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Specialization: philosophy of science

Areas of research include underdetermination, scientific realism, and natural kinds.

Teaching interests also include logic, history of modern philosophy, pragmatism, metaphysics, and existentialism.

Positions held & Degrees earned

• University at Albany, State University of New York: Philosophy, 2004– . As associate professor since 2010.
• Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh: Visiting fellow, Fall 2010.
• Bowdoin College: Visiting assistant professor in Philosophy, 2003–2004.
• Ph.D. in Philosophy. 2003. University of California, San Diego.

  Underdetermination and the Claims of Science

  committee: Paul Churchland (chair), Donald Rutherford, Nancy Cartwright, Naomi Oreskes, Martin Sereno

• UC San Diego: Associate or teaching assistant in Philosophy for nine terms between 1998 and 2003. Philosophy Department webmaster, 1998–2000.
• M.A. in Philosophy. 2000. UC San Diego.
• Editorial assistant for the journal Philosophy of Science. 1998–1999.
• B.A. major in Philosophy and Physics, minor in Russian and Mathematics. 1996. Texas Christian University; University Honors, summa cum laude.

Publications

Books

• Scientific Enquiry and Natural Kinds: From Planets to Mallards. Palgrave Macmillan. 2012.
• co-editor and co-author of introduction, with Jacob Busch. New Waves in Philosophy of Science. Palgrave MacMillan. 2010.
• forall x: an introduction to formal logic. Released under an open license. 2005.

  Downloaded over 100,000 times and used as a course text at numerous institutions, including University at Albany, Bentley College, University of California Irvine, University of California San Diego, Cambridge University, Carnegie Mellon, University of Houston, Hunter College, University of Lethbridge, Imperial College London, Loraine County Community College, University of Pittsburgh, Rhode Island College, University of Manchester, University of Warsaw, University of Washington, and University of West Florida.

  Parts of forall x were incorporated into Proofs and Concepts: the fundamentals of abstract mathematics by Dave Witte Morris and Joy Morris (2009).

Articles

• with Heather Douglas. ‘Why novel prediction matters.’ Under review.
• with Cristyn Magnus and Christy Mag Uidhir. ‘Judging Covers.’ Under review.
• ‘What scientists know is not a function of what scientists know.’ Philosophy of Science. Forthcoming.
• ‘No grist for Mill on natural kinds.’ Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy. Forthcoming.
• ‘Historical individuals like Anas platyrhynchos and ‘Classical Gas’’ in Art & Abstract Objects. Christy Mag Uidhir, ed. Oxford University Press. Forthcoming, 2013.
• Review of Carving Nature at Its Joints: Natural Kinds in Metaphysics and Science. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. February 2012.
• ‘Drakes, seadevils, and similarity fetishism.’ Biology&Philosophy, 26(6): 857–870. November 2011.
• ‘Miracles, trust, and ennui in Barnes’ Predictivism.’ Logos&Episteme, 2(1): 103–115. March 2011.
• with Christy Mag Uidhir. ‘Art concept pluralism.’ Metaphilosophy, 42(1–2): 83–97. January 2011.
• ‘Philosophy of science in the 21st century.’ In Russian, Istoriko-Philosophskii Almanach, Moscow; third issue, 2010: 469–473. In English, Metaphilosophy; forthcoming
• ‘Inductions, red herrings, and the best explanation for the mixed record of science.’ The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 61(4): 803–819. December 2010.
• with Greg Frost-Arnold. ‘The Identical Rivals Response to underdetermination’ in New Waves in Philosophy of Science. P.D. Magnus and Jacob Busch, eds. Palgrave Macmillan. 2010.
• ‘On trusting Wikipedia.’ Episteme. 6(1): 74–90. February 2009.
• ‘Demonstrative induction and the skeleton of inference.’ International Studies in the Philosophy of Science. 22(3): 303–315. October 2008.
• ‘Early response to false claims in Wikipedia.’ First Monday. 13(9): September 2008.
• ‘Mag Uidhir on performance.’ British Journal of Aesthetics. 48(3): 338–345. July 2008.
• ‘Reid’s defense of common sense.’ Philosophers’ Imprint, 8(3): 1–14. May 2008.
• with Lawrence Schell. ‘Is there an elephant in the room? Addressing rival approaches to the interpretation of growth perturbations and small size.’ American Journal of Human Biology, 19(5): 606–614. September/October 2007.
• ‘Distributed cognition and the task of science.’ Social Studies of Science, 37(2): 297–310. April 2007.
• ‘What’s new about the New Induction?’ Synthese, 148(2): 295–301. January 2006.
• ‘Underdetermination of theories’ in The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia. Sahotra Sarkar and Jessica Pfeifer, eds. Routledge. 2005.
• ‘Background theories and total science.’ Philosophy of Science, 72(5): 1064–1075. December 2005.
• ‘Reckoning the shape of everything: Underdetermination and cosmotopology.’ British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 56(3): 541–557. September 2005.
• ‘Hormone research as an exemplar of underdetermination.’ Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36(3): 559–567. September 2005.
• ‘Peirce: Underdetermination, agnosticism, and related mistakes.’ Inquiry, 48(1): 26–37. February 2005.
• with Craig Callender, ‘Realist ennui and the base rate fallacy.’ Philosophy of Science, 71(3): 320–338. July 2004.
• ‘The price of insisting that Quantum Mechanics is complete.’ British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 55(2): 257–267. June 2004.
• ‘Reid’s dilemma and the uses of pragmatism.’ Journal of Scottish Philosophy, 2(1): 69–72. March 2004.
• ‘Underdetermination and the Problem of Identical Rivals.’ Philosophy of Science, 70(5): 1256–1264. December 2003.
• with Jonathan Cohen, ‘Williamson on knowledge and psychological explanation.’ Philosophical Studies, 116(1): 37–52. October 2003.
• ‘Success, truth, and the Galilean Strategy.’ British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 54(3): 465–474. September 2003.
• with Michael Kalichman, education resources for the Responsible Conduct of Research Education Consortium. September 2002. Reprinted in the University of Arizona’s Program in Research Integrity Education PRIE Newsletter, 6(6): June 2006 through 7(4): April 2007.

