Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
St. John Hall, Room B30-16
Queens Campus
St. John’s University
8000 Utopia Parkway
Queens, NY 11439
Phone: (718) 990-5296
Fax: (718) 990-1907
snyderl@stjohns.edu
Educational Background
- Ph.D., Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University, 1996
- M.A., Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University, 1992
- Certificate, History and Philosophy of Science, Johns Hopkins
University, 1991
- B.A., summa cum laude, Philosophy, Brandeis University,
1987
- B.A., summa cum laude, History of Western Thought, Brandeis
University, 1987
Areas Of Interest
- History of philosophy of science
- Philosophy of science
- Intellectual history
Profile
Laura Snyder has been a member of the Philosophy Department since
1996. She is the President of the International Society for
the History of Philosophy of Science (HOPOS) and a Life Member of
Clare Hall College, Cambridge. Dr. Snyder has been a visiting
professor at the University of Chicago and the University of
Pittsburgh, and a Mellon Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.
Her work focuses on the history of inductive reasoning, especially
ways that discussions of induction have been embedded in broader
debates about science and its role in society. Her
Reforming Philosophy: A Victorian Debate on Science and
Society explores the way in which the controversy
between John Stuart Mill and William Whewell over induction was set
in the context of their divergent views of politics, morality, and
economics as well as their notions of the best way to reform
society. Dr. Snyder has published over 20 articles on
Whewell, Mill, John F.W. Herschel, Francis Bacon, Sherlock Holmes,
induction, confirmation and debates over extraterrestrial life in
the journals Philosophy of Science, Perspectives on
Science, Studies in History and Philosophy of
Science, and Endeavour and in a number of
books. She has been awarded fellowships by the Fulbright
Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American
Philosophical Society, and others.