Agents and Goals in Evolution

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 * 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 * 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 * 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 * 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 * Review from previous edition 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 * 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 Agren, The Quarterly Review of Biology *