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Herbert Gintis's new book is a major contribution to the study and
unity of the social sciences. Its breadth and depth in examining the
meaning and unifying power of the rational-actor model is outstanding
in perceiving the fundamental issues, biological, sociological, and economic,
involved in understanding the special role of human social behavior. It forces
economists to analyze what rationality means and, in particular, the role of
social and other-regarding forces in the development of the economy. The command
of social science literature displayed is matched by the power of the formal analysis.
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Herbert Gintis is a scholar with sufficient depth in philosophy and science
to develop a balanced treatment of one of the most important remaining problems
in evolutionary biology: the units and forces of natural selection that yield
advanced social behavior. He has done so admirably in Individuality and Entanglement.
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In Individuality and Entanglement, Herbert Gintis develops an original and distinctive
theory of human sociality, drawing on ideas from economics, sociology, and
evolutionary biology. The book combines breadth of focus with analytical
penetration, and is written in an engaging, accessible style. Highly recommended.
Samir Okasha
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Herbert Gintis is our deepest thinker about the scandalous state
of fragmentation of the human sciences. In this book he distills
a synthetic foundation for the sciences of human behavior from the
mutually necessary but fatally flawed models offered by psychology,
sociology, biology, and economics. Everyone who cares about these
sciences needs to come to terms with his analysis.
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