Research Projects

DFG "Eigene Stelle": Three Methodological Problems in Memory Science

This project addresses the philosophical dimensions of current controversies in memory science, which links the psychology of memory to its physical basis. Memory science is in an exciting state of flux, resulting from a series of provocative studies and setbacks in the dominant paradigm. The primary objective of this project is to resolve three related problems that contribute to this state of flux. First, what phenomena relevant to memory science can be demonstrated? This is a demonstration problem. Second, where can the physical basis of memory be located? This is a localization problem. Third, by what set of criteria can memory be distinguished from non-memory? This is a demarcation problem. Together, these heretofore unresolved problems suggest that memory might depart from intuitive, scientific, and philosophical notions. With this, these problems challenge widely accepted commitments and paradigmatic success stories in cognitive science and neuroscience, as scientific study of the mind and brain long has been directed by insights about memory. 

At their cores, these problems are manifestations of topics in philosophy of science. They each concern a dimension of how the targets of scientific investigation are determined. For this reason, my project adopts the stance that traction on resolving these problems and therefore settling these controversies can be made by philosophically analyzing memory science and its current state of flux. However, this project will do more than only settle existing controversies in memory science. These outcomes will also supply new insights into classic problems in philosophy of science. Further, these insights will have a firm basis in the realities of the scientific practice, its history, and its future. These insights will serve as a basis for informing naturalistic philosophical accounts that appeal to memory, including in epistemology, personal identity, and ethics.

Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship Project: Failures of Scientific Reasoning

How should a scientist reason about the target of their investigation? In previous research (see "Dissertation" below), I analyzed scientific phenomena, or the events that scientists aim to understand and control. They are stable and repeatable, and they have causes and effects that make them the target of type-level scientific reasoning. In published articles, I address the reasoning that underlies the discovery, characterization, and rejection of target phenomena. These articles share a theme: we philosophers should center our analysis on scientific targets rather than solely addressing the theoretical and explanatory schemata built around them. While these schemata may vindicate scientists’ understanding of their targets, these schemata may obscure rather than elucidate what they explain or model. 

That scientists may obscure what they target hints at the failures of scientific reasoning that surround the investigation of these targets: scientists often incorrectly reason about the status of the targets they seek to investigate. This theme extends ideas that I presented in earlier work on the downfall of the controversial “memory transfer,” or the alleged phenomenon that memories can transfer between organisms via cannibalism. While my initial analysis focused on failures of evidential reasoning, this case also involves failures of explanatory reasoning and reasoning about kinds. The fact that these failures led to the collapse of an entire research project shows that we must take them seriously. 

Scientific failure itself is not a novel topic. Analyses of error have helped to draw out its role in normal scientific inquiry. Distinct from discussions of error are discussions of failure, which offer insights into the mechanics of scientific inquiry: when science fails, researchers scrutinize targets that they once took for granted. 

A project on failures of scientific reasoning must crosscut two bodies of reasoning literature. The first body of literature is psychological. It reflects the empirical study of lay and scientific reasoning practices. While it sometimes includes normative claims about reasoning, much of this work is descriptive. The second body of literature is formal. It involves the modeling of reasoning, often within the framework of Bayesian, explanatory, hypothetico-deductive, or mixed models. These models descriptively capture cases of successful and unsuccessful reasoning, but this work is largely normative. While philosophers draw links between these bodies of literature, studying failures of scientific reasoning requires that I integrate the two. My project must account for psychological errors and the mismatches between practices and formal models of reasoning.  

My project will investigate three failures of reasoning about the targets of scientific investigation. I will integrate psychological and formal accounts of reasoning with the analysis of cases from the history of science. By integrating these areas of research, I will analyze these failures and their implications for scientific reasoning. For each failure of reasoning, I will address what makes it a failure, its consequences, and how it can be resolved. However, scientists are not solely responsible for these failures, as several philosophical accounts do not identify them as such. Thus, my project will not only address these failures; I will criticize accounts of reasoning, evidence, and natural kinds that permit them as well. In this project, I will appeal to cases in cognitive science, but I will develop positive accounts that apply to scientific reasoning more broadly.

A few articles have stemmed from this project.

This article, in Synthese, addresses concerns about how we reason about scientific (and specifically cognitive) kinds in our conceptualization practices. It builds upon this article, in Philosophy of Science, which served as a starting point for investigations of our reasoning about scientific kinds (in this case, specifically, memory).

This article, in Biology & Philosophy, addresses concerns about how we reason about the evidential status of studies in the face of reported replication issues. 

This article, in Philosophy of Science, addresses concerns about how we reason about explanations and the relation between explanatory models (e.g., whether they are rivals or can be integrated).

Dissertation: An Investigation of Scientific Phenomena

I investigate how scientists use experiments to learn about the world, through the formulation and evaluation of representations of scientific phenomena. Phenomena are things like the placebo effect: despite the variance of the world, again and again we find individuals who exhibit treatment symptoms without being administered any treatment, whether it be in a randomized controlled trial or in the use of ineffective medicine. I address the fact that there has been a failure to account for the discovery and characterization of phenomena, though several popular philosophical accounts of explanation, theorization, and modeling are designed to account for phenomena. For instance, accounts of mechanistic and causal explanation take phenomena to be the explananda of type-level explanations. However, these accounts fail to address how researchers determine that they have accurately characterized the phenomena they seek to explain. This is problematic: determining why or how a phenomenon occurs depends on knowing what the phenomenon is in the first place. My dissertation covers how characterizations of phenomena are formulated, evaluated, and, if need be, rejected or revised. 

My article, in Biology & Philosophy, addresses how phenomena are discovered through the use of exploratory experiments.

Another article, in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (Part A), addresses when characterizations of phenomena should be abandoned.

A third article, in European Journal for Philosophy of Science, addresses when phenomena should be recharacterized.

How Does Context affect Spatial Decision-Making?

In collaboration with Kevin Jarbo (Carnegie Mellon University), I research spatial decision-making. We aim to determine if decision-making behaviors can be influenced by framing tasks with moral factors, where these factors do not affect the reward or penalty conditions, and thus influence is not predicted by existing models of human decision-making. This work informs my research on how researchers use experiments to discover and characterize novel phenomena, and also ties provides evidence in opposition to the descriptive adequacy of existing accounts of decision-making. This project is funded by Duke University Summer Seminars in Neuroscience and Philosophy (SSNAP), through support from a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. 

Our first article, in Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, can be found here.

Diversity and Representation in Philosophy

I investigate demographic representation in the field of philosophy in collaboration with Morgan Thompson. Unlike other humanities disciplines, philosophy appears to have a much lower representation of women and racial minorities. In some ways, this discipline mirrors representation issues that have been reported in several STEM fields. Some evidence suggests that introductory philosophy courses typically have gender parity in enrollment, but there is a drop off of women and racial minorities occurs between introductory courses and the choice of a major. However, the work on the philosophy gender and race gaps has been limited compared to those in STEM, and we believe that a superior experimental design can be developed. As such, we would like to focus on comparisons between the experiences of undergraduates in introductory philosophy courses and the experiences of those in introductory psychology courses. Aside from being a large field with many undergraduates, psychology does not appear to have the demographic underrepresentation issues indicative of philosophy and some STEM fields. We research the attitudes of participants in introductory philosophy and psychology courses, in order to explore potential differences between the students' impressions of the respective fields, which may relate to the differences in demographic representation in each discipline.