Nora Berenstain. Philosophy of Science, Metaphysics, Feminist Epistemology Philosophy of Physics, Philosophy of Mathematics

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1 Nora Berenstain University of Tennessee at Knoxville Phone: Department of Philosophy Fax: McClung Tower Knoxville, TN Homepage: Employment Michigan State University, Lansing, MI Research Fellow, Department of Philosophy Fall 2018 Spring 2019 University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy 2018 present Affiliated Faculty, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Program 2016 present Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy Education University of Texas, Austin, TX Ph.D. Philosophy Dissertation Committee: Rob Koons (chair), James Ladyman, Josh Dever, Cory Juhl Metaphysical Dependence: The Role of Mathematical Structure in Physical Modality Brandeis University, Waltham, MA B.A. Philosophy, with honors, summa cum laude Research Interests Areas of Specialization Areas of Competence Philosophy of Science, Metaphysics, Feminist Epistemology Philosophy of Physics, Philosophy of Mathematics Publications Against Privileged-Perspective Realism about World-Indexed Facts, (forthcoming) in A. Marmodoro, G. Darby, and D. Glick (eds.) The Foundation of Reality: Fundamentality, Space and Time. Oxford University Press. Implicit Bias and the Idealized Rational Self, (2018) Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 5.17: The Applicability of Mathematics to Physical Modality, (2017) Synthese 194.9: First available online March 24, Epistemic Exploitation, (2016) Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 3.22: What A Structuralist Theory of Properties Could Not Be, (2016) in A. Marmodoro, and D. Yates (eds.) The Metaphysics of Relations. Oxford University Press. Necessary Laws and Chemical Kinds, (2014) Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92.4: Ontic Structural Realism and Modality (2012) with James Ladyman, in E. Landry and D. Rickles Nora Berenstain 1 of 5 Curriculum Vitae

2 (eds.) Structural Realism: Structure, Object, and Causality (pp ). Dordrecht: Springer. Works in Progress Strengthening Weak Emergence Whitewashing Hermeneutical Injustice Active Ignorance and the Rhetoric of Biological Race Realism Scientific Realism Can t Be Humean Presentations Stem Cell Clinics, Medical Gaslighting, and Epistemic Marginalization Invited Symposium: Epistemology and Injustice in Stem Cell Clinics, Pacifc APA, San Diego 3/2018 Active Ignorance and the Rhetoric of Biological Race Realism Questioning Science in Uncertain Times: A Workshop, Ohio State University 2/2018 Minnesota Colloquium in Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota 12/2017 FEMMSS: Gender, Race, and Concepts of Difference, University of Notre Dame 10/2016 Whitewashing as Gaslighting in Feminist Epistemology Gaslighting and Epistemic Injustice, Claremont McKenna College 9/2017 White Ignorance and Epistemic Violence in Philosophy New Directions in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, University of Tennessee 4/2017 Whitewashing Hermeneutical Injustice Society for Analytical Feminism, Pacific APA, Seattle 4/2017 Epistemic Exploitation Society for Analytical Feminism, Central APA, Chicago 3/2016 Analyzing Social Wrongs, Institut fur Wissenschaft und Kunst, Vienna, Austria 5/2015 Understanding Epistemic Injustice, University of Bristol 6/2014 Scientific Realism and the Applicability of Mathematics to Physical Modality Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University 1/2016 Strengthening Weak Emergence History and Philosophy of Science: Emergence, University of Colorado at Boulder 10/2015 Introspection, Rationality, and Resistance to Implicit Bias Hypatia Conference: Diversifying Philosophy, Villanova University 5/2015 FEMMSS: Science, Technology, and Gender: Challenges and Opportunities, Waterloo 8/2014 Mathematical Structure, Physical Modality, and Non-causal Explanation Explanation Beyond Causation, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich 10/2014 Scientific Realism, Mathematics, Modality, and Metaphysical Dependence New Thinking about Scientific Realism, Cape Town, South Africa 6/2014 Against Sophisticated Humeanism Northwest Philosophy Conference, Lewis & Clark College 11/2011 What A Structuralist View of Properties Could Not Be Metaphysics Conference, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 10/2011 Metaphysical Dependence: The Role of Mathematical Structure in Physical Modality Nora Berenstain 2 of 5 Curriculum Vitae

