Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
  •  1020
    Common Interest and Signaling Games: A Dynamic Analysis
    Philosophy of Science 83 (3): 371-392. 2016.
    We present a dynamic model of the evolution of communication in a Lewis signaling game while systematically varying the degree of common interest between sender and receiver. We show that the level of common interest between sender and receiver is strongly predictive of the amount of information transferred between them. We also discuss a set of rare but interesting cases in which common interest is almost entirely absent, yet substantial information transfer persists in a *cheap talk* regime, a…Read more
  •  581
    Recurrent transient underdetermination and the glass half full (review)
    Philosophical Studies 137 (1). 2008.
    Kyle Stanford’s arguments against scientific realism are assessed, with a focus on the underdetermination of theory by evidence. I argue that discussions of underdetermination have neglected a possible symmetry which may ameliorate the situation.
  •  577
    How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is "really" like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality , Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of one hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science. Intended for undergraduates and general readers with no prior background in philosophy, Theory and Reali…Read more
  •  570
    On the evolution of behavioral complexity in individuals and populations
    with Carl T. Bergstrom
    Biology and Philosophy 13 (2): 205-31. 1998.
    A wide range of ecological and evolutionary models predict variety in phenotype or behavior when a population is at equilibrium. This heterogeneity can be realized in different ways. For example, it can be realized through a complex population of individuals exhibiting different simple behaviors, or through a simple population of individuals exhibiting complex, varying behaviors. In some theoretical frameworks these different realizations are treated as equivalent, but natural selection distingu…Read more
  •  552
    The strategy of model-based science
    Biology and Philosophy 21 (5): 725-740. 2006.
  •  449
    Individualist and multi-level perspectives on selection in structured populations
    with Benjamin Kerr
    Biology and Philosophy 17 (4): 477-517. 2002.
    Recent years have seen a renewed debate over the importance of groupselection, especially as it relates to the evolution of altruism. Onefeature of this debate has been disagreement over which kinds ofprocesses should be described in terms of selection at multiple levels,within and between groups. Adapting some earlier discussions, we presenta mathematical framework that can be used to explore the exactrelationships between evolutionary models that do, and those that donot, explicitly recognize …Read more
  •  435
    Mind, Matter, and Metabolism
    Journal of Philosophy 113 (10): 481-506. 2016.
    I discuss the bearing on the mind-body problem of some general characteristics of living systems, including the physical basis of metabolism and the relation between living activity and cognitive capacities in simple organisms. I then attempt to describe stages in the history of animal life important to the evolution of subjective experience. Features of the biological basis of cognition are used to criticize arguments against materialism that draw on the conceivability of a separation between m…Read more
  •  418
    Gestalt-Switching and the Evolutionary Transitions
    with Benjamin Kerr
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (1): 205-222. 2013.
    Formal methods developed for modeling levels of selection problems have recently been applied to the investigation of major evolutionary transitions. We discuss two new tools of this kind. First, the ‘near-variant test’ can be used to compare the causal adequacy of predictively equivalent representations. Second, ‘state-variable gestalt-switching’ can be used to gain a useful dual perspective on evolutionary processes that involve both higher and lower level populations
  •  417
    Rejection and valuations
    Analysis 70 (1). 2010.
    Timothy Smiley’s wonderful paper ‘Rejection’ (1996) is still perhaps not as well known or well understood as it should be. This note first gives a quick presentation of themes from that paper, though done in our own way, and then considers a putative line of objection – recently advanced by Julien Murzi and Ole Hjortland (2009) – to one of Smiley’s key claims. Along the way, we consider the prospects for an intuitionistic approach to some of the issues discussed in Smiley’s paper.
  •  382
    Models and fictions in science
    Philosophical Studies 143 (1). 2009.
    Non-actual model systems discussed in scientific theories are compared to fictions in literature. This comparison may help with the understanding of similarity relations between models and real-world target systems. The ontological problems surrounding fictions in science may be particularly difficult, however. A comparison is also made to ontological problems that arise in the philosophy of mathematics.
