Benjamin Smart | University of Johannesburg, South Africa (original) (raw)
Current Academic Life:
Among other things, I am a Y1 rated NRF researcher, a senior lecturer at The University of Johannesburg, and a founder member of The African Centre of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (for more info on 'ACEPS' see https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/humanities/aceps/Pages/default.aspx).
My main interests lie in the philosophy of medicine/epidemiology, and in the metaphysics of laws and causation. Most recently I have been publishing on concepts of disease, and in light of my firm belief that philosophy can be a useful tool in developing global health policies, I am currently focusing on collaborative projects with primary care and public health specialists.
Following the inception of ACEPS, I will soon also be working on decolonising medicine in Africa (strongly encourage anyone who wants to get involved with ACEPS to drop me an email).
General Biography:
I was born in Jersey in the Channel Islands (which will always be my spiritual home), but moved to Nottingham in 2002 to read philosophy at The University of Nottingham. I lived in Nottingham (on and off) for 10 years, completing my PhD in 2012. I worked at the University of Birmingham as a teaching fellow between September 2012 and December 2014, then moved to the University of Johannesburg as a postdoc in January 2015. I am still based at UJ, where I have worked as a senior lecturer since January 2016. Joberg is an awesome place to live. If you've never been, then come!
If you would like to contact me, you can do at:
ben@jerseyserve.com; or bsmart@uj.ac.za
Supervisors: Penelope Mackie, Stephen Barker, and Alex Broadbent
Address: https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/humanities/Department%20of%20Philosophy/Pages/default.aspx
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Papers by Benjamin Smart
Synthese, 2023
Philosophy of Medicine has for a long time been preoccupied with analyzing the concepts of health... more Philosophy of Medicine has for a long time been preoccupied with analyzing the concepts of health, disease and illness. Relatively speaking, the concept of medicine itself has received very little attention. This paper is a contribution to the relatively neglected debate about the nature of medicine. Building on the work of Alex Broadbent (Broadbent, 2018a, b), Chadwin Harris (Harris, 2018) and Thaddeus Metz (Metz, 2018), in this paper I question the persuasiveness of Broadbent's account of the "core business" of medicine, The Inquiry Thesis, and propose an alternative: a revised version of The Curative Thesis, which I coin The Best Available Intervention Thesis. Crudely, this suggests that Medicine is the sustained and organised effort to determine and prescribe the best available treatment (curative or preventative) for patients.
The goal of this book is to take a first step towards a framework for causal explanation in publi... more The goal of this book is to take a first step towards a framework for causal explanation in public/population health informatics and analytics. We first provide an introduction to the concepts of public health informatics (PHI) and population health informatics (PopHI). Next, we introduce the general approach we take – the etiological stance – and the idea that risk and causation are two ways of looking at etiology, the process of illness occurrence. We offer a brief description of how the discussion of causation and causal inference in epidemiology relates to concepts in philosophy of science and contrast deterministic folk psychology of causation with a pragmatic perspective built on probabilistic concepts of causation. Finally, we clarify the agenda of this book with a focus on what it is not about and give a roadmap of the remaining chapters.
Teaching Philosophy
Slowly, we are gaining a deeper understanding of the persisting psychological trauma experienced ... more Slowly, we are gaining a deeper understanding of the persisting psychological trauma experienced by students at colonial universities, and beginning to recognize that the Eurocentric curricula and pedagogies must change if students such as the “born-frees” in post-Apartheid South Africa are to flourish. In this article, I present a sub-Saharan African concept of “the ethical teacher,” and use this to ground a “ubiquitous action-reaction” teaching model. I use these concepts to develop a decolonized pedagogy – a teaching methodology that avoids a number of harmful colonial teaching practices in philosophy. I suggest a number of novel ways of accommodating a “decolonized education” with a view to inspiring teachers of philosophy in colonial countries globally. I propose a new, malleable pedagogical model that is particularly useful in the colonial context, since its uniqueness lies in the African ethical framework that grounds it. However, I contend that philosophy educators globally ...
