Oren Harman
Biographic Data
| ID | 953409 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Oren Harman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Oren |
| FAMILY NAME | Harman |
| SIGNATURE | HARMAN O |
| AFFILIATIONS | Bar-Ilan University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5148-1391 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 31 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Ending Poverty in America Is Not a Pipe Dream
Here are the numbers: One in nine Americans live in poverty. Thirty-eight million Americans cannot afford basic necessities. Eighteen million live under what is called the “deep poverty line,” earn
A Place for Science and Technology Studies
It was that quintessentially Victorian book, The Golden Bough by J. G. Frazer, published in 1890, that first led an immigrant to England, Bronisław Malinowski of Poland, to rethink the foundations of anthropology. Frazer was the son of a chemist but excelled in classics at Cambridge and remained there as a scholar for the rest of his life. Beginning from a loathing for Roman Catholicism, he investigated ancient practices of human sacrifice, ferti…
The Last of Its Kind
A book that describes in great detail a search in a far-off land for a creature that ends up being extinct is like a carefully cooked meal brought to a meticulously set table for a guest who never appears. The antecedent drama and preparation work up to a crescendo of glumness and confusion, leading to a sharp feeling of tragedy and loss—the feeling we all experience, in other words, on the death of someone we love. In this case, however, the los…
Laboratory Epistemologies
William Shakespeare was the son of a glovemaker and approached his work as a craft. To him, writing plays was a form of making, the ancient word for which, curiously, is poiein, which gave us poet. Yes, any product worth its salt is both stock and exercise, meaning both knowledge acquisition and knowledge application. Despite our culture's tendency to separate the two, thinking and doing go together: One cannot make anything at all without first …
History will be kind to me’
Is There Really 'Nothing Unnatural in Nature
This book should have been called “The Penis Book.” Sure, there are a few clitorises here and there, a few vaginas, but all in all, it’s about penises. Giant penises and tiny penises, singing penis
How To Think Like Shakespeare' (at least some of the time)
Why Fish Don't Exist
When the imposing natural historian Louis Agassiz established a summer camp for fledgling biologists on Penikese Island off the coast of Massachusetts in 1873, he set out to provide his underlings with proper guidance. Every species is a “thought of God,” the towering Swiss told the first cohort of aspirants, and nature is a sacred text. It is therefore the job of the taxonomist to “translate into human language . . . the thoughts of the Creator.…
Bedeviled
Poreskoro, with three cat and four dog heads and a snake with a forked tongue as his tail, is responsible for epidemics of contagious diseases in Romany folklore. The Pishachas of Vedic mythology lurk in charnel houses and graveyards, waiting for humans to infect with madness. In Christian demonology, Pythius is known as the ruler of the eighth circle of the Inferno, bestowing heinous and unspeakable tortures on those who have committed fraud. De…
Richard Lewontin and the “complications of linkage”
We Live on the Diagonal of a Square
Hippasus knew things. Secrets that were to be kept from the uninitiated at all cost. But Hippasus had spoken, betraying his sworn word to the sect. Most damning of all was a truth only he and his l
Thomas Harriot
Book Review| January 01 2021 Thomas Harriot: A Life in Science by Robyn Arianrhod Arianrhod, Robyn, Thomas Harriot: A Life in Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 376 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2021) 27 (1): 121–122. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-8723279 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Oren Harman; Thomas Harriot: …
Traveling with Einstein
The bustle grew as the ship approached the Battery in lower Manhattan. Photographers, journalists, the curious—all began crowding the dock. Standing on deck wearing a gray wool coat and a black fel
The Theory that Changed Everything
The Darwin industry is like Shel Silverstein’s giving tree—it never fails to provide sustenance of one kind or the other, and shows no sign of disappointing. Sometimes it is to delight in historica
Philosophy of Nature by Paul Feyerabend
Book Review| April 01 2019 Philosophy of Nature by Paul Feyerabend Feyerabend, Paul, Philosophy of Nature, trans. Lotter, Dorothea; Cross, Andrew, ed. Heit, Helmut; Oberheim, Eric (Cambridge: Polity, 2016), 260 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2019) 25 (1-3): 458–459. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-7312681 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Per…
Philosophy of Nature by Dorothea Lotter and Andrew Cross
The Lure of the Leak
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s the new anthropology of biology—and if you’re an abstraction, take cover!Most people think of water as a “thing-in-itself,” something to swim in or wash or irr
Ockham's Razors
