I studied philosophy of science and metaphysics at Tel-Aviv University. My dissertation: 'The Philosophical Background to the Problem of Translation" (with Distinction, TAU 2000) was a study of the subtle and tense historical relations between logic, scientific methodology and metaphysics. It was published as Extensionalism: the Revolution in Logic by Springer (2008). After two years as a visiting scholar at Columbia University (NY), and a two year post-doctoral fellowship at the Dibner Institute for the history of science M.I.T. (Cambridge MA), I have joined the communication department at Sapir college, Israel, where I head a unit dedicated to the study of the philosophy of communication. My book In Search of a Simple introduction to Communication Springer 2016, explores the major methodological challenges of communication and media studies, and considers various available ways of handling them. My work is an attempt to carefully study our almost miraculous ability to (sometimes) communicate successfully. I believe that only a philosophy of communication can set out from the burning problems of the human condition and proceed with proper caution toward a scientific picture of the world that will offer both the scientist and the layperson a helping hand, with an accompanying explanation
My intellectual life is dedicated to understanding human communication: how is it possible? And how can we best study it? My recent book, In Search of a Simple Introduction to Communication (Springer 2016), presents and explores the major methodological and pedagogic challenges of communication and media studies, and considers various available ways of handling them. It explains the fundamental limitations of formal systems―as tools for the study (reduction and explanation) of communication challenges and suggests that the main task of educators in the field should be teaching students how to identify such limitations in varying contexts. My book argues for the desirability of studying communication in terms of a broader theory of orientation.
My field of expertise is history and philosophy of logic, broadly conceived to include the study of rationality, scientific method and the history of metaphysics. My first book, Extensionalism: The Revolution in Logic (Springer 2008), is a study of the rise of early modern logic. It contrasts classical and modern logic in an attempt to emphasize that classical logic is inherently epistemological and modern logic is an attempt to avoid this. I argue that George Boole’s extensionalism was far reaching as a key point in the development of modern logic: by presenting logic as the study of formal extensional relations, Boole effectively abandoned the standard Aristotelian conflation of logic and empirical science. His extensionalism allowed thus for the construction of what was effectively the first formal logical system.
The theme that is common to both of my books is the gain and loss due to the adoption of a strictly formalist attitude to the study of our environment and, thus, of the limits of our ideal of a scientific worldview that is unified by means of reduction of all that is explainable to a single system.
2002-2004: Post-Doctoral Scholarship, The Dibner Institute for the History and
Philosophy of Science, MIT, Cambridge MA, U.S.A.
PUBLICATIONS
Authored Books
Bar-Am Nimrod. (2008). Extensionalism: The Revolution in Logic, Cham: Springer (171 pp.).
Bar-Am Nimrod. (2016). In Search of the Simple Introduction to Communication, Cham: Springer (216 pp.).
Bar-Am Nimrod. (2017) Bechipus Achar Hamavo Hapashut Letikshoret, Tel Aviv: Books in the Attaic, Yediot aharonot (350 pp.).
Edited Books
Bar-Am Nimrod and Gattei Stefano (eds.) (2017). Encouraging Opennes Boston Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, Cham: Springer (650 pp.).
Selected Papers
Bar-Am Nimrod (2004). “Extensionalism and Induction in Boole”, Physis, XLI, pp. 97-123.
Bar-Am Nimrod and Agassi Joseph (2005) “Popper and the Establishment”, The Critical Review, 17:1-2, pp. 13-24.
Bar-Am Nimrod (2010). “Individual Ahoy!”, Philosophy of the Social Sciences 40:2, pp. 319-324.
Bar-Am Nimrod (2012). “Extensionalism in Context”, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 42:4, pp. 543-560.
Bar-Am Nimrod and Agassi Joseph (2014). “Meaning: from Parmenides to Wittgenstein: Philosophy as Footnotes to Parmenides”, Conceptus, 41:99, pp. 1-21.
Bar-Am Nimrod (2014). “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 50th Anniversary Edition”, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 44:5, pp. 688-701.
Chapters in Scientific Books (refereed only)
Bar-Am Nimrod (2009). “Proof vs. Sound Inference”, in: Parusnikova, Z and Cohen R. (eds.) Rethinking Popper, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 272, Berlin: Springer, pp. 63-70.
Bar-Am Nimrod and Raphael Sassower (2014) “Systems Heuristics and Digital Culture”; in: Arnold, D. P. (ed.) Traditions of Systems Theory: Major Figures and Developments, London: Routledge, pp. 277-292.
Bar-Am Nimrod (2018). “How Should Social Engineers Develop Critical Social Science? ”, in: Sassower, R. and Laor, N (eds.) The Impact of Critical Rationalism: Expanding the Popperian Legacy through the Works of Ian C. Jarvie, London: Palgrave Macmillan pp 9-18.
Book Reviews
Bar-Am Nimrod (1999). A Review of S. Guttenplan, The Languages of Logic [1986] 1997” Pragmatics & Cognition 7, pp. 239-242.
Bar-Am Nimrod (2009). “In Search of a Better Tradition: a Review of John Wettersten’s Whewell’s Critics: Have they Prevented him from Doing Good?”, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 39:2, pp. 336-340.
Bar-Am Nimrod (2013). “A Review of John, H. Sceski Popper, Objectivity and the Growth of Knowledge, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 43, pp. 397-400.
Other Works Connected with my Scholarly Field
Bar-Am Nimrod (2010). Myth and Meaning, by C. Lévi-Strauss; an annotated translation, Tel Aviv: Babel, (128 pp.). [Hebrew]
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Selected Presentations
2010: Extensionalism: the Breakthrough in Computational Reasoning, in: The 6th Conference on Computability in Europe: Programs, Proofs Processes Ponta Delgada, Azores University, Invited lecturer
2011 Emergence and the Unification of Science, in: The 14th International Congress of Logic Methodology and Philosophy of Science Nancy Communication,
2012 Incommensurability Within Our Ontologies, in: Incommensurability 50 Taipei
National Taiwan University, Invited lecturer.
2017 Science Technology and The Social Sciences, in: From the Laboratory to the Market and Back: Historical and Critical Explorations of the Interchange between Academia and Industry, Ben-Gurion University/ Jacques Loeb Center and the National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev, Invited Lecturer
2017 Introduction to the Logic of Research, in: Is There Any Room for Criticism, Please? Tel Aviv University, Invited lecturer.