Alex Rosenberg
Biographic Data
| ID | 3768436 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alex Rosenberg |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alex |
| FAMILY NAME | Rosenberg |
| SIGNATURE | ROSENBERG A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Duke University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8341-4660 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 81 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Philosophy of Science
Measuring Utility: From the Marginal Revolution to Behavioral Economics by Ivan Moscati
Book Review| October 01 2019 Measuring Utility: From the Marginal Revolution to Behavioral Economics by Ivan Moscati Measuring Utility: From the Marginal Revolution to Behavioral Economics. By Moscati, Ivan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. vii; 326 pp. $34.95. Alex Rosenberg Alex Rosenberg Duke University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google History of Political Economy (2019) 51 (5): 974–976. https://doi.org/10.121…
Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction
Any serious student attempting to better understand the nature, methods, and justification of science will value Alex Rosenberg and Lee McIntyre’s updated and substantially revised fourth edition of Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction. Weaving lucid explanations with clear analyses, the volume is a much- used, thematically oriented introduction to the field. The fourth edition has been thoroughly rewritten based on instructor and s…
How History Gets Things Wrong: The Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories
Making mechanism interesting
Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction
Why do Spatiotemporally Restricted Regularities Explain in the Social Sciences
Employing a well-known local regularity from macroeconomics, the Phillips curve, I examine Woodward’s ([2000], [2003]) account of the explanatory power of such historically restricted generalizations and the mathematical models with which they are sometimes associated. The article seeks to show that, pace Woodward, to be explanatory such generalizations need to be underwritten by more fundamental ones, and that rational choice theory would not av…
Are Homologies (Selected Effect or Causal Role) Function Free
This article argues that at least very many judgments of homology rest on prior attributions of selected-effect (SE) function, and that many of the “parts” of biological systems that are rightly classified as homologous are constituted by (are so classified in virtue of) their consequence etiologies. We claim that SE functions are often used in the prior identification of the parts deemed to be homologous and are often used to differentiate more …
The Return of the Tabula Rasa
Philosophy of Biology: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)
How Darwinian reductionism refutes genetic determinism
On the Original Contract: Evolutionary Game Theory and Human Evolution
This paper considers whether the available evidence from archeology, biological anthropology, primatology, and comparative gene-sequencing, can test evolutionary game theory models of cooperation as historical hypotheses about the actual course of human prehistory. The examination proceeds on the assumption that cooperation is the product of cultural selection and is not a genetically encoded trait. Nevertheless, we conclude that gene sequence da…
Lessons from Biology for Philosophy of the Human Sciences
The social sciences must be biological ones, owing simply to the fact that they focus on the causes and effects of the behavior of members of a biological species, Homo sapiens. Our improved understanding of biology as a science and of the biological realm should enable us therefore to solve several of the outstanding problems of the philosophy of social science. The solution to these problems leaves most of the social and behavioral sciences pre…
How to Reconcile Physicalism and Antireductionism about Biology
Physicalism and antireductionism are the ruling orthodoxy in the philosophy of biology. But these two theses are difficult to reconcile. Merely embracing an epistemic antireductionism will not suffice, as both reductionists and antireductionists accept that given our cognitive interests and limitations, non-molecular explanations may not be improved, corrected or grounded in molecular ones. Moreover, antireductionists themselves view their claim …
Fitness, Probability and the Principles of Natural Selection
We argue that a fashionable interpretation of the theory of natural selection as a claim exclusively about populations is mistaken. The interpretation rests on adopting an analysis of fitness as a probabilistic propensity which cannot be substantiated, draws parallels with thermodynamics which are without foundations, and fails to do justice to the fundamental distinction between drift and selection. This distinction requires a notion of fitness …
On the Priority of Intellectual Property Rights, Especially in Biotechnology
This article argues that considerations about the role and predictability of intellectual innovation make the protection of intellectual property morally obligatory even when it greatly reduces short-term welfare. Since the provision of good new ideas is the only productive input not subject to decreasing marginal productivity, welfarist considerations require that no impediment to its maximal provision be erected and the potentially substantial …
Discussion Note: Indeterminism, Probability, and Randomness in Evolutionary Theory
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Reductionism in a Historical Science
Reductionism is a metaphysical thesis, a claim about explanations, and a research program. The metaphysical thesis reductionists advance (and antireductionists accept) is that all facts, including all biological facts, are fixed by the physical and chemical facts; there are no non-physical events, states, or processes, and so biological events, states and processes are “nothing but” physical ones. The research program can be framed as a methodolo…
How is Biological Explanation Possible
