History and Philosophy of Science   

Graduate Students

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I'm in my sixth year at Pitt. My bachelor's (1999) was in physics from Montana State University; my master's (2001) in philosophy of science at the London School of Economics, for which my thesis received the Lakatos prize for best thesis on a philosophical subject.

My dissertation is on the causal structure of conscious agency. I examine the way implicit causal assumptions about features of agency and action affect the philosophical conclusions we reach from neuroscientific results, as well as provide a positive account of how to incorporate scientific experiments on various features of agency into philosophical frameworks of volition, without inadvertent causal fallacies or dualism (see the description on my webpage for more detail).

I’ve recently co-authored a paper with Rick Grush on the historical influences on the development of the specious present doctrine of James, and Husserl’s tripartite structure of the present. This includes the Scottish Common Sense philosophers, the true identity of ‘E.R.Clay’, and an interesting but little known philosopher named Shadworth Hodgson. In addition to this historical background, I am working forwards in time to James’ own evolving views on the specious present, and will in the future be working on the different ways in which subsequent philosophers have understood this doctrine.  I am also interested in probability puzzles and paradoxes, physics and realism, and the use of introspection in the sciences.

I work primarily on the philosophy of evolutionary biology, particularly speciation, systematics, and ecology. I am especially interested in explanation, pluralism, and the rhetoric of unification in those fields. I am also working on two historical projects: one on the history of 20th century philosophy of science in the United States and its engagements with biology, the other on the development of sexology during the interwar period in Germany and Britain.

My research interests center on the history of late scholastic, renaissance and early modern natural philosophy. I am also interested in Aristotle, especially his natural philosophy and philosophy of mathematics.

I came to Pitt from Northwestern University where I worked with David Hull and got a Masters in Philosophy. I mainly study selection theory, both from a historical and philosophical perspective. I am also interested in some traditional philosophical topics in epistemology and metaphysics, as well as the contrast between mechanical and non-mechanical modes of scientific explanation.

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I'm a fourth year student in the Ph.D. program. I spend most of my time with writing papers about supertasks, stochastic causality, modeling and explanation in mathematical economics and population genetics, the history of how the normal distribution entered to statistical physics, and the interaction between our number sense and moral decisions. My prospectus attempts to explore and evaluate the mathematical techniques with which mathematized sciences speak about the relationship between micro- and macro-level phenomena. I also try to finish up my MA in the Physics Department.

I’m a first year student from Japan. I have a B.A. and an M.A. in philosophy from University of Nevada, Reno, where I worked with Tom Nickles. My current research interests include history and philosophy of biology (especially ecology and evolutionary biology), complex systems, mathematical modeling, and various strategies of problem solving and discovery in science. I’m also interested in early modern philosophy (especially Hume).

I like to think of myself as a methodologist. My main research interests are in causation, especially causal inference. I am also interested in scientific instrumentation, and I am proud to say that my thinking in this area has been informed by my study of the early history of chromatography. I have done some experimental philosophy (experimental psychology with a philosophical agenda), and I am very interested in debates about the role of intuitions in philosophy and elsewhere. I also enjoy reading and discussing the classical pragmatists, especially Peirce. In my spare time, I like to watch old episodes of Doctor Who, and my wife tells me that I am married to a brilliant woman of unappreciated genius, which is a plus.

I am a fifth year student interested in scientific realism, in particular in agent-centered defenses of it, and modeling and simulation as tools of scientific knowledge production. I come from the University of Waterloo in Ontario where I completed a Bachelor of Applied Science in Systems Design Engineering. There I picked up familiarity with, and enduring interest in, systems theory, both traditional and "complex," and the methods of cognitive psychology and cognitive science more generally.

My main interests are in the history and philosophy of physics, especially the foundations of spacetime and quantum theories. Recently, I have written about supertasks in Malament-Hogarth spacetimes, group theory in quantum mechanics, classical time machines, and the early history of gravitation and thermodynamics. I also have general interests in logic, metaphysics, and early analytic philosophy. You can speak to me in English, Spanish or French.

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I'm a second year graduate student from Israel interested mainly in the history and philosophy of physics, especially the philosophy of space and time, foundations of space-time theories, foundations of quantum theories, the arrow of time and experimental history of science. I received my BA degrees in Philosophy and in Physics from Boston University. I have written on Aristotle's notion of individuation, On the notion of time as change, Against particle interpretations of QM & for wave function ontology and Against 'Constructive' Relativity (a version of the Lorentzian interpretation of relativity put forward by Harvey Brown and Oliver Pooley). Most recently I have been conducting research on Coulomb's torsion balance and Galileo's inclined plane at the most excellent HPS lab, in addition to researching the Past Hypothesis. I also play in a rock band.

I am a sixth-year graduate student in HPS. I hold degrees in Neuroscience (2000) and Computer Science (2003; with a dual-major in Philosophy) from the University of Minnesota. My interests focus on issues in Philosophy of Mind, Psychology, and Neuroscience.

My dissertation is an examination and assessment of recent calls for a new science of consciousness. I aim to clearly articulate the central explanandum of the science (“phenomenal consciousness”); to investigate the arguments and evidence proffered for the existence of this phenomenon; and to critically asses its empirical prospects. Finally, I draw some implications from this for the related debates in philosophy of mind.

I have recently completed two papers with Edouard Machery on the folk theory of consciousness: “How to study Folk Intuitions about Phenomenal Consciousness” which is forthcoming in Philosophical Psychology and “Two Conceptions of Subjective Experience” which won the William James Prize at the 2008 Society for Philosophy and Psychology conference.

More information can be found at my Website: www.temptthefates.com. Or, visit my blog: My mind is made up!

I have a background in philosophy and cultural anthropology. My main interests are philosophy of science, philosophy of social science, and philosophy of mind. I am currently working on my dissertation, entitled "Practices of Social Interaction". The purpose of my dissertation is to defend and provide a detailed account of the view that in many characteristic situations of social interaction, competent practice participants are able directly to perceive whether an action is permissible, impermissible, or required.

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