My work focuses on issues at the boundary between science and philosophy. For instance, I've examined the influence of philosophical commitments on Darwin interpretations (HOPOS, 2018); the concepts of “natural” and “artificial” (Biology & Philosophy, 2021); 19th- and 20th-century rhetoric on the human “place” in nature (Palgrave, 2016); the contested status of "typological thinking" in biology (Studies C, 2015); the promises and dangers of seeking to ground ethics in biology (IPQ, 2011); and Helmuth Plessner's views on organic life and human distinctiveness (IJPS, 2015).
My current work focuses on quantitative ethics metrics in AI and machine learning, such as metrics for fairness, privacy, or transparency. Such metrics are the invention of a robust interdisciplinary community of computer scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, and others. I'm interested in detailing the benefits and costs of such metrics -- both individual metrics in comparison or competition with one another, and the "metrological" ethics framework as a whole.
A strain of my previous research has focused on the history of the philosophy of biology, mostly since 1950. This work has examined the limits of the fields of biology and philosophy and their epistemic relations to one another, including negotiation of boundaries, contests over epistemic authority, collaborations, and influences.
Another strain has focused on a tradition of modern thought known as "philosophical anthropology" (“philosophische Anthropologie”): for instance, Helmuth Plessner and Marjorie Grene. My work on these figures has explored the relevance of their ideas to contemporary debates about naturalism, the ontology of living things and processes, and philosophies of nature, culture, society, technology, embodiment, and animality.
My current work focuses on quantitative ethics metrics in AI and machine learning, such as metrics for fairness, privacy, or transparency. Such metrics are the invention of a robust interdisciplinary community of computer scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, and others. I'm interested in detailing the benefits and costs of such metrics -- both individual metrics in comparison or competition with one another, and the "metrological" ethics framework as a whole.
A strain of my previous research has focused on the history of the philosophy of biology, mostly since 1950. This work has examined the limits of the fields of biology and philosophy and their epistemic relations to one another, including negotiation of boundaries, contests over epistemic authority, collaborations, and influences.
Another strain has focused on a tradition of modern thought known as "philosophical anthropology" (“philosophische Anthropologie”): for instance, Helmuth Plessner and Marjorie Grene. My work on these figures has explored the relevance of their ideas to contemporary debates about naturalism, the ontology of living things and processes, and philosophies of nature, culture, society, technology, embodiment, and animality.