Faculty Listing

Brian Baigrie

baigrie@chass.utoronto.ca

Office Room VC 320, telephone: 416-978-1750

Research interests –

My area of specialization is the history and philosophy of the physical sciences. My interests range from the late sixteenth century to late nineteenth century physics, though my time these days is mostly taken up with the work of René Descartes and the impact that the new science made on philosophical topics of the day.

Selected Publications –

Author:

• Electricity and Magnetism: a Historical Perspective. Greenwood Publications, 2006.
• "Marin Mersenne," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• "The New Science: Kepler, Galileo, and Mersenne." In A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, ed. S. Nadler. Blackwell, 2002, pp. 45-59.

Editor:

• Scientific Revolutions: Primary Texts in the History of Science. Prentice Hall, 2003.
• History of Modern Science and Mathematics. Scribner's Sons, 2002.

Supervisions –

Jean-Jacques Rousseau. "The Incommensurability Thesis Scrutinized."

Jenene Wiedemer. "Anesthesia and Entertainment: Nitrous Oxide in Nineteenth Century America." Defended Jan. 20, 2006.

Katherine Wright. "Being Human in Post-War American Thought and Culture: A History from the Cybernetic Perspective." Defended April 23, 2003.

Jill Lazenby. "Climates of Collaboration: Interdisciplinary Science and the Social Identity Perspective." Defended November 1, 2002.

Joseph Berkovitz

joseph.berkovitz@utoronto.ca

Office Room VC 308, telephone: 416-978-3224

Research Interests –

My main research interests are in the philosophy of science, especially the philosophy of physics, philosophy of probability and philosophy of economics. In my work, I have used philosophical analyses of causation and probability in order to clarify a variety of issues in science, epistemology and metaphysics. My primary focus has been on the philosophy of physics. I have studied the curious nature of causality in quantum phenomena and randomness and chaos in classical phenomena. In my other research, I have considered questions concerning the philosophical foundations of causal inference, probability and decision theory.

Teaching interests –

I have taught undergraduate and graduate courses in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, philosophy of physics, philosophy of economics and political philosophy, and supervised MSc theses in the philosophy of economics and political philosophy and PhD theses in the philosophy of physics and philosophy of economics.

Selected publications –

• Forthcoming: “On Predictions in Retro-causal Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics (an issue on Time-Symmetric Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics).
• 2007: “Action at a distance in quantum mechanics”, The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-action-distance/
• 2006: “The ergodic hierarchy, decay of correlations, and Hamiltonian chaos” (co-authored with Roman Frigg and Fred Kronz), Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 37, 661-991.
• 2006: “A Modal Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics in Terms of Relational Properties” (co-authored with Meir Hemmo), in W. Demopoulos and I. Pitowsky (eds.), Physical Theory and ItsInterpretation: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey Bub, Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, Springer, pp. 1-28.
• 2002: “On Causal Inference in Determinism and Indeterminism”, in H. Atmanspacher and R. Bishop (eds.), Between Chance and Choice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Determinism, Imprint Academic, pp. 237-278.
• 2001: “On Chance in Causal Loops”, Mind 110, 1-23.

James Robert Brown

jrbrown@chass.utoronto.ca
www.chass.utoronto.ca/~jrbrown/index.htm
philosophy.utoronto.ca/people/faculty/james-robert-brown

Research Interests –

James Robert Brown is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy.  His interests include a number of topics within the philosophy of science and mathematics, such as: thought experiments, realism, visual reasoning in mathematics, foundations of physics, and the relationship between science and society (from science and religion to social constructivism to the commercialization of research).

Selected Publications –

The Rational and the Social (1989) Routledge

The Laboratory of the Mind: Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences (1991) Routledge

Smoke and Mirrors: How Science Reflects Reality (1994) Routledge

Philosophy of Mathematics: An Introduction to the World of Proofs and Pictures (1999) Routledge

Who Rules? An Opinionated Introduction to the Epistemology and Politics of the Science Wars, (2001) Harvard.

Supervisions (at IHPST) –

Brooke Abounader

Anjan Chakravartty

anjan.chakravartty@utoronto.ca
individual.utoronto.ca/anjan

Office Room VC 317, telephone: 416-946-5024

Research interests –

My research focuses on central issues in the philosophy of science and metaphysics, including topics in the philosophy of physics and biology.  Much of this work revolves around epistemological debates concerning scientific realism (especially versions of entity realism and structural realism), antirealism, and empiricism.  Structural realism in particular raises fascinating questions about the interpretation of theories in modern physics, with consequences for our understanding of the nature and constitution of scientific entities.  I am interested in metaphysical issues such as the nature of dispositions, causation, laws of nature, and natural kinds, all of which raise intriguing questions not least in connection with biological theories.  My current research concerns scientific models, representation, and attendant issues such as the nature of abstraction and idealization, and the consequences these practices have for concepts such as knowledge and truth.  Plans for future work include the nature and constitution of alpacas, which are – ostensibly – miniature llamas.

