Adrian Currie

Adrian Currie is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Calgary’s philosophy department, and is visiting the Institute for Research in the Humanities until the end of December. His main research focus is the epistemic situation and status of the so-called ‘historical sciences’ (paleontology, archaeology, etc…). Accounts of historical evidence typically suggest an epistemic pessimism about our capacity to uncover the past by emphasizing the degradation of evidence: over time, the past’s signal decays. And yet, the historical sciences have proven extremely successful at discovering and explaining the past. Adrian argues this tension is resolved once we realize that historical evidence is richer than earlier accounts allow for. He emphasizes the ‘methodological omnivory’ of historical science: in investigating the past, scientists are opportunistic, employing a diverse array of targeted epistemic tools. In addition to this focus, Adrian has also worked on issues in the philosophy of biology, such as the nature of homology and homoplasy as well as species concepts, and in the philosophy of science more generally – particularly on the nature of, and relationship between, experiments, observations and models.