What do you think?
Rate this book
Sociobiology and the Preemption of Social Science
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 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.
Hardcover
Published November 1, 1980
17 people want to read
About the author
Alex Rosenberg
43 books109 followersAlex Rosenberg's first novel, "The Girl From Krakow," is a thriller that explores how a young woman and her lover navigate the dangerous thirties, the firestorm of war in Europe, and how they make sense of their survival. Alex's second novel, "Autumn in Oxford" is a murder mystery set in Britain in the late 1950s. It takes the reader back to the second world war in the American south and England before D-day, France during the Liberation and New York in the late '40s. It will be published by Lake Union in August.
Before he became a novelist Alex wrote a large number of books about the philosophy of science, especially about economics and biology. These books were mainly addressed to other academics. But in 2011 Alex published a book that explores the answers that science gives to the big questions of philosophy that thinking people ask themselves--questions about the nature of reality, the meaning of life, moral values, free will, the relationship of the mind to the brain, and our human future. That book, "The Atheist's Guide to Reality," was widely reviewed and was quite controversial.
When he's not writing historical novels, Alex Rosenberg is a professor of philosophy at Duke University.
Before he became a novelist Alex wrote a large number of books about the philosophy of science, especially about economics and biology. These books were mainly addressed to other academics. But in 2011 Alex published a book that explores the answers that science gives to the big questions of philosophy that thinking people ask themselves--questions about the nature of reality, the meaning of life, moral values, free will, the relationship of the mind to the brain, and our human future. That book, "The Atheist's Guide to Reality," was widely reviewed and was quite controversial.
When he's not writing historical novels, Alex Rosenberg is a professor of philosophy at Duke University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 10, 2024
Rosenberg's stern form of physicalist reductionism does not have many proponents in philosophy and even less in the social sciences. This is hardly surprising, given that, if Rosenberg's argument is correct, there is not much left for the social sciences to do - at least as far as "science" is concerned. Although I disagree with many of the book's strong conclusions (which I shall list below), I find it marvelously argued, important to engage with, rigorous, and supremely analytical. Moreover, it offers a vital challenge to both the common sense notions of human agency and the social scientific claims about the function and nature of the laws of human societies.
Rosenberg takes for granted a naturalist commitment to scientific explanation and explores its implications for the social sciences. Combined with a rather narrow and rigid conception of scientific laws, this yields a strongly skeptical attitude towards the capacity of the social sciences (as they currently stand) to yield nomological generalisations ("scientific laws"). Although his survey of the methodological debate is rather superficial, he takes some interesting examples from anthropology, sociology, and economics to argue that they fall short in different ways. In particular, he rejects hermeneutic, functionalist, and structuralist explanations in the social sciences as constituting mere "accidental generalisations", i.e., narratives without nomological consistency or predictive power. He is especially skeptical towards attempts at grounding social scientific explanation on the common sense (or even scientifically refined) domain of intentions, beliefs, and preferences. He is somewhat more sympathetic to the Skinnerian framework of behavioural "operant conditioning" and the Beckerian framework of rational choice theory, which reject or downplay psychologizing. He sees them as best candidates for sufficiently robust and potentially legitimate generators of law-like statements in the social sciences. Nonetheless, he finds fault even with them (although he does not come out wholly against them). This makes him sceptical that social sciences can do much better than some form of (cross-species) sociobiology.
In perhaps the most controversial part of the argument, Rosenberg's stern physicalist stance yields the conclusion that there are no specifically HUMAN laws to study, since Homo sapiens does not constitute a "natural kind" of the sort that can be captured by scientific laws. He thinks that there may be laws of biology (applicable to ALL species) but not that apply to any particular species in particular. And what we consider human "beliefs" or "intentions" or "desires" are merely useful linguistic constructs that capture SOMETHING worth studying and talking about but do not constitute a legitimate domain of causal analysis for a nomological science.
I am somewhat sympathetic to sociobiology, just as Rosenberg is, but I find his form of reductionism unnecessarily restrictive AS A RESEARCH PROGRAM. Even if he is ontologically correct, he may be epistemically too conservative. Although I share with frustration with a lot of the "soft" sciences, I don't think that social science should be restricted to, although it should always respect, the study of the fundamental laws of nature (of which there are likely only a few). Social sciences have many uses, including analytical elaboration, categorization, illumination, explanation, prediction, reconciliation, and even guidance to policy making. It seems that science can encompass methodological pluralism, although I agree with Rosenberg's claim that our physicalist explanations should take priority because of their proven track record. I share his concern that all scientific practice or explanation that flatly denies or contradicts them should appears suspect. Nonetheless, a few developments since 1980 make me believe that physicalism is compatible with non-reductionist science. This includes theories of advanced computation, chaos theory, theories of emergence, complexity theory, and evolutionary economics. They give us reasons to believe that high-order phenomena (like social systems, or human psychology, or economic transactions) could have their own domain of analysis. In addition, Rosenberg flatly ignores hundreds of years of advanced social philosophical discussion about the methodology of the social sciences. Although he tackles a handful of authors, there is nothing here, for example, about the longstanding (mostly German and French) debate about hermeneutical understanding, semiotic competence, sympathy, and other core ideas of the "Geisteswissenschaften." I am not sure whether these would undermine his case, but they surely constitute an important strand of philosophical defence of the independence of the social sciences. Functionalist and quasi-teleological explanations MAY have legitimate uses in the social sciences as long as a) physicalist and biological reductions may be exceedingly impossible to attain even by advanced computational power, b) reductive explanations may be insufficient to explain emergent phenomena, or c) the social sciences deserve their own form of hermeneutic methodology. The jury is still out.
