September 17, 2010: Volume 78, Number 2

Visiting PBK scholar to discuss cooperation, reciprocity and altruism in humans

The Alpha of New York chapter of Phi Beta Kappa will host a talk by Herbert Gintis, external professor at the Santa Fe Institute and professor of economics at Central European University, Budapest, on Monday, Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m. in the Nott Memorial.

The talk, “Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundation of Cooperation in Economic Life,” is part of the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar program. It is free and open to the public.

In addition, Gintis will meet with Economics Lecturer Ellen Foster’s first-year preceptorial class Monday at 10:30 a.m. in Beuth House, Seminar Room 104 and will present a seminar, “Unification of the Behavioral Sciences,” at 3:15 p.m. in Social Sciences 110.

On Tuesday, he will present an undergraduate mathematics seminar, “Some Antinomies in Epistemic Game Theory and the Modal Logics of Knowledge, Belief and Rationality,” at 4 p.m. in Bailey 207.

Beuth House will host an informal lunch with Gintis from 12:50 to 1:50 p.m. Monday; on Tuesday, Wold House will host an informal lunch from 12:45 to 1:55 p.m. Faculty and students are invited to both lunches.

At Central European University, Gintis heads a multidisciplinary research project, “The Social and Mental Dynamics of Cooperation,” funded by the European Science Foundation.

He has taught at Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts, and has been a visiting professor at the University of Siena, University of Paris, Columbia University, New York University and Harvard.

He is the author of “Game Theory Evolving” and “The Bounds of Reason,” and a co-author of “Schooling in Capitalist America,” “Foundations of Human Sociality,” “Moral Sentiments and Material Interests” and the upcoming “A Cooperative Species.”

Gintis is an editor of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization and of Games, and his reviews appear regularly in publications such as Science and Nature.

Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa is the nation’s oldest academic honor society. It has chapters at 280 colleges and universities, and more than 600,000 members. Union’s chapter was established in 1817.

Under the Visiting Scholar program, distinguished scholars spend two days on a campus, meeting informally with students and faculty members, taking part in classroom discussions and giving a public lecture. The idea is to contribute to the intellectual life of the institution by promoting an exchange of ideas between Visiting Scholars and the resident faculty and students.

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