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Bulletin No. 8

This bulletin was published in Synthese Volume 57 No. 3 (1983) 443-453, DOI 10.1007/BF01064705.

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
DIVISION OF LOGIC, METHODOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

I. COUNCIL AND OFFICERS OF THE DIVISION FOR THE PERIOD 1979-1983

Executive Committee

Assessors:

Alternate Assessors:

Former Presidents:

The Executive Committee of the Division is composed of the President, Vice-Presidents, Secretary, Treasurer and the immediate Past-President. The Council consists of the Executive Committee plus the Assessors.

II. COMMITTEE FOR THE VIITH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS
(Salzburg, Austria, July 11th-16th 1983)

Local Organising Committee

Programme Committee

Steering committee:

Chairmen of sectional panels:

III. MINUTES OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY (Salzburg, Austria, July 12)

(1) Validation of Delegates

The credentials committee (W. Salmon and L. L Cohen) reported that, in accordance with their mandate from the Executive Committee, they had verified the credentials of 24 delegations from national committees and 3 from international member organisations. They were as follows. (The category of each national member and the voting entitlement of each International Member is indicated in parentheses.)

National Members

National members not present:

Brazil (A), Chile (A), India (A), Mexico (A), Monaco (A), Netherlands (C), Spain (B), Turkey (A), Yugoslavia (A).

International Members:

International member not present:

(2) Admission of New Members

On the recommendation of the Executive Committee applications for membership were accepted from Greece, Eire and South Korea. Each of these was assigned to category A.

(3) Representation of China

The Secretary reported on the discussions in which he had participated in Beijing. He pointed out that the main principle, acceptable both in Beijing and in Taipei, was that the term 'national' should be eliminated from the statutes and that the rule restricting membership to one committee from each country should be qualified by some such phrase as 'unless the General Assembly decide otherwise in a particular case'. The Secretary emphasised that this kind of change also had a quite general value, since the presence of the term 'national' in the statutes could create difficulties in relation to any territory over which there were conflicting claims to legitimacy of government. But, of course, the elimination of the word 'national' was relevant only to official documents of IUHPS/DLMPS: it would be open to any member committee to continue describing itself as a 'national' committee in its own documents. On the recommendation of the Executive Committee the General Assembly then adopted the following resolution nem. con.:-

The General Assembly requests the Executive Committee to put before the 1987 General Assembly a detailed list of formal amendments to the constitution of IUHPS and DLMPS that will make it possible for the joint Committee formed by the China Association for Dialectics of Nature and the China Society for Mathematical Logic to join DLMPS in a way that will both be acceptable to that Committee and also not prejudice the rights of any present member of DLMPS.

(4) Reclassification of Members

On the recommendation of the Executive Committee it was agreed nem. con. to reclassify Denmark (A) in Category B, Japan (C) in Category D, and Taiwan (A) in Category B.

(5) Termination of Deficient Members

The Secretary and the Treasurer both reported that there had been no contributions or communications from national committees in either Turkey or Yugoslavia during the past eight years. The General Assembly therefore agreed to terminate these memberships but expressed the hope that they would soon be revived.

(6) International Membership

The General Assembly agreed nem. con. to accept as an international member, with 10 votes, the newly formed International Association for Philosophy of Science (the constitution of which is set out in appendix A).

Since the Philosophy of Science Association was a founder member of this new body, its own membership would now lapse. It was agreed that the acceptance of IAPS as a new member should have no effect whatever on the existing structure of national committees. It was notified that the first convener of lAPS was G. Hunt, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Warwick, U.K.

(7) Minutes

The President stated that the draft minutes of the last General Assembly (Hannover, West Germany, 1979) had been printed in Synthese 43 (1980) 183-192. The minutes were then agreed and adopted.

(8) President's Report

The President referred the General Assembly to the account of the Division's activities that he had given in his welcoming address at the beginning of the Congress. He emphasised the importance that the Executive Committee had attached to widening the geographical spread of the Division's activities. It had continued support for logic conferences in South America and had also supported one in Singapore. It had also done what it could to make it possible for the People's Republic of China eventually to join the Division. The President also stressed that there were a number of constitutional points that required clarification through revision of the statutes, such as the method of handling nominations not made by the Executive Committee and the function of the Division's Council. The President concluded by congratulating the Programme Committee and the Organising Committee on the excellence of their work for the Congress, in which approximately 700 people were registered participants.

(9) Secretary's Report

Scholarly Activities of the Division

Since the last General Assembly eighteen international conferences, colloquia, symposia or summer schools have been sponsored by the Division: for detaits see appendix B. This compares with seventeen in the period 1976-1979 and eighteen in the period 1972-1975. The Division has also continued its annual subscription to the Journal of Symbolic Logic. The policy of the Division has remained that of encouraging academically responsible initiatives for the organisation of meetings by providing as generous a subsidy in each case as funds permit, within an overall policy of providing roughly equal support to logic and philosophy of science. The Executive Committee feels that there is room for additional organisational initiative within the philosophy of science and welcomes the foundation of the International Association for Philosophy of Science as a means towards this end.