Presentations

• ‘What scientists know is not a function of what scientists know.’ Presented at the Philosophy of Science Association biennial meeting in San Diego, California (November 2012).
• ‘Drakes, seadevils, and similarity fetishism.’ Presented at Metaphysics & the Philosophy of Science at the University of Toronto (May 2011).
• ‘Nine planets, fine planets — or eight planets, great planets?’ Invited presentation to the philosophy department at the City College of New York (November 2010).
• ‘Miracles, trust, and ennui in Barnes’ Predictivism.’ Part of a book symposium at the Philosophy of Science Association biennial meeting in Montreal, Quebec (November 2010).
• ‘What to say about natural kinds.’ Lunchtime talk at the Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh (October 2010).
• ‘Ubiquity and relativity of natural kinds.’ Invited presentation to the Cornell University Philosophy Department (May 2010).
• ‘The Identical Rivals Response to underdetermination.’ Invited presentation, Underdetermination in Science workshop, Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh (March 2009).
• ‘Philosophy of science in the 21st century.’ Presented at a telematic symposium on developments in philosophy, held between UAlbany and Moscow State University (February 2009).
• ‘Theory concept pluralism.’ Presented to the University of Nevada Las Vegas philosophy department (February 2009).
• ‘Philosophy and Wikipedia.’ Presented to the UAlbany philosophy department (December 2008).
• ‘What SPECIES can teach us about THEORY.’ Presented to the Creighton Club New York State Philosophical Association and published in conference proceedings (November 2007).
• ‘The skeleton of inference.’ Invited presentation to the Southern Methodist University philosophy department (March 2007).
• ‘Epistemology and the Wikipedia.’ Presented at the North American Computing and Philosophy Conference in Troy, New York (August 2006).
• ‘Eliminating induction.’ Presented at the Society for Exact Philosophy annual meeting in La Jolla, California (May 2006).
• ‘Tom Reid meets Tom Bayes: skepticism, dogmatism and common sense.’ Presented at Hume and His Critics, a conference on the Scottish Enlightenment at Baylor University (April 2005).
• ‘Background theories and total science.’ Presented at the Philosophy of Science Association biennial meeting in Austin, Texas (November 2004).
• ‘The value of philosophy.’ Presented at the Maine Philosophical Institute (May 2004).
• ‘The promise and perils of science as distributed cognition.’ Presented to the UC San Diego Experimental Philosophy Lab (January 2004).
• ‘Williamson on knowledge and psychological explanation.’ Presented at the Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference (May 2003).
• ‘Science, underdetermination, and the structure of space.’ Presented under various titles as a colloquium at UC San Diego (January 2003), as an invited talk to the Bowdoin College philosophy department (April 2003), and as an invited talk to the UAlbany philosophy department (January 2004).
• ‘Underdetermination and aspirations of certainty.’ Presented to the UC San Diego History of Philosophy Roundtable (June 2002).
• ‘Underdetermination and the Problem of Identical Rivals.’ Presented at the Southern California Philosophy Conference at UC Irvine (October 2001) and at the Philosophy of Science Association biennial meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (November 2002).
• ‘Reliability on the crowded net: Finding the truth in a web of deceit.’ Presented at MacHack and published in conference proceedings (June 2001).
• ‘Underdetermination and the inference against value freedom.’ Presented at Value-Free Science: Ideal or Illusion?, a conference sponsored by the Ethics Center at the University of Alabama, Birmingham (February 2001).
• ‘Reality, sex, and cyberspace: an exercise in philosophy of technology.’ Presented at MacHack in Detroit, Michigan and published in conference proceedings (June 2000).
• ‘The logic of normative structure.’ Presented at Philosophy and the Social Sciences, a graduate student conference at the University of Texas, Austin (March 2000).

