancaster Gate to find that the hotel is not bad. I can't find my phone (which I assume I left in the car earlier), and the phone in the room is not working. So no call home. Instead I read 40 pages of the biography of Frances Yates for an hour or two

Wednesday

It is a cold and misty morning, my breathe is visible as I walked towards Marble Arch at 7:30. Nice views across Hyde park. Listening to Boris - a recent set of Smile live. Tube rest of way to LSE and in the Library at 8:15. Mainly working on History of Science ideas - a 90 minute brainstorming session in respect of my dissertation. Trying to sort out "History of Ideas" as a historical concept - not sure how this term is used in current academic work, it was quite popular in the early 1980s!

At the dissertation seminar, there is some confusion about the start time and Miklos is 45 mins late. We don't bother starting without him. Jacob is up first. His ideas closely relate to the reductionism topic from yesterday. Some interesting points, but I have no idea if it is a decent dissertation idea. Don't know much about Prigogine or Dupre, who made up quite a bit of Jacob's presentation. Some very nice graphics though - I really should work out how to use Word and Powerpoint better.

Next up was Leonardo who discuses a view of Lakatos's programme as being routed in a language approach to science - I am not convinced at all and I think he will struggle badly with this idea.

No one to have lunch with afterwards so return home. Not a fantastic start to the new term. I have much to think about in respect of how I organise this term