Selected publications –

• A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism: Knowing the Unobservable (2007, paperback 2009), Cambridge University Press.
• ‘Truth and Representation in Science: Two Inspirations from Art’, in R. Frigg & M. Hunter (eds.), Beyond Mimesis and Conventionalism: Representation in Art and Science (forthcoming), Springer.
• ‘Metaphysics Between the Sciences and Philosophies of Science’, in J. Busch & P. D. Magnus (eds.) (forthcoming), New Waves in the Philosophy of Science, Palgrave MacMillan.
• ‘Informational versus Functional Theories of Scientific Representation’, Synthese (2009).
• ‘A Puzzle about Voluntarism about Rational Epistemic Stances’, Synthese (2009).
• ‘What You Don’t Know Can’t Hurt You: Realism and the Unconceived’, Philosophical Studies 137 (2008): 149-158.
• 'Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences', in R. Groff (ed.) Revitalizing Causality: Realism about Causality in Philosophy and Social Science (2008), Routledge.
• 'Six Degrees of Speculation: Metaphysics in Empirical Contexts', B. Monton (ed.) Images of Empiricism: Essays on Science and Stances, with a Reply from Bas C. van Fraassen (2007), Oxford University Press.

Supervisions –

• Kaveh Lajevardi (Philosophy): 'Against Modalities: On the Presumed Coherence and Alleged Indispensability of Some Modal Notions', completed 2008.
• Boaz Miller (IHPST): 'A Social Theory of Knowledge', in progress.
• Isaac Record (IHPST): 'Instruments of Explanation', in progress.

Lucia Dacome

lucia.dacome@utoronto.ca

Office Room VC 305, telephone: 416-978-4959

History of Medicine

Yiftach J. H. Fehige

yiftach.fehige@utoronto.ca
individual.utoronto.ca/fehige

Office St. Michael's College, Odette Hall, Room 123, telephone: 416-926-7109

Research Interests –

I am interested in many topics that concern the encounter between science and religion, Judaism and Christianity in particular. Research interests include: metaphysics of human sexuality, thought experiments in revealed theology, the notion of dialogue in religion and science, revelation as a basic source of evidence, the relationship between continental and analytical philosophy of science, and human experiments in medicine.

Selected Publications–

'Thought experimenting with god: revisiting the ontological argument', Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, vol. 51, 2009, pp. 249-267.

'Gottesbeweis oder Gedankenexperiment christlicher Theologie: Zu Dombrowskis Verteidigung des Ontologischen Arguments/ A proof of god's existence or a thought experiment in Christian theology: On Dombrowski's defense of the ontological argument', in: Jahrbuch für Religionsphilosophie, vol. 8, 2009, pp. 69-91.

Sexualphilosophie. Eine einführende Annäherung/ Philosophy of Sex: An introductory approach, (volume 10 of the series "Einführungen Philosophie"/ Philosophy Introductions) Berlin: LIT, 2009.

Die Geschlechtererosion des semantischen Realismus. Eine logisch-semantische Untersuchung zum Begriff des biologischen Geschlechts/ The gender erosion of semantic realism: A logical-semantic analysis of the concept of sex, Paderborn: mentis.

"Supervision/Reader":

Rob Hong, ongoing, "A Theology of History"

Kevin L. Velicaria, 2007, "A neurobiological assessment of the function of dreams as a means to understand their role in psychic conversion" [MA thesis, TST]

Craig Fraser

cfraser@chass.utoronto.ca
www.chass.utoronto.ca/~cfraser/

Office Room VC 322, telephone: 416-978-5135

Research Interests –

My primary area of research is the history of analysis and mechanics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with particular attention to foundational and conceptual questions. I have written an account of the original formulation by Jean d’Alembert of “d’Alembert’s principle” (1743) in dynamics. I have documented a major foundational shift in the writings on calculus of Euler and Lagrange as the calculus was separated from geometry and made part of pure analysis. I am currently completing a detailed study of the evolution of the calculus of variations in the nineteenth century, focusing on the work of such mathematicians as Hamilton, Jacobi, Mayer and Hilbert. A secondary field of interest is the history of cosmology, particularly the relationship between relativistic cosmology and observational cosmology in the twentieth century.

