Faculty

Katie PlaisanceKathryn S. Plaisance, PhD

Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Undergraduate Studies, Department of Knowledge Integration

Cross-appointed to the Department of Philosophy

Contact information:

Phone: (519) 888-4567 ext. 38612
Office: Environment 1 (EV1), room 203
Email: kplaisan@uwaterloo.ca, ki.ug.associatechair@uwaterloo.ca

Degrees:

PhD Philosophy, University of Minnesota, USA, 2006
MA Philosophy, University of Minnesota, USA, 2004
BS Molecular Biology and Philosophy, University of Wisconsin, USA, 2000

Award:

University of Waterloo Distinguished Teacher, 2016

Research interests:

Philosophical issues in the human behavioral sciences, public understanding of science, interactional expertise, and Socially Relevant Philosophy Of Science (SRPOS).

Research grants/fellowships:

  • Research project on "Interactional Expertise, Collaboration, and the Philosophy of Science" (2011-12)
    • Funded by: Lois Claxton Humanities and Social Sciences Award
  • Postdoctoral Fellowship in Philosophy of Biology (2007-2009)
    • Funded by: Centre for Philosophy and Ethics of Science (ZEWW), Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany

Recent/key publications:

Edited volumes:

  • Plaisance, Kathryn S. and Thomas Reydon, eds. (2012) "Philosophy of Behavioral Biology", Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 282

  • Plaisance, Kathryn S. and Carla Fehr, eds. (2010), "Making Philosophy of Science More Socially Relevant", special issue of Synthese, vol. 177(3): 301-492.

Published papers:

  • Plaisance, Kathryn S., Thomas Reydon, and Mehmet Elgin (2012), "Why the (Gene) Counting Argument Fails in the Massive Modularity Debate: The Need for Understanding Gene Concepts and Genotype-Phenotype Relationships", Philosophical Psychology, vol. 25(6): 873-892.

  • Fehr, Carla and Kathryn S. Plaisance (2010), "Socially Relevant Philosophy of Science: An Introduction", Synthese, vol. 177(3): 301-316.

Courses taught:

  • INTEG 220, Nature of Scientific Knowledge
  • INTEG 221, The Social Nature of Knowledge
  • INTEG 375, Special Topics in Knowledge Integration: Science, Society and Values

  • INTEG 375, Special Topics in Knowledge Integration: Philosophy of Interdisciplinarity

  • INTEG 420 A & B, Senior Research Project A & B

  • INTEG 475, Socially Relevant Philosophy of Science (held with PHIL 458 and PHIL 673)