Do the sciences aim to uncover the structure of nature, or are they ultimately a practical means of controlling our environment? In Instrumental Biology, or the Disunity of Science, Alexander Rosenberg argues that while physics and chemistry can develop laws that reveal the structure of natural phenomena, biology is fated to be a practical, instrumental discipline. Because of the complexity produced by natural selection, and because of the limits on human cognition, scientists are prevented from uncovering the basic structure of biological phenomena. Consequently, biology and all of the disciplines that rest upon it—psychology and the other human sciences—must aim at most to provide practical tools for coping with the natural world rather than a complete theoretical understanding of it.
Originally published in 1981. Why have the social sciences in general failed to produce results with the ever-increasing explanatory power and predictive strength of the natural sciences? In seeking an answer to this question, Alexander Rosenberg, a philosopher of science, plunges into the controversial discipline of sociobiology. Sociobiology, Rosenberg asserts, deals in those forces governing human behavior that traditional social science has unsuccessfully attempted to slip between: neurophysiology, on the one hand, and selective forces, on the other. Unlike previous works in the two fields it straddles, Rosenberg's book brings thinking about the nature of scientific theorizing to bear on the most traditional issues in the philosophy of social science. The author finds that the subjects of conventional social science do not reflect the operation of laws that social scientists are equipped to discover. The author argues that much of the debate surrounding sociobiology is irrelevant to the issue of its ultimate success. Although largely conceptual, the book is an unequivocal defense of this new theory in the explanation of human behavior.
This text identifies the profound philosophical problems that science raises through an examination of enduring questions about its nature, methods and justification.
Economics will never be able to move beyond these vague predictions because it treats human behavior - individual and social - as the product of expectations and preferences - beliefs and desires - the variables that cannot be measured independently of the actual choices we want to predict. These factors, combined with the economist's commitment to the search for equilibrium solutions to theoretical problems, condemn economic theory to permanent predictive weakness. In the end, Rosenberg's analysis is not merely a critique. His aim is to redefine the scope and value of neoclassical theory, suggesting that its character and most important accomplishments need to be correctly understood to defend economics against the charge that it is a science of diminishing returns."--BOOK JACKET.
Philosophy of Social Science provides a tightly argued yet accessible introduction to the philosophical foundations of the human sciences, including economics, anthropology, sociology, political science, psychology, history, and the disciplines emerging at the intersections of these subjects with biology. Philosophy is unavoidable for social scientists because the choices they make in answering questions in their disciplines force them to take sides on philosophical matters. Conversely, the philosophy of social science is equally necessary for philosophers since the social and behavior sciences must inform their understanding of human action, norms, and social institutions. The fifth edition retains from previous editions an illuminating interpretation of the enduring relations between the social sciences and philosophy, and reflects on developments in social research over the past two decades that have informed and renewed debate in the philosophy of social science. An expanded discussion of philosophical anthropology and modern and postmodern critical theory is new for this edition.
Why we learn the wrong things from narrative history, and how our love for stories is hard-wired. To understand something, you need to know its history. Right? Wrong, says Alex Rosenberg in How History Gets Things Wrong . Feeling especially well-informed after reading a book of popular history on the best-seller list? Don't. Narrative history is always, always wrong. It not just incomplete or inaccurate but deeply wrong, as wrong as Ptolemaic astronomy. We no longer believe that the earth is the center of the universe. Why do we still believe in historical narrative? Our attachment to history as a vehicle for understanding has a long Darwinian pedigree and a genetic basis. Our love of stories is hard-wired. Neuroscience reveals that human evolution shaped a tool useful for survival into a defective theory of human nature. Stories historians tell, Rosenberg continues, are not only wrong but harmful.
Rosenberg applies current thinking in philosophy of science to neoclassical economics in order to assess its claims to scientific standing. Although philosophers have used history and psychology as paradigms for the examination of social science, there is good reason to believe that economics is a more appropriate subject for analysis: it is the most systematized and quantified of the social sciences; its practitioners have reached a measure of consensus on important aspects of their subject; and it encompasses a large number of apparently law-like propositions.