  •  333
    Goodman’s Problem and Scientific Methodology
    Journal of Philosophy 100 (11). 2003.
  •  318
    Triviality arguments against functionalism
    Philosophical Studies 145 (2). 2009.
    “Triviality arguments” against functionalism in the philosophy of mind hold that the claim that some complex physical system exhibits a given functional organization is either trivial or has much less content than is usually supposed. I survey several earlier arguments of this kind, and present a new one that overcomes some limitations in the earlier arguments. Resisting triviality arguments is possible, but requires functionalists to revise popular views about the “autonomy” of functional descr…Read more
  •  316
    Content in Simple Signalling Systems
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (4): 1009-1035. 2018.
    Our understanding of communication and its evolution has advanced significantly through the study of simple models involving interacting senders and receivers of signals. Many theorists have thought that the resources of mathematical information theory are all that are needed to capture the meaning or content that is being communicated in these systems. However, the way theorists routinely talk about the models implicitly draws on a conception of content that is richer than bare informational co…Read more
  •  262
    Group fitness and multi-level selection: Replies to commentaries (review)
    with Benjamin Kerr
    Biology and Philosophy 17 (4): 539-549. 2002.
  •  232
    Theories and Models in Metaphysics
    The Harvard Review of Philosophy 14 (1): 4-19. 2006.
    Metaphysics is once again a thriving subdiscipline within philosophy, despite a long tradition of challenges to the very viability of the metaphysical enterprise. The criticisms have not so much been satisfactorily answered, as shouldered aside by the vigorous development of the field. Some focused meta-theoretic discussion has recently arisen within mainstream metaphysics.1 The present paper is written more from an outsider's vantage point. I attempt to give a new meta-theory for some parts of …Read more
  •  211
    Petition to Include Cephalopods as “Animals” Deserving of Humane Treatment under the Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals
    with New England Anti-Vivisection Society, American Anti-Vivisection Society, The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, The Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society Legislative Fund, Jennifer Jacquet, Becca Franks, Judit Pungor, Jennifer Mather, Lori Marino, Greg Barord, Carl Safina, Heather Browning, and Walter Veit
    Harvard Law School Animal Law and Policy Clinic. forthcoming.
  •  207
    On Price's Equation and Average Fitness
    with Kerr Benjamin
    Biology and Philosophy 17 (4): 551-565. 2002.
    A number of recent discussions have argued that George Price's equationfor representing evolutionary change is a powerful and illuminatingtool, especially in the context of debates about multiple levels ofselection. Our paper dissects Price's equation in detail, and comparesit to another statistical tool: the calculation and comparison ofaverage fitnesses. The relations between Price's equation and equationsfor evolutionary change using average fitness are closer than issometimes supposed. The t…Read more
  •  205
    Conditions for Evolution by Natural Selection
    Journal of Philosophy 104 (10): 489-516. 2007.
    Both biologists and philosophers often make use of simple verbal formulations of necessary and sufficient conditions for evolution by natural selection (ENS). Such summaries go back to Darwin's Origin of Species (especially the "Recapitulation"), but recent ones are more compact.1 Perhaps the most commonly cited formulation is due to Lewontin.2 These summaries tend to have three or four conditions, where the core requirement is a combination of variation, heredity, and fitness differences. The s…Read more
  •  184
    Misinformation
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 19 (4): 533-50. 1989.
    It is well known that informational theories of representation have trouble accounting for error. Informational semantics is a family of theories attempting a naturalistic, unashamedly reductive explanation of the semantic and intentional properties of thought and language. Most simply, the informational approach explains truth-conditional content in terms of causal, nomic, or simply regular correlation between a representation and a state of affairs. The central work is Dretske, and the theory …Read more
  •  184
    Metaphysics and the philosophical imagination
    Philosophical Studies 160 (1): 97-113. 2012.