That biology provides explanations is not open to doubt. But how it does so must be a vexed question for those who deny that biology embodies laws or other generalizations with the sort of explanatory force that the philosophy of science recognizes. The most common response to this problem has involved redefining law so that those grammatically general statements which biologists invoke in explanations can be counted as laws. But this terminologi…
Is Indeterminism the Source of the Statistical Character of Evolutionary Theory
We argue that Brandon and Carson's (1996) “The Indeterministic Character of Evolutionary Theory” fails to identify any indeterminism that would require evolutionary theory to be a statistical or probabilistic theory. Specifically, we argue that (1) their demonstration of a mechanism by which quantum indeterminism might “percolate up” to the biological level is irrelevant; (2) their argument that natural selection is indeterministic because it is …
Naturalistic Epistemology for Eliminative Materialists
This paper defends and extends Quine's version of a naturalistic epistemology, and defends it against criticism, especially that offered by Kim, according to which Quine's naturalism deprives epistemology of its normative role, and indeed of its relevance to psychological states, such as beliefs, whose warrant epistemology aims to assess. I defend Quinean epistemology's objections to the epistemic pluralism associated with other self-styled natur…
Can Physicalist Antireductionism Compute the Embryo
It is widely held that (1) there are autonomous levels of organization above that of the macromolecule and that (2) at least sometimes macromolecular processes are best explained in terms of such autonomous kinds. I argue that molecular developmental biology honors neither of these claims, and I show that the only way they can be rendered consistent with a minimal physicalism is through the adoption of controversial claims about causation and exp…
Critical Review: Sober's Philosophy of Biology and his Philosophy of Biology
An examination of the foundations of Elliot Sober's philosophy of biology as reflected in his introductory textbook of that title reveals substantial and controversial philosphical commitments. Among these are the claim that all understanding is historical, the assertion that there are biological laws but they are necessary truths, the view that the fundamental theory in biology is a narrative, and the suggestion that biology adverts to ungrounde…
A Field Guide to Recent Species of Naturalism
This review of recent work in the philosophy of science motivated by a commitment to ‘naturalism’ begins by identifying three key axioms and one theorem shared by philosophers thus self-styled. Owing much to Quine and Ernest Nagel, these philosophers of science share a common agenda with naturalists elsewhere in philosophy. But they have disagreed among themselves about how the axioms and the theorems they share settle long-standing disputes in t…
Scientific innovation and the limits of social scientific prediction
Fitness, Probability and the Principles of Natural Selection
We argue that a fashionable interpretation of the theory of natural selection as a claim exclusively about populations is mistaken. The interpretation rests on adopting an analysis of fitness as a probabilistic propensity which cannot be substantiated, draws parallels with thermodynamics which are without foundations, and fails to do justice to the fundamental distinction between drift and selection. This distinction requires a notion of fitness …
Is Indeterminism the Source of the Statistical Character of Evolutionary Theory
We argue that Brandon and Carson's (1996) “The Indeterministic Character of Evolutionary Theory” fails to identify any indeterminism that would require evolutionary theory to be a statistical or probabilistic theory. Specifically, we argue that (1) their demonstration of a mechanism by which quantum indeterminism might “percolate up” to the biological level is irrelevant; (2) their argument that natural selection is indeterministic because it is …
How is Biological Explanation Possible
That biology provides explanations is not open to doubt. But how it does so must be a vexed question for those who deny that biology embodies laws or other generalizations with the sort of explanatory force that the philosophy of science recognizes. The most common response to this problem has involved redefining law so that those grammatically general statements which biologists invoke in explanations can be counted as laws. But this terminologi…
Are Homologies (Selected Effect or Causal Role) Function Free
This article argues that at least very many judgments of homology rest on prior attributions of selected-effect (SE) function, and that many of the “parts” of biological systems that are rightly classified as homologous are constituted by (are so classified in virtue of) their consequence etiologies. We claim that SE functions are often used in the prior identification of the parts deemed to be homologous and are often used to differentiate more …
Making mechanism interesting
Lessons from Biology for Philosophy of the Human Sciences
The social sciences must be biological ones, owing simply to the fact that they focus on the causes and effects of the behavior of members of a biological species, Homo sapiens. Our improved understanding of biology as a science and of the biological realm should enable us therefore to solve several of the outstanding problems of the philosophy of social science. The solution to these problems leaves most of the social and behavioral sciences pre…
Discussion Note: Indeterminism, Probability, and Randomness in Evolutionary Theory
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
A Field Guide to Recent Species of Naturalism
This review of recent work in the philosophy of science motivated by a commitment to ‘naturalism’ begins by identifying three key axioms and one theorem shared by philosophers thus self-styled. Owing much to Quine and Ernest Nagel, these philosophers of science share a common agenda with naturalists elsewhere in philosophy. But they have disagreed among themselves about how the axioms and the theorems they share settle long-standing disputes in t…