3 Structure and Identity Conference, University of Bristol, UK 07/2010 Necessary Laws and Chemical Kinds: A Case Study in A Posteriori Necessity Philosophy of Science Association, Montreal, Canada 11/2010 Intersections with Philosophy of Language, Brandeis University 02/2010 USC/UCLA Philosophy Graduate Conference 02/2010 University of Iowa Philosophy Graduate Conference 04/2009 Ordinary Objects and Verbal Disputes Mind, Language, and Reality, University of Texas at Austin 01/2010 Comments Gerald Doppelt, Does Structural Realism Provide the Best Explanation of the Predictive Success of Science? Pacific APA, San Francisco, CA 3/2013 Colin Koopman, William James s Psychology of Will and the Will to Believe Northwest Philosophy Conference, Lewis & Clark College 11/2011 Joshua Hershey, Faithful Representation and the Semantic View of Scientific Theories UT-Austin Philosophy Graduate Conference 04/2011 Awards and Grants Visiting Scholars Project Grant Office of Research, University of Tennessee 2019 Haines-Morris Grant, Visual Culture and Civil Rights lecture series Haines-Morris Endowment, University of Tennessee Fall 2017 Chancellor s Grant for Faculty Research Office of Research, University of Tennessee Fall 2016 College Convocation Award for the Development of Interdepartmental Collaboration in Scholarship & Research College of Arts & Sciences, University of Tennessee 2015 Visiting Scholars Project Grant Office of Research, University of Tennessee 2014 Summer Research Scholarship University of Texas at Austin 2008 and 2010 Graduate Development Award University of Texas at Austin 2009, 2010, and 2011 Phi Beta Kappa 2006 Courses Taught University of Tennessee at Knoxville Philosophy of Science Fall Spring 2018 Philosophy of Feminism Spring Spring 2018 Science and Social Value (graduate) Spring 2017 Feminist Epistemology (graduate) Spring 2016 Contemporary Moral Problems: from Slavery to Mass Incarceration Spring 2016 The Indispensability and Applicability of Mathematics (graduate) Spring 2015 Laws, Properties, and Dispositions (graduate) Fall 2013 Nora Berenstain 3 of 5 Curriculum Vitae

4 Metaphysics Fall 2013 Scientific Explanation (graduate) Spring 2013 University of Texas at Austin Philosophy of Religion Spring 2012 Contemporary Moral Problems Fall 2011 Service To the Department Search Committee, Ethics position , Graduate Committee Undegraduate Committee Graduate ELMS Portfolio Committee Super Seminar Organizer Head s Advisory Committee , Director of Undergraduate Studies 2017-present To the College Dean s Advisory Committee , Fall 2014 College of Arts & Sciences Diversity Committee , , To the University Faculty Sponsor of Sex Week, Sexual Empowerment and Awareness at Tennessee 2013-present Co-director, Intersectionality Community of Scholars (ICOS), University of Tennessee 2015-present Symposium organizer, New Horizons in Intersectionality: Research, Policy, and Activism Representative-at-Large, American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Summer Undergraduate Research Internship Proposal Judge To the Profession Referee, Mind, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Australasian Journal of Philosophy Philosophical Studies, Synthese, Erkenntnis, European Journal for Philosophy of Science, European Journal of Philosophy, International Studies in Philosophy of Science, Ergo Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Hypatia References Robert C. Koons Josh Dever Cory Juhl University of Texas at Austin University of Texas at Austin University of Texas at Austin Department of Philosophy Department of Philosophy Department of Philosophy 1 University Station, C University Station, C University Station, C3500 Austin, TX Austin, TX Austin, TX USA USA USA koons@mail.utexas.edu dever@mail.utexas.edu cjuhl@mail.utexas.edu James Ladyman Kristie Dotson University of Bristol Michigan State University Department of Philosophy Department of Philosophy 9 Woodland Road 503 S Kedzie Hall Bristol, UK BS81TB East Lansing, MI United Kingdom USA James.Ladyman@bristol.ac.uk dotsonk@msu.edu +(0) Nora Berenstain 4 of 5 Curriculum Vitae

