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Dr
Name: Benjamin Smart
Location: B Ring 703 Auckland Park Kingsway Campus
Rated Researchers Staff Members
Contact Details:
Tel: 0 11 559 4940
Email: bsmart@uj.ac.za
About Dr Benjamin Smart
Specialisation area
Dr Smart is an associate professor in philosophy. Prior to joining the University of Johannesburg in 2015 he lectured at The University of Birmingham (in the United Kingdom). He received his PhD from Nottingham University in 2012.
Smart’s research focuses on the metaphysics of laws and causation, and on the philosophy of medicine. He published a monograph entitled ‘Concepts and Causes in the Philosophy of Disease’ in 2016, and has numerous papers in highly ranked international philosophy journals. He has published articles on the metaphysics of least action principles, the problem of induction, the nature of fundamental properties, the philosophy of sport, and on the philosophy of health and disease.
Dr Smart believes that philosophical work in medicine can have a direct impact on society, and so also collaborates with academics in the medical sciences to address what some might call ‘real world problems’ in public health.
January 2018: NRF rated academic researcher (Y1)
Books:
Damman, O and Smart, B. 2019. Causation in Population Health Informatics and Data Science. Springer
Smart, B. 2016. Concepts and Causes in the Philosophy of Disease. Palgrave Macmillan
Peer-reviewed Articles:
Smart, B. and Thebault, K. 2015. ‘Dispositions and the Principle of Least Action Revisited’ Analysis 75 (3):386-395
Smart, B. 2014. ‘On the Classification of Diseases’ Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 35 (4):251-269
Smart, B. 2013. ‘Is the Humean Defeated by Induction?’ Philosophical Studies 162 (2):319-332.
Barker, S. and Smart, B. 2012. ‘The Ultimate Argument Against the Dispositional Monist Account of Laws of Nature’ Analysis (4): 714-722
Smart, B. ‘South Africa’ in Nichole Georgeou and Charles Hawksley (eds) 2020. State Responses to COVID-19: a snapshot at 1 June 2020, HADRI/Western Sydney University: DOI: https://doi.org/10.26183/5ed5a2079cabdBroadbent, A and Smart B.T.H. 2020. ‘Kinds of Explanation in Public Health Policy’ in Explaining Health Across the Sciences eds. Sholl, J. and Rattan, S. Springer