Book Review| August 01 2018 Ockham’s Razors: A User’s Manual by Elliot Sober Sober, Elliot, Ockham’s Razors: A User’s Manual (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 314 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2018) 24 (3): 452–453. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-6940454 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Oren Ha…
The Physicist and the Philosopher
Book Review| January 01 2018 The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate that Changed Our Understanding of Time by Jimena Canales Canales, Jimena, The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate that Changed Our Understanding of Time (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), 479 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2018) 24 (…
Epistemic Virtues in the Sciences and the Humanities
The Astronomer and the Witch
Book Review| September 01 2017 The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for His Mother Rublack, Ulinka, The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for His Mother. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 359 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2017) 23 (3): 536. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-3988309 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter Link…
Chaos Imagined
Book Review| April 01 2017 Chaos Imagined: Literature, Art, Science Meisel, Martin, Chaos Imagined: Literature, Art, Science. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 608 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2017) 23 (2): 346. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-3815870 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Oren Harman;…
The Lagoon
Book Review| January 01 2016 The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science Leroi, Armand Marie, The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science. (New York: Viking, 2014), 501 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2016) 22 (1): 128. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-3323121 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Oren Harman; The Lag…
Newton and the Origin of Civilization
Book Review| January 01 2015 Newton and the Origin of Civilization Buchwald, Jed Z. and Feingold, Mordechai, Newton and the Origin of Civilization. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 528 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2015) 21 (1): 124. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-2818381 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search…
Introduction
“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history,” Mahatma Ghandi is often quoted as saying, and, one might add cheekily, but with unquestionable truth, so too a small group of determined historians. Burke may have counseled that “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” but the Irishman clearly gave memory greater credit than it deserves. Not only do we use…
Epistemic Virtues and Leibnizian Dreams
The following discussion considers three aspects of the Sciences-versus-Humanities divide: (1) the historical evolution of disciplines in the modern period through the beginning of the twenty-first century; (2) the epistemology of the sciences versus that of the Humanities as defined and practiced in that same period; and (3) the ways in which the two cultures interact with each other and with religion and faith today. It finds that while it may …
Powerful Intuitions
Argument Both the British naturalist Charles Darwin and the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz attempted explanations of the origin of variation: the former of the biological kind, the latter of the cultural kind. In so doing, both made claims that outstripped the evidence they possessed. But, in retrospect, in light of the history of the Nature versus Nurture debate, they nevertheless seem prescient, thereby possessing a kind of scientific …
On The Power Of Ideas
When Philosophy Of Science Counts
Epistemic Virtues and Leibnizian Dreams
The following discussion considers three aspects of the Sciences-versus-Humanities divide: (1) the historical evolution of disciplines in the modern period through the beginning of the twenty-first century; (2) the epistemology of the sciences versus that of the Humanities as defined and practiced in that same period; and (3) the ways in which the two cultures interact with each other and with religion and faith today. It finds that while it may …
Shakespeare among the ants
Introduction
“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history,” Mahatma Ghandi is often quoted as saying, and, one might add cheekily, but with unquestionable truth, so too a small group of determined historians. Burke may have counseled that “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” but the Irishman clearly gave memory greater credit than it deserves. Not only do we use…
Unformed minds
Newton and the Origin of Civilization
Book Review| January 01 2015 Newton and the Origin of Civilization Buchwald, Jed Z. and Feingold, Mordechai, Newton and the Origin of Civilization. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 528 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2015) 21 (1): 124. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-2818381 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search…
The Lagoon