A collection of essays by Alexander Rosenberg, the distinguished philosopher of science. The essays cover three broad areas related to Darwinian thought and naturalism: the first deals with the solution of philosophical problems such as reductionism, the second with the development of social theories, and the third with the intersection of evolutionary biology with economics, political philosophy, and public policy. Specific papers deal with naturalistic epistemology, the limits of reductionism, the biological justification of ethics, the so-called 'trolley problem' in moral philosophy, the political philosophy of biological endowments, and the Human Genome Project and its implications for policy. Rosenberg's important writings on a variety of issues are here organized into a coherent philosophical framework which promises to be a significant and controversial contribution to scholarship in many areas.
Preface p. ix Chapter 1 Biology and Its Philosophy p. 2 1.1 The Rise of Logical Positivism p. 2 1.2 The Consequences for Philosophy p. 4 1.3 Problems of Falsifiability p. 6 1.4 Philosophy of Science Without Positivism p. 8 1.5 Speculation and Science p. 10 Introduction to the Literature p. 11 Chapter 2 Autonomy and Provincialism p. 13 2.1 Philosophical Agendas versus Biological Agendas p. 13 2.2 Motives for Provincialism and Autonomy p. 18 2.3 Biological Philosophies p. 21 2.4 Tertium Datur? p. 25 2.5 The Issues in Dispute p. 30 2.6 Steps in the Argument p. 34 Introduction to the Literature p. 35 Chapter 3 Teleology and the Roots of Autonomy p. 37 3.1 Functional Explanations in Molecular Biology p. 39 3.2 The Search for Functions p. 43 3.3 Functional Laws p. 47 3.4 Directively Organized Systems p. 52 3.5 The Autonomy of Teleological Laws p. 59 3.6 The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Functional Explanation p. 62 3.7 Functional Explanation Will Always Be with Us p. 65 Introduction to the Literature p. 67 Chapter 4 Reductionism and the Temptation of Provincialism p. 69 4.1 Motives for Reductionism p. 69 4.2 A Triumph of Reductionism p. 73 4.3 Reductionism and Recombinant DNA p. 84 4.4 Antireductionism and Molecular Genetics p. 88 4.5 Mendel's Genes and Benzer's Cistrons p. 93 4.6 Reduction Obstructed p. 97 4.7 Qualifying Reductionism p. 106 4.8 The Supervenience of Mendelian Genetics p. 11 4.9 Levels of Organization p. 117 Introduction to the Literature p. 119 Chapter 5 The Structure of Evolutionary Theory p. 121 5.1 Is There an Evolutionary Theory? p. 122 5.2 The Charge of Tautology p. 126 5.3 Population Genetics and Evolution p. 130 5.4 Williams's Axiomatization of Evolutionary Theory p. 136 5.5 Adequacy of the Axiomatization p. 144 Introduction to the Literature p. 152 Chapter 6 Fitness p. 154 6.1 Fitness Is Measured by Its Effects p. 154 6.2 Fitness As a Statistical Propensity p. 160 6.3 The Supervenience of Fitness p. 164 6.4 The Evidence for Evolution p. 169 6.5 The Scientific Context of Evolutionary Theory p. 174 Introduction to the Literature p. 179 Chapter 7 Species p. 180 7.1 Operationalism and Theory in Taxonomy p. 182 7.2 Essentialism--For and Against p. 187 7.3 The Biological Species Notion p. 191 7.4 Evolutionary and Ecological Species p. 197 7.5 Species Are Not Natural Kinds p. 201 7.6 Species As Individuals p. 204 7.7 The Theoretical Hierarchy of Biology p. 212 7.8 The Statistical Character of Evolutionary Theory p. 216 7.9 Universal Theories and Case Studies p. 219 Introduction to the Literature p. 225 Chapter 8 New Problems of Functionalism p. 226 8.1 Functionalism in Molecular Biology p. 228 8.2 The Panglossian Paradigm p. 235 8.3 Aptations, Exaptations, and Adaptations p. 243 8.4 Information and Action Among the Macromolecules p. 246 8.5 Metaphors and Molecules p. 255 Bibliography p. 266 Index p. 273.