Causation in Population Health Informatics and Data Science
Journal of evaluation in clinical practice, Oct 1, 2018
Several philosophers of medicine have attempted to answer the question "what is disease?&quo... more Several philosophers of medicine have attempted to answer the question "what is disease?" In current clinical practice, an umbrella term "chronic kidney disease" (CKD) encompasses a wide range of kidney health states from commonly prevalent subclinical, asymptomatic disease to rare end-stage renal disease requiring transplant or dialysis to support life. Differences in severity are currently expressed using a "stage" system, whereby stage 1 is the least severe, and stage 5 the most. Early stage CKD in older patients is normal, of little concern, and does not require treatment. However, studies have shown that many patients find being informed of their CKD distressing, even in its early stages. Using existing analyses of disease in the philosophy literature, we argue that the most prevalent diagnoses of CKD are not, in fact, diseases. We conclude that, in many diagnosed cases of CKD, diagnosing a patient with a "disease" is not only redundant, ...
Concepts and Causes in the Philosophy of Disease, 2016
Concepts and Causes in the Philosophy of Disease, 2016
Concepts and Causes in the Philosophy of Disease, 2016
Concepts and Causes in the Philosophy of Disease, 2016
Concepts and Causes in the Philosophy of Disease, 2016
Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, Jul 22, 2014
This paper is a work in applied philosophy of medicine. Conceptual analysis of health and disease... more This paper is a work in applied philosophy of medicine. Conceptual analysis of health and disease is frequently published, but rarely is it actually applied to anything. Philosophers regularly make vague references to how important it is to public health policy (and so on), but it's unusual to find an actual case study of it's practical application. Well... here's one.
Although a variety of conditions and syndromes may affect the kidneys over either chronic or acut... more Although a variety of conditions and syndromes may
affect the kidneys over either chronic or acute time
frames, the term “chronic kidney disease” (CKD) is used
to describe a decrease in the filtration ability of the glomerular
capillaries in the kidney. The most prevalent forms of CKD in
health care systems are typically the asymptomatic stages conventionally
termed CKD stage 4 or below.1,2 Should these asymptomatic
stages be called “disease”?
South African Journal of Philosophy, 2018
Take open-future Humeanism to comprise the following four tenets: (T1) that truth supervenes on a... more Take open-future Humeanism to comprise the following four tenets: (T1) that truth supervenes on a mosaic of local particular matters of fact (T2) that there are no necessary connections between distinct existences (T3) that there is a dynamic present moment, and (T4) that there are no future facts; that is, contingent propositions about the future obtain truth values only when their referents are actualised (Tooley 1997). Prima facie this is a deeply problematic metaphysic for the Humean, since given that the widely accepted Humean conception (that of David Lewis 1986a) takes all truths (inclusive of nomological truths) to supervene on an omnitemporal mosaic of local particular matters of fact, if there are no future facts then the Humean can neither provide laws of nature, nor justify many everyday inductive inferences (Hüttemann 2014). However, I argue that this eternalist metaphysic is in tension with at least one of Hume’s central metaphysical claims concerning causation e.g., that causal regularities may cease to hold at any time. In this paper I propose and defend one possible open-future Humean metaphysic which admits of ‘true-to-Hume’ causal and nomological facts. Furthermore, although I am happy to concede that induction is problematic for the open-future Humean, I demonstrate that it poses no greater threat to the open-future conception than it does to the popular Lewisian conception of natural law.
In this paper I demonstrate how EBM highlights connections between evidence and measurement. Furt... more In this paper I demonstrate how EBM highlights connections between evidence and measurement. Further, I show how the strategies employed by evidence based practitioners help combat the effects of implicit bias that plague clinical medicine.
In Getting Causes from Powers (2011) Stephen Mumford and Rani Anjum published a novel approach to... more In Getting Causes from Powers (2011) Stephen Mumford and Rani Anjum published a novel approach to the metaphysics of dispositional properties, according to which causal powers are to be viewed as vectors. More recently they have employed a similar system to represent prowess in sport. In this paper l discuss the Mumford/Anjum 'tendential theory of sporting prowess'. I question their motivation for the tendencies account, concluding (contra Mumford and Anjum) that a belief in determinism would not take away from the enjoyment of spectator sports. Nonetheless, I deem the tendential theory of prowess very plausible. In addition to criticising their motivation, then, I develop the Mumford/Anjum thesis, applying the multi-dimensional aspect they themselves apply to 'complex causal situations', to sporting prowess. Paper
Analysis (forthcoming, July 2015)
This paper examines objections to dispositional essentialism based on least action principles. We... more This paper examines objections to dispositional essentialism based on least action principles. We conclude that the dispositionalist can diffuse these objections, but that far more work on atemporal laws must be undertaken by metaphysicians.