On the Priority of Intellectual Property Rights, Especially in Biotechnology
This article argues that considerations about the role and predictability of intellectual innovation make the protection of intellectual property morally obligatory even when it greatly reduces short-term welfare. Since the provision of good new ideas is the only productive input not subject to decreasing marginal productivity, welfarist considerations require that no impediment to its maximal provision be erected and the potentially substantial …
How to Reconcile Physicalism and Antireductionism about Biology
Physicalism and antireductionism are the ruling orthodoxy in the philosophy of biology. But these two theses are difficult to reconcile. Merely embracing an epistemic antireductionism will not suffice, as both reductionists and antireductionists accept that given our cognitive interests and limitations, non-molecular explanations may not be improved, corrected or grounded in molecular ones. Moreover, antireductionists themselves view their claim …
Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction
Any serious student attempting to better understand the nature, methods, and justification of science will value Alex Rosenberg and Lee McIntyre’s updated and substantially revised fourth edition of Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction. Weaving lucid explanations with clear analyses, the volume is a much- used, thematically oriented introduction to the field. The fourth edition has been thoroughly rewritten based on instructor and s…
Why do Spatiotemporally Restricted Regularities Explain in the Social Sciences
Employing a well-known local regularity from macroeconomics, the Phillips curve, I examine Woodward’s ([2000], [2003]) account of the explanatory power of such historically restricted generalizations and the mathematical models with which they are sometimes associated. The article seeks to show that, pace Woodward, to be explanatory such generalizations need to be underwritten by more fundamental ones, and that rational choice theory would not av…
The Return of the Tabula Rasa
How Darwinian reductionism refutes genetic determinism
Naturalistic Epistemology for Eliminative Materialists
This paper defends and extends Quine's version of a naturalistic epistemology, and defends it against criticism, especially that offered by Kim, according to which Quine's naturalism deprives epistemology of its normative role, and indeed of its relevance to psychological states, such as beliefs, whose warrant epistemology aims to assess. I defend Quinean epistemology's objections to the epistemic pluralism associated with other self-styled natur…
Can Physicalist Antireductionism Compute the Embryo
It is widely held that (1) there are autonomous levels of organization above that of the macromolecule and that (2) at least sometimes macromolecular processes are best explained in terms of such autonomous kinds. I argue that molecular developmental biology honors neither of these claims, and I show that the only way they can be rendered consistent with a minimal physicalism is through the adoption of controversial claims about causation and exp…
Scientific innovation and the limits of social scientific prediction
Scientific innovation and the limits of social scientific prediction
Critical Review: Sober's Philosophy of Biology and his Philosophy of Biology
An examination of the foundations of Elliot Sober's philosophy of biology as reflected in his introductory textbook of that title reveals substantial and controversial philosphical commitments. Among these are the claim that all understanding is historical, the assertion that there are biological laws but they are necessary truths, the view that the fundamental theory in biology is a narrative, and the suggestion that biology adverts to ungrounde…
A Field Guide to Recent Species of Naturalism
This review of recent work in the philosophy of science motivated by a commitment to ‘naturalism’ begins by identifying three key axioms and one theorem shared by philosophers thus self-styled. Owing much to Quine and Ernest Nagel, these philosophers of science share a common agenda with naturalists elsewhere in philosophy. But they have disagreed among themselves about how the axioms and the theorems they share settle long-standing disputes in t…
Can Physicalist Antireductionism Compute the Embryo
It is widely held that (1) there are autonomous levels of organization above that of the macromolecule and that (2) at least sometimes macromolecular processes are best explained in terms of such autonomous kinds. I argue that molecular developmental biology honors neither of these claims, and I show that the only way they can be rendered consistent with a minimal physicalism is through the adoption of controversial claims about causation and exp…
Is Indeterminism the Source of the Statistical Character of Evolutionary Theory
We argue that Brandon and Carson's (1996) “The Indeterministic Character of Evolutionary Theory” fails to identify any indeterminism that would require evolutionary theory to be a statistical or probabilistic theory. Specifically, we argue that (1) their demonstration of a mechanism by which quantum indeterminism might “percolate up” to the biological level is irrelevant; (2) their argument that natural selection is indeterministic because it is …
Naturalistic Epistemology for Eliminative Materialists
This paper defends and extends Quine's version of a naturalistic epistemology, and defends it against criticism, especially that offered by Kim, according to which Quine's naturalism deprives epistemology of its normative role, and indeed of its relevance to psychological states, such as beliefs, whose warrant epistemology aims to assess. I defend Quinean epistemology's objections to the epistemic pluralism associated with other self-styled natur…
Discussion Note: Indeterminism, Probability, and Randomness in Evolutionary Theory
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Reductionism in a Historical Science
