Faculty

Emily Grosholz

Professor of Philosophy, African American Studies & English,
Fellow of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities

Education:
  • B.A., Ideas and Methods, The University of Chicago (Chicago, IL), 1972
  • Ph.D., Philosophy, Yale University (New Haven, CT), 1978
  • Auditor, University of Muenster, 1976-77
Areas of Specialization:
  • Modern philosophy
  • History and philosophy of mathematics
  • History and philosophy of science
  • Ethics
  • African American Philosophy
Recent Courses:
  • Intro to Philosophy of Mathematics
  • Philosophy of Literature
  • Philosophy of Science
  • Modern Philosophy Seminar
Recent Publications:
  • Representation and Productive Ambiguity in Mathematics and the Sciences. Oxford University Press, 2007.
  • Feuilles / Leaves. With Farhad Ostovani. (Tr. A. Madeleine-Perdrillat.) Bordeaux: William Blake & Co., 2007.
  • The Legacy of Simone de Beauvoir, a collection of essays inspired by the 50th anniversary of The Second Sex. Oxford University Press, 2004.
  • “Simone de Beauvoir and Practical Deliberation,” PMLA, Vol. 124, No. 1 (January 2009), pp. 199-205.
  • “Productive Ambiguity in Leibniz’s Representation of Infinitesimals,” Infinitesimal Differences: Controversies between Leibniz and his Contemporaries, U. Goldenbaum and D. Jessup, eds., Walter de Gruyter, 2008, pp. 153-170.
  • “Locke, Leibniz and Hume on Form and Experience,” Leibniz: What Kind of Rationalist?, ed. M. Dascal, Springer Academic Publications, 2008, pp. 167-182.
  • “Nouvelles Lectures de Simone de Beauvoir aux Etats-Unis,” (tr. E. Dauzat), Le Magazine Littéraire, No. 471 (January 2008), 52-53.
  • “Kenneth Burke and Shakespeare,” review essay of Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare, S. Newstok, ed. (Parlor Press, 2007), The Hudson Review, Vol. LXI, No. 3 (Fall 2008), pp. 537-544.
  • “How to Say Truth Things in Algebraic Topology,” Demonstrative and Non-demonstrative Reasoning in Mathematics and Natural Science, eds. P. Pecere and C. Cellucci, Edizioni dell’ Università degli Studi di Cassino, 2006, 27-54.
  • “Constructive Ambiguity in Mathematical Reasoning,” Mathematical Reasoning and Heuristics, eds. D. Gillies and C. Cellucci, King’s College Publications, 2005, pp. 1-23.
  • “Jules Vuillemin’s La Philosophie de l’algèbre: The Philosophical Uses of Mathematics,” Philosophie des mathématiques et théorie de la connaissance: L’Oeuvre de Jules Vuillemin, R. Rashed and P. Pellegrin, eds. Paris: Albert Blanchard, 2005, pp. 253-270.
  • “Jean Starobinski’s History of ‘Reaction’: The Uses and Dangers of Metaphorical Language,” review essay of Jean Starobinski, Action and Reaction: The Life and Adventures of a Couple (Zone Books, 2003), The Hudson Review, Vol. LVI, No. 4 (Winter 2005), pp. 726-732.
  Current Projects:
  • Scientia Mathematica Generalis: G. W. Leibniz. Editions and French and English translations of selected papers. With David Rabouin, who directs the project.
  • Mathematics and Poetry. Poetry stands in the same relation to the humanities as mathematics stands to the sciences. Both disciplines generate insight by highly concentrated modes of expression in which formal structure is just as important as content in the creation of meaning. Thus, in these disciplines, close attention to form, and to forms in combination, is essential to the interpretation of texts.
  • Women, Poetry, and the Arts of Deliberation. I. The Arts of Deliberation II. Women Poets III. “A Poet and a Woman…” A collection of essays.
  • Professor Grosholz is also a member of two other academic units:

    Recherches Epistemologiques et Historiques sure les Sciences Exactes et les Institutions Scientifiques, University of Paris 7 and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
    http://www.rehseis.cnrs.fr

    Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
    http://www.pitt.edu/~pittcntr

 

Faculty