TJ Perkins

I am pursuing my Ph.D. at the University of Utah under the supervision of Dr. Joyce Havstad. My research concerns the success of the historical sciences like paleontology, geology, and archaeology. More specifically, I argue that, while empirical factors are surely necessary for success, certain cultural factors may signify the aptness of questions, methods, and theories. I call this the thesis of cultural readiness. 

 

To motivate my project, I notice that much of the trajectory of the philosophy of the historical sciences has been to legitimize these sciences in the face of skepticism or pessimism about their ability to generate knowledge. But, as philosophers of science have successfully demonstrated, the historical sciences are quite good at producing knowledge of the deep past. Really good, in fact. One might say they are epistemically ingenious! The project of philosophy has been to showcase this epistemic ingenuity.

 

I have also noticed that historians offer another thesis about the historical sciences. They account for the uptake of theories in science by appealing to the complex cultural dynamics between science as a practice, domains of science's internal culture, and society at large. They implicitly offer the thesis of cultural readiness wherein the significance of discoveries is noticed because of cultural factors. 

 

My project seeks to apply some philosophical meat to the bones of the thesis of cultural readiness. I then revisit the important questions that have guided the legitimizing project in the philosophy of the historical sciences to see what my account might offer to advance the discussion.
 

Other projects and ongoing research:
 

Publications​

• "Culture's Impact on The Historical Sciences" at The Journal of the Philosophy of History Vol 17, no. 1 2023 (link)

• "The Online Alternative: Sustainability, Justice, and Conferencing in Philosophy." European Journal of Analytic Philosophy Vol 16, no. 2. 2020 with Rose Trappes, Daniel Cohnitz, Viorel Pâslaru, and Ali Teymoori. (link) ​

 

Current projects:​​​​

• Research Assistant to Carlos Santana: Using Corpus Linguistics to assess terms of Global Change - "Anthropocene" (also with Katie Petrozzo)

  • (under review) "Whose Anthropocene?: A data-driven look at the prospects for collaboration between natural science, social science, and the humanities."

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Public Philosophy

• "Ripe Science, Hype Science, Meteor Sideswipe Science," Extinct.

• "Online Conferences: The New Default," Daily Nous

• "Continuing the Case for Online Conferences," The Brains Blog

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Past projects:

• PSA 2022 Poster Forum: Cultural Readiness and Scientific Change

• PSA 2020 Poster Forum: Conceptual Models in Ecology

• Organizer, POBAMz 2020: Philosophy of Biology at the Mountains (on Zoom) Online Workshop. June 23, 25, and 29, 2020.

• MA Thesis: "Tracing Pathways and Decomposing Mechanisms in Ecology"