Mary Domski
Professor
Presidential Teaching Fellow
Email: mdomski@unm.edu
Office: Humanities 531
Hours: Mondays 9 to 10am via Zoom and by appointment
Personal Website
- B.A. (University of Pennsylvania '97)
- M.S.Ed. (University of Pennsylvania '98)
- M.A. (University of Leeds '99)
- Ph.D. (Indiana University '03)
Research Interests:
History of Early Modern Philosophy, Newtonian Science and the Scientific Revolution, Kant, Philosophy of Science.
Select Professional Service:
- Editorial Board Member, Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy (Feb 2018 to present)
- HOPOS, The International Society for History of Philosophy of Science
- Past President (Jan 2021 to Dec 2022)
- President (Jan 2019 to Dec 2020)
- Vice President (Jan 2017 to Dec 2018)
- Steering Committee Member (Jan 2009 to Dec 2014)
- Associate Editor, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A (Jan 2015 to June 2018)
- Organizer of the annual Southwest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy (2005 to 2017)
- Associate Dean for Curriculum and Instruction, College of Arts and Sciences (July 2021 to June 2022)
- Special Assistant to the Dean for Policies, Procedures, and Practices, College of Arts and Sciences (May 2019 to June 2021)
- Chair, UNM Department of Philosophy (Aug 2013 to July 2017)
- Speakers Coordinator, UNM Department of Philosophy (Aug 2013 to July 2018)
- Graduate Director, UNM Philosophy Department (August 2012-August 2013)
- Undergraduate Advisor, UNM Philosophy Department (August 2005-August 2008, January 2010-December 2011)
- Outcomes Assessment Coordinator, UNM Philosophy Department (March 2008 to August 2012; Fall 2022)
Recent Publications:
(For a complete list of papers and talks, see Professor Domski’s CV, which is on her personal website.)
Author, Newton's Third Rule and the Experimental Argument for Universal Gravity (Routledge, 2022).
Editor, with Michael Dickson, of Discourse on a New Method: Reinvigorating the Marriage of History and Philosophy of Science. Open Court, 2010; ISBN: 978‑0‑8126‑9662‑2.
Guest Editor of a special 50th anniversary issue of The Southern Journal of Philosophy dedicated to the theme “Newton and Newtonianism.” September 2012.
“Newton’s Mathematics and Empiricism.” In press and forthcoming in The Oxford Handbook of Newton, edited by Eric Schliesser and Chris Smeenk (Oxford University Press). Published online first, February 2017. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199930418.013.7
“Philosophy of Science in Newton’s General Scholium.” Forthcoming in Isaac Newton’s General Scholium to the Principia: Science, Religion, and Metaphysics, edited by Steffen Ducheyne, Scott Mandelbrote, and Stephen Snobelen.
“Descartes’ Mathematics.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2022 edition; first published in Winter 2011 edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.)
“Imagination, Metaphysics, Mathematics: Descartes’s Argument for the Vortex Hypothesis.” Synthese (September 2019) 196/9: 3505-3526. Published online first, August 2017. DOI: 10.1007/s11229-017-1533-6
“Laws of Nature and the Divine Order of Things: Descartes and Newton on Truth in Natural Philosophy.” In Laws of Nature (Oxford University Press, July 2018), edited by Walter Ott and Lydia Patton, pp. 42-61.
“Kant and Newton on the A Priori Necessity of Geometry.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (September 2013) 44/3: 438-447.
“Observation and Mathematics.” In The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century, edited by Peter Anstey (Oxford University Press, July 2013), pp. 144-168.
“Mediating between Past and Present: Descartes, Newton, and Contemporary Structural Realism.” In Philosophy and Its History: Aims and Methods in the Study of Early Modern of Philosophy, edited by Mogens Laerke, Justin E. H. Smith, and Eric Schliesser (Oxford University Press, July 2013), pp. 278-300.
“Newton and Proclus: Geometry, Imagination, and Knowing Space.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy (September 2012), 50 (3): 389-413.
“Locke’s Qualified Embrace of Newton’s Principia.” In Interpreting Newton: Critical Essays, edited by Andrew Janiak and Eric Schliesser (Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 48-68.
“Kant on the Imagination and Geometrical Certainty.” Perspectives on Science (2010) 18 (4): 409-431.
“The Intelligibility of Motion and Construction: Descartes’ Early Mathematics and Metaphysics, 1619-1637.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (2009) 40: 119-130.
Recent Presentations:
"Reading Newton, Reading Rule 3: How Gravity Gets Universalized in the Principia." Dean’s Lecture, St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD, 7 April 2023; Dean’s Lecture, St. John’s College, Santa Fe, NM, 22 April 2022.
“Descartes on Imagination, Truth, and Knowledge.” Department of Philosophy, Wichita State University, 26 April 2018; Dean’s Lecture, St. John’s College, Santa Fe, NM, 16 February 2018; Department of Philosophy, University of New Mexico, 19 January 2018.
“Imagining the Evil Genius in the Search for Truth: The Meditator as Non-Cartesian Skeptic.” Indiana University, South Bend, 5 April 2018.
“Newton on the Mathematical Certainty of Metaphysical Truths.” International Workshop on Traditional and Inductive Metaphysics, 7-9 December 2017, Technische Universität Dortmund, Germany.
“Descartes’s Principles: The Case of the Missing Mathematics.” Department of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, 24 March 2017.
“Newton on Deducing Truth from the Phenomena.” Department of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, 22 April 2016.
“Descartes and Newton on Deducing True Laws of Nature.” The Seventh Margaret Wilson Conference, Northern Arizona University, 27-19 June 2016; Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, UC-Irvine, 16 October 2015; Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, 18 September 2015.
“Truth and Falsehood in Descartes’s Physics.” Macalester College, Department of Philosophy, 17 September 2015.
“The Deduction of Truth from the Phenomena in Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica.” St. John’s College Dean’s Lecture, Annapolis, Maryland, 27 March 2015.
“Descartes and Newton on Cognizing Infinity.” Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, St. Louis, MO, 20 February 2015. Invited as part of a symposium entitled “The Infinite in Early Modern Philosophy of Mathematics.”
“Mechanics in Geometry and Natural Philosophy: Newton’s Programmatic Statement against Descartes.” Philosophy of Science Association (PSA) Twenty-fourth Biennial Meeting, Chicago, IL, 5-9 November 2014; “All in Pieces? New Insights into the Structure of Newton’s Thought,” Huntington Library, Pasadena, CA, 10-11 October 2014.
“Newton’s Experimental Philosophy: Deducing Truth from the Phenomena.” Georgetown University, Department of Philosophy, 28 March 2014.
“Philosophy of Science in Newton’s General Scholium.” Isaac Newton’s General Scholium: A Tercentenary Symposium, 24-26 October 2013. University of King’s College, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Awards:
- 2014-16 Presidential Teaching Fellow
- 2011 UNM Alumni Association's Faculty Teaching Award
- 2009 Award for Teaching Excellence from UNM's College of Arts & Sciences
- UNM's 2006-2007 Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award
