Philosophy (of many sorts)
My philosophical research has primarily focused on four different topics. First, I have investigated the reliability and robustness of our methods of scientific inquiry. Second, I have examined the products of scientific inquiry, including arguments that scientific theories & models are perspectival and pluralist in nature. Third, I have gone deeper on the theories & models in psychology and other behavioral sciences, with a particular focus on their explanatory power. Fourth, I have studied the content and role of causation in our scientific (and folk-scientific) theories, including contexts in which it remains under-defined.
Selected publications:
Danks, D., & Harrell, M. (in press). Chaos, causation, and describing dynamics. In C. K. Waters (Ed.), Causal reasoning in biology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Dinh, P., & Danks, D. (in press). Causal pluralism in philosophy: Empirical challenges and alternative proposals. Philosophy of Science.
McCaffrey, J., & Danks, D. (in press). Mixtures and psychological inference with resting state fMRI. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
Danks, D. (2019). Probabilistic models. In M. Colombo & M. Sprevak (Eds.), Routledge handbook of the computational mind (pp. 149-158). New York: Routledge.
Danks, D. (2019). Safe-and-substantive perspectivism. In M. Massimi & C. D. McCoy (Eds.), Understanding perspectivism: Scientific challenges and methodological prospects (pp. 127-140). New York: Routledge.
Danks, D., & Plis, S. M. (2019). Amalgamating evidence of dynamics. Synthese, 196, 3213-3230.
Danks, D. (2018). Richer than reduction. In D. Danks & E. Ippoliti (Eds.), Building theories: Heuristics and hypotheses in science (pp. 45-61). Springer-Verlag.
Danks, D. (2015). Goal-dependence in (scientific) ontology. Synthese, 192, 3601-3616.
Danks, D., Rose, D., & Machery, E. (2014). Demoralizing causation. Philosophical Studies, 171(2), 251-277.
Kummerfeld, E., & Danks, D. (2014). Model change and methodological virtues in scientific inference. Synthese, 191(12), 2673-2693. [Erratum]
Danks, D. (2013). Functions and cognitive bases for the concept of actual causation. Erkenntnis, 78(1), 111-128.
Danks, D. (2013). Moving from levels & reduction to dimensions & constraints. In M. Knauff, M. Pauen, N. Sebanz, & I. Wachsmuth (Eds.), Proceedings of the 35th annual conference of the cognitive science society (pp. 2124-2129). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
Mayo-Wilson, C., Zollman, K., & Danks, D. (2013). Wisdom of crowds vs. groupthink: Learning in groups and in isolation. International Journal of Game Theory, 42(3), 695-723.
Rose, D., & Danks, D. (2013). In defense of a broad conception of experimental philosophy. Metaphilosophy, 44, 512-532.
Rose, D., & Danks, D. (2012). Causation: Empirical trends and future directions. Philosophy Compass, 7(9), 643-653.
Eberhardt, F., & Danks, D. (2011). Confirmation in the cognitive sciences: The problematic case of Bayesian models. Minds and Machines, 21(3), 389-410.
Mayo-Wilson, C., Zollman, K., & Danks, D. (2011). The independence thesis: When individual and social epistemology diverge. Philosophy of Science, 78(4), 653-677.
Glymour, C., Danks, D., Glymour, B., Eberhardt, F., Ramsey, J., Scheines, R., Spirtes, P., Teng, C. M., & Zhang, J. (2010). Actual causation: A stone soup essay. Synthese, 175(2), 169-192.
Danks, D., & Eberhardt, F. (2009). Explaining norms and norms explained [Commentary on precis of Bayesian Rationality by Oaksford & Chater]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32(1), 86-87.
Danks, D., & Eberhardt, F. (2009). Conceptual problems in statistics, testing and experimentation. In J. Symons & F. Calvo (Eds.), Routledge companion to the philosophy of psychology (pp. 214-230). New York: Routledge.
Danks, D. (2008). Rational analyses, instrumentalism, and implementations. In N. Chater & M. Oaksford (Eds.), The probabilistic mind: Prospects for Bayesian cognitive science (pp. 59-75). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jantzen, B., & Danks, D. (2008). Biological codes and topological causation. Philosophy of Science, 75, 259-277.
Glymour, C., & Danks, D. (2007). Reasons as causes in Bayesian epistemology. Journal of Philosophy, 104(9), 464-474.
Danks, D. (2005). Scientific coherence and the fusion of experimental results. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 56, 791-807.
Danks, D. (2005). The supposed competition between theories of human causal inference. Philosophical Psychology, 18(2), 259-272.