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Northern philosophers
Two faculty members in the Department of Philosophy and Religious
Studies have more in common than their nationalities
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What are the chances that two young faculty members would be hired in
the same small academic department? Did we mention that they would both
be originally from Canada?
That's just what happened in the case of Kevin de Laplante and Carla Fehr,
assistant professors in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies.
Their nationality is not the only thing the two philosophers have in common.
Both have a longstanding interest in science and now in the philosophy
of science.
de Laplante holds an undergraduate degree in physics ("I wanted to
be Carl Sagan," he said). But when it came time to pursue a graduate
degree, he soon found himself gravitating to the philosophy department
at the University of Western Ontario.
Fehr had a similar experience. She earned a bachelor's degree in biology
and spent her summers in college mucking around in ponds and chasing after
birds while working for the Canadian Wildlife Service.
While pursing a Ph.D. in philosophy at Duke University, she was affiliated
with both the biology department and the Women's Studies Program.
"In graduate school I spent one term as a TA for an environmental
ethics course," de Laplante said. "I started reading the literature
and began to realize that it dealt not only with ethical and social issues,
but technology and science issues as well. In the end I decided I wanted
to teach the things I found interesting as a science student."
Fehr on the other hand wanted to be a wildlife biologist. Then she took
a class called "Philosophy of Science."
"I was hooked," she said. "In graduate school, I worked
in both the philosophy department and the genetics lab. I've spent enough
time in the field that I have some idea what I'm talking about. I've gotten
my hands dirty."
Both continue to use their scientific background at Iowa State. Fehr's
specialization is in the areas of the philosophy of biology and feminist
philosophy. She is currently researching the evolution of sex.
"Biologists study living things and I study biologists and the knowledge
that they produce," Fehr said.
Fehr says that philosophers have focused on physics as the paradigm science,
while biology was often brushed to the side. She argues that focusing
on the structure of biological knowledge allows society to develop a more
pluralistic picture of what constitutes good science.
"It also allows us to examine the ways that we see ourselves as creatures
that have been molded by evolution," she said.
Fehr is particularly interested in the intersection of biology, the philosophy
of biology and feminist theory.
"Since the early '70s there has been an incredible burst of both
theoretical and empirical work on the problem of sex," she said.
"Since this work is being produced in a variety of different biological
sub disciplines, it offers an exciting philosophical opportunity to investigate
how knowledge developed in different disciplines interacts in the production
of an explanation.
"I want to develop a pluralistic view of science that allows us to
talk about a biology of sex that provides a way to protect the diversity
of human expressions of sexuality but still see ourselves as biological
things."
de Laplante's research interest focuses on the philosophy of ecology.
He loosely defines an ecological phenomenon as one for which an understanding
of organism-environment or system-environment interactions is essential.
"The philosophy of ecology can include the phenomena studied by professional
ecologists in the logical areas like ecology and biology," he said,
"but it can also include phenomena that are not traditional objects
of study by professional ecologists. There are a host of disciplines outside
of traditional ecology that make use of ecological concepts and theories
- there's 'ecological pyschology,' 'ecological economics,' even 'ecological
anthropology.' I'm interested in understanding what all these disciplines
have in common that makes them ‘ecological'"
He does however continue to maintain a connection with his physics degree.
de Laplante regularly teaches an upper-level course, "Philosophy
of Physics," and is working on a cartoon guide to the philosophy
of physics entitled How to Build Your Own Wormhole: An Introduction to
the Physics and Philosophy of Space –Time. Wormholes are tunnels through
space-time that might conceivably be used for interstellar travel.
"This project has grown out of a ten-page comic presentation for
a class on general relativity I took in graduate school," he said.
Around LAS
November 12-25, 2001
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