Prof Robert Northcott
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Overview
Overview
Biography
I began at Birkbeck in the summer of 2011. From 2017 to 2020 I was Head of the Department of Philosophy as was, and since 2024 I have been Subject Lead for Philosophy. Before Birkbeck, I taught for six years at the University of Missouri-St Louis. I received my PhD from the London School of Economics. Before switching to philosophy, I did graduate work in economics, receiving an MSc, and undergraduate work in mathematics and history.
Away from academia, I have won money at tournaments in poker, pool, and foosball/table football. In my LSE days, I was captain of the University Challenge TV quiz team, reaching the grand final. More recently, I made my first ever hole-in-one in golf and also at last began to break 80.
Web profiles
ORCID
0000-0001-8791-8364 -
Research
Research
Research overview
I have recently completed a book, 'Science for a Fragile World', about how to investigate a world in which laws and causal relations hold intermittently and unpredictably. This book is the culmination of a longstanding interest in how knowledge is produced in such messy cases. In the book, I argue that:
1) Much of our world is like this, especially once we venture outside the confines of laboratories and engineered artefacts. It includes many of the issues that we care most about: war, environmental damage, pandemics, elections, and more.
2) These issues need to be investigated by, roughly, a case worker rather than theorist approach.
3) This has a big impact on how scientific theories should be both developed and applied.
Although my research is mainly in philosophy of science, I have also written extensively on related themes in metaphysics, especially the notions of causation and causal explanation. I have also applied some of this causal training to debates around several other philosophical issues, including scientific progress, harm, innateness, and free will.
I have recently begun new work in the philosophy of history. Roughly, I analyse the study of history using tools from philosophy of science, including many of the tools developed in 'Science for a Fragile World'.
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Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching
Supervision
Current doctoral researchers
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RICHARD URWIN
Teaching
Teaching modules
- Research in Practical Philosophy (SSPL158S7)
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Publications
Publications
Article
- Diener, E. and Northcott, Robert and Zyphur, M. and West, S. (2022) Beyond experiments. Perspectives on Psychological Science 17 (4), pp. 1101-1119. ISSN 1745-6916.
- Northcott, Robert (2022) Reflexivity and fragility. European Journal for Philosophy of Science 12 (43), ISSN 1879-4912.
- Northcott, Robert (2022) Pandemic modeling, good and bad. Philosophy of Medicine 3 (1), ISSN 2692-3963.
- Northcott, Robert (2021) Pre-emption cases may support, not undermine, the counterfactual theory of causation. Synthese 198, pp. 537-555. ISSN 0039-7857.
- Northcott, Robert and Alexandrova, A. and Wright, J. (2021) Back to the big picture. Journal of Economic Methodology 28 (1), pp. 54-59. ISSN 1350-178X.
- Northcott, Robert (2019) Big data and prediction: four case studies. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A ISSN 0039-3681.
- Northcott, Robert (2019) Prediction versus accommodation in economics. Journal of Economic Methodology 26 (1), pp. 59-69. ISSN 1350-178X.
- Northcott, Robert (2019) Free will is not a testable hypothesis. Erkenntnis 84, pp. 617-631. ISSN 0165-0106.
- Northcott, Robert (2018) The efficiency question in economics. Philosophy of Science 85 (5), pp. 1140-1151. ISSN 0031-8248.
- Northcott, Robert (2018) Conceived this way: innateness defended. Philosophers Imprint 18 (18), pp. 1-16. ISSN 1533-628X.
- Northcott, Robert (2017) When are purely predictive models best?. Disputatio 9 (47), pp. 631-656. ISSN 0873-626X.
- Northcott, Robert (2016) A dilemma for the Doomsday Argument. Ratio 29 (3), pp. 268-282. ISSN 0034-0006.
- Northcott, Robert (2015) Opinion polling and election predictions. Philosophy of Science 82 (5), pp. 1260-1271. ISSN 0031-8248.
- Northcott, Robert (2015) Harm and causation. Utilitas 27 (2), pp. 147-164. ISSN 0953-8208.
- Alexandrova, A. and Northcott, Robert (2013) It's just a feeling: why economic models do not explain. Journal of Economic Methodology 20 (3), pp. 262-267. ISSN 1350-178X.