Selected Publications –

• The Cosmos: A Historical Perspective (Greenwood Publishers, 2006).
• “1744 Leonhard Euler, book on the calculus of variations” and “Joseph Louis Lagrange, Théorie des fonctions analytiques,” in Landmark Writings in Western Mathematics 1640-1940, Ed. I. Grattan-Guinness. (Elsevier, 2005). pp. 168-180 and pp. 208-224.
• “The Calculus of Variations: A Historical Survey,” in A History of Analysis, Ed. H. N. Jahnke, (American Mathematical Society, 2003), pp. 355-384.
• “The Early History of Hamilton-Jacobi Theory,” Centaurus 44 (2003), pp. 161-227. With Michiyo Nakane.
• "History of Mathematics in the Eighteenth Century", in Roy Porter (Ed.), The Cambridge History of Science Volume 4 Eighteenth-Century Science (2003), pp. 305-327.
• Calculus and Analytical Mechanics in the Age of Enlightenment (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 1997).

Supervisions –

• Allan Olley (in progress), “Computer Methods in Celestial Mechanics: The Case of Wallace Eckert.”
• Sylvia Nickerson (in progress)
• Daniela Monaldi, “The Fate of the Mesotron: The Rome Experiment on the Nuclear Absorption of Cosmic Rays.” 2004.

Bert Hall

bert.hall@utoronto.ca
www.chass.utoronto.ca/~bhall/

Office Room BC 28, telephone: 416-978-4945

Research Interests –

As a scholar, I am a historian of technology and a medievalist. I am cross appointed to the U of T Department of History and also to the Centre for Medieval Studies , and I can supervise interested students in either of those programs. I am also associated with the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies and the Museum Studies Program.

My recent scholarly work has come to focus on the way gunpowder developed at the end of the Middle Ages in Europe. My latest book, Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe is now available from Johns Hopkins University Press.

Alexander Jones

alexander.jones@utoronto.ca
www.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajones/

(Now at New York University)

Research Interests –

Alexander Jones studies the history of the mathematical and physical sciences in Greco-Roman antiquity, as well as in scientific traditions that interacted with or were influenced by Greek science. His recent work has concentrated on two overlapping areas: astronomy in the Mesopotamian and Classical civilizations, and the works of Claudius Ptolemy. He is currently writing a monograph on Ptolemy and his scientific methods.

Selected Publications –

"Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus." Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society 233. Philadelphia, 1999.
(with J. L. Berggren) Ptolemy's Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters. Princeton, 2000.
"A Study of Babylonian Observations of Planets Near Normal Stars." Archive for History of Exact Sciences 58, 2004, 475-536.
"Ptolemy's Ancient Planetary Observations." Annals of Science 63, 2006, 255-290.

Recent Supervisions –

Daryn Lehoux - (2000): Parapegmata, or, astrology, weather, and calendars in the ancient world

Nathan Sidoli - (2004): Ptolemy's mathematical approach : applied mathematics in the second century

Jacqueline Feke - Greek cosmology, physics, and astronomy

Elizabeth Burns - Greek astronomy

Teri Gee - Ancient and medieval astronomy and astrology

Nikolai Krementsov

n.krementsov@utoronto.ca
individual.utoronto.ca/krementsov/

Office Room VC312, telephone: 416-978-5020

Research interests –

My research interests are quite diverse, but I mostly work on the history of XXth century Russian medicine and life sciences (particularly, genetics, evolutionary theory, ethology, and physiology). My special interest is the history of international relations in science and medicine especially during the interwar and cold war periods. Now I am working on a large project, exploring interactions among science, medicine, and literature in Bolshevik Russia (1917-1929), focusing on the development of research in endocrinology, blood transfusions, experimental surgery, anabiosis, and telepathy.

