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18What is Philosophy of the Geosciences?Philosophy Compass 19 (2). 2024.The philosophy of the geosciences is an emerging subfield in philosophy of science. Although past and present geoscientific disciplines differ substantially, we argue that they frequently face common epistemological and ethical problems. We survey several of these problems that have already attracted sustained philosophical interest, related to the use of measurements, data, and models to study relatively inaccessible target phenomena, responses to (epistemic) injustices, and the management of e…Read more
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12The promises and pitfalls of precision: random and systematic error in physical geodesy, c. 1800–1910Annals of Science 81 (1): 258-284. 2024.This article discusses the ways in which nineteenth-century geodesists reflected on precision as an epistemic virtue in their measurement practice. Physical geodesy is often understood as a quintessential nineteenth-century precision science, stimulating advances in instrument making and statistics, and generating incredible quantities of data. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, geodesists indeed pursued their most prestigious research problem – the exact determination of the earth’s pol…Read more
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43Pluralizing measurement: Physical geodesy's measurement problem and its resolutionStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 96 (C): 51-67. 2022.Derived measurements involve problems of coordination. Conducting them often requires detailed theoretical assumptions about their target, while such assumptions can lack sources of evidence that are independent from these very measurements. In this paper, I defend two claims about problems of coordination. I motivate both by a novel case study on a central measurement problem in the history of physical geodesy: the determination of the earth's ellipticity. First, I argue that the severity of pr…Read more
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103The Epistemic Privilege of Measurement: Motivating a Functionalist AccountPhilosophy of Science 90 (1): 1396-1406. 2023.Philosophers and metrologists have refuted the view that measurement’s epistemic privilege in scientific practice is explained by its theory-neutrality. Rather, they now explicitly appeal to the role that theories play in measurement. I formulate a challenge for this view: scientists sometimes ascribe epistemic privilege to measurements even if they lack a shared theory about their target quantity, which I illustrate through a case study from early geodesy. Drawing on that case, I argue that the…Read more
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22Theodolites at 20000 feet: Justifying precision measurement during the Trigonometrical Survey of KashmirNotes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science 4 (75). 2021.This paper reconstructs the history of the trigonometrical surveying of Kashmir from 1855 to 1865. It highlights the strategies through which surveyors had to justify the employment of high-precision instruments and methods in Himalayan terrain. Only by tediously manipulating their institutional environment in India and Britain did the staff of the Kashmir survey manage to complete its operations in light of constant financial and physical hardship. To sustain their measurements, surveyors align…Read more
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45How Incoherent Measurement Succeeds: Coordination and Success in the Measurement of the Earth's Polar FlatteningStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 88 (C): 245-262. 2021.The development of nineteenth-century geodetic measurement challenges the dominant coherentist account of measurement success. Coherentists argue that measurements of a quantity are epistemically successful if their numerical outcomes converge across varying contextual constraints. Aiming at numerical convergence, in turn, offers an operational aim for scientists to solve problems of coordination. Geodesists faced such a problem of coordination between two indicators of the earth’s ellipticity, …Read more
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408The limits of conventional justification: inductive risk and industry bias beyond conventionalismFrontiers in Research Metric and Analytics 14. 2020.This article develops a constructive criticism of methodological conventionalism. Methodological conventionalism asserts that standards of inductive risk ought to be justified in virtue of their ability to facilitate coordination in a research community. On that view, industry bias occurs when conventional methodological standards are violated to foster industry preferences. The underlying account of scientific conventionality, however, is problematically incomplete. Conventions may be justified…Read more
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Review of "Joseph Mazur: The Clock Mirage: Our Myth of Measured Time" (review)Cleveland Review of Books 34. 2020.
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18Aktiver Realismus und die Geltungsansprüche wissenschaftlicher WahrheitenIn Michael Jungert, Andreas Frewer & Erasmus Mayr (eds.), Wissenschaftsreflexion: Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven Auf Theorie, Praxis Und Ethik der Wissenschaften, Brill Mentis. 2020.Author's summary: I discuss the lessons that scientific realism, understood as a thesis about the metaphysical, epistemological, and semantic interpretation of scientific theories, has to learn from the philosophy of scientific practice. The standard arguments for scientific realism are shown to be incompatible with a practice-based understanding of theories, as they fail short of offering operationally sound concepts of "truth" and "reality. " I propose Hasok Chang's Active Realism (AR) as a s…Read more
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439Braucht die Logik Objekte? Die Ontologie logischer Gegenstände im Tractatus und Erfahrung und UrteilBulletin D’Analyse Phénoménologique 15 (2): 1-32. 2019.Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus logico-philosophicus and Edmund Husserl’s Experience and Judgement (Erfahrung und Urteil) are based on remarkably different conceptual frameworks and methodologies. After analyzing their respective accounts on the foundations of (formal) logic, I map out their common aims and different conclusions. I hold that Husserl and Wittgenstein both use the epistemic necessity of the existence of logical relations among things as an argument against philosophical scepticism…Read more
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Cambridge UniversityDepartment of History and Philosophy of Science, Darwin CollegeDoctoral student
Areas of Specialization
Measurement in Science |
History of Physics |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
Science and Values |
History of Logic |
20th Century Analytic Philosophy |