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12A Pragmatist Interpretation and Defense of Entity RealismEuropean Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 16 (1). 2024.This paper offers a pragmatist interpretation of Ian Hacking’s version of entity realism, and shows that such an interpretation enables the view to withstand a number of objections. Specifically, the paper shows Hacking’s rejection of a representationalist epistemology, which realist critics unjustifiably attribute to him, and shows his endorsement of a Deweyan pragmatist epistemology instead. If the interpretation is correct, the objections (a) that entity manipulation is theory-laden, (b) that…Read more
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21Hello, We're Philosophy in the WildPhilosophy in the Wild Collection. 2023.This article introduces the Philosophy in the Wild collection. Philosophy in the Wild asks how ways of doing philosophy impact the kinds of philosophy being done and the kinds of philosophical engagement that are possible. We think that taking philosophy outside of its usual fluorescent, wired context would open up new ways of theorizing our relation to the world, as well as create new ways of engaging with philosophy. Thus Philosophy in the Wild hosts outdoor and technology-free conferences and…Read more
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27Book Review of Sarah S. Richardson, The Maternal Imprint: The Contested Science of Maternal-Fetal Effects (2021) (review)Philosophy of Science Association Newsletter 1. 2023.
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Émilie du Châtelet’s Mathematical FictionalismIn New Voices on Women in the History of Philosophy, Springer. forthcoming.Émilie Du Châtelet was a fictionalist about mathematics. Mathematical fictionalism (henceforth, fictionalism) is the view that, strictly speaking, mathematical entities such as numbers, functions, and sets, are fictions that are useful for human purposes, but are not themselves real in an ontological sense. I first explain fictionalism. Then I illustrate Du Châtelet’s position with regard to mathematical entities and give textual evidence of her fictionalism from Institutions de Physique. I offe…Read more
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40Cogito, Ergo Sumus? The Pregnancy Problem in Descartes's PhilosophyHopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 13 (2). 2023.Given Descartes’ metaphysical and natural-philosophic commitments, it is very difficult to theorize the pregnant human being as a human being under his system. Specifically, given (1) Descartes’ account of generation, (2) his commitment to mechanistic explanations where bodies are concerned, (3) his reliance on a subtle individuating principle for human (and animal) bodies, and (4) his metaphysics of human beings, which include minds, bodies, and mind-body unions, there is no available human sub…Read more
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1244Not One, Not Two: Toward an Ontology of PregnancyFeminist Philosophy Quarterly 3 (4): 1-23. 2017.Basic understandings of subjectivity are derived from the principles of masculine embodiment such as temporal stability and singularity. But pregnancy challenges such understandings because it represents a sort of splitting of the body. In the pregnant situation, a subject may experience herself as both herself and an other, as well as neither herself nor an other. This is logically untenable—an impossibility. If our discourse depends on singular, fixed referents, then what paradigms of identity…Read more
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