14 found
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  1. Why do biologists use so many diagrams?Benjamin Sheredos, Daniel Burnston, Adele Abrahamsen & William Bechtel - 2013 - Philosophy of Science 80 (5):931-944.
    Diagrams have distinctive characteristics that make them an effective medium for communicating research findings, but they are even more impressive as tools for scientific reasoning. Focusing on circadian rhythm research in biology to explore these roles, we examine diagrammatic formats that have been devised to identify and illuminate circadian phenomena and to develop and modify mechanistic explanations of these phenomena.
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  2. (1 other version)Re-reconciling the Epistemic and Ontic Views of Explanation.Benjamin Sheredos - 2016 - Erkenntnis 81 (5):919-949.
    Recent attempts to reconcile the ontic and epistemic approaches to explanation propose that our best explanations simply fulfill epistemic and ontic norms simultaneously. I aim to upset this armistice. Epistemic norms of attaining general and systematic explanations are, I argue, autonomous of ontic norms: they cannot be fulfilled simultaneously or in simple conjunction with ontic norms, and plausibly have priority over them. One result is that central arguments put forth by ontic theorists against epistemic theorists are revealed as not only (...)
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  3.  79
    Imagining Mechanisms with Diagrams.Benjamin Sheredos & William Bechtel - 2019 - In Arnon Levy & Peter Godfrey-Smith (eds.), The Scientific Imagination. New York, US: Oup Usa.
    Some proponents of mechanistic explanation downplay the significance of how-possibly explanations. We argue that developing accounts of mechanisms that could explain a phenomenon is an important aspect of scientific reasoning, one that involves imagination. Although appeals to imagination may seem to obscure the process of reasoning, we illustrate how, by examining diagrams we can gain insights into the construction of mechanistic explanations.
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  4.  78
    Scientists’ use of diagrams in developing mechanistic explanations: A case study from chronobiology.Daniel C. Burnston, Benjamin Sheredos, Adele Abrahamsen & William Bechtel - 2014 - Pragmatics and Cognition 22 (2):224-243.
    We explore the crucial role of diagrams in scientific reasoning, especially reasoning directed at developing mechanistic explanations of biological phenomena. We offer a case study focusing on one research project that resulted in a published paper advancing a new understanding of the mechanism by which the central circadian oscillator in Synechococcus elongatus controls gene expression. By examining how the diagrams prepared for the paper developed over the course of multiple drafts, we show how the process of generating a new explanation (...)
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  5. Merleau-Ponty’s implicit critique of the new mechanists.Benjamin Sheredos - 2018 - Synthese (Suppl 9):1-25.
    I argue (1) that what (ontic) New Mechanistic philosophers of science call mechanisms would be material Gestalten, and (2) that Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with Gestalt theory can help us frame a standing challenge against ontic conceptions of mechanisms. In short, until the (ontic) New Mechanist can provide us with a plausible account of the organization of mechanisms as an objective feature of mind-independent ontic structures in the world which we might discover – and no ontic Mechanist has done so – it (...)
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  6.  39
    Communicating with scientific graphics: a descriptive inquiry into non-ideal normativity.Benjamin Sheredos - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 63:32-44.
    Scientists’ graphical practices have recently become a target of inquiry in the philosophy of science, and in the cognitive sciences. Here I supplement our understanding of graphical practices via a case study of how researchers crafted the graphics for scientific publication in the field of circadian biology. The case highlights social aspects of graphical production which have gone understudied e especially concerning the negotiation of publication. I argue that it also supports a challenge to the claim that empirically-informed “cognitive design (...)
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  7. HIT on the Psychometric Approach.William Bechtel & Benjamin Sheredos - 2011 - Psychological Inquiry 22 (2):108-114.
    Traditionally, identity and supervenience have been proposed in philosophy of mind as metaphysical accounts of how mental activities (fully understood, as they might be at the end of science) relate to brain processes. Kievet et al. suggest that to be relevant to cognitive neuroscience, these philosophical positions must make empirically testable claims and be evaluated accordingly – they cannot sit on the sidelines, awaiting the hypothetical completion of cognitive neuroscience. We agree with the authors on the importance of rendering these (...)
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  8.  66
    Act Psychology and Phenomenology: Husserl on Egoic Acts.Benjamin Sheredos - 2017 - Husserl Studies 33 (3):191-209.
    Husserl famously retracted his early portrayal, in Logische Untersuchungen, of phenomenology as empirical psychology. Previous scholarship has typically understood this transcendental turn in light of the Ideen’s revised conception of the ἐποχή, and its distinction between noesa and noemata. This essay thematizes the evolution of the concept of mental acts in Husserl’s work as a way of understanding the shift. I show how the recognition of the pure ego in Ideen I and II enabled Husserl to radically alter his conception (...)
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  9. Brentano's Act Psychology Was not Aristotelian (or Else, not Empirical).Benjamin Sheredos - 2016 - Brentano Studien 14:157-189.
  10.  70
    Act and Intentionality.Benjamin Sheredos - 2016 - Dissertation, University of California, San Diego
    Understanding the “intentionality” of mental phenomena is widely regarded as a key problem in philosophy of mind. Franz Brentano (along with his students, especially Edmund Husserl) is widely credited with bringing intentionality to philosophers’ attention. In early treatment by the Brentano school, intentionality is at least nominally understood as executed, brought about, or achieved in mental acts. And in the early 20th century, historians of psychology regarded this “act conception” of intentionality as integral for understanding the phenomenon. Yet the secondary (...)
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  11.  20
    Constructing diagrams to understand phenomena and mechanisms.Benjamin Sheredos & William Bechtel - manuscript
    Biologists often hypothesize mechanisms to explai phenomena. Our interest is how their understanding of the phenomena and mechanisms develops as they construct diagrams to communicate their claims. We present two case studies in which scientists integrate various data to create a single diagram to communicate their major conclusions in a research publication. In both cases, the history of revisions suggests that scientists' initial drafts encode biases and oversights that are only gradually overcome through prolonged, reflective re-design. To account for this, (...)
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  12.  56
    Embodied delusions and intentionality.Benjamin Sheredos - unknown
    Derek Bolton has claimed that extant philosophical theories of mind imply accounts of mental disorder, via their accounts of intentionality. The purpose of this paper is to extend Bolton’s claims, by exploring what an embodied/situated theory of mind might imply about mental disorder. I argue that, unlike the more traditional views Bolton considers, embodied/situated accounts can (in principle) provide an observer-independent criterion for distinguishing mental health from disorder in cases of Capgras and Cotard delusions.
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  13.  20
    Motivating Emotional Content.Benjamin Sheredos - unknown
    Among philosophers of the emotions, it is common to view emotional content as purely descriptive – that is, belief-like or perception-like. I argue that this is a mistake. The intentionality of the emotions cannot be understood in isolation from their motivational character, and emotional content is also inherently directive – that is, desire-like. This view’s strength is its ability to explain a class of emotional behaviors that I argue, the common view fails to explain adequately. I claim that it is (...)
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  14. Reductio ad bacterium: the ubiquity of Bayesian "brains" and the goals of cognitive science.Benjamin Sheredos - 2012 - Frontiers in Psychology 3.
     
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