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Dr. Meunier

Former research assistant

Meunier, Robert
  • Philosophy of Science
  • Philosophy of biology and biomedicine
  • History of biology and medicine
  • Semiotics
  • since 2022
    Research Associate at the Institute for History of Medicine and Science Research at the University of Lübeck
  • 01/2015-2022
    Head of the project "Forms of Practice, Forms of Knowledge. Foundations for the Investigation of the Dynamics of Research Fields in the Life Sciences." at the University of Kassel (FB02, Theoretical Philosophy)
  • 09-12/2014
    Research Assistant at the Chair of History of Science (Prof. Dr. K. Nickelsen) at the Historical Seminar of the LMU Munich
  • 09/2012-07/2014
    Scholar (Postdoc) at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICI), Berlin
  • 01-06/2012
    Fellow (Predoc 01-04/2012, Postdoc 05-06/2012) at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin; research group "Twentieth Century Histories of Knowledge About Human Variation" (Prof. Dr. V. Lipphardt)
  • 03/2012
    PhD in Philosophy ("Foundations of the Life Sciences and their Ethical Consequences"), Università degli Studi di Milano and European School of Molecular Medicine (SEMM), Milan, Italy, with the thesis: "Thick and thin characters: Organismal form and representational practice in embryology and genetics"
  • 05-12/2010
    Research fellowship at the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society (EGENIS), University of Exeter, UK (now: Egenis, the Centre for the Study of Life Sciences)
  • 04/2008-04/2010
    Laboratory internships in three biomedical research groups at the campus IFOM-IEO, Milan, Italy
  • 01/2008-12/2011
    Scholar in the PhD program "Foundations of the Life Sciences and their Ethical Consequences", Università degli Studi di Milano and European School of Molecular Medicine (SEMM), Milan, Italy
  • 12/2007
    Magister Artium, Philosophy, Technical University of Berlin, Germany
  • 1998-2007
    Studies of Philosophy and Linguistics, Technical University of Berlin
  • German Research Foundation (DFG) own position and group leader project "Forms of Practice".
  • German Society for the History of Medicine, Science and Technology (DGGMNT) e.V.
  • The International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB)
  • Society for the Philosophy of Science (GWP) e.V.

PhD thesis

  • Thick and thin characters: organismal form and representational practice in embryology and genetics. Università degli studi di Milano, Milan, Italy, 2012 (http://air.unimi.it/handle/2434/214613).


Articles (peer reviewed)

  • Meunier, Robert (2022): Gene (new, rewritten), in: Zalta, Edward, N. (ed.): The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  • Competing forms of knowledge in developmental biology and genetics around 1900: traditions, concepts and causation. (in preparation)
  • "The Many Lives of Experiments: Wilhelm Johannsen, Selection, Hybridization, and the Complex Relations of Genes and Characters." (forthcoming: History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences).
  • With Hans-Jörg Rheinberger and Staffan Müller-Wille. "Genes. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = plato.stanford.edu/entries/gene/
  • With Marie I. Kaiser and Maria Kronfeldner. "Interdisciplinarity in Philosophy of Science." Journal for General Philosophy of Science 45, 1 (2014): 59-70. doi:10.1007/s10838-014-9269-1.
  • "Stages in the Development of a Model Organism as a Platform for Mechanistic Models in Developmental Biology: Zebrafish, 1970-2000." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 43, 2 (2012): 522-31. doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2011.11.013.

 

Meetings and reports

  • 09/2008 1st European Graduate Meeting in the Philosophy of the Life Sciences, Gorino Sullam (Rovigo), Italy. Title of the lecture: "Making Desired Traits Hereditary - Elements of an Epistemology of Translation".
  • 10/2009 3rd EGN International Conference 2009 "Mapping the Genomic Era: Measurements and Meanings", Cardiff, UK. Title: "Measuring the Phenotype".
  • 11/2010 Seminar, Egenis, Exeter, UK Title: "Pluralism concerning traits. A case study in developmental biology"
  • 06/2011 3rd biennial conference of the Society for the Philosophy of Science in Practice, University of Exeter, UK. Title: "Operationalizing Phenotypes in Developmental Genetics and Contrastive Explanations".
  • 04/2012 Seminar, Lipphardt Research Group, MPIWG, BerlinTitle: "Human Diversity in Medicine: The Various Roles of Constitutional Typologies in Medicine, ca. 1890-1930."
  • 05/2012 Research Colloquium on the History of Science, TU Berlin, Prof. Dr. Friedrich Steinle. Title: "The Concept of Traits in Genetics from Mendel to Morgan".
  • 09/2012 Workshop: "Animal Models, Model Animals? Meanings and Practices in the Biomedical Sciences", Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester, UK. Title: "Generalizing models of disease mechanisms from zebrafish to humans".
  • 01/2013 Public Colloquium, Institute for History, Theory and Ethics of Medicine, University Medicine, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz. Title: "Cross-species models. Exploring human skin cancer in zebrafish".
  • 03/2013 1st International Meeting of the Society for Philosophy of Science, University of Hannover. Title: "Pluralism in the life sciences - Complexity of nature or complexity of culture".
  • 04/2013 Workshop "Characters and Classifications in the Life Sciences", ICI Berlin. Title: "The Biological Character Concept - Historical Trajectories and Conceptual Distinctions".
  • 07/2013 Workshop "Wholes Which Are Not One - On the Critical Potential of a Non-Dialectic Figure of Thought", ICI Berlin. Title: "From Collection to Experiment, from Accounting to Analyzing - Johannsen's Critique of Darwinism".
  • 07/2013 Meeting of the International Society for Philosophy, History and Social Studies of Biology, Montpellier, France. Title: "From Trait to Marker. The taxonomic origin of the genetic character concept."
  • 10/2013 Annual Meeting of the Society for Media Studies, Media of Science, Leuphana University of Lüneburg. Title: "On two ways of using databases in molecular biology".
  • 07/2014 Workshop "De-Constituting Wholes Haunting, Eclipse, Plasticity", ICI Berlin. Title: "The Plasticity of Concepts of Plasticity in Biology."
  • 09/2014 Annual Conference of the German Society for the History of Medicine, Science and Technology, LMU Munich. Title: "Epistemic Competition - Genetics and Embryology in the Early 20th Century".
  • 11/2014 Upper seminar "Perspectives on the History of Science". Chair of History of Science. Historical Seminar of the LMU Munich. Title: "A model of scientific knowledge"
  • 4/2015 2nd International Biophilosophical School: "Living Nature in Question", Padua, Italy. Title: "Mechanistic models in biomedical research".
  • 6/2015 Fifth Biennial Conference of the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice (SPSP), Aarhus, Denmark. Title: "Toward Semiotic Modeling of Experimental Practices."
  • 7/2015 Meeting of the International Society for Philosophy, History and Social Studies of Biology, Montréal, Canada. Title: "Forms of explanation in genetics and embryology around 1900".
  • 9/2015 Workshop "Knowledge Transfer and Its Contexts", Center for Advanced Studies at LMU Munich. Title: "From Organ to Tumour Development, from Animal to Patient: Modelling Human Cancer in Zebrafish".
  • 9/2015 Open Forum History of Life Sciences, MPIWG, Berlin. Title: "Models of Scientific Practice and the Dynamics of Research Fields in the Life Sciences."
  • 10/2015 Seminar, Egenis, the Centre for the Study of Life Sciences, Exeter, UK. Title: "Working with Model Systems."