Associate Professor
I received my Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania in 1996. I was appointed Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. John's University in 2002. My research interests focus on the metaphysical and epistemological problems at the intersection of philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of mind. I am especially interested in trying to understand and sort out the ways in which highly abstract and idealized mathematical models can be useful in predicting and explaining the behavior of empirical systems. In pursuing this goal, I always try to make the relevant philosophical questions more precise by modeling them in suitable mathematical frameworks, e.g., measurement theory, dynamical systems theory, automata theory and computational complexity theory, to mention just some.
Selected Publications
- 2002 (with Z. Domotor) 'Chaos, complexity and indeterminism', in J. Ciprut (ed.) Re-questioning Indeterminacy, University of Pennsylvania Press (forthcoming).
- 2002: 'Some measurement-theoretic concerns about Hale's "Reals by Abstraction"', Philosophia Mathematica III, 10 (forthcoming).
- 2000: 'A realistic look at Putnam's argument against realism', Foundations of Science 5(3), 299-321.
- 2000: 'Measurement in Carnap's late philosophy of science', Dialectica 54(2), 87-108.
- 1998: 'A formal rebuttal of the central argument for functionalism', Erkenntnis 49(2), 201-220.
- 1998: 'Empiricism and the myth of fundamental measurement', Synthese 116(1), 51-73.
- 1998: 'From inexactness to certainty: The change in Hume's conception of geometry', Journal For General Philosophy Of Science 29(1), 1-20.
- 1998: 'Why quasi-realism about scientific theories is not about scientific theories', Science et Esprit 50 (1), 99-107.
batitskv@stjohns.edu