Fields
History and Philosophy of Science, particularly natural philosophy from antiquity to the present
Early-modern mathematics
Early Royal Society
Historical Theology
Science and Religion
Archives of Scientific Philosophy
Archives in science, medicine, and technology
Research Interests
My book on John Wallis (1616-1703), Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford, covers the earlier part of his career when he was both a participant in the Westminster Assembly, revising the theology of the Church of England and also attending meetings of natural philosophers who would later become the nucleus of the Royal Society. In a transitional time, he accommodated a wide variety of discourses across theology and natural philosophy. I am particularly interested in the way that the Jesuit Francisco Suarez’s Metaphysical Disputations (1597) was important in Wallis’s thinking and other contemporaries, especially among Protestants. Further work on Wallis has expanded this theme. Additional research in scientific biography has explored how particular theological traditions have played a conceptual role in scientific thinking from the early-modern period until the present.
Education & Training
- PhD, History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University, 2005
Representative Publications
Distinctions of Reason and Reasonable Distinctions: The Academic Life of John Wallis (1616–1703). Brill Studies in Intellectual History. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
“Polity and Liturgy in the Philosophy of John Wallis,” Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science. Special Issue: John Wallis at 400: Science, Mathematics, and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England, edited by Adam Richter and Stephen Snobelen, 72, no. 4 (October 2018): 505–525.
“Res Publica Mathematica: One State or Many?” In Antiquarianism and Science in Urban Networks. Sciences et Techniques en Perspective, 2d ser., edited by Vittoria Feola, 16, no. 2 (2014): 1–32.
“Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944).” In Eminent Lives in Science and Religion, Second Revised and Much Expanded Edition, edited by Nicolaas A. Rupke, 129–154. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2009.
“The Last Word: John Wallis on the Origin of the Royal Society.” History of Science 46, Part II, no. 152 (2008): 177–201.
“Religion as a Cause in Scientific Research.” Review of Practical Mystic: Religion, Science, and A. S. Eddington, by Matthew Stanley. Annals of Science 67, no. 1 (2010): 121–130.
Library and Archives
As an archivist and librarian at the University of Pittsburgh I have been responsible for four main areas:
1. The Archives of Scientific Philosophy, a collection of around thirty philosophers, originally from the 20th century tradition of Logical Empiricism, broadening to American Pragmatism and philosophy of science more generally.
2. Medicine. Pitt has a strong history in surgery, research, and clinical care, including the transplant surgeon Thomas Starzl and the virologist Jonas Salk.
3. The natural sciences and technology. I am working to develop archival collections in physics, computing, engineering, and the biological sciences.
4. Acquisition of and teaching with Renaissance and early-modern books in natural philosophy, mathematics, and science. Using dedicated space in Hillman Library, I teach instruction sessions in cooperation with faculty where primary sources are used as undergraduate and graduate course materials.