This book came out in 1980 when sociobiology was a fresh topic of discussion (E.O. Wilson's book came out in 1975). Since then, the term has fallen out of fashion. Essentially, the field has not disappeared but mostly been rebranded under a plethora of more "innocuous" (and marketable) terms like evolutionary biology/psychology, gene-culture co-evolution theory, and cultural evolution. But we still engage with questions like the "nature-nurture debate" to explain, model, and predict human psychology, behaviour, and cultural constructions. And in many ways evolutionary explanations have retained their appeal in the popular imagination. Nonetheless, the hardline attempts at biological reductionism (of the sort that E.O. Wilson occasionally commits himself to) and physicalist reductionism (of the sort that Rosenberg explicitly embraces) have seriously fallen out of fashion. This is a shame because we desperately need attempts at bridging the gaps between physicalist, biological, cultural, and advanced technological systems. I think that Rosenberg fails to establish the strict necessity of the reductionist program, but he provides good arguments for thinking that the social sciences cannot live without sociobiology. Whether or not Rosenberg's brand of physicalism is correct, people need to answer its challenge!
Rosenberg takes for granted a naturalist commitment to scientific explanation and explores its implications for the social sciences. Combined with a rather narrow and rigid conception of scientific laws, this yields a strongly skeptical attitude towards the capacity of the social sciences (as they currently stand) to yield nomological generalisations ("scientific laws"). Although his survey of the methodological debate is rather superficial, he takes some interesting examples from anthropology, sociology, and economics to argue that they fall short in different ways. In particular, he rejects hermeneutic, functionalist, and structuralist explanations in the social sciences as constituting mere "accidental generalisations", i.e., narratives without nomological consistency or predictive power. He is especially skeptical towards attempts at grounding social scientific explanation on the common sense (or even scientifically refined) domain of intentions, beliefs, and preferences. He is somewhat more sympathetic to the Skinnerian framework of behavioural "operant conditioning" and the Beckerian framework of rational choice theory, which reject or downplay psychologizing. He sees them as best candidates for sufficiently robust and potentially legitimate generators of law-like statements in the social sciences. Nonetheless, he finds fault even with them (although he does not come out wholly against them). This makes him sceptical that social sciences can do much better than some form of (cross-species) sociobiology.
In perhaps the most controversial part of the argument, Rosenberg's stern physicalist stance yields the conclusion that there are no specifically HUMAN laws to study, since Homo sapiens does not constitute a "natural kind" of the sort that can be captured by scientific laws. He thinks that there may be laws of biology (applicable to ALL species) but not that apply to any particular species in particular. And what we consider human "beliefs" or "intentions" or "desires" are merely useful linguistic constructs that capture SOMETHING worth studying and talking about but do not constitute a legitimate domain of causal analysis for a nomological science.
I am somewhat sympathetic to sociobiology, just as Rosenberg is, but I find his form of reductionism unnecessarily restrictive AS A RESEARCH PROGRAM. Even if he is ontologically correct, he may be epistemically too conservative. Although I share with frustration with a lot of the "soft" sciences, I don't think that social science should be restricted to, although it should always respect, the study of the fundamental laws of nature (of which there are likely only a few). Social sciences have many uses, including analytical elaboration, categorization, illumination, explanation, prediction, reconciliation, and even guidance to policy making. It seems that science can encompass methodological pluralism, although I agree with Rosenberg's claim that our physicalist explanations should take priority because of their proven track record. I share his concern that all scientific practice or explanation that flatly denies or contradicts them should appears suspect. Nonetheless, a few developments since 1980 make me believe that physicalism is compatible with non-reductionist science. This includes theories of advanced computation, chaos theory, theories of emergence, complexity theory, and evolutionary economics. They give us reasons to believe that high-order phenomena (like social systems, or human psychology, or economic transactions) could have their own domain of analysis. In addition, Rosenberg flatly ignores hundreds of years of advanced social philosophical discussion about the methodology of the social sciences. Although he tackles a handful of authors, there is nothing here, for example, about the longstanding (mostly German and French) debate about hermeneutical understanding, semiotic competence, sympathy, and other core ideas of the "Geisteswissenschaften." I am not sure whether these would undermine his case, but they surely constitute an important strand of philosophical defence of the independence of the social sciences. Functionalist and quasi-teleological explanations MAY have legitimate uses in the social sciences as long as a) physicalist and biological reductions may be exceedingly impossible to attain even by advanced computational power, b) reductive explanations may be insufficient to explain emergent phenomena, or c) the social sciences deserve their own form of hermeneutic methodology. The jury is still out.
This book came out in 1980 when sociobiology was a fresh topic of discussion (E.O. Wilson's book came out in 1975). Since then, the term has fallen out of fashion. Essentially, the field has not disappeared but mostly been rebranded under a plethora of more "innocuous" (and marketable) terms like evolutionary biology/psychology, gene-culture co-evolution theory, and cultural evolution. But we still engage with questions like the "nature-nurture debate" to explain, model, and predict human psychology, behaviour, and cultural constructions. And in many ways evolutionary explanations have retained their appeal in the popular imagination. Nonetheless, the hardline attempts at biological reductionism (of the sort that E.O. Wilson occasionally commits himself to) and physicalist reductionism (of the sort that Rosenberg explicitly embraces) have seriously fallen out of fashion. This is a shame because we desperately need attempts at bridging the gaps between physicalist, biological, cultural, and advanced technological systems. I think that Rosenberg fails to establish the strict necessity of the reductionist program, but he provides good arguments for thinking that the social sciences cannot live without sociobiology. Whether or not Rosenberg's brand of physicalism is correct, people need to answer its challenge!
Displaying 1 of 1 review