Selected publications –

• 'Trypanosoma cruzi, cancer and the Cold War,' História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos, 2009, vol.16, supl.1, pp. 75-94.
• 'Off with your heads: isolated organs in early Soviet science and fiction,' Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2009, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 87-100.
• 'Hormones and the Bolsheviks: from Organotherapy to Experimental Endocrinology, 1918-1929,' Isis, 2008, vol. 99, no. 3, pp. 486-518.
• ''In the shadow of the bomb': US-Soviet biomedical relations in the early Cold War, 1944-1948,' Journal of Cold War Studies, 2007, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 41-67.
• Stalinist Science (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).
• The Cure: A Story of Cancer and Politics from the Annals of the Cold War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
• International Science between the World Wars: The Case of Genetics (London: Rutledge, 2005).
• "Eugenics, Rassenhygiene, and Human Genetics in the Late 1930s: The Case of the Seventh International Genetics Congress," in Susan G. Solomon, ed., Doing Medicine Together: Germany and Russia Between the Wars (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006).
• "Big Revolution, Little Revolution: Science and Politics in Bolshevik Russia," in Social Research, 2006, Vol. 73, no. 4.

Supervisions –

Julia Croome, "Between two worlds: the criminally insane in the Canadian medico-legal debate, 1850-1900," 2005, MA.

Janis Langins

j.langins@utoronto.ca

Office Room VC 310, telephone: 416-978-4950

Research interests –

My general research interests are in the history of engineering and particularly the history of engineering education, the professionalization of engineering, and the social history of engineering. The primary spatiotemporal focus has been on France in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I have completed a history of the French military engineering corps during the Old Regime, which gave me an opportunity to look at the history of artillery fortification during and after the career of the great French military engineer Vauban and the attacks on his ideas by the marquis de Montalembert from the 1770s onward. Recently the diffusion of French models of engineering education to other parts of the world has become more important in my research programme. I am also interested in the history of Canadian engineering a subject that has led me to my current work on the role of engineers in Ontario Hydro, at one time Canada's (and North America's) largest non-private electrical utility. My future plans include research in the diffusion of the polytechnical mode of engineering education (pioneered by the eponymous École Polytechnique, founded in Paris during the French Revolution) to the German-speaking lands and Eastern Europe, in particular to the periphery of the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century.

Selected publications –

• “L’ingénieur systématique contre les systèmes: La théorisation de la pensée de Vauban et la publication de ses écrits”, pp. 330-339 in Victoria Sanger et Isabelle Warmoes, ed., Vauban, bâtisseur du Roi-Soleil, Paris: Somogy éditions d’art/Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine/Musée de monuments français/Musée de Plans-reliefs, 2007.
• "Eighteenth-Century French Fortification Theory After Vauban: The Case of Montalembert" in Brett Steele and Tamera Dorland, eds., The Heirs of Archimedes: Science and the Art of War through the Age of Enlightenment, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005, pp. 333-359.
• Conserving the Enlightenment: French military engineering from Vauban to the Revolution, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004.
• "Diverging Parallel Lives in Science: Unpublished Correspondence from Georges-Frederic Parrot to Georges Cuvier," Journal of Baltic Studies, 35:3 (Fall 2004), 297-320.
• La Republique avait besoin de savants: les débuts de l'ècole polytechnique: l'ècole centrale des travaux publics et les cours révolutionnaires, de l'an III, Paris: Belin, 1987.

Supervisions –

• Jonathan Turner, "The Defence Research Board of Canada, 1947-1974" (In progress)
• André Siegel, “Made in Canada: The Marketing of Canadian Industrial Production in the Early 20th Century", Co-supervision with Professor James Hull (In progress)
• Leslie Tomory, "The Origins of the Manufactured Gas Industry" (2009).
• Marionne Cronin, "Flying the Northern Frontier: The Mackenzie River District and the Emergence of the Canadian Bush Plane, 1929-1937"  (2006).
• Scott Campbell, "The Premise of Computer Science: Establishing Modern Computing at the University of Toronto (1945-1964)"  (2006).
• Vera Pavri-Garcia, "Technological Doublespeak: Metaphors, Public Policy and the Development of Canada's First Domestic Communications Satellite System, 1966-1970"  (2005).
• Ian Slater, "The Bungling Giant: Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and Next-Generation Technology, 1980 – 1994" (2003).
• Bradley King, "The Electrification of Nova Scotia, 1884 – 1973: Technological Modernization as a Response to Regional Disparity," (1994 – 1999). Co-supervisor with Ian Robertson, Department of History  (1999).
• Wilfred Lockett, "Jakob Leupold and the Theatrum Machinarum." (1989–1994).  Co-supervisor with Bert S. Hall, Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (1994).
• David McGee, "Floating Bodies, Naval Science: Science, Design and the Captain Controversy, 1860-1871." Assumed supervision after departure of original supervisor, Bruce Sinclair, from University of Toronto in 1989 (1994)

