David Colaço is an incoming Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at LMU Munich, who mainly works on history and philosophy of science, cognitive science, and neuroscience. He completed his PhD in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh in 2019.
What excites you about philosophy?
The question that made me pursue philosophy, which still excites me today, is whether (and if so how) scholars can determine that they work on the “same thing.” When I was an undergraduate, I found that the claims made in my cognitive science courses seemed unlike the claims in my sociology courses. Despite differences in both methods and conclusions, these claims often seemed to posit explanations for the same human behaviors. My initial excitement for this question eventually led me to write my dissertation, “An Investigation of Scientific Phenomena,” once I had acquired the knowledge that allowed me to think through what about this question excites me.
What is your favorite thing that you’ve written?
I enjoy my article “Rip it up and start again: The rejection of a characterization of a phenomenon,” which I published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science in 2018. This article addresses a phenomenon known as memory transfer, or the transfer of memories between organisms via the transfer of biological tissue. This research infamously involved cannibalism, as researchers made organisms consume one another’s brains (this is a simplification; please read the paper). Beyond being a sensational piece of memory history that influenced science fiction (like Swamp Thing), this case raises several questions related to when we should “give up” on something being a suitable target of scientific inquiry. Was there a firm epistemic basis for rejecting memory transfer, given that a diversity of evidence seemed to support it? If someone accepts physicalism, why should memory transfer seem as weird as it does? Does the problem come down to the evidence for and against the phenomenon, or does it revolve around how we conceptualize it?
These questions continue to drive my research, such as in my article “What counts as a memory? Definitions, hypotheses, and ‘kinding in progress’,” which is forthcoming in Philosophy of Science. This research is the basis for the work that won me the Richard M. Griffith Memorial Award in philosophy from the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology.
What are you working on right now?
My current research addresses failures of scientific reasoning. In this research, I integrate topics from history of science, cognitive science, and formal accounts of reasoning from philosophy of science, which together allow me to investigate three failures of reasoning about the targets of scientific investigation. These failures of reasoning include reasoning about explanations, evidence, and natural kinds. By integrating these areas of research, I analyze these failures and their implications for scientific reasoning. For each failure of reasoning, I address what makes it a failure, its consequences, and how it can be resolved.
While failure itself is not a novel philosophical topic – Deborah Mayo’s work on error informs my analyses, as does more recent work by Ann-Sophie Barwich more squarely on failure – it remains an underappreciated topic. Failure offers insights into the mechanics of scientific inquiry: when science fails, researchers scrutinize targets that they once may have taken for granted. This scrutiny offers us a productive avenue into the reasoning (both good and bad) that underlies scientific practice.
Name a trait, skill or characteristic that you have that others may not know about.
I’ve spent a good amount of my adult life trying to make pizza at home with a conventional American oven. I’ve had mixed success.
What are you reading right now? Would you recommend it?
At the moment, I’m rereading Peter Lipton’s Inference to the Best Explanation and Muhammad Ali Khalidi’s Natural Categories and Human Kinds: Classification in the Natural and Social Sciences. Both books are deservedly respected in their respective literatures, and they each inform my project on scientific reasoning. This is not to say that either work exemplifies the kinds of failures that I seek to address. Rather, I think that each work shows what advancements can be made on a topic relevant to scientific reasoning – respectively, explanatory inferences and, to borrow Catherine Kendig’sterm, “kinding” – when a philosopher can dedicate a whole book to a problem.
What’s your top tip or advice for APA members reading this?
Prepare for inclement weather when heading to a conference. I was in Savannah for APA Eastern 2018. It was a curious experience. I watched a restaurant worker use a household hammer to de-ice a sidewalk.
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form here to nominate yourself or a friend.
Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall is an editor at the Blog of the APA who currently teaches philosophy, religion, and education courses solely online for Montclair State University, Three Rivers Community College, and St. John’s University.
