Micheal J. McEwan
Ph.D. Candidate,
Philosophy
Email: mmcewan@uwaterloo.ca
Interests
Philosophy of Science: scientific representation, structuralism, and the philosophy of physics
Other: truth, philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics
Education
2006-Present, Ph.D. Candidate in Philosophy, Univeristy of Waterloo, Canada.
2004-2006, M.A. Philosophy, University of Calgary,
Canada
1997-2002, B.Sc. Physics, University of Calgary,
Canada Awards
2008-2010, SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship
SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship, 2008–2010
University of Waterloo President’s Graduate Scholarship 2008–2010 Publications and Presentations
Book Reviews
Review of
Kellert,
Longino and Waters, eds. "Scientific Pluralism, Minnesota Studies in the
Philosophy of Science, Volume XIX", in Philosophy in Review, Oct. 2007, 27(5):353-355.
Review of Wesely Salmon’s
“Reality and Rationality”, in Philosophy in Review, Aug. 2006,
26(4): 289-291.
Conference Presentations
“Abstraction, Generality and the Theory-model Distinction,” Models and Simulations IV, Toronto, May 2010 “A New Taxonomy of Idealizations, Abstractions and Approximations,” CSHPS congress, Ottawa, May 2009 “A Deflationary Approach to Approximate Truth,” Pitt-CMU Graduate Philosophy Conference, Pittsburgh, March 2009 “The Semantic View of Scientific Theories: What’s Right About It?,” CSHPS congress, Vancouver, June2008 “Wallace’s
Many-worlds Interpretation: Decoherence and Structure,” CPA congress,
Vancouver, June 4, 2008 and Logic Mathematics and Physics Graduate
Philosophy Conference, London ON., May 2008 “Language Independence, Löwenheim-Skolem and Quantum Mechanics,” CSHPS congress, Saskatoon, June, 2007 “The
Semantic View of Theories: Models and Misconceptions,” London School of
Economics CPNSS graduate student conference, London, June, 2006
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Dissertation
Working
Title: "A Linguistic Approach to Scientific Representation"
Supervisor:
Patricia
Marino
Committee:
Doreen
Fraser, Steve
Weinstein
Brief
Description:
Over
the last thirty years there has been a movement among many
philosophers away form a linguistically oriented analysis of
scientific practice. These non-linguistic approaches all involve a
re-conceptualization of scientific representation which deemphasizes
language and semantic notions like truth, reference and meaning. It
is my contention that non-linguistic approaches, in their various
guises, are largely misguided. Philosophers cannot hope to provide an
adequate account of the nature of scientific representation without
also accounting for the linguistic mechanisms by which these
representations are presented, communicated and exploited. Instead, I
advocate a linguistic approach to scientific representation. This is
an approach which maintains a central role for linguistic
representation when accounting for scientific representative
practices.
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