Dewey Professor Emeritus Philosophy | Columbia University
B.A., New York University (1947)
M.A., Columbia University (1953)
Ph.D., Columbia University (1957)
Ph.D., Honorus Causa, Lund University (1988)
Areas of Specialization:
Philosophy of Science; Epistemology; Rational Choice; Theories of Belief Change; Peirce Studies
Articles / Publications:
"Imprecise and Indeterminate Probabilities," Risk, Decision and Policy, 5, 1-12.
Review article. James Joyce: The Foundations of Causal Decision Theory, The Journal of Philosophy 97, 387-402.
“Inductive Expansion and Nonmonotonic Reasoning,” Frontiers in Belief Revision edited by Mary-Anne Williams and Hans Rott, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 7-56.
“Objective Modality and Direct Inference,”, The Monist 84, 179-207.
Introduction to Risk, Ambiguity and Decision by Daniel Ellsberg, New York: Garland.ix xxvii.
“Seeking Truth”, Belief and Meaning: Essays at the Interface ed. by Wolfram Hinzen and Hans Rott, Munich: Dr. Hänsel-Hohenhausen AG, pp.119-138.
“Money Pumps and Diachronic Books,” Proceedings of the 2000 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Supplement to Philosophy of Science, 69, S235-247.
“Maximizing and Satisficing Measures of Evidential Support,” Reading Natural : Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science and Mathematics, edited by David Malament, Chicago: Open Court, 315-333.
“Commitment and Change of View,” in Reason and Nature ed. by José Bermúdez and Alan Millar, Mind Association Occasional Series, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 209-32.
“Disposition and Conditionals,” in Real Metaphysics ed. by H. Lillehammar and Gonzalo Roriguez-Pereyra, London: Routledge, ch.9.
“Counterexamples to Recovery and the Filtering Condition,” Studia Logica 73, 209-218.
Bernard Berofsky (B. A. NYU, 1956, M.A., Columbia, 1959, Ph.D., Columbia, 1963) entered the study of philosophy in order to solve the free will problem and is dismayed that he is still working on it as he begins his career as Professor Emeritus after 38 years at Columbia. He has also taught at Vassar College, the University of Michigan, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Areas of Specialization:
Metaphysics, especially free will, moral responsibility, autonomy, determinism, and causality
Articles / Publications:
Nature's Challenge to Free Will. Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
2011. ‘Compatibilism Without Frankfurt: Dispositional Analyses of Free Will’. In Robert Kane (ed.), Handbook of Free Will, 2nd Ed. Oxford University Press.
2011. ‘Is Pathological Altruism Altruism?’ In Barbara Oakley, Ariel Knafo, Guruprasad Madhaven, David Sloan Wilson (eds.), Pathological Altruism, Oxford University Press.
2010. ‘Free Will and the Mind-Body Problem’.Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (1):1 –19.
2006. ‘Global Control and Freedom’. Philosophical Studies 131 (2):419-445.
2006. ‘The Myth of Source’. Acta Analytica 21 (4): 3-18.
2004. ‘Autonomy and Free Will’. In J. S. Taylor (ed.), Personal Autonomy: New Essays on Personal Autonomy and its Role in Contermporary Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
2003. ‘ Classical Compatibilism: Not Dead Yet’. In Michael McKenna and David Widerker (eds.), Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities. Ashgate Press.
2002. ‘Ifs, Cans, and Free Will: The Issues’. In Robert Kane (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will. Oxford University Press.
2000. ‘Ultimate Rsponsibility in a Determined World’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (1):135-40.
