Resume

• 2014

  To do more in-depth work in the Philosophy of Public Health and on issues concerning HIV/AIDS

  I completed graduate courses in public health at UTSPH. This has provided me with more tools to continue the work that I do concerning HIV/AIDS

  which I am now applying to research in Waller County.

  Public Health

  The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth)

• 2005

  European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care

  Latin

  PhD

  Philosophy

  Southern Illinois University

  Carbondale

• 2001

  MA

  Philosophy

  Gonzaga University

• 1993

  Bachelor's degree

  Philosophy

  Loyola University of Chicago

• AIDS Foundation Houston

  Inc.

  Member of Programs & Operations Committee

  AIDS Foundation Houston

  Inc.

  Expert Liaison Officer

  AIDS Foundation Houston

  Inc.

  Adult Education

  Teaching

  College Teaching

  Public Speaking

  Theory

  Statistics

  Community Outreach

  Qualitative Research

  Curriculum Development

  Program Development

  Research

  Science

  Academic Writing

  Philosophy

  Curriculum Design

  Student Affairs

  Higher Education

  Courses

  University Teaching

  Lecturing

  Humility and Inquiry: A response to Tibor Solymosi

  In his essay

  “Affording our Culture: ‘Smart’ Technology and the Prospects for Creative Democracy

  ” Tibor\nSolymosi addresses my challenge for neuropragmatism to counter what I have elsewhere called dopamine\ndemocracy. Although I believe that Solymosi has begun to provide an explanation for how neuropragmatism may counter dopamine democracy

  especially with his conceptions OE and cultural affordances

  I respond with a helpful addition to his approach by returning to the theory of inquiry as put forth by John Dewey. In particular

  I focus on the phases of inquiry as colored by Dewey’s concept of humility. Solymosi does not pay adequate attention to the function of inquiry necessary for combatting dopamine democracy. His account of cultural affordances and education is strengthened by using Dewey’s concept of humility as a guiding disposition for neuropragmatic inquiry. Recognizing humility as an instrument of neuropragmatic inquiry provides us with a tool to better address the pitfalls of dopamine democracy

  especially misinformation and incentive salience. My argument proceeds by first articulating dopamine democracy as a problem and Solymosi’s concept of cultural affordances and how he understands these as neuropragmatic tools to address the problem through education. I present humility as an instrumental concept derived from Dewey’s work on inquiry. I then suggest how humility may serve neuropragmatic inquiry to assist in combatting the problems of dopamine democracy.

  Humility and Inquiry: A response to Tibor Solymosi

  Guessing is considered a central function of scientific inquiry by most scientists and philosophers

  but it has mostly been neglected as an object of philosophical analysis. I supply an initial remedy to this neglect that provides a general definition of guessing that applies to scientific inquiry. In addition

  I combat the assumption that the meaning of guessing is monosemic by providing examples of various types

  or gradations

  of guessing. The variation of these types indicates that guessing is not merely an unambiguous

  simplistic process at which philosophers of science can merely hand-wave before moving on to deduction and induction. Rather

  accounting for the gradations of guessing contributes to the argument that guessing is a logical process that is an appropriate object of philosophical analysis instead of a process that necessarily falls outside of rational reconstruction. As a logical process

  guessing is clearly distinguished from induction and deduction. This distinction provides an important domain of philosophical inquiry that merits further investigation

  especially within philosophy of science.

  “Gradations of Guessing: Preliminary sketches and suggestions.”

  This is a summary analysis of some common themes from the Presidential Addresses made during the 1990s for the American Philosophical Association.

  The APA Presidential Addresses: the 1990s

  ABSTRACT: Engagement with electronically mediated \ninformation

  such as participation with social media

  \noften provides the illusion of democratic freedom. In \nactuality

  social media

  as it exists within a neoliberal \ncontext

  provides what I refer to as dopamine \ndemocracy

  which entails the appearance of democratic \nchoice that is actually uncritical choice brought about \nthrough incentive salience. In order to combat dopamine \ndemocracy and neoliberalism

  I argue that Dewey’s \nconception of education should be used as a tool by\nwhich to utilize technological innovation in order to \nfoster democracy.

