Welcome
Hello. Saludos. Hejsa. I am a philosophy professor. I investigate the philosophical foundations of theoretical biology and biotechnology. Such foundations also need to be placed in their historical and sociological contexts. Much to do!
Education and Appointments? My passion for exploring the relation between science and philosophy, in the context of a plurality of (scientific) cultures, is perhaps reflected in the various contexts in which I have been fortunate enough to study and work:
Education and Appointments? My passion for exploring the relation between science and philosophy, in the context of a plurality of (scientific) cultures, is perhaps reflected in the various contexts in which I have been fortunate enough to study and work:
- Graduate studies in philosophy, biology, and history and philosophy of science were done in the Department of Philosophy of Stanford University, and in the Department of Biology and Department of History and Philosophy of Science of Indiana University.
- Assistant Professor (current) in the Department of Philosophy of the University of California, Santa Cruz. I previously worked in the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, UNAM in Mexico City.
- Visiting scholar at the Center for the Philosophy of Nature and Science Studies (CPNSS), at the Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen, and visiting fellow (2009-2010) at the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society at the University of Exeter.
Research content? Abstraction and pluralism are the focal concepts of my current research. Below please find some questions addressed in my publications.
(1) Abstraction
- What is the relation between the abstract and the concrete? Three abstract-concrete pairs that interest me:
- (a) scientific theory and concrete reality
- (b) intentional, functional design and material technology
- (c) cognition and body
- What is reification? (called "vicious abstractionism" by William James!) In particular:
- (a) When do we take our abstractions (e.g., evolutionary theories and models; theories of "race", cognition, and IQ) too far?
- (b) How can we differentiate between good abstraction (constituted knowledge) and bad abstraction (reification)?
- (c) How can we diagnose and avoid/overcome reification?
(2) Pluralism
- Which sorts of units of scientific research exist in a plurality of ways? Examples:
- (a) styles of scientific research
- (b) disciplines
- (c) theories and models
- (d) actual research groups (e.g., "the Wade lab")
- What are the possible and actual relationships between these units? Consider:
- (a) competition
- (b) collaboration
- (c) speaking past one another
Current project? A book on reification in science. Tentative title? Reification and Its Discontents: Evolution, Philosophy, and the Human. [Book synopsis available upon request.]
Future projects?
- bio-ontologies
- evolutionary theory as a source of normativity for biotechnologies
- embodied and agential scientific cognition and inference (formal modeling and conceptual analysis thereof)
- pragmatic and normative aspects of mathematical models and modeling practices (especially in genomics and climate studies)
- the nature of distinctions, classifications, and kind-making
- the metaphysics of networks
- "Critical Genomics" (of "race" and IQ)
- the realism-constructivism debate as it gets played out in Darwinism, and in biotechnology R&D, application, and implication...
Other interests? Physics, psychology, literature and poetry, art, and the study of multiculturalism.
Languages? I speak English, Danish, and Spanish. Perhaps one day my French, German, and Latin will improve.
Check out the rest of my webpage, if you are interested! I look forward to receiving your feedback.
Hypostatic abstraction [is] the chief engine of mathematical thought.
(C. S. Peirce, ca. 1901, Collected Papers 2.364)
All reification is a forgetting.
(Letter from T. Adorno to W. Benjamin, Feb. 29, 1940; also in M. Horkheimer and Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment)
Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world.
(A. Einstein and L. Infeld, 1938, The Evolution of Physics)
That right versions and actual worlds are many does not obliterate the distinction between right and wrong versions, ... and does not imply that all right alternatives are equally good for every or indeed for any purpose.
(N. Goodman, 1978, Ways of Worldmaking)
(C. S. Peirce, ca. 1901, Collected Papers 2.364)
All reification is a forgetting.
(Letter from T. Adorno to W. Benjamin, Feb. 29, 1940; also in M. Horkheimer and Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment)
Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world.
(A. Einstein and L. Infeld, 1938, The Evolution of Physics)
That right versions and actual worlds are many does not obliterate the distinction between right and wrong versions, ... and does not imply that all right alternatives are equally good for every or indeed for any purpose.
(N. Goodman, 1978, Ways of Worldmaking)