Mark Solovey

mark.solovey@utoronto.ca
individual.utoronto.ca/solovey

Office Room VC 307, telephone: 416-978-6280

Research Interests –

My research focuses on the history of the social and behavioral sciences in the United States. In my current book project I examine the dramatic expansion and changes in extra-university patronage for the social sciences during the Cold War era. In this study, I'm interested in both public patrons (military and civilian) and private patrons, especially the large, non-profit private foundations like the Ford Foundation. I'm especially intrigued by the struggles of these various patrons to define what counted as legitimate social science and how their policies and programs helped to shape the goals, subject matters, methodologies, and social implications of academic social research. In addition, I'm exploring the threat that these patrons posed to the independence of university scholars and how that threat helped to transform scholarly and public discussions about the nature and purposes of the social science enterprise. This historical study addresses fundamental questions about the intellectual foundations of the social sciences, their relations with the natural sciences and the humanities, and the political and ideological import of academic social inquiry.

Publications –

Solovey, Mark, 2004. "Riding Natural Scientists’ Coattails onto the Endless Frontier: The SSRC and the Quest for Scientific Legitimacy," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, v. 40, no. 4, 393-422. (Winner of the 2005 Best Article Prize from The Forum for the History of the Human Sciences, for best article in the field published during the previous three years)

Solovey, Mark, 2001, guest editor, “Science in the Cold War,” thematic volume of Social Studies of Science, v. 31, no. 2.

Solovey, Mark, 2001. "Project Camelot and the 1960s Epistemological Revolution: Rethinking the Politics-Patronage-Social Science Nexus," Social Studies of Science, v. 31, no. 2, 171-206.

Solovey, Mark, 2001. "Science and the State during the Cold War: Blurred Boundaries and a Contested Legacy," Social Studies of Science, v. 31, no. 2, 165-170.

Kleinman, Daniel & Mark Solovey, 1995. "Hot Science/Cold War: The National Science Foundation After WWII," Radical History Review, v. 63, 110-139.

Solovey, Mark, 1993. "Guy Orcutt and the Social Systems Research Institute: Interdisciplinary Troubles," in Robert Lampman (ed.), Economists at Wisconsin: 1892-1992, Madison, Wisconsin, Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin, 178-184.

Paul Thompson

p.thompson@utoronto.ca

Office Room BC 28, telephone: 416-978-4945

Research Interests –

Dr. R. Paul Thompson hold appointments as Professor in  the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (also its Director),  and in the Departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cell and Systems Biology, and Philosophy, and also the Joint Centre for Bioethics.  He has been a Vice-President of the University of Toronto (2002-03) and Principal and Dean of the University of Toronto at Scarborough (1989-2002).   He has held visiting professorial appointments at the University of California at Davis and the University of Guelph.  He is the author of The Moral Question, The Structure of Biological Theories, is editor of Issues in Evolutionary Ethics and has published numerous journal articles on population genetics, mathematical modelling in biology, evolutionary theory, theory structure in biology, and ethics.  From 1997 to 2005 he was a member of the Bayer Advisory Council on Bioethics and from 2001-2005 was a member of the Monsanto Biotechnology Advisory Council and is currently a member of the Standing Committee on Ethics of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Selected Publications –

“Formalisations of Evolutionary Biology,” in Mohan Matthen and Christopher Stevens Handbook of the Philosophy of Science (vol. 2), 2006.

“The Role of Mathematical Models in the Formalisation of Self-Organising Systems,” in B. Fletz, M. Crommelinck, Ph. Goujon (eds.)  Self-Organisation and Emergence in the Life Sciences Dordrecht: Kluwer (Springer Science), 2005.

“The Revival of ‘Emergence’ in Biology: Autocatalysis, Self-Organisation  and Mathematical Necessity,” The Croatian Journal of Philosophy  3:9 (2004).

“The Evolutionary Biology of Evil,” The Monist 85 (2002) 238-258.

Recent Supervisions –

Robin Nunn, ‘The Nature, Role and Influence of “Scientific Expertise”’ (in progress)

Dr. Edward Everson, “Genetics and Health in Context: The Political Economy of Public Health Genomics” (2006)

Dr. Joseph Millum,  “The Adaptation of Morality” (2005)

Dr. Scott Woodcock, “The Geneology of Moral Memes” (2001)

Dr. Tara Abraham, ‘“Microscopic Cybernetics”: Mathematical Logic, Automata Theory, and the Formalization of Biological Phenomena, 1936-1970’ (2000)