- Northcott, Robert (2013) Verisimilitude: a causal approach. Synthese 190 (9), pp. 1471-1488. ISSN 0039-7857.
- Northcott, Robert (2012) Degree of explanation. Synthese ISSN 0039-7857.
- Northcott, Robert (2010) Natural-born determinists: a new defense of causation as probability-raising. Philosophical Studies 150 (1), pp. 1-20. ISSN 0031-8116.
- Northcott, Robert (2010) Walsh on causes and evolution. Philosophy of Science 77 (3), pp. 457-467. ISSN 0031-8248.
- Northcott, Robert (2009) Is actual difference making Robert Northcott actually different?. Journal of Philosophy 106 (11), pp. 629-634. ISSN 0022-362X.
- Northcott, Robert (2009) On Lewis, Schaffer and the non-reductive evaluation of counterfactuals. Theoria 75 (4), pp. 336-343. ISSN 1755-2567.
- Northcott, Robert (2008) Causation and contrast classes. Philosophical Studies 139 (1), pp. 111-123. ISSN 0031-8116.
- Northcott, Robert (2008) Can ANOVA measure causal strength?. Quarterly Review of Biology 83 (1), pp. 47-55. ISSN 0033-5770.
- Northcott, Robert (2008) Weighted explanations in history. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 38 (1), pp. 76-96. ISSN 0048-3931.
- Northcott, Robert (2006) Causal efficacy and the analysis of variance. Biology & Philosophy 21 (2), pp. 253-276. ISSN 0169-3867.
- Northcott, Robert (2005) Comparing apples with oranges. Analysis 65 (1), pp. 12-18. ISSN 0003-2638.
- Northcott, Robert (2005) Pearson's wrong turning: against statistical measures of causal efficacy. Philosophy of Science 72 (5), pp. 900-912. ISSN 0031-8248.
Book Review
- Northcott, Robert and Alexandrova, A. (2004) 'The Scientific Study of Society', by Max Steuer, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003, xiii + 464 pages.
Book Section
- Northcott, Robert (2023) Prediction, history, and political science. In: Kincaid, H. and Van Bouwel, J. (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Political Science. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197519806. (In Press)
- Northcott, Robert (2021) Economic theory and empirical science. In: Heilmann, C. and Reiss, J. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Economics. Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy. Routledge. ISBN 9781138824201. (In Press)
- Northcott, Robert and Alexandrova, A. (2015) Prisoner's dilemma doesn't explain much. In: Peterson, M. (ed.) The Prisoner's Dilemma. Classic Philosophical Arguments. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 64-84. ISBN 9781107621473.
- Northcott, Robert (2012) Genetic traits and causal explanation. In: Plaisance, K.S. and Reydon, T.A.C. (eds.) Philosophy of Behavioral Biology. Boston Studies in Philosophy of Science. London, UK: Springer. pp. 65-82. ISBN 9789400719507.
- Northcott, Robert (2012) How necessary are randomized controlled trials?. In: Munson, R. (ed.) Intervention and Reflection: Basic Issues in Bioethics (9th Edition). Independence, U.S.: Cengage. pp. 187-191. ISBN 9781133587149.
- Northcott, Robert (2012) Partial explanations in social science. In: Kincaid, H. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Social Science. Oxford Handbooks in Philosophy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 130-153. ISBN 9780195392753.
- Northcott, Robert (2010) Bad luck or the ref's fault?. In: Richards, T. (ed.) Soccer and Philosophy: Beautiful Thoughts on the Beautiful Game. Popular Culture and Philosophy. Chicago, USA: Open Court. pp. 319-326. ISBN 9780812696769.
- Northcott, Robert and Alexandrova, A. (2009) Progress in economics. In: Kincaid, H. and Ross, D. (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Economics. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 306-337. ISBN 9780195189254.
- Northcott, Robert (2006) The irrational game: why there's no perfect system. In: Bronson, E. (ed.) Poker and Philosophy: Pocket Rockets and Philosopher Kings. Chicago, USA: Open Court Publishing Company. pp. 105-115. ISBN 9780812695941.