Research Interests and Current Projects

Methodological perspective

My philosophical orientation is pragmatist in the sense that I regard philosophical questions as arising from practical problems. In the philosophy of science, this means that our problems ought to be recognizable to the scientists, at least in the first instance. Philosophy has no special kind of insight: philosophy, science, and common sense are continuous, differing only in the ways in which they are systematic, comprehensive, or rigorous. While the problems of philosophy are practical in origin, philosophers subject them to critical reflection, viewing current difficulties in the light of two centuries of literature. In the end, our success should be measured by our capacity re-engage with those who faced the difficulty in the first place.

In my writing, I have been concerned with the questions that arise from the social and the health sciences, anthropology and nursing in particular. While prima facie very different, these areas of inquiry raise a number of closely related issues. Both anthropology and nursing are empirical disciplines that include value commitments. They thus face problems about how moral or political values are to be integrated into empirical inquiry. Both anthropology and nursing raise issues about the relationship between individual action and social structures. Finally, the concept of race has historically played a role in anthropology and is an enduring issue for the health sciences..