Kobi Finestone is a doctoral candidate at Duke University who will be taking up a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University in Summer 2022. His research lies at the intersection of philosophy and economics and is primarily focused on the epistemic capacities of scientific models and the role of expectations and uncertainty in economic thought. He also works on interdisciplinary normative projects concerning the rights and obligations of business leaders and regulators.
What excites you about philosophy?
Philosophy has provided me with the opportunity to keep thinking about things long past when it would be appropriate to do so in any other context. What is truth? Are we rational? Should I eat meat? All these questions keep going around and around through my head and, quite frankly, everyone in my life outside of philosophy was getting fed up talking to me about these things. But philosophy provides the venue where everything is up for grabs and where we are all (ideally) engaged in good faith efforts to get at the truth, and hopefully having some fun.
What are you working on right now?
Right now, I am finishing up my dissertation Making Models Work. In it, I examine how models are actually used in the sciences. The main point is that while models may be idealized in various ways, this does not pose a real epistemic barrier to using models, but rather provides the opportunity for scientists to alter their models to better reflect that part of the world they are interested in. Modelling is iterative. It is through this iterative alteration process that scientific models can be made to work and provide practical insights into the world.
My other main research program revolves around how expectations are represented in economics. By expectations I mean the predictions that human agents make about the future which inform their behavior in the present. Because such predictions are central to explaining and predicting human behavior, economists have long attempted to represent them using various mathematical frameworks. I have been analyzing the methodological implications of these representations and studying how best to understand these representations relative to the modelling practices in economics.
What common philosophical dilemma do you think has a clear answer?
Free will. I know that plenty of clever people have spent a whole lot more time thinking about free will than I have, but to me, it has always seemed relatively straightforward. From one perspective, it is obvious that we have freedom of action. How else could you explain our own experiences of choice? But I am well aware that from another perspective, free will is impossible. What I have never understood is why one of these perspectives must be privileged over the other. Why can’t we suppose free will exists when considering moral responsibility and deny it when considering the physical constitution of the universe? The supposed problem of free will has always struck me as resulting from that unfortunate habit amongst philosophers of adopting a single perspective for a world which admits of many.
What’s your personal philosophy?
To be honest, I have always found the idea of a “personal philosophy” confusing. Isn’t all philosophy personal? That is, unless none is. But if I had to pinpoint the philosophical idea which has had the greatest impact on how I live my life, it would be the insight from Adam Smith that we just cannot help but care about other people. We may not care about others as much as we care about ourselves. And we certainly care about certain people more than others. But for all that, there is an undeniable fact that we cannot help but care about other people. And personally, I find that very comforting, exhilarating, and profound.
What time of day are you most productive and creative?
For writing, I am most productive in the morning, while for reading it is the afternoon and evening. As for creativity, I have no control over it. Sometimes my best ideas hit me while I am writing, sometimes right before I fall asleep, sometimes half-way through my third beer, and sometimes while I am in the shower. I really wish I could turn my mind off from time to time, but that has yet to happen. Until I figure out how to do that, I usually keep a piece of paper (or my phone) handy to jot down ideas when they come.
What’s your poison?
This is a tough one. I guess it depends. If it’s a nice sunny day out, a cold lager or a Kentucky Mule. On a cold fall evening, I’d probably go for a red ale or a rye whisky straight up. But I wouldn’t say no to a nice glass of wine… as I said this is a tough one and I definitely don’t have just one poison.
What would you like your last meal to be?
This is another tough one. Honestly, having to pick might take so long that I would die of starvation before I came to a satisfactory answer. But as that would kind of defeat the purpose of having a last meal, I’d probably go with pizza. But not just any pizza. I’d go with a slice of pizza from my (now-closed) childhood pizzeria Rizzo’s. I obviously can’t have it anymore as the place has been shut for a decade, but if we’re dealing in hypotheticals, I’d probably go for that.
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form here to nominate yourself or a friend.
Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall is an editor at the Blog of the APA who currently teaches philosophy, religion, and education courses solely online for Montclair State University, Three Rivers Community College, and St. John’s University.