Academic Awards and Fellowships

• Visiting Fellowship at the Center for Philosophy of Science, Pittsburgh (Fall 2010)
• UAlbany, College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (2009)
• National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship (1996–2001)
• A. Campbell Garnet Memorial Award for a Philosophical Essay (1996)
• TCU Senior Scholar in Philosophy, Senior Scholar in Physics (1996)
• Phi Beta Kappa: elected (1995), ΦBK Senior Scholar (1996)
• Sigma Xi Essay Award (1995)

Teaching

Courses taught

Undergraduate courses

• Introduction to logic; sentential and first-order logic
• Understanding science; an introduction to philosophy of science and science studies
• History of modern philosophy; Descartes to Kant
• American philosophy; the transcendentalist and pragmatist traditions
• Existentialism
• Scientific revolutions; science studies before and after Kuhn

Shared-resource courses, for graduate students and advanced undergraduates

• Philosophy of science
• Metaphysics
• Theory of knowledge

Graduate seminars

• Causality and determinism
• Underdetermination of theory
• Realism and natural kinds

Webpages for all courses are at www.fecundity.com/courses

Dissertation and thesis advisement

• Member, Ph.D. committee for Tom Fowler. In progress.
• Member, Ph.D. committee for Kevin Olbrys. In progress.
• Member, Ph.D. committee for Kimberley Van Orman. In progress.
• Member, Ph.D. committee for Juliette Stevens. Mental Causation: A Nonreductivist Perspective. Summer 2008.
• Advisor, undergraduate honors thesis for Brett Bustamante. Applied Humor Theory. Spring 2008.
• Chair, Ph.D. committee for John Styles. Empirically Grounded Metaphors in Science. Spring 2008.
• Examiner in History for Dan Spanjer. Spring 2007.

Academic service

• Service within the UAlbany Philosophy Department:
  • Undergraduate studies committee (2004–6, 2007–11)
  • Director of undergraduate studies (2005–6, 2007–10)
  • Graduate studies committee (2004–5, 2011–3)
  • Director of graduate studies (2012–3)
  • Department webmaster (2004– )
  • Program review and assessment (2006–13)
  • Hiring committee (2005–6, 2006–7)
  • Colloquium committee (2005–6)
• UAlbany, service at the university level:
  • Council on Research (2007–08)
  • Committee on Promotion and Continuing Appointment (2012–3)
• Chair and co-organizer, first annual Graduate Mini-Conference, UC San Diego Philosophy (April 2003)
• MacHack papers committee (2001, 2002)
• Article referee for journals including The American Journal of Bioethics, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Erkenntnis, European Journal of the Philosophy of Science, Inquiry, International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Logos&Episteme, Perspectives on Science, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Philosophy of Science, The Polish Journal of Philosophy, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Synthese, and Theoria.
• Book referee for McGraw-Hill and Palgrave Macmillan.