Carl Craver, Cognitive Studies Post-doc, 1998-99
Carl Craver is currently an Assistant Professor at Florida International
University in Miami, Florida. In the fall of 2001, he will join the
Department of Philosophy and the Philosophy and Neuroscience Program at
Washington University in St. Louis.
Tetsuji Iseda, Philosophy Ph.D, 2000
Tetsuji Iseda successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Socialization
of Epistemology: For a Better Relationship between Epistemology and the
Sociology of Scientific Knowledge” on December 21, 2000. He is now a full-time
lecturer at the School of Informatics and Sciences, Nagoya University,
Japan. His recent publications include: “Scientific Rationality and the
‘Even Stronger Program’”, AI and Society 13 no. 1&2, pp. 156-163, 1999;
“Use-novelty, Severity, and the Systematic Neglect of Relevant Alternatives,”
in Philosophy of Science 66 (proceedings), pp. S403-S413, 1999; and “Can
Externalist Metaethics Escape from Relativism?,” in Studies in Informatics
and Sciences No. 12 pp. 29-38, 2000 (in Japanese). His recent presentations
include: “On Trials and Errors of Reliabilism,” at the 32nd Annual Meeting
of the Philosophy of Science Society of Japan, Novermber 1999, Tokyo, Japan
(in Japanese); “Bridging a Gap between Naturalistic and Traditional Approaches
in the Philosophy of Science” at the Biannual Meeting of the Philosophy
of Science Association, November 2000, Vancouver, Canada; and “Enhancing
Sociological Theories from an Evolutionary Point of View,” at the 33rd
Annual Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Society of Japan, December
2000, Nagoya, Japan (in Japanese).
Ruth Kastner, Philosophy Ph.D, 2000
During 2000, Ruth Kastner taught Philosophy of Science at the U.S. Naval
Academy in Annapolis and at Georgetown University, and Introduction to
Philosophy at University of Maryland Baltimore County. She presented a
contributed paper at the Philosophy of Science Association 2000 meeting
in Vancouver, B.C., entitled “A Critical Look at Time-Symmetric Quantum
Counterfactuals.” She also has a paper forthcoming in American Journal
of Physics, entitled “Comment on Mohrhoff’s ‘What Quantum Mechanics is
Trying to Tell Us’”.
Rob Skipper, Philosophy Ph.D, 2000
Rob Skipper successfully defended his dissertation, The R. A. Fisher-Sewall
Wright Controversy in Philosophical Focus: Theory Evaluation in Population
Genetics, on July 17, 2000. He subsequently moved to Corvallis, Oregon,
to take a one-year job in philosophy at Oregon State University to teach
and research in philosophy of science and biology. Most recently, Rob has
accepted a tenure-track position, to start in fall 2001, in philosophy
at the University of Cincinnati, where he will help build a new Ph.D. program
in philosophy and the sciences. Rob has kept himself busy: He organized
a PSA 2000 symposium called “Experimentation and the Evaluation of Evolutionary
Theories” presented at the conference in Vancouver, B.C. The papers that
constituted the symposium are currently under review for publication in
an upcoming issue of Philosophy of Science (Proceedings) . Rob also
has two additional papers under review, “The Persistence of the R. A. Fisher-Sewall
Wright Controversy,” and “R. A. Fisher’s Fundamental Theorem of Natural
Selection.” Rob published an invited commentary, “The Causal Crux of Selection,”
in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (Vol. 24, 2001) on David Hull
et al.’s paper, “A General Account of Selection.” Early in 2001, Rob participated
in a workshop on inference in environmental science and public policy through
the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara
where he worked with ecologists, foresters, mathematicians, biologists,
and economists on integrating science and policy. Rob has given a number
of talks in 2000-2001 on issues in philosophy of biology and will deliver
the keynote address at the Annual Oregon State Biology Graduate Student
Symposium at Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon. Rob chaired
a session on Hume’s metaphysics at APA-Pacific in San Fransisco in April
2001. This summer, Rob will attend ISHPSSB 2001 at Quinnipiac University
in Hamden, Connecticut for a symposium he organized called “Understanding
Environment: Biology, Values, Policy.” Rob was also nominated by the Oregon
State Mortar Board Senior Honor Society for Top Professor honors in 2000-2001.
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Sara Vollmer, Philosophy Ph.D, 1999
Sara Vollmer accepted a position as assistant research professor in
the Philosophy Department at the University of Alabama beginning May 1.
She traveled to Birmingham in February to interview for the position from
Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, where she has
been working for the last year and a half. She is happy with the collegial
atmosphere at UAB, as well as with the philosophy being done.