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Some Comments on Rosenberg's Review

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Elliott Sober
Elliott Sober*
Affiliation:
Philosophy Department, University of Wisconsin, Madison
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Extract

I am grateful to Philip Kitcher for inviting me to comment on Alexander Rosenberg's (1996) review of Philosophy of Biology (Sober 1993) and to Rosenberg for his kind words about my book at the very beginning and the very end of his review. However, I cannot help feeling that most of the material in Rosenberg's review describes a different book from the one I wrote. Of the four philosophical claims that he ascribes to me, only one of them is asserted or implied in Philosophy of Biology. Rosenberg is right that I have argued that many evolutionary laws turn out, when stated carefully, to be a priori mathematical truths. However, he is mistaken in thinking that I am a “historicist” who holds that “fundamental theory in biology is narrative.” Rosenberg also misconstrues my views on the meaning of probability statements in evolutionary theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , September 1996 , pp. 465 - 469
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1996

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Footnotes

†

Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin, 600 North Park Street, Madison, WI 53706.

References

Rosenberg, A. (1996), “Sober's Philosophy of Biology and his Philosophy of Biology.” Philosophy of Science 63, 452–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, E. (1984), The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Reprinted by University of Chicago Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (1993), Philosophy of Biology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar