Professor of Philosophy; Zoltan Kohn Professor of Medicine
Director, Center for Philosophy and History of Science

Publications

Alfred Tauber on Amazon

Books:
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Science and the Quest for Meaning
Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009
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Patient Autonomy and the Ethics of Responsibility
Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2005.
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Henry David Thoreau and the Moral Agency of Knowing
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001. (Paperback 2003)
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Confessions of a Medicine Man: An Essay in Popular Philosophy Cambridge: The MIT Press, A Bradford Book, 1999. (Paperback 2000). Awarded "Outstanding Academic Title" by Choice (journal of the American Library Association) and First Prize, Allied Health category, by the American Medical Writers Association
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(co-authored with Scott H. Podolsky) The Generation of Diversity: Clonal Selection Theory and the Rise of Molecular Immunology
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. (Paperback 2000)
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The Immune Self: Theory or Metaphor?
New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. (Paperback 1996). Italian translation, L'immunologia Dell'io, Milano: McGraw Hill Libri Italia, 1999.
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(co-authored with Leon Chernyak) Metchnikoff and the Origins of Immunology: From Metaphor to Theory
New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
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Edited Works:

• (with Cooper, R. A.) ”Values and Ethics: A Collection of Curricular Reforms for a New Generation of Physicians,” Academic Medicine 82:405–427, 2007.
• “Philosophy of Medicine,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 51:317-463, 2008.
• (with Gourko, H., Williamson, D.I., edited, translated, and annotated) The Evolutionary Biology Papers of Elie Metchnikoff. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000.
• (with Cohen, R.S.) Philosophies of Nature: The Human Dimension. In Celebration of Erazim Kohak. Vol. 195, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998.
• (with Keating, P., Balaban, M., Cambrosio, A.) "Historical Studies in Immunology," in Journal of the History of Biology. (Special journal issue) Vol. 30, No.3, pp.317ff., 1997.
• Science and the Quest for Reality. New York: New York University Press and London: Macmillan Press, 1997 (Hardback and paperback editions).
• The Elusive Synthesis: Aesthetics and Science. Volume 182, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996. (Paperback edition, 1997).
• (with Gilbert, S.F.) (Special journal issue) "Science and Postmodernism." Science in Context, 8: 559-655, 1995.
• (with Cambrosio, A., Keating, P.) "Conceptual Foundations of Immunology," in Journal of the History of Biology (Special journal issue) 27: 375ff, 1994.
• (with Gilbert, S.F., Sarkar, S) "Symposium on the Evolution of Individuality by Leo W. Buss," in Biology and Philosophy 7:461-499,1992.
• Organism and the Origins of Self. Volume 129, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science . Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.
• (with Wintroub B.U., Simon A.S.) Progress in Clinical and Biological Research. Vol. 297. Biochemistry of the Acute Allergic Reaciton, Fifth International Symposium. New York: Alan R. Liss, 1989. [Festschrift for K. Frank Austen]
  

Recent History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Papers:

• Epigenetics and the “New Biology” – Enlisting in the assault on reductionism, submitted.
• A tale of two immunologies, in The Complexity of the Immune System,C. Franceschi, D. Braga, G. Corbellini, and G. Castellani (eds.). Bologna, IT: Bononia University Press. In press.
• Tauber, A. I. Freud’s dreams of reason: The Kantian structure of psychoanalysis, History of the Human Sciences, 22:1-29, 2009.
• Tauber, A.I. Freud’s philosophical path: From a science of the mind to a philosophy of human being, The Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, In press.
• Tauber, A.I. Expanding immunology: Defensive versus ecological perspectives, abook review essay of Defending Life. The Nature of Host-parasite Relations by Elling Ulvestad, Dordrecht: Springer, 2007. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine , 51:270-84, 2008.
• ben Jacob, E., Shapira, Y. and Tauber A.I., Communication and social intelligence in bacteria , in Chimeras and Consciousness. Evolution of the Sensory Self, L. Margulis (ed.) White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishers, In press.
• "Science and reason, reason and faith: A Kantian perspective," in Intelligent Design.  Science or Religion? Critical Perspectives, R. M. Baird and S. E. Rosenbaum (eds.), Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007, pp. 307-36.
• "The immune system and its ecology," in Philosophy of Science, 75:224-45, 2008.
• "Expanding immunology: Defensive versus ecological perspectives," a book
  review essay of Defending Life. The Nature of Host-parasite Relations by
  Elling Ulvestad, Dordrecht: Springer, 2007. Perspectives in Biology and
  Medicine, 51:270-84, 2008.
• "Scholarship as Self-Knowledge : A Case Study," in The Historiography of Contemporary Science, Technology, and Medicine: Writing Recent Science, R. E. Doel and T. Söderqvist (eds.), pp. 128-150. London and New York: Routledge, 2006.
• (With Ben Jacob, E., and Shapira, Y.) "Seeking the Foundations of Cognition in Bacteria: From Schrödinger's Negative Entropy to Functional Information," Physica A,359:495-524, 2006.
• "Immunology," in The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia, edited by S. Sarkar and J. Pfeifer . London and New York: Routledge, 2005.
• "Immunology and the Enigma of Selfhood," in Growing Explanations: Historical Perspectives on the Sciences of Complexity. M. Norton Wise (ed.) pp. 275-300. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.
• "Metchnikoff and the Phagocytosis Theory," in Nature Reviews: Molecular Cell Biology. 4:897-901, 2003.
• "The Philosopher as Prophet: The Case of Emerson and Thoreau," in Philosophy in the Contemporary World. 10:89-103, 2003. 
• "Emerson and Thoreau on America the Beautiful," in Rendezvous. 36:57-78, 2002.
• "A Mirror of Ourselves - Reflections on Thoreau," in Bostonia (Winter 2001-2002): 34-37.
• "The Biological Notion of Self and Non-Self," in Stanford Encyclopedia of Science, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/biology-self, 2002.
• (With Crist, E.) "The Phagocyte, the Antibody and Agency in Immunity: Contending Turn-of-the-Century Approaches," in A.M. Moulin and A. Cambrosio (eds.), Singular Selves: Historical Issues and Contemporary Debates in Immunology. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2001, pp. 115-39.
• "Tales of Neglected (Orphaned?) Histographies, in A.M. Moulin and A.Cambrosio (eds.)," in Singular Selves: Historical Issues and Contemporary Debates in Immunology. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2001, pp. 247-58
• "Moving Beyond the Immune Self?" in Seminars in Immunology. 12:241-48, 2000. 
• "A Call for Scientific Literacy: The Claims for Public Understanding," in Effects of Global Business on Scientific Research, M. Balaban and H-P Sambuc (eds.) Geneva: Science and Conscience of Man Foundation, 2000. pp. 61-84.
• (with Crist E) "Selfhood, Immunity, and the Biological Imagination: The Thought of Frank Macfarlane Burnet," in Biology and Philosophy. 15:509-33, 2000.
• Book review essay of The Historiography of Contemporary Science and Technology, edited by Thomas Söderqvist. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997. Science, Technology, and Human Values. 24:384-401, 1999. 
• "The Elusive Immune Self: A Case of Category Errors," in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 42:459-74, 1999.  
• "Is Biology a Political Science?" in BioScience. 49:479-86, 1999.  
• "Nietzsche's Conception of Health: The Idealization of Struggle," in Nietzsche, Epistemology, and Philosophy of Science: Nietzsche and the sciences II. edited by B. Babich. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 299-311, 1999.

