Maja Sidzińska

My research focuses on scientific ontology, especially as it relates to biomedical science and the life sciences. I am especially interested in pregnancy, its ontology, and the normative implications of its ontology for bioethics and politics.

I work in the following areas, and explore the following questions.

Ontology of science

• What does science reveal about the entities that exist, and how does it represent such entities?

• How should we demarcate target systems and translate them into the variables operating in scientific research? 

• What kind of biological individuals are pregnant mammals, including human beings?

Philosophy of medicine and biomedical ethics

• What theory of disease best fits facts about pregnancy?

• How should we understand maternal agency in pregnancy?

• What is the best approach to ensuring access to prenatal care without overmedicalizing pregnancy and birth?

• What is the difference between medicalization and overmedicalization?

History of natural philosophy

• What historical frameworks have affected how we presently conceive pregnancy?

• What kinds problems have been solved in the history of science by reconceiving metaphysical frameworks in light of experimental results?

Pregnancy and feminist philosophy

• What does pregnancy have to do with sexist or gendered bias?

• How should the role of gestation be critically understood in the context of the political economy?

• What kinds of human agency and subjectivity are neglected when agents and subjects are presumed never to be pregnant?

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