  Undermining Dopamine Democracy Through Education: Synthetic Situations

  Social Media

  and Incentive Salience

  When we assume that we have cultural competence rather than thoroughly engaging in what Dewey calls the pattern of inquiry

  we fail to achieve cultural humility. By analyzing how habits undermine inquiry and underlie failure in situations that call for cultural humility

  we may be better equipped to address unintentional offenses. In this essay

  I define cultural humility and contrast it with cultural competence

  explaining why aiming for cultural competence alone is problematic. Next

  I consider the attributes necessary for cultural humility and the attitudes that Dewey considers beneficial for inquiry. This is followed by an outline of Dewey’s pattern of inquiry and explanation of how unquestioned habits of thought short-circuit our ability to become culturally humble. I suggest that we forgo attempting to achieve cultural competence and instead use Dewey’s pattern of inquiry with the attitudes he recommends as tools to work toward cultural humility.

  Cultural Humility and Dewey’s Pattern of Inquiry: Developing Good Attitudes and Overcoming Bad Habits

  Discrimination toward people living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a global ethical problem. Such discrimination is not limited to any particular context

  but takes place in multiple scenarios

  including healthcare settings. For clinicians to remedy HIV- and AIDS-related discrimination within their clinics

  they must understand what discrimination is and how it may be addressed pragmatically. The following chapter provides a pragmatic approach to solving problems of discrimination that occur within clinical contexts toward persons living with HIV/AIDS. This approach includes an overview of stigma and discrimination

  as well as suggestions to help clinicians practically address and remedy this type of discrimination.

  \"HIV/AIDS and Discrimination\"

  Despite the great importance placed upon the operation of abduction as an inferential process

  few studies have been devoted specifically to the process of guessing as a piece of the abduction puzzle. This is surprising since Charles Peirce indicated that guessing is a fundamental part of the abductive process. Most literature concerning Peirce’s conception of abduction mentions guessing only in passing; what guessing actually is

  especially with regard to the abductive process

  is left vague at best

  and this leaves a blind spot in the literature so that the broader conception of abduction remains unclear. In response to this

  I explain the role of guessing in Peirce’s concept of abduction

  placing the operation of guessing within the wider scope of the process of inquiry. I consider the guessing process as a deliberate and creative part of abduction

  as well as alternative claims that have led to neglect of guessing as a creative operation. This analysis includes consideration of ethical

  esthetic

  and economic aspects of the guessing process as described by Peirce. As a specific example to elucidate how guessing functions within a particular scientific domain

  I utilize the index case of AIDS. My argument sets the stage for further work to be done concerning the function of guessing as it pertains to scientific inquiry more generally.

  \"Guessing and Abduction\"

  Dewey’s conception of scientific explanation

  which has been neglected\nby both philosophers of science and philosophers of education

  facilitates\novercoming the seeming divide between teaching a highly\ntechnical and specialized subject matter and encouraging students to\nsuccessfully engage in the experience of being philosopher-scientists.\nBy analyzing Dewey’s philosophy of science as it pertains to science\neducation

  we gain the insight that scientific explanation is a tool that\nmay be used by students and supported by faculty to facilitate scientific\ninvestigation that is philosophical. Here I present Dewey’s conception\nof scientific explanation as it relates to science education by providing\nan overview of this conception as it relates to the student

  followed by\nDewey’s ideas with specific regard for science education

  as well as an\nexample illustrating how scientific explanation is utilized as a self-empowering

  \nphilosophical tool within the context of science education.

  “The Student as Philosopher-Scientist: Dewey’s Conception of Scientific Explanation as It Pertains to Science Education”

  The secular conception of ubuntu

  as proffered by Thaddeus Metz

  supplies a foundation for a humanist argument that justifies obligation to one’s community

  even apart from a South African context

  when combined with Kwasi Wiredu’s conception of personhood. Such an account provides an argument for accepting the concept of ubuntu as humanistic and not necessarily based in communalism or dependent upon supernaturalism. By re-evaluating some core concepts of community as they are presented in Plato’s Republic

  I argue that this account of ubuntu fits as the basis from which to understand obligation to community from a secular humanist perspective.

  “A Humanist Ethic of Ubuntu: Understanding Moral Obligation and Community.”

  Tibor Solymosi

  The initial and continual identification of risk groups is an ethical decision at all levels of discourse. Because of the normative aspect of identifying risk groups

  especially within the biomedical sciences

  we recommend considering reconstruction of the identification of risk groups that acknowledges community as preceding individuality before individuals are labeled as members of specific risk groups. This is an alternative to the common Western approach to risk groups that assumes individuals to be atomistic entities whose individuality precedes any group membership. In addition

  we suggest that risk group identification be based on specific behaviors suspected as corollary with a particular health status when such identification is possible. In doing so

  we offer a set of ethical tools that provides researchers a foundation by which to reconsider risk with regard to the community as a whole and the specific behaviors that increase risk within the community. As an example of the problems concerning normativity and risk groups

  we examine the early case of AIDS and the initial labeling of homosexual men as the risk group for the disease. Our examination of this case reveals that the risk group label has

  at times

  been an ethically precarious one with dangerous consequences.