Recent Ethics Papers:

• "Medicine and the Call for a Moral Epistemology, Part II: Constructing a Synthesis of Values," in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 51:450-63, 2008.
• Introduction, in “Philosophy of Medicine,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 51:317-19, 2008.
• (with Segal, S. P.) "Revisiting Hume’s Law" in American Journal of Bioethics,
  7:43-5, 2007.
• "Seeking medicine’s moral glue," in American Journal of Bioethics. 6: 41-4,
  2006.
• "The Moral Domain of the Medical Record: The Routine Ethics Evaluation,"The American Journal of Bioethics, 6(4): W1–W16, 2006.
• "The Reflexive Project: Reconstructing the Moral Agent,"History of the Human Sciences,18: 49-75, 2005.
• (With Cooper, R. A.) "New Physicians for a New Century," in Academic Medicine, 80:12, 2005.
• "Medicine as a Moral Epistemology," in R. Paton and L. McNamara (eds.), Multidisciplinary Approaches to Theory in Medicine. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2005, pp. 63-88.
• "Balancing Medicine's Moral Ledger: Trust and Responsibility," in: B. Darling-Smith (ed.), Responsibility, Volume 26, Boston University Studies in Philosophy and Religion. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 129-48, 2007.
• "Medicine and the Call for a Moral Epistemology," in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 48:42-53, 2005. 
• "Sick Autonomy," in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 46:484-495, 2003.
• "Medical Ethics," in Encyclopedia and Religion, J.W. van Huyssteen, N.H. Gregersen, N.R. Howell, W.J. Wildman, (eds.). New York: Macmillan. 2003, pp. 548-52.
• "Autonomy Gone Mad," in Philosophy in the Contemporary World. 10:75-80, 2003.
• "A philosophical Approach to Rationing," in Medical Journal of Australia. 178(9): 454-456, 2003.
• "Implementing Medical Ethics," in Journal of the Israel Medical Association. 4:1091-2, 2002.
• "So Many Patients, So Much Pain," in Newsday, September 22, 2002, p. A32.
• "The Ethical Imperative of Holism in Medicine," in Promises and Limits of Reductionism in the Biomedical Sciences, M.H.V. Van Regenmortel and D.L. Hll (eds.) West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2002, pp.261-78.
• "Putting Ethics into the Medical Record," in Annals of Internal Medicine. 136:559-563, 2002. Critical Correspondence: 137:932-3, 2002.
• "The Quest for Holism in Medicine," in The Role of Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Accommodating Pluralism, D. Callahan (ed.). Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2002, pp.172-89.
• "Medicine, Public Health and the Ethics of Rationing," in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 45:16-30, 2002.
• "Historical and Philosophical Reflections on Patient Autonomy," in Health Care Analysis: An International Journal of Health Care Philosophy and Policy 9:299-319, 2001.
• "Le role de Nietzsche dans l'elebaration de l'utopie medicale," in L'utopie de la Sante Parfaite, L.Sfez (ed.) Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001, pp.29-37.
• "Ecology and the Claims for a Science-Based Ethics," in Philosophies of Nature: the Human Dimension, In celebration of Erazim Kohak, Vol 195, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Cohen, RS. and Tauber, AI. (eds.) Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1998, pp 185-206.
• "Outside the Subject: Levinas's Jewish Perspective on Time," in Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal (New School for Social Research, N.Y.) 20/21: 439-59, 1998.
• "Home and Zakhor- Remember!," in The Longing for Home, L.Rouner (ed.), Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 1997, pp.148-69.