Yehuda Elkanah

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Yehuda Elkana ( Hebrew יהודה אלקנה, Born June 16, 1934 in Subotica , Vojvodina , Kingdom of Yugoslavia ; † September 21, 2012 in Jerusalem , Israel) was a science theorist and science historian.

Yehuda Elkana (2007)

Elkanah came from Hungarian-speaking Jews who moved from Yugoslavia to Szeged in 1944 . As a youth he survived the Auschwitz concentration camp (as did his family, who were assigned to forced labor in the reconstruction of Austrian cities) and emigrated to Israel in 1948. He went to a kibbutz and then to Herzliya Hebrew High School in Tel Aviv. He studied physics, mathematics and the history of science from 1955 at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and graduated in 1966 with a master's degree, while at the same time teaching at the Rehavia high school in Tel Aviv. In 1968 he received his doctorate from Brandeis University with a thesis on the history of science “On the Emergence of the Energy Concept”. He then taught history of science and philosophy of science for a year at Harvard University and from 1968 at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem , temporarily as head of the faculty. He was director of the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem from 1968 to 1993 and director of the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science at Tel Aviv University from 1981 to 1991. From 1987 to 2006 he was a "Permanent Fellow" at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin . From 1995 to 1999 he was Professor of Philosophy of Science at the ETH Zurich . From 1999 to 2009 he was President and Rector of the Central European University in Budapest , which he set up on behalf of the patron George Soros . Most recently he lived in Berlin, where he worked on a project to reform the curriculum of universities in 2009/2010 and was at the Wissenschaftskolleg and visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Until shortly before his death, Elkana worked with Hannes Klöpper on his last work entitled: "The University in the 21st Century: For a New Unity of Teaching, Research and Society".

Elkana was a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in 1973/74 and was a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College at Oxford University in 1977/78 .

Elkanah was a corresponding member of the International Academy for the History of Science and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Collegium Helveticum . He was the co-founder and editor of Science in Context magazine .

He edited the writings of William Whewell and Hermann von Helmholtz (in English translation) and was one of the organizers of the Einstein Centennial Symposium in Jerusalem in 1979. He also gave the opening speech for the Einstein Year celebrations in Berlin 2005 and conducted research on the Einstein Paper Project at Caltech .

Elkana in front of the Berlin Cathedral in May 2011

In Israel he is known from an article in the daily Haaretz from 1988, which sparked a debate about the extent to which the Holocaust should be used to identify Israel's identity. In his opinion, this would be exploited by nationalist circles in Israel and negatively burden the dialogue with the Palestinians. At the same time, however, he advocated the preservation of memories in countries like Germany.

Publications

  • Discovery of the conservation of Energy , Harvard University Press 1974 (preface by I. Bernard Cohen , derived from his dissertation)
  • Anthropology of knowledge. The development of knowledge as an epic theater of a cunning reason , Suhrkamp, ISBN 978-3-518-57940-4 , 1986
  • Essays on the cognitive and political organization of science , Berlin, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science 1994
  • as editor with Everett Mendelsohn: Sciences and cultures: anthropological and historical studies of the sciences , Kluwer 1981 (therein by Elkana: A programmatic attempt at an anthropology of knowledge , pp. 1–68)
  • as editor with Gerald Holton : Albert Einstein: historical and cultural perspectives, the centennial symposium in Jerusalem , Dover 1997
  • as editor: The interaction between science and philosophy , Humanities Press 1974
  • as editor with Joshua Lederberg , Robert K. Merton , Harriet Zuckerman , Arnold Thackray: Towards a metric of science: the advent of science indicators , Wiley 1978

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ^ Obituary in the Daily Telegraph 2012
  2. ^ CEU Mourn's Death of Yehuda Elkana , accessed December 21, 2015
  3. ↑ Yehuda Elkana, Ph.D., Permanent Fellow (1987-2006)
  4. ^ Curriculum Reform Forum
  5. ^ Yehuda Elkana, Hannes Klöpper "The University in the 21st Century: For a New Unity of Teaching, Research and Society", Körber Foundation 2012 ( Memento from February 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Elkanah Einstein's legacy , opening speech for the Einstein year, German Historical Museum, January 19, 2005, pdf
  7. ↑ Elkanah The Necessity of Forgetting (Hebrew), Haaretz, March 2, 1988, p. 13
  8. ↑ Amos Elon The Holocaust has no values: Politics of Remembrance , excerpt from his book News from Jerusalem , haGalil 2007
personal data
SURNAME Elkanah, Yehuda
ALTERNATIVE NAMES יהודה אלקנה (Hebrew)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli science theorist and science historian
DATE OF BIRTH June 16, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Subotica , Vojvodina , Kingdom of Yugoslavia
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 2012
Place of death Jerusalem , Israel