•  409
    Software application ontologies have the potential to become the keystone in state-of-the-art information management techniques. It is expected that these ontologies will support the sort of reasoning power required to navigate large and complex terminologies correctly and efficiently. Yet, there is one problem in particular that continues to stand in our way. As these terminological structures increase in size and complexity, and the drive to integrate them inevitably swells, it is clear that t…Read more
  •  39
    The central hypothesis of the collaboration between Language and Computing (L&C) and the Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science (IFOMIS) is that the methodology and conceptual rigor of a philosophically inspired formal ontology greatly benefits application ontologies.[1] To this end LinKBase®, L&C’s ontology, which is designed to integrate and reason across various external databases simultaneously, has been submitted to the conceptual demands of IFOMIS’s Basic Formal Onto…Read more
  •  13
    Being part of science (review)
    Metascience 32 (3): 333-336. 2023.
  •  8
    Great expectations: reviews post-Covid
    Metascience 1-4. forthcoming.
  •  4
    The Protestant Theory of Determinable Universals
    In Christer Svennerlind, Almäng Jan & Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson (eds.), Johanssonian Investigations: Essays in Honour of Ingvar Johansson on His Seventieth Birthday, Ontos Verlag. pp. 503-515. 2013.
  •  61
    The production of purity as the production of knowledge
    Foundations of Chemistry 14 (1): 83-96. 2011.
    Using the concept of purity to reflect on the relationship between chemical practice and the philosophy of science, this article considers the philosophical significance of the chemical manipulations that aim to purify or otherwise transform matter. Starting from a consideration of the nature and role of pure (or idealised) examples in philosophy of science, the article underlines the temptation towards abstraction and theory for both scientists and philosophers. The article goes on to argue tha…Read more
  •  14
    Disease diagnosis and treatment; could theranostics change everything?
    Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 24 (3): 401-408. 2021.
    There has always been an intimate and complex relationship between the diagnosis of a disease and its treatment. The approach dubbed theranostics aims to combine diagnostic techniques with therapeutic ones by deploying the same molecule in two roles, exploiting the specificity of its function to render disease treatment more effective. Does this technical development have the potential to change our conception of disease diagnosis? With the treatment approach so intimately linked to the diagnost…Read more
  •  65
    This article is a transcript of a conversation between Michel Foucault and Jonathan Simon in San Francisco in October 1983. It has never previously been published and is transcribed on the basis of a tape recording made at the time. Foucault and Simon begin with a discussion of Foucault’s 1977 lecture ‘About the Concept of the “Dangerous Individual” in 19th-Century Legal Psychiatry’, and move to a discussion of notions of danger, psychiatric expertise in the prosecution cases, crime, responsibil…Read more
  •  21
    The Medical Drug as a Technological Object
    Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 23 (1): 51-67. 2019.
    This article considers the medical drug as a technological object, in order to determine what philosophy of technology can bring to the study of pharmaceuticals and what the study of medical drugs can bring to the philosophy of technology. This approach will allow us to locate the differences between the medical drug and other objects that usually form the focus for studies in the philosophy of technology, and to discuss the problematic fit of the models proposed in the field to pharmaceuticals.…Read more
  •  28
    Sulpha Drugs: The PRE-Antibiotic Miracle (review)
    Metascience 17 (3): 461-464. 2008.
  •  16
    Sometimes a Stench is Just a Stench
    Metascience 18 (1): 65-67. 2009.
  •  4
    Retrospectives: History of science in France
    British Journal for the History of Science 52 (4): 689-695. 2019.
    Although maybe not the most fashionable area of study today, French science has a secure place in the classical canon of the history of science. Like the Scientific Revolution and Italian science at the beginning of the seventeenth century, French science, particularly eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century French science, remains a safe, albeit conservative, bet in terms of history-of-science teaching and research. The classic trope of the passage of the flame of European science from …Read more
  •  12
    History of science in France
    British Journal for the History of Science 1-7. forthcoming.
    Although maybe not the most fashionable area of study today, French science has a secure place in the classical canon of the history of science. Like the Scientific Revolution and Italian science at the beginning of the seventeenth century, French science, particularly eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century French science, remains a safe, albeit conservative, bet in terms of history-of-science teaching and research. The classic trope of the passage of the flame of European science from …Read more
  •  6
    Chemistry and industry
    Metascience 31 (3): 439-440. 2022.
  •  17
    What we publish in Metascience
    Metascience 31 (3): 293-296. 2022.
  •  13
    The geopolitics of book publishing and book reviews
    Metascience 30 (3): 339-340. 2021.
  •  21
    The philosophers’ stone
    Metascience 30 (2): 173-174. 2021.
  •  6
    Is there still room at the bottom? The question providing the theme for the present issue of Philosophia Scientiæ is, of course, adapted from Richard Feynman’s well-known speech at the 1959 meeting of the American Physical Society. On this occasion he attracted physicists’ attention to the vast potential of working at the scale of the nanometre if not the ångström, using the catchy title: “Plenty of Room at the Bottom” [Feynman 1959]. This hookline from a famous Nobel laureate physicist serve...
  •  29
    The Medical Drug as a Technological Object
    Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 23 (1): 51-67. 2019.
    This article considers the medical drug as a technological object, in order to determine what philosophy of technology can bring to the study of pharmaceuticals and what the study of medical drugs can bring to the philosophy of technology. This approach will allow us to locate the differences between the medical drug and other objects that usually form the focus for studies in the philosophy of technology, and to discuss the problematic fit of the models proposed in the field to pharmaceuticals.…Read more
  •  4
    The Legal Process and the Promise of Justice: Studies Inspired by the Work of Malcolm Feeley (edited book)
    with Rosann Greenspan and Hadar Aviram
    Cambridge University Press. 2019.
    Malcolm Feeley, one of the founding giants of the law and society field, is also one of its most exciting, diverse, and contemporary scholars. His works have examined criminal courts, prison reform, the legal profession, legal professionalism, and a variety of other important topics of enduring theoretical interest with a keen eye for the practical implications. In this volume, The Legal Process and the Promise of Justice, an eminent group of contemporary law and society scholars offer fresh and…Read more
  •  50
    Ursula Klein and E. C. Spary : Materials and expertise in early modern Europe: Between market and laboratory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010, 408pp, $50 HB Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9462-8 Authors Jonathan Simon, LEPS-LIRDHIST, Université Lyon 1, Université de Lyon, 69622 Villeurbanne cedex, France Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796