5 Dissertation Abstract The world is fundamentally a modal place. Physical systems have modal properties, and laws of nature have the force of nomological necessity. Special relativity tells us that material bodies cannot go faster than the speed of light. The first law of Thermodynamics says that matter cannot be created or destroyed. The Heisenberg Uncertainty principle tells us that a particle cannot simultaneously have a definite location and a definite momentum. If we are committed to the content of our best scientific theories, we must accept that nature of the physical world is inherently modal. Causality, equilibrium, laws of nature, and probability are four modal notions that feature prominently in scientific theory and explanation. These modal properties are necessary to make sense of our best scientific theories, and no scientific realist can do without them. But how is the scientific realist to account for modality? In the vein of structural realists Ladyman and Ross, many suggest that this modal structure is primitive. I offer a new account in which the modal structure of the physical world is metaphysically dependent upon mathematical structure. The introductory chapter lays the groundwork for the naturalistic methodology that is used throughout the dissertation. The section includes the criteria by which metaphysical theories will be judged, such as theoretical unification and explanatory power, a discussion of real-patterns ontology, and a formal definition of structure adapted from Wolfgang Spohn. Chapter 2 explores the relationship between laws of nature and modal physical structure through a case study in a posteriori necessity. I argue that we cannot determine the metaphysical status of non-fundamental laws of nature without knowing the structural features of the substances and properties they describe. I consider Bird s argument that, necessarily, salt dissolves in water, and I defend it against several contingentist objections. I conclude that some higher-level laws describing the behaviors of molecular compounds are necessary due to their supervenience on underlying physical structures. I suggest that such necessity is likely commonplace among special-science laws. Chapter 3 shows why the scientific realist must be committed to an objective, metaphysically robust account of the modal structure of the physical world. I argue that Humean regularity theory is incompatible with scientific realism and fails to be naturalistically motivated. I specifically address the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis view, which states that laws of nature are those regularities that feature as axioms or theorems in the best deductive system describing our universe. This view is flawed in three significant ways: One of its central concepts cannot be formulated non-circularly, it cannot offer a satisfactory account of the laws of the special sciences, and it can offer no explanation of the success of inductive inference. I address several ontological difficulties that are difficult to square with Humeanism s empiricist motivations, and I conclude by echoing Maudlin s claim that without the commitment to Hume s epistemological and semantic views we have little reason to be Humean about the laws of nature. In Chapter 4, I raise objections to dispositionalist accounts of physical properties, such as causal structuralism and dispositional essentialism. Causal structuralism is the view that the casual profile of a property exhausts its individual essence. Dispositionalism is the view that all fundamental properties are potencies; there are no fundamental categorical properties. Both views purport to offer a metaphysical account of all physical properties, but neither view can account for the higher-order mathematical properties of certain physical properties that play an indispensable role in contemporary physical theory. I argue that what is needed is a structuralist view of properties that is not merely causal but that incorporates higher-order mathematical properties into the identity conditions of physical properties. In Chapter 5, I put forth my positive view on the modal structure of the physical world. I argue that we must posit a relation of metaphysical dependence between mathematical structure and modal physical structure. The extended indispensability argument and cases supporting it show that facts about mathematical structures and relations can explain and predict certain features of the physical world. Specific cases discussed include the hexagonal structure of honeycomb, the prime-numbered life cycles of the North American Magicicada, and the Glashow-Weinberg-Salam model of the electroweak force. Just as no-miracles is taken to be an argument for theoretical entities and a dependence relation (usually causal), indispensability must similarly be taken to be an argument for a metaphysical dependence relation between explanans and explanandum. I conclude by speculating about how my view of physical modality sheds light on the applicability of mathematics to the sciences and the usefulness of computer simulations in modeling counterfactual scenarios. Nora Berenstain 5 of 5 Curriculum Vitae