  \"Reconsidering Risk Groups: A Case of Ethical Reconstruction\"

  Scientific explanation is both instrumental and consummatory. When we experience scientific explanation in its consummation

  we experience what I have deemed a creative moment of scientific apprehension

  which is an important aspect of creativity that comes at the end of inquiry and contributes to the development of future inquiry. Because scientific explanation is commonly cleaved from aesthetic experience

  this moment of creativity has been neglected in both analyses of scientific practice and analyses of aesthetic experience. By synthesizing John Dewey’s conceptions of scientific explanation and aesthetic experience with Charles S. Peirce’s categories

  this moment of scientific inquiry is revealed and understood as a fundamental part of our creative reasoning process. In order to argue that scientific explanation is both instrumental and consummatory

  Dewey’s instrumental conception of scientific explanation is provided

  which includes why science is so often considered as separated from aesthetic experience. A general overview of Dewey’s conception of aesthetic experience and the common division conceived between scientific experience and that of aesthetics is also provided. Reasons are then supplied to reconsider scientific experience as having an aesthetic dimension

  especially with regard to scientific explanations and the creative moment of scientific apprehension

  which is followed by a brief discussion concerning how recognition of this moment reveals an important aspect of creative reasoning that is to be understood as a part of our experience through what Peirce referred to as firstness and secondness. Analyzing the aesthetic experience of scientific explanations against the backdrop of Dewey’s conceptions of aesthetics and science

  combined with Peirce’s categories

  accounts for that creative moment of scientific apprehension in which a scientific explanation takes on the quality of kalos

  or sense of general harmony.

  “The Creative Moment of Scientific Apprehension: Understanding the Consummation of Scientific Explanation through Dewey and Peirce”

  “Neuropragmatic Reconstruction: A Case from Neuroeconomics.”

  John Dewey provided a robust and thorough conception of scientific explanation within his philosophical writing. This conception has been almost entirely neglected by philosophers of science in the latter half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century. In the following

  I provide an exegesis of Dewey’s concept of scientific explanation and argue that this concept is important to contemporary philosophy of science for at least two reasons. 1) Dewey’s conception of scientific explanation avoids the reification of science as an entity separated from practical experience. 2) Dewey supplants the realist-antirealist debate within the philosophical literature concerning explanation

  thus moving us beyond the current stalemate within philosophy of science. Through the reconstruction of Dewey’s concept of scientific explanation

  I hope to bridge his largely neglected work concerning science and explanation with contemporary philosophy of science.

  “John Dewey’s Conception of Scientific Explanation: Moving Philosophers of Science Past the Realism-Antirealism Debate.”

  This is a review of The Nature of Scientific Thinking: On Interpretation

  Explanation

  and Understanding by Jan Faye

  which is a noble effort to remedy much of the neglect within philosophy of science that pertains to context and pragmatics. The book

  as the title indicates

  is wide-ranging in scope

  but Faye provides a thorough and detailed analysis of that subject matter that combines fair criticism of current philosophical stances with insightful emendations and suggestions to those stances. At the heart of the manuscript is Faye’s pragmatic-rhetorical theory of explanation that primarily functions as a general theme that informs the arguments for most of the book. The text systematically moves from the general concepts of understanding and interpretation into specific issues of explanation before culminating with Faye’s\npragmatic-rhetorical theory and his pluralistic picture of the sciences.

  Jan Faye

  The Nature of Scientific Thinking: On Interpretation

  Explanation

  and Understanding.

  I propose the next steps in the neuropragmatic approach to philosophy that has been advocated by Solymosi and Shook (2013). My focus is the initial process of inquiry implicit in addressing philosophical questions of cognition and mind by utilizing the tools of neuroscientific research. I combine John Dewey’s pattern of inquiry with Charles Peirce’s three forms of inference in order to outline a methodological schema for neuropragmatic inquiry. My goal is to establish ignorance and guessing as well-defined pillars of methodology upon which to build a neuropragmatic approach to inquiry. First

  I outline Dewey’s pattern of inquiry

  highlighting the initial problematic phase in which recognized ignorance provides the basis upon which to frame a philosophical problem and initiate the trajectory by which philosophical questions may be addressed with the assistance of neuroscientific evidence. Second

  I provide an outline of Peirce’s three forms of inference

  focusing upon the first phase of abduction: guessing. Third

  I explain the transition between ignorance and guessing

  urging the benefit of attending to these two aspects of inquiry. Finally

  I provide an initial sketch indicating the next steps concerning a pragmatic reconstruction of neurophilosophy

  pointing towards the need for a more thorough examination of scientific methodology within and following analyses of philosophical problems and neuroscientific evidence.