Marga Vicedo

marga.vicedo@utoronto.ca

Office Room VC 314, telephone: 416-978-1500

Research Interests –

I am interested in the history and philosophy of biology in the twentieth century, especially the history of genetics, evolution, and animal research.  I am also interested in the social and ethical implications of new genetic technologies. In the philosophy of science, I am interested in the question of scientific realism, that is the question of whether our best scientific theories offer us a reliable account of the world.  In the history of genetics, I work mainly on the early history of genetics in the United States, from the discovery of Mendel’s work until the establishment of the chromosome theory of Mendelian inheritance.  My second area of research is the history of scientific views about human instincts.  In a manuscript entitled “Human Nature and Mother Love: The Search for the Maternal Instinct,” I trace the different views about instinctual behavior from Darwin to the present.  My work on instincts has led me to examine also the work of psychologists, such as William James, John Watson and Harry Harlow, and psychoanalysts, especially child analysts.  I am now completing a history and critical analysis of the Ethological Theory of Attachment Behavior.

Selected Publications –

1999. "Experimentation, Realism, and the Historical Character of Science." In Richard Creath & Jane Maienschein, eds.,  Biology and Epistemology.Cambridge University Press, pp. 215-243.

1999. "The Laws of Heredity and the Rules of Morality: Early Geneticists on Evolution and  Ethics."  In Jane Maienschein & Michael Ruse, eds., Biology and the Foundations of Ethics. Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp.  225-256.

1995. "Scientific Styles: Towards Some Common Ground in the History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science," Perspectives On Science 3: 231-254.

1994. "Simplicity in Theory Construction and Evaluation: The Case of The Chromosome Theory of Mendelian Inheritance."  In D. Prawitz and D. Westerstahl, eds., Logic and Philosophy of Science in Uppsala, 1994, pp. 525-539.

1992. "Is the History of Science Relevant to the Philosophy of Science?," PSA1992, 2:490-496.

1991. "Realism and Simplicity in the Castle-East Debate on the Stability of the Hereditary Units: Rhetorical Devices Versus Substantive Methodology."  Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 22:201-221.

Supervisions –

Delia  Gavrus
Sebastian Gil-Riano
Robin Nunn
Keynyn Brysse

Denis Walsh

denis.walsh@utoronto.ca

Office Room VC 316A, telephone: 416-978-5847

Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Biology

Research Interests –

Evolutionary biology deploys three distinct modes of explanation: causal, statistical and teleological. My research investigates the nature and relation of these kinds of explanation in evolutionary biology. It pursues twin objectives: (i) an understanding of the structure of evolutionary theory and (ii) an understanding of the phenomenon of scientific explanation in general. Over the last couple of years I have been engaged in a defence of the so-called 'statistical interpretation' of the Modern Synthesis theory of evolution. It claims that our post-Darwinian theory of natural selection explains evolutionary change by citing statistical properties of populations and not the causes of change. Another area of recent research involves the role of development, and particularly the place of the organism, in evolutionary biology. Related to this, I am working towards a naturalized account of teleological explanation in biology, and rationalizing explanation in folk psychology, that draws upon recent research in complex systems dynamics.

Selected Publications –

Walsh, D.M. 2007 "The Pomp of Superfluous Causes: Interpreting the Modern Synthesis" Philosophy of Science (forthcoming)

Walsh, D.M. 2007 "Teleology." In Ruse, M. (ed.) Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Biology. Oxford: Oxford University Press (forthcoming)

Walsh, D.M. 2007 "Development: Three Grades of Ontogenetic Involvement." In (Matthen, M and C. Stephens (eds.) Handbook for the Philosophy of Science: Vol 3, Philosophy of Biology. (forthcoming)

Jenkins, F.A.J. , D.M. Walsh and R.L. Carroll 2007 "Eocaecilia micropodia: A Jurassic caecilian with limbs." Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard (forthcoming)

Walsh, D.M. 2006 "Organisms as Natural Purposes: The Contemporary Evolutionary Perspective." Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biology and the Biomedical Sciences 37: 771-791

Walsh, Denis 2006 "Evolutionary Essentialism." British Journal for the Philosphy of Science. 57:425-448

Recent Supervisions –

I am currently supervising two students at IHPST, on in the history of biology, one in the Philosophy of Biology. I am a member of supervising committess in the department of Philosophy, Toronto, and Boston University.

