Department of Philosophy

Joseph Pitt

Professor of Philosophy
Ph.D. University of Western Ontario, 1972
232 Major Williams Hall | Email | (540) 231-5760
History and Philosophy of Science and Technology

Dr. Pitt earned his Ph.D. at University of Western Ontario. He has major research interests in history and philosophy of science and technology, with an emphasis on the impact of technologies on scientific change. His historical interests include Galileo, Hume, and American pragmatism. He is author of several books and numerous articles in the history and philosophy of science and technology. He is Founding Editor of the journal Perspectives on Science: Historical, Philosophical, Social, published by MIT Press. Winner of the Alumni Teaching Award and a member of Virginia Tech's Academy of Teaching Excellence, he teaches regularly at introductory, advanced undergraduate, and graduate levels in philosophy of science and technology and epistemology.

Books

  • The Production and Diffusion of Public Choice; Reflections on the VPI Center, co-edited with Dhavad Saleh-Isfahani and Douglas Eckel, London: Blackwell, 2003.
  • Thinking about Technology, New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2000.

Recent Articles and Book Chapters

  • “Design Criteria in Architecture”, in Philosophy and Design: From Engineering to Architecture, ed. Pieter E. Vermaas, Peter Kroes, Andrew Light, and Steven A. Moore, Dordrecht: Springer, 2008.
  • “Common Sense,” in Rescher Studies; Essays on the Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher, ed. R. Almeader, Heusenstamm: Ontos Verlag, 2008
  • “Don’t Talk to Me,” in iPod and Philosophy, ed. D.E. Wittkower, Chicago: Open Court, 2008
  • “Anticipating the Unknown,” in Emerging Conceptual, Ethical and Policy Issues in Bionanotechnology, ed. B.Fabrace, Dordrecht: Springer, 2008
  • "Hume and Peirce on Belief, Or, Why Belief Should Not be an Epistemic Category," Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 41 (2), 2005.
  • "The Dilemma of Case Studies," Perspectives on Science, 9 (4), 2001.
  • "What Engineers Know," Techne, 5 (3), 2001.

Regular Classes

  • Philosophy 1204: Knowledge and Reality
  • Philosophy 6314: History and Philosophy of Science
  • Philosophy 6334: Advanced Topics in Philosophy of Science