Reductionism is a metaphysical thesis, a claim about explanations, and a research program. The metaphysical thesis reductionists advance (and antireductionists accept) is that all facts, including all biological facts, are fixed by the physical and chemical facts; there are no non-physical events, states, or processes, and so biological events, states and processes are “nothing but” physical ones. The research program can be framed as a methodolo…
How is Biological Explanation Possible
That biology provides explanations is not open to doubt. But how it does so must be a vexed question for those who deny that biology embodies laws or other generalizations with the sort of explanatory force that the philosophy of science recognizes. The most common response to this problem has involved redefining law so that those grammatically general statements which biologists invoke in explanations can be counted as laws. But this terminologi…
Fitness, Probability and the Principles of Natural Selection
We argue that a fashionable interpretation of the theory of natural selection as a claim exclusively about populations is mistaken. The interpretation rests on adopting an analysis of fitness as a probabilistic propensity which cannot be substantiated, draws parallels with thermodynamics which are without foundations, and fails to do justice to the fundamental distinction between drift and selection. This distinction requires a notion of fitness …
On the Priority of Intellectual Property Rights, Especially in Biotechnology
This article argues that considerations about the role and predictability of intellectual innovation make the protection of intellectual property morally obligatory even when it greatly reduces short-term welfare. Since the provision of good new ideas is the only productive input not subject to decreasing marginal productivity, welfarist considerations require that no impediment to its maximal provision be erected and the potentially substantial …
On the Original Contract: Evolutionary Game Theory and Human Evolution
This paper considers whether the available evidence from archeology, biological anthropology, primatology, and comparative gene-sequencing, can test evolutionary game theory models of cooperation as historical hypotheses about the actual course of human prehistory. The examination proceeds on the assumption that cooperation is the product of cultural selection and is not a genetically encoded trait. Nevertheless, we conclude that gene sequence da…
Lessons from Biology for Philosophy of the Human Sciences
The social sciences must be biological ones, owing simply to the fact that they focus on the causes and effects of the behavior of members of a biological species, Homo sapiens. Our improved understanding of biology as a science and of the biological realm should enable us therefore to solve several of the outstanding problems of the philosophy of social science. The solution to these problems leaves most of the social and behavioral sciences pre…
How to Reconcile Physicalism and Antireductionism about Biology
Physicalism and antireductionism are the ruling orthodoxy in the philosophy of biology. But these two theses are difficult to reconcile. Merely embracing an epistemic antireductionism will not suffice, as both reductionists and antireductionists accept that given our cognitive interests and limitations, non-molecular explanations may not be improved, corrected or grounded in molecular ones. Moreover, antireductionists themselves view their claim …
How Darwinian reductionism refutes genetic determinism
The Return of the Tabula Rasa
Philosophy of Biology: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)
Are Homologies (Selected Effect or Causal Role) Function Free
This article argues that at least very many judgments of homology rest on prior attributions of selected-effect (SE) function, and that many of the “parts” of biological systems that are rightly classified as homologous are constituted by (are so classified in virtue of) their consequence etiologies. We claim that SE functions are often used in the prior identification of the parts deemed to be homologous and are often used to differentiate more …
Why do Spatiotemporally Restricted Regularities Explain in the Social Sciences
Employing a well-known local regularity from macroeconomics, the Phillips curve, I examine Woodward’s ([2000], [2003]) account of the explanatory power of such historically restricted generalizations and the mathematical models with which they are sometimes associated. The article seeks to show that, pace Woodward, to be explanatory such generalizations need to be underwritten by more fundamental ones, and that rational choice theory would not av…
Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction
How History Gets Things Wrong: The Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories
Making mechanism interesting
Philosophy of Science
Measuring Utility: From the Marginal Revolution to Behavioral Economics by Ivan Moscati
Book Review| October 01 2019 Measuring Utility: From the Marginal Revolution to Behavioral Economics by Ivan Moscati Measuring Utility: From the Marginal Revolution to Behavioral Economics. By Moscati, Ivan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. vii; 326 pp. $34.95. Alex Rosenberg Alex Rosenberg Duke University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google History of Political Economy (2019) 51 (5): 974–976. https://doi.org/10.121…
Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction
Any serious student attempting to better understand the nature, methods, and justification of science will value Alex Rosenberg and Lee McIntyre’s updated and substantially revised fourth edition of Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction. Weaving lucid explanations with clear analyses, the volume is a much- used, thematically oriented introduction to the field. The fourth edition has been thoroughly rewritten based on instructor and s…
Epistemology (18 works) · Philosophy (18 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (16 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Philosophy of science (9 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (8 works) · Biology (6 works) · Metaphysics (6 works) · Economics (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works)