After the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, scientists working in molecular biology embraced reductionism—the theory that all complex systems can be understood in terms of their components. Reductionism, however, has been widely resisted by both nonmolecular biologists and scientists working outside the field of biology. Many of these antireductionists, nevertheless, embrace the notion of physicalism—the idea that all biological processes are physical in nature. How, Alexander Rosenberg asks, can these self-proclaimed physicalists also be antireductionists? With clarity and wit, Darwinian Reductionism navigates this difficult and seemingly intractable dualism with convincing analysis and timely evidence. In the spirit of the few distinguished biologists who accept reductionism—E. O. Wilson, Francis Crick, Jacques Monod, James Watson, and Richard Dawkins—Rosenberg provides a philosophically sophisticated defense of reductionism and applies it to molecular developmental biology and the theory of natural selection, ultimately proving that the physicalist must also be a reductionist.
This is an expanded and thoroughly revised edition of the widely adopted introduction to the philosophical foundations of the human sciences. Ranging from cultural anthropology to mathematical economics, Alexander Rosenberg leads the reader through behaviorism, naturalism, interpretativism about human action, and macrosocial scientific perspectives, illuminating the motivation and strategy of each.Rewritten throughout to increase accessibility, this new edition retains the remarkable achievement of revealing the social sciences’ enduring relation to the fundamental problems of philosophy. It includes new discussions of positivism, European philosophy of history, causation, statistical laws, quantitative models, and postempiricist social science, along with a completely updated literature guide that keys chapters to widely anthologized papers.
A celebration of Jewish men's voices in prayer—to strengthen, to heal, to comfort, to inspire from the ancient world up to our own day. "An extraordinary gathering of men—diverse in their ages, their lives, their convictions—have convened in this collection to offer contemporary, compelling and personal prayers. The words published here are not the recitation of established liturgies, but the direct address of today's Jewish men to ha-Shomea Tefilla, the Ancient One who has always heard, and who remains eager to receive, the prayers of our hearts." —from the Foreword by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, DHL This collection of prayers celebrates the variety of ways Jewish men engage in personal dialogue with God—with words of praise, petition, joy, gratitude, wonder and even anger—from the ancient world up to our own day. Drawn from mystical, traditional, biblical, Talmudic, Hasidic and modern sources, these prayers will help you deepen your relationship with God and help guide your journey of self-discovery, healing and spiritual awareness. Together they provide a powerful and creative expression of Jewish men’s inner lives, and the always revealing, sometimes painful, sometimes joyous—and often even practical—practice that prayer can be. Jewish Men Pray will challenge your preconceived ideas about prayer. It will inspire you to explore new ways of prayerful expression, new paths for finding the sacred in the ordinary and new possibilities for understanding the Jewish relationship with the Divine. This is a book to treasure and to share.
Any serious student attempting to better understand the nature, methods, and justification of science will value Alex Rosenberg's 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 as a much-used, thematically-oriented introduction to the field"--
These twelve original essays are 'after' Marx in several senses. The first and most obvious is the purely chronological sense: They are written one hundred years after Marx's death. The authors are therefore able to see more clearly what Marx did not or could not see and to see more clearly that which he foresaw only dimly. The second sense in which they are after Marx is political: In this century virtually all revolutionaries call themselves Marxists and purport to apply Marx's precepts to political practice. Armed with their different interpretations of a nineteenth-century theory, they have altered - and continue to reshape - the political contours of the twentieth century. Marx raised more questions than he, or anyone else, could ever reasonably hope to answer. To raise anew some of these questions and to approach them in the critical spirit of Marx's own thinking, are the common themes running through and uniting these essays.
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