Dr Sandy Boucher
Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy of Science - Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education; School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Phone: +61 2 6773 2230
Email: aboucher@une.edu.au
Biography
Sandy Boucher is a Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy of Science at UNE. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne (supervisor Greg Restall), thesis title 'Empiricism, Metaphysical Stances the Philosophy of Biology'. After receiving his PhD his first position was as a researcher on the IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity) Critical Thinking and Argument Mapping Project at the University of Melbourne. Before coming to UNE he taught at the University of Connecticut, University of Melbourne, and La Trobe University.
Qualifications
Ph.D. University of Melbourne; M.A. Monash University;
B.A.(Hons) Monash University
Teaching Areas
Sandy is lecturer and unit coordinator for the following units:
PHIL102 Critical Thinking
PHIL150 Metaphysics, Knowledge and the Search for Reality
PHIL303/503 Epistemology: The Enlightenment and Beyond
PHIL304/504 Philosophy of Science
PHIL509 Sex and Death: Issues in the Philosophy of Biology
PHIL330/530 Elementary Logic
Research Interests
Sandy’s research interests are mainly in the philosophy of biology (especially functions and teleology, the units of selection, species, natural kinds, macroevolution and paleobiology) and general philosophy of science (especially the scientific realism debate), but he also works on issues in metaphilosophy and epistemology. He has published several papers on empiricism and the concept of a philosophical stance. Current research projects include work on pragmatism in the scientific realism debate; arguments for realism about the units of selection; the engineering of scientific concepts; and naturalised metaphysics of biology.
Research Supervision Experience
Sandy is currently supervising several PhD students in Philosophy. He is available to supervise PhD and MA students in the Philosophy of Science and related areas.
Publications
Peer-reviewed journal articles
‘The Pragmatic Turn in the Scientific Realism Debate’ with Curtis Forbes, forthcoming in Synthese.
'An Argument for Global Realism about the Units of Selection', in Biology and Philosophy, 38 (5), 2023, 1-22.
‘Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Extension in Science', forthcoming in Inquiry.
'Cladism, Monophyly and Natural Kinds’, in Croatian Journal of Philosophy, XXII, No. 64. 2022, 39-68.
‘Biological Teleology, Reductionism, and Verbal Disputes’, in Foundations of Science, 26 (4), 2021, 859-880.
'Evolutionary debunking arguments, commonsense and scepticism', Synthese, 198 (12), 2021, 11217-11239.
'Pluralism, Realism and the Units of Selection', South African Journal of Philosophy, 39 (1), 2020, 47-62.
‘Methodological naturalism in the sciences’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 88 (1), 2020, 57-80.
‘An empiricist conception of the relation between metaphysics and science,’ Philosophia, 47 (5), 2019, 1355-1378
‘What is the Relation Between a Philosophical Stance and its Associated Beliefs?’, dialectica, 72 (4), 2018, 509–524
‘Stances and epistemology: values, pragmatics and rationality,’ Metaphilosophy, 49 (4), 2018, 521-547
‘Gould on species, metaphysics, and macroevolution: a critical appraisal,’ Studies in the History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 62, 2017, 25–34
‘Functionalism and structuralism as philosophical stances: van Fraassen meets the philosophy of biology,’ Biology and Philosophy, 30 (3), 2015, 383-403
‘What is a philosophical stance? Paradigms, policies and perspectives,’ Synthese, 191(10), 2014, 2315-2332
‘A computational approach to linguistic knowledge,’ with Ian Gold, in Language and Communication, 22, 2002, 211-229
Book chapters
‘Scientific imperialism, pluralism, and folk morality,’ with Adrian Walsh, in A. Walsh, U. Maki and M. F. Pinto (eds.), Scientific Imperialism, Routledge 2017
Journal editing
Associate Editor, Australasian Journal of Philosophy
Co-editor of special issue of the journal Research in Ethical Issues in Organisations, on Surveillance, big data and applied ethics in the digital age, vol. 26, 2022
Memberships
Philosophy of Science Association
International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology
Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science
Australasian Association of Philosophy
