Robert N Brandon, Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics

Contact Info:

Office Location:	209 West Duke Building
Office Phone:	+1·919·660·3067, +1 919-660-3050
Email Address:
Web Page:	http://www.duke.edu/web/linguistics/index.html/~rbrandon

Teaching (Fall 2013):

• PHIL 314.01, PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY Synopsis

  West Duke 202, TuTh 01:25 PM-02:40 PM

  (also cross-listed as BIOLOGY 255.01)

• PHIL 634S.01, PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY Synopsis

  TBA, Th 04:40 PM-07:10 PM

  (also cross-listed as BIOLOGY 555S.01)

Specialties:

Philosophy of Biology
Logic

Research Interests:

Robert N. Brandon (Ph.D. 1979, Harvard) joined the Duke Faculty in fall of 1979. He holds a joint appointment in Philosophy and Biology . He has published articles in Philosophy of Science, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Biology and Philosophy, PSA 1980 and PSA 1982, some of which have subsequently been anthologized. He has co-edited (with Richard Burian) Genes, Organisms, Populations: Controversies over the Units of Selection (Bradford Books, MIT Press, 1984), and his book, Adaptation and Environment was published by Princeton University Press in 1990. His most recent book Concepts and Methods in Evolutionary Biology (Cambridge) was published in 1996. During the spring of 1984 he had a visiting appointment at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh. Brandon is a member of Duke's Center for the Philosophy of Biology.

Areas of Interest:

Philosophy of Science, 
Philosophy of Biology, 
Logic

Curriculum Vitae

Current Ph.D. Students  

• Leonore Z. Fleming  
• David Crawford  
• Aryn A. Conrad  
• Carlos Mariscal  
• Grant Ramsey  

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. R.N. Brandon and D. McShea, Four Solutions for Four Puzzles, edited by K. Sterelny, Biology and Philosophy, vol. 2012 no. 27 (2012), pp. 737-744, Springer  [abs]
2. R.N. Brandon, “Why Reciprocal Altruism is Not a Kind of Group Selection” (with Grant Ramsey) in Biology and Philosophy, (2011) Vol. 26, 3: 385-400. (2011)
3. R.N. Brandon, “The Concept of the Environment in Evolutionary Theory,” in The Environment: Topics in Contemporary Philosophy, vol. 9 (ed. By M. O’Rouke and M. Slater) (2011), MIT Press
4. R.N. Brandon, “A General Case for Functional Pluralism,” in Function: Selection and Mechanisms (ed. by P. Huneman) (2011), Springer
5. with Roger Samson, Integrating Development and Evolution, edited by Roger Samson and Robert Brandon (2007), The MIT Press  [author's comments]