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21Private virtues, public vices: Philanthropy and democratic equalityContemporary Political Theory 1-4. forthcoming.
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19The National Anthem and Weighing Moral ObligationsIn William Irwin & David Kyle Johnson (eds.), Black Mirror and Philosophy, Wiley. 2020.Our first gaze into Black Mirror, “The National Anthem,” forces us, the viewers, to think about how moral obligations should be weighed against other competing obligations and also to examine our desire to see spectacle. In this chapter we discuss the three main ways in which philosophers think about moral obligations and examine how these ethical theories are employed by different individuals and groups in the episode. We also discuss how this particular episode aligns with Black Mirror's gener…Read more
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21A concrete example of representational licensing: The Mississippi River Basin ModelStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 92 (C): 36-44. 2022.Previously, I (Boesch 2017) described a notion called “representational licensing”—the set of activities of scientific practice by which scientists establish the intended representational use of a vehicle. In this essay, I expand and develop this concept of representational licensing. I begin by showing how the concept is of value for both pragmatic and substantive approaches to scientific representation. Then, through the examination of a case study of the Mississippi River Basin Model, I point…Read more
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48Scientific representation and dissimilaritySynthese 198 (6): 5495-5513. 2019.In this essay, I examine the role of dissimilarity in scientific representation. After briefly reviewing some of the philosophical literature which places a strong emphasis on the role of similarity, I turn to examine some work from Carroll and Borges which demonstrates that perfect similarity is not valuable in the representational use of maps. Expanding on this insight, I go on to argue that this shows that dissimilarity is an important part of the representational use of maps—a point I then e…Read more
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33Resolving and Understanding Differences Between Agent-Based Accounts of Scientific RepresentationJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 50 (2): 195-213. 2019.Agent-based accounts of scientific representation all agree that the representational relationship is constituted by the actions of scientists. Despite this agreement, there are several differences in how agent-based accounts describe scientific representation. In this essay, I argue that these differences do not undercut the compatibility between the accounts. I make my argument by examining the nature of human agency and demonstrating that scientific, representational actions are multiply desc…Read more
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37The means-end account of scientific, representational actionsSynthese 196 (6): 2305-2322. 2019.While many recent accounts of scientific representation have given a central role to the agency and intentions of scientists in explaining representation, they have left these agential concepts unanalyzed. An account of scientific, representational actions will be a useful piece in offering a more complete account of the practice of representation in science. Drawing on an Anscombean approach to the nature of intentional actions, the Means-End Account of Scientific, Representational Actions desc…Read more
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35Skill Transmittance in Science EducationScience & Education 28 (1-2): 45-61. 2019.It is widely argued that the skills of scientific expertise are tacit, meaning that they are difficult to study. In this essay, I draw on work from the philosophy of action about the nature of skills to show that there is another access point for the study of skills—namely, skill transmission in science education. I will begin by outlining Small’s Aristotelian account of skills, including a brief exposition of its advantages over alternative accounts of skills. He argues that skills exist in a s…Read more
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24Representing in the Student LaboratoryTransversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science 5 34-48. 2018.In this essay, I will expand the philosophical discussion about the representational practice in science to examine its role in science education through four case studies. The cases are of what I call ‘educational laboratory experiments’, performative models used representationally by students to come to a better understanding of theoretical knowledge of a scientific discipline. The studies help to demonstrate some idiosyncratic features of representational practices in science education, most …Read more
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21A Thomistic Account of Anti-Love BiotechnologyAmerican Journal of Bioethics 13 (11): 30-31. 2013.Applies a generally Thomistic framework to Earp and colleagues' (2013) discussion of anti-love biotechnology. Discusses some of the constraints that should be placed on the use of such a technology from a Thomistic perspective.
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105There Is a Special Problem of Scientific RepresentationPhilosophy of Science 84 (5): 970-981. 2017.Callender and Cohen argue that there is no need for a special account of the constitution of scientific representation. I argue that scientific representation is communal and therefore deeply tied to the practice in which it is embedded. The communal nature is accounted for by licensing, the activities of scientific practice by which scientists establish a representation. A case study of the Lotka-Volterra model reveals how licensure is a constitutive element of the representational relationship…Read more
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38The means-end account of scientific, representational actionsSynthese 1-18. 2017.While many recent accounts of scientific representation have given a central role to the agency and intentions of scientists in explaining representation, they have left these agential concepts unanalyzed. An account of scientific, representational actions will be a useful piece in offering a more complete account of the practice of representation in science. Drawing on an Anscombean approach to the nature of intentional actions, the Means-End Account of Scientific, Representational Actions desc…Read more
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29A MacIntyrean Critique of Theoretical Pluralism in Applied EthicsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 16 (9): 41-43. 2016.According to the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, there is an incommensurability between different theories of normative ethics. MacIntyre’s view on the incommensurability of ethical discourse casts doubt upon the pluralistic proposal of Magelssen and colleagues, since the insights gained from the various theories will themselves be incommensurate with one another. However, since there are obvious benefits provided both by arguments for pluralism and the insights of Magelssen and colleagues, I utiliz…Read more
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28Equipoise and Nonmedical RisksAmerican Journal of Bioethics 14 (4): 16-18. 2014.DeMarco and colleagues present a compelling method of dealing with medical risks for which there is equipoise which might be implicated in a given research protocol. This commentary examines how the proposed model should inform the disclosure of other, non-medical risks. Since equipoise is a fairly unclear notion for non-medical risks (since there is little sense of professional uncertainty regarding these risks), this could lead to the inclusion of nearly unlimited non-medical risks. To account…Read more
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43Representation, ScientificInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2015.The article constitutes a detailed overview of the most important background literature on the topic of scientific representation. It gives a detailed outline of many of the important philosophical accounts of scientific representation. The primary division is between substantive accounts and deflationary/pragmatic accounts. Objections to each type of account are considered. Insights from the literature on modelling are discussed along with an overview of some of the insights from the sociology …Read more
Brandon Boesch
Morningside College
Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America
Areas of Interest
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