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201Philosophy of Science: Contemporary Readings (edited book)Routledge. 2001.This comprehensive anthology draws together writings by leading philosophers on the philosophy of science. Each section is prefaced by an introductory essay from the editors, guiding students gently into the topic. Accessible and wide-ranging, the text draws on both contemporary and twentieth century sources. The readings are designed to complement Alex Rosenberg's textbook, _Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction_, but can also serve as a stand-alone volume in any philosophy of scie…Read more
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170How Jerry Fodor slid down the slippery slope to Anti-Darwinism, and how we can avoid the same fateEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 3 (1): 1-17. 2013.There is only one physically possible process that builds and operates purposive systems in nature: natural selection. What it does is build and operate systems that look to us purposive, goal directed, teleological. There really are not any purposes in nature and no purposive processes ether. It is just one vast network of linked causal chains. Darwinian natural selection is the only process that could produce the appearance of purpose. That is why natural selection must have built and must con…Read more
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81Why do Spatiotemporally Restricted Regularities Explain in the Social Sciences?British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (1): 1-26. 2012.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 avail in this case to provide the required underwrit…Read more
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20Defending Information-Free GenocentrismHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 27 (3/4). 2005.Genocentrism, the thesis that the genes play a special role in the causation of development is often rejected in favor of a 'causal democracy thesis' to the effect that all causally necessary conditions for development are equal. Genocentrists argue that genes play a distinct causal role owing to their informational content and that this content enables them to program the embryo. I show that the special causal role of the genome hinges not on its informational status — it has none, or at least …Read more
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35The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics by Daniel M. Hausman (review)Journal of Philosophy 90 (10): 533-537. 1993.
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245Reductionism redux: Computing the embryo (review)Biology and Philosophy 12 (4): 445-470. 1997.This paper argues that the consensus physicalist antireductionism in the philosophy of biology cannot accommodate the research strategy or indeed the recent findings of molecular developmental biology. After describing Wolperts programmatic claims on its behalf, and recent work by Gehring and others to identify the molecular determinants of development, the paper attempts to identify the relationship between evolutionary and developmental biology by reconciling two apparently conflicting account…Read more
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33Can physicalist antireductionism compute the embryo?Philosophy of Science 64 (4): 371. 1997.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 explanation which undercut the force of these two ant…Read more
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20The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Social Science (edited book)Routledge. 2016.The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Social Science is an outstanding guide to the major themes, movements, debates, and topics in the philosophy of social science. It includes thirty-seven newly written chapters, by many of the leading scholars in the field, as well as a comprehensive introduction by the editors. Insofar as possible, the material in this volume is presented in accessible language, with an eye toward undergraduate and graduate students who may be coming to some of this mater…Read more
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116If economics is a science, what kind of a science is it?In Harold Kincaid & Don Ross (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Economics, Oxford University Press. pp. 55--67. 2009.
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113Making mechanism interestingSynthese 195 (1): 11-33. 2018.I note the multitude of ways in which, beginning with the classic paper by Machamer et al., the mechanists have qualify their methodological dicta, and limit the vulnerability of their claims by strategic vagueness regarding their application. I go on to generalize a version of the mechanist requirement on explanations due to Craver and Kaplan :601–627, 2011) in cognitive and systems neuroscience so that it applies broadly across the life sciences in accordance with the view elaborated by Craver…Read more
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25The administrators of the human genome project were eager to stimulate public discussion, academic debate, legal and legislative deliberation of how individuals and institutions should respond to the revolution in genomics. Paramount among the issues whose discussion they encouraged are three obvious matters: The threat which access to our genetic information poses for heath insurance, employment, and social discrimination the nefarious consequences for scientific advance of turning basic scient…Read more
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40The Return of the Tabula Rasa (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (2): 476-497. 2007.
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25Subversive Reflections on the Human Genome ProjectPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1994. 1994.By developing an elaborate allegory, this paper attempts to show that the advertised aim of the Human Genome project, to sequence the entire 3 billion base pair primary sequence of the nucleic acid molecules that constitute the human genome, does not make scientific sense. This raises the questions of what the real aim of the project could be, and why the molecular biological community has chosen to offer the primary sequence as the objective to be funded, when identifying functionally important…Read more
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19Philosophy of Biology: A Contemporary IntroductionRoutledge. 2007.Is life a purely physical process? What is human nature? Which of our traits is essential to us? In this volume, Daniel McShea and Alex Rosenberg – a biologist and a philosopher, respectively – join forces to create a new gateway to the philosophy of biology; making the major issues accessible and relevant to biologists and philosophers alike. Exploring concepts such as supervenience; the controversies about genocentrism and genetic determinism; and the debate about major transitions central to …Read more
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165Are homologies (selected effect or causal role) function free?Philosophy of Science 76 (3): 307-334. 2009.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 restricted homologous kinds within less restricted…Read more
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300Matthen and Ariew’s Obituary for Fitness: Reports of its Death have been Greatly Exaggerated (review)Biology and Philosophy 20 (2-3): 343-353. 2005.Philosophers of biology have been absorbed by the problem of defining evolutionary fitness since Darwin made it central to biological explanation. The apparent problem is obvious. Define fitness as some biologists implicitly do, in terms of actual survival and reproduction, and the principle of natural selection turns into an empty tautology: those organisms which survive and reproduce in larger numbers, survive and reproduce in larger numbers. Accordingly, many writers have sought to provide a …Read more
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177The issue of whether there are laws in biology and the “special science”1 has been of interest owing to the debate about whether scientific explanation requires laws. A well-warn argument goes thus: no laws in social science, no explanations, or at least no scientific explanations, at most explanation-sketches. The conclusion is not just a matter of labeling. If explanations are not scientific they are not epistemically or practically reliable. There are at least three well-known diagnoses of wh…Read more
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67Discussion note: Indeterminism, probability, and randomness in evolutionary theoryPhilosophy of Science 68 (4): 536-544. 2001.
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2410 The metaphysics of microeconomicsIn Uskali Mäki (ed.), The Economic World View: Studies in the Ontology of Economics, Cambridge University Press. pp. 66--174. 2001.
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51Reflexivity, uncertainty and the unity of scienceJournal of Economic Methodology 20 (4): 429-438. 2013.The paper argues that substantial support for Soros' claims about uncertainty and reflexivity in economics and human affairs generally are provided by the operation of both factors in the biological domain to produce substantially the same processes which have been recognized by ecologists and evolutionary biologists. In particular predator prey relations have their sources in uncertainty – i.e. the random character of variations, and frequency dependent co-evolution – reflexivity. The paper arg…Read more
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294Solving the Circularity Problem for Functions: A Response to NanayJournal of Philosophy 109 (10): 613-622. 2012.
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78Lessons from biology for philosophy of the human sciencesPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 35 (1): 3-19. 2005.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 pretty much as it finds them, though it does provide …Read more
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23Book Review:Philosophy of Biology and His Philosophy of Biology Elliot Sober (review)Philosophy of Science 63 (3): 452-. 1996.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 philosophical 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 ungrounded probabilistic propensities of the sort to be me…Read more
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68From Rational Choice to Reflexivity: Learning from Sen, Keynes, Hayek, Soros, and most of all, from DarwinEconomic Thought 3 (1): 21. 2014.This paper identifies the major failings of mainstream economics and the rational choice theory it relies upon. These failures were identified by the four figures mentioned in the title: economics treats agents as rational fools; by the time the long … More ›
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Arizona State UniversityPhilosophy - School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious StudiesProfessor (Part-time)
Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Biology |
Philosophy of Social Science |