Monica Solomon

philosopher and Historian of Science

I work on how sciences build the systems that make the world measureable.

Specialisation — History and Philosophy of Science; Early Modern Philosophy; Philosophy of Physics; Scientific Method, Measurement and Idealisation.

Competence — General Philosophy of Science; Feminist Philosophy of Science; Social and Political Philosophy; Epistemology and Ethics of AI.

Currently Visiting Professor Fellow at the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest, and Visiting Fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, in early 2027. Previously Bilkent University, Stanford University, and the University of Southern California. PhD in History and Philosophy of Science, University of Notre Dame.

I study how scientific practices offer partial but powerful ways of making sense of the world: grounded in experience, experiment and careful attention, and inseparable from human values and responsibilities. My work begins with Newtonian methodology, where I examine how scientists actively construct systems — through idealisation, measurement and constraint — in order to render complex phenomena intelligible and practically actionable.

The same question runs forward. In neuroscience and artificial intelligence, large-scale brain networks, probabilistic models and risk assessment show scientific representations shaping not only explanation but judgment and responsibility. In environmental philosophy and climate ethics, modelling, measurement and epistemic attention become ethically significant ways of relating to the living world.

Across these domains I treat science as a situated human endeavour: one that does not offer final answers, but that matters because understanding the world we inhabit cannot be separated from caring for it.