Ideals and Practices of Rationality

The department focuses on epistemological and ontological categories (including "scientific object", "objectivity", "demonstration" and "observation") that shape scientific investigation and its standards. Three premises inform our projects: first, that these most central features of scientific rationality have evolved historically; second, that their history is best pursued by simultaneously attending to both abstract ideas (e.g., philosophical discourses about evidence) and concrete practices (e.g., how scientific images are made and used); and third, that comparisons among historical periods, cultures, and disciplines are essential to such a history.