 

Chen-Pang Yeang

chenpang.yeang@utoronto.ca

Office VC 309, telephone: 416-978-3968

Research interests –

My research areas are the history of physics and history of technology of the twentieth century. Specifically, I am interested in how science and engineering have shaped each other at the levels of mathematical structures, physical theories, experiment, instrumentation, and the development of new technology. One ongoing project concerns the history of radio science and technology in 1900-50 and their relationship with atmospheric science. The components of this project include early wave-propagation studies, radio amateurs, the discovery of the ionosphere, and the rise of ionosphere research in atmospheric science. Another project I am doing now is a broad history of noise in sound technology, statistical physics, mathematics of probability, and telecommunications engineering from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. From this historical research, I also hope to shed light on some current philosophical issues in life, physical, and quantitative social sciences concerning the natures of fluctuations and uncertainties.

Selected publications –

• "Scientific fact or engineering specification? The U.S. Navy's experiments on long-range wireless telegraphy circa 1910," Technology and Culture, 45:1 (2004), 1-29.
• "The study of long-distance radio-wave propagation: 1900-1919," Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, 33:2 (2003), 369-403.
• "Towards target recognition from SAR imagery using electromagnetics-based signatures," Optical Engineering, 42:7 (2003), 2129-2149 (with C. Cho and J. H. Shapiro).
• "Quantum theory of second-order soliton based on a linearization approximation," Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 16:8 (1999), 1269-1279.
• "Atmospheric effect on microwave polarimetric passive remote sensing of ocean surfaces," Radio Science, 34:2 (1999), 521-537 (with S. H. Yueh, K. H. Ding, and J. A. Kong).
• "Control Technology—electronic signals," and "Radio—continuous waves, alternators, valves," in Colin Hempstead and William Worthington (eds.), Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Technology, New York: Rutledge, 2004.

Supervisions – 

• Vivien Hamilton (adviser)
• Michelle Hoffman (dissertation committee)
• Jonathan Turner (exam committee)

Professors Emeriti

Trevor Levere

trevor.levere@utoronto.ca

Research interests –

My current research projects are: (i) Dr. Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808) and his circle. This study involves chemistry, medicine, politics, scientific institutions, and instruments. Beddoes was a radical and a democrat in politics, at a time when English responses to the French Revolution made such politics suspect; he was a questioning supporter of the new French chemistry; he collaborated with James Watt in the development of pneumatic medicine; and Watt and other members of the Lunar Society funded his Pneumatic Institution, a centre for experimental medicine and medical research. (ii) The role of instrumentation in the development of chemistry from 1750 to 1830. Surviving instruments are an important source of evidence for this study, as are contemporary accounts of their design and use. I aim to shed light on the reciprocal influence of apparatus and chemical concepts in the decades surrounding the Chemical Revolution. (iii) On the back burner for the moment is an edition of the journal of Henry Wemyss Feilden, naturalist on HMS Alert in its voyage to the north-east of Ellesmere Island in 1875-76.

Selected publications –

I have written and edited thirteen books, including Transforming Matter: A History of Chemistry from Alchemy to the Buckyball (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001); Instruments and Experimentation in the History of Chemistry (MIT Press, 2000), ed. with F. L. Holmes; Chemists and Chemistry in Science & Society 1750-1878 (Variorum, 1994); Science and the Canadian Arctic: A Century of Exploration 1818-1918 (Cambridge University Press, New York and Cambridge, 1993); Poetry Realized in Nature. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Early Nineteenth-Century Science (Cambridge University Press, New York, 1981); Affinity and Matter. Elements of Chemical Philosophy 1800-1865 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1971), reprinted in Classics in the History & Philosophy of Science, Vol. 12 (Gordon & Breach Science Publishers, 1993).

Supervisions –

• H. Martinsen, French textile printing 1750-1820
• M. Harris, The chemical bond from Lewis to Pauling
• V. Boantza,  Duclos and chemistry in the scientific revolution

15 previous supervisions, including

• Martin Hilbert, Pierre Duhem, Physics, and Neo-Thomism, 2000
• R. England, Aubrey Moore and the Anglo-Catholic Assimilation of Science at Oxford, 1860-1900, 1997
• J. Hubbard, An Independent Progress: The Development of Marine Biology on the Atlantic Coast of Canada 1898-1939, 1993
• A. Ede, Colloid Chemistry in North America 1900-1935, 1993
• S. Zeller, Inventing Canada: Victorian Inventory Science and Canadian Nationbinding, 1830-1880, 1985
• M. Schabas, W.S.Jevons and the mathematization of economic theory, 1983
• J. Langins, The Ecole Polytechnique (1794-1804). From Encyclopedic School to Military Institution, 1979; L. Stewart, Whigs and Heretics. Science, religion, and politics in the age of Newton, 1978

