Curriculum Vitae

 

Mathias Frisch

 

6806 Wells Pkwy                                                                           Department of Philosophy

University Park, MD                                                                                 University of Maryland

mfrisch@umd.edu                                                                                Skinner Building

                                                                                                            College Park, MD 20742

                                                                       

                                                                       

                                                                                                           

 

 

 

Employment:

 

August 2003 – present:              Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Maryland, College Park.

August 1998 – June 2003:            Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Northwestern University.

 

Education:

           

            Ph.D.               Philosophy, University of California at Berkeley, 1998.

                                    (Dissertation: Theories, Models, and Explanation.)

            M.A.                Physics, University of California at Berkeley, 1992.

            B.A.                 Physics, University of California at Berkeley, 1990.

 

Areas of Specialization:

           

            Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Physics.

 

Areas of Competence:

           

            Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic, History of Modern Philosophy.

 

Honors and Awards:

           

            National Science Foundation Fellowship, award no. SES-0093212,

                        8/15/2001-5/31/2002.

 

National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, award no. FA-36796-01,

            6/1/2002-12/31/2002.

 

Publications:

 

            Book (forthcoming):

 

Inconsistency, Asymmetry, and Non-Locality:  Philosophical Issues in Classical Electrodynamics, Oxford University Press.

 

            Papers:

 

“Laws and Initial Conditions,” Philosophy of Science (forthcoming 2004).

 

“Lorentz’s Cautious Realism.”  Conditionally accepted for publication in Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics.

 

“Non-Locality in Classical Electrodynamics.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (March 2002), 1-19.

 

“(Dis-)Solving the Puzzle of the Arrow of Radiation,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 51 (September 2000), 381-410.

 

“Van Fraassen’s Dissolution of Putnam’s Model-Theoretic Argument,” Philosophy of Science, 66 (March 1999), 158-164.

 

“The World According to Maxwell,” Discussion Paper Series of the Centre for the Philosophy of the Natural and the Social Sciences, London (1998).

 

            Papers Submitted for Publication:

 

“Classical Electrodynamics and the Role of Consistency in Scientific Theories.” resubmitted to Philosophy of Science.

 

Book Reviews:

 

“Nancy Cartwright’s The Dappled World:  A Study of the Boundaries of Science.”  together with:  E. Winsberg, A. Fine, K. Darling. The Journal of Philosophy XCVII, 7 (July 2000), 403-408.

 

 

Papers Delivered:

           

Invited Papers:

 

“Causation, Counterfactuals and Entropy,” invited speaker at the conference “Causal Republicanism,” Sydney, July 2003.

 

“A Tale of Two Arrow,”  invited speaker at the annual University of Western Ontorio Philosophy of Science Conference, May 2003.

 

“Counterfactuals and the Past Hypothesis,” invited speaker at the symposium “Entropy and Counterfactuals,” 2003 APA Central Division Meeting, Cleveland, April 2003.

 

“David Lewis’s Overdetermination Thesis or The Perils of Armchair Physical Theorizing:”  presented at:

-         University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, January 2003.

-         University of California at Santa Barbara, January 2003.

-         University of Maryland, College Park, December 2002.

-         University of Sydney, October 2002.

-         Centre for the Philosophy of the Natural and the Social Sciences, London School of Economics, May 2002.

 

“The Puzzle of the Arrow of Radiation,” Department of Physics, University of Southern California, April 2002.

 

 “Classical Electrodynamics and the Role of Consistency in Scientific Theories.” presented at:

-         University of Pittsburgh, February 2002.

-         University of Maryland, College Park, February 2002.

-         University of California at Irvine, January 2002.

 

“Non-Locality in Classical Electrodynamics,” University of Southern California, November 2001.

 

“The Influence of Science on Philosophy in the Late 19th Century: Comments on Papers by Michael Friedman and Mark Wilson,” May 2001, Symposium at the 2001 APA Central Division meeting.

 

University of Illinois at Chicago Philosophy of Physics Workshop, March 2001, Commentator on a paper by Craig Callender.

 

“Explanatory Asymmetries:  A Problem for Causal Theories of Explanation?” University of Manitoba, Canada, January 2001.

 

“Local Models, Possible Worlds, and Classical Electrodynamics,” California Institute of Technology, Los Angeles, November 1999.

 

“In Search of Coherence?  The Strange Tale of Classical Electrodynamics”  History and Philosophy of Science Colloquium Series, Northwestern University, February 1999.

 

“Explanatory Patterns,” History and Philosophy of Science Colloquium, University of Colorado, Boulder, December 1997.

 

“Models in Electrodynamics and the Semantic View of Scientific Theories,” Centre for the Philosophy of the Natural and the Social Sciences, London School of Economics, England, May 1997.

 

“Models as Truth-Makers and Models as Representations,” Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds, England, February 1997.

 

Other Papers Given:

 

“Causes, Counterfactuals, and Entropy,” Northwest Philosophy Conference, Reed College, October 2003.

 

“Laws and Initial Conditions,” contribution to the symposium “Laws, Possibility, and the New Instrumentalism,” Philosophy of Science Association Meeting, November 2002.

 

“Popper’s Pond and Elementary Radiation Processes:  Popper and Einstein on the Arrow of Radiation,” Karl Popper Centennial Conference 2002, Vienna, July 2002.

 

“Lorentz’s Cautious Realism and the Electromagnetic World-Picture,” History of the Philosophy of Science Conference 2002, Montreal, Canada, June 2002.

 

“David Lewis’s Overdetermination Thesis or The Perils of Armchair Physical Theorizing,” Causation and Explanation in the Natural and Social Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium, May 2002.

 

“Non-Locality in Classical Electrodynamics,” APA Pacific Division Meeting, San Francisco, March 2001.

 

“Explanatory Asymmetries:  A Problem for Causal Theories of Explanation?” 11th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Cracow, Poland, August 1999.

 

“Truth and Isomorphism:  Van Fraassen’s Explication of ‘Empirical Adequacy’,” 3rd International Conference of the German Society of Analytic Philosophy, Munich, Germany, September 1997.

 

“A Re-examination of the Distinction between a Context of Discovery and a Context of Justification,” 10th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Florence, Italy, August 1995.

 

Professional Activities:

 

            Referee for the National Science Foundation.

           

            Referee for Philosophy of Science.

 

            Referee for The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.