This week's most underrated philosopher of the week is Brad Wray (anybody know what the "k" stands for?). While working in a teaching-intensive department far away from any metropolis, he has maintained an impressive frequency and quality of top-notch publications. Brad has resisted the trend toward ever increasing specialization in the philosophy of science, where narrow technical expertise is often the way toward high status. (In doing so, Brad fits the criteria for this weekly entry.) In fact, many of Brad's papers are an extended reflection on the nature as well as costs and benefits of specialization and collaboration. While I have grown ever more skeptical about so-called 'naturalizing' strategies (which tend to replace one set of arm-chair constraints with other arm-chair treatments of, say, causation, laws, etc), Brad uses disarmingly simple empirical tests to scrutinize hallowed myths within the philosophy of science.
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