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Michael Weisberg

Bess W. Heyman President's Distinguished Professor of Philosophy

Deputy Director of Perry World House

Editor-in-Chief, Biology and Philosophy

Director of the Galápagos Education and Research Alliance

Ph.D. Stanford University

 Michael Weisberg is the Bess W. Heyman President’s Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Deputy Director of Perry World House. A climate diplomat, philosopher of science, climate policy researcher, and experienced academic leader, he has worked to negotiate and achieve collective outcomes in the complex landscape of climate, ocean, and development issues at the highest levels of international diplomacy.


An expert on the climate needs of small island developing states, Weisberg currently serves as senior advisor to Jamaica's Permanent Representative to the United Nations and as an advisor to the Fiji and Palau negotiating teams at COP. Weisberg was a leading voice in the development of the "mosaic of solutions" for addressing loss and damage due to the adverse impacts of climate change, which led to major breakthroughs on the topic at COP27 and COP28. This framework was developed in collaboration with the Maldivian Government and the International Peace Institute, where he is a Non-resident Senior Advisor. 

 

Weisberg serves as editor-in-chief of Biology and Philosophy and director of the Galápagos Education and Research Alliance. He is the author of Simulation and Similarity: Using Models to Understand the World, co-author of the landmark photographic study Galápagos: Life in Motion, and a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Report. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Weisberg educates the next generation of environmental leaders in the classroom, at the negotiating table, and in the field, ensuring that their voices have maximal impact on addressing the climate crisis.

Research Interests

  • Philosophy of Science
  • Global Climate Policy (especially Loss and Damage and Adaptation)
  • Philosophy of Biology
  • Philosophy of Chemistry
  • Public Understanding of Science
  • Community Science

Selected Publications

Find me on PhilPapers: http://philpapers.org/profile/81

Simulation and Similarity: Using Models to Understand the World, 2013, Oxford University Press.

Galápagos: Life in Motion, forthcoming 2018, Princeton Unviersity Press (with Walter Perez)

"Three Kinds of Idealization," The Journal of Philosophy, 104 (12) 639-59.

“Robustness Analysis,”Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Science, 73, 730–742.

“Who is a Modeler?”, British Journal for Philosophy of Science, 58, 207–233.

(215) 898-0417

421 Cohen Hall

by appointment

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