We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 January 2009
DARWIN AND DARWINISM
Darwinism is all the rage in philosophy these days. Evolutionary thinking of one kind or another is frequently used to illuminate such areas as ethics (e.g., Joyce 2006), epistemology (e.g., Hull 1988), and the philosophy of mind (e.g., Sterelny 2003). But it is one thing to examine how evolutionary work in a broadly Darwinian style has influenced philosophy, another to ask what form of philosophical insight is present in Darwin’s own oeuvre. And it is something else yet again to ask what the specific relationship might be between philosophy and the Origin of Species. This last question can be broken down into an analysis of the work’s philosophical legacy and an analysis of its philosophical content.
Since the Origin has so often been taken by later thinkers as the canonical statement of a Darwinian worldview, any project of assessing that book’s philosophical legacy risks sliding toward a hopelessly ambitious attempt to embrace all those subsequent forms of philosophical Darwinism that the Origin has inspired. This essay consequently focuses on the Origin’s own philosophical content. In the next section I will catalogue some of the philosophical themes that arise in it.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