  “Reconsidering Philosophical Questions and Neuroscientific Answers: Two Pillars of Inquiry.”

  The Mask of Microaggressions: Studies of Racism in the U.S. is a textbook that presents tools that aid in understanding\nhistorical sources of racism and how racism has transformed into microaggressions today.

  Mask of Microaggressions: Studies of Racism in the U.S.

  “A Post-Modern Perspective on Human Dignity.”

  I advocate using graphic medicine in introductory medical ethics courses to help trainees learn about patients’ experiences of autonomy. Graphic narratives about this content offer trainees opportunities to gain insights into making diagnoses and recommending treatments. Graphic medicine can also illuminate aspects of patients’ experiences of autonomy differently than other genres. Specifically

  comics allow readers to consider visual and text-based representations of a patient’s actions

  speech

  thoughts

  and emotions. Here

  I use Ellen Forney’s Marbles: Mania

  Depression

  Michelangelo

  and Me: A Graphic Memoir and Peter Dunlap-Shohl’s My Degeneration: A Journey Through Parkinson’s as two examples that can serve as pedagogical resources.

  Representations of Patients’ Experiences of Autonomy in Graphic Medicine

  Abstract\n\nMicroaggressions cause epistemic injustice and prevent human flourishing. As a step toward the recognition of microaggressions as sources of epistemic injustice and their remedy as a source for flourishing

  I propose active engagement with narratives that present cases of microaggressions as they are contextualized in experience. The poet

  essayist

  and mythobiographer

  Audre Lorde

  provides contextualized narratives that express experiences of microaggressions from multiply intersectional and humanistic perspectives. Lorde’s work is an ideal source for actively engaging with experiences of microaggressions and epistemic injustice from a practical

  humanist perspective. I argue that Lorde provides useful tools that assist in acknowledging

  addressing

  and remedying epistemic injustice. Her work suggests uses of anger through reconstruction and receptivity to difference that facilitate human flourishing.\nDOI: 10.1558/eph.31404

  Addressing Microaggressions and Epistemic Injustice: Flourishing from the Work of Audre Lorde

  The argument that justice entails a form of what is deserved continues to inform attitudes about punishment. The belief in ‘just deserts’ is especially relevant in cases of punishment that are not court-ordered or officially prescribed

  but nonetheless are considered deserved. Perhaps the most egregious example concerns incarcerated persons who are sexually assaulted. The belief in violence as justly deserved is ethically problematic

  negatively affecting the health of incarcerated persons

  as well as those outside of prisons. I argue that in the context of prison sexual violence

  acceptance and proffering of the just deserts position is founded upon and promulgates toxic masculinity

  which undermines the personhood of prisoners and reinforces a culture of homophobia and sexism both within and beyond prison walls. I outline an alternative based on an Ubuntu ethic that rejects prison sexual violence as a form of just deserts and fosters an approach to justice that seeks reconciliation.

  A Noxious Injustice as Punishment: Prisoner Sexual Violence

  Toxic Masculinity

  and the Ubuntu Ethic

  This is the summary presentation I gave to the Cooperative Agricultural Research Center (CARC) at Prairie View A&M University

  following my preliminary summer research concerning issues regarding HIV and medicine in Waller County

  Texas.

  Tschaepe

  Mark

  Tschaepe

  University of Minnesota

  Prairie View A&M University

  South African Medico-Legal Association

  Baylor College of Medicine

  Houston

  Texas

  Appointed to co-instruct course in Human Rights and Medicine.

  Adjunct Assistant Professor

  Baylor College of Medicine

  Prairie View A&M University

  South African Medico-Legal Association

  Johannesburg

  South Africa

  Responsible for teaching

  conceptualising

  planning and organising certificate courses.

  Faculty Member

  Prairie View

  TX

  Current research: inquiry (including the use of generative adversarial nets for learning)

  moral imagination

  epistemic injustice

  and propaganda/misinformation (especially the use of deepfake video).\n\n

  Associate Professor

  Prairie View A&M University

  Rochester

  MN

  Lecturer

  University of Minnesota

  Texas Rural Health Association

  The National Society of Collegiate Scholars

  AIDS Foundation Houston

  Acting Board Member

  International AIDS Society

  National Rural Health Association