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Samir Okasha approaches evolutionary biology from a philosophical perspective in Agents and Goals in Evolution, analysing a mode of thinking in biology called agential thinking. He considers how the paradigm case involves treating an evolved organism as if it were an agent pursuing a goal, such as survival or reproduction, and seeing its phenotypic traits as strategies for achieving that goal or furthering its biological interests.
As agential thinking deliberately transposes a set of concepts – goals, interests, strategies – from rational human agents and to the biological world more generally, Okasha's enquiry firstly looks at the justification for this: is it mere anthropomorphism, or does it play a genuine intellectual role in the science? From this central question, key points are considered such as: how do we identify the 'goal' that evolved organisms will behave as if they are trying to achieve? Can agential thinking ever be applied to groups rather than to individual organisms? And how does agential thinking relate to the controversies over fitness-maximization in evolutionary biology?
In addition, Okasha examines the relation between the adaptive and the rational by considering whether organisms can validly be treated as agent-like. Should we expect their evolved behaviour to correspond with that of rational agents as codified in the theory of rational choice? If so, does this mean that the fitness-maximizing paradigm of the evolutionary biologist can be mapped directly to the utility-maximizing paradigm of the rational choice theorist? All of these important questions are engagingly raised and discussed at length.
Part I: Agency in Evolutionary Biology
1: Agential Thinking and its Rationale
2: Genes and Groups as Agents
Part II: The Goal of Fitness Maximization
3: Wright s Adaptive Landscape, Fisher s Fundamental Theorem
4: Grafen s Formal Darwinism, Adaptive Dynamics
5: Social Evolution, Hamilton s Rule, Inclusive Fitness
Part III: Rationality meets Evolution
6: The Evolution-Rationality Connection
7: Can Adaptiveness and Rationality Part Ways?
8: Risk, Rational Choice and Evolution
Final Thoughts
Samir Okasha is Professor of Philosophy of Science and Head of the Philosophy Department at the University of Bristol, where he has worked since 2003. He previously held positions at the University of York, LSE, and the National University of Mexico. Okasha is the author of numerous articles on topics in philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, evolutionary theory, and epistemology. His book Evolution and the Levels of Selection (OUP 2006) was awarded the Lakatos Prize for an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science. He is currently President of the European Philosophy of Science Association.
"Okasha provides a convincing and valuable analysis of a particular, some might say peculiar, way of doing science. Both biologists and philosophers will have much to gain from reading this book."
– J. Arvid Ågren, The Quarterly Review of Biology
"Agents and Goals in Evolution is essential reading for philosophers and biologists interested in subjects where reference to agency occurs, including fitness optimization, kin selection, and social evolution. It also touches on the relation between rationality and evolution, which could make it of interest to scholars working outside evolutionary biology but seeking to understand the appeal to evolution in different scientific fields."
– Adrian Stencel, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
"Samir Okasha's 2018 book might well become the consensus classic text for biologists to fall back on when they find themselves unable to resist both function talk and agent talk in the course of their inquiries and explanations. It covers the ground with admirable clarity, caution and scholarship, delving in detail into the formal work by Hamilton, Maynard Smith, Grafen, Trivers and others, while also considering a wealth of theoretical and empirical research in behavioral ecology, cognitive ethology, economics and psychology."
– Daniel C. Dennett, Metascience
"His book is thought-provoking, and it provides an excellent entry point into an interesting multidisciplinary literature. I will certainly make use of it in the future as a reference work."
– Andy Gardner, Metascience
"remarkably well argued and deep for a book that covers so much ground. Okasha clarifies and organizes many formerly disparate ways of using agential thinking in biology, discussing grand ideas with extraordinary clarity and subtly."
– Hannah Rubin, Metascience
"I have barely scratched the surface here of the many subtle, rich and illuminating points made in this book. Anyone with a serious interest in the foundations of evolutionary theory and the nature of evolutionary explanation will get a lot out of it, whatever their disciplinary background."
– Jonathan Birch, Mind
"Okasha's overall discussion is admirably clear, focused, and integrative, despite ranging over literatures from evolutionary biology, game theory, rational choice theory, and the philosophy of economics. He brings much order to what can be a confusing set of issues and debates [...] those looking for a clear overview of agential thinking in the evolutionary sciences will learn much from the book, and it will be important reading for philosophers of the biological and social sciences more generally."
– Robert A Wilson, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
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