•  771
    From Bacon to Banks: The vision and the realities of pursuing science for the common good
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43 (1): 82-90. 2012.
    Francis Bacon’s call for philosophers to investigate nature and ‘‘join in consultation for the common good’’ is one example of a powerful vision that helped to shape modern science. His ideal clearly linked the experimental method with the production of beneficial effects that could be used both as ‘‘pledges of truth’’ and for ‘‘the comforts of life.’’ When Bacon’s program was implemented in the following genera- tion, however, the tensions inherent in his vision became all too real. The history…Read more
  •  208
    The standard of disinterested objectivity embedded within the US Data Quality Act (2001) has been used by corporate and political interests as a way to limit the dissemination of scientific research results that conflict with their goals. This is an issue that philosophers of science can, and should, publicly address because it involves an evaluation of the strength and adequacy of evidence. Analysis of arguments from a philosophical tradition that defended a concept of useful knowledge (later d…Read more
  •  43
    Robert Boyle and the masculine methods of science
    Philosophy of Science 71 (5): 857-867. 2004.
    In her recent case study, Elizabeth Potter attempts to show how Boyle's experimental method was biased by gender considerations. Part of her argument focuses on the combination of the “invisibility” of women in Boyle's published work together with his unpublished comments on female chastity, and part concerns Boyle's rejection of the animistic explanation of his air pump experiments by Francis Line. I argue that the historical and biographical elements of the case make Potter's arguments questio…Read more
  •  42
    Explaining the Success of Science
    PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988. 1988.
    Various explanations for the success of science have become central to both sides of the philosophical debate over scientific realism. In this paper I argue that the recent attempt by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, in Leviathan and the Air-Pump, to provide a sociological explanation for the success of experimental science fails to make any significant contribution to this debate because of (1) the historical prejudgments that they employ and (2) their oversimplification of present-day philoso…Read more
  •  29
    Francis Bacon and the humanistic aspects of modernity
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 26 (1). 2002.
  •  24
    Richard Yeo, Notebooks, English Virtuosi, and Early Modern Science (review)
    Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 7 (1): 167-169. 2017.
  •  17
    Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry (review)
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 42 (1): 104-105. 2004.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.1 (2004) 104-105 [Access article in PDF] William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe. Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. xv + 344. Cloth, $40.00. Newman and Principe have produced a masterful study of intellectual context, primarily by correcting the commonly held belief that there was a radical break i…Read more
  •  12
    Introduction
    Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 3 (1): 135-136. 2013.
  •  11
    Virtue in the Scientific Revolution.”
    In Noretta Koertge (ed.), Scientific Values and Civic Virtues, Oup Usa. pp. 71--80. 2005.
    Experimental philosophers of 17th-century England recognized a complex relationship between scientific values and civic virtues. Francis Bacon, motivated by his desire to promote the common good by producing useful knowledge, noted that the advancement of learning required a cooperative research effort guided by civility, charity, toleration, and intellectual modesty. This essay examines how the founders of the Royal Society of London, including Robert Boyle, put his advice into action by their …Read more
  •  7
    A New Way to Read Boyle's Works
    Annals of Science 59 (3): 321-326. 2002.
  •  6
    A New Way to Read Boyle's Works (review)
    with M. Hunter and E. B. Davis
    Annals of Science 59 (3): 321-326. 2002.
  •  4
    Explaining the Success of Science
    PSA Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988 (1): 55-63. 1988.
    Ever since Hilary Putnam claimed that a realist philosophy is “the only philosophy that doesn’t make the success of science a miracle,” explanations for the success of science have proliferated in the philosophical literature (Putnam 1975, p. 73). Realists argue that the success of science, as exhibited by our ability to accurately predict and explain a wide range of phenomena, indicates that our theories have identified some of the underlying causal structures of the world (e.g., Boyd 1985, Ell…Read more
  •  3
    Bacon: Selected Philosophical Works (edited book)
    Hackett Publishing Company. 1999.
    The most comprehensive collection available in paperback of Bacon’s philosophical and scientific writings, this volume offers Bacon's major works in their entirety, or in substantive selections, revised from the classic 19th century editions of Spedding, Ellis, and Heath. Selections from some of Bacon's natural histories round out this edition by showing the types of compilations that he believed would most contribute to the third part of his Great Instauration. Each work has a separate brief in…Read more
  •  1
    Husserl'sLogical Investigationsand Contemporary Issues in Philosophy of Science
    Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 19 (2): 155-164. 1988.
  • Robert Boyle and the Experimental Ideal
    Dissertation, University of Notre Dame. 1987.
    After years of relative neglect, experimental science has once again become an object of scrutiny. Philosophers such as Hacking and Cartwright have examined contemporary science in an attempt to display the epistemic status of experimental results, while sociologists such as Shapin and Schaffer have focussed on historical cases in an attempt to display the conventional basis of experimentation. In this study I am concerned with the epistemological question: How can one justify the claim that it …Read more