Katie Deaven is a Ph.D. student at The University of Wisconsin-Madison. She specializes in philosophy of biology and philosophy of science. Before coming to UW, she received a B.A. in Philosophy and a B.S. in Mathematics from New Mexico State University.
What excites you about philosophy?
I think philosophy is, in a lot of ways, a great equalizer among disciplines. Even folks who are skeptical of the value of philosophy can be shown questions that they find interesting, worth inquiring about, and have thoughts on. From there, you of course learn how to go about answering those questions in better or worse ways and what else hangs on them, but I think there’s something really special about the fact that a lot of the questions we ask could pass the person-on-the-street test. One of the most exciting things for me in teaching philosophy is finding the questions that really spark something in my students and get them eager to try to find answers.
What are you most proud of in your professional life?
One of the most worth-while projects that I’ve been a part of in graduate school has been the work I’ve done in Madison Public Philosophy. A particular project that I worked on was philosophy for children programming in a local elementary school, where I helped develop and execute philosophy lessons in a kindergarten class. This programming included lessons on developing tools that we’d need to do philosophy—listening to one another, thinking about complex ideas, etc. Then in the second half of the class, we explored philosophical questions and ideas. I was just completely blown away by what they had to say about complex topics like what it means for something to be imaginary, what fairness demands of us, how we can be deceived by our senses, or even the indeterminacy of translation thesis. Watching them develop as thinkers over the course of the year (for example, they began to challenge each other’s views using counterexamples) was also incredibly special.
What are you working on right now?
I just started working on my dissertation, which is about the concept of evolvability. Roughly, a population’s evolvability describes its capacity to generate variation and evolve. In my dissertation, I plan on sorting through the different accounts in evolutionary biology and philosophy on what evolvability is. Philosophers agree that it’s some sort of disposition, but there’s disagreement between evolutionary biologists and philosophers about the disposition’s physical basis and the explanatory aims and interests associated with evolvability. This dispute culminates in this question of how evolvability factors differ (explanatorily as well as ontologically) from selective ones (if they in fact do). To answer that, I plan on exploring how evolvability factors evolved, what it is we seek to explain when we compare one population’s evolutionary trajectory with another’s, and whether the concept of evolvability is picking out something novel or is just the inverse of high phylogenetic inertia—the extent to which an ancestors’ traits influence their descendants’ traits. One of the papers that I’m really excited about in this area is Rachel Brown’s paper, “What Evolvability Really Is,” which I highly recommend as a starting place if this topic interests any readers.
If you could wake up tomorrow with a new talent, what would you most like it to be?
My university’s LMS is Canvas. In the Canvas course grading pages, they have this function called “speed grader” in it, and when I look at it, I think to myself “Yeah, that would be great, wouldn’t it?” At this point in the semester, having that as a new talent sounds pretty fantastic.
What are you reading right now? Would you recommend it?
I’m reading Todd May’s A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe with a couple of students right now, and that has been really great. I think May does a really nice job of describing a lot of philosophical views in an accessible way. My students, who have only taken (almost) a full philosophy class, are also finding it engaging and interesting. They got very excited halfway through when they found out May worked on The Good Place.
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.