    Methods and goals in philosophy are discussed by first describing an ideal, and then looking at how the ideal might be approached. David Lewis’s work in metaphysics is critically examined and compared to analogous work by Mackie and Carnap. Some large-scale philosophical systematic work, especially in metaphysics, is best treated as model-building, in a sense of that term that draws on the philosophy of science. Models are constructed in a way that involves deliberate simplification, or other im…Read more
  •  183
    The replicator in retrospect
    Biology and Philosophy 15 (3): 403-423. 2000.
    The history and theoretical role of the concept of a ``replicator''is discussed, starting with Dawkins' and Hull's classic treatmentsand working forward. I argue that the replicator concept is still auseful one for evolutionary theory, but it should be revised insome ways. The most important revision is the recognition that notall processes of evolution by natural selection require thatsomething play the role of a replicator.
  •  175
    An introduction to formal logic
    Cambridge University Press. 2003.
    Formal logic provides us with a powerful set of techniques for criticizing some arguments and showing others to be valid. These techniques are relevant to all of us with an interest in being skilful and accurate reasoners. In this highly accessible book, Peter Smith presents a guide to the fundamental aims and basic elements of formal logic. He introduces the reader to the languages of propositional and predicate logic, and then develops formal systems for evaluating arguments translated into th…Read more
  •  166
    Evolving Across the Explanatory Gap
    Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 11 (1): 1-13. 2019.
    One way to express the most persistent part of the mind-body problem is to say that there is an “explanatory gap” between the physical and the mental. The gap is not usually taken to apply to all of the mental, but to subjective experience, the mind’s “qualitative” features, or what is now referred to as “phenomenal consciousness.” The “gap” formulation is due to Joseph Levine. He acknowledged the appeal of intuitions of separability between physical facts, of any kind we can envisage, and this …Read more
  •  159
    Adaptationism and the adaptive landscape
    with Jon F. Wilkins
    Biology and Philosophy 24 (2): 199-214. 2009.
    Debates over adaptationism can be clarified and partially resolved by careful consideration of the ‘grain’ at which evolutionary processes are described. The framework of ‘adaptive landscapes’ can be used to illustrate and facilitate this investigation. We argue that natural selection may have special status at an intermediate grain of analysis of evolutionary processes. The cases of sickle-cell disease and genomic imprinting are used as case studies.
  •  144
    Pinocchio beards the Barber
    Analysis 72 (4): 749-752. 2012.
    The Pinocchio paradox poses one dialetheia too many for semantic dialetheists (Eldridge-Smith 2011). However, Beall (2011) thinks that the Pinocchio scenario is merely an impossible story, like that of the village barber who shaves just those villagers who do not shave themselves. Meanwhile, Beall maintains that Liar paradoxes generate dialetheia. The Barber scenario is self-contradictory, yet the Pinocchio scenario requires a principle of truth for a contradiction. In this and other respects th…Read more
  •  141
    Individuality, subjectivity, and minimal cognition
    Biology and Philosophy 31 (6): 775-796. 2016.
    The paper links discussions of two topics: biological individuality and the simplest forms of mentality. I discuss several attempts to locate the boundary between metabolic activity and ‘minimal cognition.’ I then look at differences between the kinds of individuality present in unicellular life, multicellular life in general, and animals of several kinds. Nervous systems, which are clearly relevant to cognition and subjectivity, also play an important role in the form of individuality seen in a…Read more
  •  139
    ... and a reading knowledge of formal logical symbolism is essential too. (Philosophers often use bits of logical symbolism to clarify their arguments.) Because the artificial and simply formal languages of logic give us highly illuminating objects of comparison when we come thinking about how natural languages work. (Relevant to topics in ‘philosophical logic’ and the philosophy of language.) But mainly because it us the point of entry into the study of one of the major intellectual achievement…Read more