TEACHING EXPERIENCE

University of Toronto

2010 (Summer)        Teaching Assistant, HPS 211: Scientific Revolutions II (led four weekly tutorial sections of 25-30 students each)

2009 (Winter)           Teaching Assistant, HPS 250: Philosophy of Science

2009 (Fall)               Sole Instructor, HPS 280: History of Science (Enrollment 35)

2008 (Fall)               Sole Instructor, HPS 280: History of Science (Enrollment 79)

2007-2008               Teaching Assistant, VIC 171: Methodology, Theory and Ethics in the Life Sciences

2007 (Summer)        Teaching Assistant, HPS 353: History of Evolutionary Biology I

2006-2007               Teaching Assistant, HPS 210: Scientific Revolutions I

University of Maine Honors College

2005-2006               Co-Instructor, HON 391: Introduction to the Thesis Experience

2005-2006               Co-Instructor, FYE 100: First Year Experience

2005-2006               Coordinator, HON 211-212: Civilizations (provided logistical support for 12 preceptorials of 12-15 students each, chaired weekly lecture series)

PUBLICATIONS

2010          Scientific Instruments: Knowledge, Practice, and Culture (Editor’s Introduction). Spontaneous Generations 4(1) 1-7.

2009          Review of Daniel Rothbart. Philosophical Instruments: Minds and Tools at Work. Spontaneous Generations 3(1) 233-235.

2008         Frankenstein in Lilliput: Science at the Nanoscale (Editor’s Introduction). Spontaneous Generations 2(1) 22-24.

2008         (with Andrew Munro) Review of Paul E. Ceruzzi. Internet Alley: High Technology in Tysons Corner, 1945-2005. Spontaneous Generations 2(1) 251-253.

REFEREED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

2011          Technological Possibility as a Condition for Epistemic Possibility. Society for the Philosophy of Science in Practice, Exeter.

2011         Technological Possibility. Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Science, Fredericton.

2010          Getting a Foot in the Door: Accepting Random Numbers in Simulations. Models and Simulations 4, Toronto.

2010         Thoughts about Things: What Instruments Can Do For Philosophy. HAPSAT Graduate Conference, Toronto.

2009         Marks of History: Trusting Instruments. Society for the History of Technology, Pittsburgh.

2008          The Role of Technological Advance in the History of Scientific Practice. History of Science Society, Pittsburgh.

2008          Rhetoric or Ontology? Embodied Knowledge and the Instrument Makers. HAPSAT Graduate Conference, Toronto.

2008          Instruments of Explanation. Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science, Vancouver.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

2006-present      Web designer & IT specialist, IHPST, www.hps.utoronto.ca

2006-present      Editor, Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science

2008 Student     Member, Search Committee, IHPST Director

2007-2009      Editorial Assistant, Annals of Science, Trevor Levere

2007-present      Referee for Social Studies of Science, Canadian Philosophical Association, Spontaneous Generations, Principia

2007-2009      President, History and Philosophy of Science and Technology Graduate Student Association

2007-2010      Organizing committee, HAPSAT Conference, University of Toronto: “Instruments: Mental and Material” (2010), “Evidence in Context” (2009), “Embodied Knowledge and Bodies of Knowledge” (2008), “Conflict and Consensus in the Construction of Knowledge” (2007)

2005-2006      Organizer, TIAA-CREF Distinguished Honors Graduate Lecture, Dan Christiansen, University of Maine

2005-2006      Honors Associate, University of Maine. Administrative support for college of 700 students, student mentor, webmaster, Editor of annual magazine Minerva

2004-2005      Research Assistant, history of electricity and magnetism, Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science, University of Toronto, Brian Baigrie

2006-present      Member, American Philosophical Association, Canadian Philosophical Association, Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Science, Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice, History of Science Society, Society for History of Technology

REFERENCES  Anjan Chakravartty, Department of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame (thesis supervisor), chakravartty.1@nd.edu 

DISSERTATION ABSTRACT – KNOWING INSTRUMENTS: DESIGN, RELIABILITY, AND SCIENTIFIC PRACTICE

This dissertation is an attempt to understand the role of instruments in the process of knowledge production in science. I ask: how can we trust scientific instruments and what do we learn about when we use them? The dissertation has four parts.

First, I construct a novel account of “epistemic possibility,” the possibility of knowing, that captures the dependency of knowledge on action, and I introduce the notion of “technological possibility,” which depends on the availability of material and conceptual means to bring about a desired state of affairs. I argue that, under certain circumstances, technological possibility is a condition for epistemic possibility.

Second, I ask how instruments become reliable. I argue that when the material capacities and conceptual functions of a scientific instrument correspond, the instrument is a reliable component of the process of knowledge production. I then describe how the instrument design process can result in just such a correspondence. Instrument design produces the material device, a functional concept of the device revised in light of experience, a measure of the closeness of fit between material and function, and practices of trust such as calibration routines.

Third, I ask what we learn from instruments such as those used for experimentation and simulation. I argue that in experiments, instruments function to inform us about the material capacities of the object of investigation, while in simulations, instruments function to inform us about the conceptual model of the object of investigation.

Fourth, I put these philosophical distinctions into historical context through a case study of Monte Carlo simulations run on digital electronic computers in the 1940s-70s. I argue that digital electronic computers made the practice of Monte Carlo simulation technologically possible, but that the new method did not meet existing scientific standards. Consequently, Monte Carlo design practices were revised to address the worries of potential practitioners.

home | thinkdeviant | ihpst | SponGe | papers | dossier | cv