Philosophy
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Alexandra E. Bradner
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Alexandra Bradner teaches courses in philosophy of science, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of biology, and feminist philosophy, among other topics, and is especially interested in strategies for teaching philosophical writing.
She joined the department in 2005 after completing her Ph.D. at Northwestern University with a thesis titled, The End of Explanation, which argues that pragmatic theories of explanation remain unconstrained without accounts of explanatory rejection. She is interested in the study of explanation throughout the disciplines, but topics of particular interest include: styles of explanation, inference-to-the-best-explanation arguments for scientific realism, the illocutionary theory of explanation, and moral explanation.
She is presently collaborating with a cognitive scientist on a series of experiments designed to test whether philosophical theories of pragmatic explanation are empirically sound. Having worked in western West Virginia for several years, Dr. Bradner is especially interested in helping students from that region meet their goals at Denison.