Since the 1950s, Donald T. Campbell has been one of the most influential contributors to the methodology of the social sciences. A distinguished psychologist, he has published scores of widely cited journal articles, and two awards, in social psychology and in public policy, have been named in his honor. This book is the first to collect his most significant papers, and it demonstrates the breadth and originality of his work.

This collection of essays, though dealing with different topics from section to section, is unified by the idea that, at least in the English-speaking world, ...

Cultural evolution, producing group‐level adaptations, is more problematic than the cultural evolution of individually confirmable skills, but it probably has occurred. The “conformist transmission,” described by Boyd and Richerson (1985), leads local social units to become homogeneous in anadaptive, as well as adaptive, beliefs. The resulting intragroup homogeneity and inter‐group heterogeneity makes possible a cultural selection of adaptive group ideologies.All archaic urban, division‐of‐labor social organizations had to overcome aspects of human nature produced by biological evolution, due to the predicament of (...) genetic competition among the cooperators. The universal norms found in archaic moral systems are seen as curbs to this human nature, reinforced by beliefs in invisible sanction systems and rewarding and punishing afterlives (as in heaven or reincarnation). Perhaps the ubiquity of lavishly wasteful royal funerals is to be explained as contributing to this function. (shrink)

Introductory Abstract Philosophers of science, in the course of making a sharp distinction between the tasks of the philosopher and those of the scientist, have pointed to the possibility of an empirical science of induction. A comparative psychology of knowledge processes is offered as one aspect of this potential enterprise. From fragments of such a psychology, methodological suggestions are drawn relevant to several chronic problems in the social sciences, including the publication of negative results from novel explorations, the operational diagnosis (...) of dispositions, the status of aggregates of persons as social entities, and the validation of psychological tests. (shrink)

Three-dimensionalists , sometimes referred to as endurantists, think that objects persist through time by being “wholly present” at every time they exist. But what is it for something to be wholly present at a time? It is surprisingly difficult to say. The threedimensionalist is free, of course, to take ‘is wholly present at’ as one of her theory’s primitives, but this is problematic for at least one reason: some philosophers claim not to understand her primitive. Clearly the three-dimensionalist would be (...) better off if she could state her theory in terms accessible to all. We think she can. What is needed is a definition of ‘is wholly present at’ that all can understand. in this paper, we offer one. (shrink)

This book, first published in 2006, examines the incentives at work in a wide range of institutions to see how and how well coordination is achieved by informing and motivating individual decision makers. The book examines the performance of agents hired to carry out specific tasks, from taxi drivers to CEOs. It investigates the performance of institutions, from voting schemes to kidney transplants, to see if they enhance general well being. The book examines a broad range of market transactions, from (...) auctions to labor markets, to the entire economy. The analysis is conducted using specific worked examples, lucid general theory, and illustrations drawn from news stories. Of the seventy different topics and sections, only twelve require a knowledge of calculus. The second edition offers new chapters on auctions, matching and assignment problems, and corporate governance. Boxed examples are used to highlight points of theory and are separated from the main text. (shrink)

Aside from his remarkable studies in psychology and the social sciences, Donald Thomas Campbell (1916–1996) made significant contributions to philosophy, particularly philosophy of science,epistemology, and ethics. His name and his work are inseparably linked with the evolutionary approach to explaining human knowledge (evolutionary epistemology). He was an indefatigable supporter of the naturalistic turn in philosophy and has strongly influenced the discussion of moral issues (evolutionary ethics). The aim of this paper is to briefly characterize Campbells work and (...) to discuss its philosophical implications. In particular, I show its relevance to some current debates in the intersection of biology and philosophy. In fact, philosophy of biology would look poorer without Campbells influence. The present paper is not a hagiography but an attempt to evaluate and critically discuss the meaning of Campbells work for philosophy of biology and to encourage scholars working in this field to read and re-read this work which is both challenging and inspiring. (shrink)

This paper investigates why some companies give to charity and others do not. The study uncovers a strong relationship between the personal attitudes of the charitable decision maker and the firm's giving behavior. This relationship indicates that the human element of personal attitudes may interact and play a very important role in a firm's decision to become involved with philanthropic activities. The study also shows that firms who have a history of giving to charity cite altruistic motives for their behavior. (...) On the other hand, firms that do not give to charity tend to use business reasons to explain their non-involvement. (shrink)

(1995). Selection of organization at the social level: Obstacles and facilitators of metasystem transitions. World Futures: Vol. 45, The Quantum of Evolution, pp. 181-212.

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) was active during the Renaissance, developing adventurous ideas even while serving as a churchman. The religious issues with which he engaged – spiritual, apocalyptic and institutional – were to play out in the Reformation. These essays reflect the interests of Cusanus but also those of Gerald Christianson, who has studied church history, the Renaissance and the Reformation. The book places Nicholas into his times but also looks at his later reception. The first part addresses institutional issues, (...) including Schism, conciliarism, indulgences and the possibility of dialogue with Muslims. The second treats theological and philosophical themes, including nominalism, time, faith, religious metaphor, and prediction of the end times. (shrink)

If philosophers of science advise government on science policy, it will have to be from a descriptive theory of scientific validity taken as hypothetically normative, as in naturalized epistemology. While logical positivism denied any normative import for the practice of science, in the area of "operational definitions" it had an unfortunate influence in psychology and sociology, and one that persists in the accountability movement. Not all philosophy of science issues have implications for the justificatory practice of scientists. For example, both (...) anti-realists and realists condone scientific quarreling about unobserved particles. Many young philosophers of science are now contributing to a sociology of scientific validity which, taken in a hypothetically normative manner, will produce recommendations on science policy. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Rhetoric is widely regarded as the most important work of a theory of rhetoric produced in the 18th century. Campbell's work engages such themes in an attempt to formulate a universal theory of human communication. Campbell attempts to develop his theory by discovering deep principles in human nature that account for all instances and kinds of human communication. He seeks to derive all communication principles and processes empirically. In addition, all statements in discourse that have (...) to do with matters of fact and human affairs are likewise to be empirically derived. Thus, his theory of rhetoric is vastly wider than, and different from, such classical theories as those proposed by Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, whose theories focused on discourse related to civic affairs. By attempting to elaborate a general theory of rhetoric through empirical procedures, Campbell's project reveals the limitations of his method. He cannot ground all statements empirically and it is at this point that his theological position comes into play. Inspection of his religious views shows that God's design of human nature, and God's revelations to humankind, make moral and spiritual truths known and quite secure to human beings, although not empirically. (shrink)

Resource Allocation Mechanisms derives the general welfare properties of systems in which individuals are motivated by self-interest. Satisfactory outcomes will emerge only if individual incentives are harnessed by means of a communication and payoff process, or mechanism, involving every agent. Professor Campbell employs a formal and abstract model of a mechanism that brings into prominence the criteria by which the performance of an economy is to be judged. The mechanism approach is used to prove some fundamental theorems about the (...) possibility of designing an economic system satisfying the criteria. It also establishes a way of thinking about economic issues that is becoming increasingly useful in special branches of economics, such as industrial organization and public finance. This book can be viewed as two different texts: one constitutes an introduction to the theory of mechanism design and the other is a treatment of welfare economics with conventional emphasis on Pareto optimality as well as providing substantial material on incentives, uncertainty, and existence of equilibrium. (shrink)