Cooperation with Other Organisations

Close and cordial contact has been maintained by the Secretary with the successive secretaries of our sister Division (Division of History of Science). The Joint Bureau of the two Divisions met during the Bucharest Congress for History of Science in 1981 and will meet again during the present Congress. The Secretary represented IUHPS at the 1982 meeting of the General Committee of ICSU, and the President and Secretary represented IUHPS at the 1982 meeting of the General Assembly of ICSU. ICSU has continued its useful subsidy to the work of the Division, which is half the total subsidy to IUHPS.

Meetings of the Executive Committee

In the interests of economy the Executive Committee has sought to transact as much of its business as possible by correspondence. It has met five times during the period under review: at Hannover, West Germany (during the Vlth Congress); at Oxford, U.K. in April, 1980; at Oslo, Norway, in May 1981; in Heidelberg, West Germany, in May 1982; and at Salzburg, Austria (during the present Congress).

Action taken to Implement Decisions of the 1979 General Assembly

Steps were taken to encourage the formation of an International Association for Philosophy of Science in order to deal with the problem about international membership. There are now 33 effectively functioning national committees, as against 26 in 1975. New national committees have been formed in Greece, Ireland, and South Korea, and steps have been taken to encourage the formation of national committees in some other countries also. During a lecture tour in the People's Republic of China the Secretary had extensive discussions with the relevant authorities (in the China Association for Science and Technology) in order to determine satisfactory conditions under which the People's Republic of China could adhere to both Divisions of IUHPS. A method of doing this was formulated that has subsequently been accepted in principle by the Taipei authorities.

Bulletin

The Secretary has continued publication of annual bulletins about the Division in Synthese and Teorema, by courtesy of the editors of these two journals.

(10) Treasurer's Report

The Treasurer presented the accounts set out in Appendix C. He also notified the General Assembly that, as a result of world inflationary pressures and changes in exchange rates, the unit of dues would almost certainly have to be substantially increased in 1987.

(11) Budgetary Determinations

The General Assembly authorised the Executive Committee to make budgetary determinations in the interval until the next General Assembly.

(12) Election of officers

The following were elected to office for the period 1983-1987:

Executive Committee:

Assessors:

Alternate Assessors:

(13) The Next Congress

The Secretary informed the General Assembly that the possibility of issuing an invitation for the next Congress was currently under informal consideration in four national committees, but that it would be premature to name any of these. The General Assembly therefore authorised the Executive Committee to explore these possibilities further and to decide in due course, when one or more formal invitations become available, about the most suitable date and location.

(14) Other Business

On the proposal of J. Crossley (Australia) the General Assembly adopted the following resolution nem. con.:

The General Assembly expresses concern that, for this Congress, as for a number of previous Congresses, several invited speakers were not able to attend and moreover that the Program Committee was not informed of this until the time of the Congress itself. We consider that this pattern raises serious difficulties for the proper conduct of the Congress and ask the Executive Committee to take whatever action is necessary to ensure the attendance of invited speakers at the next and future Congresses.

Appendix A Constitution of the International Association for Philosophy of Science

  1. The purpose of the association shall be to promote the philosophy of science, primarily by the organisation of international conferences, colloquia or summer schools.
  2. The founding members of the association are the Philosophy of Science Association, the British Society for Philosophy of Science, and the Societh Italiana di Logica e Filosofia delle Scienze.
  3. Membership of the association shall be open to any other society or institution which has as a major aim the promotion of the philosophy of science and is acceptable to a majority of the existing members.
  4. The governing body of the association shall be a council composed of one representative of each member society. The council shall meet every four years, on the occasion of the International Congress for Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science.
  5. The council of the association shall elect a convenor who shall hold office for four years only and not be re-eligible. The convenor shall be responsible for bringing matters requiring decision to the attention of the council, whether directly or by correspondence.
  6. Every member society shall be eligible from time to time to have one of its conferences, colloquia or summer schools declared a meeting of the association in accordance with criteria which the council of the association shall draw up, announce and apply. The purpose of these criteria shall be to determine whether or not the conference, colloquium or summer school is prima facie eligible for financial sponsorship by the Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science of the International Union for History and Philosophy of Science.
  7. The council of the association shall seek to ensure as far as possible that no financial burden falls on any member society of the association as a result of its membership.
  8. The association shall join DLMPS/IUHPS as an international member, if accepted as such by that body.
  9. This constitution may be amended at any time by a two-thirds majority of those members of the council who vote on the issue after due notice has been given to all members.

Appendix B

[Appendix C to be added]