Scott Carson

Scott Carson, portrait
Associate Professor & Chair
Ellis 210, Athens Campus
Ohio Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Studies (OCEES)
Philosophy
carsond@ohio.edu
740-593-4588

Education

Ph.D., Philosophy, Duke University (1996)

Ph.D., Classical Philology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1986)

M.A., Roman History (UNC-CH (1981)

B.A., Kent State University (1978)

Research

  • Ancient and Medieval Philosophy
  • Philosophy of Biology
  • Analytic Philosophical Theology

My teaching and research interests lie in the history and philosophy of the natural sciences, especially evolutionary biology and the biomedical sciences. I have written on Aristotle’s logic and epistemology, on the structure of evolutionary theory, mechanistic explanation in the philosophy of chemistry, and the role of indeterminacy in scientific theories generally. I have a keen interest in the history of philosophy, especially ancient Greek philosophy.

I am a participating faculty member in the Ohio Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Studies, and a faculty associate in The George Washington Forum on American Ideas, Politics, and Institutions.

A partial list of work in progress.

Aristotle’s Scientific Realism. (Book manuscript)

Explaining Nature and the Nature of Explanation: A History of Philosophical and Scientific Naturalism (Book manuscript).

“The Logic of Disjunctive Properties in Anselm’s De processione Spiritus Sancti” (under review)

“Against Genic Selectionism” (in progress)

Recent Publications

Aristotle on Meaning and Reference. History of Philosophy Quarterly 20.4 (October 2003) 319-337.

Aristotle on Existential Import and Nonreferring Subjects. Synthese 124 (2000) 343-360.

Some Comments on Education and Computer Technology. Classical World 91.6 (1998) 513–520.

The Indeterministic Character of Evolutionary Theory: No ‘No Hidden Variables Proof’ but No Room for Determinism Either. Philosophy of Science 63 (September 1996) 315–337. Anthologized in Philosophy of Evolutionary Biology, ed. Stefan Linquist (Ashgate, forthcoming).

Sober on Brandon on Screening-off and the Levels of Selection. Philosophy of Science 61 (1994) 475-486.

Asconius in Cornelianam 68.7-69.13 (Clark) and Roman Legislative Procedure: A Textual Note. American Journal of Philology 109 (1988) 537-542.

Linguistically Oriented Greek Scansion. Computing and the Classics, 4.4, Supplement (August 1988) 1-8.

DICTIONARY and VERB DATABASE: A Morphological Database for the IBM-PC. Interactive Learning International, 4.2 (1987) 4-7.

Teaching

Fall Semester 2015 H4

  • PHIL 3100: Ancient Greek Philosophy
  • PHIL 4120/5120: Philosophy of Biology

Spring Semester 2016 H4

  • PHIL 3110: Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
  • PHIL 4180/5180: Plato