Book Review| January 01 2016 The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science Leroi, Armand Marie, The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science. (New York: Viking, 2014), 501 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2016) 22 (1): 128. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-3323121 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Oren Harman; The Lag…
The Astronomer and the Witch
Book Review| September 01 2017 The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for His Mother Rublack, Ulinka, The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for His Mother. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 359 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2017) 23 (3): 536. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-3988309 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter Link…
Chaos Imagined
Book Review| April 01 2017 Chaos Imagined: Literature, Art, Science Meisel, Martin, Chaos Imagined: Literature, Art, Science. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 608 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2017) 23 (2): 346. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-3815870 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Oren Harman;…
Philosophy of Nature by Dorothea Lotter and Andrew Cross
The Lure of the Leak
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s the new anthropology of biology—and if you’re an abstraction, take cover!Most people think of water as a “thing-in-itself,” something to swim in or wash or irr
Ockham's Razors
Book Review| August 01 2018 Ockham’s Razors: A User’s Manual by Elliot Sober Sober, Elliot, Ockham’s Razors: A User’s Manual (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 314 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2018) 24 (3): 452–453. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-6940454 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Oren Ha…
The Physicist and the Philosopher
Book Review| January 01 2018 The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate that Changed Our Understanding of Time by Jimena Canales Canales, Jimena, The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate that Changed Our Understanding of Time (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), 479 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2018) 24 (…
Epistemic Virtues in the Sciences and the Humanities
The Theory that Changed Everything
The Darwin industry is like Shel Silverstein’s giving tree—it never fails to provide sustenance of one kind or the other, and shows no sign of disappointing. Sometimes it is to delight in historica
Philosophy of Nature by Paul Feyerabend
Book Review| April 01 2019 Philosophy of Nature by Paul Feyerabend Feyerabend, Paul, Philosophy of Nature, trans. Lotter, Dorothea; Cross, Andrew, ed. Heit, Helmut; Oberheim, Eric (Cambridge: Polity, 2016), 260 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2019) 25 (1-3): 458–459. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-7312681 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Per…
Traveling with Einstein
The bustle grew as the ship approached the Battery in lower Manhattan. Photographers, journalists, the curious—all began crowding the dock. Standing on deck wearing a gray wool coat and a black fel
Richard Lewontin and the “complications of linkage”
We Live on the Diagonal of a Square
Hippasus knew things. Secrets that were to be kept from the uninitiated at all cost. But Hippasus had spoken, betraying his sworn word to the sect. Most damning of all was a truth only he and his l
Thomas Harriot
Book Review| January 01 2021 Thomas Harriot: A Life in Science by Robyn Arianrhod Arianrhod, Robyn, Thomas Harriot: A Life in Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 376 pp. Oren Harman Oren Harman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2021) 27 (1): 121–122. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-8723279 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Oren Harman; Thomas Harriot: …
How To Think Like Shakespeare' (at least some of the time)
Why Fish Don't Exist
When the imposing natural historian Louis Agassiz established a summer camp for fledgling biologists on Penikese Island off the coast of Massachusetts in 1873, he set out to provide his underlings with proper guidance. Every species is a “thought of God,” the towering Swiss told the first cohort of aspirants, and nature is a sacred text. It is therefore the job of the taxonomist to “translate into human language . . . the thoughts of the Creator.…
Bedeviled
Poreskoro, with three cat and four dog heads and a snake with a forked tongue as his tail, is responsible for epidemics of contagious diseases in Romany folklore. The Pishachas of Vedic mythology lurk in charnel houses and graveyards, waiting for humans to infect with madness. In Christian demonology, Pythius is known as the ruler of the eighth circle of the Inferno, bestowing heinous and unspeakable tortures on those who have committed fraud. De…
Philosophy (14 works) · Epistemology (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · History (9 works) · Citation (8 works) · Icon (8 works) · Download (7 works) · History of Science and Medicine (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · World Wide Web (7 works)