Pauline M. H. Mazumdar

M.B, B.S. (London, 1959);  M.Tech. (Immunology, Brunel 1975); Ph.D. (History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins, 1976); Professor Emeritus of the History of Medicine, retired 1999.

pmazumda@chass.utoronto.ca

Research Interests –

I have been teaching the history of medicine for many years, so I am interested in everything from classical to mediaeval medicine to bacteriology -- an undergraduate course is a great cultural formation!   But my background in modern medicine, especially immunology and genetics has determined my research interests, which include the history of immunology, genetics and eugenics. My current project is in the history of standardisation, on the science and politics of the League of Nations Health Organisation and its standardisation commission, 1920-1950. After publishing some separate papers, I am now working on a monograph on the subject, as well as mentoring some of our graduate students who are also interested in it.

Publications –

Eugenics, Human Genetics and Human Failings: the Eugenics Society, its Sources and its Critics (London: Routledge, 1992)

Species and Specificity: an Interpretation of the History of Immunology (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1995), based on my thesis “Karl Landsteiner and the problem of species,” (Johns Hopkins 1976)

The Eugenics Movement: an International Perspective 6 vols (London: Routledge, 2007) A collection of primary sources with translations by the author/editor

“Blood and soil: the serology of the Aryan racial state,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine (1990) 64:187-219.

“Two models for human genetics: blood grouping and psychiatry in Germany between the World Wars,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine (1996) 70:609-657.

“ “In the silence of the laboratory:” the League of Nations standardises syphilis tests,” Social History of Medicine (2003) 16:437-459.

“Antitoxin and anatoxine: the League of Nations and the Pasteur Institute,” in Kenton Kroker, Jennifer Keelan and Pauline M. H. Mazumdar eds, Crafting Immunology: Working Histories of Immunology in Practice (in press, 2007).

Supervisions –

Current:

• Brigit Ramsingh, “International standards: agriculture, trade and food safety,”
• Delia Gavrus, “Specialisation, standardisation and the history of neurosurgery,”
• Patricia Liu, “Prion diseases: theory, safety and public health policy,”

Completed (selected):

• Ted Everson, “Genetics and Health in Context: the Political Economy of Public Health Genomics,” Ph.D., 2006.
• Jennifer Keelan, “Smallpox vaccination: theory, practice and debate in Ontario and Quebec,” Ph.D. 2004.
• Galina Kichigina, “The work of the Russian physiologist I. I. Sechenov,” Ph.D. 2002.
• Kevin Siena, “Gender, poverty and venereal disease in Early Modern Britain,” Ph.D. 2000.
• Kenton Kröker, “History of the scientific investigation of dreams,” Ph.D. 2000.
• Geoffrey Reaume, “The Toronto Asylum for the Insane 1850-1950,” Ph.D. 1997.
• Faye M. Getz, “An edition of the Middle English Gilbertus Anglicus, found in Wellcome ms 537,” Ph.D. 1981

Mary Pickard "Polly" Winsor

polly.winsor@utoronto.ca

Research Interests –

I am interested in the history of systematics, especially in the context of evolution.  What similarities did naturalists observe between organisms in the centuries before Darwin, and what sense did they make of their observations? To what extent did accepting evolution alter the practice of classifying living things? Textbooks usually answer such questions with some version of the “essentialism story” popularized by Ernst Mayr, but I am now challenging the accuracy of this story, which accords a dominant influence to Platonic idealism. My current research explores the reasons that story was created, which incidentally exposes the paucity of its evidence.  This episode of myth-making brings up questions about the role of histories within the practice of science, as well other issues in historiography.

Selected Publications –

2006.  “Linnaeus’s biology was not essentialist.”  Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 93 (1): 2-7.

2003. “Non-essentialist methods in pre-Darwinian taxonomy,” Biology and Philosophy 18: 387-400.

2001. “The practitioner of science: everyone her own historian,” Journal of the History of Biology 34: 229-245.

2000. “Species, demes, and the omega taxonomy: Gilmour and The New Systematics,” Biology and Philosophy 15: 349-388.

1991. Reading the Shape of Nature: Comparative Zoology at the Agassiz Museum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

1976. Starfish, Jellyfish, and the Order of Life: Issues in Nineteenth Century Science. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Recent Supervisions –

Current supervisions: Charissa Varma, Sara Scharf,
Recent supervisions, Gillian Gass, Conor Burns, James Elwick, Tara Abraham