Synthese, 2023
Philosophy of Medicine has for a long time been preoccupied with analyzing the concepts of health... more Philosophy of Medicine has for a long time been preoccupied with analyzing the concepts of health, disease and illness. Relatively speaking, the concept of medicine itself has received very little attention. This paper is a contribution to the relatively neglected debate about the nature of medicine. Building on the work of Alex Broadbent (Broadbent, 2018a, b), Chadwin Harris (Harris, 2018) and Thaddeus Metz (Metz, 2018), in this paper I question the persuasiveness of Broadbent's account of the "core business" of medicine, The Inquiry Thesis, and propose an alternative: a revised version of The Curative Thesis, which I coin The Best Available Intervention Thesis. Crudely, this suggests that Medicine is the sustained and organised effort to determine and prescribe the best available treatment (curative or preventative) for patients.
The goal of this book is to take a first step towards a framework for causal explanation in publi... more The goal of this book is to take a first step towards a framework for causal explanation in public/population health informatics and analytics. We first provide an introduction to the concepts of public health informatics (PHI) and population health informatics (PopHI). Next, we introduce the general approach we take – the etiological stance – and the idea that risk and causation are two ways of looking at etiology, the process of illness occurrence. We offer a brief description of how the discussion of causation and causal inference in epidemiology relates to concepts in philosophy of science and contrast deterministic folk psychology of causation with a pragmatic perspective built on probabilistic concepts of causation. Finally, we clarify the agenda of this book with a focus on what it is not about and give a roadmap of the remaining chapters.
Teaching Philosophy
Slowly, we are gaining a deeper understanding of the persisting psychological trauma experienced ... more Slowly, we are gaining a deeper understanding of the persisting psychological trauma experienced by students at colonial universities, and beginning to recognize that the Eurocentric curricula and pedagogies must change if students such as the “born-frees” in post-Apartheid South Africa are to flourish. In this article, I present a sub-Saharan African concept of “the ethical teacher,” and use this to ground a “ubiquitous action-reaction” teaching model. I use these concepts to develop a decolonized pedagogy – a teaching methodology that avoids a number of harmful colonial teaching practices in philosophy. I suggest a number of novel ways of accommodating a “decolonized education” with a view to inspiring teachers of philosophy in colonial countries globally. I propose a new, malleable pedagogical model that is particularly useful in the colonial context, since its uniqueness lies in the African ethical framework that grounds it. However, I contend that philosophy educators globally ...
Causation in Population Health Informatics and Data Science
Journal of evaluation in clinical practice, Oct 1, 2018
Several philosophers of medicine have attempted to answer the question "what is disease?&quo... more Several philosophers of medicine have attempted to answer the question "what is disease?" In current clinical practice, an umbrella term "chronic kidney disease" (CKD) encompasses a wide range of kidney health states from commonly prevalent subclinical, asymptomatic disease to rare end-stage renal disease requiring transplant or dialysis to support life. Differences in severity are currently expressed using a "stage" system, whereby stage 1 is the least severe, and stage 5 the most. Early stage CKD in older patients is normal, of little concern, and does not require treatment. However, studies have shown that many patients find being informed of their CKD distressing, even in its early stages. Using existing analyses of disease in the philosophy literature, we argue that the most prevalent diagnoses of CKD are not, in fact, diseases. We conclude that, in many diagnosed cases of CKD, diagnosing a patient with a "disease" is not only redundant, ...
Concepts and Causes in the Philosophy of Disease, 2016
Concepts and Causes in the Philosophy of Disease, 2016
Concepts and Causes in the Philosophy of Disease, 2016
Concepts and Causes in the Philosophy of Disease, 2016
Concepts and Causes in the Philosophy of Disease, 2016
Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, Jul 22, 2014
This paper is a work in applied philosophy of medicine. Conceptual analysis of health and disease... more This paper is a work in applied philosophy of medicine. Conceptual analysis of health and disease is frequently published, but rarely is it actually applied to anything. Philosophers regularly make vague references to how important it is to public health policy (and so on), but it's unusual to find an actual case study of it's practical application. Well... here's one.
