Research Interests for Alexander Rosenberg

Alex Rosenberg (Ph.D. 1971, Johns Hopkins) joined the Duke faculty in 2000. He is the R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy (with secondary appointments in the biology and political science departments). Rosenberg has been a visiting professor and fellow of the at the Center for the Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota, as well as the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Oxford University and a visiting fellow of the Philosophy Department at the Research School of Social Science, of the Australian National University. He has held fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. In 1993 Rosenberg received the Lakatos Award in the philosophy of science. In 2006-2007 he held a fellowship at the National Humanities Center. He was also the Phi Beta Kappa-Romanell Lecturer for 2006-2007.

Rosenberg is the author of several books:

Microeconomic Laws: A Philosophical Analysis (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1976),
Sociobiology and the Preemption of Social Science/ (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980; Basil Blackwell, 1981),
Hume and the Problem of Causation (Oxford University Press, 1981) (with T.L. Beauchamp),
The Structure of Biological Science (Cambridge University Press, 1985),
Philosophy of Social Science (Clarendon Press, Oxford and Westview Press, 1988, Second Edition, Revised, Enlarged, 1995, Third Edition, further enlarged, 2007),
Economics: Mathematical Politics or Science of Diminishing Returns? (University of Chicago Press, 1992),
Instrumental Biology, or the Disunity of Science (University of Chicago Press, 1994),
Darwinism in Philosophy, Social Science and Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2000),
Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Approach (Routledge, 2000, second edition 2005),
Darwinian Reductionism or How to Stop Worrying and Love Molecular Biology (University of Chicago Press),
The Philosophy of Biology: A Contemporary Introduction (with Daniel McShea, Routledge, 2007)

He has also written approximately 180 papers in the philosophy of biology, the philosophy of cognitive, behavioral and social science (especially economics), and causation. Some of his recednt papers are available on his web site.

Rosenberg is also co-director of Duke's Center for the Philosophy of Biology .

Keywords:

Biology, History, Models, Natural selection

Areas of Interest:

Philosophy of Biology,
Philosophy of Cognitive, Behavioral, & Social Science,
Causation
Hume

Recent Publications

1. Rosenberg, A, DOES HOMO SAPIENS NEED A RECIPE FOR SURVIVAL? DO WE HAVE ONE?, Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 40 no. 2 (May, 2023), pp. 503-523 [doi] [abs]
2. Rosenberg, A, THE INEVITABILITY OF A GENERALIZED DARWINIAN THEORY OF BEHAVIOR, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE, American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 58 no. 1 (January, 2021), pp. 50-62 [abs]
3. Rosenberg, A, Scientism versus the theory of mind, Think (UK), vol. 19 no. 56 (October, 2020), pp. 59-73 [doi] [abs]
4. Rosenberg, A, Reduction and Mechanism (June, 2020), pp. 1-76, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9781108742313 [doi] [abs]
5. Rosenberg, A, Philosophical challenges for scientism (and how to meet them?), in Scientism: Prospects and Problems (August, 2018), pp. 83-105, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780190462758 [doi] [abs]