Although a variety of conditions and syndromes may affect the kidneys over either chronic or acut... more Although a variety of conditions and syndromes may
affect the kidneys over either chronic or acute time
frames, the term “chronic kidney disease” (CKD) is used
to describe a decrease in the filtration ability of the glomerular
capillaries in the kidney. The most prevalent forms of CKD in
health care systems are typically the asymptomatic stages conventionally
termed CKD stage 4 or below.1,2 Should these asymptomatic
stages be called “disease”?
South African Journal of Philosophy, 2018
Take open-future Humeanism to comprise the following four tenets: (T1) that truth supervenes on a... more Take open-future Humeanism to comprise the following four tenets: (T1) that truth supervenes on a mosaic of local particular matters of fact (T2) that there are no necessary connections between distinct existences (T3) that there is a dynamic present moment, and (T4) that there are no future facts; that is, contingent propositions about the future obtain truth values only when their referents are actualised (Tooley 1997). Prima facie this is a deeply problematic metaphysic for the Humean, since given that the widely accepted Humean conception (that of David Lewis 1986a) takes all truths (inclusive of nomological truths) to supervene on an omnitemporal mosaic of local particular matters of fact, if there are no future facts then the Humean can neither provide laws of nature, nor justify many everyday inductive inferences (Hüttemann 2014). However, I argue that this eternalist metaphysic is in tension with at least one of Hume’s central metaphysical claims concerning causation e.g., that causal regularities may cease to hold at any time. In this paper I propose and defend one possible open-future Humean metaphysic which admits of ‘true-to-Hume’ causal and nomological facts. Furthermore, although I am happy to concede that induction is problematic for the open-future Humean, I demonstrate that it poses no greater threat to the open-future conception than it does to the popular Lewisian conception of natural law.
In this paper I demonstrate how EBM highlights connections between evidence and measurement. Furt... more In this paper I demonstrate how EBM highlights connections between evidence and measurement. Further, I show how the strategies employed by evidence based practitioners help combat the effects of implicit bias that plague clinical medicine.
In Getting Causes from Powers (2011) Stephen Mumford and Rani Anjum published a novel approach to... more In Getting Causes from Powers (2011) Stephen Mumford and Rani Anjum published a novel approach to the metaphysics of dispositional properties, according to which causal powers are to be viewed as vectors. More recently they have employed a similar system to represent prowess in sport. In this paper l discuss the Mumford/Anjum 'tendential theory of sporting prowess'. I question their motivation for the tendencies account, concluding (contra Mumford and Anjum) that a belief in determinism would not take away from the enjoyment of spectator sports. Nonetheless, I deem the tendential theory of prowess very plausible. In addition to criticising their motivation, then, I develop the Mumford/Anjum thesis, applying the multi-dimensional aspect they themselves apply to 'complex causal situations', to sporting prowess. Paper
Analysis (forthcoming, July 2015)
This paper examines objections to dispositional essentialism based on least action principles. We... more This paper examines objections to dispositional essentialism based on least action principles. We conclude that the dispositionalist can diffuse these objections, but that far more work on atemporal laws must be undertaken by metaphysicians.
This book covers the overlap between informatics, computer science, philosophy of causation, and ... more This book covers the overlap between informatics, computer science, philosophy of causation, and causal inference in epidemiology and population health research. Key concepts covered include how data are generated and interpreted, and how and why concepts in health informatics and the philosophy of science should be integrated in a systems-thinking
approach. Furthermore, a formal epistemology for the health sciences and public health is
suggested. Causation in Population Health Informatics and Data Scienceprovides a detailed
guide of the latest thinking on causal inference in population health informatics. It is therefore
a critical resource for all informaticians and epidemiologists interested in the potential benefits
of utilising a systems-based approach to causal inference in health informatics.
Smart, B. (2016) Concepts and Causes in the Philosophy of Disease. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan